While DVD technology was initially much-needed and impressive, it quickly showed its limitations, as demand for higher-resolution movies and more bonus features (and, of course, the use of DVD for data storage) quickly outstripped DVD’s data capacity. Some new technologies are on the horizon, and in true tech industry fashion, there is more than one incompatible contender for the spot.
I read an article (on wired.com I think) that said that one of the largest catalysts for determining the winner in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD battle will be the purchasers of porn. They “have” to have the lastest in what digital video has to offer. Apparently, they were the first to adopt laser disc and DVDs. I believe the article also said that they also helped popularize streaming video on demand.
Here it is:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,66221,00.html
I hope this technology works out fast, because already one can edit HDV(hd shot and recorded on cheap mini-dv cassetts)with almost every video editing app.
Porn WAS the first adopter of Video Cassttes… and the real backbone of the rental scene…
Porn does drive technology, jus’ look at the web…
I think there is room for both. Just like the myriad of Flash Memory discs:
Compact Flash (CF)
Secure Digital (SD) / MMC
Mini SD
Memory Stick
XD Memory Card
Transflash Card
So why not both Blu-Ray Disc and HD-DVD? We’ll probably have both, anyway for recordable media. But if movies wind up on one of these, it’ll probably be HD-DVD (simply because of the closer identification with ‘DVD’, as odd as that sounds. It distinguishes itself as a High Definition DVD). It’ll probably be up to specific industries to choose what they want to go with. Might or might not be like Beta vs. VHS again.
Let ’em fight it out in the market place![😉](https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/1f609.svg)
–EyeAm (partial to Blu-Ray)
Apple recently announced their support for Blu-Ray, joining HP, Dell, and Sony. With all these computer manufacturers on the same side, who will distribute the HD-DVD drives? It looks to be an uphill battle for HD-DVD.
As it is a new DRM scheme? Since CSS has long since been cracked, the entertainment industry needs something else.
Yes, but porn, much as it has been a driving force behind video technology, won’t be pushing HD.
The simple reason? There’s no way to make “models” look good in HD.
Lower resolution glosses over flaws, much like an airbrush taken to a playboy model.
HD porn simply isn’t very attractive.
They should screw these other formats and put all thier effort into HVD… 1TB at 1gbit/s? good lord.. Who cares if it has good encryption stuff.
Colors really pop out in HD and make things look like a music video. It’s almost 2k resolution like film(4k to), but with different aesthetics. With the right colorist HD will be fine for models and such.
Nothing new… move along!
Once again, sucker consumers should be pawns in the game of “let’s not let them beat us to the new format”.
These bastards should be forced to wait until there is a true need for a new format before imposing more incompatibility and confusion on the marketplace. They could then use the mean time to get their act together and agree on a universal and capable new system that’s more than an attempt to beat copying tools and lock out Linux users by introducing CSS2. They had their chance to do copy protection right the first time and the f*&#*#d it. (see Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram article on how CSS was bound to be broken). Why should we have to pay with more incompatible systems?
Blu-ray is touted as having something like 10x the capacity of a DVD – Well, which DVD? Oh, the 4.7GB types. Why don’t they instead bring out 19GB DSDL burners? because then they could only tout a 2.5x increase. Never mind the fact that these new discs will be much more error prone and will need some new type of scratch resistant coating just to achieve the usability of a DVD.
The point is why put up with the format wars all over again? This is a boring, evolutionary technology in search of an application. When pro/consumers need a new format with uncompressed 1024 line HD video and 8 channel 24/192 audio only then should we put up with more of their rubbish.
Until hologram video is out and demanding another format, a good boycott is in order, me thinks.
MTB.
“Blu-ray is touted as having something like 10x the capacity of a DVD – Well, which DVD? Oh, the 4.7GB types”
8 layer Blu-Ray discs have a 200GB capacity so that is quite beyond 4.7 multiplied by 10.
Just because there is a crappy chaos for the flash media doesn’t mean that it should be like this for optical media, too!
The point is why put up with the format wars all over again? This is a boring, evolutionary technology in search of an application. When pro/consumers need a new format with uncompressed 1024 line HD video and 8 channel 24/192 audio only then should we put up with more of their rubbish.
Uh, I sure would like to be able to buy movies that are in a format that can use more than 1/2 of the vertical resolution of my TV. I think it’s pathetic that movies on the HD channels look so much better than anything I can currently purchase. We are overdue for HD capable media.
Who was surprised by DeCSS and DivX? Out of touch with reality executives?
DVD has been widely and enthusiastically adopted. Naturally it took a few years. The DVD consortium and movie studios may be upset that the CSS playback prevention was broken, but this has not stopped them from releasing movies on the format and in the process making billions of Dollars in profit.
The two competing DVD writable formats did generate some initial confusion, but then drive manufacturers did the sensible thing and just made combination drives. The writers are now extremely cheap and the discs are now also significantly cheaper than CD writable discs so adoption has become automatic and the average user can just pick up whatever DVD writable discs happen to be on the shelf.
As for the resolution of DVD movies, well the average person around the world is not going to have any problem with this for several years to come, and even for a home theatre enthusiast the quality remains very good.
Even if the hardware and movie discs become readily available this year we can expect at least three years before extensive adoption and probably four years until the technology becomes cheap enough to be widely adopted by the average consumer. You will also have to deal with a consumer base who have already invested heavily in DVD movies so that, just as with CD, it is going to be hard to convince the average person to waste money buying everything again, for added quality they can’t actually see on their current display equipment. And even if they can see or hear the difference they will have ask themselves do I care enough to waste more money? I’m quite discerning with regard to image and audio quality, but while I can see DVD has some deficiencies I find it to be perfectly acceptable, even when projected on a fairly large screen (about 2m diagonal). In fact many movies and TV series are going to look worse with a higher resolution format because DVD already shows up defects in the original material.
A higher capacity format will definitely be a good thing, it will make backup of vast quantities of data easier and will also be a boon to counterfeiters who will be able to put several DVD quality movies onto a single disc.
Blu-Ray being thinner means the discs will be significantly less durable than CDs and DVDs, which are already borderline. Not a good idea unless they have also made a major materials breakthrough.
5Gb for audio data on HD-DVD? What audio format are they using? Even with DTS you should get several full audio tracks into 5Gb – few movie releases have more than a couple, and commentaries use less than half that used for movie audio.
Last I read HD-DVD would be using an improved version of MPEG-2 allowing at least twice the data in the same space used by the current MPEG-2.
I know the executives in the entertainment industry are big fans of copy protection. They live in the same fantasy world as many software producers. Whatever measures are implemented will be compromised. In fact consumers may resist any new format until they can be sure they can get access to what they have bought without getting permission from the out of control entertainment industry.
What technical features of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray make it possible for drives to be designed to contain both a CD laser, a DVD laser and the new format laser, but make it impossible to achieve the same thing with HVD?