So hybrid DVD/Blu-Ray disks are ready to hit the market and will start to be used on major released in 2009. These are disks that are DVD on one side and Blu-Ray on the other and best of all will work on all existing players.
I would expect for these to quickly become the standard for all new releases by the end of 2009 and thus killing any argument about Blu-Ray becoming the standard format for movie released for the next 5 years at least.
There were some movies released as hybrid HD-DVD/DVD and HD-DVD users panned the idea as one of the world's worst.
Bribery and better business plans are not mutually exclusive.
Blu-ray has no chance of overtaking DVD. None.
I'll buy regardless because it will be the absolute best format to purchase
LotR and other movies worthy of spending over $30 on.
The hard truth is that upscaling technology keeps getting better and better. I see no reason why 720p video downloaded from the internet won't look equal to 1080p content on disc when ran through an optimized upscaler.
Many companies are working on integrating improved upscaling tech into products.
Murch should learn this year to not speak/type in absolutes, at least that way people MIGHT listen to him
and NOBODY should apply logic to anything Bite says in regard to disc formats.
oh and RE the "late breaking news" on the silly idea of DVD on one side Blu on the other.. yeah, like that worked last time.
HOWEVER, I read somewhere recently (this month) that someone (panasonic????) had a BD disc with a DVD layer on the SAME side. that seems mildly more up to date and likely to work.. but is in all honesty just as likely to fail as the HD-DUD attempt.
as to me, I've just scored a whole host of movies from our digital broadcast service in SD and have them converting ready for the Apple TV/iPod/iPhone
" The Dark Knight " was my favorite film this summer.
Jim, I kind-of agree with Walter on this. First some caveats, I never was a great Batman fan even in my comic book days, and I watched it on an 8" display on a long transatlantic flight coming off an even longer flight. To me, the movie totally died in any scene that Heath Ledger wasn't in. But, of course, to each their own.
Marvin - the article specifically highlights definitively higher quality from Blu-ray... I watch upscaled DVDs when I have to, and 10 times out of 10, I'd rather see it on Blu-ray. To me the difference is stark - I'm very condfident that I identify the video sources between the 3 in a double blind test with over 90% accuracy.
Just my 2 space credits...
Dave
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Stores try to setup machines so that HD looks much better side by side vs SD. They even have demos of differing cables where the most expensive HDMI cable looks much better than the cheapest one. It's all marketing to get you to spend the most amount of money.
As you can see in this comparison of ATV, Blu-Ray, DVD and cable:
there's no real reason to go for Blu-Ray based on video qualtiy. Like I say though, Blu-Ray will take off as a storage format and people will buy Blu-Ray movies as a result. I can see it being a very slow uptake though.
Marvin - the article specifically highlights definitively higher quality from Blu-ray... I watch upscaled DVDs when I have to, and 10 times out of 10, I'd rather see it on Blu-ray. To me the difference is stark - I'm very condfident that I identify the video sources between the 3 in a double blind test with over 90% accuracy.
I saw a 1080p over Christmas on a 60" TV or something and the picture sharpness was great.
For me personally, I can live without it. I actually find the higher resolution pictures to be much worse in other areas such as lag. The bandwidth of the content is too high for the display to keep up. Fast moving scenes seem to jitter quite badly. Why pay £3000 for a TV with a £200 player, £50 cables and more expensive discs for a picture that stutters as you watch it?
Sure, you could buy a more expensive TV and cables but the question really is whether all that huge expense is worth it for the difference you see in the quality?
I'd say that if you had the money and could get a huge screen with a high bandwidth system then it will be better quality. For people who have smaller TVs and cheaper connections, I don't think Blu-Ray will offer more as the content will just lag and sitting at a reasonable distance away, you won't see the improvement.
The thing is, when you walk up to a cheap LCD TV, you can see very poor quality sometimes. From a distance you don't see the problem nearly so much. If I get a poor quality movie, I just sit back a bit from the display. Even the examples shown above, they blow up a small portion of the image. At normal size, the images both look fine.
