NucNavST3 said:
london-boy said:
london-boy said:
more along the lines of dominant format. But I agree with you, in the states it wasn't until last year that broadband overtook dial-up and that is only a $10-20 increase/month.NucNavST3 said:
Mr. Hanky said:
london-boy said:That's why DVD won't die, or lose first spot, for a long time.
I think that when people will be able to store lots of HD movies on hard drives, maybe that's when optical formats will die.
I never understand why people keep bringing up MP3s when talking about SACD/DVDA. If anything, MP3 ate up CD sales, not SACD/DVDA sales, which are just niche and always will be since their market is just different to the CD/MP3 market. It's like they're on a different dimension. MP3 damaged CD sales, not SACD/DVDA. What damaged SACD/DVDA is that no one gave a damn and the companies making the formats didn't convince the people that they "needed" them.
HDTV is a new standard that will become a much bigger part of our houses than "high quality audio" ever will. Even at this somewhat "initial" stage, HDTVs have made a huge impact, and eventually all TVs will be HDTVs. And people will want to play HD movies on them without much trouble and FAST, and optical formats are the easiest option.
Surely, digital distribution is the wild card, but we won't have infrastructures to support that for a while (bandwidth for fast downloads of huge files, and hard drives big enough to keep a lot of movies in there at any one time), and in the meantime HDDVD and Bluray will have a chance to make an impact.
Anyway, we've discussed this so many times...
Right now, it is marketed to hdtv owners (which would be a logical approach), but hdtv owners aren't the only ones that can benefit from HD broadcasts (ironic, as it sounds). As compromised as sd dtv is implemented, it is actually possible to see noticeable and beneficial PQ improvement with downscaled hd broadcasts on a mere sdtv (using "lowly" s-video/composite analog connections, to boot). It is counter-intuitive, but indeed, digital sd broadcast services have really gotten that bad. Maybe shoddy digital sd broadcasts have gotten to be so by design, so it is kind of a skeevy way to push the masses to the world of hd. The way I look at it, hd broadcasts are the future (warts and all ), like it or not, so holding on to sd broadcasts is simply prolonging the inevitable. Those who seek to sell hd broadcast services, simply need to remodulate their ad campaigning to convey that it would benefit everyone, regardless of the tv they currently own. It would be a far more honest statement to the masses than all those promises of "digital quality" video and sound we've heard of for so long.
I'm actually starting to wonder if SD broadcasts are being 'dumbed down' to encourage a switch. On analgoue I'm starting to see some programmes using half the vertical resolution, with blocky pixels and aliasing galore. I don't know if this is as a result of low-res captures (mobile-phone video syndrome) but IIRC there's been some reruns that have shown this mess too. Very perplexing (unless it's my TV's analogue decoding somehow?).randycat99 said:
I've noticed "artifacts" while viewing analog cable tv at my parent's home. Apart from the subtle, but typical, analog types of noise and interference, there were moments of color gradation. There was no pixelation or compression artifacts- just the gradation. I can only explain that this is indication that the major networks are sending digitally compressed feeds to the cable companies which then convert to analog cable for their remaining analog-only customers. The compression is light, relative to nearly fubarred consumer digital sd feeds, but it is enough to leave a subtle color gradation artifact. My response- arrrrgh! Can't even escape the evil spectre of digital hashery in the analog world! seismologist said:
-tkf- said:
