CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

I see people going on and on about how nobody cares about HD, average dude can't see the difference, no reason to get it, blah blah...

Here's a little reminder of prophesied technological conservatism to poke 'em with:

http://books.google.com/books?id=1AsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA99&dq=dvd&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1990&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1995&as_brr=1&as_pt=MAGAZINES&pg=PA99#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Another fun bit - the optimists at the time were saying that by 2000, DVDs might be shifting 25 million units - the number ended up being 200m...

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Still, the optics say you can't fully resolve HD with 20/20 vision at any more than 1.8x width. Given that the average dude probably sits at least twice that far from his 42" LCD, he isn't going to be able to see the difference between HD and SD. That's just the math. Now whether Average Dude decides to buy one anyway, because he's so ignorant he's gonna feed it with S-video, is another question, and that's what's going to determine the sales figures.

ecrabb · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:24 pm Post subject:

I agree and I disagree. On the one hand... Yeah, you can't see much difference at the typical 4x and even 5x screen widths that a lot of J6P's sit from their boob tubes. On the other hand, flat panels in general have a lot going for them... Hang on wall, set on mantle, shelf, table-top... WAF is high. Plus, you have more and more sporting events broadcast in HD... Even J6P's that wouldn't have cared about go to their buddy's house or the bar and see the Broncos or whatever in HD, and they start drooling... gotta have it! Hell, I can almost watch GOLF in HD. Wink

To be honest, I'm not even sure HD adoption is an issue, anymore... I think it's going like gang-busters.

Again, back on the other hand, if you're talking about Blu-ray specifically, then I don't think DVD is necessarily a good metric. You have to remember what DVD was replacing: crappy VHS. You had to rewind it, the sound sucked (even for non-audio/video people), it wore out, it had sparklies (remember tracking???!!)... DVD has none of those issues. To most people, BD is just a higher-quality replacement of DVD - which already works fine. However, I don't think any of that is much of an issue, either. The last figures I read were that BD adoption is ahead of where DVD was in its life cycle, and I think the last prediction I read was that BD would overtake DVD in 2012 - just over 2 years from now.

People buy those swanky TV's, and are increasingly wanting BD to go along with it. I was at Costco the other day and was behind a guy buying a BD player. The players have gotten much more reasonable, there are some sales on the movies... I think it's on the move. I think we're probably pretty close to critical mass... Maybe Christmas will open the flood gates.

SC

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:36 pm Post subject:

DVD did get rolling fast. I'd say it was because the manufacture's started dropping prices on the hardware. Then Blockbuster started to rent DVD's. That's when the market really took off around here. That was around late 2000 I believe. Not bad considering the big introduction around here was in 1996 and the stores started selling DVD players in Jan 1997 here.

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

I get the 'fully resolve' thing, but I don't think that's the whole story. As a really quick anecdote - I can't see one-on-one-off lines at 1920x1080 from my seating position - about 1.2x. But if I have a big white square in the center of the screen, the edges of that are FAR less sharp perceptually than the white/black edge on the screen border. The increased contrast of that edge doesn't account for it. 'fully resolving' isn't everything. With a vertical transition on a digital it might be different, because the pixel edges are 'hard' - but anything spread over a couple of pixels will obviously not look the same.

I defy you to take a photo of the area to the right of your TV, and display it on there at 1920x1080, and perceive it as being just as sharp as the real scene, even if you alter the room lighting so the ANSI is similar.

Nyquist suggests that the real high frequency content of 1920x1080 is limited to roughly half that resolution unless you're looking at a square wave - so saying that we can't see 1920x1080 fully seems like a red herring. Last time I checked, they print film at 2k with the same target viewing distances - presumably they don't invest vast amounts of money in the glass, post-processing, and knowledge to gain that result without reason.

Am I missing something?

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 3:40 pm Post subject:

Don't forget the 'bragability factor' A lot of guys will buy on specification. "Look It's full 1080p!" hooked up with a composite cable. Laughing

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 3:50 pm Post subject:

Funny your like took me to a DVD vs VHS article. DOH!! Lemme see if I can find the right one. Laughing

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Whoops, I forgot to post my Cedia report. Smile

letre · Joined: 25 Aug 2009 Posts: 18

One draw back right now with blu-ray is that once you buy a blu ray player, there is really not that many blu ray movies! Sure a lot of new movies are coming out in Blu Ray. But how many really good movies come out in a month's time? Maybe this christmas the price of blu ray players will drop, but in the end it will be merely for the few great movies that come out. Speaking of great movies...I think that the movie KNOWING was great!!!

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

ecrabb · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:46 pm Post subject:

Letre,

Unless you watch a LOT of movies, there should be plenty of movies on BD to keep you busy. I can't possibly keep up with the movies coming out on BD. Get a Blu-ray player - you won't be sorry.

I've said it before, but after watching movies on Blu-ray, I'd almost rather watch paint dry in HD than watch a good movie on SD DVD. I'm exaggerating, obviously, but it's really that good.

SC

**kal** · October 06, 2009

Yup. I have to agree with SC. "Content is king" is certainly true but we've gotten to the point where you can happily mostly (or only) watch Blu-ray and be happy.

From Wikipedia:

As of June 2009, more than 1000 Blu-ray disc titles are available in Australia, 2500 in Japan, 1500 in the United Kingdom, and 2500 in the United States and Canada.

I have a HUGE pile of Blu-ray movies yet to watch and I try to watch at least one movie/week. It's not all new stuff either. Lots of good old stuff from Robin Hood (1938) all the way up to recent 2009 titles.

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

Thank goodness! "Bollyrobics: Dance Like Bollywood Stars" and "Waterworld"! I tell you - it's been a long time coming... Very Happy

**kal** · Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 2:29 pm Post subject:

Yep. Been waiting for Bollyrobics for what seems like forever! Oscar nomination for sure! Smile

Kal

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

The people who don't "get" HD are, as I see it, mostly people who don't have equipment that can do proper justice to HD in the first place.

If their version of HD is a 32" Sharp LCD monitor, they're not going to get the impact that HD can deliver on, say, a 60" set. So they
don't see the big deal...due to equipment issues. And they figure that they're getting all that HD has to offer, out of honest ignorance.

Nobody who's seen my Marquee on HD has come away less than VERY impressed. HD is compelling when done right.

As for Blu-Ray, of course I was a fairly early adopter. But I'm not buying very many Blu-Ray movies because as a general rule I am
not duplicating titles. If I have the DVD, I probably won't get the Blu-Ray version of the same title. There is exactly ONE movie that
I have in both formats, and that's Ratatouille.

New movies, I only buy on Blu-Ray now. And I don't buy very many because not many movies are good enough for me that I want
to watch them often enough to get my money's worth.

I try to balance the probable number of times I'll watch a movie against its cost vs. the cost of renting the movie from Blockbuster.

If I'd watch it often enough that it would be cheaper to buy the movie than rent it that many times, then I'll buy it.

I'm USUALLY right. There haven't been very many movies that I bought that turned out to not be worth watching that many times,
although there have been a couple.

CJ