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In Reply to: RE: The trouble with HD DVD and Blu Ray..... posted by chris.redmond2@bushinternet.com on December 9, 2007 at 14:03:20
Chris, I agree with much of what you've said. ;^)
However, while there are striking similarities between hi-def audio (SACD vs. DVD-A) and hi-def video (blu-ray, HD DVD), I think there are significant differences.
1) The movie-watching-&-purchasing public is far larger than the music-listening-&-purchasing public. The habit of going to the theater to watch a movie is deeply engrained in American culture, and though it is waning with the advent of home theater, it established a huge base of buyers for DVD to tap into.
2) Sight, not sound, is the primary of all human senses. Trying to hear subtleties in recordings . . . more space between instruments, sound stage, tight low end, etc. . . . is an impossible task for many of us who are music lovers, not to mention the masses!
However, I do think that well-done hi-def video (be it blu-ray or HD DVD) is clearly superior to standard DVD (even when the latter is upconverted), and there is some likelihood that even some average consumers can detect this difference.
3) The introduction of hi-def video was indeed "hurried" to market. But I imagine this was in part largely "competition driven" by two competing formats trying to beat each other to market first.
Of course, these hardware deficiences are disgusting. But place these shortcomings against the general regress of quality electronics over the past three decades. E.g., I have three color TVs, and quality is inversely related to age . . . older is better.
Prices need to come down to facilitate the adoption of any new video format. In general, they have come down rapidly, primarily driven by competition between the two formats.
So unless digital movie downloads kill both the hi-def video formats, I believe that both will survive for awhile, and possibly one for the indefinite future.
Follow Ups:
Buying music records makes a lot of sense to me because a record is listened hundreds of times. I never understood why people buy DVDs - you watch it once, maybe twice, and that's it.
Despite cable and Tivo, I often find that most of the stuff being broadcast is junk or a waste of my time. I sometimes buy DVDs to free myself of the junk being promoted. Movies like Casablanca, North by Northwest, It's A Wonderful Life, Gone With The Wind, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Godfather I/II, Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia, Notorious, Rebecca, West Side Story, King Kong, Godzilla, Star Wars, Star Trek - The Voyage Home, Shakespeare In Love, Dial M for Murder, and of course all versions of Zorro, are just a few of the movies that I have watched dozens, if not hundreds of times.
In a similar vein I never criticize the audiophile who has a top notch system that costs far more than his/her modest music collection. Quality and what brings you great pleasure trumps all.
Hi.
Auditory memory is not as good as visual memory for most of the people. In addition, people with ADD suffer more from auditory memory. As a professor I have dealt with this problem even in post-graduate students, and the major problem with this deficiency is auditory memory.
Many students will clearly remember visual imagery more than auditory imagery, and most people do. This has to do with the way our brain works. There are just too many sounds around us and the brain has to be selective in order to process the most important information: that related to survival.
That is one reason visual user interfaces are better than text interfaces in computers and other equipment.
Some people, especially musicians, are different in this respect. They can remember exactly the sounds of the music. Take the examples of Beethoven and Smetana: they were deaf and they could compose without "hearing" the sounds of the music. Most composers work from their minds because the can "hear" the sounds in their brain.
I am a semi profesional musician and conductor, and I can "hear" the music inside my head, so to say. An annecdote: when I arrived home from Vietnam, I had to report to the Veteran's Administration for a checkup. One was a psychiatric evaluation. The doctor asked at one moment if I "heard sounds in my head". I said yes. He looked at me with a smile and said, "I will reffer you for further evaluation. What kind of sounds you hear?" I answered, "musical sounds. I am a musican and I can hear a whole symphony in my head". He looked at me, crumpled the piece of paper that he was using to write his report and said: "you are ok, get the hell out of here".
The point is that most people will remember visual things much better than auditory things and thus watchng a movie once or twice is enough. I have a large collection of movies as well as audio. But the movies I have are some of the best ever produced. I watch them after quite a time, and many times I discover things that I never noticed before and rediscover things that I had forgotten. Similar to recorded music.
Happy listening!
In principle, I agree. Music has much more "replay" value.
But go into Best Buy. How much retail space is devoted to music (CD) versus movies (DVD)? While the music section has contracted, DVD has expanded.
What I can't figure out is why so many people want to own BAD movies! To each their own.
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