ps3 $399

[Living-In-Clip]

Originally posted by JBean
the movie companies desperately want a new format that can\'t be copied as easily as DVD.  DVD was cracked right off the bat by some dumbass company that left their encryption key available to the public.  

But no matter what they do, encryption will always eventually be defeated.

Exactly.

I know there are rumours of HD-DVD\'s being released around the 4th Quarter of this year, one being Batman Begins. The problem is, until the industry decides on a single format, the market will be divided and people won\'t embrace it. Just like SACD / DVD-AUDIO.

[Paul2]

Originally posted by THX

Even if you don\'t have an HDTV you can see the difference pretty dramatically in the increased color sampling ratio, coupled with no mosquito noise and blockiness.

Actually, next generation still uses the 4:2:0 Y Cb Cr sampling.  Again, to save space and compression.  Hopefully the generation after Blu Ray, Holographic Versatile disc will finally break the barrier and have a flexibility of sampling ratio ranging from 4:2:0 to 4:4:4.  Andhopefully support RGB in 24 bits color instead of the filtering matrix thingy that YUV does...

[Living-In-Clip]

Originally posted by THX
Who said anything about rebuying?  Anyone can migrate to the newer players when available and start to pick up any new titles they buy in HD.  Watch your old ones as much as you like.

Even if you don\'t have an HDTV you can see the difference pretty dramatically in the increased color sampling ratio, coupled with no mosquito noise and blockiness.

Do you think the average consumer cares about that? The main thing that sold DVD\'s was extra features and the fact they would not wear out like a VHS tape... The average consumer does not care about audio or video quality. And sadly, the average consumer makes up the market.

[Paul2]

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
Do you think the average consumer cares about that? The main thing that sold DVD\'s was extra features and the fact they would not wear out like a VHS tape... The average consumer does not care about audio or video quality. And sadly, the average consumer makes up the market.

Somehow I disagree, once they started seeing the benefits of HD-DVD or Blu Ray being shown on HDTV set, they will start thinking of getting one.  BTW, HDTV sets are slowly dropping in price tag.  Now, you can get a 30" CRT widescreen hdtv for only $700.  And the price continue to fall, maybe next year, you can get a 30" HDTV for $500 and the year after that...When something is hot and new, the cost is ridiculously expensive.  But as with time, the price will eventually drop to the point where majority of consumers will get one.  Like how those dvd players were when they first introduce.  They were like $1,000 and over.  Now, one can get a decent one for less than $100.  Just give it time.

Consumers do care once they are informed and once when Blu Ray or HD-DVD become populars and the price is in the reasonable range.  I guess we have to wait and see in a few years.

[Living-In-Clip]

Originally posted by Paul2
Somehow I disagree, once they started seeing the benefits of HD-DVD or Blu Ray being shown on HDTV set, they will start thinking of getting one.  BTW, HDTV sets are slowly dropping in price tag.  Now, you can get a 30" CRT widescreen hdtv for only $700.  And the price continue to fall, maybe next year, you can get a 30" HDTV for $500 and the year after that...When something is hot and new, the cost is ridiculously expensive.  But as with time, the price will eventually drop to the point where majority of consumers will get one.  Like how those dvd players were when they first introduce.  They were like $1,000 and over.  Now, one can get a decent one for less than $100.  Just give it time.

Consumers do care once they are informed and once when Blu Ray or HD-DVD become populars and the price is in the reasonable range.  I guess we have to wait and see in a few years.

Where do you work? How many people do you work around? I only ask, because where I work, very few have an HDTV and many could care less about owning one, even with price drops. Yes, eventually people will buy one, but I don\'t think they are goin\' to care about the extra video quality over DVD.

Comparing DVD player sells to anything else isn\'t quite fair. People was not buying movie\'s like they are now. Why? Because for one thing, VHS wore out. Another was the movie\'s was not priced right. I still remember when a copy of T2 on VHS costed a $100 bucks new.. The same won\'t happen with DVD\'s..  Not to mention, extra features was something that the mass consumer jumped on. It wasn\'t video / audio quality, otherwise people wouldn\'t still be hooking up $100 DVD players via RCA cables, now would they?

[Paul2]

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
Where do you work? How many people do you work around? I only ask, because where I work, very few have an HDTV and many could care less about owning one, even with price drops. Yes, eventually people will buy one, but I don\'t think they are goin\' to care about the extra video quality over DVD.

