Talk:Blu-ray Disc/Archive 1

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Contents

criticisms?

any? only seems to support bluray over hddvd. one i can think of is "vendor lock-in" potentials with blueray. obviously this applies to hddvd as well, but it is a reasonable point. pricing perhaps as well?

Blu-Ray Layers

Why should Blu-Ray have capacities listed which currently are unavailable? Isn't that exagerrating the truth? Sure next year there might be 100 GB Blu-Ray discs, but they aren't available yet. That's like listing Notebook Harddrive capacity is 300 GBs, there are none available on the market, but it might be available next year. ~Michael

Either way, they will be on the market soon enough.Mbslrm 02:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

How do you know that? It took Sony a year to work out all of the kinks in the two layer BD. Now it looks like Sony is just grandstanding, overpromising and underdelivering like they usually do. ~Michael

TDK is making it, not Sony.Mbslrm 05:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


"The PS3 will have Toy Story graphic quality"

I agree with 70.251.197.67 (sign your posts, by the way) that listing unavailable capacities is inappropriate. I thought I had successfully purged both Blu-Ray and HD DVD of this speculative stuff. But it looks like 70.251.197.67 violated his own rule in this "in the future" edit [1] to HD DVD. What is the principle here? Spiel496 01:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Try to put your personal problems with Sony aside and ask yourself why you think they'd be the only ones in a position to (not) deliver those higher capacities. If you had even slightly researched the topic you'd see that TDK is the furthest along with research into those higher capacities, having already developed an experimental Blu-ray Disc capable of holding 200 GB. --Kamasutra 05:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I fingered if the Blu-Ray people weren't going to remove the "future" capacities that the "future" capacities for HD DVD should of been added. I didn't want to edit the Blu-Ray one because some one would probably just revert it. And yes I should get a user name so people don't have to refer to me as my ip address, lol. Maybe in that intro box it should be divided up into separate sections. One titled Current Blu-Ray/HD DVD capacity and one titled Possible future Blu-Ray/HD DVD capacity. Since the HD DVD had the triple layer 45 GB removed I decided to remove the future capacities for blu-ray. I hope it doesn't get reverted ~Michael

Either leave the triple layer capacity for HD DVD up, or leave the future capacities for Blu-Ray down ~Mike

Put up the triple layer capacity for HD DVD. What is it, anyways?Mbslrm 05:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Take that kind of discussion to the HD DVD article. The content of this article should not be dependent on the content of another. This is the Blu-ray article and discussion of changes should occur in each one's respective talk pages. --Kamasutra 09:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Map

I removed the original blu-ray region coding map because it contradicts both http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Section-13470/Section-14003/Section-14006/Index.html and http://www.emedialive.com/articles/readarticle.aspx?articleid=11760#ixa in putting Taiwan (R.O.C) in region C rather than region A

Royalties

Why does no one mention that Sony is collecting royalties per disc? Why is there no criticism section? I hear/read loads of criticism daily.

Toshiba collected royalties with the DVD.Mbslrm 05:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Aren't royalties colected by the Blu-ray Disc Association? And the codecs royalties collected by the MPEGLA?

Copy Protection

It would be nice to include a discussion on the copy protection, if any, that will be built into the standard.

See the Security section. --Wulf 09:29, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
There is no security section. --neolex
That comment is seven months old. I'm fairly certain this is now covered by the Digital rights management section. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Isn't region coding a type of content protection? Shouldn't be present in the comparatory chart?

Stand-alone recorders and games consoles

This section needs rewriting, is in the future tense when talking about 2004. Likely some progress updates needed, eg PS3. --Sgkay 11:59, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

What about a new size standard?

SMALLER discs please please somebody SMALLER discs. Remember, mini versions of formats are always very limited in available content. Nice try Sony but the "Universal" Media Disc is a joke.

  • Um, not here in Japan, as they remain a profitable, if niche, product line. And besides, UMD discs are just small DVDs, just as the CD single size standard in Japan until a few years ago was just a small CD... Similarily Sony is sure to make identically sized small Blu-Ray discs, which would be more than adequate to hold a movie and could be used in more portable players, etc. Theoretically existing memory cards, very small, could contain massive amounts of data, even an entire movie, and be played in existing PSPs, digital media players, etc, and be sold as stand-alone media titles should the price to produce them drop.


I feel that as long as discs remain incredibly convenient and portable, as the standard CD is, the focus should be much more heavily placed on cost, reliability, capacity, and backwards compatibility. The last one is especially important, especially when looking at DVD play as a major factor in the game industry wars between the PS2, XBox, and Gamecube. The Gamecube's size never resulted in increased market share and only served to hinder its possibilities. I predict that as the next generation of consoles are released along with the release of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players, the sides chosen by the gaming companies show the importance of incorporating certain formats. The fact that Nintendo will abandon its smaller disc format should show you that it is less attractive to the manufacturer as well as the consumer, and this can be seen as a microcosm for the digital media industry as a whole. Smoove K 01:12, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Next generation?!

Wouldn't it be smarter to say something like "third generation" or something like it?

We don't even know if it will catch ;-)

  • Next generation, while always subject to the times in terms of what console line they apply to, is something of a neccesity because it is so difficult to destinctly define 'generational' progressions before the pre-nes era.
    • as i brought up on the HD DVD page, it can't be called "next-generation" if it's already here. today i can go down to the best buy, grab a player and a few discs. next-generation now would refer to what will take its place. 68.35.201.102 20:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

UV-Ray?

I'd like to recommend that in the paragraph regarding "next generation" technologies, something be mentioned about potential "UV-Ray" discs in the near future. Pioneer successfully tested a 500GB UV laser optical disc in 2004, [1] and there is a company called Colossal Storage that is working on that format currently. [2] In any event, if this technology follows its course for at least a little while longer, the next logical step after Blu-Ray (actually being in the violet end of the spectrum at about 405nm) would be ultraviolet (1-380nm). Wikicali00 00:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

Idiot?

Sorry for intervening in this topic, but i just noted that some idiot had writen, that Blue Ray is yet to be published in the last section on this site.

Note:

Laserdisc (1978) - VHD (1983) - Laserfilm (1984) - CD Video (198?) - VCD (1993) - DVD (1996) - MiniDVD (?) - SVCD (1998) - FMD (2000) - UMD (2005) - HD DVD (2006) - Blu-ray Disc (2006?)

Let me quote from the site: "The first Blu-ray recorder was unveiled by Sony on March 3, 2003, and was introduced to the Japanese market in April that year. On September 1, 2003, JVC and Samsung Electronics announced Blu-ray based products at IFA in Berlin, Germany. Both indicated that their products would be on the market in 2005."

seriously... someone correct that idiot who wrote that it havent been released yet, or someone shoot the guy who wrote that Sony had already released this product.

Blu-Ray's format is obsolete

I would appreciate if the anonymous 130.233.16.105, who according to his user page specializes on 'crisp bread', would stop vandalizing my text regarding the obsoleteness of the Blu-Ray format. Sony and Philips finalized the DVR (now called Blu-ray) format in 1995-1996, which means it is 10 years old, and there is no other conclusion than that Blu-Ray's format, modulation code, error correction code, filing system etc, is obsolete. Dsc 06:22, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you had any documents or papers from 1995-1996 proving the existence of the final format back then and showing its design considerations (what it's "optimized" for) and its relation to what is currently being pushed forward under the "Blu-ray" name. I also question your analysis about Sony and Philips' intentions and in what part they were motivated by DVD licensing income. FWIW, the earliest mentions I can find about "DVR-Blue" are from late 2000, which was still in design phase at that time.
I don't deny that design on the format wasn't started when DVD was finalized in 1996, but that alone doesn't make the format ten-year-old.
I also resent your comment about my field of expertise. I come across and fix a typo during random browsing and suddenly I'm specializing in crisp bread? Come on. 130.233.16.105 23:57, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

You are right: you also contributed to the Mickey Mouse article. By the way, there is a 1998 article by Philips/Sony employees on the DVR format (now BluRay), namely Optical disc system for digital video recording, T. Narahara, S. Kobayashi, M. Hattori, Y. Shimpuku, Sony Corp. (Japan); G. van den Enden, J. A. Kahlman, M. van Dijk, R. van Woudenberg, Philips Research Labs. (Netherlands) ODS Conference, July 1999 [2]. Note the remark on the year 1995 that "the parity preserve principle was first introduced by us in: J. Kahlman and K.A.S. Immink: U.S. Patent 5,477,222 (1995), where the principle was applied in a (d=1, k=8) RLL code." Also patent applications by Philips/Sony employees can easily be found to be first filed in 1997, see for example J.A.H. Kahlman, K.A. Schouhamer Immink, G. van den Enden, T. Nakagawa, Y. Shimpuku, T. Narahara, and K. Nakamura, 'Device for encoding/decoding n-bit source words into m-bit channel word, and vice versa', US Patent 6,225,921, May 2001, first filed in Oct. 1997. And probably invented and tested in 1996. Dsc 06:23, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Very well. I can accept the reasoning to the extent that the physical format was finalized by 1999 (definitely not 1995-1996 as it is currently in the article) except for the transition to blue laser (by which time it was called DVR-Blue, for example at ISOM 2000[3]), and that it is based on modulation and error correcting codes invented in 1995 and 1996. I don't think that still lets you claim that the format is "obsolete" (and the "some consider" way of putting it is fairly unencyclopedic since that way you can "find" support for just about any opinion). Anyway, the actual Blu-ray physical format, as it first appeared in the market in early 2003, wasn't finalized in that form before 2001. And the innards are still not fully finalized, as we all know..
Additionally, you did not provide any information supporting your claim about it being designed specifically for use in DV camcorders as a replacement to magnetic media. The article you linked repeatedly mentions it being designed for digital video recording (where, unsurprisingly, the name DVR comes from too), that is, recording HDTV signals in homes on rewritable discs. The editing of DV is mentioned, but the way I remember it was that it would allow editing and re-recording of DV streams with a tabletop device, with the DV streams being initially recorded on a magnetic media as usual.
The history&background section still needs clarification as to exactly what parts of the format are old (modulation & ecc), removal of the claim that the entire format is that old, adjustment of the claim about its design considerations, and show its design path (dvr (9 GB rewritable disc with red laser) to dvr-blue (22 GB rewritable disc with blue laser) to blu-ray (25 or 50 GB ROM/R/RW disc)) clearer, and information about what parts specifically are a hindrance to mass replication (more than just the thinner cover layer?). 130.233.16.105 12:42, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

My dearest anonymous User:130.233.16.105, I just presented the requested literature and patents that clearly prove that Blu-Ray's physical layer was designed around 1995-96, just a few months after DVD's unification (Sept. 1995, after IBM's Lou Gerstner persuaded the electronics industry to accept EFMPlus). The 1995 DVR physical format, inclusive of 17PP channel code and 'picket' ECC code, address formats, wobble, headers, block structures, is exactly the same as that of Blu-Ray, and was never seriously modified. So I do not understand why you state that it was finalized in 1999 and updated in 2001. Please let me know what was finalized/changed in 2001? May be you can also explain why a physical layer technology designed around 1995 is not obsolete? Just think of Windows 95. No new insights since 1995? Higher efficiencies? May be User:130.233.16.105 also thinks that the 1979 CD format or 1985 CD-ROM format are not obsolete? Come on.

I have the impression that User:130.233.16.105 did not read the mentioned ODS2000 article. The authors of that article clearly state in the first sentence of Section 2 that their DVR format is intended for use in 'a' optical disc based digital video recorder . The authors fully explain the various design considerations, including address formats, wobble, headers, block structures etc, which were all designed in 1995-1996. They also explain which special measures had to be taken to construct a home recorder plus format requirements. I believe that someone with a normal skill in the art can understand that the designer of such a disk format has to trade various conflicting parameters, and when you opimize for home recording you cannot optimize for replication. Thus, I suggest that before User:130.233.16.105 vandalizes my texts again, that he/she studies the ODS article and tries to understand its implications, and tries to understand why it can be stated that Blu-Ray’s physical format is obsolete.

Therefore, I firmly conclude that, unless someone proves that Blu-Ray's physical format is not obsolete, i.e. no new insights/technologies were unveiled or added since 1995, the term 'obsoleteness' will be included again in the article. Dsc 15:30, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I did read the article, thank you very much.
Labeling the system "obsolete" is POV (see the three points at [4] - you're the first I've seen to make such conclusions about the format). While I don't dispute the facts (the origins of the physical format), Wikipedia is still not a vehicle for original research[5] (that is, conclusions made by *you* unless there is wide support for such view in literature). Obsolete also implies that it already has a reasonable replacement in the market, which it doesn't. Of course better optical disc formats are introduced every year in research literature, but that doesn't make the current ones obsolete from the market's point of view. The articles about CD and DVD don't mention them being obsolete though they are based on even older technologies, so I guess you should go change them too.
I propose the following wording: "From a technological point of view, the physical format of Blu-ray can be considered outdated since it is based on modulation and error correction codes invented in 1995 and 1996". I don't completely agree with this though; I think it should just state the facts about the format's origin and leave the "outdated" or "obsolete" conclusion to the reader to make.
As for mass replication, I still question what in the physical format is an inherent hindrance to mass replication. Yes, there's the difference in the thickness of the cover layer, and the Durabis hard coating technology. I however can't see these as being inherently problematic for mass replication, merely as something that requires changes in production lines. If there's something else, please specify what.
With the word "finalization" I mean that there is a specification for the entire system (physical format *and* the data organization on the disc (that is: file systems, codecs, software)) available. Certainly there may have been working prototypes of the bare physical disc in 1999, but that alone does not a complete optical disc system make.
Lastly, I still do not see how you make the jump from the much-talked digital video recording (like a VHS, or a DVD recorder) to camcorders (video cameras). 130.233.16.105 18:50, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Revert

I suggest we revert this article to the "Revision as of 01:58, September 10, 2005". Looking at the changes, the only things that have been changed, are the inclusion of some weasel terms, the deletion of a useful image, and the addition of off-topic POV info about the DVD war... If nobody objects, I will revert day after tomorrow. --Wulf 19:30, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, no objections, revert completed :) --Wulf 05:58, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Wulf, you are very quick with your conclusions and reverts. The loss of the DVD battle by Sony et al., leading to a) a small part of the royalty income and b) small influence in the DVD Forum, is essential to understand the history of Blu-ray, and must be part of the article. BD design started immediately after the conclusion of DVD in 1995-96. Since the engineers started so early and the standard was fixed, there was no opportunity to add new ideas to the format, and BD is therefore old-fashioned just like Windows95. This is not a POV, but a basic fact that can be checked (see above). So I am sorry but I will revert your reverts again. Dsc 07:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I can agree with the latest version :) --Wulf 18:42, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Durabis makes what screwdriver resistant?

The article says that Durabis makes a BD resistant to a screwdriver attack, but the linked news article implies it the test was on a normal DVD. Of course, it's difficult to infer the meaning since they refer to BDs as next generation DVDs.

Alternatives

The second paragraph here seems heavily biased against Blu-ray to me. It seems to draw conclusions about what the outcome of HD DVD vs. Blu-ray Disc in the marketplace based upon marketing-speak from the HD DVD camp. Locke Cole 05:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)


I like the fact that this article has the "Alternatives" section, as it will hopefully serve to dissuade fanboys from cluttering up the *entire* article with HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray bickering.

Maybe it would be even better if there were an entire new article for comparing the two formats. Then we could enforce a policy of deleting all the POV edits and asking those editors to try to get their stuff into the separate format comparison article instead.

