Blu-ray & HD-DVD already failed formats?

[edDV]

...

And things continue to get better. I notice steady improvement in my local area. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray promise to bring us high quality HD sources. It will be interesting to see if people are willing to pay for it. If they aren't, it might just be that they are already completely satisfied with their HDTV experience.

Strange to see many that are jumping to HD/BD DVD don't have a display adequate for 1080p. Most HDTV owners fall into that mid 1366x768 resolution range where normal 480p DVD still looks excellent.

Replacing 480p plastic with 1080p plastic is a poor investment IMO. I want to see a format independent license for 1080p source so that we are free to place the media on the playback format of our choice. How many times do they expect us to buy "Star Wars" even if they change the title to "Star Wars IV"?

Anyone who has bought into VHS, laserdisc or DVD knows that media expenditure will quickly be 10x the player cost. Never is format "upgrade" offered as an option. They want you to buy it all over again every time.

Netflix is the intermediate answer.

[SingSing]

1366x768 is a very common resolution on many HDTVs sold in US. This is not the native resolution for any BD/HD DVD spec.

So are we expect to watch re-scaled image/video on screen ?

[edDV]

1366x768 is a very common resolution on many HDTVs sold in US. This is not the native resolution for any BD/HD DVD spec.

So are we expect to watch re-scaled image/video on screen ?

If you buy a HD/BD DVD player, you get typical output choices of


analog component:
-------------------------
480i
480p
720p
1080i

HDMI:
------------------------
480i
480p
720p
1080i
1080p (most HDTV won't take this)

The HDTV then converts (rescales) these inputs to the native resolution of the display.

[lordsmurf]

As for the noise argument, it boils down to bitrate.

No, it's not just bitrate. There are plenty of other noises to be had, and HD shows them in full clarity. Not exactly what most people expected when they were told "more detail".

[edDV]

1366x768 is a very common resolution on many HDTVs sold in US. This is not the native resolution for any BD/HD DVD spec.

So are we expect to watch re-scaled image/video on screen ?

Yes if you don't have a 1080p native display that accepts 1080p HDMI, it will be downscaled.

Many "1080p" sets will only accept 1080i. They then reprocess 1080i into 1080p native.

Can you see the difference? Probabaly not.

[davideck]

There are plenty of other noises to be had, and HD shows them in full clarity.

Such as..?

There are noisy sources at all resolutions. Quality SDTV Monitors show noise too.

[CrayonEater]

Replacing 480p plastic with 1080p plastic is a poor investment IMO. I want to see a format independent license for 1080p source so that we are free to place the media on the playback format of our choice. How many times do they expect us to buy "Star Wars" even if they change the title to "Star Wars IV"?

Amen to that, brother, amen to that. This is exactly why I won't be suckered into hi-def. If I wanted to be milked like a cow, I'd grow teats.

[SingSing]

There are plenty of other noises to be had, and HD shows them in full clarity.

Such as..?There are noisy sources at all resolutions. Quality SDTV Monitors show noise too.

HD compression itself will introduce arifact. If the content is digitised from flim, then there will be artifact too. With HD we can expect a cleaner and more detail picture, but not a true picture.

[davideck]

Compression is a function of bitrate.
HD compression artifacts are not any different than SD compression artifacts.

[SingSing]

Decompressed mpeg is not the same as the original.

[davideck]

That is true for SD sources as well as HD sources.

I will admit that many of the HDTV images that I see in the stores look atrocious. They misrepresent the quality of the HD sources available. Even Standard DVDs look better than these images. Some sets are grossly misadjusted. Some sets have the aspect ratio incorrectly selected.

[edDV]

In the store, look around back at what they are feeding the TV. Most times it's just NTSC RF. Sometimes they are distributing Y,Pb,Pr from a central DVD player or sat tuner. The TV is usually adjusted with overly high contrast because the average Joe confuses picture brightness with picture quality.

High end stores demonstrating 1080p often loop a hard disk player over HDMI. They carefully select clips that make the TV look good. Some are now using a HD DVD player. I'd insist on a direct connection from a HD DVD player for HDTV evaluation. Also look at over the air 1080i to check the deinterlacer in HD mode.

Most important is to evaluate SD DVD playback from your own test DVDR (mix of progressive and interlace source clips).

[dvdJack]

This post has nothing to do with update info...This is News. As it comes from Toronto, Ontario Canada.
The Ontario Provincial Police made a 3 year investigation bust on DVD piracy ring in Mississuga, Ontario. The police seized 300 DVD Replicators 10 Computers and over 100 million Illegal DVD movies. Police said the Operation was defently Higly sufiscated operation. The DVD movies are Silver on the bottom (play side) just as the originals with color ink jet labels and sleves for the case. 5 people were charged and released until court apparence in January 2007. Police also seized 670'000 dollars cash that was locked in a brinks security fire safe.

WOW God only knows how much they made in 3 years.......I know If I were selling movies I stop after I made one million in savings!

[vhelp]

I don't normally post in this forum, but..

You know, I've got an small resolution, (but HD) trailer of Superman Returns.
And, as much as I hate to admit it, it's not in the usual MPEG-2 format. Its
a Quicktime .MOV file

So, somebody, or some (reputable) outfit had processed this source and
had probably used *true* original masters, and a very good Encoder, etc.

(it made my EP recordings to vhs tape look really prehistoric)

And, let me tell ya, this source is *very* clean.. except for a little
artifacts seen during scene changes. This is to be expected in such
formats when compression is being *maximized* for such a small filesize
of 21 MB, giv'en its length of 2M:30S it was pretty clean to me. Course,
the resolution was 640 x 272 -- (it is a 2:35AR) source.

I'd sure like to D/L more of these, but this was the only one I could
find during my searches, giving my dial-up speed. And, I've been using
it as a gauge in my video MPEG encoding Analysis and Processes, since.

Anyways.

Regarding Regular and HD noisy sources..
It's been my belief that there are TWO distinct forms of noise and these
formats.

[A] - Chroma Crosstalk (CC) or Salt n Pepper (SnP) and,
[B] - MPEG artifacts vs. Up/Down Sampling and/or Scaling of HD video

We already know about [A] because these are easily seen in such sources
like Analog Cable/Antenna and VHS.

And, [B] is also known, however, the up/down sampling and scaling of the
video is something more new'er in todays video.

So, when someone talks about "noise" in HD, they are probably refering
to the up/down Sampling or Scaling of the videos to meet certain resolution
requirments for a given HD TV/Monitor. You can usually see this on larger
screens (and probably on certain types.. ie, Plasma vs. LCD vs. etc) where
the video is Fuzy or Shimmering-like or Stair Stepping like, etc) Course,
there are other forms of HD noise, (and room for discussions in another
topic ) but I just wanted to fill in some of the blanks here so that there
is no missunderstanding of the term, Noise and HD vs. standard/mpeg sources

-vhelp 4146

[edDV]

....I know If I were selling movies I stop after I made one million in savings!

Once you get to that point, your life is owned by a mafia and they won't let you stop.

[DJRumpy]

I love my Blue-Ray. Video in 1080p with uncompressed audio is just too sweet to pass up. Stay in your 4:3 square box and analog hell. I'll be watching from the clouds

[CrayonEater]

Personally, I'd rather have a new car or boat for what you're paying, and what you're going to over the next few years.

And then you'll have to re-purchase it all again when the next format comes out...LOL!

[DJRumpy]

lol. I payed $500 bucks. I don't think you'd want a used junker would you? PS3...sweet.

[Conquest10]

How is that $400 PS3 working for you?

[DereX888]

"And the difference between SD TV and HDTV is more amazing than the difference between 480p DVDs and 1080i downrezzed high definition discs. "

He's got this right. I just bought my first HDTV and the detail on DVDs floors me. I can't imagine needing a picture that has a higher resolution.

Thats exactly what people used to say 10 years ago, when first DVD players hit the market...

[DJRumpy]

No problems so far. I've bought about 10 blue-ray movies, and 5 games. I enjoyed the 'Resistance - The Fall of Man' game a lot. I enjoy the movies even more. Only one has looked like an upscaled hack so far. The rest are all definitely hd.

[dvd3500]

My BETAMAX RULZ! :lol: :D

[DereX888]

My BETAMAX RULZ!

My Edison's WAX CYLINDERS rulez more :P

[CrayonEater]

If you're like a lot of people buying into the HDTV thing, you've probably laid down $3000 on a DVD, $500 on a player, and if you buy, say, 50 movies, that's another grand at least. And if you want to record, well, you're going to pay a pretty penny there too and you have limited options. And if you add a decent sound system into the mix, there's another $2000-$3000. And then you'll have to re-purchase it all again in a few years when HVD or whatever next-gen format comes out. I guess if having a really pretty TV is your priority, then that's ok, but that kind of money is probably better spent elsewhere.

[DJRumpy]

Your prices are a bit inflated. You sound bitter. My money is best spent where I will enjoy it most. You can't take it with you...

[DereX888]

If you're like a lot of people buying into the HDTV thing, you've probably laid down $3000 on a DVD, $500 on a player, and if you buy, say, 50 movies, that's another grand at least. And if you want to record, well, you're going to pay a pretty penny there too and you have limited options. And if you add a decent sound system into the mix, there's another $2000-$3000. And then you'll have to re-purchase it all again in a few years when HVD or whatever next-gen format comes out. I guess if having a really pretty TV is your priority, then that's ok, but that kind of money is probably better spent elsewhere.

Have it ever occur to you that for some people its just change aka 'lunch money'?
You sound bitter, but you should have been very thankful to all these people who are early adopters of new toys and don't hesitate to spend their monies.
Without'em the 'average people' would have to wait probably a lifetime until there is some significant advance in mass-produced technologies.

[CrayonEater]

I just find it silly that people are gullible enough to do something like this, particularly, re-purchase the same movies/shows that they bought on DVD and probably VHS, maybe even laserdisc. As I said before, personally, if I wanted to be milked like a cow, I'd grow teats. I suppose for some people it's a priority, and people can spend their money any way they wish. But I'd think after buying Terminator for the umpteenth time, consumers would wise up.

P.S. I'm only bitter to the extent that I haven't figured out a way to milk these suckers the way the entertainment industry is milking them. But don't worry, I'm working on it!

[DJRumpy]

Why in the world would someone repurchase the same movies again? I'm certainly not, and I'm not squemish about spending cash on tech toys. I have over 400 dvd's, none of which will be replaced with Blue-Ray. The PS3 plays both, and my TV upscales them to 1080p. Why bother for a miniscule increase in quality? The difference between vhs and dvd was enough. The difference between blue-ray and dvd isn't in this case.

[bbanderic]

Why in the world would someone repurchase the same movies again? I'm certainly not, and I'm not squemish about spending cash on tech toys. I have over 400 dvd's, none of which will be replaced with Blue-Ray. The PS3 plays both, and my TV upscales them to 1080p. Why bother for a miniscule increase in quality? The difference between vhs and dvd was enough. The difference between blue-ray and dvd isn't in this case.

Just to play devils advocate here...if the difference between an upscaled DVD and Blu Ray/HD DVD is miniscule, than what's the point? It sounds like it's a failed format, especially since they cost almost twice as much as DVD.

[DJRumpy]

Because I can. This isn't a switch from analog VHS to DVD, it's switching from one digital format to another. I love dvd because of the lack of noise in the picture, which plagued VHS. Now were' going from an already clean picture to another clean picture. They can't make it any cleaner, as many movies are shot in digital now as is. What exactly are you expecting for a new technology? The only thing they can do right now is increase the resolution. It's all fine to say 'this isn't improving much' and clamering how it's failed, but I don't see them offering what they DO want. That's because they can't exactly start yelling for full holographic displays because they don't exist for the common consumer and won't for a LONG time to come. This is a natural progression.

Look at DOS. When the Graphical GUI was invented it changed the way that computers are used. Look at Windows 95. It was a huge leap over Windows 3.11. Then came Windows NT, which was just a 32 bit version of 95. Windows 2000K? A minor redress with more fixes under the covers. This is a natural progression. They will continue to refine this technology until some major technological breakthrough pushes them in another direction, or until all of the advances seem minuscule. This is the nature of things.

Look at the common automobile and think about that. It's been refined for almost 100 years in point of fact, yet it still functions essentially identically to the way Henry Fords first auto did. Minor refinements for 100 years. You should be thankful that this industry is moving as fast as it is.

There is an immediate difference in detail going from DVD to Blue-Ray in 1080p, but I'm not going to upgrade my copy of Legally Blond just so I can see every hair on her dogs head. It's not the kind of movie I care to see a ton of detail on. The DVD is sufficient.

Will I buy any new movies in DVD? Certainly not. Why? Because the new format is better and both visually and audibly improved. Is it improved enough that I want to spend all the time and money to replace my 400+ dvd collection? No, as they are sufficient for the quality and cost (although there are a favorite few I will consider if/when they are released, like the Star Wars trillogy, and Lord of the Rings...I do have my favorites after all...).