HD Feed Streams

Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, HBO Video, New Line Entertainment and Warner Home Video stood up with Toshiba at the Computer Electronics Show here and pledged that movies such as “Million Dollar Baby,” “Harry Potter 4: The Goblet of Fire,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “Jarhead” (not to mention box office clunkers like “Sahara” and “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”) would come out this year on HD DVD discs. In all, these five studios represent more than half of the movies ever made, said Nancy O’Dell, host of Access Hollywood and ersatz syndication TV celebrity who served as the emcee for the event at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Europe’s Studio Canal and the Weinstein Co., responsible for hits such as “Shakespeare in Love,” also will come out with movies in the HD DVD format, according to the HD DVD Promotion Group. Toshiba, the prime backer of the format, unfurled two HD DVD players–a $499 model and a deluxe $799 model–that will hit shelves in March. Toshiba also showed off a prototype Qosmio notebook with a built-in HD DVD drive. Pricing, availability and specs on the notebook will come out later this quarter. “HD DVD is now playing,” said Yoshiihide Fujii, CEO of the Digital Media Network Co. of Toshiba. “HD DVD delivers a quantum leap in how consumers view video.” By May, nearly 50 titles will already be out, Fujii said. One of the chief advantages of the format, as compared with the Blu-ray format supported by Sony and others, is that it is compatible with existing DVDs, executives said. Thus, consumers can buy a HD DVD player and use it to play existing DVDs. Some companies will produce dual-sided discs that will contain an ordinary DVD movie and an HD DVD version. “Many consumers have made a significant investment in DVD libraries,” said Greg Hart, Amazon.com director of North American music, DVD, computer and video games, and software. Amazon began to take pre-orders for Toshiba’s units Wednesday. Customflix.com, a company Amazon acquired that burns DVDs for independent and small filmmakers, will give independents a potential opportunity to sell HD versions of their movies to the public. Microsoft and Intel back the format. “We have to make sure that content is easier to buy rather than to pirate,” said Don MacDonald, vice president in Intel’s Digital Home Group. Many companies, though, will support both. Hewlett-Packard, the largest PC maker behind HD DVD, will also support Blu-ray. Studios will also issue movies under both formats. “It’s too early too tell” which will win, Matt Lasorsa, executive vice president of marketing at New Line Home Video, said in a brief conversation after the presentation. “The ideal solution would be a universal player.” The audience got a chuckle out of the suggestion that all of the kinks in home networking aren’t ironed out yet. Kevin Collins, a senior program manager at Microsoft, told the audience of about 200 reporters that he was going to show them how phenomenal HD DVD viewing was. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the movie on Toshiba’s HD DVD player to play after several attempts. Collins, however, did manage to get movies running on Toshiba’s Qosmio notebook.

