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Copy-Protected Digital VHS
DragonMagic writes: "BBC carries this story regarding the comeback, certain studios hope, of the video tape against the dominating sales of the DVD. Fox, Universal, Dreamworks SKG and Artisan Entertainment are releasing a series of blockbuster movies onto the format D-VHS, developed by JVC. DVHS offers High Definition TV technology and the possibility of copy prevention, and is able to play old VHS tapes as well."
Why would I want clunky VHS tapes that need to be rewound when I can have thin DVDs that never need rewinding? No thanks.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
People never learn.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
sounds kind of like DAT to me.
never realy made it anywhere with the consumer, mostly due to anti-piracy measure that were built into the consumer grade units.
I think, given that DVD has been adopted so very quickly by so many people, there realy isnt to much chance of this taking over.
still it would be cool if you could record HDTV onto D-VHS and replay it at the same quality
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
This is pure genius! Everyone needs two of theses...... I wouldn't MIND a digital VCR, it'd be cool for archiving Futurama. :)
What, me worry?
Why would someone go out and buy a new video tape player (and let's not say VCR, do you think they'd be recordable ;-), when we already have DVD? Because you could get the Brave New World of media coporation evil in a familiar form factor?
I can see it now... "Who needs the long-livedness, nearly random access, and large amounts of storage of DVDs when you could go back to tapes?" It'll be like nostalgia for vinyl, except without the hiss and pops.
It'll be difficult to convince people to go out and buy VHS tapes now that DVD has already been billed as the 'totally better' replacement for tapes, even if D-VHS is better.
As for the media, how many people have bought a VHS player recently enough for it to have the "D-Theater" ability? People aren't going to go out and buy another VCR when they just shelled out 200$ or more on their DVD player.
How much the move industry needed to create a new standard for video media.
My other sig is extremely clever...
remind me of the withering days of the casette where there were advanced features of seeking tracks and auto reverse play...
VHS recorders are less than $100 and I'm in serious doubt that anyone is going to pay extra for something they can already get from the DVD players and VHS recorders they already own...
The problem is that DVHS offers advantages only to people with HDTV. But right now that is a very small minority. DVD offered not only far superior picture quality to VHS, but also better sound and random access. DVHS loses that all important ability of random access and has for the regular viewer no advantage over DVD.
Why on earth does anyone still care about VHS as a tier-1 platform? In 2 years, it'll be difficult to even find VHS players any more.
Indie rock lives! b-side!
Might be a great way to back up data. Instead of burning them onto CDs, data could be backed up on VHS like tapes if they offer gigs and gigs of data. The magnetic tape medium would them have come full circle, then!
You could always place a camera in front of an HDTV.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Why do they even bother with these things?
I suppose that next they will offer a new copy-protected version of the 8-track tape which is supposed to replace the CD. Yes, we will all buy it since we will be able to play our old 8-tracks in the thing.
Let me go sell all my beta's and run out and buy this! ..heheh ooh well ...it would go great with my beta, Phillips CD-I, Laser Disk Player, ..
We have an old system that plays DCC...they hoped it would revive the cassette against increasing CD popularity...never worked of course. Doubtful this will either.
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DIVX? I knew you could..
Before anyone gets their panties in a bind, remember that they have the right offer it and we have the right to not buy it. Since companies only stay in business when people by products, products that don't sell don't stay.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
This smells like an admission of defeat for CSS.
They were sold at appliance stores like Sears and Best for about a year. I don't know a single person who bought one. Consumers don't like artificially feature-crippled products.
I wish the new copy-protected "CDs" were as clearly labeled as CBS's old VCR. They would surely lose in the marketplace if labelled properly...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
DVHS promises 4 hours/tape of HDTV or 50 hours/tape of regular TV.
For some people, the 50 hours/tape feature may be exciting. That's about 70 hours of TV if you cut out the commericals.
Personally, I think this will go the way of DAT. Digital audio tape was a cool idea, and is still used in niche markets, but with recordable CDs isn't terribly interesting to consumers. With consumer-grade recordable DVD just around the corner, there's no real market here for a new tape format.
So after reading the article, I still have a couple of questions: If it's tape, then won't it still break when my VCR or the tape gets old? Also, even though it's digital, it seems to me that the quality just won't be the same. Am I wrong?
Studios should be asking themselves, "who are your early adopters?"
;-)
DVD is too new for your average consumer to want to run out and buy a new player (even if it plays VHS too).
High-end videophiles will know better. Random access media has too much going for it in terms of non-linear content (think "the making of" and trailers) and fast search forward or back. They also know that tape involves more moving parts, and thus more wear.
So, they've got to be targeting the low-end videophiles who know just enough to be dangerous. Oddly enough, the vast majority of THAT market segment are college students or recent graduates, and would be the most likely to be turned off by the new copy-protection features!
Oh yeah, this is going to be lucky to go as far as DIVX (the DVD format, not the video codec) did.
"In 2 years, it'll be difficult to even find VHS players any more."
How could this be? 20 years after they stopped making 78 records, it was very easy to find dirt cheap record players for them. 20 years after the death of the 8 track tape, it is still easy to find players for these. Don't worry about not being able to find VHS players!!!
I heard about this 3 years ago, when DVD was 1/10 what it is now, and I didn't think it would succeed then.
Let me see, even if it were not copy protected in new and interesting ways, its a tape, meaning you get the following lovely limitations:
* Minutes to Rewind and Fast Forward, certainly no useful "scene selection"
* Stretch, snap, oh dear.
* Yay, its magnetic. Degrades over time (much faster than an optical disk)
* Multiple versions of moive on one tape with seamless branching to let you watch either theatrical or directors cut.
So basically its backwards compatible with VHS.
hrm, anyone remember Philips DCC - the competitor to Sony minidisc from the early 90s. A tape format which played regular cassettes. (Basically, an inferior consumer DAT with extra copy protection and backwards compatibility).
Nope. Didn't think you would remember it!
Minidisc may not have set the world on fire (at least in the US) but its still here. People are used to the advantages of disk and solid state (flash memory) formats.
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
Soon to be lining discount bins everywhere! Why pay more to record something on digital tape for good definition when you can do it with a TIVO.
This is supposed to be targetted for HDTV, which the article claims DVD doesn't support. Not 100% correct, isn't DVD 700 lines of resolution? I know HDTV can do higher resolutions, but I could never figure out the point to it. HDTV is like quadrophonic stereos, and this new D-VHS will be like the 8-tracks you used to play it (remember needing the funky quad-decks?)
Plus look at the dreck they've used for the first release on this format. Not exactly the stuff cinema buffs watch, more like Joe six-pack.
ChuckyG
What a crock. Don't waste your money investing in this one - FMDs and especially FMCs from Constellation 3D are the real future.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Question: Is that correct? If I go out and buy an HDTV set, no DVD players yet output any kind of HDTV signal, even if I make my own movie with a Mac or something like that?
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Call it what it really is, "Usage restriction", "Usage annoyance", "Copy prevention", "Copy annoyance", anything but "Copy protection", a newspeak word brought to you by the same people who made up the word "pirate", equating someone who copies bits without authorization to someone who robs, rapes, and murders on the high seas.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Sure, I -might- buy it, if I had an HDTV. But since they insist on selling HDTVs for a few thousand dollars more than I'm willing to spend, I'll stick with DVDs. And so will everyone else.
Ah well, at least there's always amusement value in watching the movie companies waste money.
As it is digital, the quality will be as good as that of DVD.
....for a few weeks. Then they start to rot and de-res, and you get bad JPG-like blotchiness on the screen.
I can't see exactly who their target market is:
Videophiles who already have DVD (and perhaps even LD) might buy it if they're spendy people, but would they copy their DVD or LD onto D-VHS and suffer "degredation?"
Joe Six-Pack is not going to pay $2k when he can get a normal VHS and DVD and still have enough left over to buy 600 sixes of Bud.
About the only market I can see is people who want to tape off their satellite dish and keep it all digital, instead of having to have programs littering their Tivo.
But the price is gonna have to come way down (est. 3 years) before the mass market does that. And what do you want to bet by that time there will be some sort of "copy protection" on satellite signals to prevent it?
oh boy, here we go again.....
The only place I could see this being of any use at all is in video studios for technophobes, where the ease of queing up tape would be handy. Compared to a hard-drive based non-linear editing suite, though, this is a short trip to hell.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
It's an underhanded, but unmistakably capitalist, tactic. Leaving you the only option in a market driven society: vote with your dollars and they'll soon leave this intentionally crummy product for dead.
