DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum but have been visiting for 5 years. I have 1200 DVDs in my collection and i gotta tell ya, after more than a decade of collecting movies i feel the same way about it as i did back in 1997. I started buying movies even before i had a player. I have no real interest in blu-ray for one main reason: i do not believe older films will look that much better on the format than they look on regular DVD unless the studios physically restore every film they release and thats not gonna happen. "Digitally Remastered" isnt good enough. As for extras, nobody needs 3 commentaries, 2 discs and a 2 hour making-of on every movie, especially newer stuff. All in all, i'm perfectly content with my library as it is and, yes, original artwork on the package is very important too. Long live standard DVD!

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

I was worried this would be a downer thread. Some super early-adaptor moaning that we're not yet watching digital films downloaded directly to our brains while zipping about in our jetpacks.

While I myself am sort of pissed about the jetpack thing, I otherwise totally agree with you.

I never bought into VHS (no OAR, etc). I bought into DVD early-ish, happy about the availability of great films in their OAR. Now I have a small collection of films on standard DVD. I own pretty much everything I'd want to own and I rent the rest (like new stuff). I just built the be-all home theater that will last me... until the electric grid goes down, I guess; a simple 5.1 setup with my ten-year-old receiver-amp. And when the lights go down in my theater... I'm happier than a pig in slop.

No plans to rebuy much of the re-re-releases they keep doing, and no plans to move to BR at all. I'm standard and loving it.

Viva standard definition!

MC

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Go ahead and keep believing that; it won't make it true.

Anyway, it's a silly question. Why would someone be "tired" of a format? It's still as good (or a bit better) at presenting movies as it was when it started; there's nothing inherent in the format that has really worn on me like rewinding and flipping discs. There's a better option out there, sure, but I probably won't be tired of DVD until I'm tired of movies (which isn't likely ever happening).

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

High Def should have come out 11 years ago (it was supposed to) so now that we all have large collections of DVDs we're going to have to replace them with Blu-Ray. Just Hollywood's way of milking home video

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

I don't know about that, at least for now and perhaps as long as BD exists, if it gets replaced by something better soon enough.

A lot of the stuff on BD now is not very impressive IMO. New movies tend to have MUCH better transfers than pre-Blu transfers...totally unsurprising. After you've bought a few cat titles, I can almost guarantee you'll be very much more particular about which DVD titles you replace with BD. Screen size, viewing distance, how much you like the title etc. etc. coming into play too of course.

OTOH, if buying an old title now, for the first time, might as well get the Blu... On the other other hand, it's not like DVD players will disappear anytime soon. If a movie looked good to you before, it should still look good to you now. Maybe not as good as it could be, but still good enough to be pleasing entertainment.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

You have your wording wrong. You are not going to HAVE to replace them. You may CHOOSE to, but you will never HAVE to.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

When you have a high Def Digital set and a Blu ray player you won't want to return to the old formats (I don't think I've played a laser disc in years and you can't play them on a a High Def set)

After 2/09 things will start to go HDef and just like the old VCR standard DVD players will find there way to the basement. In a number of years you won't be able to by a standard dvd player

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Need, no. Want, YES!

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Can't play a laserdisc on a high-def set? Nobody told me cause I play mine from time to time.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

You can play anything with RCA or S-Video plugs on an HDTV (or hook them into a receiver that goes to one). They don't look all that great, but they work.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Tired of a format that has allowed me to enjoy films in OAR (with very few exceptions) with far better PQ than any previous format (again, with very few exceptions)? Of course not. Just this afternoon, I enjoyed a classic Bergman film on SD DVD (Winter Light) and it looked fine.

However, as my collection of over 120 HD DVDs (and about a dozen BDs)--with "old" (pre-1990) films accounting for about 40% of them--can attest, "old films" can certainly look better in hi-def. Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Searchers and How The West Was Won have certainly never looked as good as they do now in hi-def (some of these looked great in SD, but the improvement is notable). Alas, it will take years for many catalogue titles to come to hi-def media, so I'm not going to stop watching (and buying) SD titles anytime soon (unlike some, I do NOT consider SD "unwatchable"). But enjoying what SD DVD has to offer does not mean I cannot (or should not) also enjoy what hi-def media have to offer. It doesn't have to be an "either/or" situation (just as I have not stopped listening to my redbook CDs despite my collection of SACDs and DVD-As). It's about the movies and music, not the format.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

To darn many of my sci-fi and horror are "ONLY" on DVD and will never see the light of day in HD.

