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HD DVD Coverage at CES 2004
Anonymous Coward writes "It appears manufacturers such as Toshiba will soon be rolling out HD DVD players. The HD DVD format, as opposed to the Blu-Ray standard, involves minimal changes to the manufacturing plants that currently produce DVDs. This should allow for a smoother transition for consumers to adopt this new format. This article DVD vs HD-DVD summarizes the differences of the two formats and benefits of the latter."
The challenge for both the HD-DVD and the Blu-Ray efforts is getting studio support. For PVRs (such as the first Blu-Ray devices), this isn't a big deal. If you want a pristine 1080i/720p movie, however, it'll have to come on prepackaged media. The main challenges that neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD solves: -- Security. Hollywood is much more concerned about HD-quality content because it's the best they've got. The traditional "trust us" or "magic encryption fairy dust" proposals won't cut it here. Like it or not, neither format can succeed without effective, renewable anti-piracy features. -- Replication costs are a challenge. This is one place where HD-DVD may have a small edge, though that's debatable. -- User interactivity & network support. DVD's menus are awfully limited -- something much more flexible is needed, but there isn't yet any agreement what this will be. Cost isn't such a big deal yet (anybody willing to spend $10K for a plasma screen will shell out another $1K for a player to take advantage of it), but eventually this has to be price-competitive with DVD.
You know, if the media industry wants us to take their copyright claims seriously, then they need to start giving us some sort of discount as they re-release the same material on new formats. If I've got a license to view/hear it, then that should carry over, and I should only have to pay a small fee to upgrade.
These format wars always turn out to be pissing matches between rival companies and never benefits the end user. All it does is hassle consumers by having to purchase compatible equipment.. again!
Hmmm.
No where in the article does it say anything about the video quality, only how much data can be stored on the disks. Is this really going to be HDTV resolution (1080i or 720p or ...?) or something else? Will it look better on standard TVs too, or must one have an HDTV to see a benefit?
--- What?
For who? Why do I care what happens at the factory. What it *does* mean is that the product can be scaled up for large production quicker, which should hopefully mean lower prices sooner. However, it means *nothing* as far as my transition... I won't know what the next generation DVD is like to transition to until I see how well companies handle backwards compatibility. If it fails to run *any* DVD collection, I will consider it a failure, because all the factory efficiency in the world won't make me toss my existing DVD collections.
Sig under construction since 1998.
Im not really sure how to look at DVD in general. I have one, and dont get me wrong, the concept of ever renting another VHS tape sends chills down my back. Ditto for at work... MSDN on DVD is about 5 times nicer then on CD, there is no doubt that it is such a marked improvement over CD.
Thing is, with every new format, you need to have a certain element of buy in. DVD is just now getting there, IMHO... if you go to rent a new release at blockbuster there will most likely be more DVD's then VHS tapes. Ditto for if you go to buy a new computer... i would say 90% of all new systems ship with a DVD player standard... half of those most likely are burners.
But I wonder, with new developments, such as HD DVD on the horizon, how many people are going to hold of purchasing a DVD or DVD burner now... when something is going to obsolete it a short while into the future. Is technology on the horizon bad for the technology that exists today?
DVD adoption still isnt as complete as it should be... for instance
How much software do you buy on DVD's these days? I wish it was alot more, but CD's still rule the day in shrinkwraped software, especially games. With games like Neverwinter nights spanning multiple CD's, your either stuck dedicating a wack of your HD to playing it... or your back in the Apple ii days of disk swapping.
What about audio dvd's? A recent trip to HMV showed that there was perhaps a hundred available for purchase at retail... not to mention that cars dont have dvd players... you arent seeing portable dvd discmen...
I guess all Im wondering is... Are these companies sorta shooting themselves in the foot by constantly bringing out new versions? Should storage media follow a more console like approach to release schedules to acheive better market penetration. I mean, how many people would have bought a DVD player ( or plasma tv, or flat panel monitor ) etc... if it didnt constantly feel like there was something better around the corner... and in the case of dvd's, that your investment could almost instantly become obsoleted?
As an asside... I think DVD's have already done a pretty big mess of things. Ive recently shopped for a DVD burner to replace my CD player, and I was aghast to find out how many formats already exists... DVDR DVD +R DVD+RW DVD-R DVD-RW?!??! Wow...