A good article regarding the concept of planned obsolescence.
Guvegrra?
See The DCC Faq for comparanda:
And of course it included SCMS.
People like DVDs because you don't have to rewind them, you can jump directly to a particular scene (which is, I know, just another way of saying you don't have to rewind them), and they have the same familiar size and shape that CDs have. The hilarious part is that D-VHS is targetting the high-end consumer with titles like X-Men, Independence Day, Die Hard, U-571 and Terminator 1 and 2 - all of them eye candy that, while they may look good on HDTV, are mass-market films.
Why it would be D8T (Digital 8 Track). Can you imagine listening to your favorite music in 5.1 with that convenient 8track form factor. It would play your huge collection of old analog 8tracks, though you would not be allowed to record them. Sony could then come out with the TrackMan(r) portable unit. Heck, they could even come out with a Mavica that uses it to store all your pix!
According to the article, the cost for one of these new D-VCRs is $1,995!!!! Why would I pay $1,995 to get a new VCR when I can pay $200 to $500 to get a DVD Player???? This is insane. This will never take off. The price is too high for my budget. Also, why would I want to buy a digit VCR that only plays Prerecorded D-VHS tapes? You can play regular tape, and I bet you can record like a normal VCR, but I noticed that the article doesn't mention that this new VCR can record Digital quality signals and maintain the digital quality. Why would I want to pay $1,995 and not get the ability to record digital? I think this will be another DIVX.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
This is probably going to end up like LaserDisks. It'll be the high-end format that home-theater people are going to use instead of DVDs. And then they'll come out with blue-laser DVDs after DVDs are at 99% acceptance so that people can buy new stuff AGAIN.
Now the question I'd love to see answered is weather you can tape OTA HDTV programming on these new D-VHS VCRs. That might make HDTV *gasp* useful!
Gentoo Sucks
So with yet another video media coming out, it occurs to me to ask what the ideal media would be? Is it DVD, or is there a need for something better? Does DVD really offer HDTV resolution?
Personally, I see several shortcomings in the current DVD format:
* NTSC/PAL-based encoding. Rubbish. The disc should be encoded with however many frames per second the original media used. The players can then convert to NTSC/PAL, or they can put out a native signal for multisync TVs. Then each frame on the disc is one original frame from the film.
* Size limitations. If we're creating a new format, we can use newer technology to get a lot more data on the discs.
* Region coding/content coding. Well, this won't go away, but it certainly belongs on a wish list.
First, DVD fans shouldn't be the least bit worried.
Secondly you can find the release in full here.
This new VHS has the potential to hold up to 28Mbps (Megabits per second) of High Definition signal. This surpasses the defacto standard of 18Mbps, and that's certainly a good thing. The main difference between these tapes and DVD is that yes, even though DVD is great, it can't do high definition. It just takes up too much space. So in that regard, these D-VHS tapes have the one-up.
However, D-VHS (they're going to market it as D-Theater) will still need to be rewound. You still won't be able to have commentaries. You still won't be able to have multiple angles, seamless branching, or menus.
They will still wear out over time.
While I'm positive they will be gorgeous when they are debuted tomorrow for the press, the fact remains that tapes are tapes and by definition they disintigrate over the years.
The real question is that there have been at least half a dozen High Definition DVD formats proposed and yet no one will stand behind them. Of course JVC did invent VHS to start with and that's a good point, but this Beta-like (or 8-track like if you prefer) alternative to a digital medium already has its days numbered with very (VERY) few players, all priced just below $2000 and the fact that consumers will be confused yet again by even more techno mumbo-jumbo.
Lastly, I think the fact that even though the first few movies will be your basic blockbusters (The first two Terminators, U-571, X-Men, Independence Day, et al), I'm glad to see that Warner Bros (who coincidentally were the first to back DVD) and Columbia TriStar aren't getting in this race.
Page widening & Lengthening Day on THursday!!!
Isn't it Wednesday right now?
Ok so we flood the market with low cost DVD players that do all kinds of nifty stuff, game consoles like PS2 that play DVD, and computer DVD drives.
Now I have a great idea... release a new product without any of the features that appeal to owners of DVD players and charge $2000 for it? That will work right?
I don't understand the logic here. With DVD recorders hitting the consumer market this year how will these DVHS players be successful? Any wise consumer should be able to tell that this is clearly a device that has been in R&D too long and is being pushed to market just for the sake of doing so. Buying one of these things would be really foolish (and expensive).
I agree with you, but what would you call people who illegally copy copyrighted material?
No, really.
Copyright violators? Thieves? Frankly, when I hear "pirate" anymore I don't think "scum of the earth!" I think "oh, yeah, whatever." It doesn't even have a negative meaning for me anymore.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
So they screwed up DVD security, and now they want consumers to bear the cost of migrating to another medium? Seems as though next-generation refridgerators are going to be on the Internet, so what's to keep D-VCRs away from file sharing? And didn't the laserdisc demonstrate that there isn't an adequate market for a high end video format? Too little, too late.
My biggest complaint about this format, other than the cumbersome sequential access, is that magnetic tapes have nowhere near the shelf life of optical formats like DVD. I know people with huge collections of video tapes from the 80s that are all slowly becoming unviewable due to progressive quality loss.
DSTB -- That's right, Digital Stone Tablet Books!
The newest in digital technology along with copyright protection!
...they're hitting the mainstream consumer, who will likely never get a HDTV until they're FORCED to by the FCC. The "soccer mom" family, the older senior citizens, etc. They can still use their old tapes, and now their new ones as well. They'll likely be able to record to them too, so unless set-top DVD-R's start coming out soon en masse, they will lose some ground there as well.
And heaven forbid they start releasing a ton of these (at first, because they need to remember the HDTV crowd) tapes as pan & scan. The average consumers would rush to those "tapes without those black bars".
Besides, if it gives TRUE HDTV playback up to 1080i, OF COURSE the aficiando's are going to go for it. Even with the top of the line equipment, line-doublers, 3 color projection systems, they're still limited to the disc's output of 480p (only on a progressive scan player as well).
Do I think it'll fail? Yes, and I'm hoping for that as well. Do I think it has a chance though? Yes.
Record with one of these D-VHS devices? Does it then become copyrighted material of (*insert hated company here*) or can I watch it when I want to?
There will always be ways around copy protection. There are tapes out there now that have copy protection on them, and in VCR's that don't allow you to directly copy them. But, as anyone really knows, that's an easy to get around measure of pretection. I'm sure that someone will very quickly, crack this security measure. It's been done with every other form of security that has ever been made.
I'm not saying that god doesn't exist, merely that he is not necessary - hawking
Personally, I think DVHS could have decent market penetration if it wasn't so expensive. I like the idea of being able to create bit perfect copies of high definition TV broadcasts. At about $7.50 for a 40GB tape, it could be a pretty cheap method of data storage too. It may not have random access, but from a quality standpoint it's far superior to DVD. Now if only the VCRs would come down in price. Chances are, a high definition disc format will come out and quickly overpower DVHS, but for the moment, it seems to be the highest quality method of video recording money can buy.
But wben they get around to it, there'll be HD-DVDs too, either using mpg4 compression (should get size down to normal DVD-9), or using blue lasers. Either way you'll need a new player just like this over standard VHS, and personally I think people are more interested in that. They only need to come up with a bulletproof enough CSS2+supermegaextra copy prevention system first.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If this thing can record from a digital feed (such as from a DISH unit) to D-VHS, doesn't this thing need to support MPEG-2 encoding (which is what I believe D-VHS uses)? That would require more hardware than your average VHS or even DVD player. Maybe that helps explain the price. ($2K? Naw...)
Can you encrypt your own recordings, too? That would be nifty...
Well, maybe they should've come out with D-Betamax.
errr... I watch my DVDs on my 22" monitor.
this monitor is connected to the motherboard.
motherboard houses various components which make up what some people reffer to as a computer or a
"piece of shit" (depending on how's the day going... grrr.)
anywho, I'll never buy/rent one. and I don't think JVC will come out with a D-VHS player for computers. lol, putting a tape into a computer...
mmm... Atari 65XL... mmmm.
...until HD is available on DVDs and in other formats, nothing more. The technology for HD-DVDs isn't quite their yet, D-VHS can meet this need today.
