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HD DVD Demo a Disappointment
triso writes to tell us that the recent unveiling of the new Toshiba HD DVD production model met with a few difficulties. From the article: "It was supposed to be the grand unveiling of a new generation in home entertainment when Kevin Collins of Microsoft Corp. popped an HD DVD disc into a Toshiba production model and hit 'play.' Nothing happened. The failed product demo at this week's International Consumer Electronics Show was hardly an auspicious start for the HD DVD camp in what's promising to be a nasty format war similar to the Betamax/VHS video tape battle."
So what? A failed demo is nothing to laugh at. I mean they probably has a slight bug, that shouldn't be a sign that the format is totally screwed. Give them a break!
First point, HD-DVD had a bad demo and Cnet has one of the Blue Ray players on their "Best Of" list. Sounds like things are going to be interesting.
Second point, another famous demo failure I will point out is the infamous "Windows 98 Blue Screen of Death" that Microsoft had back in the day trying to show it off. And after that, only a few hundred million people used the OS. What a failure.
If you're showing off a new product in CES, don't you make absolute positively sure that the product actually works?
I mean this was a production model, so either all their prodution models are broken, or they got REALLY unlucky and got a bad one..
If it were me though and I was going to showcase a new product, I would make sure that it acutally worked..
Quality Control is your friend..
I will not buy either until safely assured the DRM is broken and I can rip as I want.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Surely they will try to find something in the BR camp to level things out.
Just as an FYI. Format wars don't tend to get out of controll in a free market, it's only controlled market where people try to fence off "intellectual property" (which isn't a real free market property at all) that it becomes a problem.
That "demo" is obviously rigged. The colors are not the same. I'm not sure if there are any differences in the video format other than resolution, but I'm pretty sure regular DVD can display yellow.
In my mind, who ever can fit the most bits on a disc wins. I don't give a flying carp about video quality or format wars... I want to cram the most data on a disc and that's all.
This is not a Betamax/VHS battle from the consumer's point of view. I mean, maybe the content providers and equipment manufacturers may view it this way, but there's a fundamental difference from the standpoint of the consumer.
With Betamax/VHS, there were pretty significant mechanical differences between the formats -- having a single unit that could play both types of media was essentially impossible without having two completely separate (expensive and futzy) transports. In the case of DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, they are all 12cm spinning optical discs with exactly the same physical characteristics from the transport point of view. Yes, there is a difference from the logical data formatting and laser point of view, but there is no reason that I can see (other than licensing from the respective consortiums) that a single player couldn't play CD, VCD, DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
So fine, as a consumer, I don't give a shit. Frankly, I'm going to be buying DVDs as long as they make them, and I'm perfectly happy with that. Unless the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD consortium prevents manufacturers from making a unit that can play both types, I'm going to buy a new player that handles all of the formats, and they can jerk off as long as they want figuring out who's a winner, and I can buy pretty much whatever comes out and be able to play it.
Already there are comments alluding to the future stability of this product. Sure sure. I used to work at a company developing new tech. We had embarrasing demo screw-ups too. Most of the time, they were human error, though occasionally the software had an unforseen problem with it. Remember those old bumper stickers that read: "Shit Happens." ?
The demo failed, B.F.D..
"Derp de derp."
Where's the movie for this? Was there really no cameras rolling?
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
seems to be the name HD-DVD: imagine when we get recordable ones.. HD-DVD-RW. The abbriviation needs an abbriviation. At least blu-ray sounds futuristic
-AlexC
We all like to bag Bill Gates, his BSOD demo and events like this failed HD-DVD demo. Out of curiosity though, has Steve Jobs ever had something fail like this during one of his demos? There has been much made lately of how much effort Steve Jobs puts into the preperation of his demos, so would be interesting to hear of cases where it still didn't go right.
Anyway, looking forward to Steve Job's keynote this week at MacWorld. Hopefully he will introduce something from totally out left field and blow us all away.
I used to think DVD was acceptable, until I bought my 50" Plasma and saw "real" HD source material (and no, not everything that they claim is HD is really HD). You don't realize how much DVDs suck until you see them on a good monitor.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
the movie industry can re-re-resell their products to millions of suckers that already own the Beta video, VHS video, laserdisk, DVD, and whatever other formats available.
