Blu-ray vs HD-DVD: what's wrong with quantum leap? compatible, technology, something, backward

andy

Hi, all.

This is something that's bugging me. While discussing this title issue, a lot of emphasis is put on backward compatibility. Has it always happened with technology change?

First we had the video tapes; required new hardware. Not backward compatible with audiotapes.
Then we had VCD; required new hardware, not backward compatible with the videotapes.
Then we had LaserDisc; required new hardware, not backward compatible with VCDs.
Then we had DVD; required new hardware; for the first time, backward compatible, with VCDs, but not with others coming before that.
Now HD-DVD: backward compatible with DVDs because they use the same disc-structure.

The question is: is backward compatibility issue a drag or a push for new technology?

First we had the video tapes; required new hardware. Not backward compatible with audiotapes.

sorry but that is a pointless comparison. these are completely different in what you experience, just sound versus sound and vision. the others make more sense.

The question is: is backward compatibility issue a drag or a push for new technology?

it can be a drag sure but you have to consider that its also a business concern. that is companies are not interested in breaking new technology barriers just for the sake of it. they are interested in making more money aswell. as such they need the new technology to stand a reasonable chance of gaining a resonable uptake to make a profit. backwards compatability is just a tool to help that.
for example dvd uptake was not overnight because people had bought a lot of films etc on video and could not afford, or was even available, to buy them all again as dvd. so as i said its a tool to help gain sales by making it more comfortable for people to upgrade to.

The order was a little wrong, too - laserdisk was way before vcd - even predates cd.

The real reason is the consumer. Is it better to make a quantum leap after only 10 years, or to continue to capitalize on the investment made so far? Will enough consumers buy into the new technology to justify it?

The leap from cassette/VHS/laserdisc to CD/VCD/DVD was huge!  It was a switch from traditional analog recording to digital technology.  I don't think anyone would expect a digital DVD player to support analog cassettes (or laserdiscs).  They are just fundamentally different systems.

By comparison, I don't perceive the leap from DVD to HD-DVD to be nearly as impressive.  It's just more of the same digital technology with higher resolutions and capacities.

Over the past 15+ years, I've accumulated a giant collection of CDs and DVDs, plus I'm getting old.  For my money HD-DVD had better be backward compatible, otherwise I'll probably just stick with what I've got.

Amassing Discs for 15+ years? Man, you gotta tell us how you preserve them. Written (not pressed) CDs/DVDs should go bad in about 4 years' time. I have a sizable collection of home-made VCDs; now after 5 yearts I find that they have become surreptitiously unreadable...

Side-by-side, my DVD collection started around 2 years back. I don't know how long they will last. 4 years more? Even if they do last, they'll certainly become outdated by another technology.

Even for pressed discs, 15 years is eons, man, judging by the technology obsolescence time right now.

Regards.

I have 20 year old CDs in perfect condition. And while DVD hasn't been out that long, I've had no problems with any pressed disks. For that matter, no problems with recorded DVD+R/W (limited experience with DVD-R/W), only one batch of bad CD-R (generic from CompUSA), and one CD-RW by Princo (and I'll never use Princo anything again).
So I don't see why you are so pessimistic about their durability. You DO need to handle them properly, by the edges, with clean hands. Do not lay down on any surface, quot;cleanquot; or otherwise. Keep away from children, peanut butter, and pizza. Do not use as a Frisbee. Etc.

And if your entire quot;collectionquot; is on recordable media - what happened to all the originals?

I've never had a pressed CD or DVD go bad (that I'm aware of), and I've only had two burned CD-R's which went bad.  I believe one of them was exposed to too much sunlight; the other I'm not sure about.  Neither was older than two years.  However, my oldest burned CD-R is from 1996 and it's still perfectly readable, as are all my other burned discs.

Besides proper handling, I'm pretty obsessive about the quality of my recordable media (and lots of other items I buy).  I will only buy from a small selection of trusted brands.  People often make fun of me for being too picky.  But hey, it works for me.

Hi, mpucoder.

My wife runs a small dance group of teens, and has frequent programs. All the shows (ranging from 20 minutes to around 90) used to be kept in CDs in mpeg-1 form because these are easy to distribute and play in common players.

Naturally these were for archival purposes, and for use as masters when copies were needed; they weren't used everyday. So you can imagine my surprise when many of them were found unreadable after a long time storage in a proper plasic case inside a cardbord one. Just unreadable...no scratches, no nothing. The discs weren't recognized in the drive, is all...Worst affected were the ones that were written on blanks and commercial circular adhesive labels were used on the other side.

Some were written under Win98 and when WinXP said the disc structure was corrupted, they could be re-backed up in Win98 machines. But many others were just unreadable in any OS.

The Film VCDs, presumably because they are manufactured in a different process ('pressing'), are, however, okay till now. I don't have too many of them, though. Certainly not as many as my film DVDs. (Alas, I don't watch them after starting with DVDs. I'll probably give them away soon to release space). By now I own around 400 film DVDs; the number was more a few weeks back - I have given away some 2 star films because of space constraints. Advent of 2-disc DVD cases has greatly helped space issues, because I can now store my mpeg-4 backup with the original DVD in the same box. My concern is with these backups. I do these backups in mpeg-4 form (XviD) in CDs, and don't use adhesive labels any more.

I have read that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will have improved protective layers and better materials. I am keeping my fingers crossed, because till the time I am ready to make a transition from DVDs to the next generation of medium, my current originals and backups should hold.

