DVD,HD DVD Or Blue Ray

[zerohash]

Dear Friends,

I have a DVD Authoring house and using Spruce DVD Maestro and Spruce Encoders.

I just want to know what extra benifit will Hd DVD and Blue Ray will give to Home users.Is DVD Format not enough for home entertainment.I think DVD has all the fetures that we want and the A/V Quality is good enough for home entertainment.

Thanks to all if you give your valuable suggestions on this topic.

Zerohash

[ron spencer]

for the home owner you are looking at there is no benefit....what good are the extra lines of resolution anyway....I cannot find the link, but I think it was CNN, but it stated that over 98% of north american household's have tube TVs....so HD is of no use there....in any case both HD and BR will be fighting it out for at least 2 yrs...so this stuff is a ways away. I won't be buying...and I am an average home owner.

[Doom9]

well, the standard analog TV will be shut down in rather short order (is it 2006 again?), at least in the US, thus forcing people to upgrade. Content owners also like digital TV because of DRM. However, that is all a moot point, HD DVD and BluRay players will happily operate on crappy interlaced analog TVs, you just don't gain anything. But with HD capable displays really cutting into sales, that will soon change. 1-2 years from now, the large majority of displays sold in North America and Europe will be HD capable, thus creating an increasing market for HD content. And those that have such a display will eventually want to get the higher definition content, especially for watching TV, where the quality difference is even more apparent than on DVD vs. HD DVD.
The adoption of a HD DVD format might be slower than DVD though because it doesn't offer as many extras over previous formats than DVD did.

[Angelus]

I thought I heard in the news that they backed off the date in the US until 2010 now, or at least later than 2006. I couldn't find an article online confirming that though

[ron spencer]

I thought it was 2010...but nobody is forced to upgrade....will be conversion boxes...most people are cheap and will not upgrade. Everyone on this board often forgets that they are an extreme minority in their quest for good quality....general folk could care less. In fact DVD has only just hit mainsteam....VHS was still big just 2 years ago....I had time off with my son when he was born 2 years ago...then blockbuster was half and half vhs and DVD....people are not going to dump their stuff so quickly...just does not happen.

My neighbour has a pioneer elite 60" plasma true high def....DVDs looks awsome on it; how just HOW MUCH better will HD be; worth changing all you stuff for?....but not everyone can afford it.....this specific area is where high def will shine (larger displays), NOT on the smaller sets; but I will spend the money on my kids instead.

there was always the feeling that DVD would smash VHS...it was a sea-change. HD is not a sea-change for everyone...you never know, with all the bickering that is going in between BR and HD maybe the whole thing will end up in the backwater like DVD-A

[DaRat]

My 2 cents: for the authoring standpoint (imho of course) the 8 commands per button will be a real savior. (if they do it)

[Doom9]

I have no doubt that high def is the future, but its adoption will be slower. DVD was a revolution, HD is an evolution. And I guess it depends on where you live when looking at the adoption rate.. 2 years ago, major CE chains had a 90/10 ratio in favor of DVD around here. And today, more than half the TV shelf space is dedicated to flat panels, many of which are HD capable (though the HD logo only means 720p). 2 years ago, there were very few flat panels on display.

Once there is a common standard for discs, and device prices are at a level where todays DVD player prices are, the market will slowly shift over.. it will be sorta like on PCs where CD-ROM drives have slowly been replaced by DVD drives, regardless of if you need the additional functionality or not. So I presume there will be a lot of people not taking full advantage of HD formats. Even today, DVDs are most often viewed via very oudated screens, that don't really make DVD shine as it could.

[ron spencer]

nice Doom...I like the evolution thing....

good point about LCD....

[mic]

@zerohash
FWIW, in the US at least, HDTV is alive and well in corporate communications. However I don't think that the video houses producing this content have your expertise in DVD authoring. Might be a good time to start talking to folks in corporate, video, & those who will be selling corporate their new HDDVD players, make yourself known so as soon as HD capabilities are out there, so are you.

Being 1st on the block in this case might not be a bad place.

[TomBrooklyn]

How are things shaping up, now that a year has passed?

[Trahald]

Well.. im very interested in this (as well as lots of doom9ers im sure) So far what ive seen is... its still pretty early. TODAY-- Things are progressing much as doom9 predicted. large retail stores are selling at least 50/50 tube to 'monitor' (my walmart is > 50%) i think large retailers are a better reference than a entertainment store which will cater to a more savvy consumer rather than the average joe. prices for widescreen tvs have come down greatly in the last year which helps. Hddvd and bluray are out but from what i read after hddvds selling all its stock out at the beginning.. things have leveled out and the hardware/software manufacturers would like to see better sales. although people w/out hardware are buying the software. Price has to be a factor. Reviews of the newer blurays put them on even ground with hddvd (after the first mpeg2 blurays reviewed poorly) i couldnt find any reviews on Click (50 gb) so well have to see if dual layer helps bluray. Ive also read that some salesmen with SD displays side by side HD displays are having a hard time seeing the difference. i cant imagine that being the case but probably tells more about improperly configured displays than anything else. that should take care of itself over time.

