Consumer Problems with Blu-ray and HD-DVD

bart_scriv writes "Business Week looks at the upcoming Blu-ray and HD-DVD product launches and predicts problems and confusion for consumers. In addition to anticipated difficulties in distinguishing between the two formats, some studios will be using copy protection that will intentionally down grade the picture. When combined with Sony's plans to upconvert based on hardware configuration and the fact that most HD TVs aren't capable of displaying either format at full resolution, early adopters may be getting a lot less than they bargained for. As the article suggests, it may be that 'the best bet for either format to gain acceptance now lies with next-generation game consoles.'"

Early adopters and FULL HD resolution

[emptycorp]

The problem I have with this is the plain and simple fact that film lacks the quality and detail that actual high definition video captures. Simply, blowing a film picture up to 1920x1080, even from the original negatives, will not produce the same quality as HD video. The argument about enhanced definition (1280x720p) which most HDTV's can currently only do, vs. full HD (1080p) is a dead-end when talking about HD-DVD's. I for one am not waiting to see a film movie in full HD as the film grain and other artifacts will be more noticable than ever, versus the actual quality of the picture going up. I AM, however, waiting for full-HD produced movies such as Once Upon a Time in Mexico by Robert Rodriguez to come out in the full HD format. And I know a lot of slashdot readers would love to see those Lucas films that were shot in HD above the inferior 480p threshold they currently claim.

Re:No more HDDVD Blu Ray Stories Please

[MindStalker]

SACD -> killed, basically because of Sony

DAT -> killed, basically because of the recording industry and SCMS

DCC -> not sure why that was killed. AFAIK, it did not have SCMS. I believe it was not that good of a format. Less than CD quality if I remember correctly

DVD-Audio -> don't know what the problem here is. I would love to get DVD-A in my car. CD+ quality with hours of content? I would love that.

All four of the previous have one very important thing in common. You never saw any of them in walmart (or kmart of whatever the equivalent was at the time)

MiniDisc did well for a little while, but it was really a story of too little too late. They were nice but nothing earth shattering, and MP3s were just comming out. Beta fought well, but died from the porn issue as most know. And laserdisc were just too expensive for the average consumer, but did very well among the people who could afford one.

Re:Translation:

[MobyDisk]

simple concept (watch videos at higher resolution)

It's even simpler than that, because DVDs today can already do higher resolutions. There's nothing in the DVD spec that limits you to 480 lines.

The only complexity is storage capacity. But with the improved compression of MPEG-4 over MPEG-2, you could probably fit 1280x720 (or maybe 1920x1080 in some cases) video onto the same DVD media we use today. Many DVD players today already can play MPEG-4 disks (WMV, AVI, MP4, etc.) so it won't be a big expense for the manufacturers.

So someone should just take MPEG-4, spec-out some new resolutions, and call it DVD-Ultra or something cool sounding. This might even happen as a de-facto standard before Blu-Ray or HD-DVD come-out, because there's no new technology or additional expense required.

The Media Associations

[eno2001]

The criminals at the RIAA and MPAA must be removed at all costs before they completely decimate all consumer rights. When I buy a recording of a movie or an album, I expect to have reasonable rights to copy it for use on various devices that I own. If I'm not going out and selling these copies, then I am not depriving them of any profit that they are entitled to. This is simple common sense. Whatever happened to the day when I could easily tape a selection of songs from various albums and play those songs in my car, on a walkman or a boom box? If anything, today's digital media should make these activities easier. And you know what? They DO. It's not the technology getting in the way, it's the lawyers and the artificial restrictions being assigned to playback devices and recordings devices by organizations like the MPAA and the RIAA. Those organizations are holding the artists, the distributors and customers for ransom. And why? Simply to keep their old, failing business model alive. Truth be told, MOST people would do the "right thing" and buy a legit copy of a song if the songs were reasonably priced (a few cents per track) and non-DRM. As long as there is DRM and unreasonable pricing there will be, otherwise honest people, trying to find a way to get "free" or "cheap" music. But as soon as some company offers high quality, direct from the artist to your ears, along with value added media (like liner notes in PDF and album art in JPG) full movie and music packages that are universally playable on all platforms, the DRMed crap will dry up. Kill off the dinosaurs. Show the RIAA and the MPAA that they are largely irrelevant to digital media. If you are an artist, work together with the P2P geeks to find a better distribution method that presents one file for a complete album or a television program or movie that you produced. If you are a user, spend some time exploring the alternatives that exist to big media. The quality is improving daily. Screw the fossils that are trying to control music, movies and television. Rescue YOUR media. Do it NOW!

