Is it true that Paramount is going to shaft us on the DVD extras?

[darkwing_duck1]

Basically, Blu-Ray is and may always be the premium product, while DVD is and will continue to be the unleaded edition.

Well, "always" is a dangerous thing to say.

Once upon a time, there were "premium pressings" and "mass-market pressings" on vinyl records. And REAL audiophiles could actually buy dubs onto reel-to-reel tape.

When cassettes were all the rage, you had "regular tapes," but you could also get your tapes on Chromium Oxide, or even better, "Metal" tape, which was far more pricey but gave much better sound.

CDs came out, and it was a holy war between those who argued that you'd lose some elements of the music (which is true, but almost entirely in ranges which are undetectable by mere mortal humans) and those who claimed that CDs were literally unbreakable and "permanent."

VHS and Beta... I'm sure some of us remember that. Beta was better, but VHS was cheaper to produce.

Anyone still have some laserdiscs?

Everytime one of these came along, it was going to be that way "forever." Most of them aren't even able to be played anymore. God help you if you invested in 8-track...

I fully expect blu-ray to be the "standard" within two years, and conventional DVD to be entirely phased out. The good thing is that this won't invalidate your existing library... you can still play DVDs on blu-ray players, and you can still play CDs on blu-ray players for that matter.

The whole point of blu-ray is very simple... you have a different frequency of laser, which permits reading (and, in some cases, writing) of data at much finer resolutions than the traditional "red laser" used in CD and DVD players. This frequency is, of course, in the "blue" color range, hence the name of the techology. ("High Definition DVD" was also a blue-laser technology, by the way... the difference was mainly in terms of how the disks are manufactured and how data is arranged on the disk.)

So, they crammed more data onto a disk using a blue laser rather than a red laser. This also required more precise bearings, a more accurate stepper motor for moving the read (or read/write) laser head in and out, and a more accurate servo motor for spinning the disk.

Every time somebody increases the storage limit, it takes very little time before it becomes commonplace to use that storage fully. Remember when "nobody will ever be able to fill up a 250MB hard drive?" Remember when a 1GB hard drive was considered "overkill?" I do.

So, I have no doubt that research will continue... more accurate spindle systems will be developed, and the wavelength of the laser will continue to be shrunk until the laser is well out of the range of visible light entirely. And I would be shocked if it took another five years before we see the next technology emerge (although it won't be ADOPTED as mainstream for a little while longer).

At some point someone's going to have to break the "disk" cycle, however. And flash memory isn't ever going to do it... it's simply not acceptable as an archival storage method. I suspect that the ongoing (with limited success) research into 3D-data-matrix "holographic memory" will be the inevitable next step. Can't picture it? Think of the glass blocks from the HAL core in 2001...

Tell the whole story. There's also the issue of buying a player that has to constantly have it's software "updated", making necessary some sort of Net conncection, and allowing the code source to monitor your box, and even shut it down.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

You can buy a blu-ray player for a reasonable price at Walmart.com and also at BestBuy.com.

I tell you they are worth it if you own a HD TV!

Then there's the extra 20-30% markup on Blu Rays...I can BARELY justify buying some DVDs new at $15-20. $25-30 for a "bare bones" BR is just too much...

Pretty much all major new BD releases this fall are $16.99-$20.99, including HP6, Terminator Salvation, The Hangover, Angels & Demons, Up, GI Joe, Inglourious Basterds, District 9, etc. And some Walmarts have priced them as low as $14.99 this Fall.

On a few "fast movers" only. I look at the rest of their Blu Rays and routinely they are ~$7-10 higher for the same program.

 

[Trekker4747]

It's dirty business to deny product to your customer based on format. It would cost them NOTHING to put it on the dvds, since they are being made anyways.

Yeah. I'm lactose intollerant so all dairy products should be made with soy-based products so that I can enjoy delicious dairy products without feeling like I've been punched in the colon.

 

[Ovation]

Basically, Blu-Ray is and may always be the premium product, while DVD is and will continue to be the unleaded edition.

Well, "always" is a dangerous thing to say.

Once upon a time, there were "premium pressings" and "mass-market pressings" on vinyl records. And REAL audiophiles could actually buy dubs onto reel-to-reel tape.

When cassettes were all the rage, you had "regular tapes," but you could also get your tapes on Chromium Oxide, or even better, "Metal" tape, which was far more pricey but gave much better sound.

CDs came out, and it was a holy war between those who argued that you'd lose some elements of the music (which is true, but almost entirely in ranges which are undetectable by mere mortal humans) and those who claimed that CDs were literally unbreakable and "permanent."

VHS and Beta... I'm sure some of us remember that. Beta was better, but VHS was cheaper to produce.

Anyone still have some laserdiscs?

Everytime one of these came along, it was going to be that way "forever." Most of them aren't even able to be played anymore. God help you if you invested in 8-track...

I fully expect blu-ray to be the "standard" within two years, and conventional DVD to be entirely phased out. The good thing is that this won't invalidate your existing library... you can still play DVDs on blu-ray players, and you can still play CDs on blu-ray players for that matter.

The whole point of blu-ray is very simple... you have a different frequency of laser, which permits reading (and, in some cases, writing) of data at much finer resolutions than the traditional "red laser" used in CD and DVD players. This frequency is, of course, in the "blue" color range, hence the name of the techology. ("High Definition DVD" was also a blue-laser technology, by the way... the difference was mainly in terms of how the disks are manufactured and how data is arranged on the disk.)

So, they crammed more data onto a disk using a blue laser rather than a red laser. This also required more precise bearings, a more accurate stepper motor for moving the read (or read/write) laser head in and out, and a more accurate servo motor for spinning the disk.

Every time somebody increases the storage limit, it takes very little time before it becomes commonplace to use that storage fully. Remember when "nobody will ever be able to fill up a 250MB hard drive?" Remember when a 1GB hard drive was considered "overkill?" I do.

So, I have no doubt that research will continue... more accurate spindle systems will be developed, and the wavelength of the laser will continue to be shrunk until the laser is well out of the range of visible light entirely. And I would be shocked if it took another five years before we see the next technology emerge (although it won't be ADOPTED as mainstream for a little while longer).

At some point someone's going to have to break the "disk" cycle, however. And flash memory isn't ever going to do it... it's simply not acceptable as an archival storage method. I suspect that the ongoing (with limited success) research into 3D-data-matrix "holographic memory" will be the inevitable next step. Can't picture it? Think of the glass blocks from the HAL core in 2001...

Tell the whole story. There's also the issue of buying a player that has to constantly have it's software "updated", making necessary some sort of Net conncection, and allowing the code source to monitor your box, and even shut it down.

And thanks to those firmware updates, my PS3 has quite a number of new features that, without such updates, would have necessitated buying a new machine (and that applies to many Blu-ray players). I now have better audio options (important in my home cinema setup), more ways to fine-tune the image quality and the knowledge that I can get more improvements, FOR FREE, as time goes on. Wish my DVD players had been like that.

By the way, you do NOT have to keep it connected to the internet at all times (being monitored--oooooohh, scaarrry). You need only make the connection to update the firmware (which is not that often) or, for the paranoid, you can get the company to send you a disc with the updates or, for the slightly less paranoid, you can download the update to a USB flash drive or burn it on a CD on your computer. No need to ever connect the player to the internet if you don't want to.

 

[Amaris]

Well, "always" is a dangerous thing to say.

Once upon a time, there were "premium pressings" and "mass-market pressings" on vinyl records. And REAL audiophiles could actually buy dubs onto reel-to-reel tape.

When cassettes were all the rage, you had "regular tapes," but you could also get your tapes on Chromium Oxide, or even better, "Metal" tape, which was far more pricey but gave much better sound.

CDs came out, and it was a holy war between those who argued that you'd lose some elements of the music (which is true, but almost entirely in ranges which are undetectable by mere mortal humans) and those who claimed that CDs were literally unbreakable and "permanent."

VHS and Beta... I'm sure some of us remember that. Beta was better, but VHS was cheaper to produce.

Anyone still have some laserdiscs?

Everytime one of these came along, it was going to be that way "forever." Most of them aren't even able to be played anymore. God help you if you invested in 8-track...

I fully expect blu-ray to be the "standard" within two years, and conventional DVD to be entirely phased out. The good thing is that this won't invalidate your existing library... you can still play DVDs on blu-ray players, and you can still play CDs on blu-ray players for that matter.

The whole point of blu-ray is very simple... you have a different frequency of laser, which permits reading (and, in some cases, writing) of data at much finer resolutions than the traditional "red laser" used in CD and DVD players. This frequency is, of course, in the "blue" color range, hence the name of the techology. ("High Definition DVD" was also a blue-laser technology, by the way... the difference was mainly in terms of how the disks are manufactured and how data is arranged on the disk.)

So, they crammed more data onto a disk using a blue laser rather than a red laser. This also required more precise bearings, a more accurate stepper motor for moving the read (or read/write) laser head in and out, and a more accurate servo motor for spinning the disk.

Every time somebody increases the storage limit, it takes very little time before it becomes commonplace to use that storage fully. Remember when "nobody will ever be able to fill up a 250MB hard drive?" Remember when a 1GB hard drive was considered "overkill?" I do.

So, I have no doubt that research will continue... more accurate spindle systems will be developed, and the wavelength of the laser will continue to be shrunk until the laser is well out of the range of visible light entirely. And I would be shocked if it took another five years before we see the next technology emerge (although it won't be ADOPTED as mainstream for a little while longer).

At some point someone's going to have to break the "disk" cycle, however. And flash memory isn't ever going to do it... it's simply not acceptable as an archival storage method. I suspect that the ongoing (with limited success) research into 3D-data-matrix "holographic memory" will be the inevitable next step. Can't picture it? Think of the glass blocks from the HAL core in 2001...

Tell the whole story. There's also the issue of buying a player that has to constantly have it's software "updated", making necessary some sort of Net conncection, and allowing the code source to monitor your box, and even shut it down.

And thanks to those firmware updates, my PS3 has quite a number of new features that, without such updates, would have necessitated buying a new machine (and that applies to many Blu-ray players). I now have better audio options (important in my home cinema setup), more ways to fine-tune the image quality and the knowledge that I can get more improvements, FOR FREE, as time goes on. Wish my DVD players had been like that.

By the way, you do NOT have to keep it connected to the internet at all times (being monitored--oooooohh, scaarrry). You need only make the connection to update the firmware (which is not that often) or, for the paranoid, you can get the company to send you a disc with the updates or, for the slightly less paranoid, you can download the update to a USB flash drive or burn it on a CD on your computer. No need to ever connect the player to the internet if you don't want to.

Hell, you don't even have to keep it connected. My Magnavox Blu-ray player does not even have an ethernet connection, and it has never needed updating.

J.

 

[Ovation]

The need for updates will decrease as the authoring techniques attain maturity. In the early days of DVD, there were similar growing pains (though only a tiny fraction of current DVD player owners owned one in those days). Also, if we take inflation into account, at the same stage in the life cycle of DVD and BD, there are more affordable BD players now than there were DVD players then (defined as 250$ and under); there were fewer titles available and they were (adjusted for inflation) more expensive than many BD titles (I have some used copies of DVDs purchased in 2000--three years into the life cycle, just as BD is now--that still have the stickers on them and they cost more in absolute dollars (so quite a bit more in adjusted dollars) than 75% of my nearly 100 NEW BDs).

DVDs are entering their 13th year on the commercial market and we have become accustomed to really inexpensive special prices (loss leaders, in many cases). But the stack of 9.99$ BDs grows every month at local retailers like Best Buy and there are many deals to be had online (my first hundred DVDs cost me an average of 25$ or so, from 2000-2002--my first hundred or so BDs have cost me an average of 15$--in current (2007-2009 dollars).

Oh yeah, and BD looks better--sometimes A LOT better--than DVD (and that's worth a little something extra, isn't it?)

 

[darkshadow0001]

I keep hearing that the BluRay version will have a ton of stuff that won't be even in the deluxe multi-disc DVD version...sounds like a ham handed attempt to force us to convert up to Blu Ray...

I don't care. As long as I have the movie, I'm fine with the DVD BluRay won't matter since I don't have a BluRay player yet.

 

[Clancy_s]

There weren't a lot of extras but I only paid about $24 for the DVDs so I wasn't expecting too much.

The bluray was AU$30, with a fair few extras. I like that kinda thing so I'm happy

H HD itself is a premium content. It's not technical, you can cram a lot of stuff onto DVD, it's economics and marketing.

Basically, Blu-Ray is and may always be the premium product, while DVD is and will continue to be the unleaded edition.

Bluray coding is much harder to crack, because they keep changing it (hence the need for player upgrades), I suspect the copyright holders want to move the masses to bluray because they think it'll decrease piracy. For amateur at home ripping they're probably right.

When it comes to TOS, I'm sticking with my Remastered DVDs, and the unremastered DVD season box sets.

The bluray sets include both the original and remastered versions, at pretty much the same price as the (remastered, original no longer on available) DVD sets in my part of the world. Which makes bluray pretty attractive for the new collector.

Not to mention the S3 bluray set is going to have a never-transmitted longer cut of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" which apparently turned up in a German film buff's collection of 35mm film.

I like extras. The more the better.;;; BUT THOSE EXTRAS BETTER BE GOOD!!

As extras go IMO they're great.

The need for updates will decrease as the authoring techniques attain maturity.

I doubt it - they keep on "updating" the encryption codes. Unless tptb are willing to stop doing that you'll need to keep on updating your player for the life of the player.

 

[Ovation]

The need for updates will decrease as the authoring techniques attain maturity.

I doubt it - they keep on "updating" the encryption codes. Unless tptb are willing to stop doing that you'll need to keep on updating your player for the life of the player.

That's why I said "decrease" rather than "disappear". Encryption updates are here to stay. However, updates to cope with unusual authoring decisions (menu access and presentation, integrating interactive extras with films, etc.) and to add features (decoding various audio codecs, adding DVD upscaling over HDMI and other features that should have been in the players from day 1 but were not because they rushed them into production to meet the challenge of HD DVD) should greatly diminish (I've already noticed a significant drop off).

 

[Jeri]

Yeah...I did that, too. You just have the touch, I guess. Anyway, that thing might not be as amusing to someone who has never taken German. To me it's hilarious. And most scientists back then had taken a little German in college, I found.

Some familiarity with the language and sentence structure does make it a lot funnier, yes. Ditto Twain's commentaries on the language.

Oh, yeah...he is hilarious! They had some of his books in the American Library when we lived in Kassel and had fun reading them in situ. Most of those books were donated by departing U.S. service personnel.