Seriously, since when have standard DVDs not been good enough? I've seen DVD output on a huge HD television and it looks spectacular. Wouldn't it make sense to put off the update until we really need it?
The greed of companies today drooling over the upgrade treadmill that people have accepted absoultely disgusts me.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
That's like saying a 4 MegaPixel digital cameras suck because you can't print out pictures that are 100x80 inches. I never plan to print out pictures this big. On the same note, I never plan to have a 50+ inch TV. Really, my 27 inch seems like all I'll ever need. Maybe someday i'll get at 36 inch. But seriously, I never forsee in my life having the need for a 50+ inch television. So DVD is just fine for me.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'm sure the movie people are licking their chops at the prospect of selling many of us our favorite movies for the second or third time. However. . . They probably don't realize it yet, but HD discs are the end of that gravy train. There's nowhere else to go after HD.
You ask, aren't DVDs good enough? No. Personally, I don't think DVDs are good enough. They're the video equivalent of LP records. The video quality of DVD is basically the same as Laserdiscs, which have been around since 1978. For that matter, they're basically the same standard as NTSC, which goes back much further than that. HD isn't arriving too soon, I think it's long overdue.
Most importantly, HD discs will allow us to have a pretty close approximation of what was shown in movie theaters. The whole back catalog can be mined for HD discs. But if there are any future improved formats beyond HD, they'll run into the problem of finding material (other than IMAX) to show off its capabilities.
HD discs will be the video equivalent of CDs. That -- in my estimation -- is the threshold after which it won't be worth the hassle and expense of upgrading further.
You see what's happening with SACD and DVD-A? They're not winning the hearts and minds (and dollars) of the people because CD audio really is good enough. I don't think DVD video is good enough, but I think whatever comes after HD discs will falter for the same reason that SACD and DVD-A are faltering. The improvements offered will become too subtle for most people to be bothered about.
Last time I checked colour is still 32 bit hence the fact 32 bit displays are capable of playing back hd material. While I won't disagree that the resolution make the picture better better, especially if you have the screen real estate to 'enjoy' it, the margin by which it is superior for video material shrinks rapidly as you step down to progressively smaller displays. Most people I know don't even have their displays configured properly to begin with, which tells me they don't really care about 'picture.' Which makes sense, a good movie is a good movie so long as the visual quality isn't so bad as to detract from the viewing. Then you have people who pay hundreds of dollars to have their televisions calibrated by a technician to an accuracy that is beyond the limits of human vision. Clearly, they enjoy masturbating over the fact their picture is 'optimal' more than they enjoy watching movies. reference quality monitors have their place but it isn't for the home viewer :) The mass market will be ready for hdtv when it doesn't cost them anything more to experience it.
I predict the format war will be won by the standard with the weakest DRM.
Or the most porn.
I'm getting sick and tired of people saying things like:
"DVDs are great, why do we need anything better?"
When LaserDisc was introduced in 1978, they were GREAT. They were amazing. They could push right up against the limits of the NTSC standard. LD was really over-designed because very few people had TV sets good enough to show them off properly. DVD video is basically the same thing, it's designed to hit the NTSC standard. TV sets today are many times better than those of 1978, it's the signal standard that needs to catch up now.
So. . . 27 years after the introduction of LD format, how much longer should we wait for an improvement? 50 years? 100 years? Should we just give up on the idea of progress completely, and settle for watching blurry NTSC-quality images from now on?
No. We need a pre-recorded format for ATSC -- we've needed it badly for several years, in fact. This is the one huge element that has been missing from the HDTV transition.
Now we're on the verge of a video format that can show movies in a reasonably close approximation to how they appeared in theaters. VHS can't do that, LD can't do that, DVD can't do that. HD discs will. Nobody should underestimate the importance of this, because the back catalog of movies that can benefit from this presentation goes back many decades, there are literally thousands of them. There are movies from the 1930s or possibly even earlier that will look better on HD discs than they can on DVDs.
