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."

Comments

#3 is the killer

[Have Blue]

Advantages of switching from VHS to DVD:

• 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:

• Much higher audio and video quality if your TV cost four digits. Small improvement in quality on low-end HD or SDTV.
• ...and that's about it.

Re:Congress will ensure at least one format succee

[Bassman59]

What the author of this fairly dry article has failed to mention, is that congress and the FCC are mandating a change to HDTV.

NO ... what's being mandated is a change to digital TV broadcast. Digital TV != HDTV.

Two formats, too much DRM and RCs kills anything

[Nice2Cats]

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.

Re:Well, duh. I could have told you that

[Yaztromo]

On the other hand, they can both easily store surround sound. An Audio CD could as well, of course, but then it's not really a red book (is that the one?) Audio CD anymore.

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.

HD-DVD (or BlueRay) over DVD might not be as particular a jump. It does have higher resolution, of course, but it doesn't specify anything with regards to possible higher framerates or even better encoding

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.

Re:They left one out

[Jugalator]

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? :-)

Re:Well, duh. I could have told you that

[Ahnteis]

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.

Re:They're already screwing up.

[MP3Chuck]

"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.

Re:What is the porn industry doing?

[Steve B]

While I agree with most of the points of the article I would like to hear what the big producers in the porn industry have to say.

"Geez -- our customers really don't want to see every pimple on her butt or the incision lines from her boob job."