Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?

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Originally Posted by toomanymikes

I was on Hidef digest (http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=33733) forums earlier to read what folk had to say about the Warner announcement. Basically the Blu ray supporters are saying 'this is the end of the format war' and the HD DVD supporters are calling this a bit underhand (despite the paramount deal last year). Anyhoos, its all a bit fanatical as these things can be but it really reminded me of the old ST / A500 arguments we used to have as kids. You should have a read if your looking to waste some time - quite funny. :D

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Heh ... yeah, I had a great time reading some of the flamefests there right after the WB announcement. You'd think some of these people had shares in the companies on either side of the fence, judging by the way they were flying at each other's throat.

As for the format war as it is right now, I suppose it can be said with certainty that HD DVD won't be able to survive long. No one in their right mind would continue to buy hardware and software knowing that what they bought will be obsolete within a year. Whether BR can step up and actually become the standard to replace DVD remains the big question, considering how dominant DVD still is, and the availability of such technologies as HD cable television and HD download services.

Personally, I hope that high definition video does become mainstream, so that prices come down. After experiencing movies in these high resolution, it's kind of hard to go back to SDTV.

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Originally Posted by v85rawdeal

This a very similar situation as to what happened with Betamax and VHS.

The truth was that Betamax was by far the better format, but was let down by the higher prices of the video recorders (that and the fact that VHS flows off the tongue so much easier than Betamax). Betamax went on to be the standard used by the television industry because of the quality of the system, and VHS went on to become the home system, because of the cheaper prices.

Be interesting to see if history repeats itself

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There is a big difference between then and now though.

At the time of Betamax and VHS, broadcast companies were still mainly using film to record their footage, and for editing. Video was a relatively new format and so the industry sat up and really took notice because of the convenience and lower costs associated with video compared to film (no developing needed, and tape to tape editing).

In contrast, the Broadcast HD formats are fully in place and have been long before home formats began. This was because digital recording technology was already invented to take over from film based cameras for the film industry, and so the lower resolution HDTV format cameras filtered down from that technology. So Sony, JVC and others have been making Broadcast HD equipment for some time.

The other major difference is the actual formats. Video was designed as a recording format, as well as a playback format. BR and HD-DVD, as well as the older DVD are all final playback formats that use quite heavy lossy compression with keyframes instead of storing every frame recorded. They are designed for end of the line playback and consumer recording. These are no good for broadcast editing where uncompressed or lossless formats are needed to prevent degradation when editing and the ability to edit footage at a frame by frame level.

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Originally Posted by Stephen Coates

Maybe we should just wait a few years and stick with DVD for now. At least then we won't end up getting a failed format. Although it might be good in 20 years time if HDDVD did fail and you can say, 'I have an old HDDVD player'.

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If we all thought in that way technology would stall and wouldn't keep moving forward. If everyone waited all new technology would fail as no one would buy into it at the initial higher retail prices, which in turn funds its continued development to bring costs down and to improve the technology.

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Originally Posted by Sharingan

As for the format war as it is right now, I suppose it can be said with certainty that HD DVD won't be able to survive long. No one in their right mind would continue to buy hardware and software knowing that what they bought will be obsolete within a year. Whether BR can step up and actually become the standard to replace DVD remains the big question, considering how dominant DVD still is, and the availability of such technologies as HD cable television and HD download services.

Personally, I hope that high definition video does become mainstream, so that prices come down. After experiencing movies in these high resolution, it's kind of hard to go back to SDTV.

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Me too. People have on the whole been quite slow to adopt hi def into their homes. And amusingly I've spoken to a lot of people since Christmas who decided to finally upgrade their TV's to a nice big flatscreen HD one. But then I've asked them what they have it connected to and they just say "it has freeview built in", so in fact they have just bought an HDTV to watch SDTV on and they don't understand! Oh dear! And this seems to be becoming more and more commonplace. They are buying the new TV because of the hype of HD, but not understanding what it actually is, or the actual options for watching live broadcasts or recordings in HD. Others I spoke to comment how much better their DVDs now look in HD! Using their same old DVD player (ie no upscaling) Hmm... They just don't get it.

Whats this about broadcasting requiring stuff to not be compressed? I regulaly watch the news on ITV and some stuff is clearly compressed. As was some of the recent stuff in Corronation Street, where they were in the Lake District. I have also seen a few programmes on the BBC which have been compressed, but these were some of the programmes that they have on in the morning which arn't really worth watching.

You misunderstand Steve. The TV programs you watch are all compressed for digital broadcasting. Uncompressed footage would be much too large and require huge bandwidths to deliver.

What I'm talking about is broadcast equipment, not broadcasting equipment. Broadcast equipment is the name given to professional equipment used to make programs. So the cameras, lenses, recording equipment, sound equipment, video editing etc... This is all lossless or uncompressed so it can be edited easily.

It is only at the end of the whole production process that the final edit is then converted into it's final format ready to be broadcast to your TV set.

Why would they compress it for digital broadcasting when they are broadcasting it using analogue?

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Originally Posted by Stephen Coates

Why would they compress it for digital broadcasting when they are broadcasting it using analogue?

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It's possibly digitsed and compressed when they send it to the transmission site. Oh and as for the news, lots of that will be sent via. satellite (and system. occasionally broadband) so is compressed slightly before being sent to the studios. All pre-recorded stuff though on the big channels is usually done on Digibeta at a bitrate (I believe) of around 90Mb/s so there the compression artifacts are definitely not coming from there!

Everything is digital these days, except once it reaches the old analogue transmitters, and then it is turned into an analogue broadcast.

I knew the news would be compressed when sent via satellite, but I still don't understand the compression in corronation street the other day.

Well, you are talking about Corronation street! Does that even deserve it's own dedicated bandwidth?

Everything is compressed in some way through it's travels. And most broadcast transmitters are receiving their feeds via satellite.

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Originally Posted by Stephen Coates

I knew the news would be compressed when sent via satellite, but I still don't understand the compression in corronation street the other day.

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Because on it's way from the ITV playout centre in Chiswick to the Emley Moor transmitter it will be a digital signal. Only at the Emley Moor site will it be decoded back into analogue ready for broadcast.