There is another concern, too. My Braveheart is a sparkling print in DVD-9. When available in Blu-Ray in 50 GB size with (presumably) near-celluloid picture quality, what will I do to my DVD? My entire collection will become obsolete. Just like my film VCDs.

Regards.

Originally posted by mpucoder
I have 20 year old CDs in perfect condition.
Me too!

I even have one of the very first PolyGram promotional CD's, which we used to invite customers to de-face using marker pens and scratch with their finger nails.... And it still plays fine!

Does anybody remember RCA launching their competitor to the LaserDisc?Cheers

What it is really the technology?

A quot;projectionquot; for humanity or a financial transaction which makes circulate ideas.

Can one still speak about receipt of grandmother in this world of rough of which I form part?
Blu-ray and Hd-dvd have already their successor.
The quot;men of the shadequot; know what it is necessary (that which one needs). The procedure is their stick.There remains only with benefitted from our humanity, for at least retaining the essence of our terrestrial passage.

quot;It was only one bracket among so many othersquot;.

NOTE:I respect the ideas of all one each one.    Sorry for my translation.

Your translation is magnificent. You have written:

Blu-ray and Hd-dvd have already their successor.

What exactly do you have in mind?

Regards

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Does anybody remember RCA launching their competitor to the LaserDisc?

I assume you speak of SelectaVision
No I don’t remember it, I do however remember reading of an even older vinyl video format called quot;VISCquot; very bizzaro.

Products which will unload in an immediate future:

- Disc HDV InPhase Trapesty (1.6 To).
- Miranda technology.
- The technology of the hologram

There is still but... I reserve myself the right to be vigilant.
One all is supervised...

Originally posted by GIR
I assume you speak of SelectaVision
No I don’t remember it, I do however remember reading of an even older vinyl video format called quot;VISCquot; very bizzaro.
Yep... that's the kiddie... Great fun!

what's wrong with quantum leap?

Well to answer that question literally, the problem is that quantum leap is actually a jump of a quant over an infenitesimal distance. Herein lies the problem, since the difference is so small people can't make an informed decision about which format to go with  

p.s. who would've guessed that all that quantum theory they shove in my brain actually comes in usefull.

The Little Oxford Dictionary defines:

Quantum Leap a. Sudden large increase or advance.

The difference may be so small people can't make an informed decision in the language of Quantum Physics, but in Queen's English, it is actually large.

Yes, it's amazing that the knowledge of the Quantum Theory finally comes in useful in the Doom9's Forum. Einstein would have been pleased. He was the one who had put the theory of relativity in the kitchen in the lap of his wife.

Regards.

getting back to the actual subject...

what you have to consider aswell is that going from vhs to dvd was more than just more of the same. it enabled not only better picture quality but also jumping to chapters(no more fast forwading all the time trying to find a spot), lots of extras such as multiple audio tracks - selectable subtitles - extra featurettes such as making of(again jump straight to and not as some vhs occasionally had such a featurette on the end). all these were marketable to help draw people to the new technology. even then, as i said, dvd took time to build and get to where it is now. it didnt happen over night.

looking at HD-DVD and Blu-Ray they are closer to being in the more of the same stable. that is yes you get more room and can have better picture quality but really there is not much else new. extras, subs, multiple audio etc as i said were all introduced with dvds so not marketable as something new. so they need something to say you dont lose out by upgrading. backwards compatability is such a tool. you dont lose being able to play all your old dvds and having to buy them all again JUST for a better picture.

companies are not interested in how ground breaking a technology is if they can not make a profit. no company wants to run at a loss, especially not such large companies as the ones we are talking about.

IMHO the argument for backward compatability in this case is no argument at all.
It is very simple with either technology to include the ability to play current DVD's even if this requires the use of a second laser.

This has already been done with combo players from Pioneer that played CD's, DVD's and laserdiscs in one unit all using the same transport.

This is the same thing as it's always been since before the VHS/Beta wars.  It's all about who owns the patents, who makes the money and in the end who can convince the consumer their way is the right way to go.
However as they(big companies) have seen consumers are getting smarter and demanding it all such as the -R +R and now also RAM writters in one.  
This I am sure has cost them individually in fees and such.  So recent events that have the two groups considering working together on a single standard makes sense and might actually work.

Mark

Originally posted by ukb008 The question is: is backward compatibility issue a drag or a push for new technology? [/B]

As I see it, there has only been DVDs and VCRs for video.  The two are such different technologies that backward compatibily wasn't an option.  Laser disks and VCDs have never been mainstream in America, or were they backwards compatable with anything before them.  DVDs are backwards compatible with VCDs, but I think that's irrelevant to DVDs succes in America.

Look at computers, Mac vs. PC.  Macs have repeatedly forgone backward compatibility while PCs have preserved it.  The result is that Macs are a more efficient and elegant design, but PCs give more bank for the buck because backwards compatibility gives them the market size to trump efficiency with brute force.  

Look at game systems.  What's going to happen with the backward compatabile PS3 vs. the not-backward compatable Xbox360?  PS3 is going to win.

IMHO the argument for backward compatability in this case is no argument at all.

huh ? ukb008 asked why backwards compatability is being done/used, for what reason ,and if its a drag on technology. i and others have given the reasons why companies use it.

who makes the money and in the end who can convince the consumer their way is the right way to go.

exactly and as already said backwards compatability is a tool used to convince customers they can easily and safley upgrade their tech without having to start from scratch. that way they get more people buying the new tech and make more money.

DVDs and VCRs for video. The two are such different technologies that backward compatibily wasn't an option.

yes but they had the new features that dvd provided to use as an incentive for people to buy dvd rather than more of the same.