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I think the discussion deserves some furhter thoughts, in light of some fairly strong emotions it generated. So I am linking here my latest reply in the thread down below.I fully expect the HD DVD's, if they ever become a reality, to play as important role in my life as the current HD channels... which is to say - none at all.
Follow Ups:
If you're happy the the visual equivalent of a happy meal to watch your movies, more power to you.I agree that hi-def programming is wanting, but every now and then, it comes though -- Scarface, Dr. Strangelove, The Matrix, Blood Simple, Fargo, and Spiderman are just a few that I've caught on my local cable hi-def tier. I've got a native 1080p monitor, and most of the films come though in 1080i, which looks GREAT.
Of course, the problem is going to be migrating the software over to the newer broadcast format. Expect a lot of Fifth Element-, Terminator-type fodder at first. But, noteworthy films will follow, though probably not in numbers that are likely to satisfy most on this forum.
It may never amount to a feast fit for a king, but any break from the pictorially compressed, truncated visual grunge we are forced to to consume in order to sate of cinematic appetites would be welcome ...
"The following film has been edited. It has been formatted to fit your screen."
The cables companies don't want to surrender bandwidth when they can slice and dice their broadcast spectrum up into 500 pay-per-view channels and digital phone services -- just my theory. So expect more foot-dragging before the hi-def train really gets rolling. Also, the format wars regarding HD-DVD and BLUE RAY are gumming things up in the near-term was well.
***If you're happy the the visual equivalent of a happy meal to watch your movies, more power to you.Thank you! I was getting concerned!
But you are as clueless as one can be. When I watch a Bicycle Thief, with all its imperfections, I somehow never feel I am consuming a happy meal.
But then, of course, perhaps I am just not aware... so thank you once again!
I'm not saying that a high-definition picture is the most important aspect of cinema, or even ONE of the most important. Of course, sceenplay, dialogue, direction, and so many other things, would have to be deemed more important. But to insist that picture quality is irrelevant to the cinematic experience is just plain silly.Visual realism, the verisimilitude of the cinema to real experience, to absolutely essential to its power. Anything that advances this cause HAS to be worthwhile.
By the way, do you wear glasses? I would think not -- even if you needed them.
***But to insist that picture quality is irrelevant to the cinematic experience is just plain silly.I, of course, said nothing of a sort. What I said was that I would not lament one bit the fact that the already great picture we get today will not make another small leap.
As far as my glasses... hell if I know why it is mentioned here, but of course you are wrong - I wear them when I need it, reading and working on computer.
then it's no big deal.I love music, but I could give a flying whatever to worrying about the sonics of some new $100 fangle A/C power receptacle (the latest fad on the tweaker's forum). Some guys do, whatever.
The promise of Hi-Def was for the average joe to be able to go with larger TV/projector screens. On my 64" RPTV, it makes a big difference, as compared to standard def.
I have just a handful of cable and broadcast HD channels, and yes, sometimes it hard to find decent content. Plus the video/audio dropouts, screwed up sound fields, antenna reception issues, etc.
But I do rent 8-12 movies a month. The possibility of some day my local movie rental store offering HD movies has me very excited.
Look at it this way, at least you can sit out this next format war with no worries.
I do not expect to be seeing the titles I would want to watch, in HD for long, long, long time. And then some. We too rent three to four movies a week, and I know full well they will not be on HD.If they do, that will be fine with me. One night there was The Sounds of Music on cable in HD, and I watched it for a while... it was... well... nice...
Speaking of large screen TV's... most people who buy them do so because of their size and flatness, not because they play HD.
...big widescreen sets will leave the damn things on that stretch mode all the freaking time even though over 95% of all programming is still in 4x3 mode. I hate that stretched and smushed picture.
There is really no simple answer to stretch mode. Staring at sidebars ain't too pretty either. On our Pioneer plasma, where we usualy watch the normal cable channels, I ended up selecting one mode, don't recall which one. Out of four or five modes that one gives least obnoxious distortion, at the price of cropping the picture top and bottom just a bit. Overall I prefer this to grey side bars.
Worlds are colliding!
.
I truly don't understand how you can be such a perfectionist in thngs audio and not in video. In a home theater, both are equally important to me for total enjoyment and immersion.
The two worlds have very different absolute scales, and those scales dictate fundamentally different approaches and philosophies.In audio we can fool a reasonable percentage of people into believing they are listening to a live event - on some not too complicated music.
There is no such illusion in video. You will not fool even one person into believing he is watching a live action.
This difference in degree of illusion is fundamental, in my view.
You can take this a bit further by stating that the goal of high quality audio reproduction is recreation of a live concert, while the goal of high-quality video set-up is the recreation of a movie theater experience... or a recreation of a replica, if you will.
> > > goal of high quality audio reproduction is recreation of a live concert, while the goal of high-quality video set-up is the recreation of a movie theater experience... or a recreation of a replica, if you will. < < <
I dissagree here. I think the analogy is pretty good. I see the goal of high quality audio reproduction to be the recreation of what is on the master tape/recording. The goal of high quality video is reproduction of what is on the master(original) film/recording.
They are not that dissimilar.
Jack
A movie is pictures of real events and the clearer it is the more we suspend disbelief and get caught up in those events. An lp or tape or CD are aural "pictures" of real events and the more faithful the sound is to those pictures the more we get caught up in the music.
