anomynous

Of course it outsells it, HDTV penetration level is at what, 25%?


It took how long for DVD to "fully" take over? 9 years?

Of course DVDs are still going to be outselling when most people don't have a HDTV yet, and even then, longer for Blu-ray sales to overtake DVD.


Not to mention, I never said anything about sales, so why was it brought up?

Now, I'm going to go cry that my First Generation Ipod & Betamax player obsolete, I'll be back later.

slop101

Sorry bro, you're the only one who sounds bitter and angry here. I'm not bitter and angry at all, because I'm enjoying my blu-ray discs more than ever with my nice new 50" plasma.

A question for blu-ray "haters":
What kind of TV do you have and how big is it?

orangerunner

I'm not a Blu-ray hater, the quality of the picture and sound is better. I just feel it's overpriced and a stop-gap for compact hard-drives that can store hundreds of HD movies.

Currently I have a 36" Sony Wega CRT and I sit 7 feet away. Is Blu-ray going to be any reasonable advantage for me over DVD? No.

slop101

For you, hardly, if at all. My point is if/when you do get a bigger, nicer TV (>50"), you won't be nearly as ambivalent about blu-ray discs as you are now. And as far as prices, they're coming way down. I haven't paid more than $15 for a catalog title in a long while - and they're getting even cheaper by the week.

bunnydojo

+1

The sue-first, think-later mentality penetrating everything lately is downright silly. The studio has the right to release whatever they want at whatever price they want, the consumer has the right to buy it or not buy it. It's a fairly simple agreement.

Mr. Salty

Nobody told me I have to buy anything, so I can't answer your question. Maybe you're too easily swayed by marketing.

Burnable Blu-ray has other uses than just home video. I don't know what they are, because for the foreseeable future I feel no need to buy a Blu-ray burner.
I'm 45, so that isn't the case for me. I also feel no need to run out and replace everything I own with Blu-rays. I replace a few things as I find them for good prices on sale (like "2001" for $8.99), but I mostly buy new releases or I rent.

speedy1961

Of course this is true. This really stems from the belief that parent corporations really"know" what the masses are willing to buy / consume.

I myself will hold off on converting to Blu-Ray until I absolutely have to.

orangerunner

I don't own anything Blu-ray!

The fact you can put two hours of 1080p full HD content on a dual layer DVD-R and play it back in full 1080p HD on a Blu-ray player is hardly a measure of my (or anyone else's) gullibility by the Sony marketers.

If what you say is accurate, Sony has done superior job of pulling wool over the eyes of 10% of the whole home video market.

Maybe I'll check if my DVDs will play in my VHS machine...

DivxGuy

I'd like to add that DVD revenues are dropping while Blu-ray revenues are rising. Blu-ray margins are several times those of DVD, just like DVD margins were once several times those of VHS. Naturally the studios want to encourage consumers to buy the more expensive format, whether it's through exclusive features, rental windows, or anything else they choose.

Legally and ethically, this is not only perfectly acceptable, it's the duty of the studios to their shareholders (to maximize their revenue).

calhoun07

I had a friend in the early days of my DVD collecting back around that time who told me the next format would be a player with a blue laser. I have no idea how he knew about it then...must have been in the works at the time, obviously...but that's actually correct. However, aside from a few tech geeks, who knew that? They certainly didn't advertise that when people were shelling out good money for DVDs back in the day.

orangerunner

I still remember seeing professional HDCAM tape for the first time in 2000 at a video post production house. The had a player deck, recorder deck and a monitor. The three components cost over $500,000 at the time.

A few companies invested in HD at that time & I think it bankrupted all of them within a year or so. It was too expensive and there was so little demand for HD.

Mr. Salty

Sony is not pulling the wool over anyone's eyes.

Your problem remains your lack of comprehension that just because a DVD-R is the medium, the resulting disc is nothing like a standard DVD that is capable of HD. It's a data disc that is not playable on a standard DVD player.

DVD uses the MPEG-2 video codec, with a maximum NTSC resolution of 720x480, with a maximum video bit rate of about 10 mbps. This is insufficient for HD content.

Blu-ray players support many more video codecs. In addition to MPEG-2, they support AVC, AVCHD, VC-1 and MPEG-4. All have higher video bit rates than MPEG-2.

My camcorder, for example, records in AVCHD, which is not supported by DVD players, with a maximum video bit rate of 17 mbps.

These files simply aren't playable on DVD players, and never will be. They can be converted to standard definition MPEG-2 so a standard DVD can be made, but to see them in HD, they must be preserved in the video codec that was designed for Blu-ray (AVCHD is a slight variation of Blu-ray's AVC codec).

Hank1215

Mr. Salty,

You keep talking about using your HD camcorder to record HD on to regular DVD, but you are not saying you could burn a two hour BD movie to a DVD and have it play at 1080i/p?

The Bus

Vote with your wallet. It's the only way they will understand.

DivxGuy

I read that blue lasers could hold the key to HD optical discs about 2000 on The Digital Bits. By 2003 there were already two competing HD optical formats and it was common knowledge to anyone in the home theater hobby that HD discs were coming. A furore then broke out when it was revealed that the MPAA had kept secret plans to block the new format from working over analog inputs so as not to implode the burgeoning market for 1080i analog sets. Those of us who paid boutique prices for early HDs sets were very unhappy, as we thought we'd been cheated out of being able to use them for HD.

