Analysis of the DVD format
Stereo Boy
SD
Super Density
Digital Video Disc Format
And its success and impact on the consumer market.
By
Patrick T. Chamberlain
As the RCA brochure for the DVD system states, DVD will be
"Revolutionary, entertainment excitement!" This is what the industry
believes, and it is what the industry wants the consumer to believe.
Belief and reality are two different things however. While many hope and
pray that the DVD system will be an unqualified success, others see DVD as
being a colossal failure and a system that will wreck companies and the
consumer video market and take its place in history as the biggest failure
of a product in the history of consumer electronics. It may even take
several electronic companies down with it.
Why this belief? To answer that, we must take a brief look back at the
history of consumer electronics and the people who buy them-- the average
American.
RCA spent over $700 million dollars on its SelectaVision CED VideoDisc
system, and it ultimately failed. CED had been predicted to be a $9
billion dollar business by 1990, but the system was discontinued in 1984,
only 3 years after its introduction. From the beginning of its
development in 1968, RCA spent millions on consumer polls to research how
the consumer would react to a home videodisc system. Over 1 million
people participated in the polls, some even getting to use the prototype
VideoDisc products in their homes for limited trial periods. When all the
data had been analyzed, it pointed to an unprecedented success on RCA's
part and indicated that consumers would rush quickly to the VideoDisc.
Even in a last minute market study, 2 months before the launch of CED in
March of 1981, the research was encouraging. RCA was going to have a huge
success on its hands. But it didn't turn out that way. Customers stayed
away in droves. RCA had to quickly slash prices and introduce new models
to entice people into stores. Of those that actually bought players and
discs, 2/3 of them returned them within 30 days to exchange for a VCR.
RCA sold less than 50,000 players the first year on the market and it
worked out that RCA spent $2,000.00 in advertising per player sold. The
reasons for the failure of the system, while claimed to be complex by
some, are actually very simple. The VideoDisc system didn't record, you
were forced to purchase your programming instead of renting and program
selection was too small. Additionally, although this is claimed to be an
insignificant factor, CED had an inferior picture to any then currently
available home video system and the discs skipped.
These, I think, are some of the very same reasons that DVD is going to
fail in the market.
Since the first Sony Betamax became available in 1976, consumers have
cherished the ability to record programs and shows off of television.
This even became a war between VHS and Beta over recording times, with
consumers expressing preference for VHS because of its longer recording
times. An interesting fact about all of this, is that 70% of VCR owners
NEVER do any recording whatsoever. They may buy a blank tape or two when
they first purchase their new VCR, but thats it. After that, their main
use of the VCR is to playback prerecorded programming that they have
rented for the evening. Many, many VCR's have never even had a blank tape
in them or had their recording function activated. But although most
people don't do any recording, they DEMAND that capability in ANY medium
they use for playback of home videos. I think it is a feeling of "what
good is it if it doesn't record". They know that with their VHS they
always have that option to record open to them should they choose to do
so. The fact that they don't has no bearing on anything.
Consumers will look at DVD and see that it doesn't record. That will
instantly arouse suspicions in their mind that if the movies they want to
watch are not available on the DVD discs, then the machine will be useless
to them and a waste of money. Just because DVD will have a (supposedly)
better picture quality than VHS will play no part in their decision. it
doesn't record, therefore, it is crippled and worth less than VHS, which
DOES record anytime they want. (VHS playback-only units failed in the
market too, and rightly so, just proving my points)
Programming is another area as mentioned above. All the companies
involved with DVD are promising a catalog of 250 titles at the launch with
maybe 50 to 100 actually available in the stores in the beginning. The
coding that DVD uses (MPEG-2) requires 10 minutes of processing to encode
1 minute of program. This means that unless the powers that be have been
secretly encoding discs for the last 3 years in preparation for the
launch, there is no way they have the time to ready 250 titles by June.
(The earliest stated launch date for DVD) Their only choice is to
compromise the quality of the encoding by using quicker algorithms that
save time while sacrificing picture quality. And even if they do manage
to finish 250 movies in time for the launch, what will those movies be?
TOP GUN? ROCKY? They will be the same tired movies that everyone already
owns and will be loathe to buy again. Also, DVD movies are supposed to
have features such as multiple aspect ratios, and different languages and
ratings and subtitles. There is really no true hope that any of these
features will come to pass on general releases. (which is precisely the
titles they will be needed most on if the format is to succeed) At the
quoted prices for a 2 hour movie (15 to 20 dollars) no company is going to
spend the many thousands of dollars needed to properly prepare all the
differing versions of a film that are to be included on a particular DVD
disc. It just wouldn't make economic sense for a company to do that.
Because the titles available will be ones that people already own, they
will naturally sell less than a new release that is still hot from the
theaters. This will result in even a bigger cost for companies because
the less they sell, the more each feature costs to implement on each
title. Also, there is the question of time. Just how much time is it
going to take to encode all these additional features onto each disc? if
the companies are already pressed for time to get the disc released, then
they will most certainly not do any special features.