FUTURE - we'll have to see what ps3 and m$ hddvd addon for xbox will do to help things. dvds really didnt explode until players reached sub $100 range. Even if we can hit $200-250 it will help. this wont even be conceivable until manufacturers of cheap consumer goods are making players.

as far as us tv -- the current anticipated analog shutoff is 2009. and i think truely by then a vast majority of people will have at least one hdtv ready tv or tv/converter in the house. the government will subsidize the rest. although i personnaly rely on OTA (which sux for me as the signal levels here suck except for a few stations.) hd capable antenna prices should get better also. and hopefully signal strenth will go up as well. alot of people here have cable which have been offering real HD although most channels are SD (and analog.)

I think the future looks bright. the fcc needs the frequencies analog is using so the move to DTV is inevitable. consumers will adapt to bluhdray as prices go down.. a winner will work itself out from there.

[Eric69]

HD-DVD & BD will go the way of DVD-Audio & SACDs.

No one cares at this point and by the time they do, we will all be downloading our programs from internet.

If your an author I would suggest you start looking for another career path. But, since I design/author discs for a living I hope I'm wrong

[Zeul]

Me thinks Eric69 has a very cool job.

[D-Skott]

The analog TV shutdown has been completed here in Sweden. But the transition to HD is _far_ from ok. I'm forced to migrate my ass to US :P

[Trahald]

Originally Posted by D-Skott

The analog TV shutdown has been completed here in Sweden. But the transition to HD is _far_ from ok. I'm forced to migrate my ass to US :P

was there rioting in the streets? how was the transition for people to digital tv (not necessarily hd)

[D-Skott]

haha, yeah everybody was shouting "We want HD! We want HD!".
The transition itself was a pain in the ass for some, because of the new hardware requirements. Older ppl, like 40+ doesnt care about the quality I guess, "why spend a lot of money if nothing changes?!". But most ppl here in Sweden was already using satellites, no big deal for them.

[bigotti5]

Older ppl, like 40+ doesnt care about the quality I guess...

I dont care about quality....

[bond]

as HD DVD also includes standard DVD resolutions, hd dvd can potentially bring more quality at the same bitrate and the same resolution by using h.264 instead of mpeg-2

[RF]

I think it's best to wait till either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray comes out on top and prices come down. Right now it's just not worth the cost to upgrade. From what I have heard, Blu-Ray seems to have lagged behind HD-DVD in terms of quality (though they may have caught up) but 90% of planned HD studio releases are for Blu-Ray. And, of course, the Blu-Ray player is going for over $1,000 in Canada, which is twice the price of the HD-DVD player, but they can apparently ask it because of studio buy-in.

My suggestion for the time being would be to buy a regular DVD player with HD upconversion through HDMI. I recently got a Samsung DVD-Recorder with HD upconversion and bought an HDMI cable online for a great price to run to my Home Theater projector. The increase in quality is very noticeable. My DVD picture quality is now nearly indistinguishable from my HDTV picture quality over digital cable.

Until prices for HD players come down and one format is the clear winner, this is an extremely cost-effective alternative.

Take care

[auenf]

Originally Posted by RF

I think it's best to wait till either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray comes out on top and prices come down. Right now it's just not worth the cost to upgrade. From what I have heard, Blu-Ray seems to have lagged behind HD-DVD in terms of quality (though they may have caught up) but 90% of planned HD studio releases are for Blu-Ray. And, of course, the Blu-Ray player is going for over $1,000 in Canada, which is twice the price of the HD-DVD player, but they can apparently ask it because of studio buy-in.

My suggestion for the time being would be to buy a regular DVD player with HD upconversion through HDMI. I recently got a Samsung DVD-Recorder with HD upconversion and bought an HDMI cable online for a great price to run to my Home Theater projector. The increase in quality is very noticeable. My DVD picture quality is now nearly indistinguishable from my HDTV picture quality over digital cable.

Until prices for HD players come down and one format is the clear winner, this is an extremely cost-effective alternative.

Take care

aren't we all still waiting for DVD Audio to drop in price and become mainstream?

iirc, the real reason why there are cheap-ass dvd-video players is cause css was cracked (i have an old chinese-based player that fails to decode a VTS on harry potter 1 that early versions of DVDDec fail to decode also).

having said that, i dont see HDVD/blu players becoming mainstream anytime soon, and i dont see the authoring of them being a dead-end job either, downloading of 1080 feature length movies is isnt going to be viable for quite a few years to come.

i've authored a couple of HD DVD's as tests, but havent really go anywhere to play them currently (cept on the G5's), but i do know there are some people looking for HD-DVD authoring, but not many

Enf...