[Jason Vines]

The advent of high-definition DVD should be a good thing, right? From all reports, the video and sound of high-definition DVD discs are to normal DVD what normal DVD is to VHS. In other words, high-definition DVD should be a quantum leap forward in entertainment.

But, as usual, media and electronics corporations are bungling everything...

Two competing standards for high-definition DVD will come into play over the next year: Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Some studios support one or the other, and some support both. Some players will support one or the other, and some might support both. In addition, both formats will eschew consumer rights in favor of incorporate draconian copy protection measures. (Dan Ramer over at DVDFILE.com suggests making blank high-definition DVD's expensive, and kicking back some of the profit to the entertainment industry; that would be a much more consumer-friendly way to combat piracy.)

I fear these two competing formats, along with their restrictive copy protections, will create such confusion, the public won't accept high-definition DVD at all. They'll stay in the dark ages of standard DVD.

[Sim]

I think HD DVD are crap. Normal DVDs already have a resolution and picture quality as good as possible. It simply won't get better, at least not enough for the human eye to even realize it (at least not mine). I really cannot imagine I'd see any difference, as far as I am concerned, DVD is already maximum. Hell, even now, the standard DVD quality is limited by the quality of my TV.

So I certainly won't buy again all the stuff I've bought on DVD. I simply don't need any alledged "better" quality.

This post has been edited by Sim: 14 January 2006 - 08:51 AM

[Cymro]

I can't see HD-DVDs taking off like DVDs because most people just won't see the point in making another expensive switch. I mean there's a difference in picure quality, but it doesn't have anymore bells and whistles than DVDs. DVDs were clearly better than VHS because they're smaller, lighter, and don't wear out as much, plus you can easily select scenes and there's all the bonus material etcetera, as well as the fact that DVD players have no tape to chew. Quality alone does not provoke as much consumer enthusiasm, or there'd be a much bigger market for Audio DVDs.

There's also the rise of the internet as a distribution medium. Broadband is getting even faster, and iTunes has proved that downloads are commercially viable, and now Google is selling TV episodes at $2 each. I can see more and more people shifting to this over DVD. You can buy DVDs off Amazon from the comfort of your own home and all you have to do is wait for the mailman. The next step will be cutting out the mailman.

[Jason Vines]

I agree, the technological advance I'm most anticipating is being able to download high quality movies and episodes from the Internet with something like iTunes. But that's a long way off, IMO. At current Internet speeds, downloading a high-definition movie, not to mention a television series, would take hours or even days. I'm not willing to wait that long, and I don't think most consumers would be, either.

And I wonder what restrictive copy protection measures the entertainment industry would demand to hinder our ability to backup our collections or save them permanently on our PC's. Even if Internet connection speeds increase dramatically, unnecessary copy protection could still kill the whole thing.

[Cymro]

That all depends on how they do it. Connection speeds are getting faster all the time. This time last year I couldn't get anything better than ISDN where I am, and now they're replacing the old phonelines to accomodate higher speeds, and some places already have 8 meg connections, which means 1MB/second downloads, that'll get you a 5GB file in about 90 minutes. I think a system like Steam could work for movies and music, as far as copy protection goes.

It's only a matter of time before bandwidth expands enough for this to happen on a large scale.

[Jason Vines]

Here's a comparison of the video resolutions of DVD and high-definition DVD.

DVD: 720 x 480 (NTSC - American) / 720 x 526 (PAL - European)

High-definition DVD: 1920 x 1080

As you can see, high-definition DVD does offer a significant improvement, at least on paper. Also, people who've seen both formats claim high-definition DVD pictures are far superior to those of standard DVD. We'll see whether that's true when high-definition DVD's become commonplace.

Sim said:

Hell, even now, the standard DVD quality is limited by the quality of my TV.

I imagine the applicability of high-definition DVD's only to people who have newer high-definition sets (neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD will work with analog component hookups) will confine interest in high-definition DVD's to rich videophiles, at least for the next few years. That might change when the US government mandates digital-only telecasts from 2009 onward.

I suppose high-end computer users would also be interested; many of them have displays that could handle high-resolution output. Speaking of which, Pioneer will be releasing the first Blu-Ray computer drive/burner soon. It will cost $995. Obviously, that's outside the reach of most consumers, but Pioneer says this first drive is a test run for professionals and enthusiants to work out any kinks that might exist. Pioneer will release drives for normal users later.

(Here's a good interview about Pioneer and Blu-Ray.)

Sim said:

So I certainly won't buy again all the stuff I've bought on DVD. I simply don't need any alledged "better" quality.

I don't think I will, either, especially when much of my stuff (TV shows on DVD) arguably isn't even DVD quality. I would buy new titles in the format, though, if and when I'd have the ability to play them.