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D-VHS to Hit The Market This Week
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Yahoo News is has an article stating that D-VHS is hitting the market this week. The upside: D-VHS supports full high-definition picture quality. The down side: $35 - $45 per movie (although available for less) and $2k for a player. Seems to me you'd lose a lot of that HD picture after a few viewings too. 4 studios are supporting it: 'JVC persuaded Fox, Universal, DreamWorks and Artisan to support the format after developing a new copy-protection standard it calls D-Theater to prevent unauthorized copying of the high-definition movies'."
Can someone say 'DivX'?
Isn't tape very 70s? DVD is just fine for film, and I would prefer to record off the air onto a TIVO-like device. This technology seems dead in the water to me... Can anyone think of a good application for it?
Jeremy
I acually don't think you should lose any of the quality. This isn't VHS where it's stored in an analog format that degrades, I'd think of it more as a DAT tape with all digital data that should keep it's quality. Just keep it away from a magnet. Since JVC came up with it, and they own the patent on VHS, I'm sure the name came from that, and the fact that it's on tapes.
You're media is going to get copied...learn to embrace it, or just get over it. I shouldn't be subjected to all of this crap. Pretty soon we'll be signing stuff just to watch a movie.
Why in the world would I spend 2k on a player
that will not let me make copies?
The lunacy just never ends!
I'm going to get Episode II when it comes out.. on BETA.
How many people have sets capable of rendering the signal at full quality anyway?
Maybe it would have had a chance before DVD authoring equipment became cheap, (assuming the authoring equipment for this format even exists for consumers), but otherwise this looks to be DOA.
The development costs will just be translated to higher DVD prices in a year.
D-Beta is gonna kick ass!
This isn't VHS where it's stored in an analog format that degrades
Tape streaches. It flexes. It gets worn. It gets demagnetized. It tears.
The problem with VHS degradation over time has nothing to do with the data format on the tape. The problem is with the medium itself: flexible magnetic storage.
It's great if you aren't going to use it often, but if it keeps getting wound and unwound, wrapped around rollers, and pressed against a read head, it will wear out.
t'nera semordnilap
D-Theater is an option (feature) on D-VHS tape decks. There are already decks on the market, especially in Japan, that are D-VHS but not D-Theater.
D-Theater is a content encryption system. D-VHS is a recording format (MPEG-2 aparently). A D-VHS recorder would allow you to record any HDTV broadcast directly - up to 4 hours of it in fact. Also, D-VHS supports full Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks at a bit rate of 576Kbps (higher than DVD's 448Kbps rate). This is being touted as the VHS for the HDTV generation.
Also, while the titles are listed at 35-40 USD Buy.com and BestBuy have them listed at 25-29 USD, so they aren't terribly more expensive than DVDs. Even so, DVDs have market edge on D-VHS (and a few other technological advantages including durability). It seems as if D-Theater is unimportant, but take notice of D-VHS.
From what I understand:
This new format is for DIGITAL video stored on a MAGNETIC TAPE. This is different from DVD, which is digital data on an optical disk. In terms of performance/quality, there is no clear difference; they are both digital video formats.
However, anyone with a $50 DVD drive in their computer can view/copy DVD discs at will. With D-VHS, there is no easy tape-to-computer interface, only a proprietary player controlled by the movie industry.
This is nothing more than the movie industry's latest attempt to take away accessibility with no real gain in the underlying technology.
This is very close to DIVX (not the video codec), which was a "throwawy DVD" format which was implemented by the movie industry and even sold at Circuit City for awhile. DIVX was a product that had no new technicaly features, and had restricted accessibility. Consumers saw that DIVX was an inferior product, and it quickly went under. D-VHS will no doubt subscribe to the same fate.
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/D-VHS/dvhs-e.h tml
How can this possibly compete with DVD? I really don't see how it can. DVD is not dominant now but it will be by the time D-VHS gets to a reasonable price.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
DVD seems to be "good enough" for watching videos at home; I really don't see the need for yet another format. The only problems I can see with the DVD rental business is that DVDs are much more fragile than VHS tapes. I've rented brand new DVDs that were already skipping. I wonder what the life of a DVD vs. a VHS/D-VHS tape is? I know video store VHS tapes are expensive for the stores to buy, like $70 or something crazy. If DVDs are the same price, (to pay for licensing I assume), then it will be more expensive for video stores to rent out DVDs than D-VHS/VHS.
Otherwise this makes no sense to go out and buy a D-VHS, people just bought DVD machines en-masse.
D-VHS has been around here in the U.S. for at least 3 years. I happen to own one of these puppies, and have been recording shows to D-VHS tape ever since I bought. However, as far as I know, my system does not support HDTV, only MPEG2 encoded NTSC video. Also, video quality degradation is very unlikely; I have movies and programs recorded over 2 and a half years ago on DVHS, and have yet to notice any degradation.
Since it is in fact raw digital information recorded on the tape, the type of degradation would most likely be dropped frames, motion artifacts, "mosquitos," and the like, rather than the typical problems of "regular" VHS such as snow, color saturation problems, and reduced definition.
Perhaps what this really meant by the article is that High Definition DVHS movies will be available. I have my doubts as to whether or not this will really have an impact on the mainstream video market (perhaps the upscale home theatre market will embrace it). $45 bucks for a video; however, is just rediculous.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
If this format is simply a digitization of a regular tape, then why does it have to cost so much? VCR's are closer to the 100 dollar range, and DVD's are as low as 60 dollars. So we know that the extra mechanical parts for a tape are not too expensive, and the digital decoders and such are also not too expensive. Why the $2000 for a player? Or the $30 movies? Is it the low production numbers? Extra licensing fees? I can't think of any good reasons. Any ideas?
I give it 4 months till a 12 year old writes DeDVHS...
The link in the story isn't very informative. Here's a better link, with pictures and more information.
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
So this thing will record uncompressed, digital HDTV information? Can you imagine the bandwidth?
This thing would be excellent for backing up huge storage, I think it even beats DLT tapes in speed, and certainly it beats them in capacity.
But instead, it's used to store video, in uncompressed form (stupid) and with copy protection. Not to speak that tape devices that use media of this lenght are unsuitable for home usage, where a constant temperature and humidity are not guaranteed, and multiple viewing is the norm.
Plus, this is the age of direct access media (CD, VCD, DVD), will people who got used to DVD accept sequential access?
In conclusion: I think this technology will tank, and not many will shed a tear.
Sigged!
a two year old is charged under the DMCA because she played her Play-doh (TM) in a little nudge of her daddys "Debbie Does Dolly" D-VHS tape.
This curcumvention device, which was thought to be harmless for years (and tastey) allowed the juvenile to copy the tape for her bigger brother.
When asked, spokesmen from JVC stated: "this [event] just shows you how far people go to copy tapes, We need better standards for copy protection!!!!".
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
D-VHS has a maximum data rate of nearly 30Mbps.
Just like DAT made its way into the consumer sector so well, I would expect D-VHS to do the same! With prices like these, who could resist!?
Now, really, I see this taking the place of Beta, MiniDV, and D8 in the content-creation field. It could be rather good for them, because it provides digital video (something Beta doesn't) along with HD support, something MiniDV and D8 can't.
± 29 dB
Some of the currently-available D-VHS decks support FireWire I/O. This allows one to record and play video to the deck with a computer (the streams can be recorded from the deck - e.g. for PVR-style timeshifting of HDTV - or generated and encoded yourself).
Several people at avsforum.com have already gotten this working using MPEG2-over-FireWire support built into Windows XP.
Dan Dennedy and I are working on a Linux driver that will provide the same functionality as Windows XP. (it will appear at linux1394.sourceforge.net; it's not ready for release yet though).
