take that Blu-Ray

[Jong]

I think 2 is the most common and then probably 3

I think 1 is more common than you think.

First, it comes down to the size of screen. With a 32" screen or smaller, viewed at 10ft and with average eyesight, you are barely if at all going to see the benefit of even 720p over even an averagely upscaled DVD (such as provided by PDVD8 ). Yes you can get up and stare at the pixels from 2ft, but most do not.

Second, a LOT of people, simply do not watch movies for the eyecandy. My wife is a movie buff, she has seen Blu-ray (including Corpse Bride as it happens) on a large, top of the line, well calibrated 1080p set and whilst she will admit it is "nice" she really would not care. Upscaled DVDs on our system are much better than the quality we have ever experienced in a cinema and that is frankly good enough for her.

Given most people's TVs, environment and level of interest I do not see them willing to pay any significant premium for Blu-ray. Players and discs need to get very close to DVD levels for mass market adoption.

 

[Tyrod01]

I have over 50 HiDef movies, a mix of BD & HD. Several of which are duplicates of SD movies I already owned. Plus, the wifey like to get new releases at the Blockbuster. Anyway, I've seen alot of movies on (upscale)SD and am able to compare them with their HiDef counterparts. Some are remarkably better. For instance, most scenes in the newest re-rereleased Fifth Element is remarkable compared to the upscaled counterpart. Some movies, such as HD DUNE, are barely better than their SD counterpart. Certainly, not worth paying a premium of more than a dollar or two for the HiDef version. One movie, Ultraviolet was worse on BD than it is on SD, except for the audio.

Having said that, it also needs pointing out that some movies upscale better than others. So in the final analysis, I think each person has to view the HiDef movie in question before purchase because it may be a waste of money.

 

[andy o]

I think 1 is more common than you think.

First, it comes down to the size of screen. With a 32" screen or smaller, viewed at 10ft and with average eyesight, you are barely if at all going to see the benefit of even 720p over even an averagely upscaled DVD (such as provided by PDVD8). Yes you can get up and stare at the pixels from 2ft, but most do not.

Second, a LOT of people, simply do not watch movies for the eyecandy. My wife is a movie buff, she has seen Blu-ray (including Corpse Bride as it happens) on a large, top of the line, well calibrated 1080p set and whilst she will admit it is "nice" she really would not care. Upscaled DVDs on our system are much better than the quality we have ever experienced in a cinema and that is frankly good enough for her.

Given most people's TVs, environment and level of interest I do not see them willing to pay any significant premium for Blu-ray. Players and discs need to get very close to DVD levels for mass market adoption.

I don't know. I pay attention to cinematography too in movies, and resolution jump, which allows for bigger screens, makes a big difference. Those beautiful aereal shots in Planet Earth are just awe-inducing in HD (or in a theater I presume). That's why the movie theater experience used to be unique (when you don't have a-holes talking on the phone, etc.). Now the playing field is leveled, with even better sound for home. Others that I imagine would benefit from this are Coen bros. movies, and I'm waiting for Wes Anderson's movies on HD, I refuse to see another of those in DVD. Granted, of course some movies benefit more than others, in the same way that Woody Allen I think still does movies in mono, they don't benefit much from surround sound. But something like Manhattan on HD would indeed be great.

That said, again, if people really don't care, it's none of my business, and your wife seems to like story-driven movies, which I also favor if it comes to choosing between story and beauty shots. I also agree that you need a bigger TV, or stand really close, so probably that's something to consider on why people don't move to bluray as easy as they did for DVD.

 

[Jong]

Personally I agree with everything you say. And for some directors and cinematographers I will go HD everytime. Couldn't agree more about the Coen and Wes Anderson movies (and Planet Earth).

As average screen sizes increase (as they are clearly doing) the benefits will at least stand a chance of being noticeable. Then it comes down to whether people really care. As I mentioned earlier, since most people like/use the horrid vivid settings preset by most TV manufacturers for "wow factor" and since such settings largely blow away any fine detail of a beautiful HD transfer I fear not!

 

[Jong]

It occurs to me that there is one further thing that plays into this.