Most of them are beautiful prints, not HD of course, but great just the same.

I only double dip to BD if it's one of my favorites!

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

I'm not sure why anyone insists that anything older than the 1990s wouldn't benefit from HD. After seeing caps of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I was surprised to see how it looked like film. SD doesn't allow for that range of detail for grainy 16mm. Sometimes it can with extremely careful mastering (like Fantoma's excellent Kenneth Anger collections), but grain generally isn't friends with SD MPEG 2 compression.

Besides grain, you'd be surprised how older films look pretty much like new ones. I've seen a dye-transfer print of The Wizard of Oz and it looked like a new film. The softer focus and lighting did give it a different look, but it was quite a revelation. Even one silent I saw in 35mm looked great.

However, I do think this mental block is going to keep most pre-1960s films off BluRay. There's the the following issues: black and white, film grain, color, mono sound... and just the age. I do think studios are going to step up, though. WB has Being There on the slate, which is not a film I expected to come out so "early" in the format. It was released on DVD in 2001.

While the films are especially well loved and still-popular, I like how WB is bringing out The Wizard of Oz, Ben-Hur, and Gone with the Wind next year. Fox, even if it's to cash in on their remake, has The Day the Earth Stood Still coming.

I'd love to replace all my DVDs with BluRay editions, even if only marginally "better" but I'd expect proper jobs to look great. With Kino putting Metropolis on the slate for 2009 (making it the first silent feature in BluRay*) and Criterion being a bit interesting with releases (like The Third Man, despite being very popular), too.

(*Paramount included The Story of Petroleum on There Will Be Blood in full 1080p)

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Now now Patrick, nobody said that. I regularly buy catalog titles on BD, but I am very particular which ones (thanks to this forum, I can make IMO wise choices). If anything, it's many of the quickie BD releases from the 80s/90s/newer that are relatively sucking. Some of the classics (I mean by age too) obviously got state-of-the-art transfers that surpassed SD capability so they still stand up well in hi-def. Many of the "less classic" more modern films were not so well-treated. That's all.

If anything, it's the very wide-scope and/or epics of the past that are easiest of all for me to duplicate in BD. I still buy SD too, especially for mainly dialogue-driven stuff, like comedies, when it's cheap enough (i.e. Superbad SD for $10 vs the BD for $30-something, locally). Sometimes, I just don't need hi-def badly enough, but naturally I'd choose it if we're talking a few bucks. So yes, sometimes price matters for the BD upgrade, but eventually I usually cave if I really like a title.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Sorry wrong thread.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

I personally don't see BD as a replacement for DVD. When I made the switch from Laserdisc to DVD, I rebought everything. But, now that I have a Blu-ray player, I don't feel that need. A few choice titles that I dearly love get upgraded (like "The Thing" for instance), but for the most part I don't feel that itch. To me, Blu-ray compliments my DVD collection. Newer titles I want will definitely be in High Def, but I'm really not converting most of my older collection. I can still enjoy most of my DVDs right alongside the Blu-rays.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

And that is the proper attitude to take.

I was an early HD-DVD adopter and can certainly attest to the fact that older films look magnificent in HD. (Forbidden Planet and Blazing Saddles on HD-DVD were incredible to behold.)

When HD-DVD folded I got a little jaded regarding home HD formats. I dumped HD-DVD altogether and am currently enjoying my DVD collection via one of those new Tosh XDE DVD players. (It helps that my main display is a native 720p device.) But as soon as I can get a profile 2.0 Blu-ray player for around $200, I'll be upgrading to HD again ... and I'll *still* be enjoying my DVDs. After all, all Blu-ray players will always be able to play DVDs.

Five years ago I read an article in EW that stated that DVD may have been the best "bang-for-the-buck" entertainment value in history. IMO, nothing has changed to alter that statement.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Especially these days. I have been blown away by some of the SD DVD releases of late. But have yet to be astonished by any BDs, except for the audio in some cases. (I guess I was impressed by the Smilebox video of How the West Was Won though.) Maybe my expectations for BD are too high? And my expectations of SD (over the decade) not quite so high.

What is not covered in the BD reviews here, mainly because it can't realistically be, is how good the SDs are in comparison to the BDs that get raved about. There's a place and circumstance for both formats. I never like it when people make a "religious" choice, saying there is only one way, and everything else is crap. To many, the fact that DVDs continue to exist is a constant thorn in their side.

