Will DVD's go the way of LaserDiscs?

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  • Reply 21 of 42
    Can DVD Audio can be played back on standard DVD player?



    I'm asking because just recently i purchased my first and looks like the last DVD-Audio disc. I can play it on my dvd player, and it's in DD, so i guess it's not what you're talking about since DD is compressed (24 bits though).



    Too many standards...
  • Reply 22 of 42
    casecomcasecom Posts: 314member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Eugene

    This is true if you haven't invested in a high-definition television/monitor. However, once you've seen Monday Night Football or any primetime sitcoms and dramas in HD, you'll see how bad DVDs really are. You're comparing roughly 6 Mbps 480p to 15 Mbps 720p or 20 Mbps 1080i.



    How bad DVDs really are?!? Is it that DVDs are bad, or is it the (non-digital) source material?



    And when you guys say "HD DVD player" is that simply a progressive-scan player, or some kind of next-gen player?



    I'm among those who is generally confused by HD-related technobabble. I'm waiting a few years for the standards to shake out before I buy my next-gen TV system ... till then I'll limp along on my Samsung 25-inch old-tech TV (purchased 1996) and my JVC non-progressive-scan DVD player ... when I do buy again I'd like it to last 10 years or so.
  • Reply 23 of 42
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CaseCom

    How bad DVDs really are?!? Is it that DVDs are bad, or is it the (non-digital) source material?



    And when you guys say "HD DVD player" is that simply a progressive-scan player, or some kind of next-gen player?




    There are currently two next-generation optical disc standards being developed. There's Blu-Ray Disc which has pretty much the same backing as the DVD+RW format had, and there's HD-DVD which is what the DVD Forum will support. Ultimately HD-DVD will probably be the format to replace DVD movies, but the writable version of Blu-Ray Disc may be superior enough to force us to buy into both technologies.



    As for how bad DVDs really are, superimpose a 720x480 pixel box on a 1280x720 one...then try it with a 1920x1080 box...
  • Reply 24 of 42
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by piwozniak

    Can DVD Audio can be played back on standard DVD player?



    I'm asking because just recently i purchased my first and looks like the last DVD-Audio disc. I can play it on my dvd player, and it's in DD, so i guess it's not what you're talking about since DD is compressed (24 bits though).



    Too many standards...




    The drive mechanism can read the DVD because it's...a DVD, but it may not have the secondary hardware/software to read the 24-bit/96 KHz track data.
  • Reply 25 of 42
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by piwozniak



    HDTV is cool, but how many stations are available in this format?




    With a basic UHF sector/grid antenna I get CBS, ABC, NBC, WB and UPN in HD. Pretty much all the CBS, ABC and NBC primetime programming is in HD except for the reality shows. I know Jake 2.0 and Eneterprise are HD on UPN, and I don't watch WB much but much of their programming is HD as well. FOX broadcasts a lot of their primetime stuff in a progressive widescreen format and they'll be going HD sometime in the first half of this year. The local PBS station also has some great HD programming. They also multicast 4 different analog channels during the day when they aren't broadcasting in HDTV. In addition to the major networks, there are about a dozen other digital channels that broadcast their standard definition content for now.



    If you get HD cable or satellite, you can also get HBO, Showtime, Discovery, ESPN, HDNet, InHD, PPV, etc.







    Quote:

    Look, Dolby Digital 5.1 has been around for some time now, yet not that many stations broadcast their shows in 5.1.



    ABC definitely uses DD5.1. I can see my receiver switch from PLII to DD automatically. I think CBS is also broadcasting in Dolby Digital, but my local affiliate converts it to analog for now.



    Quote:

    Another thing which is always slowing adoption of new technology is variety of different standards, look at dvd-r/+r, or even better screen ratios. why can't we have letterbox and ONE widescreen ??



    Some movies look better in 2.35:1 than 1.85:1. HDTV is 1.77:1 and close enough to 1.85:1 that for those movies they just crop a teensy bit off the edges to fill the screen. For 2.35:1, they just include black bars, which is fine with me.



    Quote:

    There are few HDTV standards as well,.....



    as long as they are all supported, there's no problem. 720p is better suited to high-motion video and 1080i is better for pure resolution in most other cases.
  • Reply 26 of 42
    Thanks Eugene,



    I have DirecTV and there are HD channels, but in many cases only 60% of the material is in HD.



    DD5.1, heh HBO uses it, some PPV, Showcase and starz, but not that much, sometimes it's DD5.1, and sometimes DD2.1 or 2.0



    I'm ready to jump into HD, the only problem for me is the price of satellite receiver ($600).

    another small problem is that on my projector 720p is using different input than 1080i. How 'bad' does 1080i looks when converted to 720p ?





    Discovery HD must be sweet....
  • Reply 27 of 42
    sunreinsunrein Posts: 138member
    Let's get back on topic. Of course coming technologies will have better specs and improved quality over what's currently available. That's not the question of this thread.



    Will DVDs go the way of LaserDiscs?



    I have a funny measuring stick that I like to use in order to measure the pervasiveness of a consumer technology. If I can go into a Goodwill store (or any other of its kind) and find the technology for sale, that seems a good indicator that its become a fairly ubiquitous technology. I noticed it several years ago with CDs and computers. I have yet to see LaserDiscs and don't expect to other than the odd disc. I fully expect to see DVDs there within the next few years.



    For those that say "DVDs suck", give the technology the credit it's due. Current DVD technology introduced us to a fully digital presentation of video and audio. I've seen all the coming HD formats on nearly every monitor and projection technology available. No doubt, they rock. Now imagine trying to convince the average, budget-minded, middle-class customer who has a burgeoning DVD collection, that they need to buy a different player and eventually new media. The average consumer is stupid. I've talked to people that actually don't understand why their CD player won't play DVDs. That's what the new HD standard is up against.



    Its been a decade since the development of DVD began. I was an early adopter that bought a DVD player in 1997. At the start of 2004, I don't think anyone would say that the current DVD standard is losing momentum. All the reading I've done leads me to believe that we won't even see content for HD-DVD until 2005-06. HD also has the problem of slow adoption with broadcast and cable media.



    Will HD cause DVDs to go the way of LaserDiscs? No time soon.
  • Reply 28 of 42
    guestguest Posts: 112member
    The DVD form factor will be with us for several years. However, the quality of the movies available will increase, usually after you have bought 100 movies at the current high end standard. HDVD looks crude compared to the truly high-end formats that have been proposed. Remember that HDVD is only 1000 lines, while most movies in the theaters are around 2000.



    So, for those of you worried about DVD being replaced with HDVD, you can worry about these proposed formats also: VHDVD at 2000 lines, and UHDVD at 4000 lines. (Ultra) UHDVD will probably be the last format, as it is approaching the visual limit of the human eye. Of course by then they will be working on releasing holographic DVD or some other new improved format to get our money again. Save your pennies.
  • Reply 29 of 42
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by guest

    The DVD form factor will be with us for several years. However, the quality of the movies available will increase, usually after you have bought 100 movies at the current high end standard. HDVD looks crude compared to the truly high-end formats that have been proposed. Remember that HDVD is only 1000 lines, while most movies in the theaters are around 2000.



    So, for those of you worried about DVD being replaced with HDVD, you can worry about these proposed formats also: VHDVD at 2000 lines, and UHDVD at 4000 lines. (Ultra) UHDVD will probably be the last format, as it is approaching the visual limit of the human eye. Of course by then they will be working on releasing holographic DVD or some other new improved format to get our money again. Save your pennies.




    I've recently done some HDTV shopping, and I'd been disappointed that nearly all consumer-grade fixed-pixel displays (that is LCD, DLP, Plasma, LCoS... non-CRT) max out at either 1280x720 or 1366x768 resolution. 1366x768 is the most common resolution, which also bothered me because in terms of avoiding scaling artifacts, 1280x720, although fewer pixels than 1366x768, is a better match for the 720p and 1080i formats, as well as 480i and 480p.



    But then I did a some calculations. For the TV I'm getting, a 70" (178cm) Sony XBR, which uses three 1366x768 LCD panels, each pixel will just barely be over one arc minute of visual angle when I view the TV from 12' (3.7m) away -- just slightly larger than the typically-stated one arc minute detail resolution of the human eye. I decided that holding out for true 1920x1080 (full high-def resolution in the current standard) wasn't worth it, especially considering how great the TV looked when I saw it in person.



    (There's a higher contrast LCD-based technology in that Sony says they're working on which is 1920x1080, which might make me regret buying now, but that regret will be more for the improved contrast, deeper blacks, and likely-to-be-improved lifespan of these imaging elements over current LCD technology.)



