Tag: high-definition Posts

I’ve been saving some money for that last little while, fully expecting to make two purchases in the not too distant future. One of the first items will be a full frame camera body. I was forced to make a purchase of the 40D last year simply because I didn’t trust my current camera enough to shoot a friend’s wedding, but truthfully really wanted to get a full-frame instead. Canon’s only affordable (at least to me) full frame is the Canon EOS 5D, but unfortunately it’s about 3 years old now and doesn’t have a lot of the new bells and whistles in it. Canon has been basically silent on the replacement for it for the last year or so, and I’m wondering if they no longer wish to provide a low-priced full frame going forward. Given that the 5D is around $2000 and that the next full frame is […]

I guess this makes complete sense, given what I know about physics. Blue lasers were actually extremely difficult to make, and they didn’t emerge until nearly a decade after red-lasers hit the market. Since the wavelength of light is inversely proportional to the energy of the photons, making blue light (which has a low wavelength) takes a lot of energy. In fact, most of the original blue lasers wouldn’t last very long because they basically burned themselves out. Also, as Hesty pointed out, the computation requirements for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are far greater than MPEG2. Slashdot is reporting that the first-generation of laptop Blu-Ray drives are all pretty good at demolishing your laptop battery. Currently you can expect to get about half-way through a movie before your laptop sputters and dies. I imagine this is something that will slowly improve with each iteration, but not a very promising first look […]

Toshiba just withdrew their support, which basically means it’s completely empty over in the HD-DVD camp right now. Remind me never to be an early adopter again. So, stay tuned for the HD-DVD burning party at a campground near Chilliwack.

Yes, I think it’s true. HD-DVD, my friends, is dead, or at least in the last of its death throes. Being an early adopter, I went out a few months ago and picked up a HD-DVD player, thinking that at the bare minimum both formats would exist for a year or more. It turns out my timing was rather poor. A few of the major studios moved from HD-DVD to BluRay last month, and the move was so dramatic that the HD-DVD guys cancelled their talks at the CES show in Vegas (which actually probably did the most harm to their effort). Reuter’s is reporting that HD-DVD is basically dead, and a leak from WalMart indicates that they are no longer planning to stock HD-DVD in the future. This is yet another example how corporate greed once again took precedence over consumer satisfaction. While nobody forced me to go out […]

This is an obvious play, but I’ve been waiting a long time for it to happen. Samsung has announced a new dual format (HD-DVD/Blue-Ray) DVD player, which basically means it will play everything on the market: Samsung’s HD disc player was going to be the first to do both HD DVD and Blu-ray completely right. But now, it’s perfect: Samsung just sent us an alert saying the dual-format BD-UP5000 Duo HD player will come hardware-ready for BD Profile 1.1—at least 256MB of internal storage, secondary audio and video decoders, virtual file system. You realize that the rest of the Blu-players this fall totally lack this, and it’s a wonder how Sony and everyone else can get away selling old spec Blu players while calling them new. This player ends that, and is the only one we recommend. At the risk of being hyperbolic, this player could be the beginning of […]

A while, I posted an article on my recent purchase of a Toshiba HD-A2 high-definition DVD player. Since that time, I have slowly been figuring out just what to do with it. After purchasing it, I sort of assumed that it would be easy to rent HD-DVD movies, but it’s actually still rather tough. Blockbuster recently announced an exclusive deal with Blue-Ray so that they would only carry Blue-Ray titles. And while a few people have said that it’s most likely the death-blow to HD-DVD, I disagree. For starters, the adult film industry has put its weight behind HD-DVD, which is my mind is a rather good industry to have in your corner. And Zip.ca, one of the larger online DVD rental companies, recently said this: “The format fight will only end when the two sides reach agreement, or when consumers have voted with their dollars,” he said. “As yet, […]

Today I went out for a nice walk, thinking I was going to get a few housewares for my place, and maybe pick up a new shirt or two. While out and about, I decided to swing by Future Shop and see what was new and exciting. When I walked in, I headed over to the DVD player area to see if anything was happening in the Blue-Ray or HD-DVD markets, since I’ve been looking to pick something up for a while. Last week, there was a sale on the highly regarded Toshiba HD-A2 DVD player for $399, and I almost picked one up. However, that was still a little steep for my liking, and I decided to pass on it. When I walked in today though, I noticed right away that the same DVD player was now listed for $349, and it came with three HD-DVDs in the box. […]

Nearly two years ago, I went out with my dad and step-mom and picked up a high-definition TV at future shop. Of course, having a high-definition TV without any sort of high-definition feed is rather pointless, so the first thing I did is pick up a HD cable box from Shaw. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize at the time just how little TV I usually watch. Between the HD cable option and my “high-speed” internet, I shell out around $110 a month, which is pretty stupid considering I watch only around one TV show a week if I’m lucky. So, I think tomorrow I’m going to call up shaw and finally cancel my cable for my TV. What I’m going to do with the HD box, I’m really not sure. Maybe I’ll throw it up on eBay and finance a HD DVD player (which I could see myself using far more, […]

I wanted to pen this entry really quick before bed. A few days ago, one of the main encryption keys for the HD-DVD platform was leaked, apparently by an insider within the video industry. Basically, having this key will allow anyone with access to the hardware the full ability to decode and decrypt every HD-DVD that has been manufactured so far. Oops. The key, which amounts to no more than a 128 bit string, has been circling the internet, pulling a string of cease and desist orders along with it. Many a webowner has tried to publish the key online, only to be given a legal letter demanding they take it down. How in the world you can assume ownership of a unique sequence of numbers is beyond me, but apparently that’s what they are attempting to do. Many users on Digg.com have created top stories with the HD-DVD key […]

I’ve had a few requests lately from people asking if I could send them a copy of my master’s thesis. So in the interest of saving time, I’m throwing it up here in case anyone wants to download it and read themselves to sleep. My research was primarily in the area of high definition video compression, specifically on a new codec called H.264 that is used in the new HD DVD formats such as Blue-Ray and HD-DVD. I proposed a novel scheme to combine concurrently broadcoast MPEG-2 standard definition (SD) streams with H.264 spatial difference information to create a HD broadcast stream at a reduced bitrate. So, here it is. Enjoy.