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Stopping DVD purchases or upgrading dvd library to High Def. (1 Viewer)

Glenn Overholt

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Why SACD/DVD-A is a bad comparison is that they don't have any nation-wide CD chain rental stores. There would be if the demand was there.

Personally, I won't be getting into either one of those, ever. Music should be 2-channel - a left and a right. I've never heard a band/rock group/orchestra by standing in the middle of the stage. It would probably sound neat, but screw my head up. But that's another subject.

How many remember the VHS to DVD transition? BB was a little slow, but after just a few years, they cleaned out their stores and went DVD. The same could happen again.

As it stands right now, somewhere around 40-50 thousand titles are out on DVD. All of these have been set up for release. They've been mastered, remastered, menus are done, and the *%&$^* forced trailers are still in there too. There won't be much of a cost to rerun all of them. Once the master is made, they can crank them all out on the HD format of their choice. It took 7 years to get where we are now. They could start a few more factories up and cut the 7 years down to 3 or 4. That's 2008. We could have 40-50 thousand HD type title out by them.

Someone else can explain what the stores will do.

Glenn
 

Ernest Rister

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"But if there is something that I'm missing, I honestly want to know about it."

Dell, HP, Sony Playstation...other market forces at play than just home video.
 

Ted Todorov

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Pop quiz: how many of the 40 to 50,000 titles were actually mastered in HD? 10%? 5%? 3%? If there are 40 to 50,000 HD titles by 2008 I will personally eat my hat and post the video of eating it on HTF. The chances of having even one tenth that amount of HD titles in 2008 is next to non-existent.

And from all HD true believers: I'd like at least one of you to explain to me how HD is going to take over if there is no HD in Europe? Is Hollywood simply going to write off it's biggest market?

Ted
 

Ernest Rister

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"If there are 40 to 50,000 HD titles by 2008 I will personally eat my hat and post the video of eating it on HTF."

Whoah, Ted. Don't go making such claims on the HTF. You take it from one who knows.

Peace out,

Ernest Rister
 

Glenn Overholt

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Ted, many titles won't benefit from an HD transfer. They are as good as they are ever going to get now. Those are mostly older titles.

I am sure that the newer ones have already been set up for HD. Knowing that it is on the way, they would do everything and anything to make the HD transfer now, and then cut it down for our current DVD releases.

As for Europe, although I know that they are buying Region 1 releases, I am sure that the studios controlling their region would like nothing better than to get back in control of the movies they should be getting their cut on.

I hate the very idea of any regions, but if they are here, then there is no better way of enforcing it. I would hate to see the figures on how much money that region has lost due to players that do - ah, shall we say, - a little bit more than they were intended to?

I am not saying that my info is correct, but I don't think anybody else here is 100% sure about anything either, but these ideas should be kicked around so no surprises pop up.

It would be easy to stop selling the DVD players. You stop making them, and nothing gets shipped out. Instead of having a fit, you'll find some sort of an HD player on the shelves in its place. You wait 3 or 6 months, and the HD titles start popping up.
 

Eric F

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Sep 5, 1999
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There's no need to do this.

Sony could (and probably will) just start phasing out standard DVD players and sell Blu-Ray in its place. Noone would know the difference since it's backwards compatible.
 

DaveF

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It's not obvious to me that these will influence adoption of HD-DVD significantly. My recollection is that DVD-ROM drives in computers were very slow to become mainstream and had very little influence on the adoption of DVDs for home video.

Likewise, did the PS2, which could work as a DVD player do much to move people from VHS to DVD?

How will HD-DVD drives in Dells and PS3s motivate the mass adoption of such a format for home video?
 

ElAhrai

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Jul 18, 2002
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Okay, so do these other market forces at work make the format war more or less of a problem? A saying about the number of chefs in the kitchen comes to mind.

I'm not saying that HD won't happen. I'm not saying that there will never be something that will replace DVD. What I am saying is that I don't expect these current incarnations to take off. I don't think that the market place will sustain two competing formats.

I most definitely could be wrong, but just because lots of technicians and executives want something to become the next big thing doesn't mean that it will. If you don't believe me, ask the people behind Beta, Laserdisc, Minidisc, DAT, Hi-8, SyQuest drives, CD-I, VCD, the list goes on.

The point I'm trying to make is that in a free market economy, forcing a product is not an easy task.
 

WillardK

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Mar 25, 2003
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318

yeah, and it's on cable... where so many of us have access to it but haven't bothered getting an HDTV to view it with. Underestimation or statistic?
 

Rich Malloy

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How many "older titles" have you seen in HD? Seriously. I've seen quite a few now, and they look spectacular -- far better than the DVDs. And I know that 35mm film has a higher resolution than 480i/p, or for that matter 1080i/p, and this is true whether it's 35mm film that was shot last year or 35mm film that was shot decades and decades ago. I'm willing to listen, but I think you're just downright wrong on this point.
 

Ernest Rister

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"yeah, and it's on cable... where so many of us have access to it but haven't bothered getting an HDTV to view it with."

And when your TV breaks and you go buy a new set, it is becoming increasingfly likely with each passing day that you will buy an HD set, not an obsolete technology destined for mothballs, and once you have the set in your home you will go pick up the converter box and you will start watching HD programming.

"Underestimation or statistic?"

Three years ago, I knew one person with an HD set, now my brother in law, my best friend, my Aunt, my cousin -- they've all got HD sets. Purely anecdotal evidence, but I call that growth.
 

Ted Todorov

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Rich, you are of course completely right about both your points -- and yes, pretty much everything that a major studio or a high quality "mini" like Criterion does these days is mastered in HD.

I am just disagreeing rather forcefully that we are going to have 40-50K HD-DVD titles out there by 2008. And one of the reasons is that I think that all of the above mentioned HD mastering is just a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of stuff out there on regular DVD, and it is going to be a LONG time before a substantial portion of it gets remastered for HD, especially if they have only the North American market to sell to. If HD/BluRay DVD takes off (and while the format war and off-shore non-support continue it is a big IF) I would guess that your not going to reach 40 to 50K HD titles before 2014.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I would love for there to be total switch to HD tomorrow -- I just don't think it's going to happen.

Ted
 

Rich Malloy

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I don't think so either, Ted, but I'm more optimistic than you. Everytime I see a new film on one of the HD channels, I get even more excited. The other night it was "Badlands". Granted, the DVD is an old one, and could certainly stand a new transfer. But it won't come close to what I saw on HD-Movienet the other night. Not by a longshot.

Heh. Yes. That's exactly what happened to me only a few months ago. Perhaps none but Brook knows this, but I've been subsisting all these years with a 27" Sony Trinitron. My 20" Magnavox "bedroom tv" that I'd had since college (uh... some 15 years ago) finally kicked the bucket. I looked up, realized that a very big, HD-ready widescreen RPTV was within my limited budget. And so I got one (Panasonic 53x54).

It took me a few weeks before realizing that a call to my digital cable provider and a slight increase in my monthly premiums meant I could watch the Red Sox in the World Series in HI-DEF! And then I saw some movies. Everything from "Brigadoon" and "Bye Bye Birdie" and "The Manchurian Candidate" to "The Terminator" and "The Matrix" movies and "X-Men II" and "Master and Commander" and "Mystic River"... all of which are clearly superior to their DVD counterparts (those that have them). It's different for me now. I won't watch a DVD until I've confirmed that there are no HD movie broadcasts I'm interested in viewing. Don't get me wrong... the very best DVD transfers still look spectacular to my eyes, just not as spectacular as the HD broadcasts. In fact, quite a bit less spectacular.

It's very possible that Blu-ray and/or HD-DVD are still too far away, and likely that there will be a dearth of titles for quite some time after that. Until then, I have HD-Movienet, HBO-HD, MAX-HD, Starz-HD, Showtime-HD, and I'm really hoping we'll one day soon see TCM-HD, IFC-HD, Sundance-HD, etc., etc.
 

rich_d

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Quite correct, but I don't think that's the whole point. Part of the "opportunity" of HD is better resolution which will be most welcomed. However, seeing some films that are not in good condition in high def will be like listening to a scratchy 78 record through high-end head phones. Better technology? Yes. Better result? No.

However, even this eventuality is uncertain. New improvements in digital techniques are coming all the time. Perhaps we can look for older films to be "enhanced" so that the warts are less apparent. Whether there is enough demand from the marketplace to warrant the expense on second tier films is another question. I hope it does. Money talks and if there are enough film fans interested in great copies of older films perhaps it will lead to those titles getting better attention and preservation. That would be great.

I would also like to know how many films are on some form of video and how many of those have high-def masters accomplished. Then again, what defines a hi-def master is it simply a 1080+ resolution or does it also require the source to be the earliest generation negative or print available?

I am not anti-HD so much as I am anti-HD hype. I have a Sony HDTV with HD cable. Some results are very good some are not going to convince anyone to change over. For example, I find it quite distracting to see visual smearing of the grass turf during a HD transmitted football game. Some films (including old ones) have looked quite good in HD while others magnify problems causing a distraction more than anything else.

I'm also don't buy into some of the anti-HD rhetoric being thrown around either. Some new format at some point will be quite enticing to upgrade to
 

Rob_Walton

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Nov 3, 2004
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It's often said that it did , whether or not that's true you'll have to ask someone a deal more in-the-know than little ol' me . But the computer games industry is vast and they sell a whopping number of these things so it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it were true .

If you think about it , the PS3 is almost guarenteed to sell in the millions . And if just a small percentage of those owners decide to buy some Blue Ray disks for their new BR-player that represents a huge boost to the growth of a new data storage medium . Whether or not Blue Ray and HD-DVD are too soon after DVD is another argument , but I think they will be successful eventually . It's just a question of how quickly ...

The DVD-A/SACD argument that some people bring up strikes me as totally off the mark . I don't know anyone who can tell anything wrong with CD quality music , and hence no-one who wants anything better . But we can all tell that DVD is far off what's possible just from looking outside the screen .
 

peter m. wilson

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Oct 25, 2002
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Hi,
I can't wait for them to come out with HD-DVD players and discs in NorthAmerica, because all the titles that wern't "must have's" that I don't own now might start selling for $4.95.

I use the HOLO3D vid scaler with an SDI modded Panny rp82 and scale everything to 1080i to component on my ISF'd 65" Tosh. I also have the SA8300HD decoder/pvr and get lots of chances to A/B recorded movies like "Bad Boys II" which TMN here in Toronto broadcasts in HD and I have to say it's close enough for me to wait until their selling HD-DVD players in Wal-Mart for $34.95.

Quite frankly if people had their sets calibrated and pickedup an LG or Zenith318 or Bravo D1 scaling player for $200 or for that matter got one of the new recievers that upconverts and then scales everything to 568 720 or 1080i from component so they don't have to comply with HDCP.

My ISF guy bought one of those LG players for $295cdn last summer and we A/B'd it with my setup which cost about $1500cdn and it was a tossup as far as PQ scoped and all through component.

This feature is now on the Flagship recievers but Faroudja is going to have to bring the price down if it looks like HD-DVD is going to take food off the table.

It's a great time for those of you putting your first HT to-gether. Pricing is getting really competitive. Those of you who have Rogers HD cable in Canada should check your mail to-day. I just got a notice that my HD package went down in price from $9.95 to $4.95 retro to Nov 15.

Peter m.
 

Don Solosan

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Oct 14, 2003
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Seeing as how product won't hit the market until late 2005 (more likely 2006), that would leave 3 years at the most to release 40,000/50,000 titles. The studios would have to release discs at over twice the present rate (it took seven years to reach this point).

I know everybody wants everything and they want it now, but could the studios remaster and release that many titles? I know I couldn't afford to buy them.
 

Ernest Rister

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I'm certainly not saying there will be 50,000 titles out on BluRay in four years. But don't be surprised to see a good many. I don't think we'll even be seeing too many players ins stores until at least 2006. DVD didn't jump to 50,000 titles within two years, I doubt Blu Ray would do the same.

And Thanks, Rich, for being my Exhibit A. Rich's story will be echoed many many many times. That's why my best friend, my aunt, and my brother in law all recently bought HD sets. Their old TV broke, they went to buy a new TV, and voila! They came home with HD sets. This is the way the NTSC world will end...one TV at a time.
 

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