Is HD DVD Trying to Lose?

[autoboy]

Doesn't anybody realize that the consumer is not interested in quality? 99% of people don't care if their songs are compressed, they play them on bose speakers anyways. 98% of people are perfectly happy with upscaled DVDs on their big screens. I have to admit that they do look pretty damn good and would't be worth upgrading to unless I had a serious system and the interest in HD. Put a DVD in a 36" HD display and sit 8-10 feet away like 95% of people out there and you won't see much if any difference b/w a DVD and a HD-DVD. This is why they MUST use dual format disks if any HD format is going to be mainstream.

The dual format disk is their secret weapon and they don't use it. Why don't the HD-DVD folks understand this? Replacing the DVD with a flip disc HD-DVD and educating the public on which side to use will solve all the problems with consumer acceptance. I see only one big problem to this and that is factory capacity of HD-DVD. That may be unsurrmountable without huge cash investments in factories.

 

[avaserfi]

Put a DVD in a 36" HD display and sit 8-10 feet away like 95% of people out there and you won't see much if any difference b/w a DVD and a HD-DVD.

Do that and you won't be able to tell the difference between SD and HD because you are sitting to far from too small a screen to be able to tell a difference.

The reason people will start caring about the new HD formats is because of marketing and the fact that people are more and more commonly dishing out a bit of money on their big screen TVs and are wanting to show them off. The majority of people out there don't seem to care as much about HD audio as seen by them getting blose or HTIB systems with there thousand+ dollar TVs but these TVs being purchased is a sure sign that people care about video quality and that is something the lay person can see because it doesn't require a critical ear (eye) and bad audio quality is something that completely envelops people unlike bad video (think cars, stores, homes its everywhere). People seem more interested in what they can see not hear and that alone will drive HD video formats especially when the prices drop.

 

[autoboy]

Yeah, I see your point that visual quality is more important than audio quality to most people. We are visual creatures. I still find it hard to imagine that people will go out of their way to buy HD versions of disks at this time, but eventually it will catch on. That is why I think HD-DVD has a huge advantage and the consumer will lose out if BluRay wins. Once the factory capacity reaches a high enough point you can phase out DVDs and nobody will be affected. It makes for a seamless transition that bluray cannot match. It has been proven that there is zero quality difference between the formats, leaving flip disc as the only differentiating feature.

 

[fmw]

Upscaled DVD's really do look pretty good. I have 42" LCD screen (about mid size for a flat panel, I guess) and I watch it from about 9 feet. The upscaled DVD's look pretty close to HD to me. I would certainly be content with them if that's all I had and I would consider the TV a great buy to get that level of picture quality and viewing experience. HD is a noticeable but small step upward. So I tend to agree with the others.

 

[avaserfi]

I wouldn't say upscaled DVDs are even close to a well mastered HD disc visually. I don't know what movies you are watching but take Batman Begins if you are an HD fan and compare the dvd and HD DVD and if you are a BD fan check out any of the Pirates movies and compare to the DVD version...its not even fair. I really find it surprising that so few people notice a difference.

 

[mech]

I don't buy movies at all. I never have. I rent them. Rentals are about $1 each at Netflix. Rarely am I interested in seeing a movie more than once. If I am, I can rent it many, many times for less than the purchase price. I'm not poor. I can afford to buy all the movies if I want to. I just don't want to. I'm not a movie hobbyist. I just watch them for entertainment. I think I might be fairly typical of the mainstream home movie watcher.

I don't pay the price even for SD DVD's. I certainly won't pay the prices for HD DVD's, even though I own players in both HD formats.

The CD business is putting itself out of business. Selling a product that costs about 25 cents to produce for $13 or $14 so that everyone can have amazing amounts of royalties and profits was the cause of the growth of internet music downloads. But does the industry see this or care? Apparently not. The CD stores of yesteryear are gone and the CD departments at big box stores are a shadow of their former selves. The industry is content to milk it as it sinks into the depths. I can't even find the CD's that interest me in the stores.

The DVD business is probably headed in the same direction eventually. I'm willing to bet that faster internet speeds will make DVD downloads the preferred way to get content in the future.

Personally, I don't think it has anything to do with formats. At the prices they charge for recorded movies, they aren't going to address the mainstream. Or, at least they aren't going to address me if I represent the mainstream. They are going to settle for hard-core movie enthusiasts and movie rental companies. If it were my industry, I would sell DVD's for $5 or $6. They might actually sell enough to improve the overall profits at the studios.

Not to ruffle any feathers but it's hard for me to really understand your thinking. On one hand you act like movies arent that important, but you own to high end HD players??

 

[fmw]

I don't go to movie theaters. I watch them all at home. I appreciate good picture quality and a viewing experience that is as close to a theater as I can get at home. I'm just like you in that sense. My HD players play rented movies with exactly the same picture quality as owned discs. I got two today from Netfix - one Blu-Ray and one HD-DVD. My wife and I will enjoy one tonight and the other tomorrow night. I like watching movies and I do it often just like you do. I just rent them instead of buying them because it doesn't make economic sense to buy them when I can rent them so cheaply. And I don't have to store them. I just send them back. To get me to change my ways would require $5 and $6 DVD prices. I'm not sure I'm that atypical. Still sound confusing to you?

 

[fmw]

I wouldn't say upscaled DVDs are even close to a well mastered HD disc visually. I don't know what movies you are watching but take Batman Begins if you are an HD fan and compare the dvd and HD DVD and if you are a BD fan check out any of the Pirates movies and compare to the DVD version...its not even fair. I really find it surprising that so few people notice a difference.

I notice the difference. My point was that upscaled DVD's are pretty close and, for me at least, satisfactorily close. Don't get me wrong, I love HD and choose it over SD everytime. The range of picture quality from one movie to another is quite variable. As a whole,however, I think upscaled SD DVD's are very good and close to HD. Some are better than others and none are quite as good as HD. But be fair. Upscaled SD DVD's can be oustanding. Compare them to SD satellite or off the air antenna. That's a big difference. Compared to HD, however, is a much, much smaller difference. Certainly you can agree with that.

 

[Waveform]

I don't go to movie theaters. I watch them all at home. I appreciate good picture quality and a viewing experience that is as close to a theater as I can get at home. I'm just like you in that sense. My HD players play rented movies with exactly the same picture quality as owned discs. I got two today from Netfix - one Blu-Ray and one HD-DVD. My wife and I will enjoy one tonight and the other tomorrow night. I like watching movies and I do it often just like you do. I just rent them instead of buying them because it doesn't make economic sense to buy them when I can rent them so cheaply. And I don't have to store them. I just send them back.

I agree. I too am a fairly avid movie watcher but would never/rarely buy a movie because I know that the likelihood of my re-watching a movie from my own collection is extremely low.

With respect to hi-def vs upscaling, just yesterday I watched a DVD (The Departed) upscaled to 720p on a 100 inch pj screen and was marveling at how great it looked. Later, I switched to a movie (Enter the Dragon) on a HD channel, and the quality was nowhere better. I suspect movie mastering in HD will someday be less uneven than it is at present; until then I am glad upsclaling works so well.

 

[mr-ben]

Not all my DVD players are HD and I enjoy being able to take the disc anywhere in the house or even over to a friends house to watch the disc.

I don't have any of the new high-resolution video discs, but I do have many SACDs. Most SACDs that came out in the last few years are hybrids, with a CD layer on them. I prefer these over SACD-only discs for the same reason - I can play the same disc on other devices that can't play SACDs: at work, in the car, etc. I don't think I would care about this feature for movies though, since I never watch movies anyplace other than in my living room. Maybe if it was the same price it would be nice, but I don't think it's worth paying more.

 

[mr-ben]

With respect to hi-def vs upscaling, just yesterday I watched a DVD (The Departed) upscaled to 720p on a 100 inch pj screen and was marveling at how great it looked. Later, I switched to a movie (Enter the Dragon) on a HD channel, and the quality was nowhere better. I suspect movie mastering in HD will someday be less uneven than it is at present; until then I am glad upsclaling works so well.

That's interesting - I recently saw that the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough was on one of the HD broadcast channels. I have it on DVD too, and I took advantage of the opportunity to get them synced up and do some A/B comparisons. The HD channel was quite a bit better - it's the first time I started taking the new DVD formats seriously. Both looked great though.

 

[Maxsunset]

To be fair, as far as I understand, the HD-DVD features of 300 are supposedly significantly better than the blu-ray version... you'd think they would advertise that though!

To the naysayers of dual format discs... do you guys never go on vacation and bring a few movies? I think it's a great feature, and think it should be a standard feature of all HD-DVD's! I also think it would be extremely wise of Sony to include a "PSP version" on every blu-ray movie they sell that PS3/PSP owners can take the movies they bought on blu-ray on the road. No hassles with ripping blu-ray discs, or buying a seperate version in the lame UMD format, or paying for a download just to be able to watch the movie you already bought on your portable players! It would give a much needed boost to the PS3, PSP, and blu-ray platforms!