Another question is, how many consumers actually WANT and USE all the
special features that DVD *might* offer? CD players offer all kinds of
special programming and playback options, yet most people never touch
these features. A cheap VCR is seen as too intimidating to most
Americans. They just want to watch the movie, not select different
versions, languages and such. The LD market has proven that these extra
features are desired, but only by a small segment of the population. The
special edition LDs don't even sell to most LD owner/collectors. They are
a small segment of an already small market. Are the studios going to
spend money on DVD to make discs that only a select few will buy and care
to view? NO! The reason they bother with the LD market is that they can
charge more for the special disc releases and collectors will pay. But
the DVD camp has sold the format as ultimately cheap and there is NO WAY
people are going to buy discs for a new format that cost $100.00 per pop.
And the companies KNOW they aren't going to sell, so they WONT produce
them!
And just where are these differing versions (read:ratings) of films going
to come from? A director shoots a film, and in the vast majority of
cases, the movie is finished at the rating the director aimed for.
Additional scenes are not shot and edited to make differing rating
versions of a film. Are the studios going to call back entire casts and
crews to revise a film so they can produce a DVD version with differing
ratings? If they don't, will the studio elect to do it themselves and
edit without the directors approval? I don't think so... This argument
alone is enough to shoot the whole "features" aspect of DVD right out the
window. The entire goal of Hollywood is and always has been to produce at
the lowest cost possible and sell at the highest. Offer as little as
possible turn a buck.
Availablitly of titles for rental is another area of concern. How many
stores are going to stock DVD and take up selling space that could be
better stocked with something else? Why should they even get into it in
the first place?
They will have a few titles, that, because of low ownership of players,
will sit on the shelves doing no rentals. I seriously doubt that most
stores will offer DVD for rent for longer than 2 months after the launch.
And now we get into THE most controversial aspect of the entire DVD
debate. PICTURE QUALITY, or the lack there of. When DVD was first
announced, it was claimed to offer D1 Master Tape quality. A short while
later, the companies said it was much better than VHS but worse than LD.
Now they have swung the other way again and are claiming D1 quality again.
Quite simply, this will be impossible on commercially prepared, feature
length films.
The specs for DVD state that it has an average transfer rate of 4.69MBPS,
DVD is just barely capable of LD quality resolution. It has a maximum
transfer rate of 10 MBPS, but this can only be sustained for a few moments
here and there for very difficult to encode scenes or pictures. The
claimed maximum running time at the average data rate is 133 minutes.
What about a film that is so complex visually and with so much motion that
it requires a very high sustained data rate? How will the companies
choose, to reduce the playing time of the disc or cut the data rate and
sacrifice picture quality?? Its not a hard question to answer if you have
been paying attention thus far.
The DVD demos given to date have been carefully prepared, short demos. No
demo has been given of a full length DVD disc. So far, they have all been
under 15 minutes. At that timing, the DVD disc can easily encode at the
maximum data rate and sustain it for the time required for maximum
quality. And even in these *prepared* demos, artifacts in the picture
have been easily seen by non-critical viewers! If artifacts are visible
at the highest data rates, what will the picture look like at the very low
rates needed for a feature length film? One can only guess at the
ugliness of it all. Also, in every demo comparing DVD to LD, the LDs used
have NOT been commericaly available LD's, but rather, ones made by the
companies especially for the demo! Is this not highly suspect??? All
witnesses who have seen these staged demos have said that NO LD on the
market looks as bad as the LD's the DVD demos used. It is obvious that
the companies don't want us to see a real, quality LD compared to a
special, tweaked DVD. (which, by the way, is the VERY BEST they can do!)
When DVD was compared to VHS, the VHS tape used was a worn rental copy
from a local video store! Of course DVD will be expected to look better
under these circumstances. Yet in every case, viewers preferred the VHS
because it didn't have motion artifacts and strange pixelization artifacts
that the DVD had.
Where as the artifacts in analog sources such as VHS and LaserDisc, are
static in nature and can be quickly overlooked and "seen thru" when
watching a program, DVD artifacts are dynamic and changeable from moment
to moment and may even vary each time the disc is played. They are very
noticeable and a viewer will not become accustomed to them or learn to
"see thru" them. The artifacts will be a constant distraction in the DVD
picture. There is another strange artifact in an MPEG-2 picture called
"static motion" where a solid background seems to be alive with movement.
It takes on a *swimmy* quality and is most unpleasant to view. It is
caused the by the various pixels coming and going as the coder varies the
bit rate on a moment by moment basis.
So far, the claims of DVD being cheap to produce have been based on the
fact that DVD manufacture is pretty much the same as conventional CD
replication. But, DVD's are NOT CD's. The data and pit structure of a
DVD disc is almost 1/2 the size of that on a CD and 1/2 that of a
LaserDisc. The pits on a LD and CD are already among the smallest of all
manufactured formations, and it is correct to ask whether or not the
companies can make discs to the exacting standards required by DVD in the
large quantities and speeds required by the mass market. DVD has a very
powerful and sophisticated error correction system built in, but because
we are dealing with picture and sound and tracks that are only 1/2
conventional size, errors in disc manufacture will have to be an order of
magnitude less than anything that has been achieved to date in CD and LD
replication. Errors in the video picture will be very distracting and
cause breakup and even more sever pixelation that that caused by the data
reduction. Also, because of the fact that everything is half size and the
data is already reduced by an incredible amount, errors that would be
easily correctable on a CD will be even larger to a DVD and might not be
correctable at all, thus requiring interploitation, which WILL be visible
in the picture. Where as Digital Error Correction is perfect and
invisible, interploitation IS NOT perfect, and very visible. It is just a
best guess type of strategy and it used when the defect is so large that
the player cant correct it. The one positive aspect of DVD replication is
that since a DVD is actually 2 very thin discs bonded together, there will
be less material used per layer and that will result in less stress on the
plastic and less deformation of the substrate during curing. So, in that
respect, DVD is much more robust than a conventional CD.
What will DVD do to the consumer electronics business and the home video
business over all? Well, if you were to ask the companies involved, they
would tell you, in glowing terms, how DVD will make millions of dollars,
cause people to junk their entire systems and buy new, higher quality home
theaters so that they can best take advantage of DVD's super duper high
quality picture and sound. I think it is going to destroy the market.
Why? Companies are looking to DVD as the Great Hope. They are putting
all their resources into it, putting all their eggs into one basket, so to
speak. When it ultimately fails, they will lose hundreds of millions of
dollars. Many companies, such as Sony, who have a recent history of
product failures and are already struggling in a tough market, may be
taken down from it and go out of business entirely or be forced to
downsize and restrict their company to only a few select areas. Smaller
companies, such as local mom-and-pop type of video stores, who, believing
the DVD hype, jump on the DVD bandwagon, may well face bankruptcy and
foreclosure when the market they have invested everything in fails to
materialize. Movie studios, who will be releasing their product on DVD,
may well cut back on VHS releases or delay release of a film on VHS hoping
that the DVD availability and VHS non-availability will push consumers
into buying DVD discs and players will also lose when the DVD;s don't
sell. Consumers will be angry for having a new and unwanted format forced
upon them and will revolt by refusing to buy existing VHS tapes either.
Because of the companies releasing DVD;s first, there wont be any new VHS
titles to buy, so even for the customer who still wants VHS, it wont be
there. The whole market could collapse because of this.
DVD is just a bad idea. It is being forced upon a uncaring and unwanted
public and is an inferior product that simply isn't needed or desired.
DVD exists only for one reason. Greed. Motion picture studios are always
looking for a way to sell the same stuff over and over again and they
think DVD is the answer. Electronics giants are always looking for the
hot new gadget that will make consumers junk their existing products and
they feel that DVD is the answer. Its not. Actually, it is an answer to
a non existent question. A question that has never been and never will be
asked.
P.T. Chamberlain
1/3/96
Ty Chamberlain
DiscoVision - THE WORLD ON A SILVER PLATTER!!
Ster...@aol.com
Robert Wallace
: An analysis of the TOSHIBA
: SD
: Super Density
: Digital Video Disc Format
: And its success and impact on the consumer market.
: By
: Patrick T. Chamberlain
: The
: reasons for the failure of the system, while claimed to be complex by
: some, are actually very simple.
It was simple for me. The Pioneer laserdisc player came available about
the same time and was superior esthetically and technically. It was a
little more expensive, but the discs didn't wear out like the needle-vision
discs did. And it used a laser!!! A real gas laser! Very cutting edge,
at the time.
You've given us an interesting and well written article, by the way.
Thanks.
Robert Wallace
rob...@metronet.com
Urd-sama's Desk
Boy) wrote:
> The DVD demos given to date have been carefully prepared, short demos. No
> demo has been given of a full length DVD disc. So far, they have all been
> under 15 minutes. At that timing, the DVD disc can easily encode at the
> maximum data rate and sustain it for the time required for maximum
> quality. And even in these *prepared* demos, artifacts in the picture
Incorrect. The DVD drives are basically 8x speed enhanced CDroms. 8x speed
means... 4.69 Mbit/sec. In other words, physically the DVD drive cannot go
beyond the average data rate. The higher data rate for short bursts is
handled by a 4 Mbyte buffer. So those demo discs are either run on
non-standard drives, or run at the average rate.
> have been easily seen by non-critical viewers! If artifacts are visible
> at the highest data rates, what will the picture look like at the very low
I would guess that the demos you saw were about the same quality you will
see on the real thing next fall. However, bear in mind that it greatly
depends on program material how much artefacts you will get. A movie with
little action will have few, an action flick like Terminator 2 will have
many.
Companies claim they can reduce artefacts by tuning the encoding
algorythms. This is an outright lie - the VideoCD MPEG 1 system shows this
clearly. The later movies had indeed less blocking but also less colors.
By reducing the amount of colors they succeeded in reducing the amount of
blocking. This just means they replaced one artefact with another. A very
popular trick to reduce blocking is to heavily filter action scenes. Less
blocking but also less resolution.
