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HD Recorder Can Use Standard DVDs

Posted by Zonk on Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:08 AM
from the hd-on-the-cheap dept.
Data Storage Media Hardware
Stonent1 writes "Early next month Panasonic is going to release a DVD recorder that can store HD content on standard DVDs. The new device is expected to be a boon for the backer of the Blu-ray format; Blu-ray uses discs several times more expensive than standard DVD media. While the DVD discs won't have the capacity of a Blu-ray disc, the content will be of similar visual quality. 'The company said it will start selling three models of new DVD recorders capable of recording full HD programs on conventional DVD discs on November 1. The high-end model with a 500-gigabyte hard disk drive is likely to sell for 130,000 yen, Matsushita said.'" Update: 10/02 16:18 GMT by Z : Rewritten to clarify.
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Submission: HD Recorder that can use standard DVDs coming by Stonent1 (594886)
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  • Who cares how expensive the media is.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ISoldMyLowIdOnEbay (802697) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:10AM (#20824387)
    ....if the machine itself is so expensive?
  • There is no hardware/physical cost justification for a price that high.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RicktheBrick (588466)
      I just purchased a 320G byte hard drive for $99. It cost $15 to make it into a usb drive. At that price one could not buy the equivalent storage in dvd-rw disks. The hard drives are more reliable and much faster transferring data. There is no limit on how many times one can erase the hard drive either as I know there is a limit on how many time a dvd-rw can be rewritten. It is much easier to find an indiviudal movie on a hard drive than to look through the 70-80 dvd that it would take for the equivalent

  • Why Blu-Ray? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CastrTroy (595695) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:15AM (#20824449) Homepage
    I'm guessing that this player just writes MPEG4 files to a DVD, which it can then play back. Why do we even need Blu-Ray. Couldn't a much cheaper device be made with no blu-ray capabilities that just records the HD Content straight to MPEG4 on DVD? That would actually big a major blow to both HDDVD and BluRay.
    • You don't get something for nothing. To fit the same amount of HD content onto a standard DVD with MPEG4, you have to use a vastly higher compression ratio, reducing quality significantly.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by frieko (855745)
        True, but the dirty little secret of the nex-gen format war is that you don't need high capacity AND better codecs than DVD, you only need one or the other. A plain old DVD can easily store a high definition, high quality movie-length clip, if it's encoded in x264. The only benefit of using blue-laser discs for movies is that they can continue to charge the higher price for the discs long after they become trivial to manufacture.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by benwaggoner (513209)
          Just a two-hour movie and a single track of audio, maybe (that's about 8 Mbps for video left over). But that would rule out multiple audio tracks, picture-in-picture, extra content on the disc, etcetera. So while you'd have a better picture than DVD, the experience wouldn't be as complete or interactive as DVD, let alone "real" HD DVD discs.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by qbwiz (87077) *
      It could be made, but it couldn't store nearly as much at nearly as high a quality as they can with a Blu-ray. Consider that a Blu-ray disc can store 50GB of MPEG-4 AVC (which I expect is a pretty common format), as opposed to 8.5GB of MPEG-4 AVC with this idea.

      • Re:Why Blu-Ray? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jartan (219704) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @12:03PM (#20825263)

        It could be made, but it couldn't store nearly as much at nearly as high a quality as they can with a Blu-ray.


        Your statement is of course true but it's a case of 12 hours vs 2 hours. A pressed 8.5gb DVD is extremely cheap and plenty large enough to store a single HD movie at a level of quality that will please even a large portion of enthusiasts.

        The hardware to playback such levels of compression would be slightly more expensive but in general they wanted to change formats anyways on purpose.

    • Re:Why Blu-Ray? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by lordofthechia (598872) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:53AM (#20825089)
      You mean like HD Divx Players?

      http://www.divx.com/products/hw/browse.php?c=7 [divx.com]
    • The hardware described in the article is a Blu-Ray player that also records HDTV on DVD media. They could just as easily make an HD-DVD player that does the same thing, I suppose, but the point is that this particular device plays Blu-Ray.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ThirdPrize (938147)
        You could store hi-def content on a floppy disk if you wanted to. The question is does the size of the media allow you to store enough to do anything useful with?
        • And -- at least in the case of the floppy disk -- can the media spool the data off at a fast enough to rate to play the hi-def content back in real time?

          The data transfer rate of a 2MByte 3.5" floppy disk drive is typically 500 kbits/sec. That's significantly slower than broadband internet, and we're not even really streaming HD content over THAT.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by hypnagogue (700024)
        Not so. H.264 can fit a typical movie on a dual-layer DVDR at 1080p24, and a couple at 720p24. But why even bother going dual-layer? Save your money, and use a single layer 4.7G DVDR and use 720p24 -- easily enough for a single movie. You need to spend more time playing with H.264, it is truly a wonder of technology.

