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If DVD Is Dead, What's Next?
uglysad writes "The Age has a piece discussing the fact that, from the home entertainment industry's standpoint, the DVD is dead. So what is next? From the article 'It will come as a shock to film fans who have spent their Christmases stocking up on their movie collections, but the technology industry is in agreement: the DVD is dead. Consumer electronics companies have begun to show off what they believe will be the next generation of home video technologies. But despite the common belief that the DVD is history, the industry is split over what the next step should be.'"
If HD-DVD 'wins' the battle then current DVD isn't at all dead... HD-DVD is backwards compatible
Blu-Ray drives will most likely be backwards compatible as well. From the Wikipedia article:
While it is not compulsory for manufacturers, the Blu-ray Disc Association recommends that Blu-ray drives should be capable of reading DVDs, ensuring backward compatibility.
The whole "DVD" on the end of the name is just a ruse to get people to buy into the standard. There really isn't anything I can think of that makes HD-DVD superior to Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray, OTOH, has many positive features including the ability to wipe the disk without scratching it, and larger data capacities.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Yes, FreeBSD is an OS. It was a joke about some Slashdot trolls that keep proclaiming one of the BSDs dead (I don't honestly remember if it was FreeBSD or not). Apparently the joke is somehow flamebait. Shrug.
Maybe so, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to purchase new mainstream titles on VHS.
Makes sense http://www.candisc.com/03price/03vhs.html vs http://www.candisc.com/03price/03pricedvd.html
And despite the fact that the MPEG-2 encryption was a rush job and has long since been blown away by newer codecs
I'm sure you meant MPEG-2 compression, not encryption. MPEG-2 compression was certainly NOT a rush job. I agree that there are better codecs now. MPEG-2 has simply been one step in the evolution, and a significant amount of effort went into the development.
Or maybe you are confusing CSS encryption that is used on DVDs with MPEG-2. CSS encryption was evidently a rush job. Which is probably more of a reason than anything else why the movie industry wants to see it dead. Video quality isn't really the issue yet (even today very few TVs display native 1080p movies to begin with).
What plasma TVs only have 488 lines (are you talking horizontal "lines of resolution" or vertical scan lines?) All of the plasma sets I see are HD or at least ED, typically with 1024x768 for the former, the latter typically at 852x480 for a 42" set (which is about 36.6x20.6 inches; that gives about 28 dpi horizontally and 37 dpi vertically for the HD sets, or 23 dpi for the ED sets, if the screens are 16:9). You don't get full HD resolution until you get to bigger screens; even 50 and 63" plasma seem to be mostly 1366x767, at least it's a square resolution (31 dpi for the 50", 25 dpi for the 63"). Full HD resolution is 1920x1080.