Dual format discs? Old news?

[SteveB]

I didn't know these were under consideration, just happened across this:

http://www.videobusiness.com/article...tml?q=total+hd

These would solve all debate/format wars.

[Tommy]

Brain child of Warner, the name they gave it is trueHD discs

The one side of the disc will be the HD DVD and the other side will be Blu-ray. These discs not only will not be a benefit to consumers but will cost more and give less then they do now!

Warner has already claimed large researching projects that show we will be willing to pay at least $5 more for these discs.... ya right

HD and BR are both nich products and its even a smaller minority out of that niche that own players from both formats (like myself) that would even be able to use both sides of these discs.

They autta stick to HD DVD combo discs where atleast the flip side can be played in anyones DVD player.

Blu-ray's biggest claim to fame is disc space with 50 gig discs yet over 70% of all discs released by Blu-ray have been on single sided 25 gig discs. So there average disc released is less then that of HD DVD

Warner has already claimed they will start with, and I'm willing to bet it will remain the majority of all releases single sided trueHD discs. That means 15g on the one side for HD and 25gig on the other side for BR. And guess what, since there only actually coding the movie once that means there doing it to the lowest denominater meaning both formats will now be under 15 gig in order to fit on these discs.

HD & BR are already struggling to fit the highest quality they can into 30-50 gig discs. Picture King Kong or Pirates with there great reviews for pq. Now picture them lowing the resolution to the point they can now fit that same movie onto a 15 gig disc, do you still think its gonna get great PQ?

And all this plus there gonna charge us extra for it

[bobgpsr]

Old news in that Warner announced TotalHD last January. Many of us doubt that they will be able to make the desired two layers each for Blu-ray on one side and HD DVD on the other. At least with HD DVD Combo or Twin Format discs they can get two layers for the blue laser HD DVD material. The Combo discs have no problem (other than some weren't cleaned well at the plant) with getting two layers each side for the DVD/HD DVD giving 9 GB for DVD and 30 GB for HD DVD. The single sided Twin Format discs likely will have to skip two layers for either the DVD or the HD DVD materiel. IMO, let them squeeze the DVD materiel into a single 4.5 GB layer with heavier compression.

[wbassett]

Tommy wrote:

HD & BR are already struggling to fit the highest quality they can into 30-50 gig discs. Picture King Kong or Pirates with there great reviews for pq. Now picture them lowing the resolution to the point they can now fit that same movie onto a 15 gig disc, do you still think its gonna get great PQ?

And all this plus there gonna charge us extra for it

All good points Tommy. I was sitting here thinking...

I don't have Pirates on BD yet. I like those movies but am not in love with them so they are a little lower on my list of movies to buy. Anyway, I do have the two disc SDVD sets of the first two movies and I recently put Dead Man's Chest in to check out the PS3's new upconverting capabilities. It looked absolutely incredible, and in all honesty better than The Lake House which is a Bluray disc.

So that got me thinking about the idea of a lower quality 'HD' disc... If the PQ looks better than the SDVD version, but not quite as good as the stand alone HD DVD or BD disc that is out now, unless the person has seen the better single disc high def version they are still going to be impressed.

I have run into this exact same thing with SDVDs and these new boxed movie sets, in fact there is a new set out right now that probably falls in this category- Die Hard. I have the original boxed set that is two discs per movie with a very good PQ. The new set is $18 for all three movies and just the movies. Now it's easy to assume it's the same PQ and basically the same disc as the movie from the original two disc set... could be for Die Hard, I can't say. I can tell you though that the recent box set of all three Mummy movies isn't quite as good PQ as the deluxe two disc set. Thing is, if I didn't happen to already have the better version already, I probably wouldn't have known... and that may be what Warner is thinking too. That doesn't mean it's right, but it could be something they tossed around.

Just a thought on things.

[Tommy]

There is something like 4 million blu-ray players and 300 thousand HD DVD players on the market. So out of those 300k HD owners, how many of them also own a Blu-ray player?

It would be a very small percentage of people that own players in both formats to even able to use both sides of the disc and why would they want to as long as one side works...Yet the content will be reduced, the quality will be lower and the price would be even higher for all consumers. The only person benifiting by this would be studios not the consumers.

But the sad part is that because they will be released and the consumer will not have a choice, HD & BR owners alike will buy them. Complain the whole time but buy them nonetheless... Sort of like me, I defintely like HD DVD more then Blu-ray yet I own and continue to buy BR discs rather then missing out on exclusive hi def titles...