Having just bought a HDTV, I'd love to be able watch movies of my choice on it. D-VHS would provide that in the near term until the disc-based technologies catch up. (of course, this assumes that the machines don't run $1k and movies $90)
-Chris
I remember this from a few years ago, and even then it was expensive. It is a technology that nobody was interested in, and probably still aren't. I remember someting about the system being able to record 8-streams simultaneously (so 8 different tv channels, although at lower quality I would assume). The system did seem quite good as (A) it was recordable (unlike DVD), (B)it was backwards compatible. However I think the 8-stream system was crippled (guess who wanted this), and there was no support for the system. I don't think this has much chance this time round: I mean normal VHS recorders are dirt cheap.
hmmm, this just sounds like Philips DCC (digital cassettes) while Sony was making minidisc. DCC didn't work out, and DVHS won't either
HMMM $1995.00???? Do you actually expect someone to pay 2500 for a HDTV, 700 for a tuner and then 2000 for a VCR??? ok so it can play digital movies...but come on!!!! might as well buy a movie theater
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. RUSH
While random access is very nice and tapes wear much more out than DVDs, people that want the best video quality will have to use tapes. DVHS features much higher bitrates than DVDs and is able to support HDTV resolutions.
I think DVHS has a chance for a while in the high-end videophile segment. Videophile tend to collect movies and do not really play them that often because they had that many tapes/discs. Also the wearout problem isn't that bad because DVHS is digital and it will take a long time before the error correction couldn't correct all the bit errors.
Also making a DVHS release is very likely much cheaper than a DVD release. You don't need expensive mastering and glassmasters to make a DVHS master. Because of that DVHS release could be profitable even if a low volume is sold. The only thing that is really needed for a good HDTV DVHS release is a high resolution digital transfer and a mpeg-2 encode of that transfer. For most movies that may get a DVHS release the transfer is already existant because it was made for HDTV broadcasting, professional digital video project for cinemas or because the movie made completely digital. Then you just need a cheap mpeg encode.
Jan
DIGITAL CASSETE!
:)
DIGITAL VYNIL!
and, finally...
DIGITAL GRAMOPHONE...
Pioneer announced today that they will be reviving the 78rpm record. "With newly developed technology, we can now one whole hour of pure, unsampled, analog music onto one of these babies. Our lab tests prove that the analog waveform is purer and cleaner than a sampled digital recording. This along with our new longer playback, we here at Pioneer think that people be throwing their small, convenient, well supported CD's out the window for our product.", commented Pioneer spokeswoman Elisia Jones.
I doubt MPAA even in all their power can stop that... and that will be a killer appliance. Publicly availible codecs are around, no more VCD mpg1 or SVCD mpg2, DVD-on-a-cd mpg4.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Has anyone brought this up? Barring the copyright problems, this stacks up against the TiVo in most ways.
It may have more success as a way to time shift, and thus replace the conventional VHSR in the house, but because it's 2 years *after* TiVo, I wouldn't expect it to take off at all.
If this had been released 3 years ago (Possible! Sony had Digital8 around that time) and could record digitally onto standard VHS tapes and had a Firewire port for streaming of data around a Firewire network...
Heck, if they added that feature right now, I bet there would be a niche market for it!
Still, they should have released this product three years ago...
GPL Deconstructed
A press-release-looking document on the D-VHS specs is at http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/products/vcr/D -VHS-e.html
e .html
It looks like the first idea behind these units were to record digital satellite links in DSRs (Digital Satellite Recorders). Here's another press release from 1997:
http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/D-VHS/d970601
This capability would be trivial to add -- they're just mpeg files on your hard drive after all. Someone in the business will probably do it one day. Then the lawsuits will begin and it'd be tied up in court longer than any of us will be around.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This might be an interesting alternative to DVD since the capacity of a digital VHS would dwarf what we could currently store on those CDs...although, I am still waiting for the digital 8-track, then I'll be sold.
Create more uncertainty into the marketplace, resulting in the consumer (customers) saying what the heck is this? And not buying any of it. There needs to be a standard in which everyone will participate.
This type of thinking is exactly why the SSSCA won't work. These people can't even even agree on the technology to present their product in more compelling ways. Imagine them trying to agree on a crypto standard for computer hardware....So it would be decided on by congress. Theres a real oxymoron, congress passing laws on Intellectual Property and encryption and DRM when half don't even know how to use e-mail.
Yup, DVD currently isn't HDTV, but its not tied to any particular video standard. It handles NTSC and PAL just fine right now[*].
;)
Larger DVD sizes are in the pipeline. HDTV support was always planned for the future. See google for linkage, or old slahdot stories on bigger DVD sizes.
Of course, you'll have to buy a new player
[*] yes, the disk *is* encoded differently, but most players can convert on the fly, so you'll usually never notice unless you get a cheapo player (more likely in the US that you get one that doesn't support PAL than the reverse in Europe)
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
Preach on! Keep up the good work!
I'd love to insert the picture here, but it would be of a mangled tape. I don't think I've seen or heard of a DVD destroying a disk, yet. Know of one? Pass it along and I'll avoid the mfr. VHS is too problematic.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
from my (rejected) submission earlier today:
Reuters is reporting a new digital tape format (D-VHS) to be marketed to upscale households. Interesting highlights include more encryption and claims that it's much higher quality than DVD, though no specifics were given.
Get off my launchpad!
Greeeaaaat... here's a restriction that's being pushed as a feature. Almost (but not quite) as funny as seeing Best Buy and Circuit City's Sony products listing "SDMI Compliant" as a feature.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Hmm, $2000 USD.
/that/ great, yeesh).
:`( :`( :`( :`( (if you've ever had to manage one in which NOTHING automaticaly detects anything else, you would cry too. I have to manualy select the friggin audio decompression method on my stand alone DVD player for crying out loud!)
Heh.
How about a complete computer with a DVD drive on it and a (resonably) high quality video out card (I do believe that they should be able to do HDTV resolutions, not like HDTV is
In fact computers are EASIER to play DVDs on then a regular stand alone DVD player is.
Hmm.
Mabye that would be ONE good thing about these D-VHS systems, FINALY being able to use the as a passthrough! Star topologies SO suck for A/V equipment.
I just open my computers DVD-ROM drive up, pop in a DVD, close the tray, and walla, the movie starts to play! Yaah.
10-15 seconds, slow tray.
bleh.
That is the ONE thing that I seriously miss about VHS, the ability to have EVERYTHING running through the VCR. Perferably in a nice serial method. Nintendo to Cable Box, Cable Box to VCR, VCR to TV. Yah. Since my standalone DVD player DOES NOT HAVE A FRIGGIN OFF SWITCH on the remote control, anytime the TV is tuned to the DVD player's inpt channel I get that blue APEX DVD screen, ickies! Not fun.
Ah, of course the sound system doesn't help things any, hehe. Damnit I wish that somebody would invent a single *High Quality* wire that transfered over both video and {2,4,5}.1 surround sound data. Man that would rock. Alot. Seriously. Hell make it all digital too, hehe, I'm willing to pay for an A/D converter in each seperate device (uh, lets see, Speakers, TV, thats it. ^-^ ) in exchange for the convience of just ONE CORD between devices!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Who cares about VHS? If they announced they were bringing back Betamax, that would be news worthy.
How many of you wont touch another analog cassette, or VHS tape, because your worried you might have to rewind it?
I figured by the time we hit the year 2000, 'rewinding' would be a thing of the past. I could care less if its nicer looking, sounds better, because DVD really satisfies all my movie needs (I dont agree with who runs the DVD standard but thats a seperate issue). It would have been nice if they used some better compression technique then MPEG2 for DVD, like MPEG4 or something similar, but its already out, and it works. Ah well, Im not going to buy one =)
Why would JVC develop a new digital video standard based on magnetic tapes? Does anyone else suspect it has something to do with JVC's aging patents on VHS and S-VHS?
Even if other people don't care for random access, other people don't have DVHS players, but they do have DVD players wether they be in their Playstation2, PC, or standalone set-top-box.
DVD is here to stay.
You may wonder why anyone would launch a new tape format in 2002; but D-VHS has actually been around for several years.
If you can read Japanese you can read the press release for the launch of Hitachi's first D-VHS machine in August 1998 here; otherwise you might like to take a look at this press release from 1999 which announces the first HD consumer VCR, which used D-VHS and was manufactured by Panasonic.
