Burning Blu-ray on HD-DVD?

Wupideedoo

With all of this talk of hacking the content and blah blah blah, it got me to thinking. The two formats are incredibly similar, especially when you are talking about the codec support. Does this mean that I, who have sided with HD-DVD, will eventually be able to go out and buy a Blu-ray movie, copy it onto an HD-DVD effectively bit for bit, and then play it back on my TV without ever having to own a Blu-ray player?

If so, that'll make the format war a little more tolerable.

Giganticus

The real question is if your player will play unencrypted content. Without recieving a key from the media, it might not ever play. Meaning any backed up data on any format probably wont work.

Wupideedoo

Giganticus wrote:

The real question is if your player will play unencrypted content. Without recieving a key from the media, it might not ever play. Meaning any backed up data on any format probably wont work.

This is incredibly unlikely to happen. I seriously doubt any players out there would tell you you couldn't watch your daughters wedding in HD because we don't trust that it is not secretly a movie you should have. And what about all of the smaller studios, like Bitter Films, that have a tendency to release region free, unprotected films. Those won't play either?

Copy protection is an option for the content providers, not a requirement.

Drez

Wupideedoo wrote:

With all of this talk of hacking the content and blah blah blah, it got me to thinking. The two formats are incredibly similar, especially when you are talking about the codec support. Does this mean that I, who have sided with HD-DVD, will eventually be able to go out and buy a Blu-ray movie, copy it onto an HD-DVD effectively bit for bit, and then play it back on my TV without ever having to own a Blu-ray player?

No.

/thread

Wupideedoo

Drez wrote:

Wupideedoo wrote:

With all of this talk of hacking the content and blah blah blah, it got me to thinking. The two formats are incredibly similar, especially when you are talking about the codec support. Does this mean that I, who have sided with HD-DVD, will eventually be able to go out and buy a Blu-ray movie, copy it onto an HD-DVD effectively bit for bit, and then play it back on my TV without ever having to own a Blu-ray player?

No.

/thread

Why not?

Drez

Wupideedoo wrote:

Drez wrote:

Wupideedoo wrote:

With all of this talk of hacking the content and blah blah blah, it got me to thinking. The two formats are incredibly similar, especially when you are talking about the codec support. Does this mean that I, who have sided with HD-DVD, will eventually be able to go out and buy a Blu-ray movie, copy it onto an HD-DVD effectively bit for bit, and then play it back on my TV without ever having to own a Blu-ray player?

No.

/thread

Why not?

Well, I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that precise scenario you illustrate was probably at the core of what both sides have worked to prevent with their encryption/decryption security measures. Not only would you have to decrypt the Blu Ray disc, you'd have to either get it to run unencrypted in a HD-DVD player or re-encrypt it so it'll play on a HD-DVD player. The latter option is impossible, and I doubt the former is either, and it's probably not possible to completely unencrypt Blu Ray discs anyway.

Hell, you can't even PLAY retail Blu Ray discs on a Blu Ray burner.

Dukhat

Considering that there's currently no easily available HD-DVD writer on the market and that Blu-Ray is 20 gigs bigger than HD-DVD, it is highly improbable.

Wupideedoo

Drez wrote:

Well, I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that preventing the scenario you illustrate was probably at the core of what both sides have worked to prevent. Not only would you have to decrypt the Blu Ray disc, you'd have to either get it to run unencrypted in a HD-DVD player or re-encrypt it so it'll play on a HD-DVD player. The latter option is impossible, and I doubt the former is either, and it's probably not possible to completely unencrypt Blu Ray discs anyway.

Each side anticipates that they are going to win. It's not about stopping the content from reaching their competitors products, it's about stopping the content from being reproducible at all.

Well, it is reproducible. Demonstrated as such.

Also, Blu-ray is no more secure than HD-DVD at the moment. Not one of the over 100 titles on the market uses the BD+ protection yet. They will, I know, but how long do you honestly believe that will hold up?

All I'm saying is that if a movie that uses VC-1 only takes up 20 or so hours at 1080p, loaded with special features and all, it should, theoretically, be extremely easy to just change the format of the disc while leaving the content completely alone..

Zorak15

I know absolutely zero about the technical capabilities of HD-DVD readers/ writers/media.

And I love Wupideedoo from our good old Halo 2 clan, but when I saw this thread title I had to act on my instinct:

/long preface

I just wanted to make a huge contribution and mention that some motherfarkers are always trying to ice-skate uphill.

