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Post by Philip Ayres on Jan 8, 2008 15:01:47 GMT
Following yesterday's story that Warner's were dropping HD-DVD I now read that Paramount are to do the same.
Leaves just Universal supporting HD-DVD.
That's that one done, need an Blu-Ray player now.
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Cullen
Empty
Cat Stabber
Posts: 1,224
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Post by Cullen on Jan 8, 2008 16:57:32 GMT
Yay! Maybe I'll give a shit soon and buy one. Then again...
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jan 8, 2008 17:01:20 GMT
What's this? Sony winning a battle involving a type of media! I never thought I'd live to see the day.
Andy
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Post by elliotthopkins on Jan 8, 2008 17:16:40 GMT
I fucking love Sony.
I like to think about their 'underdog' nature when you consider MP3 players. What an odd concept. Sony, the underdogs.
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 8, 2008 21:40:46 GMT
I have no idea what the difference between blu-ray and HD-DVD is. Most of the DVD's I own are archive TV releases which aren't going to look any better than they already do on regular DVD so I have no need to upgrade. And I can't help but think that by the time regular DVD's become obsolete, high-speed legal downloads will be everyday business anyway so I don't see the 'new supah format' being quite as dramatic a thing as the switchover from VHS to DVD. You'll have a TV box thing which stores downloaded programming that can be viewed whenever and physical releases will be more of a specialist thing, eventually.
So my reaction to the format war has been to shrug my shoulders and say "huh?"
-Ralph
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kayevcee
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
The Weather Wizard
Posts: 5,527
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Post by kayevcee on Jan 8, 2008 22:55:08 GMT
Bill Gates said that Blu-ray vs HD-DVD would be the last great format war, and I suspect he was right. Looks like Microsoft made the right decision by making the X-box 360's HHDD-DVDDBVD drive sold separately. They lost the war, but at least they didn't chuck a breathtaking quantity of cash on the bonfire doing it.
-Nick
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Post by elliotthopkins on Jan 9, 2008 9:40:44 GMT
This might help PS3 sales as well.
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 9, 2008 21:38:49 GMT
Bill Gates said that Blu-ray vs HD-DVD would be the last great format war, and I suspect he was right. -Nick Only up a point. We still have the coloured blocks of wood V downloads format war to come. -Ralph |
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Post by legios on Jan 9, 2008 22:41:55 GMT
Bill Gates said that Blu-ray vs HD-DVD would be the last great format war, and I suspect he was right. -Nick Only up a point. We still have the coloured blocks of wood V downloads format war to come. -Ralph Clearly we should hope that the coloured blocks of wood become the format of choice. Star Trek has shown us that coloured blocks of wood can contain virtually any information you might need. Karl |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 10, 2008 18:44:17 GMT
If books count as coloured blocks of wood, then I vote for the coloured blocks of wood.
Martin
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 14, 2012 13:08:18 GMT
What's this? Sony winning a battle involving a type of media! I never thought I'd live to see the day. Bounced from the depths. I can't believe I didn't make the comment at the time but the Sony supported format winning should have come as no surprise. Sony were very stung by their (superior) format, Beta Max, loosing the video wars in the 80s. That one thing has led to their aquisition of media interests. Oddly they have lost a format war since: Mini Disc was a bit of a turkey but that's more a case of it being superseded by a superior technology. I have no idea what the difference between blu-ray and HD-DVD is. Most of the DVD's I own are archive TV releases which aren't going to look any better than they already do on regular DVD so I have no need to upgrade. Oddly the two things I have that show the greatest increase in quality are both classic TV: Space 1999 and The Prisoner where they've gone back to the original film And I can't help but think that by the time regular DVD's become obsolete, high-speed legal downloads will be everyday business anyway so I don't see the 'new supah format' being quite as dramatic a thing as the switchover from VHS to DVD. You'll have a TV box thing which stores downloaded programming that can be viewed whenever and physical releases will be more of a specialist thing, eventually. So my reaction to the format war has been to shrug my shoulders and say "huh?" -Ralph It's interesting that while BD is now established it hasn't taken hold and completely blown DVD away yet. I suspect the current economic conditions are to blame somewhat. In the meantime download/streaming is taking off somewhat.... |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 14, 2012 13:56:20 GMT
It's interesting that while BD is now established it hasn't taken hold and completely blown DVD away yet. The trouble is, most households probably have more than one DVD player - some of them built into TVs or PCs or even cars. If you buy a Blu-Ray player for your big living room TV and then buy a film on Blu-Ray, you can't watch it on your PC or your bedroom telly or in your car - you need to buy the DVD for that. Which is why so many films are being sold with both the Blu-Ray and the DVD disc in the same box (double/triple play). I have two multi-region DVD players plus the DVD player in my laptop. It would be expensive to replace them all with Blu-Ray machines, and I'd want to be sure I could still watch my Region 1 discs. I have however bought a few double-play films so that I have the Blu-Ray disc as well as the DVD, ready for the day when I do get a Blu-Ray player in the house. But for now, the picture quality of DVDs looks fine on my TV. Martin Martin |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 14, 2012 15:00:40 GMT
I doubt we'd have upgraded but when the DVD player on the TV went TU I took the plunge....
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Post by legios on Jul 14, 2012 21:46:35 GMT
The thing that interests me is that the media industry clear expected that once the dust settled from the format war there would be a repeat of the VHS to DVD or tape-to-CD transistion, where there was a mass scramble of people switching over all at once to the new format and then repurchasing the products they already had in the new format. For whatever reason this hasn't happened and Blu-Ray seems to have fallen into a generational crack as a new generation has come along who aren't so bothered about actually owning the media they consume, and are quite happy with the semi-ownership model that iTunes developed and that the content providers and hardware creators had thought was something to think about after the "current" transition had been completed.
Instead the whole arguement has leapfrogged Blu-Ray entirely, leaving it just another thing instead of the "next big thing" that it was supposed to be.
Ah well - most plans don't survive contact with reality.
Karl
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Post by blueshift on Jul 15, 2012 6:04:03 GMT
I think it's because the shift from VHS to DVD was far more dramatic than DVD to Blu-Ray. DVD had many obvious advantages, from picture quality to storage space to extra features to not needing to rewind!
Blu Ray is just better picture quality, and most people probably couldn't tell unless looking side by side with a DVD version. Also to get the best out of it you need a big tv - if you just have a small monitor like me, there's no reason to upgrade to Blu-Ray since the difference wouldn't be that noticeable. If I had a big tv hanging on the wall, sure.
Of course, most of my DVD collection is Dr Who, which doesn't exist in HD so Blu-Ray really means nothing to me
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jul 15, 2012 7:19:48 GMT
The thing that interests me is that the media industry clear expected that once the dust settled from the format war there would be a repeat of the VHS to DVD or tape-to-CD transistion, where there was a mass scramble of people switching over all at once to the new format and then repurchasing the products they already had in the new format. The fact that Blu-Ray players also play DVDs is one major difference from the VHS/DVD and tape/CD transitions. There is a reason besides picture quality to buy new movies on Blu-Ray, namely that they've started leaving all the extras off DVDs, and including them only on the Blu-Ray disc. But that doesn't provide such an incentive to replace old movies on DVD. And there is very little incentive to favour Blu-Ray for old TV shows. Martin |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 15, 2012 7:35:14 GMT
There is a reason besides picture quality to buy new movies on Blu-Ray, namely that they've started leaving all the extras off DVDs, and including them only on the Blu-Ray disc. But that doesn't provide such an incentive to replace old movies on DVD. And there is very little incentive to favour Blu-Ray for old TV shows. I'll make the point I did earlier: the two best BDs I have for better picture quality are Space 1999 & The Prisoner. Both shot on film so we have original film negatives to go back to and create a new HD print. The BD versions look like they were done yesterday. Although the BBC didn't shoot on film (Doctor Who etc) ITV generally did (Sweeney, Professionals, ITC) as did US & Japanese TV. So there's a vast archive of stuff that, given a decent clean up, would look great on BD, Star Fleet included which didn't get much clean up on it's DVD release. |
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Post by legios on Jul 15, 2012 19:39:07 GMT
Indeed, anything where they can go back to original film elements is going to look better (as they can work from a source which is still higher resolution than the final Blu-Ray encoding). I've seen some side-by-side comparisons with some older animated shows where the difference between the DVD releases and the Blu-Ray releases have been quite startling.
Anything shot on video isn't going to benefit so much - you can't get back picture information that was never there. I have to say that none of this has made me want to buy a Blu-Ray player - my television set is such that I wouldn't actually see any change in the transition so it hasn't seemed a pressing concern.
Karl
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 15, 2012 20:40:53 GMT
well you can. Upscaling. But it's not as great as the real thing. Some TVs automatically upscale SD pictures to HD and the results.... can be variable. An upscale done at source can be OK but I've no experience of anything mind blowing.
15 years ago you'd have said it wasn't possible to get what's between frames of film and now we're used to VIDFire.....
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Post by legios on Jul 15, 2012 21:59:28 GMT
well you can. Upscaling. But it's not as great as the real thing. Some TVs automatically upscale SD pictures to HD and the results.... can be variable. An upscale done at source can be OK but I've no experience of anything mind blowing. My television was made before HD was even a possibility, so I'm not sure it is capable of upscaling anything to be honest. (I sometimes think I am very much Retrotech-equipped, considering the age and sophistication of my computers, mobile-phone, television....) Karl |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 15, 2012 22:11:24 GMT
no, it won't be. But some are. Oddly I believe left scrolling text is a problem ......
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 15, 2012 22:34:30 GMT
The thing that interests me is that the media industry clear expected that once the dust settled from the format war there would be a repeat of the VHS to DVD or tape-to-CD transistion, where there was a mass scramble of people switching over all at once to the new format and then repurchasing the products they already had in the new format. The fact that Blu-Ray players also play DVDs is one major difference from the VHS/DVD and tape/CD transitions. There is a reason besides picture quality to buy new movies on Blu-Ray, namely that they've started leaving all the extras off DVDs, and including them only on the Blu-Ray disc. Martin Which doesn't work on this particular consumer. There have been DVD's I haven't bothered to buy as they missed off the features the Blu-Ray disc has. -Ralph |
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