When D-VHS kit was first being developed it was all but impossible for consumers to record to DVD, so D-VHS looked like it might have a future. But DVD recording technology started to become affordable very soon after, so I guess by the time the manufacturers were ready to really push D-VHS in the West it was a non-starter.
And I can't say I'm surprised the major studios are looking at it - for the time being at least, no-one's hacked the copy protection, which is more than can be said for DVDs!
DVD has the market currently and consumers like it, they have for the most part been off of tapes for 2 years now, and they wont want to go back. The DVD technology has been enbraced by the consumers and is almost everywhere, with almost every title released in that format.
The D-VHS will go the way of the beta-max.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
Hooray, I get to pay $2000 so that movie studios can prevent me from copying movies!!!
What a bargain.
High def my ass
I'm not a media empire mogul, but why waste time and money on something so risky? Why not capitalize on the success of DVDs and come out with DVD 2.0?
DVD 2.0: A new format of DVD that supports HDTV but fixes that pesky "weak encryption" problem of original DVDs. Ultimately, it won't stop people from ripping them, but it should slow them down (look at Xbox DVDs for example). And the best part? Everyone has to buy a new DVD player (backwards compatible to DVD 1.0 of course), and they have to re-purchase their favorite DVDs encoded for HDTV! [Yes, this sucks, but it would make the most sense from an execs point of view].
Gag, I think I'll sell my TV and move to Montana...
"He was a wise man who invented beer." -- Plato
Is that like Turd Ferguson? Why won't you just let everybody call you Burt Reynolds?
Out of curiousity, does the industry really think that this form of copy protection will actually be any more successful than the last few? Or is this seemingly nothing more than a way for everyone to get upset about another format?
It really makes me mad as a consumer to see this kind of thing happenning. Trying to "End of life" pretty much current technology because of a few people abusing it.
As a consumer I refuse to invest my money in any technology that comes with any kind of DRM. That goes for Magicgate (TM), SD media (I have no problem with MMC cards though), copy protected CD's and anything that requires an internet connection to verify a license.
If I should ever decide to purchase XP pro, I will simply download the corporate edition instead after buying it.
No thanks Microsoft!
Does this digital format remove the problems inherent in tape stretch? If not, count me out.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Ok, I'm sold. Now, how do I fit the player into my laptop? No?
Ok, I want my money back.
This will not work. The techies that buy leading edge stuff want
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
I do remember that... Not that I owned one, but I do remember it :).
The only advantage this format has going with it is HDTV capabilities. Given that so few people actually own HDTV's this doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. If you could RECORD HDTV to this tape it might have some usefulness but given their paranoia, this seems very unlikely.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
It is definitely a niche market thing, but are there really ten thousand suckers ready to pony up the big bucks to see Ahnold say "Hasta La Vista Baby" in HD? I somehow doubt that these tapes will show up at Wal-Mart for $6.44 each. And what "videophile" is going to forgo all the lovely extras that come on a DVD over a video tape. (Play with or without subtitles, commentaries, etc)
Last point is that this format really eats storage requirements (I seem to recall 75 gigs per hour from somewhere) so it just won't be very efficient to transfer the content (assuming that it can be legally accomplished) to that newfangled networked media server that we were going to use in place of separate CD and DVD players with each TV.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
I buy a lot of DVDs. I mainly buy them because I think they're an excellent value. For the most part I pay just under $20 for new releases, sometimes less. In fact I've bought more DVDs than CDs. And with LD and VHS I was never really motivated to buy much. But lately the studios have been releasing some great special editions of various movies such as Holy Grail, Shrek, Star Trek The Motion Picture and so on with tons of extras for really good prices. I'm happy to spend my money on things like that.
Even if I did find pirated movies, how much would I save? And what would the quality be like? In the case of some bootlegs, I've heard they're pretty poor. About the only reason I'd ever go for pirated DVDs is if its something I just can't get here legally. And if George would just release his movies on DVD, I'd never even have to think about it.
Personally I think a lot of people are more like me than the handful of pirates the studios are so worried about. The studios are making a ton of money on DVD, probably with the addition of DVD they're now making more on home video sales than ever before. If they continue to provide quality products at reasonable prices, they got nothing to worry about. Besides, those determined to steal it will find a way, they always have before.
Personally, I see these problems with HDTV and associated products: cost, the physical equipment size needed to get the benefits of "the movie experience", lack of programming. I am happy with my 27" TV and DVDs. I prefer the quality and the smaller size of the DVD verses VHS tape. Even watching wide screen releases on the 4:3 format TV is acceptible in my living room. I don't have room in the house for a home theatre, and wouldn't spend the money on it anyway.
There is absolutely no incentive for me to pursue HDTV. That is until the FCC forces something to happen, but that is 4 years off. Even then, I would be inclined to by a converter unit that can display on my NTSC TV. There are too many other things I can do than stay glued to the tube.
As we know from the non-consumer electronics world (i.e. computers) tape is a great archive mechanism but is lousy for random access ... I don't want to have to play through 35 hours of other things to find it
More like two minutes. If the system stores a directory at the beginning of the tape, followed by a lead-out and then data, seek time is reduced to under 30 seconds of reading the directory and just over one minute of fast-forwarding (given current VHS transports). It's not like tar, which interleaves the directory with the data.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Whoever is thinking to bring this to the consumer market should be taken out and whipped, then relocated to the mailroom.
i think its been 5 years since i first heard of this company/tech. where is it?
Actually it will be much better than DVD.
No, I'm not on crack.
People Ass-U-Me that tape is bad because of VHS.
These tapes can store much more information than a DVD.
Does anyone research this stuff before they post?
There is no babelfish for turkish-\>english but I'm pretty sure that you can find the "PAL/NTSC" string in the specifications without understanding the remaining text. More than two thirds of the players I checked avaliable thru that link can play both formats.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Just think about seek time issues on a tape media and even with digital technology the quality will suffer cause their is friction to read a tape!
:)
anyway with 700 lines DVD is sharp enough for most TV and HDTV is really to expensive for the moment
When I'm gonna by a home theater I'll buy HD-DVD
Random Access.
Until I can instantly jump to any point in the movie on a tape it's useless to me. And since *that* can't happen, they can stop now.
This is a good thing for a few reasons and bad for a few more.
1. Don't panic about the copy protection stuff, DVD has copy protection too ya know (barely). People are starting to find out macrovision and are starting to get very pissed off at copy protection once they run into it. They find out that they can't run their DVD player into their shitty TV through their VCR because the VCR is crippled and macrovision kicks in. Needless to say they aren't happy campers.
2. This is NOT aimed at regular consumers right now. People already don't like having to buy DVD players to get something new, they would shit a brick if they had to buy a new $2000 or even $200 machine just to play movies after they just got their nice new POS $75 Apex so no one will accept it.
3. Think DAT. No one uses it to distribute music but it does still have a lot of uses. Have you ever seen true 1080i HDTV? Probably not. It looks incredible. It blows everything away. Grainless, perfectly smooth, HDTV that was 1080i the whole way through (not upconverted) is an experience that you won't forget. HDTV doesn't really have any standard way of being transported. There needs to be something there, even if it isn't going to be distributed to the masses. Distribution is a the biggest problem for HDTV right now. People want it but no one will give it to them, except HBO and Showtime off of DirectTV and Dish Network.
3. Video production work will get a giant kick out of this, and thus it will be easier to get actual HD broadcasts.
4. Movie theatres could use this it is in such high resolution, cameras could tape to it for local TV stations, it will be adopted, but not by consumers that is for sure.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Supposedly they're rolling out in 2003. I don't know how long they've been around. I presume they've encountered some obstacles along the way, probably involving bleaching of the dyes.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
What you do is develop a media disc with two areas for data. The first part of the data is used to store the codec relavent to decoding the media that would then be recorded on the rest of the disc. You have a player that can load the codec off of the disc on the fly and use that codec to play back the media.
;-) encoded video. Fine load the codec on the codec track dump your encoded media on the other track, and suddenly you've got the ability to play a lot more content at the sacrifice of some compression artifacting.
So you start off with something the size of a DVD let's say. But you want to be able to use Divx
It seems silly to me to tie the nature of the video's encoding to the media it comes on. If you have an intelligent generalized player, you should be able to play just about anything that's within the capabilities of the hardware.
The media involved should be a disc to provide random access. Optical is ideal because it last a hell of a lot longer than tape. Capacity should be ludicrously huge but affordable. The current price point of DVD's seems pretty reasonable, so maximize the capacity that would be cost effective at that price.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
REWIND
I dont know about you but the thing I liked most about DVD was the ability not to need to Rewind!
