OT: Blu-Ray vs HD DVD = We have a WINNER...

Toshiba to give up on HD DVD, end format war

[news.yahoo.com]



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Shouldn't there be a Betamax and Digital Audio Cassette (does anybody even remember that?) tombstone next to that?

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Shouldn't there be a Betamax and Digital Audio Cassette

Beta went on to SP then Digital BetaCAM and now HDCAM and HDCAM SR so I think something in the vein of Buddhist Reincarnation might be more appropriate...

VHS however... No major outlets sell it in store anymore in the UK so thank god we can write an obituary to that horrific format!

Add to it 1", U-Matic LB/HB, D-VHS, VCD, LaserDisc, Audio Cassette, SACD...



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Today in the paper (St. Petersburg Times, FL) Wal-Mart has announced that they will sell the blu-ray format over HD-DVD. I believe the only studios that publish to HD-DVD are Universal Pictures, WB and Paramount?!?

Regardless, when Wal-Mart picks a brand, thats a huge!!

RIP-HD-DVD

Let's not forget 8-track!

> Add to it 1", U-Matic LB/HB, D-VHS, VCD,
> LaserDisc, Audio Cassette, SACD...

The Laser Disc seemed pretty short lived. In an age of portable consumer electronics that was the early 90s, who'd lug a vinyl sized digital disc? Was cool for a short bit but things got smaller pretty fast.

Hmm... SACD... That brings to mind DSD. I actually thought the technology was cooler than DVD Audio by a mile. Never actually managed to get one of those into a player in a good studio.

I'm pretty sure the studios that choose HD DVD will be choosing Blu Ray real soon. Man, the HD DVD war is gonna cost Toshiba a bomb. Then again, I suppose many of us were backing off buying players or discs until the war is settled.

My addition to that deceased list- Hi-8s, and S-VHS.

SACD and DSD were very interesting. But they forgot that music production requires processing, which could not easily, or at all, be done in the DSD domain and required conversion to PCM, removing any "advantage" from DSD, and that along with the problems of dithering a 1bit signal....

The DVD-A discs that I have sound utterly superb, however - some really transparent recordings.

Graeme

> The Laser Disc seemed pretty short lived. In an age of portable consumer electronics that was
> the early 90s, who'd lug a vinyl sized digital disc?

LDs were pretty popular in Asia, with big rental chains stocking a lot of them. When I worked in Hong Kong for two summers -- 10 years ago now -- LDs were still very popular. And back then, getting your hands on a large, luscious Criterion Collection LD was quite an experience. Japanese LD imports could be very interesting.

This was also before the age of DVDs where consumers buy a lot of movies rather than renting them, and before internet shopping became so prevalent, so the high cost of LDs was a negligible factor. Anybody remember when "sell-through" videos came months after the initial video release?


www.derekmok.com

When I mention Betamax and Digital Audio Cassette they were involved in "wars."
Betamax lost to VHS (while Betacam was big in pro markets).
DAC was beaten by DAT. Neither became consumer formats but DAT had a long life in the pro markets whereas DAC when away.

Laser Discs didn't really have a competitor. It was short lived and supplanted by DVD quickly.
8 Tracks I think lived for a bit too before Cassettes took over so I'm not sure if that qualifies as a "war" either.

By "war" I mean two competing formats developed and coexisting at about the same time.

DVD-R and DVD+R was a "war" which had a very different outcome given that, in time, it was possible to make both burners and players that could use both formats.

Haha. Thanks for the word, Graeme. I remembered coming across DSD when I was still in school. It was mind blowing to think that they could record with that sort of frequency response... but then again, if you're going to have to do audio post on a recording, I don't think Pro Tools supports DSD. And yea, the rounding errors, dithers, conversion to pcm, kinda defeats the purpose of having it in DSD in the first place. I remembered the problem i always had with digital transfers/recordings was the super highs, and when i brought it up to my lecturer, he explained that they sound harsher because at those frequencies, you can't duplicate the wave form as precisely as you're only sampling 2 points of a wave form.

> LDs were pretty popular in Asia, with big rental
> chains stocking a lot of them. When I worked in
> Hong Kong for two summers -- 10 years ago now --
> LDs were still very popular.

They were big, up till VCDs and DVDs came out. I remembered the early part of my teen years digging through video stores stocked full of LDs. But it wasn't in for that long, was it? I mean, longer than a Ricky Martin hit, shorter than MJ's court case? Or around that length... To me then, it was this huge frisbee you can't throw. And man, imagine portable players for that thing! CDs by far lasted far longer than any of these formats (and they date back to the 70s). VHS I believe lasted longer than the LD too.

How about adding "Standard Def" analog TV to the list?

You know it's going, going, ..... gone! Soon enough.

Mark

SD will slowly fade out over the next 10 years. It will be around in small markets until it is literally pushed out.

Graeme! How ya been? Hows the new baby?!?! God bless... much luck & good health!

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

[SD will slowly fade out over the next 10 years.]

