Stop the format wars! This disc is both Blu-ray and HD DVD!

by Ross Miller on Jan 4th 2007 1:55PM

Warner Bros has announced it will unveil a videodisc next week, dubbed Total HD, that plays in both HD DVD and Blu-ray drives. We've known about this decision since September, when the studio filed a patent for such a disc. (Though the patent mentions embedded DVD, this news report doesn't.)

The ramifications of such a disc, if it's priced to compete, would render the format wars obsolete. If you're planning on buying a new-gen game console based on the HD disc it can play (and the PlayStation 3 is a bargain for a Blu-ray player), the adoption of Total HD discs would make the decision a tad easier (and more game-specific).

Will the disc have the goods? We'll find out the full details next week at the Consumer Electronics Show.

"But that plays on Blu-ray, you can't stick it in there."

"Watch me!"

"Oh ... Oh, my."

[Via Firing Squad]

Source

Tags: blu ray, BluRay, format wars, FormatWars, hd dvd, HdDvd, PS3, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (49)

Warner FTW. This format war chugs monkey wang. Hopefully this will help settle it.

sweet, i hope this disk works

Where? At CES? God I hope so, cause I am so going!

If this thing flies with no legalities involved, gaming becomes an even playing field again minus all this next gen Hi-Def format nonsense. I, for one, welcome it!

What this means is that both the HD-DVD and the Blu-Ray versions of the movies will be encoded at single-layer capacity. That's half the space, which means lower-quality video.

If I owned and HD player, I would avoid these discs like the plague. The problem is not whether the same disc can play back in both types of players, it is whether studios will step up to the plate to deliver content in both formats.

Wouldn't that be 50% capacity and 2x the royalties to pay?

Priced to compete is a HUGE "if".

Not only will the technology be expensive, but what about any licensing they will have to pay to Sony or Toshiba for their technology on their "Total HD" disk?

Remember....

The reason Sony came out with blu-ray in the first place was to try to become the next media standard. This new disk seems to fly in the face of that.

Does the disk have adaquete security control or is it easier to hack?

Does the surface of the disk have a coding like bluray to keep scratches from easily ruining the disk?

These points makes me wonder how much cooperation this new disk will get.

Even if this disk seems to be the answer the mass market has been waiting for....

If studios have proven anythin these last few years, it's that they don't really care very much what is good for the consumer....just their own pocket.

Looks expensive.

I just got my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive yesterday. It's pretty sweet so far. Kind of off-topic I know but I had to share the joy.

So does this mean that you could play a game disc with a 25gb capacity on the 360 HD DVD drive?
Or would the 360 only be able to read the HD-DVD settings and ignore the Blu-Ray?

If this cathces on, why not put Wii, PS3 and 360 on one disc?

Nice little format war we had going there, which I for one was enjoying.

Thank a lot guys.

My thinking is they would have to split movies onto two of these magic disks. The consumer would then have to eject disk 1 and put in disc 2. To make it easier they could put the blu ray version on disc 1 and hddvd on disc 2. To make it even easier and cheaper they could sell the blu-ray in a seprate package from the hddvd version.

Now THAT would be innovation!

This ISN'T going to stop the Format Wars. Do you think Sony would every release a movie on a Total HD disc instead of Blu-ray? Hybrid players are the answer. This is a good article on the subject:

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/16803.html

The combo version of Good Night and Good Luck (HD DVD and DVD) looks as good on the combo as in Blu-ray. My understanding is that a 30GB HD DVD can hold 8 hours of HD content. A single layer HD DVD could then hold 4 hours (more than enough for 95% of all movies). I think this is great news.

I'd prefer not to pay three royalties for every disc I buy. A dual format player makes much more economical sense, especially as the hardware prices come down.

Also, this might help push blu-ray into using the better VC-1 compression. Too bad some of the early blu-ray movies look so bad. I really wanted House of Flying daggers to look awesome (I hear there is a lot of macroblocking on that - shame for using MPEG2 Sony).

The HD-DVD/DVD combo format costs too much as it is. I can't imagine what this damn thing would cost. Also, as stated, Sony will not release any HD-DVDs and there are other companies that will also most likely stay on one side or the other. However, this will be good for the studios who are already releasing titles on both formats anyway.

This is going to be an extremely expensive disc, won't sell.

wouldn't it make more sense to develop a dual format player instead? having HD-DVD on layer side and Blu-Ray on the other layer is only another reason for movie studio to jack up prices because of "licensing".

@copa

People don't care much about the finer details. So long as it looks better than DVD to a certain degree, and cheap, price is very important, it will fly.

HD movies are alot smaller than the room available on both types of media. Seems silly that they're marketing storage space like its a factor. Even more silly that idiots think bluray is better because it has more room, but never stops to consider how that room is wasted on mpeg2 compression (a 10 year old technology) compared to mpeg4.

But early adopters are usually a bit more tech savvy, and this is why HD-DVD are outselling bluray 8 to 1.

Here's what makes the most sense. THERE SHOULD ONLY BE ONE HD FORMAT!!! DEATH TO BLU-RAY!!!

Neither this nor dual former players will resolve the format war. As previously mentioned, the combination of reduced capacity and doubled royalties per disc is not something that is going to be viewed positively by most studios. They'll generally just stick by the format they've already chosen or switch when their choice has plainly failed. Some may produce two SKUs, one for each format, on really major titles and see how it plays out.

Dual-format players are not a solution either, except for early adopters willing to pay extra for the functionality. Vendors will dislike paying for multiple playback licenses, as well as the added cost of the firmware capacity to handle both formats very different interactivity layers. The studios will still greatly prefer one format to rule them all and in the drkness bind them. The format war would still run to its conclusion with such players availability.

Think of it this way, Blu-ray is like a giant endless field of yellow flowers, all in HD. Everything else is like a tiny crop of 2 or 3 flowers. You would have to be an idiot to go for anything but Blu-ray.

sorry to say SAMFISH the 360's HD-DVD player dosen't play games. its just purely movies for the time.

To me it seems that a new format is hardly needed BDR or HD-DVD.

Looking at the Xbox 360 downloadable HD movies a 720p version of V for Vendetta is around 6gb which would fit on a standard DVD. Considering the majority of HD sets sold do 720p at best is going to a higher capacity format so soon even worthwhile when a very small amount of the HD population have "Full HD"?

granted, extra junk would have to fit on a second disc, however thats what happens currently in a lot of cases and nobody seems to care.

Am I the only one who is annoyed that there are 3 resolutions (720p/1080i/1080p) for HD?

I think the winner is DVD once again. I'm quite satisfied with my largen collection of very cheap bought DVDs.

Blu-ray and HD DVD will be nice but I'm very much thinking that both formats won't sell as well as DVDs in the next years - also I believe that digital distribution or solid state memory (think SD-cards with 50+ GB storage capacity) will rule the market in 10 years.

#23 - How so? Please explain your interpretation in the comparison of Blu-Ray vs everything else?

"Am I the only one who is annoyed that there are 3 resolutions (720p/1080i/1080p) for HD?"

Why would I be annoyed?

Warner Bros are thinking backward. What I need is a PLAYER that plays both formats. This way my collection will not be limited to studios who support this new disc. And trust me, Sony is going to stick to their guns.

So there are dual format discs.. and there are dual format players on the horizon as well right? Doesn't this make the fact that sony chose to put blue ray in the ps3 even more stupid.. not only forcing people to pay for this expensive drive but, to push this needless format. I mean, there won't NEED to be a winner of the format war, so pushing their proprietary format is an insult.. isn't it?

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!

Well I think this might be nice better than a duel format player in ways. Blueray is so shallow(physically) on the disk they may actually still be able to keep the capasity quite high for both. And since the VC1 codec that is used for most HD-DVD's and has more compression that mpeg-2 is supportby Blu-Ray also they may be able to use the single licensing fee for VC1 on both formats on the disk.

As it stands now many Blu-Ray movies are encoded non efficiently using mpeg-2 compression. I personally feel this is why some single layer HD-HVD's have beat the same Blu-Ray versions in side by side reviews.