    I can't see much consumer demand for a video format with higher resolution than 1080p, simply because at typical viewing distances even very large displays won't benefit much from added resolution. You don't need 4000 lines of resolution unless you intend to project pictures on the side of barn that look good at 12' away, or that still look super-sharp on a 70" at 3' away.
  • Reply 30 of 42
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    Just curious, but what was being shown on the HDTV's when you went to go see them? Was it some sort of HD satellite broadcast? Weren't you concerned by the pixelation breakup during fades and high motion scenes? I won't say that I know where this whole HDTV thing is heading, but any demo I've ever happened across always fills me with scepticism over its future. Oh, I know it will soon take over, but will we really end up with a truly, high-performance format is what I wonder.
  • Reply 31 of 42
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Randycat99

    Just curious, but what was being shown on the HDTV's when you went to go see them? Was it some sort of HD satellite broadcast? Weren't you concerned by the pixelation breakup during fades and high motion scenes? I won't say that I know where this whole HDTV thing is heading, but any demo I've ever happened across always fills me with scepticism over its future. Oh, I know it will soon take over, but will we really end up with a truly, high-performance format is what I wonder.



    I've seen good HDTV broadcasts and bad ones. The satellite HD signal looked pretty good at the time I was checking out the TV, and besides, whatever compression artifacts I saw (more so on some of the SD channels), I can tell those apart from the quality of the TV itself.



    It's all a question of bandwidth. Available bandwidth changes moment-to-moment on satellite TV, being dynamically allocated among multiple channels, so what looks bad now might look great the next time you see the same program. Hopefully as time goes on, satellite broadcasters will be able to devote more overall bandwidth to HDTV... but there is, unfortunately, the ever-present pressure to turn extra bandwidth into more channels rather than more quality.



    I don't watch too much terrestrial-broadcast HDTV because I'm spoiled by TiVo and can hardly ever remember (or just can't be bothered) to watch a show when it's actually on. What I have seen of OTA HDTV is of better quality than satellite most of the time.



    HD-DVD will be stunning I think. I don't think we'll even see the product introduced until a technology with a comfortably large data capacity comes along. I expect HD-DVD to have even fewer artifacts than current DVD, along with much higher resolution.
  • Reply 32 of 42
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    By the way... I found out last night that my new 70" Sony XBR HDTV will be delivered on Tuesday. Yay!
  • Reply 33 of 42
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    I too have upgrade-itous. Gotta go 7.1 (from 5.1) prior to the superbowl...



    Must

    resist

    8.1 urge
  • Reply 34 of 42
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by shetline

    It's all a question of bandwidth. Available bandwidth changes moment-to-moment on satellite TV, being dynamically allocated among multiple channels, so what looks bad now might look great the next time you see the same program. Hopefully as time goes on, satellite broadcasters will be able to devote more overall bandwidth to HDTV... but there is, unfortunately, the ever-present pressure to turn extra bandwidth into more channels rather than more quality.



    That's the biggest source of scepticism for me, right now. If current DTV implementations are any indication, you can be sure that more channels and mediocre quality will be a higher priority over high-performance quality. They are already strapped for bandwidth dealing with standard DTV broadcasts (they've been carefully riding the line of mediocre quality since the early 90's, since their inception). HDTV will place even higher demands per channel, so swapping in one in place of the other over time does not suggest a positive forecast to me (unless they miraculously catch up and manage to throw a crapload more satellites up into the sky).



    That's why a major HDTV purchase just doesn't seem justifiable for my needs at this time (on the account of the available source material). When HD-DVD comes out, then there would seem to be a compelling use for HDTV, IMO. Personally, I think the whole MPEG thing needs a major revamp to really achieve the potential that HDTV has. I don't mean just a simple "number change" and some refinements between MPEG2 to MPEG4. There needs to be a major re-evaluation of bit-depths, resolution in low lit scenes, and pixelation artifacts during scene transitions. As it stands now, these are legacy issues of MPEG2 that will only be inherited to MPEG4 unless they are met head on as real issues for a next generation digital format, and not just something that can hopefully get masked by some pre/postprocessing tricks.
  • Reply 35 of 42
    Back to the original question, IMO the DVD format will be around for the foreseeable future, probably much longer than equipment manufacturers and movie companies would prefer. The format has reached what I call the ?good enough? plateau when it comes to price, convenience, and audio and video quality. It?s been so widely accepted by consumers, it seems that everyone has built up some kind of purchased library collection, that it will take a technology exponentially better and just as cheap to get consumers to abandon DVDs.



