I think the current DVD/DV standard will be around for some time.

[Hulk]

I know there are high definition video formats looming on the horizon, but I am betting that our current DVD/DV format (720x480 in NTSCLand) will be around for quite a while longer.

Here's why I believe this:

1. Inertia of the market. There are literally millions of DVD players and DV camcorders in the world market. Not to mention all of the software that support them. The current format is inexpensive, small, and of high quality by consumer standards. Introducing a new standard will be tough. Look at the current difficulty of the DVD audio and Super audio CD market. There really is no mainstream market for either, despite their sonic superiority over traditional 16 bit/44100 CD's. The battle between both formats hasn't helped either. Don't get me wrong, I welcome a higher resolution format and consider myself an audiophile, but I just don't see the mainstream going for it. Again, there is too much inertia with the installed base of CD players and software (ie CD's).

2. Law of diminishing returns. As in my example above, higher resolution audio is not perceiveable to most people. For one thing, they don't listen for it, and secondly, for the most part they don't have the equipment to hear the increased resolution and frequency range. Most people are quite happy with current CD sound and, in fact, are happy with 128bit mp3 compression. The market seems to want increased portabilty, not fidelity. Higher resolution formats will continue to appeal to recording engineers and such since it is nice to work above the resolution of the final medium.

I will concede that hi def video is more apparent than high def audio, but the consumer must have the hi def TV to see the difference. A major obstacle. Most people are quite happy with current DVD resolution and will not want to trash their DVD players, television's, and possibly DVD collection if the industry isn't smart enough to make new player completely backward compatable. Also, I bet many consumers will be reluctant to upgrade if it means losing the abilty to create their own CD's and DVD's. And you know copy protection on the next iteration of audio and video formats is going to be devistating.

Again, high def video will appeal to pro's and semi pro's. It's always nice to work in a higher resolution than the final format for effects, blue screen work, etc. I just don't see it happening for the mainstream for 5 years or so, probably more like 10.

I was just thinking about this and thought I'd share my feeling with my fellow videographers.

- Mark

[Brian Ellis]

Mark

There is another very compelling reason: no one can even agree on an international HDTV standard. Until this is sorted out, the mass market cannot be addressed.

Then there is the cost: you cannot make HDTV sets with current TV tubes; you need something like monitor resolution. This is feasible, but it doesn't come cheap. Nor does the transmission and studio equipment. In Europe, a couple of major broadcasters have come a cropper with just ordinary digital TV broadcasting. If they can't make this small step, how do you think they'll make the big one?

Then there is recording media. Let's just make a guess of 3 times horizontal axis, say, 2160 x 1215 at 16:9 AR. This would mean 6.33 times the info per frame. Your 1 hr mini-DV tape or equivalent would give 9.5 minutes, all other things being equal and your 90 minute DVD would find itself storing less than 15 minutes. Not to mention that your RT editing would no longer be RT unless you had a 10 GHz processor, with 5 Gb RAM and a 1 Tb hard video drive array working at 200 Mb/s. I'm not saying that this cannot come, but it is not for the immediate and Windows will require a boot partition of 10 Gb by then, and will take 10 minutes to boot up

I first saw colour TV in 1948, when I was a student (in fact, I did my dissertation on it). But it took until the 1960s before it became a commercial reality for the very rich and the 1970s for the middle classes. I know the technology was there, including the shadow mask tube, as early as the mid 1950s (I grant you that the SM tube was very dim at that time, requiring a blacked-out room for viewing). The BBC were transmitting experimental colour then to check for compatibility issues with b/w sets. The point I'm making is that broadcasting and equipment will not only take a long time to become the commercial norm, as in the changeover from mono to colour, the two systems would need to run in parallel for at least a decade because of compatibility issues. France dropped their 815 line system and the UK their 405 line system in favour of 625 lines, but both countries had to run their old systems for eight or ten years in parallel with the new.

HDTV is still pie-in-the-sky for the man-in-the-street and I agree with you that it is unlikely to make a mass penetration before 2010, at the earliest. By that time, I would be nearly 80, so I'll probably be sucking dandelions by the roots or, at the worst, be gaga.

[Hulk]

Interesting. I'm starting to think that a few things are going to have to come into alignment for this to occur.

- As you stated, television tube technology will have to change. It may be that as the prices of lcd flatscreens become reasonable they will be the perfect vehicle vehicle for hdtv to ride into the family room.

-Storage will definitely be an issue with current media. There are some possibilities though. A higher compression non-temportal DV like scheme - higher compression ratios might be possible given the fact that the overall resolution is so much higher. Another possibility is MPEG-2 recording and editing.

-The one thing that I believe will be ready is the computer! The way these things are speeding up I don't think it will be too long before we see 10GHz. I wonder why some of the more time consuming filters and encoding schemes are written in assembly. I would love to see the speed of a hand coded MPEG-2 encoder in assembly.

-Mark

[Dr Mordrid]

1. Large format OLED (organic LED) displays are coming in the relatively short term, and they will be MUCH cheaper than gas plasma or LCD's. Hell, they can be printed on a plastic substrate using existing Epson printing technologies. OLED's have several advantages, including that they are emissive, have a wide viewing angles, relatively low power usage and switch at high speeds. Once in mass production they should also be very cheap.

2. Storage for video is moving soon to blue LED MPEG-2 DVD's, which can store 16:9 HD @1920x1080 video on one disk. If, on the other hand, you use the MPEG-4 Main Profile/Level 4 encoding you can fit HD 16:9 on the current red laser DVD's. The DVD Forum approved the MPEG-4 DVD option last spring.

3. 16:9 editing can be done with current computers, even in realtime, and the MPEG-2 encoding for DVD can also be done in realtime. Upping the pixel count for 1920x1080 HD would require a bit more speed, but not as much as you would think save for realtime solutions that use only software.

Dr. Mordrid

[Patrick]

Not so fast there young fella...

By that time, I would be nearly 80, so I'll probably be sucking dandelions by the roots or, at the worst, be gaga.

Naw, you'll still be posting on the 'net causing all sorts of trouble.