lynux3
01-10-2006, 13:01
This is the opinoin of someone who attended CES.
Wow, this thread goes too fast, so I couldn't follow all posts in two days. I just hope this is still "news", which aren't put here...
- Toshiba's HD DVD player failed again during its press conference, according to a Japanese news. iHD demonstration on a Media Center PC was showed instead of Toshiba's player. HD DVD camp gave away HD DVD/DVD hybrid discs to guests. All demo video are encoded as 12Mbps VC-1.
- Mass production of HD DVD hybrid disc is said to be ready already, however, in the press conference, failed to playback hybrid disc somehow.
- Toshiba's HD-A1 was a completely mockup. See following picture. Doesn't it supposed to be shipped on coming March?
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20060105/112031/toshiba_conf04.JPG
- Configuration of Toshiba's HD-AX1 and HD-A1 are different, those utilizes different decoder, and different OS. This is just my guesstimation, AX1 is the only one (sort of) working model right now, using Intel Pentium CPU and SoC, based on Windows Embedded(CE). A1 is just a mockup now, is still under development stage, utilizes Broadcom SoC and Linux.
- HD-XA1 does not support Managed Copy, since compliance rule for Managed Copy in AACS has not been decided yet. It is expected to be upgraded to support MC later.
- Impression of the reporter attended in the HD DVD press conference was - even though studio execs from WHV, Paramount were there, there was no studio pushing HD DVD strongly at there, in the result, Microsoft and Intel's support attracted more attention.
- First HD DVD titles released by first half of 2006 will not have region code, therefore those will be region free, however, there are many studios wanting region coding, they keep discussion about region coding at the working group newly established in the DVD Forum.
- Toshiba HD DVD player utilizes Nichia's blue LD, instead of Toshiba's. Hmm.
- According to the NEC drive person, their HD DVD drive is inside of Toshiba's HD DVD player. Isn't TSST making HH HD DVD drive for Toshiba, even I saw mockup of it?. Now I understand why "Toshiba HD DVD player utilizes Nichia's blue LD".
Following are my impression at CES.
Picture quality
I visited BD/HD DVD related booths. This is purely my opinion, but Panasonic seems the king of picture quality of next gen disc demonstration at CES.
All BDA companies except Panasonic seem to demonstrate MPEG2, Panasonic demoed H.264 video playback for trailers (VBR 16Mbps) and BD-J interactive demo (also VBR 16Mbps). I simply couldn't find any compression artifact even on the 65" Full HD plasma, from the distance of 30cm to the panel. On the other hand, other companies demo clip shows artifacts and blocky, especially Sharp's one is terribly bad. Sony's MPEG2 (VBR 20Mbps) looks better than others, but is still behind to Panasonic.
In Toshiba booth, there are movie trailers playback demo and iHD demo. The guy explained to me that iHD one (60i video) is H.264 18Mbps and movie trailers (24p video) is H.264 15Mbps. I found compression artifacts, mosquito noises and block noises at fade up/down. Film grains are not smooth, those look like MPEG2 encoded clips.
At Microsoft booth, there is of course iHD demo, using Borne Supermercy. The guy at booth said it is VC-1 encoded 720p video, but I must say, I didn't see block noises, however, it's tooo soft and no details at all. I can't understand why they are showing such low PQ. Do they just want to appeal iHD functionality?
Fuctionality (iHD vs BD-J)
Microsoft iHD demo looks cool, a menu is poped-up on during movie playback, each buttons on the menu slightly moving, gets enlarged when selected. The demo has director's commentary video on top of the movie (PiP), even showing subtitles with actor's face(!) for hearing disability person. Nice idea. Thumbs down are ... it crashed often, at least 3 times when I watched the demo, and the other thumb down is, the guy kept slamming BD, saying "BD are all MPEG2, there is no advanced codec", "no highly interactive functionality, no BD-J running", something like that. I checked the name on the badge of that guy, of course, it's not Amir
Toshiba's iHD demo looks poor compared to the Microsoft's one. I thought last CES demo at Toshiba looked better, at least they demoed game on the player.
At Panasonic booth, there are two BD-J demos running on the prototype CE players. One is "I,Robot" and the other is "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". The latter one looks very nice, even better than Microsoft's iHD demo. It's moving dynamically and very smooth, it also has shooting game, that you can choose your weapon from rifle, machine gun, smash, bat attack(!)
Anyway, it looks like that at least Panasonic has BD-J running on CE box, very good (maybe best) H.264 encoder and authoring tool for BD-ROM.
