Blu-Ray Vs HD DVD

[robertazimmerman]

Why buy the higher cost movie? A mind set like that will cause better sales for HD DVD technology.

It all comes down to what the consumer wants and how much they are willing to pay for it. (IE: zip drives vs flash drives, VHS vs Betamax)

However, as many movies will be available in only one of the two formats, you will have to make a "buy or not buy" choice, as opposed to deciding which format is to your liking.

roberta

[ROF]

Another thing I don't like is all the advertisments on DVD. I pay for a DVD, and still, I have to see advertisments, FBI warnings and trailers for other films. This is a waste of space and you can't skip most of it. Too many DVD's have too long of warnings/intros that you can't skip. I hate popping in a disc, only to wait 30 seconds until the main menu shows. If this is how HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will be, I won't buy it. I'll rip my own movies without all this junk in it.

Ever watch television? Have you been to a sports arena? How about the movie theater? Maybe you've seen a city bus pass you by? Ever drive down the highway?

Unlike most of those with DVDs you can easily skip all the ads and continue straight into the movie with the click of two buttons (one of them twice.)

1) Insert DVD and allow it to load.

2) Once loaded click stop twice and then play.

3) Watch the movie without seeing any ads or warnings.

As an added bonus you can now easily click the menu button to return to the main menu.

[Cornucopia]

Another thing I don't like is all the advertisments on DVD. I pay for a DVD, and still, I have to see advertisments, FBI warnings and trailers for other films. This is a waste of space and you can't skip most of it. Too many DVD's have too long of warnings/intros that you can't skip. I hate popping in a disc, only to wait 30 seconds until the main menu shows. If this is how HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will be, I won't buy it. I'll rip my own movies without all this junk in it.

Ever watch television? Have you been to a sports arena? How about the movie theater? Maybe you've seen a city bus pass you by? Ever drive down the highway?

Unlike most of those with DVDs you can easily skip all the ads and continue straight into the movie with the click of two buttons (one of them twice.)

1) Insert DVD and allow it to load.

2) Once loaded click stop twice and then play.

3) Watch the movie without seeing any ads or warnings.

As an added bonus you can now easily click the menu button to return to the main menu.

ROF, you need to stop spouting the "workaround" as I've just tested it on 8 different players (Sony, Norcent, Cyberhome, Samsung, Emerson, Apex, a few others). It works as you said on only 1/2 of them. The others just stay stuck with the PUO's as authored, meaning YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR ALL THE DAMNED PREVIEWS.

I'm glad it works for you and for some, but it's not a complete panacea.

Also, OT... re: compression not being best, HDV was mentioned as being all I-frame. IT IS NOT. But, non-Iframe isn't as bad a thing as you're thinking.

Scott

[ROF]

@Cornucopia

Go ahead and test this method at best buy or walmart. I've been through both stores testing features, playing with the devices and so forth. All those you've listed are sold in these stores. The salesperson at walmart even tried to tell me about the skipping option after I had already done so on two phillips players. I've not found a single model it doesn't work on whether it's a portable DVD, a player, or a recorder. Can you please provide model numbers and where they are sold so I can verify this not working?

[SilverBlade]

Why buy the higher cost movie? A mind set like that will cause better sales for HD DVD technology.

It all comes down to what the consumer wants and how much they are willing to pay for it. (IE: zip drives vs flash drives, VHS vs Betamax)

However, as many movies will be available in only one of the two formats, you will have to make a "buy or not buy" choice, as opposed to deciding which format is to your liking.

roberta

If consumers *have* to make the decision on if they can or can not buy a certain movie because the format of the movie is not the format of their player, then many consumers may choose not to buy any movies until either they come out with dual-format players, the industry gets their act together to decide on one format, or one format comes out as the winner.'

As for me, I'm waiting until one format is more accecpted the the other, much like how VHS beat out Betamax.

Or better yet, I hope both formats fail. why?. Cause hollywood can't get their act together and choose one format, and they DRM the **** out of it too.

[Doramius]

30GB does not seem like a lot, for HD content. 1920x1080, even using MPEG4, will take up space. 15GB for each layer is not very impressive. It will max out at two layers, just like DVD. They will never increase layers, because of cost, or compatibility issues.

