June 21, 2006
High Definition DVD Recorders
HDTV - High Definition DVD Recorders and Your PC
Most consumers aren't satisfied to simply display broadcast or pre-recorded material. Since the advent of inexpensive VCRs in the 1980s viewers have expected to be able to record material for later playback or permanent storage.
DVD recorders brought that capability in-line with the quality possible with DVD. Panasonic and others have several models with either hard drive or DVD-RAM/DVD-R/DVD-RW capability or both.
The next logical step, since the internal technology is nearly identical in many cases, is to extend that functionality to and from the PC. Not long after that, the goal will be to connect the PC to the new HDTV and high definition players and recorders.
Whether digital photos or video, or full Hollywood movies, users want to be able to transfer and use content anywhere within the home. With the ubiquity of the Internet, they also want to be able to access and display that content on the road on a laptop, in a hotel or at work or someone else's home.
Thanks to advances in all the relevant technology, as well as leading edge business arrangements, that's now all possible. The long-promised convergence between TV, PC and the Internet is finally becoming a practical, affordable reality.
Hot on the heels of the new HDTVs, with ever lower prices, and the new high definition DVD players from Toshiba (HD-DVD), Samsung (Blu-ray) and others comes Blu-ray RECORDABLE devices.
That there's at least one Blu-ray recorder on (or soon to be on) the market shouldn't be too surprising. Sony has had a Blu-ray recorder on sale for two years. The near $3,000 cost (as they expected) kept it from any kind of mass-market adoption, but it no doubt helped them shake down the bugs.
Apart from that somewhat exotic offering, Sony is bringing out a laptop in their Vaio line that will have a Blu-ray player built in. At $3,600 it's pricey, but it does offer a 17in screen, making it viable for serious video folks who have to be on the road.
Connecting the laptop to an HDTV is as easy as obtaining a HDTV card, such as ATI's Wonder card. With a simple software installation and the use of a special cable, the PC connects to the component or HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) connectors on the set. Expect an Ethernet connection that does more than just transfer firmware to the HDTV before too long.
AMEX recently announced their Digital MPC-505BD Media Center PC with Blu-ray recorder. No price has been set, but the Windows Media Edition-enabled device can actually record onto Blu-ray DVDs.
The unit offers 7.1 channel audio and a hybrid analog/digital DVB-T TV tuner. It also houses a full terabyte (that's one thousand twenty-four gigabytes) of hard disk storage. It is, in effect, a Blu-ray DVD player/recorder and PC in one that can be connected to a HDTV. The future has arrived.
Posted by HDTV at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2006
Standard DVD Recorders and HDTV
While HDTV prices on sets are coming down, HD players are just hitting the market and prices are $500-$1,800. At the lower figure, that's more than what a top flight DVD recorder would cost. The higher figure is 10 times the price of a quality DVD player.
At those prices, many consumers will wait the two years or more for the initial bugs to get worked out and prices to reach more common levels. If you're one of those, you can still get a great picture on your HDTV from a quality DVD recorder/player. DVD recorders all record in 480i, for backwards compatibility with older discs and TVs. That means they all record at the level of resolution of standard TV, with 480 lines of resolution, interlaced. Then the signal is converted from digital to analog, if the TV display is an analog type.
'Interlacing' is a technique in which the image is formed by 'painting' the screen in two passes, even lines in one pass, odd the next. Progressive scan recorder/players - which all good ones are these days - 'de-interlace' the picture before sending it to the display, if the TV can display a progressive picture. Traditionally, interlacing is performed by the TV circuitry.
When connected to a HDTV the recorder/player-TV system has additional conversion to do. By definition, HDTV offers more than 480i resolution. 480p is an interim standard, sometimes called EDTV (Enhanced Definition Television). HDTV native resolutions vary. Some are 720p, some 1080i, some newer ones even offer 1080p.
Whenever the source is one resolution, say 480p, and the display is another, more conversion has to take place. The system converts the 480 signal into either 720p or 1080i for display. How well that conversion, called upscaling or upconverting, is done plays a large role in the ultimate picture quality, no matter the contrast ratio and other specs.
Quality DVD recorders do a good job of producing a great picture even with all the conversion going on behind the scenes. Here are some units that offer that, plus some really useful additional features.
The Panasonic DMR-EH75 offers a DVD recorder that can use a single layer DVD-R or DVD-RAM disc to hold up to 8 hours of video.
It also houses an 80GB hard drive to record, time shift and play back material. That material can be from DVD (for non-copyright blocked sources) or directly from broadcasts. Depending on recording/playback quality, the hard drive can hold up to 142 hours of programming.
It provides a HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) interface for getting the maximum quality image out to the TV set. Price is currently in the $440 range for a unit that will display an excellent quality image on a good HDTV set.
For the really space-hungry crowd, Toshiba offers their RD-XS52 recorder, with 160GB hard drive that will hold up to 200 hours of video. Panasonic had larger units, from 120GB up to 400GB with an Ethernet connector. They may still be available from some merchants.
As with most Toshiba products, the quality is great and the price is stellar at around $350. But, for those less interested in recording than in the best possible playback, there's the new HD-A1. Retailing for around $500, it offers full high definition output at 1080i.
Posted by HDTV at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2006
High Definition DVD Recorders
HDTV - High Definition DVD Recorders and Your PC
Most consumers aren't satisfied to simply display broadcast or pre-recorded material. Since the advent of inexpensive VCRs in the 1980s viewers have expected to be able to record material for later playback or permanent storage.
