Mountain Biker

Maybe for the audio & video enthusiasts, but not for the average consumer. And the last I checked the latter far outnumbers the former.

Just like LD, I will never have an inteterest in a niche format like blu ray. I am perfectly content with what DVD offers.

kefrank

This thread is just a joke, right?

DivxGuy

Believe it or not, I was Red during the format war. But I am done mourning and just want hi-def now.

I remember the same things being said about VHS versus DVD. Or Laserdisc versus DVD. But eventually the holdouts came around.

JACOB

from what I heard. .bluray will be the last format. the dvd sound is compressed and bluray lossless is not compressed. there is a big differnce. you are an idiot you think otherwise.

Jacob

Mr. Salty

You are, in fact, wrong. I'm getting true 1080p. My camcorder, a Canon, records in AVCHD, which was developed by Sony and Panasonic and is a variation of the codec used by Blu-ray. Many Blu-ray players (Sony and Panasonic of course, as well as my Oppo, and other brands as well) will play AVCHD burned to DVD-R as data. There is also software readily available that creates menus, etc., as well. The results are excellent.
Sorry, but it's true, whether you like it or not.

As player prices drop along with disc prices, there's little reason not to eventually replace your DVD player with Blu-ray (there is already a $100 player available, although I forget which brand).

You may not feel the need to buy a new player for no good reason, but if your DVD player dies on you, Blu-ray is a viable option. I'm finding more and more dirt-cheap discs on sale, especially from Amazon ($8 to $15 for major titles).

UAIOE

I was more interested in it for storage/backup more than buying Holo-Ray discs.

Tarantino

Brian Shannon

Glad you feel that way, the studios don't.

Since it is their business, they can do what they want with their product. If you do not like it, open a studio and release dvd's anyway you want

And to answer your question there is no legal issue here at all

animatedude

fuck Blu-rayers..

slop101

I don't understand all this bitching. There is far more exclusive content/extras on SD dvd when compared to their blu ray counterparts.

JACOB

so much hate for bluray? whats the problem?

Jacob

orangerunner

Quote:
Originally Posted by orangerunner
True enough but I imagine you're down-converting it to SD, which looks fine too. You're not getting "true" 1080i HD picture quality.


I imagine your camcorder is 1080i not 1080p, especially if it's a consumer model.

Nonetheless, you are saying you can record full HD video onto a regular DVD-R disc and have it playback as "true HD" 1080i on your Blu-ray player? Without down-converting to SD?

If we could get two hours of "True HD" on a $.20 DVD-R disc why are we even bothering with Blu-ray in the first place? Do you only get about 10 minutes of True HD footage on a 4.7G disc?

This is interesting to know. Let us know if we've misunderstood something. If what you're saying is accurate, you've just opened up a huge conspiracy in the home entertainment industry!

Mr. Salty

You imagine wrong. It records in at 1920x1080, in either 24p or 30p. There's no downconversion. The DVD-R is just a storage medium. The resulting discs are not playable on regular DVD players, because they aren't standard DVDs, or even standard Blu-rays. They're just a storage medium that have AVCHD data files stored on them, which many Blu-ray players are capable of playing.

I didn't say I get two hours of video per disc, but that's OK because I rarely shoot two hours worth of footage. How much footage I do get depends on what bit-rate setting I used to shoot the video. It's variable on this camcorder, up to 17mbps. Canon's new camcorders go up to 25mbps. But to answer your question, I think I can get about an hour of video on a single-layer DVD-R at the setting I normally use.

anomynous

Were people this butt hurt when DVD started gaining steam 11 years ago?


Legally liable, please

Drexl

Honestly? I think some people are concerned about DVD collections they spent thousands of dollars on becoming inadequate. Even though they certainly don't have to replace the titles they have, they fear that once they get started buying new movies on BD, their current discs won't measure up anymore. Then, they might feel they made a mistake buying all those discs. So, it's better to convince themselves that there is little difference with BD so they won't want it.

Then there's the cost factor. We're not seeing $5 discs on a regular basis.

orangerunner

So, basically you can get 2 hours of full 1080p HD footage on a dual-layer (8.7G) DVD-R disc that will play in "many" Blu-ray players?

