***Official The Incredibles DVD Discussion (merged) Thread*** (1 Viewer)

[Miles]

Dave,

Just an FYI that I have the 563A and the audio seemed fine on the short to me. I'm using a digital connection.

 

[Steve K.H.]

This is an excellent point Ernest.

As HD-DVD slowly comes onto the horizon, I have seriously slowed in my film purchases. I suspect I purchase at a rate of 1/5th what I did before. The introduction of players and HD-DVD's should result in an accelerated adoptance in comparison to DVD over VHS.

DVD was slowly adopted. It has a number of stumbling blocks. 16 x 9 television was generally n/a or prohibitively expensive at the time DVD first came out. The DVD had to market consumer acceptance of "black bars".

HD-DVD should be adopted at a greater rate. There is only a selling point of a better picture. It is not coupled with having to teach the masses about the diffence between P&S vs OAR.

So yes, it's an excellent point. There are very few films in any "vault" that should cause any of us to soil ourselves in frenzied anticipation of release. We'll all be double (plus) dipping when these are HD-DVD released. The Incredibles, at a cost of $20 US. is one of those films that you may as well pick up now given all it offers, the price in comparison, the newness, and the incredible (sorry) picture that it already offers.

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

Regarding the non-R1 intro by Bird - I think this would have been a great place to push widescreen.

If you've checked out the extras on the Sleeping Beauty disc, they have a section where one of the restorers(?) talks about how the movie was originally made in a wider aspect ratio, and that that version had to be cut down to fit on normal TVs, showing how both versions look. The he introduces a short section of the movie to be shown in both OAR and p/s, and says "decide for yourself which version is best for you" or something like that. Watching that scene, with OAR on the top and p/s on the bottom, could change anyone's mind, assuming they love film. The p/s version cuts out seemingly half of the picture. Most of the beautiful scenery artwork is gone. I showed it to my wife, who loves our ws-tv anyway, but she was blown away by how much was missing from the p/s version, and said I should show that to my parents (who like p/s versions when possible on their 32" CRT).

It would have been great to see a similar intro or feature somewhere on the differences between the p/s and widescreen version - maybe to even get the people who bought the p/s version to double dip and get the ws version too after seeing what they're missing.

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

Right now, I would tend to disagree with this. I think it will take longer, and it may not even happen for a very long time. Most people are still on analog 4:3 crts, and that's not changing very fast. The actual display technology has to change in the mainstream before HD-DVDs will take off. At least with DVDs, you could watch them on the same TV and get a better picture.

You have to have an HDTV to even enjoy the difference. So only people with widescreen HDTVs (or ED plasma, etc., are going to be in the target for this. Aside from the sub-$1K widescreen HD CRTs, most sets are $1k-4K or so. So I think it will take a huge price drop in TVs (ED plasmas and smaller RP-LCD/DLPs into the $1K-2K range, etc) before people will recognize the perceived benefit. I think HD-capable CRTs will get a lot more popular, because they are cheap, small, and are the same technology as the public is used to.

Heck, most don't care about HD programming on TV either. So why should they care about HD DVDs? On a 20" or 32" CRT, analog cable and regular DVDs look great! I was sick for a week and watched a lot of TV in bed on my 20" CRT. I was surprised how good everything looked - HBO digital looked like a DVD on that set. It's just when you go big + digital that the previous technologies start to show their flaws. So most normal people don't see anything wrong with the current technology at all anyway. In fact, most seem to be upset that they have to get new TVs in 2006 to watch "digital" TV (can get an adapter).

And besides, there were and still are full screen DVDs, so I don't think having to "market consumer acceptance of "black bars"" was necessarily an issue.

 

[Steve K.H.]

Some recent info -

In 2003, 3.7 million digital sets were shipped in North America. That number will more than triple to 14.9 million units by 2005, according to research firm iSuppli.

In 2003 - 10% of sales were HDTV's. That figure is the number that puts us over the top from being early adopter technology. The increase in demand since 2003 will continue to create drastic pricing reduction = affordability.

9 months ago this statement was released by a retailer:

It is the new, new thing,” says Mark Richardson, the head of marketing at Tweeter Home Entertainment - an electronics retailer whose upscale customers tend to be slightly ahead of the curve. “Somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% or more of our TV sales are HD-ready TVs.”

People will look for ways to take advantage of HD technology.