|
10 Reasons Why You NEED To Be an Early Adopter of HD Discs (Blu-ray and HD DVD)
|
|
|
|
Home Theater Feature Articles Video Related Articles
|
|
Written by Jerry Del Colliano
|
|
Thursday, 01 June 2006
|
|
Page 2 of 2
 6.
Movies in HD on Satellite and Cable Are More Compressed Than on an HD
Disc Like Blu-Ray or HD DVD. Even in 2006, the pipe is only so wide,
allowing only so many zeros and ones to flow to your home for Internet
access, as well as for HDTV content. This is the main reason why all
channels aren’t in HDTV. Perhaps DirecTV’s new MPG4 satellite system
will allow dramatically more HDTV channels in the coming years, but
right now, an HD movie from the bird or over digital cable is far more
compressed than one on an HD DVD or Blu-ray disc. At the same time,
1080i outputs from players don’t have the ultimate resolution of 1080p,
but few viewers at this point have TVs that are able to accept such a
feed. Could future players be 1080p-capable? Without question. Would
scaling from 1080i to 1080p look better than scaling from 480i to
1080p? Without question.
 7.
HD DVD and Blu-ray Are a Good Value. Compared to a night out at the
movies, even a $30 early HD DVD movie is a good value. Between parking,
a few sodas, some popcorn and the tickets, a $30 HD DVD seems like a
bargain. When you consider you get to keep a damn near master-quality
copy of the film for future viewing, the value gets even better.
 8.
You Can Rent HD DVD Discs. Netflix rents HD DVD discs and you should
expect them to rent Blu-ray titles as well. This means even if you
don’t want to collect movies at $30 per title, you can enjoy them at
the highest level of video resolution commercially available (show me
anybody with native 1080p sources who doesn’t work in Hollywood and
have access to video editing equipment).
 9.
High-End Players Won’t Be Released Without Early Adopter Support.
High-end audio snobs will latch onto DVD like they have with LPs and
CDs, but those of us who can hear and see the difference and who are
willing to pay for the conglomerate of all of the little differences
will want a high-end player. With no early adopter support, fewer and
fewer OEM transports will be available. High-end companies will simply
wait it out to see how the format war settles. For the price of a nice
RCA interconnect in an audiophile system, early adopters have the
ability to cast their votes in the format war. If you think your vote
doesn’t count – it does. Do your part, pay your $500 and make the
policy. Those who say wait and see deserve to watch DVDs at 480i. You
deserve low-compression 1080i and in the near future, 1080p!
 10.
With Enough Support, Studios Will Continue To Release Titles Without
“Flagging.” Nobody wants their discs “down-rezed” to 480p because their
HDTV doesn’t have HDCP encryption. Studios know this and have fought
the urge to add such flags to their titles. If one of the HD formats
takes off, it will be hard both legally and economically for studios to
try to sneak in any flagging and/or down-rezing features on discs. If
nobody cares about the formats or everyone takes a “wait and see”
approach to the new formats, the studio are more likely to try a dirty
trick like flagging.
<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>
|
