Entries tagged with hd dvd - Channel 10

I've been elected to the Board of Directors of the DVD Association

benwaggoner — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:38:00 GMT

The DVD Association (DVDA) has just held its election, and I've been elected as a member of the Board of Directors. I feel very honored to be invited into such August company, led by Sonic's Jim Taylor and my old colleague Bruce Nazarian. Bruce gives a great overview of where the DVDA is going here.

It's hard to believe it's been 10+ years of DVD as a format and for me. I was a student in the first DVD authoring class in history at the Vancouver Film School in the summer of 1997, running an extremely pre-release version of Scenarist on the SGI O2. My old friend Halstead York and I also worked with Intel to build what we believe was the first ever DVD authored end-to-end DVD created on the desktop, using one of the first DVD-R for Authoring burners in the country.

It was amazing how quickly we went from scary big iron solutions to something that consumers could knock out for themselves over the weekend. And here we are again, with things going even faster in the HD era.

Part 2 of my Halstead York Interview: VC-1 and Silverlight

benwaggoner — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:39:00 GMT

Part 2 of my Halstead York interview is now up, wherein we discuss VC-1, Silverlight, frame rate unsampling, and many other things. Part 3 talking about DRM (save the most contentious for last!) will be up soon.

Part 1 of my interview with Halstead York is up

benwaggoner — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 19:48:00 GMT

My old colleague Halstead York just interviewed me for his blog. Part 1, focusing on HD DVD is up now.

Part 1 of Ben Waggoner/Halstead York interview

There will be two more parts coming over the next week or two, focusing on Silverlight and DRM.

Microsoft Teams with Amazon for High-Def Indi Films

Tina — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:24:00 GMT

Amazon and Microsoft are teaming up to make it easier for independent filmmakers to distribute their movies on High Definition DVD's. These types of partnerships mean great opportunities for creative people. Not long ago it was prohibitively expensive to buy cameras and editing workstations, so becoming an independent filmmaker meant you needed to be related to a Coppola (no offense to Sophia and Nic Cage). This concept will use Amazons CustomFlix DVD-On-Demand technology. The technology cuts down the costly inventory requirements and allows for the production and shipment of DVDs as soon as they are ordered online. The DVDs will be formatted in Microsoft's VC-1 video codec format. Get the whole article here.

News from CES: Item #1: New Players!

benwaggoner — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 23:26:00 GMT

One of the biggest questions I get about HD DVD is “when are there going to be more players other than Toshibas and Microsoft’s?” Today, we announced that we’ve been working with Broadcom to address that need. It combines Windows CE 6.0 running on the Broadcom BCM7440 SOC (System-on-a-chip) product. Together, this is a licensable implementation of HD DVD, including video decoding, audio decoding, AACS, and HDi™ advanced interactivity.

Needless to say, this makes it a lot easier for third parties to build HD DVD players! And we’re announcing that Lite-On IT Corp. and Zhenjiang Jiangkui Group Co. Ltd./ED Digital plan to use this new hardware and software platform. Lite-On is one of the most most experienced systems integrators backing high-volume consumer electronics . Zhenjiang Jiangkui is one of the highest volume DVD player manufacturers in China.

Additionally, we’re working with Meridian Audio Ltd to build a high-end HD DVD player for the enthusiast market.

Shinco and Onkyo will also create HD DVD players.

Of course, we continue to work with Sonic Solutions, CyberLink, InterVideo, Ulead, and Nero on their software players. Lastly, our HDi technology continues to be used in the three second generation Toshiba players, as it was in the first generation.

CES news coming

benwaggoner — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:31:00 GMT

Hello all,

Sorry there haven't been any posts in a bit. But this will be changing with CES.

I'll be blogging with our news from CES here starting this evening.

To catch up on everything Microsoft is doing and announcing at CES, check out:

www.MicrosoftAtCES.com

Among other things, you'll be able to catch a webcast of Bill Gates' keynote starting at 6:30 pm PST.

HD DVD truck makes a pit stop at Microsoft

Tina — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:17:00 GMT

Last week the HD DVD truck made a stop here on the microsoft campus and of course I had to go see it for myself. The HD DVD truck is one of those fully decked out big rig's with plasma tv's, xbox 360's and everything else you hope to find in your stocking this year. HD DVD has been such an interesting topic mostly due to its competition with Blu-Ray. There are a ton of movies now available including blazzing saddles and casablanca. And if you ever wonder how a movie like casablanca that was shot in the early 40's can be high definition, you will find the answer within this segment.