I read this article today in the Seattle Times, which was pulled from the LA Times wires services...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003144074_ptbluray22.html

Summary:
Story is about an "early adopter" who got the BluRay device, and is absolutely wowed by the performance. This guy's got the works...home theater, 110" projection TV, etc. The picture is beautiful...

Quote: The difference is readily apparent in Hunt's home theater. He puts a Blu-ray disc of "Terminator 2" into the player, and the image is glorious: brighter, richer colors and more detail.

The story then gets into "bang for the buck" performance, According to the article, HD really delivers with images over 65", but the quality advantage starts to get very difficult to see at the standard sizes sold today, even the 42" and 50" sets.
For those sets, this is a very subtle change, not like the change from VHS to DVD.
Then add the problems of competing formats AND very expensive players vs a single standard and a 50 buck player, and why would your regular family see the value in changing?

The author then asks...
"But is it $950 better?
"No way. Especially not when shown on the typical HDTV systems found in homes today. And Hunt is the first to admit it."

Later on, the author says:
"After hours spent watching demonstrations of Blu-ray, I am dubious it will take off anytime soon, if ever."

The article concludes:
"Like most early adopters, he has bought into technologies that never got widely accepted even though they offered better quality. Among those on his list: Super Audio CDs and Laser Discs.
"He hopes the same fate will not befall Blu-ray and HD DVD. "The shame," he says, "that this could end up a niche product."

The reason this should scare us is that many of us are making business decisions on equipment purchases based on the assumptions that there will be widespread adoption of these HD players by the general population. What if that doesn't happen?

I believe most of us deliver product in two ways: DVD and the Internet. If there is no widely available means of delivering the superior quality of HD, is it really worth the extra dollars for cameras, editing equipment and burners, if no one can see that difference anyways?

He is making the fundamental mistake of many users, not sitting close enough (or some poor 42 inch TV).

Don't matter the size of a large panel it should appear the same, as you should be sitting so the screen fills the same field of view. Unfortunately, this is uncomfortably close sometimes on the smaller large panels, and most users will sit further away like they did with their 68cm sets.

Nice of the Seattle Times to give jobs to the partially sighted!

You can SEE the difference in HD on a 17" screen - even my wife can see it
(no disrespect to Wives everywhere, but let's face facts they're not usually that discerning when it comes to TV and HiFi!)

HD is here, it's not going away and it's the future - the claim that HD DVD/BluRay is not the same leap as VHS to DVD is quite ludicrous.

Don't worry about adoption - Sony are going to deliver MILLIONS of BluRay players into peoples homes around the world in the next 18 months or so - PS3!

1. One negative article is not enough inertia to kill the industry.
2. We all want what we can't have, and those shiney new HD sets are the top of the list. It's a goal. Face it, we're too greedy.
3. Currently, most of the stuff is backwards compatible and will play your old media, disks, etc. You won't lose or have to give up your old stuff.
4. Eventually, with HDMI, there will be no way of going back and you'll have to commit. That old SD equipment will give up the ghost, and/or your local programing will migrate to digital or HD, and you'll find new replacements scarce, or non-existent. (Resistence is futile).
5. Viewing most SD on HD equipment looks horrible. It's a catch 22. Once you buy into to, you don't go back.
6. The new technology is about 5 times the storage capacity of standard DVD's.

Our family has a 36" CRT HDTV. Given that it is 4:3, when displaying a 16:9 image the actual display size is probably closer to 31" or 32". Even at this size the amazing sharpness and detail of an HD image over an SD image is readily apparent. I find it hard to believe the author of that story finds it difficult to see the quality difference between HD and SD on even the 42" and 50" sets.

Picture size and viewing distance play a huge part of course, but drawing lines between picture size and viewable detail is not valid, with the variety of sets available these days.

The vast majority of consumers (and even retailers) are not savvy about real pixel resolution when it comes to consumer sets. Case in point, 26" to 30" CRTs for sale at your average Circuit City have phosphor resolutions barely better than SD, but yet are sold as HD.