Frankly sometimes the arguing gets so bad, the article fills up with fanboy advocacy and it literally becomes difficult to extract any genuinely useful and on-topic info. Snacky 22:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

POV pushing

It's unfortunate that this article has attracted POV pushers, including some people who ought to know better (Dsc). Anything that smacks of opinion and isn't fully sourced should be deleted without hesitation. Mirror Vax 10:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that interesting, and with some effort tangible, sections of the article were removed by Mirror Vax. It is also unfortunate that some contributors to the article, such as Mirror Vax, apparently miss required physics background to understand the physics of optical recording as someone with that background could immediately understand that there are great difficulties in BD’s mass replication. I have just added a note regarding the reading of thin discs in the presence of dust, fingerprints, and other anomalies. If you wish, I can add the name of a good physics book. So please do not delete it this time by remarking it as a POV. Dsc 16:06, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Obviously the hard coat is an acknowledgement that there are robustness concerns. Equally obvious is that these concerns have not prevented BD from attracting broad industry support. How BD compares with CD/DVD/HD-DVD in practice remains to be seen. Mirror Vax 18:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

As explained, the hard coating will not solve the problem related to servo tracking. Polishing of BDs will be hard work. This difficulty was not mentioned by the previous 'coating' contributor, who apparently copied a brochure of a coating salesman. I added a note regarding the replication of BDs plus a reference (in order to make it non-POV) to the first paper published by Sony/Philips scientists on DVR, later called BD. It seems that some contributors to this article are mainly concerned in the fact that a commercial product such as BD attracts broad industry support, and less concerned in physics. Hopefully my additional note will not be too difficult to understand, otherwise please let me know, and I will forward additional references. Do not expect glossy brochures. Dsc 19:50, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

It is well known that BD has more replication challenges than HD-DVD. Every article about the subject mentions it. The rest is opinion. The article you cited says that the design is highly approproate for a "third generation" optical format. For some reason you think that supports your opinion that BD's design is inappropriate as a replacement for DVD (hint: DVD would be the "second generation" optical format). Mirror Vax 20:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Good. I just scanned the Blu-Ray article and the term 'replication', as you mentioned of great relevance in comparing various competitive formats, cannot be found except for my addition. Rather strange is it? An earlier contribution regarding replication was deleted for reasons of POV. To answer your question: I do not know whether BD is appropriate, but I am keen to see a fair and non-POV BD article, which is based on facts, but this seems to be difficult since some contributors do not have the required physics background. The moment they see a physics-based argument, it is deleted as 'POV' or 'NOR'. Dsc 21:29, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't even call it "replication challenges". Those stories are marketing/PR spin from the HD DVD camp to try and make Blu-ray Disc look like the costlier solution. Anyone with even a minor inkling of economics will be familiar with the term Economies of Scale. While the equipment needed to ramp up production of Blu-ray Disc may be more expensive, after production is started those costs will very nearly disappear as far as the end user (consumer) is concerned. With regard to the physics issue, you cite one article in particular over and over again. Sadly the link is worthless because you must be a member/subscriber to view the actual article (your link only shows a summary and the author names). In any event, that the error correction technology was developed back in 1995 says nothing of the overall technology used in Blu-Ray Disc. If you could back up your edits/claims with verifiable sources I wouldn't have a problem. Locke Cole 21:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
"I do not know whether BD is appropriate, but I am keen to see a fair and non-POV BD article, which is based on facts, but this seems to be difficult since some contributors do not have the required physics background." Actually, your contributions are mostly opinion, and are not very technical. For example: [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
Here Dsc deliberately lies about BD/HD-DVD capacity:[11]
After reviewing the above, your statement that you are only interested in the facts is not credible. I would like to see an apology for past conduct before I give you the benefit of the doubt. Mirror Vax 22:36, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The DVR article, which details the premises of Blu-Ray is available from the website, is in my view public domain, but one has to pay a small fee. So Locke Cole is stretching the concept of 'public domain publication'. Yes, I admit, a system, built on a physical layer, which was designed in 1996, can work properly. Also Windows 95 works properly, but the moment you see an newer alternative like Windows 2000 you prefer the newer version. In ten years time interesting ideas has come to fruition that could not be implemented in Blu-Ray as the format was frozen.

One can easily delete remarks regarding dust and fingerprints susceptibility of thin substrates in optical recording, but one cannot ignore the laws of physics. After a tedious search for a free or low-cost publication, preferably on the web, (otherwise some contributors like Locke Cole might complain it is not in the public domain) I found [12], where you can read about the severe difficulties associated with thin, 100 micron in BD, discs. For someone with a physics background this is obvious. Essentially it has to do with the size of the light spot on the substrate, where the light enters the substrate. The thinner the disc, the smaller the diameter of that spot. As a result, particles on a thin substrate will obscure a relatively larger portion of the spot than particles on a thicker disc. A particle with a diameter of around 100 micron will completely obscure the light of a BD disc, while in HD-DVD the same particle will only obscure 5% of the light spot area, causing a small, 5%, amplitude modulation of the read signal. So in the BD case we have a complete drop out, while in the HD-DVD case we can detect most of the read-out signal. Clearly, this will affect the read-out and servo tracking. One can improve the error correction to deal with longer burst errors, but the servo control will remain vulnerable as there is no way to solve that. Note that a special 'Durabis' coating can never mitigate these effects whatever the PR people may promise in their glossy brochures. That concludes my lecture for today. Dsc 12:32, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

You desperately need to read WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:V. It's mighty ironic you bring up Windows '95 and Windows 2000 though: it's the perfect example of "just because something is based on an older piece of technology doesn't instantly make it old too". Blu-ray being based upon DVR is an interesting bit of history that I am sure, when someone can put it in without violating WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, will be great for everyone to know. But your contributions have pushed a POV and reached a conclusion that simply isn't backed up by your "sources".
In so far as the physics are concerned, again, this is against WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Now, if you find a source that shares your conclusion (besides a press release from someone in the HD DVD camp), by all means, contribute it to this article. Just don't provide your own conclusions along with it. As for my opinion on your conclusions? I believe Sony and co. will overcome any technical issues you believe they'll run into. TDK's technology seems advanced, and unless you work for TDK or Sony, I don't see how you can know that it won't work. -Locke Cole 13:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

You desperately need to read the paper mentioned above[13]. This well-written survey paper, written by two authors affiliated with Philips, explains some laws of physics related to the choice of the disc thickness amongst others. The two Philips' authors explain them, though they do not mention that they can overcome these laws, but may be, as you claim, the Sony engineers can. May be in Tokyo there are different laws than in Eindhoven. Could this remark be against WP:NOR, since it is 'physics- based' and therefore against it? I know that things cannot work if they are not in line with the laws of physics. Probably also against WP:NOR. Dsc 14:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I did read it. I also noticed that it was authored in 1998. I then noticed that it didn't contain the term "Blu-ray" anywhere in it. Based upon the date of the article (1998 again), I can surmise that it had no way of knowing about advances in technology since that time (unless you're now saying the authors invented a time machine). Just as I'm sure nobody believed we'd have beams of light bouncing off of optical discs back in the early 1900s, I'm sure the authors of that 1998 article believed they were right in their conclusions. Now, I invite you again to go read WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. If you can find an independent and reliable source that will back up your assertions, you'll have my blessing about pointing out the (supposed) weakness in Blu-ray media. For the moment however, there's no reason to believe a word you say given your actions with this article so far and your lack of evidence with regard to your POV-Locke Cole 14:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The Philips' authors explain the physics of optical recording in a general setting, i.e. the article does not deal with a specific system, and the year, 1998, when it is was written is absolutely irrelevant (for a physicist). It is a fine article written by excellent scientists. Anyway, I made another search for a free article on the web, and found [14], written by Heemskerk in 2002, an author affiliated with Philips. On page 27, you read that this Philips' author admits that BD is 'relative' sensitive for dust, fingerprints, etc. So if the Philips' camp, BD's founding father, admits there is a 'relative' problem, then I conclude and know there is a big problem. You may observe on page 27, at the left, a diagram showing the obscuring effects that I tried to explain above. In addition, Heemskerk gives three possible solutions to cure this 'relative' difficulty, namely hard coat, cartridge, and strong ECC. Strong ECC is always a good idea, but it does not give an answer to servo tracking loss. A hard coating is also a good idea as it prevents the accumulation of scratches over time. A cartridge is a good idea, but may be consumers will not like it (higher price, compatibility with DVD and CD, etc?). I think, POV, that a hard coat alone is insufficient so that a BD without cartridge will be very sensitive for sticky debris on the disc (polishing again like the old vinyl records!), and that servo tracking will be very difficult to maintain. Let us just wait and see what will happen in the future. As a last point: HD-DVD will not be 'relative sensitive' for dust etc as the disc thickness is the same as that of DVD. Dsc 15:11, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

No, it's not absolutely irrelevant just because he's a physicist. Just as rantings of a scientist from 1899 are irrelevant if new technology/research has disproven his/her theories. Now, to your new article. First, let's start with the fact that it's from 2002. TDK announced Durabis in January of this year. [15] But ignoring that, you'll note that page 29 states that "If no cartridge is used, a hard coat is applied: disc cleaning will not cause any scratches". On page 30 they show images and results from tests on discs with two types of coating and no coat at all. At the bottom of the page he states "very hard organic coats are possible too". On page 31, the slide titled "Abrasion Resistance Test", they use a sand roll to attempt to damage the coated disc on the left and the uncoated disc on the right. The disc on the left has "A little damage but the symbol error rate remained below 4x10-3". The uncoated disc, in "The area that looks like white is the damaged part and cannot be read". I'd say these are very impressive results considering that, in 2002, they didn't have TDK's hard coat technology "Durabis". Clearly the author doesn't believe there's a "big problem" or even a "little problem", except with uncoated discs (which any media without a coating of some sort would be prone to these same things). In any event, this is clearly WP:NPOV and WP:NOR territory. -Locke Cole 23:09, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Managed Copy

I've reverted a change made stating that managed copy had been approved for Blu-ray. The change summary claimed "hdbeat" had announced it, but so far my searches on hdbeat.com have only turned up this, which indicates it was a posting at the AVSForums that announced the feature being in. I don't think an anonymous forum posting is credible enough for Wikipedia... --Locke Cole 03:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

How about Reuters --Ctachme 01:40, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Looks good to me, thanks! --Locke Cole (talk) (e-mail) 02:28, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Security section needs a citation?

