10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed

[ericl]

Clint DeBoer from Audioholics thinks that both HD formats have already failed. I'm not sure I completely agree, but he has some very good points.

His Reasons (which he elaborates on in the article)

1. Nobody likes false starts.
2. Format wars don’t sell players.
3. HD DVD and BD are NOT quantum leaps in technology.
4. Studios are conservative, greedy, and unmotivated.
5. PS3 can’t save the world.
6. Those who ignore history… [SACD and DVD Audio]
7. People want technology that’s 15 minutes ahead of its time.
8. Enthusiasts are getting tired (and smarter).
9. A skeptical news media doesn’t help.
10. Broadband and IPTV to compete?

Read the entire article here

[Geoffcin]

Clint DeBoer from Audioholics thinks that both HD formats have already failed. I'm not sure I completely agree, but he has some very good points.

His Reasons (which he elaborates on in the article)


Read the entire article here

But he doesn't put them in the right order. Number 10 should be first.

The REAL problem with HD software on disk is that I'm ALREADY watching HD broadcasts. I also time shift them so that I can watch when I want. That takes a big bite out of the "need to have" argument for disk based HD.

[kexodusc]

I dont' believe they'll both fail - it's possible they'll both survive. The HD explosion Cable/Satellite providers have witnessed suggests people are tech-savvy enough to buy into one of these formats. I suspect most people are just waiting for prices to become more reasonable, and more titles to be released.
Once you see them available at Blockbuster though, it's just a matter of time.

Though I agree, HD broadcasts and on-demand or time shifted TV is really terrific, and as it continues to evolve, I suspect people will find less of a need to buy HD players.

[robin_v]

There are even other considerations and deliberations.

I suppose every hifi enthusiast reaches the point of choosing between pure stereo or surround sound. This is how I reasoned it through...

I have been a professional musician and know what it sounds like to be in the centre of the sound source. It is a totally different experience to being in front of a sound stage. Perhaps I have associations to working and concentrating on what I'm doing when I'm at the centre of it all?
I feel there is a greater sense of being entertained listening to a well tuned sound stage rather than being at the centre.

Not even in the context of home movies am I comfortable with surround sound. This is mainly due to the fact that we don't have three dimensional video. When push comes to shove we are all still staring at a screen or "stage" and this is where the sound belongs.

A well dimensioned stereo sound stage around a screen is more realistic in the sense that there is a correlation between picture and sound. There is "depth" in the picture and depth in the sound stage too so they are well suited together.

I remember being confused by surround sound when I went to the movies to see The Lord Of The Rings and there were lots of confusing and unrelated sounds on either side and behind me. Nothing that I could relate to on the screen.

Maybe I've just been too involved over the years with perfecting my sound stage that the question of surround sound has passed me by? I won't lose any sleep over it anyway.

By adding side and rear channels one is trying to push a way too large square peg into a round hole. The mere fact that one needs a centre speaker is in itself an indication of an improperly balanced system.

[Resident Loser]

There are even other considerations and deliberations.

I suppose every hifi enthusiast reaches the point of choosing between pure stereo or surround sound. This is how I reasoned it through...

I have been a professional musician and know what it sounds like to be in the centre of the sound source. It is a totally different experience to being in front of a sound stage. Perhaps I have associations to working and concentrating on what I'm doing when I'm at the centre of it all?
I feel there is a greater sense of being entertained listening to a well tuned sound stage rather than being at the centre.

Not even in the context of home movies am I comfortable with surround sound. This is mainly due to the fact that we don't have three dimensional video. When push comes to shove we are all still staring at a screen or "stage" and this is where the sound belongs.

A well dimensioned stereo sound stage around a screen is more realistic in the sense that there is a correlation between picture and sound. There is "depth" in the picture and depth in the sound stage too so they are well suited together.

I remember being confused by surround sound when I went to the movies to see The Lord Of The Rings and there were lots of confusing and unrelated sounds on either side and behind me. Nothing that I could relate to on the screen.

Maybe I've just been too involved over the years with perfecting my sound stage that the question of surround sound has passed me by? I won't lose any sleep over it anyway.

By adding side and rear channels one is trying to push a way too large square peg into a round hole. The mere fact that one needs a centre speaker is in itself an indication of an improperly balanced system.

...is quite valid IMNSHO and I heartily agree...

jimHJJ(...we are however, in the minority...)

[paul_pci]

I agreed with every point in the Audioholics article, but the problem is that there are many different types of failures and Clint doesn't clairify which one or any he's referrring to. There is failure to impress (brighter cleaner image, big whoop); failure to work as designed (this thing doesn't work right); failure to offer anything new or different to the consumer (I don't see a significant difference between this and regular DVDs), and of course, failure as a market success (I'm not going to buy this); failure to fill a niche (I don't need this). Now, if Clint only means market success, then I don't think all those points add up to that type of failure, but if he means failure to deliver something desire, something that works, somethign that a consumer can implement, then yeah, those points add up to failure.

[Woochifer]

The guys over at The Digital Bits have had a comparably lukewarm reception for Blu-ray. Like with HD-DVD, they feel that consumers are buying equipment that has not gone through the necessary testing.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa122.html

I'm also skeptical about Blu-ray and HD-DVD's chances, primarily because of how entrenched the DVD format has become and how recently most consumers switched over to that format (the DVD only passed VHS less than 4 years ago). Blu-ray/HD-DVD are not the big leap forward that the DVD was. The difference is that the DVD provided a tangible improvement in picture quality and functionality compared to VHS for every consumer. And aside from the picture resolution improvement, DVD also gave consumers multichannel audio, random search, interactive features, and computer connectivity. Everybody who bought a DVD player got an upgrade.

Contrastly, Blu-ray/HD-DVD only benefits the ~20% or so of households who own HDTVs. Both formats also include a downsampling key that reduces the analog component video resolution to sub-HD levels if the studios decide to activate that copy protection feature for future releases. If the forced downsampling key gets activated, it would basically leave about half of the current HDTV owners (those without HDMI video connections) with no improvement in resolution whatsoever from Blu-ray/HD-DVD. The improved audio formats are nice, but you got no DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, or Dolby Digital Plus decoders on the market, other than whatever's built into the players (and the implementation thus far has been inadequate). Basically, if consumers find that DVD is good enough, then Blu-ray/HD-DVD are sunk, because they don't offer up the same degree of improvement to basic functionality that the DVD offered over VHS.

I've been saying for years that the DVD format should have been developed as a HD format from the very beginning. The final HDTV specs were approved back in 1992, so everybody knew what the performance targets were. If the format introduction had been delayed by a few years, then it could have better coincided with the HDTV rollout, and the DVD could have been used to stimulate demand for HDTV. Instead, DVD got released as a non-HD format and HDTV languished for years waiting for HD content to start arriving. As it stands, HDTV has started to take off as consumers have gotten used to getting their HD content from broadcasts rather than disc collections, and DVD has been so successful that we very well might be stuck with it.

[superpanavision70mm]

If we don't get it ...who will?

If the people who flock to this site are not totally 'sold out' on the HD formats...how can we expect the rest of the world to? We are typically the ones setting the pace...and quite frankly we don't want to get burned in the process. We demand HIGH quality and will settle for nothing less....however, it only seems like the HD formats are only marginally better if that.

[ericl]

If we don't get it ...who will?

If the people who flock to this site are not totally 'sold out' on the HD formats...how can we expect the rest of the world to? We are typically the ones setting the pace...and quite frankly we don't want to get burned in the process. We demand HIGH quality and will settle for nothing less....however, it only seems like the HD formats are only marginally better if that.

Perhaps another argument for it's failure.. I am most certainly waiting this one out. Between the good HD content i get on cable and the great picture of my denon dvd player, i am not worried about it. In a couple years when I can get a high performance universal player for a decent price i will go for it. But not anytime soon. All these first generation players are basically test units anyways..

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

There are even other considerations and deliberations.

I suppose every hifi enthusiast reaches the point of choosing between pure stereo or surround sound. This is how I reasoned it through...

I have been a professional musician and know what it sounds like to be in the centre of the sound source. It is a totally different experience to being in front of a sound stage. Perhaps I have associations to working and concentrating on what I'm doing when I'm at the centre of it all?
I feel there is a greater sense of being entertained listening to a well tuned sound stage rather than being at the centre.

Not sure what you mean in this comment. Mixing for music and for movies is quite different, but can be the same in some cases. There is no coincidence in nature where we hear everything in front of us. When we attend a live concert, we are listening to a combination of direct sound fromt the front and reflected sound from the front, sides, and rear naturally delayed via distance. When we stand on the street, we hear a airplane overhead, cars passing in front, rear, or to the sides of us. It is only when we listen to a two channel recording played back through two speakers do we have a front only soundstage. This is not natural, nor a particularly accurate way to listen to anything. This kind of thinking is strictly a two channel perspective, in a three deminisional world.

Not even in the context of home movies am I comfortable with surround sound. This is mainly due to the fact that we don't have three dimensional video. When push comes to shove we are all still staring at a screen or "stage" and this is where the sound belongs.

Unfortunately if you watch a video where you just hear everything coming from the front, it would be very uninvolving, and a mismatch to the eyes and ears. The very purpose of surround in both movies and music is to create a more involving sense of immersion much like you get in nature if you stood still and closed your eyes. We are always "looking" on direction, but we are hearing binaurally and that is what surround sound effectively mimicks.

A well dimensioned stereo sound stage around a screen is more realistic in the sense that there is a correlation between picture and sound. There is "depth" in the picture and depth in the sound stage too so they are well suited together.

Unfortunately we just don't hear that way. We don't just hear a soundfield in front of us at no time in nature or real life. Hearing in life is a very immersive experience. We have gotten so used to it I think we ignore that fact and take it for granted. Where the ears are placed in relationship to our heads insures that we hear from the front, rear, and sides of us.

I remember being confused by surround sound when I went to the movies to see The Lord Of The Rings and there were lots of confusing and unrelated sounds on either side and behind me. Nothing that I could relate to on the screen.

There is nothing really confusing about that soundtrack. I think it did an excellent job of portraying audio wise perfectly what is happening in any specific environment that took place on the film. As I am sitting in my office I hear birds chirping outside to my left, the sound of the air conditioning above and to the right of me, I hear the murmur of an array of televisions in front of me, and people far to my right talking just outside of my office by the studio door. All of this audio "chatter" while I am staring forward at my computer screen. I couldn't see anything else but my screen, but I could hear 360 degrees around me.

Maybe I've just been too involved over the years with perfecting my sound stage that the question of surround sound has passed me by? I won't lose any sleep over it anyway.

By adding side and rear channels one is trying to push a way too large square peg into a round hole. The mere fact that one needs a centre speaker is in itself an indication of an improperly balanced system.

Your analogy is completely incorrect, and so are your conclusion regarding the center channel. Side/rear channels have always been part of the equation in movie sound since the introduction of Fantasound by Disney in 1940, perspecta sound in 1950's with Paramount's vista vision film process, Todd AO six track magnetic tape, to Dolby Stereo on 35mm in 1974. By these examples it is not clear to me why you would say "by adding" when They have already been there.

