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DVD Players - Buy Now or Wait for the Violet Laser Models?
PateraSilk asks: "I've been resisting the DVD pull for a while but VHS is becoming more and more obselete. So, I'm thinking about joining the hordes, but I have two problems with the DVD format: compression artifacts and low-level pixel dithering, which annoy me no end. Maybe I've just seen crappy DVDs, but this leads me to my question: should I go ahead and purchase a DVD player regardless of my qualms or wait for a violet/blue laser standard to emerge? My hope is that a larger storage capacity would lead to a less lossy compression format, but, then again, I could be waiting in vain. Plus, I don't want to embrace a technology only to have it be replaced within a couple of years." Remember, Sony's violet-laser player has already hit the market, so hopefully it won't be long before other manufacturers follow suit. How long will it be before competition in this market drives down prices to reasonable levels?
When DVD players were first coming out, I won one on the radio that retailed for $800. Almost 5 years later, that model is still selling used for almost $200. The picture quality on it is awesome, and it still works perfect.
Now, compare that one to some of the cheap new ones that some of my friends bought at Wal mart for around $100, and there is a very definite quality difference in the picture and sound. On my player, there is only pixelation if the disc is very dirty. The cheap new ones pixelate if you so much as look at them wrong.
The bottom line is, if you are really that bothered by pixelation, fork up some cash and buy a nice one, not an Apex or one like it.
Seriously ... you're talking about pre-recorded DVDs, right? Even if all the companies offered violet lasers today, it wouldn't change how many of the original DVD players are out there.
It will be YEARS before you see DVD movies move off of the current standard. There is no reason for the movie industry to alienate the current adopters. They will not be releasing movies (much less re-releasing existing DVDs) until the proportion of violet laser players in use is larger than the install base of older players.
The only way around this is to make violet laser DVDs backwards compatible and that doesn't seem feasible to me.
I'm not against the technology, I would love to see HD DVDs become standard, but it isn't realistic to base your adoption on the new technology. The only place violet lasers are going to make a difference in the near future is for data storage.
BTW, I would guess you were watching on a fairly cheap DVD player. There is some low level color distortion (not nearly as much as on DirecTV streams though) in the MPEG encoding, but better DVD players can prevent most artifacts. I waited to buy my player until the new Faroudja chipset was available about 18 months ago and I couldn't be happier with the picture quality. You can get better than that, but the Faroudja based players are reasonably priced with great quality.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Actually, you have three problems. If you're new to DVD, you may not know about the 'region' nonsense. Simply put: if you buy a disc in Europe, forget about playing it in the US, and vice-versa.
There is no technical reason for this. It's pure marketing BS. However, there are DVD players on the market which make it possible to circumvent the region encoding. You may want to consider one of these...
Being an early adopter of DVDs, I always have to act a bit shocked when I hear people don't have one when I'm on my 3rd player. So I fully suggest you go out and get one seeing as VHS is all but dead (hizzah!).
As per your comment on poor video compression, more often than not, poor video compression is the fault of the studios. I've seem a lot of crappy transfers (Highlander, Evil Dead, etc) and a lot of beautiful transfers (Anything Pixar has done, LOTR, Panic Room, etc). The fact is a lot of studios are willing to cram a crappy video transfer on a disc, edge "enhance" the hell out of it, and cram in some extras with th space they've saved. But the good studios (Dreamworks, Universal sometimes) have learned that it's better to put good video and audio on one disc and put the exras on a second, resulting in much improved video transfers.
So don't let a few bad transfers spoil the DVD experience, the bad transfers are usually equally as bad on VHS, so it's not like you're losing much. I'd say invest in a good solid medium range DVD player now (you can get solid progressive scan units for about $150), and then when the new laser models come out, wait through the price wars and tech sniggles and get one of them when the technology has been tightened up and the prices have gone down.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
I'm no acoustics expert, but I know enough to know that in the case of audio, those higher harmonics which the human ear cannot hear still make a difference. So I'm going to take the time to lay down some education:
Natural harmonics:
First you have to understand what the hell a harmonic is. When a Violin plays a single "C" note alone, there is actually a subtle chord being made by the instrument which gives a distinctive nature to the sound. At a much reduced volume than the C being played that you mainly "hear", there's some related notes at specific intervals above that note (for those with a music theory background, the intervals are X octaves off of the main note, and then further can be the same note or up a maj 3rd, a fifth, etc... standard harmonic intervals like piano chords) which are also coming out of the instrument at a much lower volume. These intervals continue upwards well out of human hearing range, decreasing in volume as you go. While they're not consciously audible, they do change the tone of the instrument. When you hear two violins that sound "different" than each other, some of that is the waveform of the sound itself, and some of the difference is the varying volumes of different harmonics, which change with differences in instrument shape and composition.
These same tone-altering "harmonics" can also be produced by interferences between the various notes being played by several different instruments. Again these affect the tone of what you hear, and again they also go beyond hearing range.
Now in both cases, in a naive sense you could say that once the harmonics cross the boundary of human hearing, they no longer contribute to the tone you hear, therefore the ones up that high are irrelevant to everyone but geeks with frequency counting equipment.
However, you'd be wrong. Again because of the same types of interference, and also because tones can be modulated by the surfaces they reflect off of (including those in your head), and can affect each other at reflection points, the reproduction of those beyond-hearing harmonics (especially in any multi-speaker reproduction) does alter the human-hearable part of the tone that your brain ends up perceiving.
Also, if you ever wanted to record high pitched music for your dog to listen to, you'd be SOL with human-range recording and playback equipment, so do it for the dogs' sake.
11*43+456^2
It's like comparing digital cable to analog cable. Personally, I find the pixelation and compression artifacts in digital cable to be worse than the odd bit of fuzziness in analog cable.
Digital formats are nice, but they aren't automatically better than analog formats.
A good VHS recording, played back on a 6-head VCR, displayed on a nice TV actually does look better than the same recording done on DVD, played on the same TV.
They need to find a way to get rid of all the damn pixelation and screen re-drawing that goes on in DVD players and digitial cable/satellite.
ok... i am a video compression expert so it's my JOB to find artifacts and deal with them. in the lab, we have some seriously high end equipment, if the input signal sucks, the equipment shows it. if it's good, it shows it.
until recently, we have been feeding our alternate encoder with DVD source as a test for reliability. we had some PS2s sitting around and used that. on the set, you can see DVDs that were sourced from DV camera and it looked like shit with all the interlacing and the block noise in the shadows, etc.
THEN, we got a VERY nice Sony DVP-NS915 progressive output DVD player... the output with the SAME DVDs...
UNBELIEVEABLE.
there was such a world of difference! we even turned off the progressive mode and it was STILL beautiful! this thing kicked the crap out of the PS2 in output quality. no block noise, interlace noise gone, and a LOT cleaner image.
now i know, all DVD players are not equal. you definitely get what you pay for!
for a question like this, get a NICE DVD player and you'll be very happy. get a crappy one, well... you'll be asking this again and again.
also, blue-ray rocks! but you MUST have high end stuff end to end or you're just wasting money.
The superior quality of VHS is not something that you can detect with lab equipment, or calculate with math. Well, maybe with imaginary numbers possibly. Lab equipment just reacts differently than the human eye, so of course it will tell you that by the numbers a VHS tape will not be as good. But, if you believe the evidence of your eyes, your HUMAN eyes, then you will see that VHS is far far better than any digital signal could possibly be. DVD's just look cold and flat, and VHS has a human organic type warmth to it that is really subtle.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.