> rates needed for a feature length film? One can only guess at the
> ugliness of it all. Also, in every demo comparing DVD to LD, the LDs used
Taking the data amounts and rates into consideration, as well as the disc
capacity, basically DVD will look like a Video CD as far as artefacts is
concerned. But it will offer a much higher resolution.
> have NOT been commericaly available LD's, but rather, ones made by the
> companies especially for the demo! Is this not highly suspect??? All
> witnesses who have seen these staged demos have said that NO LD on the
> market looks as bad as the LD's the DVD demos used. It is obvious that
> the companies don't want us to see a real, quality LD compared to a
> special, tweaked DVD. (which, by the way, is the VERY BEST they can do!)
Don't tell me you are truly surprised by this? Never trust a demo at a
fair. Remember CD? When it was introduced I saw Philips marketing guys at
fairs write with felt pens on CDs, claiming this would not affect
playback. They then inserted the discs in the player - smudged side _up_.
No wonder it did not affect playback... Another popular trick was to put
the disc on the ground, put a foot on it and start dragging it around.
Lots of scratches... on the label side.
> When DVD was compared to VHS, the VHS tape used was a worn rental copy
> from a local video store! Of course DVD will be expected to look better
> under these circumstances. Yet in every case, viewers preferred the VHS
> because it didn't have motion artifacts and strange pixelization artifacts
> that the DVD had.
I am unsure how consumer Joe will react. Considering the price tag I would
think he won't buy DVD. Quality is no issue for him...
> dollars. Many companies, such as Sony, who have a recent history of
> product failures and are already struggling in a tough market, may be
> taken down from it and go out of business entirely or be forced to
> downsize and restrict their company to only a few select areas. Smaller
While I agree many companies will have problems, I doubt Sony will be one
of them. They have diversified into many markets, and not by coincedence
are back into the computer market. Because DVD WILL be a success... just
not as a video disc. Remember, it stands for Digital _Versatile_ Disc? As
a replacement for CDrom it will easily take off - it will cost around $300
for a DVD drive for computers - that is for a CDrom compatible 8x drive.
The only thing that could stop DVDrom is the replacement of CDrom drives
by CDR drives, but I can't see those drop to $300 this year.
> sell. Consumers will be angry for having a new and unwanted format forced
> upon them and will revolt by refusing to buy existing VHS tapes either.
Not sure. CD was also forced down our throats, remember? Only when the
involved companies started releasing wanted titles on CD only were sales
of players really taking off.
> DVD exists only for one reason. Greed. Motion picture studios are always
> looking for a way to sell the same stuff over and over again and they
> think DVD is the answer. Electronics giants are always looking for the
> hot new gadget that will make consumers junk their existing products and
> they feel that DVD is the answer. Its not. Actually, it is an answer to
While every company is run on a basis of greed (so this is nothing new),
electronics companies are in deep crisis and are desperate for a new
product that can fuel new profits. A lot of new formats are popping up in
electronic land, not just video formats (DVD, DVC) and audio (DCC, MD) but
also in storage technology for computers.
And here lies the possibility for consumers - in a few years optical discs
with harddisc data transfer speeds and capacities of 10 Gigabyte will be
quite available and affordable. I am looking forward to turning my
computer into a high quality videodisc recorder. And I can write my own
compression algorythm...
Ciao!
Jeroen
Adam Hendershot
Adam
aze...@dodgenet.com
>An analysis of the TOSHIBA
>SD
>Super Density
>Digital Video Disc Format
>And its success and impact on the consumer market.
>By
>Patrick T. Chamberlain
Thank you for such a fact-based, unbiased, analysis of the DVD
product. Man, you must know a lot of cool people that told you all
that accurate information. It's too bad all the engineers and
management at the companies developing and manufacturing DVD products
didn't contact you earlier or they could have saved their companies a
ton of money and themselves their jobs.
Dwayne Fujima
explain:
1) What is Progressive Scanning (as often referred to by a DVD
capability?)
2) What is said benefit and how does it work?
Thanks
Jeff Raynor
: Can someone give me a pointer to a web site, or better yet briefly
: explain:
: 1) What is Progressive Scanning (as often referred to by a DVD
: capability?)
Non-interlaced.
In an interlaced system the lines are sent 1,3,5,7....525,2,4,6,8....524
In a non-interlaced system the lines are sent 1,2,3,4,5..........524,525
: 2) What is said benefit and how does it work?
The advantage of the interlaced system is that 1/2 the picture
is sent in 1/2 the time, hence the flicker on the screen is less.
The advantage of the progressive system is that it is easier
for (brain-dead microsoft programmers) to write software
for & is preferred by (parts of) the computer industry.
There is also a marginal picture improvement.
Take the example where lines 53 & 55 are black but 54 is white.
Interlaced sends black, black..... white
|<----17ms---->| i.e. flashes at 30Hz
Progressive sends black,white,black no flash
This is an extreme example (of "interlace twitter") but illustrates
the problem.
Jeff
---
Email: ray...@psi.ch
Web: http://psizs1.psi.ch/~raynor/
Robert
|> Incorrect. The DVD drives are basically 8x speed enhanced CDroms. 8x speed
|> means... 4.69 Mbit/sec. In other words, physically the DVD drive cannot go
|> beyond the average data rate. The higher data rate for short bursts is
|> handled by a 4 Mbyte buffer. So those demo discs are either run on
|> non-standard drives, or run at the average rate.
