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Anyone else just a little bit scared about HD-DVD? (1 Viewer)

Aaron Cohen

Second Unit
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Jul 25, 2002
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468
I know this may sound silly, as I have an HDTV and can't wait for better quality video by the way of HD-DVD but I'm just not prepared to see all my dvd's go obsolete! I've been collecting for years now and have a little over 300 dvd's. I was not aware that HD-DVD would be started so unbelievably soon, I was thinking that it wouldn't even have begun till around 2006 but alas there is much talk right now about a possibly 2003 release (AND HOPEFULLY ONE ONE FORMAT ONLY!!!!). Should I expect to immediately see studios such as Warner releasing all their catalog titles quickly on the HD-DVD format? Should I expect these 2-disc special editions they put out that I am picking up today (Amadeus, Unforgiven, etc.) to be immediately re-released in much better looking editions the moment the HD-DVD format begins?

I definitely want HD-DVD but I'm just a bit scared about what will happen to all of my current dvd's.... And one other thing, you will need an HDTV to properly view HD-DVD correct? I suppose in that case it might be get to hang on to all of my old dvd when HD-DVD starts. Then friends and neighbors that borrow my movies would still be able to watch them as I know noone with an HDTV (besides myself of course). Give me your thoughts on this, thanks!
 

Chad A Wright

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jul 22, 2002
Messages
740
I don't fear HD-DVD at all. First of all, I think that no matter when it launches, like DVD it will take quite a while to catch on. In my opinion, it will probably take even longer than DVD did. I plan on keeping every DVD I own as long as they will last. Most of them have beautiful pictures, and I don't see HD DVD inproving it enough to warrant repurchasing them. I just want a good clean copy of my movies in anamorphic widescreen. I plan to adopt HD when it comes about so long as it is compatible with my older DVDs, and there is one format only.
 

MikeEckman

Screenwriter
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Jan 11, 2001
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I personally believe HD-DVD will take alot longer than DVD did to catch on. The biggest reason is that, even after 2006, I will guess that more than half of the population in the US will still not have HD capability. I realize 2006 is the year that people are supposed to switch, but I just have a hard time beleiving that in the next 3.5 years EVERY single TV in the US is going to be replaced.

So, considering there will still be a very large percentage of people with 480i sets out there, the need for the average customer to convert will be alot less than the jump was from VHS to DVD.

Secondly, the average person who owns a DVD player cant utilize anamorphic enhancement, dts, or even a proper 5.1 surround sound. More than likely, they do not understand the technological improvements that DVD offers over VHS. So if they don't 100% understand or utilize it now, what makes anything think they will want to see a revolutionary leap forward to HD-DVD? Not only that, the biggest selling point of regular DVD are the supplements. HD-DVD won't have any better supplements than regular DVD does, so the need to jump from DVD to HD-DVD for the average consumer is alot less than it was from VHS to DVD.

I realize that 98% of the people on this board do not fall into the category of people I am stereotyping as "average customers". We are all enthusiasts, and alot of us are on the cutting edge of technology. So it might seem like from reading this board and all the other DVD boards out there that "everyone" is excited about HD-DVD, when in fact, we probably make up less than 2% of all the people out there who own a DVD player.

I'm not trying to say HD-DVD is doomed, or that I'm not excited about it. All I'm saying is that I feel that HD-DVD and regular DVD will coexist for a long time. I honestly feel that most studios will not want to take the time to master a 1080i HD transfer on all their catalog titles. So once HD-DVD hits, we will see alot of modern, A-titles on HD-DVD, but the vast majority of catalog titles will still be on standard definition DVD.
 

Aaron Cohen

Second Unit
Joined
Jul 25, 2002
Messages
468
Thanks for the responses. I agree with all that's been said. I think we need to get the word out to people about HD-DVD and even DVD! I can't count the number of times I've been in my local Best Buy store and the salesperson has been dumbfounded and cannot explain to the customer why anyone would want to watch a movie with "those evil black bars" as many I know like to call them. However, once I show them the difference between full-frame and widescreen and just how much damned picture they are missing they are hooked for life!