I have noticed, at the local Wal-Marts, that very recently they decreased the DVD shelf space and hugely increased BD shelf space. That is a definite sign of how things are going, or more likely how they'd like them to go (since I think the manufacturers also pay, one way or the other, for shelf space at WM)...

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Just to clarify Im not tired of DVD, not by a long shot. Iam first and foremost a film buff. To me, the most important feature of any DVD is the film itself and I want absolutely the longest version possible of ANY release. Im glad Universal decided to release Waterworld in an extended cut. If ever there was an example of how a film can be butchered editorially, this is it. Picture quality is a close second. This depends entirely on the studios' desire to properly present a director's work onto the format and this simply isnt a priority for most studios. How can Anchor Bay release Halloween every year in "better" versions but neglect gems like The Philadelphia Experiment and Alice Sweet Alice? Blu-ray is undoubtedly the next hot thing but when it gets past the gimmick stage and prices come down i may reconsider buying into it. Meantime, Im gonna keep buying regular DVDs until they stop making them.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Once and a while I'm a early adapter, years ago I got a 1080i CRT 36" (no HDMI), works out to about a 33" wide screen +/-. The DVD's look just fine and the HD-DVD's were wonderful (via XBOX), but I know when I go to Blu-ray in a year or so, I will really need a 50" to 60" to really enjoy the difference. Anyway, I think within 5 years memory sticks will be large enough for HD and already have something like 6X the bandwith of Blu-ray via USB (who knows with USB 3.0). Plug them into the computer over night or into a Kiosk at the grocery store for 5 minutes with your choice of any movie ever transferred to HD. Then just plug them into your receiver or the side of your TV. I love buying movies and having them in my hand, but a mechanical optical disk drive is...just old tech.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

I'm not tired of it at all. Then again, I'm not tired of VHS (or for music and spoken recorded material, CDs or LPs). I won't be making the transition to Blu ray unless forced to do so one day. And should that happen, older formats will still be used by me for many years for a variety of reasons.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Its been said before, and i will say it again. That sounds fine for a rental system. But i want to OWN the disc. I dont want someone turning it off if they go out of business, or if i buy a new machine that wont play my "chip". Give me a format that is mine to keep, as long as a player exists that i can use it on!

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

I don't know if I'd call it "tired of it", but I certainly have just about dropped it in favor of BD. BD and HD source material is so much better picture quality and audio. On old and new films.

There is no since in throwing out my SD discs, but I'm enjoying classics again in BD with my jaw on the ground. Dirty Harry, Speed, and Blazing Saddles just this past week.

The only SD titles I'll buy going forward are the Three Stooges Collection. I'm sure other BD fans are picking up some of their favs on SD, just to make sure they get a physical copy. Could be a while before many of those old 4x3 tv series make it to BD (if ever).

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

A few observations...

I bought my first 46" HDTV only this past May. I thought the regular DVDs would look lousy, but was surprised to see that just about all of my regular DVDs look great on it. I've been toying with the idea of going BD somewhere down the line, but in honesty there really doesn't seem to be any pressing reason to do so.

You'd better be willing to return to "old standard DVD" a lot of the time, as many of the movies on DVD will not make it to BD, especially older movies and "offbeat" films. So if it's true that "once you go BD you can never go back", you're going to have a very rough time trying to enjoy what you perceive to be "inferior-looking SDs" along with your BDs.

My VCR is not in the basement, the garage, the attic, nor the trash. It's hooked up along with my DVD player, because there are still movies on VHS which haven't even been released to SD yet. May never be.

That 2/09 threat of TV "changing everything" because it'll be "all digital" won't amount to a hill of beans for most average Joe Six Pack Consumers - and they're the ones who'll drive BD to wide acceptance, or not. The average viewer will still be content watching their broadcast TV shows in HD and playing their SDs on the set,which will still look great to them.

There'll always be a way to play SD. For starters, the Blu-ray players play SD, so in theory you could buy a BD player if you had to, and could still play all your old SD movies.. they'd even be upconverted. You can still find turntables and projectors, and play vinyl records, 16mm films, etc...

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

The bigger your HD display's screen size and the closer you sit factor into how much difference you'll see between upconverted DVD and Blu-ray. HD Resolution is another major factor as there's a pretty good leap from 720P to full 1080P. Proper calibration is another factor.

Also the DVD quality itself varies from title to title. Some look pretty good upconverted while others with heavy EE, digital manipulation and or crappy encodes look like ass in 1080P resolution.

Even on my 37" display in my bedroom there's a significant difference between the best upconverted DVD and the average Blu-ray. On my 70" well.... forget about it.