A CD-DA has a bandwidth of 16*2*44100=1,411,200bits/sec and a "single speed"
CD-ROM has 8*2024*75=1,214,400bits/sec. If you grab your calculator you will
find that 4.69 Mbit/sec is not the same as 8xCD
|> Don't tell me you are truly surprised by this? Never trust a demo at a
|> fair. Remember CD? When it was introduced I saw Philips marketing guys at
|> fairs write with felt pens on CDs, claiming this would not affect
|> playback. They then inserted the discs in the player - smudged side _up_.
|> No wonder it did not affect playback... Another popular trick was to put
|> the disc on the ground, put a foot on it and start dragging it around.
|> Lots of scratches... on the label side.
The label side is actually much closer(10-30microns protective laquer coating
+ 5microns print) to the metalized pit surface and scratches here can easily
go down to the metal and start oxydation there. I once were stupid enough to
get a CD-player from Philips and the hopeless construction made scratches on
the back of the CDs making many of them difficult to read by most players.(If
anyone from Philips wants to see or compensate me for the destroyed CDs I still
have them). I had no problems making a modification to the player so it stopped
"eating" the CDs.
Scratches on the other side of the CD is not likely to go through over 1mm of
polycarbonate. Smaller scratches that are only at the surface are less
influencial because:
1) Data is stored sequencially.
2) Error correction is used
3) The laser is not focused on the surface. The typical diameter of the spot
on the surface is 0.8mm.
The little protected backside is clearly a weak point of the CD that one will
no longer have with DVD.
|> [........]
|>
|> Not sure. CD was also forced down our throats, remember? Only when the
|> involved companies started releasing wanted titles on CD only were sales
|> of players really taking off.
On many of the CDs one also had extra tracks. I guess that without extra
features a normal consumer can easily acccess any new format will have problems
being accepted.
|> While every company is run on a basis of greed (so this is nothing new),
|> electronics companies are in deep crisis and are desperate for a new
|> product that can fuel new profits. A lot of new formats are popping up in
|> electronic land, not just video formats (DVD, DVC) and audio (DCC, MD) but
|> also in storage technology for computers.
You must not forget that Philips/Sony from licencing earns a lot from every
CD that is made and that their copyright will soon expire.
Robert-
--
*------------------------- rob...@unik.no ---------------------------*
| Visit http://www.unik.no/~robert/hifi/hifi.html (2M+ acc.) and see |
| why more than 50 persons have been copying directly from those pages.|
*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
David Linwood Pearce
In article <4gfk3m$c...@dole.uninett.no>, rob...@janus.unik.no (Robert) writes:
>
>A CD-DA has a bandwidth of 16*2*44100=1,411,200bits/sec and a "single speed"
>CD-ROM has 8*2024*75=1,214,400bits/sec. If you grab your calculator you will
>find that 4.69 Mbit/sec is not the same as 8xCD
>
because they have more error correction ability. The true data rate of CD-DA
is slightly higher because that bitstream includer Error correction data
and other cues about the format of the disc.
Then the absolute datarate is also slower than the true data rate. Both systems
use 14:8 modulation (sort of a dictionary based system). The
bits go through this demodulator and made into 14 bits before they are seen
by any data handling devices.
Later,
TurboDave
dlpe...@eos.ncsu.edu
David L. Pearce
1984 Laser XE Turbo
AlenSmithe
Not necessarily; you can still buy cassettes if you don't want CD's. CD
was a much bigger improvement over records, no background noise and they
didn't wear out. Laserdisc has very few problems, and DVD is only
attempting to solve them by introducing new problems, which in my opinion
are less tolerable.
I gotta ask: can you imagine a porno video on DVD? Imagine all the things
that would turn into masses of squares! Go ahead and laugh, but I think
this would be a good test for motion quality!
--------------------
AlenS...@aol.com
--------------------
There's nothing we wanna watch on TV tonight, but we're still gonna watch
something great- with our RCA VideoDisc player and VideoDiscs! Just flip a
switch, and on OUR TV we see Airplane or The Pink Panther, The Godfather
or Grease, Muppets, monsters, Mickey, MASH and 100 more, starting as low
as $15! And the player costs less than 500! Put it this way; we're
watching a GREAT MOVIE! And you're watching- us.
BRING THE MAGIC HOME ON RCA!
DUDE
think they'll succeed as a replacement for the CD-ROM and maybe succeed
even as a replacement for CD-audio. Furthermore, I personally don't think
the video DVD format is going to fail. It'll certainly take a long time to
get up to speed and even longer to replace LDs but I believe it will
sooner or later. I know a lot of people will argue technical issues about
it, but John Q. Public is _not_ a videophile and probably won't care. Most
people I know, and I just got into LD collecting within the past year,
hardly even know LD players exist, much less have ever seen one in action.
I think the public will probably view this DVD thing as an amazing new
invention "a way to have movies on CD."
