Is HiDef really an upgrade?

I am old enough to remember the VHS/BETA wars and have no intention of
being cannon fodder in another fight like that. So I will wait for the
unconditional surrender of either side before upgrading to HiDef.

However, I was over at a friend's video room watching a movie on his
cutting edge HiDef gear and I have to agree that it was really spectacular
when first examined. But... After a few minutes the wow factor was gone
and I was just watching a movie and the experience was just as pleasant as
if it had been on my not-quite-so-new but still very good
satellite/dvd/lcdTv setup. In fact, I have found that the average person
cannot tell the difference between Dvd and HD-DVD quality unless both sets
are sitting side by side. I can, but I know what to look for, but even
for me, once in the easy chair with the Dr. Pepper and popcorn, it all
fades into the movie experience.

So I hate to risk my new-tech-at-any-costs reputation, but I am not sure
that a whole lot of money for a small increase in clarity is a good
financial choice at the moment.

EVMan

EVman

YMMV, but I can't be happier for having jumped into HD.

I agree with you on the format war angle, though. There's
no reason we consumers should have to deal with that crap.

--

Aaron J. Bossig

http://www.GodsLabRat.com

godslabrat@gmail.com

EVman wrote:

> I am old enough to remember the VHS/BETA wars and have no intention of
> being cannon fodder in another fight like that. So I will wait for the
> unconditional surrender of either side before upgrading to HiDef.

Unfortunately, you've not going to GET "unconditional surrender" with
Microsoft/HD-DVD, so the best you can hope for is getting as close to
invading the Berlin Bunker as possible and seeing what happens.

> However, I was over at a friend's video room watching a movie on his
> cutting edge HiDef gear and I have to agree that it was really spectacular
> when first examined.

....Yyyyep.

> But... After a few minutes the wow factor was gone
> and I was just watching a movie and the experience was just as pleasant as
> if it had been on my not-quite-so-new but still very good
> satellite/dvd/lcdTv setup.

So, then it just became another excuse for getting a digital LCD to keep
up with the FCC'09 digital-broadcast requirements.
Eh, two birds with one stone, fine with that.

> In fact, I have found that the average person
> cannot tell the difference between Dvd and HD-DVD quality unless both sets
> are sitting side by side. I can, but I know what to look for, but even
> for me, once in the easy chair with the Dr. Pepper and popcorn, it all
> fades into the movie experience.

Having just set up my first Blu-ray/PS3/LCD setup this weekend, let me
introduce myself as a REAL "Average person", who gets mythologized about.
And after downloading a few 1080 trailers....ohhh, yah. There's a
difference. ^_^

So far, I've saved my Netflix rentals for movies I missed in theaters,
and if the whole tech upgrade was just to keep up with a changing disk
industry...eh, whatever. Fine with that, too.

Derek Janssen (it stopped being about The New Neat Stuff months ago, and
now it's just about Keeping Up)

Derek Janssen

EVman <> wrote:

>So I hate to risk my new-tech-at-any-costs reputation, but I am not sure
>that a whole lot of money for a small increase in clarity is a good
>financial choice at the moment.

How's this to save your reputation: Neither HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are "new
tech", they're just tweaks to existing tech.

That's how I see them, anyway, and neither is worth the expense to me.

Kimba W Lion

EVman <> wrote:
> I am old enough to remember the VHS/BETA wars and have no intention of
> being cannon fodder in another fight like that. So I will wait for the
> unconditional surrender of either side before upgrading to HiDef.

Exactly.

> So I hate to risk my new-tech-at-any-costs reputation, but I am not sure
> that a whole lot of money for a small increase in clarity is a good
> financial choice at the moment.

A lot of people - including home theater-types and tech journalists - have
pointed out the same problem. The jump from VHS to DVD was quite
startling - even when using your old TV. However, the jump from normal
DVD on a standard definition TV (SDTV) to a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray on a HDTV isn't
quite as prounounced. Worse still, even taking your existing DVD player
and plugging it into a HDTV will result in your existing DVDs receiving
quite a boost from the TV's built-in upscaler.

Yes, there is a difference between an upscaled picture and a native 1080p
picture, but for most, just the difference between DVD on SDTV and
upscaled DVD on a HDTV will be more than sufficient - and won't require
you to buy an expensive new player or new discs (which are all more
expensive than normal DVD right now.)

Throw in the format war, and it really seems to me that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray
are looking to become this generation's LD at best, and SACD/DVD-Audio at
worst. LD never caught on with most consumers, but was popular with the
high-end home theater crowd. SACD/DVD-A were two formats trying to vie to
become the next generation of audio CD. Featuring 5.1 surround sound,
neither format managed to generate much in terms of sales due to their
pricey media, and a format war that, once again, split the high-end, early
adopter market with a bevy of confusing and incompatible equipment.