In other words, consumers don't realize there are many "half-assed" HD products out there.

I find it hard to believe the author of that story finds it difficult to see the quality difference between HD and SD on even the 42" and 50" sets.

Depends on the set. There are 42" sets with exceptional resolution sold for business and industrial uses (and corresponding price tags), and 50" sets sold in the HD section with a little sticker on them that says "EDTV", meaning the pixel res is probably 853x480, hardly better than SD.

Doesn't appear to me that the author is savvy enough to investigate the difference.

The author of that article was obviously not a DVi member.
;-)

I have an HDTV but no HDTV channel subscriptions. I can barely stand to watch TV because SD blown up on my 42" plasma looks so horrible. Granted, it's with added broadcast compression, but even DVD's through the component inputs have a cringe-inducing blocky pastel characteristic to them.

The audio industry has basically reached the height of their technology advances--the human ear can't really hear the difference between 44100Hz and 48000Hz, let alone anything better than that. most people don't even have speaker systems that accurately reproduce the audio anyway. The TV world will have it's day too--but no way will it stay at SD. People want bigger TV's and better image quality, and HD is the next logical step. People are silly to think otherwise.

I'll agree that SD to HD is not as huge a discernable difference as VHS to DVD, but the HD difference from SD is still VERY readily apparent and obvious. This is easy to tell by people with no technical knowledge on my 11-12" laptop screen. I would imagine (maybe I'm wrong) that the bigger you blow the picture up, the harder it will be to tell the difference because if you blow HD up big enough, it gets fuzzy too. Then again, if you shrink the image too small, it will be hard to tell as well. I think the best size to view it on to tell the difference are medium size screens.

One thing to remember about reporter/journalism types is that they like to exaggerate and try to find shocking controversy where there isn't--just to get you to read their crap. Or maybe reality is too boring for them.

Personally, I think the improvement from SD to HD is much GREATER than going from VHS to DVD. Just look at the numbers. The fact that I have 20/15 vision doesn't hurt either!

Thing is, if you keep predicting the mass adoption of HDTV eventually you'll be right, but this reminds me of an argument my friend and I had a few years back, he swore blind that Christopher Lee had died, I said he hadn't. A year or so later we had the same argument, but Lee was still alive. Now Mr Lee is popping up in bug budget blockbusters. Eventually, sadly the great Mr Lee will pass away and my friend will be able to say "See? I said he'd died..."

After all, there is a precedent for this - Laser disc never took off, neither did DAT for home audio, and mini-disc took YEARS to take off, but probably there are people who bought the first mini-disc, saying "see I told people would catch on."

As for the rather elitist comments that this guy (which one are we talking about, the Journalist or the man he's interviewing) isn't savvy enough to see the difference between TV sets, hmm, well this guy (I'm assuming Mr Hunt is our subject here) is at the very least a keen consumer, which puts him at the forefront of your target audience, even if he's not a technical specialist. You can call him a fool, but need I remind you of a little story about an Emperor? and some clothes?

In fairness, it's ony this THREAD that's titled "The Death of HD" not the original article which foresees AT WORST that HD formats will end up as a niche market.

I think that the major problem with a lot of the HD sets are the scalers. The cheap ones turn everything in to bad looking VHS LP mode quality!!!! Even the good ones do a poor job at displaying cable programs that are SD. I am now convinced that the only solution these days is two sets. One for watching the local cable programs and then a HD set for true HD programs. You may well need a third SD 16x9 to watch DVD's!!!!! This may be a better solution than finding an expensive set that attempts to do all three of these viewing tasks. I have a JVC i'Art for normal programs and Sony HiScan that I really bought to view my FX1 output. To be honest the JVC has the better picture most of the time at half the price of the Sony.

Ron Evans

I think he has confused that Christopher Reeves had died. Reminds me of the time I remembered seeing a news article about the guy from the Adams Family had died, yet he was popping up for years after doing appearances etc, then I found out there were two of them ;).

