DVD Format War Already Over? 640
An anonymous reader writes "'Nobody likes false starts' - claims the assertive and risky article "10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed" published by Audioholics which outlines their take on why the new Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD formats will attain nothing more than niche status in a marketplace that is brimming with hyperbole. Even though the two formats have technically just hit the streets, the 'Ten reasons' article takes a walk down memory lane and outline why the new DVD tech has a lot to overcome."
Re:They might have a point (Score:5, Interesting)
In part because they're useless (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll be amused if we start seeing DivX encoded pirated DVDs start to appear in the states that offer HD on a standard DVD. The studios response should prove interesting
Wrong paradigm! (Score:2, Interesting)
Progressive scan dvd players are dirt cheap, rentals are plentiful and cheap, and movies for purchase are nearly as cheap.
Back to the drawing board, fellas.
And divx? Fine, thanks :-/ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well, duh. I could have told you that (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, they can both easily store surround sound. An Audio CD could as well, of course, but then it's not really a red book (is that the one?) Audio CD anymore. I know a lot of people did get basic 5.1 speakersets for the audio that comes with DVD movies because it -is- perceptible better.. it's a whole different experience.
HD-DVD (or BlueRay) over DVD might not be as particular a jump. It does have higher resolution, of course, but it doesn't specify anything with regards to possible higher framerates or even better encoding (yes, DVD has better quality than most video - it certainly lasts longer. That said, I absolutely HATE the mpeg block artifacts you get on DVD and sometimes very much prefer the S-VHS copy.
If it does specify encodings that pretty much get rid of those blocky artifacts, I'll take one as soon as they become more readily affordable (the higher resolution is an added perk, but I don't mind watching some stuff on my PDA screen - so whatever). If instead the publishers just decided to compress the video more in order to store more trailers / fringe features / whatever like what has happened with DVD.. no thanks.
Re:#3 is the killer (Score:2, Interesting)
Yep, it's the Laserdisk all over again (Score:5, Interesting)
not sure how lawn darts relate exactly but it sounded good:)
Ignoringthe format - is HiDef a furfy anyway? (Score:3, Interesting)
And yet, even at 100 inches, it looks fine. Yes, I don't disagree that tripling the resolution to 1080i *should* make it better to watch, but how much. At that size, sitting about 3-4m away my eyes are constantly shifting focus from one side of the screen to the other, and we really can't sit much closer or we'd get a very sore next and miss a hell of a lot.
When designing PAL the designers settled on 480 vertical lines because when sitting at the recommended distance (3 times the width of the screen) the human eye can only see 480 vertical lines. 1080 lines seems like overkill.
HDTV and Lack of Content (Score:5, Interesting)
I too have an HDTV but no HDTV service. (In my case, I knew regular TV would look "worse" and picked plasma over LCD/DLP because IMO plasmas look better when playing non-HD content.) DVDs do look significantly better - but the high price of HDTV service (extra $20+ a month, plus money to Dish Network for a new receiver, plus loss of ability to archive shows like I can with my old pre-encryption DVR) together with the lack of content (football, Lost, and Law and Order are about it right now for me) makes it far, far too much to pay.
I'm not certain off hand if my TV has the correct plugs (HDMI, whatever) to work with the highest resolution HD-DVD/Blue-Ray players. Be assured, if it doesn't, there is no reason that I would ever consider buying either type of player for many, many years to come. (P$3 is already off the list, so no sneaking one in that way either, Sony.) Even if my TV was supported, I'm not sure yet if entire-seasons-of-TV-shows-on-one-disk is better than ability-to-backup-and-play-from-server, if I were to want to do that. I doubt it.
I expect HD DVD will make inroads (Score:4, Interesting)
It will make no significant inroads as a ROM medium in any flavour. It may even damage PS3, as if they had picked Betamax.
Re:Another reason for failure (Score:2, Interesting)
The change from vinal to CD or 8-track to cassette was radically different in magnitude than the DVD to HD-DVD or BlueRay. Not only are the disks the exact same size and shape, but there are many opportunities for backwards and forwards compatibility. You can't stick a CD on your record player, nor could you stick an 8-track in your cassette deck. You can stick a DVD into your HD-DVD player.
Re:Similar to DVD... (Score:3, Interesting)
-matthew
They're already screwing up. (Score:5, Interesting)
Undettered though, I looked at another display they had which was showing HD movies on a smaller screen which was not rear projection. The picture quality was better, but I still couldn't tell, even looking at CG like Chicken Little, if I was seeing a better picture than I would get on a DVD. Or rather, I couldn't tell how much better the picture was. I couldn't tell if it was just a small improvement or a big one.
