Blockbuster chooses Blu-ray: is the war over?

[Nilfennasion]

If you listen to people on here who don't even own an HDTV, it's a step backwards. Those of us who own one know better though.

Amen. Anything that can make me feel physically ill while watching House, and I have seen the insides of my own arm up close and personal, is a somersault forward.

Oddly enough, when TV was first introduced, those dedicated to seeing all their programming in the cinema said it was a step backward. The difference being that in that particular case, they were right (4000P versus about 256I, yeuch).

[buttzilla]

We don't even have a blockbuster near where I live. So i don't think it matters what they choose. Retail movie rental place's will eventually go the way of T-Rex within a couple of years. Their days are numbered.

[Nilfennasion]

Not if postal-rental services remain as difficult and unreliable to use as my experience with Quickflix told me, they won't.

[gotnotime]

Those that argue that a 3 layer HD DVD will hold just as much as a dual layer are idiots. I can only imagine how much trouble it would take to come up with that design when they still haven't even perfected dual layer, not to mention the costs.

What??

Correct me if this is not the case, but I believe it is Blu-Ray that does not even use its second layer, while HD-DVD is consistently a two-layer disc. So HD-DVD is often a larger disc. Then they found a way to create a triple-platter (which is quite feasible these days, as opposed to a few years ago), which matches what Blu-Ray doesn't use anyway.

Many DVDs still don't use dual-layer, or they only use part of it (5-6GB out of ~8GB available). If AVC is put to good use, those mega-sized HD discs won't need the space either.

All this quest for "more space" is largely a fool's errand. As far as data backup goes, everybody pretty much uses an additional HDD for larger backups, as it's faster, easier and cheaper. Optical is used for smaller backups. It's the modern floppy disc. That is partially being supplanted by thumb drives now.

1) My point about blu-ray is exactly what you said about the layer issue, ".. Blu-Ray does not even use its second layer, while HD-DVD is consistently a two-layer disc.." Since blu-ray holds more it does not need the second layer, and therefore disk production will ultimately be cheaper for BOTH recorded and blank media as it is for for DVD-R vs DVD-DL.

2) I only mention the three layer system as a hypothetical in terms of marketing RECORDABLE hd media. When HD-DVD produces dual layer to get 30GB, then Blu ray will likley produce dual layer to get 50GB, then HD-DVD would be forced to try and produce a 3 layer disk to get to 45GB.

3) I agree that HDD drive and thumb dirves are mainstay for backups, but this is not really the issue as most DVD recordable media is used for video content anyway.

4) As for AVC ( h.264 and VC-1) codec. I agree with you on this one with regard to keeping the 4.7 or 8.5GB DVD media for use of HD video content. However, the purest might argue that any compression including AVC or MPEG equals quality loss.

[gotnotime]

More impotantly "size does matter" when it comes to chosing a format. Blue Ray makes more sense and will cheaper to produce disks since most HD movies and all the extras will fit on a single layer Blu-Ray 25GB. HD-DVD with 15GB will liklely have to produce dual layer discs to maintain a equal quality of video and still have "extras" on the disk. I realize that most of these extras are usually garbage, but they are important to the studios for marketing strategies. Hence titles like "extreme", "ultimate", or "collecotrs edition" that have same movie with different extras. Therefore, like it or not, extras will continue to grow

No way is producing a Blu Ray(BD-J) disc cheaper than HD DVD nor will it ever be. Right now it will set you back around $80,000 is to get your content to BR. Not to mention the price of the tools (around $100,000). BTW - there is only 1 of 7 workstations who author the Blu Ray discs you see on shelves. Replication costs are triple.

Anyone can author an HD DVD (Advanced Content) with nothing but Notepad and a little knowledge. The code is open to anyone who wants to learn it. This has got to be a factor in how much content to you will SEE in the future. Remember, Hollywood studios only control a small portion of HD content in the world.

Also, most BR titles use MPEG2, not VC1 so your comment about quality has yet to surface in the BR camp.

Huhhhh???

1) blu ray burner for pc's about $500 U.S. dollars at newegg (liteon)
2) Ulead DVD movie factory 6 - $49 dollars. Capture HD, edit, and author blu ray compliant video disks and can author in various AVC codecs
3) blu ray 25GB disk -$10 dollars. Cost per GB of blu ray is currently less then HD DVD media
4) Total cost about $600 with shipping and you have your first blu ray movie

I guess I can use the rest of the $179,400 of your estimate to buy a really cool HD camcorder with built in gyro stabilization, GPS, mp3 player, and beer dispenser.

