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High Definition DVD: What is Holding You Back? (1 Viewer)

MarkHastings

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I know exactly what you mean. As good as Sat. Night Live looks in HD, I'm not crazy about the fact that you can now see the slight flaws in the makeup. You can now see the line when guys wear bald caps. It's kind of distracting to me. It's ironic how greater picture quality can make something look less desirable.

But on the flip side, sports are remarkable in HD. I just can't see myself watching sports broadcasts in non-HD, but as far as movies, the increased picture quality doesn't often make the film more enjoyable.

I think that's what everyone really means by "SD is good enough". Obviously HD is much better, but again, the increased picture quality doesn't make the movies more enjoyable to most of us.
 

Mary M S

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I think there are only a few ‘oddballs’ not suited to HD. Shows which require a down and dirty large churn of sets/props/costuming required ...series like you mentioned such as SNL. Additionally the low budgets (when test shots looked good enough to get the job done) like Hogans Hero’s.

Saw a promo for “2001 ASO” on HD-NET the other day, to be aired July? It looked fantastic!
I think “Leave it Beaver”, “I Love Lucy”, “That 70’s Show” “Casablanca” and on & on Movies/serials which were not shot with HD “in Mind” could still all benefit greatly by being presented at higher resolution. Some of the ‘old’ stuff (B&W) was so well shot. Such care was used in Lighting, contrast ratios, use of shadows Etc, - they had it down to an a polished art, ...you just see ‘more’ of what’s already laid down in the orginal. Beautiful stuff well suited to micro level scrutiny.
Makeup is/was often perfect....(even in the made for broadcast stuff) most things will look stunning replayed higher resolution.
..now...... off to see if I can find any of the shuttle launch coverage in glorious HD. :)
 

RAF

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A couple of observations as this thread continues to evolve.

While I understand that the original question posed by the author was, "What's holding you back?" it is just human nature for the discussion to migrate to other related items such as, "Why are you going forward?" or, "Why did you change your mind?" One of the nice things about a civil discussion in a forum such as this is that the topic can take off in all sorts of unintended, but applicable, directions. That is a welcome evolution and usually the earmark of a good discussion. Serendipity in action!
;)

Please don't confuse this with the "thread farting" that sometimes goes on (such as the unfortunate instance a few pages back.) While we encourage sticking to the topic (or its natural evolution) we don't condone personal attacks nor do we welcome personal agendas that don't really add to the dialogue. Trying to maintain the civil nature of a discussion while keeping digressions in check is the double edged sword that moderators here have to deal with on a daily basis. It in no way should be misinterpreted as speaking out of both sides of our mouths (or any other analogy that might be applied.) I'm not suggesting that the recent discussion has begun to deteriorate once more (I don't feel it has) but just wanted to clear the air a bit.

And, to return to the dialogue...

I'm still on the fence (which surprises quite a few of the people who know me since I'm usually a bleeding edger.) In another thread I gave a bunch of reasons why I didn't have a unit before release day (my usual modus operandi) but, as I said at the time, it wasn't going to be a long wait. In fact, since I already have everything necessary to experience all the grandeur that HD formats offer, it is not a major commitment on my part to add HD discs. All my equipment is HD capable (some even 1080p), all have HDMI or DVI (with HDCP) inputs, and I am already enjoying a wide variety of non-disc based HD content via satellite. In fact, my provider, Echostar (DISH) actually has a good amount of programming that is not transmitted as "HD-Lite" and is one of the better providers of HD material. I'm not claiming that all of their 30+ HD offer full 1920 x 1080 signal (they certainly compress some stations as the other providers do) but the best they offer is truly spectacular. Recently I have been starting to pick up some HD-DVD discs and anticipate that I will have a Toshiba player shortly. I'm opting for the "X" model as a personal choice for some of the features it offers and I'm not worried about obsolescence. Even if the format fails, it would be a heck of a CD player. :D

As to the quality of SD vs. HD I can't help but thinking back to the early days of DVD. As a staunch supporter of the LD medium I, as many others, proclaimed publicly that I didn't see the real need to get overexcited about DVDs since LDs had "almost" as good a picture and were superior in a few other ways (better sound - especially DTS - and a wider selection of titles.) I felt that it would be quite a few years before I would take DVD seriously.

Yeah, right!

Before the end of 1997 I almost complete abandoned buying new LDs (except for some DTS titles). Once I had seen how good DVDs could be (remember, some of the early ones were poorly transferred, weren't anamorphic, etc. etc. etc.) I knew there was no turning back.

Now we are going through this all again, but this time with a format war thrown in for good measure. Naturally, competing formats shoots the HD disc industry in the foot a bit as more people choose to sit and wait. There is no question that HD images are, when done properly, better than their SD counterparts. That's a given. However, there are two factors which come into play. First of all, one must have the proper equipment to take advantage of the upgrade in image quality. A lot of the "SD DVDs are good enough for me" arguments are based on the fact that for a lot of people their current displays do a very nice job with their current discs and adding HD source material wouldn't look that much better, if at all! But give these same people an HD display and run an A/B test of the same title in SD and HD and you would have a convert. We've come a long way from the days of VHS-quality images becoming the accepted norm and DVDs have now become quite a nice video experience for the average consumer. Look how quickly VHS died when the little silver discs matured. I fully understand the "SD DVDs are good enough for me" position and I respect a person's right to their opinion as to what satisfies them. The second factor has to do with the physical similarity between SD DVDS and HD DVDS (either HD-DVD or Blu-ray). Whereas the physical difference between LDs and DVDs was immediately apparent, when you put an SD DVD next to an HD DVD they look the same (o.k. - HD-DVD packages are a little bit smaller ;) ) So, perhaps unconsciously, a segment of the population is going to think that if the two discs are similar in dimension they might actually be similar in image - and for a lot of people less savvy than those who read forums like these - they will be fine with that. Maybe that might be a little far out there but we all probably know someone who purchased an HD set and now thinks they are watching HD when they play an SD DVD on it. Of course it looks better than it did on their "old" TV. The HD TV produces a better picture, in general, with just about anything. That still doesn't make SD DVDs into HD DVDs.

Well, I've rambled long enough about a bunch of related items from this thread. I'm still on the fence, but there are already HD discs on my shelf (along with a lot of other unwatched stuff) and it's only a matter of time before at least one player is added to the mix - not because I'm endorsing one format over the other, but because of my nature.

Finally,

Hello Mark Booth! It's been a long time, guy. What's new? (Mark and I go way back to the LD days when HT discussions were all text based on the CEFORUM well before the former Veep invented the Internet)

:laugh: :laugh:
 

ChrisRose

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Can't afford it. Not crazy about the first wave of titles released either. Plus I'd rather wait and see how any format/media holds up over the years... who knows if the discs will be durable?

I've already invested so much in collecting regular DVDs, I'd rather continue that than start collecting the same movies over again. I don't really trust the studios to do HD-DVD right anyway, since so many of them do half-assed jobs with DVDs, y'know? I kind of resent that DVDs aren't living up to their potential. Now I know a lot of people have hopes that the problems with DVD will be solved with HD-DVD ...fans will finally get a perfect transfer of _____ with all the bonus features available! But I don't believe it. They'll always want us to double or triple-dip. They'll never release the absolutely-ultimate-perfect edition of *any* movie (or TV show). They'll hold out on us and make us upgrade again...and again. Sigh. It sucks being cynical, but that's what corporate greed and continual disappointment does to ya.
 

Mark Booth

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Hi there Robert!! My home theater passion took a back-seat to my photography passion for a few years. All the money I would have spent on home theater upgrades went instead for camera gear! :) But, finally, a few months ago, I upgraded just about all of my HT gear. So, I'm back in the groove again! :) Still not anywhere near the setup you have but I never expect to top RAF! :)

Mark
 

Leo Kerr

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Back to the original concept of the thread, I was walking through the local Best Buy yesterday, the first time since the release of the BluRay players.

There was no "HD-DVD" or "BluRay" display in the store. There was a wire-rack with titles for both formats, and scattered widely through the store were one of each player feeding a local monitor. In the Magnolia area, they were running HD off of a sattelite or cable feed.

The short of my "trip," where had any of the staffers approached me, I had intended to "play dumb" (actually, that's a bit strong, but you know what I mean,) was that Best Buy is not trying to help HD.

Some general observations:

1. There are some pretty good displays in the aisles of the store.

2. The BluRay player/display/title combination was an abomination. About the only thing good about it was that the rich reds and oranges weren't smearing all over creation. Apart from that, I've seen VHS tape look better than that ugly mess. And no, I didn't recognize the film, so I can't give you a title in case it was just one of the absolute worst BR titles ever mastered.

3. I revisited the BR unit later, during the credits. I don't know who was screwing it up, but it looked like it was displaying two frames at a time - the credit scroll always showed a double ghosted image.

4. Later still, the BR unit was sitting on its menu. Whoop-de-doo. From the official demos I've seen at NAB and now this, the only thing that's obvious is that the BR menus are being designed by engineers - they're doing it 'cause they can, not because that it makes the menus work well or look good.

