Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

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  • #16
    Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

    Originally posted by SCanfield View Post
    I don't know if it's just name recognition, and Blu-Ray is the only one people remember or what
    Come on, you really can't be writing this, can you?

    Standalone HD-DVD players are outselling standalone BR players by an insanely large margin. No surprise, given that BR hardware is so freaking expensive. But, and it's a big but, the PS3 game system also plays BR, so that's probably where your 150 people are coming from.

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    • #17
      Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

      I agree w/ kintner, download will replace all of this. Every time there's a generational upgrade, there's a convenience upgrade, too. DVD beat VHS because it offered better quality, better sound, and - and this was big - instant access to almost any part of the movie, aka the "chapters." No signal degradation over the years. Smaller package, and lots of behind-the-scenes features.

      Neither Blu Ray nor HD DVD offer anything new outside of better video. Same BTS features, same audio quality, same instant access. No increased convenience. They're prettier than DVD, but to most people, who really cares? It looks good enough on DVD for most people. They might see an HD picture and go "oh wow it DOES look better!" but to upgrade one's system, we're talkin how many thousands of dollars? Is it worth that? To many people, no. (I own an HD camera but not an HD tv. I've shot over a hundred hours of footage and have never seen it on a TV)

      But download video will have that instant convenience. It'll have that whole "double click" instead of getting up, putting it in the dvd player, then going and sitting down. It's not exactly good for humanity (hello obesity epidemic) but the next step will include convenience. When someone can access their hard drive through their TV and pick any of 200 movies to watch without getting up, people will pay for that. HD? Not by itself.

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      • #18
        Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

        Anyone can plug a Mac or PC into a HD TV with a PC input and watch a 1080p trailer off the internet. We just need more bandwith or better compression in order to download 1080p movies in real-time. I don't see that happening before the end of the decade.

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        • #19
          Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

          Originally posted by mrWr0ng View Post
          Neither Blu Ray nor HD DVD offer anything new outside of better video.

          It offers better audio (both pcm and master lossless), more interactivity, better storage/better bandwidth, scratch-resistant...what's not to like? Again, Blu-ray does offer a few advantages over HD-DVD and if there is any format that should win the race, it is Blu-ray (I don't give a crap what mistakes Sony has made in the past, when someone makes a solid product I'm going to support it).


          By the by, this year Blu-ray has outsold HD-DVD by 2-to-1. On a side note, Steven Spielberg is quite a supporter of Blu-ray which makes sense that he is releasing "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on the format soon with a few exclusive new features.
          Last edited by j over; 08-24-2007, 05:22 AM.

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          • #20
            Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

            Originally posted by mrWr0ng View Post
            Neither Blu Ray nor HD DVD offer anything new outside of better video. Same BTS features, same audio quality, same instant access. No increased convenience. They're prettier than DVD, but to most people, who really cares? It looks good enough on DVD for most people.
            That's the real key - very few people will upgrade their current DVD collection to HD-DVD/BR, which is the entire reason for a format switch. For the majority of movies, DVD is good enough, especially upconverted on a WS Plasma or LCD TV.

            Do you really need to see RV in HD?

            Even studios have acknowledged that the DVD-to-HD transition will not be even remotely as lucrative as VHS-to-DVD was.

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            • #21
              Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

              Originally posted by mrWr0ng View Post
              Neither Blu Ray nor HD DVD offer anything new outside of better video...
              Er... isn't that the whole point, better 'video'!

              The picture, the image.... THAT is what makes a motion picture a motion picture.

              That is the single most important thing to get right with the tech. Everything else, all the 'special features' are just ancillary rubbish.

              I want the closest thing to a cinema quality image and sound you can get. DVD quality is terrible by comparison. Many people don't realise the difference but then their ignorance is not a selling point for sticking with the status quo for me.

              In the end, whichever format gives the best quality image and sound, is the one I want, and whatever the faults, that's blue-ray. It's not cinema res but it's a damn site better than DVD. Hook up your High Def projector and you WILL experience the difference.

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              • #22
                Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                Originally posted by vmf View Post
                For the majority of movies, DVD is good enough, especially upconverted on a WS Plasma or LCD TV.

                Have you seen 1080p on a truly nice HDTV (I personally think most LCD and Plasma sets suck but that's just me)? It blows any DVD away. I'd take even a crappy movie in HD over a crappy movie on DVD. Plus, with OLED and other better types of TVs coming out in the coming years this is the perfect time to start making the next transition.


                Originally posted by Captain Jack Sparrow View Post
                I want the closest thing to a cinema quality image and sound you can get. DVD quality is terrible by comparison. Many people don't realise the difference but then their ignorance is not a selling point for sticking with the status quo for me.
                Agreed.

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                • #23
                  Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                  Originally posted by j over View Post
                  Have you seen 1080p on a truly nice HDTV (I personally think most LCD and Plasma sets suck but that's just me)? It blows any DVD away. I'd take even a crappy movie in HD over a crappy movie on DVD.
                  Remember, I'm talking about REPLACING current DVD collections with HD versions, not NEW MOVIES going forward.

                  I will do the latter, but very few will spend the potentially ten's of thousands of dollars necessary to upgrade ALL their DVDs. You'd have to be insane to think everyone will.

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                  • #24
                    Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                    Originally posted by Captain Jack Sparrow View Post
                    In the end, whichever format gives the best quality image and sound, is the one I want, and whatever the faults, that's blue-ray.
                    Actually, tests have proven that HD-DVD image quality, due to VC-1 across the board encoding, is superior to BR. Most BR disks on the shelf use ancient MPEG2, though some of the newer ones have joined this decade.

                    But you knew that, right?

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                    • #25
                      Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                      Originally posted by j over View Post
                      No as there are actual benefits with Blu-ray or HD-DVD (since it has a higher capacity, made with an awesome anti-scratch coding and have wider support from other sources, I'm for Blu-ray...also just going from DVD to something called HD-DVD doesn't seem like a big enough jump). Betamax did not offer any benefits over VHS.
                      actually, this is incredibly close to vhs-beta

                      consumers won't see much difference. Well, in beta case, there was, but in HD world it is the same

                      the difference comes in pro versions. BR offers multichannel coding, just like BETA had 4 channels while VHS had only 1.

                      for consumer that means nothing, but when you have to remove narrator from your TV spot and localise it, it means everything

                      anyhoo, Paramount did right for backing HD. They took the money for something they should've done anyway.
                      You should never back Sony on anything propriarity.

                      In this case it's all about costs. HDDVD is much cheaper than BR and that's all that it matters. Why? Because both formats will be gone twice quicker than DVD, that's why.
                      We're going optical folks, wi-fi. Convert that hi-def to h264 and we're talking streaming over fiber or air. Why would you collect something on optical.

                      I expect monthly fee paid to studios/blockbuster/movielink/whateva to be able to watch everything streamed on-demand.
                      Anything else is so 90s.

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                      • #26
                        Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                        Originally posted by vmf View Post
                        Actually, tests have proven that HD-DVD image quality, due to VC-1 across the board encoding, is superior to BR.

                        What "tests" are you talking about? There is really no huge difference between VC-1 (which Blu-ray actually uses a lot now) and MPEG-4 or MPEG-2. It's simply all a matter of personal taste/opinion.


                        The specs for Blu-ray versus HD-DVD are as follows...


                        BLU-RAY
                        Storage capacity - 25GB (single-layer) or 50GB (dual-layer)

                        Laser wavelength - 405nm (blue laser)

                        Numerical aperture (NA) - 0.85

                        Disc diameter - 120mm

                        Disc thickness - 1.2mm

                        Protection layer - 0.1mm

                        Hard coating - Yes

                        Track pitch - 0.32µm

                        Data transfer rate (data) - 36.0Mbps (1x)

                        Data transfer rate (video/audio) - 54.0Mbps (1.5x)

                        Video resolution (max) - 1920×1080 (1080p)

                        Video bit rate (max) - 40.0Mbps

                        Video codecs - MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC and SMPTE VC-1

                        Audio codecs - Linear PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS
                        Digital Surround and DTS-HD

                        Interactivity - BD-J


                        HD-DVD
                        Storage capacity - 15GB (single-layer)

