quote:Originally posted by andi330: I don't think it's as far off as a decade. Remember, the FCC has mandated that all television broadcasts must be digital by the year 2011. That's actually an extension on the first date which, I'm pretty sure, was 2009 (but don't quote me). So, by 2011, if you want to see tv at the quality it was produced, you'll either have to have an HD TV or...well, there actually isn't an or.
Technically, if you stay with an analog set, you'll be able to buy a converter box (much like with cable) but, you'll be sacrificing picture quality for it. And it's dollars to doughnuts that if broadcasting companies are going to be required to produce in HD, the DVD releases of their current tv shows will be HD as well. Why spend the money to lower the quality just so people who haven't upgraded their technology can watch the show?
No, I expect the Blu-Ray v. HD DVD to be decided by the time networks have to broadcast in digital, which is only 4 years away.
I have digital cable as it is, and I have a six year old 32 inch Sharp. When they switch it over, and when DVDs are sold with higher quality or whatever, I'll still have my six year old 32 inch Sharp.
HD already exists, and will be more widespread in a decade, but I can still watch it the way it is, so if I can't afford a thousand dollar or more television, why is this any sort of nudge to me to upgrade? Besides, I don't need HD to watch my old Friends DVDs.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Sure, old DVDs will still be watchable, but what about new shows, etc. The digital age is coming on faster than most people like to think. As I said in my edit on the previous page. Dtv is actually going to be required by 2009, not 2011 as I first thought. Dtv and HDTV are not entirely the same thing, so it may take a little longer than 2 years, however, people seem to forget just how fast VHS took over from beta, or even how quickly DVDs took over.
People have also forgotten just how much quality electronics cost. We've gotten used to being able to purchase a decent set for around $100. I found the receipt to my parents last good tv, though (not the HD but the last one before that)and it was around $400 when they purchased it. My parents paid $200 for their VCR.
No, my parent's aren't wealthy, but electronics prices have dropped significantly in the last few years. The phenomenon of a tv in every room of the house is relatively new, and only because the cost of a tv has dropped so low so quickly. I remember when we only had one tv in the house. I'm under 30, and my parents made decent money. When they bought the second tv, wow, that was a BIG deal.
People are moaning about the cost of HD sets, but only because we've gotten so used to cheap electronics. Once 2009 hits and Dtv is the requirement, expect all set prices to go up, whether purchasing a Dtv or an HDTV set. I'd expect to see tv prices at $200-$400 for a Dtv set, at least in the beginning. By then, HDTV set prices will have dropped to about the $400 range. Why pay $400 for a top of the line Dtv when I can have an HDTV instead? And, if I'm going to own an HDTV, I would want an HD DVD player. After all, the good ones will be backwards compatible, so I won't have to replace all my old DVDs, and the new DVDs will probably be released in which ever HD format wins out.
quote:Receiving the DTV and HDTV signals over-the-air requires an antenna and a new DTV receiver that can decode the digital signals. In general, an antenna that provides quality reception of over-the-air analog TV signals will work for DTV reception.
If you are a cable or satellite customer, you may need a set-top box to receive DTV signals and convert them into the format of your current analog television, even after the DTV transition is complete. A DTV set-top box also may receive multicast channels and high definition programming and display them in analog picture quality. Check with your cable or satellite provider to determine if and when you will need a set-top box.
If I'm going to need a converter box for every room of the house again (like back in the day, when tv sets weren't cable ready) then I might as well replace my sets to the new digital version. It'll probably save money (and frustration) in the long run.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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People are going to be able to purchase a converter, which most of us probably already have in our homes and given to us from our cable provider, making most of this a moot point anyway. Or, the US government, in the same law that you're citing about making all TV signals digital, authorized giving all US homes (contingent on rules) two $40 coupons towards the purchase of a converter (won't pay for the whole thing, but it makes a nice dent). And DTV sets will only fall in price as time goes on.
You say "things are too cheap" like that is going to light a fire under us to buy expensive sets that we don't NEED. When all digital tv gets here, most of us probably won't even notice, not everyone who has cable anyway.
