If DVD Is Dead, What's Next? 652
uglysad writes "The Age has a piece discussing the fact that, from the home entertainment industry's standpoint, the DVD is dead. So what is next? From the article 'It will come as a shock to film fans who have spent their Christmases stocking up on their movie collections, but the technology industry is in agreement: the DVD is dead. Consumer electronics companies have begun to show off what they believe will be the next generation of home video technologies. But despite the common belief that the DVD is history, the industry is split over what the next step should be.'"
Re:HD-DVD (Score:5, Informative)
Blu-Ray drives will most likely be backwards compatible as well. From the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]:
While it is not compulsory for manufacturers, the Blu-ray Disc Association recommends that Blu-ray drives should be capable of reading DVDs, ensuring backward compatibility.
The whole "DVD" on the end of the name is just a ruse to get people to buy into the standard. There really isn't anything I can think of that makes HD-DVD superior to Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray, OTOH, has many positive features including the ability to wipe the disk without scratching it, and larger data capacities.
Re:HD-DVD (Score:2, Informative)
The article is definitely slanted. "Sony's rival format does away with traditional red lasers in favour of more efficient blue ones", but that's true for HD-DVD as well. Mention that Sony suffered a blow when Microsoft announced they will support (an external) HD-DVD on Xbox360, but didn't say anything at all about Blu-Ray on PS3, nor that Microsoft's reason for supporting HD-DVD is to try to hurt Sony in their console war.
Claiming that HD-DVD is cheaper than Blu-Ray is misleading. Start-up costs to build new equipment to produce Blu-Ray discs is going to be more expensive than modifying current DVD equipment to produce HD-DVD, but that is a short-term thing.
What they completely failed to mention is that the big hang-up is over the copy-prevention, even though both sides are using essentially the same thing.
70 RPM? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:whatever (Score:3, Informative)
Youngun. 33.3333, 45, and 78 is/were the standard record formats. I've never heard of a 70 RPM one.
Back on topic, I thought that the article title is very sensationalistic. I thought they were going to talk about something new or whatever, but they just talked about the different higher capacity DVDs (blue ray and HDDVD) not something like crystalline hologram media or whatever.
I don't see DVDs as a format going anywhere anytime before or after CDs. I mean, my DVD players/recorders can do both. The two new formats are the same form factor and I would imagine that they will be backwards compatible with regular DVDs and CDs as well.
Honestly, since I was in high school in the late 80s, I though that we should put music on chips like game cartridges of the time. No moving parts, protected from bad elements, etc. I guess that they were and still are way too expensive for mass duplication. I mean, the movie and music industry people are already poor and living in the streets because of the cost of the current media right?
Actually, when media is going to be free, I guess we will just transfer files over wireless to our car and homes and whatnot. I would kill to have my computer music collection not have to be put onto CD to listen in my car. And NO an MP3 player is not an option for me because I don't have any MP3s.
Right... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:whatever (Score:4, Informative)
Re:whatever (Score:4, Informative)
Makes sense http://www.candisc.com/03price/03vhs.html [candisc.com] vs http://www.candisc.com/03price/03pricedvd.html [candisc.com]
Re:LPs are not dead (Score:1, Informative)
Re:DVD is going to stick around (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure you meant MPEG-2 compression, not encryption. MPEG-2 compression was certainly NOT a rush job. I agree that there are better codecs now. MPEG-2 has simply been one step in the evolution, and a significant amount of effort went into the development.
Or maybe you are confusing CSS encryption that is used on DVDs with MPEG-2. CSS encryption was evidently a rush job. Which is probably more of a reason than anything else why the movie industry wants to see it dead. Video quality isn't really the issue yet (even today very few TVs display native 1080p movies to begin with).
hooray, truth is dead! (Score:1, Informative)
http://free-dvd.org.lu/css-chain-of-events.txt [free-dvd.org.lu]
Re:I dont get why would anyone buy into either one (Score:3, Informative)
"10x the quality" my ass... The highest-end CPUs right now can just barely handle realtime playback of H.264 at 1080... I'd love to see what kind of framerate you'll get on 5760x3240 material (only 9x higher res).
People don't want to buy a movie, then have to delete it because their hard drive is full. Let's use the example of a dual-layer blu-ray disc... Just how many 50GB movies can you store on your hard drive in your $500 MythTV system, and how much does that hard drive cost??? Who will pay even $5 for a movie, when costs them $25 for the hard drive space to save it? If anything, people would buy burners, and start storing their movies on discs... Selling the discs cuts out the middle man, and saves everyone's time and money.
Not only is that not 10x the resolution of HDTV, it can't even display 1080 material. A very cheap HDTV will be higher resolution than your monitor, and even cheaper than an equivalent-sized monitor. Point me to a 50" computer monitor for under $1,000.
Believe me, if you spent $10k, you'd get a display that would put your monitor to shame.
I am really amazed your stupid, baseless, factually incorrect rant got modded up.
Re:DVD is going to stick around (Score:3, Informative)
Three years ago, you probably could have said, "I can't imagine the VHS section at Best Buy going away within the next three years."