                        Laser wavelength - 30GB (dual-layer)

                        Numerical aperture - 405nm (blue laser)

                        Disc diameter - 120mm

                        Disc thickness - 1.2mm

                        Protection layer - 0.6mm

                        Hard coating - No

                        Track pitch - 0.40µm

                        Data transfer rate (data) - 36.55Mbps (1x)

                        Data transfer rate (video/audio) - 36.55Mbps (1x)

                        Video resolution (max) - 1920×1080 (1080p)

                        Video bit rate (max) - 28.0Mbps

                        Video codecs - MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC and SMPTE VC-1

                        Audio codecs - Linear PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS Digital Surround and DTS-HD

                        Interactivity - HDi


                        ...Overall, technically speaking, Blu-ray is the better choice.



                        Originally posted by Khabs View Post
                        We're going optical folks, wi-fi. Convert that hi-def to h264 and we're talking streaming over fiber or air. Why would you collect something on optical.

                        I expect monthly fee paid to studios/blockbuster/movielink/whateva to be able to watch everything streamed on-demand.
                        Anything else is so 90s.

                        I'm sorry, but I actually prefer to own something physical in my hands versus having something streamed on the web.
                        Last edited by j over; 08-24-2007, 07:22 AM.

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                        • #27
                          Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                          Originally posted by Captain Jack Sparrow View Post
                          Er... isn't that the whole point, better 'video'!

                          The picture, the image.... THAT is what makes a motion picture a motion picture.
                          I'm not sure how to respond to this. I mean, if you're referring to the whole experience, I'd imagine that you would include the content as well. But if the best video was the only thing that mattered, we'd all have 35mm projectors in our living rooms.

                          That is the single most important thing to get right with the tech. Everything else, all the 'special features' are just ancillary rubbish.

                          I want the closest thing to a cinema quality image and sound you can get. DVD quality is terrible by comparison. Many people don't realise the difference but then their ignorance is not a selling point for sticking with the status quo for me.
                          Here's the problem - "many people don't realise the difference" - how do you expect a home theatre revolution when "most people don't realise the difference"? Who's gonna pay $2-$6k to upgrade for a difference many may not notice?

                          In the end, whichever format gives the best quality image and sound, is the one I want, and whatever the faults, that's blue-ray. It's not cinema res but it's a damn site better than DVD. Hook up your High Def projector and you WILL experience the difference.
                          It IS better than DVD, but that doesn't mean it will replace DVD. You have to look at what it gives the audience, and it doesn't give an improvement worth replacing ones TV, DVD player and entire DVD collection. There's no increase of convenience, it's just a better image and there's just not enough people willing to drop thousands of dollars for better image quality for their home system. Look at how many people watch stuff on youtube! Do you think people really care THAT MUCH how it looks? Or is it how easy it is to get to?

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                          • #28
                            Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                            Originally posted by Khabs View Post
                            We're going optical folks, wi-fi. Convert that hi-def to h264 and we're talking streaming over fiber or air. Why would you collect something on optical.

                            I expect monthly fee paid to studios/blockbuster/movielink/whateva to be able to watch everything streamed on-demand.
                            Anything else is so 90s.
                            I would put money on this. Seriously, look at youtube - people don't care if it's compressed, they just want a *good enough* quality with super convenience. People that are audio or video philes will pay extra for super quality, but the self-sustaining part of the industry, the revolution, will be to on-demand video and instant access to everything in your "library"

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                            • #29
                              Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                              Originally posted by mrWr0ng View Post
                              People that are audio or video philes will pay extra for super quality, but the self-sustaining part of the industry, the revolution, will be to on-demand video and instant access to everything in your "library"

                              Well, I guess then I won't be in on this so-called "revolution" that you are referring to. To sacrifice quality for convenience (I mean, my god, are we that lazy?) is not what I consider to be a positive choice.

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                              • #30
                                Re: Paramount ditches Blu-Ray

                                [quote=j
                                I'm sorry, but I actually prefer to own something physical in my hands versus having something streamed on the web.[/quote]


                                eee, you'll get over it
                                I did

                                it took me few hundred vhs tapes and same with dvds
                                but i did

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