I would value convenience of content delivery over picture quality every time. I think that's the case with most people. It's not so much how good it looks but can you get the movie and how cheap.
I used to have a DVD subscription and I've just cancelled it because it's too much bother dealing with physical discs. Now when it comes to ownership, I won't ever buy a compressed DRM movie. For renting, I prefer digital delivery, for purchases, a disc is better (film as a gift for example). I think both will survive for different needs.
If you have a 40" (diagonal) or bigger widescreen display (especially if it can display 1080p), you can immediately tell the difference between upconverted 480p DVD source and a true 1080p Blu-ray source--especially with very small details on-screen. I've seen Disney/PIXAR's Cars and on the Blu-ray version, you can literally read every detail of the decals on the race cars even when the "camera" is far away from the car.
Distribution of movies on blu-ray isn't the main reason top put Bluray into a PC/laptop though. Cheap storage/back-up and easy distribution of large personal data files/home movies is far more important and something which Blu-ray has an almost total monopoly on.
I guess, this really depends on what hardware everyone is using to play SD-DVD contents. These days, consumer/prosumer brand like Oppo makes pretty decent upscale DVD players from $150 to $250. Perhaps, having access to a decent upscaling DVD player may change your opinion.
If you can't tell the difference between upscaled DVD and BRD then 1) you need a better display that can show color and 2) you need a bigger display because you aren't getting any bang for your buck by going HD.
Resolution isn't the only advantage of BRD over DVD. The color space is much better and TrueHD better as well. While the source material is a key component, the entire display and audio chain has to work reasonably well to get the value out of the source material.
And yes, I had an Oppo as well as other upscaling DVD players.
On a side note, I went PS3 over 360 for one final reason...my XBox has no new games but we just bought RockBand for the PS2 and RockBand 2 for the PS3 and the controllers work for both. We could have gotten RB2 for the PS2 as well but figured for $10 might as well get the PS3 version.
I figure the PS3 has more useful life than the 360 regardless of what titles are available today simply because Sony seems less likely to cut it off at the knees to sell the PS4.
Yes, with a 32" screen you might as well not bother with HD anything.
Which is kind of the problem Blu-ray is facing. I know a lot more people with HDTVs now than I did when I first joined this argument. But they're almost all under 37" and the one I can think of that's bigger is an older 720p model. If these people see up-converted and BD side by side at normal viewing distances in their homes they're not likely to see it as a worthwhile difference, if they see the difference at all.
Which is kind of the problem Blu-ray is facing. I know a lot more people with HDTVs now than I did when I first joined this argument. But they're almost all under 37" and the one I can think of that's bigger is an older 720p model. If these people see up-converted and BD side by side at normal viewing distances in their homes they're not likely to see it as a worthwhile difference, if they see the difference at all.
Yes, that's true today more or less. On the other hand I bought my parents a 46" Sony Bravia for $1100. Sony isn't the cheapest brand even if I got the cheapest Bravia line they make. You can get a cheapo 46" for far less.
More and more folks are going 40+". TV sizes are trending upwards as the prices decrease. It seems a lot of folks were buying big TVs from Costco when I was there during the Christmas sales. I would guess they were mostly above 37" and very few below.
More and more folks are going 40+". TV sizes are trending upwards as the prices decrease. It seems a lot of folks were buying big TVs from Costco when I was there during the Christmas sales. I would guess they were mostly above 37" and very few below.
In fact, Costco is getting to be just about the biggest dealer of big flatscreen TV's out there, right up there with Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Costco sells the excellent VIZIO SV420XVT and SV470XVT panels, which are major bargains considering the only thing that can beat it are really high-end LG, Samsung and Sony LCD panels that cost $500 to $700 more for the same size and capability. I would not be surprised that the SV420XVT is VIZIO's #1 selling model right now.