DUDE
Urd-sama's Desk
gra...@groupz.net (DUDE) wrote:
> even as a replacement for CD-audio. Furthermore, I personally don't think
> the video DVD format is going to fail. It'll certainly take a long time to
> get up to speed and even longer to replace LDs but I believe it will
> sooner or later. I know a lot of people will argue technical issues about
> it, but John Q. Public is _not_ a videophile and probably won't care. Most
Neither is the LD collector. DVD cannot replace LD, since it's inferior in
quality. No LD collector will buy it.
Jeroen
Raoul Rodriguez
You are right, no LD collector would like the idea of having both the
director's cut and the theatrical cut of a film on the same disc. No
*sane* LD collector would appreciate the ability to "lock out" 'PG',
'R', 'X', or 'NC-17' scenes or movies so the kidletts don't get
ahold of them. No LD in his RIGHT MIND would accept the idea of
having both Widescreen and Pan and Scan versions on the same disc.
Lord knows that any LD owner with a computer and DVD drive would NEVER
think of creating his/her own "cut" of a movie by writing a script
to add and delete scenes on a disc that had both the director's cut
and theatrical release of a film. No way would they watch the
Director's cut of "BLADE RUNNER" with the voice over from the
theatrical release.
Heaven KNOWS that I have *NO INTEREST* in the possibility of having
an ENTIRE SEASON of "BABYLON 5" on *two* discs in letterbox. No
interest whatsoever, nope, uh-huh, noway. Lord knows that no
Trekkie LD Collector would be even *slightly* interested in buying
EVERY STAR TREK SHOW AND MOVIE on 'only' 35 discs.
And certainly, no LD collector would be interested in the
different languages, subtitles, closed-captioning, or commentary
tracks possible on a DVD disc.
I am not saying which is better or which is worse, I am just pointing
out some of the possibilities of DVD - with a total of 540 minutes
per disc possible, WOW. 20 Gigs is a LOT of storage.
As for the picture, it looked pretty good at CES - we shall see
how it looks when it arrives with real honest to ghod titles
purchased off the shelf.
--
Raoul.
Class of '92, '93, '95, '96, '97... <*>
My .sig is webless and my pants are on fire.
Jeff Swindoll
archive some of my VHS tapes that are not available on LD) I'm sticking
with LD.
--
Jeff Swindoll
jswi...@vvm.com
You know everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.--Will
Rogers
Urd-sama's Desk
(Raoul Rodriguez) wrote:
> | Neither is the LD collector. DVD cannot replace LD, since it's inferior in
> | quality. No LD collector will buy it.
>
> You are right, no LD collector would like the idea of having both the
> director's cut and the theatrical cut of a film on the same disc. No
> *sane* LD collector would appreciate the ability to "lock out" 'PG',
> 'R', 'X', or 'NC-17' scenes or movies so the kidletts don't get
> ahold of them. No LD in his RIGHT MIND would accept the idea of
> having both Widescreen and Pan and Scan versions on the same disc.
Rest of fantasies deleted...
Sorry Raoul, these features you mention are hype. No company is actually
going to produce these versions with all these features.
And as long as the most important feature of all, Picture Quality, is
below LD standards, NO sane LD collector will switch. Because we didn't
get into LDs for convenience, but for _quality_ !
Jeroen
William Griffin iv
>
>What values does a "videophile" find in LD that do not/will not be
>there in DVD? All the reviews say DVD is equal to or better than LD. It
>doesn't make much sense to me.
>
DVD will not offer true still frames due to compression aglorythms.
DVD cannot "go to" a specific frame number. It can either go to a nearby
"I" frame, or do a digital reconstruction.
DVD will have digital copy protection - its effect on picture quality has
NOT been studied, as no discs have been pressed yet with it.
DVD's will most probably be "market restricted", meaning that a disc
pressed for the Japanese domestic market will not play on a US spec
player.
DVD will have digital artifacts. Depending on the buffer memory of the
player it can be minimized - so pretty much a wash with LD crosstalk and
chroma noise.
DVD's pricing will be all over the place. Many studios have publicly
announced that they will support rental (i.e. $120-200) pricing for DVD.
There will be "sell thru" pricing, but not all titles will be that way.
DVD will not be supported initially by Disney.
Blockbuster will not initially stock DVD - it's taking a "wait and see"
attitude untill it can evaluate the marketplace.
Most insiders agree that there will be none of the "multi format" (pan &
scan and letterbox on the same disc) DVD's due to lack of interest from
consumers. VHS owners hate LBX and THEY are the target market, not us "2
percenters".
There is also little consideration being given to mutliple soundtracks
OTHER than english/spanish on domestic US. The european MPEG-2 audio will
have additional tracks to accomodate the major markets over there.
(english/french/spanish/german/italian)
If you don't buy any of this - call any of the manufacturers that are
claiming they will be offering players "this fall". Ask them specifically
about what I have stated here. See if any of them will give you concrete,
specific facts that contradict what I have stated.
BILL GRIFFIN VBT...@prodigy.com
"Yoke Peter, Yoke Victor, Yoke Yoke. Why did they name it for something
that FALLS from the sky?!?!?!?"
