Grim outlook for both HD-DVD & Blue Ray?

[Paul MacLean]

Came across this article the other day. Of course its merely one man's opinion, but he makes some interesting points...

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editori ... failed.php

I'll settle for 480p for the moment!


Paul

[Eric W.]

Came across this article the other day. Of course its merely one man's opinion, but he makes some interesting points...

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editori ... failed.php

I'll settle for 480p for the moment!


Paul

I posted that in another thread as well.

Point 2 for me is the heart and soul of the entire article from which everything else stems off of.

[Carlson2005]

I keep on thinking about CD-i - remember them? Or 8mm video? Or the pre-laserdisc video discs. And I'm not even going to mention the B word...

Good article, though - as he says, convenience is king.

[Paul MacLean]

I keep on thinking about CD-i - remember them? Or 8mm video? Or the pre-laserdisc video discs.

I remember those videodiscs. They were suspended in a plastic shell, and actually read by a stylus!

That was almost as funny a format as the LP walkman.

And I'm not even going to mention the B word...

Well I was actually a "B" user myself. The sad thing was it was a MUCH better format than VHS.

The fastest record/playback mode (Beta 1) was actually broadcast quality. Unfortunately Beta 1 was phased-out by Sony (likely because you could only fit 90 minutes in Beta 1 on a tape).

But Beta 2 gave you THREE HOURS of record time on a tape, and was still superior to VHS SP. Beta 3 was probably comperable to VHS SP, and gave you I think five or five and a half hours (I don't remember exactly).

Beta was also the first to have hifi sound as well.

And the tape format itself is still used in BetaCam and DigiBeta.

The great shame was Sony's refusal to licence Beta to other manufacturers.


Paul

[AndyDursin]

Well HD-DVD may not have gotten off to a strong start, but most of the early Blu Ray discs Sony has released have been met with even-worse reviews -- and that's probably being kind.

For a format inherently more expensive this is absolutely awful news for Sony out of the gate. Hopefully for them better players will be on the market soon, because this is borderline suicidal press coverage when it's so much more expensive to begin with!

Note DVDTalk's Samsung BluRay player review:

"Make no mistake, the Blu-ray format launch has been truly unimpressive. The $999 Samsung BD-P1000 has fewer features and lesser quality than its HD DVD competition at half the price. The first wave of software releases are also decidedly inferior to those on the other format. Even as a big High Definition fan, I cannot recommend this player for purchase. It is simply not worthy of the large investment."
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=22593

From DVDTalk's FIFTH ELEMENT review:

"With the bright colors and fun visuals, this should be the standout disc from the first wave of Blu-Ray discs to be released. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case...

The Superbit release of Fifth Element looked pretty good, and maybe I'm expecting too much, but I wanted the Blu-Ray disc to look significantly better. (If it doesn't, what's the point of upgrading to this new format?) I'd love to report that this film was drop dead gorgeous but, like the other Blu-Ray discs that I've seen, I can't. It just didn't look that much better than the SD DVD especially if you have an up-converting player."
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=22629

From DVDTalk's TERMINATOR review:

"Of the initial wave of launch titles, this is one of the better-looking Blu-ray discs from Sony. Unfortunately that's not saying much...The problem is that the Blu-ray hardly looks like High Definition at all. In fact, in the majority of scenes it's barely distinguishable from the 2001 DVD edition of the movie."
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=22644

No good....at all!

[Carlson2005]

And still the good news keeps on coming...


Copy Protection Fault Found in HDTV DVD PlayersDespite taking elaborate precautions to build fool-proof copy-protection systems into the next generation of high-definition DVD players, a computer magazine has found a relatively easy way of defeating the systems, thereby allowing pirates to make master copies. The magazine c't (sic), in an issue that went on sale Monday, noted that it is only necessary to press the Print key on a keyboard while an HD movie is running in order to get a full-resolution picture of each frame. By automating the process, frames can be captured in consecutive order to create a complete movie, the magazine observed. It can then be mixed with the audio track. The copy protection loophole affects both Sony's Blu-ray players and Toshiba's HD-DVD players. Both companies are expected to produce software updates to counteract the fault.


Yet Another Delay for Blu-Ray Players, Says Chinese Paper
And the delays keep coming for Sony's Blu-ray high-definition DVD system. China's Commercial Times newspaper is reporting that Sony's production facilities have not been able to meet the demand for the diode that generates the blue laser at the heart of the HD system. Both Sony's own plants and those of Japan's Nichia Corp., the only two suppliers of the diodes, have been plagued by production problems, the newspaper said. The supply problem, it observed, could not only delay production of Blu-ray DVD players for Sony and other manufacturers, but could also delay the release of PlayStation 3 models, now scheduled for November.

[Eric W.]

This will blow you away...in the worst way possible.


http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6350773.html




Also interesting: http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/30052006/244/dv ... umers.html

[Paul MacLean]

With all this talk of encryption and paranoid attempts to control our viewing habits, HD-DVD and Blue Ray are sounding more and more like DIVX! (And we all saw where that format went.)

Here is an interesting article at the site where I buy video tapes (actually its one installment of a series of articles) about the controversy which greeted the introduction of home video. There are some uncanny parallels to the present day controversy over DVD encryption...

http://www.totalmedia.com/trivia_7.asp


Paul

[Edmund Kattak]

With all this hoopla concerning HD-DVD and BLU-RAy, has anyone noticed that the prices of PC internal and external DVD+/-RW drives have plummeted a bit? I just ordered an intenal Sony DR-820A internal (Retail box) for $63.99 including shipping. It's one of the better drives that features Dual/DOUBLE layer and DVD-RAM support. I know this might not mean much to some, but for that price it's a deal.

On another note, I've been taking the HD transport streams from my cable PVR and converting to DVD-9. I recently recorded DOMINO from Pay-Per-View with Keira Knightly and transcoded it to the highest possible bit-rate that I could fit on a DUAL-LAYER disc. The results were remarkably more detailed and stunning compared to that of my commercially purchased DVD of the movie. The sound was also in DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 and sounded great. Of course, it helped that the original was in 720p and I used progressive transcoding. All-in-all, it was a nice experiment and a bit time-consuming. It's something that I'd probably never do again, unless there were special events that would never appear on DVD.

We will see where this HD stuff leads to.