Sales of Blu-ray Disc players have not benefitted from the end of the format war, it seems. This week US retail market watcher NPD said player sales grew just two per cent in the month after Toshiba tossed in the towel.
The Japanese giant's decision to abandon HD DVD came on 19 February. That month, NPD said, Blu-ray Disc player …
"The strongest argument against adoption is that unless the new movie you are wanting to watch was filmed with HD cameras or is a 100% CGI, its all pointless. You won't realize an increadible picture on 720p or 1080p if the source material is low grade. Like it was said above, older movies will look no better, and in some cases, may even look worse due to upconverting."
HAHAHAHAHA.
Let me introduce you to this wonderful piece of technology. It's called "film". There's more detail in a 35mm piece of film than there is in a 1920x1080 digital shot. Go watch the HD-DVD of Casablanca and come back when you realise how incredibly wrong you are.
yes 35mm film is nice - an analogue shot isnt digitised so can contain high quality of image. BUTTTT films like the aliens movies were shot on BADDDD film stock. so no matter how much you do to them they will always look pants - this is all down to this magic "film" you talked of :)
and if the HD-DVD version of casablanca HASNT been massively re-mastered for digital i would be very surprised! for the basic fact that analogue film stock also dimishes over time... where as as long as your optical media doesnt get fuckered you will see no loss in quality....
i know where you are coming from... i have a REALLY GOOD vhs player (in my loft now) that made certain VHS tapes look WAYY better than some DVDs!
I agree, content IS the king. Sony was never strong with good cinema - they simply do not release the kind of movies I'd like to keep and return to. Stuff they release is mostly good to watch once and forget (sometimes with bad taste in mounth), which means rent and no purchase. On the others - yes, I kept buying some Universal (HD DVD) and Warner Bross stuff. Now I will have to switch to BD - but no sooner until some good titles appear (I'd love "LotR" trilogy in HD). No major problem with that. Screen resolution - you need to have 30 deg. view angle to actually see these 1080 lines, which is why either big screen is needed or one needs to sit very close to TV. In most cases old habits win, which means people have small screens (at least in angle view terms) and simply do not see resolution benefit beyond 720 or 576 lines. Also, TV DOES take up space - either on the wall or on the floor. This is especially a problem in Europe (not to mention Japan!) where flats tend to be small compared to US or Australia. Movies quality? Since I was kid I remember that cinema had better quality and it still holds true - this is because 35mm offers resolution much beyond 1080 lines. I guess the problem you are seeing is with remastering, not with original material (the only one problem with original old material I have is camera shake). Finally, there is contrast issue - right now you either buy plasma with great contrast and even greater power consumption (which is also proportional to number of pixels displayed - 1080 screen consumes 2x much energy as 720 one in the same size), or LCD with poor contrast, especially if you tend to watch movies in the dark (then "blacks" look more like glorified greys). I would be happy to replace my plasma with OLED (I have MP3 player with AMOLED screen and it beats everything) but these are far from the market.
To sum it up - screen technology is not mature enough (contrast, power consumption), movie selection is poor, consumers do not use big enough screens to benefit from HD. It will take years before HD takes of comparably to DVD.
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Sales of Blu-ray Disc players have not benefitted from the end of the format war, it seems. This week US retail market watcher NPD said player sales grew just two per cent in the month after Toshiba tossed in the towel. The Japanese giant's decision to abandon HD DVD came on 19 February. That month, NPD said, Blu-ray Disc player …
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@John
"The strongest argument against adoption is that unless the new movie you are wanting to watch was filmed with HD cameras or is a 100% CGI, its all pointless. You won't realize an increadible picture on 720p or 1080p if the source material is low grade. Like it was said above, older movies will look no better, and in some cases, may even look worse due to upconverting."
HAHAHAHAHA.
Let me introduce you to this wonderful piece of technology. It's called "film". There's more detail in a 35mm piece of film than there is in a 1920x1080 digital shot. Go watch the HD-DVD of Casablanca and come back when you realise how incredibly wrong you are.
@ iain
yes 35mm film is nice - an analogue shot isnt digitised so can contain high quality of image. BUTTTT films like the aliens movies were shot on BADDDD film stock. so no matter how much you do to them they will always look pants - this is all down to this magic "film" you talked of :)
and if the HD-DVD version of casablanca HASNT been massively re-mastered for digital i would be very surprised! for the basic fact that analogue film stock also dimishes over time... where as as long as your optical media doesnt get fuckered you will see no loss in quality....
i know where you are coming from... i have a REALLY GOOD vhs player (in my loft now) that made certain VHS tapes look WAYY better than some DVDs!
@Liam
I agree, content IS the king. Sony was never strong with good cinema - they simply do not release the kind of movies I'd like to keep and return to. Stuff they release is mostly good to watch once and forget (sometimes with bad taste in mounth), which means rent and no purchase. On the others - yes, I kept buying some Universal (HD DVD) and Warner Bross stuff. Now I will have to switch to BD - but no sooner until some good titles appear (I'd love "LotR" trilogy in HD). No major problem with that. Screen resolution - you need to have 30 deg. view angle to actually see these 1080 lines, which is why either big screen is needed or one needs to sit very close to TV. In most cases old habits win, which means people have small screens (at least in angle view terms) and simply do not see resolution benefit beyond 720 or 576 lines. Also, TV DOES take up space - either on the wall or on the floor. This is especially a problem in Europe (not to mention Japan!) where flats tend to be small compared to US or Australia. Movies quality? Since I was kid I remember that cinema had better quality and it still holds true - this is because 35mm offers resolution much beyond 1080 lines. I guess the problem you are seeing is with remastering, not with original material (the only one problem with original old material I have is camera shake). Finally, there is contrast issue - right now you either buy plasma with great contrast and even greater power consumption (which is also proportional to number of pixels displayed - 1080 screen consumes 2x much energy as 720 one in the same size), or LCD with poor contrast, especially if you tend to watch movies in the dark (then "blacks" look more like glorified greys). I would be happy to replace my plasma with OLED (I have MP3 player with AMOLED screen and it beats everything) but these are far from the market.
To sum it up - screen technology is not mature enough (contrast, power consumption), movie selection is poor, consumers do not use big enough screens to benefit from HD. It will take years before HD takes of comparably to DVD.
Page: