Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD? - Page 4

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

LD supporters were doubtful of DVD before it came out and when some of the 1st releases had some compression issues that fueled them but after those issues were worked out and LD supporters saw the improved detail and color on the DVD picture most of them changed to their opinion that DVD was better than LD and this only took 4-5 months for many including myself. The sound on LD as I mentioned because it was not compressed was and still is believed to be superior by LD supporters. And that is one thing that I am happy HD-DVD/Blu-Ray has restored. When you hear an uncompressed track the difference is not subtle trust me.
Those LD supporters that still oppossed DVD I believe fall into the same group as many that are oppossing HD now in this thread. They were comfortable with LD, already had large collections of LD's and didn't want to change. The LD supporters that did not change willingly were eventually forced to when they stopped releasing LD titles in 2000.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

I can't speak for all LD owners, but I do distinctly remember being in Laserland where GOLDENEYE's pre-credits sequence was being shown on DVD back in 1997. Whenever LD shoppers came by to check out the monitor with that day's new LD purchases in a bag tucked under their arms, they'd smirk and point out all sorts of "problems" with the quality of the demonstration DVD. It was almost like they were trying to convince themselves it wasn't as good. Now, this wasn't everyone who said this, but I do recall thinking the GOLDENEYE display looked excellent and couldn't see what they found so objectionable.


Many didn't like the idea of having to replace their collections after they'd spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on LDs already. So I believe many were in denial as to DVD's superiority in the very beginning.

As for knowing that HD is better than STD-DVD, I (admittedly) still haven't seen a sampling for myself. I won't doubt that HD is better, but I have also heard reports that sometimes it shows too much that wasn't meant to be revealed, such as seeing makeup or wigs on actors, or invisible strings, and so forth. I've heard that THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD on HD will "make your jaw drop" ... but my jaw's already still lying down on the floor from seeing the breathtaking Technicolor STD-DVD. In this particular example, the STD looks so incredible already that I really don't want (or need) any other.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

Okay, Randy, let me make sure we're on the same page here. Are you talking about when I said I didn't get into LD personally because:

1) They were too expensive.
2) You had to flip them over.
3) They were too big and awkward.

If these are the three things you're talking about, how is this a misconception? These are personal opinions and observations I made for myself, not anything I "read" or was "misinformed" about. I believed and felt all 3 of the above... I priced LDs in the stores and thought they were way too expensive to collect. I had friends who were LD collectors, so I'd seen the discs and handled them. I also know that there were machines which automatically played the second side for you without having to get up and manually "flip" the thing over... but I still felt these were all things which could have been improved upon and it turned out that with DVD, they all were.


Oh, sure, I "understand" why. But they were also in denial, just like the LD consumers, and even the workers and owners of the Laserland store I went into. Nobody wanted to have to start all over again with their collections, and they knew that being such big fans and purists, they'd probably wind up doing precisely that (and they did!).

I admit that's part of the problem with me and HD. It is a better picture than STD DVD, but I'm older now than I was in 1997 and I've got more financial obligations now, so I don't want to re-re-buy everything (yes, the STD discs will be backwards compatible with HD players, but I may get accustomed to HD). That's only a part of it though; the rest is that unlike with VHS, I honestly feel that STD-DVD is great and convenient already, with only slight improvements made through HD, as others have said.


Thanks. You too!

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

What's wrong with watching a big screen from 7 ft away? A 32 inch 16:9 screen only occupies 19 degrees of arc, which is not sufficient to resolve 1080p. (The THX recommendation is 36 degrees which is, and is supposed to be, overwhelming.) A larger screen will demonstrate the benefits of HD-DVD/Bluray/HDTV.

(Granted, I have a 27 inch HDTV viewed from the same distance. In my experience, HD seems a bit more luminous than upscaled DVD. Skintones, for instance, have more of that "healthy glow.")

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

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Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

1) Regarding the LD to DVD switch

As I remember it, the major concern was that even though DVD might be technically better, how would the studios market it? Would they go for merely barebones releases to satisfy the VHS crowd, or would they include the extras that the LD owners had grown to know and like? Also, would they go for the best sound? Remember, DTS was not part of the specification. At the time DVD was introduced, nobody knew if there were ever going to be any DTS releases.

As it turned out, the fears were mostly unfounded, but hindsight is easy...

2) Regarding S-DVD to HD-DVD

For S-DVD to be phased out, the majority of the users must have gone over to HD-DVD. The enthusiasts (that's us, folks) may not find it too hard to justify investing in new equipment, but in my opinion Joe Sixpack will not buy a new player unless his old one breaks down and a HD-player is not much more expensive than a S-DVD player - or a new player offers significant (to him, mind you) improvements.

I don't believe that HD players offer that significant improvement (in Joe Sixpack's opinion), so the question then is, what's the life span of the current player generation and will HD players be competitively priced when that life span expires?

Given the above my prediction is that no major shift towards HD players will occur in the next 5 years, and the point where studios will no longer feel that it's profitable to produce S-DVDs will not come within 10 years.

But hey, I could be dead wrong. When people said in the early 90's that pretty much everybody would have a cell phone by the year 2000, I thought they were crazy. Predicting technology breakthroughs is risky business...

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

Joe Sixpack needs to sit closer to his HDTV.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

I beg to differ. The Betamax was NOT A STUPID format. How Sony handled its development & marketing was not in their long term best interests. The Betamax was a quality format! What is VERY STUPID is how the backers of the two HD formats managed to get themselves into a format war like the Beta vs VHS war. I'd like to buy a HD disc format, but I'll wait for a winner (assuming there is one) before I invest $$$$ because I don't NEED a HD disc format!

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

IIRC, "House MD" was released in letterboxed widescreen (possibly with a 2.0 mix). Given that the show was broadcast in 720p, and anamorphism has been standard for some time, this sort of oversight suggests that producers of TV DVDs have no plans to abandon DVD for one of the HD formats anytime soon.

I was in Sears today, doing some Black Friday shopping, and I decided to look at their HD-DVD display. 480i? that can't be right. so I picked up the remote, and switched to 720p, then to 1080i. Poof-- the signal disappeared. Then I looked behind the panel and discovered that the connection wasn't hdmi, or even component. It was composite. A good solid composite signal, but composite nonetheless.

The whole reason the Japanese developed HD video was that they realized that a video that occupied more of the viewer's field of view would be much more immersive. But a large display would make the pixels stand out. I guess it's neat to have a HD display that reveals more detail if you view it from six inches away, but that's not really the point.

Until more the average consumer realizes this, DVDs will be a stronger market segment than HD-DVD/Bluray, and profit motives will keep those HD exclusive releases to a minimum.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

I have read editorial in various UK magazines recently that advise buyers to adopt a "wait and see" policy towards HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

They cite all the arguments that have come up in this thread. However, the strongest one is that one shouldn't spend substantial amounts of money investing in a player that may well share the same fate as Betamax did. You could end up owning an expensive white elephant.

Certainly, a common sentiment was that the studios have learnt absolutely nothing from past mistakes (VHS vs DVD; SACD vs DVD-Audio; the success of DVD) and have yet again engaged in an expensive, destructive format war in which there are and can be no winners...at least, where the public is concerned.

They raised the very valid point that with rights often flipping about between studios, you could even find yourself owing a film but unable to own the sequel because it's held exclusively by a different studio that doesn't back your chosen format.

There is certainly plenty of enthusiasm for HD, but the main focus is with "which TV do I buy?".

But even this is tempered with warnings on how little HD broadcast is available (and how expensive it is to get it). Most of the reviews spend a lot of time in worrying about how well the TV will cope with SD sources...

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

Ah, but what about the average Joe 6 pack who will buy BluRay because it sounds better than HD? All SONY needs to do is add some kind of "Highest Possible Quality" (or something like that) and anyone (who doesn't know) would be convinced that BluRay is something even newer than HD.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

Here is a link regarding TV Shows and HD.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/carroll/?p=1576

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

And when was that again? 2005? Oh - no, it was pushed back to 2006. Isnt it now mandated (again) in 2009?

