Canon 7D major differences with HPX170+DOF adapter

[Jester2138]

Everyone's computer has a pair of headphones or speakers while not many computers are connected to a TV or projector. I see how people end up watching a random episode of a TV show on a computer screen. But The Lord of The Rings?

I watch movies on my big widescreen monitor quite often. It's very nice when I just want some time to myself to absorb a movie nobody else would be interested in.

3) You still get physical copies of all your downloaded music while nobody's going to store 50GB a piece on hard disk for a movie collection.

No, you're right. Nobody will store 50GB on their hard drive for a single movie. They'll just stream it from Netflix or whatever service they prefer.

 

[NoxNoctus]

This is a bad comparison for a number of reasons:
1) Everyone's computer has a pair of headphones or speakers while not many computers are connected to a TV or projector. I see how people end up watching a random episode of a TV show on a computer screen. But The Lord of The Rings?

My custom-built is also my media center, with an HDMI out connected to my 56" LCD in the other room, but honestly I have no problem watching movies in my workspace on my 28" and my 5.1 logitech set. my chairs are cozy in here

 

[Craigman77]

Patryk, by the way, is an absolutely amazing cinematographer. He did a short film which was the first one, I think, that showed what the DVX was capable of, it was absolutely jaw-dropping and it was a standard-def DVX. The man knows images inside and out.

Barry or Patryk would you mind linking me to the mentioned short film?

 

[digitalfilmmaker]

I think you made some good points later on in your post, but 5-10 years? 5 would be pushing it I think. I hope to be authoring Blu-ray discs within the next couple of years at the most. Just my take on it though. I think the 7D (and 5D, GH1, etc..) is a mere shadow of things to come.

Yeah it's going to be hard to say. I just know that DVD is "good enough" (i.e., I think DVDs big jump in quality and non-linear nature made it much better than DVD, whereas Blu-Ray only has better imagery) and will probably remain the choice of indies to author and replicate for the foreseeable future and right now when I want to share an HD movie I just upload to vimeo.

 

[Ryan Farnes]

I'm not saying that 1080p is obsolete, I think 1080p is a great delivery format. I'm just saying that I think BluRay is obsolete.

My opinion is that, while BluRay may be useful for festivals and the like for several years to come, soon enough we will stream everything over the internet. As internet speeds increase exponentially it will simply not make sense to own a collection of physical media anymore - it will be far simpler and more efficient to just stream whatever you want whenever you want. Even if internet speeds don't get there anytime soon, there is always flash media, which can hold more data than BluRay in a smaller, faster, and more rugged format.

Blu-ray is obsolete? In several years, as you say, why would festivals still be using Blu-ray if the internet streaming is so good in the future? I point this out because I think even you recognize that as new technology grabs hold, Blu-ray will still be kicking in a few years. Flash media? Are you advocating a more expensive non-existent distribution medium? Blu-ray is here and now man!

Blu-Ray looks nasty (to me) in its use of compression on some stuff, particularly anything with grass or leaves. Sci-Fi that looked fine on film looks cartoonish on Blu-Ray, and gets worse as the screen size increases and the blocks become more visible. Distribution mediums that are comparable to Blu-Ray discs (Cable & online delivery) are already competing with that format, and will be more and more price competitive as time goes by and bandwidth goes up.

For me, Blu-Ray is dead... it just doesn't know it yet.

What distribution mediums have overcome any flaws inherent in Blu-ray compression that are currently available? Speaking of noticeable compression...you advocate abandoning Blu-ray in favor of current online distribution? (I'm not as familiar with cable or satellite delivery of HD content, tell me more) Isn't all content compressed? Are you saying that online and cable distribution exceeds Blu-ray image quality?

I've been saying for years that blu-ray is a DBA format (dead before arrival). It offers increased quality at higher prices, at the penalty of more DRM. It's a great thing for studios, but little benefit for consumers.

Which has been the hotter, more-adopted technology: blu-ray? Or youtube?

