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I blame you people...

I bought:

Stargate SG-1: Seasons 1 & 2
The Boondock Saints: Unrated Special Edition
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2
Waking Ned Devine
Creepshow
The Saint
Underworld: Unrated Extended Cut
Underworld Evolution: Special Edition
Dogma
Donnie Darko: Directors Cut
House of 1000 Corspes
The Devils Rejects: Unrated Directors Cut
From Dusk till Dawn
Clerks
Clerks II
Falling Down
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended version)
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Extended Version)
[I got the Fellowship of the Ring extended version already]
Babylon 5: Season 5 (took me long enough!)
Babylon 5: Movie Collection
 
Joseph DeMartino said:
Hi-def DVD, of course. :) Personally I'm waiting until either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD wins the format war and the prices come down, but that's where we're heading. :D

Regards,

Joe
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Blu-Ray is selling four times as many discs as HD-DVD, and players that play both formats are coming on the market. So, if I had loads of $, I would have either a Blu-Ray, or a combo player, right now! But, I don't have loads of $, so I will wait until prices come down substantially, probably in a couple of years. By then, a combo player may be pointless.
 
Jade Jaguar said:
Blu-Ray is selling four times as many discs as HD-DVD, and players that play both formats are coming on the market.
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Once upon a time Beta oustold VHS by similar margins. Try buying a consumer Beta deck or prerecorded movie now, so I'd say it would be premature to declare a winner in the war. Only one manufacturer has a dual-format player and reactions to it have been decidely mixed. Cheaper players, which in turn drove software sales, are what killed Beta. We'll have to see what happens with the hi-def DVD formats. And Warner Bros. has introduced a single disc that contains the same film on both formats. If other studios start releasing these discs then people can "future proof' their film purchases no matter which format they currently own.

So, if I had loads of $, I would have either a Blu-Ray, or a combo player, right now!
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Well, if I had loads of money I'd own both players. :) But I don't have tons of money either, so I'll just enjoy my SD DVDs scaled to 720p on my JVC TV and wait for the dust to settle.

Regards,

Joe
 
TBH I'm wondering if HD-DVD/Blu-Ray is worth it.

I've seen movies on regular DVD and then watched them on my HD channel. There is a difference....but its very suttle. DVD quality has come a long way, even at little ol' 480p.

Sure, it will be cool to have HD-DVD, but its certainly not going to be a good enough quality improvement to warrant exchanging out current DVD libraries. IMO, its not going to be a good enough quality improvement to even consider getting a player until they really drop in price...

Especially when you consider other means to get HD Quality TV and Movies these days Digitally. The "Player" will be obsolete in a few years I'm guessing...
 
I've seen movies on regular DVD and then watched them on my HD channel. There is a difference....but its very suttle.
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This is a tricky comparison. Most HD channels as delivered by satellite or cable TV are heavily compressed. No HD channel exceeds 1080i resolution and many are limited to 720p.

If your set is a fixed-pixel design (and unless it is a CRT-based set, it is), it converts all inputs to its native resolution. A 720p set will scale 480i or 480p DVD to 720p and downconvert 1080i to 720p. A 1080p set (all fixed-pixel sets are progressive scan, none are interlaced) does the same. If your set is 1080p the difference between what you've seen up until now and true 1080p from a hi-def DVD of either format would be much greater than that between cable or satellite HD and SD DVD scaled to your set's native resolution. Even uncompressed over-the-air HD might look better than what you've seen so far on your set. (I can't get antenna reception where I am and can't have a roof antenna on a condo, so I've never been able to compare OTA HD with what I get from cable.)

This is one reason I mentioned that all my sets are 720p when discussing my decision to sit out the format war. I also don't see a huge difference between SD DVD and HD via cable. (But I do see some. I've just finished going back through the first six seasons of CSI on DVD as good as the discs look I can still spot the difference when I go to the HD broadcasts.)

its certainly not going to be a good enough quality improvement to warrant exchanging out current DVD libraries.
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Definitely not. I, for one, could not begin to afford to replace all the discs I've bought over the past 10 years - the TV sets alone would cost a small fortune. But it would be nice to have even better movies going forward, and there are a few films where the visual element is so important to the whole (or where the subject matter and cinematography are just so gorgeous) that I'm sure I will double-dip. (Most are films I've already owned in two or more editions as better versions were released.) 2001, Spartacus and Lawrence of Arabia come to mind immediately, maybe My Fair Lady and some of the other great Technicolor wonders. (Although I'm not sure how much better The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and The Adventures of Robin Hood can really look than they do in their most recent SD releases - at least on my set. I would probably rent those first. :))

Regards,

Joe
 
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I've always believed that 720p and 1080i are about the same, and its ever money and individual perception as to which is "better" quality. My set is 1080i, and I get my HD via Satellite. I'm too far out for Off-Air Antenna.

