T.Bickle

I vow to never buy an HD player and until movies can be beamed directly into my brain I will never upgrade. I am happy with the quailty of video now and I'm not really sure why it's necessary for an HD tranfer of any movie made before the 21st century. What's the expected life span of a DVD? 20+ years? That's just how long I'll use mine.

paulringodaman

Very very very very true

DthRdrX

Heres the difference. LD discs were large, expensive and hard to find. It wasn't even backed by the entire industry. I didn't have a clue where to get them in my area.

You can bet that, eventually, if average J6P just wants to buy dvd, they will have HD in the same package, like it or not.

Qui Gon Jim

Every day consumers are bombarded with HDTV at every single department store that sells electronics. Look at the number of HD sets vs. the number of SD sets even at Wal-Mart. I think that many give "them masses" too little credit.

I helped my aunt pick out a set over Christmas. While she didn't get a 9' projector, she got a nice ~30" set for around $600. My brother paid $1200 for his 35" about 8 years ago. Very soon, there will be no "advantage" to retailers stocking and manufacturers making SD sets. By next X-Mas, I'll bet ~20-25" sets will be in the $200 category.

cultshock

I'm still of the opinion that the general public won't upgrade anytime soon (I'm not talking about HDTVs, I mean disc players. People who are buying one will not necessarily buy the other. TV buyers and DVD buyers are two completely different things). This forum is obviously heavily skewed towards people who are technology nuts, movie nuts, or some combination of the two. How many DVDs does the average person buy per year? Not many. Many people only recently upgraded to DVD from VHS, even though DVDs have been around since 1997. We on this forum represent a very small percent. You have be realistic and consider that the majority of people just don't care about spending money on having the best presentation of films. There are tons of other things they would spend their hard earned money on first (hard to believe I know, but there are millions and millions of people that aren't on this forum and don't think like we do ). And for these people, current DVDs are good enough, even if they watch them on their new HDTVs.

And this reality will translate into less than stellar sales of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray hardware and software for quite a number of years to come. And the confusion (for average people) and fence sitting (for folks like us) that will be caused by a format war will only make matters worse.

joshd2012

I heard similar arguements - about average consumers not wanting to make the switch to a new technology - when DVDs first came out. Oh well.

gutwrencher

It no doubt sucks to be blind.

By time I buy my first HD disc, I'll have passed the 2,500 dvd titles threshold. Most of those dvds will be staying in my library...until they crap out. Dvd's on all 3 of my HDTV's look awesome. But HDPQ blows that all away. I'm ready to go HD movie shoppin' right now. Looks like that won't be until the films I really want to upgrade, show up. It will be a long hard road...re-collecting needed films for the library. But worth every penny and every second of my time.

Dvd's and HD can live in harmony for years.

Al Padrino

I'll only upgrade where necessary. I'm into older films and while surely some of them could look a little better, I can't imagine them looking all that much better considering the quality of the source material.

spawndude

The biggest difference will be noticed on larger sets/screens. The difference between a DVD and an HD on a regular 32in set will not be as noticeable as on a 10ft screen with a HD projector. VHS and DVD are indistinguishable on my 13in portable TV.

Consider a newspaper. The letters look clear and sharp. Now enlarge those letters with a magnifying glass or microscope!!!

Basicly when you begin enlarging the picture is when you need the higher quality.

We are still many years away from having film quality in our homes.

Josh H

And I didn't mean to imply that they were.

I was just stating that there are videophiles who care a lot about picture quality, and those of us that just enjoy movies and care very little.

Of course most people prefer both a great film and great PQ, just for some PQ matters a ton, and for others its just the icing on the cake and thus not worth upgrading many dvds to HD DVD or rushing to early adopt the technology.

DthRdrX

OT but I've watched you add titles to your collection weekly over the last few years, and you are my dvd idol.

Qui Gon Jim

Cultshock, you are wrong. The average person buys a bunch of DVDs, and one of the allures is the PQ. That is why there are constantly empty skids once filled with DVDs at stores nationwide. It certainly isn't the (relatively) small readership here that is buying all these movies.

I think that once the prices on the players come into a reasonable range (and this will happen a lot faster than people think with two competing formats) people will spring for the new player to supplement their new set.

There are a lot more than 2% of houses with these TVs. Everyone wants a "flat panel" or "plasma" and there are tons of choices available at Wal-Mart which I think we can agree doesn't exactly make a habit of targeting an "elite" market like a place like Tweeter does.

There are a lot of Chicken Littles running around like the sky is falling. I guess in a way it is, but the gradual shift over to a new format is not the worst thing that will ever happen.

Additionally, HD makes a 20, 30, 40 80 200" picture look better. It has absolutely nothing to do with the size of the picture.

Qui Gon Jim

We need a HD FAQ on the site to debunk the same things that come up e-v-e-r-y time HD or BR is mentioned.

1. Formats will play current DVDs
2. Every single solitary picture shot on film anytime in the recorded history of film has the potential if mastered correctly to look better on HD than DVD. DVD is NOT the be all end all greatest format that will ever be.
3. The difference in PQ from DVD to HD is far greater than the shift from VHS to DVD.

These are facts.

ShallowHal

These are some serious replies to a very short OP! It seems like a wandering thought more than a discussion (and the discussion is alive in quite a few threads).

