|
|
 
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Anyone consuming HD or Blu-ray?
|
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 03-09-2008 07:36 PM
quote: Mike Heenan
I bought my dad a Sony Blu Ray dvd player for christmas, and I watched Cannonball Run upconverted, and it looked fantastic, but then I watched a little bit of Catch me if you can upconverted, and it looked bad.
Some DVDs can look pretty good upconverted to 1080p on a big screen TV. The best results I've seen from DVDs in my own collection are naturally the ones with the highest video bit rates. Sony's "Superbit" DVDs do pretty well. Good results also come from multi-disc special editions where the movie is given its own disc (or discs) and the extras are separated on another disc (or discs).
Even with that said, when such movies have a counterpart on BD the BD version is usually going to look a lot better at the very least. The recent Bladerunner DVD and BD releases are a good example. The BDs of Con Air and The Rock blow away their DVD counterparts (I have the Criterion 2-disc SE of The Rock).
Ratatouille just looks phenomenal on Blu-ray. The DVD version looks good upconverted, but it sucks compared to BD. I have all the Pixar movies on DVD, and will eventually get BD versions of them all. I suppose Cars will be the next Pixar BD I'll buy.
This coming Tuesday (March 11) could be an expensive day for some high definition movie fans. No Country for Old Men and Independence Day are being released on Blu-ray. Other new releases include Hitman, August Rush, Sleuth and Dan in Real Life. These catalog titles are being released on BD: I Robot, Gattaca and Dogma. Appleseed: Ex Machina is a Japanese animated movie arriving on Blu-ray.
Bee Movie was supposed to be released on HD-DVD March 11, but the title appears to be going out DVD only instead. Michael Clayton, In the Valley of Elah and Fletch are arriving on HD-DVD this Tuesday.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
|
posted 03-10-2008 09:51 AM
When DTS came along, we discovered that our plates were cut just a wee too wide. Before DTS, evidently just a tad of the soundtrack area was actually being projected, but it was not at all noticeable because it was blocked by the side masking. Then here comes the first print with DTS dots and dashes. They were also on the masking, but you could see them. Had to recut the plates to cover them. Later we re-did our masking with the super-black velvet rather than the old fashion velour; with super-black, NOTHING shows on it. You almost wouldn't even need to cut the plates; the super-black material is that light-absorbant.
Because super-black is rather expensive, we only use a few feet at the leading edge of the mask and it is sewn onto the more expansive, remainder of the mask which is made of velour. The difference in the "blackness," i.e., the absorption of light between the two fabrics is immediately visible. Why more installions don't use it, but stick with the old velour is a question. In addition, the velet is more sound transparant than velour, so for situations where the mask covers the speakers, the super-black presents less attenuation than velour.
Wow...way off topic; sorry.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
|
posted 03-10-2008 04:25 PM
Nishida's statements certainly seem like sour grapes, but for the mainstream public's perception of things, he may not be far off the mark. The Reon processor used in the HD-XA2 earned that player rave reviews when it came to upconverting SD DVD, and the new Oppo 983 looks to be doing a pretty good job of upconversion with its Anchor Bay chip.
How close can it come? I don't know, but the general public has shown itself to be pretty tolerant of "good enough" if it means that the product is cheaper and/or more convenient.
All the more reason for the Blu-ray companies not to milk the high pricing of hardware for too long, lest it become forever known as a high-priced/over-priced technology.
Apple has had trouble with movie downloads, but they haven't been at it very long in the grand scheme of things. There is also an inherent distrust of Apple by the studios that is probably the biggest problem of all. Apple's second biggest problem is that the AppleTV is nowhere near as present as it needs to be in homes to get the attention of the studios.
If Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Vudu, or someone figures out how to do HD downloads with the right combination of limits, price, and convenience to a device that has a lot of market penetration, it could very possibly take off and leave packaged media wondering where everyone went. Imagine if DirecTV and/or Comcast and/or Time Warner decided to do some sort of video downloads to their DVR's overnight, giving their customers the ability to purchase pre-downloaded movies and start watching them right away?
Blu-ray beating HD DVD this suddenly probably opened up a lot of resources at Microsoft and Toshiba. Two companies with experience working with one another, experience in HD encoding and delivery, interactivity, and consumer electronics.
It all works toward the fact that Blu-ray has a very small window of opportunity to grab onto consumers before the next big thing comes along and takes the attention away.
$400 hardware and $30 software isn't the right approach to make that happen.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 03-10-2008 06:37 PM
quote: Scott Jentsch
Apple has had trouble with movie downloads, but they haven't been at it very long in the grand scheme of things. There is also an inherent distrust of Apple by the studios that is probably the biggest problem of all. Apple's second biggest problem is that the AppleTV is nowhere near as present as it needs to be in homes to get the attention of the studios.
Apple's HD movies for rent/sale are crap, and are so for reasons previously stated.
Apple TV is a product that cannot justify its existence. It's a solution in search of a problem. And its marketing doesn't even send a clear message to the public on just what it does.
Just about anyone with cable or satellite TV already has a program receiver with a built in DVR. Apple TV seems to be trying to get a foot hold in that market, but none is there. Receiver/DVRs are far more convenient, easier to use and deliver better quality product. Other people may already have a 3rd party DVR, such as TiVO for doing the same thing. Some third party DVRs have built in DVD recorders.
The big selling point with Apple TV seems to be that it allows you to access media files from your computer and show them on your TV -just so long as that media can be controlled in the Apple iTunes food chain.
Playstation 3 can do many of the same things as Apple TV, but it doesn't try to "own" all your files. You also get the most powerful gaming console on the market and a Blu-ray player all in the same device.
quote: Scott Jentsch
$400 hardware and $30 software isn't the right approach to make that happen.
$400 for a Playstation 3 is not a bad price considering what you get for the money.
There's lots of Blu-ray movies that don't cost $30. I've bought a couple at Sam's Club for under $20. I got The Rock and a Nine Inch Nails concert BD each for only $15 from Amazon. There's lots of BDs priced between $15 and $25 at Amazon.com.
Edit: Amazon.com is currently running a sale on a lot of Blu-ray catalog titles. They're marked down as much as 50%. Prices range between $14 and $20.
Last week, Fox announced they were reducing the price on their catalog Blu-ray titles by $5, or as much as $10 in some cases. This doesn't affect new releases.
Overall, shoppers just have to look for the best deals. This situation was no different from when DVD was in its early days.
quote: Frank Angel
Tell Joe Public that to get his movies on disks that look exactly like the disks he's been buying at Walmart for $9.99 or renting for $2 that he now has to spend $30 on them and that the player he needs to put them into costs $400 when he been used to walking down isle after isle of DVD players amd seeing prices under $100, his perception of Blue-Ray may quickly sour.
New release DVD rentals at most video stores run $3.99. Not $2.
I can't even remember when a new release cost only $2 to rent. I'm pretty sure it was back when video stores only carried VHS tapes. I've never been able to rent a new release on DVD for only $2.
New releases on DVD typically sell for $18 to $24 (with a $30 MSRP). Not $10. The $10, $7 and $5 DVDs seen in bargain kiosks and bargain bins at Wal-Mart are loss leader items. There's little to no profit in them. They're just designed to bait customers into the store to get them to buy other things that cost more and have some actual profit margins.
Regarding player costs, I'm not expecting to see any $100 or $50 Blu-ray players any time soon -if ever.
Consumer electronics manufacturers screwed themselves badly by licensing DVD player manufacturing technology to Chinese companies. Player prices went into a free fall after that. Just about all of those low cost DVD players violate anti-dumping trade laws. But our government doesn't enforce anything like that.
There's no profit to be had in selling a $50 DVD player. What kind of commission does the sales guy get for pushing that product? Some loose change for the Coke machine?
The low profitability of cheap DVD players may cause their disappearance from retail stores sooner than many think. Wal-Mart may carry them indefinitely. But I think they'll be hard to find in stores like Best Buy and Circuit City within the next couple of years.
I'll agree standalone Blu-ray player prices are too expensive for most people and need to at least get down to the $200 level soon. But I have doubts the player prices will go significantly lower than that.
The plummeting value of the US dollar will also slow big price cuts. Japanese electronics companies are already bleeding a lot of red ink due to the cheapening dollar as it is.
[ 03-11-2008, 09:20 AM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
|
posted 03-11-2008 10:35 PM
quote: Joe Redifer
The endless whining amazes me. All you guys are doing is trying to predict the future. Who cares? When HD DVD was an actual facotr, you guys would whine that you wouldn't buy one until a victor was clearly seen. Now that there is a victor, you guys have found something else to whine about. Stop making lame excuses and either buy it or don't.
I wasn't waiting around for a victor, I went with the format that did the most for the least amount of money, and didn't have nearly the number of uphill battles in front of it. In fact, I bought two such players, and recommended them to others. Unfortunately for everyone, Sony proved that money can buy them happiness and bought themselves an HD format.
Hence my purchase of the PS3 for Blu-ray duties. Do I recommend it to others? No. Even though it's a nice machine for what it is, it's not something I'd put in front of my in-laws or my own parents. It's too expensive for what they're looking for, especially since they'd never play a single game, and they don't have a whole-house network that they can serve media from. They didn't buy HD DVD players until those players dropped below $250, and that was only because of my recommendation.
I don't think that Blu-ray players need to be $50 tomorrow. However, I do think that they need to be full-featured (that means Profile 2.0), have standard IR remote capability, and be less than $250. Sony could take the PS3, put it in a standard form factor, add a 0.25 IR receiver and a few lines of code, remove the gaming capability if they didn't want to cannibalize PS3 sales, and they'd have a nice Blu-ray player with media playback capability that they could sell for $299 MSRP. But even if they priced the 40GB PS3 at $299, some people still wouldn't want to buy it because it is a game machine, it doesn't look like all their other components, and they can't control it with their universal remote.
It's true that discs can be had for as low as $15 if you watch for the sales. However, if you're looking for new releases (which are the ones that get the press and the exposure in the ads), those are still in the $25-$35 range. Netflix is still a great way to save money on discs, but they're talking about raising their membership rates for HD discs, so that may not last long either.
Blu-ray won a battle, but it has not won the war for the consumer's attention. Downloads are coming. They may not be a factor now, but they are coming. The prospect of getting rid of media is too compelling from so many different angles, and history is on the side of downloads becoming the future of mainstream home movie entertainment.
It's just a matter of time, and Blu-ray better not take too much of that time figuring out how to establish its position as the highest quality experience available at a reasonable price.
Do I want Blu-ray to fail? Not at all. If I did, I wouldn't be here discussing the subject. I just don't think they're doing enough to make it succeed.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 03-12-2008 12:50 AM
But that's the trick. When the old DVD player bites the dust, it won't be very long before any customer's only option is to buy a Blu-ray player.
As I said before, there is no profit for a store to make in selling cheap $50 DVD players. They're a waste of floor space. Blu-ray players are more profitable. They're worth more of the effort to sell. When retail stores feel Blu-ray players have dipped to a price that is comfortable enough, they'll dispose of those unprofitable DVD players pretty quick. That situation doesn't apply right now. BD players are currently too expensive for most people, so the stores have to keep stocking regular DVD players for now.
I think the downloads thing is being way too oversold and spun.
Lots of reasons support my suspicion various press folks are just stirring the pot further. They were probably counting on this HD-DVD versus Blu-ray thing to go on indefinitely. Now all those technology reporters have little to talk about in terms of home theater. So they have to spin a lot of "what if" scenarios to keep things going. Internet downloads of movies is the only thing they can pull out of their asses. It's a bunch of horse shit.
Most Americans could never figure out how to program a VCR. Quite a few can negotiate their way through a DVR, but then that's more simple.
Buying an Apple TV device, trying to rig it up correctly between the computer and TV set, getting it to work right with iTunes, setting up an account properly, buying/renting movies from Apple, waiting hours for the savagely compressed file to finish downloading and then rushing to watch it before it expires all seems like a lot more trouble than I think most people are willing to tolerate.
It's a lot more simple to have a disc in your hand, put it in the player and hit the "play" button. Top quality. No expiration deadline. Simple.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
Printer-friendly view of this topic