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Topic: Death Knell of HD-DVD?
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Claus Harding
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1149
From: Washington DC
Registered: Oct 2006
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posted January 06, 2008 11:18 AM
It would be excellent if the HD/Blu-Ray war could end this quickly so we can have one format and move on; there should never have been two formats to begin with.
If 'Joe Average' can't tell the difference between HiDef and regular, he must be looking at some pretty poorly set up displays or simply not be paying attention.
Physics don't lie: twice the resolution, run through component or HDMI cables, makes for an image quite improved over conventional 525/625 (upscaled or not.)
What does create some silliness is cable in this transition period. Example:
I have a 27-inch regular TV. The cable shows, say, a channel in 16-by-9, with masking top and bottom. That's fine. Now, the program the channel is showing is shot in 'regular' format, so within the 16-by-9 frame, the square image is masked on the sides.
Now, to really get crazy, the 'regular' program featured is showing 16-by-9 footage which has been masked top-and-bottom AGAIN, so the end result is a picture about 25% smaller than my screen, surrounded by thick black borders on all sides.
I see this on a pretty regular basis. Ah well, this too shall pass...I watch so little TV as it is that it really doesn't matter to me. But a HiDef player I will wait for.
Best,
Claus.
--------------------
"Why are there shots of deserts in a scene that's supposed to take place in Belgium during the winter?" (Review of 'Battle of the Bulge'.)
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted January 06, 2008 01:58 PM
Personally I have very little motivation to jump on the HD/Blue-ray bandwagon right now. Most of the DVD's that I buy are from the classic period of Hollywood movies, 1930's thru 1950's, and it remains to be seen if any of these will be any better in HD/Blue ray than they are in standard defintion DVD (I doubt it), or indeed if many of them will ever get released at all in HD. Like Graham, I am totally satisfied anyway with standard DVD, which for the most part leaves very little to be desired in terms of picture and sound quality. I think 95% of the general public feel the same way, and I think high definition DVD is going to have a hard time becoming mainstream.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 06, 2008 07:08 PM
I agree about standard DVD. They came out with a "deluxe deluxe" edition of "It's A Wonderful Life", (with just about the same extras) and the picture was supposed to be a hi-def transfer of the original camera negative (which was used for the earlier 40th anniversary edition, which was also restored)
... and I saw almost no difference. Slight highlights, but not enough to make a real difference.
Besides, we literally have as close to film as we can get already in DVD. Not quite, but just about.
It's like with audio, (and I know I've mentioned this before), we have reached the point where the clarity of sound
is beyond what the human ear can decifer, and yet we keep on coming up with even greater sound? What's the point when you can't hear the difference?
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Stewart McSporran
Master Film Handler
Posts: 272
From: Glasgow, Scotland
Registered: Nov 2003
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posted January 06, 2008 11:58 PM
Mark,
The Rathbone set is "Sherlock Holmes - The Definitive Collection (Digitally Remastered)". It's on Amazon UK here: Amazon Link
The projector I'm still using is the Sanyo PLV-Z1 which I got four years ago. Its only faults, in comparison to modern machines, is a slightly less than ideal black level and some screen door effects, although not really obvious at normal viewing distances.
I'm dithering about just getting the Z5 which I understand greatly improves the above, but is still 1/4 HD as Sanyo calls it. It's available on the web for under £600. However, since I'll be buying it through my company - I need a "presentation" ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) machine - it's tempting to go to HD.
Unfortunately the local dealers don't carry LCD machines and DLP gives me a headache. I think my persistence of vision is slightly screwed - when scenes pan on films I don't see smooth motion, I see a series of jerky images, even (especially) at the cinema!
Stewart
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