D-VHS is a truly versatile format. The deck I have experience with (JVC) can record and play MPEG-2 streams at a wide variety of bitrates (up to 29MBit/sec) and formats (720x480 NTSC up to 1920x1080 HDTV)... The encoding is standard MPEG-2, so you can make and play your own HDTV content (I've done it already), and you could probably also do things like record a DVD to tape without re-compressing the video.
Note however that Windows XP and my drivers can only handle cleartext MPEG-2 streams (either home-made or recorded from broadcast/satellite HDTV). The new "D-Theater" standard is basically like DVD's CSS; the MPEG-2 streams will come in a scrambled format that is "impossible" to read without a licensed decoder.
This week d-vhs and its companion d-theater will be released.
.003 seconds after that, someone will figure out that all the copy control in the world does no good at all when they simply wire their 2,000$ (!) d-vhs deck into their computer using a few cables they picked up at the local computer shop ... oops, thats a thoughtcrime to think about the fact that your d-vhs deck has to send its output into a television, which, like your PC's gfx card, has no idea of what copy protection is. [1]
.003 seconds for someone to figure out how to handle the increased resolution and audio.
Approximately
Wait a sec, I hear jackbooted thugs from Hollywood knocking at door. Oopsy.
[1] - Im not sure that any standard format (eg; avi, mpeg*, etc) will be able to handle all the features d-vhs supports very well. Im not a video format guru, so forgive me if Im wrong. You will have to wait another
.sig of the day: sysadmin for hire: gdd(at)siliconinc.net
Tape leads to stretching, stretching leads to degredation, degredation leads to blocky artifacts, blocky artifacts lead to nothing. At least with analog tape, when it wears you still have some semblance of a picture. I think my JVC Digital Camcorder is great but I am still looking for a good way to store that digital video somewhere that's cheap and NOT tape. I think the next big format will be hard drives. Just swap it in to the bay and watch amazingly high quality digital video and sound. Cost? $80 per movie and eventually lower. These things are getting so cheap, they are almost disposable.
Won't they just have a "re-tension" option on the players?
The problems are streching, physical contact, and frequency of use.
If the reader expects each bit to be X distance from the next, but the tape streches, then the read head will read some other magnetic data from the extended area. The same goes for wrinkling and bending.
Tapes are more likely to sustain this kind of wear since the process of using them involves physical contact. Take a look into an open VCR as you insert a tape. Those metal rods can damage your tape. They pull and flex the tape. The head can also damage the tape. The motors can damage the tape if they pull to hard an the tape reaches its end, resulting in a harsh jerk.
The reason that these problems are less likely to plague backup tapes is because of frequency of use:
How often do you insert each computer tape? Remember that the act of inserting the casette into a VCR causes physical contact with the actual tape.
How frequently do you use the tape at all? Don't you just write to it in most cases?
Don't you only read from it infrequently and usually only once? When you re-write the tape, it can make up for some streching (within certain limits).
More importantly, how often do you "pause" a data tape? Pausing streches tape.
How often do you run the tape at high speed while the read head is in contact with it? That is exactly what happens when you scan tapes by pushing ff or rw in play mode. That is even more damaging to the tapes than just playing them.
Sure error correcting exists, but my point is that tape is more error-prone than other forms of storage since the simple act of reading or writing the data can degrade it.
t'nera semordnilap
Manufacturer's suggested retail price: $1999.95
JVC's upcoming HDTV-capable Dish Network receiver will also have a IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connection so it can transfer content directly to the D-VHS box.
It uses MPEG-2.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://dvhsmovie.com/ has more info about D-VHS.
Is it still considered Karma-whoring when I'm already at my cap?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Normal TV is 480 lines interlaced. Improved quality can be designated as 480p (non-interlaced), 1080i, 720p and 1080p (in that order). Unless you're getting 1080p with a digital interface to the display (not RGB analog) I don't believe you're getting "full high-definition picture quality". Since the industry is still fighting (afsik) about copy protection of this 1080p digital signal, I question if the technology can give the promised quality, or if you can even find a display that would accept it at any price.
And I tend to agree that this kind of prices on magnetic tapes that likely will degrade isn't a wise move.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Wow, there's a lot of FUD floating around here..
D-VHS is currently the only format that allows true High Definition resolutions in a removable format. It allows you to record HD content from a HDTV Set Top Box (if the HD receiver is equipped with a firewire port). It also allows playback of pre-recorded movies at 1080i resolution.
DVD's don't have the storage capacity to hold an HDTV movie. Broadcast HDTV is about 9GB per hour. Pre-recorded movies on D-VHS will be even more than that, up to twice the bit rate of broadcast HDTV.
DVD's are at best 480p (720x480), the D-VHS VCR supports HD resolutions, 720p (1280x720) and 1080i (1920x1080). The HD movies are over four times the resolution/quality of DVD's. The difference is very dramatic.
This variant of D-VHS, D-Theater, includes an encrpytion, to stop the pre-recorded movies from being copied (much like CSS was supposed to do with DVD's). That is the only restriction that this format has, which is a welcome change from all the other attempts to control HD content.
The JVC unit also has analog component video outputs, allowing 1080i playback on all existing HDTV's. This capability is one that Hollywood has been threatening to disable in HD receivers (block the "Analog Hole").
If you look at the statistics for HD capable TV's sold vs. HDTV Set Top Boxes, you'll see that most people with the nice 16:9 HD-Capable TV's are not using the full capabilies of their TV's. They are just using them for DVD's. D-VHS could be the first chance for them to really use their HDTV.
The real deal. ;-)
paul
palo alto
http://www.pafree.net
Alesis makes bad-ass 8-channel 20-bit digital audio recorders like the XT20 which store data on S-VHS tapes just fine . If you're just tuning in, the beauty of digital is that you can optimize your information storage/transmission for the medium/channel. (this is why Shannon is so cool) If you know the effective storage capacity of a piece of magnetic tape which is getting old has been stretched a bit, you encode the data at that capacity. That way the media can degrade a bit and you don't loose anything. If you use a nice robust encoding method, the media can degrade beyond that point and you still dont loose much. If you wanted to use regular VHS instead of a higher capacity tape, you just run the tape faster and don't pack the bits as tightly (probably not an issue as there's no mention in the article of using _actual_ VHS tapes, and 1. im sure they want to use more expensive media to prevent copying and 2. _actual_ VHS tapes should have been designed to hold about as much info as they do, and while going digital lets you optimize the space you have, HDTV may require more info than you can fit on conventional VHS tapes) Granted, you can destroy a tape, but you can destroy an optical disk too.
;-)
So, yeah, that was my short answer to "Seems to me you'd lose a lot of that HD picture after a few viewings too."
Seems to me you'd lose a lot of that HD picture after a few viewings too
The "D" stands for digital, which means that there is no degredation in quality between viewings or replications. This is only a problem when using analog equipment.
High-volume VHS duplication is done by thermal magnetic contact printing, a process which is completely independent of the recording format. So these tapes shouldn't cost any more to produce than existing VHS tapes, and existing VHS duplication facilities should be able to make them, at the usual rate of one 2-hour tape every 24 seconds.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The decks have IEEE1394(Firewire) interfaces, and have a raw-data mode typically used for recording encrypted data from satellite broadcasts, so it will be trivial to write drivers to allow data storage and retrieval.
Now, I said "cheap" in the subject -- $1000 is already not bad for a 44GB media size, but if D-VHS takes off in the consumer market the prices will plummet!
Here's wishing it'd happen soon...
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT
The great advantage would be that you won't be able to fast-forward past advertisements you recorded because they would be protected by "don't skip"-markers.
Oh, you meant advantage for the consumer...
Seriously, don't you think they're gonna do something like that?
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
If you used LaserDisc, you're probably the target market for this product. This is aimed at the 'videophile', who wants the best quality possible. The people that have the expensive, 16:9, HD capable sets.
This is not meant to replace DVD's.. They are still in the process of milking that market. And, D-VHS has obvious disadvantages in flexibility.
A few years down the road, we will have HD-DVD, which will have the storage capacity for a full HD quality movie. Until then, some of us will be recording HD, and viewing High Definition movies in this format.
I'll gladly retire the D-VHS at that point.. but I am not willing to wait the several years until HD-DVD is here to have my 1080i movies.
it kicks MAJOR booty.
I recently demoed a JVC G150CL front projector (1365x1024 resolution) fed by a D-VHS player playing a Yes concert. The video was in widescreen 1080-line format, so the projector displayed it in the center 768 lines of its display area for moderate loss of resolution.
Despite this handicap, the detail was fantastic---make sure you're not self conscious about your complexion if you ever get shot on high-def video. As long as they're not too aggressive with MPEG2 compression, movies released in this format will truly be spectacular.
And folks, I know it's expensive, but there is one reason you might want to get one of the first models anyway. Right now, D-VHS players have analog component outputs to feed to your favorite high-definition display device. In a couple of years, they may have to remove those outputs and replace them with an encrypted digital output that may not be back-compatible with supposedly "HDTV-ready" sets.
If that happens, those unprotected players they're currently selling are going to be significantly more valuable.
First off, the title is misleading, because the story is announcing studio releases on DVHS, not DVHS itself. The subsequent responses seem geared against the player itself, not the story regarding studio releases
But why do I want a DVHS recorder?
1) why not? it's backwards compatible with VHS and records at far superior quality than s-vhs.
2) copying digital camcorder video to a vhs recorder seems ridiculous and I sure am not going to buy another digital camcorder to make archives of my home movies. I'd rather get a dvhs recorder instead.
3) copying non-macrovisioned dvd's to tape in real time (through the analogs) seems to be a better use of my time that fiddling with the computer and a dvdr to make a digital copy. Sometimes I want to watch the commentary track from a rental but I don't get enough time to watch it before Blockbuster wants their DVD back.
4) I think I read somewhere that there are players on the market that ignore the digital encyption stuff, (Toshiba?, not sure). It was in one of this month's home theater mags.
5) it's a real shame that people who have HDTV-enabled sets don't realize that they don't need a HDTV to get benefits out of their set. They really marketed that term HDTV-enabled wrong (especially with the number of cheap prog-scan dvd players available)
Now, as for the cover story - I am not really crazy about buying dvhs studio releases, even if it is double the line resolution of DVD. Much like MiniDisc, they tried to make a market out of studio releases on the format and failed, but even without those releases, the recorder/players have found a comfortable market.
The video data is stored in compressed MPEG2 format.
I think the maximum data rate in this D-VHS is 28Mbps.
As a point of comparison, broadcast 1080i HDTV is done at approximately 19Mbps.
Tape is dead -- RIP
:)
Just as the audio cassette has all but died, replaced by CD, CDR, CDRW, minidisk and memory sticks -- so the video tape cassette will also soon be dead.
Remember that several companies tried to breathe life into the dying audio cassette format by fancy analog and digital techniques designed to increase the dynamic range and frequency response -- but it was sheer futility.
And this is how it will be with tape-based video recording, be it analog or digital.
With writeable and rewriteable CD and DVD media cheap and still falling, it's only a matter of time before the video cassette (regardless of its resolution) joins that old turntable you've got up in the attic.
I'm already starting to record many of the programs I want to keep for posterity (such as Junkyard wars episodes) onto CDR or VCD.
Using this technique I can use low resolution (VCD/MPEG1) when I want compatibility with DVD players, higher resolution SVCD (for the DVD) or Divx for the PC.
I've been able to cram nearly two hours of near-VHS quality video and audio onto a single 700MB CDR and at the current price of CDRs, that's a media cost that is lower than for VHS recording.
I've also burnt a few movies using high bitrate Divx encoding and I can still get a near-broadcast quality recording of an entire movie on a high-capacity CDR.
Once DVDR/RW drives and their media get cheaper then tape will be well and truly dead -- thank goodness.
I'm actually really pissed right now that some rare music vids I taped about four or five years ago on a top-of-the-line Sony VCR will no longer play cleanly. I paid a premium for top-quality tape, stored them very carefully and they've only been played a handful of times but now, when I went to burn them to CDR, they won't all play without color and stereo sound drop-outs in a few places.
Give me disk-based media over tape anyday!
Of course there will probably be a whole clique of videophiles who'll come out of the woodwork and claim that analog recordings have a better "warmth" and color tones than their digital equivalents.
These sandal-wearing, yoghurt-loving, tree-huggers would also just love to have a VCR that was filled with vacuum tubes rather than silicon -- so that the sound was also good
You ever try to scribble on the outside of a tape? Darn they probably even make the rollers incompatible with a bic pen....
So spend a few grand creating a work from which you hope to recoup some cash, let everyone use it for nothing, and see how much more fed up you become.
...as we don't have high definition TVs (unless you jump through hoops to obtain one, but there are no HD broadcasts to use with it). Therefore, the new D-VHS will remain a niche thing (if indeed it's ever released here), meaning DVDs have a long life ahead of them here, and throughout Europe. Oh well - if they stop making DVDs over in the States, at least you'll be able to import them from Europe ;)
Take one of these D-VHS VCR's, add a MEMS display, such as a TI DLP projector,
and top it off with a kick ass DD5.1 / DTS surround sound system, and you're getting dangerously close to the digital theaters that George Lucas was pushing for Episode 2.
Episode 2 was recorded in 1080/24p, HD resolution.
This equipment gets you pretty darn close to a digital theater in the comfort of your own home.
There's also superbit DVD, which provides an even higher resolution than conventional DVD.
DVHS is not meant for the general consumer market and was not developed to replace DVD. DVHS is meant for the videophiles who demand the most out of their home theaters. No, I'm not talking about those with an HDTV and a store bought sony home theater speakers. I'm talking about the people who easily spend 40k on the components and may possibly have a dedicated room for home theater viewing (including home theater style seats).
People who demand the best and have the money to afford it are the people who will be this DVHS player.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
DVD is still a very new format... it still lacks majority acceptance, as evidenced by the inventories of your neighboorhood video rental store... yet DVD has a lot of advantages... portability, compactness, robustness, cost effectiveness...
Thus far, there are only two things this system brings that DVD doesn't: 1) a semi-decent copy protection system and 2) high definition. Is high definition really that big of a deal? Digital widescreen on a DVD is more than enough for 95% of home video watchers... the sounds on DVD is phenomenal... the video quality is scores better than regular VHS... and really, consumers just aren't that picky...
And definitely, to be able to get the increase in video quality, 99% of consumers ain't gonna run out and buy no $2000 system and pay no $35 per media to get high definition... cause it's just not that big of a deal...
-jag
http://starboard.flowtheory.net/
..is that in the cases you cited, the new technology had significant advantages *for the consumer*, which is what really drives adoption:
...
.... widespread adoption of Netscape/WordPerfect/MacOS ... who needs another ...?
... news ... e-mail ... who needs another format?
-- CD's - with widespread adoption of tapes, what is the motivation for taping companies to provide widespread support for another format, with CD readers costing about $2000?
Random access, along with much-improved quality and durability.
-- tapes - with widespread adoption of vinyl disks, what is the motivation for sound companies to provide widespread support for another format, with tape recorders costing about $2000?
Cassette tapes made it possible to carry your music with you anywhere. LP's, 45's and reel-to-reel would never have been practical in a car or a portable music player.
-- vinyl disks -
Compared to what? That was really the first consumer-friendly music format (well, plastic disks, anyway. I don't think the kind of plastic matters much). Edison cylinders weren't really something the kids could use.
-- Internet Explorer/Word/Windows -
A little less obvious, but:
1. Explorer came with Windows, which is what killed Netscape, really. How the heck would you even manage to download Netscape in order to install it in the first place, if you weren't an uber-Geek?
2. I have no explanation for the success of Word - I never really used word processors during the time that Word replaced Wordperfect/Wordstar. I suspect that the rise of Windows did in Wordperfect, though. Which leads to:
3. Windows didn't replace MacOS, it just enabled people who had bought the wrong system in the first place to use a cheap knock-off.
-- WWW - with widespread
Ease of use, pure and simple. I could (and did) use Gopher, news, ftp, and all the rest, but my mother never could.
-Mark
How many times can all you sysadmins read your tape backups? How about DAT?
I would imagine that durability for this would be comparable.
"Beta and LaserDisc, say hello to your new friend, D-VHS" *Slams the closet door*
:-) )
:-p
I mean, there are so many disadvantages to this technology. Sure the picture quality is going to be very nice, much better then DVDs but... From what I understand this is a tape based format. Now, anyone who's been using DVDs for a while will never want to use DVHS. It's like going back to dialup when you had broadband : nobody wants to be waiting for the tape to go forward and backward so they can find what they're looking for.
Plus, what's cool about a DVD is that you get access to all the special features easily. But with a tape based format, you will have to fast-forward your way to the end of the tape to find the special features. I hate fastforwaring to the end of my "Army of Darkness" tape to show the alternate ending to friends who want to see it but not the whole movie. (not wanting to see the movie should be a crime, but that's another topic
Also, DVDs have these advantages over DVHS : they are small, shiny, and you don't get a fine at the videostore because you forgot to *rewind* your DVD.
you can't stuff a HDTV movie onto a DVD.
Are you sure? The MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Video codec (used in DivX 5) compresses much tighter than the MPEG-2 video codec (used in DVD-Video). Would it be hard to compress 1280x720p/24 video at a 1 MB/s bitrate?
Will I retire or break 10K?
1080i looks like hell at 9.8Mb/s, and you only get around an hour per DVD layer at that rate.
Wouldn't 1080i look halfway decent at 9 Mb/s or so using MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Video (the DivX video codec)?
Will I retire or break 10K?
We've had D-VHS here in Japan for a while now...
...and it's not really popular. Most people prefer HDD recorders, DVD players and even just old VHS....
Next...
Sure if it's your own recorded media you can make a backup before it's too late, but if it's a commercial video, sorry pal, be seeing you again at the video store soon (and your little wallet too)!
The days of Tape/VHS cassettes were glorious for the record and movie industries. They'd sell a cassette, and the customer's tape deck or VCR would promptly munch it. Back to the store where you're obviously not going to get a refund for mangling the merchandise. Instant repeat revenue.
Then CDs and DVDs were born. Cheap, durable, and reliable. TOO durable and reliable. Sure if you're a moron you can scrape them up, but if you're a moron you can scrape up your nose picking it too. Careful and responsible owners were no longer victims of freak munchings, and the industry never forgave themselves for not making the damn things shatters inside the players (most of the time... hey, remember those gimmicky ads for 100x players back before DMA66?).
Right now, the movie and record industries are salivating all over themselves trying to figure out how to sell you the same damn thing over and over again (like teeny pop and the late 90's onslaught of natural disaster cinema). Like Circuit City's DIVX (the scam disc format, not the codec) was one of the first examples. Now the music industry wants to let us buy digital music, in multiple proprietary formats, and pay for it for each playback device we own, even when we've already bought the physical album!
D-VHS probably will and should replace Beta, et.al. in the professional sector, but I don't think it would have ever seen the light of day in video stores if the media was as durable as some of the new high capacity DVD/optical technology coming out.
But maybe I'm just biased against magnetic media because of all the data I've ever lost!
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
(um, yeah, I tried to find a cool link for 'tripping over each other' in Google with the word 'trampled'... but you don't even want to know what I found...)
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
DVHS is a digital format. This means that as time goes on and you keep viewing the tape, the picture stays pristine. Of course, if the tape does develope flaws, the picture will either artifact or drop out completely, but it will always remain at the full HD resolution. Now, if if only we could get a good HD-DVD standard, with the capability to store 4 hours of HD video with 6.1 channel DTS sound, then we would be set for a good long time. But let's face it: nobody wants a tape format.
-James
Definitely DOA. That was an amazing First Post. Not only was it on topic, but it finished the discussion nicely.
I don't agree that it could be successful. It's tape! Gaaack!
I agree that there is a need for more definition. I'm sure the other DivX people, the DivX
D-VHS to Hit The Market This Week
The Market (walking alone): Du-de-du... Du-de-...*OUCH!* (somebody hit him)
The Market: Who are you?
The Stranger: I'm the D-VHS, and this is your last week on this planet...!
[to be continued....]
(I can see my karma fallin'...!)
667 The Neighbour of the Beast
It can compete with DVD very easily, actually. The current DVD standard only gives a 480p resolution, while the D-VHS standard can go all the way up to 1080i and 720p HDTV broadcasts. The current plan by the DVD steering comittee is to cripple Hi-Def DVDs by a use of MPEG4 with a stupidly low bitrate, to avoid the cost of moving to Blue Laser, FMD or other new disc types.
Personally I do think that this will fail, but its because the hi-end Home Cinema fanatics are all used to the superiority of using a disc format - DVD, and before that Laserdisc and even in a few cases the HiVision laserdiscs that Pioneer produced in small numbers for demonstrating their HDTVs with in Japan (these are a thing of beauty and a joy to behold, by the way). They don't want to go back to tape, certainly not something with the VHS name on it.
So, it'll die, but through a combination of the inherent and percieved image problems of tapes, not because this doesn't offer anything over DVD.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
It's tape! Gaaack!
The reason you have this attitude towards tape is that analog tape suffers degradation over time (tape becomes worn, quality degrades over generational copying, etc.). Keep in mind that nearly all music producers master to DAT first, which is similar to DVHS. D, being digital, means zeroes and ones are getting stored, and they don't degrade much over time and have almost zero noticable artifacts between generational copies. DAT master tapes sound the same after 1000 times of being played, unlike analog cassette tapes you're used to.
I can see DVHS being handy for TV stations replacing Beta, but not much else. Who needs another format in this day and age? Sure, maybe you can copy your favorite stuff in full res from your satellite now, but overall DVD has more advantages.
You would have thought they would have figured this out by now?
four letters fail: (BETA, DIVX, HDTV, XBOX, S-VHS, D-VHS, MPAA, RIAA)
three letters succeed: (VHS, DVD, MP3, PS2)
My original thought when reading this was: "Okay, so they think that John Q. is going to buy a video for $35-45, instead of a $17 DVD at Best Buy; and a $2000+ player instead of a crappy (but still decent for John Q.) DVD player for under $100 (also at Best Buy). For a movie that might stretch out and fade in unspecified way after a few viewings.. And one you can't skip through real fast like a DVD, or copy (What? Did I say copy? John Q.'ll have to give it to his 10-year old son whose a DeCSS expert to do that.)
But then it dawned on me: what they want to happen is that the format will be used by a select few for movies now (I have no idea which select few this is, but I'm sure it exists - there are a lot of bored hundred-thousand-aires out there I think) Add the benefit that they (as well as John Q.) will be able to record HDTV at full quality, for 2006 when everything has to go digital (Yeah, RIGHT!!) And it'll be copyright protected. (oops, John Q. missed that. Or he doesn't care.)
But the prices will come down, if only becasue the production of the custom ASICs that are in it will get ramped up, or more people start making them.
People here say that for a movie, they'd much rather watch a DVD, and for recording, they'd much rather use Tivo. Yes, they would. They're parents might even prefer a DVD for movies. Depending on who they're parents are, they might prefer a Tivo to tapes (the advantage is very high, but until you have seen it, the percieved entry-barrier to techno-phobes is also high) But do you think you're grand-mother will prefer DVD or Tivo? I know mine won't. She won't even touch a VCR, and didn't tough a microwave oven for the longest time (until we bought her one
I also think that at some point they want to get rid of the VCR completely - not that that would be easy - not only would they piss off consumer groups, electronics makers, computer makers, civil libertarians, real conservatives (the ones for smaller and less-intrusive government), and some artists groups [RAC for one], they would go on to alienate the entire video rental industry - although it seems to be transitioning to DVD pretty well..
The industry (or at least some powerful people in it) think that Sony-Betamax was a mistake. They don't want to overturn it per se, they just want to make it obsolete. By introducing D-VHS, which includes copyright-protection, and the overbroad-DMCA which enforces it, and armies of layers to play whack-a-mole with the P2P operators, and.. and armies of cloned cryogenically-frozen G-Men from Nazi Germany to go after the entire Napster Generation! (Well, we're not quite there yet..)
Some say the Betaxmax base should still hold. And I agree, it should. But that's another court case, for another day, in a different age than it was in the '70s (or whever Betamax was decided), I think a narrower Supreme Court (though I really have no idea on this one), and a Conngress that was less monetary-influenced and "pro-active" (in the wrong way) on these matters. And a public that was less apathetic than it was today (of course, I was born in 1978 - maybe politics really has always been going to hell in a handbasket!)
So let me get this straight. Making it digital makes duplicating the tape perfect, but keeping it on magnetic tape means the tape may die after many viewings. Reproducable but not rewatchable!? It's that the exact opposite of what studios should want in a new format!?
Gotta hand it to JVC for convincing them that their D-Theater isn't gonna be cracked like *every* other copy-protection standard.
You'd think with all the money they make the studios could hire someone intelligent for a change.
Just when I finally broke the habit of rewinding my DVD rentals.
It will be released then, ta dah!, on BETA tape, Digital BETA too. Why, because that's what the professionals use, and have done for years. (You thought the cable company digitized off 35mm film?)
True, most professionals still use Beta... however, and as you somewhat pointed out, they mostly use Digital Betacam ("DigiBeta") and Betacam SP. Both are uncompressed and are more than enough to store NTSC/PAL as good as they'll get. There is no need for anything greater unless you're ready to go to HD. (A side note... while Betacam SP is as good as uncompressed analog gets, DigiBeta came about as a lower cost replacement to D1, the original full-quality digital tape -- however D1 decks easily cost $400K+, an hour worth of blank tape - $400. DigiBeta is a dream come true for mid-sized video firms... NTSC as good as it'll get, uncompressed, and ready for the editing/compositing workstation. Betacam SP looks just as good, but because it's analog, requires time-consuming digitizing before it can be worked with on a workstation or PC/Mac.)
There are many other forms of Beta... including the new Betacam SX (which is compressed digital and suffers from the same compression artifacts that pop up on other similar compressed "DV" formats -- Digital 8, MiniDV, DVCAM, DVCPro. "DV" formats are great for home and small business use, with a compressed data stream of about 25Mbit/sec... but it's often loathed by pros due to artifacting and compositing work. Basicly, if you want full quality, go uncompressed. RAID storage is there, workstation hardware is there. Leave the comprssed stuff to Win/Mac users with their FinalCutPro-type software. Real users want DigiBeta and an Onyx3000 running Discreet Inferno or IFX Piranha.).
Anyhow...
Beta came (somewhat) popular with the release of 1/2" consumer Betamax, based off of the similar but much more expensive 3/4" U-MATIC decks. ED-Beta with 400 lines of resolution came out a few years later. Betacam followed with about 440 lines. Betacam SP with nearly 500 lines followed, providing more than enough quality for broadcast/archival NTSC. With the advent of Betacam SP (and competing Panasonic M-II) the video world began to improve optics as the tape side of things was already as good enough. Though you'll still see a lot of spec sheet padding and other BS when various vendors talk up their "lines of resolution".
no doubt the price will eventually come down with broader use. Still, personally I have not "upgraded" my $99 VCR because I haven't seen anything that will record what I want to record for the same price.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
'JVC persuaded Fox, Universal, DreamWorks and Artisan to support the format after developing a new copy-protection standard it calls D-Theater to prevent unauthorized copying of the high-definition movies'
That really bugs me. People should be able to make personal copies.
Volunteer Mozilla developer, RPI Student.
Superbit is just a fancy name for a standard dvd (usually a second release) that has been mastered with a higher bitrate (= better quality, fewer compression artifacts) than "average" DVDs. It is still plain DVD 720x480 resolution, nothing more.
Stuff like this is always huge in Japan for some reason. ;)
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
D-VHS *is* compressed. The bandwidth is actually quite low by HD standards... you'll get full HD resolution, but quite a few artifacts.... still better overall quality than DVD, though.
Uncompressed video is actually a good thing... especially for pros that want to do editing/compositing or want to convert to another format. You *don't* want to introduce compression artifacts and other compression ickyness early on in production. That's a *bad* thing. Compression is a last resort step often used to ease broadcast and/or delivery to the consumer. I have a major beef against overly-compressed HD... if I buy a TV capable of HD resolution, the last thing I want to see are high definition chunks of compression artifact crap on my screen. Compression on the standard television side of things is already bad enough --- look at a sub-par station on digital cable or DirecTV... compression artifacts galore. Not quite RealPlayer quality, but close.
Kudos on an excellent post! I have been saying the same thing for quite awhile. There is A LOT of room for marketing bullshit to cloud the video sector over the next few years. "High Definition" and "HD" are nothing more than buzzwords and do not describe the quality! I have already seen MANY digital televisions stations pass themselves off as "HD" when in fact they are broadcasting nothing more than standard-resolution 720x480, albeit non-interlaced. What's worse are stations that "upconvert" standard-resolution video to a high definition format such as 1080i (1920x1080).... they're broadcasting in high definition, but the material they're showing is stretched/zoomed to fill all of the pixels and looks NO BETTER than the original standard-resolution material.
Buyer Beware! I dunno about you, but I'm gonna wait. Standard-definition gear is already cheap enough that I've been making great use of it -- DVDs, progressive scan DVD player, Sony Vega and Panasonic Panaflat TV, DolbyDigital & DTS reciever with good speakers.
Episode II - ATOC was indeed recorded in 1080/24p resolution (1920x1080). Too bad most digital theaters and home projectors are currently using 1280x1024 DLP elements. *sigh* Gotta start somewhere, I guess.
Seems to me you'd lose a lot of that HD picture after a few viewings too.
Yeah, right. Just like DAT.
To achieve guaranteed dvd-quality, I need to compress movies (in dvd-resolution) with at least 1 Mbit/s when using DivX. And HDTV is 1920 x 1024. That means at least 5 times the information. You'll need alot more than 1mbit.
I said 1 MB/s with a capital B, meaning megabytes per second. I apologize for not being clear enough that I meant 8 megabits per second. Now is 8 Mbit/s big enough for 1920x1024 pixels at 24 fps using MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Video?
And what about the ordinary dvd-players?
And what about the ordinary TVs? Those with ordinary TVs aren't going to need HDTV DVD players.
Not everyone got PC-dvd and just upgrade their software.
MPEG-4 is an international standard. When the DVD forum makes an MPEG-4 based HDTV DVD format, it won't be "DVD Video" anymore, but instead "DVD Advanced Video" or something. Set-top boxes will be sold that advertise "Supports DVD Advanced Video".
Anyhow, you might not even possess the CPU-power to decompress at this resolution realtime.
MPEG standards are written with ASIC decompression in mind. You won't need a set of Athlon processors.
noone is going to alter an established format, if it means that the entire public will have to buy a new dvd-player.
