WMV HD DVD Players
By Danny Mavromatis |
July 2nd, 2005
Comments (11)
Why more movie studios haven’t jumped aboard and released WMVHD discs is something I’ll never understand. Toshiba’s HD-DVD is going to be using the VC1 codec and word has it, the player will be using Windows CE. So, if movie studios release WMVHD discs now, we can legally buy HD content today. I did some “research” and was surprised to see a plethora of pirated HD content on the web… and we’re talking amazing quality content here! To me, that screams, “I WANT MY HD… and I’ll get it anyway I can.” So this post is really for the studio execs out there. Think of it this way, if your WMVHD release flops, you won’t lose much, if any, money since the cost of remastering the HD source can be recouped when the competeing HD-DVD formats are released. Consider this a bridge format. For those early adopters, yes, the ones that have extra cash and want the best, the same ones with the 3ghz Windows Media Center in their media racks, charging $20-$30 for a WMVHD disc would sell like crazy. I’m not the only one out there that spent $50 for an imported HD version of the Italian Job from Germany. You get the money… we get our HD — legally. Things are also getting better… now your average person can buy a $249 DVD player that can playback WMVHD content. Meaning, you’ll be able to sell more WMVHD discs. Are you listening!!??
Lets talk about the players now — the ones that play WMVHD content…
Zensonic will be releasing the z500 in Australia this October. The z500 is priced nicely at $249 and will playback pretty much every major format including High Definition 1080i/720p video from WMV9 HD and DivX HD. It also features USB 2.0 hard drive support, 802.11g wireless and Ethernet networking and HDMI connection. The remote is backlit and has a little joystick to make navigating menus easier.
The z500 is still a ways away and there is no mention that it will ever hit our shores, so I’m thinking about buying the I-O DATA LinkPlayer 2. Like the z500, it allows you to playback various formatted files connected from any PC and/or Mac on your network. The Linkplayer also features an USB port so you can connect a camera and USB memory to it. Besides being compatible with DivX HD, and MPEG2-TS (HD 720p) the AVeL LinkPlayer 2 is compatible with Windows Media Video HD (WMV9). From reading different forums, I also noticed that IO-DATA releases firmware updates frequently… this is a good thing. The worst thing is buying a device that never gets updated, so it slowly stops working with new content. The LinkPlayer 2 is also priced at $249 making it an affordable option.
Now if only those darn movie studios would release WMVHD content.
July 3rd, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Do you think that this might start to usher in MCE PC’s with Toshiba’s HD-DVD players? Any possibilities that Dell might jump ship from Blu-Ray to HD-DVD by the time they are supposedly shipping out their new MCE (I think they report said something like Mid 3Q)? This along with HD support for broadcast recording would get me to spend the $3,500 for the big boxes from either Dell or Niveus.
July 4th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
At http://www.divx.com, following the link Hardware , I ordered BuffaloTech PC-P3LWG/DVD but haven’t received it yet to comment.
It plays:
Video Files: dat, mpg, mpe, mpeg, m2v, m1v, vob, avi, asf, divx, xvid, rmp4, mp4, vro, m4v, m2p, hnl, wmv, wmv HD, divx HD
Audio Files: mp3, mp2, ogg, wav, aac, wma, pls, m4a, ac3, mp1, mpa, asf, m3u
Picture Files jpg, gif, bmp, tif, png
July 4th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
Why should they release content in WMV HD? What about MPEG4/AVC? What about DivxHD?
Your post is very biased towards Microsoft and doesn’t do justice to the fact that WMV/HD is just one format among a few that compete for dominance in the HD era. You probably know that based on adoption so far MPEG4/AVC (AKA h.264) is actually leading and Microsoft kind of gets pushed back my most vendors, so why not do justice and release a more balance article. That’s the thing with blogs, no responsibility whatsoever to balance their posts and make them reflect more accurately the market. I am only saying this because I like to read eHomeUpgrade and I do read it on regular basis, but get really frustrated to see such bias. There is nothing wrong, by the way, with dedicating a blog to Microsoft ehome technologies as long as this is how you publish yourself, however claiming to be covering the ehome market in general does entail some responsibility and I am afraid you haven’t lived up to it in too many cases. Please take this as feedback from someone who cares and wants to help you do a better job, and not as criticism for the sake of criticism.
