Sony Game machines and Video Playback

[rounin]

Even in SD, Blu-Ray should provide improvement over DVD though should it not?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Even in SD, Blu-Ray should provide improvement over DVD though should it not?

Perhaps, as the compression to resolution is improving with higher bitrates. It should see less artefacting I think.

 

[London Geezer]

I don't think you're getting his point, my interpretation of his comments are that when DVD arrived, almost everyone had a TV capable of standard def. VHS is sub SDTV, and so all those people at the very least saw some improvement in picture quality. Those same people with those same SDTV sets are now running DVD at the limit of that display's resolution, so now playing BR or HD-DVD shows no improvement, limiting adoption. Like you say, these people aren't getting the best from DVD, but they are at least getting something vs VHS. The same cannot be said for these High Def. formats vs DVD.

Rancid's criteria is not which sets won't get the most out of DVD or BR, but which sets will see any improvement at all to the consumer over the previous format, and unless you have an HDTV, BR offers nothing visually to make you want to buy it.

I think one of the major selling points of DVD was that not only it looked a bit cleaner than VHS, but most importantly it looked MUCH better than OLD VHS. After a few years either the VCR or the tapes would get ruined somehow and the videos were just painful to watch. I took out some tapes from years ago, kept in their cases, in a box, in the wardrobe, and they were basically unwatchable today, not sure if it was the tapes or the VCR.
The advantage of DVD -and digital video in general - was that it always looked crystal clear unless it was really damaged, in which case it wouldn't play properly at all.
So yes, DVD looked better than VHS, and looked magnificent compared to old tapes.

Now with HDDVD and Bluray, that advantage over DVD will be lost for obvious reasons. HDDVD/bluray "just" looks and sound better than DVD. It doesn't really give us advantages like DVD gave us over VHS, such as durability, constant quality even after 1000 views...

It will be a tough race, especially considering that HDTV owners are still such a small percentage of the total.

 

[goonergaz]

ageed to an extent...but DVD is said to only last 10(ish) years isn't it?

I remember buying DVD-Rs that are now no longer playing, how long until my DVD collection starts suffering the same way? Only time will tell!

But getting back to the whole PS3 & BR market advantages (etc) thing...

HD is the new DVD recorder - you can't move without "HD Ready" being shoved in your face (BTW I'm in the UK), when I got my last 'top of the range' TV it cost £1500 - a 32" widescreen 100hz TV, now for a lot less - in fact just over half - I can buy an (effectively larger) 32" LCD HD Ready TV.

Be sure about this - HD is here NOW, this coming Christmas I expect upgrades to HD ready TVs to be very strong...along with the 'HD Ready' PS3, which people will know have the 'new' DVD on-board with the bonus of playing all your old ones anyway.

So, people will buy PS3, throw out their DVD player and then chose to buy BR movies over DVD as they have that feature and want to be ready for when they upgrade their TV.

Of course there is the issue of other players around the house...I have kids and players in bedrooms...so what will happen there? Well, that's an interesting one - but isn't it the same as what happened when DVD took over from VHS? Bedrooms still had VHS while front rooms had DVDs.

Problem with HD DVD is, that's all it does - play films. Why buy a 'movie only player' when you can get a PS3 with one already built in?

 

[Phil]

I remember buying DVD-Rs that are now no longer playing, how long until my DVD collection starts suffering the same way? Only time will tell!

Luckily, there's a difference between DVDs that are pressed (the ones you buy in a store and are mass-produced) and DVD-R's that are simply burned by a laser. Both have timelimits, but I'm sure DVDs should last for at least 20 years. I have heard about some CDs from the 80s slowly failing though, but not sure if I'm just confusing this with something else...

Cheers Phil

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm surprised that optical pits could deterioate over time. Aren't they physical indentations, similar to vinyl being physical variations on the disc? Unless the plastic degrades a little over time and loses integrity. Those pits are very small.

 

[goonergaz]

I have a couple of dead CDs (originals) - I think it's down to how you look after them - temps, humidity etc...certainly they initially branded '100 year lifetimes' and that will not be true.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

...to the fullest extent of the DVD That is the criteria you are applying to the BR scenario, but strangely seem to spare in the DVD scenario. No one is arguing if you could connect a DVD player to a TV in some manner, in that time period. Could the majority do it in component or dvi connection? Did the majority of CRT's have the razor sharp resolution to show off full DVD potential? Did the majority of TV's have progressive capability? That is the logical extension of the criteria you are weighing.

