I am re-posting Alex's insider scoop here in the interest of keeping alive this very interesting (yet jargon filled) post about current Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) status/decisions. It might get deleted on its original site. :cunning:
Link to original post.Alex Millians said:Made-up things from the 9th BDA Japan Seminar, 9/14/07...
BD-ROM Part 3 goes from 2.0 to 2.1: answers 12 "issues" such as adding support for 3 consecutive B frames in VC-1 when EPS is <= 1s, defining a new HAVi config for mixing full screen SD with HD planes for subs and graphics (i.e., a mechanism to turn non-HD PiP into fullscreen w/o messing up the planar model), and--in surely the most amazing thing ever done with the number 16 this side of "5 Lusty Lasses Take on the Offensive Starting Lineup of The Denver Broncos"--changing the angle jump restriction from 40k/8k to 640k/128k.
TSG gave an update on ISP (Initial Standard Profile, which is now the official name for Profile 1.0, AKA Grace Period Players) test tools...BDROM-GEM200 is the 2nd issued test disc for GEM conformance...BDROM-JTD200 cover BD-J graphics, UI, sys int and performance testing.
Ditto for FSP and Profile 2 (BD-Live) test discs...the BDROM-STD500N disc covers 60Hz PiP and Secondary Audio testing, blah blah blah. The tidbit to take home is that the test disc for BD-Live, the BDROM-JTD500, which covers BD-J network applications, isn't going to be available until December at the earliest. Hard to certify and release what you can't yet test. Tick, tock.
The VSG has asked the BDA BoD--or whatever they are calling themselves these days--to perform a "market audit" to test for player compatibility with the specs as well as to review the coverage and reliability of the Blu-ray verification testing performed to date...the audit will consist of 9 players from 7 CEs, randomly run through the 8 various TCs, with everything kept anonymous. Don't ask, don't tell.
Someone forgot to tell the Japan arm of the GPC that Paramount was no longer onboard...they were still shown in the credits and they still had Tom Cruise from MI plastered in the graphics.
The Blu-ray Disc License Entity is now the softer, more cuddly BDA License Office.
The GPC had a slide showing "major IT companies supporting BD"...they had the HP logo in the #1 spot, the Dell logo in the #2 spot, the Lenovo logo in the #4 spot...and a big question mark in the #3 spot, where one would expect the Apple logo. I think it's safe to say it was an oversight, and we shouldn't read too much into this.
OMIGAWD! APPLE IS TOTALLY GOING HD DVD!
The GPC has inked a deal with GfK to get oodles of market share and sales data for Blu-ray and HD DVD...they even have a mockup of where the reports will go on the website. Hopefully faster than the TEG2 meeting notes.
GPC focus in the US: "Tactical efforts continue to focus on media outreach and support of key industry events, including 2nd tier press tier...(k)ey messaging continues to focus on undeniable industry support advantage, 2:1 movie share advantage, hardware share advantage, movie share advantage, hardware share resurgence with 2nd gen players, CEDIA announcements, PS3 price move." Who knew an advantage could resurge?
Also on tap for the GPC: tell PS3 owners the things can play movies. Er, "highlight PS3 movie-viewing functionality."
Hitachi went on and on about their new Blu-ray HD camcorders, only to sheepishly note that you can record 4 hours using the HDD in the BD/HDD hybrid DZ-BD7H vs. only 1 hour using a BD-R/E in the DZ-BD7H or the BD-only DZ-BD70...and with better battery life using the HDD recording option. Nice sell there, guys! Obviously the Hitachi guys have been certified in Anti-Marketing 101 by the HD DVD PRG.
Sony highlighted their new "realtime" BAE-VA700 AVC distributed encoder suite, which supports "approximate" realtime AVC encoding for 2 pass VBR 1080p24 content using 7 PC encoders (Dell PE1950 Quad Core Xeon 2.4GHzx2 w/ 4GB RAM) in Quality Mode. In Fast Mode, with 7 units, you get faster-than-realtime encoding, about 0.7x. In Fast Mode with 1 unit, you get the first release of The Fifth Element. As a reference, in Quality Mode, with 1 encoder, it's 6x; with 3 encoders, it's 3.5x. Why the need to get a BAE-VA700? The current trend of encoding "picture quality centric titles realize by high encoding bitrate" must eventually shift to encoding "high quality picture with lower bit rate" to support PiP, BD-Live download clips, etc., thus the need to focus on AVC, thus the need to buy a BAE-VA700. Pretty airtight logic. I'm getting one for XMAS. The BAE-VA700 supports an automatic deblocking filter and partial encoding for post 2nd pass manual tweaks. Still, if you're a total cheapskate, you can pickup the BAE-VM770 MPEG-2 HW Encoder board, but your friends will giggle behind your back. In realtime.
Warner Home Video presented a short deck covering "Expectations for Blu-ray Disc." I say short, because there was actually only one slide, and it was of one of those oversized novelty checks made payable to WHV. For the BDA's sake, it hope the amount due was in Yen.
Finally, there was a GfK presentation. Mostly in Japanese, but at one point, they compared adoption trends between DVD Players and Electric Toilet Sheats (I sheat you not), further comparing attach rates for discs vs. toilet paper. Fascinating stuff. Oh, and to depress everyone, as of July 2007, there were as many UMD titles actively for sale in Japan as there were BD and HD DVD combined. BD continues to stomp HD DVD in Japan, but total next gen disc sales for July 2007 were less than 20,000 units...less than 1,000 HD DVD disc sold through in July. For those bad at math, that means 19,000 BD discs sold through, or 19% more than HD DVD. A 1.9:1 advantage for BD, in other words.
Another GfK tidbit...of U.S consumers intending to purchase a "high definition video player," 33% said HD DVD, 16% said Blu-ray and a whopping 51% said they weren't sure, but they had to have one. Like *right* now. Presumably so they could sit it next to their analog cable box attached to their HDTV via composite. HD rocks!