"HD DVD" Capacity Increase Challenges "Blu-ray Disc"

[Hulk]

Yes, I forgot the "NOT."

Well there are all different types of engineering programs out there and *some* people title themselves engineers when they in fact don't have an engineering degree.

Having come from a pretty decent school where they literally tried to kill us I can tell you I can't believe any engineer couldn't understand resolution, scaling, mapping, etc... but I believe you! It does happen.

I remember my first day at Rutgers. They spoke to all the new engineers and told us to "look to your right...look to your left...both of those people won't be here next year."

And it was true, about 2/3's drop out of engineering. I think 1/3 just realize engineering wasn't for them and the other 1/3 weren't prepared for the math and science.

I have to tell you one thing I really look forward to is the day that we can say goodbye to interlacing forever. No more interlaced formats period. End of story.

I'm tired of deinterlacing, field order, explaining it, writing about it, seeing it...!!!!

I think the primary thing that separates good LCD TV's from the bad ones when viewing SD is how they deinterlace.

[Tjalfe]

I know several of my classmates who may have a hard time with the resolution/scaling thing. These were the people who got an engineering degree by basically memorizing the book, not understanding what was really going on

oh yeah.. the Civil Engineers at my school tended to be the partying group, not paying as much attention to their studies

[Jerry Jones]

Well there are all different types of engineering programs out there and *some* people title themselves engineers when they in fact don't have an engineering degree.

There were more than a dozen licensed civil engineers in my department and one mechanical engineer.

They all focused on wastewater treatment.

But did they do the engineering design work for the giant industrial wastewater treatment complexes owned and operated by our city?

Nope.

They instead supervised the private sector contract-based engineering firms hired by the city.

They focused on project management.

Sure, one can learn calculus at some point in one's life, but I would be willing to bet that those who take and pass calculus exams fail to retain all of their skills later in life if they don't work on calculus problems each and every day or week.

My observation is that many people with engineering credentials often go to work doing other things.

Then years pass.

And they forget what they learned in college.

I took four years of mathematics in high school and my skills were above average at that time.

On the ACT exam, my science score was in the 89th percentile of the nation, too.

But after I graduated from high school and then ran out of money during my first year of college, I decided to do voluntary missionary work in Bolivia for my church for a couple of years.

It probably shouldn't surprise anybody that when I finally got back into college, I had forgotten a lot of what I had learned previously and I had to start all over again.

I suspect the same is true for a significant number of people.

The human memory can retain quite a bit, but not everything.

Mark, do you think you could still get through a comprehensive calculus exam now?

If so, then I envy your mind because there's no way I would be able to retain that kind of information for very long.

Or would you also have to review for such an exam?

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[VJ]

I'm a bit more conservative regarding the timeframe in which DVD will be surpassed by something else (BR or HD), esp. here in Europe.

The reasons for this are:
- Many people are now buying (or have recently bought) a flatscreen TV; but only recently those models have gotten the label HD Ready (indicating 720p). So many people have a relatively new TV that isn't HD capable; they won't be able to benefit from the HD content (and are not going to replace their TVs after 4 years or so).
- There is a large userbase for DVDs, making the market more difficult to penetrate. Don't forget that DVDs are also played back on portable devices, in cars, ... If one now buys a BR or HD disk, the playback options are limited.
- Cable companies (most people here have cable, about 95% !) haven't started broadcasting HD content. While digital TV only made its entrance last year, the current settopboxes are not capable of HD broadcasts. I doubt many people will now buy a new set top box just to see the HD content (most likely only on pay channels), so people don't see what they are missing.
- Many people don't really care that much about quality....
- If people in this forum are on the fence between HD DVD and BluRay, how do you think the common man feels about the 2 standards?

Market penetration for players will only start to happen once the new standards are so cheap, that if people need to buy a new dvd drive, the price difference between the BR or HD and the DVD player is small enough to make them purchase the BR or HD.
(there will always be early adopters, but for mainstream market, this is how I see it)

VHS was only replaced 2 years ago (and last year VHS recorders became unavailable in stores - apart from VHS combo devices) , despite DVD recorders being available for a much longer timeframe.


Jörg

[Jerry Jones]

I think high definition DVDs may never gain widespread market adoption.

But, if they do, I suspect it's going to take until 2017... another decade.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Jerry,

There is no way I would pass a serious Calc exam right now at this moment. I could probably get through the first semester exam without too much difficulty. Possibily, just possibly squeak by Calc II. But I would fail III, IV, and V. No doubt about it.

But engineering isn't about remembering the details of how to solve 2nd order linear differential equations. It's more about recognizing the type of problems (vibrations ike mass-spring-damper systems) that result in those types of equations and knowing where to go for the solution. More specifically engineering is about training the mind how to think. I don't know what your background is but you would be a great engineer because you are a logical thinker. One of my professors one said everything can be described by a differential equation. He was pretty much right. Then one of the students said, "how about love?" Like I said, pretty much right.

My engineering background provided me with the skills to do many things that I wasn't explicitly taught in school. It provides me (usually) with the foundation to draw logical conclusions and find additional information.

I think where we differ with regards to technology is that I appear to be a bit more optomisic than you. I tend to think innovations will occur sooner rather than later and will be useful as opposed to being unuseful and a PITA. A lot of this is probably based on our accumulated life experiences and of course they have been wildly different. I guess I prefer to live in a world where I can at least believe there are some cool things coming my way sooner rather than later.

[Jerry Jones]

Thanks, Mark.

You did well to get through a four-year engineering program.

How many people have the discipline to do that?

When I was young, my keen interest in current events steered me into journalism and TV news, specifically.

That's too bad.

In hindsight, I wish I had studied electrical or computer engineering.

As I grew older in the TV news business, I just kept covering tragedy, despair and insanity.

So much of it is senseless.

For instance, just the other day somebody with whom I worked in TV news was murdered.

Apparently, her own 16-year-old son killed her while she slept.

I seem to recall how she carried this kid -- as a baby -- into the TV station where she proudly showed him off to everybody.

To remember that baby -- and then to realize that baby has apparently grown up to murder his own mother -- wow -- it's just a reminder of why I got out of that business.

When I learned about this the other day, I picked up the phone and talked to one of my former co-anchors at the station.

It's been a tough one for everybody still working at my old station.

A real puzzler, too.

Motive is still not clear.

Anyway, I wish I had an engineering degree now instead of a communications degree.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

That is a really sad and disturbing story. For some reason we are unfortunately hearing more of the same every day. Actually I have theories...

When I first got out of college I worked as an engineer for an environmental engineering firm. That was in the late 1980's just as there was a big mandate to stop ocean dumping of waste that was not fully treated. Since I was freshly out of college they actually had me doing Calculus, verfying stress on belt filter presses, etc... everyone else except for one guy had forgotten most of it. Anyway during the '90's there was a noticeable effect on the NJ beaches, the water really did clear up substantially over the course of a few years.