News on HD from FOX (1 Viewer)

[ppltd]

Just an intereting tib bit on the state of HD and BR players. No comments added.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,213989,00.html

And this for a little gossip on the MS Xbox 360 HD-DVD player

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/hd-dvd/

Thomas Eisenmann

 

[FrancisP]

The second question is whether the public will see enough of a dfference to invest in it. I doubt the average consumer is looking at SD and saying I want something better. Even if early adopters were buying into it that would make it no more than a niche format. For the format to be mainstream then the general public has to buy it. I think SD could be like videocassettes. Hanging on for decades.

 

[ppltd]

I believe you are right. SD will be hear for a long time. Just look at the time it has taken HD Displays to make any impact in the general buying public. In fact, it took price reductions to dring them down to the price of the old Sony's to begin selling. At finally, they are beginning to drive non-HD displays to the back racks.

It will be a long and slow process for HD drives to make a large impact. As long as it is a steady growth, I think the HD Hardware manufactures and Studios will continue to support it. Time will tell.

Thomas Eisenmann

 

[ReggieW]

Yes,

I agree.

I made a pretty ignorant comment yesterday in a thread when I said that films made before 1953 would probably not benefit much from High Definition. I was informed by several members (naturally, some quite rudely) that this wasn't the case.

Fine.

When Casablanca arrives on HD-DVD, we will have to compare it to the already outstanding SD DVD. I still believe that the picture quality improvement will be minimal at best since the SD dvd is so outstanding picture wise. Eventhough the SD is only 480p, we'll just have to see how much better the HD-DVD image will be at 1080i.

This is the rub...

Will the difference in these titles be great enough to cause the average consumer to upgrade their players/systems to exploit the perceived improvement? At this point, I say "no." Time will tell, but I am of the opinion that even if HD-DVD were to win the format war, it would STILL have an uphill battle over simple SD-DVD, which many consumers are more than satisfied with. The fact that we have two dueling formats makes things all the worse.

Just my thoughts.

 

[ppltd]

This is the million dollar question.

Thomas Eisenmann

 

[Rachael B]

Reggie, what wouldn't look better with 6X mo' resolution?

 

[Paul Borges]

Was it reasonable to expect the format would catch on in a huge way by now anyways? I think as broadcast moves more and more into HD people will start to want their DVDs to be HD. Which means HD-DVD or BR. I mean HD will eventually be the standard so its going to happen eventually.

 

[Vincent_P]

Movies shot in standard-definition DV, like CHUCK & BUCK and 28 DAYS LATER

Vincent

 

[Don Solosan]

"Movies shot in standard-definition DV, like CHUCK & BUCK and 28 DAYS LATER "

DVDs are so heavily compressed that it seems even stuff like this should look better.

 

[FrancisP]

I don't think it is a given that HD takes over. More people will have HD sets but what resolution will they have? I saw a poll on MSNBC that was done by a firm. It indicated a majority wanted HDTVs but a majority of that wanted to spend less than $1500. That probably means a lower resolution tv. The lower the resolution the less likely the general public is to see enough of a difference to make the switch.

As far what will hold up on HD, high budget movies will hold up very well in HD.
Also some of the movies shot in higher quality formats such as VistVision will likely hold up. The problems are likely to be shows shot on tight schedules and limited budgets. The original Star Trek series is an example. The effects were done on a shoestring. Paramount gave some nonsense for reshooting the special effects but I have no doubt it was because the effects did not hold up to HD.

 

[Bob_L]

I just attended a 10-day film festival that concentrated on films made in the early '50s. For the most part, the prints were excellent quality. I can assure you that the level of subtlety and detail I saw in both the B/W and color prints was far, FAR beyond the piddling resolution of SD DVD and would DEFINITELY benefit from the increased resolution of HD DVD or BD.

Too few viewers and, worse, DVD "journalists" (with emphasis on the quotation marks since most are under-educated idiots, IMO) have no idea what film prints looked like in the 50s, 40s and 30s. Fact is, those films can be eye-boggling in their detail and color saturation, and only a hi-def format will do them near-justice.

 

[ppltd]

Amen.

There are more films from the 30's through the 60's that I am looking forward to (in HD) than anything made after.

Thomas Eisenmann

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Don't know what you mean by that. HD-DVD and BR are even more heavily compressed than DVD is. This is a good thing, BTW.

 

[Dave H]

I agree. Another thing to consider is that so many consumers just starting purchasing their DVD collection over the last five years or so. They are not going to re-invest and purchase everything all over again so soon (I mean I even feel this way to a degree). Of course, the other option is moving forward and buying in HD DVD or Blu-ray, but that goes right back to your point. Is it really worth it to the average consumer? DVD is "good enough" to them. Remember, most people don't give it all that much thought and think about their pocket books more and other things to spend their money on rather than the latest and greatest video formats/quality.