4 cylinder cars aren't obselete.

Why would you have to start over just because something new comes out? The PQ in three years will be the same on your TV as it is today. Your shoes, Brita filter, even toothpaste will always have new and improved versions, but it's ridiculous to say your current stuff will soon be obselete.

With all that said, I'm hoping thousands share your opinion. I'll gobble up every single bargain I can from people dumping their collections because they're afraid of not being better than Mr. Jones.

Qui Gon Jim

I agree, SH. I think that much of the negativity here is because some people think that when a new format hits, it will make their curent format obsolete (which it won't). They fear it will invalidate their collection/hobby. DVD will be on sale for a looonnngg time. It will survive a lot longer than VHS did against DVD.

I will continue to buy and enjoy DVD, until the hardware and software price get to a level where I feel comfortable. At that point, any new purchase will probably be the HD version and I will only replace some of my favorite movies with HD versions.

One area DVD will always be the greatest format ever is television. Not because shows can't look better (some can some can't) but just because of the sheer variety avaialable. Even some of the most obscure shows for the 60s and 70s have found a happy profitable home on DVD and IMO, that wil never happen again.

Egon's Ghost

Well, once HD-TVs become the commonplace, and digital broadcast replaces analog, I suppose so, but that's far-off still. I only watch DVDs on my computer at this point, where the resolution is high, the video is 100% RGB, as opposed to composite or y/c; I've seen European SCART RGB and I cried tears of joy. Is component video the same? Standard televisions have such lower resolution that I still prefer watching DVDs on my computer. Is analog video even an issue with HD-TVs? Sorry for the noob questions.

If HD-DVD really looks so good, I'll sign up, but years from now, and only if I can get the films I already have. I've spent a bit of time and money getting, for example, the theatrical cuts of some Michael Mann films which aren't in Region 1.

I'm wondering: will DVD studios have to make a completely new master for HD-DVD? Some DVDs, like Terminator, advertise: "taken from all-new [as opposed to partially new?] high definition master", so couldn't they just make an HD-DVD that fully takes advantage of this HD master, or is this false advertising?

Another question: will HD-DVD audio be better than DVD? I know people talk about laserdiscs having uncompressed PCM audio, so will something like this be possible on HD-DVDS?

Adam Tyner

Depends on the title. Nowadays, pretty much everyone masters at HD resolutions, but many earlier titles will need to be retransferred, and even some movies with HD masters would benefit from retransferring/remastering given the experience and improved tech gained over the past few years.

joshd2012

That depends on what the studios have on file. Sony has been creating 1080p digital masters of their library since 2004, so those movies will not have to be remastered. Most films have not, so those will have to be remastered to at least 1080p.
Yes.

digitalfreaknyc

Yes. LIGHT YEARS BETTER.

One of the MAJOR reasons I can't wait for a HD format.

Even today, when I put in a laserdisc just to archive something, I'm blown away by the sound quality. There just simply is no comparison whatsoever. DVD sounds thin by comparison. Even the best transfers do. Uncompressed sound is as good as it gets.

Egon's Ghost

I see; so I suppose that means that existing titles from smaller studios would take some time to make the jump to HD. And big studios like Sony and Universal are pretty unreliable anyway.

DJ_Longfellow

I still don't see it taking off....maybe when it gets affordable, but not in the next couple of years. I mean, how much are HD players going to cost? and HD movies?

joshd2012

Depends on their schedule. If they have been remastering their collection since Blu-Ray and HD-DVD specs were announced, they should be just as ready as the big studios. If they have waited until now to start, then it will take a while.

What I hope to see in these titles, is a lot of digital correction to the transfers. You take a film like LOTR where ever scene was digitally corrected and compare it to other movies and it is mind blowing. I hope studios take the time to improve the transfers, much like they did with the Star Wars release.

matome

Eh, it'll be follow same model as regular DVD as long as the disc prices are reasonable and titles become readily available. One of the main reasons LD never took off is that the prices of the discs themselves. I pretty much exclusively bought my lasers from Ken Crane's and with the flat 20% off, the discs were at least $32 + shipping. Not any better at the local Tower Video's either. Plus, LD release dates were more of an afterthought than a set-in-stone thing. You could wait months for a title to arrive after it's "release date."

digitalfreaknyc

awwww.

I *heart* laserdiscs.

Nebiroth

The same can almost be said of DVD today: with better restoration, mastering and encoding, many films released have the potential to look an awful lot better than they do - on SD/DVD.

This begs the question: if the studios produce shoddy SD-DVD's, then won't they almost certainly produce shoddy HD/DVD's, too?

I have a feeling that a LOT of customers are going to be conned into thinking that "an HD edition just has to be better" - in the same way that lots of people think that any DVD edition released now looks as good as it's possible to make it.

A lot of DVD's look bad now, not because of the limitations of DVD, but in the way that they're made!

I have a singking feeling that some of the early HD-DVD releases will look great, and that standards will slip as the studios go for the mass market. In the early days of DVD, they took a lot of care, since DVD owners were the sort of people that really cared about quality and were looking for something radically better to justify the purchase.

Nowadays, everybody buys DVD, and if the studios lose a few of the more discerning souls by shipping out shoddy products, they don't care.

It makes me wonder if, a few years down the line, that the poorer HD's will not look much better than the better done SD's of today.