converting 1080 into 720

[braw]

I worked in a cable company only months ago, and there is sufficient hype for HD. However, most homes I have installed cable in that have HD TV’s are "fancy pants" folks. I think the majority of middle class and lower homes have a very small percentage of HD displays.

I can't recall a single home in lower class areas with a 60" plasma display, but plenty that had multiple DVD players. It will take a few years for cost of players, content, and compatibility before we start getting low enough prices that it would be remotely attractive for those folks.

I believe it will catch on, but not nearly as fast as DVD did. You can get a small TV and DVD player for under $200 now. An HD TV and HD player will be significantly more. The cheapest HD I see in major stores with 16:9 1080i is $550. When the players come out I am guessing they will be several hundred and the limited content will be more than a DVD. A hard sell for those not half way in to the transition at least for a couple years.

It's asking a hell of a lot from consumers to invest in a war. No one wants to be on the losing side when that much money is involved.

 

[Barry_Green]

5 or 6 years? are you nuts?

5 or 6 years to have a BR or HD-DVD player in the majority of US households. That's my prediction, yes. And if you want to know the truth, I think it'll take much longer than that. But I'm going out on a very small limb here by saying that yes, it will be AT LEAST five years before HD-DVD and/or blu-ray players are in 51% of American homes.

Every major studio has signed on to one HD format and are prepared to release titles as soon as the players are public.

Yes, but "available" and "adopted" are two entirely different things. HD camcorders have been available for almost four years now -- how many people have one? Less than 1/10 of 1% of US households is my guess. Is that a viable market to sell to? Of course not.

HDTVs have been available for about 8 years now. How many households have one? Less than 10% of US households, and the true number is probably a lot smaller because that 10% figure doesn't take into account how many households have more than one.

So what are people going to watch their HD-DVDs and blu-ray discs on? Standard-def?

How many years were LaserDiscs available? How much market penetration did they get? HD-DVD and Blu-Ray could follow the same path. ESPECIALLY if they try some of this DRM/content-protection/one-disc, one-player nonsense.

DVD took 3 years to kill VHS..

Where do you get those numbers? DVD took five years to even penetrate 50% of US households. And that was DVD, which worked on people's existing TVs, not HD-DVD or Blu-Ray which will require a new TV for 90% of the households.

Someone remember this thread and lets check back here in a year. If Barry is right I will pay for him to goto driving school.

Make your prediction, big man... what do you think the landscape will be like one year from now? Are you saying 50% market penetration and the replacing of DVD players in 3 years? Make your prediction, I'll make mine, and we'll follow up a year from now. (speaking of which, it's getting close to February 1, 2006!)

look at the numbers on HD cable, its doing amazingly well.

What do you mean by "amazingly well"? Approximately 3% of US households are subscribing to any sort of cable or satellite HD service. In fact, Voom went out of business because they couldn't get enough subscribers.

I just dont think the whole watching HD on the computer thing will fly. That said, My HD content on my desktop is pushed through a networked Buffalo HD Player out to my HD projector.. so it is possible to watch HD-DVD's on TV now.

I don't think it will fly either. But it's the only way to reach a mass base. And it'll be the only way to reach the majority of households for at least five years.

Maybe you look at adoption different then me though.. maybe you mean every single television on the planet.

I'm saying five years before any form of HD player is present in 50% of American households. And truth be told, I think the true number is probably more like 8 years, but I'm saying five just 'cause I want to keep the odds high enough to win that trip to driving school.

So -- ball's in your court. Tell me what you think the HD market penetration will be like in a year, three years, five years. And, tell me when you think a majority of US households will have a) HDTV of any type, and b) will actually pay to receive HD signals, and c) will pay for an HD playback device like a blu-ray or HD-DVD player.

 

[Jarred Land]

50 percent of households... I would say 6 years.. if ever. I think we have 2 different definitions of adoption.. adoption and market share are 2 very very very different words (im having deja vue.. sony vegas.. definitions.. )

Adoptions means approval, by definition. I dont think HD-DVD needs to be in half of the houses to be approved. I would say HD Televisions have been adopted.. and thats very small amount. The fact that you cant buy a big screen tv now without some sort of HD capability is enough.

It took DVD 3 years to get into 35% of households that had VCR's. There are 100 million homes in the US, 90% of those have TV's and 70% of those had VCRs (2002) so that gives us around 60 million houses that had VCR's.

Now the year of the DVD came alive was 1998. That when all the studios got on board, and started pimping dvds. It took a year to put 1.5 million players in homes. That brings is to 1999.. where 3 million DVD players where sold from January to December. But, dont you remeber when December 1999 1 million players sold in 25 days? That, I would say, was when DVD became adopted... in my books.

