DVD 2.0

[TheOsyris]

I start this here in the Xbox forums section because we are told over and over that we must accept Bluray as the superior gaming tool... I love Blurays as far as my movies go... They look beautifull. I dont appreciate that i was used in a format war and fell into buying PS3 early in its life span... Anyways... Here... lol.

PS. I believe they released the disks will hold 24GBs... We will know more and for sure soon i guess.. lawl.

This was quoted from a site and i dont have the link.. Just search DVD 2.0 if you want more info or proof.

"MICROSOFT unites TOSHIBA & PANASONIC to make DVD 2.0


Microsoft & Toshiba resurrection is comin' !

Last month, a working group WG-12 was made for "research and specifications of network applications as well as related networking formats DVD Forum specifications, recommendations for the DVD Forum and other associations for devices connected to the network."

In other words, Toshiba, Microsoft, and Panasonic have united together to create a format DVD 2.0, which will use part of HD functionality, already established for HD DVD. For example, it will support interactive Hdi interface will support Super Upconversionmode, which enable video output in the permits until 960p. Also promised advanced copy protection system and sure, the support of network functions.

And the most important. The new format DVD 2.0 will be compatible with conventional DVD drives! That is, we get HD video with slightly inferior quality Blu-ray, but the conventional DVD devices. All that is needed for a new video format - its updated firmware player and the opportunity to display high-resolution signal.

Ideally under these conditions suited Xbox 360. War is not over formats!"

 

[Chasym]

man, thats awesome. but...then i have to buy a new burner...and find out which dvd 2.0 discs work...bleh, more money.
but good for xbox !!!

 

[TheOsyris]

man, thats awesome. but...then i have to buy a new burner...and find out which dvd 2.0 discs work...bleh, more money.
but good for xbox !!!

Ya i would continue buying my movies on Bluray. There is no issue at all for me there other then the high prices at the moment... Fucking $29.99 for Predator... This could be sweet for 360 tho. Hell could this even be a bonus for the Wii?

 

[Chasym]

yeah i didnt think about the wii, its an awesome format idea, not true hd which i dont mind because i have yet to move up to the HD movie format. And actually, perhaps a dual layer burner would still work with dvd 2.0 since it will most likley be dual layered anyway, just with different layer breaks.

 

[Bajaratt]

That's awesome, not having to blow at least $400 on a player will be a massive boost to it's adoption. It might not make it off the ground with everyone going for blu-ray players for their HD movies, but for the 90% of the population who hasn't gone to HD movies, this will probably be the way to go.

Any news on the release date for these? If they don't get this out to market soon it'll never take off.

 

[Taurothar]

There's almost no reliable information out there yet. Searching for it turns up nothing in the top 20 on google that was directly related, and the first sources I found just referenced other forums, in a circle jerk fashion. From what I can tell, it's all about how Toshiba bought out the cell processor manufacturing investment from Sony, and are now using it against them in the video processing market. Using the Cell to upscale is genius, which is why it's part of the PS3.

This being said, it's not just a firmware update that is required to play these. HDMI output support is needed to get to the 1080p resolution. Great news for the XBOX. The downside is that it's still not as good as a blu-ray or even an hd-dvd when it comes to full quality. DVD 2.0 would be a nice way to profit off of the late adopters, but the price on Blu-Ray players is expected to drop steadily over the next few years as profitability is increased from the manufacturing processes. It seems like it's a waste on Toshiba's part to really keep fighting the blu-ray format when it's clearly more powerful than anything that's available.

 

[Tymon]

I like the idea, especially that it would work on all existing Xbox 360 consoles.

The underlying problem would be, how long will it take for this to come out? Console generations don't last forever, I would think the 360 will be replaced in 2-3 years, and if they can't finish this and churn out games en masse by then, it's a wasted effort.

 

[TheOsyris]

There's almost no reliable information out there yet. Searching for it turns up nothing in the top 20 on google that was directly related, and the first sources I found just referenced other forums, in a circle jerk fashion. From what I can tell, it's all about how Toshiba bought out the cell processor manufacturing investment from Sony, and are now using it against them in the video processing market. Using the Cell to upscale is genius, which is why it's part of the PS3.

This being said, it's not just a firmware update that is required to play these. HDMI output support is needed to get to the 1080p resolution. Great news for the XBOX. The downside is that it's still not as good as a blu-ray or even an hd-dvd when it comes to full quality. DVD 2.0 would be a nice way to profit off of the late adopters, but the price on Blu-Ray players is expected to drop steadily over the next few years as profitability is increased from the manufacturing processes. It seems like it's a waste on Toshiba's part to really keep fighting the blu-ray format when it's clearly more powerful than anything that's available.

As i read this is to be released this year.

I dont think this is direct competition with Bluray. This is what the Wii has done in the gaming market. Accept lower tech and dominate the mass market.

HD and Bluray for sure is still a tiny blip on DVDs radar. Toshiba and MS intend to make dollars off current DVD only people, which there are a ton of still.

As i said, i like my Bluray movies so i dont give a damn about DVD2.0 for movies... Sadly i am a tech whore. I would think this could be very huge for 360 and Wii tho.

FF13 on one disk? lol... MGS4 one disk??? Dare i say it lmao...

I just never believed Bluray is needed this gen and will not change my opinion if things like this continue to pop up... By the time something like Bluray is needed in the gaming industry there will allready be a next version of these consoles.

 

[Bajaratt]

but the price on Blu-Ray players is expected to drop steadily over the next few years as profitability is increased from the manufacturing processes.

The price on the players hasn't dropped at all over the last year, and every major manufacturer has released a new version of their player, all at the same price of $4-600. It definitely will go down, but not very fast, especially since they no longer had to force price drops to compete with HD-DVD. Also, every non-sony analyst predicted that while it would go down, it wouldn't reach DVD player prices for a very long time, if ever.

You can buy an upconverting DVD player for $60, if all that's needed is a firmware update; blu-ray could be in trouble from the mass market, especially if the discs aren't over priced as well(lol $30 for a pre-upscaled 20-year old movie). Blu-ray wouldn't die from this, but getting 95% of the quality at a fraction of the price will put a serious dent in blu-ray's profits.

 

[Firestreak]

Call me cynical, but I expect a year from now people are going to have forgotten this ever happened. Do you really think there's going to be another high def format war? Are Xbox 360 games... or friggin Wii games actually going to be printed on these discs?

 

[Lanien]

People are still going to have to buy new players. Yes, it will be nice for the 360 and possibly the Wii that have the storage space to hold the firmware downloads. As far as I know, most DVD players aren't upgradable because they don't have storage capacity, so it is still going to be people buying an entirely new player. Might as well just stick to DVD at that point.

 

[TheOsyris]

Call me cynical, but I expect a year from now people are going to have forgotten this ever happened. Do you really think there's going to be another high def format war? Are Xbox 360 games... or friggin Wii games actually going to be printed on these discs?

Dont think they are going for another format war... They are using Nintendos strategy on gaming. A far lower technology but targeted at the mass market. I am sure they feel at some point, DVDs will be gone and are making profit off the time left... All i read is Bluray player sales have hit a brick wall, other then PS3s, so at this pace that could be years.

I have no idea if Wii could use this to their advantage.. But why wouldnt the 360, Fire? The Sony fanboys all cry their games can not be done on DVD, when we allready know it aint true.. Now there is potentially a 24GB DVD in the works...

Seems if this would happen it would be a great thing... We can only wait. And fuck, scrap the whole thing if devs are just going to give me BS loluncompressed audio in that new extra space...

 

[Firestreak]

I'm not saying on a technical point of view, the 360 couldn't use the extra space. By all means, I'm one of the few who have been saying more storage = good, after Microsoft PR has somehow gotten us all to deny that fact. I'm just saying, I don't expect 360 games to actually wind up using this. You have to consider the expense of bringing this to mass market as opposed to the theoretical.

Whenever you add new layers, you add to the failure rate of producing discs. The longer the discs are used, the lower the failure rate gets. BD50s had this problem early last year, when they were just starting to be used for movies. It's expensive to create the lines to print new tech. And it's expensive to produce tech that's not used often. As these discs won't be used for movies(most, if not all of the studios aren't going to touch any format besides Blu-ray for high def), and the Xbox 360 has already been out about 3 years, there's not much justification for the cost.

