Will DVD be "obsolete" or "unwatchable?"

[Colin Dunn]

I see contradicting arguments being made about HD-DVD...

"Studios won't release in HD-DVD because a 720p or 1080i master is too close to film quality and indestructable. It would provide high-quality source material to the pirates."

and...

"HD-DVD will make DVD obsolete. Our movie collections will suddently be rendered 'unwatchable,' and we'll all be obligated to go out and repurchase our collections."


Obviously, these both can't happen at the same time. If HD-DVD is going to make today's DVD obsolete, it means the studios will unleash a flood of "A"-list titles (at least eventually).

But let's also look at the question of obsolescence for a moment. Many think that true HD-resolution monitors will remain expensive, even after 2006 when HDTV becomes the new broadcast video standard in the USA. Instead of seeing full-blown 1080x720 or 1920x1080 resolution, it will fuzzily be downconverted and shown on NTSC displays (maybe 480p SDTV models).

If that's the scenario for displays, there will be no need for HD-DVD outside the high end of the market. The improvement of HD material would be imperceptible on those displays.

Even if HD-resolution displays get more affordable, does 480i DVD (possibly shown in 480p instead) really become "unwatchable?" DaViD Boulet mentioned in another thread that there will likely be 720p DVD players that upconvert from 480p. A thread over on the Home Theater Forum says Joe Kane (of ISF fame) is working on the creation of such a beast.

DVD upconverted to 720p would approach, but not quite equal, video transferred in native 720p. That's true HD resolution. Maybe something similar to CD would happen. The technology to improve upon CD (higher sampling rates, longer words) has been around for years, but only now is there any serious talk of a new consumer audio format. Consumer video discs (as in DVDs) may end up following this same path.

Then again, they may not. Videophiles aren't as resistant to change as audiophiles (many of whom still proclaim vinyl to 'sound better' than CD).

Any thoughts???


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Colin Dunn
DDS-006

Colin,

I think that the discussion of 720p DVD players was referring to native 720p DVD recordings.

I have the 3D Fusion card which scales the 480p (reconstructed from DVD) to 1024 X 768p.

On a FPTV it does look visibly better than regular 480i/p, even with 16:9 enhanced DVDs.

But there's no question that 720p and 1080i looks better. The picture quality difference between the scaled (480p to 768p), and native 720p/1080i is about the same as the difference between laserdisc and 16:9 enhanced DVD on a regular TV, where 16:9 DVD is visibly better looking, but the laserdisc still looks very good, and certainly much better than VHS tapes.

So although my great estimation of DVDs video quality will no doubt drop a notch or two when prerecorded HD material becomes available, obsolete and unwatchable are not words that come to mind. DVDs will still look good, HD will just look better.

-Dean.

Hi,

I will be eagerly anticipating HD-DVD when "the price is right". I have the equipment that can produce 1080i and even 1080p (albiet not *resolve* 100% of the resolution) but I would not pay $6000 for HD-DVD player or computer compatible solution.

I do not think that DVD will become obsolete very quickly - it'll just be a part of all HDDVD players. Remember, we've had VHS for years even though VHS has never been as good as the picture quality of the best 1975 live TV broadcast!

Basically DVD will probably be like VHS for the masses, while HD-DVD will start out as a videophile format and gradually "enter" our lives over the next 10 years. Probably much faster than S-VHS will, though. The studios don't have a big reason to hurry - they want to milk the DVD cash cow first for the next decade. I believe there will still some studio holdouts in the year 2009 who still sells normal DVD's and hasn't put all of their titles in HDDVD format. DVD quality is still pretty much fully 480p DTV quality (which happens to be one of the 18 ATSC standards) and still looks far more impressive than VHS.

Even though DVD will still even be alive and well in 10 years (as I believe) HD-DVD would still be a standard feature in all DVD players by then, even if they support S-Video. I believe S-Video will still exist as an input method in year 2010: Lots of legacy TV sets will still exist after 2006. Some people are still using VCR's from the 1980's! I'm not talking about us; I'm talking about the mainstream people. Even if HDTV sets are 50% of the population and the remaining 50% are using settop HDTV boxes with their legacy TV sets. (Substitute those percentages with whatever you like.)

Studios who do not want to release in HD-DVD format, can always release in DVD format. Much to the dismay of videophiles! Just like studios releasing non-anamorphic DVD's today - but for a more legitimate reason: Full compatibility with non-HDDVD players.

There will still probably be a lot of quality variances, just like variances between DVD titles. Many HDTV sets will naturally have upconversion from 480p to 720p or 1080i. After upconversion, it is possible that some of the best 480p DVD's will sometimes look better than the worst 720p DVD's with poor mastering. (Just like the best non-anamorphic DVD has the potential to look better than the worst, less-well-focussed anamorphic DVD, after upconversion of the non-anamorphic from 360p to 480p without the usual analog zoom in some of today's 16:9 TV's.)

[This message has been edited by Mark Rejhon (edited 08-21-1999).]