That won't happen again. If somebody 10 years from now tries to come up with some new format to replace Blu-Ray, or replace HD-DVD, they're going to run into a big obstacle. It's because most movies in the back catalog don't contain a lot more information than ATSC can present. Most movies weren't shot in 3D, they weren't shot in IMAX. There's nothing to be gained by presenting them in a format more advanced than ATSC-HD.
We can already see a preview of that, because there have been quite a few TV series shot, or produced, on NTSC videotape, which means they won't benefit from being put on HD discs. This is why I think HD format has a lot to offer, but anything that comes after it will probably falter in much the same way that SACD and DVD-A are faltering.
All I can think of when I hear the posts of people saying 'My 59,000 inch TV makes DVDs look like crap' is two things. Firstly, get better movies, so you pay attention to the damn thing and not your TV, and secondly, that's complete nonsense. As a projectionist who has worked plenty with 35mm and DLP projectors (the $200,000 ones, not the Dells), I can honestly say that while the difference is striking between HD content and DVD, it's not nearly so bad as the difference between DVD and VHS. While the difference is there, it is not phenomenal, and you only notice if you watch a lot of HD content, and even then it seems more psychosomatic than anything. I can think of two recent examples to support this. The first is the recent article on Maximum PC when they took a bunch of people, and played their favorite content back to them using various different encoding methods. Out of 29 total tests, only 9 were correctly identified. The second is this video [ugoto.com]. Either way, I think the majority of the HD debate is just an excuse to brag about a nice TV.
It's poetry with a beat behind it! And guns! They're like beatniks with automatic weapons.
I disagree with you as HD being a dead end. There is plenty of growth left past HD content, because frankly HD content is still crap when you compare it to computer monitor resolutions and to digital still photography.
As long as people keep buying ever bigger monitors there will always be room for higher resolutions. Think HD looks great on a 46", well I'm sure it'll look like crap on a 100" unless you are sitting back 15 feet" Yes I'm well aware you should be sitting back 15" but that's a point lost on most technophiles.
HD
1900x1080 at 24hz -- 2mp
My ancient (it's over 1 year old) Canon Rebel
3072x2048 -- 6.3mp
My new Nvidia 7800GT video card
2048x1536 60-85hz -- 3.1mp
The real stopping point for all technology is the human limitation. Until the day comes where we can no longer distinguish between watching a video and looking out a window, there will always be someone trying to improve the picture quality.
Solution: don't buy a HDTV set or disc player.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Dissing HD because it isn't as much better than DVD as DVD is better than VHS is truly damning with faint praise. The thing is, VHS sucks ass and can't do even a halfway decent job of reproducing a mediocre format - NTSC. DVD does a good (not perfect, but good) job of reproducing content in that mediocre format. HD, however, is a noticeably superior format. It remains to be seen whether HD-DVD or Blu-Ray do an acceptable job of reproducing content in that superior format... but since they're both basically DVD extended to HD spec, I see no reason to think that they'll do any worse at reproducing HD than DVD-SD does at reproducing NTSC.
I have 10 years experience in broadcast video engineering, and a few video component designs in my portfolio. I have a true HD (1080i native) set, and an HD DVR to go with it. I can easily tell the difference between HD content and DVD-SD content, and I don't give a shit what Maximum PC has to say about it. Given the choice between a DVD of some movie and a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD of the same movie, I'd rather watch the HD version. I have no reason to feel embarrassed at preferring higher-quality video. If you can't tell the difference or don't think it's worth it, that's your problem and not mine. I don't need an excuse to brag, but I think perhaps you have some inadequacy problems to deal with.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
When will these idiots learn? You fake demos! At worst you have 2 or 3 computers/devices running simultaneously so you can switch to another when the first doesn't work.
You didn't need to flip CDs over. You can change tracks by pressing a button. CDs sound the same the first time you play them as the 1000th time. Portable players were eventually developed because CDs are read with a lens, not a fragile needle, and small enough to put in a jacket pocket.
These were all compelling reasons to switch to CD. Note that I haven't mentioned sound quality - if you keep your records clean, vinyl and CD basically sound the same.
Hands in my pocket
I probably should not respond to your post, as you give every indication of being a troll, but, just on the off chance that you are not, do a slight bit of research before you post your remarks - please?
