The big drawback to BluRay is that most people’s TVs simply aren’t good enough to show the quality difference over DVD.
On a 26" CRT, for example, a DVD looks noticeably better than a VHS. But a BluRay doesn’t look a heck of a lot better than a DVD, so there’s no real reason to get a BluRay player.
Even on an LCD, unless you’re using an HDMI cable (which most people aren’t, because of the cost), there’s not a vast improvement between DVD and Blu-Ray IMHO. So yeah, I think Blu-Ray is going to be the next Laser Disc in many ways.
Nope, no confusion here. Surely you realize resolution and bitrate will be inherently and necessarily related. I’m sure you also realize h.264-MPEG4 is not the only way to compress bluray.
No, I’m not sure how resolution and bitrate are related, perhaps you could explain? I don’t claim to be an expert at this, but from what encoding I have done myself on video files I know that both resolution and bitrate affect the quality of video. And yes, I know there are other codecs that are used for compression.
You’re all making good points, but remember that there are many definitons of high def.
720p, 1080i and 1080p are all high def by definiton.
Blu Ray is 1080p but there comes a point where better doesn’t matter.
Look at mp3 vs CDs. Most people can’t tell a CD from mp3 which has been recorded at 320vbr. Some can but most can’t, so why pay more for something you cannot tell.
Of course this is common. People buy Advil when generic ibuprofen works as well. And even as I write this, I know I’'ve made someone angry who is thinking, “Well Advil works better for me”
Also remember not all content needs to be high def. Is a movie any better if you can see the pores on the actors face? Certainly some movies are better in high def, but some don’t need to be.
Look at Mary Poppins or Rear Window, not realistic in terms of scenery, but they don’t try to be, and they’re still good movies.
Right now we don’t have the bandwidth for Blue Ray, at least not enough overall bandwidth, but eventually we’ll get there.
In the meantime, engineers and computer geeks, will improve technology.
In the USA we just swtiched to digital TV and it’s already outdated. We will need to switch over again in the near future. Estimates say as soon as 2017 but some say as late as 2035.
Nothing will stay the same…That’s the future…Get used to it
Ah, but that’s the thing. You claimed we weren’t getting true HD because we weren’t receiving, what was it? 25 Mbps? So at what point do we start calling it HD? I honestly have a hard time distinguishing between 720p video at 25 Mbps and the same video at 4 Mbps (if it’s properly encoded using Handbrake, for instance).
While there are many overpriced HDMI cables, they’re easy to find for under $10. Do you have a cite that most people aren’t using them?
Truth is, there’s a vast improvement in picture quality over DVD, and even HD broadcast (1080p vs 1080i). You may not be able to tell on your current CRT, but you’ll appreciate the difference on your next TV.
Personally I think Blu-Ray is going to last a while, but it’ll be more fragmented than the DVD market at its peak. I’m basing this on my own experience; in the 3 months I’ve had my HDTV, about half the movies I’ve watched have been on Blu-Ray, and half have been streamed via Amazon On-Demand. To me, Blu-Ray is the way to own my favorite shows and movies in the best format possible. And On-Demand is the way to rent a random movie on a Saturday night.
That’s the rub, isn’t it? There is no point that we start calling it HD, since anyone and everyone who is in the business touts the “HD-ness” of their product at every opportunity. I think we can trace it back to the satellite and cable companies claiming to offer “HD” channels that, while noticeably better than SD, were so compressed and lossy as to trivialize the meaning of “High Definition”
HDMI cables are not readily obtained in Australia for anything like $10, unless you buy them off eBay, which isn’t as popular here as it is in the US for various reasons. The going rate for an HDMI cable in Australia from a retailer is AUD$50-$80, and my cite for most people not using them is years of experience in electronics retail and not selling a lot of them to people, along with not knowing anyone who does use HDMI cables obtained from anywhere except either with their player or a friend/family member in the electronics business.
“Vast” improvement is relative. (And, FWIW, I have an LCD TV like most other people I know). It might be an improvement, but it’s not enough of an improvement to make me or anyone else I know throw away their DVD player and replace it with a Blu-Ray player. There’s also a fair bit of consumer backlash against Blu-Ray from people saying “Come on, I just got rid of all my VHSes and replaced them with DVDs. I’m not getting rid of my DVDs to replace them with Blu-Ray.”
There’s not really “On-Demand” TV/Movies here, most people don’t have pay TV (I read somewhere recently it’s only about 35% of households do), we don’t have a Netflix equivalent that’s established in the popular consciousness (Telstra have a similar service to Netflix but I don’t know anyone who uses it and it gets virtually no advertising).
Like I said, I think Blu-Ray will end up like Laser Disc. Popular with the early adopters and people who really do want the very best experience from their home theatre, but not really embraced by the public at large.
Those are the correct numbers for Netflix - 2.6-3.8 mbps for PC viewing, 2.2mpbs for Roku (not sure about the embedded players in DVD players etc.).
Those rates are for compressed video data, not the uncompressed ‘pixel calculations’ referred to above, but is not HD. (For reference, the compressed data from a 2 hour standard DVD is somewhere close to 1.1 mbps : 8.54GB / 7200 seconds.)
From that calculation, Netflix streaming should be able do better than DVD and at least to my eye, on my 92" HD projector - it does. Even with better compression than broadcast/cable HDTV, Netflix HD cannot quite reach HD bitrates, but they will continue to increase their bitrate over time.
So, IMHO, Netflix HD is ‘good enough’ even though it is not ‘full HD’ at 19.2 gbps - especially when you consider that typical cable HD signals are 12-14 gbps because of studio production issues and re-compression for cable. The increasingly popular cable feature of VOD HD is usually no more than 8-10 gbps and is a very acceptable image. Technically, not HD - but very pleasing just the same.
As someone with 400+ Laserdiscs in the closet, I think that Blu-Ray is better than DVD the same way that Laserdisc was better than VHS - to me, that means it will never be as popular as DVD. Blu-Ray will remain the ‘gold standard’ for a while, but 3D is the last gasp before network speeds allow near Blu-Ray streaming. For collectors and videophiles, it will last a longer - but so will DVD as the ‘loss leader’.
From reading industry newsites, it seems clear that all the major players are planning for a disc-free, streaming video future - they just have to figure out how to make more money at it (and protect their content). Bandwidth caps are probably in our future (as much as I hate the concept) because that will generate both more profits, control and provide the capital needed to upgrade a lot of delivery networks to full fiber to the home.
It’s not really a technological issue. 99% of consumers have no idea what new technology is on the horizon - so there is no demand from consumers for the “next big thing”. It’s the producers who are pushing the new technology. They want to sell products. And once a format has reached a saturation point where everyone has converted over from the previous format, then the best way to maintain a high sales level is to push a new format on to the market. Obviously they can’t market this as “switch to Blu-Ray because then we can sell you another copy of all those Disney movies you already have on VHS and DVD” so they go with the better technology angle.
Then the public is misinformed. Nobody has to throw away DVDs; they’re backwards compatible. It’s a very different situation than the upgrade from VHS to DVD.
And of course the improvement is subjective, but objectively the horizontal resolution is 2.25 times greater. It doesn’t take a perfect prescription to see the difference on increasingly larger screens.
I think we just hang out with different people, because among the people I’ve talked to, the quote is “Blu-Ray is SO much better than DVD.”
Except that Blu-Ray is backwards compatible. When your DVD player goes kaput, you’re most likely going to buy a Blu-Ray player (not for the Blu-Ray, of course, but because it’s also the latest and greatest DVD player). And then when your favorite new movie comes out in disc format, and the difference in cost between DVD and Blu-Ray is negligible (which it already is here in the U.S.), you’re going to buy the Blu-Ray. It has a lot more inertia than standalone products like Laserdisc could have.
I have a feeling (in other words, can’t find a cite right now) that Blu-Ray adoption is already higher than Laserdisc at its peak. For one thing, Laserdisc was always priced for connoisseurs; my Blu-Ray player cost $100.
Your math is off by a factor of 8. The number is roughly 1.2 MBps which is approximately 9.4 Mbps. That rate, however, is for MPEG2 which is not as good at low bandwidth video as the newer codecs.
The consumer electronics companies want to sell you the next, great box to go next to your TV. They invented VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
The content providers (studios etc.) hated that technology but are hooked on the sale of media like crack. They would love to stop selling you another copy of the movie but cannot. Their nirvana is not ‘please buy yet-another-silver-disk’ - it is ‘pay us every time you watch it’, which is a business model that fits perfectly with streaming video.
The funny thing is that I actually bought a new DVD player this January, the Philips 5990. It doesn’t play Blu Rays, but aside from playing DVDs (including DVDs from any region once you enter a cheat code via the remote), it also plays data DVDs and has a USB port so I can plug my external harddrive into it, and play any type of files I have on there, including DVD files. One 500GB harddrive can hold about 100 DVDs. This system has cut down on the # of physical DVDs in my house by incredible amounts.
I found that VHS is popular among one market segment: parents with very young children. Why? There’s a limitless supply of VHS kiddie movies and shows, educational shows, and so on available in thrift stores.
Also, one advantage that VHS still has for kids is they are physically stronger. Even though the tape and moving parts themselves can wear out the more they get played, a kid is going to have a harder time destroying than they will by mishandling a DVD disc. Also, VCR’s are simpler for kids to use - most tapes just start playing the moment you pop them in - no menus or any of that other stuff.
I imagine there’s still a tiny niche of “new technology scares me!” old people who are still stuck on VHS. One of my grandfathers didn’t get a DVD player until a year or two ago (and he used to have one of those old-people TVs too - the kind that sit on the floor and are enclosed in a wooden case - do THOSE still get made?), and my other grandfather NEVER owned one (then again, all he ever watched was sports and Wheel, so they didn’t even use their VCR either). Fortunately, they’ll die out pretty soon and be replaced with people who are at least used to the concept of optical media, menus and harddrives.
