Hollywood: I WILL NOT buy into red laser, faux HD-DVDs! This is what I would buy. (1 Viewer)

[Dan Hitchman]

I have been reading some troubling reports out of the CES 2003 convention that the DVD Forum is on the brink of selecting what many home theater fans have been dreading:
Severely compromised (and compressed) red laser based DVD's for "supposed" HD content. I use the term "HD" lightly as most critical manufacturers (such as Matsushita and Sony) seem to agree that these super compressed, low bitrate video codecs being considered will not provide superior high definition video content.
Personally, I will not buy into such a format. It does not constitute true high definition performance for video or audio.
If true (and it's sounding like it is), this flies in the face of common sense and two vastly superior options that seem to have been forgotten all of a sudden:
1) Dual layered blue laser, high bitrate discs from Toshiba/NEC
And
2) The super capacity (50+ Gigabytes), highly protected (comes with a caddy to shield against dust, fingerprints, and scratches), high bitrate, dual layered Blue-Ray discs from a large camp of big name manufacturers.
Though I highly support Blue-Ray out of the two blue laser proposals, both have the capacity to provide for almost triple the bitrate of current red laser DVDs and have room for better-than-DVD audio quality [such as MLP packed 24/96 PCM in 6 or even 8 (my first choice) channel discrete flavors] if one, 2 hour plus movie is not overly crammed and stuffed onto a single dual layered disc.
What I would most definitely support (with my hard earned money) is a true high definition, non-linear medium that included these features:
Video:
Higher bitrate, lower compression.
True 1920 x 1080p with full 24 fps (film) and 30 fps (video) support along with no filtering and zero edge enhancement. Digital scaling and filtering support could allow consumers to select between full, untouched 1080p output and 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i downrezed signals.
True 4:4:4 component ratio signal.
~21x9 (2.35:1) anamorphic enhancement for 2.0:1 and wider aspect ratios. Allows for a significant increase in picture resolution for wider ratio movies. Superior digital down-scaling and letterboxing would be in-player for normal 1.78:1 TV sets (16x9 mode). ~21x9 output mode would allow consumers with 16x9 digital front projectors (coming way down in price) and a special anamorphic lens to enjoy much higher resolution and larger images, and with 2.35:1 movies all of the 1920 x 1080p pixel depth. The constant height, variable width screen concept for home theaters could now easily be a reality.
http://www.digitaldreamtheaters.com/...x9proposal.htm
High resolution, multi-colored subtitles with smooth fonts. Must be far, far better than the low quality subtitles we get now with regular DVDs. The whole point is to make them look like they were apart of the film to begin with, and not overlayed 8-bit ATARI graphics. That also means that they stay within the film's picture frame.
Audio:
Modified Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) encoded PCM (with no audio watermarking for purer sound) to allow for more discrete channels than DVD-Audio. For the original language track.
Support for 24 bit/192 kHz, 1-2 channel mode up to 24 bit/96 kHz, 8 channel discrete surround mode. Digital output via Firewire IEEE, high bandwidth digital audio cable.
DTS (including DTS-ES and DTS 96/24) and/or Dolby Digital backwards compatible track. Digital output via standard coaxial and optical cords.
Low rez, low bitrate sub audio tracks for things like audio commentaries and other non critical audio usage.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Dan

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Doesn't anyone have an opinion on this important topic?

Wouldn't you rather have a great quality HD disc medium even if it meant that it would be more of a niche product?

I certainly wouldn't want to invest in some half-assed scheme to milk even more money out of me before the real HD content was unveiled. If we don't act now, this may just happen.

Dan

 

[Andy_MT]

don't worry Dan, red lasers' chances are slim at best. it might find some application, somewhere (perhaps the corporate market), but it won't find a home in the consumer market. we (the initial consumers who they need to pay the heavy startup prices) won't accept it if the quality is compromised. if we won't buy it, they can't sell it. end of story.

if they've got the cash to spare, by all means they can try. but we'll all wait until a blue laser solution comes along, while they throw millions at a product that's not going to happen.

so i'm not worried ...

 

[Patrick McCart]

I like this proposal.

Constant height would allow for excellent resolution for ALL aspect ratios.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Anybody else wish to talk about this subject?

I'd think this would be an important topic to be discussing before we get some format we may not be happy with... and it's too late.

Dan

 

[DeeF]

Your suggestions are elegant and eloquent. However...

I'd be surprised if the studios allowed the public to own movies in 1080p. It's just too high a resolution, it's like giving the farm away.

We shall see what we shall see.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

DeeF,

I just don't see how 1080p would be giving the farm away.

Real world 35mm and 70mm film resolution is far, far greater than 1920 x 1080. If the studio executives don't know that, then they should (take heed!).

Dan