People aren't going to be buying new burners to sell blank 24 gigs, high end PCs are already moving towards Blu-ray, which is and has been out. Studios won't be printing these on discs... neither in high def or longer length of standard... it's just really a dead end.

Not saying I wouldn't like 360 games on bigger discs... just saying I think you're getting excited over what nothing will come of.

Microsoft has always been about destroying Blu-ray so the PS3 loses value and discs fade to digital downloads. Toshiba has always been about destroying Blu-ray so that DVDs stay in use so that they continue getting royalties. Hell HD DVD was never designed to actually win, that should be obvious by now. This is just another attack on Blu-ray. but at this point all they have left is smoke to blow.

 

[Taurothar]

I'm gonna have to agree with Firestreak on almost all of his points. The only thing I'll say is that from what I can tell there isn't much of a change to manufacturing processes for the discs themselves, just to the player's firmware. That being said, I work in the Home Entertainment dept of my store, I have a good feel of the lower middle class community that I live in when it comes to buying trends. They don't like the idea of upgrading to upscaling dvd players as it is, because it's not enough of a jump ahead. Hearing about this tech versus hearing about blu-ray will have the same effect and leave them saying "why bother doing this now when I'll just have to upgrade to blu-ray in a few years anyway". Unless they can show significant reason to do it, ie 15 dollar dvds and 40 dollar players, people will be slow to care. I think the biggest irony of all of this is that the best DVD 2.0 players will be Blu-ray players as well, because most of them are the top dog in upscaling.

 

[Anglis]

I don't care lol.

 

[Bajaratt]

I'm gonna have to agree with Firestreak on almost all of his points. The only thing I'll say is that from what I can tell there isn't much of a change to manufacturing processes for the discs themselves, just to the player's firmware. That being said, I work in the Home Entertainment dept of my store, I have a good feel of the lower middle class community that I live in when it comes to buying trends. They don't like the idea of upgrading to upscaling dvd players as it is, because it's not enough of a jump ahead. Hearing about this tech versus hearing about blu-ray will have the same effect and leave them saying "why bother doing this now when I'll just have to upgrade to blu-ray in a few years anyway". Unless they can show significant reason to do it, ie 15 dollar dvds and 40 dollar players, people will be slow to care. I think the biggest irony of all of this is that the best DVD 2.0 players will be Blu-ray players as well, because most of them are the top dog in upscaling.

Apparently there's different trends in different areas, because where I work, we keep selling out of our upscaling players while blu-ray players move pretty slowly. The price tag is the biggest stumbling block of the blu-ray players right now, and most consumers are buying an upscaling player to wait for the few years it'll take blu-rays to get down to a reasonable level. Especially in the lower middle class buying block, where they're not going to spend thousands on a home theater setup, they're not going to shell out $400 just for a player, and another few hundred on some movies. With this, all you'd need is a $60 upscaling player and you'd have more than enough bandwidth to play these new DVD 2.0's.

I see this as a really cheap and effective way to introduce the masses to high definition movies. It's not going to replace blu-ray, especially when there's already 15 million players out there, but it would start moving people to high definition, and they'd be more willing to get a blu-ray player later on. It'll be especially popular for the 98% of people without a blu-ray player, they can buy these movies and use them on their current DVD player; even without buying an upscaling player, and then they can upgrade their player later on. It'd be a great hook into getting more people into high definition.

 

[Tagrineth]

Call me cynical, but I expect a year from now people are going to have forgotten this ever happened. Do you really think there's going to be another high def format war? Are Xbox 360 games... or friggin Wii games actually going to be printed on these discs?

What would be bad about 360 or Wii games being published on these larger capacity discs?

That sounds awfully hypocritical coming from you, Fire.

I can see your point about the format stuff (though I agree wholeheartedly with Baj about that, it really does sound like it's intended as a stopgap entry-level solution) but for game consoles? You know the updates can be included on the discs so the user won't even need internet access to run the discs right? well.. at least, on the Wii. Not 100% on the 360 being able to update the OS from a disc but I think it can.