Thanks all
Sigs are dangerous coy things
And then having 3 year waiting lists for them.
Don't forget the bread and toilet paper que.
Capitalism may suck, but the alternatives are much worse, just ask all the people who got shot trying to escape over the Berlin Wall.
Oh, wait...They are DEAD.
Although superior in storage space (44GB) which obviously results in a higher quality picture/sound/bitrate - history has show that tapes don't last in terms of format and physical durability.
DVDs can still be viewed and enjoyed on HDTVs (look even better if played on a progressive scan player) for many years to come - and I would hope that when higher format discs come out on the market, the players which play them will be backwards compatible with our current DVDs.
JVC is always trying to hype up the tape format (uhh see BetaMax, DCC, S-VHS) for home video/theaterphiles but they always get trumped by the disc.
Besides, DVD is still rocking my world, and I've had it since it's introduction.
ta.
D-VHS isn't any different from DVD in the copy protection department. Remember that DVD's are protected, too.
The point behind D-VHS is that they can hold HDTV formats. DVD can only go up to 480p, which is pretty low for a HDTV.
I'm sure that early adopter-enthusiasts will want to get a machine that can show HDTV on their new TV's. I know that I would be dissapointed to lay out all that cash on a new set and still watch movies in 480p.
-Mike
A market study was done and showed that only 10-20% of people who own a VCR actually use the recording capabilities.
And there's not a whole lot out there today in terms of HD broadcast/cable channels - I believe just the major networks, PBS, HBO, and Showtime have them and that's if you're living in a metropolitan area that offers it.
Record reshmord.
>> i think its been 5 years since i first heard of this company/tech. where is it?
According to http://www.c-3d.net/faq.html,
"We regularly make presentations to firms in the storage and CE industry. Public Demonstrations are also held on a continual basis."
- and -
" As of now we expect to make our technology available to some markets by early 2003, with a full consumer roll out to follow."
Interesting bits:
Video on D-VHS tapes is uncompressed, so it's enormous. A 75GB hard disk would only hold around 30 minutes of the video, according to company officials, making the trading of HD content over the Internet impossible. D-VHS can record and play back up to four hours of video in high definition mode -- up to 1,080 lines per screen width, or more than double the resolution of DVD,
And:
The HDCP system can't be broken, however, because only high definition sets will have the HDCP decoder, according to Dan McCarron, national product specialist in JVC's color TV division.
Heh, "can't be broken". Well, we'll just have to wait and see.
Personally, they can do whatever the hell they want. If they want to make it too hard for me to watch movies, then I won't. No skin off my back.
-Mike
You've been able to buy combined DVD and VHS decks for a while now.
I conjecture that the basic cost of a DVD transport and decoding CPU is lower than the difference between standard VHS and D-VHS heads/decoding circuits. Even if this isn't true, the additional flexibility that disc-based storage gives in terms of locate/searchability (which in turn enables a richer presentation system - ie the DVD menu systems) produces a much better price/performance value.
The only thing tape does better than current optical media is recording/editing. I believe the way forward on this is hard disk for temporary storage, followed by writing to optical media once you have a large chunk you want to keep forever.
Basically, for the vast majority of users, I think this is a dead duck. 100,000 players at 1400 UKP each? That's peanuts in terms of volume and never going to be enough to bring prices down out of the misguided hifi-nut range.
And as far as copy protection goes (which, no matter how retailers try to spin it to sound like an advantage (!?) is never a win for the consumer) there is just nothing they can do that can't be done on any other digital media. Given that and the sales volume I can't see what the publishers see in it either.
This is my World Wide Web of Whatever
That is a feature.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Great, another video format. S or Super VHS is a better quality vhs format that apeared 10 years ago. Its still around (sort of) as its good for editing. It required more expensive tapes and never took off.
However People WILL want more resolutions when HDTV is more prevalent. The tape has 2 things going against it
1) DVD's are cheaper to make than tapes. Much like CDs and audio tapes.
2) DVD momentum.
although they should be able to use better codecs with dvd's it brings up the backward compatability problems..
I don't think most people miss the other junk on the DVDs (angles? commentary etc.....)
Everytime I goto the store and get a new release 6 months down the road a "special edition" comes out with a ton of extra stuff and sometimes an extra DVD or 2. What is up with this??? Its like Dogma, they released it on DVD. A few months later some kind of Gold edition comes out with a new box and extra stuff. Or the Matrix, how many times are they going to keep re-releasing it with extra "revisited" footage???
The videophiles would love FMD's. You could easily store a whole movie on it with no compression (and thus no compression artifacts).
im sorry but this has all been said before... HD-TV is useless if you cant see the picture on a normal tube get glasses or for the love of CowboyNeal. Im not about to pay x dolars and y dollars for a HD-Tv and another HD vcr.
nuff said
The customer is always guilty (of copying)
I believe that all material, regardless what it is, should be considered valuable intellectual property and should be copy protected such that it is impossible to access it by any means. This is what I suggest: International laws will be passed making it necessary to publish your work through a licensed publishing company. Regardless of whether you're a single person writing a short story or an entire studio making an epic motion picture, your publisher will take your completed original, along with any and all copies, notes, materials, whatever, and publish them by throwing them into a blazing furnace. This innovative technology will prevent 100% of copyright violations and intellectual property thefts by making it physically impossible to make illegal copies of the valuable work.
I disagree with this post
Its not my intention to destroy slashdot.
My goal is simply to widen pages.
Although my ego may have gotten a boost from
being able to author such a crapflooding tool,
the bottom line is that I just want to widen
pages. Call it a fetish.
If you look, I think you'll see trolling at an
all time high, and plenty of responses still
feeding the trolls.
Although some non-trolls may have run off due
to their anti-widening bigotry, I believe the
troll community is just as healthy as ever.
I neither agree nor disagree with this post.
Glad to see someone pushing D-VHS.
:)
I don't think it's going to go mainstream for pre-recorded stuff (except possibly HDTV), but I think it's very promising as a recordable media.
The main advantage over the myriad of recordable DVD wannabees (appart from the fact that the recordable DVD standards war is putting everyone off) is the high capacity of D-VHS.
HDTV is one application of that high capacity, sure, but the important one is being able to record several hours of TV on one tape.
No-one cares that they have to change DVD's to watch the next movie, but you want to be able to record more than that while you're out....
I *want* D-VHS to succeed. Mainly for selfish reasons: I want D-VHS deck prices to come down to a price I can afford
-roy
While 2000 bucks sounds like a lot to watch videos, it sounds like a decent price for a backup medium. Depending on the cost of media, of course. This could actually do well as a dual purpose machine: HD video player and all-purpose tape backup unit.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
if they want to stop the sales of DVD the answer is simple ...
bring back betamax!
bring back betamax!
bring back betamax!
L-A-M-E
Not another "copy protected" format presumably with region restricions et al.
Can you honestly expect any new media format to NOT have copy-protection built in? We should just get used to the fact that the companies who bring us all this new technology will want to make sure we pay for it.
This is perceived as an interstitial technology by the participating studios in order to provide high-def films to home theatre owners. The expense of the tapes and players to the end users will ensure that only fairly price-insensitive purchasers will be interested, and this in turn will keep the number of DVHS releases low (production costs for videotapes are extremely high relative to digital media, and, unlike DVDs, you can't run small batches).
All the studios are still on board with high-def DVDs, but they're going to use DVHS to tide the high-end consumer over until the new technologies hit the market.
-Baka!
That's D-VHS not VHS, VHS is an old analog format, this is a totally new format, you can't play these tapes on VHS decks.
Ah, the huge storage capacity of FMDs may be great for the hard-core videophile, but I think for the vast majority of consumers the FMC is the better option.
Everyone knows the advantages of optical discs over magnetic tapes (instant seek, no stretching, no magnetic degradation), but few have considered the advantages tapes have over discs. Picking up where you left off is a trivial matter with tape, wheras with disc your player has to be configured to store that data, and you can't transfer it. Tapes are also much more durable mechanically because they're encased - there's no delicate surface to avoid scratching, you don't have to worry about them breaking if you flex them too much or accidentally step on them, instead of delicately handling it by the edges to place in the tray you just pop it in the slot, and you can leave them lying around without worrying about dust.