The guy does have a point, the higher the resolution the less noticeable the impact. Your eye also gets higher in resolution as it moves closer towards the centre of vision. So higher resolutions are diminishing returns. What I remember from a vision book, is that there are people that do not use the highest resolution part of their vision but concentrate on a part in an adjacent region, some severely so. I feel many people might not know how to use this.

I have done calculations, and have found that about 150dpi (around 720p from a reasonably closer distance, for an emissive display) is the point where your eye integrated surrounding colours and luminance details predominate. I think that after that point, details also start to merge (less and less of the field of your vision can see the higher resolution). You notice that you have to concentrate to notice the finer details, I think people just turn off and sit back and relax and don't notice.

So, people buying higher res equipment and sitting back from it (that raises the effective resolution) may well miss some of the impact. To give you an idea, the field of vision from a good close seat in a cinema is probably twice the field of view from a normal sitting distance from a 17inch monitor.

The reason this should scare us is that many of us are making business decisions on equipment purchases based on the assumptions that there will be widespread adoption of these HD players by the general population. What if that doesn't happen?

In my experience HD source material yields better widescreen SD DVDs than you can get from typical 4:3 DV cameras, so it's not a total loss even if HD delivery never takes off. Better source should produce better output regardless of the delivery format, although this will be less noticeable on a web video at 512 Kbps than on an HD DVD at 25 Mbps.

I'm skeptical now that HD delivery will catch on as fast as I'd like, but until it does there's still some benefit to shooting in HD. And for those few customers who want to get HD output I'm ready to offer it to them, which seems sensible given that it is possible to do.

OEL printable flat screen is expected to cost a lot less, HD sets have already hit under $800.

I agree with you on the DVD quality issue. Large viewing distance and small screens hide DVD's true quality, like you are watching 18Mb/s Mpeg2.

I've just done a very unscientific test and my 75 year old mother with poor eyesight can spot the difference between HD and SD!

:) Ohh, yeah, that's what we need around here, love it.

Its all very lovely that some people spot the difference, and others donot. BUt let me ask something. Could you ask said mother whether she would pay money for a new TV, decoder, and Bluray/HD-DVD player so that she could watch HD?

My parents and many of their friends care nothing about HD. It seems that videophiles and the companies that produce these gimmicky devices are more excited than a lot of the population.

The quality of TV shows, literature, and movies in general is declining. Most movies are all fight sequences that are self-gratifying to say the least.

So what. HD is offering a sharper image so commercials that are too long and too many can brainwash our children even quicker than SD.

Does the world really need to see the Terminator 2 with a sharper image?

I think not.

Seriously guys, this argument was already played out decades ago with the transition from Black and White to Colour. Same rules applied, new TV sets etc. What will happen is that as people buy new televisions they will buy HD ready ones, then as they update their cable/Satellite boxes they'll move to HD also. In the UK, BBC and ITV are expected to launch Free to Air HD services on Freeview within 2 years.

Do I think people want to see Terminator 2 with a sharper image - Yes I do. Do I think HD will take off quickly - No but that's not the point, if you produce television shows or films that have any sort of shelf life then you are going to want to future proof your investment and that involves HD, so it doesn't matter that there won't be many people who can view it, the broadcasters will demand it.

Take Nat Geo for example, more or less all of their original programming is now done in HD, I expect Discovery will follow and so on down the food chain.

Rupert Murdoch has invested vast sums into slowly moving his Sky Network over to HD, now you may not agree with his politics or the programmes he makes, but he's richer than all of us so he's used to betting on the right Pony

HD is inevitable, if you are any sort of video or television professional you should be welcoming it with open arms. It gives us all fantastic new ways to expand the medium we all work in and to involve our audience even more, it makes beautiful pictures and I love it.

I'm very confused as to why people on this board in particular would be so negative towards it

And to answer Simons question - yes she would!

In the UK, BBC and ITV are expected to launch Free to Air HD services on Freeview within 2 years.

Don't hold yer breath! 2010 at the EARLIEST, and then only in limited form. They just don't have the bandwidth yet until all the analogue systems are well and truly off.

They will have a satellite service going perhaps, and maybe a cable one. But Freeview. No chance.