This disk doesn't render the format wars obsolete for a couple of reasons. First, these things are going to be ludicrously hard to make, and probably expensive by comparison too. Secondly, just like the dual / triple layer BD/DVD & HD/DVD discs they sacrifice the image quality because they have less space. It's a neat idea but the format war will only be won when either BD or HD-DVD scores the killer blow. My bet is that ultimately it will be BD - 1.5 million Blu-Ray players and counting, but the end is still away off.

""Am I the only one who is annoyed that there are 3 resolutions (720p/1080i/1080p) for HD?"

Why would I be annoyed?"

Because it splits the market and effectively castrates the highest resolution.

Ideally you would like to have the highest resolution available, but right now the only medias that use it are the PS3/Xbox 360 and thats limited, and BDR/HD-DVD. I dont know of any network that utilizes 1080p and typically most people use televisions for watching TV programming.

It seems unlikely that networks would adopt 1080p, because that would eliminate the vast majority of HDTV owners.

Meaning you are stuck spending more for a 1080p set and have very little to view on it, or you spend less on a 720p/1080i set which may be of little use if the higher resolution is adopted on a broad scale.

For the one who said Wii, 360, and PS3 all on one disk

1. Why the hell would we want to pay that much more for the same game?

2. That would not run on the different consoles, due to different read speeds for each one (12x, 9x, and 2x for 360, Wii, and PS3 if i remember correctly)

This would be Great for all of us Consumers because it looks like the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray War is in a Dead Heat.

If we end up with 2 winning Formats we would all lose out. This would Clear this whole Format War Mess up.

I for One have been Buying Blu-Ray since I have a PS3.
I also have a 360 but did not want to buy the Add-on Drive since I was getting the PS3.
I have been forever fearing that Star Wars would come out only on HD-DVD, or perhaps another Movie that I am interested in. If this Catches on we can Fear No More!

Stop The War! For the Good of the Consumer!

"If you're planning on buying a new-gen game console based on the HD disc it can play (and the PlayStation 3 is a bargain for a Blu-ray player), the adoption of Total HD discs would make the decision a tad easier (and more game-specific)."

Did anyone else catch the use of "new-gen"?

Seriously, anybody who spends over $30 on a DVD player is a tool.

think about how much a dual format burner would cost!

anyway, there's no way a dual-media format will fly. even though there are 2 formats on one disk, studios will still have to pay to encode in both formats. that cost would be the equivalent of creating 2 separate disks (a cost which most studios already refuse to pay).

@30 I would explain it myself, but this non-biased tech demo does a more accurate job than anything. Enjoy your pwnage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZUUyVFhB_I

@34

Oh, yes, because an ADVERTISMENT from Sony themselves glorifying their product is COMPLETELY unbiased whatsoever. Yes, show them a condescending ad, that'll support your views and beliefs!

You know, it's people like you that make me want to replace the word "fanboy" with "tool".

I really hope this is true and we can end this stupid format war. It's even dumber and less entertaining than the console war.

I say screw both formats and bring on the 300tb harddrives and fiber connections.

What happens if you put this dual format disk into a dual format player?

DUN DUN DUN!

(I'm assuming it promtly explodes.)

as long as it doesn't cost twice as much!

great idea though, keeps Toshiba and Sony from screwing the consumer!

Okay, hold on. I have fansubs of Ergo Proxy here at 720p that are 27 minutes long and the file size is 360MB. If you expand this to a two-hour long movie you get ~1.5GB.

Why do we even need a new disc format? The only reason DVDs are standard definition is they still use MPEG2! Why cant we just start using a better compression codec and call it DVD2? That seems like the cheapest way to go about this.

ugh.

@34 "I would explain it myself, but this non-biased tech demo does a more accurate job than anything. Enjoy your pwnage."

Please tell me that was sarcasm... >_>

32. "Seriously, anybody who spends over $30 on a DVD player is a tool."

That is so true.
It's not worth hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of dollars to see more minute detail in a movie you'll probably watch only once. My thirty dollar DVD player plays all the detail I need to see.
I'd pay 100 bucks for a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player. To me, it's not worth anything more.

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Stop the format wars! This disc is both Blu-ray and HD DVD!

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