        Compare that to Blu-ray, which is a "wonder why" technology.
  • The hell with Blu-Ray. That format has even more onerous DRM than HD DVD. If I buy into the HD technology at all (I probably will not until DRM is busted), then it would be HD DVD, not Blu-Ray.

    The Evil of Two Lessers, in my opinion.
    • What, exactly, are the differences in DRM between the two formats?

      I was under the impression that Blu-Ray adn HDDVD DRM were equivalent.

      • Re:Scru Blu (Score:5, Informative)

        by Shrubbman (3807) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:39AM (#20824827)
        Blu-Ray has an optional second layer of DRM overtop the required AACS layer, BD+.

        Note the required bit I just mentioned, on HD-DVD the AACS layer is optional but on Blu-Ray it is a standard requirement for all commercially-pressed discs. I remember reading about this some months back about some smaller indie studios only releasing on HD-DVD simply because they could forego paying license fees to the AACS people (fees that cut into limited profit margins) and just release their discs DRM-free. That's not an option on Blu-Ray.

    • If I buy into the HD technology at all (I probably will not until DRM is busted)...

      Thus ensuring that the market forces that shape the final outcome won't include you. Brilliant!

      Reminds me of all the libertarians who swear they'll refuse to vote for anybody until a true libertarian appears on a major party's ticket, thus pretty much guaranteeing that one never will.
      • "Voting With Your Feet" is still a valid concept. After reading the existing discussion, I side with h4rm0ny.

        And I disagree that companies pay less attention to "theoretical" money. In fact we have some good examples right now... the RIAA and MPAA. They have pissed off a large percentage of the U.S. populace by going after that "theoretical" money.

        The act of NOT buying CDs has brought us to the point that the music industry is now dropping DRM. People stopped buying over-priced CDs, and refused to buy
  • So HD content can be written on plain DVD's....cool..Now we only need DVD players that can read HD content off DVD's :p
    • So HD content can be written on plain DVD's....cool..Now we only need DVD players that can read HD content off DVD's

      HD-DVD has been supported since the beginning on DVD discs. The format specification explicitly allows for DVD media. I have a dual layer DVD+R disc that contains HD-DVD format video and it plays fine on my PC. I've read on various video forums that those who own HD-DVD players have reported being able to play such discs. The only news here is that BluRay apparently is now supported on
      • Well, I was actually joking that Standard DVD players (Not HD-DVD players) should now play HD content on Standard DVD.

  • Why is the medium so important? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dada21 (163177) <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:23AM (#20824573) Homepage Journal
    We're talking about a digital world, where the medium is far less important than the codec. Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, whatever -- they're all about taking digital information, decoding it, and displaying it.

    Since most of our movies are XViD (including our homemade videos), we've generally stopped using disc formats entirely. If I burn the XViD to CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray, it's still the data and codec that counts, not the medium.

    Yes, people want to know if a given disc will work with their player, which is one reason why we need medium formats. Yet in a relatively free market, you'd see many multi-medium drives that work with almost anything (see most $49 DVD players today), so I'm guessing the number one reason for making new medium formats is control and DRM.

    Is there any market reason for worrying about the medium, rather than the CODEC?
    • Its mostly because the people who made those formats WANT people to think its all about said physical medium, for their bottom line.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by pilgrim23 (716938)
        At one time there was a thriving business in the Nile Delta. People gathered up papyrus stalks, flattened them, wove and glued. In the early days, this was the most common data storage medium. Then some bright lad figured out how to grind, bleach, and flatten pulped sawdust mixed with linen. A bitter standards war erupted with both sides claiming theirs was better for reasons ranging from historical use, to long time archival quality.
        Finally, the pulp and linen product, dubbed with
    • I was thinking exactly the same thing, and wondering why they would even need to make a new device. I can't really even guess what could be different about it compared to a normal DVD player, if the Mpeg stream was encoded as 1920*1080 the decoder should just pick that right up.

      I came to the conclusion that it can't require any change to the DVD drive itself (unless it was to speedit up to get higher transfer rate for sustained HD). It more likely the supporting electronics that decode. Perhaps their normal
    • Say "CODEC" to the majority of consumers of this sort of technology, and get your answer in the blank stare that comes back.
  • Blu-ray format, which currently uses discs several times more expensive than standard DVD media

    It's important to clarify: The article talks about dual layer DVD-s, that's not standard DVD media. I can find single layer recordable DVD over here for less than a dollar. But dual layer recordables are ten times more expensive (for whatever reason).