Gregory Theulings
> An interesting thing I read was that the versatile discs that are still
> early in development will be able to hold up to 40 gigs of data (info on
> both sides of course).
I do not know where you heard this funny story, but I think you're
expectations concerning the data capacity of DVD is slightly too
optimistic. Technical specifications concerning DVD can be found at
http://www.philips.com/pkm/laseroptics/dvd.htm
Look for News & Press releases.
Kind regards,
Gregory Theulings
Marketing Service Officer
Philips - PKM Laser Optics
Raoul Rodriguez
Pentti J Lajunen <plaj...@epsilon.hut.fi> wrote:
|
| In article <4gvu9c$n...@jobe.shell.portal.com> ra...@shell.portal.com (Raoul Rodriguez) writes:
| I am not saying which is better or which is worse, I am just pointing
| out some of the possibilities of DVD - with a total of 540 minutes
| per disc possible, WOW. 20 Gigs is a LOT of storage.
|
|
| one disc?
Ever since the format was solidified. Each "layer" on the disc can
hold 135 minutes of Video and AC-3 audio (along with the other data
streams on the disc, P&S information (since the images are stored in
"letterbox" the machine will P&S instead of just storing the smaller
image)). On each side there can be two "layers" of data, and there
are two sides = 4 layers total. 135 x 4 = 540 minutes, yes 9 HOURS
of information. Also, since each layer is about 5 Gigs (roughly),
the total amount of information that can be stored is about 20 Gigs.
Or if you like - 30 times the storage of a "regular" CD.
If the disc is only one sided, than you get nifty etching art on
the other side.
I think the manufacturers really screwed up by not putting the disc
in a jacket like 3.5" diskettes. <shrug>
Urd-sama's Desk
Michael....@dartmouth.edu (Mike Burton) wrote:
> What values does a "videophile" find in LD that do not/will not be
> there in DVD? All the reviews say DVD is equal to or better than LD. It
> doesn't make much sense to me.
Mike, don't trust reviews! Trust your eyes when it gets released. They
make VideoCDs at work and have begun with DVD. It looks _bad_ - in fact,
for a fast paced movie I definitely prefer VHS over DVD!
Jeroen
Raoul Rodriguez
| > You are right, no LD collector would like the idea of having both the
| > director's cut and the theatrical cut of a film on the same disc. No
| > *sane* LD collector would appreciate the ability to "lock out" 'PG',
| > 'R', 'X', or 'NC-17' scenes or movies so the kidletts don't get
| > ahold of them. No LD in his RIGHT MIND would accept the idea of
| > having both Widescreen and Pan and Scan versions on the same disc.
|
| Rest of fantasies deleted...
|
| Sorry Raoul, these features you mention are hype. No company is actually
| going to produce these versions with all these features.
It is odd that of all the "features" I listed, you chose *these* to
respond to. See, the problem here is that the Lockout and the fact
that the information is going to be stored in letterbox on the disc
are BASIC to the format. EVERY DISC is going to have them (with the
exception of the director's cut)... every DVD is going to have the
lockout feature, and every DVD film will be stored in letterbox with
P&S information for people who don't want those "st00pid black bars".
| And as long as the most important feature of all, Picture Quality, is
| below LD standards, NO sane LD collector will switch. Because we didn't
| get into LDs for convenience, but for _quality_ !
Like I said, the demo I saw looked pretty damn good, but we will
have to see how off the shelf players and software look.
Robert
|> I saw a demo of MPEG2. Looks great... at 8 Mbit/secs. 6 Mbit is what I
|> would call the bare minimum to be able to speak the word 'quality' without
|> being obscene. DVD's 4.8 is a hoax.
As far as I have understood a "normal" release would have 3 soundtracks with
different language and/or sound formats. This would leave about 3.5 Mbit/secs
for the MPEG-2 video ..................
Robert-
--
*------------------------- rob...@unik.no ---------------------------*
| Visit http://www.unik.no/~robert/hifi/hifi.html (2M+ acc.) and see |
| why more than 60 persons have been copying directly from those pages.|
*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
Bill Davidson
>I bought into LD's because of the quality of the picture in front of me.
>I am very picky re the quality of the image I view. I will buy DVD when
>the double density/double side is recorded WITHOUT compression. This is
>the ultimate for my collection (859 discs and growing).
First, compression is not bad. There is also such a thing as lossless
compression. This would incur no loss of quality. This actually would
be as good as D1 and would make LD look bad.
Second, lossy compression is not bad if you can limit the loss
reasonably. LD already incurs loss of quality vs. the film original.
You live with loss with your 859 discs right now. You live with analog
video noise. You live with chroma interference. You live with low
resolution. You live with time base errors. DVD's loss may be worse.
It may not. We'll see when it hits the streets. My best guess is that
the data rate is too low and it would be advisable to wait until they
could do something on the order of double the current data rate but
they didn't consult me.
Third, don't hold your breath waiting for an uncompressed digital home
video format. The uncompressed numbers below are rough and don't
include audio but audio data is trivial compared to video so these
numbers would not change signficantly with audio added.