Quality doesn't really matter to the consumer, as long as they can make out what's going on. And blu-ray has ONLY quality to recommend it. Consumers don't care; years after its introduction blu-ray still only sells about 1 disc for every 10 that DVD does. My prediction has always been that people are going to skip blu-ray and instead go for hulu, netflix instant, etc. Consumers have already shown, in the music realm, that they don't need to buy a physical object anymore, they're content to download the song; I think we'll see the same thing happen here, and blu-ray will go the way of the LP.

I think that there will be a growing split between physical media and digital media distribution. Blu-ray faces a unique marketplace compared to DVD's rollout. But to say that it will be skipped altogether....I just don't buy that.

Blu-ray is in fact growing. You also have to take into account a recession and the need for an entirely new type of TV. Instead of just having to buy a DVD player back in the day, now you're looking at an expensive Blu-ray player AND a much more expensive TV for it to make sense.

For HD, 9 megabits would be plenty (and would surely look a heck of a lot better than broadcast HD network television!) Meaning 4-5 GB for a full movie. With terabyte hard disks going for a hundred bucks today and storing 200 movies, I really don't see it as impractical at all.

You could have a vPod, a movie-playing equivalent of an iPod. It could be a little device smaller than a PS3, that connects to the Internet, legally buys & downloads $9.99 movies, stores them on its internal hard drive, and connects to your living room TV via HDMI, for... what, $199? $299? Does that really seem impractical to you? I think that sounds like exactly what the future is going to be.

And when that arrives, how many people are really going to be shelling out $30 so they can have a blu-ray disc?

I agree that the size is not going to be nearly as large. 1080p quality in Hollywood movie trailers online are already about 1MB/sec and they look dang spanking good. So about 7GB for a 2 hour film. Very reasonable.

But just now you're mentioning another device that would have to be purchased. Then you've got to be computer & tech savvy to get everything hooked up. And if you're talking about hooking computers up to screens...who here has done it without a hitch? Oh, and we're all "video professionals." The average Joe would go nuts and buy a Blu-ray player almost instantly. Blu-ray manufacturers will go bananas running "Apple-esque" ads about how Blu-ray "just works."

So to answer your last question....who is going to pay more for Blu-ray discs? Well, the people that just want a plug and play solution that is solid. Prices will continue to decline.

Oh, and Blu-ray is here. All that other stuff is not in any quality or quantity, so stop talking about it like it is.

 

[Chris_TC]

And I doubt movies streamed are going to be 50GB apiece. A Blu-Ray disc might be, if it's double-sided, but a streamed movie doesn't have to be HD (because consumers don't really care about HD anyway) and it certainly doesn't have to be as high-bandwidth as a blu-ray disc

You're moving the goal posts. Now you're saying that HD in general won't catch on, neither on a physical medium nor online.
My comparison was VOD HD vs. Blu-ray HD because to me there's no doubt HD will completely replace SD at some point*

And by the way, Blu-ray players (excluding the PS3) have already overtaken the adoption rate of DVD players back in the day. I don't have a link handy but I'm sure Google lists a bunch of sources.

*There are already cell phones with a display resolution of 800x480. This exceeds NTSC DVD.

 

[TimTheFoolMan]

What distribution mediums have overcome any flaws inherent in Blu-ray compression that are currently available? Speaking of noticeable compression...you advocate abandoning Blu-ray in favor of current online distribution? (I'm not as familiar with cable or satellite delivery of HD content, tell me more) Isn't all content compressed? Are you saying that online and cable distribution exceeds Blu-ray image quality?

No, what I'm saying is that artifacts remain, regardless of the delivery mechanism (though I'll be the first to admit that Blu-Ray suffers less than others). As a result, the other mechanisms are "good enough" for a whole range of people. Blu-Ray advances the art, but retains a whole bunch of baggage that makes it less desirable (physical media, DRM, etc) for a significant, and growing, part of the population.

