Do you think the industry will ruin HD-DVD? (1 Viewer)

I was discussing this the other day with a couple of friends.

Do you think that studios that will be offering Hi Def DVD ( either blu-ray or HD-DVD ) will offer FOOL SCREEN transfers of their movies?

I mean this can't be the furthest away from " Hi Def " if they do.

I think that they should get rid of the composite video outs on the next generation of dvd players as well.

Maybe they won't offer "fool screen" (great term, btw), but I plan to be among those who say "I told you so" when the same people who insist on buying "fool screen" DVDs now go bananas when the bars they hate so much start appearing at the sides of the screen on their nice new 16x9 TVs.

PaulDA you made me laugh so hard I had hot coffee coming out of my nose because you are SO right.

My personal hope is for HD-DVD to be a niche format something akin to the laserdisc days of old. I would gladly pay a higher price for the hardware and software just to keep J6P from taking it mainstream. Sadly, I'm afraid it will go the current way of DVD and will try to cater to the masses who thought DIVX was a good idea.

DIVX was a lame idea...


They need not to put composite or hell even S-Video jacks on the new Hi-Def players. Component or DVI outputs ONLY.

J6P will ruin HD-DVD when it comes...

DIVX failed worse than a submarine with screen windows, it was one of the worst consumer electronics debacles in history. There were no "masses who thought it was a good idea" to cater to.

There are several ways the industry can ruin HD-DVD:

• A prolonged format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, with different studios offering only one format for their releases (see DVD-Audio and SACD)
• Failure to prove to the average consumer a major improvement over the status quo of DVD (again, see DVD-Audio and SACD)
• Pan & Scan 2.35:1 films to fit 16x9 TV screen sizes (currently being done on several HD channels such as HBO-HD and INHD)
• Severe copy protection methods that make it difficult for consumers to easily take full advantage of the technology (once again, see DVD-Audio and SACD)

I'm sure there are more items that could be added to the above list.

Does anyone think HD-DVD will have difficulty going mainstream owing to the emerging crop of players and scalers that "upconvert" native DVD res into HD-like format? If these devices work well, then HD-DVD might find itself in the same boat as hi-res music (noted above) where the masses won't care, as the difference will not be big enough to them. This will likely lead to the need for "universal" video players AND the creation of "hybrid" discs (see again the confusion over hi-res music).

Here is a piece of news that I received yesterday regarding Toshiba and their development of low cost Blue Lasers for HD-DVD:

37) Toshiba to Begin Low-Cost Blue Laser Production
Tuesday, June 1, 2004
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Toshiba Corp. (6502) will soon begin manufacturing blue lasers using mass production technology that can enable the company to lower prices to less than 5% that of existing devices, company sources said Tuesday.
The company has developed the hard disk DVD format for a blue laser-based optical disk made jointly with NEC Corp. (6701) and aims to market a new recorder featuring the laser next year.
The new disk being promoted by Toshiba features a memory capacity more than triple that of currently available DVDs. The higher-performance disk requires use of a blue laser, however, which has a shorter wavelength than that of a red laser. But blue lasers have been more difficult and costlier to mass-produce, making it hard to popularize the HD DVD format.
Toshiba said, however, its new mass production technology would slash the price of blue lasers to less than 5,000 yen, from about 100,000 yen.
Sony Corp. (6758), which is promoting a rival format called Blu-Ray Disc, has purchased a stake in Nichia Corp., the first company to successfully mass-produce blue lasers. The two firms have agreed to share 800 patents related to the lasers and had been considered to be ahead of the Toshiba-NEC alliance in this regard.
(The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Tuesday evening edition)

Most HDTV's now allow you to manipulate the picture. I know I just recently played a 4x3 dvd that I could stretch with my TV set if I wanted to and I had a full screen of picture. Keep in mind this title was 4x3 OAR.

I'm not convinced HD dvd will get ruined yet. It may not catch on with the viewing public. It very well could be a niche format..

My tv does that as well, but there are varying levels of adjustment allowed. On composite and s-video inputs I have the option of: Full, Just, 4:3, and Zoom. When a progressive source is detected through component inputs, it removes the Just option. However, when an HD signal (1080i) is detected, it locks in Full and cannot be changed. If most tvs are like this (I have no idea), with HD-DVD my guess is it will lock into the equivalent of a Full mode, so there will be black bars on the sides of 4:3 material.

Yes, most TV's on the market today lock into their FULL viewing mode when presented a 720p or 1080i signal. That means that the source component must handle any resizing or formatting of 4x3 material.