The govenrment mandate will keep slipping and slipping. I'm not to worried.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

Although it doesn't necessarily mean that HD versions will be released any time soon, I would be VERY surprised if any new transfers are not being done in hi def and downconverted to SD for DVD releases. The studios know HD is the future (both for broadcast and home video). Even tape based series will be remastered to hi def, even if it doesn't have as great an improvement as film based transfers.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

Do you mean shows shot on videotape like All in the Family? I don't think there would be ANY improvement on the original source material.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

on and on it goes-its been mentioned elsewhere on HTF that VMD/VHD is waiting in the wings to outdo HD in a couple years.
When will a perfect picture be enough?

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

I don't think people will be happy until it looks and sounds better than real life.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

There is a way to make a switch to HD (BD or HD), just stop selling STD DVD and force everyone to buy HD discs. If the industry forces consumers to switch, they will have to buy new HD players. Of course, that would just open the bootleg market wide open.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

If the studios stop making/selling standard DVD's to "force" people into one of the HD formats, they're going to get a backlash of epic proportions, more than pirating has done since its inception. People don't like being forced to do anything and would, I think, throw their hands up on the entire legal DVD market. Then we'd hear the studios whining about the pirates again, this time in a different way.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

why can't people just see SACD/DVD-A coming? Many people were comfortable with their standard cd's, audiophiles wanted more. There's a niche market for hi-res but most consumers who still physically buy music (instead of digitally) are just fine with their CD's and don't want to upgrade again.

I think the same goes for DVD and HD-DVD/BluRay. Many people are secure and comfortable with DVD's for the time being. Videophiles and those with great home surround systems want more, but I think many people are just fine with DVD as is.

If they took standard DVD off the market, people would revolt instead of converting. People point out the vinyl-cd shift in the late 1980's, but CD's were actually seen as more convienient to people, they could play them in their cars, they were smaller, etc... We've already had that shift from VHS to DVD. BluRay/HD-DVD will be seen as a nice upgrade for the video enthusiasts the way SACD/DVD-A was for audiophiles, but for most people, they're fine with DVD as is for the time being.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

I agree that taking SD-DVD off the market would be a very bad idea.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

They won't take SD off the market until every last penny has been squeezed out of the format, in fact, the longer it stays around the better as that means more SD product sold which can and will be upgraded to whatever HD format is around later.

As for shows like All in the Family, while an increase in resolution may not do much if anything, there certainly could be work put ito things like color correction and other fixable problems.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

Yeah, I have to use the high grade gas in my car, so I assume everyone would be ok if I said that I wish they'd get rid of the lower grades and forced everyone to buy the expensive grade? I completely agree, but the one nice thing about HD media is, I think more average consumers will buy into it vs. average consumers buying into high res audio.

But I have two trains of thought here:

I think consumers didn't really buy into high res audio mainly in part of CD's give them more flexibility...With an HD player, the consumer just needs to replace their "one" player and that's it. This will make the HD video more enticing to the average consumer vs. the high res audio route.

but then on the other side:

I can just imagine all of these consumers with their DVD players in their SUV's....Imagine being forced (as was suggested) into buying a kiddie movie on HD and finding out that their newly installed DVD player (in the car) won't play it. I don't think people want SD-DVD going away right now.


But overall, while it may start out as a niche - I think the HD video route will be less of a niche product vs. high res audio.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

VHS hung on until it stopped selling. DVD will do the same.
As long as you're there with your wallet, the studios will be there ready to take the cash.
If you're still on SD-DVD when they don't sell enough to be profitable, that's just too bad, but that day isn't coming anytime soon.

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

I agree. While there are a few movies (like the Star Wars and Alien movies) and a couple series (Buffy and Angel come to mind) that would make me consider upgrading to hi-def, most of the stuff I have on DVD, I am content with. I have a lot of older series and movies that really aren't meant to look "perfect" (like tv shows that were shot on videotape and movies that were lower budget).

Re: Anyone else afraid studios will abandon regular DVD in favor of HD?

Especially with either HD or Blu-ray likely ending up as the equivalent of Beta after the format war is eventually won.