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DVD Format War Already Over?
An anonymous reader writes "'Nobody likes false starts' - claims the assertive and risky article "10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed" published by Audioholics which outlines their take on why the new Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD formats will attain nothing more than niche status in a marketplace that is brimming with hyperbole. Even though the two formats have technically just hit the streets, the 'Ten reasons' article takes a walk down memory lane and outline why the new DVD tech has a lot to overcome."
See what Gizmodo said in 2004.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
- Much higher quality video and audio
- Random access
- Don't have to rewind them
- Switchable audio tracks
- Subtitles that are optional
- Extras
- Nifty menus
Advantages of switching from DVD to HD/BR:> SACD... Does anyone have an SACD player?
Actually, if you have a halfway-decent CD player, you probably do. The question is, how many SACD's do you see actually getting pressed?
NO ... what's being mandated is a change to digital TV broadcast. Digital TV != HDTV.
There is no way in hell I am going to invest in a technology when there is a 50-50 chance that it will go the way of the Betamax. A brief and informal survey among my friends -- some of whom actually bought laserdisks and such -- shows the same thing. Also, the thing is so riddled with control mechanisms that I get the impression I would never really own a movie again: It seems that they could just decide to switch off my copy when everything they plan to do is finished and done. Oh, and then there is the region code thing again. That has to go before I will even consider it. In short, no way either way. Try listening to the customers and getting your act together next time, and we'll see.
That isn't strictly true, although it does depend no what you consider "surround sound". While currently unused, Red Book does permit four channel audio formats. As well, Dolby Pro Logic can be encoded into the standard two channel Red Book format without violating the specification.
So if you're referring to discrete 5.1 surround, you are correct -- however, there are different types of surround sound, at least two of which can be encoded on to Red Book CDs.
Actually, both standards can handle H.264 video, which is a signficantly better encoding standard than MPEG-2. Depending on what profile is used for the encoding, it is possible to specify much higher colour fidelity.
This isn't to say I disagree with your overall argument, however. I'm not so sure that the quality differences are going to be sufficiently significant to the average viewer (which would include myself) to matter. As I've stated in other articules on this subject, I'm personally more interested in these formats (BlueRay in particular) for data storage than for video.
Yaz.
Record vinyl from any external audio source.
:-)
Or, if you're lazy and don't want your mp3's as vinyls, just use a Winamp plugin?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Well, the Divx HD profile is 1280x720 and only 5.1 audio at best. Both advanced formats are 1920x1080, and support up to lossless 7.1 96KHz 24-bit audio. And I've never seen a Divx HD disc without palpable artifacts, while the standard for VC-1 encoded HD DVD is transparency to the D5 HD master.
HD DVD is at least as much of a jump from Divx HD as Divx HD was from DVD.
My video compression blog
No. Only DIGITAL BROADCAST is a legal certainty. That's NOT the same as hi-def. In fact, a lot of the new digital broadcast is going to be 480p so that broadcasters can broadcast more channels rather then better quality channels.
"All these idiots had to do was make their demo disc show the movies side by side with the DVD version and it would make the difference clear."
http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html
It's a LOTR DVD/HD-DVD comparison. The page I linked to containes DVD captures compared with downsampled HD-DVD captures. You can click on each one to see an upsampled DVD capture compared with a 'native' HD-DVD capture.
Not quite the same as having FMV side-by-side, but it's the next best thing.
Who doesn't like free music?
"Geez -- our customers really don't want to see every pimple on her butt or the incision lines from her boob job."
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I work in the industry, designing technology that goes into high-def RPTV sets. My own opinion largely matches yours, that the majority of people won't really be that interested in either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, at least for several years. I totally agree that the jump in image quality from VHS to DVD was much more significant than it is from DVD to either the 720p or 1080i HD formats. Recent large 1080p HD sets have excellent scalers that can make a 480p DVD look pretty good, although the level of detail will be a little lacking. Videophiles will want true HD sources now, but the more typical consumer will be content to wait.
Regarding LCD color, LCDs now have enough color depth and fast enough response time to match the color performance of CRTs. A CRT has a logarithmic color response to input voltage, which matches the human eye very well. An LCD has a linear color response, so electronics in the display have to mimic CRT behavior by applying a gamma curve function to the input signal. Nicer LCDs do this quite well (take a look at Apple's Cinema Display), and can match the best CRTs in color. The vast majority of LCDs do not do this very well, however, and so a cheap CRT will always have better color than a cheap LCD.
Also, direct view *MEANS* CRT.
Actually, no, direct view means anything that doesn't involve projection, but instead the image generation device is viewed directly. CRTs, LCD flat panels, and plasma flat panels are all classified as direct view. Non-direct view means RPTV (CRT-based, LCD microdisplay, LCoS/SXRD, or DLP) or front projection (typically either LCD microdisplay or DLP).