All these idiots had to do was make their demo disc show the movies side by side with the DVD version and it would make the difference clear. But they didn't. Instead the consumer is left to guess about the difference in quality between the two formats. Also, they only had a display for the Blu-Ray and I asked them if HD DVD had come out yet, and they said yes, and they pointed me to a small display in a corner with no video being shown. I'm looking at this, and I'm saying to my self, how the hell do they expect this thing to sell at all if they've got it stuck in a corner and they're not even showing video of it?
Oh and another thing. Instead of being in slick black DVD cases like all the rest of the DVD's, the HD DVD's were in these blue cases I think. Or maybe that was the blu-ray discs and the HD ones were in white cases. I think they were slimline too. Anyway the packaging struck me as really cheap and flimsy looking, and the discs were $10 more than new release DVD's, and these were OLD titles! Haha! Hollywood thinks they can get people to pay $30 for a movie which is selling for $15 on DVD at Wal Mart because it's been out for 12 months? DREAM ON!
Re:HDTV and Lack of Content (Score:3, Interesting)
What bugs me the most is when a show/commercial/movie preview is a letterboxed 4:3 format -- you end up with a small rectangle inside of the $2000 rectangle that is your HD-capable TV. I also don't realize why so few advertisers take advantage of the format. Do the broadcasters charge by the MB? I'll watch *any* well-shot HD commercial.
This is why I think HD-DVD will fail -- if consumers don't even demand hi-fi TV, why would they demand hi-fi DVDs?
OK, I'll bite (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope. What's done to CD releases these days is worse. See below.
You don't mind that the audio range is less than the spec for CD?
Nope. Both formats exceed real-world dynamic range requirements for music, even highly dynamic classical music.
You don't actually think the average(or above) needle on a record player can actually produce anything higher than 22Khz do you?
My Shure cartridge can easily hit that
Now, if you want to complain about the lack of production quality on music CDs these days, be my guest.
OK, thanks!
Mastering houses, under pressure from the record labels to make their releases louder than the other guys', are shitting all over the idea of dynamic range. Louder! LOUDER! LOUDER!. Pretty soon everything is going to be mastered as a modulated square wave.
I'll take Ye Olde Tech any day.
Re:Well, duh. I could have told you that (Score:5, Interesting)
How will I know (just by looking at the package) that a HD-DVD title is done in H.264? And even if it has that information on the back, thats meaningless to the average consumer.
I would be happier if one of the specifications dictated H.264 (or at least did not permit MPEG2 to be used on HD-DVD/BDs). At least that would remove one variable, you know that they're at least using the best codec permitted.
Re:No, no, no! (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of what that does for HDTV, though, it doesn't really mean much to BR or HDDVD. The better picture is nice, but it's still hard to justify a whole new player and library when there aren't any convenience benefits, like portability or ease of use. If DVD had exactly the same picture and sound as VHS, it still would have replaced it. THe primary reason for its adoption was the convenience of the format. Until there's a new format that's easier to use than laser-read discs, DVD is here to stay and I think the HD formats are dead in the water.
Let's not even get into the fact that the new formats actually make things less convenient with their DRM "features". Or the fact that someone's going to tell me that my $3200 plasma TV won't work with the formats because it doesn't have an HDMI input.
My Oracle says... (Score:3, Interesting)
solid state
SD, Compact Flash, etc. why not a movie on a chip in a credit card sized package? easy enough to make a secure ROM card, and each one can have it's own custom DRM hardware, or not.
Just slap it into the slot, pull it out when you are done, no moving parts, no optical surfaces to get scratched, worst case use some contact clearer like old NES cartridges.
Carry your favorite movie in your wallet, to enjoy at home or on the go (players built into public transportation seat-backs)
Even if the technology dosn't allow a whole HD movie on a card, the card could be the license key for on-demand download of the high quality version, with the portable version built in.
Netcraft confirms it: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are dying (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at the current players. The Toshiba HD-DVD player is a subsidized Pentium 4 that sells for 500$, with Toshiba losing about 200$ on each unit. The 1000$ Sony Blu-Ray player is a similar hack, built not with custom chips but with a general purpose CPU that's way more complex and expensive than is required for Blu-Ray playback.
Think about the next generation of players, or even the generation after that. For starters, those players will use custom electronics that are less expensive and less complex than first-generation players. They will be smaller, draw less power, and will be built in far greater quantities. Those second and third-generation HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players will be far cheaper; I predict a 200$ HD-DVD player by the end of next 2007, and a 100$ player by the end of 2008.
Now, Blu-Ray will get a boost from the PlayStation 3 - which, by the way, will not remain at 500$ for very long. Just consider the PlayStation 2, which originally sold for 300$ and now sells for 130$. I predict that by the end of 2007, the PlayStation 3 will cost no more than 350$.