    Now something else: if I got my math right (can't guarantee I did), this means around ~950kbit/s for HD content on a dual layer DVD. They'll definitely need to use MP
    • >to achieve acceptable quality for 18 hours of content. And I don't know if it'll look good still.

      Why would anyone need 18 hours of content on a budget medium? Knock it down to 3.5 hours or so and you've got a nice mpeg-4 disc that plays in your machine. Only a few movies are over 3.5 hours. That leaves plenty of room for extras.
    • Can someone comment how ~950kbit/s fares for HD content. For standard DVD-quality video I use at least 500-600kbps on MPEG4 derivative, so I'm doubtful.

      In my opinion, 950kbps often isn't very good for SD content, even with AVC/VC-1. 1080p trailers encoded in MPEG-4 AVC need to be at least 8Mbps otherwise the screen gets messy with blocks with a lot of action. The DVD format allows for about 10Mbps max, though I usually see 3 to 5 as average values.

  • bastard format ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by scharkalvin (72228) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:42AM (#20824867) Homepage
    If I read this correctly it will record on standard dvd media using the blue ray laser.
    This may be possible, if the dyes used on standard media will respond to the blue laser.
    It would enable the pit size to be smaller and fit more data. I would suspect that it would
    also work with single layer media, but hold about half as much content. The disks might not
    be playable on a standard blue ray machine (without a firmware update).

    Kinda pricey, but if Panasonic can get the cost down this would be a big boost to the blue ray camp.
    Note that it should be even easier for the hd-dvd guys to do the same thing.
    • Okay, NOW I understand TFS.

      This reminds of drill an extra hole in a 3.5" 720KB floppy diskette.

      Or RLLing an MFM drive.

      Only with ECC. And light.

  • Shiny String (Score:3, Interesting)

    by huckamania (533052) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:48AM (#20824993) Journal
    I'm not trying to sound like an old man on the porch, but who cares about all this cruft? Is Higher Def going to make a bad movie better? Does Lower Def make a good movie worse? I can understand the arguments against Pan and Scan, as you literally are not seeing everything. However, I don't see much of a difference between HD and SD.

    Someone told me that after watching things in HD for a while, that they can't watch things in SD without noticing a difference. Is that a good thing? Am I going to be in a bar watching a game and be annoyed because it is in SD? Or over at a friends house and decide not to watch a movie cause they don't got the fancy, schmancy HD set up?

    I'll probably like it when I get it, but I just don't see what all the fuss is about.
      • Not really.

        Sometimes you look at it and say "wow cool". Usually though this
        is just for the demo reels that bear absolutely no resemblance to
        actual content. Other times you look at it and say "jeeze louise,
        look at all that pixelation".

        Even with "sports", the results are mixed.

        Digital formats give broadcasters an opportunity to monkey around
        with bitrates and resolution. DirecTV in particular is bad about
        this. Just 'cause it's digital, it doesn't mean that it's going to
        even be on par with analog SD.

        The broadca

  • What can it record? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crow (16139) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:58AM (#20825167) Homepage Journal
    Most HDTV recording options require access to the compressed data. In other words, an ATSC broadcast, unencrypted QAM, or encrypted QAM with a cable card. If this device takes decompressed HDTV (e.g., component inputs) and compresses it in real time, then that's the part of this device that's really interesting.

  • Storage Capacity? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Aladrin (926209) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @12:01PM (#20825241)
    I see nowhere that states what the data storage capacity is, so I thought I'd check the numbers.

    "The one-terabyte hard drive can store up to 381 hours of full HD programs."

    So if 1,000 GB is 381 hours, 1 GB is 2.62467191601049868766 hours. Yeah, 2 and a half hours per GB. Hmm... What sounds like that... Oh yeah, xvid.

    The trick here is not that they are getting more capacity, it's that they are using a different codec. (Not necessarily xvid, it's just a LOT more compact than mpeg, and made a good example.)

    Nothing is actually said of the visual quality at that storage rate, either... It probably has horrid lossy-ness. But it's 1080p! lol Just another marketing trick to fool the unwary.

    So even if this device uses a normal laser, it's gonna get 10+ hours per DVD at '1080p'. Using the blue laser is just a gimmick, I'm betting.

    • Re:Storage Capacity? (Score:4, Informative)

      by swillden (191260) * <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday October 02 2007, @01:48PM (#20826789) Homepage Journal

      So if 1,000 GB is 381 hours, 1 GB is 2.62467191601049868766 hours. Yeah, 2 and a half hours per GB.

      You flipped that over -- it should be 2.6 GB per hour, not 2.6 hours per GB.

      So a dual-layer DVD will hold about 3 1/3 hours. If they're getting more than that, they must be doing something different (disclaimer: I didn't RTFA and have no idea what they're claiming).

  • What do we need Blueray for then? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DarthBobo (152187) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @12:24PM (#20825531)
    Perhaps this will cause some of our brain-addled technology media "journalists" to start noticing that HD-DVD and Blueray aren't about high definition video (my 2 year old Oppo DVD player does that just fine, apart from the fact no one will sell me a movie in DivX format), nor really about increased storage. Its really about moving to a format with a more functional DRM system.

    There is no reason that standard 2 hour movies can't be distributed on a double-layer DVD using a modern compression format -- which are supported in just about every $99 DVD player I see at Circuit City. I don't have a problem with the big media companies moving in this direction - its their content, they can pick their format. I do have a problem with the fact that not a single journalist sees fit to note in their articles that the media companies public rationale for the switch is specious.

  • Compression vs storage space (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Khyber (864651) <khyberkitsune@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 02 2007, @12:36PM (#20825729) Journal
    I've got 1920x1080 DivX of Naruto's 3rd movie. Total size - 2.2 gigs for 94 minutes of video and audio, with four different language subtitle choices. All on one DVD.

    I'm glad I have a high-def DivX-capable standalone player. Screw these more expensive formats! Hooray compression technology!

  • I'm Really Confused (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheoMurpse (729043) <kylegoetz@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday October 02 2007, @01:39PM (#20826647) Homepage
    How is a third format going to be a "boon" for Blu-Ray? Wouldn't it just weaken Blu-Ray by providing a cheaper (media-wise) alternative to Blu-Ray?

  • HD on DVD (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DECS (891519) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @02:10PM (#20827125) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft earlier tried to push VC-1 on standard DVDs; it would make a lot of sense for consumers to deliver AVC on DVD. It would not do much for producers and studios however, because DVDs are already easy to rip and the format is falling in price. Once "good enough" movie downloads start, the ability to market HD discs will become far harder, just as MP3s killed any real market for SACD/DVD-A.

    Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War [roughlydrafted.com]
    Blu-ray vs HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles [roughlydrafted.com]

  • Obvious, obvious, obvious (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DrXym (126579) on Wednesday October 03 2007, @03:05AM (#20834243)
    I burn H264 vids to a DVD. It stands to reason that some hardware device would eventually get around to doing the same. The more important question is where the hell does it record its HD content from.

  • karma whore (Score:3, Informative)

    by sqldr (838964) on Wednesday October 03 2007, @04:29AM (#20834629)
    130000 yen = $1126.84 oh yes.. give me those mods!! haha!
    • You have to wait a bit:

      Osaka-based Matsushita, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, also said it plans to offer the world's first DVD recorders that can store full high-definition programs on conventional DVD discs next month.

      As far as I can tell from the extraordinarily sparse FA, that's all we know. The article made less sense than the summary.

      Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Hal_Porter (817932)
        As far as I can tell from the extraordinarily sparse FA, that's all we know. The article made less sense than the summary

        Isn't that the slashdot equivalent of dividing by zero?

        OH SHI- [encycloped...matica.com]

    • Re:Would someone please clarify (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pla (258480) on Tuesday October 02 2007, @11:48AM (#20824989) Journal
      So is this some type of hybrid/dual laser device? Or is it a blu ray that uses the blue laser to record on conventional DVDs? Or what exactly?

      It almost certainly has dual lasers, as do most recorders, but that has nothing to do with what it does...

      Until they release more specs I can only speculate, but the press release makes it obvious enough - This simply contains a perfectly ordinary DVD burner, to which it writes MPEG-4 data on a normal DVD using the FS layout expected by BR drives.

      Just as you can burn a DVD filesystem to a CD, you can just as easily burn a BR or HD filesystem to a DVD. They simply don't hold as much, requiring either loss of quality or limited duration (or both).

      Now, why anyone would want to buy a recorder that costs more than the difference in price of recordable discs over the practical lifetime of that player while burning only ultra-low quality content, ya got me. The coolness factor, I guess? Personally, I plan to wait for dual-format next-gen burners and for one or the other's writeable discs to drop a tolerable price.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by calc (1463)
      I'm pretty sure that the 18hr bit mentioned in the article is for 50GB BluRay disks but the article didn't clarify that part.

      It does mention a 1TB hard drive can store 381hr of video which would mean the bitrate is roughly 5.8Mbps.

      1TB - 381hr ~ 5.8Mbps

      4.5GB DVD - 1.8hr
      8.5GB DVD DL - 3.4hr
      25GB BluRay - 9.5hr
      50GB BluRay - 19.0hr

      The above doesn't account for filesystem overhead, which is probably why my numbers are off a bit.

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