Future of DVD technology

[JMK]

Where's this all headed? Is that blue laser on its way, and if they are, are they at least making it backwards compatible with red laser dvd's? Let me know Viscera, as I bet you're probably the only one who will answer. ;)

[Shawn]

I dunno, but DVDs are apparently getting really cheap. I just got a DVD of the movie "Buddy" with my box of cereal. Yes, the whole movie.

[sirdizzy]

hell ya can get cabin boy and a few ernest movies for $5.88 at wal-mart


and they better make it backwards compatible it would really pisse me off if they didn't since i have 83 dvds now

[JMK]

I'd be pissed too, I'm up to 122. :\

[Shawn]

They'd have to or else no one would buy it. DVDs are already commonplace, but nowhere near old, so you can't just totally replace them with something else.

[JMK]

I guess they will remember what happened to mini-discs and take some lessons from that.

[Sorreessa Tarrineezi]

wish they would lower the prices at BB, a new new dvd costs $21.99 without tax, hell over a year ago when I started it was $16.99.....

[JediBoricua]

According to an article from WIRED Mag. a couple of months ago, they will be backward compatible. I believe what changes is the DVD itself, but the readers are the same.


Anyway don't quote me on that.

[Shawn]

Originally posted by Sorreessa Tarrineezi
wish they would lower the prices at BB, a new new dvd costs $21.99 without tax, hell over a year ago when I started it was $16.99..... Maybe if you're getting some uber-platinum special edition. Mostly DVDs go for $19.99 and under.

[JediBoricua]

And the big ones go on sale the day the hit the stores.

I am member of Replay at Suncoast so most of them I get them for 18.99 or close.

[Darth Viscera]

Originally posted by JMK
Where's this all headed? Is that blue laser on its way, and if they are, are they at least making it backwards compatible with red laser dvd's? Let me know Viscera, as I bet you're probably the only one who will answer. ;)

Blu-laser DVD recorders and players will be able to play red-laser DVDs, DVD-Rs and DVD-RWs. The first blu-laser DVD recorder/player, a Sony model which will be available April 10 in Japan and cost $3,800, will not be able to read DVD+Rs or DVD+RWs. All blu-laser DVD players should read normal red-laser commercial DVDs.

1-sided, 1-layer blu-laser DVDs will store 27 gigs of data, compared to 4.37 gigs on a red-laser DVD. 1-sided, 2-layer blu-laser DVDs will store 50 gigs of data, compared to 8.5 gigs on a dual layer red-laser DVD.

blu-raser DVDs will have the capacity and speed to store more than 2 hours of hi-def content, or about 10 hours of normal DVD-quality (480p or 480i) content, double that for a dual-layer blue-laser DVD.

[JediBoricua]

So we could have one full season of The Simpsons in just one disc?

[Mr. Burns]Excellent![/Mr. Burns]

[Darth Viscera]

Yes, you could.

Of course, those Hollywood fatcats wouldn't put all those episodes on one disc for you....they'd stretch it out onto 4 discs, each 25% full, and call it a Season X Box Set so that they could charge you $70 instead of $16.99. That Jack Valenti really burns my bacon.

Do you know that in the future, your HDTV programs will not be recordable? That's right. A little tiny 4-byte tag embedded into the video and audio will enable a thing called "content protection" on a TV show, and so you will be unable to record it to your blu-laser blank DVD or any other form of digital media. Jack Valenti will make the SAME kind of fuss that he made in 1982 with the VCR about how the blank blu-laser DVD will completely destroy hollywood's ability to make money, and he'll bring in Clint Eastwood and the two of them will go to Congress and testify before the Congressional Subcommittee on courts, civil liberties,
and the administration of justice again:

"...now we are facing a very new and a very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the digital versatile disc recorder and its necessary companion called the blank disc. And it is like a great tidal wave just off the shore. This DVD recorder and the blank disc threaten profoundly the life-sustaining protection, I guess you would call it, on which copyright owners depend, on which film people depend, on which television people depend and it is called copyright."

And this time he might win, and we'll lose the right to record an episode of Star Trek, or to record the news, or to use our TiVo devices.

[JediBoricua]

I would stop traffic protesting against that bastard.


I want a TiVO! NOW! I just don't have time to watch all the TV I really want to watch, and because of Time Zones some shows are too late here. But no, No TiVO in Puerto Rico :grumble.


I should move!

[Darth Viscera]

Well, they're expensive. The actual units cost $200 themselves, and then you have to pay a one-time $250 "activation fee". Leeching bastards. And you'll have to buy a new TiVo and pay a new activation fee to record HDTV when it becomes practical.

[Sorreessa Tarrineezi]

Originally posted by Shawn
Maybe if you're getting some uber-platinum special edition. Mostly DVDs go for $19.99 and under.

nope, that's the price on all our new release dvds at my store.....

[Admiral Lebron]

I am member of Replay at Suncoast so most of them I get them for 18.99 or close.

I am in Replay and the only discounted DVDs are crappy ones... like 8 mile...

[Mu Satach]

Originally posted by Sorreessa Tarrineezi
nope, that's the price on all our new release dvds at my store.....

Is there a reason why that's the only store you shop at?

[Sorreessa Tarrineezi]

I work there is all...I don't understand why my store has to charge so much....I don't generally buy new from work but is annoying.....

[Jedi Master Carr]

I just keep a VCR to record stuff, the will always still work.

[sirdizzy]

Target has every dvd that comes out on sale for $15.99 or lower their first week in the store (it rare i paye more than that for a dvd nowdays i just got Who Frame Roger Rabbit on Tuesday for $15.14)


and it would be cool to have a whole season of simpsons on a single dvd (except i would have to buy a blue laser dvd player which is not cool) but they are right they would at least make it 3 dvds and throw in crappy special features to try and fool you (like the first seasons stupid script special feature)

[Darth Viscera]

Originally posted by Jedi Master Carr
I just keep a VCR to record stuff, the will always still work.

Sorry, not so. You've never tried to record a DVD onto a blank tape, have you? Macrovision protection scrambles the luma signal on any indirect composite or s-video connections, making the resulting video turn ultra-dark and wave in and out. You can't record anything with macrovision protection (including future HDTV streams) without a $40 macrovision decoder box which will stabilize the signal. The content protection flag will likely have more than just macrovision, though, so those macrovision decoder boxes might not work for stabilizing HDTV streams.

Anyway, your VCR is useless right now for recording DVDs onto a blank tape, and in the future (less than a year from now), you won't be able to record an HDTV program onto tape.

[Darth Viscera]

And has anyone else been keeping track of the increase in commercials?

30 years ago, there were 9 minutes 30 seconds of commercials in 1 hour of TV programming. 10 years ago, there were 14 minutes 30 seconds of commercials in 1 hour of TV. Today, there are 18 minutes 30 seconds of commericals in 1 hour of TV. By 2020 can we expect 30 minutes of every hour of TV to be commercials? Can we expect that by 2040 there will be 45 minutes of commercials, and by 2070 there will be no TV programs at all, just hour after hour of commercials? They're awful sneaky, these television broadcasters. In Yemen they don't have commercials at all.

[JMK]

I've certainly noticed. I can't stand commercials. I always flip channels during commercial breaks and it pisses people off more and more each year, and that's why; there are more and more commercials. I've also noticed it in radio, both AM and FM, maybe Taylor can shed some more light on the radio aspect of advertisements...

[Jedi Master Carr]

Sorry, not so. You've never tried to record a DVD onto a blank tape, have you? Macrovision protection scrambles the luma signal on any indirect composite or s-video connections, making the resulting video turn ultra-dark and wave in and out. You can't record anything with macrovision protection (including future HDTV streams) without a $40 macrovision decoder box which will stabilize the signal. The content protection flag will likely have more than just macrovision, though, so those macrovision decoder boxes might not work for stabilizing HDTV streams.

Oh I know that I mean recording tv shows and stuff on my VCR from TV, not from DVD, I think that is the only use you can get from a VCR right now unti DVD recorders become cheaper.

[Darth Viscera]

But in the future you won't even be able to record TV shows to VCR. All TV will be HDTV, and the HDTV will show up scrambled on a blank tape if you try to record it because of the content protection system.

[sirdizzy]

well i payed all of $40 for my vcr last year, i bought the cheapest model why pay for anything expensive on outdated technology

[Darth Viscera]

that's not the point. you don't mind that you won't be able to record any of your favorite tv shows in the future?

[sirdizzy]

no not really taping is bad for me such a lazy habit, i will tape something and it will take me a month or two to watch it so i never know what i got taped


i am the same with layaway i'll put something on layaway and forget it for like 6 months and then its gone

[Dutchy]

Originally posted by Darth Viscera
But in the future you won't even be able to record TV shows to VCR.

You don't think some hacker will think up something to solve that problem?

Notice how region 2 DVDs play region 1 DVDs as well.

[Princess Sunflower]

Originally posted by Darth Viscera
that's not the point. you don't mind that you won't be able to record any of your favorite tv shows in the future?

This news really sucks >_<

Does this mean you won't be able to record the show even if you're still using an older TV?

[Darth Viscera]

Originally posted by Dutchy
You don't think some hacker will think up something to solve that problem?

Notice how region 2 DVDs play region 1 DVDs as well.

Not very legally, though, and as a result, most people don't know about the region free models and stick with ones that are region locked, or they just don't know how to unlock them. The 1337 guys like myself will, of course, be able to record everything in top quality no matter how it's encrypted, but the little guy will have his recording priveleges taken away by jack valenti, and there are hundreds of millions of little guys.


Does this mean you won't be able to record the show even if you're still using an older TV?

By 2007 all TVs sold will be HDTVs. I reckon that shortly after that time analog TV transmissions will be cut back, and by 2012 they should be extinct. What the devil are you going to try to record? Static?

[sirdizzy]

actually there is a law on the books i think by the year 2008 al tv shows have to be broadcast in hdtv

[Princess Sunflower]

Well..this is the first I've heard of this happening hence my reaction. >_<

[Dutchy]

Originally posted by Darth Viscera
Not very legally, though, and as a result, most people don't know about the region free models and stick with ones that are region locked, or they just don't know how to unlock them. The 1337 guys like myself will, of course, be able to record everything in top quality no matter how it's encrypted, but the little guy will have his recording priveleges taken away by jack valenti, and there are hundreds of millions of little guys.

True. Though here in stores they have 'region free' on the DVD tags.


By 2007 all TVs sold will be HDTVs. I reckon that shortly after that time analog TV transmissions will be cut back, and by 2012 they should be extinct. What the devil are you going to try to record? Static?

The public wants to record TV programs like they're used with their VCR. I don't think the industry is gonna take away that just like that.

[Wei Wu Wei]

Maybe I missed this in a previous post, but what exactly is the difference between red and blue laser DVDs?

[sirdizzy]

the amount of information that can be stored on a single dvd is the magor difference

a blue laser dvd is to a red laser dvd as a dvd is to a cd-r

[Wei Wu Wei]

I'm afraid those little analogy thingies were not my strong point on the SAT. Could you explain it again?

[Darth Viscera]

A blue laser dvd has 7x more capacity.

Dutchy, many region free DVDs are illegal bootlegs. They might be from Malaysia. Region free is the exception, not the rule. Most commercial DVDs are region-coded.

They're not going to take away our ability to record programs "just like that". This is why I bring up the content protection flag. It'll appear slowly, maybe on a few programs at first, then it'll snake its way in until all HDTV programs are using the CP flag.

[Stardust]

Originally posted by Darth Viscera
that's not the point. you don't mind that you won't be able to record any of your favorite tv shows in the future?

And in the future we will have flying cars....

There will always be a way to record a copy of something so you can watch it later. If they take that away the Networks would lose half of their audience!

[Darth Viscera]

heh, that's funny, the thought that half a show's audience is TiVo boxes or VCR's. Makes you wonder if the networks would work to figure out a way to auto-change a channel to their station when you're asleep, so they'd get a lot more money from the advertisers.

[Jedi Master Carr]

They have to allow people to record stuff how about if I have to work and can't watch my favorite show that wouldn't be fair, I am sure they will allow most stuff on Basic TV to be taped, (TV shows, soaps, sports, etc) I imagine they might block stuff like movies but that wouldn't bother me as much.

[Darth Viscera]

Well, Hollywood doesn't operate in accordance with the laws of fairness.