DVD took a few years to get established, and so will these formats. But the prices will start dropping, and more people will start using them. HD really looks great. And regardless of the trolls who claim that you need a 5000$ TV to enjoy HD, 720p TVs (which do offer a significant quality improvement over standard DVD resolution) are pretty cheap nowadays.
Let's also consider the other big factor that will drive HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray adoption: computers. Optical drives for computers are usually cheaper than stand-alone units. Soon, software players will be available, and computer manufacturers will start installing HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray drives in their machines.
Right now, Blu-Ray RW is incredibly overpriced, but when the drives can be bought for 300$ and the discs 3-4$ each, you can bet that people will start buying them in droves. Optical media does have some advantages over hard drives; people will not stop using discs and replace them with portable hard drives.
Will those new formats replace DVD? Of course not. DVD will keep on living for a long time. But the two HD formats will become quite popular: after all, HD does look awesome. Once you've seen HD content, going back to a normal DVD kind of hurts.
Re:Yep, it's the Laserdisk all over again (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They might have a point - Try holographic (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead, try this:
www.inphase-tech.com
Guaranteed 50 year media life, first generation will be 300 GIG per disc, going to 1.6TB per disk. Drives going out to OEM's right now.
Re:Another reason for failure (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My Oracle says... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:#3 is the killer (Score:2, Interesting)
I notice the difference quite a bit even on a 42" HDTV which has close to the same "height" as my 27" regular TV. Even my parents with their glasses can tell the difference. Of course, I'm talking about broadcast which has a lot variables, one of which is if the show was actually being shown as HD, or if it was up-converted by the network (like That 70's Show or Smallville reruns).
You are correct to say viewing distance comes into play. If you're way-way back relative to the screen size then you won't notice as much but it's still there.
However this does not invalidate your argument about HD discs vs regular DVDs. While I can tell the "difference," it isn't great enough for me to rush-out and buy an expensive unit. DVD's 480p is decent enough for me. I'll probably get a HD DVD (or BluRay) player down the line but not for a WHILE.
Key Points (Score:3, Interesting)
It is my opinion that the transition to HD will be pretty painless. Three years from now you'll be able to get a player that plays DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray for $100, and we will have forgotten what all the fuss was about. Oh, and one of the formats will be relegated to leverage the studios use against the owners of the other format.
-Peter
Re:Well, duh. I could have told you that (Score:5, Interesting)
LCD prices are barely dropping (and not everyone wants an LCD- horrible picture quality compared to a tube IMO). Sales of HDTV are basicly flat. And the OTA drop dead date has been pushed back twice already- its going to be pushed back again.
Basicly, the vast majority of people don't give a shit about HDTV. The product has failed in the marketplace so badly even Congress had to admit to it and push back adoption dates twice. On top of that the format changed so even early adopters are scared of reinvesting. HD is a no go, write it off.
Re:They might have a point (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think I have been completely clear. My backup hard drives are offline. I only hook them up in order to do more backups or to restore. Otherwise they sit on a shelf.
I would never consider online drives to be suitable long term backups - maybe interim nightly or weekly backups, but nothing long term.
Re:They might have a point (Score:2, Interesting)
It's 100% fact that your drives will start to suffer the effects of the little ones and zeroes blending together the second you're not actively using it... The fields that define bits on modern drives are so small that technology is approacing the useful limits of the signal to noise ratio that the magnetic media can provide. Drives combat this in part through some error correction, and the firmware is directed to actually read and write data to the drive in a transparent manner, in order to prevent the magnetic fields becoming too weak for the heads to read. This is especially true of modern drives precisely because they have become so dense.
Your DVD-Rs, on the other hand, decay at a much slower rate. In a safe spot they aught to work for at least 5 years. I have 9 year old CDRs that I put away ages ago, and they still work, and if you use a program to analyze the data quality, it's still sound.
An amusing look back... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.robertsdvd.com/failure.html [robertsdvd.com]
Another problem: component vs hdmi (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well, duh. I could have told you that (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, a lot of the new digital broadcast is going to be 480p so that broadcasters can broadcast more channels rather then better quality channels.
In fact, I only get two channels (not counting weather radars) that are in SD. That's the local Spanish-language station, and one of the two PBS subchannels. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB, PBS HD, all broadcast HD all the time, even when they're upconverting NTSC 480i shows to HD. For someone who knows "in fact", I don't think you know all that much fact after all.
Re:They might have a point - Try holographic (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Divx is much lower quality (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, not everything is Divx (The bastard offspring of the Microsoft MPEG4 codec from 1998.)
