Are you ready for a new format?

oh great... that's all i need... another media format...well, when it gets down to $150... im in

 

Not 1 but 2 new formats don't forget HD-DVD. I'm afraid they will both be availible to confuse the public. Just like DVD-Audio VS. Super CD then there's VHS, S-VHS, digital VHS and VHS-C, 8 millimeter, Hi-8, Super 8 and digital 8. And of course let's not forget the biggest confusions still to this day...

DVD-R
DVD+R
DVD-RW
DVD+RW
DVD DL

I have to deal with all this and many more every day.

What kills me the most is that digital Betacam stock adds a few extra minutes to all the tape lengths compared to Beta SP so if I have to dub a show from DBC to Beta SP and it runs over 90 min. I have to break it into 2 parts because they don't make Beta SP longer than 90 min.

I still think bare disks are stupid. Almost every DVD or CD I get from clients are scratched and have layers of fingerprints and the ocasional goop from food or I don't want to know!

 

You know, I'm having a difficult time already just trying to figure out the differences between plasma, LCD, projection or no projection, HD, HD ready, HD compatible, EHD, etc., etc.
Now throw in HD boxes, Bose theater systems, cable boxes and the every popular remote control for each and every system component, well, I'm thinking that good ol' analog 'taint so bad at all.
Pass the popcorn please.

 

When I set up my DLP projector I was perplexed by the digital connection. The DVI and HDMI cables are expensive and I didn't want to have to keep returning the wrong item back to the store. I wanted the best I could get but had to learn what HDMI was then I just bought a Mac G5 with 1 DVI and 1 ADC dual-head monitor out. So I had to get an adapter from ADC to VGA for $25.00. So much stuff.

It's no wonder my parents and grandparents are having so much trouble with thier stuff. It's all a game to make tech companies more money and that's all. Think about all those people who buy the wrong adapter or cable and then forget to return it and they just waisted money for no reason other than not understanding something that's so similar to something else. I can't even tell you how many times I've asked a clerk a question and they say I don't even know what that is.

I recently took a moment to think about how much technology I use every day and if it's helping me or not. My conclusion is that it would be a much more peacful life if I just went to work (for the man), then home to wife and kids, then sleep. All the while, oblivious to cell phones, computers, and everything else I mess with. What if I just hired someone to fix stuff? Hmm, but I love gadgets!

 

I have a high definition TV and HD DVD player and the picture is really good but not the HUGE improvement over nonHD that everyone was always claiming it to be. Blue Ray is supposed to be better but I have a feeling that the competing technologies aren't any better to the average viewer. I'll check out Blue Ray when I get around to it but I just don't know if it's worth it. Especially since I already have a couple hundred DVDs

 

What native resolution are you watching ? That would be the lesser of the disc, player, or monitor.

 

16:9 (1080i) on DVDs that are capable of it. The HD DVD player and the TV automatically adjust the resolution based on the capability of the DVD. I always get the widescreen DVD when they produce them (not all movies are released on widescreen) You can have an HD set but without an HD DVD player, you don't get the full benefit of HD. The picture is better than nonHD but, as I said, it's not THAT great.

 

Unless you have DVD's I have never heard of, the video resolution is 720 X 480. Scaled up, it is still 720 X 480
HD DVD's will have enough space for 720p and depending on movie size -- 1080p. When you see one of those, you will be able to make a fair judgement.

A better test of your monitor for now would be 720p over the air, which is about equal to 1080i.
I am not familiar with any broadcasts that are 1080p, but I don't follow this topic closely.

 

i have a DVD player that provides 1080 upscan but if going to my 1080i tv that is all it will be... and yes i paid $150 for the HDMI to DVI cable

 

I think you are victim of exactly the kind of confusion talked about here. To date, there are no HD-DVD players on the consumer market. Toshiba announced the first one at the last Consumer Electronics Show, in January of this year.

It is likely you have a "normal" DVD player that upconverts the standard 720x480 resolution of the DVD to the native resolution of your TV set. But it works only on regular DVDs, and thus can't do better than the source material on those DVDs.

Blu-ray and HD-DVD are entirely new disc formats that have several times the recording capacity of the current DVD standard. They are able to hold the vast amounts of data required for a high-definition movie. There are no titles you can buy (yet) in either format. The players are going to be very expensive.

And completely incompatible with each other. Hello VHS vs. Beta, all over again.

 

Right. The ATSC (digital TV) broadcast standard permits up to 1080i, but does not allow 1080p. The amount of data required by 1080p exceeds the channel capacity of the standard. The highest progressive resolution you will see is 720p, and the highest interlaced is 1080i.

 

And, while on the subject, let me point out the REAL reason you will see a push behind these formats like you've never seen before... DRM.

The new formats, you see, are protected by a completely different encryption mechanism. Forget copying one of these discs -- ain't gonna happen. No "decss" for these discs. No playing them on a Linux box. No ripping them to a pocket player or laptop hard disk for travel. No using them with MythTv or Freevo set-top box programs (both open-source Linux apps).

This is what Hollywood salivates over. Locking up their precious content so that evil customers can't do anything they want with it. "Fair use?" To Hollywood nothing is "fair use", it's all "theft" to them.

 

I playback ATSC high-definition MPEG-2 content all the time on my DVD player. You can only get about 35-40 minutes of high-def video onto a single-layer DVD, so most of my playback is from my 2.6 terabyte video server. The DVD player I use has a Sigma Designs 8620L media processor in it, so it can playback high definition MPEG-2 as well as high def WMV9. My HD content is from captured OTA ATSC broadcasts and satellite.

 

For those who are still interested in this Blue-ray vs HD-DVD format war:

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/busines...cleID=175803569

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/busines...cleID=175802916

You could find even more professional articles on this issue on eetimes.com.

Quick summary:
- HD-DVD will be available and ready for consumer faster than Blue-ray.
- HD-DVD will be cheaper ($500) vs ($1000+) in the beginning
- HD-DVD is 15G/layer, Blue-Ray is 25G/layer. Both could go up to 3~4 layers. (today's DVD is 2-layer, ~4.5G/layer). Production yield on HD-DVD disc is much higher than Blue-ray now.

Due to the backing of MS and Intel on HD-DVD, it was predicted that HD-DVD will win on computer side, and Blue-ray will eventually win the entertainment side. High-end computers will have to accept both (two drives).

Yes, it is Beta and VHS all over again... you know, Toshiba vs Sony. Same arch rivals.

 

If you think you are HD_DVD or Blu-Ray ready, you were deceived!

If you’ve just spent $1000 on a pair of Radeon X1900 XT graphics cards expecting to be able to playback HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movies at 1920x1080 resolution in the future, you’ve just wasted your money.

. . .if you just spent $1500 on a pair of 7800GTX 512MB GPUs expecting to be able to play 1920x1080 HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movies in the future, you’ve just wasted your money.

“People will not be able to turn on HDCP through a software patch since the HDCP keys need to be present during the manufacturing. We are rolling out HDCP through OEMs at this time but we have not finalized our retail plans yet.â€

If you don’t have HDCP support, you’ll only get a quarter of the resolution. A 75% loss in pixel density is a pretty big deal – Wouldn’t you be angry if your car was advertised as doing 16 mpg, and you only got 4 mpg?

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_nvidia_hdcp_support/ (make sure to read all four pages)

Glad I opted for the cheap card.

P.S. I'd be angry if my car got 16 mpg. :lol: