Blu-Ray - about to die....... - in 12-15 months -

Post by **Blue Audio Visual** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:04 pm

Angus wrote:Well I meant that by 1970 programming was all made in colour, and it had only properly been introduced in 1967.

What about the Open University stuff? - I'm sure that was B&W for ages.

Post by **Angus** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:13 pm

Blue Audio Visual wrote:
Angus wrote:Well I meant that by 1970 programming was all made in colour, and it had only properly been introduced in 1967.
What about the Open University stuff? - I'm sure that was B&W for ages.

I think they had a habit of repeating old material for years and years.

BTW the only people I ever knew who had soley B&W televisions were a rich but stingy old lady who wouldn't fork out for a colour licence, she had some 28" beast that was fairly modern for the time...and an eccentric family who believed colour TV would damage their eyes. Where I saw B&W sets they were second sets for bedrooms or whatnot. I do remember the local Co-Op offering one 22 inch B&W set in the late 70's along with a few portable B&W sets but the vast majority were colour. All my friends, my parents friends, my family had colour TV's...I have no recollection of ever watching B&W television - my memory of TV goes back as far as 1976. Somewhere there must be statistics on uptake of colour TV in Britain.

I do recall when my parents finally replaced their 1970 18" Invicta colour set in 1979 we went to Lasky's and bought the 2nd most expensive set they had....my goodness, the model up from ours had a remote control!

That Invicta was a strange beast, had a fault with whatever tube it used. It had three tubes while they owned it and with all three the red gun failed after a time. I remember the set languishing in the spare room (I was not allowed my own TV at the time, quite sensible) and if it was turned on it gave quite a murky green, dim picture. I photographed it back in 1978 because it was so strange!

I know my dad has said he was sceptical of colour TV until he passed a dealer with a colour set in the window showing Wimbledon tennis. "Oh my god, the grass really is green"....which is analogous to many people not realising just how good HD is until they see it.

Post by **Blue Audio Visual** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:59 pm

I remember watching Pot Black in B&W back in the day. Ironic, as it was originally meant to be a showcase for colour TV!

The commentators used to say things like "for the benefit of viewers watching the show in B&W, the brown ball is situated to the top right of the pack of reds"

Post by **Angus** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:33 am

Blue Audio Visual wrote:
The commentators used to say things like "for the benefit of viewers watching the show in B&W, the brown ball is situated to the top right of the pack of reds"

I always thought that was a myth but I've seen a recording of it...so it happened at least once.

Post by **mattias** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:02 am

am i really the only one who saw the "gameindustry" website and the xbox dude speaking as signs that this wasn't really about movies but, duh, games? i haven't installed a game or other software from disc in years, and as far as i know the industry already makes more money selling online suscriptions than discs.

/matt

Post by **standard8** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:10 pm

well i don't know much about the technological argument but all i can say is that i've spent the last five or so years trying to replace my 300+ VHS films with DVD and an still no where near the end and i'll be buggered if i'm going to go through all that expense again no matter how good the quality blu-ray is!

my film collection will have to stay on dvd 'cos i can't afford to keep replacing it every time some multi-national trys to flog me something new. for me at least cost will be the biggest factor in any new technology.

and as for HD television - whats the point of seeing a wonderfully clear picture when the programmes are such utter crap! i would rather go back to 405 line black and white and have something worth watching in fact i very rarely watch tv anymore as it's so boring!

Post by **Angus** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:08 pm

standard8, when you see Blu-Ray you will be convinced to buy at least some films in that format.

As for HD TV, not all of it is crap....though I have to say I am surprised to see sport at the vanguard of HD, for me I am far more interested in movies and documentaries in HD. I absolutely love formula 1 but I couldn't care less if it is SD or HD.

Post by **Will2** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:20 pm

standard8 wrote:i'll be buggered if i'm going to go through all that expense again no matter how good the quality blu-ray is!

As Yoda would say... "You will be... you will be."

Post by **downix** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:25 pm

HD would make sence if you actually got the full quality. The problem is, with the rise of HD also came the rise of compress-the-video, more than offsetting the gains made. While for some higher quality work, you can find it, most of the average just looks... well... like crap.

Then again I have an odd color-blindness that also makes LCD's unusable.

Post by **Will2** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:45 pm

downix wrote:HD would make sence if you actually got the full quality. The problem is, with the rise of HD also came the rise of compress-the-video, more than offsetting the gains made.

Compression does hurt but the gains are still substantial. That's why Blu-Ray is good, a welcome relief from the draconian compression of broadcast TV (or DirectTV we have in the States.)

Post by **Angus** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:53 pm

Maybe the situation will change as we get more HD channels, but in the UK the bandwidth seems to be very high for HD programming and HD on-demand material.

Post by **Nigel** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:29 am

Roger,

The reason I think it is foolish to compare books to music and cinema is because books have always been a printed/holdable medium.

It wasn't until Thomas Edison that people were able to carry around music. Even printed music isn't required for the piece to continue on or be heard.

Same with movies. It really wasn't until recently that people were able to carry around professionally made movies. The medium itself doesn't require the physical ownership of anything to be a commercial success.

Why does the ability to hold something in your hand mean that it will last??

Mattias is correct.

Downloading software has been around for a long time. Eons in the scope of technology.

I haven't had software on disk for about 4 or 5 years. Photoshop CS was the last CD based piece of software I purchased. Outside of OS upgrades.

Good Luck

Post by **MovieStuff** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 1:58 am

Nigel wrote:.....It really wasn't until recently that people were able to carry around professionally made movies. The medium itself doesn't require the physical ownership of anything to be a commercial success.

Why does the ability to hold something in your hand mean that it will last??

Mattias is correct.

Downloading software has been around for a long time. .....

You really can't see the difference?

If people had to load a CD of Photoshop into whichever computer they wanted to work on each time they wanted to use Photoshop, then you can bet that owning the disk would be important to them. But most people use software on a single computer and they use the same software time after time after time. They don't necessarily watch the same movie over and over and over again, day after day. If they did, then perhaps having that movie loaded onto the hard drive of their TIVO might be the way to go (my 9 year old daughter seems to think so!). But watching movies usually means variety and the ability to transport that variety easily is the key to why DVDs are successful. You can grab a handful of DVDs and take them anywhere and watch them easily on anyone else's DVD player or even in the car. You can't do that with something that's on the hard drive of your computer; at least not in anything close to good resolution.

I-tunes is successful because of the economy that it provides but people still are able to "physically" own the music by proxy when they use their I-pods. They can hold it in their hands. They are taking the music with them. Look around. A police detective friend told me that stolen empty I-pods sell for below market value while I-pods loaded with hundreds of hit tunes is the number one target for thieves because of the added value it represents.

When you can fit a library of HD movies into something the size of an I-pod, then your position will make sense. But I don't see anything on the tech horizon that comes close to that description. Downloading from the cloud? It's been around for years. It's called "pay-per-view", doesn't require any special computer or hook up other then cable, and it has done nothing to challenge rental or ownership of DVDs.

Roger

Post by **Nigel** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:47 am

At least you aren't comparing books to music and film.

Adobe is moving everything to the cloud. CS3 may be the last version of Photoshop that I use locally.

My movies are available to me anywhere...For the most part. Anywhere with a connection of decent speed.

Once iTunes allows you to encode your movies then the nail will seal the coffin for disks in the USA. Looking beyond that the coffin will be sealed via the technology in the next five years.

We still be shooting super8 and talking about Kodacrap as well as which films work in what cameras. But we won't be talking about walking around with optical media.

I've got a shoot later this year in Texas. If I'm clse enough to you we are going to finally meet up drink some beer and hopefully talk about anything other than film/media.

How about politics and religion??

Good Luck

Post by **Will2** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 6:23 am

Nigel wrote:Adobe is moving everything to the cloud. CS3 may be the last version of Photoshop that I use locally.

Yes, and having it process a 1 gig billboard will be lots of fun over the net. There will be plenty of need for photoshop on local machines for many years to come.

Word processing in the "cloud" sure.