how far away is HD-DVD?? (1 Viewer)

[george kaplan]

Dan,
We're all entitled to our own opinions and feelings. I just want to make sure I understand your position. If DVHS ends up with a very small supply of films available (as seems very likely), and HD-DVD comes out and is a hit and has a lot of films available, but the quality of HD-DVD is just slightly inferior to D-VHS, but still far, far, far better than DVD, you'll stick with your handful of D-VHS tapes and your large collection of DVD and bypass HD-DVD altogether? It's an interesting position to take.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

George:

I'd probably only get into D-VHS if the tapes were less money (since they degrade and/or get eaten) and they finally supported full bitrate DTS. Also the next generation players had best have grandfathered in analog component outputs at full rez. or I'd not come within 10 feet of the format even with an electric cattle prod.

From what I've heard so far about these high compression schemes I'm not impressed. Unless they surprise me.

At the bare minimum I hope HD-DVD uses full bitrate DTS 24/96 and DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 as standard issue tracks (not from time to time).

If HD-DVD is pushed back to 5 or more years then they had better damn well come up with something a whole lot better than lossy compressed DTS and Dolby Digital for the soundtracks. There are already super capacity discs far beyond Blue-Ray that might be viable options in that time frame, which could make HD-DVD absolutely phenomenal.

Dan

 

[Mark Hanson]

There is another fly in the ointment, even though I have not seen press on it in a long time. When DVD was in its start up phases, studios and expecially Warner were expecting the next step to be a video on demand, pay per play system, more like a super pay per view ordering, but with current and catelog titles on line that would start at the instant you ordered.

They were not committing support to beyond DVD at that time. In fact major fear factors in committing to support beyond DVD were cited.

DVHS could survive as an off air recorder in a niche without many titles available. So DVHS did not suprise me much and just like S-VHS I do not expect to see much more than this type of support for DVHS in software available.

So until the studios can undream the first issue as having total control over their works, HDVD will be slow in comming until like DVD they are able to invision a greater gain than loss on supporting it.

Hardware, we saw HD-DIVX so we could see protypes supporting the conflicting(again!) standards that are about to appear as early as the the next year. But as we all know hardware without software is not too useful!

 

[Dan Hitchman]

If Pay Per Play is in our future I say we KILL IT NOW!!!

We destroyed DIVX. Now we'll have to set our sights on these nasty no-copy & PPP schemes Hollywood is trying to slip in under the radar disguised as the Hollings bill.

This forum and others must strike hard and strike fast before it's too late...

Dan

 

[Mark_Mac]

Because D-VHS is expensive and rare, because tapes wear out, and because it would be much more expensive and difficult to pirate D-VHS tapes than any kind of DVD. It is simply less of a risk for the studios, so it is worth it to get a demo product out there. The HD market itself is still too small to be worth the effort for large-scale pirates, and copying HD material is too much trouble for "casual" copiers - most of whom do not own D-VHS decks in any case.

DVHS has a firewire connection and material can be dumped onto pc...

Personally Ive had more problems with laser rot then worn out video tapes.

HDDVD is a long way away IMO and recordable HDDVD is never going to happen IMO...we cant even record digital audio now with stand alone dvd recordeds because studios are so paranoid.

I do believe if HDDVD players come out that they will be back ward compliant and will hopefully do some kind of upconversion of 480i material.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I want something better than blue laser. I don't want to sacrifice any picture/sound quality. I want well-compressed 1080P with 24/96 mlp, DTS or DSD 7-channel sound.

But I *don't* want a 2 1/2 hour movie spread accross more than one disc. Use FMD. Use some other new holographic disc technology. Blue Laser isn't the only answer and IMO it's not the best one.

-dave

 

[Roberto Carlo]

Three years ago, Joe Kane told Gary Reber that a 720p DVD was possible using a modified version of current DVD technology. (WSR issue 33). I point this out by way of saying that the principal obstacle to HD-DVD isn't technical, it's economic.