Here in Europe (and most of the world outside of the US and Japan) we of course use PAL, with 576 lines of vertical resolution on DVD. This of course helps with upscaling (not as far to go) and further reduces the apparent benefits of HD.

 

[lostinlodos]

Huh now imagine if HD DVD would have one. Think it would be a different story.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/13811.cfm

Great; it's almost word-for-word a section out of an article in CEPro from this month. LOL.
Old news!

I am not surprise. IMO, there are few things contribute that today.

How about the biggest factor, to release on Blu Ray, (and to release a Blu Ray player) you need to pay a fee. A fee collected on EVERY item. HD DVD was free to use, free to sell, free to set prices, free to agree, or not agree to, copyright and DRM structures.... Blu Ray (the various involved party at every level) charges the distributers and manufacturers over and over again. Charges for the use of the name, for the codecs, for the MANDATORY copy-prevention, for the mandatory DRM, for the .... Studios (outside of Hollywood and the Hollywood supported international ones) are just not willing to pay. Those that do price items WELL out of the reach of most consumers.

It is not the VHS vs. DVD

No, nor VHS vs Beta.
It IS VHS vs VCD all over again. HD DVD is not going away. It's just being pushed under the rug, so to speak.
Here's the thing, there is CH-DVD! The Chinese format is (as far as most readers here are concerned) IDENTICAL to HD DVD. And despite Western mis-understanding about the format, it is cross-compatible. I have the first three releases on the format that came out about a week ago, and they play just great in my LG SuperMulti player. And AnyDVDHD picks them up as being HD DVD disc. The only change is that the CH-DVD will eventually support "more" or "other" copy-prevention forms. Considering that China is the second largest movie/film industry behind India, those that invested in the HD format will have CH-DVD for a long time to come (including Western films).
Long live HD, er, CH-DVD!

 

[andy o]

... Which brings us to discussing porn . It was said that whichever format took the porn industry would have a great edge. Bluray gave them some trouble, so they were going for HD-DVD. But then people started saying how they don't WANT HD porn, because you could get more "detail" that you ever bargained for.

People, that is not the solution. You can either make any given shot equally framed but more detailed (like a DVD vs. HD comparison of any movie), OR, you can do a more "panoramic" shot, with "more" in it, instead of "higher detail". You can preserve the same number of pixels for any given, hmm, "object" onscreen that you had on a DVD, only that now you can put more "objects" onscreen .

And THAT is the solution. People failed to see the advantage, hence there was no incentive to start buying porn again, hence the HD porn industry didn't take, hence HD-DVD didn't have an edge. HD-DVD should have promoted and sold itself to the porn industry like a... well, you get what I'm saying.

 

[DigiMagic]

Here's the thing, there is CH-DVD! The Chinese format is (as far as most readers here are concerned) IDENTICAL to HD DVD. And despite Western mis-understanding about the format, it is cross-compatible. I have the first three releases on the format that came out about a week ago, and they play just great in my LG SuperMulti player. And AnyDVDHD picks them up as being HD DVD disc. The only change is that the CH-DVD will eventually support "more" or "other" copy-prevention forms. Considering that China is the second largest movie/film industry behind India, those that invested in the HD format will have CH-DVD for a long time to come (including Western films).

Is there an online store with CH-DVD discs equivalent to, say, Amazon? I would very much like to get some Zhang Yimou films in high definition...

 

[lostinlodos]

Is there an online store with CH-DVD discs equivalent to, say, Amazon? I would very much like to get some Zhang Yimou films in high definition...

Considering there are only three releases on the format so far, no. Joyo had all three but sold out (supposedly to Chinese purchases, yeah right). I'm sure that Amazon will have them eventually. They have HVD on Amazon's joyo site.
I ordered my copies through the distributor that I have used for years. The format is still new, and much like the first month or so for HD DVD, it will probably be slow to get going. The biggest difference is that it just has MORE copyright protections used on the discs. One thing I noticed copying Zu Warriors using the AnyDVD ripper is that the old Audio CD blip style protection is on the audio tracks. Where you get that loud pong blip in the middle of something. Annoying, but I'm sure it could be figured out eventually when the format does get going.
I can't wait for Celestial to start putting the Shaw library on the format. House of Traps, remastered in HD! Oh yeah!