Thread: Could VOD be BD biggest threat??

Originally Posted by nonrev

Then why did those same Paramount executives drop BD and go exclusive HDDVD???

Simple. Money and financial incentives. There were zero technical advantages. The only theoretical advantage was the replication costs were somewhat less. However, in time that advantage goes away as well.

Originally Posted by nonrev

Then why did those same Paramount executives drop BD and go exclusive HDDVD??? I’ll tell you why again: there is no difference in the HD experience. I can’t find the link to the press release from the day when they dropped BD but they gave all the reasons why selected HD DVD fully knowing all the talking points and specs you’ve been stating. Once again I’ll put Transformers DD+ soundtrack against any fancy BD TrueHD sound and take my chances. I can’t argue more bits is better but at a certain point more doesn’t equal a better experience. What if another format came along with slightly more disk space and bandwidth than BD, would that be necessary for a better experience? At a given point there is zero sum gain. $ony has a long track record of trying to take a format and increasing its specs and charging consumers a premium for the unneeded overhead. That’s why many of their formats fail, and I think Paramount realized this. $ony won simply because they threw tons of money around behind the scenes and locked up early to many studios and manufactures for HD DVD to over come. By the time HD DVD got into the behind the scenes money game it was an uphill battle. Oh and one last thing in regards to your Paramount exec comments, WB also had scheduled a press conference to announce they had selected HDDVD fully knowing all the BD specs hmmm.

Be real, the whole thing was about money. Studios could really care less about the quality if they can make money with a lower quality product. Even if BD puts out a significantely better picture because of the capacity, studios would still go with HDDVD if they could make more money. Now that studios have the extra space of BD they are using it, why? Because they now are competing with DVD and they know to get the extra $10 out of the consumer they need the higher PQ and sound quality.

Amir was quite the shill for VC-1, of course he would say that it did not need more bits, he had an agenda to push HD-DVD for MS. And, at the time 1080p sets were rare and he was right that on the 720p sets that were dominating at the time the extra bits were not really needed. But, BD is supposed to last 10 years. By the time 10 years goes by in display technology the extra bits will be noticable.

Originally Posted by mike123abc

...BD is supposed to last 10 years. By the time 10 years goes by in display technology the extra bits will be noticable.

Along what lines will display technologies improve over the next 10 years to make the difference between 720p and 1080p presentation of a today's Blu-ray movie more noticable?

What does the bitrate ration and codec using it have to do with TV resolution? You think MPEG-2 was/is better? on 720p or 1080p screen?

Diogen.

Originally Posted by diogen

Along what lines will display technologies improve over the next 10 years to make the difference between 720p and 1080p presentation of a today's Blu-ray movie more noticable?

Diogen.

For one thing LCDs may finally get to resolve 1080 lines of resolution in motion. Plasma right now can 2/3 to 3/4 of the way there. When most LCDs have moving objects the resolution drops down to 1/3 to 1/2 the set resolution. Look at people's hair when they move, see it blur out then sharpen when the stop. One of the bit saving techniques is to cut the resolution of moving objects way down, having more bits will help keep moving objects at full resolution.

Article on the subject:
Will The 2007 HDTV You Choose Give You All Resolution You Expect? » HDGURU.Com

The result, three distinct groups emerged from this test of the twenty 1080p displays. All displays in the top group were plasma HDTVs. They all had a static resolution of 1080 lines and a measured motion resolution of 830-880 lines, depending on the specific display. The next group consisted of microdisplay rear projectors, static measured 1050-1080 (depending on the display) while motion resolution ranged of 610-780 lines. The bottom group were all the LCD flat panels, with a static resolution of 400 (one panel) to 1080 lines and motion rez coming in at 360 lines (one set tested) to 600 lines. Three of the LCDs tested were 120 Hz models (one was the Sony KDL-46XBR4 reviewed here), all 120 Hz models had 600 lines of motion resolution.

1. I mentioned it already here a couple months ago
http://www.satelliteguys.us/televisi...ml#post1215840
that when talking about today's best movie material, there is hardly any more information above 1280x720.

2. I'm missing the VC-1 point.
HD/BD movies encoded using VC-1 are all 1080p.
If VC-1 is only good when presented on "castrated" resolutions and today's display technologies are masking its inferiority,
then at least a direct comparison of stills should easily prove AVC's superiority. And all Xylon comparisons could not do that.
Preprocessing, as explained by Spears, has a much bigger effect.

Diogen.

I've watched a lot of VC-1 and AVC stuff. In the porn world, the AVC stuff looks the best not because of the codec but because of the source material. Digital Playground actually uses studio quality Panasonic cameras not handycam crap. They are now starting to use RED cameras while the other adult studios continue to use prosumer grade stuff. The source, not the codec or the format makes the biggest difference with PQ.

Back on topic--VOD/PPV is nothing to sneeze about. Traditionally, PPV was hampered by the 3 month delay between the DVD release and the PPV premiere. Often the PPV premiered a month or less before the movie appeared on premium channels. That is no longer the case with Warner movies. Warner has already made rumblings about expanding VOD and PPV.

Originally Posted by allargon

Back on topic--VOD/PPV is nothing to sneeze about. Traditionally, PPV was hampered by the 3 month delay between the DVD release and the PPV premiere. Often the PPV premiered a month or less before the movie appeared on premium channels. That is no longer the case with Warner movies. Warner has already made rumblings about expanding VOD and PPV.

Didn't Warner pick BD to end the war and help HDM??? Now this move surely will undercut HDM hmmm. Anyway HD VOD will grow when WB move kicks in, and the other studio's will soon follow. If the numbers play out the way I think they will the studio's will make more money at $5 a pop HD VOD with tens of millions of customers then they will earn at $25 a pop with HDM at barely 100,000 in sales(and thats for blockbuster movies).

I just watched my frist PPV (VOD) movie in HD on Cox Cable, Stardust, the other night. The only reason was because they gave me a coupon to get a free movie (selection was GF's choice). HD movies normally cost $5.99. The movie was not shown OAR, a la HBO HD, and there were a number of problems with macroblocking and artifacts throughout the film, especially during scenes that had a lot of motion, a la HBO HD. It was bad enough that sitting 12 feet away from a 34" CRT TV, I still saw it. The 5.1 DD AQ was adequate. Since it was free, I have no complaints, but if I were to ever to pay $6 to rent a movie for its HD quality, it will be a BD from Blockbuster or Hollywood video. PPV/VOD (at least from my cable co., which is generally pretty good in most areas) has a ways to go to entice consumers who care about PQ.

I can't see VOD being threanting to BD. My Block Buster subscription in $15.00 a month. For that I can take out 3 dvd's out at a time (not 3 per month no late fees). When Im done I take them to the Block Buster store and exchange them for 3 different moives. Then they send me the next 3 movies in my Que. Every month I get 2 extra passes to rent 2 extra movies or video games. I watch an average of 15-16 movies a month. That's averages $1 a movie. Much cheaper than the $ 4.95 to $6.95 per movie from my local cable provider. Granted the only advantage VOD has is you don't have to worry about bringing back the movie or incurring late fees.