In other words, tapes are very kid-friendly, while CDs, DVDs, and FMDs most certainly are not. I don't know what the ratio of kid's DVD titles to VHS titles are, but I'll bet it's low relative to the regular market. It's too bad no one considered that. But FMCs are cards - so long as you protect the media (sliding window? scratch resistant?) they can be as durable as tapes, plus they would be smaller and you could seek quickly through them. If you included some way to record small amounts of data on the card (like a magnetic stripe) you could also store small variables like the time index of where you left off last time, or user preferences for languages, etc. So long as FMCs could store the 15-30gb of data needed for a 2hr movie at HDTV quality (initial versions are expected to be 10gb, but can be pushed much higher) you could have a video player option suitable for the whole family and for the forseeable future of TV technology.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Umm, all DVD's are "blue-laser"... that's what allows the increased data storage in comparison with typical CD's. (blue light has shorter wavelength, I.E. it can be concentrated to a smaller dot on the disc).
HDTV aside, this has absolutely 0 value over DVD.
1)No random access. Now you're gonna have to start rewinding your movies (again)
2)Do you really think the consumer-level D-VHS "VCRs" are going to have recording ability?
3)Tapes stretch, break, become mangled, and start to lose their magnetic abilities after a while, especially if the tape is used often. I've got movies on VHS that I've had for years, and they're rapidly losing their picture and sound quality. Just because the images will be stored on the tape digitally doesn't mean that the tape itself won't go bad (stretch, mangle, get "eaten" by the player, etc.) after a while.
Of course, it's in the studio's best interest if the tapes go bad after a while, 'cause then you've got to buy them all over again.
Also, forget any extra features like you'd have on DVD. It will be back to "dump a telecine of the lo-con print to tape, stick a few trailers on the front, and then go manufacture a few thousand."
I just wish that companies would put at least as much effort into their new movies as they put into their failed copy protection/digital limitations systems. I mean, what is the percentage of worthwhile movies that came out in the last two years? 10% ?
--Jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
If it goes out through standard Cable/Antenna coax, split video/audio, S-Video, you can copy or digitize it.
Do folks need super audio/video? Or just a different format which doesn't wear out just as fast.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Why would anyone want to go back to magnetic media, even if it is "digital"... DVDs don't deteriorate like VHS tapes do
No.
Okay, I think this one is going to tank harder than the hindenburg grafted to the side of the titanic grafted to the side of the world trade center, but _only_ in the consumer market.
Think of video houses and TV broadcasting outfits. I don't know about elsewhere, but in Canada all radio stations (and presumably, tv ones) are required to keep a running log of everything they produce, for one month. This must be quite prohibitively expensive for the 'little guys'.
Remember backup, too. I've often wanted to back up onto a nice roomy VHS casette! This could finally spell the end of those proprietary cart drives we've seen so many of these past years.
Also, remember, that this medium is less linear than vanilla VHS (vVHS?). The tape itself hasn't become any longer, so ffwd/rew would occur much more quickly (subjectively speaking).
This could've been an interesting technology had it been introduced five years ago.
- undoware.ca
It's not completely clear in the press release, but the only full resolution material that will playback on these machines will be prerecorded tapes released by the studios.
You thought you could just record HighDef off the air and time shift it? Not a chance. You can record in VHS mode and a reduced bit rate digital mode, but not in full High Def.
The Content owners need "protection" you know? I was almost expecting to see that use would require you to plug a phone in so that the machine could call back to JVC and report back.
Actually you shouldn't expect this. Lots of formats are gaining in prevalence (e.g. MP3, Ogg, VCD, even MPEG on Tivo) without any copy protection. By pointing out that it's copy protected, slashdot may discourage sales, which is a good thing, I thihk. Not that this particular format has a snowball's chance in a microwave.
I'm not defending the decision, but it occurred to me that with a linear format, they won't be able to force you to watch some ad or preview every time you insert the tape or try to access a different scene... Maybe.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
BewaRE LIeberman and his army is gonna getcha!
They're desperate to have control of and royalties from a relevant format again.
I don't know what to make of their chances...I mean, it's before the total death of VHS, but also before HDTV has actually become widespread enough to make any difference (and also before HD DVD). So one of the advantages is still there, but the other one isn't here yet.
Scene selection is easy to acomplish on digital tapes. In fact, they could have done it on analog tape basically the same way. They just throw a little bit more info on the control track for indexing.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Nope. All DVDs are red-laser, which is great when you realize that CDs were IR-laser. Blue-laser storage hasn't made it out of the research labs yet.
Gentoo Sucks
APEX AD-1500. $79 at Circuit City. Plays DVD, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, CD, CD-R, CD-RW. Plays VCD, SVCD, MP3, XVCD.
Upgradeable with a freely available ROM image to set region to zero and to disable Macrovision.
These D-VHS schmucks *really* have nothing to offer.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Here's why I'll never get a machine that plays this format:
BE KIND, REWIND
-- Mojo Tooth : exploring our world as only an idiot can.
Red hot poker up the rump for the rest of us...
I do like the idea of DVHS, but the sole problem is this: If the tape is damaged (all tape media has a tendacy to stretch with every play, and can sometimes be damaged by drops or heat), which in digital as opposed to analog, can render the tape completely unplayable... Analog would show it as a momentary video glitch, nothing worse than that...
Of course that allows the movie industry a shot at something they really can't do with DVD: Planned obsolescence... DVDs don't degrade as easily over the years as DVHS obviously will, and their plans for copy protection naturally means that the majority of buyers will come back time and time again to buy a fresh copy...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
This format is currently very limited. They have built-in copy protection to limit what you can record and make copies of.
But, it is also not possible to record most HD material with these VCR's today. It can only record via the copy protected firewire port. But, none of currently available set top boxes have firewire output. They only have component video output.
Also, because of the copy protection, it's not clear if they will 'allow' you to copy channels like HBO-HD, or other 'premium' content.
These issues need to be resolved before this technology is going anywhere.
If you're going to load and arbitrary codec onto the disc, you're opening up a whole new can of worms. DivX ;-) is a processor-intensive codec, requiring (wild guess here) at least a Celeron-400 to decode at anything like realtime.
;-) onto a DVD and playing it on your computer is perfectly feasible. But there's no way to make the player forwardly upgradeable. The big reason they're all so damned cheap is because the only processing power needed is an MPEG-2 decoder chip.
Wait, you want to use dedicated hardware to speed up the process? Sorry, can't use arbitrary codecs with hardwired logic.
Do you really want to buy a disc and have it say "Requires a 450-MFLOP DVD Player" on it?
Toasting DivX
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The concept of D-VHS seems like taking a step back in technology. Now that we have a great format like DVD (allowing for extras, multiple soundtracks, Dolby/DTS 5.1 sound, etc. etc) why would you want to go back to VHS? Sure, there is a potential for higher quality.
The concept of high definition DVD is around the corner. In theory, the players would cost around the same (as D-VHS or any DVD Progressive Scan) and the discs would cost around the same as DVDs now. Plus you get all the bonuses of the DVD format.
I don't think D-VHS will take off, especially now that people are just waking up to DVD.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
Why is animation encoded like everything else?
;-). There's just not that much information there, people!
Damn it, there should be some kind of codec optimized for lines-and-shapes. True, adding another codec to every DVD player in the world is an utter nightmare in the making, but even for Futurama/Family Guy/Simpsons/Daria/etc rips on IRC, it's plain stupid to be distributing them in RealMedia or DivX
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Seriously, MPEG-4 eats so much processing power, it would be practically impossible to encode it at any reasonable rate with... well, with just about any hardware currently available for reasonable prices... and even decoding it requires the power of a Celeron-400. What makes you think it's smarter to make a standalone box than to just use your computer?
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I mean, that shot of a guy's hand holding a transparent disk? Looks like the transparent disks I get when I buy a spindle of 50 CD-Rs.
Skev
Consumers will just think "Shiny! Four Letter Acronym! Ooh!", and buy it. Come on, how many people even know what SDMI stands for?
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Thats what's it'll be good for :) Think about it, it's about time we updated Digital Beta tape to something of higher capacity anyway. Afterall, all that video that comes off a camera on dither D-Beta or other digital tapes are still only NTSC standard at the best, if we are going to come out with better quality video sure as hell we are going to have a better medium (assuming were not shooting on film, I love film)
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
May be the announced Archos Jukebox Multimedia Player will be the first such device.