Intel and Microsoft are combining their industry power in an attempt to make the HD DVD format the victor in a battle over a standard to succeed DVD. Typical DVDs today can hold 4.7GB of information, but two dueling camps are trying to establish a larger-capacity format that will allow for the recording of high-definition television and the backing up of more data. HD DVD, supported by a Toshiba-led consortium, is up against Blu-ray Disc, which is backed by Sony and others, including the two biggest personal-computer manufacturers, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Intel and Microsoft believe weighing in on the HD DVD side will be enough to tip the balance. “We have a high expectation of having a single format, and that format is HD DVD,” said Intel spokesman Bill Kircos. There are several reasons the two companies went with HD DVD, said Richard Doherty, Microsoft’s program manager for media entertainment convergence. Among them: HD DVD requires that movies may be copied to a consumer’s hard drive, making it easier for people to send movies around home networks; the format supports regular DVD recordings on the flip side of the disc, letting people sell hybrid discs to consumers who have DVD players today but fear their discs will be obsolete; and the format offers more capacity. The Blu-ray allies disagree about the capacity claim and other issues. “This announcement does little to shift the momentum that’s been building for Blu-ray Disc,” said Marty Gordon, vice president of Blu-ray backer Philips Electrics. “It has dramatically more support from the consumer electronics industry, the PC manufacturers and the games hardware manufacturing side, as well as strong support from movie studios, music companies and game software developers.” Blu-ray allies expect to launch their products in the spring, Gordon said, including support for both 25GB and dual-layer 50GB. HD DVD starts at 15GB, but Toshiba last week announced a 30GB dual-layer disc. Toshiba plans to launch the first HD DVD drives in Japan this year and worldwide in the first quarter of 2006, Doherty said. Come together, right now? The two camps have held talks to unify their formats, but so far to no avail, and time is running short, with products from both camps scheduled to ship in the next few months. If the sides don’t come together, a host of problems ensue: Consumers will have to make sure a rented movie or purchased video game is compatible with their drives and players; movie studios, video game manufacturers and video rental stores will have to stock multiple versions of movies; dual-format drives that bridge the format gap will cost more; and neither standard is likely to catch on as fast as if the industry had coalesced. It’s similar to the classic war over videotape formats, VHS vs. Beta, and a smaller skirmish that broke out more recently for rewritable DVDs: DVD-RW versus DVD+RW. Even at this late stage, it’s possible there could be a resolution. “We’re very hopeful you could see a unified standard,” Gordon said. “It has to be a format that offers the best of both worlds,” though, and the Blu-ray camp isn’t willing to yield on the capacity issue. Microsoft also hoped for a resolution, but didn’t see one as likely. “We’re of the opinion that a unified format would be far preferable. But what was keeping us from the game was our hope for a long time for that to occur,” Doherty said. Gordon said that several of the advantages Microsoft and Intel cite for HD DVD aren’t valid. In particular, he said, 50GB Blu-ray drives are scheduled to ship this spring, with much more capacity than HD DVD’s 30GB. And the managed copy feature that permits movies to be transferred to hard drives isn’t “a key differentiating feature” of HD DVD because Blu-ray employs the same Advanced Access Content System (AACS) content control technology, he said. Both sides have support from major computing, consumer electronics and entertainment companies. Besides Sony, Dell and HP, Blu-ray allies include Apple Computer, Electronic Arts, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sun Microsystems, Twentieth Century Fox, Vivendi Universal and Walt Disney. HD DVD backers include HBO, NEC, New Line Cinema Paramount Home Entertainment, Sanyo, Toshiba, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video. The divide splits Intel and Microsoft from some of their biggest customers, though. Dell couldn’t be reached for comment immediately, but HP isn’t changing course. “HP remains committed to the Blu-ray Disc format because of larger storage capacity, broad industry support and the inherent compatibility that the recording format provides to our customers,” the company said in a statement. “HP believes that this announcement from Microsoft and Intel is inconsequential for consumers because they do not deliver products into the marketplace (with a few minor exceptions).” Blu-Ray has had problems delivering on its promises, though, Doherty said. “The 50GB Blu-ray disc is nowhere in sight. For now, HD DVD is the capacity leader. And with the hybrid disc, again Blu-ray had a specification, but no actual implementation anywhere in sight.” That issue could cause PC makers to change their minds. “A year and a half ago, they had a really good situation,” Doherty said. “Now the playing field has changed.”

Warner Home Video (WHV) has announced the release of the first title in the HD DVD and DVD Combo Format (HD DVD on one side and Standard Definition DVD on the other): “Rumor Has It,” which will debut May 9, day-and-date with its Standard Definition version. In addition, WHV will release three new HD DVD titles: “GoodFellas” and “Swordfish” on May 2 and “Training Day” on May 9. “We are pleased to be continuing our rollout of new HD DVD titles,” said Stephen Nickerson, Senior Vice President, Market Management. “But what is really exciting is the release of the first title, `Rumor Has It,’ in the HD DVD and DVD Combo format. Purchasing a disc now in this format is the ideal choice that gives consumers the greatest flexibility in viewing options: If they own an HD DVD player, of course, they’ll get all the benefits of HD DVD and be able to play the disc in existing DVD players. If they’re considering a future purchase of an HD DVD player, they can still enjoy the movie until they upgrade.” “GoodFellas,” “Swordfish” and “Training Day” will sell for $28.99 SRP; “Rumor Has It” will be available at $39.99 SRP. “Rumor Has It” is director Rob Reiner’s clever romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Shirley MacLaine and Mark Ruffalo; “GoodFellas” is Martin Scorsese’s powerful film exploration of mob life starring Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci; “Swordfish” is the cyber-adventure from “Matrix” producer Joel Silver starring John Travolta, Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman; and “Training Day” is the gripping, action hit starring Denzel Washington in his Oscar(R)-winning performance and Ethan Hawke. All bonus materials on the Standard Definition versions of each of the four titles will be included on the HD DVD versions. WHV began its rollout of HD DVD titles on April 18 with “The Last Samurai,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Million Dollar Baby.” WHV expects to announce shortly additional titles to be released in May. Warner Home Video HD DVDs offer resolution six times higher than standard definition DVDs, extraordinarily vibrant contrast and color in addition to beautifully crisp sound. HD DVD also provides a new level of interactivity, giving instant access to extra features with the debut of a seamless menu bar that allows viewers to enjoy features and settings without leaving or interrupting the film.

