High Definition - Is it doomed ?

[Tony Pendrey]

A walk up and down my high street seems to suggest that the whole HD market is just not going to take off.



Sure, they are shifting "HD-Ready" TVs by the ship load but who are buying the HD players or subscribing to the HD services.



Does the average DVD buyer want to pay a socking great premium for a HD disk.

Certainly not in local branch of HMV.



I know it is early days yet, but it seems to me that the manufacturers have produced a product that the consumers don't actually need.



As a sort of example, I can buy a nice new DVD/RW dual layer drive in my local Currys, but they can't sell me any blank dual layer disks. There is virtually no demand for them. The consumer doesn't need them.



The blanks I have seen are 20 times more expensive than single layer disks.



HD seems to offer a lot, but personally I don't watch the TV from 6 inches away.



All in MHO of course, so feel free to have a go !

[Windthrop]

name='Tony Pendrey']A walk up and down my high street seems to suggest that the whole HD market is just not going to take off.



Sure, they are shifting "HD-Ready" TVs by the ship load but who are buying the HD players or subscribing to the HD services.



Does the average DVD buyer want to pay a socking great premium for a HD disk.

Certainly not in local branch of HMV.



I know it is early days yet, but it seems to me that the manufacturers have produced a product that the consumers don't actually need.



As a sort of example, I can buy a nice new DVD/RW dual layer drive in my local Currys, but they can't sell me any blank dual layer disks. There is virtually no demand for them. The consumer doesn't need them.



The blanks I have seen are 20 times more expensive than single layer disks.



HD seems to offer a lot, but personally I don't watch the TV from 6 inches away.



All in MHO of course, so feel free to have a go !

I don't think it is doomed the public is just cautious having been past a few technology cu-du-sacs - Beta, Video 2000, Mini Discs et al

[DB7]

Expense is the problem. There's always a minority of gadget freaks who'll buy any new AV device but to cross-over it needs support and to be reasonably priced.



I pay too much in Sky subs already and I'll be beggared if I'm paying more for HD channels.

[aaron]

It would be nice to think, that the consumer was, on this occasion, savvy enough to see through the hype.

However, i know many people, who are all too willing to pay over the odds for the latest thing, irrespective of it's percieved (or otherwise) advantages.



I recently (about two months ago) bought a dvd recorder with freeview tuner, for £115 delivered - having waited for a few years, for an economical unit, that performed the functions i personaly require. ie play, record, watch one channel, whilst recording another* etc (*in conjunction with my old set top box)

Had i bought one a few years ago, (when they were the latest thing) it would have been much poorer equipped, ( thus a poor replacement for a vcr) and three times the price.



For my part, being a devotee of classic film and television, HD is superfluous.

But i think it also unneccesary for most users.

Seldom, have i heard anyone, having just watched eastenders, lament: "Well, i enjoyed it, but it would have benefitted from a little higher definition around Dot Cotton's cigarette......."

[ChristineCB]

In the last day or so, I saw some studio or film-collection had signed to be HD-Only while I'm usually seeing 2 or 3 such announcements about BluRay.



I'd think studios would avoid exclusivity at all costs, but probably the BR or HD companies have footed the tab or given huge bonuses to gain their catalogs, well over-paying for this despite knowing customers are staying far far away. I can wait five years and see whose ashes are left, and then start replacing all these old films. Yeah... right...

[Aaryk Noctivagus]

name='ChristineCB']In the last day or so, I saw some studio or film-collection had signed to be HD-Only while I'm usually seeing 2 or 3 such announcements about BluRay.

I think its Paramount and Universal who are pro HD-DVD... Universal except for movies Directed by Steven Spielberg which will be released in both HD formats... Spielberg apparently prefers Blu-Ray.



I personally hope HD-DVD wins... Blu-Ray sounds rather pretentious to my ears. (I understand Blu-Ray currently looks like winning).

[David Brent]

I think we were all conned by the HD "revolution". I remember reading articles in newspapers and magazines before HD was introduced, all stating how much better the quality was, how lifelike the picture was and how all other televisions would become obsolete.

We had been told the very same thing about digital television and then suddenly HD was the "must have" addition.



I do not have HD but I have seen it in action. I can't honestly say it's worth the extra you have to pay for it.

You can guarantee that within a short time we'll all be told about yet another piece of "latest" technology that will make HD redundant.



Dave.

[Edward G]

I have to agree with David Brent on the obsession with formats. It's a marketing ploy we all get suckered into to buy the same product endlessly. A bit like having to have the latest still camera with 10 megapixels instead of 9. The extra quality is not apparent unless you make a bill board out of your photos. Might as well borrow Spinal Tap's famous amplifier that goes up to 11 instead of 10...I am just not convinced that the much trumpeted extra quality on Hi-Definition adds any more to the viewing experience. Yet another format battle is bound to lead to disappointment to one group of customers or the other. The visible quality leap from VHS to DVD was big but further enhancements along the way are bound to be smaller in size...When legendary Laurel and Hardy producer Hal Roach was told that some of their films were going to be "colourized" he said, "That's fine but does it make them any funnier?" Smart guy...

name='David Brent']I think we were all conned by the HD "revolution". I remember reading articles in newspapers and magazines before HD was introduced, all stating how much better the quality was, how lifelike the picture was and how all other televisions would become obsolete.

We had been told the very same thing about digital television and then suddenly HD was the "must have" addition.



I do not have HD but I have seen it in action. I can't honestly say it's worth the extra you have to pay for it.

You can guarantee that within a short time we'll all be told about yet another piece of "latest" technology that will make HD redundant.



Dave.

[Cheeky Bob]

It's worth remembering that domestic video recorders were available way back in 1972 (thanks to a now totally obsolete Philips number), but they didn't really take off until the early 1980s.



It's also worth remembering that the VHS-Betamax war lasted a full decade before VHS definitively triumphed (arguably the killing blow was struck when VHS-only sell-thru video was introduced in early 1986 - Beta releases were still available for rent, but they dwindled rapidly after that).



But the crucial point is that time and again the public has demonstrated that they don't care about quality so much as convenience. That's why VHS beat Beta (who cares about stunning picture quality when you can have longer tapes and timeshift more soaps?) and why the iPod ensured a near-total lack of interest in DVD-Audio and SACD. My player can handle DVD-Audio, and the few discs I've bought sound truly gobsmacking, but I can't rip them to my iPod or play them on any other player in the house, so they're strictly for special occasions.



CDs and DVDs did offer material quality improvements, but they were also hugely convenient - being able to pick a favourite track or scene in seconds made a substantial difference to the listening and viewing experience (DVDs revolutionised the release of short films, which never really suited tape-based formats). And DVDs had a major boost in the form of many PCs having DVD drives built in, so people ended up being able to play them quite by chance, thus ensuring a decent-sized market from the start.



But with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray there's no significant improvement in convenience - and you have to make a substantial investment in a new telly and player for only a slight improvement in quality. I have no doubt that a high-definition format will eventually take over (just as 625-line colour triumphed over 405-line black and white), as the industry is inexorably pushing us in that direction, but it's going to be a much slower process than the manufacturers will like.

[Aaryk Noctivagus]

name='Cheeky Bob']...but it's going to be a much slower process than the manufacturers will like.

Nope. All they have to do is make DVDs less appealing.



1... Release more and more DVDs as 4:3 leaving the Widescreen for HD.

2... Make the DVDs bare bones and leave the extra features for HD.

3... Release new movies on HD earlier than the DVD release.

4... Give HD releases the good shelves and put the DVDs on the secondary shelves.

5... Eventually release big popular movies on HD only. That will be the final blow... DVDs will be yesterday's news within a year of that.



I'm sure businessmen can think up more nice little ways to force the market, but that's five which immediately came to my mind.



And no I do not have an HD player yet of either format.



The worst thing for me against HD... is you can't get the machines chipped in order to become multi-region (yet), unlike DVD players. I only get Region 1 as a last resort (I hate NTSC stutter), but sometimes its the only way to get a particular movie.

[Cheeky Bob]

name='Aaryk Noctivagus']Nope. All they have to do is make DVDs less appealing.



1... Release more and more DVDs as 4:3 leaving the Widescreen for HD.

Wouldn't work - you'd just get people PVRing the widescreen versions off the telly and burning them to DVD. And it would be politically impossible to go back to broadcasting 4:3 television on a large scale now that the public has switched comprehensively to 16:9.

2... Make the DVDs bare bones and leave the extra features for HD.

Does the general public care that much about DVD extras? Seriously? I don't for one second think my dad has ever watched anything other than the main feature on a DVD, and I bet he's far from alone!

3... Release new movies on HD earlier than the DVD release.

Again, wouldn't work - they'd be downconverted and pirated in a matter of days. And the majors are all too aware of this.

4... Give HD releases the good shelves and put the DVDs on the secondary shelves.

Shops will only go along with this for as long as the HD material sells. If it doesn't, they'll switch right back. (I remember HMV in Oxford Street having a very prominent DVD-Audio display - that didn't last long!)

5... Eventually release big popular movies on HD only. That will be the final blow... DVDs will be yesterday's news within a year of that.

See my answer to (3).



OK, I'm playing devil's advocate here to a certain extent, but it's much harder to rig the market these days than you're making out. You also have to believe that all DVD distributors will gang up together to force these practices through, which is highly unlikely given that they're currently at each other's throats over Blu-Ray and HD-DVD!

[Aaryk Noctivagus]

name='Cheeky Bob']

name='Aaryk Noctivagus']

1... Release more and more DVDs as 4:3 leaving the Widescreen for HD.

Wouldn't work - you'd just get people PVRing the widescreen versions off the telly and burning them to DVD. And it would be politically impossible to go back to broadcasting 4:3 television on a large scale now that the public has switched comprehensively to 16:9.

name='Aaryk Noctivagus']

2... Make the DVDs bare bones and leave the extra features for HD.

Does the general public care that much about DVD extras? Seriously? I don't for one second think my dad has ever watched anything other than the main feature on a DVD, and I bet he's far from alone!

And folk don't record off the TV already?



Most cable stations only broadcast in 4:3 still.



And the capper is... more DVDs are being released in 4:3. Several Hitchcock movies like 'The Birds' and 'Marnie' have never been released in the UK in Widescreen, even though sold in box sets which contain say 'Vertigo' which is released in widescreen. A lot of Disney is initially released in 4:3 and an awful lot of Carlton releases. Oh I know this doesn't cover recent mainstream movies, but it doesn't have to.



The initial thought when DVDs first came out was to only release movies in 4:3 bare-bones. However, because DVD was thought to be the successor to Laserdisc, many people expected bonus features and widescreen... unlike you or your father. There are many people who enjoy the special features... otherwise the companies would not bother about including them, eh?



Not bothing to release widescreen movies on DVD, but having widescreen on HD alone, is in no wise beyond those who merchandise. It would be an easy thing to do for the companies to say, widescreen and HD are for the serious about movies now... DVD is for the general audience who will not be bothered about the 4:3 issue.



I'm not saying it will happen, but it is certainly possible. Markets are more manipulative than you give them credit for, Bob.

name='Cheeky Bob']

name='Aaryk Noctivagus']

3... Release new movies on HD earlier than the DVD release.

Again, wouldn't work - they'd be downconverted and pirated in a matter of days. And the majors are all too aware of this.

Pirating happens anyway... and pirates aren't that much too bothered about quality. There is already a roaring trade in Pirate DVDs, do you really think the big boys haven't factored such things into the costs of the DVDs and HD discs?



Pirates will happen anyway, and the legitimate industry has other ways of dealing with them. HDs will be pirated anyway... so what's the difference, Bob. More money is to be made in the change over of technology than is lost to Pirates.

name='Cheeky Bob']

name='Aaryk Noctivagus']

4... Give HD releases the good shelves and put the DVDs on the secondary.

Shops will only go along with this for as long as the HD material sells. If it doesn't, they'll switch right back. (I remember HMV in Oxford Street having a very prominent DVD-Audio display - that didn't last long!)

Somebody doesn't understand how business interrelates with shops. Apart from it being in the shop's best interest to make money the same way as the Industry... in new technologies replacing old... The thing is Business dictates what is displayed on shop shelves.