 

[Firestreak]

I'm sure the consoles will update fine, I just don't think people will develop the infrastructure to print the discs. It's too late in the generation I'm afraid. I'm not saying I wouldn't like it to happen, I'm just saying I don't think it will.

And no, they aren't going to be printing movies on these DVD 2.0 discs. No way, no how. The idea is ridiculous. From a studio's perspective, these are different formats. The point of the upscaling players is that they have the huge DVD catalog of content to upscale, and the prices of DVDs are low. If you want to create special DVDs to take advantage of special DVD players that won't run on regular DVD players... all you have is a shitty, cheap version of blu-ray with no studio support and the backing of Toshiba and Microsoft, who most likely don't give a shit about the format in the first place except to piss off Sony.

Are the studios going to invest in a new MS/Toshiba High Def DVD format? Are the retailers going to sell this new format... and introduce the added confusion of it being technically DVD so customers won't understand the difference?

 

[TheOsyris]

I'm sure the consoles will update fine, I just don't think people will develop the infrastructure to print the discs. It's too late in the generation I'm afraid. I'm not saying I wouldn't like it to happen, I'm just saying I don't think it will.

And no, they aren't going to be printing movies on these DVD 2.0 discs. No way, no how. The idea is ridiculous. From a studio's perspective, these are different formats. The point of the upscaling players is that they have the huge DVD catalog of content to upscale, and the prices of DVDs are low. If you want to create special DVDs to take advantage of special DVD players that won't run on regular DVD players... all you have is a shitty, cheap version of blu-ray with no studio support and the backing of Toshiba and Microsoft, who most likely don't give a shit about the format in the first place except to piss off Sony.

Are the studios going to invest in a new MS/Toshiba High Def DVD format? Are the retailers going to sell this new format... and introduce the added confusion of it being technically DVD so customers won't understand the difference?

You look at it as a new format... They want it looked at as the new DVD. I am going with them Fire...

 

[Firestreak]

It's the same technology, but it's not the same format in that existing players can't use it. The basis of calling it the same format is that the idea that there's a uniform "format" that is functional for everyone, so when you say, "there are 200 milion DVD players out there" that means there are 200 million players can can read what's widely considered a DVD.

Now not all DVD players will read all DVDs. You have DVD Rs, RWs, ext and the older ones won't read those. However, all will read the format that studios produce content for, hence when they produce this disc, they can tap into the millions of players out there. Some are older players, might not even play all the features on the discs. Some will upscale, some won't. But they'll all access the main content that has been created with the base specs in mind.

If I want to sell DVD 2.0s, I need people with DVD 2.0 players. That means I have to start over again and expand the userbase to the point where it might become self sufficient and then profitable. The fact that it's still DVD only hurts it, by adding confusion that the retailers do not want after DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray.

So what's their move...? Unlike HD DVD, they can't do a double sided disc with one half regular DVD compatible, since they're already using all the layers on their HD content. This means they can't replace DVD. Describe for me a plan to get these things to mass market? Try and get everyone to replace their DVD players with DVD 2.0, and tell them it's not a new format cause you don't see it that way? I don't get it, really. You could make new upscaling players all 2.0 compatible, but only Toshiba and Panasonic put it in theirs. Then how many of those owners would even know they had a DVD 2.0 player? How many would see DVD 2.0s and not know they don't play on their regular DVD players? It would be a total clusterfuck.

Worst of all, the high def market is polarized. You have a very small market here when we're talking about people who...

1) Have high def TVs.
2) Don't have a blu-ray player.
3) Want something better than upscaling.

People at this point either have a blu-ray, are waiting to get a blu-ray soon, or are happy with upscaling. You need to attack the people who aren't happy with upscaling... but blu-ray is too much for them. In other words, the HD DVD crowd. These guys mostly moved on already to blu-ray.

Xbox 360 CAN use it, although Xbox 360 users without internet access to update won't be able to. (You can't put the update on the disc... as the Xbox 360 won't be able to read it...) So it's possible. As a movie format, thoroughly impossible.