By the way, anyone seen any dual layer HD-DVD media for sale, it was supposed to come out last summer?

Several companies offer dual layer $50GB blu ray media currently for about $30. Liteon reportedly has firmware upgrades coming soon to support dual layer, although other more expensive units (still less then $900) already have dual layer wrting support

I know you can't satnd it, but this is another nail in the DVD-HD coffin...

[lordsmurf]

Does anybody else see how ridiculous this thread is?

Nobody is paying attention to anybody else, several folks have overly geocentric mindsets, and the facts are being distorted to what folks want to believe. Welcome to the myspace/youtube generation, I guess. The bullshit superhighway.

[gotnotime]

Ouch!!

A little touchy aren't you. I guess you bought a DVD-HD player. Don't worry, it will be worth something in 20 years or so, or can be donated to the museum

[lordsmurf]

Ouch!! A little touchy aren't you. I guess you bought a DVD-HD player. Don't worry, it will be worth something in 20 years or so, or can be donated to the museum

Oh no, I'm smarter than that. There is really no benefit to HD discs, you can get about the same image quality from a good DVD player hooked up to a good HD set. I'm not falling for the hype. Even an HDTV is nothing special, unless you ONLY watch DVDs and HD feeds. It makes almost a century of video look like crap, and I happen to prefer older content from the 1950s-1990s.

[starwarrior29]

Blockbuster to close 282 stores this year.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/28/news/companies/bc.blockbuster.stores.reut/index.htm?po...ion=2007062818

[MozartMan]

Blockbuster to close 282 stores this year.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/28/news/companies/bc.blockbuster.stores.reut/index.htm?po...ion=2007062818

And that will include those 250 stores that offered HD-DVD.

[Nilfennasion]

lordsmurf, film has been 4000P or thereabouts since the 1940s if I am not mistaken. Certainly well before the 1990s, anyway. How the content you describe as being your preference could possibly not benefit from a good transfer into one format or the other is just about impossible to comprehend.

Having said that, though, does it really matter what anyone thinks until they have adopted a format and mastered it? I somehow doubt that anyone involved in this conversation owns a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD burner, and I also doubt that too many own a high-def camcorder. I only just acquired one myself, and it is going to take a long time before I master its use to the extent that I will actually need a Blu-Ray burner to transfer what I shoot to.

Blockbuster's choices will not end the war because for all intents and purposes, the war is already over. Blu-Ray has far more exclusive content and is being marketed by people who do not seem to let drunk monkeys do most of the work. While it does do us a disservice to have this stupid format war, the war will not have the same effect as the DVD-Audio versus SACD one for a number of reasons, not least of which is the presence of an obvious upgrade path.

If anything, the manufacturers need to realise that upgrades need to be spaced out a bit more. Bringing out a major upgrade once every eight to ten years is a lot more impressive than bringing out lots of minor upgrades every second year, which seems to be the idea that the IT and consumer electronics market is adopting.

[raffie]

Change is a strong beast for some to handle. Hi-Def is an amazing advancement in video technology though and i will happily enjoy the crystal-clarity of it!

As for the different formats, Toshiba took a chance creating an -technically inferiour- format based on only a marketing strategy: giving it a familiar name.
Anyone remember high capacity CD's?

[Alan69]

The only people who think porn had a major impact on anything are the porn watchers themselves. I'm sorry, but your whack-and-jerk hobby is just not that important in the grand scheme of things. Yes, it makes lots of money, but it's a teeny tiny percentage of the overall scenario. We could do without porn and still move along with the same progress and gusto.

Get a clue. While it may be a low percentage of overall use AFTER the tech goes more main stream, it was a huge percentage of early adopters. Most businesses don't BUY crap when it doesn't make economic sense, like early VGA when there were almost no applications that would even use it, and almost all that did were simple picture viewers. Individuals will, and they have to have something to do with it to even justify it then. There WAS no other scenario until the cards got pushed down to around $100 or less, the early adoption of VGA would have been years later without it. Businesses simply didn't care whether their charts and graphs were 16 colors or 16 bit VGA. That something is a smaller percentage of overall use NOW has no bearing on what it's percentage of use was THEN when most of the other applications didn't even exist. Wish you'd take a logic class or two, of course it'd do no good when you whine and pronounce yourself smarter than the books and instructor every time you make a mistake.