In the vary wee days in television history, back in the late 1800's, one of the first concepts devised for a means to electrically transport images was via parallel wires. In this scheme an image was focused on a small array of crude selenium sensors. Each sensor represented one pixel. The varying current caused by the changes in resistance of the each sensor when excited by light was coupled to a respective lamp at the receiving end. Each pixel, therefore, had its own wire. Obviously, an image with any reasonable degree of resolution would require at least several hundred very small sensors and lamps and a like number of wires. Clearly, this was not practical, and the "parallel pixel" scheme for television was abandon. Then, first mechanical then electronic scanning was invented, and the rest is history. (By the way, sequential scanning represents the first application of video compression, albeit in the time domain.) Now comes a very interesting development by...

As with every year, this report reviews the state of HDTV technology and the industry behind it. The information is up-to-date as of March 2006 and includes future products announced at January's International CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Most publications only show current DTV products with few specifications. They exclude equipment expected in the medium-term future, and they do not analyze the market to guide the reader in making the right choice. Hundreds of products are included in this report, with specifications and features intended to facilitate comparisons with other models, brands, and technologies.

THAT'S WHEN I DISCOVERED WWW.YOUTUBE.COM Without notice my HDTV died. What is there to do but turn misfortune into good so I decided that I would bite the bullet and 'YIPPY YAHOOO!' get a new HDTV with all those new goodies, like HDMI (and a bigger screen)and 1080p. I'm excited again! So, I went shopping ... on the net. I soon tired from the confusions that all consumers now face and for relief punched up the news. After the usual disheartening reports about Iraq I sought refuge and went to www.movies.com to see what was showing locally. Nothing tempted me so I extended my search for some light entertainment on the net. That's when I discovered www.Youtube.com. Now we are not talking HDTV here, but the future for HDTV programming is more than likely incubating there. So, it's more than a worthy side trip that I hope you will take with me in this piece.

I continue to be amazed at the growing number of input jacks one finds on the back (and front) of today's HDTV sets. This all started in the mid 1980's with the advent of the first audio/video components such as VCR's and early videodisc players. These devices gave rise to the "monitor/receiver" with one or two sets of composite (Right, Left, Video) RCA jacks. With the introduction of S-Video, another jack was added along with audio output jacks for the rising audio receiver market. The final addition to the analog complement was the "component" inputs (Y, Pr, Pb or YUV). This interface allowed the coupling of the wider bandwidth video information

Everyone knows that it's possible to watch TV with an antenna, but most people today don't understand why anyone would want to. We have all read the horror stories about how difficult it can be to receive a good OTA (Over the Air) signal, especially with DTV. There are a few benefits to OTA today that we didn't have before the US started the DTV transition. Some of the best picture quality possible can be obtained with an antenna, at least until High Definition DVDs are released. It's FREE, it's recordable on some computers like Windows Media Center Edition and it works sometimes when cable and Satellite doesn't.

Many of you are eagerly anticipating the arrival of HD packaged media. While HD media has been available for purchase in one form or another for many years (D-VHS/D-Theater and WMVHD), HD DVD promises to be the largest distribution to date within months of its release. This article will cover the basics of HD DVD audio and video, gives a brief overview of the two Toshiba models arriving in March, and concludes with a listing of HD DVD movies that will be available upon release (and soon thereafter).

Just around the corner is the long-awaited launch of the HD DVD, one of two competing high-definition formats for the DVD optical disk. The stakes could not be higher for the movie business, less so for the manufacturers, and a hair pulling nightmare for the ones asked to finally pay for it all - the consumers. I interviewed Mark Knox last week. You will find below my lead-in. Mark has the task of explaining to you, as well as the motion picture industry, why the Toshiba-backed HD DVD is the right choice. The current backdrop for this launch ... The movie business needs a smashing success using a new distribution format to restore expansion and youthful vigor to all parts of the business. They are presently plagued (in good economic times too) by a sagging box office returns and a flat-to-declining packaged goods business. I will not speak of the gamming side of entertainment here for while some ownership is common it is not entirely integrated with the movie culture. The "collapse" of the box office over the last three years appears more than just a low ebb in a business cycle. Those explaining it away claim that...