Mmmm.. i want to project my movies in a 18 feet wide screen and look sharp and detailed!
As they were intended to.
Film can do that
DVDs can't do that
And mmm this thing about upgrading technology and mass media has been going on for years. First it was 78RPM records, then it was 33.33RPM Lps and 45RPM singles, then it was VHS, VHS Hi Fi, Super VHS, 8mm, Hi-8, CDs, Laserdiscs, DV video, DVD, 16:9 enhancement, Mono, Stereo, MatrixSurround, Dolby 5.1, DTS 5.1, Dolby EX 6.1, DTS ES 6.1, and it'll keep on and on.
Most people on this site are usually new to DVD and stuff so it's like the first time that might be happening to them, but others (i would think of, for example mvealf) have gone thru this when going from LD to DVD
Only YOU decide when it's good enough for YOU.
Some people still like and cling to VHS and pan scan 4:3 movies to this day. We don't cus we need something of better quality, no? otherwise we could still be playing The Lion King on 4:3 VHS though a 3 inch mono speaker on a 13" TV thru the antenna conection.
DVD (at best) (And with that i mean PAL digital transfers) is just 16mm film quality.
Theatrical movies since the beginnning were made in 35mm and some have been done in 70mm (which is up to 5 times the quality of 35mm) A PAL DVD can't hold all the detail of even a finely preserved old Silent Movie film negative.
If you think The Lion King DVD on a 7 foot screen is a litle fuzzy well on Blu-Ray it would be tack umbelievable sharp, in fact good enough to be done on a 18 wide screen if you wanted to. Probably look better than the print that was projected on the theater too.
Now if you don't want or need that, you don't have to buy into the technology. Yes it's bothersoeme that the technology is changing at a faster pace and if you want to keep up you either have to invest and replace, or just hold out and stay with the current one or not buy the current one at all and wait for the next one. If you like DVD quality by all means stay with it. It's gonna be around for a long while!
Maybe all those who still have VHS will love jumping to Blu-Ray cus to them it'll be a humongous difference and they didnt get to do DVD, while for mamy of us it'll be a little painfull cus we loved DVD and invested on it (i have half a K of DVD titles and also half a K of LD titles and half a K of CD titles
so don't think i'm not "affected" by it
)
But on the other hand i'm tired of geting postcard sized versions of the movies I like, and i want the REAL thing, and a Blu-Ray disc has the promise of giving me what the LD or DVD can't: a version equal or better than the original 35mm print for Standart Widescreen and Academy movies. And I'd like that.
(btw puny hd-dvd (the other format) won't give you THAT, so that's why I don't like it or care about it. If the next HD format were just the WUP hd-dvd, even I would recomend a multiPASS
not worth the truble)
Many of us complain when we don't get the whole ratio or the original mix, or the complete unedited version, etc. But i don't see many complaining about the loss of definition or lack of Spectacular Scope feeling you get on a DVD. Well guess what? When you buy a standart definition video version of a movie you're geting a shrunk version that only has 20% of the detail and size of the original version so it's incomplete!
The roads in Mad Max and the Road Warrior are supposed to encircle you and have you look left and right to see all the horizon. You can't do that on your 32" TV with DVD
When i see 2001: A Space Odissey even on my PAL DVD it doesn't have as many stars in the space shots as it did when i've seen it on the theater. You might think that doesn't matter but it does! Stanley Kubrick shot it in 70mm so it would look as live and real as it could be like staring at the night sky in space so you could ACTUALLY FEEL YOU WERE IN SPACE with Bowman and HAL. And you DID.
Now when i see it on DVD, i go: My God it's missing stars!
I'm watching a cool movie but im not living it. Not gonna do it. Not in space.
On video
some people find it boring.
Well it WAS breathtaking.
I myself also like having the dvd tangible disc things (altho they occupy lots of space) cus im a hoarding mouse. So if i can get my Film experience on disc one day i'll be happy
On the other hand if 35mm quality digital D/Ls would be available and were a cheaper/faster way to get the theatrical experience in my home and it wasn't a complicated thing i wouldnt mind that neither.
The point when we are gonna have HD (or Ultra HD one day!) at home in mass, well that's a little fuzzy still, but you must know that it's being implemented, and it will be strange to have up to 35mm quality Broadcast and Cable TV piping into our TVs soon while still having to pay $15 or more to have a 16mm quality (if that!) DVD disc.
This hasn't happened since the 80's where you had better looking discs (Laserdiscs) than what you got on TV. DVD's look better than regular TV now but if they don't go HD at one point they will be the equivalent of VHS some day.
Now again i don't see why all this lamentation and gnashing of the teeth, people upgraded from VHS to DVD without complaining, no?
Well actually some did and on that note here i'll post (better here than there
) some stuff i looked up while thinking of a reply after reading Jayden's post on the gold retreat thread
about DVD and format introductions and evolutions. The ones that did complain, gave the acronym "DVD" a special meaning. Sound familiar?
Here's how my post was coming tru:
Actually DVD is more than 8 years old...
(From the DVD FAQ):
there was a time that DVD stood for:
Dead, very dead (from naysayers who predicted DVD would never take off)
DVD
The first players appeared in Japan in November, 1996, followed by U.S. players in March, 1997. Prices for the first players in 1997 were $1000 and up. By the end of 2000, players were available for under $100 at discount retailers. In 2003 players became available for under $50. Six years after the initial launch, close to one thousand models of DVD players were available from over a hundred consumer electronics manufacturers
Mass-market DVD movie players list for $40 to $3000 now.
DVD-Audio
The first DVD-Audio players were released in Japan by Pioneer in late 1999, but they did not play copy-protected discs. Matsushita (under the Panasonic and Technics labels) first released full-fledged players in July 2000 for $700 to $1,200.
SACD
Sony released a SACD player at the tear-inducing price of $5,000 in limited quantities in the U.S. at the end of 1999. Sony shipped a $750 SACD player in Japan in mid 2000.
DVD discs
The first titles released in the U.S., on March 19, 1997, by Lumivision, authored by AIX Entertainment, were IMAX adaptations.
The Warner Bros. U.S. launch followed on March 24.
By December 1997 about 530 titles.
By the end of 1999 about 5,000 titles.
By the end of 2000 there were over 10,000 titles available in the US and over 15,000 worldwide.
By the end of 2001 there were about 14,000 titles available in the U.S.
By the end of 2002 there were about 23,000 titles available in the U.S.
Just over 10,000 new DVD titles were released in 2003, and almost 11,000 came out in 2004, for a total of 42,500 titles (with about 40,300 still available).
(Note that these numbers don't include adult titles, which account for an additional 15% or so.)
It would cost you about $800,000 to buy one copy of each.
Some UD members are aiming for that
Well all through those years people kept buying VHS too
The first CD player was also about $1000
There are single purpose Blu-Ray RECORDERS in Japan for about $3000 now. Mass market PLAYERS should be much cheaper than that.
Just in case Jayden feels i'm like fencing with him, I like your posts they have valid points which i take (and agree with some of them too!) and make my cerebellum gush with great disscussion
It's by UD discussion I set my mind in motion, the thoughts adquire speed the keys adquire pressure, it is by UD discussion I set my mind in motion
). I just think they're really jumping the gun on this one, and wish they would wait many more years before even talking about a new format. It's too early for this.