Guess what? It's part of life, and part of reality. Your moaning and wanting to minimize it's roll doesn't change the reality of the past. Anyone even remotely computer inclined since the late 70's and in a position to see what people were buying and why is quite clear on the subject.

But of course anyone calling everything chroma noise and insisting that's it instead of getting chroma phase shift right in their head when it's explained to them by several is bound to have plenty of other errors in their thinking. Your repeated handicap of resistance to fixing broken ideas is far more disabling than my having a healthy attitude and not being intimidated by porn. Guess what? Girls are lovely, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying that fact, despite all the repressed crap people pumped into your head when you were a kid. Fix broken ideas, including that nude girls are bad.


But fortunately you're only a video writer person and button pusher, so your mistakes really don't matter much other than leading sheep who naively believe your pretend infallibility astray. Of course, that's why you can stand to keep making so many, too bad you don't get a good 50 kV electric shock every time you're wrong, you'd get much better fast... Be glad you're not a real electronics or auto tech, you'd get hurt fast.



Do dislike Sony as an originator of technology, but still have to go with the better format. They'd either open things up due to market pressure, or someone else design with but around the hardware side of the tech and make a non-restricted format. Might take an extra year or two but it'd be good long term..


And PS you can't use DVD's low capacity for justifying not needing higher capacity. Of course almost no one is backing up to optical when it'd take 60 or 80 discs for most. And also OF COURSE it would become far more used when it takes 3 or 4 discs instead. Use right logic to get better conclusions, instead of saying whatever you want to justify whatever you say. Anyone reading this thread can know of course people would back up to 3 or 4 reasonably priced BR discs where they won't to DVDs, and easily see your logic isn't remotely the 100% you'd claim. Soon as enough BR discs went half of the extra HD cost it'd be silly to buy another HD just for a backup. Still, SATA raid 5 with 4 HD with 3/4 of total capacity available and some redundancy is a great option..

[lordsmurf]

Anybody who thinks porn is a major market force, as it pertains to video at any stage, is a dumbass. Porn is a sideshow to the overall world of video. The folks who push for better image quality are not even closely related to porn. You'd have to work in one of these industries, however, it appears, to understand that. Although, I have to say, it's common sense.

[videopoo]

Huhhhh???

1) blu ray burner for pc's about $500 U.S. dollars at newegg (liteon)
2) Ulead DVD movie factory 6 - $49 dollars. Capture HD, edit, and author blu ray compliant video disks and can author in various AVC codecs
3) blu ray 25GB disk -$10 dollars. Cost per GB of blu ray is currently less then HD DVD media
4) Total cost about $600 with shipping and you have your first blu ray movie

I guess I can use the rest of the $179,400 of your estimate to buy a really cool HD camcorder with built in gyro stabilization, GPS, mp3 player, and beer dispenser.

By the way, anyone seen any dual layer HD-DVD media for sale, it was supposed to come out last summer?

Several companies offer dual layer $50GB blu ray media currently for about $30. Liteon reportedly has firmware upgrades coming soon to support dual layer, although other more expensive units (still less then $900) already have dual layer wrting support

I know you can't satnd it, but this is another nail in the DVD-HD coffin...

I was referring to authoring a BD-J title - The ones produced by the studios....the kind you buy in the stores. Consumer tools only author BDMV titles with none of the interactivity (ie : pop up menus, PIP, ect.

All the titles you buy in the stores (BR & HD DVD) are hand coded. So...yes...If you wanted to have a BD-J title authored it will cost about that much. My point is the HD DVD code is available to anyone right now...and is much lower price to produce..appealing to more content owners to offer more titles. I'm not concerned about consumer tools.

So........There!!

[Nilfennasion]

High-Def porn, in a loose sense, is now being offered from some sites. Having seen some of the free samples, I can only agree with lordsmurf regarding porn. While there are some porn stars you would happily pay to see in high-definition, most porn titles are best kept as undetailed as is humanly possible. Especially given the areas made visible in some cases.

