New HD-DVD Disc is 51 gb's -- Surpassng BlueRay

well, I'm not going to disagree with you there, to me my SD videos looked good on 32" but started falling apart on 52" (hence my 52" lower HD threshold).

My post was in response to an earlier comment that somehow SD and HD was not that much of a difference to the eyes of Average Joe.

And further that with small sized screens the difference is indeed hard to see.
 
SD is always going to look worse on an HDTV. Im not too familiar with SD on a big screen (50"+) SDTV though.
 
Barry_Green said:
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And frankly, I doubt it'll be that soon, because I expect we'll leapfrog past discs entirely and move to downloading, just like iTunes did for music.
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Do you really think that will happen before the HD-DVD/Blue Ray is resolved? As I understand it, most houses have the equivalent of 112K internet access via DSL and Cable. Even though both services say they deliver "upto" 1.5 mg, they are so heavily loaded, "true access" averages 112-168K.

At 112k it takes almost 3-4 hours to download a movie. HD or Blue Ray are worse.

MP3's are a fraction of the size of DVDS allowing for quicker downloading and storage. That's why Itunes and such have enjoyed such success, their adaptation under the current bandwidth conditions.

IMO, Until they improve general affordability of bandwidth, compression and storage of movies, I see downloading technology facing big challenges.

As fate would have it, they probably will finally get bandwidth resolved just about the same time the HD is the standard medium for delivery.

I would love to have downloading techology leap frog the whole HD-DVD/Blue Ray technology. That would mean we would really get affordable screaming internet access. But then, something new would come along that requires more bandwidth and more hard disk storage making me want faster bandwidth and larger hard disks all over again.:crybaby:
 
spunknoid said:
Do you really think that will happen before the HD-DVD/Blue Ray is resolved?
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Doesn't matter. Even if there only one HD disc format today, everything else remains the same -- less than 15% of households with HDTVs, HD discs not offering enough of an advantage over DVD, etc.. The Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war is largely irrelevant.
 
OK, point taken on the FCC mandating digital, not HD. Still, do you really think a lot of stations are going to only upgrade to digital SD? The network affiliates, at the very least, are going to be under pressure from their networks to broadcast in whatever flavor of HD that network has chosen (and, by the way, whose bright idea was it to have two different standards?). If they've got to spend the money to upgrade to digital anyway, is that much more expensive to buy the hardware for HD?

As for only needing a "cable box" to receive the new digital signal... as hard as it may be for some of us to believe, there are still people out there without cable boxes, or satellite receivers, or (gasp! :D ) anything other than rabbit ears or the modern amplified-antenna equivalent. They're going to be the ones needing a dedicated converter--and even that new cablebox is going to have downconvert any HD signals it's getting to SD. My experience with scan converters in the PC world leads me to believe that, whatever the hardware is called, the end result is going to be less than optimal. Scan converters have their place, yeah, but I wouldn't want to use one every day...
 
Barry_Green said:
The facts would disagree with you. It took DVD five years to penetrate 50% of American households. That's just the 50% point. And at five years it became the FASTEST adopted new standard in technology history. Faster than CD, faster than the Walkman, faster than TV itself.

And it still took five years.


You forget one crucial factor -- 85% of the households out there have NO WAY TO DISPLAY THEM! 85% of the households out there have no HDTV at all. Are you saying that you think two or three years from now everyone will have an HD-DVD player even though it's still slated to be around 2010 before 50% of the households even have HDTVs?

Think about this: when DVD players came on the market, they worked with everyone's existing TVs. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray do not have that advantage.

Then, look at the sales figures. Both formats TANKED HARD during the holiday season. Warner had to cut its estimated sales by a massive amount -- don't remember how much, but they cut it to something like 1/3 of what they originally projected.



Because there's the way some HDV camcorder buyers wish the world was, and then there's the way the world actually is. I try to find out what actually *is*, not what people think something is or what they wish it was.

And the way things ARE is that very few households currently have HDTVs, and of those that do, a very very small minority of them are actually paying to watch HDTV service! Something like 3% of American households actually subscribes to either a satellite or cable HD service. And how many people do you know who have HDTVs with "rabbit ear" antennas or UHF antennas on them, to pick up over-the-air HDTV broadcasts?


Yet it is what IS. If you want to read more, follow up what Kagan Research says. They're a media research firm who makes it their entire business to know these things. Here's a link to a summary of their report:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/?epi_menuItemID=989a6827590d7dda9cdf6023a0908a0c&epi_menuID=c791260db682611740b28e347a808a0c&epi_baseMenuID=384979e8cc48c441ef0130f5c6908a0c&ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&div=564050909&newsId=20061009005800

And they say that a high-def DVD format will not be the major market delivery medium until 2015. In 2-3 years (aka, by 2009) they expect it to be a $2.6 billion slice of the almost-$20-billion home-entertainment pie. So in 2-3 years HD-DVD and blu-ray combined may account for a tad over 10% of the market. Far from being "the norm."