Don't hold yer breath! 2010 at the EARLIEST, and then only in limited form. They just don't have the bandwidth yet until all the analogue systems are well and truly off.

They will have a satellite service going perhaps, and maybe a cable one. But Freeview. No chance.

you say that, but there are test streams going out on freeview now. they eve have channels called BBC HD and ITV hd. ots hd wouldn't be hard for the bbc to put on freeview

This kind of brings me back to a conversation I have with friends.

If some or many (depending on who you talk to) people do not really see the difference between SD and HD then why the heck do we need 1080i or even 1080p?

A lot of people here on these forums talk about 720p as a bad in between form of HD. They look at 720p as a form of a disease. Why is this the case if most people have a hard time telling the difference between 480i and 1080i? Why can't there be a perfect middle ground? 720p gives extra sharp detail for those of us freaks with Superman vision. 720p also gives us a perfectly clean 60p framerate for smooth motion. It seems like this would be the best way to go since the extra pixels in 1080 might be a total waste. If people cannot tell the difference between 480i and 1080i they really will not be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080i.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most of the HD TVs out there are native 720p sets. I'm convinced enough that I'm planning to go to with 720p for now. I saw a great new Samsung 42" plasma TV this weekend - 720p native resolution. 1080 may well be the future, but its not what is out there now.

I saw figures, in an industry related article, that something like 40%, or was that more, in at least one of the major markets, of the new sets sold this year would be HD. So, it's here. Maybe you could argue that filming 1080 at this time is a waste of time, because there are so few true 1080 sets, and many 1080 transmissions are shot on 1440 cameras, and that you should shoot in 720p until there is more 1080p sets. Cheaper set technology should accelerate this trend.

Maybe the guy thought it was Bruce Lee that died,,,but that was back in the 70's. People didn't even have VCR's then,,time's have changed and they will keep changing. HD will be standard in a few years. People walk into best buy and see the pictures on the HD sets. It will happen.

you say that, but there are test streams going out on freeview now. they eve have channels called BBC HD and ITV hd. ots hd wouldn't be hard for the bbc to put on freeview

They have a limited Freeview trial going on in London with volunteers using special boxes. They are experimenting with all sorts of different compression technology etc. But they will absolutely not be delivering HD via Freeview until after the analogue switch off. There isn't the bandwidth available at the moment. The analogue switch off is not due to finish until 2012.

But you will get it on satellite (well, you already can if you pay Sky their usual silly fees) and cable before then.

I think he has confused that Christopher Reeves had died. Reminds me of the time I remembered seeing a news article about the guy from the Adams Family had died, yet he was popping up for years after doing appearances etc, then I found out there were two of them ;).



Nah, we are both big Hammer Horror fans, and anyway, this argumant started WAY back, before Reeve even had his accident.

They have a limited Freeview trial going on in London with volunteers using special boxes. They are experimenting with all sorts of different compression technology etc. But they will absolutely not be delivering HD via Freeview until after the analogue switch off. There isn't the bandwidth available at the moment. The analogue switch off is not due to finish until 2012.

But you will get it on satellite (well, you already can if you pay Sky their usual silly fees) and cable before then.


granted, i'm in london. but i dont have a special box, i have an eye TV for DTT. i am reciving these signals, they take a huge amount of processing power to decode it though.

and i'm not trying to argue with you, or saying your wrong or anything. i'm just stating what i know.

I think of the film Tarnation as a good example to kick around for this discussion. Tarnation, made by Jonathan Caouette, had filmed his life with low rez grainy 8mm home movie cameras, as well as early VHS, and then somehow pulled it all together with an I-mac, and I-Movie into a beautiful masterpiece. This plays into my wifes argument that "You don't need all this HD-this and HD-that!" But Tarnation could not have worked any other way. Some stories just don't need a higher resolution to be enjoyed, just as the evening news doesn't need 35mm to be effective. But most stories and I'll take a rough guess, oh 75%, do benefit from higher resolution in the making, and watching of them. The choices that you can make with film or HD means more artistic freedom. More stories can be told without the disbelief that accompanies artifacts. The problem happens when we start making decisions on what to film with, based on how many homes can watch. Shouldn't we base those decisions on the weather it serves the story. Of course, we all know that you shoot with the highest resolution one can afford.