VC-1 has been doing full 1080p and fitting on a standard DVD for years now, including support for 7.1 surround without artifacts (Even when viewed on a native 1080p rear DLP projector with a 20' screen size.)
The problem is that studios had initially planned on using this format for the next generation DVD content, but the DRM promises of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray made them wait for the new medium.
There have been a few movies released in the VC-1 format in HD on standard DVDs, but not many. Go buy T2 Extreme at Walmart for an example of a movie in this format that is 3 years old now. (You can also download sample movies and clips in this format from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mus
Just an FYI to everyone, VC-1 is one of the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray codecs, but it is also known formally as Windows Media 9 Format (WMV9), VC-1 is the name adopted after it was approved as a standard format.
Re:They might have a point - Try holographic (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They left one out (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The Markets Will Determine The Winner Of This W (Score:3, Interesting)
What will that mean for media providers and suppliers who have a gigantic established -and VERY profitable- industry devoted to putting actual discs and packages in stores? It means the end of the line, that's what. No more disc pressing plants, no more packaging, no more shipping boxes and warehousing, all of which have huge markups, all of which the media companies use to make tons of money.
HD-DVD and Blue Ray represent the LAST whole generation of physical media consumers are likely to buy. From the media company's perspective, this is their last shot to rake in obscene amounts of cash for movies in plastic boxes and they know it. Desperate companies do desperate things, stupidly. These weren't the smartest of companies to start with. They are much too rooted in their old ways of doing things that they won't even be able to comprehend when they've been obsoleted by IPTV or etc.
The same threat faces broadcast TV suppliers: networks, syndicators, even local TV, all of which exist mainly to distribute content over their analog RF network and collect ad revenue. But what happens when their RF network is simply obsolete? No advertisers will buy when nobody's watching. All hell is going to break loose and quick.
The only hope the networks have to survive is to embrace digital downloads even if it means alienating the local stations. At some point, the production companies that supply the networks will figure out that THEY too can offer direct sales and bypass the entire system while pocketing the money directly without regard to whether the network picks up the show or whether it has perfect ratings or an open airtime slot on X day and time.
IPTV can make all this happen.
Incomplete (Score:5, Interesting)
So the question should be, will pornography on the new formats be better in any substantial way? More interactive, more content, more arousing? Will they be making films of a longer duration, will they be providing more extras?
Wait and see what the adult industry does with this format - if they yawn and put out 60-120 minute, linear 480p movies with no more extras than a DVD, then the format is not going to have a rapid adoption rate. If they get more creative with the new format, well, then there's a shot.
Re:They might have a point - Try holographic (Score:2, Interesting)
Is this vapourware or can we really expect them to deliver?
Re:The Markets Will Determine The Winner Of This W (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a format that largely claimed the same thing over VHS as HD/BRD does over DVD. It also had many of the same problems by comparison:Rashella827
limited selection, high priced media and players. It could deliver on its promises as can HD/BRD, but not at a price that a vast majority will be willing to pay. Even at the beginning, DVD was fairly inexpensive to get started, $500 or so for a player and about $30 for movies.
I don't really see HD/BRD taking off unless licensing agreements change to allow multi-format discs. That will future-proof the $1000 players and allow a much wider sellection of movies on the same hardware.
Exactly - I don't even have a HD TV yet! (Score:3, Interesting)
>I might end up buying an LCD TV in about a year to replace my aging 19" CRT...
I'm in the same boat. We have an old (circa 1998) 27" TV. It's the only TV in the house. I dont' think it's HD capable.
Even if I wanted an HD-DVD player, I don't have anything to play it on! I guess I could hook it up to my 17" computer monitor, but since it is also old and doesn't support HDCP, it may end up being a waste of time. Besides I want to watch movies in the living room.
So before I will go HD-DVD, I'm going to need to buy a new TV. The next time I'm going to buy a new TV, it's going to be one of those big flat-panel $2000 jobbies I see at Sam's club all the time.
The thing is, I can't imagine the next time I'd have a disposable $2000 available to spend on anything, let alone a _TV_. So unless the old TV breaks, it's going to be YEARS before we buy a new one. Which means anything better than regular old DVDs are lost on me.
Steve
Re:They might have a point - Try holographic (Score:1, Interesting)
I think if you choose a quality media most of those short life stats are BS.
Re:They might have a point - Try holographic (Score:3, Interesting)
It took a long time until they produced archival quality DVD-Rs, but they now exist. The same is true for archival quality CD-Rs. I have used about 1200 archival quality CD-Rs for my image archive. I'd like to move this to significantly fewer of something else that is reliable.
By the way.. what's up with this holographic SPAM on every forum on the planet whenever a new media product has been announced? Your web page hasn't changed in over five years. Are you still trying to IPO or something?