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I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I've even downgraded from dvd quality. I am very happy streaming things from Netflix.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:4, Interesting)
The definition was so good that I could see the seperations around the actors and knew exactly when they were in front of a green screen and no on set. Totally ruined the visuals (which is, in all honesty, the only reason to watch that movie).
Total waste of money. I'm happy with my 24" monitor and DVD drive in my PC (which actually runs up to 1920x1200, higher than Hi-Def).
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Artifacts in a theater near you? (Score:5, Interesting)
The definition was so good that I could see the seperations around the actors and knew exactly when they were in front of a green screen and no on set. Totally ruined the visuals
Movie theaters nowadays use a 1080p or bigger format with an even higher bitrate than Blu-ray Disc. Had you seen the film in a movie theater, might you have noticed the same compositing failures?
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Re:Artifacts in a theater near you? (Score:5, Interesting)
they have a much higher effective resolution than 1920x1080
For various technical, biological and other reasons, they do not. Remember, what was shot on analog is not what you see in the analog theater. All movies today go from analog to digital (for editing) and back to analog. The "resolution" of the end product is determined not by the amount of grain on the celluloid (obviously better resolution than 1920x1080) but the resolution and printing capabilities of the film printer. This is exacerbated by a repeated duplication of said celluloid. Most movie theaters today will show films of less quality than a good 1080p TV with an HD source.
The crucial point when it comes to quality is not the resolution but the number of scan lines that can be perceived. With a movie going through a number of processes, film to digital, then digital to film, then duplication round after duplication round, a 1080p movie on a good screen might well be of higher quality than an "analog" movie in the movie theater.
So, what is the quality of a typical movie theater you ask (or at least you should). According to an international study named "Image Resolution of 35mm Film in Theatrical Presentation" a typical theater has a 750 scan lines resolution. A very good HD set will typically be about there or a little higher, depending on where you sit.
You can even read about it here. [filmschoolonline.com]. I am SO looking forward to a TV with 4520 scan lines of resolution.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Informative)
So you're judging your opinions of HD on one of the few movies that was done almost entirely in front of blue/green screens, the exception being the scene involving the Persian horseback messenger coming across the hills. Mind you 300 was about 90% blue screen and 10% green screen. I'd venture to say that unless you were seeing this effect the entire movie, then your complaint isn't nearly as problematic as you make it out to be.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Insightful)
Conventional movies shown in theaters show more detail than HD; if the appearance was that bad then it is because 300 had exceptionally poorly executed visual effects, not because of any fundamental problem with HD video.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:4, Insightful)
Practically every movie on the big screen is high-def -- or filmed at even higher "resolutions" if actually filmed. If the special effects were bad enough to see the green screen effects or make the CGI noticeable (such as in Langoliers - which was lousy processing even for its time, even for a made-for-TV movie) then blame the special effects house, not the process itself.
Film movies can appear to be low-resolution, but that is because of using low-quality prints. Film should ideally offer resolution that is much, much higher than "hi definition" digital formats. Many directors will choose a high-grain film or print though, for "ambience" or "effect" and I've even seen that grain on "digital" movies, so YMMV, etc.
Don't most films look amazing on the big screen? Well, providing the "projectionist" actually focuses it? All too often when I go to the movies the ads before the movie are in perfect focus then the movie is out of focus, which makes me prefer watching the movie at home on my old, crappy, 36" NTSC CRT. However, when the film is in sharp focus, it's amazing - and very revealing of flaws. Remember when A New Hope was re-released in the theater? Even though they cleaned a lot up and re-did a lot of the effects digitally, the old green screen process was still evident in many of the scenes, and was a bit distracting.
High-Def is great. I like it a lot. However, as I've said many times on here, it doesn't make lousy writing worth watching, and doesn't make good writing better. High-def does inherently improve make documentary and instrctional videos though. IMHO High-Def is good for these things:
1. Documentaries and instruction videos
2. Gaming (but you could use a PC or Mac with a high-res monitor for that!)
3. Turning you into a "pixel peeper," focusing on the format rather than enjoying the story (which seems to be the case referenced in your post)
4. Raises revenue so our government can continue its onerous trend of runaway spending
5. More revenue for retailers by forcing everyone to upgrade televisions, or at least buying set-top boxes.
My CRT is still running, so I put off upgrading. I came this ><& close to buying the Samsung LN46A650 but I put it off, thinking LED backlighting will go mainstream in the next model. I was wrong on that. You have to go up to the UN46B7000, and even then, you're getting edge lighting, not an LED backlight. :(
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Funny)
The definition was so good that I could see the seperations around the actors and knew exactly when they were in front of a green screen and not on set.