I own a plasma HDTV and anything I watch in SD looks horrible, compression is highly noticeable and everything is pixelated. However, someone I know has a HD projector and HDTV and his DVD stuff looks beautiful... Why? I use a standard DVD player and he uses a hi-end PC with PowerDVD to watch his films. The software seems to do a lot of tricks making the SD images look way better than when played in a standard DVD player.

Of course it's not a miracle worker and some DVDs still looks kinda fuzzy, but something like Batman Beginning or Spiderman 2 looks nothing short of amazing.

The point is, maybe we don't need new costly equipment as we could do very nicely with DVD players carrying 'smart' software that improves image quality.

Having said that, watching HD broadcasts on a HDTV looks quite sharper than SD broadcasts on a SD CRT. But I wonder how many people will notice that, or even care?

I own a plasma HDTV and anything I watch in SD looks horrible, compression is highly noticeable and everything is pixelated.

Woah there cowboy.

Compression artefacts and pixelisation are not part of standard def! I think you'd be very, very surprised at how good standard def can look. For example a direct projection of nicely graded Digibeta.

The problem isn't with standard definition being rubbish. The problem is with crappy compression methods and colour sampling.

The point is, maybe we don't need new costly equipment as we could do very nicely with DVD players carrying 'smart' software that improves image quality.


I agree. High definition is very, very nice. Yeah, I like it a lot. But at the same time standard definition hasn't been pushed to anywhere near its capabilities and is often limited by the delivery methods.

But high definition is here to stay. Nowadays I think the easiest thing would be for it to become standard as quickly as possible. These halfway points of development are not good for anyone, and I often feel that high definition was pushed well before it was actually ready for mass consumption.

Woah there cowboy.

Compression artefacts and pixelisation are not part of standard def! I think you'd be very, very surprised at how good standard def can look. For example a direct projection of nicely graded Digibeta.

The problem isn't with standard definition being rubbish. The problem is with crappy compression methods and colour sampling.



Yes, sorry, I was refering to the SD broadcasted stuff (I have digital cable = compression) and DVDs, not to SD itself.

As others have said, it's just a matter of time. Personally I'm waiting until I can walk into a store and buy a 32 inch 1080p LCD for around $1000 give or take. Right now that is possible with 720p sets, but I'm holding off for full HD. I figured it will only be a couple of years. By then there should be more HD content on cable TV and we'll have a better idea of how the blu-ray and HDDVD formats work out.

But I admit for a little while there I was also skeptical of the HD craze. I figured it might very well become a niche market like Laserdisc was. But I'm sure now that over the next ten years HD will become very popular as sooner or later those are the only TV's you'll be able to buy.

Honestly though I think what is getting people to buy them more then anything right now is not the higher resolution but the fact that you can get thin LCD/plasma TVs that hang on your wall. And they just look nicer even if they are only EDTV's. Kind of like people swiching to LCD computer monitors over CRT tubes even though they are both capable of the same resolutions. The LCD's are thin and brighter and crisper looking.

I think your problem is the scaler in the plasma set. I have the same issue with my Sony HiScan showing cable TV, poor, very poor. But my JVC I'Art SD set is lovely with the same input. I have the same effect on my Dell 24" monitor. When I playback my FX1 video on the Sony HiScan it is just beautiful. I have come to believe that one needs to use compatible displays with source material. Trying to scale inputs to pixel resolutions is difficult and usually ends up not very good. That leaves you with the possibility of three sets!!!! Cheap 4x3 for local TV, 16x9 SD for DVD's and 16x9 for HD!!!!!!!! You could possible get away with one 16x9 but for local 4x3 I think one is better off with a normal 4x3 SD set.

Ron Evans

I've been in this business many years now, and there is something way down deep in me saying "this HD stuff is risky at best. Be careful to keep your bases covered". It seems to me the "next big thing" is not HD at all, but something else...