When laser disks came out they were the state of the art technology that was too expensive for most people to afford, yet the had higher quality. The same will probably be true for DVHS. When higher density DVD's come out DVHS will be forgotten. New DVD's will have more compact data and will probably require a new type of blue laser to read. Right now I think that DVD's only hold about 18Gb max (double layer) or 36Gb (double sided, double layer?). DVHS must hold quite a bit more for HDTV quality.
and get me one of these things.
Lets forget that I already have so much invested
in DVDs.
I want to buy something more expensive to make
that has copy protection and is tape.
The only tape I'll be investing in from now until
I die is the sticky kind!
with DVDs. Consumers can already make their own recordings in digital format. Quite easily, actually.
iMovie. Thanks Steve!
Except for the fact that tapes degrade over time, especially after multiple playings.
Does anyone remember this article posted some time back on Slashdot? This disc based has 10 layers and can hold up to 140Gb of data. This should be enough for your HD-TV needs. The company invovled is Constellation 3D and has more information on the technology on their web site. The only question is why no-one is trying to get this technology into our homes, instead of D-VHS?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The movie companies got burned with DVDs because they were usable on people's computers. They won't make that mistake again. If a D-VHS tape drive is even released for computers, it will be incompatable with D-VHS movies. They will probably be programmed to automatically reject D-VHS movies, or will only be able to read and write in a different format.
I've never heard of DCC.
both tapes and discs have to be mastered and while disc masters probbaly are more expensive than tape masters (which in the case of tape can simply be files on a hard disc) discs are easier to duplicate in high volumes.
but you're probably right about low volume releases. for small quantities (1,000 pieces) tape may be cheaper.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Almost three years ago I bought this D-VHS recorder/sattillite reciever. We only got one D-VHS tape with it (it felt much higher quality than a standard VHS tape or even a S-VHS tape), and I quickly filled it up Southpark episodes (it was good at the time). Since the tape records the exact MPEG2 bitstream (or so it claims) going into the receiver, the picture quality on the tape was identical to what we saw. This also meant, however that when the sattilite lost its signal (due to tree branches blowing into the dish's line-of-sight), you would get the same annoying picture dropout (which is of course, expected). If it wasn't for me being able to get this for dirt cheap, I never would have bought it, but nevertheless I get a really good quality VCR with it.
Basically, my point is this is nothing new. It costs significantly less than a DVD burner, offers just as good picture quality (as long as your material is high quality), and allows you to have near-perfect digital duplicates of your source. If only the SCMS didn't hinder it's abilites, I think this would have been a good in-between step for people who want high-quaility copies without shelling out DVD-burner cash.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
in 3-5 years a blue laser technology should mature enough to allow for HDTV quality DVDs, with capacity of at least 20GB. this will be the natural step. a tape media isn't just good for repeated playback - as we all know too well.
Currently, the limit for DVD discs is around 17 GB, assuming dual-sided double-layed discs with single-depth pits.
The development of variable-depth pits may allow 40 GB DVD discs, but more likely is the development of blue-spectrum laser reading, which may increase the maximum limit of disc storage on a double-sided dual-layer DVD disc to around 51 GB. That is more than enough for a full 1080i-resolution 16:9 aspect ratio HDTV movie. We may just see such HD-DVD discs by 2005.
While DVD today is not yet capable of supporting the full 1080i resolution 16:9 aspect ratio HDTV, two technical improvements may make it possible:
1. Variable-depth pits. Instead of all the pits on an optical recording all being of the same depth, we can change the depth of the pits to dramatically increase storage capacity without having to use more exotic laser designs.
2. Blue laser readers. Because the blue-light spectrum of these new lasers are much shorter than those of current red lasers, this means we can pack in the pits on the disc surface much more densely.
In short, we may see by 2004 HD-DVD discs storing as much as 70 GB for a dual-sided dual-layer disc. That is far more than enough for HDTV movies using the USA standard.
All the deliberate disadvantages of DVD combined with the relatively short life-span of magnetic media (already some of my old VHS tapes are deteriorated to the point of being unviewable)? I'll pass, thanks.
Yes, I know that digitally encoding the tapes will help them survive a bit longer (since you don't have to rely on signal quality as much), but even then that life-span is a drop in the bucket compared to even analog laserdiscs.
i think someone didn't the reading carouse.
~
MU!
Heh, "can't be broken". Well, we'll just have to wait and see.
DHCP is signal encryption to the screen. All those fancy plasma screens with the firewire interface may have had you thinking "cool, now I can watch my mini-DV camcorder directly on my HDTV without ever doing an analog conversion!"
Nope. That interface will carry an encrypted signal from your receiver/tape deck directly to the screen, with no possibility of tapping into a decrypted signal, anywhere.
If they use military grade encryption (which they might, now that export restrictions have eased) this will take years, perhaps decades to reverse engineer. Not to easy, buggy POS CSS was. What is more, they might even use publicly available, well tested and thoroughly peer-reviewed algorithms to encrypt the signal with very large
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
You can't tell from the article, but a look at JVC's web site shows that it's a recorder, not just a player. It's still very expensive, sure, but how many options are available *now* for HDTV recording and playback?
Oh, and it works out around 12GB per hour in HS mode and half that in STD mode.
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The problem studios have is that not everyone lives in the US. The lifespan of the movie starts in the US teathers and goes around the world. By the time it hits Europe (second stop on it's list) it's already started to come out on DVDs an tapes in the US. Sometimes, you can even buy a DVD in the States before you can see it in the movies here (Slovenia, Europe, for example). People are anctious to see the film, so they are willing to pirate.
*IF* there were a legitimate way to buy the movie from the US, people *WOULD* do it. But that would mean that big movie studios would have to release the movie all around the world at about the same time (for a specific media). I don't know exacly why, but it does not appear that this is going to happen anytime soon.
So; they need to stop people from whatching the movies *BEFORE* they appear in the teathers. (For first time viewing a screener is OK, but for keeping a movie in your collection DVD is preferable, given the fact that you *CAN LEGALLY* own that DVD, IMHO).
boky
If this thing can record HDTV, it'll have a market. Indeed, if it can just record the now-existing digital cable and satellite signals (several million customers now, I think) at their 450-ish lines of resolution, I'd buy one as soon as it drops below about $900.
I got a "Super-VHS" recorder, had an awful time with it, finally chalked it to experience and got the best one on the market. It's pretty decent, but still doesn't actually get the whole 450 lines, and tends to add some noise and mutate the colours a touch.
D-VHS sounds like it would be able to reproduce the satellite/dig-cable signal perfectly, since it will actually do over 4X that bandwidth...and as HDTV signals become more common, you'll be able to time-shift and save movies, unless they carry out the threat to embed signals the VCR will obey, to not copy.
Which they'll eventually find will screw both this tape format, and HDTV itself.
People WANT to record. Period.
How *DARE* you even try and joke about 8 track. Many a mulleted New Jersey male has fond memories of shuffling 8 tracks while picking up the chicks in the 70s. You'll hurt their feelings.
A new cassete digital format designed to compete with the digital disc, which impliments such restrictive copy protection any fan of the media will avoid it like the plague.
Did'nt they already try this with DAT? Did'nt it fail?
The Internet is generally stupid
don't be silly, there's plenty of reasons not to log in... not the least of which is that you're at a kiosk that you don't trust...
There are four DVD formats
1) Single Sided, Single Layer (4.7 GB)
2) Single Sided, Dual Layer (8.5 GB)
3) Double Sided, Single Layer (9.4 GB)
4) Double Sided, Dual Layer (17 GB)
The large number of formats is due to politics. Philips & Sony wanted single, sided, dual layer for the high capacity version, while Toshiba & Time Warner wanted, double sided, single layer. The first group didn't think anyone would want to flip the disk, the second group didn't think the technical side of dual layer could be worked out.
Personally, I hate flipping a disk, and I like a pretty picture on one side. But other people hate that little freeze you get when switching layers on some hardware.
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
Tape is DEAD. Lets move on!
Digital VHS? Sounds like Object Oriented Cobol...
current TV resolutions and VHS are fine with me.
I saw the first HDTV at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) convention more than 10 years ago. Then it looked truly wonderful. This was before all the standards wars and the Japanese manufacturers had some truly great looking pictures and frame rates.
All of the compromises to achieve the current 'standard' have resulted in a significantly worse looking picture than the first ones I saw which were amazingly lifelike.
