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February 26, 2005
New Disc Format Offers Bigger Capacity
Built for storage, but developers also looking at Hollywood.
Holograms are making the leap from science fiction to practical application with a new disc format. Holographic Versatile Disc is now being developed by Fuji and Optware.
Each HVD disc will be able to hold more than a terabyte of data, or 200 times as much information as a standard DVD.
HVD's developers are targeting the storage market, but Optware business development and marketing manager Hide Kageyama said execs are keeping an eye on the consumer entertainment market for potential future applications.
"Holographic optical disc has another advantage," Kageyama said. "Since the data on HVD are interference patterns of laser light, it's almost impossible to make a pirate copy of an HVD."
HVD achieves its high capacity by etching discs using two lasers in a single beam--the two interfere with each other, creating holograms composed of data. A prototype drive will be built this year.
Category : Industry News
Posted by dvd software at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)
DVD Screeners Still a Problem
The awards-season fight against piracy is making progress, but at what price?
Thanks to the coding on screeners, the FBI and the Motion Picture Assn. of America have been tracking down the sources of some pic piracy. But awards voters are complaining of an inordinate number of faulty discs this year, attributed by many to the fact that many screeners are on discs made in the DVD-R format.
When studios manufacture discs for public consumption, they use standard DVDs. When manufacturing just a few thousand, as happens with screeners, they use the cheaper DVD-R--and, as awards voters are discovering, DVD-Rs often don't work with DVD players more than a couple of years old.
Kudos voters, most of whom aren't techies and who weren't sent any explanations, just assume they have a faulty disc. While this confusion is a hassle, it raises bigger implications: Will the tech woes affect the outcome of the balloting?
In a shortened awards season, many voters have complained they don't have the time or patience to find an alternate version of the film, so the nominated pic goes unseen and loses votes. Talking to Daily Variety, several voters rattled off the names of nominated films they did not watch because of the disc problems.
Even before watermarking, 1%-2% of screeners were faulty. But the DVD-R factor is creating apparent glitches on more of them.
Another factor is making some screeners go unwatched: The anti-piracy strategy of asking awards voters to sign for delivery of their screeners. Several Acad voters say they have missed contenders this year because they weren't home to sign for FedEx delivery.
With dozens of films to wade through in a short campaign season, one Acad member sighs that he has a full-time job and gets annoyed with the notice that screeners are waiting to be claimed at the FedEx office: "I don't have time for this."
Watermarking is pricey: It can cost $7-$12 a disc, and the studios send out 8,000-9,000 copies of a title to members of various awards-voting organizations. Studios consider it a wise investment, though, when it helps to nab pirates.
The FBI last week acknowledged that watermarking has helped the org connect pirated copies of Million Dollar Baby to the screeners. No charges have yet been filed, but the title has been traced to a guild member. Other pirated titles traced to awards screeners are said to include Spanglish and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
Studio trackers go online to find the source of pirated films, then pass the evidence to the FBI to jumpstart a criminal investigation. The vast majority of this year's Oscar-nominated films are available online.
The presence of copies from watermarked screeners clearly indicate the studios have yet to fully contain the screener piracy problem.
Voters are discovering that even troublesome DVD-R copies play fine on the free machines they got from anti-piracy company Cinea. The machines originally were intended to be used for specially encrypted discs--but the players also work with DVD-R, meaning kudos voters could find the Cinea machines useful while they wait to find out whether studios decide to encrypt their discs to work only on those players next awards season.
One Academy member pointed out an alternate solution to all of the problems: "Voters should be seeing these movies on the big screen anyway."
Ben Fritz and Timothy M. Gray are reporters with VB sister publication Daily Variety.
Category : Industry News
Posted by dvd software at 03:31 AM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2005
Next-generation DVD Formats Rally Support
The battle over next-generation DVD formats heated up late Thursday as groups supporting two incompatible and competing technologies introduced new partners and revealed further details of what consumers and manufacturers can expect to see from them in the coming year.
Groups representing the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD--both of which are blue laser formats aiming to become the technology to replace DVD--made their announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show here. Both formats offer storage capacities of about 10 times what the DVD format can hold. A DVD disc can store about 4.7GB of data on a single side, while Blu-ray Disc can hold up to 50GB and HD DVD can hold 30GB.
The Blu-ray Disc Association introduced game publishers Electronics Arts and Vivendi Universal Games, along with tech companies Sun Microsystems and Texas Instruments, as the newest members of their group. The companies will support the development, promotion and marketing of the Blu-ray Disc format.
Executive from the game publishers noted that the high storage capacity of Blu-ray Disc was important for them as they look to high-definition game development.
"Gaming is a multibillion-dollar business that is largely being ignored by HD DVD," said Richard Doherty, director of professional AV for Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory.
Blu-ray Disc supporters plan to include interactive features and game capabilities to discs that hold high-definition movies.
Blu-ray recorders and discs are expected in early 2006. Other companies in the Blu-ray Disc Association include Sony, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, among others.
Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo are among the leading electronics makers backing the HD DVD format.
Toshiba said at CES earlier this week that HD DVD recorders and notebook drives would be available in the fourth quarter.
HD DVD entertainment partners stood up to support the HD DVD format Thursday and announced movie and TV series titles that would be available on HD DVD discs by the end of the year. Paramount Home Entertainment, Warner Home Video, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, HBO and New Line Cinema said that about 100 titles, including the "Harry Potter" movies, the "Batman," "Superman," "E.R.," "The West Wing" and "The Sopranos" franchises, would be available on HD DVD discs.
"The real-world benefits (of HD DVD) are apparent and obvious," said Jim Cardwell, president of Warner Home Video. Cardwell added that rapid time-to-market and dependability were significant factors in choosing to go with HD DVD.
HD DVD is based on technology similar to that of DVD, which can reduce the time and cost of manufacturing discs and recorders, according to HD DVD supporters.
Studio supporters of Blu-ray Disc include Walt Disney Pictures and Television and the entertainment properties of Sony.
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Posted by dvd software at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2005
TV Legends Tops Sales on Amazon
Carson sets sell well postmortem
For days following the Jan. 23 death of Johnny Carson, several of the Top 10 slots on Amazon's DVD and VHS lists were occupied by Carson titles The Ultimate Carson Collection and Heeere's Johnny! The Special Collector's Edition.
"It's a testament to his status as a TV legend, and the fact he was such a part of so many people's lives, that these collections are selling such great numbers," Brant Berry, VP of Carson label R2 Entertainment, said last week.
"We're shipping 100,000 units of The Ultimate Collection this week. Prior to Johnny's death, we had sold 300,000 copies of the set, but we expect that number to double in a very short time."
The Special Collector's Edition boxes are available exclusively through Amazon and R2's johnnycarson.com.
Category : Industry News
Posted by dvd software at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)