Slashdot Mirror
Most Consumers Sitting Out The High-Def War
The New York Times notes that, despite the increasing variety of programs on the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats, most US consumers are staying out of the DVD format war. This is a wise decision, the article states, because the two formats are essentially at a stalemate. "The two camps are victims of their own earlier success with DVD. The standard DVDs offered a quantum leap in quality from the picture and sound of VHS videotape, and for many that was more than adequate. In addition, DVD players that can convert images to near high-definition quality can be found for under $100, hundreds less than a true high-definition DVD player, further reducing the urgency to upgrade to one of the new formats."
Generally i think it is true, but there are more people than ever in the bluray and hd-dvd isle at bestbuy. I remember when the blu-ray and Hd-dvd isles were a void of any lifeforms, except myself which is debatable.
I saw lots of people looking and buying bluray films at bestbuy this christmas. HD-DVD was in the same isle, all you had to do is turn around. Not as many folks there. More were looking at Blu-ray.
My father bought a bluray player,
My friends father bought a bluray player.
I own both format players, as do my friends.
It is true that DVD is holding strong, but it in all sense is a dead format in the long run. Blu-ray looks to be the winner technology wise. Movie selection on both formats are quite poor.
I was going to moderate this, but I have to respond. The Wiki article states in "Physics" and is thus correct. However, in general usage, quantum is a discrete shift in value, rather than a minor shift in a continuum. It can be small (as int he physics example), or it can be large. It all depends on the frame of reference, and what you are gaging.
It is this that I think that the article is referring to (correctly). Being a physics geek, I had to set the record straight.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
Anyone else hate idiots like Jason1729?
If you had kept reading that very same Wikipedia page, you would have seen this:
In the vernacular, the term quantum leap has come to mean an abrupt change or "step change", especially an advance or augmentation. The term dates back to early-to-mid-20th century, coinciding with the discoveries of quantum mechanics. The popular and scientific terms are similar in that both describe a change that happens all at once (revolutionary), rather than gradually over time (evolutionary), but the two uses are different when it comes to the magnitude of the change or advance in question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_leap
You do know that some of those movies you listed were filmed on larger negatives then a lot of current films. The grain you often saw on dvd is actually an artifact of the lower resolution. When you increase the resolution you actually get a much more detailed image. Remember too that a lot of DVD transfers for older movies were taken from inferior sources or are the older transfers for laserdisc. This has changed in more recent years and if you compare newer transfers you can see a vast improvement.
I had to comment on this just to set things straight. Blu-Ray does not render your DVD collection useless anymore than HD-DVD does... why? Because both play DVDs. HD-DVD is simply a moniker for the new format because it is part of the DVD consortium.
Repeat: Blu-Ray players play DVDs just the same as HD-DVD players do. The only imcompatibility is that Blu-Ray players will not play HD-DVD and HD-DVD will not player Blu-Ray.
My apologies if this is not what you meant, but it is how I read it and want to avoid others making the same mistake.
Starmen.net
Blu-Ray/HD, $29
Same on DVD $16
Three to six months later
Blu-Ray/HD, $25
Same on DVD $10
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
They _have_ changed the encoding formats, however. Both AVC and VC-1 do an excellent job of removing macroblocking artifacts, and the space means that other compression artifacts are usually absent.
In fact, contrary to the grandparent, it's older movies I found the most pleasantly surprising upon the upgrade to HD-DVD. The likes of Blade Runner and Casablanca might make you go "wow" at the image quality for about 30 seconds, but then you just settle down and watch a film that actually _looks_ like a film rather than all those compression artifact compromises you're used to from DVD. It's not very "in your face", but it's instantly noticeable when you go back to watching standard-def again. By all accounts the same goes for BluRay as well, so as not to be format-biased about it.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
- Digital audio (the original DAT)
- Digital video (DV, camcorders and portable digital video recorders)
- Tape drives for backup (Tandberg, IBM, HP)
That can't be called a failure.The primary reason why this format didn't become a digital distribution format for audio and video is... the missing copy protection.
...and remember, this was several years before the DVD.
No. He's using code for "I want to play my content Star Trek
TNG style" and don't want to be overcharged by Sony to do it.
Physical DVD jukebox tech is gravely lacking while at the
same price being absurdly overpriced.
Due to current laws and policies, it's simpler to pirate something
than just exercise fair use with the copy that you happen to have lying
around.
It's technologically easier to be a mooch than to buy a copy and "do it right".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
At the time I thought that I needed an HDCP-compatible monitor in order to use the PS/3 in high-res mode. (I didn't realize that you only need a HDCP-enabled monitor if you want to watch Blue-Ray movies at high-res.)
You can watch Blu-Ray movies from a PS3 just fine in HD over the component or plain DVI outputs (analog or no HDCP). The only thing that doesn't do Hi-Def over that connection is upscaling normal DVD's.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1366X768 is the 720p resolution with overscan. I asked a Samsung rep why they overscan, but I either cant remember what he said or he forgot to answer after he finished what he was talking about (He was in the middle of explaining something when I asked).
Anyone know why tv's use an overscan instead of actual screen res?
Region-specific disks do not exist to serve consumers best in their native language, they exist to make it possible for studios to sell region-specific distribution rights with some veneer of confidence in the buyer that cheaper content from different distributors in other regions won't be imported to undercut the regional exclusivity.
So the feature you are referring to has nothing to do with the "need", insofar as such a need ever existed, for region-specific disks.
If you can't afford a shitty 10-year-old 27" TV, you really need to get the fuck off of Slashdot and go back to school so you can get a real job. You can afford to buy these DVDs, but not a proper set? Yeah, you're a fool. Like those guys living in a shit-hole apartment so they can have a fancy car or something.
Blar.
It's called upconverting, and it doesn't extract more info from the image, it ADDS information to the signal. I hope you'll agree that doesn't break the laws of logic, eh? Here's the deal, when you play a DVD, which operates at 720p, on a 1080i or especially a 1080p TV, LCD's in particular, the resolutions don't match up (obviously). So what you get is a picture that is actually WORSE than a 720p TV would give. What upconverting does is essentially split the 720p picture up and reformatting it in such a way that it plays very cleanly on a 1080i or 1080p TV. Since your eyes cannot distinguish the difference between the 720p and 1080p outside of about 12 feet for a 50 inch TV, the picture quality is, for all intents and purposes, the same. Does that help any? Or do I have to actually drag out the specs and tell you every little thing about how upconverting works?
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller