DVD Forum Approves Thomson Film Grain Technology

The DVD Forum Steering Committee has approved the Thomson Film Grain Technology as an optional HD DVD-Video format. Using algorithms, the film grain tool allows users to edit and manipulate picture quality after high compression processing takes place. Christopher J. Cookson, president, Warner Bros. Technical oper

Author:: TVTechnology
Publish date:: Dec 21, 2004

The DVD Forum Steering Committee has approved the Thomson Film Grain Technology as an optional HD DVD-Video format.

Using algorithms, the film grain tool allows users to edit and manipulate picture quality after high compression processing takes place.

Christopher J. Cookson, president, Warner Bros. Technical operations, said that the Film Grain Technology allows content owners to more efficiently compress data while maintaining the high quality that consumers want.

"Thomson technology enables HD movies to be squeezed onto a single DVD with a quality that preserves the film taste," said Jean-Charles Hourcade, SEVP technology division and CTO, Thomson.

Thomson will demo this technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Jan. 6-9, 2005.

HD DVD adopts Thomson's Film Grain technology promo image

All new HD DVD players will be manufactured with integrated Film Grain technology.

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recently adopted Thomson 's Film Grain Technology as a registered disclosure document. Thomson, which developed the technology as a collaboration between its Division of Technology and its Technicolor business, said that Toshiba, RCA, Broadcom, Sigma D

The DVD Forum in Tokyo has decided to adopt a DVD format proposed by NEC and Toshiba Corporations for the storage and display of HD television programs and feature films.

Straddling both sides of the fence, Thomson will offer a line of HD DVD players and both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs

Last September, Microsoft submitted its Windows Media Series 9 as a standards candidate to SMPTE.

Last September, Microsoft submitted its Windows Media Series 9 as a standards candidate to SMPTE.

Thomson has announced that it will support both the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc advanced DVD formats by manufacturing both discs and players for both formats. Players will be marketed in the U.S. with the RCA label, and in Europe with the Thomson label. In addition to HDTV, advanced DVD formats promise higher-resolution

Regulatory and Standards

The DVD Forum has ratified the H.264 Advanced Video Codec (AVC) to be included in the next generation HD-DVD format. The AVC codec was jointly developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and has been ratified into the MPEG-4 specification as the next generation vide