Edit: I didn't see that we were already having a rather negative debate about this when I posted this. Kindly count me a neutral smartass when it comes to this debate.

Wupideedoo

Zorak15 wrote:

I know absolutely zero about the technical capabilities of HD-DVD readers/ writers/media.

And I love Wupideedoo from our good old Halo 2 clan, but when I saw this thread title I had to act on my instinct:

/long preface

I just wanted to make a huge contribution and mention that some motherfarkers are always trying to ice-skate uphill.

Edit: I didn't see that we were already having a rather negative debate about this when I posted this. Kindly count me a neutral smartass when it comes to this debate.

Hey Gunsmith. Hope to see you come the Halo 3 beta.

Your post makes no sense to me, though. Yeah there are the multi-format players, but when I could choose to drop $700 for both formats (HD-DVD add-on + 20GB PS3) or buy a $1200 multi player, I'll choose the former. I don't really care how many disc trays I have to choose from.

Also, those multi-format discs are only going to serve in prolonging this stupid war. It'll be harder to attribute the sales toward one format or the other, meaning no clear winner, meaning longer battles.

And what does the PS3's blue laser reproduction difficulties have to do with anything?

I don't know how to ice-skate. I fall a lot.


Ninja edit?: That was fast editing... Most of my post doesn't make sense now. I will leave for posterity.

Drunk_caterpillar

Wupideedoo wrote:

Also, those multi-format discs are only going to serve in prolonging this stupid war. It'll be harder to attribute the sales toward one format or the other, meaning no clear winner, meaning longer battles.

But if you own a set top box that can do both formats who cares if there's a war?

Wupideedoo

Drunk_caterpillar wrote:

Wupideedoo wrote:

Also, those multi-format discs are only going to serve in prolonging this stupid war. It'll be harder to attribute the sales toward one format or the other, meaning no clear winner, meaning longer battles.

But if you own a set top box that can do both formats who cares if there's a war?

I don't own one of those boxes. My post illustrated why most people won't own one of those boxes for a very long time.

Beyond that, if this first LG box is anything to go off of, I would rather multi-boxes never existed to begin with. The extent to which HD-DVD playback is crippled is downright insulting.

I would rather a winner (even if it is Blu-ray), and these new discs are going to hinder that.

Drunk_caterpillar

Wupideedoo wrote:

I would rather a winner (even if it is Blu-ray), and these new discs are going to hinder that.

Yes, we all suffered terribly during those DVD±R wars, what with the dual format burners and whatnot.

Seriously, don't kid youself. No one is going to own either of these formats for a long time.

Wupideedoo

Drunk_caterpillar wrote:

Wupideedoo wrote:

I would rather a winner (even if it is Blu-ray), and these new discs are going to hinder that.

Yes, we all suffered terribly during those DVD±R wars, what with the dual format burners and whatnot.

Seriously, don't kid youself. No one is going to own either of these formats for a long time.

Hundreds of thousands already do. Myself included, which is why I made this thread.

Which has gotten too far off topic.


I've just never seen this question asked before. If there is an answer, I would like to know it. If not, then I will just have to wait until there is one.

japan

I can see this being possible, but only if the HD-DVD player will play unencrypted content.

If it does, and the Blu-Ray disc is one of those for which the title key is known, I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't be able to rip and burn the (possibly re-encoded) video file to an HD-DVD. I'm fairly certain that the formats are just different enough that you couldn't copy bit-for-bit one disc to the other.

Alternatively, build your self a media centre that will stream the ripped video from your computer. That saves a lot of arsing around, plus you don't have to fiddle with physical discs.

Daedalus

In order to do this, you will need a blu-ray drive inside your PC ($600 at least), as well as an HDDVD burner ($Not released yet).

Seems like it'd be cheaper to just buy a Blu-Ray player, if you have to. Or have the computer with the BR drive display the movie on your HDTV. Y'know, since it would be a Blu-Ray Player at that point.

The entire question doesn't make any sense.

Deusfaux

Yeah im not understanding how he'd read the blu-ray disc to copy it in the first place without owning a blu-ray player... and at that point what is he trying to avoid buying again?

Einhander

Deusfaux wrote:

Yeah im not understanding how he'd read the blu-ray disc to copy it in the first place without owning a blu-ray player... and at that point what is he trying to avoid buying again?

Yeah (assuming he's keeping it legit), he's pretty much going to buy a Blu-Ray device if he plans on ripping a Blu-Ray movie, there is no way around that. So why bother burning the Blu-Ray movie to HD-DVD if you've already got a Blu-Ray player?

For the price of a dual-format deck you could have both a 360+HD-DVD addon, and a PS3, and you'd also get a shitload of gaming between the two of them as well.

ZackSchilling

I'll only start any sort of investment into HD-DVD/BluRay once one of the formats has its copy protection significantly broken. I understand that the encryption its self is unlikely to fail, but if someone goes the socio-political route and breaks the format in such a way that re-securing future discs would require more than half of the users to firmware update or purchase a new player, the movie companies would decide the negative PR isn't worth it and leave the format broken.

To answer the OP: since the formats use the same resolutions and encoding formats, I'd assume if the files were small enough, you could turn Blu-Ray content into HD-DVD and vice-versa using decryption and authoring programs. You shouldn't expect menus and such to carry over without significant reconstruction though. I believe those formats are very different.

Deusfaux

I'm 90% done copying my King Kong hddvd to the pc, with the hopes to play it from there

I'll tell you if it works or not

Drez

Whupideedoo: I have an HD-DVD player and I think Blu Ray is retarded, along with format war. Rather, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with Blu Ray, other than that it is more expensive to produce, only offers 16-20 gigs more than an HD-DVD, and creates a very unpleasant schism in the consumer market.

That said, I'm also a realist, and I never see copying Blu Ray movies to a burnable, watchable HD-DVD as either possible or cost-effective for a consumer. It'll never, ever happen, unless you can buy some sort of pirate HD-DVD player that can play unencrypted discs and you have both a Blu Ray and HD-DVD burner for your computer and blank HD-DVD media is cheap.

Daedalus

Einhander wrote:

For the price of a dual-format deck you could have both a 360+HD-DVD addon, and a PS3, and you'd also get a shitload of gaming between the two of them as well.

For the price of a dual-format deck now. Two years from now, dual-format decks will be $100 at WalMart and the "format war" will be over.

Rook

Drez wrote:

Whupideedoo: I have an HD-DVD player and I think Blu Ray is retarded, along with format war. Rather, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with Blu Ray, other than that it is more expensive to produce, only offers 16-20 gigs more than an HD-DVD, and creates a very unpleasant schism in the consumer market.

That said, I'm also a realist, and I never see copying Blu Ray movies to a burnable, watchable HD-DVD as either possible or cost-effective for a consumer. It'll never, ever happen, unless you can buy some sort of pirate HD-DVD player that can play unencrypted discs and you have both a Blu Ray and HD-DVD burner for your computer and blank HD-DVD media is cheap.

It seems kinda strange that there would be such a massive limitation on HD-DVD players. I mean surely at some point people will want to start filming home videos in high def.

Drez

The Warlock wrote:

Einhander wrote:

For the price of a dual-format deck you could have both a 360+HD-DVD addon, and a PS3, and you'd also get a shitload of gaming between the two of them as well.

For the price of a dual-format deck now. Two years from now, dual-format decks will be $100 at WalMart and the "format war" will be over.

That's completely naive.

archonwarp

Drez wrote:

The Warlock wrote:

Einhander wrote:

For the price of a dual-format deck you could have both a 360+HD-DVD addon, and a PS3, and you'd also get a shitload of gaming between the two of them as well.

For the price of a dual-format deck now. Two years from now, dual-format decks will be $100 at WalMart and the "format war" will be over.

That's completely naive.

It's a bit unrealistic of a projection, but he does have some point. It's going to take a while for people to even 'progress' onto HD-DVD or Blu-ray, as 2/3 of the market still doesn't have HD compatible TVs. Two years down the road, however, we will have a more clear-cut idea of what the formats are capable of and which format the consumer has decided on. That's the point where we'll see things in the casual consumer price range, such as 300 dollar HD players.

Deusfaux

Deusfaux wrote:

I'm 90% done copying my King Kong hddvd to the pc, with the hopes to play it from there

I'll tell you if it works or not

So close!!!


The movie plays back distorted, though smooth and with proper audio


I just figure out how to fix that and then its all good

japan

Drez wrote:

The Warlock wrote:

Einhander wrote:

For the price of a dual-format deck you could have both a 360+HD-DVD addon, and a PS3, and you'd also get a shitload of gaming between the two of them as well.

For the price of a dual-format deck now. Two years from now, dual-format decks will be $100 at WalMart and the "format war" will be over.

That's completely naive.

Are you saying this because you don't think the prices will drop that fast, you don't think either format will take hold, you don't think dual format drives will be an option because of licensing restrictions, you don't think the format war will end or some other reason?