My question back to you is why are we being told to purchase $6.00 Blu-ray 25G blank discs when the you can achieve the same 1080p Full HD quality with a $1.00 dual-layer DVD-R?

Interesting...

anomynous

No shit, everybody should know that.

That's like complaining you bought a TV 15 years ago then HDTVs started becoming mainstream 5 years ago, and not buying one, because you feel it's not an improvement, because you're in denial.

Or cassettes to CDs.

Of course the old tech won't measure up to the new technology, that's how technology works.


People hate blu-ray because it makes DVDs inadequate & obsolete? Too bad, it happens to every form of technology. Get over yourselves.

chris_sc77

Bitter, Angry and scared folks. Thats what that sure sounds like.
How many times must I remind you that DVD STILL outsells Blu-ray AT LEAST 9 to 1. Come back and say this when the numbers are a little more level.

emachine12

Because its not just about video...

For those of you complaining about lack of "features" or DVD being crippled, here is the thing.

DVDs can have video commentaries so long as a second encode of the film is included with that commentary always on. That means for a lot of movies, you are going to have two disc sets (or in the case of those with digital copies: three disc sets).

The best audio is going to be DTS 1.5mbs which due to DVD's mandatory codecs, means a secondary PCM or Dolby Digital track has to be included. So to save space for the extras (and the 2nd encode of the film with video commentary), you are going to have DTS 1.5mbs with DD 5.1 448kbs but for a handful of film expect DTS 1.5mbs with DD 2.0 192kbs.

The telestrator commentary could be done with DVD but as Sony has proven, for DVD since its a subtitle track and not a video track (as it is on BD); the player has to be set to 4x3 to properly diisplay this track.

Then there is internet connectivity. Sure, it may be gimmicky right now (save for Transformers where new extras were available to download) but this is only technically possible on DVD through a computer. And even then, the closest anyone has gotten to a trully internet enhanced DVD playback was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with its playable trivia game during the film.

As for exclusive BD extras that are not technical leaps like featurettes, interviews, commentaries, etc. Well, then get your legal team ready to work around the clock.

Why?

Because Optimum, Panorama, Madman, Artifiical Eye, Mangpong, Kam & Ronson and oter smaller distributors in Europe, Australia, and Asia are offering up exclusive extras not found on US DVDs. How dare Kam & Ronson offer the uncut Police Story III: Supercop while the US disc is cut! How dare Optimum make a better DVD for This Is Spinal Tap!

Because Best Buy, Target, and Walmart are offering retailer exclusive bonus discs only available when you buy from them. Why do I have to shop at Best Buy to get all the extras for The Fast and Furious?

orangerunner

You have to have a bit of empathy for some collectors. After 20 years of VHS with tapes being eaten, degrading picture, full screen pan & scan, macrovision interferring with the picture, fast forwarding/rewinding etc.
it was time for something new. DVD was a welcome upgrade from VHS.

I had a collection of 250 VHS tapes and had no problem replacing the important movies in my collection to DVD because I really felt the extra value I was receiving.

Remember too that video collecting in the VHS days was not as popular as collecting DVDs was. Many people were virtually starting their collection from scratch when DVD came out.

Three years after DVD took over the market out came Blu-ray/HD-DVD. It was too soon and the product was too similiar with a much higher price tag.

I guess it depends on your age. If you're 35+ you're probably getting tired after collecting VHS, then Laser Disc, then DVD and now Blu-ray is the next "gotta-have" format.

Wait until you collect 700 Blu-ray discs which you paid $25 each for and then find out ten years later you can store 1000 Super-HD movies on your iPod at $.99 a pop.

The last thing you really want to hear is "Too bad, too sad, technology steamrolls ahead buddy!"

UAIOE

When I worked at Best Buy around 2000, I remember talking to a lady who was totally against DVD. She said she had a significant VHS movie collection and she wasn't going to replace her VHS collection with DVD's.