Who's with me?!

 

[dorokusai]

I love my PSP so I'll wave my hand on that one

I'm also in the BR camp but just like SACD and DVD-A....the new formats just don't strike me as being advertised aggressively enough. I see/hear more ads for erectile dysfunction than I do for high-res formats of any kind. It's just disappointing to me and hopefully BR will prevail but we'll have to wait and see.

Mark
Polk Audio CS

 

[Leprkon]

Ya just gotta love all the doomsayers here. Internet downloads, according to a report on this very website earlier this month, accounted for 15% of music sales. So three out of every twenty dollars the music industry makes comes from downloads.

Here's the newsflash- seventeen out of every twenty dollars still comes from (drum roll please), CDs...

I don't think the music industry is going to toss the CD aside for a mere 15% incursion into thier profits. I'm sure they will posture for ten years down the road, when internet sales might make it to 50%, but I'm guessing there will be shiny disks floating around for quite some time.

 

[avaserfi]

Don't you get it though Leprkon? The sky is falling . The download industry gets a bigger rep then it deserves because the industry complains about it so much!

 

[Tex-amp]

The combo discs could be a benefit to HD DVD if the studios didn't charge extra for it as you could play it any player you already own. No one that doesn't own a HD player is going to shell out an extra $10-20 to have the HD version too. I went to buy 300 today at Target and the Blu-ray version was $10 cheaper than the HD DVD. I left without it but seriously considered the SD version as it was $14.

 

[skablaw]

Speaking of (and I quote) "egos *that* are too large to listen", Clint, did you take into consideration the fact that the HD-DVD version of "300" includes copious high-definition extras not available on Blu-ray as well as an interactive game and web-accessible features? Perhaps the HD-DVD camp doesn't clearly communicate such advantages (obviously they weren't able to communicate it to you since you completely missed the boat on this release), but that doesn't negate the value of the content.

You also speak only for yourself, Clint. Before you make statements like "NO consumers are going to WANT hybrid HD DVD/DVD discs", you may want to actually ask a few consumers. I'm a consumer and I DO want hybrid discs because they allow me to watch my favorite movies in the bedroom, kitchen or wherever else I choose that may not yet be equipped with a high-definition player.

Perhaps you haven't perused recent price points, but if you'd bothered to educate yourself prior to your rant, you'd find that, in fact, most releases available on both formats enjoy a respectable discount on HD-DVD. Perhaps hybrid discs are killing the format, but if that's the case then it is because HD-DVD is giving those of us who appreciate content and features what we ask for and isn't bowing to the alter of the bottom dollar.

I would also make mention that these soap-box rants add nothing productive to the discussion. They are merely egotistical pontifications and thoroughly disappoint those of us who turn to resources such as Audioholics for sage advice and objective analysis in order to make sound decisions.

 

[MDS]

The article was an *editorial*. That is where the author expresses his opinion. Don't read into it any hubris or holier than thou attitude, because it really isn't there. It's one man's interpretation of the facts and for what it's worth, I agree with the opinion.

I have no experience with HD hybrid discs but the cynical side of me says that it will be the same fiasco as DualDisc (CD/DVD) and I want no part of it. Others naturally will disagree. Such is the nature of the beast.

 

[Audioholics]

You also speak only for yourself, Clint.

Yes, that's typically how editorials work.

...it is because HD-DVD is giving those of us who appreciate content and features what we ask for and isn't bowing to the alter of the bottom dollar.

Well, if that were the case then the hybrid discs would only cost pennies more than regular HD DVDs - which is essentially the crux of my argument. Both formats should do everything in their power to help consumers, not attempt to charge extra for features that many users will not require. The market is tough enough and now they have essentially priced themselves above BD on these types of discs. It's a shortsighted move, regardless of whether or not you're an HD DVD fanboy.

I would also make mention that these soap-box rants add nothing productive to the discussion. They are merely egotistical pontifications and thoroughly disappoint those of us who turn to resources such as Audioholics for sage advice and objective analysis in order to make sound decisions.

I'll run all my future articles by you for approval - thanks for the input and for being so objective.

 

[Johnd]

Yes, that's typically how editorials work.

I'll run all my future articles by you for approval - thanks for the input and for being so objective.

It appears as though skablaw is the one who stood on the soap box this morning.