...audio reproduction can come very close to the live event, and video is in a different world entirely.Most of us love good quality images. That is why I installed the HDTV as soon as it became a reality. Truth is, all and by itself it offers a few minutes of fun - I haven't watched it in months.
That is why all that HD DVD hoopla is such a non-event to me.
But it looks like some here want to convince me I must be excited over it...
I want to see video as good as it does.
In general terms.
Or as good as the director intend it to be.
Now would I rebuy my thousands of videos again?
No.
I will bring a large suitcase and unload you of... say... a few hundred titles when I stop by... would THAT help?Shit... I will even buy a multi-system DVD player just for that! I already checked... I can get one for $35!
Things I would do for a friend!
You may laugh, but I forgot last time to offer you a lot of DVD´s that I have in double, as the suckers at Amazon, very often announce their titles as closed captioned and of course they are not, so I write: Not CC! and they send me a new DVD then, which of course is still not!later time I wrote them often about that problem, but nothing happen. So now when no CC I want my money back, and as it is of no interrest for them that I send all the way back their items, I am stuck with quite a few that are just in my way...
You may look at them and maybe a few titles could happen to please you...For a friend.....he-he...
But hey, what's $10,000 between friends?No problem, I will GLADLY dig through that pile! Just make sure you don't forget - set them aside NOW!
I will, there must be at least twenty to thirty dvd´s.
I will wrap them in a plastic bag.
And take the LV.
> > > That is why all that HD DVD hoopla is such a non-event to me. < < <
I'm curious about it, but I don't expect to buy into HD-DVD or Blue-ray, even though my TV would show it well. At best, I think it will be a niche market, like SACD. At worst, it will die shortly after birth.
Jack
Since I am detached from that development, I think I can judge it objectively, and taken as such, I think you might be right.I know people tend to equate the explosion of large screen TV sales to the development of HD format, but I believe the reality is different, and the great majority of those buying them would still do if HD did not exist.
The great majority of people who own them, simply view the normal cable broadcast, which is ridiculously bad in quality, but apparently good enough for 99% of people. And today you can buy a decent DVD player for under $39...
I believe there are undeniable parallels between the HD DVD and the SACD.
The particular goal is not relevant. The issue is how close does the messenger get you to the goal. I agree that the goal of a well executed system in video is to get you to as close to the theatrical presentation as possible. If HD-DVD gets the viewer to that goal, then HD-DVD is as an important means to achieve it's goal as a high end audio system's importance to acheive it's goal of recreating an original event. I do not understand your view unless you have seen HD-DVD and decided that it falls short of meeting it's goals.Whether it is "necessary" is another matter. Mega buck audio gear should not be "necessary" to enjoy music.
***I do not understand your view unless you have seen HD-DVD and decided that it falls short of meeting it's goals.Hmmmmm.... strange logic... just what exactly those "goals" might be?
I have seen the HD... as I said - I have something like a dozen channels I don't watch.
As to your point that HD is attempting to create a replica of a replica ... HTML tag not allowed
As to your point that HD is attempting to create a replica of a replica ...I think this is spurious. If you were viewing a Rembrandt with standard television, as opposed to HD, would you say the same thing? The HD image gives you more information, a closer encounter with the original, a more satisfying and convincing experience.
I have a reasonably expensive audio set-up. But I don't find it necessary to my highuse -end playback system to watch a movie. I am much more satisfied by the extra visual information I get from an HD monitor, which at times seems to be a window frame around a real picture. I don't see how you can possibliy argue against that from a cinematic perspective. (This is not to say that the sound isn't ALSO important, but, to digress, I find the way sound is used in modern movie houses to be highly artificial and objectionable, drawing attention to itself rather than working in concert with the visuals to create a coherent theatrical experience.)
Though cinema is essentially a "replica" as you put it (how could it be otherwise?) it's aim is to create the illusion of reality, a belief that what you see before you is what's really happening. When you are looking a John Wayne, your apperception is NOT that you are looking at a replica of John Wayne, but that you are, in fact, looking at the actual John Wayne. The ability of a film to make you FORGET that you are encountering a mere replica is the very essence of the cinematic experience. And high-def enhances this ability considerably.
But that's OK, we are just discussing.Say... in literature... how important is the paper it is printed on?
I mean... do you get more "information" when War and Peace is printed on a fine stock?
Where does one stop? I really dunno...
No more information, but more pleasure....
.
And I would add that the "home theater" experience is not necessarily an approximation of the real "movie theater" experience at all. It can be technically superior. I'm sure most of us have have attended theatrical screenings that have been less than satisfying... a movie that you love presented poorly. Bad projection, spotty print, crappy sound. Having the ability to "screen" films in your own "theater" lets you become the projectionist, sound engineer, etc. You can take it as far as you want to go. THAT's the difference... and what makes BluHD-super-ray-DVD so enticing!Cheers
This is a serious question. With the players expected to sell in the $500-$800 range, at which point are you buying it? When the number of titles gets to 10? 100? 1000?I know in audiophile terms $800 is a pocket change, but still...
But I will wait until some of this format-battle nonsense is over. My money's on Blu-Ray, but I'm not going "all in" just yet. When DVD arrived, I waited until the second generation players hit the shelves. I suspect I'll do the same with the new format. I speculate that by this time next year, one of the formats will dominate, and there will be plenty of titles available (some of which I might want to actually own!). I now own around 100 DVDs, and there's at least a couple hundred more that I'd like to own... I won't be "repurchasing" any of the titles that I currently have, but if they get a good rollout going with the new format, I'm in!Cheers
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