What a ridiculous comparison. Ever heard of Netflix?
Yeah, comparing On Demand to purchasing a disc is apples and oranges. On Demand is probably the most expensive way to rent content right now, whether its SD or HD. I am paying an extra $1 a month to get my Netflix rental discs in Blu-ray. For your single $5 On Demand SD movie, I can easily pay for three or four Blu-ray rentals each month.
Prices are falling on Blu-ray discs in stores. I bought Iron Man yesterday for $16.99.
I could have waited a few years for the Next Big Thing to come along, but then there’s always something new and better on the horizon. I am happy to enjoy HD content now on Blu-ray and through my Fios subscription. I also still watch plenty of SD stuff–DVDs, Netflix streaming, Hulu, etc. It’s great that we have multiple options these days.
I suspect that most of the people saying that Blu-Ray is no big deal have only seen it on a small TV from some distance, or the system they watched it on wasn’t configured correctly.
Here’s why Blu-Ray will take over: The move to HD television programming is driving the size of televisions up. Most people don’t even realize it, but programming at a specific resolution has a ‘sweet spot’ - a viewing position that is optimal for the given size of the display. If you sit further away than the sweet spot, it’s hard to see detail you should be seeing, and you feel like you should move closer. If you sit closer than the sweet spot, you start to see artifacts like pixels and scan lines. Because of this, people have a subconscious tendency to want to view from the sweet spot - anything else is a little uncomfortable.
You can actually work backwards from the ‘sweet spot’ and predict the size and location of the TV in a typical American home. It goes like this:
People want to watch TV together. Therefore, the TV has to be far enough away that multiple people can watch it comfortably. In a typical family room, the TV is usually about 8-11 feet away from the prime viewing position. For standard television resolution, this dictates a TV size somewhere between 27" and 32". And historically, that’s exactly how big the average home TV has been.
When DVD came along, the resolution went up slightly. This pushed sales of larger TV’s - videophiles with DVDs often have 36" TVs, which again puts the sweet spot at the proper location for the prime seating area. The Sweet Spot for DVD resolution is about 35-40" at 10’ viewing distance.
Now along comes HD TV. The sweet spot for 720p content at 10’ away requires a TV size of about 50" diagonal, and the benefit of 720p vs DVD starts to become noticeable at a screen size of about 37". Notice that the typical sizes for 720p LCD screens tends to be right in that range - 37" to 50". For 1080p, the benefit over 720p starts to become visible at about 50", and the ‘sweet spot’ is about 75" at 10’.
So, if you’re sitting 10’ away from a 32" plasma set, and have typical eyes, you will not see a difference between DVD and HD. But if you’re sitting in front of a 75" screen, the difference will be dramatic.
So what’s happening is that HD is pushing TV sizes up. And as soon as you get past 37" in size, every time you play a DVD you’re going to notice a quality dropoff compared to your HD channels. THAT is what’s going to drive the adoption of Blu-Ray. Eventually, as HDTV goes into wide acceptance, the average TV size will probably be 42" to 55" with the viideophiles opting for 75" screens or bigger. And trust me - at those sizes, DVD starts to really lack. I’ve got a 102" diagonal screen (front projector), and even though I can only project 720p right now, the difference between a Blu-Ray disc and a DVD is so dramatic that I find myself not wanting to watch my DVDs any more.
The ‘sweet spot’ issue suggests that we don’t have much room to improve in resolution over Blu-Ray. At some point, the average home just isn’t big enough. To get the full benefit of 2160p, you’d want a 150" screen at 10’. But a screen that size would be too big - it would be uncomfortable to follow the action, like sitting in the front row of a movie theater. HDTV resolution was actually planned out quite well, and I don’t see a need for a higher resolution consumer format.
Blu-Ray has other advantages (and disadvantages). One disadvantage with the current generation of players is slow bootup and loading times. But the advantages outweigh that - much better additional content, fewer discs required for box sets, BD-Live, which pulls in additional content from the internet.
All that said, Blu-Ray will be around for a long time - long enough that I suspect it will be our last optical disc format. The thing that will eventually sink Blu-Ray will be solid-state memory. Digital downloads, movie kiosks were you insert a Flash drive and download a movie, etc. These days, it makes little sense to manufacture optical discs and ship them around. We’re probably a decade or so away from higher speed internet and memory so cheap that you might just buy your movie on flash memory anyway. You might still buy a movie in a DVD-like case, but inside will be a read-only memory card with the movie embedded in it. You can buy 8gb flash drives now for $15. If Moore’s law continues with memory, in 10 years you’ll be able to buy 32gb memory for about $1.75. At that point, why would you want an optical drive system at all?
So I give Blu-Ray 10 years of prime life, and it’ll start being supplanted by other solid-state formats by then, and survive another 5 years or so after that. The same is true for all other optical/magnetic media. Video tape, CD’s, etc. We’ll have very few moving parts in future entertainment devices.
I’ve heard this condescending assumption plenty, and - at least in my case - it couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve seen at least 5 different home setups - all of which have been on big screens, at least one of which was designed, installed, and configured professionally, and I’ve seen it in many, many electronics stores.
Look at the comparison screenshots on this page. In both of the first two comparisons I actually thought the SD was the HD/Blu-Ray shot at first. And even looking closely at them, I can’t really tell the difference. If you can tell the difference between those in full motion, without them being next to each other, and it actually effects your enjoyment of a movie, you are INSANE.
Here’s another comparison. I had to look 2 or 3 times to tell the difference, and it’s subtle.
Here’s a comparison between DVD and HD-DVD. Omg is that a person or a marmoset on the left? :rolleyes:
I cannot possibly fathom noticing, much less caring about these differences while watching a movie. If you can, you need to explore directors not named Bay, Scott, or Verbinski. I’d rather watch a good movie on a 13" black and white screen than an average movie on the biggest, most state-of-the-art, highest definition screen in the world, 1,000 times out of 1,000.
And because I know you’ll want to question my eyesight next, I have flawless, uncorrected vision.
You’ll want to get a second opinion if you can’t see the difference in the two rather static shots of Linda Hamilton from T2 from your first link…
Many of the other images involve a lot of motion where the difference in an individual frame is going to be less pronounced.
Good for you. I’m not such a video snob that I prefer resolution over content, but if something is available in a higher resolution I’ll go for the better looking one. I do notice the difference, and I like having the clearer picture.
Ow ow OW. That DVD transfer has a fair amount of compression artifacts, and they are not easy to get out using reverse processing (ie. upconverting). You’d probably wind up losing more detail than you already have if you try.
Most people are hard-wired to have stronger responses to stimuli that are more life-like. Crisper images hit your eyes, cleaner audio hits your ears. These things effect how you experience the story you’re being told.
Yes, I do see the difference in clarity but shrunk down so that they both fit on the screen, the second image is actually, honest-to-goodness, more pleasing to my eye. I believe it’s the color composition. Also, the foreground/midground/background of the Blu-Ray shot all being in the same focus looks flat and unnatural. And it’s a lot easier to tell the difference when you’re looking at them at the same time. When I’m just watching a movie, I see a woman holding a gun. I don’t see a woman holding a gun and - OMGWTF! - - I can’t see her pores!!!
Bull hockey. Your imagination does that. You’re saying I could go back and get more enjoyment out of all my favorite movies from childhood by watching them on Blu-Ray? No. If what you’re saying was true, animation would suck.
It seems there are two issues out there.
First, what is going to happen to resolution over time? The OP’s point about newer sets being sold today is valid — even if a new format (flash, violet-ray) comes out tomorrow and is fantastic, it won’t really matter. If there are real questions about a few hundred dollars for a player, who is going to start splurging for a new display any time soon? So whether BluRay stays or not (e.g., replaced by the apparent scratchlessness of Flash drives), I dare say 1080P Is here for a while.
But like the OP said, technology marches on … so for how much longer, and what will be replacing it?
Second, the OP said 2015. While it may be a wee bit premature, that’s not that unrealistic from the VHS-to-DVD transition. Ok, it’s a bit hyperbolic, but in 2000, the local Blockbusters in DC (I remember the year/time since I’d just moved apartments and got a DVD player as a gift) were just starting to stock a small number of DVDs. Just a handful, over in the “special” corner. Kind of like what we’re seeing today (though with Netflix I must admit to not having been in a B’Buster for a while). So, it took about eight years for DVDs to go from entering mainstream (e.g., Blockbuster) to appearing to be “old” technology. Same time-frame puts BluRay in 2016, give or take. Sure it’s not a perfect analogy and sure there are lots of things that can happen, but eight years is a long time.
And I’d rather watch a good movie on a large high definition screen than the same movie on a 13" black and white screen. Why not take advantage of a higher quality image, if its available? If image quality means so little to you, that’s fine but the fact that I DO pay more attention to the picture than you doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate all the other aspects of a movie as well.
HD is not some scam being perpetrated on the public by greedy electronics companies. It really does look better. IMHO, a lot better. It is not my imagination and I am not deluding myself. I have flawless, uncorrected vision also. If you can’t see much difference, then your perception is somehow different than mine. I think it is unfortunate for you that you cannot enjoy these advancements in video technology.
Try looking at the first two pictures here: http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~leopold/AV/ResolutionComparison/#178tv
Can you see the difference there? (er… you’re not still using a monochrome monitor, are you? :p)
I continue to be baffled by the strident opposition some people display to HDTV and blu-ray. Higher definition picture and audio makes television and movie-watching more enjoyable for a lot of people. Why does anyone feel the need to cry foul over that? 
Again, it just seems like sour grapes. “I don’t have HDTV, but that’s okay because it’s not that good anyway!”
Fine - I’ll post-qualify my statement to exclude animation. The very simple fact is less imagination is required at higher fidelities. Your brain has less gaps and fuzziness to fill in and clean up. When things look real and sound real, the suspension of disbelief naturally takes less effort.
Because I’m not going to go through the hassle and expense of upgrading all my equipment for something that I won’t even notice outside of side-by-side comparisons, and don’t care about even in those. If we were talking a 1950s era fuzzy, black and white tube vs. a modern plasma, then yes, I would probably want to upgrade. But the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray, standard and HD, is not enough for me to care. DVD still looks way better than what I grew up with. Like I said, I just cannot imagine caring how resolved someone’s face is, when it looks at least this good, or, further, allowing it to effect my enjoyment of what I’m watching.
By the way, my television is actually a modern, High Definition big screen. Is the HD “hooked up”? I have no idea if it is, or how to, and I don’t care.
To repost myself in the same thread - how big is your TV and how far away do you sit? It matters…a lot.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/12/09/1080p-charted-viewing-distance-to-screen-size/
In addition, if you do have a newfangled HDTV, you can rent a PS3 or a Blu-Ray player at a lot of different places these days. Nothing you’ve seen to date or we’ve told you about is going to leave the sort of impression of experiencing it in your own environment.
Then why on earth did you get a modern, High Definition big screen TV? You could have bought a mid-sized SD CRT TV for a song these days.
Not only that, but a SD broadcast looks a lot worse on a LCD or Plasma TV than it does on a SD set.
Yet, you went out and did it anyway:
So, you wanted to make sure you incurred all of the expense, with none of the advantages? What have you been wailing about this entire thread?
Seriously, this is a very, very strange post.
I’m going to swim against the current here and suggest that HD is not nearly high enough resolution to be the end-all and be-all. 720p is .9 megapixel. 1080i/p is 2 megapixels. This is not particularly high resolution in photography, and movies are, well, photography. There’s no way in hell I’d take pictures at 2mp and expect quality that will blow anyone away. The trope that extra resolution is not needed, or is undetectable seems, well, nuts to me. And I don’t care what bullshit videophile studies are linked to; extra resolution is always better, and I can damn well move closer to the screen to see more detail if needed, just like when I look at a painting in a museum, or a printed photograph. I’m glad the extra detail is there, always, and it seems crazy to me to say it is unimportant.
Having said all that, I think Blu-ray will be around for a very long time, and is indeed just getting started. Hell, the format wars with HD-DVD just ended last spring, and Blu-ray is finally taking off because of that. I see Blu-ray as being widespread for the next 10-15 years, easy.
And the argument that $200 is too much for a Blu-ray player when DVD players are sub-$50? Please. DVD players were over $200 for a great deal of their lifespan, I don’t see much of a barrier to Blu-ray because of the current prices; I expect sub $150 Blu-ray players by this summer, and sub $100 players 8-12 months after that.
I can actually see both formats coexisting for quite a while. I’ve got blu ray, but I’m sure there are many things available on dvd that simply would not be improved by blu ray. I honestly don’t think that a 1970s tv show is going to be much better on blu ray than dvd. If I"m going to buy a movie earlier than 1998, I’ll read the review to see how much the blu ray is an improvement over the standard dvd.