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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'."
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.
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.
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
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.
From the technical glossary of video terms:
Digital Betacam
Digital successor to the venerable Betacam SP format. Introduced by Sony in 1993, uses physically similar half-inch cassettes.
Camcorders with 40-minute capacity are available, making Digital Betacam the first component digital ENG (electronic news
gathering) format. Digital Betacam units play back, but do not record analogue Beta SP tapes.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
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?)
The question has to be, why, given the existence of DVC and DVC-pro variants, do we need this new format? Oh, because it's copy protected... (briefly).
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
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!
This is fairly typical. There are early adopters who buy stuff like that. It works good for the companies who are just starting to sell those products.
;)
Is it silly to pay that much? I guess that's a matter of perspective. I think it'd be cool to make $200,000 a year, but I have trouble imagining what all I'd spend that on heh.
I do believe that if this format takes off that they'll get to the $100 to $200 range before too long.
"Derp de derp."
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
There is at least one, from pioneer. Pioneer Elite DVR-7000
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.
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.
http://dvhsmovie.com/ has more info about D-VHS.
Is it still considered Karma-whoring when I'm already at my cap?
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.
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."
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.
My buddy has managed to put a movie (DVD without the extra stuff) on one 700 MB disk w/ stereo and excellent video quality. It is a pain the ass but it is a way to copy DVD (without having to use two disks). I would rather go through this process than spend $2k on D-VHS especially when I can rent DVDs for $3. Not a legal alternative, but an alternative nonetheless.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
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.
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
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.
..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
Who is Yes? Some tired 80s band or something? Are they popular with the rave crowd? Why are they relevant in the year 2002?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"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?
PSst... I think he means DivX the pay per view DVD player, not DivX ;-) the video Codec. Heh
Personally, I think the D-VHS format could be mildly successful if it provides higher definition than DVD's. I have a concern that when I get HDTV my DVD's will look kind of soft when compared to the 1920 by 1024 format.
"Derp de derp."
There's also superbit DVD, which provides an even higher resolution than conventional DVD.
Where do you people get this crap? Superbit discs are DVDs, therefore they are DVD resolution.
What sets Superbit apart is that the films are transferred by people who give a shit about image quality. Which is admittedly quite rare.
-Z
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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?
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
"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.
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
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
An Apex AD600A (and maybe other Apex models as well) will take you right past that crud 95% of the time. Hit PBC OFF twice, then hit DVD DIGEST. This also works with RCE DVDs that don't like your region-free ROMs.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
> I think the next big format will be hard drives.
I've been thinking exactly the same thing. I wish one of the camcorder manufacturers would come out with a unit that uses 2.5" laptop HDs, prefereably in some removable fashion. A 30 GB drive could hold about three tapes' worth of data and only cost around $100. That's roughly three times more expensive than tape, but the convenience of random access would be incredible. Plus, they could make the camcorders even smaller and less fragile, since most moving parts would be gone.
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.
Ok I agree. This is a damn worthless format that will die screaming.
Wouldn't 1080i look halfway decent at 9 Mb/s or so using MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Video (the DivX video codec)?
Actually, yes. There are several of us who pour our HiPix ATSC recordings through Vidomi and burn DVD-R's. It's expensive in terms of encoding time, but it does work fairly well. The original MPEG2 looks a little better, but I suspect most of that has to do with transcoding, and if you went from uncompressed to MPEG4 you could get excellent results at DVD-friendly bit rates.
The problem is that all the cheap hardware out there is geared towards ATSC MPEG2, so it will be a while before you see MPEG4 DVD or MPEG4 set-tops. The HTPC crowd is stylin', however.
-Z
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
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...
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."
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.
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.
All storage mediums degrade over time. Our megnetic media HDD's will go bad eventually, normal aluminium CD's will go bad, even gold CD's will go bad eventually (the plastic). Of course magnetic tape will go bad quicker than HDD media (tape being exposed to air particles), and magnetic media will go bad much quicker than CD, but these recording methods and tapes would be designed to deliver these levels of quality for much more than "a few viewings".
The beauty of using digital on magnetic media is that the consequences of media going bad are not apparent until the digital signals fall below the noise floor. Which basically allows the media to be 100% perfect for it's intended purpose until that time.
The beauty of using digital for multimedia storage is that even if some data is lost, it might only result in visual or audible noise. Contrast this with the consequences of corrupt computer data. Of course, data corruption with multimedia could result in non playable media (with todays encoded formats) in one extreme or even no apparent visual or audible loss at all.
The thought of bad after a few viewings though, is ridiculous.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?