Some shows come out great in HD. Lost is one of the best ones, quality wise. Other movies that sometimes come on HBO and the like, look just a tad better than DVDs. It would be interesting to start seeing shows in the true 1080p though. I can see a picture quality difference between most movies on HD and those "HDNet" nature specials.
 
My set is 1080i
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CRT direct-view or RP? I'm always nosy about what other folks are using. :) I have a JVC HD-ILA (liquid crystal on silicon) rear-projection microdisplay. 56" diagonal, weighs less than 100 lbs. It replaced a 56" (widescreen) Toshiba analog CRT RPTV that wieghed about 300 lbs. (And was a bitch to get down three flights of stairs, let me tell you.)

It would be interesting to start seeing shows in the true 1080p though.
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Not gonna happen, not for a very long time, anyway. The bandwidth requirements are just too big (twice what is needed for 1080i) and the improvement in image quality not great enough. (Especially given the number of people watching on 720p or 1080i sets that can't display 1080p in the first place.)

This is also why I don't see players or physical media dying anytime soon. The bandwidth to download HD movies at anything resembling a reasonable speed is just not there yet and for the 'web as a whole video streaming and other media uses are beginning to strain the existing infrastructure. Besides, when I buy or rent a movie I can lend it to a friend or go over an watch it at their place. That isn't as easy to do with a download - especially when downloads are restricted by Digital Rights Management Systems, which you know darned well the studios are going to insist on. (By the way, all DVDs are already "digital". I assume what you meant by "digitally" was "on-line" or "downloadable". :))

Regards,

Joe
 
I've been wondering about HD vs Blue Ray myself. I know it will be a few years before I go with either one (depending on which one becomes dominate on the market and the cost) because when I had cable I had some High Def channels and I could tell the difference on some of the programs. Like you mentioned, Lost was one of them.

I have a low-end plasma, a 42 inch Maxent, but I still love it for watching movies. I dont know much about it yet but when I put in a movie the tv will tell me the resolution and most of the time its 780. I also have an Xbox 360 and they offer movies and tv shows for download in HD Format and I've been curious to download one or two just to see how long it takes to download and what the quality is.

And by the way, some good choices on movies you purchased. I definately need to buy some more.
 
Netflix's new downloading feature is quite promising. My computer is hooked up to my plasma, so it's pretty sweet to be just be able to use that feature for me. The quality is pretty damn good. All they need now is a bigger selection.
 
Joseph DeMartino said:
{snip}That isn't as easy to do with a download - especially when downloads are restricted by Digital Rights Management Systems, which you know darned well the studios are going to insist on.
Click to expand...

DRM has already been cracked so there is no protection against piracy there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6353889.stm

Outside of the USA (and Britain) Californian media companies have little political influence since they employ few locals and pay little in tax. The ability to show that the stuff made by the Ministry of Culture with local actors is basically pretentious propaganda probably does not help either. To remain legal DRM needs a lot of political help.

There is already a push to make DRM illegal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6338603.stm

DRM becoming illegal will not stop Hollywood using it. The realisation that using an illegal DRM invalidates the copyright will.
 
One of the Mitsubishi Diamond 65" sets from about 3 years ago or so...
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Oh yeah. Those sets have a very good rep for picture quality. That must look great.

I have a low-end plasma, a 42 inch Maxent, but I still love it for watching movies. I dont know much about it yet but when I put in a movie the tv will tell me the resolution and most of the time its 780.
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Is that set an HDTV (High Definition) or EDTV (Enhanced Definition)? EDTVs will display 480p and convert al inputs to that resolution. I ask because some of the less-expensive plasmas in that size range are ED sets and there is some confusion. Also because of your reference to a resolution of "780" which no plasma TV and no[/] prerecorded media supports as a native resolution as far as I know. I'm willing to bet that's either 480 or 720. (Standard def DVDs are 480 lines. Some fixed pixel LCD panels designed for data or for both data and video are technically 768p, but the effective resolution is really still 720p and they will still show an SD DVD source as being 480i or 480p, since that is what is coming in from the input before the set scales the image to its native resolution.)