It's been common knowledge for most of the decade that HD discs would supplant SDVD. Since the players are backwardly compatible, I don't see why collectors are so upset. Their existing discs will continue to play. And they should be pleased that the premier format gets promoted over the lesser ones, a stark reversal of the days when DVD releases had to wait for months or years while laserdisc was day and date with rental VHS.

orangerunner

That's a fine list of technical specs but you haven't really addressed my question.

I realize you won't be able to play the HD content burned onto a DVD-R disc on a DVD player. DVD players do not play HD 1080i/p content or data.

You claim two hours of HD 1080i/p video content burned onto a dual layer DVD-R will play on a Blu-ray player.

If I understand this correctly, it would make the expensive Blu-ray discs an unnecessary extra expense to get two hours of 1080i/p content to play from your Blu-ray player? No?

Mr. Salty

No, I am not.

I have quite clearly explained the various video codecs. The camcorder is AVCHD and does not have the file structure typical of Blu-ray discs. A store-bought Blu-ray is not AVCHD, has a higher video bit rate as well as a higher bit-rate audio track (Dolby Digital True HD, etc.), a more complicated file structure (with menus, etc.) and so forth. And the dual-layer DVD-Rs that orange is talking about are twitchy enough on regular DVD players. I'm not sure they'd play on a BD player, although I haven't tried.

Mr. Salty

No, I did not. That was your tangent. Dual-layer DVD-Rs are unreliable, so I have not tried them. I'm not sure either of my BD players will even play them. Also, remember that my time estimate was just a guess. I've never maxed out a disc. I think I reliably get 45 minutes to an hour on a DVD-R. That's all I've said.

You have understand very little correctly in this thread so far.

Blu-ray discs were created to give a comfortably high storage capacity so we could have a lengthy movie with the highest possible video bit rate, plus uncompressed audio tracks and plenty of extras.

While consumer-grade camcorders produce great results compared with their SD counterparts, they are still lower bit-rate than commercial BD releases, and they have compressed two-channel Dolby Digital audio at a relatively low audio bit-rate.

The point of my original post was to refute your idea that you need a Blu-ray burner in order to enjoy HD home video. You don't. But that doesn't mean a data DVD is sufficient for a typical two-hour movie in HD.

orangerunner

Sorry Mr. Salty, this was the initial info you provided:

To me it sounded like you can achieve full HD 1080i/p quality burned onto a regular DVD-R (1 hour for single layer or 2 hours on twitchy dual layer) and play it back in your Blu-ray player and enjoy a full HD picture.

I see what you mean about placing a compressed HD file on a DVD-R as data & it would still be considered "HD".

Mr. Salty

And then I made several subsequent posts.

There very well may be no reason why you couldn't make a high-def disc on a regular commercially-pressed dual-layer DVD (I don't know for sure). But you would likely be quite limited in how long the running time could be.

To your point about cost, yes the studios are charging more for Blu-rays. Part of this is because they're seen as a "premium" product, but it's also because they're selling fewer copies, and therefore the per-unit cost is going to be higher. We're already seeing prices come down as sales are increasing.

Whether the extra cost is worth it is up to the individual. In my case, I have a 50-inch HDTV. I don't mind spending $5 or so more for a disc that I'm going to own and enjoy for years to come.

AnonomusBob15

I don't see why anyone would hate Blu-Ray. I think it's great, and as soon as the prices drop I am going to convert. That could be years from now. So it's DVD till then. I never buy day and date, and usually pick up titles on sale. I buy about 10 DVDs a year now, and it pisses me off when I can't watch something that I should be able to.

I've made up my mind. I will upgrade down the road, just don't make the material unavaible to me. I've wanted to watch the extra features on The Dark Knight blu for awhile now, but alas, I can't.

The argument of VHS vs. DVD isn't fair, because though in some RARE cases, VHS have always been produced without special features. and they just plain suck.

It also pisses me off when they withold the features from the Blu that were on the DVD. I mean, come on...

Chrisedge

The quality (bitrate) is less on a DL-DVD, than it would be on 25GB or 50GB BD disc. Read up on encoding and you will see.

I have plenty of HD recordings on SL DVD and DL DVDs and on a external HD. Not too difficult to record them from your cable box, and maintain HD quality. The size (1080P vs 1080i vs 720p) and the bit rate determine how big the final file will be.

orangerunner

So it would be fair to describe it is a lower quality, compressed version of HD that is still higher quality than if you down-converted to SD?

I think the confusion comes from the fact that the term HD is used very loosely for a very broad range of quality. You see everything from YouTube videos claiming to be HD to professional quality HDCAM.

TheKing

Anyone that bought into HD DVD has a pretty compelling reason to dislike Blu-ray. Maybe not the technology itself, but most definitely the forces behind it.

The format war left a bad taste in the mouth of many consumers, and not just those that picked Red over Blu.

Mr. Salty

That would probably be a fair assessment, although the quality is pretty darned good. It's either 1440x1080 or 1920x1080, but at a slightly lower bit rate than what Blu-ray is capable of. But that's because I bought a camcorder last year. The new version is capable of a higher bit rate.