Now, I know MCE doesn’t play DivxHD or MPEG4/AVC but this is because Microsoft is using it to promote WMV/HD and make it more difficult for people to use competing formats. Fortunately anyone can download free software from Divx that will make it easy for them to play Divx HD and directshow filters for h.264 also exist from several companies so again no reason to ignore these other formats.
July 4th, 2005 at 10:58 pm
Hey Ronenmiz,
I’m glad you’re frequent reader of eHomeUpgrade (welcome). I think what Danny was getting at was that Hollywood should take advantage of consumers’ desire to own and playback HD video discs — sense Microsoft already has the technology that enables that. Sure there’s alternative HD video codecs that can be downloaded, but as far as I’m aware of none of those developers are working with Hollywood studios to sell off-the-shelf video discs to consumers.
Regards,
-Alexander
July 5th, 2005 at 8:46 am
Thank you for your reply Alexander. I think I understand what Danny was trying to get to, however as I am sure both of you know there is currently a format war for hi definition DVDs. Both camps (HD-DVD and BLU-RAY) have adopted h.264 and hi-def MPEG2, however to the best of my knowledge only the HD-DVD camp (lead by Toshiba) adopted the Microsoft VC1 codec. Hollywood studios are considering both of these formats and in fact most of them suggested that in either of these formats they prefer MPEG2 and/or h.264 over VC1. Of-course Microsoft aims to change that and is working very hard, but on the other sides a consortium of 20 companies lead by an organization called the MPGE-LA is offering an alternative. To sum it all up I still think that the original post by Danny should have taken all this into account.
Please check the following articles for more information that supports the points above:
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+on+ev…786.html?tag=nl
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/…2,1572941.story
http://www.streamingmedia.com/artic…080&page=3&c=31
July 5th, 2005 at 10:54 am
High Def discs :
. DVD Rom (”DVD Forum”) : WMV HD
. BD (Blu-ray) : High bitrate MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, VC-1 (WMV HD)
. HD DVD (DVD Forum) : High bitrate MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, VC-1 (WMV HD)
“Blu-ray Disc Format - 2.B Audio Visual Application Format Specifications for BD-ROM” (Blu-ray Disc Association - March 2005) :
http://www.blu-ray.com/
July 6th, 2005 at 8:28 am
Hi Alexander,
You wrote: “none of those developers are working with Hollywood studios to sell off-the-shelf video discs to consumers.”
But there are some developers (Microsoft and DivX) working with Hollywood to sell of-the-shelf DVD to consumers.
Check Microsoft Windows Media, ‘Showcase’ (downloads) and ‘Buy’ for some WMV HD DVD titles; including an ‘Extreme DVD Edition’ of ‘T2′.
This WMV HD edition of T2 was reviewed and compared at DVD Beaver. It’s resolution is amazing.
July 6th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
A list of WMV-HD DVD :
http://www.dts-phile.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4
“Translation“.
July 6th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
ronenmiz
Few points here to correct some of your information.
Both HD-DVD (DVD Forum) and Blu-Ray will support MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), and VC-1
There is no HD content (eg. Titles, discs for sale) out there encoded with H.264 or DivX HD.
Media Center can play H.264 and DivX HD. That’s why Microsoft developed DirectShow, and MCE would not exist without DS.
MPEGLA VC-1 Information Request
http://www.mpegla.com/pid/vc1/
To sum it all up, you can only get HD on Red-Laser disc’s right now with WMV9.
As for the players, I don’t know if any of them will decrypt the DRM used in the titles. I know they will not do the DRM in T2:EE
July 6th, 2005 at 9:09 pm
Thanks for correcting the facts. It looks like with the help of everyone here we are finally getting closer to the kind of fact finding and verification that needs to be done before posting anything to a newspaper or to a blog… Oh yes, and my point about the bias towards Microsoft is as valid as ever…
July 7th, 2005 at 5:23 am
Part of what makes a blog a blog is doing away with the “traditional” journalism. Facts and verifications need-not-apply (not that you can get either of those in traditional print now-a-days anyway)
If you want pure facts all the time, you don’t want to be reading blogs very often. Good luck finding those pure facts however.