[Kosh]

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/04/10/firm_squeezes_films_into_a_download/

As a result, Euclid Discoveries says a full-length movie that requires 700 megabytes of storage when compressed using MPEG-4 would use just 50 megabytes when compressed with EuclidVision. At that size, 14 movies could fit on a standard CD-ROM disk

I think this is pretty cool, but I have a feeling that the people who made this compression algorithm will find themselves getting sued/harrassed by thugs.

[Rictor]

I can already download in a movie in a few hours, if the seed is good. If this compression became widely used, that would be cut down to a few minutes. Even 56kers could get in on the action.

[aldo_14]

I remember reading about a similar super-compression algorithm a few years back that seems to have come to nowt, so I have my dobuts about this.  Of course, maybe the MPAA sued the last lot into the ground or something.

The American Media Associations; proudly and patriotically standing in the way of progress for our benefit!

[Herra Tohtori]

Mmh, I can see Energia Productions being very interested about this kind of compression. 

[Nix]

I'd really be interested if I could see detailed movie file specifications.  "Full length movie at 700 MB" doesn't sound like a high quality movie, even by Divx standards.  Full length, meaning 90, 120 minutes?  What was the actual size of the film before encoding down to euclid's format?  Cause if it's gonna get squished down to 300X200 count me out.  I'll take 3 or more Divx'ed movies on a single layer DVD over that any day. 

[Sandwich]

I'll believe it when I see it.

[vyper]

The great benefit of this technology is not the number of films that could fit on  CD, but the size of CD you can use for one film.

[ZylonBane]

Umm... right. Because there are so many portable video-playing devices that accept mini-CDs.

This is far more relevant to flash memory devices.

[aldo_14]

Umm... right. Because there are so many portable video-playing devices that accept mini-CDs.

Maybe that's down to mini-CDs not being very good at playing videos at current compression ratios?  Y'know, in kind of the same way the vinyl movie market never kicked off.......and that people started making DVDs even though everyone already had VCRs.

[Kie99]

How does this handle audio?

[ZylonBane]

Umm... right. Because there are so many portable video-playing devices that accept mini-CDs.

Maybe that's down to mini-CDs not being very good at playing videos at current compression ratios? Y'know, in kind of the same way the vinyl movie market never kicked off.......and that people started making DVDs even though everyone already had VCRs.

Your analogy is flawed. Mini-CDs are not new technology. In fact, they're well on their way toward becoming obsolete. For something like movie-viewing (or any kind of data moving), flash storage is now superior. Granted, CD tech still has an advantge in cost-per-byte, but flash has it beat in durabilty, density, and access speed. And the cost advantage is eroding fast-- you can get 256MB flash drives for around $15 these days.

[aldo_14]

Umm... right. Because there are so many portable video-playing devices that accept mini-CDs.

Maybe that's down to mini-CDs not being very good at playing videos at current compression ratios? Y'know, in kind of the same way the vinyl movie market never kicked off.......and that people started making DVDs even though everyone already had VCRs.

Your analogy is flawed. Mini-CDs are not new technology. In fact, they're well on their way toward becoming obsolete. For something like movie-viewing (or any kind of data moving), flash storage is now superior. Granted, CD tech still has an advantge in cost-per-byte, but flash has it beat in durabilty, density, and access speed. And the cost advantage is eroding fast-- you can get 256MB flash drives for around $15 these days.

Mini CDs may not be new technology, but hypercompression (to coin a term) is, and they'd be a new technology within the field of video. 

In any case, stating a new technology or application would be infeasible because it's not been widely adopted yet runs rather contrary to the fact it is a new technology. 

[ZylonBane]

Mini CDs may not be new technology, but hypercompression (to coin a term) is, and they'd be a new technology within the field of video.

Come to think of it, this is basically what PSP UMDs are-- a movie on a tiny little disk. And the latest sales figures indicate that people don't like them. Plus they're fragile, and rapidly drain device power due to the need to keep them constantly spinning.

In the context of media players, mini-CDs are irrevocably irrelevant at this point. The consumer market has already moved on to flash media and micro hard drives for its portable entertainment needs. It was already true of MP3s, and there's no reason to believe it will be any different for video.

[aldo_14]

Mini CDs may not be new technology, but hypercompression (to coin a term) is, and they'd be a new technology within the field of video.

Come to think of it, this is basically what PSP UMDs are-- a movie on a tiny little disk. And the latest sales figures indicate that people don't like them. Plus they're fragile, and rapidly drain device power due to the need to keep them constantly spinning.

In the context of media players, mini-CDs are irrevocably irrelevant at this point. The consumer market has already moved on to flash media and micro hard drives for its portable entertainment needs. It was already true of MP3s, and there's no reason to believe it will be any different for video.

Hmm.  Let me look back

"Umm... right. Because there are so many portable video-playing devices that accept mini-CDs."

Any mention of alternates?  Nope.  Any mention of other case studies?  Nope. What is said?  Ah, that it's infeasible because we don't have players for a non-existent tecnology application.

If you'd perhaps put the qualification we see above, you'd have a point.  But then again, putting a caveat doesn't make it an effectively sarky putdown, does it?

[ZylonBane]

You didn't read my last post very carefully, did you?

We've already been down this road with audio. You can fit a decent amount of compressed music on a mini-CD, but in the end the consumer market favored flash/hard-drive solutions, even when the storage sizes were tiny compared to what we have now. There is no reason to expect this scenario to play out any differently with video. Especially now that CD technology is even more dated than when this battle was fought the first time, while flash and hard-drive solutions have only gotten better.

[aldo_14]

You didn't read my last post very carefully, did you?

We've already been down this road with audio. You can fit a decent amount of compressed music on a mini-CD, but in the end the consumer market favored flash/hard-drive solutions, even when the storage sizes were tiny compared to what we have now. There is no reason to expect this scenario to play out any differently with video. Especially now that CD technology is even more dated than when this battle was fought the first time, while flash and hard-drive solutions have only gotten better.

I see you didn't read my last, either.  tut tut.

[ZylonBane]

I read it, but ignored it, because it was silly. As I ALREADY SAID, we've been down this road before. Mini-CD as a multimedia delivery platform is not a "non-existent tecnology application"... the consumer market passed judgement on that already with MP3s.

At every technological turn, digital audio distribution has predicted digital video distribution. Makes perfect sense, since it's just a matter of scale. So now we have flash and hard drive-based portable video players, and if this "EuclidVision" technology pans out, they'll use that too.

Which part of this are you disagreeing with?

[vyper]

Umm... right. Because there are so many portable video-playing devices that accept mini-CDs.

This is far more relevant to flash memory devices.

Flash storage is still relatively expensive; You could mass produce mini-CDs a lot cheaper than flash cards. Marketed properly, it could be a very viable multimedia storage/presentation solution.

[ZylonBane]

Yes, I noted above that the cost-per-byte for CDs is still vastly superior to other solutions. This makes mini-CDs good for "disposable" distribution, where you pass them out like candy. But that's pretty much their only advantage at this point.