Are you a Blu-Ray & 3D skeptic?

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Warped9, May 10, 2010.

  1. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    I'm not impressed with blu-ray at all. Ever since its release I questioned the necessity of it. DVD already had perfect picture. Why should we try to top perfection?

    Regardless, my parents were making subtle hints about blu-ray all year last year, so I caved and bought them a player for Christmas. I've watched a few blu-ray movies, and I'm not impressed. At times, it actually looks fake.

    3-D is a gimmick, plain and simple. A gimmick I'm surprised has lasted this long and could potentially be permanent.
     
  2. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 10, 2005
    Location:
    Confederation of Earth
    No, it didn't. Not even close.

    DVD had *good* picture. Certainly better than VHS or even broadcast TV. But perfect? Hardly.

    The only "perfect picture" is actual reality. ;)
     
  3. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole

    I got to be honest, I consider DVD picture to be better than reality. Add that it's better than VHS, broadcast TV and (IMO) even movie theatres, it truly is the best picture around.
     
  4. Hyperspace05

    Hyperspace05 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2005
    Wow... I can only assume that you have some unfortunate severe vision problems, if you really think DVD is the pinnacle of picture quality. Or you are trolling. I'm thinking the latter...
     
  5. Mr. Adventure

    Mr. Adventure Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2001
    Location:
    Mr. Adventure
    What kind of TV do you watch on? It might be a factor.

    I do notice a difference but on my 46" set I am generally quite satisfied with DVD clarity. It's not as night and day for me as it is with some people (re:Blu-Ray). I think DVD beats Comcast HDTV sometimes when there's a scene with a *lot* of color and movement such as in the new Speed Racer and others where there's a lot of break-up.
     
  6. Dane_Whitman

    Dane_Whitman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2007
    Location:
    Dinner to bug.
    Reality does not consist of compression artifacts, edge enhancement and doesn't suffer from a severe lack of resolution.
     
  7. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    Just because my opinion is different from yours does not make me a troll.
     
  8. Irishman

    Irishman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2004
    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    I'll give you half that, and I'm fast approaching fuddy-duddy myself. :)

    But I've jumped head-first into the home theater thing, Blu-Ray and all.

    My entire family (including my 58 year old in-laws) LOVE Blu-ray picture quality over standard DVD. Even my wife, admittedly not a golden eye or ear, can see and hear the improvement in going from DVD to Blu-ray.

    I'm not a fan of 3D for myself to go out and buy all new gear (I just invested in a Pioneer Elite Pro111FD KURO and a BDP51FD Blu-ray player, so the idea of starting all over with 3D gear is ridiculous to me), but I just saw my second 3D demo on a new Panasonic VT25, and I gotta say, it does impress, whereas the 55" Samsung LED did not.

    I'm like you, though. Once they can do the effect without glasses, I'll jump in. Nevermind the fact that there is a grand total of 1 3D Blu-ray title available, and it looks like they're going to sell for about $50 a pop!
     
  9. Irishman

    Irishman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2004
    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    If you want fast load times, get the Playstation 3. Seriously.
     
  10. Irishman

    Irishman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2004
    Location:
    Charlotte, NC

    I think you're confusing film as a viewing venue (film/theater versus tv/home) with film as a medium. TOS was shot on film. It originally contained much more detail than was revealed on TVs of the day. Even DVD limited to 480p couldn't do that justice.

    Blu-ray at 1080p does better. Can we someday do even better? Possibly. Time alone will tell.
     
  11. Irishman

    Irishman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2004
    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    If you think people are being strong-armed into buying something they can't afford, maybe it's your own weak resolve to keep your purse-strings tight that's speaking here :)
     
  12. Lord Garth

    Lord Garth Guest

    Okay, that's two replies, regarding this, and I don't appreciate this second one with the smug smile at the end when you don't know anything about me or my shopping tendencies.

    I'm not going to buy 3D or RGBY any time soon, nor do I have any plans to in the future. Okay? All right? I'm not going to buy 3D or RGBY any time soon, or do I have any plans to do so in the future.

    Some people will buy whatever because they're always into buying the newest whatever. Have you never heard of techies? Ever in your life? Well, I'm not one of them. I'm not one of them.

    Let's also not forget in 2009 when anyone who still had analog television was forced to make the switch to digital. That's strong-arming in my opinion. Not to you or I, but if someone was still sticking with analog at that point, it was likely they'd have stuck with it until their TV broke down and they had to buy a new one.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 12, 2010
  13. Irishman

    Irishman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2004
    Location:
    Charlotte, NC

    Scaling has to happen with DVD on an HDTV, or else you'll have a tiny image in the middle of a black sea around it. And not all scaling is done equally.
     
