Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 No, I waited for the price of DVD players/discs to come down before I bought one of those as well.That said, there's not an obvious comparison to be made between the introduction of DVD and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD. DVD was a huge step up from VHS for all sorts of reasons. The step up to HD is more subtle, and therefore a harder sell. There are plenty of people out there who are perfectly happy with their DVDs and have no inclination to buy a Blu-Ray player.Pop into Bruce Millers and i'll show you that the difference between HD and SD picture is not just subtle. It's alarmingly more detailed and clear. I do agree that the difference between VHS and DVD was more stark though. Everythings cheaper now than it was then though so you're paying a lot less for new media. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Gold Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 There's a lot more space on the discs for higher quality audio transfers i.e full 7.1 (and further) LPCM tracks or packeted HD audio like Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio HD.Does that have any practical use outwith a strictly chin stroking capacity? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 Does that have any practical use outwith a strictly chin stroking capacity?Of course it does. The proportion of people with Home Cinema these days is quite significant, it's no longer an elitist field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emergency72 Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 If you like to litter your living room with speakers and cables running everywhere, then yes....but if you've better things to do with your time and just like sticking on the occasional dvd then I wouldn't think it matters.Something I must add (my opinion only) is that my new tv (lcd) displays my cd's a lot worse than it did on my old one (CRT) ... but this has always been the case, I mean dvd's always looked shit on a laptop, so why copy that technology? To the rescue they conned us into believing that we were not receiving the best television experience possible because the picture was LOW DEFINITION and our new LCD's were showing up these inaccuracies in digital picture. So they release HD tv's, and HD dvd's and whatnot, and now we have to buy our TV's and players and discs again just so it can look like we remember on our CRT's.....one step forward two back??Also someone mentioned HD video downloads.....I don't believe this is a good idea much in the same way I don't believe downloading music (legally) is a good thing..... a. the compression used to bring the downloads down to a reasonable size will screw up the quality anyway, so you're being cheated expected to pay the same price. b. As fragile as the media is these days [cd's/dvd's/blu-whatevers], they are not under the same pressure as your hard drive, which you will use everyday, whether you are playing that particular movie or not. The chance of losing your Hard Drive to a crash/failure is pretty much a given, and you will continually need to copy to new hard drives every few years. Very expensive . If you keep a cd in it's box on a shelf for 10 years, chances are it might still play after that time!Blu-Ray = con, but makes DVD's almost bearable to watch again on newer TV'sHD-DVD = don't care which came first, but why try and create 2 standards?!?! Especially to do the same thing.....At least betamax had some advantages over VHS (which were lost forever). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 If you like to litter your living room with speakers and cables running everywhere, then yes....but if you've better things to do with your time and just like sticking on the occasional dvd then I wouldn't think it matters.Something I must add (my opinion only) is that my new tv (lcd) displays my cd's a lot worse than it did on my old one (CRT) ... but this has always been the case, I mean dvd's always looked shit on a laptop, so why copy that technology? To the rescue they conned us into believing that we were not receiving the best television experience possible because the picture was LOW DEFINITION and our new LCD's were showing up these inaccuracies in digital picture. So they release HD tv's, and HD dvd's and whatnot, and now we have to buy our TV's and players and discs again just so it can look like we remember on our CRT's.....one step forward two back??Also someone mentioned HD video downloads.....I don't believe this is a good idea much in the same way I don't believe downloading music (legally) is a good thing..... a. the compression used to bring the downloads down to a reasonable size will screw up the quality anyway, so you're being cheated expected to pay the same price. b. As fragile as the media is these days [cd's/dvd's/blu-whatevers], they are not under the same pressure as your hard drive, which you will use everyday, whether you are playing that particular movie or not. The chance of losing your Hard Drive to a crash/failure is pretty much a given, and you will continually need to copy to new hard drives every few years. Very expensive . If you keep a cd in it's box on a shelf for 10 years, chances are it might still play after that time!Blu-Ray = con, but makes DVD's almost bearable to watch again on newer TV'sHD-DVD = don't care which came first, but why try and create 2 standards?!?! Especially to do the same thing.....At least betamax had some advantages over VHS (which were lost forever).Through reading that i'm sorry to say that you seem to be heavily misinformed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigsby Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 Pop into Bruce Millers and i'll show you that the difference between HD and SD picture is not just subtle. It's alarmingly more detailed and clear. I do agree that the difference between VHS and DVD was more stark though. Everythings cheaper now than it was then though so you're paying a lot less for new media.I'm well aware of the difference, I have HD capacity at home even though I don't have Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. I do however think that the difference between a good upscaled DVD and an HD feed is relatively subtle compared to the leap between VHS and DVD, and for that reason there is a long way to go before "ordinary" people will be bothered enough to make the switch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 I'm well aware of the difference, I have HD capacity at home even though I don't have Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. I do however think that the difference between a good upscaled DVD and an HD feed is relatively subtle compared to the leap between VHS and DVD, and for that reason there is a long way to go before "ordinary" people will be bothered enough to make the switch.It depends on the size of screen you're using. The jump between a 1080p HD feed and a 1080p upscaled picture on a 40" is a lot more apparent than on a 32" capable of 720p.It's relative to what you are using and also the quality of panel etc.I can go into it in more depth if you want (like how upscaling works if you don't already know). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigsby Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 I can go into it in more depth if you want (like how upscaling works if you don't already know).That won't be necessary, we seem to be going round in circles, you'll just have to take my word for it that there are a lot of people out there (ie most people) who don't know/care about the difference between 1080p and 720p. My point is that the price is going to have to take a BIG drop before they start to care. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 That won't be necessary, we seem to be going round in circles, you'll just have to take my word for it that there are a lot of people out there (ie most people) who don't know/care about the difference between 1080p and 720p. My point is that the price is going to have to take a BIG drop before they start to care.I disagree. Working in the industry in question, people are a lot more media savvy than you're giving them credit for. Most people want 1080p sets when they buy a large television. People are more inclined to settle for 720p sets when they buy smaller. We get a lot of questions about HD media and you'd be surprised at what the average customer knows.The crux of the matter is that when prices fall HD media adoption will increase, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out. Full scale DVD adoption didn't happen until prices dropped considerably either. It's also worth bearing in mind that there are actually more HD players in homes now than there was in the equivalent time period for DVD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 As a consumer I'm pissed off that there's another new format which I'm going to have to upgrade my film collection to. I know the quality improves every time this happens but it still feels like a big con to get us to buy movies we already own time and time again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigsby Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 I disagree. Working in the industry in question, people are a lot more media savvy than you're giving them credit for. Most people want 1080p sets when they buy a large television. People are more inclined to settle for 720p sets when they buy smaller. We get a lot of questions about HD media and you'd be surprised at what the average customer knows.The crux of the matter is that when prices fall HD media adoption will increase, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out. Full scale DVD adoption didn't happen until prices dropped considerably either. It's also worth bearing in mind that there are actually more HD players in homes now than there was in the equivalent time period for DVD.I don't think the "average" consumer goes into Bruce Millers and starts asking about these things. They go to Currys, Dixons, Comet or even Tesco or ASDA and get the biggest possible screen they can get for the money, then connect it up to their 20 DVD player with a 1 scart lead. Sad but true I'm afraid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 As a consumer I'm pissed off that there's another new format which I'm going to have to upgrade my film collection to. I know the quality improves every time this happens but it still feels like a big con to get us to buy movies we already own time and time again.You don't HAVE to upgrade your film collection. That's where backwards compatibility comes in. Upscaled DVD is still pretty good to be honest. Blu Ray is substantially better.You have 414,720 pixels of information in a frame of progressive DVD film. In a 1080p HD frame of film you have 2,073,600 pixels of information. So to upscale to 1080p you have to make up 4/5ths of that information whereas upscaling to 720p you only have to double the information.Thats why HD is better than upscaled but because you can beef up your existing collection and still use them it's not a total farce like switching from VHS to DVD where you may as well have just chucked all your VHS tapes (like i did a couple of years ago). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 Yeah I've still got my VHS tapes but not sure why. I know I don't have to upgrade but I can envisage a situation in 5 or 6 years where the industry puts a lot of pressure on people to upgrade like they did with VHS->DVD.They want us all to buy the same films again. It's the best way for them to keep making money on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 I don't think the "average" consumer goes into Bruce Millers and starts asking about these things. They go to Currys, Dixons, Comet or even Tesco or ASDA and get the biggest possible screen they can get for the money, then connect it up to their 20 DVD player with a 1 scart lead. Sad but true I'm afraid.I dunno, we get a large cross section of different brackets of consumers through the store. Yet again i think you're doing consumers a dis-service with that statement, a lot of them are more intelligent than that when it comes to researching Home Electronics.In regard to sales volume i'd agree but that's blatantly obvious. You'd be surprised at the volume of people who come in and ask me endless amounts of questions and then have the cheek to go and buy from the internet and then come back in for advice when they can't hook it up themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Neutral Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 What the shit are you gibbering about fudnutts? o_OYour first post sounded pretty retarded:up: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 Your first post sounded pretty retarded:up:You always sound pretty retarded Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 Yeah I've still got my VHS tapes but not sure why. I know I don't have to upgrade but I can envisage a situation in 5 or 6 years where the industry puts a lot of pressure on people to upgrade like they did with VHS->DVD.They want us all to buy the same films again. It's the best way for them to keep making money on them.Yes, but you could never use your VHS tapes in a DVD player so that was a forced scenario. In this case unless they pull backwards compatibility you'll never have to upgrade. At least you have the choice this time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Neutral Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 You always sound pretty retarded Well to be honest all your posts are, maybe if you took your head out of your arse and looked at the bigger picture they wouldnt be.But anyway the average consumer on the street doesnt care about getting better quality video than a dvd provide. Whether you disagree or not(you probably will and I say you are wrong) it is good enough for the vast majority.Case Study A: an average man on the street wont go into bruce millars and ask one of the oiks behind the counter for a tv which displays 1080p or whatever the fuck it is, average man will go into, wait no im just going to quote this perfectly correct postBigsbyI don't think the "average" consumer goes into Bruce Millers and starts asking about these things. They go to Currys, Dixons, Comet or even Tesco or ASDA and get the biggest possible screen they can get for the money, then connect it up to their 20 DVD player with a 1 scart lead. Sad but true I'm afraid.Yes, but you could never use your VHS tapes in a DVD player so that was a forced scenario. In this case unless they pull backwards compatibility you'll never have to upgrade. At least you have the choice this time.Wow, a semi-sensible post, well done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skull Commander Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 Toshiba officially scraps HD-DVD News // Xbox 360 /// EurogamerOfficialy 'dead'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rass Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 Toshiba officially scraps HD-DVD News // Xbox 360 /// EurogamerOfficialy 'dead'.Shit, that was quick.Hooray Condolences to anyone who may of bought themselves some HD-DVD hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaline Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 Universal have just announced that they plan to support Blu Ray from now on too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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