In book shops, publishers dictate what will be given prominent position on the shelves. In Supermarkets, industry dictates where their products will be also... it pays for prominent shelf space.



You are underestimating the power of the industry, Bob. The shops do not call the shots... the industry does.

name='Cheeky Bob']

OK, I'm playing devil's advocate here to a certain extent, but it's much harder to rig the market these days than you're making out. You also have to believe that all DVD distributors will gang up together to force these practices through, which is highly unlikely given that they're currently at each other's throats over Blu-Ray and HD-DVD!

Oh, business has its hands tied a little, because it mustn't appear to be openly rigging the market, but rigging happens all the time. Its called Creating Consumer Demand, and we're all mugs for it. The consumers tend to end up demanding what the manufacturers and big business want them to demand. Business schools teach it.



As for the backers of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray being at each other's throats... well businesses compete and wish to be at the top of the pile... also it makes good press, and good press keeps the matter of HD in the mind of the part of the public the Industry has to win over first. Keep the interested, interested, and when the interested are won, the pedestrian many will follow.



Consumerism and the throw away society are the meat and veg of big business and we're all mugs to their expertise in the art.

[Cheeky Bob]

name='Aaryk Noctivagus']And folk don't record off the TV already?

Of course they do, but my point is that if widescreen DVDs stop being released, people won't buy expensive HD setups en masse, they'll simply turn to the most convenient alternative. And if that's taping/PVRing widescreen broadcasts off the telly, then so be it.

And the capper is... more DVDs are being released in 4:3.

This is true, but the massive increase in nostalgic TV series box sets might have a fair bit to do with it! Pan-and-scan jobs are still, thankfully, an extraordinarily tiny minority. (And I say "extraordinarily" because I'm very very pleasantly surprised by this)

Several Hitchcock movies like 'The Birds' and 'Marnie' have never been released in the UK in Widescreen

...which is why I imported them from abroad, a far more practical solution than switching to an HD version, and a vastly cheaper one.

A lot of Disney is initially released in 4:3 and an awful lot of Carlton releases. Oh I know this doesn't cover recent mainstream movies, but it doesn't have to.

Carlton disappeared years ago, and Disney actually had a sensible reason for releasing material in 4:3 - their product is overwhelmingly aimed at children, who would overwhelmingly prefer their films to fill the screen, and until relatively recently the vast majority of tellies were still 4:3. So it made a lot of sense to format basic discs in 4:3 and make a big deal of special editions with the original aspect ratio.

The initial thought when DVDs first came out was to only release movies in 4:3 bare-bones.

Do you have a reference for this? It's just that I've never come across such a claim before, and it flies in the face of the DVD specification being the first domestic format that was capable of handling anamorphic widescreen.

However, because DVD was thought to be the successor to Laserdisc, many people expected bonus features and widescreen... unlike you or your father. There are many people who enjoy the special features... otherwise the companies would not bother about including them, eh?

In many cases, companies just pull trailers and EPKs off the shelf and slap them on the disc - which requires next to no expense or effort. In fact, the companies that generally go the extra mile to include worthwhile extras are as likely as not to be small independent outfits, who by definition are not going to be in a position to lean heavily on the market.

Not bothing to release widescreen movies on DVD, but having widescreen on HD alone, is in no wise beyond those who merchandise. It would be an easy thing to do for the companies to say, widescreen and HD are for the serious about movies now... DVD is for the general audience who will not be bothered about the 4:3 issue.

It would be very easy, but it would also be bollocks, and the outcry would be considerable (particularly online, where pressure groups can spread their message like wildfire - which is why Cadbury's is bringing back the Wispa). It would also be a completely retrograde step at a time when 16:9 TVs are now the norm.

I'm not saying it will happen, but it is certainly possible. Markets are more manipulative than you give them credit for, Bob.

I'm well aware of that, but what you're proposing is so completely retrograde that it's inconceivable that people will swallow it. Can you imagine what would have happened if the record companies had said "Right, we want to push all our weight behind DVD-Audio and SACD, so from now on we're going to release all our CDs in mono and with no separate track access, on the grounds that true audiophiles will prefer the higher-quality formats"? Obviously, such a thing is theoretically possible, and may even have been proposed at one particularly excitable board meeting - but it's not hard to see why it didn't happen.