As for the original question why should I be tired of DVD? I don't buy many anymore and when given the choice I'll always pick the BD version but there's no reason I can't enjoy my standard DVD collection.

Maybe if people thought of Blu-ray as a much higher quality version of DVD and just an extention of their movie library they wouldn't be as threatened by it. Be a movie buff rather than a DVD buff.

BTW - Long live disc based physical media!

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

I think that is where many on this forum are at too Jim.

This isn't scientific by any means, but I decided to look at the "replies" and "views" for 3 new popular releases in both the "SD Film and Documentary" and the "HT Software - High Definition" sections here at HTF.

I picked these 3 because both versions (BD & SD) are released on the same day. (unlike a BD version of Beetlejuice for example, that has been on SD for years). As of 9pm 10-6-08. The "reply" count is listed first, followed by the "view count".

Speed Racer SD Thread 23 / 1,319
Speed Racer BD Thread 89 / 2,457

Iron Man SD Thread 8 / 1,463
Iron Man BD Thread 48 / 2,348

Indiana Jones Crystal Skull SD Thread 11 / 1,370
Indiana Jones Crystal Skull BD Thread 36 / 1,854

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Meh - From the demos I've seen, Blue Ray doesnt look all that much better to me, and the films I'm interested in will never ever EVER come out on Blue. Oh, sure it might be fine for your multi-billion dollar Iron Mans and Batmans, but are we really going to see Women in prison flicks, Mondo films, Chambara and Blaxploitation on Blue? Is Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Living Dead really going to be that much of an improvment with another 400 lines of resoultion?

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Screen size, as stated above, makes a difference in how one perceives the improved PQ of BD/HD DVD vs SD DVD. In my "HT room" (functionally so, not decoratively so), I have a front projector with a 64 inch 16x9 screen (not large for a projector, but quite large enough for the room dimension and seating position) and a 22 inch 16x10--with a 16x9 setting, though, so no distortion--HD LCD computer monitor (that I use as an alternate display for watching anything under 90mins--no need to fire up the pj--and as a display for some of the material on my DVD-A). When I watch BDs/HD DVDs on the "big screen" and alternate them with SD DVDs, the image quality improvement is ALWAYS evident, if not always dramatic (it is always at least a moderate improvement, usually significant and sometimes dramatic--all terms subjective, of course). However, on my LCD monitor, while the difference between SD cable and HD cable is ALWAYS dramatic, the difference between SD DVD and BD/HD DVD, while maintaining the same relative differences as on the "big screen", overall is (except in rare cases with truly bad SD transfers) far less notable. So, if I ONLY had the small monitor, my desire to get BD/HD DVD would have been less pronounced. With the projector, however, the difference is noticeable enough that I had no qualms about getting each format. That said, I still enjoy my SD DVDs on the "big screen" routinely--I'm not going to wait an unknown number of years for my SD DVDs to be re-released in BD (even if I were so inclined as to automatically replace each title as that happened--which I'm not). Moreover, I selected my projector, in large part, for its well-rated (at the time) video processing and have been quite happy with the results with SD releases.

In the end, despite what some have argued elsewhere, I do not think an upgrade to HDM is essential unless one has a display large enough for the upgrade to be noticeable. How big that is should be an individual decision but at average viewing distances I suspect 50 inches becomes the tipping point for most people. One thing that is noticeable, even on my small monitor, is an improved colour balance. I've directly compared HDM with recent SD releases and while the difference in perceived resolution is fairly minor at that size, the differences in colour balance are less so. But that may not be a major factor for everyone.

FWIW--I sit 7.5 ft from the "big screen" and 3.5 ft from the monitor.

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

It's been a while since I saw any of Night of the Living Dead, but doesn't it have fairly nice B&W photography? The way I look at it is that if something looks noticeably better on film, it will look noticeably better in HD (depending, of course, on your equipment).

Re: DVD: 11 Years Later. Anyone tired of this format yet?

Yes, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has some stunning black and white photography, and the new HD transfer of it does do it justice.

For years I was a proponent of disc-based digital media, even before it was a reality. I saw in the '80s what CDs could do for the convenience factor of audio (not necessarily the quality) and always wondered, "why can't they put a video on a CD?" Laser Discs seemed to be the way for a while, but I didn't want to invest in something that was, for one thing, that expensive, as well as bulky. In 1997, when the DVD format started selling in retail outlets regularly, I went out and snatched one of the players up-- and I still have it, too!