5. Elsewhere was something running a lot of water; I believe it was HD-DVD PERFECT STORM, but don't quote me on that. It was remarkable that in all of the under water stuff, all the bubbles were square. Bit starvation? Clueless compression? It wasn't attractive, but at least when they weren't under water, there was often the appearance of more detail than the BR display.

6. The live HD off of the satalite was rediculously bad. I'm guessing they were doing a real-time compression - unless it was a real-time re-compression to about 3mb/s. The compression artifacts outnumbered the actual picture content.

7. As for the BR display, I don't know if it was because all of the noise-reduction and scan-conversion on the monitor were enabled - it did kind of look that way; as if you ran a pretty hard "smart blur" on it, and then some sort of oil-paint effect on top of it.

Again, BB - at least this one - doesn't seem to be trying to help either BR or HD-DVD.

Leo
 

DaveF

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I'm chiming in late, and perhaps my reasons are mundane. But here they are starting with the most important.

1) Price. I simply can't justify $500+ for an HD player right now. If "Hollywood" wants to send me one for free, I'll ignore the rest of my reasons and start renting HD movies. If they were $150 (for a universal player), I'd be interested. But for $500 - $1000, I've got more important things to buy.

2) Format war. Do I spend $500 for HD, $1000 for BR or $1500 for both? Beats me. I'll wait.

3) HDMI confusion. I think my DVI-HDCP capable WEGA will work and won't be disabled by future down-rezzing content flags. But I'm not sure, which further dissuades me from buying this technology.

4) Gen 1 hardware. Experience tells me to buy Gen 2 at the earliest.'

5) Media price. Back to #1; why buy $30 discs in the age of $5 - $20 discs? Can I rent HD media? Don't know.

Money is the key factor, with marketplace and technology confusion further pushing me away from these new toys.
 

Wayne_Marshall

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For me, it's the format war and the price.
I can't see spending $500+ on a player and then find it is obsolete in a few years.
I also hate the thought of buying a format and not being able to watch certain titles because a certain studio doesn't support that format.
We also JUST got a some major titles that we've waited years for on DVD...I don't want to wait again!
When the price comes down and the winning format is clear, then I will invest..but not until then.
 

Shaw

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Price is not really an issue since, eventually, it will come down. Titles will eventually come along as well. Getting a proper TV and HDMI connection will also become cheaper. There is no rush to soak money into a format that is right now in it's growing pains. If it actually does make it.

The vast majority of the public will not be soaking its money into this. The housewife or single mother with 3 or 4 children will simply not be interested.

No, the real problem is the AACS copy protection scheme. For months, DVDfile.com when on about how terrible this was going to be, and then quickly said "buy it". Which makes no sense.

As I understand it, there is going to be an internet connection to register your disc. This IS an invasion of privacy. NO ONE should have to connect their player to the studio. The insinuation is that we are naturally going to be playing pirated movies.

As I have read, if the studio gets wind that a certain movie is pirated, let's say "Star Wars", that internet connection will make it possible for the studio to disable your player from playing that DVD! Or Worse yet, disable your player from working altogether.... you now have a $1,000.00 doorstop!

So, aside from the draconian copyright schemes, there is the invasion of privacy. The studios will now know your name and everything you buy and watch. And recording I am sure will be on a payment basis through the intertnet. Big Brother is watching my friends.

I can only picture what this will mean for retailers. If the studios disable players indiscriminately, there could be hundreds of people lining up at the local DVD shop, asking why their disc isn't working and demanding a replacement.

I am also hoping that the studios will put some kind of disc replacement program in place for those who do not break the law. I did read of one reviewer who went to a showing of the formats. When there was a press conference, he asked if there was going to be such a disc replacement program put in place. The answer was "We are looking into it." Even if such a program is put in place, it's a damn inconvenience.

With no safety net for those who do not break the law in place, the high price tag and not knowing if this format is going to make any kind of inroads into the mainstream I personally am going to sit on the side-lines and watch. Roll the ugliness!

threerandot
 

Walter Kittel

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The Toshiba HD-A1 plays just fine without the ethernet port connected.
- Walter.

Edit: Removed Samsung info as I am uncertain about all of its capabilities.
 

ChristopherDAC

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Err, I'm fairly sure the first-generation Blu-ray players don't even have the ability to connect to the Internet. That right there is good evidence that you've got an inaccurate picture of what AACS does, even if you're not interested in following the discussions here, or looking at the technical papers on their Web site.
Doesn't mean I like it any better, but if you're going to object to something, know what it is first.
 

Bryant Trew

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The one surefire way to have gotten me to adopt a high def format would have been if the DVDs were backwards compatible with present DVD players. If I could acquire the discs and use them now in SD, and then once I have enough titles upgrade my player, that would have been awesome. Or perhaps the answer is double-disc packs that contain a HD and SD disc in them? At least that way my investment is guaranteed even if the HD format goes belly-up.
 

ChristopherDAC

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You can get a few discs which are HD DVD on one side and standard DVD on the other, but they cost somthing like twice or three times what the standard DVD costs.
 

Dennis Nicholls

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I'm not sure I have much to offer at this time, but....

I'm thinking about the Sack-Dee versus DVD-A fiasco. To me this was not a format war. I only listen to classical music. As the people who brought you Sack-Dee also "own" the classical music catalog, Sack-Dee was the obvious winner in round one with a TKO.

So I bought a Sack-Dee drive. Only then did I understand what was going on. The manufacturers of Sack-Dee drives refused to output DSD on the optical/coax digital audio output, insisting that you use the 6 coax analog channels. Thus there was no (or at least almost-no) bass management for Sack-Dee, which made it sound WORSE on my system than regular old CD's or concert DVD's with DD. Only after I ponied up the funds for the sole-source Outlaw Audio ICBM box did Sack-Dee really sound great on my system.

[Note: the ICBM is a fine piece of gear, but it's really a misfit in my system. The ICBM cost roughly the same amount of money as my RECEIVER...a Yamaha HTR-5250 purchased on sale at closeout time. Why on earth should a CROSSOVER NETWORK cost the same as a whole frigging receiver?]

So my biggest issue holding me back is this: how many unknown "magic" kludge-boxes will I have to purchase - at some outsized price - before the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player really gives me the performace promised?

Oh yeah, three more words:

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.
 

JPCinema

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I'm waiting for the classic epic films.... Ben Hur Lawrence or Arabia Ryans Daughter Mutiny on the Bounty 1962 How The West Was Won.
Until then I have no reason to see mediocre contemporary action films in HD.
I believe what got DVD on the map initially were film enthusiasts, people who were passionate about films. It seems like HD is being marketed to the young adult who wants CGI and mindless entertainment and recent films, no matter whether it was a good film or not. I could not care less about how good LAST SAMURAI video quality looks. How about releasing a critcally aclaimed classic in HD? ( I'm not talking about CRASH)
The studios need to get back to the grass roots of film lovers who originally supported DVD.
 

JimmyWilson

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High Definition DVD: What is Holding You Back?

$$$$. Format war and incompatibility issues. For the most part $$$$. I just don't see this new HD- DVD format going over big for the average consumer. I own over 300 DVD titles and the thought of having to "replace" them anytime soon makes me ill. For me it is a major investment. In the future (probably 4-5 years) if the HD line really takes off I could see my full support. As of right now when I view a stellar image transfer and faithful sound reproduction with sufficient accompanying extras, I'm quite content and satisfied with the current DVD format. Having gone from VHS to Laserdisc to DVD with major investments and support in each I'm simply staying on the sidelines until:
1. No more format wars
2. Complete compatibility with standard DVD as a courtesy and respect to Mr. & Mrs. Average Consumer
3. Good, wide saturation of HD-DVD in the marketplace for both hardware and software
4. Prices competitive with the current standard DVD hardware and software lines

Then and only then would I be willing to make the leap fully into the HD-DVD format. It took several long years for the mass consumer market to make the transition from VHS to DVD exclusively and only convincingly so in the last few years. I just don't see another significant transition of that scope happening again anytime soon.
 

Walter Kittel

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I would argue that Unforgiven, Full Metal Jacket, and Goodfellas would at least start to satisfy that criteria, and I would even throw in Million Dollar Baby for its classic film sensibilities.

Forthcoming releases of The Wizard of Oz, Singin' In The Rain, The Searchers would also apply, IMHO.

Funny, I read threads on AVS where people are complaining because enough action films haven't been released. Not singling you out Ken, but the format simply isn't mature enough to satisfy so many disparate demands from consumers.

On the other hand I do agree that the classic films are probably going to be less well represented on HD media, with Warner Bros. being our best hope for titles in this category for the forseeable future. ( Pure speculation, but that seems to me how things are going to play out. )

- Walter.
 

Robert Crawford

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As Walter has alluded to, you got to give them time. One format has only been out about three months and the other less than a month.
 

MarkHastings

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Very true, and you also want the format to 'mature' before having studios release major titles on such a newly developing format.

Just like when DVD first started; imagine all of the non-anamorphic* releases we'd be stuck with if the studios released all of their great titles right from the start.


* No Star Wars OT comments please!
 

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