I was told by my best friend's mother when she saw my dvd collection that they were all worthless because "they all have those damn black bars covering up a lot of the picture right?" I felt like punching her but I stayed calm and after about an hour of explaining widescreen and showing her many examples she agreed that she was wrong. There's got to be some easy way to do this.

I would like there to be some sort of stand-up or sign that could sit right in the front of every Circuit City, Best Buy, and video store in the nation. This stand-up would have a picture of a 2:35:1 widescreen picture on the left. On the right would be the full-frame version of the same picture. I think that many people would gasp out loud at all that they are missing and I'm sure it would help people ease into dvd that are still valiantly clinging on to their VHS tape collection because "at least they're all in full-frame meaning I get to see the whole picture!!!!"

Agh, educate these people!
 

Chris Bardon

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Jul 4, 2000
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I'm actually worried about this for a few reasons. First, I'm not liking what I'm hearing about competing formats, and hope that everyone can agree on a quality format before rushing something to market. Second, I'm worried about studios dropping support for super-quality DVD releases for the new format. The rationale could be that they could get away with an inferior full-frame dvd release because those that care will just buy the HD version anyway. Finally, I'm worried about the many thousands of dollars I'll have to invest in hardware, not even thinking about software at this point.

But really, how many of your dvds do you really forsee yourself replacing with HD versions? I own about 160 DVDs at this point, and I can see replacing maybe 15 or 20 with HD versions (and they'd have to look MUCH better to justify the re-invest) when the time comes.
 

Mark-W

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Mark
I am not worried, because I will be MUCH slower to replace
my DVDs with HD-DVD, as DVD was my first opportunity to
get most films OAR without shelling out piles of money for
and LD player and LDs.

Actually, I am perfectly happy with the image/sound quality
on DVDs, and won't "rush out" to buy currently owned titles
on HD-DVD.

Mark
 

Keith Helms

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Sep 14, 2000
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55
I'm more worried they'll muck up the HD standard than that it will immediately obsolete all my DVDs. As long as they stick with the same size disc, there will be players backwardly compatible with DVDs and CDs. I'm more concerned that they'll either chose a watered down, red laser standard using MPEG4, or that we'll end up with two or more competing formats, like DVD-audio vs. SACD.
 

DaViD Boulet

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Not to mention it may take a long while before all your titles are *offered* in an HD version at all. (heck, we STILL can't buy many high-demand titles on SD-DVD!!!)
Even if an optical-disc HD format launched a year from now...it doesn't mean that you could walk down to best buy and buy a copy of Toy Story on HD-DVD.
16x9 SD-DVDs will be nice to have in the meantime as we wait for our reference titles to slowly emerge in HD over many years.
-dave
p.s. it's worth mentioning that your future HD-DVD player will probably do a great job upconverting your SD-DVD collection to 720P, 1080I, or 1080P for your HD display. That should help make it a little less painful ;)
 

Rob W

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May 23, 1999
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Robert
This sounds suspiciously like the arguments we laser guys made when DVD began appearing. I too, swore I would never need to replace some of my great-looking laserdiscs with DVD versions, and that my lasers were "good enough". It's unbelievable to look back at so-called reference quality transfers of years ago and compare them to what we are getting today.
Mark my words, my friends - we are all part of a sickness that will never be cured ! :laugh:
 

Patrick Sun

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I am confident that the industry will build into the new HD-DVD player (once a standard HD-DVD format comes to the forefront) backwards compatibility with current DVDs. It would be foolish to build a HD-DVD only players, especially at the start of the HD-DVD player roll-out (because making HD-DVD-only players is a total disincentive to purchase one for the DVD enthusiasts with a huge library of DVDs).