And frankly, I doubt it'll be that soon, because I expect we'll leapfrog past discs entirely and move to downloading, just like iTunes did for music.
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damn Barry, once again you proved me wrong. Why do I even try and argue w/ you? :-BlackEye(DBG :Drogar-Smoke(DBG):
 
Blaine said:
I think I heard recently that Tower Records were going to be closing their doors. Rhino stores here are already gone.
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I heard FYE in NY had to shut down, and the Tower Records here in Vegas which has been open for almost 20 years just shut down at the end of '06.
 
spunknoid said:
At 112k it takes almost 3-4 hours to download a movie. HD or Blue Ray are worse.
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COuld you imagine dling a full dvd at 720p? It would take days. It takes me about 2 hrs to dl a 4.5 GB dvd and I download at 1.25 MB/s. That will never happen in our lifetime.
 
If you're about 20, you've got what, 65-70 years left in your "lifetime"?

You really think that within that period of time, it's impossible for download speeds to increase by a factor of 10?

Really?
 
David Jimerson said:
You really think that within that period of time, it's impossible for download speeds to increase by a factor of 10?

Really?
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Ok so I may have exaggerated a tad bit. I know it can happen within 70 years, but I meant that its not going to happen anytime in the next 10 yrs.
 
Ten years ago the hype was 56k modems... how many people do you know who connect to the internet today through highspeed or wireless connections.

Don't state opinion as fact.
 
You can get fios now (depending on where you are. Mostly on the east cost) and have up to 45/s. And it's less than 50 bucks a month. You do the math. That's 10 times faster than most peoples highest speed cable package.

The problem is the slow integration of options like the one listed above (Fiber Optic) because of politics/business/monopolization, whatever.

Jason
 
Brandon Rice said:
Dude, it's just like Sony's "memory stick" lol. They get hammered all the time by experts saying it's ridiculous that they have to have their OWN kind of memory stick... this is kind of how I feel about Blu-Ray as well... but I must say, I think discs will be obsolite very soon, as broadband and downloading increases.
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WRONG! Discs will never be obsolete. It is basic psychology. People need the media in hand to fully appreciate it, people want to own it, to not have access restricted. How are sales with downloadable books? Downloadable media has its place but it will never replace its predecessor. Remeber MiniDisc? Where is it now? I am amused at how all of you little nerds are predicting the future. It's not happening.
 
Jeremy Ordan said:
Ten years ago the hype was 56k modems... how many people do you know who connect to the internet today through highspeed or wireless connections.

Don't state opinion as fact.
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So, Jeremy, you want me to go back and put "IMO" in front of eveything I say? To make sure people know its not fact?
 
the_fusionist said:
I am amused at how all of you little nerds are predicting the future.
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Watch it with the personal attacks.

You know, it's funny; I don't write or receive paper checks anymore.

I haven't written a letter on paper in years.

People don't listen to their music on CD players anymore, so why would they continue buying them?

Books are a different thing. No one particularly likes to read long passages on a computer screen.

By the way, aren't you yourself making a prediction of the future . . . ?
 
David Jimerson said:
People don't listen to their music on CD players anymore, so why would they continue buying them?
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Because there's still a lot out there that isn't available for download.
 
the_fusionist said:
WRONG! Discs will never be obsolete. It is basic psychology. People need the media in hand to fully appreciate it, people want to own it, to not have access restricted. How are sales with downloadable books? Downloadable media has its place but it will never replace its predecessor. Remeber MiniDisc? Where is it now? I am amused at how all of you little nerds are predicting the future. It's not happening.
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Im nostrodamus
 
Blaine said:
Because there's still a lot out there that isn't available for download.
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Of course, but that will change. It took a while for everything to make it to CD, too, and some things still aren't. Heck, some vinyl is still released even today, but it's only the top 1% of the top 1% of purists who buy it that way.

And surely there will be those who lament the "album" concept instead of buying songs individually, and of course those who will always insist on CD because that's what they had growing up.

But these will be minor exceptions.

This is all just the latest turn of a cycle which led from wax cylinders to victrolas to hi-fis to stereos to tapes to CDs . . . and now 100% electronic delivery. It's possible to the predict the end of the current turn because it so closely mirrors those which have come before, in several different areas.
 
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