DVD-2

[Jonma Tifa]

With talk about the blue laser and the possibilites with higher capacity discs in the future, when do you think the DVD killer will arrive, what will it be like?

I personally wouldn't bother upgrading my collection unless DVD-2 (until otherwise named) were at least like this:

High capacity media (comfortably contain a 2 1/2 hour movie with decent compression)
High resolution Video, something like 1440 x 1080 (4:3) or even 1920 x 1080 (16:9) (the resolution would be a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, the NTSC standard is old and outdated, players would obviously have a processor that would allow the video to be displayed properly)
24/96 or 24/192 audio in 7.1 channels (digital quality sound that would make George Lucas cream in his, cream in his pants)

you would of course want movies to be in their original 24 FPS mode without any kind of pulldown (again, some sort of processor would compensate with the pulldown if necissery) but backwards compatability would also be built in, the old DVD standard could be used (720x480, 16/48 5.1 sound)

basically in a nut shell, something that would be worthy of the HDTV era we are trying to get into (i1080 standard maybe?) although something to this description, you could very well take to the movie theater and watch side by side with an actual film (the film would obviously still be better, but you wouldn't feel too ashamed to be watching the DVD2 either...)

[garryheather]

Nice to see you've ignored the rest of the world outside the USA that uses PAL and its derivatives...

[txpharoah]

Nice to see you've ignored the rest of the world outside the USA that uses PAL and its derivatives...

Well, not to get all high-and-mighty, but when it comes to video technology, Japan and the USA are the rulers of this world, and NTSC is its standard. Not to mention that many movies are USA-made. The USA exports far more than it imports in terms of media.

Is this fair? Is NTSC better than PAL? Hmm...

... I asked these two questions because this post is not suggesting that. Just pointing out the fact that the USA and Japan pretty much delegate what will be the future in video.

The original poster has a good point: whatever the future holds, it must be reverse-compatible. No way I'm dumping my DVD/CD/VCD/SVCD/XVCD/VHS/SVHS/etc/etc. for the "latest and greatest" nor will many others.

[mybook4]

you are forgetting, that 1080i is exactly that 1080 interlaced. Movies are progressive because film is. I would much rather have a movie on DVD-2(or whatever) to be 720p. Progressive is better.

PS I would also cream my pants if we had theater-true 7.1 surround with 24 bit sound and high sample rates

[Jonma Tifa]

I didn't realize that 1080i was interlaced (duh), the video would definately have to be progressive scan (they would obviously add options for interlaced though, just in case you wanted it) and in responce to garryheather (and all other people in PAL contries) I was merely using NTSC as an example of the outdated TV standards..... to be honest, I don't like either of them those standards were created when TV was but born, and the original DVD standard seems to be geared more towards Television rather than home theatre

[sparker]

You guys may set the standards now, but lets not forget that it was a Brit that invented the TV in the first place.

[garryheather]

... and that NTSC stands for Never The Same Colour !!

OK, before anyone says it, PAL stands for Picture Always Lousy, yeah, I know - I've worked in the industry long enough to have heard them all.

NTSC movies do have one benefit that no-one has mentioned here, and that is the sound plays at the right speed - when an NTSC source is converted to PAL, the audio pitch shifts slightly. However, those extra lines of resolution us PAL guys get make for a better picture generally, especially in the action shots. Being a bit of a purist with movies it's a toss up as to which I go for, but generally I like those extra lines of horizontal video resolution that NTSC lack.

Not only do I work in a multi standards environment, I use them at home too - I occasionally import R1 discs for the extras and / or unedited versions we don't always get here in the UK. I have a multi standard TV and don't use any extra standards conversion, and generally speaking the quality is OK. However fast paced action movies in particular don't seem to fare so well with NTSC based content.

The point I was making earlier is if you look through the forums generally, some of the American users seem to forget that there are other countries out there - America does not have the sole monopoly on the Internet and DVD's, you know !