Much more likely that the industry will ruin HD-DVD by:
1) not agreeing on a format and leaving the technology in smoking ruins in a format war or
2) cropping Academy ratio films to 1.85:1.

Has DVD become "ruined"?

Sure, lots of DVDs are "worthless" for various reasons, but we've also got The Criterion Collection and other marvellous things.

I think DVD is being both VHS and LD at the same time.

What concerns me the most is that I want to be able to plop a HD-DVD-ROM drive into my computer. If I can't build a HD-HTPC, then I'm not interested. I have never owned a standalone DVD player, and I haven't used a standalone CD player in over a decade. The fact that my PC can play DVD-A but not SACD makes SACD useless to me (unfortunate, given the large number of titles available, relative to DVD-A). I don't want the same to happen to HD-DVD.

HD-DVD eventually going mainstream is inevitable. Since it will presumably use the same sized discs, the capability to play HD_DVD discs is one of those features that will just migrate into lower and lower priced players, just like CD-RW and MP3 capabilities have.


My biggest fears for HD-DVD are:

- the copy protections will be so restrictive that I will have to jump through hoops to view my movies without them being downconverted to 480i

- Microsoft's codec being used (Do we really want Windows on every DVD player, or a codec whose major selling point is DRM capabilities?)

- The ball being dropped technically, as in a format or codec being approved that doesn't deliver the no-compromises quality we all want from HD-DVD. (Lossless 5.1/6.1 audio and video without visible compresion or filtering artifacts)

I'm amazed HD-DVD or Blu-Ray has made it so far. I'd have thought Hollywood's obsession with copy protection and DRM would have done for the viability of either format before now. I mean, letting the common man get his sticky paws on a near-film-resolution copy of a movie?

Even if the manufacturers can deliver a totally secure format (that will actually play), what kind of price premium can we expect over bog-standard DVD?

I have nightmares about them adopting Microsoft-style price structures, with internet-capable players doing a regular DRM upload that would effectively be a PPV system.

While it's nice that HD-DVD will happen, it's a pity no one is trying to make a format that would allow for the best reproduction of film...

Since many HD masters are 24fps anyways, why not introduce an HDTV format that allows for variable speed? This way, your normal 24fps films would be reproduced exactly, NTSC video would be reproduced exactly, PAL would be reproduced exactly, and even better... it would allow flexibility so that even silent films could be encoded for 18fps or 20fps.

I would hope that if studios are going to bother releasing films in high-def, rendering our current investments obsolete as DVD would than be a non-progressive format (I won't use the term niche because that'd still be a long ways away), but if they are going to bother upgrading and going "all-out" with this HDVD thing... I would hope that they'd learn from their past mistakes in the DVD market.

For starters, when a film is released, it had better be the definitive version. No more back-pedaling, no more re-issues 2 years later... Remaster a film for high-def and make sure that it's the version to own, otherwise don't bother! There's no excuse for it to be done any other way given what we've all experienced with DVD. Every film with potential for a Special Edition release, features, supplementals, commentary, etc - release it as such or focus on another title! I don't mean to say that a barebones production would be unacceptable, that'd be fine - as long as it'd be the final version and not an incentive to milk consumers and take advantage of "new market" technology! I will be the first to give up on this if studios try to manipulate consumers as theyve been doing with DVD, moreso in the early days, because I have absolutely no intentions of starting from scratch to rebuild a home theatre library... only to have to upgrade that 2-3 years in once the studios and public have "adjusted" to the format, nor should anyone!

For the sake of consistency, I would also hope that studios could settle upon one definitive package concept as afterall, we are all collector's and we are the ones who create and drive this market, so while the aesthetic aspects might seem insignificant to some - I feel that the way we've been offered movies in the past in fragile budget cardboard snap cases and the likes is just disrespectful when we the consumer make it known that we are opposed to such and dislike the concept. That sort of thing should not exist, period. I dream of the day when my shelves could be lined with thousands of DVD's, neatly organized alphabetically by genre in simple yet elegant keepcases, with nothing but original theatrical poster art - no critic quotes or promotional marketing gimmicks, etc. If we are to support this market and it is to be directed towards us - the film/theatre enthusiasts - than I say it should be done properly, and right from the start this time!

Obviously, anything other than o.a.r. should also not even need to be addresses and it's somewhat baffling this is still even an issue. HDVD will not be an instant commercial success for obvious reasons, a format marketed towards collectors and enthusiasts should be treated as such.

Aside from the technology itself and how it's ultimately utilized, these are really my primary concerns.

Marco,

I agree with the sentiment. However, the entire entertainment industry is based on re-selling the same material over and over and over. This strategy has worked for decades. Why on earth would they want to abandon it?