  14. jefferiestubes8

    jefferiestubes8 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2009
    Location:
    New York City
    Warped9 are you only speaking of home theater or also the stereoscopic 3-D technology in general as you may wish to see this thread:
    Sports and Concerts in 3-D at cinema (not TV)

    The title of your thread is pretty general even though it is in the Science Fiction & Fantasy forum.'

    HD content sold on physical media will be around for 10 or 15 years but will be supplanted by streaming and DLC (downloadable-content) in most cities with fast Internet connections.
    In the next 10 years the Internet will delivery more television and feature films than ever before and will change the way people consume films and scripted narrative content than before.
    The licensing of Blu-ray physical discs is an old model from VHS, Laserdisc, and DVDs that will be obsolete in 15 years due to the availability of movies in the cloud.
    Sure I want to buy my own Blu-ray set of ENT the complete series when it comes out in 2 or 3 years as I know it will be a good handful of years before things really start to change as Hollywood is going to get as much cash from people's conversion from DVD to Blu-ray for now.
    3-D in a physical media format for Hollywood feature films will be a niche market as there just isn't very many 3-D movies yet. It is sort of the SACD/DVD-Audio format for now and for the next 5 years just with much better marketing...
     
  15. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 6, 2001
    Location:
    Sac, Ca
    I love my blueray player, but honestly have been pretty content just watching DVD's on it for the most part. Most new movies (and TV shows like Big Bang or Dexter) already look PLENTY good just from the upconversion.

    Only if it's something really special (like Trek or TDK), or if I see great reviews (like for Ghostbusters or Matrix) will I bother buying the blueray version.
     
  16. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    Fair enough. :)

    Certainly the shows that were edited on video aren't going to look any better unless they go back to the original film. I think it's only a matter of time before they do that. Unfortunately for some shows, the film wasn't saved. I believe they ended up throwing or losing the original film for the 80s Twilight Zone, which means the crappy video edits are all that exist.

    I find DVDs upconverted to be kind of hit or miss. From my experience, the shows that were edited on videotape like TNG and Alien Nation tend to look pretty crappy upconverted, while those that were not edited on videotape tend to look pretty darn good. I'm no videophile so I'm not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with videotape noise screwing with the upconversion process. So even though I love blu-ray, I only watch certain DVDs on a DVD player.
    I can say it's my opinion Abraham Lincoln is still alive, it doesn't make it fact. Not only is the resolution of blu-ray much better than that of DVD, but in a theater you're getting a much better picture. If you tried to play a standard DVD on movie theater screen, it would look like garbage, far worse than the most degraded VHS you may own.

    You're certainly entitled to prefer DVD. My daughter is a staunch VHS fan. Your preference, however, doesn't change the actual resolution.

    On my Star Trek blu-rays,. I can pause an image of Kirk's face and see ever pore on his face and every piece of fabric on his uniform. I can't do that with the DVDs.
     
  17. LitmusDragon

    LitmusDragon Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2002
    Location:
    The Barmuda Triangle
    On the subject of video resolution, which I find very interesting, 35mm film is capable of much more than even high def can provide us at this point. Most would estimate the "pixel" resolution of a 35mm print has at least 1400 lines of video resolution (compared to 1080 on current HD), and some would estimate the number as high as 2400 lines of resolution. So HD is a leap of about twice the lines of resolution over DVD, or about 4x total resolution, but in theory it's possible that film transfers could have much higher resolutions, even 16x or higher than that of a DVD, on some future technology. This is to say nothing of films that are produced in iMax.
     
  18. jefferiestubes8

    jefferiestubes8 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2009
    Location:
    New York City
    35mm film and digital video formats

    LitmusDragon check this post out.

    film vs 6k/8k datacine/telecine for Blu-ray
    http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=4002705&postcount=68

    and for that matter you may as well checkout:
    Super Hi-vision (SHV) & Ultra High Definition Video (UHDV), Ultra High Definition Television (UHDTV)
    http://trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=3017865&postcount=82
    as that will be around in 2020-2025.
     
  19. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jul 16, 2001
    Location:
    Trekker4747
    Well, it was more my point that "upscaling" players aren't adding detail that isn't there. They can't. All they can do is add a "best guess" to make the picture fill the screen rather than filling up half of the picture.

    If they ever do make higher resolution TVs any "upscaling" on decades old DVD would make them look a pixilated as a Mario game. Because all the "upscaling" can do it make a guess, take averages, or do something to make the picture bigger. But it doesn't know what was there in the camera to make the picture more detailed.
     
  20. AviTrek

    AviTrek Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2006
    No one was forced to buy a new TV. If they were cable subscribers their cable boxes still worked. If their cable company went digital, they were given a new box to handle it and convert down to SD. And if they watched OTA, then the government was generous enough to give them a $40 coupon to buy a converter box.