As the owner of an HD-ready RPTV, I'd love to see HD-DVD on the horizon. Still, I can see why it isn't at the top of any of the studios' "to-do" list: You have an incredibly popular format that is compatible with every television and most computers sold in the USA and Canada. In contrast, only 2 to 3 percent of the televisions in the USA are HD-ready. This is number is growing but, IMO, it will be at least a decade and probably more before HDTV has the kind of market penetration that DVD currently enjoys. Think about it: no matter how great the economies of scale can you ever imagine a HD-ready set being a commodity in the way that DVD players and many direct-view NTSC sets are?

Then there's the issue of what to do with the rest of the world. I don't know how this figures into the equation but the fact that the USA is, I think, the only nation making the transition to HD must have some impact. (A digression: Is anyone else impressed at how effortlessly bi-lingual the non-English-is-my-native-language folks here at HTF are? As Darth Vader once said "Impressive.")

Finally, there are the questions of copyright protection. Even if you assume that the piracy problem in North America can be adequately addressed, there still remains the question of whether you want to give Chinese pirates a helluva "master" from which to make bootlegs. Anyone interested in this problem should check an excellent article about the impossibility of stopping Chinese bootleggers in Salon.

Just my .02.

 

[Michael Lomker]

The problem with DVD was that software decoders were available (for PC's). I can guarantee that won't happen with any new HD standard.

That is, perhaps, one advantage that D-Theater currently has: only JVC in Japan can master the tapes. The studios really don't have much risk of the tapes being duplicated.

On the other hand, any DVD "standard" is going to have to be well documented and understood by the engineering community.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The problem with DVD was that software decoders were available (for PC's). I can guarantee that won't happen with any new HD standard.

Wanna bet? You can watch and record HDTV on your PC right now with a $300 PCI card

DVD-ROM drives are one of the things taht really got DVD going, there will be HDDVD-ROM drives and decoders, no doubt about it.

 

[Roberto Carlo]

Wanna bet? You can watch and record HDTV on your PC right now with a $300 PCI card

Wow! I didn't know that. This is the kind of thing that gives the MPAA nightmares. And I can't say that I'm unsympathetic to these concerns. I doubt that video piracy would be a big problem in North America, but the overseas market is a different question, especially since it's increasingly apparent that there is little China can or will do about software -- including movies -- piracy.
I don't mean any disrespect, but I'm struck how little many home theater aficionados take economic and business necessities into account. These are publicly traded companies whose first responsibility is to maximize return to their shareholders. This, not providing us with the latest and greatest in technology, is their priority.
I know I sound like a MPAA stooge but if you read my work elsewhere you would know that I make part of my living ripping the entertainment industry a new one. I guess I'm saying that the answer to the question posed in this thread is: when it makes good business, and not just technological, sense.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

There are already super capacity discs far beyond Blue-Ray that might be viable options in that time frame, which could make HD-DVD absolutely phenomenal.

Absolutely! And that includes FMD technology, as mentioned by David Boulet, which is exactly the technology that should be used when HD-DVD is finally brought to market.
The way things stand, I would say that we are a minimum of 5 years away from seeing HD-DVD's and players. Yep, if we are lucky, we might see them in the year 2007! :frowning:

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Don't settle for some bit-starved Blue-Ray 2-layer format that's just an HD version of what we already have...a format that has to compromise between choosing to optimize audio quality, video quality, or extras.

Give me a high-capacity optical format (like FMD etc) that can give me TRUE 1080P with NO compression artifacts, lossless compressed 24/192 or DSD multi-channel audio in 8 languages with commentary and 2 hours of extras...all on one disc that never needs to be flipped.

It's not a fantasy. The technology is there. It's just that the political interests that have been developing blue-laser technology want to cash in and so they're going to screw the HD-DVD format you and I will have to live with to make a buck.

-dave