A humble request to our HD-DVD brethren (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Scott]

y'know, maybe the quality that has most impressed me about the HD titles I've seen is their 'steadiness'. There is this, at times, almost subliminal instability to sDVD imagery, that has only become pronounced to me since getting HD. No doubt about it, for me at least. This aspect is yet another big reason I can't wait to replace just about every core title in my collection with an HD version.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Apparently she's not a single mother raising two kids on $250 a week.

 

[RobertR]

Obviously if something never comes out on DVD, then you have to either do without or make do with alternatives. But that's not what we're talking about with respect to this release. It IS coming out on DVD, and people are perfectly justified in demanding a certain level of quality from it (Just as they are with any OTHER product). Is it really your attitude that if the Searchers DVD you think is a great transfer was instead a shoddy, inferior, low bitrate mess, you'd say, "hey, who am I to demand better if this is the only thing they decided to foist off on me"? Would you be that way with other products?

People aren't demanding anamorphic because it's "cool". They're demanding QUALITY.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

What if it was only available as P/S on VHS? Would you feel empathy for those who then chose to sit-out the sale in protest to studio greed or lack of care? What if you knew that a film had been just resotred in pristine 35mm yet a studio chose, for no good reason, to recycle an old shoddy transfer for DVD that was laserdisc-qualtiy? As a consumer, is one not allowed discriminate and let their dissapointment be known to the studio? Or would you advocate that home-theater enthusiasts just be "video whores" and buy whatever shlock the studios deem befitting the consumer based solely on their own in-house agenda?


Regarding what denotes "Quality" worthy of an enthusiat's purchase:

In every case, based on personal perceptions and one's own video system, there's a *threshold* of quality where one can start to move from "crappy video facsimilie" to "that looks like a *movie* and I can lose myself in what reasonably approximates the artistic integrity of the original".

VHS falls into crappy video for most of us here at HTF given our understanding of the art of film and the quality of our video systems.

Non anamorphic DVD falls into crappy video for most videophiles who watch wide-angle at 1.5-1.7 screen widths distance from their displays (like front-projection folks) but may fall into "good enough on my screen" for those with less resolving sets or those who sit farther away.

16x9 WS (and naturally 4x3 1.33:1) DVD, when well mastered, while not doing full justice to the quality of the best 35mm film prints, can start to cross a line where it can at least *feel like a movie* even if upon close scrutiny the viewer can see the limits of the SD encoding. But a good DVD can at least start to provide the "movie effect" on a wide-angle system if one isn't too critical and can overlook its minor flaws.

HD 1080p24, when proper transfered and mastered, can provide astonishing transparency to a 35mm film source when viewed 1.25-1.5 screen widths distance. If properly authored, you don't have to ignore any obvious flaw if your projector is of high quality and properly calibrated...you can just lose yourself in a bath of natural film detail, color-space, and smoothness. Real 35mm can have better color still, but much of the color innaccuracy of electronically reproduced video in the HD realm falls on the display technology. Better bulbs and LED illumination will improve color fidelity markedly over the next few years for projection devices, and HD video will be able to even more closely reproduce film fidelity in the home.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

True. That's the bottom line on all of this. While we're all here enjoying our Home Theater Forum discussions together, the truth is that we're in a big minority when factoring in all of the movie buying public who will help decide whether or not HD-DVD is a "go" or not.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

All numbers aside, the deciding factor must be our own eyeballs. Apparently, Michael Elliott just didn't see a huge difference, numbers or not.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

That's my feeling too. And besides, we are still a long way from it being an HD-DVD era. No clear winner in the HD vs. BR has fully emerged. And the bulk of the public is still in SD. In fact, a large portion of those have only been in SD for a year or 2, having finally bought into getting players and starting small collections.

Videophiles may think, for their own perspective, it is the HD-DVD era, but that is not looking at the full market.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

DITTO. And someone mentioned about making the picture quality better, as in more "perfect". So should I also use a color adjuster to get the hues more true and natural in movies such as PAYBACK?

P.S. Sorry I didn't get this all in one post. But I made the first one early into reading the thread, then had more to say when I finished reading all the posts. And nobody else posted in the meantime.

 

[Robert Harris]

There are two overriding factors toward the acceptance and adoption of HD, or any other more advanced technology.

Exposure and price.

Many of you will recall the initial runout of DVD vs. DIVX in 1997, with players highly priced, and discs on an "as you can find it" basis. The industry felt that they were dealing with a "niche" market, holding laser disc as the preemptive high tech holder of record.

They could not have been more wrong.

RAH

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Is this Home Theater Forum? Would you have told me that in 1997 when DVD was just emerging... to keep on buying laserdisc and VHS and forget about DVD for another 10 years???

Why is the obvious *balanced* answer so elusive here:

you can do *both*... buy DVD *and* HD.

Aren't you glad you quit buying VHS and starting buying your *new* titles on DVD when you did? Or looking back would you have wished you had kept on buying VHS only until some day when DVD penetration was more widespread? Do you remember how all the laserdisc and VHS collectors who had large movie libraries tried to argue how VHS and laserdisc were "good enough" and that DVD "didn't offer any real improvement" blah blah blah? Oh yeah they did!

:rolleyes

Here's the answer that should work for any SERIOUS movie-collector:

As soon as one can afford a player and feels comfortable with the whole "format war" issue (like one format wins or we get universal players), BUY AN HD PLAYER.

From that point on each time you plunk down $20 for a movie you want to buy you'll be buying an HD copy which will serve you much more faithfully in the film-experience than you DVDs... the same way your DVDs more faithfully serve you than your VHS tapes.

Keep your old DVD and enjoy them too.

Only upgrade existing titles in your collection when you really *want* to, and then sell your old DVD to make the transition less costly.

When new titles become available you can decide case-by-case if you want to wait it out for an eventual HD version or buy it now on SD. Your call! Maybe you wait for a title like King Kong that has so much visual detail. Maybe you go ahead and get that Searchers DVD to show support to the stuido for doing such a good restoration.

In any case,

YOU CAN BUY BOTH.

 

[Robert Harris]

And one can begin now -- yes, they are more expensive -- by purchasing the hybird (combo) discs, if the title is of interest.

RAH

 

[DouglasBr]

This is indeed the crux of the equation. If price is "not much of an issue" (say $50 for DVD and $150 for HD/BR - pick your own spread) and the winner or winners of the format war are known, there really is no reason (barring inertia) not to move forward. But until then, it's perfectly reasonable even for videophiles to sit it out.

I think that the way people proclaim their choice to wait sometimes comes off as "I don't care about any more resolution, color fidelity, stability, etc. I'll never need or want a better system," which is indeed a somewhat unusual stance to find on this forum. It's probably not what people really mean.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

All of us want something better, and we certainly are all
very excited about the new high resolution formats.

However...

Frustration and fear of getting burned are probably
considerable factors for the majority of us who have decided not
to jump into either of these these HD formats anytime soon.

I think I speak for many of us who are damn tired of corporate
greed that has resulted in two high resolution audio formats (SACD
and DVD-A), two digital recording formats (+R, -R), and now two high
resolution video formats (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray).

I don't think anyone feels comfortable investing in the unknown
at this point. I think we all learned some valuable lessons from
watching the struggle between dual formats over the years.

I also think many people, like myself, are pissed off that our older
high definition sets aren't fully compatable with these new HD formats.

The industry certainly hasn't shown that they have the best
interests for the consumer. Everyone is out for their own piece
of the pie and because of that attitude, we now have two formats
to consider. And, if you think that's bad enough, there are may be
yet another emerging high-resolution format in the wings.

This forum fully supports HD and Blu-Ray and we root for its
success. My fear is that this will remain a niche format as long
as the general public, more than content with their standard
definition DVDs, has to choose between two separate formats.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Hybrids, like some other techological innovations, seemed good on paper. But in execution, I have a hard time understanding just who these things are aimed at.
About the only consumer I can see buying this is someone who just has to have an extra standard dvd version for his laptop or bedroom dvd player.
Otherwise, if you own an HD player, why would you want the sd version?
And if you don't own a (relatively speaking, inexpensive) player yet, are you really going to be compelled to start a collection of these very expensive (relatively) discs in anticipation of getting one?

If they were a $5 premium over the standard version, I could see the later *maybe* happening, in small numbers. But at $40 msrp, all its doing is pissing off the HD buyers who resent having to pay a premium for something they don't need or want.

 

[BrandonJF]

The odds are great that this will remain a niche format for it's life-cycle. Even if the general public had one format to choose from (as far as they know - or don't know given the horrible exposure to it at retail currently - they do only have one format to choose from right now), I just can't see them biting.

We're talking about a laserdisc market here. Laserdisc was never good enough to get the average consumer to abandon VHS and, in my opinion, the difference between HD-DVD and DVD is closer to the difference between Laserdisc - VHS.

I'm glad I got an HD-DVD player and have bought almost every title so far, but I am not the average consumer.

 

[BrandonJF]

Plus, they have been single-layer, so far, and you have to flip the disc to see the sparse supplements. Ridiculous. Not only do they make us buy the DVD version, they give us an HD version that is inferior to what it would have been without the DVD on the other side.

 

[DaveF]

Changing topics I don't understand this at all. I've never seen any instability in DVDs. Perhaps I don't know what to watch for. Is it color instability? Lateral motion of the image on the screen?

But for that matter, I find film, projected in the theater, to have jerkiness. Specifically, side-to-side pans often look choppy to me. I think it's the limitation of a 24 fps film rate filming rapid motions. So how stable should HD-DVD be against the instability innate to film?

Can you suggest a specific scene in a movie I could watch at home to see this instability of DVD?

 

[Holadem]

He he... I thought I was the only one who noticed this.

--
H

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I'm not talking about 3-2 judder or 24 fps judder... which obviously affect film in 60Hz playback on all media.

Yes, 24 fps movies have "judder" to motion already. But DVD *adds* an additional layer of "roughess" to motion for whatever reason. And when you suddenly see the same title in good HD the motion takes on a much more film-like smoothness. Moulin Rouge is a great DVD to show this. The dance numbers look "great" on DVD until you pop in the D-VHS and compare... the HD version looks MUCH MUCH smoother in terms motion... the movements of the dancers look much more natural and the DVD looks 'jerky' by comparison.

I see that on *every* system I've compared DVD and HD on... it's not display depenent.

Naturally, a native 24fps display would look even smoother with no added 3-2 judder.

 

[Walter Kittel]

As I've previously observed, my Laserdisc collection didn't vanish into a puff of smoke when that format became obsolete. I suspect that both HD formats will exist as niche formats for the near future, but should either format wither on the vine you'll still be able to enjoy the titles in your collection. For me, pricing and availability made the decision pretty easy. I realize that I'm in the minority with regards to not waiting for the smoke to clear, but the enjoyment level I am experiencing right now, today, makes HD DVD worthwhile. To each their own, of course.

- Walter.