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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."
People never learn.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
DAT is still used by musicians everywhere, and the level of machine that they would buy ($700+) has SCMS Copy Protection Defeat built right in. Of course, you don't see musicians rampantly pirating music because of this feature...
It all comes down to this: Some middle manager gets a whiff of some technology, spends a few days writing up a proposal showing how his company can earn X Dollars and save Y Dollars in profits that would be lost to a vague piracy threat if they go with this technology, and some upper manager sits in a meeting for an hour and approves the proposal. The middle manager is motivated by company politcs, the upper manager is motivated by profit, and no one cares about technology, the Rights of Consumers, or whether there's any proof, scientific or otherwise, that this system will work. Companies can only see a Quarter into the future, and only remember the last three months. And capitalism works because it relies of people being greedy, which they always are.
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.
It's also read via physical contact, thus another reason it will degrade. Everytime you watch it, it gets a little wear. And if you rewind and fast forward a bunch, its even worse. This is just a bad idea all around. They're going to have to come up with something a lot better for me to give up DVD.
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
...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 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.
Actually, with that much bandwidth it'd certainly be feasible to have multiple commentary tracks and low-quality alternate angle tracks all on the same 28mbps stream. As long as they figure out how to parse all the possible data into a coherent display, they've got the room for it. Still though, the lack of chapter skips and quick scanning really kills it for me. Not to mention that with the massive DVD installed base and consumer mentality that DVD >> VHS, it doesn't have a chance. The only chance it's got is to be included on new generation VCRs with far too low a price point to justify the type of extra-feature capability I talked about or to make it very high in price and aim it at the theater buff crowd. Since the studios all have hi-def copies of their movies anyway, there wouldn't be much production cost that I could see as far as data goes, and there really isn't that much investment in the technology. It's certainly possible to profit off this technology (plus everyone's happy they get 'copy-protection' - of course they got that with DVD too). That doesn't mean it'll ever replace DVD - a hi-def optical format, preferably more resistent to wear-and-tear (say a DVD type disc in some sort of caddy) would be the ultimate format as far as I'm concerned.
Whoever is thinking to bring this to the consumer market should be taken out and whipped, then relocated to the mailroom.
That is a feature.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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?
So what if DVD's are cheaper to manufacture then VHS's tapes? It certainly does n't reflect that by the time it gets to the consumer.
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
Odd that they haven't noticed that copy-prevention mechanisms have been a large factor in the commercial failure of several data formats (DAT and MiniDisc come to mind).
Perhaps someday they will come to the realization that customers are more likely to buy a unit that does what the customer wants, than one that does what TimeWarnerAOLSony wants.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
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.
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