DVD recorders brought that capability in-line with the quality possible with DVD. Panasonic and others have several models with either hard drive or DVD-RAM/DVD-R/DVD-RW capability or both. The next logical step, since the internal technology is nearly identical in many cases, is to extend that functionality to and from the PC. Not long after that, the goal will be to connect the PC to the new HDTV and high definition players and recorders.
Whether digital photos or video, or full Hollywood movies, users want to be able to transfer and use content anywhere within the home. With the ubiquity of the Internet, they also want to be able to access and display that content on the road on a laptop, in a hotel or at work or someone else's home.
Thanks to advances in all the relevant technology, as well as leading edge business arrangements, that's now all possible. The long-promised convergence between TV, PC and the Internet is finally becoming a practical, affordable reality.
Hot on the heels of the new HDTVs, with ever lower prices, and the new high definition DVD players from Toshiba (HD-DVD), Samsung (Blu-ray) and others comes Blu-ray RECORDABLE devices.
That there's at least one Blu-ray recorder on (or soon to be on) the market shouldn't be too surprising. Sony has had a Blu-ray recorder on sale for two years. The near $3,000 cost (as they expected) kept it from any kind of mass-market adoption, but it no doubt helped them shake down the bugs.
Apart from that somewhat exotic offering, Sony is bringing out a laptop in their Vaio line that will have a Blu-ray player built in. At $3,600 it's pricey, but it does offer a 17in screen, making it viable for serious video folks who have to be on the road.
Connecting the laptop to an HDTV is as easy as obtaining a HDTV card, such as ATI's Wonder card. With a simple software installation and the use of a special cable, the PC connects to the component or HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) connectors on the set. Expect an Ethernet connection that does more than just transfer firmware to the HDTV before too long.
AMEX recently announced their Digital MPC-505BD Media Center PC with Blu-ray recorder. No price has been set, but the Windows Media Edition-enabled device can actually record onto Blu-ray DVDs.
The unit offers 7.1 channel audio and a hybrid analog/digital DVB-T TV tuner. It also houses a full terabyte (that's one thousand twenty-four gigabytes) of hard disk storage. It is, in effect, a Blu-ray DVD player/recorder and PC in one that can be connected to a HDTV. The future has arrived.
Posted by HDTV at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2006
HDTV - DVD Just Got More Interesting
With the reduction in prices for HDTVs and the release of high-definition DVD players, ala HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the whole market is seeing an upsurge in activity. But sorting out all the options can be confusing. Here are some simple guidelines to help you make an informed choice.
DVD formats are - it's sometimes hard to believe - now 10 years old. The initial disc offered many times more storage (4.7GB) than the average CD (around 700MB, seven times less than DVD). Double-sided DVD was soon available and doubled the capacity.
Double-layered discs are available as well. Here are the four types:
Type - Capacity - Maximum play time
- Single-sided, single-layered 4.7 GB 120 minutes
- Singled-sided, dual-layered 8.5 GB 4 hours
- Double-sided, single-layered 9.4 GB 4 hours
- Double-sided, dual-layered 17 GB 8 hours
Despite some early technical difficulties, the DVD soon became a read-write medium, not just read-only. With that change came another round of acronyms to understand. DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM are the three most common. All types can be recorded on.
DVD-RAM is the more expensive option, but can (in theory, and to a large extent in practice) be re-written 100,000 times over many years. Also, since they store data non-sequentially, they're more useful for video editing than the other types. But, beware, not all players can play this type.
DVD-R can only be recorded onto once. Discs are cheap, so that isn't a problem these days and the format is compatible with nearly any player on the market.
DVD-RW, though, is only slightly more expensive and can be recorded onto many times. Not quite so many as DVD-RAM - only 1,000, in theory, but that's many more times than most people will need.
That was the state of things until very recently. Now comes the interesting part. Two new formats are coming onto the market and they're lining up for a good old-fashioned format battle. HD-DVD, developed by Toshiba, and Blu-ray from Sony have more in common than they have differences but one type will not play on a machine made for the other.
HD-DVD will store 15GB (30GB on dual-layer discs), while Blu-ray does better at 25GB (50GB on dual-layer). But the time differences are minimal. HD-DVD will hold about 8 hours of movies, etc and Blu-ray 9 hours. (100GB, quad-layer, Blu-ray discs are in development.)
Toshiba has lined-up support for its format from Microsoft, Intel and a few movie studios. Blu-ray is supported by nearly every major movie studio including Paramount and Disney along with Apple, Dell and several other PC companies.
Early HD-DVD machines from Toshiba (the HD-A1 and HD-XA1) are already on the market, retailing for around $500 and $800. Reviews are mixed, but that's usually the case with machines targeted at early-adopters.
On the upside, they can display high-definition discs in 720p or 1080i, and will show what your HDTV is really capable of. Blu-ray will display 1080p, the highest quality possible, assuming your TV has this capability. Few yet do.
A dozen HD movie discs are already available, including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Serenity, and Phantom of the Opera. More are slated to become available (in both formats) soon.
For those who like to adopt the latest and greatest and are willing to accept some of the limitations always found in first generation technology, the new formats offer astounding visual quality. Be prepared to replace your equipment, though, in a couple of years once the format situation settles out and the bugs in the early machines are overcome.
Posted by HDTV at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