I don\'t work...yet...so I am not sure about that.

 

Comparing DVD player sells to anything else isn\'t quite fair. People was not buying movie\'s like they are now. Why? Because for one thing, VHS wore out. Another was the movie\'s was not priced right. I still remember when a copy of T2 on VHS costed a $100 bucks new.. The same won\'t happen with DVD\'s..  Not to mention, extra features was something that the mass consumer jumped on. It wasn\'t video / audio quality, otherwise people wouldn\'t still be hooking up $100 DVD players via RCA cables, now would they?

I believe there are more than one thing why DVD is more preferable than VHS.  VHS wore out maybe a good reason why consumer ditch tape, but don\'t forget there are other things too.  Such as, no need to rewind the tape or fastforward for that matter.  One can go to a specific chapter, and rewind or fastfoward less than tape.  DVD is more compact than regular size tape.  And another big reason why:  Picture quality is far superior than VHS tape.  No degration when make disc copy either.

If you think picture quality isn\'t something consumer care, then I guess VCD players would have been popular here in USA.  But VCD players wasn\'t popular either because of its noticeable compression artifacts and low resolution of only 352 x 240.  When compare to tape, the VHS tape\'s picture looks sharper, and no noticable compression artifacts that the VCD display.  the color on VCD may look better, but the artifacts and low resolution make VHS looks superior.  VHS is analog and analog degrade quality over each generation of copy.  But its still superior than VCD.

So, in my opinion, once the hdtv become  the norm, and once blu ray become affordable, majority consumers will get one.

[Living-In-Clip]

believe there are more than one thing why DVD is more preferable than VHS. VHS wore out maybe a good reason why consumer ditch tape, but don\'t forget there are other things too. Such as, no need to rewind the tape or fastforward for that matter. One can go to a specific chapter, and rewind or fastfoward less than tape. DVD is more compact than regular size tape. And another big reason why: Picture quality is far superior than VHS tape. No degration when make disc copy either.

All things that DVD fixed and HD-DVD / Blu-Ray won\'t be able to tout...

If you think picture quality isn\'t something consumer care, then I guess VCD players would have been popular here in USA. But VCD players wasn\'t popular either because of its noticeable compression artifacts and low resolution of only 352 x 240. When compare to tape, the VHS tape\'s picture looks sharper, and no noticable compression artifacts that the VCD display. the color on VCD may look better, but the artifacts and low resolution make VHS looks superior. VHS is analog and analog degrade quality over each generation of copy. But its still superior than VCD.

VCD was not a big step up in quality over VHS. Another thing was companies did not stand behind it here. Not to mention, lack of stand alone VCD players. Lack of extra\'s (a big push).

So, in my opinion, once the hdtv become the norm, and once blu ray become affordable, majority consumers will get one.

Provided the industry decides on a standard, unlike DVD-AUDIO / SACD.

Originally posted by Paul2
Actually, next generation still uses the 4:2:0 Y Cb Cr sampling.  Again, to save space and compression.

Can you provide a link to this?  High-Profile H.264 definitely supports 4:2:2 but I always just assumed this was going to be the standard since the color resolution on anything HD looks leaps and bounds better than NTSC/DVD.

I may be wrong but Googling on my end didn\'t turn up anything concrete other than the two formats have the ability to go higher than 4:2:0.

Originally posted by LIC
Do you think the average consumer cares about that? The main thing that sold DVD\'s was extra features and the fact they would not wear out like a VHS tape... The average consumer does not care about audio or video quality. And sadly, the average consumer makes up the market.

Then call it a niche like DVD first was in the 1990s.  I remember how weird it was to see Blockbuster one day have 2 shelves of the latest DVDs, then it slowly grew after that.

I do see what you\'re saying though.  Who wants to store a bunch of bulky, ugly, aging VHS tapes when shiny optical discs are available?  I am tempted to say the switch from DVD -> HD-DVD/BR will take longer than VHS -> DVD but no one really knows.  One convenient point is that everything will have to be broadcast in HD in 2008, which will only help the "cause."  Not to mention those flat panel LCD HDTVs are selling like hotcakes (and they\'re always getting cheaper!).

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
Do you think the average consumer cares about that? The main thing that sold DVD\'s was extra features and the fact they would not wear out like a VHS tape... The average consumer does not care about audio or video quality. And sadly, the average consumer makes up the market.