The whole industry (and consumers) should wait a few more years for HDV holographic discs. I don't like all this compression (MPEG2/4). The individual frames of the film (I-Frames) are not there. I want all frames, just like DV and HDV. I would also like the ability to playback DV-AVI files on the players. Of course, they didn't make this possible, even though HD-DVD has enough space for regular DV files. They want everyone to use crappy MPEG compression. I've had too many DVD's that I saw where scenes looked very static. The background was not animated properly, and would only update every few seconds. This is unrealistic, and annoying.

I agree compression cuts out a lot of stuff, but I could easily take up 30gigs on a 2 hour high quality home video. HOnestly, your eyes really can't tell the difference, UNLESS it comes down to animation. Honestly still, many animations are made at about 44 cells per second on average ( though it may be different with computer intervention). NTSC format only runs around 29 Frames per second, while PAL is at 25. The more frames per second, the better the quality. Computer monitors don't run on this standard. They have a different setup for refresh rates. It's possible to notice frame transitions on a PC, but very difficult on a standard TV. The HDTVs are QUITE a bit different and it may be possible to notice the cell & frame changes.

Another thing I don't like is all the advertisments on DVD. I pay for a DVD, and still, I have to see advertisments, FBI warnings and trailers for other films. This is a waste of space and you can't skip most of it. Too many DVD's have too long of warnings/intros that you can't skip. I hate popping in a disc, only to wait 30 seconds until the main menu shows. If this is how HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will be, I won't buy it. I'll rip my own movies without all this junk in it.

You won't be able to get away from the warnings as they are required by law. Technically, you're required to view it each time you watch the movie. As for the previews and trailers. You may not be able to get away from them either. However, the trailers & previews are there because of the film company. Has nothing to do with the disc itself. Disney seems to be the worst. But Disney allows you to press the "menu" button to bypass all their preview s**t. Columbia Pictures DVDs usually force me to watch their previews, but even then, some of my DVD players can still bypass it, and others won't. I think it all depends on the DVD player combined with which type of locking mechanism the film company used.

The methods, as stated previously, seem to work on most DVD players I've used. I have noticed some older Panasonics and RCAs where the trick wouldn't work.

[edDV]

There is no PAL on a PAL DVD and there is no NTSC on a NTSC DVD.
There is only YCbCr and audio.

To clarify,

Frame rate and frame size differ on DVD but NTSC is an analog chrominance quadrature modulation (present in analog composite and S-Video) around a 3.58MHz subcarrier and PAL is modulated around a 4.43MHz subcarrier.

None of this has anything to do with DVD encoding. DVD MPeg2 is YCbCr components. NTSC and PAL are created in the DVD player prior to composite or S-Video output. YPbPr outputs are analog component and lack either NTSC or PAL modulation.

This topic came up in the context of a PAL-M (Brazil) discussion in which a 720x480, 29.97 or 23.976 DVD was shown to be identical for NTSC and PAL-M. NTSC or PAL are created in the DVD player and had nothing to do with what was on the DVD.

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=286530&highlight=palm

[pred02]

See, this is where the American model falls apart. FCC or whoever was responsible should have adopted ONE standard for the next-gen DVD format, instead of letting them fight it out. It's similar as to different manf. using different specs for marketing television products. One TV manf can claim 2000:1 contrast, another 3000:1, but by different methodology the data really means crap. Same as with the watts rating by amplifier manufactures.

We are ultimately going to lose out. What happens if one decided to buy Blu-Ray, and down the road (2-3 years) HD wins hands down? Toss blu-ray and the discs. Are studios really going to follow just one or the other? I mean, if you want to watch Munich you need HD-DVD, and Syriana you need Blu-Ray. So you will need both players, or wait 5 years for a universal player becomes affordable?

Also, I don't think prices are going to come down that fast. Someone should pull a study to see how many people actually have HDTV capable TV sets? There is a statistic that like 20% of the world television sets are B&W, and this change happened over 40 years ago.

DVDs were easy to market and sell. They were cheaper to produce and replicate then VHS tapes. You got better picture out of your old TV. But HDTV has been out since circa 1999 and TV sets are still at least 2-3 times the normal sets.

not even getting started with the number of people who have $3k+ plasma but are running it on SVHS and analogue cable boxes.