On the other hand, being able to see a well-shot action sequence with such clarity that you can tell not only who is kicking whom but which rib is being broken, is a very strong selling point.

Either way, the likelihood of going back is near to none.

[lordsmurf]

The only place that Hi-Def has ever made a compelling impact on the content is with the sort of productions created specifically for Imax Theatres. But they've been doing that for many years now, it's nothing new.

The "clarity" advancement noticed by most people is simply a lack of interlacing. An increase in fps would probably have gained more quality than resolution boosts too. While it is typically impossible to see fps-related issues, with human eyes, in the 25-30fps range, the issue is complicated with interlace. You end up with blurring caused by a mix of interlace and fps at rather low thresholds.

A 720p 60fps, with integrated "fix SD quality" type filters, would have been a true upgrade. What we have now is a half-assed upgrade, which will hopefully be replaced in the future.

[videopoo]

The only place that Hi-Def has ever made a compelling impact on the content is with the sort of productions created specifically for Imax Theatres. But they've been doing that for many years now, it's nothing new.

I wouldn't say that. Were working on a HD DVD for a surf film that was originally shot in super 16mm. HUGE difference for sure from the SD version. ..or am I missing something.

Are you saying nothing shot on HD or film except for Imax will benefit when ported to HD DVD or Blu Ray?

[lordsmurf]

I'm referring to content. People are generally not impressed by television shows, sports broadcasts, typical movies, or of all things... newscasts.

A surf film? It could qualify. It depends on the content.

My whole point is the value of high resolution is mostly dependent on the content. The resolution alone generally does not make a bit of difference to how good it "looks" overall. The most impressive HDTV I've seen so far, and observed as getting the most praise, is PBS shows like Nova.

[edDV]

Even better is Discovery HD on cable.

ABC/ESPN/Fox 720p sports are also impressive.

[videopoo]

I'm referring to content. People are generally not impressed by television shows, sports broadcasts, typical movies, or of all things... newscasts.

I'd agree with that...but it depends on what instrest you...nothing I love more than watching a footabll game in HD, Basketball, baseball anything. HD on disc is perfect for action sports productions..especailly surfing!...but then again you'd have to be a surfer to understand

I think it depends on what instrests you as a viewer...if you like football you'll notice a difference in a HD screen...same goes for Nascar..rockclimbing...surf flicks...ect.

[gotnotime]

The only place that Hi-Def has ever made a compelling impact on the content is with the sort of productions created specifically for Imax Theatres. But they've been doing that for many years now, it's nothing new.

I think you grossly underestimate the impact of HD. Just look at your local movie theatre and the movie industry as a whole. Most modern theaters today have at least one digital projection system, such as the DLP cinema 2K and the number is growing everyday. Most major movie production companies are using these systems in post-production as they allow easy editing without damaging the original film. Others transfer the whole film to AVI for distribution to the theatres. While others are filming with HD cameras and not using "cellulose" film at all. The trend appears to be growing whether we like it or not. I think the best analogy is the massive growth of digital camera. Most stores don't even carry 35mm cameras anymore and even professional photographers are making the transition to digital.

Personally I thing the digital cinema format is substandard with a 2K system. The resolution of 2048 x 1080 is barely higher then then full 1080p HDTV and the artifacts are quite noticeable when projected on the larger theatre screens. Some theatres have adopted the higher resolution 4K (4096 x 2400 JVC and Sony). Thes will increase resolution fourfold and likley have a noticeable improvement when seen on screens >70 feet. Although I can not personally comment snce I have yet to see a 4K movie.

The future of theatres remains uncertain though Home theatres with nearly the same resolution may result in the doom of the theatre industry, especially if movies are co-released in theatres and DVD (or HD) at the same time. Perhaps the purest, including myself, with the love of "celluloid" may save the industry. Although if the extinction of the vinyl record industry is any indicator, then the future of "celluloid" film remains bleak.

p.s. Notice that the term "cellulose" is in quotation, thats because most printed film media is now using polyester, although the original negative remains in cellulose. Nothing is pure anymore!!!

[lordsmurf]

Movie theatres are in a league of their own. They require better definition because of the mega-sized screens. This is why 35mm film is used.

This has nothing to do with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or even HDTV.

The "high definition" is lost when put at that size. A huge image in high def has about the same observable resolution as SDTV on a normal less-than-40" set at home.

