I know that at the moment we're all bowled over by the quality of high def discs and we can't imagine them looking any better. But those of us with long memories can recall similar praise heaped on the first generation of CDs and DVDs - and in both cases within a couple of years we discovered that there could be even better digital transfers and so we all re-bought favourite titles when they were remastered.
Now here's the $64k question - can high def discs (and from now on I guess that means Blu-Ray) be bettered? Blu-Ray has a lot of spare capacity at the moment, and assuming this isn't squandered on something ridiculous like interactivity, presumably picture and sound quality could be enhanced even more (especially since Blu-Ray operational specs can be upgraded).
And if it can be bettered, when will we reach a point of diminishing returns? I know that those of us who bother to tune our systems and have reasonable eyesight will be able to notice further improvements in quality, but what about Joe [or Jo] Six Pack? Unless a set is tuned properly, my hunch is that before long any additional improvements will be lost on the viewer. And let's face it, J6P just wants something that plays right out of the box (in fairness, a perfectly reasonable thing) - s/he doesn't want to be bothered with nerdy fiddling about with contrast controls, and may well prefer a garish over-saturated and over-contrasted picture. Accordingly, it may be impossible to see further improvements on such displays. And let's not forget that older consumers may (literally) fail to see further improvements - as we get older not only does acuity go south, but with it ability to see contrast, etc. E.g. my own parents have pretty good eyesight for their age (late seventies) but they now find it impossible to see the difference between HD and upscaled SD.
So - are the current high def discs as good as they'll get in this format, and if there is room for improvement, who will notice?
Now here's the $64k question - can high def discs (and from now on I guess that means Blu-Ray) be bettered? Blu-Ray has a lot of spare capacity at the moment, and assuming this isn't squandered on something ridiculous like interactivity, presumably picture and sound quality could be enhanced even more (especially since Blu-Ray operational specs can be upgraded).
And if it can be bettered, when will we reach a point of diminishing returns? I know that those of us who bother to tune our systems and have reasonable eyesight will be able to notice further improvements in quality, but what about Joe [or Jo] Six Pack? Unless a set is tuned properly, my hunch is that before long any additional improvements will be lost on the viewer. And let's face it, J6P just wants something that plays right out of the box (in fairness, a perfectly reasonable thing) - s/he doesn't want to be bothered with nerdy fiddling about with contrast controls, and may well prefer a garish over-saturated and over-contrasted picture. Accordingly, it may be impossible to see further improvements on such displays. And let's not forget that older consumers may (literally) fail to see further improvements - as we get older not only does acuity go south, but with it ability to see contrast, etc. E.g. my own parents have pretty good eyesight for their age (late seventies) but they now find it impossible to see the difference between HD and upscaled SD.
So - are the current high def discs as good as they'll get in this format, and if there is room for improvement, who will notice?