If that remained true I don't know. But there was at least *ONE* who was butt hurt by the DVD transition.

emachine12

Because its not just about video, its audio too. Blu-ray Disc offers lossless multichannel audio equal to the original masters. DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD, and PCM uncompressed. But if you really are hung up on the video side, BD media allows up to a 40mbs video bit rate. So movies like Spaceballs which has around a 35mbs video bit rate on BD but only a 6.5mb bit rate on DVD are going to look a lot better than AVCHD discs.

For those of you complaining about lack of "features" or DVD being crippled, here is the thing.

DVDs can have video commentaries so long as a second encode of the film is included with that commentary always on. That means for a lot of movies, you are going to have two disc sets (or in the case of those with digital copies: three disc sets).

The best multi-chanmel audio is going to be DTS 1.5mbs which due to DVD's mandatory codecs, means a secondary PCM or Dolby Digital track has to be included. So to save space for the extras (and the 2nd encode of the film with video commentary), you are going to have DTS 1.5mbs with DD 5.1 448kbs but for a handful of film expect DTS 1.5mbs with DD 2.0 192kbs.

Of course, you can still have lossless audio, sort of. DVD offers PCM 2.0 Surround sound. So you won't see all the lights light up on your 5.1 receiver but the stereo sound is going to be sweet. Imagine PCM 2.0 being played back on a 7.1 system. Oooh, I got the shingles thinking about it.

The telestrator commentary could be done with DVD but as Sony has proven, for DVD since its a subtitle track and not a video track (as it is on BD); the player has to be set to 4x3 to properly diisplay this track.

Then there is internet connectivity. Sure, it may be gimmicky right now (save for Transformers where new extras were available to download) but this is only technically possible on DVD through a computer. And even then, the closest anyone has gotten to a trully internet enhanced DVD playback was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with its playable trivia game during the film.

As for exclusive BD extras that are not technical leaps like featurettes, interviews, commentaries, etc. Well, then get your legal team ready to work around the clock.

Why?

Because Optimum, Panorama, Madman, Artifiical Eye, Mangpong, Kam & Ronson and oter smaller distributors in Europe, Australia, and Asia are offering up exclusive extras not found on US DVDs. How dare Kam & Ronson offer the uncut Police Story III: Supercop while the US disc is cut! How dare Optimum make a better DVD for This Is Spinal Tap!

Because Best Buy, Target, and Walmart are offering retailer exclusive bonus discs only available when you buy from them. Why do I have to shop at Best Buy to get all the extras for The Fast and Furious?

Eddie W

I recall this same vitriol against DVD from laserdisc owners way back in the day. They were (rightly in that case) concerned that DVD would make their collections obsolete. Not so here.

But the beauty of technology advancements is that not once have a had a gun placed to my head, grumbled up to the counter, and grudingly slapped my money down for an upgraded title. I'm always excited to see an old favorite in crisp HD. If I'm not excited about it, the existing DVD in my collection will suffice.

And they're called Extras. Bonus Features. By very definition they're something you're getting as a bonus to the movie you just bought. Studios have no obligation to include them on either format. I think they've actually diluted their value by including them on every movie that comes out, worthy or not.

It seems a lot of people see them as increasing the 'worth' of the disc instead of something that they'll really want to watch. Yeah, maybe the extras on Raging Bull give you an fresh insight to a great movie. Not so much for 17 Again. Just the movie is fine, thanks.

orangerunner

I think you've touched on my apathy with Blu-ray. For me, the extra features were interesting on older films which was pretty much exhausted on Special Edition DVDs.

With new films, I have no real interest in the extra making-of features, gag reels, deleted scenes etc. It probably helps explain why many DVDs are coming out now with just the feature at a lesser price.

DivxGuy

And DVD collectors were already dreaming of hi-def in 1998, when the nascent format was barely a year old.

It couldn't have come soon enough as far as I was concerned. And I bought into DVD when the format had barely been on the market six months.

No one is saying to replace your DVD collection if you're satisfied with it. It's new acquisitions where it makes sense to choose the newer format.

As long as I can play my discs and no one is trying to force me to re-buy them (as has happened with the losers in the format war), why do I care?

Huh? It's a fact that technology becomes obsolete. Often rapidly.