If you can't tell the difference between upscaled DVD and BRD then 1) you need a better display that can show color and 2) you need a bigger display because you aren't getting any bang for your buck by going HD.
Resolution isn't the only advantage of BRD over DVD. The color space is much better and TrueHD better as well. While the source material is a key component, the entire display and audio chain has to work reasonably well to get the value out of the source material.
And yes, I had an Oppo as well as other upscaling DVD players.
On a side note, I went PS3 over 360 for one final reason...my XBox has no new games but we just bought RockBand for the PS2 and RockBand 2 for the PS3 and the controllers work for both. We could have gotten RB2 for the PS2 as well but figured for $10 might as well get the PS3 version.
I figure the PS3 has more useful life than the 360 regardless of what titles are available today simply because Sony seems less likely to cut it off at the knees to sell the PS4.
I would probably agree with you if my HDM collection only consist of handfull of HD demo materials like Ratatuille, Casino Royale, POC series, and etc. as well as using PS3 for upscaling SD-DVD.
I would probably agree with you if my HDM collection only consist of handfull of HD demo materials like Ratatuille, Casino Royale, POC series, and etc. as well as using PS3 for upscaling SD-DVD.
Ya know, I remember folks saying the same about DVD in comparison to LD.
That you have a "handful" of demo titles indicates that over time most titles will be reasonable quality in a few years unless you believe that studios are going to go out of their way to select bad transfers for blu-ray releases. I just don't see that happening and certainly there will be directors that insist on a high quality job even from some companies that have been so-so.
Somehow I don't think that Jackson is going to allow a shoddy transfer on LOTR blu-ray do you? Over time the average DVD release became better. Same will happen to Blu-ray.
The reality is that you can download HD content today. The amount of content and number of distributors is growing everyday.
While I agree the quality of Blu-ray is better in every way. Most people are not knowledgeable enough to tell the difference. Convenience is always going to loose out to better quality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmac
And yet some people just don't get this. They prefer their fantasy world where you can just download HD anything at will. Well that might happen someday but we'll all be older. There's just too many hurdles right now to make a mainstream purchasing concept of this viable. If you want quality HD on your TV now and for the foreseeable future BD is the only way to go.
The majority of the consumer market isn't educated or knowledgeable enough to see the difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vinea
If you can't tell the difference between upscaled DVD and BRD then 1) you need a better display that can show color and 2) you need a bigger display because you aren't getting any bang for your buck by going HD.
Resolution isn't the only advantage of BRD over DVD. The color space is much better and TrueHD better as well. While the source material is a key component, the entire display and audio chain has to work reasonably well to get the value out of the source material.
The reality is that you can download HD content today. The amount of content and number of distributors is growing everyday.
While I agree the quality of Blu-ray is better in every way. Most people are not knowledgeable enough to tell the difference. Convenience is always going to loose out to better quality.
You really need to go back over some of the previous posts on this subject in the other HDDVD vs BluRay thread. There are so many issues that will put a road block in the way of downloading as a purchase item of HD ( as opposed to rental or only being able to watch it on your computer ) that it can't compete. Downloading is great for rental or a service like Apple TV. If you really want to own the movie and have the flexability you have today with physical media ( portability etc. ) it comes up short. Then there's the Studios and how they feel about you downloading HD content and transfering it to another media like a burnable DVD or flash drive so you can have said portability. Then there's bandwidth issue as in limited.
But I've been over this many times and don't feel like doing it again for you.
Try some of the previous pages also and you'll see I have been over this quite a bit already. I think downloading content would be great but because of these issues we're just not there yet. If it was the main way people purchased HD content can you imagine the way the internet would be clogged by everyone wanting the newest big release on the day of release? Trust me these services you speak of don't do the volume that stores do selling just a DVD.
Comments
So hybrid DVD/Blu-Ray disks are ready to hit the market and will start to be used on major released in 2009. These are disks that are DVD on one side and Blu-Ray on the other and best of all will work on all existing players.
I would expect for these to quickly become the standard for all new releases by the end of 2009 and thus killing any argument about Blu-Ray becoming the standard format for movie released for the next 5 years at least.
There were some movies released as hybrid HD-DVD/DVD and HD-DVD users panned the idea as one of the world's worst.
Bribery and better business plans are not mutually exclusive.
Blu-ray has no chance of overtaking DVD. None.
I'll buy regardless because it will be the absolute best format to purchase
LotR and other movies worthy of spending over $30 on.
The hard truth is that upscaling technology keeps getting better and better. I see no reason why 720p video downloaded from the internet won't look equal to 1080p content on disc when ran through an optimized upscaler.
Many companies are working on integrating improved upscaling tech into products.
Well I don't know about that.
http://hdtv.biz-news.com/news/en_US/2008/06/24/0011
DVD still dominates the movie market but Blu-ray set to overtake by 2012
That's only 3 years.
And already :
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-dvd-in-japan
Blu-ray overtakes DVD in Japan
and NOBODY should apply logic to anything Bite says in regard to disc formats.
oh and RE the "late breaking news" on the silly idea of DVD on one side Blu on the other.. yeah, like that worked last time.
HOWEVER, I read somewhere recently (this month) that someone (panasonic????) had a BD disc with a DVD layer on the SAME side. that seems mildly more up to date and likely to work.. but is in all honesty just as likely to fail as the HD-DUD attempt.
as to me, I've just scored a whole host of movies from our digital broadcast service in SD and have them converting ready for the Apple TV/iPod/iPhone
I STILL say Dark Knight was a turkey.
and I'm having Ice Cream to see the new year in
hope 2009 is good for you all
" The Dark Knight " was my favorite film this summer.
Jim, I kind-of agree with Walter on this. First some caveats, I never was a great Batman fan even in my comic book days, and I watched it on an 8" display on a long transatlantic flight coming off an even longer flight. To me, the movie totally died in any scene that Heath Ledger wasn't in. But, of course, to each their own.
Just my 2 space credits...
Dave
Stores try to setup machines so that HD looks much better side by side vs SD. They even have demos of differing cables where the most expensive HDMI cable looks much better than the cheapest one. It's all marketing to get you to spend the most amount of money.
As you can see in this comparison of ATV, Blu-Ray, DVD and cable:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/art...ource=rss_tech
there's no real reason to go for Blu-Ray based on video qualtiy. Like I say though, Blu-Ray will take off as a storage format and people will buy Blu-Ray movies as a result. I can see it being a very slow uptake though.
Marvin - the article specifically highlights definitively higher quality from Blu-ray... I watch upscaled DVDs when I have to, and 10 times out of 10, I'd rather see it on Blu-ray. To me the difference is stark - I'm very condfident that I identify the video sources between the 3 in a double blind test with over 90% accuracy.
Just my 2 space credits...
Blu-Ray is noticeably sharper certainly:
http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/forums/...ic_id=25633990
I saw a 1080p over Christmas on a 60" TV or something and the picture sharpness was great.
For me personally, I can live without it. I actually find the higher resolution pictures to be much worse in other areas such as lag. The bandwidth of the content is too high for the display to keep up. Fast moving scenes seem to jitter quite badly. Why pay £3000 for a TV with a £200 player, £50 cables and more expensive discs for a picture that stutters as you watch it?
Sure, you could buy a more expensive TV and cables but the question really is whether all that huge expense is worth it for the difference you see in the quality?
I'd say that if you had the money and could get a huge screen with a high bandwidth system then it will be better quality. For people who have smaller TVs and cheaper connections, I don't think Blu-Ray will offer more as the content will just lag and sitting at a reasonable distance away, you won't see the improvement.
The thing is, when you walk up to a cheap LCD TV, you can see very poor quality sometimes. From a distance you don't see the problem nearly so much. If I get a poor quality movie, I just sit back a bit from the display. Even the examples shown above, they blow up a small portion of the image. At normal size, the images both look fine.
I would value convenience of content delivery over picture quality every time. I think that's the case with most people. It's not so much how good it looks but can you get the movie and how cheap.
I used to have a DVD subscription and I've just cancelled it because it's too much bother dealing with physical discs. Now when it comes to ownership, I won't ever buy a compressed DRM movie. For renting, I prefer digital delivery, for purchases, a disc is better (film as a gift for example). I think both will survive for different needs.
If you have a 40" (diagonal) or bigger widescreen display (especially if it can display 1080p), you can immediately tell the difference between upconverted 480p DVD source and a true 1080p Blu-ray source--especially with very small details on-screen. I've seen Disney/PIXAR's Cars and on the Blu-ray version, you can literally read every detail of the decals on the race cars even when the "camera" is far away from the car.
My future is going to be
Netflix- for DVD and Blu-ray rentals
Apple TV for on demand stuff,
Hulu
Theater for can't miss movies.
Distribution of movies on blu-ray isn't the main reason top put Bluray into a PC/laptop though. Cheap storage/back-up and easy distribution of large personal data files/home movies is far more important and something which Blu-ray has an almost total monopoly on.
I've only got a 32" so DVDs still look great but my next screen will be around a 50" or so and I expect to see more of a difference.
Yes, with a 32" screen you might as well not bother with HD anything.
I guess, this really depends on what hardware everyone is using to play SD-DVD contents. These days, consumer/prosumer brand like Oppo makes pretty decent upscale DVD players from $150 to $250. Perhaps, having access to a decent upscaling DVD player may change your opinion.
If you can't tell the difference between upscaled DVD and BRD then 1) you need a better display that can show color and 2) you need a bigger display because you aren't getting any bang for your buck by going HD.
Resolution isn't the only advantage of BRD over DVD. The color space is much better and TrueHD better as well. While the source material is a key component, the entire display and audio chain has to work reasonably well to get the value out of the source material.
And yes, I had an Oppo as well as other upscaling DVD players.
On a side note, I went PS3 over 360 for one final reason...my XBox has no new games but we just bought RockBand for the PS2 and RockBand 2 for the PS3 and the controllers work for both. We could have gotten RB2 for the PS2 as well but figured for $10 might as well get the PS3 version.
I figure the PS3 has more useful life than the 360 regardless of what titles are available today simply because Sony seems less likely to cut it off at the knees to sell the PS4.
Yes, with a 32" screen you might as well not bother with HD anything.
Which is kind of the problem Blu-ray is facing. I know a lot more people with HDTVs now than I did when I first joined this argument. But they're almost all under 37" and the one I can think of that's bigger is an older 720p model. If these people see up-converted and BD side by side at normal viewing distances in their homes they're not likely to see it as a worthwhile difference, if they see the difference at all.
Which is kind of the problem Blu-ray is facing. I know a lot more people with HDTVs now than I did when I first joined this argument. But they're almost all under 37" and the one I can think of that's bigger is an older 720p model. If these people see up-converted and BD side by side at normal viewing distances in their homes they're not likely to see it as a worthwhile difference, if they see the difference at all.
Yes, that's true today more or less. On the other hand I bought my parents a 46" Sony Bravia for $1100. Sony isn't the cheapest brand even if I got the cheapest Bravia line they make. You can get a cheapo 46" for far less.
More and more folks are going 40+". TV sizes are trending upwards as the prices decrease. It seems a lot of folks were buying big TVs from Costco when I was there during the Christmas sales. I would guess they were mostly above 37" and very few below.
More and more folks are going 40+". TV sizes are trending upwards as the prices decrease. It seems a lot of folks were buying big TVs from Costco when I was there during the Christmas sales. I would guess they were mostly above 37" and very few below.
In fact, Costco is getting to be just about the biggest dealer of big flatscreen TV's out there, right up there with Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Costco sells the excellent VIZIO SV420XVT and SV470XVT panels, which are major bargains considering the only thing that can beat it are really high-end LG, Samsung and Sony LCD panels that cost $500 to $700 more for the same size and capability. I would not be surprised that the SV420XVT is VIZIO's #1 selling model right now.
Okay, it's an Enderle quote, but the article makes some good points. A fuzzy future indeed.
If you can't tell the difference between upscaled DVD and BRD then 1) you need a better display that can show color and 2) you need a bigger display because you aren't getting any bang for your buck by going HD.
Resolution isn't the only advantage of BRD over DVD. The color space is much better and TrueHD better as well. While the source material is a key component, the entire display and audio chain has to work reasonably well to get the value out of the source material.
And yes, I had an Oppo as well as other upscaling DVD players.
On a side note, I went PS3 over 360 for one final reason...my XBox has no new games but we just bought RockBand for the PS2 and RockBand 2 for the PS3 and the controllers work for both. We could have gotten RB2 for the PS2 as well but figured for $10 might as well get the PS3 version.
I figure the PS3 has more useful life than the 360 regardless of what titles are available today simply because Sony seems less likely to cut it off at the knees to sell the PS4.
I would probably agree with you if my HDM collection only consist of handfull of HD demo materials like Ratatuille, Casino Royale, POC series, and etc. as well as using PS3 for upscaling SD-DVD.
I would probably agree with you if my HDM collection only consist of handfull of HD demo materials like Ratatuille, Casino Royale, POC series, and etc. as well as using PS3 for upscaling SD-DVD.
Ya know, I remember folks saying the same about DVD in comparison to LD.
That you have a "handful" of demo titles indicates that over time most titles will be reasonable quality in a few years unless you believe that studios are going to go out of their way to select bad transfers for blu-ray releases. I just don't see that happening and certainly there will be directors that insist on a high quality job even from some companies that have been so-so.
Somehow I don't think that Jackson is going to allow a shoddy transfer on LOTR blu-ray do you? Over time the average DVD release became better. Same will happen to Blu-ray.
While I agree the quality of Blu-ray is better in every way. Most people are not knowledgeable enough to tell the difference. Convenience is always going to loose out to better quality.
And yet some people just don't get this. They prefer their fantasy world where you can just download HD anything at will. Well that might happen someday but we'll all be older. There's just too many hurdles right now to make a mainstream purchasing concept of this viable. If you want quality HD on your TV now and for the foreseeable future BD is the only way to go.
If you can't tell the difference between upscaled DVD and BRD then 1) you need a better display that can show color and 2) you need a bigger display because you aren't getting any bang for your buck by going HD.
Resolution isn't the only advantage of BRD over DVD. The color space is much better and TrueHD better as well. While the source material is a key component, the entire display and audio chain has to work reasonably well to get the value out of the source material.
The reality is that you can download HD content today. The amount of content and number of distributors is growing everyday.
While I agree the quality of Blu-ray is better in every way. Most people are not knowledgeable enough to tell the difference. Convenience is always going to loose out to better quality.
You really need to go back over some of the previous posts on this subject in the other HDDVD vs BluRay thread. There are so many issues that will put a road block in the way of downloading as a purchase item of HD ( as opposed to rental or only being able to watch it on your computer ) that it can't compete. Downloading is great for rental or a service like Apple TV. If you really want to own the movie and have the flexability you have today with physical media ( portability etc. ) it comes up short. Then there's the Studios and how they feel about you downloading HD content and transfering it to another media like a burnable DVD or flash drive so you can have said portability. Then there's bandwidth issue as in limited.
But I've been over this many times and don't feel like doing it again for you.
Try here for the last go around.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...=80874&page=66
Try some of the previous pages also and you'll see I have been over this quite a bit already. I think downloading content would be great but because of these issues we're just not there yet. If it was the main way people purchased HD content can you imagine the way the internet would be clogged by everyone wanting the newest big release on the day of release? Trust me these services you speak of don't do the volume that stores do selling just a DVD.