A lot of people using "average" televisions in the 20-to-27-inch range can't tell the difference between VCRs and DVDs when it comes to quality. I don't doubt that people with $8,000 plasma HDTV's will be creaming their pants over this new format, but I highly doubt that Joe Sixpack (who finally got a DVD player for Christmas) with a 25" screen will care. HD-DVD's will have to offer more than video quality compared to DVD's in order to make most consumers care.
And don't tell me that the picture quality of DVDs has room for improvement. I know- I can see the compression artifacts on a lot of occaisions. The color depth often seems to leave something to be desired compared to say, a movie theater. I'm saying that most consumers don't notice or care about that stuff, though, and think DVDs are "good enough".
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As i highly doubt the next DVD standard will allow anything less than copy protected DVI (or any digital cable) with HDCP.
The big push isn't just quality, its DRM and protection.
With any luck the movie industry will not allow this technology to be licensed for PC's that don't support internal bus copy protection as well. (getting the infamous macrovision garbly goup on your screen).
Get HDCP or your new digital set will be useless in the very near future!
involves minimal changes to the manufacturing plants that currently produce DVDs. This should allow for a smoother transition for consumers to adopt this new format.
wouldn't that be smoother transition for manufacturers?
Sorry, try again. Wes Clark's testimony was extensive, and the particular bit that Drudge excerpted came at the end of several paragraphs describing escalating sanctions, continuing inspections, a further UN resolution, and so on. If those things failed, he was in favor of going to war.
I used to think that liberals, with their deconstructionism and other trendy academic elitist nonesense were the masters of taking stuff out of context, but the right has now taken that mantle.
I would have hoped by now that we had moved past the obsession with "oooh shiny disk" and come to realize that even though a caddy adds bulk, protecting the disk is damn important. As data density goes up, scratches become more and more detrimental
With CDs, It was understandable. The tech was new, and caddies were an additional cost on top of that newness. Plus, the "shiny disk" was a novelty. -Scratches were not that much of a problem, the music would hiccup, but rarely skip badly unless the scratch was bad.
We should have learned our lesson with DVDs. "shiny disks" were no longer so novel, and a minor scratch can send the movie wildly skipping. This is made worse by the fact that movies are singular entities, not broken up in to songs like on a CD, so restarting where you left of is more annoying. Renting DVDs is hell because one goober can fuxxor the disk.
- We ship/sell DVDs in cases anyhow, why the hell didn't we make the case the caddy?
Now we want to up the density even more, and still leave the data surface exposed?? Now will a fingerprint cause a skip? Will a scratch render a whole min. or more unviewable by obscuring the data? This is un-freaking acceptable. I treat all my disks with extreem care, but It seems these would need clean rooms and machine loading to avoid any scratches.
Screw HD-DVD, Blu-Ray has a caddy (IIRC) to protect my investment in a HD movie. I'll go with it, even if it costs more, because loosing a $25 movie to one scratch is more expensive in the long run by far, and not having to treat the disk like a fabrege(sp?) egg to keep it playing well is worth the extra cost.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
Putting HD content on todays DVDs means that the masterings will go lower bandwidth or have to break the movies onto two discs.
Going with a format which can store more is preferable in every possible way. And since DVD players are cheap as hell today, a new machine shouldn't be much of a problem either.
So quickly people forget. When DVD movies came out one DVD would fill my entire hard drive. Now I could fit 100. These new HD-DVDs aren't even out yet and I could already fit 10. I have a feeling when we do see these drives we'll all have hard drives that easily fit 50 HD-DVDs, and a few years later, 100+.
Course that's if we even see HD-DVD movies. DVD drives have just now been widely accepted now that players are down to $30. I highly doubt the average consumer's going to be happy being told "Hey we know you just bought a DVD player, but guess what, you have to buy this new $300 player now if you want to watch new DVDs!"
So I predict one of two things happening:
1) HD-DVD players won't be out for many years, when the market is ready for a new format, ~10 yrs.
2) HD-DVD drives will come out for your PC, but there won't be any movies, since they'll still be in DVD format.
I'm guessing 2, but we shall see. I still don't know why we need 25-50gig movies, I mean damn, most people don't have a TV that really takes advantage of the high resolution of DVDs, much less HD-DVD.
"2) Most people AREN'T on college campuses"
You're right, but I don't know anyone that transfers 5gig DVDs anyway. Everything's DivX or XviD last time I checked, so that's a non-issue.
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