I noticed that the security section is, in places, almost word for word taken from this article: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050810-5194.html

Should there be a citation? I'm a n00b and unsure how the process here works. 11/09/2005

No, that's a copyvio and should probably be removed (or at least rewritten). --Locke Cole 03:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Cost

Would like to add a reference to this article: "Matsushita lowers production costs for Blu-Ray discs" - http://www.blureporter.com/blu-ray/news/100, but was unsure of where to put it. Perhaps we need a section at least discussing what we do know about the cost issue (vs. DVD, HD-DVD, etc.). I know this is not set in stone yet, but is that not the nature of this entire article? --Willy Arnold 5:17, January 09 2006 (EST)

There had been a blurb in the article about the purported "higher cost" of Blu-ray manufacturing over HD DVD manufacturing, but I believe it was removed (by me) for being an obvious bit of POV. We could always add a passage discussing the initial claims that Blu-ray would cost more, and note that Matushita has devised methods to bring manufacturing costs down to the same level as standard DVD. Assuming this is OK with you, and there are no other objections, I'll write something up in a little bit. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:40, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me. I think the mention of higher cost to which you are referring is still in the article--the last sentence of the very first paragraph. Maybe that should be edited/removed as well?--Willy Arnold 12:19, January 10 2006 (EST)

(Addition:Wasnt that bigger cost due to the blu ray caddy? or the toughness coat?) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Arwengoenitz (talk • contribs) 09:36, March 1, 2006 (UTC)

The caddy might have been a factor with the Japanese units that were sold in Japan for awhile, but I believe the major issue with manufacturing costs was regarding the need for new equipment (HD DVD has, supposedly, an advantage in that duplication plants can use existing DVD equipment (with modifications) to create HD DVD discs). For what it's worth, any sane person knows the "higher cost" excuse is bogus. The reason? See: Economies of scale. The fact is if a duplicator has to pay $1,000,000 USD for equipment but they produce millions of discs, then the cost per disc ($1,000,000 USD ÷ TotalDiscsProduced) will be negligble; pennies per disc over the costs of HD DVD. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Launch Releases

I think the section listing all the launch titles should be moved to it's own article. It seems out of place as is.the1physicist 04:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It complements the same listing at HD DVD. It'll likely be removed a while after it launches, for what it's worth (and if not, I'd agree with breaking it out to something like List of Blu-ray Disc launch titles (probably should consult the WP:MoS to make sure the naming is right though)). —Locke Cole • t • c 04:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Update Page

This page needs to be updated. It contains outdated information and the tenses are also outdated - e.g. "Philips is scheduled to debut a Blu-ray computer drive in the second half of 2005" Saads 03:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Terrifying

I find these emerging storage technologies very disturbing. I have collected a vast number of DVDs and the thought of re-buying them all over again is a nightmare I dont want. I know new players must have backward compatibility but how long is that going to last? One of the most common tactics for forcing consumers to adopt technology they dont want is to withdraw support for the alternative. Instead of using the vastly expanded storage to store more standard resolution video, theyre using it to store about the same amount of hisher resolution video. That sets a dangerous precedent of both expansion of storage and parallel expansion of space consumed by the content so we are constantly re-inventing the wheel and running desperately short of space now matter how big things get. I see a future where 800 Terrabyte discs store pitiful 4 hours of 6400x4800 video (HHHHHHDVD) because we...as a species...technologically...cant keep our pants on! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Arwengoenitz (talk • contribs) 23:51, February 28, 2006 (UTC)

Backwards compatibility will likely last forever. DVD uses MPEG-2 data compression, and both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD mandate MPEG-2 as a required CODEC. Further, both require Dolby Digital and DTS sound formats. Finally, DVD shares nearly identical physical characteristics with Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. The only issue is providing the extra hardware to read the older formats (and I'd like to think that those will be cheap forever; DVD players are down to like $40 or less at Wal*Mart for example). There's really no reason to drop backwards compatibility. By the way, the HDTV resolutions provided by these new formats really are a lot better than DVD; probably as big an improvement as we had going from VHS to DVD. I don't think we'll see another higher resolution format for quite awhile though.
Oh, and just a quick friendly reminder: Wikipedia isn't a forum. I don't personally have an issue with your comment here, but it's something to keep in mind in case someone else does. =) Happy editing! —Locke Cole • t • c 09:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
The hardware to read DVDs is actually mandated by the video spec, since "Blu-ray on DVD" is supported. Mirror Vax 03:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm half with you on that one, but I think it'll take the Nintendo DS approach, where the next generation of media (be it HVD or whatever) won't support VCD, and then the next generation won't support DVD etc...
Or it could take the jump, like we did from magnetic to optical, we could jump from optical to flash, and then screw everyone. PureLegend 18:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

PS3 not first

I don't know enough about the topic to feel confident making changes but I do see that the PS3 is listed that it will be the first Blu-ray player...this is incorrect...Samsung will be releasing the first player to coincide with the launch of the physical discs...Anyone want to take this on?...I have labled the page as needing major work. see: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-27-2006/0004307028&EDATE= thanks: KsprayDad 05:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

He's right, there was an article on Slashdot a few weeks back about it, and it's also noted on the front page for Blu-ray:
http://www.blu-ray.com/, under "Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Targets May Launch" (Feb. 27th).
Hanzolot 00:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Converting from DVD to Blu-Ray, etc.

Will I be able to convert my own home movies to Blu-Ray and then make a copy (this should be legal because: a)I don't intend to make money off of it as the Feds might break down my door; and b)it IS my own movie) for each person in my family? I have home movies on both DVD and VHS. They can't take that privaledge away can they?--209.12.51.206 19:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

If you're talking about your own home movies (i.e. films made by you), why would there be a problem? From a copyright standpoint, you would be the copyright holder. If you want to make a copy of a film you made, then that's your right. Encryption shouldn't be a problem either since, if it's your own movie, the DVD surely wouldn't be encrypted in the first place. I can't imagine there being any technical restriction on you copying your own home movies (which do not employ any encryption) from VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray.
In legal terms, it depends on who owns the copyright to the home movie. Assuming it's shot by you or someone in your family, the copyright will be within your family so there is no issue. However if home movies includes professionally shot movies (e.g. wedding, school concerts etc) be aware depending on your contract, the person who taped it may still own the copyright. This won't affect your ability to produce copys but it will affect your legal right to produce copies (although it won't matter what format you use)
In feasibility terms, be aware that bluray has a form of watermark detection preventing reproduction of disks with said watermark. What this means is if your home movies happens to have a watermark, it can't be produced. No one knows how sensitive this watermark detection will be. HD DVD also has audio water mark detection which is probably of even greater concern which will stop playback of movies with this watermark. Both of these are of concern. Technically, it's possible if you record a home movie and a watermarked movie is playing in the background, you may be unable to produce the disk (for bluray) or you it may stop playing (for HD DVD) because the watermark is detected! Logically, the developers would make it so that if it's only for a few minutes, there is no problem. But in practice, they might not do so because movie studios are extremely paranoid and appear to care little about consumer rights. And of course, if it so happens that your home movie is fairly long, and the audio of some watermarked movie is extremely audible and was in the background most of the time, for HD DVD, you'll probably be screwed no matter what. This probably won't occur with old home movies since afaik the watermark is not yet being used but it may occur with new home movies.
I'm assuming that both formats allow you to playback unencrypted bluray/hd dvd disks (which I don't know for sure). If they don't you might need to get a key to encode your disk and your key could easily be disabled in the future.
Nil Einne 20:23, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Well things are messier than suggested above. Blu-ray and HD-DVD both have DRM built in. They sahre a couple of schemes and differ in a couple. Those schemes, if designed and implemented correctly, have certain engineering behaviors. They reduce resolution of the video stream coming from the drive, prevent operation of the drive and so on. What triggers the engineering to do its protective thing is not directly connected with the legalities of copyright. So if something triggers the protection when it shouldn't have been... since this is software, and deterministic at that, even if buggy, content can be protected when there is no legal grounds to do so.
An analogy is piano rolls. When they were introduced various copyright holders objected. The statute which settled that conflict recognized a limit to the extent of copyright. As did similar decisions in regard to sound recording, Video tape recorders, and so on. The claim by the recording and movie industry that tyhey have complete control -- to the exclusion of existing rights of their customers -- would be legally over reaching even if the engineering did exactly what they intended it to do.
So it's possible, though probably not likely, that the DRM might very well do something it ought not to. And there would be no appeal to the software. ww 00:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
09-F9 11-02 . 9D-74 E3-5B . D8-41 56-C5 . 63-56 88-C0

this is relevant to my interests —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.64.92.22 (talk) 16:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Down-sampling change