Netflix's new downloading feature is quite promising.
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The problem is going to come in a few years when the installed base of HD sets is much bigger and the demand for these downloads is commensurately larger. The current transport infrastructure for data in this country wasn't designed for that kind of demand, and it is doubtful that the new services that need the badnwidth are going to generate enough revenue to pay to upgrade it - especially since the people making the money off movie downloads and the people responsible for the infrastructure are not, in the main, the same people.

I also think that, psychologically, most people who shell out $15 or $20 to own a copy of a movie are going to prefer a tangible copy to a data file on their computer for a long time to come. Let me put it this way: I've been hearing about the advent of the "paperless office" since the mid-1970s. 30 years later I'm still ass-deep in paper. Video downloads are for people who don't mind "watching" a movie as a mid-range datafile on their portable game unit or 2" cellphone screen. Home theater enthusiasts watching on 40+" screens are not gonig to settle for that, and that means bandwidth issues. Also the lack of portability and other problems is going to be too great an obstacle (As the lack of compatibility and thus portability already is for hi-def DVD sales. If I go Blu-Ray and my buddy goes HD-DVD, we can't even share movies - unless they're on the new WB combo discs. That's a problem for a lot of consumers and one more reason many of them - many, that is, of the still small fraction who have HDTVs in the first place - are sitting out the format war.)

Regards,

Joe
 
My bad, I meant 720. Shows you how much I pay attention to those things. Mine's and HDTV monitor. I knew about EDTV's before I bought mine. I did a little research before shelling out what little money I had. I opted for a Maxent HDTV Monitor because it was on sale and did not include a cable tuner. At the time I didnt have cable and i had other devices I could run coaxial through anyway so it wasnt that important to me.

Im also one of those people that like tangible copies of my movies as well. Something I can look at and arrange on my shelf and lend to others. But I have to admit, I like the idea of downloading movies and tv shows. (legitimate copies of course)

I use to have my plasma hooked to my pc as well before they were in seperate rooms. It was awsome and had a great picture. I also bought a wireless keyboard and mouse for it to. It was something else at the time. Now its just exclusively for my movies and 360.
 
DRM has already been cracked so there is no protection against piracy there.
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DRM is a generic term for a class of technologies. The statement that "DRM has been cracked" doesn't mean anything. There is no single "DRM" that can be cracked and open all content to everyone. Besides, this is a bit like saying "locks have been picked, so there is no protectoin against burglarly there." The fact is that some locks are a hell of a lot harder to pick than others, and that most burglars are not skilled locksmiths, so even an imperfect system still protects against an awful lot of criminals. The stuidos and music companies may view the various DRM schemes in the same way. Car alarms, GPS locators and anti-theft key systems aren't really much use against professional car theives, but they work wonders against petty crooks and teenage joyriders, so they remain a worthwhile investment.

The realisation that using an illegal DRM invalidates the copyright will.
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I'm sorry, where did that leap come from? There is nothing in that article the remotely suggests any impact on copyright whatsoever. Is this a provision of some proposed EU legislation? If so, please provide a link, I'd like to see it. The EU may ban the use of various forms of DRM - in which case Hollywood would not use it on the discs sold there - but that would have no impact on copyright. At worst if some DRM-enabled discs ended up in Europe they'd be pulled from store shelves and replaced.

Regards,

Joe
 
If music is anything to go by, then physical media will be around for a long time yet.

My band released its second album last year, and it is available on CD and for download from iTunes, MSN music and various other places. Up to now, whilst we have a steady trickle of individual song downloads through those services, people still prefer to send me £10 for a CD rather than saving 20% by spending £7.99 to download the whole album.

Given that music is way ahead of film in downloading terms, I think the death of DVD (in whatever form) is a long, long way away.
 
I also think that, psychologically, most people who shell out $15 or $20 to own a copy of a movie are going to prefer a tangible copy to a data file on their computer for a long time to come.
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Yes. Netflix, of course, rents.

I don't remember seeing anyone predicting that all physical media would eventually be obsolete. The present, and probably for the long future, of media distribution is variety itself, that's why you see DVD sales stalling and CD sales dropping- it's not that people watch/listen less, it's just that there are many ways to get this stuff now.

I'm not replacing my DVD rentals and what little buying I do with downloading, but it's a pretty sweet thing to have. And I watched on my 50" plasma and it looked fine.
 
I don't remember seeing anyone predicting that all physical media would eventually be obsolete.
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Not in this thread, but I run across this prediction all the time around the 'net. "No need to buy Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. In a few years everything will be download-on-demand. No more discs." It is a remarkably widespread assumption. Mostly among people who haven't realy thought the whole thing through. ;)

Regards,

Joe
 
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