No, actually it's not. You are now talking about the fullest potential. I'm talking about any noticable difference whatsoever.

Without component, DVI or progressive capability the majority of TVs saw a noticable difference between VHS and DVD.

When BR appears, it will be a minority of TVs that will see a noticable difference between DVD and BR.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

You're kinda missing the point though, DVD wasn;t involved in a format war and BluRay is. So any additional momentum they can gain, which PS3 will surely provide, could possibly help them win this war and eventually be one of the single biggest factors that led to the mass adoption 5-10 years down the road.

I don't think installed base matters nearly as much as attachment rate.

I really don't think the majority of media producers will care if there's 50M BR players installed through PS3 purchases if only a small fraction of them are purchasing media other than PS3 games.

 

[randycat99]

No, actually it's not. You are now talking about the fullest potential. I'm talking about any noticable difference whatsoever.

Doesn't matter- it's all the same metric, just on different scales. You don't get to cherrypick where it should be relevant and where it should be disregarded.

Without component, DVI or progressive capability the majority of TVs saw a noticable difference between VHS and DVD.

...and it would be silly to just "quit" improving the connection format at RF and composite, simply because an improvement was perceived just with that. Additionally, the context of your example becomes even more strained when you consider if the perceived improvement came more from the superiority of DVD or more from the inherent horrendous-ness of VHS or some ratio between those 2 extremes. The nature of home theater is to elevate to the "best of" in all areas, until no further benefits are possible. DVD was enjoyed at all sorts of performance levels based on what the user has available, just as BR will will be enjoyed at all sorts of performance levels based on what the user has available.

When BR appears, it will be a minority of TVs that will see a noticable difference between DVD and BR.

How do you base this assumption? Simply out of numerical resolution? There's more to it than just 2 numbers for horizontal and vertical. W/o actually making the observations directly, there is not much credibility. Hence, we'll have to see if this is the case, when it can actually be monitored, rather than blindly generate arguments to the contrary prior to the fact.

As an example, technically digital sdtv broadcasts completely fulfills the resolution capabilities on an sdtv. Using your logic, no perceptible improvement should be possible when showing hd material downscaled to that same sdtv. If you have been able to observe this in real practice, you would be fully aware that there is most certainly a difference. How can this be??? 640x480 is 640x480, no? Maybe it isn't. (Also consider how the resolution could remain exactly the same, but somehow an uncompressed still pic image capture ends up looking better than the same still pic image capture with hi-quality jpeg, which ends up looking better than a compressed mpeg2 clip which contains the very same moment of the original still pic. Resolution is exactly the same, but there is an easily distinct difference in the 3 different samples.)

Therein is the logical element that trips up a lot of so-called "experts" on the topic of high performance video. For all we know, the 640x480 coming off of a DVD is still not the best that uncompressed 640x480 video is capable of. It's counterintuitive, but it wisely accounts for the fact that format resolution is one thing, but it still fails to address the quality of the image presented at that format resolution. Hence, the potential exists for a higher quality 640x480 image may be noticeably better than the "typical" DVD 640x480 image quality (even though DVD quality is already very good). What better way to create this scenario than sourcing from a format with overkill resolution, downsampled to the target 640x480 for the display device? Similarly, it is fairly well accepted that a professional 4:2:2 color set will look better than 4:2:0 color set, using the exact same technical resolution. Such a benefit now becomes possible when downscanning HD material to SD resolutions (not saying it is a given, but the crucial elements are certainly in place to implement such a benefit). All of these possibilities are plausible and fairly likely. The only remaining step is to simply wait and see and try it out when the opportunity presents...

 

[scooby_dooby]

I don't think installed base matters nearly as much as attachment rate.

It doesn't mater as much, but it still DOES matter which is the point. If BR and HD-DVD are very close, that install base could tip the scale. Or it could not. But the potential is certainly there for PS3 to be a huge factor in the eventual adoption of BR.