Where I am (Kentucky), there's some truth in the reluctance of people 35 and up to hook up a computer to a big screen, but people under 30 or so are just bypassing cable TV for online delivery. They've got an XBox360, so they're not going to buy a PS3, and as a result, they've got (in online delivery and DVD) content that is "good enough," even on big screens. The only people getting cable are the ones who want to watch live events like sports, and those people are increasingly going to public venus (i.e. Sports Bars) to watch.

Maybe all the years of watching the nasty compression from cable TV has conditioned people to accept such a horrid level of quality. In the meantime, most of my tech friends treat "Blu-Ray is dead" as accepted fact, and well past the point of debate. If it's not dead, and has some sudden surge of popularity, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I don't really have a dog in the hunt at this point, as I'm more focused on creating the content, and then distributing it by whatever means possible. - Tim

 

[Ryan Farnes]

No, what I'm saying is that artifacts remain, regardless of the delivery mechanism (though I'll be the first to admit that Blu-Ray suffers less than others). As a result, the other mechanisms are "good enough" for a whole range of people. Blu-Ray advances the art, but retains a whole bunch of baggage that makes it less desirable (physical media, DRM, etc) for a significant, and growing, part of the population.

Where I am (Kentucky), there's some truth in the reluctance of people 35 and up to hook up a computer to a big screen, but people under 30 or so are just bypassing cable TV for online delivery. They've got an XBox360, so they're not going to buy a PS3, and as a result, they've got (in online delivery and DVD) content that is "good enough," even on big screens. The only people getting cable are the ones who want to watch live events like sports, and those people are increasingly going to public venus (i.e. Sports Bars) to watch.

Maybe all the years of watching the nasty compression from cable TV has conditioned people to accept such a horrid level of quality. In the meantime, most of my tech friends treat "Blu-Ray is dead" as accepted fact, and well past the point of debate. If it's not dead, and has some sudden surge of popularity, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I don't really have a dog in the hunt at this point, as I'm more focused on creating the content, and then distributing it by whatever means possible. - Tim

Thanks for clarifying. I think there are excellent points to be made about online distribution. It seems to simply keep getting better.

I guess we'll see how Blu-ray fares in the current and future market. If it is short lived, so be it. That means that something better will be here sooner than expected I suppose, and I'm all for more efficient and high quality distribution.

 

[Barry_Green]

Barry or Patryk would you mind linking me to the mentioned short film?

http://patrykrebisz.com/films_strings.html

Mind you, this was six years ago, so I don't know how it holds up today, but man, back when he posted that, we were all like "WHAT!??! A DVX did that?"

 

[Craigman77]

Thank you sir

 

[Mj882]

Wow this threads completely strayed off from my original post. And did Avenger give the answers for his stills??

 

[Chamber005]

All the people here talking about streaming video somehow competing with blu-ray is bizarre. I can get Netflix via my computer or via my Xbox 360, and I would never, ever, ever watch a Netflix movie via my computer. The quality is crap -- because there isn't an HDMI connection between the two.

The percentage of people who are streaming HD video via an HDMI cable from their computer to a large television is probably like 1% compared to blu-ray owners and probably .000000000006% of DVD owners.

I hear people talk all the time about physical copies of things being dead, but I think movies are more comperable to comic books than they are to CDs. Think about back when we were all watching VHS, most of us didn't rent a movie we wanted to own and then simply copied it, we went out and purchased the VHS.

Comic books are downloadable now, but it's a niche market at best, typically utilized for collections of extremely old back issues.

When most people buy a CD they're really buying 2 or 3 songs. When you're buying a movie, you're buying the whole thing.

Lots of problems, IMO, regarding streaming video:

1) When you stream video via a computer the average consumer would have to have an HDMI connection and have their computer connected to their television and even then will probably only achieve 720p video via what's being streamed. I think Netflix only does 720p -- and I'm not even positive it's that high.

2) When you stream, you do not own. The idea of downloading a movie and that download (data) being the only thing you actually "own" will be off-putting to a lot of consumers, especially since most blu-rays are now 10-20 bucks. What price point are downloadable movies going to be? ONE song is a dollar, priced at approx 10% of the cost of the entire CD. So, at best, we'd be looking at paying the full (but potentially discount) price ($10) to own a downloaded movie -- why would anyone anywhere pay the same price to own a downloaded movie than they would to own a blu-ray or even a DVD, especially since most blu-rays even come with a digital copy for storing?