This guy is from the AVSForums
Wow, this thread goes too fast, so I couldn't follow all posts in two days. I just hope this is still "news", which aren't put here...
- Toshiba's HD DVD player failed again during its press conference, according to a Japanese news. iHD demonstration on a Media Center PC was showed instead of Toshiba's player. HD DVD camp gave away HD DVD/DVD hybrid discs to guests. All demo video are encoded as 12Mbps VC-1.
- Mass production of HD DVD hybrid disc is said to be ready already, however, in the press conference, failed to playback hybrid disc somehow.
- Toshiba's HD-A1 was a completely mockup. See following picture. Doesn't it supposed to be shipped on coming March?
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20060105/112031/toshiba_conf04.JPG
- Configuration of Toshiba's HD-AX1 and HD-A1 are different, those utilizes different decoder, and different OS. This is just my guesstimation, AX1 is the only one (sort of) working model right now, using Intel Pentium CPU and SoC, based on Windows Embedded(CE). A1 is just a mockup now, is still under development stage, utilizes Broadcom SoC and Linux.
- HD-XA1 does not support Managed Copy, since compliance rule for Managed Copy in AACS has not been decided yet. It is expected to be upgraded to support MC later.
- Impression of the reporter attended in the HD DVD press conference was - even though studio execs from WHV, Paramount were there, there was no studio pushing HD DVD strongly at there, in the result, Microsoft and Intel's support attracted more attention.
- First HD DVD titles released by first half of 2006 will not have region code, therefore those will be region free, however, there are many studios wanting region coding, they keep discussion about region coding at the working group newly established in the DVD Forum.
- Toshiba HD DVD player utilizes Nichia's blue LD, instead of Toshiba's. Hmm.
- According to the NEC drive person, their HD DVD drive is inside of Toshiba's HD DVD player. Isn't TSST making HH HD DVD drive for Toshiba, even I saw mockup of it?. Now I understand why "Toshiba HD DVD player utilizes Nichia's blue LD".
Following are my impression at CES.
Picture quality
I visited BD/HD DVD related booths. This is purely my opinion, but Panasonic seems the king of picture quality of next gen disc demonstration at CES.
All BDA companies except Panasonic seem to demonstrate MPEG2, Panasonic demoed H.264 video playback for trailers (VBR 16Mbps) and BD-J interactive demo (also VBR 16Mbps). I simply couldn't find any compression artifact even on the 65" Full HD plasma, from the distance of 30cm to the panel. On the other hand, other companies demo clip shows artifacts and blocky, especially Sharp's one is terribly bad. Sony's MPEG2 (VBR 20Mbps) looks better than others, but is still behind to Panasonic.
In Toshiba booth, there are movie trailers playback demo and iHD demo. The guy explained to me that iHD one (60i video) is H.264 18Mbps and movie trailers (24p video) is H.264 15Mbps. I found compression artifacts, mosquito noises and block noises at fade up/down. Film grains are not smooth, those look like MPEG2 encoded clips.
At Microsoft booth, there is of course iHD demo, using Borne Supermercy. The guy at booth said it is VC-1 encoded 720p video, but I must say, I didn't see block noises, however, it's tooo soft and no details at all. I can't understand why they are showing such low PQ. Do they just want to appeal iHD functionality?
Fuctionality (iHD vs BD-J)
Microsoft iHD demo looks cool, a menu is poped-up on during movie playback, each buttons on the menu slightly moving, gets enlarged when selected. The demo has director's commentary video on top of the movie (PiP), even showing subtitles with actor's face(!) for hearing disability person. Nice idea. Thumbs down are ... it crashed often, at least 3 times when I watched the demo, and the other thumb down is, the guy kept slamming BD, saying "BD are all MPEG2, there is no advanced codec", "no highly interactive functionality, no BD-J running", something like that. I checked the name on the badge of that guy, of course, it's not Amir
Toshiba's iHD demo looks poor compared to the Microsoft's one. I thought last CES demo at Toshiba looked better, at least they demoed game on the player.
At Panasonic booth, there are two BD-J demos running on the prototype CE players. One is "I,Robot" and the other is "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". The latter one looks very nice, even better than Microsoft's iHD demo. It's moving dynamically and very smooth, it also has shooting game, that you can choose your weapon from rifle, machine gun, smash, bat attack(!)
Anyway, it looks like that at least Panasonic has BD-J running on CE box, very good (maybe best) H.264 encoder and authoring tool for BD-ROM.
This guy is from the AVSForums