HD-VMD Update

Any chance of getting an iso or some sort of raw dump for the demo disks?

A bit late to the "let's analyze the format party".. HD_V004.VMD has some nice repeating patterns that suggest that the first 256 bytes after each GOP header are encrypted. Repeated encrypted groups strongly point to a 16 byte block cipher, most likely AES or3-DES. Even though only a small portion of the video is encrypted, it's more than enough to mess everything up as all I frames are lost.

Forgive me if I'm missing something or if I'm rehashing someone else's feedback but I'm suspicious that what if all VMDs ever made are just (data) DVDs with MPEG-4 AVC (aka h.264) in a nonstandard container format? The specs seen on some box or document in the video indicated that they do support AVC. You have 2 titles there which are definitely data DVD-9s, and at 48 minutes that's over 20Mbps. BluRay used the "High Profile" of AVC and it looks like they are 40Mbps. For my theory to be true, to fit Saw (103 minutes) in 1080p into 8.5GB it would need to be encoded at roughly 10Mbps. Could it be that the whole VMD as a different medium thing, the 20GB capacity, was never accomplished? Would a 10Mbps encode using AVC be of acceptable quality enough for them to pass it off to at least a few people? Considering that they were really only trying to beat DVD. Now I'm tempted to go get a BD of Saw and encode a version to fit on a DVD9 to see what it would look like! EDIT: I completely forgot about audio in the above math, but I'm still not going to be surprised if SAW VMD turns out to be a DVD-9.

"Canadian". Lol. I'm not buying it, eh? Also, congrats on cornering the market in NIB HD-VMD discs!

I'm kinda wondering if HD-VMD actually produced anything that wasn't just a DVD with a different video codex (like VC-1 which was also used by both HD-DVD and Blyray), or even just a slightly different format of MPEG2 possibly with a different protection scheme. With modern codexes, a couple hours of 1080p can be well under 1GB, so I could see them managing to fit a movie in 1080p on a DVD using some tricks. The whole thing kinda smells like an investor farm. Make money off getting people to invest money in your company with buzzwords and promises of being "the next big thing in tech". Even companies that go massively in dept and bankrupt still make some people a lot of money, so just because an entire business idea, plans, and execution is bad and eventually fails, doesn't mean it wasn't achieving somebody's goals.

Lazy Town creeps me out for some reason. I'm not sure if it's because of the rubbery puppets, Robbie Rotten's prosthetics or the 28 year old woman playing a 12 year old girl.

I looked up Lazy Town on EBay when your first Pateon video came out. I thought “oh wow! Look at that. Someone recently bought some copies! How weird!” Now it all makes sense.

I wonder if YouTube would recognize and transcode a VMD video file if it was uploaded. Either one from a retail release or from a demo disc.

Mat, if it was in my power to do so, I'd happily make you an honorary Canadian.

Take it easy, rest up.

I think you just made some Ebay seller very happy, Mat!

Don't remember if you bought Final Cut at all. Might be worth installing that and installing the "Pro Video Formats 2.2.1". Closest idea on codec atm is XDCAM HD or MPEG IMX. https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2050?locale=en_GB

I would probably love Lazy Town if I was into smoking pot

I usually watch your videos on a small screen but i happen to be sitting at my desktop watching on my 1440p monitor today - just wanted to note the 4k video looks fantastic!

Congrats, Mat! So the money wasn‘t completely wasted and you can enjoy „Lazy Town“ 😎 The question remains, if VLC is able to play these discs, and what codec / resolution / audio they are. Any info on that?

I prefer the longer in depth videos :)

Thanks for your perseverance, Mat. You seem cream crackered. Have a good rest.

Time for a well earned nap.

I'm beginning to suspect this whole video was just an excuse for you to watch Lazy Town! If you're a fan of the show that's fine, you didn't need to go through the charade of making a video about an obscure media format 😉

I admire your dedication. Take care of yourself; you deserve a nice long break. ❤️

This all sounds as if there never was any VMD technology at all, someone had just dreamed up a wild idea that wasn't doable, and sold it to some blue-eyed people who had no real idea what they were doing.

Thanks for the update, and good to see the devices actually playing disks. Take care!

Ironically someone in my area put up hd dvd player for sale. Glad you got it working. Rest up and have a good break. I often watch your back catalogue there is so much great material

Yeah you look knackered, get some rest. Well done! That was hard work and a lot of messing around. No wonder you are tired after 2 weeks constantly doing it.

One other thing I noticed is that the final production model uses a SATA DVD, but... DVD drives can't read "20 layers" which leads me to believe that the whole 20 layer thing was baloney marketing. If those lazytown discs can be read by the production machine, they can't be more than 2 layers, right?

What a nice ending to that video. It's always nice if at the end something works. Well done.

Always appreciate your thorough and hard work. Will watch the updated one when I have some quality (uninterrupted) time. Thanks.

Really appreciate you putting out an updated videos. Hope you enjoy your holiday and you and your loved ones stay safe.

Great work Mat and thank you for sharing the update with us. Have a good break, you've earned it.

Was the working video truly HD vs what a DVD would give you?

Thank you very much for the update! Take care and enjoy your holidays!

Success!! Well done!