[Doramius]

Point was that formats are moving to change. I meant with PCs intervention, the framerate and size don't really matter. I just used your example as a crude metaphor. If you take a look at it, you're still stuck with what you have to view through. The human eye is easily fooled. Resolution is where the biggest focus is. An analog picture (or picture taken by photosensitive material) can still be made more clear than a digital image, depending on the quality of film. This is because a digital image must be pixelated in some way for it to be stored digitally. The resolution of the pixels are what determines how clear the picture is. The higher the resolution, the more it's going to be in bits & bytes per frame. Though a still picture is easy to detect, motion changes that altogether because your optical nerve blends the pictures so well. The more frames per second, the more you have to multiply the size of storage you require. Compression just skips 1 frame every so many that your eye won't pick up. It won't notice as long as the image moves fast enough. Refreshing the resolution is what PC monitors do, and at a high frequency.

I've seen such good monitors that with my glasses off, I could view a 1024v768 on a 12" monitor, and it was super clear (although EXTREMELY tiny). Yet I've seen crappy monitors that were 21" and I had to set it to 800x600 with my glasses on just because Es & Bs were blurred together. Almost had to set it back to a 640.

[caffe_espresso]

30 gb for a 2 hour and + movie is enough.
At 25 mb/s, a mpeg2 encoded movie will take 24gb, and a mp4/wmv-hd very high quality encoded movie will need 10-12gb.

But again, the way we watch/listen to media is changing a lot. BD or HD-DVD is only the container. Media will come to us more and more by downloading to a "media server" (PC, MAC, TiVo etc).

Big success of iPod is changing the way we buy/watch media.
Unless a very quick winner in BD - HD-DVD war, we will look elsewhere to watch HD.

[edDV]

See, this is where the American model falls apart. FCC or whoever was responsible should have adopted ONE standard for the next-gen DVD format, instead of letting them fight it out. It's similar as to different manf. using different specs for marketing television products. One TV manf can claim 2000:1 contrast, another 3000:1, but by different methodology the data really means crap. Same as with the watts rating by amplifier manufactures.

...

The USA FCC has nothing to do with DVD standards, only broadcasting and by extension domestic cable standards.

DVD standards are and should be a private industry issue. Industry is free to make stupid decisions without regard to consumer interest if they so desire. The capitalist system will assure they are punished in the market so long as the government keeps distant. New distribution paths will emerge and the consumer will be served.

[Steeldestroyer]

DVD standards are and should be a private industry issue.

Can't agree more.

[Doramius]

DVD standards are and should be a private industry issue.

Can't agree more.

This is the same reason I can see both Blu-Ray and HD DVDs on rental store shelves, alongside regular DVDs.

[yoda313]

This is a waste of space and you can't skip most of it. Too many DVD's have too long of warnings/intros that you can't skip

Thats one thing I like about FOX dvds - particuarly the star wars discs. YOU CAN SKIP THE WARNINGS (without ripping it first!!!)

[edDV]

Point was that formats are moving to change. I meant with PCs intervention, the framerate and size don't really matter. I just used your example as a crude metaphor. If you take a look at it, you're still stuck with what you have to view through. The human eye is easily fooled. Resolution is where the biggest focus is. An analog picture (or picture taken by photosensitive material) can still be made more clear than a digital image, depending on the quality of film. This is because a digital image must be pixelated in some way for it to be stored digitally. The resolution of the pixels are what determines how clear the picture is. The higher the resolution, the more it's going to be in bits & bytes per frame. Though a still picture is easy to detect, motion changes that altogether because your optical nerve blends the pictures so well. The more frames per second, the more you have to multiply the size of storage you require. Compression just skips 1 frame every so many that your eye won't pick up. It won't notice as long as the image moves fast enough. Refreshing the resolution is what PC monitors do, and at a high frequency.

I've seen such good monitors that with my glasses off, I could view a 1024v768 on a 12" monitor, and it was super clear (although EXTREMELY tiny). Yet I've seen crappy monitors that were 21" and I had to set it to 800x600 with my glasses on just because Es & Bs were blurred together. Almost had to set it back to a 640.

hmm,

There was a ton of "perceptual psychology" research done during the 1930's to 1950's for color TV and in the 80's for HDTV and in the 90's for MPeg compression.

Some of the conclusions:

- the eye is less sensitive to resolution during motion.
- the eye tends to monochrome perception during motion.
- the eye increases detail and color perception for a stationary image.
- the eye has more resolution sensitivity in the center vs peripheral.
- the eye is "directed" to any small area motion in an otherwise still background (aka hunter instinct).
- peripheral vision is more sensitive to motion than resolution.