Imax, on the other hand, is truly HD for it's size. It's shot on giant piece of film, I forget the exact size.

[gotnotime]

I agree, Im a little off topic here, but the analogy to HDTV and therefore blu-ray or HD-DVD is valid because the theatres have adopted this 2k system with nearly the same resoloution as 1080p on HDTV.

You make a good point about IMAX which uses a "sideways" 70mm film, by the way. This equates to a resolution about 30 times greater then the current digital 2K theatre projection systems.

IMAX though has been around for quite some time and only in a "niche" market.

Digital theatre to reproduce this quality would be stretched to the limit to produce chips able to record and project at this resolution. Then again, look at the rapid increase in resoution of digital cameras from 1 Mega pixels to currently around 10 mega pixels. That's the beauty of the microchip industry in that they continually get smaller and more powerful.

Anyway back to the blu-ray issue, again I think "size does matter" as video resolutions continue to climb they will need greater amount of storage capacity, and even with the best compression technologies, will not fit on standard DVD. I don't believe that 1080p is the highest resolution we will see for home HDtheatres.

[FulciLives]

I know this is an aside comment but I'm not aware of any movie theatres in the Pittsburgh, PA area that have a digital video presentation. Everything around here is still film. There is not ONE theatre doing digital video anything. Again as far as I know ...

I'm curious what it would actually look like but my point is this ... it can't be all THAT popular outside of the really major cities like New York, Chicago and LA etc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[edDV]

Mark Cuban's Landmark Theater chain each have of will have digital SXRD 4kx2k projectors.

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Links/Links.htm


http://www.dcinematoday.com/dc/pr.aspx?newsID=229

Digital film production format choices are 2kx1k, 4kx2k and 4kx4k. 8kx4k has been proposed.

Current digital cameras shoot 2kx1k. 4kx2k (like "Star Wars III" or "Sin City") is achieved by compositing many 2kx1k or smaller elements into the 4kx2k frame or are single camera upscaled as in "Collateral" or "Apocalypto".

Panavision Genesis camera system used for Apocalypto.


http://www.panavision.com/product_detail.php?cat=36&id=338

High end digital cinema is shot direct to hard disk arrays or to the Sony HDCAM SR fomat which is 1920x1080 4:4:4 RGB @24fps 440/880 Mb/s. This is true 1080p.

Most TV series are shot in 35mm film format, edited as 1080i or 1080p and transferred to regular HDCAM 3:1:1 YCbCr 1440x1080i @ 29.97 with telecine for release. HDCAM playback machines can output at 1080i/29.97, 1080i/25, 720p/59.94 or 720p/50.

HDCAM format tapes are compressed 5x-7x and run at 144 Mb/s. For comparison SD Digital Betacam is compressed ~3x and runs at 90Mb/s.

HD and BD DVD can accept full 1920x1080 resolution or HDCAM 1440x1080 as source. Output is highly compressed MPeg2 ~19-25Mb/s or AVC (h.264/VC-1) ~8-16 Mb/s.

In case you didn't notice, HD/BD DVD movies are compressed 440/25 ~18x to 880/8 ~110x.

[gotnotime]

The Carmike theatre chain has converted nearly 1200 screens to DLP digital including the Carmike 10 in Pittsburgh

I thought it a little strange that a big city like Pitttsburgh would not have one so I checked. I live in a city in MS with about 30,000 people and we have two Theatres with at least one digital cinema screens within 5 miles of my home.

so I guess you could say they are playing outside of the major cities

[DereX888]

LOL
BallBuster will prolong its agony for few more years thanks to this nice little help from BR companies, but please note that in the same article it is clearly written that its THE CONTENT what made BR-DVD more popular than HD-DVD.
So its way too early to predict anything - except that very very very low fees that BallBuster will pay for titles aquired from Universal and such (in exchange for not having HD-DVDs on their shelves) will help this crappy rental company to drag its ends for a little longer

[lordsmurf]

The Carmike theatre chain has converted nearly 1200 screens to DLP digital including the Carmike 10 in Pittsburgh

You beat me to t.
http://www.carmike.com/showtimedetails.aspx?theatrenumber=075865

The main advantage with a digital cinema is the film never gets dirty.

[gotnotime]

... and I'll miss the times when the popcorn goes flying when the films break.