I also bought HD equipment to test and try to peer down the murky future road, but it sure seems like the pace of change leads to "3-D", not "HD".

I believe that, my dear friends, is so HOLLYWOOD will try to re-assume what they see as their rightful-hi-buck-true-professional-position again as the "keepers of the visual media". We have invaded their space and they do not like it.

Prepare thyselves...3-D cometh...don't bet all your hard-earned bucks on HD or any variations. Keep your investments under control...

If you don't believe me... Google "3-D" and "Hollywood" in the same search...

That's why the terabyte/petabyte storage developments, multi-core processors, and rabid broadband transmission research is so important to the industry gurus. Only those with BIG PROCESSOR POWER and DEEP POCKETS will be (are) in the inner circle of 3-D, surround-sound, total immersion media experiences. It's the control thing again.

My doom and gloom 2-bits,

Stephen Armour - Brazil

that is a good point stephen, but still Hollywood can't stop the internet. The internet has changed everything. movies, music, news. They can't do it all. They might try and get more people back in the theaters, but TV and DVDs are a different story.

Maybe Sony will come out with a Z1/3D soon!!

I ask my 19 kid about 3-D. He said he doesn't want to wear those goofy glass to watch a movie. That has always been the problem with 3D.

I also bought HD equipment to test and try to peer down the murky future road, but it sure seems like the pace of change leads to "3-D", not "HD".

More likely the future is portable 'video everywhere,' using low bandwidth compression for most copies with an HD option for home and theater viewing. Once people get used to that then we can talk about 3D holographic projection, but that sounds like something for another generation or two from now. HD looks good for at least the next 10-20 years, as it will probably take that long for most people to upgrade their home viewing equipment.

3D for the cinema screen perhaps but domestically it'll be years off, it certainly isn't going to slow the growth of HD. How many people are going to say "I'll hold off buying an HD set because 3D total immersive TV is just around the corner."

Having said all that above, as someone stated earlier, we'll always shoot with the highest res possible or attainable.

Do I use HD? Absolutely! Will I continue to use it? Absolutely! But do I believe it has a very limited, near future technology run? Most assuredly. The pressures that drive our industry are inexorably pushing it to emulate real life in all it's aspects. Over the long term, that precludes continuing to use a 2-D technology that's had a 100+ year run already! Good grief, we're just now starting to use electonically transmitted images with resolution of the 1st film reels of 100 years ago!

I whole-heartedly agree with the "no glasses" idea! I will never use them either. But is 3-D coming on fast? I believe so. At least on a level we won't be able to compete with for many years to come. For most of us, that means investing in equipment and tech allowing us to continue to put bread on the table, yet be creative, without trying to do what Hollywood does with huge budgets. Maybe we should mostly be doing what Hollywood can't or doesn't want to do: ... concentrate on showing real life with it's high's and low's, to people that really don't care much about the resolution or aspect ratio (or it's underlying technology). Use what works best and easiest, to do what we do best.

(up to 4 bits now),

Stephen Armour - Brazil

I've been in this business many years now, and there is something way down deep in me saying "this HD stuff is risky at best. Be careful to keep your bases covered". It seems to me the "next big thing" is not HD at all, but something else...

In a certain way, you're right... More than you know, I think. :) HD is here and here to stay, but it's not the "next big thing". It's simply the evolution of digital video and the next logical stepping stone. Computer monitors and TVs are essentially becoming one in the same and higher resolutions are finally available to the masses, but in the end, it's not the major jump that a lot of people make it out to be. Within the next few years, there will hardly be a TV available that isn't HD (at least not in the 26" and larger category) and most consumer video cameras and whatnot will become HD. It's a no-brainer... The discontinued Sony HC1 can be had on eBay (brand new in a sealed retail box) for less than $1K. Another couple years, such HDV camcorders will be commonplace in the $350 price range that so many people find attractive for that simple home video camera.


I also bought HD equipment to test and try to peer down the murky future road, but it sure seems like the pace of change leads to "3-D", not "HD".