The current DVD player manufacturers built into their players the ability to also play CDs/VCDs/etc, and I see the trend to continue to make a one-player-fits-all to garner market share by the manufacturers.
 

Marc Colella

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I'm actually looking forward to HD-DVD, but I don't think it'll replace DVDs any time soon.

I wouldn't replace my whole collection either, just a few titles that I really love which contains beautiful cinematography (ie. The Thin Red Line).
 

Felix Martinez

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And, of course, as HD-DVD titles start to come out, they will probably movie-only, with the SEs to be relegated to the old standard definition dvds. Then 12 to 18 months later, we'll see Special Edition HD-DVDs, so in my opinion, by the time the HD-DVD has a killer catalog, it will be close to 2006 anyway.

We shall see...

Felix
 

Damin J Toell

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I definitely want HD-DVD but I'm just a bit scared about what will happen to all of my current dvd's
What will happen to them? Will they disappear in a puff of acrid smoke? Will they stop playing in your DVD player? Will they no longer contain your favorite films on them?

Your DVDs will be just as useful to you after HD-DVD is introduced as they are now.

DJ
 

Jason Harbaugh

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I will probably only buy new releases on HD-DVD and keep what I already have on DVD, with a few exceptions of course. I just hope that they create a PC HD-DVD player right off the bat. And I definately won't jump onboard if there is more than one HD-DVD format.
I'm definately not worried though, more excited. :D
 

Ken Bentley

Second Unit
Joined
Jun 22, 2002
Messages
290
i dont think hd-dvd will become really big and over take dvds for at least 10 years or so. most people are just starting to get dvd players etc. and finally leave vhs behind. i dotn think the avrage joe 6pack will wanna shell out thousands of dollars just for a new hd tv, just so they can watch hd dvds.. it was hard enough to get joe 6 pack to shell out money for dvd players and dvds. that dont really cost that much. i cna just see trying to explain hd dvds to joe 6pack. and tell them well a avrage hd tv cost at least 1,000 dollars. for a 26 inch tv etc.. so i not worried..

unless they drop prices down alot and i mean alot for hd tv and hdvd players etc.. then nothing to worrie bout.

but ya never know maybe dvds will ebcome a fade just like laser discs... the avrage joe 6 pack are funny thinking humans...
 

SteveA

Supporting Actor
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May 25, 2000
Messages
700
How is it that DVDs would ever be obsolete? Even if a new HD-DVD format is not backward-compatible, who cares? It's not like you have to throw your current DVD player away the day you get a new HD-DVD player. You can use both.
 

Chris Bardon

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How is it that DVDs would ever be obsolete? Even if a new HD-DVD format is not backward-compatible, who cares? It's not like you have to throw your current DVD player away the day you get a new HD-DVD player. You can use both.
Agreed-while back-compatability would be a nice feature, it's not essential for a technology to catch on. The nice feature however, would be some sort of upsampling technology that would improve standard DVDs played on a HD player (built in line doubling etc). I'm sure that this is all on the drawing board though-something like this could sell a lot of people on early adoption when there aren't many titles available.
 

Charlie Essmeier

Stunt Coordinator
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Mar 7, 1999
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My thoughts?

Your DVDs have been obsolete since high definition television made its debut in 1998.

It's time to move on.

Charlie
 

Ned

Supporting Actor
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Feb 20, 2000
Messages
838
I'll be glad to see ordinary DVD's become obselete. Now that I have a projector the low quality of most dvd's is disturbingly common. Even "big" titles like the Die Hard set have soft video totally devoid of fine detail. Old transfer you say? Nonsense. Just a poor transfer with not enough bitrate.
 

William Ward

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 1, 2000
Messages
701
Yeah...I'm not too concerned...

HD-DVD will look great, but there are only a few majors that I will rebuy on HD.

OF course, I'll get any new releases in HD, but won't be so fast to replace my current DVDs.

I will likely have the same TV for a while, and DVDs look pretty darned good provided they're mastered well.
 

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