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Eug · Mar 20, 2007, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by icruise

Even if a $199 HD movie player came out tomorrow, I don't think it would lead to a huge impact in adoption rates. Sales would of course increase, but player price is only one factor that's keeping people from buying these things. One is simply uncertainty about which format to choose. Another one is that HDTV ownership is not that widespread, but I think the fact that there aren't very many major movies available on the HD formats is a huge problem. Where are the "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings" films? Where are the Pixar films? Obviously the studios are still very much testing the waters, but until these kind of blockbusters show up (and the overall selection improves) I don't think you're going to see widespread adoption of either format.

With HD-DVD in particular, I think a lot of people are going to be reluctant to buy into a format with relatively limited studio support. Then again, most people probably have no idea that this is even an issue.

A $199 price point would be very significant, because at that price it's competing against DVD players, but it already plays DVDs, and with better upscaling than most upscaling DVD players.

Star Wars won't be out for a very long time.

There is no specific date yet for Lord of the Rings, but it has already been announced for both HD DVD and Blu-ray. In fact, there's already a placeholder for the trilogy up on Amazon:

mrtew · Mar 20, 2007, 09:51 PM

Originally Posted by icruise

Where are the "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings" films? Where are the Pixar films? Obviously the studios are still very much testing the waters, but until these kind of blockbusters show up (and the overall selection improves) I don't think you're going to see widespread adoption of either format.

Originally Posted by Eug

Star Wars won't be out for a very long time.

Forgive my ignorance but why aren't most movies out on HD by now? I know it's only been a year or so but is it really taking that much time to transfer them and get them made and released or is there some other reason for the delay? Are they debating the formats or waiting for the market to be big enough that their release will make a big splash or considering not releasing some movies on HD at all or what?

analogue SPRINKLES · Mar 20, 2007, 09:56 PM

Originally Posted by mrtew

Forgive my ignorance but why aren't most movies out on HD by now?

Because studios want to wait till there is a big install base of players to have lots of fanfare when they release big titles like LOTR, Star wars etc.

In fact star wars was already transfered to HD when they did the last DVD release.

mrtew · Mar 20, 2007, 10:09 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Because studios want to wait till there is a big install base of players to have lots of fanfare when they release big titles like LOTR, Star wars etc.

Nice.... so the HD players won't catch on and sell because there are no good titles out, and they won't release the good titles (not saying that StarWars and LOTR are good by the way) because the players haven't caught on yet. Now explain why 80% of all TV is still shown in 20th century blurvison please. I can't believe I wasted $1500 on a 42" HDTV.

analogue SPRINKLES · Mar 20, 2007, 10:21 PM

Originally Posted by mrtew

Nice.... so the HD players won't catch on and sell because there are no good titles out, and they won't release the good titles (not saying that StarWars and LOTR are good by the way) because the players haven't caught on yet. Now explain why 80% of all TV is still shown in 20th century blurvison please. I can't believe I wasted $1500 on a 42" HDTV.

Yup chicken and the egg. THe same thing happened with broadcast HDTV. I got a HD set in 1999 but never got an HD receiver until 2003 because there wasn't enough on TV in HD to bother.

All current movies are coming out on HD now though which is great. We just need to wait a while for some old classics.

Adam Betts · Mar 21, 2007, 10:55 AM

HD channels are worth it nowadays, you can find most classic movies on HD most of the time. Blade Runner in HD is simply gorgeous. Even Star Wars 1 to 6 are available in HD channel.

analogue SPRINKLES · Mar 21, 2007, 02:21 PM

Originally Posted by Adam Betts

HD channels are worth it nowadays, you can find most classic movies on HD most of the time. Blade Runner in HD is simply gorgeous. Even Star Wars 1 to 6 are available in HD channel.

Ya for sure. For the past 2-3 years just about all new prime time shows are filmed and air in HD.

What is worst though is when a show is shot in HD (like Battlestar) but they air for the first time on non-hd channels. Pathetic.