The best thing that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can hope for is the introduction of
dual-format players. This way, no one loses the format war, but then
again, no one really wins either. At least consumers won't have to choose
which movies they DON'T want to watch. Unfortunately this means that the
home video market will now look like the DVD burnable market - 2 diffrent,
and incompatible formats, that do the exact same thing, yet we need to
support both of them. For ever.

--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.

Doug Jacobs

EVman wrote:
> I am old enough to remember the VHS/BETA wars and have no intention of
> being cannon fodder in another fight like that. So I will wait for the
> unconditional surrender of either side before upgrading to HiDef.
>
> However, I was over at a friend's video room watching a movie on his
> cutting edge HiDef gear and I have to agree that it was really spectacular
> when first examined. But... After a few minutes the wow factor was gone
> and I was just watching a movie and the experience was just as pleasant as
> if it had been on my not-quite-so-new but still very good
> satellite/dvd/lcdTv setup. In fact, I have found that the average person
> cannot tell the difference between Dvd and HD-DVD quality unless both sets
> are sitting side by side. I can, but I know what to look for, but even
> for me, once in the easy chair with the Dr. Pepper and popcorn, it all
> fades into the movie experience.
>
> So I hate to risk my new-tech-at-any-costs reputation, but I am not sure
> that a whole lot of money for a small increase in clarity is a good
> financial choice at the moment.
>
> EVMan

I think it's really just a future-proofing thing where eventually we'll
have such big screens that SD will just not look good on it. 1080p
projectors, for example, are getting more affordable, and that's
definitely going to need HD to look really good.

Put simply, 6 times the resolution (for NTSC DVDs anway) is 6 times the
resolution. You can't say that that difference is negligable. You can
say that not everyone has equipment that will actually give 6 times
better picture (I certainly don't), but that'll change.

LH

Luke Hooft

Derek Janssen wrote:

[snip]

> Having just set up my first Blu-ray/PS3/LCD setup this weekend, let me
> introduce myself as a REAL "Average person", who gets mythologized about.
> And after downloading a few 1080 trailers....ohhh, yah. There's a
> difference. ^_^

Hey! Congrats on getting your new toys, Mythological Person.

- winf

Winfield

Winfield wrote:

>> Having just set up my first Blu-ray/PS3/LCD setup this weekend, let me
>> introduce myself as a REAL "Average person", who gets mythologized about.
>> And after downloading a few 1080 trailers....ohhh, yah. There's a
>> difference.
>
> Hey! Congrats on getting your new toys, Mythological Person.

Well, point is, for all the hi-def support I've been making, kind of
embarassing to admit, I'd never actually SEEN a 1080p Blu-ray *or*
HD-DVD movie in my life, at least outside of the odd "Chicken Little"
display at Best Buy.
(AND they were all sold out of the two or three keeper titles I'd wanted
to come home with, my first Netflix Blu-rental wasn't shipped till
today, and I'm still waiting for the November DeepDiscount sale before
picking up any new ones.)

I just took it as the fact that movies-on-disk in general was already
changing toward a new industry standard that FCC regulations on the
digital sets was already helping to cause (ie., the new disks are
already turning up in the ads as if it was a normal thing), and that it
was time to start standardizing one standard for all those said "Average
people" to jump on.
I remember DiVX-vs.-DVD, I remember June 1999, and lemme tell ya,
sonny-Jims, it *WASN'T* "brand competition" that drove prices down and
the good studio titles onto disk.

....But anyway, now that it's in my living room with no blue-shirt clerks
looking over my shoulder, yeah, it's pretty darn cool. ^_^

Derek Janssen (getting hooked on PS2 Kingdom Hearts for the first time
in eight years ain't bad either)

Derek Janssen

Luke Hooft <> wrote:
> I think it's really just a future-proofing thing where eventually we'll
> have such big screens that SD will just not look good on it. 1080p
> projectors, for example, are getting more affordable, and that's
> definitely going to need HD to look really good.

At the same time, not everyone is going to be upgrading to a large
screen. Also, the vast majority of programming is still in SD. HD
programming is still pretty scarce, and the whole HD-DVD/Blu-Ray thing is
just better left alone until one of them dies.

HD may be the future, but it's not quite a necessity yet. Probably won't
be for at least another 10 years.

--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.

Doug Jacobs

"Doug Jacobs" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Luke Hooft <> wrote:
>> I think it's really just a future-proofing thing where eventually we'll
>> have such big screens that SD will just not look good on it. 1080p
>> projectors, for example, are getting more affordable, and that's
>> definitely going to need HD to look really good.
>
> At the same time, not everyone is going to be upgrading to a large
> screen. Also, the vast majority of programming is still in SD.
===============================
Not true - 90% of prime time network TV is now in HD.
Many daytime shows are in HD ( even soaps and news).
===============================

> HD programming is still pretty scarce,

==========================
See above. I hae not watched any shows that were in SD in several years.
==========================

> HD may be the future, but it's not quite a necessity yet. Probably won't
> be for at least another 10 years.
>
============================
Sorry, but HD is NOW!

Richard C.