As far as the center channel it is well known why it exists, or it should be. It has less to do with balance as much as it does for clarity and localization. Have you ever heard music, dialog, and sound effects coming out of a two channel system? It sounds very congested, unclear, and in most cases the dialog is unintelligible. A prime case of 6 faucets and one small drain. Worse, with two channels the dialog will eminate from the channel closest to where you sit, not from the screen itself where it should. As you can see, balance has little to nothing to do with a center speakers existance. If you have been working on your front soudfield, you would understand that a phantom centered image only remains stable if you sit exactly equidistant between each speaker. Move one foot left or right, and the phantom image moves with you. That is not what film sound is supposed to do. A center channel even benefits music as well by anchoring the vocalist right in the middle of the front soundfield and without excessive EQ to keep it there.

I am a musician as well, and I just do not understand why music people have such a hard time grasping something that is natural as breathing. We hear in surround (binaurally), why shouldn't music recordings (or film soundtracks) mimick what is in real life?

[emorphien]

On number 5, it's beginning to seem more like PS3 can't save Sony.

[teledynepost]

Is there anything about them that makes them look or sound better? Or are they just larger discs?

[superpanavision70mm]

DVD started off slow in 1997, but was a huge leap over VHS. HD formats are not nearly the huge leap as that, so it will most likely take even longer to catch on or never at all. Eventually the bar will be raised for quality and will come to a point where the demand is strong, but I don't think people are ready just yet. I think we might be looking at another Laserdisc trend for HD.

[blocher]

I play DVD's through an Oppo up converting DVD player at 1080i to a 37" Sceptre LCD TV that is capable of 1080P. My corrected eyesght is excellent, significantly better than 20/20.

I am absolutely delighted with the results of my system. While I will certainly give HD-DVD a chance to prove me wrong, it is hard for me to see HD-DVD being that much better than what I have now - and then, if it did, I would be faced with the prospect of replacing my collection with the higher resolution disks.

[croseiv]

I agree with most of the points made except for the DVD-A/SACD situation. Those formats have actually made it to the mainstream and SACD has the edge, and both formats will be here for a while. In general though, stuff is changing too quickly in the HD realm, and people will be reluctant to buy unless the new stuff pans out. Heck, I am still using a CRT TV, and won't rush out for the HDTV stuff for at least a couple more years. We'll see where Blue-Ray is then.

[emorphien]

Those formats have actually made it to the mainstream and SACD has the edge, and both formats will be here for a while.

You're joking right? Mainstream?

The majority of the public can't hear the difference between CD or SACD/DVDA mainly because they don't have the equipment to appreciate it. HD tvs are becoming more and more common so they will see the difference with Blu-Ray and HDDVD assuming the intended quality is being delivered (based on what I've read so far it's a mixed bag as expected).

I also suspect that with John Q Public, even if you have the proper equipment, it'll be easier to sell them on a pretty picture compared to better sound quality.

I think that this may annoy the public even more because unlike SACD or DVDA enough of the public might actually want to invest in the new formats. Not only do you have HDDVD and Blu-Ray but you have the annoying mess of all the HD component caveats and specifications that people can't make sense of. Then there's DRM issues too, and who knows where that's going. Certainly not the general public.

[croseiv]

You're joking right? Mainstream?
.

No, I'm not joking. They can be purchased at "mainstream" stores now instead of specialty dealers. I was surprised to see numerous classical SACDs at Borders book store just the other day, also at Circuit City. That is pretty mainstream. And the SACD choices are really expanding. The appeal of the SACD format is that they can be played in normal CD players, regardless of whether or not the average listener has the hardware to truly enjoy the multi-channel experience.

[Geoffcin]

No, I'm not joking. They can be purchased at "mainstream" stores now instead of specialty dealers. I was surprised to see numerous classical SACDs at Borders book store just the other day, also at Circuit City. That is pretty mainstream. And the SACD choices are really expanding. The appeal of the SACD format is that they can be played in normal CD players, regardless of whether or not the average listener has the hardware to truly enjoy the multi-channel experience.

DVD-Audio, and SACD have been "Mainstreamed" but are far from mainstream. I think the ratio is about 10,000 to one in sales compared to CD. Even Vinyl records outsell SACD, so calling them mainstream is really pusing it.

[emorphien]

No, I'm not joking. They can be purchased at "mainstream" stores now instead of specialty dealers. I was surprised to see numerous classical SACDs at Borders book store just the other day, also at Circuit City. That is pretty mainstream. And the SACD choices are really expanding. The appeal of the SACD format is that they can be played in normal CD players, regardless of whether or not the average listener has the hardware to truly enjoy the multi-channel experience.

They barely make a presence at B&M stores. And not every SACD is going to play in a regular CD player, only the hybrids. But you can say the same about DVD-A, dual discs can be played in a regular player, although the content and quality of the non-DVDA side varies wildly.

Every time I'm at our Best Buy I check the DVDA/SACD section (about 3' tall by 4' wide) and I've never seen much change in the stock there. They rarely get anything new in and when they do it doesn't move. I don't buy them at B&M stores anymore because I can find them significantly cheaper online.

[Geoffcin]

They barely make a presence at B&M stores. And not every SACD is going to play in a regular CD player, only the hybrids. But you can say the same about DVD-A, dual discs can be played in a regular player, although the content and quality of the non-DVDA side varies wildly.

Every time I'm at our Best Buy I check the DVDA/SACD section (about 3' tall by 4' wide) and I've never seen much change in the stock there. They rarely get anything new in and when they do it doesn't move. I don't buy them at B&M stores anymore because I can find them significantly cheaper online.

Hotel California in 192/24 stereo. Truly superior sonically to ANY previous pressing, vinyl or digital. Got to read the lyrics on my TV as we were listening too.

What a shame this format sits in the shadows, but the sad truth is that there's very few of us left who just sit and listen for enjoyment. Most music today is listend to on-the-go . Ipods, car systems, walkmans, muzak everywhere.

[emorphien]

Hotel California in 192/24 stereo. Truly superior sonically to ANY previous pressing, vinyl or digital. Got to read the lyrics on my TV as we were listening too.

What a shame this format sits in the shadows, but the sad truth is that there's very few of us left who just sit and listen for enjoyment. Most music today is listend to on-the-go . Ipods, car systems, walkmans, muzak everywhere.

While Hotel California isn't my favorite song, I'd love to hear the disc you heard.

[superpanavision70mm]

I am also laughing at the 'mainstream' remarks about SACD and DVD-A. First, because when I go into a store like Best Buy it takes me several minutes to find out where they are located...usually in the most non-enticing area. Near Gospel? Nope, not this week. How about next to the Bargain CD's? Maybe...oh no...moved again. Maybe they are all on the top seller area? Hardly.

Not only are neither format mainsteam....they are virtually undetectable. No one knows much about them other than audiophiles and audio enthusiasts. Not all players support both formats, which is another problem. It's just a real shame that people don't really want to hear music under improved conditions. Then we have DualDisc...easily the worst thing to hit the market!

WHen does the madness end?

[emorphien]

I am also laughing at the 'mainstream' remarks about SACD and DVD-A. First, because when I go into a store like Best Buy it takes me several minutes to find out where they are located...usually in the most non-enticing area. Near Gospel? Nope, not this week. How about next to the Bargain CD's? Maybe...oh no...moved again. Maybe they are all on the top seller area? Hardly.

Not only are neither format mainsteam....they are virtually undetectable. No one knows much about them other than audiophiles and audio enthusiasts. Not all players support both formats, which is another problem. It's just a real shame that people don't really want to hear music under improved conditions. Then we have DualDisc...easily the worst thing to hit the market!

WHen does the madness end?

Dual Disc wasn't inherently a bad idea, just that Sony and others decided to completely screw it up.

[superpanavision70mm]

Well, part of a 'good' idea becoming such is the execution of that idea, thus DualDisc is/was a bad idea.

[emorphien]

Well, part of a 'good' idea becoming such is the execution of that idea, thus DualDisc is/was a bad idea.

Some discs have executed the dual disc idea well. So I'm just going to have to disagree with you on that interpretation.