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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?
Ok, let me make sure I'm reading this correctly... You are currently using VHS, and the picture quality bothers you, but DVD artifacts bother you MORE? Did I read that right? DVD artifacts and pixelation bother you so much you won't leave VHS?
I'm not going to type anymore about this, that is just sbsurd.
There are many decent DVD players avaliable for $100. Why not just get a cheap one for the time being then decide on buying a more expensive one when the new standards come out.
This is the worst Ask Slashdot ever.
They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change in me.
My advice, Don't wait. The current DVD standard is widespread at this point. The industry is not going to drop DVD any time soon and you will probably find few movies done specifically done for higher capacity drives. Any transition will be very slow, especially since most people will be perfectly happy with a standard DVD.
First, I have about 300 or more DVDs. Only seen artifacts on a handful. And only on a crappy, Apex DVD player. And even then, only in lack of handling dark scenes well.
Second, you can get the aforementioned, crappy Apex for $40, a reasonable name brand model for $110 and really nice stuff for a bit more. Expect the higher end jobs to be just about as relevant as SVHS players/recorders.
If you are really seeing artifacts on DVDs frequently, then how can you stand tapes? If you buy them, they are much more bulky, no random access, etc. If you rent them... Lord help you. When I was still renting tapes, if I couldn't get it within a week of release, I passed. It was generally just barely viewable to me. It was unwatchable to my wife, as the captioning information degrades VERY quickly on VHS. This is just one very obvious sign of the lack of durability of VHS tapes.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
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.
its the compression that sucks. Most movies look pretty damn good on a 700MB Divx.
What the fuck?? I have never seen a Divx movie that wasn't either (a) encoded from a camcorder (which looks like shit anyway) or (b) re-encoded from a DVD. If it's reencoded from a DVD, it can't look better than the DVD, because you've already suffered the compression and decompression.
Maybe you're just saying that if we used MPEG-4 to compress DVDs in the first place, we'd be able to use a much higher bitrate and lose the kind of MPEG-2 artifacts that the poster complains about. I'm not sure that's true, since MPEG-4 is strong mainly at lower bitrates and has many of the same image quality problems that MPEG-2 has. But we can't base our opinion on Divx DVD rips!!
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...
Everyone seems to use jpg now and gif looks like dead, should i get a jpg viewer or wait for png to break through fully? I'm in a limbo here and fear the 0.000c investment for jpg viewer could be in vain if everyone use png soon :(
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
Like the original poster, I have a lot of problems with the DVD format.
DVD sucks because:
1) It goes out of its way to screw you over by refusing to route video signal through a VCR, thus rendering it inoperable with most legacy TVs.
2) Discs usually have mandatory, can't-fast-forward-through-them FBI warnings at the beginning of disks. By jove, when I buy a movie, I want to see a MOVIE, not some goddammed threatening legalese from the MPAA!
3) artifacts. DVD players (or at least the Sony my sister lent me) can't seem to keep the most basic artifacts suppressed. I remember seeing a white-painted wall, and noticing that the paint "crawled" like white noise as action elsewhere in the frame caused a wacky encoding of a simple signal. Call me back when you can film white walls.
4) compatibility issues. One in twelve DVDs I rent doen't work on my player, in which case I have to watch it on a laptop. (Unless THAT also doesn't work.) Yes VHS tapes get eaten, but not at that high a rate. VHS is more reliable.
5) Skipping. Usually have to endure this once or twice per film on rentals. Lame.
6) Frilly menus. Please less ghay animation, more do-what-I-want.
For these reasons I continue to prefer VHS to DVD. Yes, I use trolly language here, and for that I apologise, but I'm bitter everyone else has been so suckered by this crap technology. (And yes I had a Betamax way back when, and Yes, I'm bitter about that losing too).
I've been resisting the indoor-plumbing pull for a while but out-houses are becoming more and more obselete. So, I'm thinking about joining the hordes, but I have two problems with indoor plumbing: paying the water bill and the periodic cleaning, which annoy me to no end. Maybe I've just seen crappy looking toilet bowls, but this leads me to my question: should I go ahead and purchase a toilet and indoor plumbing regardless of my qualms or wait for a machine which sucks the shit straight out of my ass? My hope is that such a machine would lead to a more convenient defecating experience, but, then again, I could be waiting in vain. Plus, I don't want to embrace modern technology only to have it be replaced within a couple of years.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
You may as well buy now. I too am often bugged by the dark scences looking a little bad. But by the time the blue standard is widely adopted you will be wondering if you should wait for ultraviolte or other new technology that will be coming down the pike to store more.
If you look very closely...it's not as good at all...it blurs things...reducing the detail, and has more artifacts. There was an article here at slashdot a couple months ago that compared video compression. It doesn't look as good at all. Especially on scenes with a lot of detail, and a lot of difference between the adjecent frames (like during camera movement), which are the ones that make the codec really matter.
I find visible quantization and blockiness to be more irritating than moderately poor high frequency reponse and random noise. Thus I find that I like poor analog quality better than I like poor digital quality. On the other hand, I like good digital quality better than good analog.
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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.