So 1999 we got about 5 million dvd players in homes.. thats 2 years, not bad market penetration in my eyes.

So that gives is 2000 and 2001.. guess what, they sold 20 million DVD players in t18 months. which brings us to 25 million players in 3 years, I think thats more like 45%.

At what point in that process do you consider DVD to be adopted, i think by you telling me that we can finally get on the same page here, cause i think its a definition thing that we disagree more on than the actual rate of "monopoly".

 

[Alex Leith]

The thing that drives consumers to buy something is whether they feel that their life will improve by owning that product. And the improvement that most people want is convenience - to make their lives easier...

In that respect the adoption of DVD had much greater consumer appeal than HDTV. DVDs offered masses of convenience! They took up less space, were easy to store, didn't wear out when you played them, and best of all you didn't need to rewind them. People were also happy to accept the switch because the move from vinyl to CD had happened not that many years before, so in a way the adoption of DVD was a foregone conclusion.

HDTV, on the other hand, has a harder job to sell itself because most people don't percieve any increased convenience from HD. Greater clarity from your TV is a luxury, not a convenience. As I recall, a recent survey (I can't remember who conducted it) showed something like 70 to 80% of Americans didn't have a problem with the quality of the TV picture.

So, despite the fact that technology moves faster, and becomes affordable more quickly, the industry has a lot of work to do to create a percieved need in order to drive consumers in numbers to adopt HD. And wanky copy protection systems from some of the more paranoid players are not going to help this.

 

[Jarred Land]

Very Very well said Alex.. very well said. I dont think HD-DVD will be adopted as fast as DVD's where, but i still do think they will.

ITs just this blue-ray thing that might go and screw the whole thing up.

 

[alpi69]

OTOH for us there is no choice (at least if you are living from filming). to neglect or oversee the HD format would be a mistake. it really does not matter if and how the "market" adopts and accepts HD. your client will demand HD for futureproofing and best-possible quality. the beauty of the HVX will be that we can offer just that for an extremely competitive price-value (as opposed to HDCam).
Blue-Ray could really mess this up, because it confuses the consumers yet again. technically HD-DVD also does, but since HD-DVD is a term people can easier identify with i call Blue-Ray the spoiler.

 

[Jim Arthurs]

OTOH for us there is no choice (at least if you are living from filming). to neglect or oversee the HD format would be a mistake. it really does not matter if and how the "market" adopts and accepts HD. your client will demand HD for futureproofing and best-possible quality.

I agree 100%. It's almost irrelevant what the consumer wants today, as long as we all agree than in 5 to 7 years HD will have made major market penetration. You need to be shooting HD NOW for any number of archival reasons.

Everything form home movies, to wedding videos, to corporate training and interviews is fair game for HD as long as there is an easy way to downconvert and use SD versions today. Future proofing your work is the key to long term success.

Clients of mine bought Z1's for convention work and interviews, not because their projects are HD today, but they will be HD in a couple years, and those interviews can then be revisited without dealing with blow ups. A wedding videographer could make more money if his client comes back in a few years wanting their video on HD.

Heck, even the local car and carpet TV spots are impacted, as I've seen these folks come into the local post house and wonder why their commercials aren't HD, when they've already purchased HD camcorders for their home use...

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

 

[FabioRafael]

woww! Far beyond anything I could imagine when I first started this post. Very good information! I am only sorry because here in Brazil there isn´t hd broadcasting yet for they are still choosing the type of hd system we are going to have here ( Jap, German, USA etc ). Any one knows which is the best hd broadcast system in the world?

 

[Antoine_Fabi]

I agree with Barry.

Forget it for right now !
It wont be generally adopted in a near future...
it will take a full 5 years before consumers watch what's available, and then...what will be the "standard"...and then, maybe they will...
It will depend on the capacity of the manufacturers to adopt a unique HD standard for "the" consumer.
...and most people say "it's good enought !"

Is this to say HD is not good ?
NO !!! For sure it is a lot better than SD !
But it will take time before it is "generally" adopted as "the" standard.
I think the best for us is to shoot and edit HD and give the final prod in HD and SD.

As soon as the HVX is available, i'll start shooting HD.
But i am sure 90% of my productions will end in SD...for now.

But as Jim said, it is a good idea to shoot HD now for archival reasons, for futur productions.

 

[Flintstone]

I think HD adoption will take some time, but not much. I say 3 to 4 years after the k-marts and walmarts of this world have HD players and titles readily available on their shelves.

But let's not forget those afflicted with the obsolecense syndrome, the gadget crowd, and the high end PC gamers. HD penetration within those circles will be a lot faster then the norm.

