Expense Justified?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

My question is, when HD-DVD's arrive, and the new sets have dropped in price
to a 'resonable' level, will this justify purchasing all new HD-DVD's?
I have replaced all my VHS tapes because of the quality issue, but my belief
is (as of now), that HD-DVD's will not be the same quantum leap that VHS to
DVD was.

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to start a flame war, but I really
want to know if there will be such a difference that it will justify buying
the same item for the third time (VHS>DVD>HD-DVD).
Thanks
IT

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Internet Traveler wrote:

> My question is, when HD-DVD's arrive, and the new sets have dropped
> in price to a 'resonable' level, will this justify purchasing all new
> HD-DVD's? I have replaced all my VHS tapes because of the quality
> issue, but my belief is (as of now), that HD-DVD's will not be the
> same quantum leap that VHS to DVD was.

I for one will be replacing individual movies where I feel that the DVD
version is noticeably deficient. Like, my DVD of The Last Emperor
definitely wants to be replaced (it isn't even anamorphic). And some
movies, most especially the Lord of the Rings, I'm not even going to
buy until a HD version comes out. But the majority of movies will
probably be fine to leave in DVD form.

I still have about 25 old VHS movies that I mostly don't plan to
replace, because they're just not all that important. Since I like to
find obscure little cheesy treasures in bargain bins, my library isn't
exactly all immortal cinema classics.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Internet Traveler wrote:
> My question is, when HD-DVD's arrive, and the new sets have dropped in price
> to a 'resonable' level, will this justify purchasing all new HD-DVD's?
> I have replaced all my VHS tapes because of the quality issue, but my belief
> is (as of now), that HD-DVD's will not be the same quantum leap that VHS to
> DVD was.
>
> Disclaimer: This post is not intended to start a flame war, but I really
> want to know if there will be such a difference that it will justify buying
> the same item for the third time (VHS>DVD>HD-DVD).
> Thanks
> IT

The improvement in going from VHS to DVD was more than picture quality. The
DVD offers over VHS a much smaller form factor, random access, lots of goodies
such as extras & commentary tracks, and doesn't wear out so long as you don't
scratch the disks. The ability to buy an entire TV season in a box the size of a
hardback book has lead to major new sources of revenue for old TV shows that I
don't anyone really saw when the DVD came out.

The picture improvement in going from 280 analog vertical scan lines to
digital 480i with progressive scan possible for movies is substantial. The
picture improvement in going to 1080i/p disks will be noticeable, but not as
big, especially for people with smaller size TV sets. So I don't see myself
replacing any of my DVDs with HD disks except for a few titles and only when the
price comes down at that. The HD disks are going to do anything for old TV shows
unless the studio take the time to remaster them in HD - which can't be done for
a lot of shows anyway - and I doubt if they will do that for the smaller selling
titles. So unless you have to be an early adopter or you have the 50" plasma
you want to get HD disks for, I wouldn't worry much about HD disks for a while.

Alan Figgatt

 

[Alan]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

In article <l66dnQ-CPM8VLSHcRVn-hA@comcast.com> afiggatt@comcast.net writes:

> The picture improvement in going from 280 analog vertical scan lines to
>digital 480i with progressive scan possible for movies is substantial.

It would be an improvement, but is not relevant here. VHS is also
480i, just like DVD.


Alan

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Alan" <nospam@w6yx.stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:cpip4b$bkc$1@news.Stanford.EDU...
> In article <l66dnQ-CPM8VLSHcRVn-hA@comcast.com> afiggatt@comcast.net
> writes:
>
>> The picture improvement in going from 280 analog vertical scan lines to
>>digital 480i with progressive scan possible for movies is substantial.
>
> It would be an improvement, but is not relevant here. VHS is also
> 480i, just like DVD.

I think your post is somewhat misleading

the DVD's true 480i has 24 bits of color depth for every pixel and has 720
horizontal pixels in the widescreen mode - all of which are displayable
using component or direct digital outputs to an HDTV, additionally, a decent
3d interpolating pulldown compensating progressive converter circuit such as
the Faroudja DCDi can work wonders in essentially adding apparent
resolution.

on the other hand, the VHS's "480i" has only about 300 horizontal pixels in
black and white with low resolution color at less than half that
resolution.... not to mention the noise and artifacts that the color
encoding entails

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Alan wrote:
> In article <l66dnQ-CPM8VLSHcRVn-hA@comcast.com> afiggatt@comcast.net writes:
>
>
>> The picture improvement in going from 280 analog vertical scan lines to
>>digital 480i with progressive scan possible for movies is substantial.
>
>
> It would be an improvement, but is not relevant here. VHS is also
> 480i, just like DVD.
>
>
> Alan

I typed vertical when I should have said horizontal. Comparing
effective analog resolution to digital is not a simple process, but the
nominal value that is thrown around for the horizontal resolution of VHS
is 280 lines. S-VHS is 400. VHS decks outputs 480i but the resolution is
not full NTSC; neither is S-VHS which is an improvement.

Alan Figgatt

 

[Alan]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

In article <_KmdnY-tdKvoYCHcRVn-sQ@comcast.com> "Randy Sweeney" <rsweeney1@comcast.net> writes:
>
>"Alan" <nospam@w6yx.stanford.edu> wrote in message
>news:cpip4b$bkc$1@news.Stanford.EDU...
>> In article <l66dnQ-CPM8VLSHcRVn-hA@comcast.com> afiggatt@comcast.net
>> writes:
>>
>>> The picture improvement in going from 280 analog vertical scan lines to
>>>digital 480i with progressive scan possible for movies is substantial.
>>
>> It would be an improvement, but is not relevant here. VHS is also
>> 480i, just like DVD.
>
>I think your post is somewhat misleading
>
>the DVD's true 480i has 24 bits of color depth for every pixel and has 720
>horizontal pixels in the widescreen mode - all of which are displayable
>using component or direct digital outputs to an HDTV, additionally, a decent
>3d interpolating pulldown compensating progressive converter circuit such as
>the Faroudja DCDi can work wonders in essentially adding apparent
>resolution.

Not quite true.

The chroma of MPEG is sampled at 1/2 the resolution of the luminance.
Still far better than NTSC or VHS, but not 720x480.

You could do a 3:2 pulldown progressive conversion on the output of
a tape machine, too. I have no experience with how it would look.


>on the other hand, the VHS's "480i" has only about 300 horizontal pixels in
>black and white with low resolution color at less than half that
>resolution.... not to mention the noise and artifacts that the color
>encoding entails

Well since NTSC only has about 1.5 MHz maximum chroma bandwidth (about
120 lines per picture height horizontal resolution it would have only
about 160 lines chroma resolution in full width). Often folks reduce it
to the bandwidth of the .5 MHz channel, so it winds up with about 40 lines
of horizontal chroma resolution per picture height (53 for full width).


My points were that (1) there are no "vertical scan lines". (2) the number
of scan lines in VHS is the same as on DVD. (3) the folks who confuse the
two are doing themselves and their readers a disservice.


Alan