Pirating happens anyway... and pirates aren't that much too bothered about quality. There is already a roaring trade in Pirate DVDs, do you really think the big boys haven't factored such things into the costs of the DVDs and HD discs?

Of course they have, but deliberately releasing higher-quality copies before the DVD release simply provides a cast-iron guarantee that the quality of pre-release pirate DVDs will shoot up at no additional cost to the pirate, thus making the official product far less attractive. (Mind you, since the DVDs are going to be in 4:3 and mono anyway, maybe that's a moot point...)

Apart from it being in the shop's best interest to make money the same way as the Industry... in new technologies replacing old... The thing is Business dictates what is displayed on shop shelves.

Which is why HMV had a prominent DVD-Audio display. And also why it doesn't have one now. (I think they still have a small selection, but they're tucked away rather sheepishly at the back). Because it cuts both ways - the market can dictate what people should buy, but it also needs to react to what people actually buy. Plenty of exciting new technologies have been prominently promoted and quietly withdrawn over the years - DAT, DCC, Minidisc - even Laserdiscs never really took off in Britain.



I'm well aware that consumer demand is constantly rigged, but what you're proposing is so transparently obvious that it's extraordinarily unlikely that people will fall for it. Put it like this - can you think of an equivalent situation where the majority of items recorded in the old format (the format in question being a universally-adopted mass medium) were systematically and deliberately crippled in order to push people onto a new one?

[ChristineCB]

I remember reading about the "future of DVDs" containing many features, endless widescreen options and perhaps even several films per disc. At the time, widescreen on VHS wasn't too new - rare, but not new. I think 1991's MAD MAD WORLD release was widescreen - I know the 1988 version wasn't, and the '91 purchase was my extravagance for Dad.

[Aaryk Noctivagus]

Oh well, Bob. I'd sooner snuggle up watching a DVD with my wife, than argue with you about a future neither of us yet know. Its just trivial.



I'll just agree to differ with you. You know nothing about the matter and I know nothing about the matter.

[Tom Bancroft]

Just a anecdote about HD television. A pal of mine bought an HD ready TV and subscribed to the service. While round at his house he proudly showed me his new acquisition. However, as he flicked through the channels at random, he was struggling to pin point those which were in HD! I have to say that from six or seven feet away on the sofa, it was hard to see what all the fuss was about!

[ChristineCB]

Ah, that's your problem! At the one-inch distance, I can see the pixels much better! If you swipe a jeweler's eye-glass and lean against the screen itself, the clarity is astounding.



(Of course, when you've got a rotten husband like mine who black-chalks my end of those and then challenges me to "now try it with the other eye!", the whole HD experience takes on a less-than-wonderful experience. That was so embarrassing - in a big store like that, too. I don't know WHY I ever let him out of the dungeon!)

[steven haley]

Before very long we r told by retailers that these lcd tv`s will be the ONLY tv u can buy!as an tv engineer for 30yrs lets get one thing straight the current 4:3 tv has a pixel count of approx 760X480 so when presented on a plasma/lcd the picture obviousley does not match up correctly and that is why they look dreadful

Yes u can buy more equipment to upgrade this old system to make it better!

BUT hang on why can`t the boffins who are desparately trying to sell these screens give us a dual system so we can select 760x480 for standard definition and then switch to 1080x960 for high definition?

In the days when everything was on the now defunct VHF system(b/w only) we got a new channel this was bbc2 which was only on the new/current uhf system

How did they manage that ,there were no microchips then,THEY MADE ALL TV`S DUAL STANDARD you used a mechaniclal switch to turn it over to watch bbc2!!

If they could do that then why not now some 39 years on?????????

[knobbykins]

DVD producers never fill ordinary discs with data now,so it doesn't matter how many gigs,migs or frigs a HD disc has,only the latest big releases will get special treatment and the older films enjoyed by this board will be ignored,on the whole,as they are now.

Don't let yourselves get conned by marketing,just ask yourself what's actually wrong with your DVDs now.

[orpheum]

Watched the England V Russia in HD at my cousins house.He said you could see the individula blades of grass>I was unimpressed and will not be interested in investing in a new HD set.