This research led to most of the characteristics of modern television technology including:

YUV color space with reduced bandwidth U and V
Motion adaptive deinterlacing for digital video
MPeg motion compensation for compression
Noise reduction and deblocking filters

among others.

[pred02]

DVD standards are and should be a private industry issue.

Can't agree more.

In most instances yes, but I don't necessarly believe that's always the best case. Ok, FCC doesn't deal with this issue (they deal with broadcasting) but there should be a well defined standard, otherwise the consumers may end up at a loss. If not the government, then independent agencies.

Let me give an example. Look at the mobile phone technology, US left the manufactures do whatever they want, so now we have a couple of different technologies and carriers using CDMA/TDMA/UMTS/3G/AMPS/GSM/iDEN. Every time you jump a provider, you jump new phones. Heck, providers jump technologies too. In Europe (and most of the rest of the world), national or supranational body issues a standard and or basics that providers have to follow.

As a consumer, do you really want to buy a $1400 Blu-Ray player and spent hundreds if not thousands more on BR discs, only three years down to line to say, great, looks like the competitive forces drove HD-DVD and now I can toss all the junk.

[ROF]

As a consumer, do you really want to buy a $1400 Blu-Ray player and spent hundreds if not thousands more on BR discs, only three years down to line to say, great, looks like the competitive forces drove HD-DVD and now I can toss all the junk.

Been there, done that. First VCR cost me $1100. Still works today, but unfortunately Betamax pre-recorded tapes are virtually non-existent. I bought a laserdisc while I was in Europe. The US Market never took off for that too. The consumer ultimately loses out.

How many times am I going to have to buy the December's Children album? I'm sure someone or just about anyone over 25 has re-purchased music they already own in another format. Buying new hardware whether it's parallel technology or newer technology is just the nature of owning media.

[festmaster]

In my opinion, live broadcasts in HD are absolutely fantastic and there can be no dispute that they are a vast improvement over analog TV. Watching movies in HD is great too, but for the life of me I cannot tell the difference in quality between a movie shown from a hi-def cable network such as HBO-HD, HDMOV or INHD2 to a DVD played on an upscaling player through HDMI. Hearing all of the DRM restrictions that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are going to have, I just can't get excited about either one. From my perspective it offers an incremental improvement in quality for a quantum leap in hassle.

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD could both succeed as writable data formats given their hefty sizes and the ever increasing sizes of hard drives, but I think they will both fail as movie delivery formats.

[Doramius]

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD could both succeed as writable data formats given their hefty sizes and the ever increasing sizes of hard drives, but I think they will both fail as movie delivery formats.

That is quite possible, and I've thought of that possibility as well. However, the numbers shows 2 main pushers of Disc technology when it comes down to DVDs: VIDEO GAMES & PROFESSIONAL STORAGE. The close follow up is, "If you have a game system that can play a certain style of disc (IE: DVD) in a better quality at a reasonable price, you will get, 'or convert', your lifestyle to match.

Example: Parents buy their kid an XBOX. It plays DVD movies too. Don't have to rewind, better picture, less space taken up. Can't get a PC drive that will burn Home movies to a disc that plays on the console. Side step is you can fit more files and data on it for storage. It's no wonder DVD had such a quick change over. It had everything going for it.

The new technologies might be slower going, because there's not much Excitement the way DVD has other than storage & quality. However, going back to games, you need to store a lot of info & data, but keep the cost down so everyone can afford it. This is the main war between the 2. I doubt the change over will be as fast, unless cost is the major driving option or they have something else major going for them. If Blu-Ray suddenly spouts 200GB storage capability without cost change, that would just knock HD DVD out of the water.

[yoda313]

To doramius and festmaster.

Yes I think they'll survive as a recordable market at least. If the whole drm fiasco blows up they'll still be good for home recordable media. And they'd be perfect for authoring all of your recorded hdtv programing

[Doramius]

Not to mention back up 10 of your original DVD discs onto 1 disc.

I could put all of my son's Thomas the Tank Engine shows on one disc and have him not complain because we only brought 3 or 4 discs with us on a trip.

[graphicsnut]

Another thing I don't like is all the advertisments on DVD. I pay for a DVD, and still, I have to see advertisments, FBI warnings and trailers for other films. This is a waste of space and you can't skip most of it. Too many DVD's have too long of warnings/intros that you can't skip. I hate popping in a disc, only to wait 30 seconds until the main menu shows. If this is how HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will be, I won't buy it. I'll rip my own movies without all this junk in it.

a-men 8)