^^^This may be hard for some to take but it\'s true. The average consumer does not care. And they are not going to buy their dvd collection all over again. Take a poll and ask most people outside hardcore gaming and tech freaks they don\'t even know what blueray is.

[BizioEE]

How funny will be when this thread will be resume in the next two years!:D ...nothing has changed from previous generation

[Paul2]

Originally posted by THX
Can you provide a link to this?  High-Profile H.264 definitely supports 4:2:2 but I always just assumed this was going to be the standard since the color resolution on anything HD looks leaps and bounds better than NTSC/DVD.

I don\'t have a link, but I remember seeing WMV-9 HD in the same 4:2:0 sampling that MPEG-2 has for lossy compression.  I think that\'s main profile or something like that.  As for MPEG-4, I honestly have no idea but I assume its the same too.  I didn\'t know high profile is 4:2:2 Y Cb Cr sampling.

Seeing how much more compression efficient MPEG-4 and WMV-9 can be, that I think it could do 4:2:2 Y Cb Cr sampling with ease.

Both Blu Ray and HD-DVD runs at 1x speed of 36 Mbits per sec.

with 4:2:0 sampling and 80:1 compression, that = about 9 Mbits of space per second.

but with 4:2:2 sampling and 80:1 compression, its only equal roughly 12.5 Mbits per second.  So, i think i wouldn\'t be surprise if its support 4:2:2 sampling.  It will saves a lot of headaches of than using 4:2:0 which is tricky to upsample to 4:2:2 or 4:4:4.

with 1080i/720p, and if it runs at 30 Mbits per second @ 4:2:2 Y Cb Cr, that will have about 33:1 compression ratio.

with 1080p @ 4:2:2 Y Cb Cr running at the same bandwidth of 30 Mbits per second will have about 66:1 compression which is possible based on that MPEG-4 and WMV-9 is 3x more efficient than MPEG-2 or can compress up to 120:1 ratio.

Forgive my mumbo jumpo, but i think its possible to support 4:2:2 on blu ray and hd-dvd...

[Paul2]

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
.Provided the industry decides on a standard, unlike DVD-AUDIO / SACD.

You have a point there.  The competition between Blu Ray and HD-DVD is here.  And this may confuses consumers more and who knows which format will win.

But I think ps3 supporting blu ray will give it an upper hand on the format war.

[Living-In-Clip]

Originally posted by Paul2
You have a point there.  The competition between Blu Ray and HD-DVD is here.  And this may confuses consumers more and who knows which format will win.

But I think ps3 supporting blu ray will give it an upper hand on the format war.

Competition equals confusion. Confusion means the consumer won\'t feel secure about purchasing a certain format. Once again, I point to DVD-A / SACD.

Originally posted by QuDDus
^^^This may be hard for some to take but it\'s true. The average consumer does not care. And they are not going to buy their dvd collection all over again. Take a poll and ask most people outside hardcore gaming and tech freaks they don\'t even know what blueray is.

That is not an indication at all.
People were estimating the same thing with the indtoduction of DVDs yet today its the no1 choice.

BR supports DVDs anyways.So no harm done.No one will be forced to rebuy his collection.Instead he will have the opportunity to buy movies he doesnt already own in BR format.

The logic of your post implies that generally these high definition formats are a waste of time and money and should never be introduced in the market.Not just on the PS3.

Personally what worries me the most though is the cost of the console.Not for the consumer but for Sony.They are more vulnerable to financial and market headaches.And this for the consumer that will buy the PS3 is not positive at all.


\'

[Paul2]

Originally posted by Unicron!
That is not an indication at all.
People were estimating the same thing with the indtoduction of DVDs yet today its the no1 choice.

BR supports DVDs anyways.So no harm done.No one will be forced to rebuy his collection.Instead he will have the opportunity to buy movies he doesnt already own in BR format.

Very good point made there.  Like he said, you aren\'t force to buy blu ray in order for it to be play on blu ray player, or in this case the ps3.  Because they (ps3 and blu ray) are backward compatible with dvd and CD-audio too.

Like how ps2 is and many other dvd players are.  backward with CD-Audio by just including either 2 in 1 len of DVD and CD or a seperate laser for CD-Audio and one for DVD.

So, you don\'t have to worry about incompatiblity with the dvd collections that you own.