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060314-6377.html <- Sony apparently changed its mind on down-sampling. Anyone else able to confirm this? Pvt Mahoney 14:45, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Nothing has changed, as far as I can tell. Downsampling is still a feature of Blu-ray, even if some titles don't use it. Mirror Vax 19:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Why no mention of downsampling in the article? Nil Einne 19:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
OOops realised it is, just not called downsampling Nil Einne 20:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

History of Blu-ray

I'd like to request a history of blu-ray technology (not just diodes) because everything about it seems to have been lost. I can swear talking about it years ago, particularly as used for a casino storage medium. Stoutpuppy 19:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

External links

External links are not for any and every report on Blu-Ray. With a few exceptions (the forum included), they should only be stuff that explains things that this article does not, or not as well. This is also not the japanese or german wikipedia, so links to that stuff should go on the articles in other languages. I cut out like half of those links cause they were junk - including one that linked to a site one needed an account for... Fresheneesz 00:55, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Porn industry

AFAIK, porn has been one of the key drivers of new technology (video tapes, DVD, internet, broadband?). I wonder if this is going to be the case again. Does anyone know which format, if there is a bias, the porn industry is leaning towards? This may be the key to victory or defeat... Nil Einne 19:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that depends on how much of a demand there is for ultra-high-definition porn. In that market it sounds more like a gimmick than anything else, at least until the format's pricing drops to current DVD levels (at which point the format wars will be over, in all likelihood). Tapanageta 22:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Whoa there, little Wikipedian! It isn't Ultra High Definition Video yet...
Back on topic, I think HD-DVD will be favoured, despite what the Porn industry is using at the moment, because of it's cheapness. Oh, and there is a demand for HD Porn, try typing in "porn 720p" into Google. PureLegend 18:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The largest adult entertainment producer in the US, Vivid Video, is releasing its movies in both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. A smaller competitor, Digital Playground, made a stance to go Blu-Ray only. [16] The-bus 16:15, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Well porn does exist... just about everywhere. No, it's not a driving force, like everything in the current war for High definition content neither side has anything greatly better than DVD, except for picture quality. As it goes into the fall it looks like HD-DVD might have a lead as it was out first and appears to be adapting quicker, the PS3 which should have closed the door on HD-DVD is turning into a huge problem for Sony. With the 360 getting HD-DVD and the PS3 having multiple problems, the advantage is about equal.

Now if there was something where you could interact with the pornography, or that would definatly drive sales but as it stands, it looks like the only major advantage is Blu-ray's storaget capacity and HD-DVD's ease of production. Neithe technology assists pornography in any way which is one of the reason this war is so annoying. The only other major benefit is DRM, and unfortunatly that's not something that benefits the end user.Kinglink 06:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Length (capacity)

An anon edited it to say that a single layer disc can hold two hours of HD video (it had previously said a single layer disc can hold four hours of HD video). I reverted it, but I do believe this section could be clarified. If using MPEG-2, then yes, a single layer (25 GB) disc would only hold about two hours of HD video. However, if using H.264, you could (conceivably) fit four hours of video. Note also the sentence after this that mentions the amount of video that can be held by a dual layer disc (the anon left this as saying "eight hours"). —Locke Cole • t • c 01:43, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I want to relate my personal feelings on this topic, which is that editors should be very careful with their wording when talking about "playback time". The fact is that there's almost no technical limit on playtime. Well, there is a theoretical limit, but: 1) this theoretical case will never actually happen and b) the theoretical limit is probably at least a few hundred times longer than the playback times we'll see in real use. Any mention about playback times should always make it clear that there's no hard limit. Comparisons about playback time should probably use ratios and not hard numbers, e.g., "newer codecs allow about twice the playback time as mpeg-2 video, assuming similar video quality" or (trivially) "a double-layer disc offers twice the playback time as a single-layer disc, assuming similar video quality". Words like "up to" should always be avoided when describing playback times. Any mention of playback times should make clear the tradeoff against quality, as well as source material.
This may sound overly complicated, but it's not. It's pointless to dwell overly much on playback time. Just make it clear that it varies, there are tradeoffs, and more storage space is always helpful. Snacky 01:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it would make even more sense if, since we are fine with the video quality we are getting currently, why not use a BD to record standard quality video, but have say, 25-50-200 times as much content (based on the disc layers)? Try and see it from my perspective though, I see this whole oredal as a great way to get ahead on the "quantity over quality" level. You could comcievably have the entire LOTR series on one disc, just as an example... user:Kukuhri 12:43pm (MT) 27 September 2006

Complete list of announced BD launch releases

What da hell is this "Complete list of announced BD launch releases"? What is BD? Keep the damn name full! Some people might not know what you are talking about? some might even be new to all this:/

>x<ino 18:15, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
While I see no point in taking out the BD part, somewhere in the article it should explain that BD means Blu-Ray Disc (I seriously hope I didn't guess that wrongly...). Of course, if the article already does that, then just ignore me. Xgamer4 23:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
It says that Blu-ray Disc is shortened to BD in the very first sentence. :/ BD is also used elsewhere in the article, though I'm not sure if it's appropriate as a section title. I'll change it over though. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:34, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Here's the list of all avaliable titles, there are 4 missing. Should we add them or are the current enough?

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/releasedates_historical.html

WB Support

Warner Bros is listed as supporting Blu ray here and HDDVD on its page can someone find which it is they are backing

They're releasing content for both. They have non-exclusive agreements. - User:rasd

Blue-ray or Blue-Ray?

Using Blue-ray is bothering like hell. It is Blue-Ray.

What do you think?

Ed1t: My fault. Sony.com uses Blue-ray Disc. Bagga..

Nordoelum 17:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


The ray praticaly stands for ultra violent ray light. Doesn't really stand for it, but that is the basic of the CD, using a ultra violent blue ray light. So...the Ray means nothing. The official website spells it "Blu-ray", the logo says "Blu-ray". No offer questions or answer, cuz that's the official name!

>x<ino 11:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

It is Blu-ray not Blue-ray, Bluray or ...

just Blu-ray

Blu-ray Name

This replaces the previously titled section 'Blue Ray Facts'. I thought this was a rather out of place section, and incorrectly titled, that needed cleaning up, so I added some information about the reason it is called Blu-Ray and also included information from this above discussion. 134.219.171.36 21:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Self-destruct code

Is this article, whichs tells e.g. about a "self-destruct" function, still up to date? And if it is, should there be something about it in the article? –Mysid(t) 12:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The self destruct business is not so much halting and catching fire, leaving a lump of charred plastic. Let's say someone finds a key for the cryptographic software implementing DRM for the drive, and the 'crack' becomes known. As the scheme seems to work (viewed from the outside), this will require a new key to access protected content. If you don't get that key... Instead, the self-destruct is a possible failure to supply new keys for the crytpgraphic algorithms which give access to the content of a protected Blu-ray disk. Without that key, controlled by the drive maker, the Blu-ray disk Alliance, the content producer, ... the drive can't manage protected disks. probably still be able to play other sorts: your own content, othe rproducers' content (maybe), unprotected content generally, ... Not the nicest behavior from a piece of equipment you expect to work, and which is functioning perfectly. Save for a failed update of needed crypto keys. 71.247.246.63 03:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

copyvio in "Variations and sizes"?

The last sentence from Variations and sizes refers to a "table below", but there is no such table. The sentence appears to be taken verbally from theblu-rayshop.com. Copyright violation or not? At the very least it should be reworded, or someone should add the table it is referring to. --213.196.5.160 08:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Underworld: Evolution

I just saw a commercial for Underworld: Evolution which said, "Coming soon to DVD and Blu-Ray". On the main page, it's listed as releasing in late 2006. I obviously don't know what's going on here, but does anyone else? StealthHit06 20:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Highdefdigest.com lists [17] its street date on Blu-ray as June 20, 2006. This is also backed up by Sony [18]. I'm unaware of what "main page" you're refering to. —Gabbe 11:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
By Main Page, I mean the Blu-ray page, in the section that lists the launch titles. It listed Underworld: Evolution as coming out in late 2006. StealthHit06 04:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't make sense

CDs and DVDs use a single layer of lacquer over the reflective data backing (on the label side) and are more susceptible to damage than either HD-DVDs or Blu-ray discs.

If Blu-ray disks need a caddy, and Cd's don't, how the heck are CD's MORE susceptible to damage, especially since on blu-ray discs, the data is 'closer to the surface?' Also, what the heck does something being on the 'label' side matter? Does the article mean non-label side?

I agree the whole paragraph is poorly worded. The above quote is also WRONG. It sounds like it was written by someone who has never even used or seen a DVD. The DVD reflective layer is sandwiched between two layers of polycarbonate (as I believe bluray is) and enables double-sided DVDs to be easily made. The CD is on the top with a thin layer of lacquer. There are two sides to every single sided DVD and CD. In CDs, most people think the bottom side needs greater protection. This is not strictly true. If you scratch the bottom side, it may have reading problems but this depends on the drive and you can also try polishing the surface. If you scratch the top side (label side), your CD is well and truly dead. To be fair, the data is still there and some data recovery companies may be able to recover it (altho this is also true for damage to the bottom side) but you have absolutely no hope of recovering any data (that is contained in the part where the scratch is) with a normal drive. It is rather unlikely you an fix it either. With DVDs, it's a different matter. The bottom surface is most definitely the more susceptible side. Damage to the top surface (within reason) doesn't affect the DVD... Nil Einne 02:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

EVD

I removed the following although unfortunately forgot to mention why in the summary

As mentioned in the EVD page. I don't really see any point of discussing EVD as a competitor of BluRay. It was clearly intended as an alternative (that appears to have failed) to DVD based on the time frame and the design. No evidence it support HD content either. Therefore, would make as much sense to include DVD in the list... Nil Einne 02:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Probably deserved to be mentioned here, for completeness at least. perhaps with the addition of the points you make here. And probably also at the DVD article. ww 03:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Region codes?

The region codes bit on this page used to be:

Region code Area
1 North America, South America, Japan and East Asia (excluding China)
2 Europe and Africa
3 India, China, Russia, and all other countries.

and now it is:

Region code Area
1 The Americas, U.S. territories, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan
2 Europe and Africa
3 Asia (excluding Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) and Oceania

Anybody have any reliable source to justify this change? For the first grouping (which was on this page as recently as May 1, 2006) there are several online sources, whereas the current grouping has been changed by various anonymous users without explanation, such as 201.240.61.137 (talk · contribs), 201.240.44.89 (talk · contribs), 201.240.59.61 (talk · contribs). Does anybody havbe more info? Where did India and Russia go? —Gabbe 11:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The first table seem better... Pretender2j 14:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The manual for the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player[19] lists its region code as "A", implying an "A", "B" and "C" division of region codes. Anybody has any more info on this? —Gabbe 19:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
The back cover of the newly released Blu-ray discs features an "A" in a circle inside a hexagonal box. Is this the region code marking, perhaps? Or is it the logo for some other feature or other? —Gabbe 10:48, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no direct knowledge of region codes, but it seems odd that Australia (Oceania) is left off the first list. Eventually, there'll need to be a region list that includes Australia, India and Russia. (Sometimes in regioning Australia has been lumped with Europe, since we're a brittish nation, and other times with Asia, because of geographical proximity). —Snickkers 00:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Quickly checking the citation (9) listed in the current article http://www.emedialive.com/articles/readarticle.aspx?articleid=11760#ixa I've found the following table. I'm not confident enought to edit the actual article - I'm supposed to be working at the moment and can't invest enough time to verify the information.
Region code Area
A North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia
B Europe (EU), Africa, Middle East, New Zealand, Australia
C China, India, Russia, Rest of the world.

—Snickkers 00:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Questionable Titles

Amazon.com lists Chronos and Memento as Bluray titles for preorder. Should I add them to the list with a footnote? Willy Arnold 05:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Batman Begins is listed as a Blu-ray title but to this day it has never been released on Blu-ray, only HD-DVD. What's up with that. Weird considering there's even a picture displaying the Blu-Ray box for Batman Begins.--AtomicAge 22:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Duplicate sections.

The contents are the same as the section listed in this article., should there be a link to that article instead of listing the whole again/merge the section intothe article? 202.71.240.18 08:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Rewritable?

Will Blu-ray discs be re-writable? The article doesn;t seem to mention this. thanks, Madd4Max 19:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The article doesn't explicitly say that it is, but it should; I believe it used to. BD-RE is mentioned a few times, which is the Blu-ray's rewritable disc format. --Kamasutra 08:17, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

No SACD on PS3

I've removed the following from the article:

The Playstation 3 will not be able to output true SACD sound in the optimal 5.1 format, because SACD uses a special form of analog technology output that is not supported by the Playstation 3.

Besides having little to do with Blu-ray discs, as far as I can tell, since the HDMI 1.2 standard it has been possible to output SACD's DSD signal untampered via HDMI, which should be possible for the PlayStation 3 (which supports HDMI 1.3). A receiver can then decode the DSD signal. —Gabbe 23:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Featured article status?

How far off is this article? In fact, what is it that means it isn't a FA already? I just added a commons link, and it seems the article is damn close, a few more pictures and that should be it. Anyone agree? - Jack (talk) 14:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

nowhere near FA status, there are many inaccuracies, but I don't have the expertise or time to fix them --Windsok 14:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree it's not so close, but it's got considerable promise. And, it's an important topic so we ought to be working in that direction. What would seem to be indicated is to submit it to the peer review process leading to FA status, make the necessary changes, and put it in the FA candidate que. It takes someone willing to shepard it through, respond to comments on timely basis and such. Not me, unfortunately, as I'm already over Wiki-committed, and otherwise too. Perhaps you? ww 16:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Updates regarding VC-1 and MPEG-2 aling with Size Standards

I made a couple of minor updates to this Blu-ray page that point out the fact that every Blu-ray disc released so far has been on a 25GB single layer disc. This entire page compares Blu-ray to other formats, so I also mentioned that all HD-DVD movies released so far use dual-layer 30GB discs. I mentioned the fact that all Blu-ray movies released so far have chosen to use MPEG-2 compression technology used in standard DVDs. Similarly, I also pointed out that all HD-DVD discs currently use the much newer VC-1 compression technology. Sign: Mike_mgoblue

Partly wrong. "A View from Space with Heavenly Music" uses MPEG-2, and "U2: Rattle & Hum" uses AVC. Further, the hybrid DVD/HD-DVD combo discs have all been single-layered on the HD-DVD side to the best of my knowledge. —Gabbe 21:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Also, "Happy Gilmore" is a single-layered non-hybrid disc. —Gabbe 21:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I just remembered that all of the initial HD-DVDs releases in Japan are encoded using AVC too, see dvdtalk.com's review of the Finding Neverland HD DVD for example. —Gabbe 02:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not a bad point to show how moronic studios can waste better technology. The blu ray discs have worse soundtrack and pictures because they are using 11 year old encoding. [20]. --gatoatigrado 05:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The fact remains that the majority of Blu-ray titles are 25 GB while almost all HD DVD movies are 30 GB. So I have added this back in the comparison section. Ray andrew 16:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

One Update

I don't really feel like going through the trouble of looking everything up, but I will say this. The first part of the article ends with "The Blu-ray Disc Association unveiled their plans for a May 23, 2006 release date at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2006. Since then, Blu-ray was delayed, but finally shipped in the U.S. on June 20, 2006."

Just wanted to let the author know that the format was not shipped in the us on June 20, 2006, nor has it been shipped as of today, July 31, 2006. And it will, in fact, not be shipped until October 2006, according to Sony. I don't know the exact day, and I feel lazy. But you should certainly fix your error(s).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.172.143.174 (talk • contribs)

The Samsung BD-P1000 was officially released June 25, with some Blu-ray Discs having been released a bit earlier than that. See the BBCs newspage for example. Several websites such as highdefdigest and DVDtalk have started offering reviews of Blu-ray movies. As far as I know - Sony won't be releasing their own player until October, but that's of little importance. —Gabbe 16:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Why are most Blu-Ray DVDs "vanilla" releases?

Something this article does not answer and I'd like to see someone discuss is why virtually all Blu-Ray releases so far have been so-called "vanilla" releases. That is to say, releases with no (or virtually no) special features. And in some cases, the version released on BR is in fact inferior to that released on DVD. For example, when Ultraviolet was released, the DVD version was the extended directors cut, but BR only released the shorter theatrical version. Is there a particular reason for this? I definitely think it's a bad idea considering HD-DVD appears capable of including at least some special features (though that format also doesn't seem to have as many extras as the DVD releases). 23skidoo 15:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of any reputable sources having stated any specific reason, but I can imagine any number of things being the cause for this disparity. One likely cause, as was pointed out previously, might be because the 25 GB single-layered Blu-ray discs so far issued all use the space-consuming MPEG-2 and often PCM codecs, which leave less room for extras than on 30 GB dual-layered HD-DVDs with VC-1. There might be other reasons such as prioritizing the highest image/sound quality (like the Superbit DVD editions) or problems with licensing of supplementary material. Another imaginable reason is that issuing a "vanilla" disc first means that more cash can be earned on special/collector's/ultimate editions later. I don't which (if any) of these is the main cause for the difference in extra content. When it comes to longer/shorter cuts of a film, I can't even begin to imagine why there would be a difference. The "double-dip" factor or even pure studio ignorance seem like likely culprits, but again - I don't know. I for one don't think this article would be improved by including wild speculation in the text. —Gabbe 16:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The only reason I can think of is that because Blu-ray is still new, the studios don't want to spend too much time, money and effort into a format that could fail. Right now they're just testing the waters. They did the same with DVD back in the '90s. We were promised a new format which could do amazing things. A dvd will carry hours of extra features, multiple versions of a movie on one disc, multiple angles, etc. But when the first DVD releases came out, what did we get? Nada. Just the movie and a theatrical trailer. None of the cool stuff we were promised. But eventually when studios saw that DVD was catching on and they started releasing "special editions" with multiple discs and tons of extras for every movie, old and new. So, hopefully as Blu-ray becomes more successful we'll start seeing studios releasing some amazing content on Blu-ray discs. --AtomicAge 22:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"Physical format"

Do you not think that the "Physical format" section should describe something abou the physical fornmat of the disc? Such as, say, its diameter? Daniel Barlow 09:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course it should, which is why it does. "The blue-violet laser's shorter wavelength makes it possible to store more information on a 12 cm CD/DVD sized disc." --Kamasutra 10:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

DRM section misleading

The DRM section states: "The lack of a dynamic encryption model is what has made DeCSS a disaster from the industry's perspective: once CSS was cracked, all DVDs from then on were open to unauthorized decryption (commonly known as "ripping")."

Unless I am misstaken the word "rip" in the context of DVD:s specifically refers to *copying* the data off the disk. An extremely important point to make in regards to CSS and similar DRM is that they prevent unauthorized decryption *FOR ANY PURPOSE*, including *WATCHING* the content. I would like to update this paragraph to reflect the fact that CSS (and the proposed DRM for Blue-Ray) hinders playback on unauthorized devices (or with unauthorized software).

Opinions?

User:scode

The DRM business is so tangled with legal, cryptographic engineering, ordinary implementational engineering, end user issues, economics, and the delusion/confusion of the lawyers who seem to be driving this stuff, leading to partial required crippling of hardware, an army of letters going out to end users who don't do what the holders (and their lawyers) want (even if explicitly legal by statute ....), as to defy any simple (or non-controversial) account. I think this sort of stuff needs to be the article, as it will be an important saspect of BD use in practice. But see Talk at digital rights management for the tangled web which is thereby woven. I've stayed mostly away from attempting to cover this here simply because I'm a coward. Can't be involved in too many controversies...
But I wish you luck and encourage you to have at it. Be bold, as were the troopers of the Light Brigade. ww 19:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
That is the sad truth. And because of that I don't understand why you guys call it "Digital Right Managemant". Like ww already said, the only thing what DRM does in the case of Blu-ray (and the most other cases too) is taking away as much rights as possible from us. So is it really our "rights" which becomes managed there or rather the restrictions which they want enforce upon us? So if nobody complains I will rename this title to "Digital Restriction Management". --Wall unit 08:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I'll complain, since it's an incontrovertible fact that DRM stands for "Digital Rights Management" and "Digital Restrictions Management" is a tongue-in-cheek criticism. Replacing the first with the second is pure POV-pushing, and, no, I don't care if you're on the good guys' side. Readers can read objective information and decide for themselves whether they are enthusiastic about DRM (most are not).
One of the things that's always bothered me about wikipedia is that some of us are out to document information while others are out to defend their worldview (most of us probably wear both hats from time to time). And the reader can't always tell which type wrote the article in front of them. Snacky 01:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
There's considerable discussion on this very point at digital rights management talk page. Rather than rehashing it here, consult that long and exhaustive discussion. ww 10:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I happen to be involved with DRM and I can tell you that fellow engineers refer to it as Digital Restrictions Management. I don't know who decides what acronyms stand for but in the industry thats what we say. Maybe it wasn't intended to be called that but it is. I think I have a text book that sights it.

1080p60 (?)

I have a question....

Is Blu-Ray disc capable of displaying 1080p resolution movies at 60 frames a second, or just 30 frames a second?

I know that digital broadcast and cable/satellite can only broadcast 1080p30, (which is only 12% better resolution than 720p60 :P ), because of bandwidth limitations of approximately 19Mbps. There is, however, no such limit on rate transfer on Blu-Ray disc; it might, however, be unable to store an entire 1080p60 feature-film on its 25GB of space.

Does anybody familiar with the specs know if 1080p60 is possible on Blu-Ray, and if-and-when we could see films released at that resolution on Blu-Ray disc? Pine 15:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This is actually a pretty good question, and a big part of the problem here is how everyone is so sloppy with terms like "1080p". In an ideal world, everybody'd say "1080p24" when that's what they mean...
Anyway, the short answer to your question is, no. "1080p" here actually means ONLY 1080p24 (and the NTSC-friendly 24000/1001 fps). Other allowed resolution/framerate combos include 1080i60 (actually 60000/1001) and 1080i50.
See this whitepaper for more details. I suppose you could also find this in the official spec, but I know of no (legal) way to get that for free.
And now, some answers to questions you didn't really ask, but which are raised by the words you wrote.
In ATSC (and most satellite that I've had a chance to analyze), 1080p30 isn't used anywhere I'm aware of; it's always coded as 1080i60 in NTSC-land. But repeat-field flags are usually used to give content that's effectively 1080p24 or (much less common) 1080p30. This is known as soft telecine. Bandwidth isn't really the issue IMVHO, and whether 1080i60 looks better than 720p60 depends on both the type of content, and the type of display being used - one isn't clearly always better than the other.
Max bitrate for Blu-ray is 40mbps, so, not unlimited as you suggested.
The above info, and some of the info in that PDF I linked to, should probably be included in this article by someone...Snacky 15:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


Wow, that really is eye opening! So, in essence, digital broadcast and cable/satellite usually only broadcast what an end-user would experience as 1080p24, and only occassionally what said EU would experience as 1080p30.

As for Blu-ray Disc's bitrate of 40Mbps, it is slightly more than double the bitrate of what ATSC defines as one "high definition" channel, (19.9 Mbps).