I'll definitely agree with that. However, I think that the others who've pointed out the issue being the glasses are also correct. Currently the technology has been demonstrated (in limited capacity) by various companies to create 3D images without the need for special eyewear. It essentially works by targeting multiple beams of laser light or other high-intensity particles or by focusing high intensity beams to a very small point in space. This space is super-heated very quickly, causing miniature gas explostions or moisture bursts, creating a flash of light. All of this happens in about 1/100th of a second or even faster. Combine the technique with intense laser light and you can create a colored pixel floating in 3D space. This technique or some derivative of it is probably the future of cinematic 3D imagery. I believe that someday, we will go to the "movies" and have a 3D world projected around us rather than watching a flat screen in front of us. But there's a good bet that 3D is a good bet for the future.

In the meantime, HD is just a progression. Just as theatre systems are progressing to 4K digital projection. While 35mm film has approximately 4K to 6K resolution, most film distribution prints are only the equivalent of 1000 lines due to the generational loss, distribution stock, etc.. People will see a noticeable increase in detail at the theatres when 4K or higher film and digital sources are delivered on this medium and then we will have a smaller digital home version in the form of HD-DVD and/or BluRay. Eventually 4K will probably come to the home theatre... And at that point, massive 3D infrastructure will be making its way into the local cineplex.

The industry will continue to evolve and for those of us who work in the industry, any of these events can be "the next big thing" if we approach it in the right way and market it to our customers in the right way.

I believe that, my dear friends, is so HOLLYWOOD will try to re-assume what they see as their rightful-hi-buck-true-professional-position again as the "keepers of the visual media". We have invaded their space and they do not like it.

It's always this way and this is one of the key factors driving the evolution of how Hollywood delivers their goods. Home projectors and eventually television was perceived as a threat by Hollywood... They brought us widescreen formats and color, oh, my! Home video and the VCR brought about predictions of the Hollywood's death and the promise that anyone can be a movie star... Yet Hollywoood soon found that home video only gave them one more means of incresing profits. Hollywood panicked over DVD, but soon found that not only was the visual quality a lot better than preceding tape formats, but the level of profits was significantly higher too and a new interest in home video distribution was rekindled. Now we're hearing the same doom and gloom over HD and electronic distrubution... In the end, Hollywood will find a way to adapt and make its money and they will complain about the next evolutionary step that comes along. I can see it all now... In the year 2086, Hollywood will be predicting their own demise and doing everything they possibly can within the court system to stop a small startup company that is about to release a 390 TPixel whole-room 3D environmental display system that surpasses what's at the local cineplex.


Prepare thyselves...3-D cometh...don't bet all your hard-earned bucks on HD or any variations. Keep your investments under control...

Perhaps that is true, but with HD as an evolutionary step, someone has to invest. Oh, too late... Nearly 6 million HDTVs were sold in 2005 with predictions that this number will more than triple for 2006. 3D will undoubtedly come, but I don't see it happening without HD already in place as HD provides the underlying digital infrastructure, the resolution and bandwidth to open the door.


That's why the terabyte/petabyte storage developments, multi-core processors, and rabid broadband transmission research is so important to the industry gurus. Only those with BIG PROCESSOR POWER and DEEP POCKETS will be (are) in the inner circle of 3-D, surround-sound, total immersion media experiences. It's the control thing again.

Yep...

Isn't 3D a movie directors nightmare? Isn't it all about selection what's in the frame, how it's lit, FOV and DOF? Most IMAX feature films I've seen were very impressive but did not carry the emotions as well as traditional cinema.

I think HD helps to capture the miniscule details that makes features even more gripping. But, of course, the display has to be big enough to allow the eyes of the spectators to ingest it all (like a cinema, for example).

IMHO 3D is a gorgeous effect but will not surpass traditional 2D HD. It will merely complement. Like black and white imagery complements colour film.

I don't buy into the the whole Blue Ray hype. I have asked several people about it at my office. Nobody has even heard of it. They were all "Blue what?"

I think Blue Ray is the next laser disk.