I don't see the big push you are seeing. DVD is going to be around for a long, long time. VHS is still around because I think it's easier still to tape something on VHS than DVD, but that'll go away when everyone has TiVo or an equivilant. But DVD will be around for years to come. When HDTV sets fall DRAMATICALLY in price, and the same with the new players, then you'll see the big switchover, but until then I don't think you're going to see the kind of vast revolution in just a couple years when no one really HAS to, and prices are still up.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I think it's important to separate the questions of HDTV adoption rate and HD optical format adoption rate. Regular DVDs look significantly better on HDTVs than on SDTVs, because DVDs are encoded at 720x480p. SDTVs can only display 640x480i. That's a lot of lost resolution when you watch a regular DVD on an SDTV, even before considering letterboxing losses.
Finally, the overwhelming majority of HDTVs being sold are either 1280x720p native or 1920x1080i native, while HD-DVD and Blu-ray are both designed to store video at 1920x1080p. Hardly anyone has a 1080p-capable set right now, and they're a lot more expensive than 720p/1080i sets. People with 720p sets will notice a bit more sharpness when watching downsampled 1920x1080p, but it isn't going to be a huge difference from watching upsampled 720x480p. It isn't the kind of difference you see when you switch from watching regular DVDs on an SD set to an HD set, nor the kind of difference you get when you switch from VHS to DVD on an SD set.
Based on my own upgrade experience and those of people I know personally, I think new HDTV purchasers will be largely content watching their existing DVD collections on their shiny new TVs. I'm definitely in no hurry to buy a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player, even though I could buy the HD-DVD add-on drive for my Xbox 360 relatively inexpensively. I don't know a single person who is interested in either of the new optical formats. As I said on the last page, I think digital distribution will take over before either HD-DVD or Blu-ray have a chance to take off the way DVD did.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:As I said on the last page, I think digital distribution will take over before either HD-DVD or Blu-ray have a chance to take off the way DVD did.
posted
You can buy an HD set without getting one of the new players, but you can't get one of the new players without getting an HD set, which is why I think you aren't going to see a major adoption of this new media format until AFTER the HD set revolution is over, which is AFTER prices fall, then we can DISCUSS those players being sold.
We're still years away.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think you aren't going to see a major adoption of this new media format...
I think by that time, both new optical media formats will have been rendered obsolete by on-demand digital distribution.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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And it is more convenient than downloading something and then burning it yourself. People still trust "official" copies more than the ones they make at home, but I think store bought copies of ANY medium will see a decline in the years to come.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Maddox had a lot to say about Sony recently. Be warned of vulgar language and inappropriate humor.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:I think by that time, both new optical media formats will have been rendered obsolete by on-demand digital distribution.
I'm not convinced of this. At the current pace of Internet infrastructure upgrades, there will still be a majority of users for whom downloading high definition content will not be realistic. I've got a broadband connection, but I'm not sure I'd be able to download a DVD worth of video. My provider would cut off my connection somewhere in there. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Ah, no, not deliberately. I've played games that probably saturated the line for an hour or three...but that wouldn't come close to the amount of bandwidth needed to pull down a DVD.
I average right around 1mb/sec (that's a lower-case 'b', so ~128KB) download on this cable internet connection. But that's measured at a test site. Actual download from another server would probably be less. Even assuming the best-case, it would take more than 10 hours to download a standard-definition DVD. I shudder at the thought of downloading high definition content.
Oh, and the provider told me, "We cap your usage...exceed the cap and we'll cut you off (temporarily)." Their words. Not mine. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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It's worth pointing out that actual DVDs are chained to the MPEG-2 standard; movies streamed to a computer can use any standard and any compression that the end user is willing to install software to support, and some of those available are a mite bit more bandwidth-efficient than MPEG-2.
I'm somewhat curious which HD disc standard will get cracked first. Just curious... I'm not one of those people with a hard drive full of pirated movies. But I do find myself annoyed by the way the copy protection standards are doing at least as much to make equipment obsolete as the upgrade in image quality.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:It's worth pointing out that actual DVDs are chained to the MPEG-2 standard; movies streamed to a computer can use any standard and any compression that the end user is willing to install software to support, and some of those available are a mite bit more bandwidth-efficient than MPEG-2.
This is true. Unfortunately, until the company finishes its upgrades, I won't be doing much streaming video. (At my current connection quality, even streaming video from YouTube or CNN is far from good.)
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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