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Studios Face Off in Next-Gen DVD Format War
WaZiX writes "After yesterday's HD-DVD strike, the Blu-Ray Disc format received support from Disney (and its Buena Vista Home Entertainment unit) as reported by ZDNET. As predicted, the format war has only just begun."
Huh? What's wrong with the DVDs I have now?
Maybe you enjoy 480 resolution for your movies, but I don't.
Will the picture be so sharp and crystal clear and picture-perfect that I simply must upgrade?
Yes, it will. I like the idea of finally seeing Return of the King in at least 1280 resolution.
Will the sound on these things really be so good that if I close my eyes I really will think that Will Smith or Keanu Reeves or Sigourney Weaver or whoever massacred an entire clan of godless communist bug eyed alien monsters on my living room carpet?
Why, yes.
Is it really possible for these things to be as much of an improvement over DVD as DVD was over VHS?
Absolutely. You're getting an increase of over three times in resolution, and the disk space allows for much better compression--no more grain and compression artifacts.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Someone worked a way round the bogus encryption and region coding and DVD-player vendor lockout last time round, so we've all got to dump our perfectly good DVDs and our DVD players and throw more money at film studio execs and consumer hardware manufacturers. Silly me.
DVDs suck. Theater resolution is over 1280. You're missing tons of detail in your blurry, ugly DVDs. Play any DVD on a sharp television or on a computer monitor. It's embarrassing. HD-DVD (or Blueray) need to come and soon. DRM isn't the only reason for this--new DVD specifications were already being worked on before the whole DeCSS fiasco.
Stop being so damned paranoid. Unless you like watching movies at 480. In that case, NOBODY'S FORCING YOU TO BUY A DAMN THING.