Eug · Mar 21, 2007, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Ya for sure. For the past 2-3 years just about all new prime time shows are filmed and air in HD.

What is worst though is when a show is shot in HD (like Battlestar) but they air for the first time on non-hd channels. Pathetic.

The sad part is that BSG is a show that screams to be in HD. I personally really don't care if a biography is shown in HD. SD is usually fine for most of it. BSG would benefit so much from HD though.

They show BSG (old episodes) in HD on CityTV, and the quality sometimes still isn't that good though. Not sure why.

mitchell_pgh · Mar 21, 2007, 03:36 PM

Interesting side note... I went through my queue on Netflix and I had 2 HD-DVDs and 4 Blu-ray movies as options...

Non scientific, but interesting.

I hope they both fight each other forever and I just buy a $300 drive and rip them both to a HD.

I feel like we're bickering over two ridiculously similar formats.

Eug · Mar 21, 2007, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

I feel like we're bickering over two ridiculously similar formats.

Same here. The war is just stupid (like the + vs - DVD war was).

mitchell_pgh · Mar 21, 2007, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

Same here. The war is just stupid (like the + vs - DVD war was).

I feel like I'm watching an over produced 5pm news show.

<shouting> It's a match to the DEATH!!! WHO WILL WIN!!! HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray!!! Film at 11... </shouting>

goMac · Mar 21, 2007, 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

I feel like we're bickering over two ridiculously similar formats.

The only thing different is the laser they use. At one point there was talks about merging the two formats, but it never happened for some dumb reason. Both formats use the same compression algorithms (in theory, Bluray seems to love it's MPEG2).

Eug · Mar 21, 2007, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Both formats use the same compression algorithms (in theory, Bluray seems to love it's MPEG2).

Part of the reason was that Sony's compression suite apparently wasn't mature enough on the H.264 side (and Sony wasn't really interested in VC-1). Things are different now, and H.264 will be much more popular on Blu-ray than it was before.

goMac · Mar 21, 2007, 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

Part of the reason was that Sony's compression suite apparently wasn't mature enough on the H.264 side (and Sony wasn't really interested in VC-1). Things are different now, and H.264 will be much more popular on Blu-ray than it was before.

Sure, but for that specific issue it might be too little to late. Sony was in the awkward position of having bigger discs but not being able to store as much content as HD-DVD. Now when they're finally going to start using H.264, Bluray looks like it's going to lose it's capacity advantage.

Eug · Mar 21, 2007, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Sure, but for that specific issue it might be too little to late. Sony was in the awkward position of having bigger discs but not being able to store as much content as HD-DVD. Now when they're finally going to start using H.264, Bluray looks like it's going to lose it's capacity advantage.

If you're talking about TL51 (or TL45), at this point it's vapourware.

It was just a technology demonstration. Of note is the fact that it hasn't even been formally submitted to the DVD Forum yet, so there is no chance in hell we'll see it anytime soon. Furthermore, there's no guarantee it will work on existing players, although I think it might be able to.

analogue SPRINKLES · Mar 21, 2007, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Sure, but for that specific issue it might be too little to late. Sony was in the awkward position of having bigger discs but not being able to store as much content as HD-DVD. Now when they're finally going to start using H.264, Bluray looks like it's going to lose it's capacity advantage.

Actually many current BR releases are still MPEG but they get reviewed as having reference quality picture. Whatever Sony was doing wrong in the first few months with MPEG2 they seemed to have fixed as it looks as good or better than the other codecs.

goMac · Mar 21, 2007, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES

Actually many current BR releases are still MPEG but they get reviewed as having reference quality picture. Whatever Sony was doing wrong in the first few months with MPEG2 they seemed to have fixed as it looks as good or better than the other codecs.

MPEG2 can look as good as other codecs, that's not at all the problem. The problem is that MPEG4 on HD-DVD can hold more content than MPEG2 on Bluray.