The typical DVD Video player outputs 480i only. Those who have the cash to buy an HDTV set will probably have the cash to buy a DVD Advanced Video player.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Never mind picture quality and degradation, if they say DVHS gives better picture then let them, I couldn't care less. The problem is that this will take us back to winding/rewinding.
Not having to rewind, and the ability to skip to anywhere in the movie is IMHO the reason DVD beat VHS. Making VHS digital isn't going to remove this. People are lazy and impatient and going back to a tape based format is not an option for home users. Especially as most already own a DVD player and paying for a new box isn't that attractive
Verdict: Too little too late.
- We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
If using D-VHS for computer backups really takes off, then they would probably fix it so that it would require authentication to use raw mode. Using the device both as a VCR and as a backup of computer data would mean that the drive manufacturers could potentially loose the sale of a backup drive for each VCR sold.
Besides the obvious nature of prayer has changed so radically from its original intentions to that of mind control. "Guilt, complacancy, and ignorance", that is the mantra from which every religion heaves its breath and rests its fleeced power. Prayer is to center one's self not to engage in the garbled self-referencing and socially distorted ruminations that are planted in religious minds. The only madness that may be worth keeping in this respect is the ritual of self-diety for we have powers that are far beyond the parlour-trick "miracles" of gods.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Ever wondered, what bad blocks on your floppy disk were? It is digital, but when magnetic domains get flipped enought to wrong direction, your ones will become zeroes and contrary.
;)
For that reason, optical media is more secure. BTW, in optical disc writers (CD, DVD) data is written with magnetic forces, reflective layer is heaten with laser to a temperature of currie point, where domains can be influenced with magnetic field. Below that point, domains don't care about magnetic forces. That's why your CD's are hot when they come out of CD writter. That's also why procedure is called toasting
* Origin: XBase BBS (2:490/4100) Well the good old days may not return and rocks might melt and sea may burn.
Breaking News: Studios release new format!!
The MPAA announced today that it is backing a new format called 'DivX-Rip'. Digital disks the size of CD's store entire films using an encoding technique called 'DivX'. The advantages of this format are many, mainly, that the studios no longer need to worry about producing high quality images as the quality of DivX-Rip is notably bad.
"We expect many studios to take-up the new format, especially animation studios such as Disney since the DivX format does exceptionally well at encoding cartoons." Said an MPAA spokesman. Production of DivX-rip disks has already begun, and is expected to skyrocket in the next 3 quarters.
The MPAA has also developed a new copy-protection system for the format known as Zip-Password. The encryption system will only allow people with the correct password to view the films.
The RIAA is also developing a new system for music distribution. Named "MP3-CD" the new format will allow 10 times more music to fit on a CD sized disk and still retain 100% of the quality.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
This is pretty easy- the speed of light is an absolute. In your scenario, you are assuming that the 2nd rocket is at rest in regards to an outside observer, just like it is at rest in regards to the 1st rocket. This is incorrect. When your 2nd rocket starts up, it will go nowhere in relation to the 1st rocket.
This is because both rockets can go 2/3 the speed of light, which is an absolute speed as observed by an outside observer. It's like saying you have a truck that is going 2/3's of 100mph, and you have a car inside that can also go 2/3's of 100mph. What happens when the car is released? The car is going 2/3's of 100mph, the same as the truck.
Now if you say your first ship is going 2/3 c, and your 2nd ship then _accelerates_ away from the 1st ship, then your 2nd ship is now approaching c. But relativity states that as an object approaches c, its mass increases asymptopically to infinity. I forget the equation, but it's fairly common in any physics book.
Hope that helps.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
"D-VHS probably will and should replace Beta, et.al. in the professional sector, but I don't think it would have ever seen the light of day in video stores if the media was as durable as some of the new high capacity DVD/optical technology coming out."
Clearly, you know absolutely nothing. Beta is NOT used professionally. Betacam was; Betacam SP is dying; Digital Betacam is standard; Beta SX never really took off; IMX is new and HD-CAM is gaining momentum despite being seriously flawed. Al of those formats are Beta-related, though none ARE actually Betamax. As far as VHS is concerned, where to start? JVC has already given us pros the miracle of D-9 - which was their first stab at a digital VHS format. It was ignored to death despite being actually rather good. Panasonic also gave us the ill-fated D-3 and fine D-5 formats which are obviously (though never admittedly) VHS descendants. D-VHS will have exactly zero impact on professional video. Incidentally, I live in the UK where D-VHS was introduced about 2 years ago - I've never heard of anyone actually buying one, although I'm sure that they're very fine machines in their own right. I can hardly believe that D-VHS has just hit the USA NOW - surely some mistake?
That was classic intercourse!
Its tape.
That means...
Fast forwarding and rewinding. (No random access)
Wrinkles and crinkles.
Tape jams.
Dirty heads.
More mechanics in the tape deck so higher maintenance.
do you keep a backup copy of all of your computer hardware? how about your car? own any books?? have copies of those locked away in a safe? Movies and music are like anything else, if it breaks... oh well, if it burns in your house, hope you had rental/homeowners insurance..
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AlmostFreeLinux.com
DVD will win in the end except in post production houses. Why? 1) DVD cost significantly less for the comsumer; 2) DVD already has significant market penetration
Why are the studios big about D-VHS? 1) Because it wears out; 2) Even though its digital its stored on tape and therefore copies can suffer from signal degragation.
That equation for velocity addition seems a little off. If V1 = 100 and V2=20 then the additive velocity is like 400E-9. That seems a little low to me.
http://www.panasonic.com/PBDS/subcat/HD_World/HDWo rld_Main.html
Yet another...
You can't make a copy of everything, but some would like to make a copy/backup of what they can. Believe it of not, not everyone who wants a "backup" is going to share it with someone. Who are we to tell someone that they don't need a copy? Got a copy of your financial reports?
If no one ever uses it?
The reason I have that attitude towards tape is that is is not random access.
The video on my Tivo (at the medium setting, which is what I use for most things) isn't all that much better than VHS, and it's probably not as good as SVHS, but I would never go back to them. Having the data available in a format with random access allows me to just jump to a favourite scene or the special features.
I can't seeing ever using a sequential access device for content viewing/listening ever again.
Milalwi
I'm all for higher quality, but not if it means that I have to go back to rewinding tapes and fast-forwarding to special features (if there are any). I guess if I won the lottery and just had to have perfect HDTV quality, I'd get one as a companion to my dvd so I could have the best of both worlds, but it'll never replace scene selection or special features or easter eggs for me. It's the same reason I'll never own a DAT player when I can use a CD. The convenience really outweighs the slightly (and I mean from the perspective of the fact that DVD is already GREAT digital) better quality.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the DVHS tape going to be made of the same stuff as VHS? One thing I like about DVD is that there is no degradation of the data (at least not over my lifetime). My father has some great stuff on VHS, Raiders of the Lost Arc and the Last M*A*S*H episode to name a few, but they are so old that they can hardly be watched anymore. I even plan on having my wedding video burned to a DVD to maintain the quality of the picture. To echo my friend above what about the special features? Will I still be able to insert deleted scenes, turn on the directors commentary and view the trailers easily? I just don't see it taking off. I feel that there are not enough pureists out there that want a perfect picture. How many of us can really tell the difference anyway.
Make sure nobody wants to pay for the movie in the first place. Then there's no one to make a rip.
"I'll say it again for the logic-impaired." -- Larry Wall.
Sure, that's nice and dandy to protect your work, but copyright law is only there to artificially add value to the crap that's out there and to enforce the false value of it- it deserves to be copied. Only a complete rework of the copyright system that doesnt rip off the consumer unlike it does now would even be close to anything that I'd even think of contributing to the antipiracy effort. Even with that, I'd still copy things/support devices that allow me to do whatever the heck I want with the media and its contents.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
My idea on how to distribute music is to cut out the record company. As long as a band can come up with enough money to record the album, they can distribute it themselves. This will cut out the middleman, finally get rid of the horrific media of CD, and if they charge say a dollar or two to DL the album, they'll probably end up making more in the long run. I'm not condoning theft, merely that it's going to happen.
In 1982, Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, told a House of Representatives subcommittee that the VCR was the beginning of the end for new movies, since studios would no longer receive money from networks eager to show their films on television.
"If you are an advertiser who has paid $280,000 a minute to advertise (on television), he feels a very large pain in his stomach as well, as in his checkbook, because (the VCR) destroys the reason for free television," Valenti said. "The technology is there, and I am the one who has a belief that before the next few years, the Japanese will have built into their machines an automatic situation that kills the commercial."
He was wrong about it before...
For more information on time dilation effects, visit your local Blockbuster and rent the documentary film "Flight of the Navigator".
It's like saying you have a truck that is going 2/3's of 100mph, and you have a car inside that can also go 2/3's of 100mph. What happens when the car is released? The car is going 2/3's of 100mph, the same as the truck.
Actually, that example is a bit off -- If you're saying that both the truck and the car have a physical limitation of 2/3 of 100mph (67mph, let's say), then the following would happen:
Truck accelerates to 67mph, and it maxes out. Inside the truck, car is moving at 67mph relative to the world and 0mph relative to the truck. Car accelerates to 67mph relative to the truck, which is it's physically-imposed maximum speed (i.e. the wheels can't move faster), and is now going 134mph relative to the world.
When the car leaves the truck, it will go 134mph until its wheels touch the ground, at which point the drivetrain will fly out of the rear of the car, the engine will explode, and it will slow to 67mph.
--noah
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
Yes but financial reports are: a) created by me, b) not easily replaceable. You could go to BestBuy and replace your DVD collection with your insurance money....
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AlmostFreeLinux.com
DVD - Great quality, doesn't really do HDTV well, can't recoder without hefty PC setup.
HDD Recorders - Great quality and compasity, not protable.
dVHS - Great quality, similar compasity to product already in market, design for HDTV, extremely portable[pack the tape and go], backwards compatable with VHS.
As to price, how much did the first DVD's cost?
-nuff said
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
I can see DVHS being handy for TV stations replacing Beta, but not much else.
Heck no. Maybe a small market station or cable local orginator that is using SVHS might use it. But this is designed as a consumer format. Its got copy protection built into it and broacasters need to be able to look at things and copy things pursuant to constantly changing agreements.
Not to mention that its recording a highly compressed bitstream. Broadcasters tolerate some compression but not much before it hits the transmission point. It would go through too many decompress/compress cycles of a lossy algorithm before you ever see it at home. And that wouldn't be good at all.
Michael
--
The opinions above are mine. All mine! Bwuahahahahaah!
The opinions expressed above are those off one side of my brain, the other side and my employer may not agree.
Let this retarded concept die. Do not buy!
D-VHS was never intended as a serious consumer tape format. Other than the fact that it is CURRENTLY the only available HD purchase/rental media, it is nothing but a perverse frankenstein reanimation of yesteryear's linear-access mechanical magnetic tape formats with all the disadvantages of inevitable mechanical wear and physical deterioration, and the lame absence of random access play. It seems like a transitional and ultimately short lived technology like Philips' DCC cassettes and Sony's
Digital-8 tapes.
D-VHS offers no substantial value to the user at all in terms of convenience and longevity, and in this enlightened age with widely available random-access technology such as DVD and PVR video decks, who wants to go back to 'please remember to rewind your tape before returning it' ???
Linear access magnetic tapes should at this point in time be relegated to high capacity bulk data backup and professional digital broadcast video formats.
It's more like some kind of experiment to see how many suckers are out there who are willing to pay greedy studios for some kind of frankenstein reanimated tape format and buy it again once the HD-DVDs arrive in one shape or another.
The technology of course exists today for the studios to put a HD movie on a disc the same size as a CD/DVD, but given 1) the ease by which the CSS "copy protection" of the DVD format was broken, and 2) the apparently almost indefinite lifespan of these discs (I have several audio CDs stamped nearly 20 years ago that are playing just fine!), it may be that they feel it is too much of a gamble at present to release a HD-DVD format until they've "tested" the new copy protection scheme on a short lived limited adoption expensive tape format they can take out of circulation should it be proken and the surviving copies will expire eventually like all tapes does in the end.
Another thought: Considering that tapes are "printed" with some kind of bulk linear recording technology, I wold be not at all surprised to learn that Hollyweird is printing digital serial numbers on those D-VHS tapes for tracking them. After all, a high bandwidth HD copy of a movie must be considered a 'valuable' item since a 'dishonest person' (or video enthusiast!) with the right equipment could theoretically create very good quality copies of the movie in any format desired by scaling down to regular broadcast formats.
Consider that even DVD isn't all that - the bandwidth is quite low, and there's many MPEG2 compression artifacts readily visible on a good TV / projector - such as "ringing" around titles and edges. From a HD master such a 'dishonest person' (or video enthusiast) could re-encode a title to a different format perhaps superior to the DVD MPEG2 encoding, and play it back using their computer on a conventional television or projector at substantially better quality than that afforded by conventional DVDs. Just a thought.
The equation is kinda right, but V1 and V2 are normalized to lightspeed. Thus, if the first object is are traveling half lightspeed, V1 is 1/2, and the object inside is traveling a quarter lightspeed, V2 is 1/4. This gives (3/4)/(9/8)=2/3. This last number is normalized to lightspeed as well.
Note, because lightspeed is a maximum, you couldn't have V1=100 and V2=20, they have to be <=1.
-no broken link
It's important to realize that if you had a perfect radar gun pointed at a car moving exactly 100mph relative to the train it is on top of, which is also moving at exactly 100mph, you would find that the car is not going exactly 200mph. The perfect radar gun will give the result of Einstein's equation (the (v1+v2)/(1+v1*v2) you have there). You will also find that a clock in the car will start to run behind a clock on the train or on the ground, and if you had two perfect laser measurement devices, when you measure the from the ground it will measure shorter than when the driver measures it, and shorter than when you measured it before you put it on the train.
A good question is "why does this happen," but I don't think we know.
-no broken link
Ok I agree. This is a damn worthless format that will die screaming.
Beta SX never really took off
I've seen quite a few professionals with SX, including (the only) regional ITV news station I've seen (ITV is a large network in the UK, the commercial version of the BBC in some ways)
Digital Betacam is used much more.
Of course here at our student tv station we use SVHS!!!
yeah...
This format certainly is not unprecedented. The Digital 8 and Mini-DV formats commonly used on digital camcorders use a system that is similar to this, I would think. The underlying principles of digital magnetic tape storage is simple. Instead of recording an analog signal to the tape, we simply replace that with a preordered binary signal, like when you play a tape from an old Spectrum or Commodore, it sounds like static, bleeps and bloops.
Moreover, the time has passed for this form of storage. Certainly, you can strore a lot of information in this manner, as magnetic tape backup devices can use special tapes and backup over 10 gigabytes of data. The unfornuate thing is that they are only practically used as backup devices, as they are too slow-seeking and reading to be used as a conventional mass-storage device like a hard disk.
This form of video will obviously offer no advantages over DVD. It's more expensive to make where a plastic casette with tape spools inside and mechanical features must be made to accomidate a single casette, while a DVD is nothing more than a platter of pressed reflected film. Moreover, tape storage systems are linear, so, yup, you gotta rewind and fast forward to find stuff whereas DVD can seek almost instantaniously.
The copy protection mechanism they claim the tape offers can be easily circumvented. The CSS encryption on DVDs has already been cracked, so has Macrovision and other encryption formats. And IF this 'copy protection' feature is hard or impractical to circumvent, well, you gotta be able to see the video, so you can simply tape the video from your TV screen if all else fails (which it probably won't).
If this was introduced a few years ago with a lesser price tag, then it would be a novel invention. However, at this time, it is laughable. It has already been replaced by DVD even before its birth. Now, with great DVD players below the 100 dollar mark, this player that costs over $2k will be bought by not many people because it is expensive, offers no features above DVD, and will likely have a very small amount of videos made for it.
I co-own a small production studio, and am one of those Mac users with FinalCutPro-type software, and I've seen this attitude before. I edit a weekly TV show that is shot on BetaSP, and edited in Final Cut Pro. With properly calibrated equipment I have seen NO difference in quality between video edited on Inferno or Avid and video edited on FCP.
Yes, when I capture video onto my Mac it gets compressed, but it's still 1 Gig per 5 minutes, and it looks as good as the source Beta tape. I've done complex composting and effects on it and it comes out beautifully. The only downside is that it has to be captured in real-time, then dumped back to tape in real-time.
If you read the forums at sites like 2-pop you'll see that most people are unimpressed with the quality jump from modern digitized (and compressed) video to fully uncompressed video and RAID storage. The show I edit is done on about $20,000 worth of hardware (half of which is the BetaSP deck) and (as far as I can tell) is indistinguishable from video edited on $100,000 Avid system.
I don't mean to be belligerent about this, but this argument always reminds me of the vinyl vs. CD debates. It's really splitting hairs. Compressed video doesn't just mean Realplayer 56k streams. The abilities of those operating the equipment has as much to do with the quality of the output as the hardware you're using.
Don't you?
I like this news because at $2000 a unit, this will not achieve any sort of significant penetration. It will, therefore, not draw a lot of content from the entertainment industry as they wait until platform adoption occurs before investing in production and inventory maintenance and channel development.
This will be a direct piece of evidence refuting Sen. Hollings' claim that
OK, so it doesn't exactly refute that assertion, but it will show that protection is not the primary reason that studios aren't filling the channel with digital content. Consumer adoption is the primary driver, and people simply don't adopt things that are not worth their time/money/attention.
The CBDTPA aims to force the public to adopt technology that it doesn't want, need, or value. All in the name of promoting content availability.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
DVHS isn't meant to compete with DVD at all. DVHS is akin to DVD as SACD is to the Compact Disc, they're meant for 2 different markets: DVD is for the masses and DVHS is for the videophile that has $2000 to blow on a player and probably already has a 50" plasma display.
If you want your movies displayed with the full 1080 lines of resolution, and you've got the cash and you want it NOW - then DVHS is your only option at the moment.
The reason why data written to DAT's and DVHS and computer backup tapes and other digital tape does not degrade over time is because additional protection bits are written to the tape. There are systems whereby if you want to store k bits to the tape, you actually write n bits (n>k) in such a way that you can have some number of bits which can be lost due to noise or tape media dropouts or scratches or whatever and you will still be able to decode the original k bits. It is introducing redundancy into the data storage.
Yes, it's very clever. And yes, it only works with digital data. Remember, everything is analog at the lowest level.
My other first post is car post.
DivX is a bad analogy, sounds more like SVHS or BetaMax reincarnated to me. Why not just go to DVD-RW/RAM? Sequential-access media just plain sucks. Tapes wear out, strech/shrink and start losing data in about 10-20 years. I'd get tivo before sinking a bunch of money into a new vcr. Most stuff you record you watch once anyhow, and a fixed disk system shouldn't piss MPAA/RIAA/etc. too much, because it would be more difficult to copy stuff. I'm still miffed about the digital "macrovision" no-copy bit in the DTV feeds. Oh well, someone will just have to "violate" the DMCA and build a box to strip it out; that means another project and more money for the l337 h4x0rs i guess.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
yeah, we've got one too - but what does Sony's rebranding of the format tell you about it's success? Most of the limited success that SX has had has been down to Sony's agressive pricing on some really fine WS camcorders and the deck's low cost route of getting SP playback via SDI.
That was classic intercourse!
But c (speed of light) is a _universal_ constant, no matter how you may want to twist it (not you in particular, but the original parent).
You, as the original poster are confusing 2/3 c with 2/3 c _acceleration_. As you say, the car is accelerating in regards to the truck, but then you have to submit your frame of reference to an outside observer (to get an independent observer frame of reference).
Like I said- Assume c=100 mph. c actually equals 8^12th or something (yes I know this is wrong but I'm just trying to show that it is a really big number).
You just proved my point. The original parent said 2/3 c, but you said "accelarate". c is a constant speed, accelarate is an increase of speed at a constant rate.
You totally missed my example. I said both the truck and the car can go at 67Mph, NOT, repeat NOT, that they can ACCELERATE at 67 Mph.
Please go re-read my previous post and make sure you note the difference between speed and acceleration.
If you still believe that the original parent can somehow break the c limit, then please email me at bryan1945@yahoo.com so I can explain this to you.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
The tape aspect of DVHS is obviously inferior... how difficult is it going to be to get HDTV quality onto a dvd type disc?
OK - lets think about a few things people - VHS has been around for over 20 years with more movies available than DVD may ever see. Do you think they are going to bring out 'every' movie ever made in a DVD form ... NOT. Oh yeah...New D-VHS decks can also playback ALL the VHS analogue standards. How responsible to consumers' investments is JVC for accomplishing that!
- Yes DVD has better picture and resolution than standard 'analogue' VHS. But it definately doesn't have the speed (bitrate) or storage capacity of a VHS tape gone digital:D-VHS. D-VHS holds 50GB of data vs DVD's 4.7GB(per side). Titanic encoded for D-VHS requires 33GB.
- Have any of you 'chapter' and 'feature' geeks out there stood up in front of everyone in a movie theatre and started to surf the movie with a remote? The 'serious' home theatre user would prefer quality over navagation. Movies were meant to be watched from beginning to end - linear. Are they any of you who wish to argue that DVD is better than film? Gee-wiz... Film is linear...bummer it has to be rewound. Well people, D-VHS now allows consumers (simple folks like us) to playback studio D-5 master quality movies in high definition in our own homes! D-VHS is doing to the High-Definition video industry, what VHS did for Standard-Definition video industry 20 years ago.
- D-VHS is not to compete with DVD, because they are for two different audiences (customers). Stop worrying about D-VHS messing up DVD growth and support. Start worrying about the Internet streaming DVD 'standard def' quality video on demand - in the near future, you won't need to 'buy' shiny discs. You will just buy movies virtually, and watch them anytime, anywhere.
- D-VHS is simply taking it's place as the premium video playback technology for consumers, 'the ONLY HDTV format for consumers', and will be so for the next decade.
- Lastly, D-VHS will not replace DVD.... because it's in a different market than DVD. Yes engineers are working on blue-laser disc technologies that will enhance speed and storage for HD application, but we are several years away, and by that time gauranteed there will be competing manufacturers with various versions...like DVD+RW,-RW,RAM is today.
On top of that, new technologies like digital wafer cards could be better - no scratches, no moving parts, lots of storage, size of a quarter? Technology never stops improving.
If you want HDTV today, D-VHS is your ONLY choice.
(or buy a professional movie film projector for you basement):)
Any video professional worth his or her salt isn't going to waste their breath being any more specific than just 'beta' unless they're trusting some lackey to purchase equipment or training an assistant.
Omit the first sentence, and you might have had an informative post for the two people in the world who still think Betamax is the same 'Beta' currently in use, but in the real world, being an argumentitive smartass always earns zero karma.
Nice to see you've learned how to use Google to effectively win friends and influence people. Flamebait trailing Flamebait? Sure. But I have karma to spare.
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.