What planet do you live on? 3 years ago was only 2003. It was obvious that VHS was on the way out at early as 2000. In 2003 VHS was on its last legs and if you weren't betting on the VHS section at Best Buy going away in 2 or 3 years, you weren't paying attention.
Re:whatever (Score:4, Informative)
What plasma TVs only have 488 lines (are you talking horizontal "lines of resolution" or vertical scan lines?) All of the plasma sets I see are HD or at least ED, typically with 1024x768 for the former, the latter typically at 852x480 for a 42" set (which is about 36.6x20.6 inches; that gives about 28 dpi horizontally and 37 dpi vertically for the HD sets, or 23 dpi for the ED sets, if the screens are 16:9). You don't get full HD resolution until you get to bigger screens; even 50 and 63" plasma seem to be mostly 1366x767, at least it's a square resolution (31 dpi for the 50", 25 dpi for the 63"). Full HD resolution is 1920x1080.
Re:LPs are not dead (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah. You guys who think LP's are gone are really really uninformed. In case you didn't know, CDJ'ing (or MP3J'ing) is not nearly as easy as mixing vinyls. In all kinds of music, for DJ's (and for me who just likes that music (and it doesn't come out on CD!)), vinyl is great. The quality is just the same as CD if you ask me.
Audio tape is really what is dead. That shit was shit!
Re:whatever (Score:3, Informative)
No, I didn't make this up.
I do, however live in Ausstralia, which uses PAL rather than NTSC. The Plasma screens are still 480 or so lines, despite that PAL (which includes PAL DVD's) are 576 lines resolution. So if you display a PAL DVD on a standard definition Plasma, you are actually running on alot lower resolution than the DVD/MPEG-2 is encoded at. This has not stopped the uptake of plasma screens in Australia, or in a number of parts of the world that uses PAL for tha matter.
You are using a high definition plasma screen, which is a nice thing. And you know its resolution, which puts you ahead of the average punter which buys a HD plasma. However, alot of people buy standard def plasmas, which are (as I said in my original post) of a lower resolution than DVD's that are encoded for PAL.
What I'm really saying is this - Standard definition is good enough for most people. We have used this for over 50 years now and if the resolution wasn't enough it would have changed much sooner. In reality most of the deficiencies (eg poor colour matching with NTSC) have been fixed a while ago. The move to high definition is nice, but alot of people really don't care. If they did care, nobody would have paid for a video track of iTunes which is at a much lower resolution than standard definition. But millions of these video tracks have been paid for, mostly because the resolution is sufficient for the average consumer.
You (and most of the readers on
You won't buy a HD player most likely because you don't like the DRM on HD-DVD or Blu Ray. The average consumer wont care less about this, but they won't buy this sort of system because they don't know or care about HD versus standard definition.
As I said in my original post, the next major increment in video delivery will not be a DRM's low compression high definition movie format. It will be a low definition compact video file that has DRM. You won't like it any more than me. It seems wrong and maybe it is. Most people on slashdot feel that way about apple's AAC encrypted format - why would you buy an encrypted, limited format like that when you can have MP3's, or ogg, or even a lossless format? If you feel like this, I understand - I'm there too.
But I accept that most people aren't like me - they will be happy if things are good enough for use, and won't care if there is DRM (at least not for a while - maybe in 10 years people will start to understand when they lose their music collection because their motherboard dies before they can deauthorise their last valid computer for that account).
Thats it - we are probably on the same side of the argument, and if we aren't, well post a reply - I'll be interested in your opinion.
Hope this clarifies my earlier statements about PAL DVD's and standard definition plasma displays.
Michael
Recordability (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely. I knew DVD was going to catch on as soon as all the movie companies got behind it. That was when I got a player. VHS was dead from that moment.
I agree with most of what you say - I just think that VHS as a medium for buying movies on died a long time ago, but in many UK homes still use them. In fact there seem to be a fair number of movies still available in shops here. Why?
In the UK Tivo never really take off (well they stopped selling new ones) and what kept VHS players alive here was that they were the only mass-market item (partly due to the fact people already had them and had just figured out how to record with them) with the ability to record TV programs of the box.
We are only now just getting DVD recorders at the sub 100 pound mark. So to make permanent recordings of broadcast programs whilst shelling out less that 100 pounds most people are either going to stick with a DVD recorder (or get the Sky+ box I think that has that capability). Its cost and ease for the non-techy consumer.
I am tempted to try and skip the format war and see what new formats are being suggested in another five years. I base this on the assumption that for any movie *not* to be released on DVD format over the next few years would be commercial suicide for the studio. I know I'm going to have a DVD player over the next 5 years otherwise thats a hundred or so films I already own that I won't be able to watch. I also know that the DVD disc version of a movie will be cheaper to buy than a new format version. Unless someone wants to give me a lot of money I'm unlikely to have a HDTV or a PS3 over that period. As you say, a good quality interpolation algorithm in the box makes something good enough to watch.
I guess there also needs to be the must-have content (like Matrix was for the DVD and Brothers In Arms was for the CD). If the LOTR trilogy was coming out *now* that would have been ideal for the high-quality camps.