But more importantly, the Nazi tactics of the MPAA and the studios to reduce and/or eliminate my my rights will keep me away. I'm already voting with my wallet by the fact that I do not and will not own any DVD's or a DVD player until the DMCA and DeCSS issues are resolved to be in line with the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
My next purchase will be a Tivo and that should take care of me for a long time to come.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
Magnetic media
Little studio support In fact, the only benefit is that it has support for HDTV, and that's really only of interest to NTSC users - here in Europe, where the higher res (than NTSC, not than HDTV) PAL is dominant and televisions tend to be smaller, HDTV is nowhere to be seen, and things are likely to stay that way for quite a while.
I forsee this being as popular as Philips CD-I at the best.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
DVHS, VHS, DAT...Samething different name. Magnetic tape used to store data. And we all know that is completely useless. How many of us has hired the new hit movie from the local vid-shop only to get home and watch fuzz paterns. Has this ever happened to you with a DVD??? I don't think so. Besides users consumers not buying it...the industry won't want it either. Everytime a tape breaks they lose money. DVD's don't break so they don't lose money...SIMPLE. :-)
Doesn't VHS stretch and deform everytime you watch it? Its also non-random access. If they had _not_ put any stupid copy-protection scheame on, then maybe it would have worked. But otherwise, if people think this is the answer just because it supports HDTV, then they're going to be conned.
Why can't someone just develoe a decent format, using the prototype 50GB+ dvd-type disks. It could support HDTV, and would easily beat dvd in terms of quality at the normal resolution - (all that space) You could fit language sound tracks for _every_ country in the world (well most of them) and thus not have to re-print disks for each region. And here's the clincher - no stupid copy protection systems - no-one is going to bother copying the disks when A)the quaility is so damn high! (compared to a rip) (until the burners come along) B)The whole world gets the film at the same time (no regions). and C)the disks are sold at a reasonable price, considering how cheap they are to press.
It works for cds so why not for film?
To get the studios to adopt it, you cut out all the stupid royalties and licensing fees they have to pay on dvd. And protect it under some kind of GPL-like license that specifically says "no copy protection"
The players will be far cheaper since they don't have to incorporate all that stupid hardware for decryption, and macrovision. Also, you could make backwards compatable players that did play old dvds/cds etc..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
D-VHS is not "totally new" at all. I can remember seeing something about D-VHS about 5 years ago. In a copy of Amiga Format no less.
Blah. JVC are just chasing a quick buck. Money for old rope and all that.
Can't wait to get one of these players, to go with my DCC deck, and my eight-track ;-)
I always got a kick out of tape / laserdisk with
video protection. The protection only works if you are making a direct copy. The players have video out and the tapes with macrovision usually have thier signal in the mud.. right on the threshhold of loosing syc, color, and looking like crap. I picked up a video stabilizer from Radio Trash 10 years ago just to see if what I was reading my oscilloscop correctly, and I was, I was able to create a copy of the movie. Also, Remember the old laserdisks? Some had copyprotection. When I rented laserdisks I made perfect SVHS copies since
my television has a "Loop out" I fed the audio and video output to the input of my SVHS deck. Perfect copies every time, better then brand new video tapes.
So.. getting back to the JVC copy protection, Don't they know that the analog audio / video outputs can be easily stabalized?
With our new technilogical power we could make 8-tracks come back, or even find a neat way to span a movie over 20 or 30 audio cassettes!
...or we could use it to make sense! I'm not sure which one I feel like today, heh.
The cheapest ones are being sold at $600 now, the better ones (format, speed) at $800, expected to drop bigtime during the year. I know also there exists some standalone recorders in the $1000-2000 range. All with all the advantages of DVDs over tapes, so this $2000 unit isn't going to be big. Ever. Not to mention the possibility of players starting to play ISO mpg4 streams, which gives CD-Rs the advantages of DVDs today.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
is if they don't release recordable DVD players for public consumption. People want small media that are easy to store, and don't take up much space. After all I can put 15 DVD in side the area of one VHS tape.
:)
While the idea is good and all...it's about 3 years too late. DVD as it stands are the way to go, if I could get away from VHS compleatly I would but some of my favorite movies not available for buying are on VHS aka "warriors of the wind"(bastardized american version), and a few others. I suppose the biggest thing is that the life time of a DVD/CD disc are 50-200 years depending on care, ect. If I leave even a video tape sitting for a few years the rust starts to break down.
But, I am moving them to CD right now...and hope that the orignals don't degrade.
Om, nomnomnom...
If they replace mpeg2 with mpeg4, the 1:6 pixel increase should be set off by a 6:1 compression increase. Note that with normal videos today being 5-8 gb, often including multiple sound tracks including director's cut and different languages, none of which would increase in size, so presumably even less than 6:1 compression should still allow a normal feature film (1,5-2,5hrs) on a single side, dual-layer DVD (DVD-9).
If somebody wants to compare this to the (bad or good) divx DVDrips they've seen, note that
a) 9gb = 13 700mb cds.
b) No resize filter
c) No mpeg2 artifacts from DVD compression
The "bad" points:
a) You need a new player. Making a mpeg4 HDTV-capable decoder probably isn't too cheap either
b) There is no incentive to make DVDs better. DVDs have no real competition.
c) The DVD industry would rather wait for blue lasers, DVDs that can store more, than introduce mpeg4 decoding capability in players.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Let me quote a couple things:
_ 11 12_2001_2010.html
The VW2010 is capable of simultaneously encoding and decoding in MPEG-1, 2, 4 with interlaced, full-screen (D1) resolution. The VW2010 will be available in the 1st Quarter of 2002 with a list price of $35 in quantities of 10,000.
http://www.vwebcorp.com/mall/c110/s3066/News/PR
Oh, and in case you didn't know, D1: 720x480 @ 30fps for NTSC, 720x576 @ 25 fps for PAL.
Throw this in bed with a DVD+RW burner, and you got a standalone killer mpeg4 recorder and DVD player that blows everything else away.
And yes, I'd use my computer to encode, I'd be happy with just a regular DVD player and a mpeg4 decoder in the standalone player, hey I'm even happy watching it on my 19" monitor too. But not everybody wants to have a computer churning all the time, not all have a 19" screen.
Frankly, a standalone player like that is something I could consider buying for my parents, and trust me that's a whole lot bigger marked...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
MPEG 4 doesn't give a 6:1 improvement over MPEG 2. 2:1 perhaps, 3:1 if you're lucky. It takes a lot of extra bits to get rid of that blurriness, smeariness and the static texture artifacts that have to be gotten rid of for a quality product. Remember, this will perhaps be watched on a BIG screen, projected perhaps.
The perfect media would just be good old MPEG 2 on a laserdisc-sized DVD.
- Double the size means a lot more space (pi times? too lazy to calculate)
- Laserdisc size things are cool (think LPs and, uh, laserdiscs)
- Giant, pretty covers would be back
- Laserdiscs are cool
...but when the idiot clerk at the store runs your DVD over the demagnetizer, it doesn't completely junk your new purchase. Unlike some dim-bulb at Borders who managed to do that with some VHS tapes I was purchasing. Said I, "Don't get those to close to the demagnetizer. I don't want the tapes to get ruined." He replied, "It doesn't do it til I push the button." Uh huh. That's why three movies came out of the shrink wrap toast. Morons.
What is your Slash Rating?
If D-VHS is marketed as yet another example of digital media crippleware, it will be "coming soon to a landfill near you."
As for the compression technologies used to encode media and the file formats used to store them, of course you are going to have free-as-in-speach formats. As long as there are programmers out there who want to copy and distribute media, they will be writing software to make it possible. It will not, however be as easily accessible and easy-to-use as something you rent from the video store and pop into your VCR.
Except that laserdiscs didn't have any usage restrictions on them and laserdiscs were the only alternative to videotape and were clearly much higher quality PLUS laserdiscs had all the advantages over tape that DVDs have over this.
There were usage restrictions on laserdisks. You could still encode macrovision in a laserdisk. And there never was a way to copy a laserdisk at all, because nobody ever came out with a consumer-grade laserdisk player.
My point is, there will be a new format that succeeds DVDs that will take over for movie distribution to HDTV enabled people. But that won't happen for a while. So in the meantime, home theater nuts will buy D-VHS decks and tapes, which will be all obseleted by the DVD successor format.
Gentoo Sucks
[insert witty comment here]
dude.... this page widening shit is fucking stupid.
be an original troll...
and yeah, you did write it on a wednesday, you stupid bitch.
(oh yeah, im gonna fuck your dead grandma)
.. the 8 tracks and 72 records
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..