Re:The key to acceptance:

[DingerX]

That's the way DRM is supposed to be. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DRM are going to make people care. The current path for HD player acceptance runs through the folks at the upper-end of the market who watch really big Bruckheimer explosions on their monster televisions.

The HD players coming out want to repeat the DVD player success story: the fastest adaptation of a new media technology ever. I mean, in the space of a few years, DVD video achieved something like 80 percent market penetration. Now here comes HD-DVD; only problem is HD televisions don't have that high market penetration numbers. But at the very least, someone who spent $3000 on a television will probably want to spent $500 on a player to watch something other than sports and CSI in hi-def.

Yet enter DRM: Sony and pals are so scared of nerds ripping off their signal and trading it peer-to-peer they're going to screw those who spent $3000 on TVs and who can afford and do purchase large amounts of DVDs.

So they're so afraid of the nerds in the basement and their 19" LCD screens, that they'll stop taking the money from those fat cats in their Bucky Balls wanting to watch Brucky Bombs go off.

Geeks don't particularly care about DRM ruining their access to stuff: it's a challenge that historically has been met every time. What bothers them more is the notion that DRM ruins cool technology by making it less attractive in the marketplace.

Re:Translation:

[evilviper]

It's even simpler than that, because DVDs today can already do higher resolutions. There's nothing in the DVD spec that limits you to 480 lines.

This is moronic. Any storage media, "can do higher resolutions", but there's no player for it, so you're talking about a computer-only solution, which wont fly in this decade...

The only complexity is storage capacity.

That's ALWAYS been the only problem. If you had unlimited storage, HD wouldn't be an issue at all.

But with the improved compression of MPEG-4 over MPEG-2, you could probably fit 1280x720 (or maybe 1920x1080 in some cases) video onto the same DVD media we use today.

You can fit 1080p on a CD if you want, it'll just look like completely crap. The 50GBs of storage isn't there for nothing, you get far, far more detail and quality when you dramatically increase the bitrate.

Many DVD players today already can play MPEG-4 disks (WMV, AVI, MP4, etc.) so it won't be a big expense for the manufacturers.

The expense isn't in playing MPEG-4 (or MPEG-2), it's in playing it at 6X the resolution, having video hardware that will handle that resolution, and outputs that can display it. At that point, you're spending $500 on a new DVD player for these crappy-quality 720p DVD, and unlike HD-DVD/Blu-ray, you don't get the option of using newer, larger storage for your money.

BTW, where are these players that handle WMV videos? I've seen the Pioneer one for $2K, but that's all.

The expense isn't the discs...

I choose.... Neither.

[InvaderSkoodge]

Let's see, I could choose Blu-Ray as my next technology to adopt, but since it was created by Sony, the people who brought us rootkit enabled audio CDs that opened huge security holes on users PCs, that is completely out of the question.

Or I could choose HD-DVD. And thereby render every television and computer monitor I have useless for seeing the HD content because none of them support HDCP. Also out of the question.

Oh, and don't forget, if the DRM gods decide that your new Blu-ray or HD-DVD player broke the rules by doing something like not hiding a region code setup menu good enough, they can revoke the keys for that player and turn it into a boat anchor.

No thanks, I'll stick with DVDs.