How Dish's 1080p is going to work...

[HobbyTalk]

Is anyone else in the same boat?

Most are, it was only released to a very small sample of subscribers. Consider yourself lucky as I've heard there are a few bugs in 6.10

[nathan_h]

My biggest question is whether 2.35:1 OAR movies will be shown on E*'s 1080p VOD system open matte or OAR??

If they go open matte I will be ordering exactly 0 of the 1080p movies.

+1, though make that "open matte or cropped" since while some movies shot in Super 35 really do have extra info below and above the 2.40:1 picture, movies shot with a Cinemascope process do not -- and get cropped on each side by clueless networks like HBO far too often. (HDnet, Showtime, and the defunct Voom [rip] typically didn't foster such an atrocity; hopefully this new premium DISH VOD won't either.)

There's a drawing in the Wikipedia article about Super 35 that gets the point across.

[steve4810]

..."bye bye HDD archiving" and eventually the end of your HD-DVR as we've come to know it.

Can you elaborate? Does this involve all programing material or just premium movies?

[2extreme]

Why don't I have channel 501 VOD? Do I need to have the ethernet connection activated? I do not. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Sweet news though on the 1080p!

[Smith, P.]

Do you have new FW L6.10 ?

[toto]

But the TV producers don't want to have to pay to transfer legacy TV Movies that weren't even filmed in the correct aspect ratio. TV folks and broadcasters are CHEAP. The movie studios have much more compelling content with incredible special effects that make much more economic sense considering that the public values the movie watching experience more than TV shows and the studios are already transferring their library to Blu-ray for 1080p. It's not about the technology, my friend. It is about the economics.

According to Canon 35mm=about 24m pixels (only approximate as we're dealing with analog film vs the numbers world), but with the advances in digital it may be as little as 12mp. Current digital cinema is 4K (4000pixels by 2000) or about 4 times the information of 1080p. Remember when you view movies on a 50' wide screen you're looking at a surface area most likely many times that of your viewing area in the home. Aspect ratio of movies is an interesting topic. I spoke to the president of Quvis and he mentioned 54 different aspect ratios. The most common aspect ratio used in film since 1953 has been 1.85:1, 2.00:1 and 2.25:1. all of these aspects are accompished by matting or the use of anamorphic lens. A 16:9 TVs natural ratio is 1.78:1 so most movies are either full screen or small black bars top and bottom.

[tigershere]

My Sony is 1080i or 720p so I hope this upgrade does not screw up my PQ as right now all is fine and I don't plan on getting a 1080p any time soon. I just don't need a screen that large in any room I have.

[moonhawk]

Good question!

When D* comes up with its 1080p PPVs, the price will be similarly around $6.99. The 4-hour window will kill this thing. We have already stopped ordering HDPPVs since the 24-hour limit kicked in.

But for $2.99 discounted price I will order it once, with some good planning before hand.

Does the four hour window start when you begin to view, like the 24 hr window is now, or is that from when you download?

Thanks...

[2extreme]

Do you have new FW L6.10 ?

Nope...guess that is the problem. I only have 5.12...that seems old to me

[Andrewwski]

So this will definitely download via satellite, not internet? What about DirecTV's new 1080p VOD?

I've got a relative on satellite internet with a bandwidth cap so VOD through internet isn't feasible...but through sat it is. They're under contract with D* until November but after that it's anyone's game. They really like VOD like they used to have with cable, so it may be a factor in their D* vs E* decision.