Big deal. I could detect when Doctor Who used Color Separation Overlay, and i didn't need more than a partially snowy NTSC screen to do it.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Funny)
It's amazing. Sony are so bad at format wars that, even when they win, they lose.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Funny)
It's amazing. Sony are so bad at format wars that, even when they win, they lose.
A curious game where the only winning move is not to buy Sony.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:4, Insightful)
That is the most true statement that can ever be made about Sony. Sony is an amazing company. Their product line is extremely wide and varied. Their quality is also extremely wide and varied. Their policies are consistently crappy and unfriendly, even suspicious, to the consumer.
No more Sony. Just that. No More Sony.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Informative)
It's amazing. Sony are so bad at format wars that, even when they win, they lose.
This quote from the article doesn't tell the whole story, though:
"A new study by Harris Interactive notes that currently, one in ten Americans (10%) own an HD DVD player, while just 7% own a Blu-ray player. Crazy, right?"
If you look at the chart, they've separated out the PS3 owners from the Blu-Ray player owners. Combine the 7% Blu-Ray owners with the 9% PS3 owners, and that's 16%. I'm sure that most PS3 owners didn't feel the need to buy a separate Blu-Ray player.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:4, Insightful)
If you look at the chart, they've separated out the PS3 owners from the Blu-Ray player owners. Combine the 7% Blu-Ray owners with the 9% PS3 owners, and that's 16%. I'm sure that most PS3 owners didn't feel the need to buy a separate Blu-Ray player.
On the other hand, some of the people who owned a PS3 and no other separate BD player, might have ticked Yes to both questions. In other words, you can't necessarily add together the numbers for BD players and PS3s together, as you may be counting some devices twice.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe downloadable content will be the winner much further down the track, but for the moment I think the problem is that Blu-ray hasn't done enough to dethrone DVDs as the standard format.
Think about what DVDs had to offer over VHS - much smaller form factor (you can get about three TV seasons worth of content in a case the size of a VHS tape), significantly increased quality (both picture and sound), the ability to choose subtitles in dozens of languages with a click of a button, no rewinding, multiple soundtracks on the one disc, selectable camera angles, chapter selection, usable menus, special features, audio commentaries, no degradation of the signal from repeated use, etc...
Blu-ray offers... a slightly better picture. If you fork out ridiculous amounts of cash for the new discs, players and a HD Television to go with it.
Sure, I can tell the difference, and so can most people, but DVDs are actually reasonably good quality to begin with, and good enough for most people out there, myself included.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree absolutely. The real reason the HD disk formats have struggled is because DVD is "good enough" for most people. DVD replaced VHS because of better picture and sound, but also because it offered the convenience of no rewinding, more stuff on one disk, the ability to skip to different chapters, etc and it's more robust than tapes. Blu-ray (or HD-DVD) doesn't offer anything above slightly better picture (assuming you have a decent, and expensive TV with a decent sound system).
CDs replaced cassettes and vinyl for much the same reasons, the sound is better, but one of the biggest selling points is being able to skip tracks and not have jammed tapes or scratched vinyl. CDs were then replaced not by higher quality CDs, but by more convenient downloads. Similarily, the only thing to dethrone DVDs will be convenient and cheap movie downloads.
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Re:I always maintained blue ray was moot (Score:5, Insightful)
People who have broadband and no caps, have their PC connected to their TV and are generally computer savvy can just download stuff in any format.
There. Fixed it for you.
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It's all about the names (Score:5, Interesting)
If you had no format knowledge, and someone told you you could have HD DVD or Blu-Ray, which would you pick? Probably the one you thought you knew, High Definition DVD. You might even think it was more compatible with your existing DVD stuff. Blu Ray? What's that?
Re:It's all about the names (Score:5, Insightful)
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really? (Score:5, Interesting)
more people own hd-dvd players than own ps3s? really?
Re:really? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The statistics are clearly faulty.
First, 1 in 10 Americans does not own either of these formats. Come on, really? 30 million Americans own HD-DVD players? If Toshiba and their partners had sales like that, the format war would have been over long before it was - in HD-DVD's favor.
Second, this clearly isn't taking into account the 22 million PS3's out there, of which about 12 million are in the United States. This is still the player of choice for most people - at least until that $99 player announced over the weekend comes along. But this is one case where a game console is actually clearly better than most standalone players and most people know it.
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Don't buy into that lie (Score:5, Interesting)
That was how Sony convinced the producers that they had won, by counting PS3's instead of stand alone players. This is no different than some of the Apple people claiming 10% market share but failing to state that it included phones!
Personal account, only one of the circle of friends who has a PS3 have more than two blu ray movies. Most don't even use it to play regular DVDs, it is the "KIDS MACHINE".
HD-DVD loaded faster, have less expensive players, and less expensive movies. It also had some great shows/movies out early that Blu Ray did not. I have both players now, I would have loved HD-DVD to have won. Why? Because of the G-D ads that too many Blu-Ray movies force you to sit through. See, that AD thing is probably another reason movie producers would favor Sony over HD. They could force you to watch their ads for other products because HD stated that that feature was not allowed - not so in Blu-Ray
Well with http://red2blu.com/ [red2blu.com] I could get the blu-ray versions fairly cheap, but my HD-DVD player is again, faster and less prone to abuse by the dvd creator.
Sony screwed the consumer over by lies and buying off the movie producers. They are getting exactly what they deserve, flat to falling sales. The players are overpriced and worse the movies border on extortionist in pricing. I do not buy new Blu-Ray movies, I rent them on occasion, but if they are higher than standard DVD I will just wait till the price goes down. This has two effects, by the time the price comes down the movie may no longer be interesting to me meaning I didn't need it anyway, the second being that perhaps one day they will get the hint.
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Flawed interpretation of the study (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Flawed interpretation of the study (Score:4, Informative)
The PS3 is, first and foremost, a Blu-Ray player. That's how it was designed, that's how it was marketed
Buh?? I call bullshit. The PS3 is a gaming platform that happens to double as a Blu-Ray player, just as the PS2 was a gaming platform that doubled as a DVD player. I've never seen any evidence that it was ever marketed as anything else, and I'd love to see support for such an outlandish claim.
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I work in he rental industry (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I work in he rental industry (Score:5, Insightful)
You're only looking at one market segment though - people who still rent from a physical store.
Early adopters and people who have invested in home setups which would make Blu-Ray worthwhile are more likely to rent from other places (Netflix, iTunes) or just buy the movies outright. No point in owning a Blu-Ray player if your only TV is a 10 year old 27" Panasonic tube.
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Re:I work in he rental industry (Score:4, Interesting)
At normal viewing distance I honestly can't tell the difference.
I have a 720p capable LCD hooked up to a 360 (via HDMI) with the HD-DVD add-on. Really can't tell the difference between a DVD upscaled on the 360 and an HD-DVD. Not a stellar setup, though, so ...
The other day I was in Blockbuster and watching their BluRay demo disc (Hancock) on a proper Sony 1080p capable telly. It does a sliding effect where it shows the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD (presumably with DVD suitably fuzzed to exagerate the effect, although maybe they're just honest and don't need to do that). Up close the difference was obviously quite noticable, but at normal viewing distance it was really hard to tell.
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Re:I work in he rental industry (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:I work in he rental industry (Score:4, Informative)
At 720p you can barely tell a difference. At 1080p the difference is more noticeable.
However, the difference between Blue-Ray and DVD isn't just in the picture, it's in the sound. If you have a true HT setup (I have a 7.1 home theater room with a 1080p projector), and the difference between a DVD and a Blue-Ray is noticeable in the picture quality, but especially in the sound quality.
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Re:I work in he rental industry (Score:4, Informative)
What you guys can do to help increase your rentals of Blu ray? Put up two tv's that are the exact same tvs. Put up a blu ray player. Put up a regular dvd palyer. Play the same movie (different formats appropriately) and have them play at the same exact time. Now that you convinced your customers which is better (and it is fairly dramatic) enjoy your rentals.
Also - don't be afraid to put up old movies. Top Gun looks great in blu ray.
For added fun sell blu ray players on the cheap or help customers find great deals online "Want to rent blu ray? Not sure what to look for? Let us help you."
Bring this suggestion to your boss and if your boss is smart your boss will use this idea. Considering video rental stores are lagging in sales this is a cheap way to increase them. This will also make the boss happy with you. Do it a couple of months before your annual review and get a better raise?
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I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
how many people with a regular up-scaling DVD player think they have an HD-DVD player?
No Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what is more telling is the fact that so many people are still buying standard def., original flavor DVD's over Blu-Ray. In some ways, I really think this should come as no surprise.
DVD player in the minivan/SUV: Standard def.
Portable DVD player: Standard def.
The majority of televisions still in the USA: Standard def (digital or otherwise).
Cost of a perfectly capable, plays-all, region free DVD player in the supermarket: $20.
Whichever big-business sector you hate this week (the hardware makers, the movie studios, the publishers, the MPAA, whatever) are pretty much trying to cram a high cost technology down the thoats of people who by majority don't want it, can't use it, or can't afford it.
Re:No Surprise (Score:5, Funny)
And why would you compare it to DVD vs VHS or CD vs tape? Unlike those comparisons, Blu-ray is not a transformational technology relative to DVD. DVDs don't wear out, and an upscaling DVD player produces output that - viewed on a cheap HDTV - isn't that far behind Blu-ray quality for the majority of viewers who are more interested in watching something entertaining than in wanking over the specification of their AV suite.
Yes, yes, I know, Blu-ray is far superior, and if we'd only just buy a $2000 HDTV, adamantium plated HDMI cables, and view it while standing on our heads and licking a irate gecko, we'd see that the quality is obviously better than DVD.
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Re:No Surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Gold plated HDMI Cables are just fine.
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Blu-Ray needs piracy (Score:5, Funny)
People are just waiting for the BD-R disc's to come down in price, $15 for 1 disc is too much, blu-ray needs piracy to succeed.
Re:Blu-Ray needs piracy (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Blu-Ray needs piracy (Score:4, Informative)
Blue Ray players are very difficult to find in East Asia, while those "Blue Ray" bootlegs are *everywhere*...
Of course, those in the know are just downloading off emule or youku.com anyway, why waste $.75?
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Clarification? (Score:5, Insightful)
When Blu-ray player or PS3 owners are asked...
I take it they're counting the two separately, which would show Blu-ray ahead. Am I missing something?
Re:Clarification? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone who buys a Blu Ray player does so because they want to play Blu Ray discs.
Not everyone who buys a PS3 does so because they want to play Blu Ray discs (In fact, one would assume that a minority do).
Thus it would be disingenuous to claim that all PS3 purchases equate to a Blu Ray player purchase when measuring the "popularity" of the format.
On the other hand, a 360 HDDVD drive purchase *does* equate to an HD-DVD player purchase as that is its sole purpose.
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It was budget because it was failing! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It was budget because it was failing! (Score:5, Informative)
"The primary advantage of this format is a low manufacturing cost. Since HD-DVD media is so technically similar to standard DVD media (it uses the same layer thicknesses as DVD, made of similar materials), the discs can be produced with only a slight modification to existing manufacturing lines. "
"This technology comes with a significant price. Manufacturing Blu-Ray discs requires significant costs in updating DVD fabrication equipment, and would be a sharp manufacturer cost increase over HD-DVD."
Toshiba also got the jump on sony and released it's first players months earlier allowing it to get production ramped up. It's true that when HD-DVD started to lose they chopped at the price, but it was already significantly lower than Bluray.
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Both are obsolete. (Score:5, Insightful)
The real telling issue is that less than 20% of US Households have adopted either, and it's been out for years. Frankly, this should be no surprise, the "format war" dragged on for so long that by the time the victor had stepped forth, the market they were fighting for was already passing them by. The migration to HD video on demand, online streaming, and yes, downloading of material makes disk-based distribution an out of date concept who is slowly fading into the past.
Disingenous, at best (Score:4, Informative)
So, if you combine the PS3 owners with the regular Blu-Ray owners, 16% of those surveyed owned a Blu-Ray player.
Here is the logical response you probably have now: "But, every HD-DVD owner (including addon) bought it to watch Blu-Rays, while many PS3 owners probably bought it just to play games."
That's taken care of by the survey too. Out of all, PS3 owners 25% buy all their movies in Blu-Ray and another. 32% buy "most" of their movies in Blu-Ray. So 57% are regular Blu-Ray buyers now, and many PS3 owners are waiting for prices to come down.
HD-DVD owners? Stores gave the players away. They were cheaper than other upscaling players at some point. The addon for the 360 was $20 at my local stores with 5 free movies. Many HD-DVD owners probably bought closeout gear at low prices.
So while the percentages may technically be right, with the fire sale that followed HD-DVDs failure, it's not terribly suprising. And the 7% is it at least 12% for Blu-Ray buyers, since over half of all PS3 owners buy movies.
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Re:Weird... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:early adopters VSs the luddites (Score:5, Insightful)
HD-DVD is dead. There's no need to wait to see who will win, as that question was answered a year and a half ago when Toshiba (the banner carrier for HD-DVD) announced that they would discontinue all HD-DVD production. According to the wiki article, the entire HD-DVD promotion group was dissolved March of last year. To my knowledge, no one builds a new HD-DVD player; there are a small number of PC drives that include HD-DVD compatibility, but I assume that's because of the low cost of inclusion once the blue laser diodes for Blu-ray are already in the drive. You can not walk into a retail store and find an HD-DVD player unless they found some hidden stock in the back and are clearance selling it for $20. You can't find HD-DVD discs unless the same thing happens. Any movie that's come out since then will never come out on HD-DVD. HD-DVD is dead and voluntarily buried by its own support and manufacturing group.
In summary, there is no more waiting. The race was over last year. You can debate whether the quality improvement is worth the money, and there's some definite complaints to be made about the cost of the discs. If your only concern, however, is which of the formats will win, then there's no reason to continue waiting. Blu-Ray won last year.
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