Does that mean that Blu-ray Disc has the ability to display 1080p60, (though not necessarily store a feature-length sample of it), or is there something else that I'm failing to take into account? Pine 14:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

As Snacky already explained, Blu-ray does not support 1080p60. 720p60 is supported, though. Could they conceivably have chosen to implement 1080p60 given the bitrate and storage constraints? Yes. They chose not to. Mirror Vax 14:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
most films use motion blurs so 30 frames a second isn't a big deal. with video games, it obviously is, so sony's ps3 claims to be capable of displaying this (supposing the rsx and cell can keep up with whatever code, inefficient or unrealistically demanding, it is given). --gatoatigrado 05:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

infobox

I've made an infobox for media at {{infobox media}}. I don't know enough about Blue-ray to apply it here. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 14:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

go ahead and use it. --gatoatigrado 05:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

casing

i remember when blu ray was first shown it was easily scratched and was in a plastic case (like UMDs) should someone show that picture? i think its kinda interesting

New title with new encoding

Fox and Warner reported they will be releasing titles encoded with VC1, AVC and one in BD-50. http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Disc_Announcements/Warner/Warner_to_Release_Record_Ten_High-Def_Titles_on_Sept_26/205 http://www.highdefdigest.com/pressrelease_foxbluraylaunch.html

Entry length

What value does publishing all 170 companies have? The majority of them don't even have valid Wikilinks. It's just wasted space and is visually unpleasing. I vote to reduce the list to the board of directors. --Navstar 20:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - it's stupid, pointless, and not really informative. Snacky 22:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
right, integrate with the existing corporate lists also. and perhaps we can remove the date-based format; it's quite long-winded and boring. --gatoatigrado 05:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Navstar! It looks nicer now. Good idea just putting in the companies that make up the board of directors. Snacky 02:49, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

NP! But this entry is still a Death Star of text. There's no reason for it to be this drawn out. --Navstar 04:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Still a Death Star, but the list of supporting content producers is useful, if not necessarily here. maybe in a list of Blu-ray producers? Shouldn't be just tossed. This is controversial stuff, and WP should cover it. ww 05:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Blu Ray troubles with PS3

Ok i may not know much about algorithms and stuff like that but what i do know is this thansk to Blu-ray next gen consoles like the PS3 will have larger games, better graphics and brillient frame rates even if Sony have had a few troubles with The PS3 not being able to read the discs, but knowing how long its been in production im sure it will have been conquered by now


POV

I removed the comment "Sony has released a double sided disk which will end the hi-def war yadda yadda". This is not impartial nor are we remotely close to finding out which format will "win". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.140.102.238 (talk • contribs) .

What The Shit?

WTF How are we supposed to traffic these blu-ray discs through warez? 50GB that is some bs lol :D Who will make the first .BD-R Release? nobody knows :D

lol it's drm encrypted anyway. --gatoatigrado 03:24, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
yeah, that's right, the Blu-ray DRM will be the first copy-protection technology in all of history not to be broken/decrypted/hacked/mod-chipped repeatedly by end users -- Sony has somehow found the Holy Grail of DRM. Gimme a break. I've read how it works but I didn't even need to read how it works: there is NO SUCH THING as a DRM system which is immune to expoitation by pirates because such a system is mathematically impossible -- for exactly the same reason that there will never be an unbreakable encryption formula, there will never be an unpirated video format. Full-stop. Five years from now Blu-ray bootlegs will be almost as common as DVD rips are today.

1.33:1 Blu-ray Discs

I believe that there would be no 1.33:1 (full screen) Blu-ray discs of films originally represented in widescreen, because HDTVs are usually 1.78:1. There will probably be no open-matte Blu-ray versions of soft matte films. The Blu-ray releases of soft matte films will most likely be closed matte. The Blu-ray releases of Super 35 would probably be released as they were presented in widescreen. Decimus Tedius Regio Zanarukando 22:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Ever hear of pillarboxing?
4:3 (1.33:1) is full-screen? Why do I get black borders down the sides of my TV when I watch 4:3 sources then? :-P
(Just kidding about, but I've always disliked the misnomer "full screen", especially seeing as virtually all TVs sold since the late 90s have been 16:9 and you'd be hard pressed to find a square screen still operational) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.86.138.193 (talk) 11:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC).
I disagree heavily. I personally own two 4:3 TVs are in full working order, and used on a daily basis. 24.205.34.217 00:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Compatibility

I think that Blu-ray burners could catch on if it was compatible with something usefull. Maybe if Norton Ghost was compatible - then people could really use these high capacity, rugged R/Rw disks and burners. For people in IT, this could cut costs of full system backups, and (inherent of compact disks) not break if dropped or temporarily exposed to moisture.


banana

It's always the way... CD burners started becoming affordable for the home user when a typical hard-drive was a few GB at most. You could back up everything onto one or two CDs, excellent. DVD burners were the same, now BD burners are following suit. 50GB discs to back up a couple of hundred GBs of hard-drive.

reference list wrongly formatted

The two column arrangement in this section is nice, but some text is failing to wrap at the right end of the left column. Someone who understands markup here ought to take a look. Filing that, we should go back to a single column scheme. ww 05:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC)


Blu-ray = beta max

should some of the compairisons between the two be mentioned? Shinigami Josh 03:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Unlike BetaMax, Blu-Ray has a lot of support from hundreds of companies, so no. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.96.231.117 (talk) 03:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC).

Blu-Ray's history?

why is sony making it seem like Blu-Ray is a new technology? Is it a market tactic to sell more players, because they fear that if people find out that blu-ray is really over 10 years old, they will see it at a failing technology for it now finally getting big?--Indiearmy 05:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Protection?

Vandalism to this page is getting out of hand. Should we protect it?--WW79 20:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

International releases

There doesn't seem to be any information on when Blu-ray will be released in Europe and the rest of the world, would be nice to know.--Yuri Elite

cyclic redundancy?

Isn't the info on the Laser and optics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray#Laser_and_optics) already discussed in the overview? Basicly the same information making it somewhat redundant? I think that it should be either reviewed, expanded or just deleted maybe...

The information as seen in the overview:

A Blu-ray Disc can store substantially more data than the common DVD format, because of the shorter wavelength (405 nm) of the blue-violet laser (DVDs use a 650-nm-wavelength red laser and CDs use an infrared 780 nm laser), which allows more information to be stored digitally in the same amount of space.

The information as seen in the Laser and optics topic:

The Blu-ray Disc system uses a blue-violet laser operating at a wavelength of 405 nm, similar to the one used for HD DVD, to read and write data. Conventional DVDs and CDs use red and infrared lasers at 650 nm and 780 nm respectively.

P.S. If the title seemed misleading, I was just trying to be funny... sorry.

Quad layer discs in the spec?

I haven't been able to find a good summary of the spec, but somewhere out there is a specification of what a Blu-ray disc is, because the engineers designing a player must know exactly what it is supposed to be able to read. Can someone verify that quad-layer discs are part of that spec? If not, then the mention of such discs should be removed from the article, because they're not Blu-ray discs. These phrases like "up to 200 GB" are meaningless. Even a CD-ROM could have 200 GB capacity, if you allow its structure to deviate from the CD spec. Spiel496 19:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

While I'm fairly certain 100 GB and 200 GB discs are not part of the first specification, it's a known fact (and sourced here in the article) that engineers have developed (or are developing) quad and octo layer discs. In other words, it's very likely these 4 and 8 layer discs will become part of a future specification (though they won't be backwards compatible). —Locke Cole • t • c 05:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. I'm more convinced than ever that 4- and 6-layer discs are research topics, and they don't belong on a page describing a current standard format. I understand that it sounds like a minor tweak -- just add more layers -- but there are two important points to make. One, it's very possible that 4-layer discs will never be mass-produced. Two, if they are released at some future date, they will be called something different (let's pray it's not "Blu+ray"). If it doesn't play on a Blu-ray player, it's not a Blu-ray disc. Spiel496 06:29, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
No, I am fully aware that 4 and 6-layer (for some reason I thought they were using 8 layers) discs are not "minor tweaks". They'll likely never work in existing playback devices, and read-only software releases are highly unlikely (except, perhaps, for computer use). The issue I see is that the article is blurring the lines between what is out now (and what is part of the specifications used to create playback and recording devices out right now), and what is possible at some later date as an upgrade or expanded format. I would be happy with seeing references to 100 GB and 200 GB media being moved into some "Future Directions" section (obviously the name needs), or with disclaimers being added that such high capacity formats are unlikely to be backwards compatible. But simply removing them, is IMO, unacceptable. There are sources provided for the statements, and I can't see how a whole article on 100-200 GB Blu-ray media would be anything more than a stub. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I like that idea. Moving the new research to a separate, forward-looking section would solve the confusion, without having to cut out the content. Spiel496 03:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)