 

[The Machinist]

One thing that i'd like to bring up in this HD-DVD/Blu-Ray adoption debate is the fact that Sony's PS3 will feature a Blu-ray Drive and be capable of playing Blu-Ray discs. Regardless of whether or not people purchase a new HDTV to take advantage of the Blu-ray HD capabilities there is going to be a huge market for Sony's format worldwide.

Look at the current craze over the Xbox 360. It's ridiculous. MS can't meet the worldwide demand for the system and i've heard reports that some people will have to wait till March or april to get a system if they didnt preorder.

Sony's current PS2 holds the largest share of this market not just in the US. but the world over. I do not have the exact numbers but i believe i recently saw that the PS2 controlled something in the range of 39% - 45% of the market.

In college a PS2 was an indispensible part of my entertainment media setup. It played my games and my massive DVD library.

This is a die-hard audience of faithful consumers (not just children who clamor and annoy their parents for a system but adults, young and older professionals) who eagerly await the release of the blu-ray equipped PS3 within the next year. I'm not saying the PS3 will be single handedly responsible for a 3 year adoption. However when you consider that PS2 (which i think definately aided in the adoption of the DVD format being the first mainstream console to play games and movies) sold 21.5 million units in the US (50 million worldwide in the same time period) in less than 3 years. I think a 5 year adoption may be possible. Especially when the studios start to back and market these new formats.

I guess my main point is that as far is Blu-ray is concerned there is already a large market ready willing and waiting to adopt the new format.

In a seperate issue, the key code locking mechanism. I can see it as being useful against safegarding against pirating early copies of material or press release copies prior to a film or other such media's release.

 

[harddrive]

So -- ball's in your court. Tell me what you think the HD market penetration will be like in a year, three years, five years. And, tell me when you think a majority of US households will have a) HDTV of any type, and b) will actually pay to receive HD signals, and c) will pay for an HD playback device like a blu-ray or HD-DVD player.

Barry - you may be right, may be wrong.

As far as most people on this forum are concerned, I doubt the penetration timescale really matters though. Many people are already watching HDTV in the States, Japan and several other countries, and many more will be in a years time. Germany has just started it's first HD transmissions, the UK starts early next year, and other countries are likely to follow soon.

For many originators, all that matters is that ENOUGH viewers want it for broadcasters to want an HD original - it's easy then to get an SD downconversion off that, impossible the other way round. Before long an SD original will be next to impossible to market unless the subject matter is deemed unique. THAT is what matters to those of us at the origination end of the chain, and why the interest in the HVX, the Z1 and the HD100 is (rightly) huge.

 

[contentlab]

It also makes sense when shopping film dailies for review on a production - I agree it doesn't make sense on the consumer world, but there's lots of use in the professional production world.
Michael

dont forget about screeners for Oscar reviews, Dolby already announced technologoy this year that tied a disc to a single player, maybe this is just Sony's alternative to it and something that could be easily applied to BluRay discs for high def movie review.

one would also hope that Sony learned their lesson with sneaking stuff onto consumer discs now that Texas is suing them over their failed "spyware" CD content protection.

 

[Barry_Green]

Alex Leith said exactly what I've been saying. Consumers do not buy "better quality", they buy convenience. Tivo is not about quality, it's about convenience. CDs had better quality, yes, but that's not what sold them -- they sold because they were convenient, far far far more convenient than LPs or cassettes.

Laserdiscs had better quality, and no improvement in convenience. So they flopped. SACD and DVD-Audio have better quality, and nothing else. They flopped.

So, what exactly is it that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD offer, other than better quality? More convenience? Not if you can't swap discs with your friends or rent 'em at blockbuster or netflix!

I don't know, I just don't see any impetus towards home blu-ray or HD-DVD. I think it'll get leapfrogged. Someone on another board pointed out that Polaroid spent a whole lot of money researching and producing instant movie film, and about the time they released it, that's when video hit and totally obsoleted their position in the market.

I think blu-ray and/or HD-DVD face the same fate. Very few people are buying HDTV because they want the higher quality, they're buying it because of the convenience (convenience being a flat screen they can hang on their wall). That's why people are buying new TVs, and why nobody's buying CRTs. Are they spending extra for HD? No, they're buying flat screens, and it just so happens that it's becoming impossible to buy a flat screen without also getting HD. The cable subscription rate is the telling statistic: only about 3% of households are actually paying for HD service.

So I think there's a question mark about whether blu-ray or HD-DVD will be embraced by the customer at all, or whether it'll go the way of the laserdisc. But if it is embraced, it will be many years before there's a substantial installed base of players in a substantial percentage of american homes. There'll be a few early adopters, yes. But as far as the general public buying into it, it'll be years and years.

If you make your living by distributing video product, SD DVD is going to be the overwhelmingly dominant distribution medium for at least three years, probably at least five years. That doesn't mean you shouldn't originate on HD if you want, but if people think HD-DVD or blu-ray is going to "obsolete" DVD overnight, they're sadly mistaken.