16X9 SD is slowing its demise. "Hey, I got widescreen for my wedding video, why do i need--- etc"

I admit it, I use it for my docs. Love it. Training wheels for HD.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Instantly find Next/Previous timeline Gaps with Shift/Option -G !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Looking at the big picture it always takes longer to adopt new technology than most people think, it took 50 years to go from B&W to color for example.

However, every time we go from one discontinuous innovation to the next the acceptance time is much shorter and another misconception is that the change over will happen in small increments. It doesn't, pressure builds until critical mass is reached and then goes all at once. A great example of that is DVD. It went from zero to total market domination in about six years. I know there maybe some who are still using VHS but they are now the minority.

HD has been building market acceptance for more than twenty years, HD will supplant SD with amazing speed. That's not to say SD won't be around, just like B&W was, for a considerable time but if you are working in SD three to five years from now you will be in the minority.

[I can't type today]

So how long until there is a significant price drop in Blu-Ray players? I'm assuming someone who doesn't have one, like me, should still wait a few months or a year till the prices come down and the BR players become better due to all the companies now only competing against each other to make the best BR player for less $$$.

In a year? I'd expect a realtime Blu-Ray *recorder.*

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Instantly find Next/Previous timeline Gaps with Shift/Option -G !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

I got my Blu_Ray player from BestBuy for $199 [$299 with a $100 discount for buying a Plasma] I don't know how much cheaper they'll get but the quality is amazing -- definately worth $300.

Seen this commentary on the subject?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywWfmRdOmJ0

That is classic!

I say sd video is gonna be around for longer than 10 years especially when it comes to the web. sd video with a good flash compression looks pretty good. And its getting cheaper there for making it more accessible.

sd dvds for training and info vids will be around for a while too. Yes hd looks a lot better in a dvd player but the web has not figured out a way to obsolete the sd because of file size issues.

so i wouldn't hock my sd cams just yet. Plus it will take at least 3 years for the blueray player to become a normal household item. Right now blueray players are less than 20% of the consumer market. Unless prices come down under 175. per unit sd dvds will be in there form a while.

of course 10 years is not a bad estimate for when prices will be at that point, even still the web will be carrying newly created sd features. Maybe Flash 10 will address hd more aggressively.

oh and for the record i knew that blueray would win based on capacity alone.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

The thing to consider is that this isn't really about the acceptance of Blu-Ray, its about the acceptance of HD.

Over the past three years HD has had an amazing adoption rate, prices have fallen steadily on flat panel displays while quality has continued to improve. HD monitors now occupy more than 80% of large retailers floor space [compared to 4x3 CRTs], HD channels are proliferating cable and satellite set top boxes, and just about all new movie releases are being concurrently mastered to Blu-Ray.

I've said this repeatedly, there was never really a format war, an HD-DVD player could have been built that played both using about fifty cents worth of components. They were already making their way out to the public, way overpriced, but they were available. This had much more to do with the studios not wiling to re capitalize with the equipment required to master Blu-Ray. Consumers couldn't care less about those issues. But having two different camps confused the consumers and confused consumers don't purchase anything.

I was in BestBuy last week looking at consumer cameras, there are now more HD model cameras available than SD. And the new little HD models are amazing and according to the salesperson I spoke with out selling their SD brethren five to one [of course this is probably skewed considering he thought he could sell me a more expensive HD model]. But I have little doubt HD models are selling better than SD ones.

So will SD be around for a while, sure, probably for another 20 years. But the longer you keep those SD cameras the less value they have and you really need to consider the opportunity costs of continuing to produce in SD, those costs will be directly proportional to the acceptance of HD and consumers are beginning to purchase HD equipment at a rate approaching that of SD DVD.

Regarding the web, its neither HD or SD, it can be anything you want and just like everything else the quality and efficiency of software and hardware encoding is improving quickly and it will be just as easy to re purpose HD content in the near future as it is SD content today.

Blu-Ray players are already below $175 in some areas and will certainly be below that by Christmas, WallMart and Netflix have committed exclusively to Blu-Ray, Block Buster and other major retailers will be making the same commitment over the next three months or so and this will put the studios in the odd position of trying to get HD adopted as quickly as possible [they don't want to have to continue to support both SD and HD].

Obviously this takes time, but HD DVD will supplant SD DVD faster than DVD supplanted VHS.

hd production is a big jump. At this point in the hd transition i feel i can wait at least until the end of the year to spend 18k for the up-grade. hd systems need 8core and a minimum of 5tb to store the media.

I am glad to see the blue ray move. And i will be joining soon but for right now i am gonna work the dear life out of the last of the sd shooters.

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chuck
Regarding the web, its neither HD or SD

You are right but hd is of a large file size right out of fcp. What is 5 gigs in sd can be 12 gigs of hd. Therefore the flash files start pushing that 50mb wall of fast play.
I guess i think more about web streaming than film to dvd. Which would also mean i am slightly off topic.
I wish the web would evolve a bit like the blueray.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"