"Blu-ray Disc" vs. "HD DVD": Neither Is Winning

[Hulk]

Mark,

I'll extend the same challenge to you.

Please post one link... just one... to any credible manufacturer or production firm doing genuine 1080/60p acquisition, editing, distribution.

It's been three (3) years since Randy Hoffner of ABC wrote this article:

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Tech-Corner/f_randy_hoffner.shtml

So do you think it's going to take another three (3) years before 1080/60p production/distribution will actually be a reality?

If so, are you content to spend a wad of cash on a 1080p screen just to watch the few Blu-ray Disc titles that are available in the 24 frames per second format?

That's your choice.

Doesn't seem worth it to me.

Currently, 1080p is "much ado about nothing."



Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

1080p is first about spatial resolution, not temporal.

60p provides smoother motion, not increased detail.

Whether it is 24p, 60p or a freakin' still frame it doesn't matter. I am seeing the increased resolution in ANY 1080p stream on my 1080p display.

Do you understand Jerry? I see the increased resolution right now. When I'm watching Blu-Rays, when I'm watching HD-DVDs, when I'm using the display as a monitor, when I'm viewing stills, and when I'm viewing any camcorder content that does full raster 1080p and that list is growing every day.

Get it? Maybe you're eyes aren't good enough to discern 1080p but mine are.

You want more? Okay here is more.

20/20 human vision can discern one minute of arc, or about 1/60 of a degree.

With a little simple trigonometry you can figure out the minimum viewing distance for a display. Any closer and you will be able to see individual pixels, thus taking away from the illusion of a continuous smooth image.

For a 52" 1080p display that minimum distance is 6.8 feet, for 52" 720p that distance is 10.1 feet. My preferred viewing distance is about 8 or 9 feet. I don't want to see pixels so I require 1080p.

I AM NOT going to refuse to move into the future because one Apple zealot is telling me that 720p is enough because the Apple TV can only do that. Actually 960 horizonatally right?

Jerry you can sit around and watch 320x240 resolution video and snicker to yourself about how all those fools are "wasting money on HD" while your "precious" 320x240 is more than anyone could want. We hates 1080p! We hates it, it burns us!!

Ha ha ha ha!

Enjoy living in the past and say hi to Dorothy for me since you're obviously living in the land of OZ!

[Hulk]

Jerry,

Do you have a cell phone or would you rather not "fumble around with all that new technology."

I bet if you do have a cell phone you got a great deal on one of those WWII models with the back pack and the hand crank generator and all.

I can hear you now.

"Keep them itsy bitsy new fangled dang on cell phones if you want but my army surplus model does it all! And I can drop it or get it wet and the dang gun thing just a keeps workin and workin."

Good old Jerry cleaning the grease off the wheels of progress and replacing it with water in hopes that those wheels will rust to a stop.

Jerry - I've got a couple of perfectly good old tube TV's. If you pay the shipping I'll send them to you. Let me see I've got a 9 incher and a 13 incher...


You know another thing I can't stand is how they push those GPS units on us! What the hell was ever the problem with maps anyway right Jerry!

Anybody that buys a GPS is a fool wasting money.

[Sasq]

reminds me, hd on the atv went snuff, need to replace it
pity, lost a few movies along the way.

[Hulk]

Jerry,

Forgot to mention.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DKUS,DKUS:2006-46,DKUS:en&q=red+one

$17k body only.

4k at 30fps
3k at 60fps
2k at 75fps

Welcome to the future.

Things are moving and shaking on the coasts baby!

[Jerry Jones]

Mark,

APPLE TV 720p is 1280 horizontal by 720 vertical.

http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

I've said all along that you're free to spend, spend, spend as you wish, Mark.

But your arguments somehow fail to persuade.

You seem to ignore published references and studies that often flatly contradict your strongly held assumptions and, oddly, you rarely document your positions with links to authoritative sources.

And you once went on record saying that you liked the "marketing" for Blu-ray over HD DVD simply because you thought the term Blu-ray sounded "cool."

We all agree 720p TV screens will eventually be replaced by 1080p displays.

But what I'm saying is this: the 720p/1080p TV screen difference isn't big enough to be important for most people.

And... as I usually do... I'll provide a link to an article that I believe backs me up:

http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages_b/1080p_TheLastWord.html

HDTVs with 42-inch and smaller screens will probably look just as good with 720p or 768p resolution as they would with 1080p resolution. Even a 50-inch HDTV has a minimum viewing distance of about six feet for 1080p and just over eight feet for 768p. As of this writing, the “sweet spot” for HDTV sales ranges from 37 inches to 46 inches. With the viewing distance examples shown, there’s little advantage to spending extra money just to get more pixels on the screen. A 768p or 720p HDTV with a good internal deinterlacer and video scaler, coupled with a decent scaling DVD player like OPPO’s DV-981HD, should do the trick nicely.

What seems a little scary about your comments, Mark, is that some poor reader might actually come across them and believe that 1080p is absolutely a "requirement" -- as you put it -- and then spend about two to three times what is necessary to get a decent HD picture in the home and possibly even start down the road toward personal bankruptcy if your "shock jock" suggestions about 4K were to be taken seriously.

As I've stated many times, even standard definition DVD picture quality is fine as far as I'm concerned and as far as most people are concerned. I just feel the storage and convenience issues are going to weigh heavily in favor of digital downloads in the years to come and I would also agree with those who favor upscaling standard DVD players over "Blu-ray" or "HD DVD" players... per this article...

http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages_b/ReallyNeed.html

It would be nice if we didn't live in the real world where budgets matter, Mark.

(And you might think it would be nice if we didn't live in a world where facts matter.)

But they do.

As far as I'm concerned, true 1080p (60 frames per second) would be nice if it actually existed.

It would be a great format for government organizations for use in projecting video/audio to large audiences.

But even if it were in widespread use, 1080/60p would probably be overkill for the living room.

720p -- for most of us -- is plenty good enough.

It would be one thing if you really were attempting to say that you "require" 1080p because of technical considerations.

But that message isn't what truly comes through.

The message that one often gets from your comments is that you think having a 1080p screen somehow lifts you above the pack because you own a TV with a bigger number stamped on it.

I don't want to believe that you intend to communicate something as juvenile as that.

But why is it that message is what always comes through?



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Oh, Mark, in answer to your question.

Yes, I own a cell phone.

But I plan to upgrade to an Apple iPhone... now with 16GB.

Now that's a big number.

So you should really love it.

And it's kind of expensive.

So you should love it even more.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Marshmallowman]

hehe tech is cool if its from apple, it all becomes clear we have us a an apple convert

[Sasq]

not really sure if you guys are actually having fun here, i grow somewhat tired however.
i am tempted to substitute 720p for cake, 1080p for pie, and every mention of apple for 'ice cream'

pie>cake
pie and ice cream where possible is even nicer.

[Jerry Jones]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23262620/

Ready to buy Blu-ray? Better hit pause button

Price expected to remain high for now, and you'll need to upgrade, too

The high-definition DVD format war may be over, but not the battle for eyeballs and dollars when it comes to viewing high-def movies.

With Toshiba’s announcement Tuesday that it’s abandoning the HD DVD format it helped create, leaving Sony’s Blu-ray the winner, consumers may feel they have no choice but to buy a Blu-ray player in order to enjoy movies in HD.

There are good reasons to wait. Among them are the cost of the players, which range between $400 and $500 and are expected to remain at that level in the months ahead, said Rob Enderle, president of The Enderle Group research firm. Even at $400, that’s about twice the price most consumers are comfortable with — the “I-don’t-have-to-ask-my-wife’s-permission” number of around $200, said Enderle.

“Probably closer to the end of year, the holiday season, we’ll see some pricing come down,” said Steve Baker, vice president of industry analysis for The NPD Group. “Right now, there’s not a lot of incentive to drive pricing down.”

You'll want to upgrade

But cost isn’t the only factor. If you bought a Blu-ray player last year, chances are you could wind up buying another one next year as well. That’s because most stand-alone Blu-ray players are essentially version 1.0 and not upgradeable.

And you will be wanting to upgrade, “otherwise you’ll have an obsolete product next year,” said Enderle.

“One of the differences between HD DVD and Blu-ray is that the HD platform was complete when it went to market, because you could connect it to the Internet for updates, patches or security fixes,” Enderle said. “Most Blu-ray players have no network connection, except (for those that are) on the PlayStation 3.”

More fuel to the fire that's burning across the land with the news that "HD DVD" and "Blu-ray Disc" are as dead as DISC-o.



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Mehen]

not really sure if you guys are actually having fun here, i grow somewhat tired however.
i am tempted to substitute 720p for cake, 1080p for pie, and every mention of apple for 'ice cream'

pie>cake
pie and ice cream where possible is even nicer.

Do it!!

[Brian Ellis]

Do it!!

Just lock the thread before the men in white coats cart Jerry away!

[Umfriend]

So, finally, my first post to this thread. I've read most of it over time and have to say I enjoyed it. I hope it continues.

Personally, I own a LCD-TV now: My 4:3 sony CRT TV died. I do have a DVD player but only because it is a SACD player that plays DVDs as well.

I'm perfectly happy watching a good movie or documentary etc on a 4:3 50i PAL CRT. I Simply do not understand all the fuzz about the formats and pic.quality as central to 'the experience' when the challenge, for me, is finding interesting content.

IOW, this trhead is so inapplicable to me that I love to read it.

[Jerry Jones]

I'm perfectly happy watching a good movie or documentary etc on a 4:3 50i PAL CRT. I Simply do not understand all the fuzz about the formats and pic.quality as central to 'the experience' when the challenge, for me, is finding interesting content.

Agree 100%!



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

http://blogs.computerworld.com/blu_ray_format_war_loses_mac_figer_cable_speed_appletv

When you look at the HD format wars this way, the Blu-Ray (or specifically physical disc) camp seems to be the serious long term underdog. With a $400 price of entry and significant per-title cost, consumers want the format that will be around in 5 years, not something that will be obsolete in 1-2 years.

With Internet speeds increasing (A 100Mbps fiber connection is faster than a Blu-Ray read speed 36Mbs-72Mbs) and the ability to download full 1080 HD movies on the horizon. Portability concerns are being addressed as well. Apple is making their content able to play on any device connected to the Apple TV account.

While Blu-Ray currently offers the best viewing experience and other benefits in storage and archival areas, its recent win vs. HD DVD is only the begining of the HD fight – a fight which I think Blu-Ray will eventually lose.

Scores of online writers continue to use their incredible analytical skills to correctly point out that "HD DVD" and "Blu-ray Disc" are both as dead as DISC-o.



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[paulw]

Just lock the thread before the men in white coats cart Jerry away!

I've been a member of this group for about 10 years now and I don't remember a thread that has so many posts and gone on so long. Is this a record??