    In their day laserdiscs were awesome and the only way to watch a movie in letterbox format. Even now, the audio and video quality of LDs compare favorably with DVDs, in fact some people claim that the uncompressed video of an LD is closer to the original movie than the compressed video of a DVD. These are probably the same people who claim vinyl LPs have a more natural sound than CDs. There are some films that aren?t yet out on DVD, most notably the original Star Wars trilogy, so LD or, shudder, VHS is the only way to watch them; and one movie, Song of the South, will probably never appear in DVD because of its late 1940s take on southern life. The last time I looked, Japanese imports of SotS (English language, Japanese subtitles, the only version available) were selling in the $200 range when you could find them.
  • Reply 36 of 42
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by shetline

    What I have seen of OTA HDTV is of better quality than satellite most of the time.



    Yup, OTA is probably the purest way to get HD, while DSS is probably the worst way when it comes to macro-blocking/pixelization. They just can't pump enough bandwidth through them...that's one reason why they don't provide local channels.



    On the other hand, that little copper conductor cable connection that should be available to most houses is certainly capable of handling that bandwidth for years to come. Each 6 MHz wide channel should be able to receive at 40+ Mbps with the new 256QAM transmission format. (DOCSIS 2.0 uses this too)
  • Reply 37 of 42
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    That's the irony, though. I hear that digital cable is even worse than digital satellite. It just never ends. No one is interested in pushing the limit of performance, but instead they are all keen on pushing the limit of mediocrity for maximum advertisement revenue. There is no check and balance in the new digital media age other than the customer who needs to be saavy enough to realize, "This quality really sucks, and I'm not going to pay for it!"
  • Reply 38 of 42
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by OldCodger73

    In their day laserdiscs were awesome and the only way to watch a movie in letterbox format. Even now, the audio and video quality of LDs compare favorably with DVDs, in fact some people claim that the uncompressed video of an LD is closer to the original movie than the compressed video of a DVD. These are probably the same people who claim vinyl LPs have a more natural sound than CDs.



    This analogy doesn't quite translate between CD and DVD. The thing with CD is that the resolution and distortion limits are pushed so far down below audible levels, there is very little question that CD's are technically superior to LP's. Additionally, CD's are a full data medium (no compression), hence no room for compromise when it comes to trading off data rate for quality.



    LD's, OTOH, do not have an accurate counterpart as LP's have CD's. There is no consumer video format based around a lossless data format. DVD's are a compressed, lossy format, hence it is quite easy to trade off between quality and data rate. Arguably, the color resolution and S/N ratio of MPEG's in general are just barely capable of servicing human perceptual limits at its best. Under typical conditions (which are less than ideal), the "digital-ness" is quite discernable (unlike as in the CD analogy). How close they want to tread the line of questionable quality is entirely up to those who are making the DVD. If there was an applicable counterpart for DVD's in the audio world, it would have to be mp3's. We all know that you can get good ones and bad ones. When they're bad, it's horrendous, and no one in their right mind would imagine it would be fitting for a next generation audio format.
  • Reply 39 of 42
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Randycat99

    That's the irony, though. I hear that digital cable is even worse than digital satellite. It just never ends. No one is interested in pushing the limit of performance, but instead they are all keen on pushing the limit of mediocrity for maximum advertisement revenue. There is no check and balance in the new digital media age other than the customer who needs to be saavy enough to realize, "This quality really sucks, and I'm not going to pay for it!"



    Digital Cable *is* worse than DSS, but not because of the medium and the transport technology. In fact, on my HDTV digital cable looks much worse than even analog cable. There are a lot of jaggies and color bleeds.



    Digital cable and DSS just take the same ho-hum content designed for analog transmission and convert it into a data stream.



    Still, we're talking about 43 mbps per channel. Given that 1080i is 20 mbps maximum, 43 mbps easily allows for 1080p with an equal encoder.



    And when you see a lot of macro-blocking on an HD broadcast, it's usually because they aren't using the full allowable bandwidth anyway.
  • Reply 40 of 42
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    I believe the problem with digital cable and DSS is real time encoding.
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