Look at the extras on DVD and compare the quality to what went into a SE on laserdisc. BIG difference. Commentaries on DVD are a joke whereas on laserdisc they actually thought-out and were used at film schools. Deleted scenes are tossed on there without care. Alternate endings are shot because they know they could just use it later on a DVD. It's no longer about the movie but about the eventual DVD release. It wasn't like that before. They're not thinking about the final theatrical product but more towards what "unrated" edition they can throw together with a half-assed director on a commentary saying "oh this is where sam walks through the door and is startled."

Having a laserdisc player at 14 isn't snobbery. It took me a half a year to save up for it and that meant an entire summer of mowing lawns and doing whatever I had to to get money. I earned it and every laserdisc that I bought. I was saying that it was all mine because I didn't want someone to assume that I had one simply because my father or a brother had bought one.

new releases on DVD are $15-20, sure. But in about 5-6 months, they're suddenly $10 or less.

Here's news: most laserdiscs were barebones.

DVD has, for me, always been interim. I've never been thrilled with the sound quality like I was with laserdisc. Probably since DVD came out, I've been waiting for something that will kick it's ass and I'm happy that this day has finally come. The video and audio quality will finally be on par with each other.

I personally don't give a shit if J6P doesn't buy into it. If everyone were meant to have it, it'd be free.

You know, if Blu-Ray decks were $500 and HD-DVD decks were $1000-$1800, I'd be a hardcore Blu-Ray supporter. I only support HD-DVD because it promises 1080p PQ for home movies and at a great starting price point.

I'm not sure why there are any hardcore Blu-Ray supporters, though. Same PQ, audio for twice the price.

Also, the article mentions HD-DVD, but the only fact you get about Blu-Ray is it's competing with HD-DVD and it costs twice as much. If you're going to bet on the wrong horse, better to make a $500 bet. Any article mentioning Blu-Ray is going to have this fact highlighted.

Why do we need HD-DVD (or to be fair Blu-Ray):



BTW, I popped into a BB yesterday just to see the HD-DVD display. They had it hooked to a Westinghouse like the others I've read about. I thought it looked damn good in most shots (I saw the Riddick trailer). I also saw the HD-DVD vs. the SD-DVD and that is a joke... the SD side is out of focus-- a VHS image would look better than that. BUT, the HD-DVD side of the image looked spectacular. The only thing I noticed was the display looked grainy in some dark scenes, but I think that was the display. Overall it looked very, very good. My wife thought it looked extremely good, too-- I'd consider her an average viewer. If she sees a big difference, it's significant.

Wow. thats a pretty dumb argument. Sure there were some laserdiscs that had some great special features, others didn't. Its the same thing on DVD.

Oh wow. Film schools. Because I'm sure that film schools never used commentaries on DVD. Or that all commentaries on laserdiscs were insightful - how about the Star Wars discs????????

Nobody said anything about having a laserdisc is 14 is snobbery. Its your comments now about the "pure" formats that have people a bit stumped.

Umm no.

I paid $479 for my first Toshiba DVD player (non progressive scan, etc) in April 1997, when I made a lot les than I do now, so the cost of the HD-DVD player isn't really keeping me from getting one.


The HD-DVD player costs the same as that first DVD player did then, offers excellent up-conversion of standard DVDs, and provides the ability to watch HD movies now. Even if the format dies in a year or two and only a few hundred movies are out there; there may be people out there who feel that they would have gotten enough use of it to make the purchase worthwhile.

Considering that the HD movies are being rented by Netflix already; they could always just shy away from *buying* too many titles until the format war is won and instead just rent HD stuff like crazy and enjoy the ride!

This logic can be applied to either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray I suppose.

I keep wanting to just buy both types of machines and fill my Netflix queue with both HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, and see what happens!

(Trying to stay on topic)

After re-reading that article, I have to wonder just how the author would have reacted, some 40-odd years ago, to the advent of color television. Why should any television station waste their money on expensive color equipment? After all, good 'ol Black-and-White TV offered such as tremendous leap over radio. Is color really that much of an improvement? In order to see it, everyone would be forced to buy another new TV set, and all of the television stations would be forced to buy all-new equipment. And who's going to pay for all of that? Consumers.

Tower Records/Video had huge laserdisc sections back in the 90's when they were a relevant retailer and was my main supply before I discovered Ken Cranes. Yeah they were kinda high priced and big, but at the time it was the only option to actually purchase new releases (compared to the $90 rental priced VHS -yack-), plus you would get razor sharp picture and still unmatched sound quality. Not to mention the "small" benefit of OAR and the total absence of "hey, can I borrow that disc?" As far as flipping, all my players were auto-flippers and the benefits of the format FAR outweighed the minor inconvenience of changing multi-platter releases. And no special edition on DVD has ever given me the rush that ripping open the T2 Special Edition box set or that Criterion Se7en set did.

With the announcement of DVD I was looking forward to it for the only thing laserdisc couldn't give me...portability for plane travel. To me that issue was much more pressing than it is now with the a/v improvements of HD DVD, so I'm not as anxious for the switchover at this point, though I do see myself with a hi-def player in some form by the end of the year. I'm just waiting for some more hardware choices.

Perhaps you should, however, worry about making mistatements, since audited circulation figures released last week show a very minor increase in the circulation of the NY Times:

"Among those adding subscribers was the New York Times, which reported weekday circulation of 1,136,433 and Sunday circulation of 1,680,582. Its weekday circulation is up 0.2 percent from the same period last year."

Sorta puts your dismissive comments in perspective.

Marty, off topic but do you work for the NYT? I had a friend who worked there but passed away.

No, never worked for the NY Times (or any other paper, for that matter).

Just out of curiosity, are there articles like this every 4-5 years when a new generation of videogame consoles becomes available?

I am, in fact, wrong about the circulation. I confused it with another paper.

But, I am still right about Blair and the fraudulent stories that have arisen from that paper. In addition, the paper's political bias is quite extreme (speaking as an independent).

And the majority goes on trying to rule with idiocy. Screw quality, what's that?

Freak is absolutely correct. I have never seen a single DVD, including Criterions, that match up with the best LD special editions. (From Hell DVD was close) Video is better, audio is worse, extras are a joke on DVD. Nobody is arguing that LD has better video. But the extras have been cheapened and turned into ads for the stars and directors rather than something useful for movie buffs. Great for those who subscribe to People magazine, I imagine.

Robo,
NTSC color was so horrible when it first came out (and it still is today) that it would have made far more sense to mock it. I don't know if people did or not. They did mock certain shows for being colorized, I believe. Although it made for a great scene in Weird Al's Ricky video, where it suddenly switches to color.

I didn't take time to read the entire thread, did read entire story - it is a little critical - but to me it sounds fine what he is saying - for the average movie viewer that article sums it up. For us here maybe not. He hit all the bases - it is great, but... He even mentioned BD and the fact that it could be a long slow format war. So, I think everyone needs to cut this guy some slack - he is right - most people do not need HD-DVD or BD. Three people in my family own HD TV and only I have HD Service. I mean just cause you could utilize it don't mean you need or want it.

Just re-read this.

I know that. See...the SPECIAL EDITIONS had special features...and they actually mattered. When a special edition was announced, LD people nearly wet themselves. I can remember the day I got the $200 Star Wars boxed set and when I finally got to see Indiana Jones in widescreen. You appreciated it and savored it. Hell, I remember doing backflips when I got a trailer.
Very different from DVD's. They'll slap on a promotional EPK or a commentary recorded before the movie even comes out but FORGET about the trailer. Fucking stupid.

Never said all. Besides the Star Wars discs, the rest of the commentaries I had on laserdisc were fascinating and engaging. Hell, look at the documentary for Jaws. Perfect example. It comes to DVD and it's chopped because apparently people with DVD's don't have an attention span. Dvd is dumbed-down for the masses.

Actually, the other poster did.
And LD was kinda pure. They knew they weren't marketing to anyone but hard-core home theater and film enthusiasts. I like that.
With DVD, I have games on disc two and menus that need a map to wade through just to get to features.

Sorry. The one point I was wrong on. Make that 8-10 months. Same deal. Or just get it used for that price.
We couldn't get "used" laserdiscs and even if we could, they definitely weren't that price.

In regards to the The New York Times article posted above: HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, Standard DVD, etc, It's all a matter of personal preference of interests to each individual on what's comparatively sufficient to them accordingly.

I wasn't cool enough, I didn't have a laserdisc player.

I see. Seeing as how I don't listen to most commentaries, nor have I ever set foot in a film school, I should care how?

In some cases, yes. Damn that Peter Jackson for filming hundreds of hours of amazing bonus content for the DVD releases.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The alternative [extreme example, but true] is filming just for theatrical release [or tv] and not worrying about the afterlife. So now there are hundreds of films and hours of tv that will never be seen again.
Are some of them 'lowest common denominator'? Sure. There will *always* be those producers who churn out stuff that they can do in a day and make tons of money, and there will always be those who take extra effort.

Maybe because they realize the theatrical experience is, in general, losing its importance.

I see. See, I'm still seeing this--at least your phrasing of it--as snobbery. But whatever, I'm glad you at least learned the value of delayed gratification and saving money for something you wanted.

Not all releases, no. And again, why is this a bad thing, unless you *don't* want people having access to these.

So why are you praising the all-holy feature set of laserdiscs?!? If 25% of laser disks were "Collectors Editiions" that cost 200$ so the average movie fan would be priced out of the market, and the rest were barebones; how is that in any way better than having thousands of 15-20$ dvds, 25% of which have "good" commentaries [ie, suitable for use in Film Schools, where they can learn to write films such as Over the Hedge and Billy Madison].

Well, don't worry, there have enough peons buying dvds who have only human hearing and don't find any real complaints about the sound on most [recent] releases. Now that HDDVD is out, and they sold out of, what, all 1500 players, you're in a suitable elite group of superior audiophiles again.

No, you *don't want* "J6P" to "buy into it". It's admittedly not an entitlement, it's a luxury [both DVD and HD/BR], and you apparently want this luxury to be limited to only those who can "appreciate" it.
That argument doesn't even make sense...If people were "meant" to have food, or education, or clothing, or medicine, it would be free.

And I started pointing out your elitism/snobbery with the comments like this:
"DVD has, in a lot of ways, fucked my enjoyment of home video formats by allowing every Tom, Dick and Hilda to exploit it."
"It comes to DVD and it's chopped because apparently people with DVD's don't have an attention span. Dvd is dumbed-down for the masses."
"They knew they weren't marketing to anyone but hard-core home theater and film enthusiasts. I like that. "

You brought up that you bought your LD player when you were 14, I guess, as some sort of geek/AV-cred thing; I guess you're even more elite than the elite because you bought YOUR OWN player at the tender young age of 14.

Certainly you'll admit your posts in this thread just slightly give off an elitist attitude, toward the rest of the mouthbreathers who have made DVD so popular?

Some extras are crap, yes. Some are interesting. But as Film Enthusiasts, surely you'd admit it's supposed to be about the *film* first?

Don't worry, the industry seems to be supporting people like you more than people like me--with their use of two competing formats, HDMI, ICT [possibly], 1080p, DD+/DTS+, they're trying to make sure that anyone who bought hardware more than a year ago will have to upgrade, and that is probably going to be somewhat limited to the enthusiasts/elitists.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Good to know we have the "Ultra-Uncool-Self-Deprecating-Bitter Edition" of your post!

Read above. I'm not the only one that feels this way.

If you don't care about film school and you don't care about film as anything more than entertainment, then good for you. Enjoy your DVD's. It means a bit more to me than that. If that makes me a snob, ok.

But if all of this technological snobbery is over your head, why are you even here?

I think it means different strokes for different folks.

See, this is where I totally disagree. My HDTV is over a year old, my receiver is over 6 years old and I was able to take advantage of much of HD DVDs advantages without needing to upgrade anything.

DD+ is done by the player and outputs to my old receiver perfectly through the 6 channel analog. I can take advantage of that without needing any new equipment. 1080i looks amazing so buying a whole new TV just for a slight 1080p improvement is also unneeded.

If HD DVD would have required my to buy a new TV and Receiver I probably would have skipped it.

Totally off topic...

What the hell does that "smile" mean?

dtcarson and digitalfreaknyc: Things are getting awfully heated between you two. Might be worth stepping away from the keyboard for a bit or just looking the other way for a while.

Uncool? Quite likely. Bitter? Hardly. I do feel like the author of the article sometimes, that the tech moves faster than the ability to support it [or pay for it]. This is especially obvious in computers.

I never said you were. I know there are many DVD elitists even now, and there will be the same for HD/BR. For them, somehow the enjoyment of something is lessened when other people can enjoy it as well.

No, that doesn't make you a snob. Your elitist and constant insulting of the 'common' dvd viewer does. And the fact that after my long post, your only response is "I care about it more than you."

I enjoy 'studying' some dvds. I also enjoy just turning some on and enjoying them. But ultimately, film *is* entertainment--now, some people are 'entertained' by pratfalls and slapstick, and some by cutting edge novel concepts, or both. But that's what it's about. If I had to *work* at watching a film, well, I'd get a job doing that, that's why they call it 'work'.

Technological snobbery is over my head, yes. Keeping an ear out to see what happens with the next generation of hardware is not.
I didn't buy an HDDVD player yet. I might, or I might not. I might buy BR, I might buy neither. For now I'm just trying to keep up with the news/advances.

darkside: That's good to hear. And someone also said that the HDA1 upconverts regular dvd? My reciever [just bought a month ago, a HTiB, how common] has the 6 analog plugs, and my tv does 1080i. I think the big thing that got a sigh from me was the 1080p, but I don't think that is as much of a leap over 1080i as 1080i is over 480p.

Adam: I'm sorry, I was typing this while you were typing yours.

I'm done, I've said my piece. If someone would like to comment on the new players upconverting regular DVD, or point me to a better thread for that, I'd appreciate it.

Not that this is going to alter your argument at all, but most "Collector's Edition" laserdiscs were priced between $69.99 to $129.99. The $200+ box sets like Star Wars were very rare.

The only thing more irritating than snobbery is reverse-snobbery.

Can the two of you please stop derailing this thread now?

Oh thats a bunch of rubbish.
It turned out the only people that bought laserdiscs were hard-core home theater and film enthusiasts, but it was marketed on a mass basis. For all of the obvious reasons - gigantic size, flipping, multiple discs, price they didn't catch on.

Heck at the height of laserdiscs, I remember Blockbuster carrying a decent selection of laserdisc rentals. It lasted about 1 year.