You claim that Apple is not releasing innovative products. Let's look at the releases in the past year. As has been pointed out, there already is a video iPod. Great new server? Hmm... I guess you haven't heard of the Xserve clusters at Virginia Tech. New systems? How about the Quad Core systems released late last year? You aren't going to find those in the consumer line systems from Dell or any other manufacturer on the PC side right now... Software? What about Aperture, which can save a lot of time for photographers - and time is, as they say, money. Based on the releases of the past year, I think people have every right to expect something interesting and possibly even innovative to be announced at MacWorld this coming week.
Anyhow, you have strayed from the subject, which I will try to return to... there are plenty of stories about demos blowing up in Jobs' face. They don't get the degree of press that Gates does, but, then, this is usually the case... Every tech firm has stories of demos gone bad. Some are humorous, many tragic, and some are truly acts of Murphy.
As implied, format shifting. Being able to take one's bought and paid for product and convert it to be able to play on various devices other than the initial media supported, rather than having to buy copies for DVD, iPod, HD-DVD, and everything else.
That's down to a fundamental limitation of movies that nobody (in Hollywood or the tech world) wants to address, a real elephant in the room situation - everything's geared to shooting at 24 frames per second. Not only are movies shot on film at 24FPS, but even the new HD cameras used by people like George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez work at 24FPS as well!
No matter what resolution of HD the next-generation discs display, they're still going to be encoded from 24FPS originals. So it doesn't matter how much detail you can see - as soon as things start moving in your super new Blu-Ray or HD-DVD movie, you're still going to get blurs on live-action and that irritating clipping/strobing effect whenever people move too quickly in front of a greenscreened background. 24FPS is about the lowest a film can be projected and not get visible strobing between frames, and was originally chosen (as with so many things) for financial reasons - the more frames per second are shown, the more film is needed, and film costs money. So it's always been a 'just barely good enough' system.
If they'd really wanted to make the ultimate leap in visual quality, the HD backers would have pushed for an increase in framerate as well as resolution. The 60FPS Showscan projection system devised by Douglas Trumbull back in the early 80s supposedly exceeds the human eye's maximum 'refresh rate' and as a result looks far more 'real' than anything else - including 24FPS cinema projection, which is being held up as some kind of gold standard for how HD should look.
But that wouldn't help improve the look of anything shot in 24FPS, so no 'old' films (ie, anything ever made) would benefit. And Hollywood would never make such a radical (and expensive) change to their working methods in order to provide 60FPS material either. So I guess we're stuck with 24FPS movies until someone invents the holodeck.
You must think in Russian.
Keep in mind that ripping any CSS protected DVDs is likely to be illegal in your country.
Point. But more a point towards "wow, these laws are sortof stupid" than any real sort of warning. Unless one seriously expects companies to start looking at the contents of peoples' computers and then sueing them for it. Welllll, okay, nevermind, that's actually not that far off. But they really should not be allowed to get away with things like that, and I think it's better to hasten the day when that issue inevitiably comes up in a big way than to wait as public opinion adapts more and more to the currently strong zeitgeist of "if you aren't doing anything wrong...."
I mean, not to bring up politics, but yaknow . . .
But hey. Weren't there legal decisions in the favour of being able to make backups with older techs? But each new technology the fight is fought again, and each time the consumer side loses a bit more. Of course there are legal justifications for it (it being illegal to break encryption, etc etc) but there are enough random laws that these cases could in theory be justified many different ways for many different results.
Honestly, that's one of the reasons I'm relatively unlikely to buy DVDs (and much less likely to buy either of the new formats). Why in the world should I pay money for something that I'm not even allowed to use how I want, simply because the companies involved are greedy in an unrealistic way (ie. the actions motivated by their greed do not actually get the results they intend anyways)? And then it pays for things like the industry lobbying for the kind of laws that make it illegal to do things like making (what really should be perfectly legitimate backups, honestly, try to argue against it from a logical point of view knowing that the guy is using them for personal viewing, just making a bit simpler what he paid to be able to do anyway). Sorry, no thanks.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!