3) Consumers with 1080p televisions most definitaley purchase 1080p movies. I think the ratio of DVD vs Bluray owners (10 to 1 as someone just randomly came up with that statistic), is not going to be too different than HDTV vs TV owners.

People who own large, HDTVs typically have a bluray player to match. People who have crappy regular TVs probably have DVD players. The problem isn't with Bluray it's that a lot of consumers haven't yet made the transitions to a better viewing experience period.

Streaming movies live, IMO, affects a tiny portion of viewers. Someday, probably via some game system, people may stream more movies than they rent, but there is absolutely no data anywhere that shows people will be purchasing less movies that they want to OWN on DVD, Bluray or otherwise.

Bluray has no real threats right now. Until they come out with a more enhanced format (which, if I'm not mistaken, is relatively impossible unless you bring in the new 3D televisions, which I'm not personally lining up for), Bluray will continue to grow and get cheaper until eventually DVDs are obsolete (except for the DVDs people still own that they now watch on their bluray player).

 

[Jester2138]

EDIT: See post below.

 

[Jester2138]

When you stream video via a computer the average consumer would have to have an HDMI connection and have their computer connected to their television and even then will probably only achieve 720p video via what's being streamed. I think Netflix only does 720p -- and I'm not even positive it's that high.

Again, wait a few years. It will soon surpass Blu-Ray and you'll be able to stream it directly to your TV.

When you stream, you do not own. The idea of downloading a movie and that download (data) being the only thing you actually "own" will be off-putting to a lot of consumers.

I guess Netflix's rental service is an anomaly then? Why do you think it's so sucessful? Because most people DON'T WANT to own a movie, because they'll only watch it maybe once or twice. So they rent it.

Consumers with 1080p televisions most definitaley purchase 1080p movies.

Actually, I don't think you're right there. Some do, for sure, but most people I know with HDTV's don't buy Blu-Ray for whatever reason. They own them to watch sports or because those are the only big TV's being sold today.

People who own large, HDTVs typically have a bluray player to match. People who have crappy regular TVs probably have DVD players. The problem isn't with Bluray it's that a lot of consumers haven't yet made the transitions to a better viewing experience period.

You can't say that people who own HDTV's typically own BluRay players without some kind of statitic to back it up. Not everyone agrees with you...

Bluray has no real threats right now.

Well, seeing as it's far from an adopted format, something must be up, right?

Until they come out with a more enhanced format (which, if I'm not mistaken, is relatively impossible unless you bring in the new 3D televisions...

So you think it's is not possible to have a better format than Blu-Ray unless it's 3D? You do browse these forums, right? Come on!

 

[Jester2138]

Wow this threads completely strayed off from my original post. And did Avenger give the answers for his stills??

I would love to know the answers as well...

 

[bwwd]

soon even better than blueray ? Thats better than 1080p ,where you will get source material scanned higher than that ? They would have to scan films again ,i dont see it happening earlier than 10 years from now.

 

[Jester2138]

soon even better than blueray ? Thats better than 1080p ,where you will get source material scanned higher than that ? They would have to scan films again ,i dont see it happening earlier than 10 years from now.

Not necessarily higher resolution, but there are ways of having superior footage.

 

[ydgmdlu]

soon even better than blueray ? Thats better than 1080p ,where you will get source material scanned higher than that ? They would have to scan films again ,i dont see it happening earlier than 10 years from now.

I hear that Quad HD (3840x2160) is on the horizon...

 

[chrislancaster]

the red ray will be out in jan ..thats 4k right?

 

[Mj882]

So if I'm going to shoot a film for a festival, which will be screened on a large screen for a mass audience. Do I shoot in 1080p using a Canon EOS 7D or HPX170+Letus35.

Let's get this finalised