 

[Barry_Green]

Many people are already watching HDTV in the States,

Well, that's the point. I'd counter that actually, very FEW people are watching HDTV in the states. Only 3% of the households are subscribing to HDTV services. Only 10% of the households even have any sort of HD-capable monitor, and how many of those have tuners?

For many originators, all that matters is that ENOUGH viewers want it for broadcasters to want an HD original

And for those producing for broadcast, that's certainly a valid concern. But for those of us who produce product for distribution to end users, it's way way way way way too early to say that HD is a) mandatory, or b) viable. It's going to be at least half a decade before some sort of HD distribution medium is installed in a significant-enough base of homes to make it a serious contender for home distribution.

Before long an SD original will be next to impossible to market unless the subject matter is deemed unique. THAT is what matters to those of us at the origination end of the chain, and why the interest in the HVX, the Z1 and the HD100 is (rightly) huge.

And for origination I agree, which is why I'm moving to strictly high-def origination this year as well. But I'm not talking about origination, I'm talking about HD adoption by end users, and HD distribution options. And all I'm saying is that it's going to take a long, long, long, long time before it's a seriously large market.

 

[harddrive]

So, what exactly is it that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD offer, other than better quality? More convenience? Not if you can't swap discs with your friends or rent 'em at blockbuster or netflix!

I don't know, I just don't see any impetus towards home blu-ray or HD-DVD. I think it'll get leapfrogged.

Hmmm. I've heard talk of Blu-Ray at least producing hybrid discs - the top layer being the HD version of the material (readable by blue laser) with a lower two layers having the same structure as a normal DVD (to whose red laser the top layer is transparent). Hence put such a disc into an HD system and Hi-Def, same disc into a conventional system, and bingo SD. The theory goes that eventually new releases will ONLY be released in such a way - so only necessary to keep one version in stock.

Also means that you only have to buy one disc for the main HD system and the DVD player in the bedroom. We'll see.....

Comparing the situation to the DVD-VHS one, then true, they don't have the convienience advantages that DVD had over VHS, BUT there is a compatability advantage - your old collection remains playable, albeit in standard def. I suspect the situation will become manufacturer driven - buy an upmarket player and it will be blue laser. Upmarket DVD machines simply won't exist for sale, anymore than upmarket VHS machines have for a while.

That's been the case with screens in the UK over the last year. Last January few had HD connections, now virtually all the larger ones are full "HDready", HDMI with HDCP and all. With proper broadcasting not due to even start here for another month or so, that is really quite extraordinary.

Personally, I think the biggest brake is the format war, and what do you think blue laser disc may get leapfrogged by, Barry?

 

[Barry_Green]

Leapfrogged by either HVD (holographic, 300gb to 1.6tb at up to 1gbps, with $1 media costs!) or direct internet streaming -- bypassing the whole "buy a disc" concept at all. Things are moving fast nowadays, and by this point five years from now I think we may see some new technologies that represent a huge leap forward, rather than the incremental step that is BD and HD-DVD. It remains to be seen, but I just don't see the critical mass necessary to support adopting a new platform at this time; and by the time that critical mass is present, I think there'll be other technologies far more compelling than an HD-DVD disc which is only twice the storage of a dual-layer DVD... the whole blu-ray thing seems like "too little too soon".

 

[SPZ]

Barry, I agre with you. Let's not forget that many early HD tv adopters bought tv sets with only Component in, no HDMI, which is what the new Blu-RAY players require in order to decode the HD signal (to prevent HD copies)

This will probably bring down those 3 or 5% of people that already have HD capable sets ready for mass HD distribution... I believe many people will be very upset when they find out that their VERY EXPENSIVE top of the line (back then) HD plasma, CRT or whatever is useless with their Blu-ray or HD-DVD player...

Here's my take: HD distribution will be mainstream when China starts making cheap "read everything" HD players!

 

[Emanuel]

Here's my take: HD distribution will be mainstream when China starts making cheap "read everything" HD players!

OK! We know where :thumbup: the question still is: when?

 

[harddrive]

Leapfrogged by either HVD (holographic, 300gb to 1.6tb at up to 1gbps, with $1 media costs!) ..............

... the whole blu-ray thing seems like "too little too soon".

Interesting points, though in one sense blu-ray may not be "too little" - it is the difference between HD and SD after all. In the entertainment field (as opposed to computing) I'm not sure what the extra data storage could practically be used for?

One saving feature may be the backwards compatability - I would hope the future HVD drives will be able to replay all previous 12cm discs, from CD to blu-ray, an advantage DVD didn't have, rendering all VHS collections obsolete.