HD Format Wars are over, but who won?

The war over which high-definition disc format to choose is now over. Toshiba yesterday announced that it would be withdrawing it's HD-DVD players from the market and retiring the format. With Warner Brothers deciding to release it's content on Blu-Ray Toshiba seems to have gotten the message. So, Sony is the winner, right? Maybe.

Certainly it will be simpler in the future to select HD content discs: all of them will be Blu-Ray. However, unless Sony cuts the prices of BD discs right now, the consumer community may simply bypass BD and opt for downloaded HD content from sources like Netflix and AppleTV. 

It's not only the price of the discs, but the licensing fees, royalty payments, and the cost of the actual blue lasers themselves that have to be reduced. This may not happen quickly enough for the consumer and if Sony wants to really cash in on this format war victory, it may have to take a bath in the short term, selling the pricier components below cost in order to have market penetration. Technological development is always moving forward and the cost of those components will inevitably drop providing Sony with profitability but what they need now is to restore consumer confidence.

What about those of us who bought HD-DVD movies? Are we "screwed, blu-rayed, and tattooed"? Not really. HD-DVD players will be going for dirt-cheap and you may want to invest in a multi-format player like the one from LG so you can play your "legacy" HD-DVD discs.

Also, since no new content will be produced, there won't be any need for the software updates to make the players compatible. Software updates? Yep, both of the HD formats use an interactive layer that is essentially computer software. In the case of BD, it's a version of Java called BDJava. As content providers upgrade the Java versions used in the creation of the BD discs, players need to be updated to support these features. Internet aware BD players like the Playstation3 can update themselves automatically as do PC based BD drives.

Speaking computers, maybe this is the sign that Steve Jobs was waiting for to announce formal Blu-Ray support on the Mac? Considering that he has a seat on the Blu-Ray Committee one wonders why he hasn't jumped up and supported the format since day one.

Infrared Pine

Infrared Pine
Originally uploaded by etrigan63

I think I finally nailed the B&W conversions for IR. Sky has the right level of darkness and the Australian Pine is giving off a fine IR reflection. Please comment if you wish.

Infrared Skies

Infrared Skies Originally uploaded by etrigan63

Second in my IR attempts, this one came a little better as a B&W image. Photo was shot RAW and converted to grayscale using the channel controls in Lightroom. Something interesting to note is that light colored objects are reflecting IR light while dark objects are absorbing them.

Infrared palms

Infrared palms Originally uploaded by etrigan63

When Leica designed the M8 they elected to install an extremely thin anti-aliasing (AA) filter over the sensor to increase the overall sharpness of the images captured by the camera. However, this had the side-effect of making the M8 sensitive to IR reflections. This manifested itself in certain dark fabrics (mostly synthetics) acquiring a magenta cast. Leica's fix was to issue IR/UV cut filters to be mounted over the lenses. The Leica community, however, realized that this "weakness" could be turned into an advantage. By using a B+W 092 Near Infrared filter the M8 is capable of capturing surreal images by blocking almost all of the visible light and recording the near-infrared portion of the spectrum. This was the first attempt (that I liked) using the M8 + 092 IR filter. Image was shot RAW and converted using Lightroom and a false color IR preset I got from KillerLightroomTips.

Apple Blu-Ray Support: What's taking so long?

I have been thinking about this topic for quite some time now. What is preventing Apple from officially supporting BD drives and HD content from them? Steve Jobs is on the Blu-Ray Steering Committee for Pete's sake!

Not technology. With the latest refresh of the Mac Pro, even the base model has hardware support for decoding the HD content with ease. MacBooks and iMacs have been that way for a while as well.

Not encryption. The HDCP stack is now supported fully by all of the components.

Not licensing. iTunes/AppleTV already has access to a ton of HD content.

The only answer (that I can think of) is money. Playing HD content over DVI or HDMI requires royalty payments to the patent owners. My guess is that Steve is waiting for DisplayPort (the royalty-free VESA standard for HD connectivity) to become prevalent. He will then announce new video card options for the upgradeable Macs and new version of the MacBook to support this technology. At this point the drives will become suddenly available and viewing BD content on the Mac will only require a quick software update (which removes the blocks in place).

Oddly enough the catalyst for this will be Windows Vista. With the release of Service Pack 1, Microsoft will add support for UEFI (making more video cards compatible with Mac) and DisplayPort as well. This will drive changes in the video industry with new graphics cards and displays coming out in force later this year. Add HP throwing their weight in the UEFI arena and we can see a lot more options for the Mac in the near future.

Nvidia to acquire Ageia

'Bout frickin' time. This shoe has been waiting to drop ever since ATI acquired Havok. I can only hope that they do something intelligent with the technology. For those of you who prefer to read marketing spin, I present the press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CLARA, CA — FEBRUARY 4, 2008—NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AGEIA Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA's PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK.

"The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are—creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences," stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce®-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."

"NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience," said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.

Like graphics, physics processing is made up of millions of parallel computations. The NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GT GPU, with its 128 processors, can process parallel applications up to two orders of magnitude faster than a dual or quad-core CPU.

"The computer industry is moving towards a heterogeneous computing model, combining a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU to perform computationally intensive applications like real-time computer graphics," continued Mr. Huang. "NVIDIA's CUDA™ technology, which is rapidly becoming the most pervasive parallel programming environment in history, broadens the parallel processing world to hundreds of applications desperate for a giant step in computational performance. Applications such as physics, computer vision, and video/image processing are enabled through CUDA and heterogeneous computing."

AGEIA was founded in 2002 and has offices in Santa Clara, CA; St. Louis, MO; Zurich, Switzerland; and Beijing, China.

The acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions.

More details about the acquisition will be provided during NVIDIA's quarterly conference call, to be held on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pacific Time. The Company's prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer period, which will be limited to questions from financial analysts and institutional investors. To listen to the conference call, please dial 212-231-2901; no password is required. The conference call will also be webcast live (listen-only mode) at the following Web sites: www.nvidia.com and www.streetevents.com.

Replay of the conference call will be available via telephone by calling 800-633-8284 (or 402-977-9140), passcode 21354792, until February 20, 2008. The webcast will be recorded and available for replay until the company's conference call to discuss its financial results for its first quarter, fiscal 2009.

About AGEIA
AGEIA Technologies, Inc., is the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA's PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK. AGEIA is also credited with developing the world's first dedicated hardware physics processor, the AGEIA PhysX processor. The company, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is privately-held. For more information visit http://www.ageia.com.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce® products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro® products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla™ products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.

M8 at the Miami Metrozoo

Indian Elephant Originally uploaded by etrigan63

As I have two children (ages 10 & 7) our weekend social calendar is usually filled with birthdays. This weekend we attended one at the Miami Metrozoo. One of the other Dads was there with his Canon 5D + 500mm lens and I with my M8 + 75mm Color-Heliar. Here is a sample and a link to the photo set on Flickr. C&C always welcome. Shots are generally uncropped ( a couple were cropped a tiny bit to remove extraneous stuff ) and little or no post processing Lightroom. I am really digging the improvements from the new firmware. All of the shots were from a moving tram BTW. Link to photo set.

Leica M8 Firmware 1.201 Test - Multiple Light sources

Firmware 1.201 Test - Multiple Light sources Originally uploaded by etrigan63

I went to a local mall today and looked for a shot that included multple light sources. I managed to find a fine example that combines daylight, fluorescent light and incandescent (halogen) light. The image is unadjusted other than a conversion from DNG to jpeg in Lightroom 1.3.1. The AWB setting has managed to do a good job with this combo, maintaining the colors very well. Click on the image to see a larger version on Flickr.