720 horizontal X 480 vertical X 3 components = 1,036,800 bytes per frame
X 30 frame/sec = 31,104,000 bytes per second
X 60 sec/min = 1,866,240,000 bytes per minute
X 60 min/hour = 111,974,400,000 bytes per hour
So we're talking about 170-250 GB for a typical movie (or 130-200 GB if
you only encode 24 frames/sec). We're probably at least a decade from
a media that can handle this kind of capacity and data rates at
consumer prices. Remember that manufacturing costs need to get down to
around a dollar or two per unit to get the end consumer price down to
$15-$20, which experience has shown is the most you can expect to sell
movies for in large numbers.
30 MB/sec is out of the realm of low cost hardware right now. 30
MB/sec is 50 times the data rate of DVD. The reason DVD is 4.8 Mb/sec
(approx 600KB/sec) is that it's hard to read these tiny bits off the
disc much faster than that with any accuracy. The smaller the bits,
the harder it is with mechanical systems. To get these high data rates
at low cost, we'll probably need something that's solid state. D1/D2
drives can do these kinds of data rates but the last I heard, a D1
system costs as much as house and blank tapes cost as much as LD
special editions.
I've heard of some new technologies that may give us the capacity
though the final cost is a question mark. The data rates are also a
question mark. The time frame for when they could hit the streets is
at least a few years; if at all (say something better comes along).
There's also marketing considerations. If DVD is a hit, then the
companies will not want to change to something new for about a decade;
otherwise their investment in DVD does not get paid for. Remember that
they are putting millions into development and it will take hell of a
lot of players to pay that off at $500 per player. They'd also be
afraid of a consumer revolt. Most consumers don't like for things to
change too often. A lot of people waited to get into CD's simply
because they didn't want to have to buy and learn to use yet another
piece of hardware.
--Bill Davidson
Snake Plisskin
>From: mi...@cellbio.wustl
>Subject: Re: Analysis of the DVD format
>Date: 5 Mar 1996 04:02:07 GMT
>In article <HelperGoddessOffic...@pool011-8.innet.be>,
>HelperGod...@innet.be (Urd-sama's Desk) wrote:
>>
>> You are the first coming back from the CES saying this. All other reports
>> complained about absolutely shamefull quality.
>>
>> I saw a demo of MPEG2. Looks great... at 8 Mbit/secs. 6 Mbit is what I
>> would call the bare minimum to be able to speak the word 'quality' without
>> being obscene. DVD's 4.8 is a hoax.
>>
>That's funny. A report in Video magazine said professionals were saying
>DVDs were close to D1 masters in quality. LDs are made from D2 masters.
>And there was a recent post from a video professional on this newsgroup
>saying basically the same thing. Joe kane has written several articles
>mostly praising the potential of the DVD. The slam the DVD folks sound
>like those who slammed the CD when it first came out. DVD will not be
>perfect when it first appears, but the future of video is definitely the
>DVD. The LD is dead, make no mistake about it.
I wouldn't say LD is dead just yet. Down the road defintely but not for a
while yet. Wether or not DVD is superior to LD I can't say as I have yet to
see DVD to compare the two formats. What I do know is that for the first year
or two there are only plans on releasing about 250 titles on DVD to start
with. It also appears that DVD will have the same delays of releasing movies
as LD in comparison to video tape. I wouldn't right off LD for another few
years at that rate. Just my 2cents on the whole thing.
Urd-sama's Desk
> It may not. We'll see when it hits the streets. My best guess is that
> the data rate is too low and it would be advisable to wait until they
> could do something on the order of double the current data rate but
Don't hold your breath. Hollywood doesn't want you to have a perfect home
picture - too much help for pirates.
> Third, don't hold your breath waiting for an uncompressed digital home
> video format. The uncompressed numbers below are rough and don't
Try 2 years from now (OK, I won't hold my breath for 2 years :)
Lossless compression is easy to programm yourself. By then computing power
is cheap enough for desktop PCs to handle it. And optical discs look like
they'll hit the 10 Gig mark _very_ soon, at transfer rates sufficient to
support low compressed video data. Build your own if the companies won't.
I.e., you can bet they will.
> 720 horizontal X 480 vertical X 3 components = 1,036,800 bytes per frame
> X 30 frame/sec = 31,104,000 bytes per second
Umm, I don't think component recording is needed for home use. D1 is not
needed for home use either. The high quality of pro systems is needed for
multiple gens of editing and special effects. For home use a YC recording
would suffice.
And lossless compression would considerably reduce the amount of data
stored. Or you could use a lossy compression like MPEG2 at high dtata
rates, like 8Mbit/sec. Lots of possibilities. I would think 10 Gigs would
suffice for a single movie at superior to LD quality (resolution, noise,
no artefacts)
> There's also marketing considerations. If DVD is a hit, then the
> companies will not want to change to something new for about a decade;
> otherwise their investment in DVD does not get paid for. Remember that
> they are putting millions into development and it will take hell of a
> lot of players to pay that off at $500 per player. They'd also be
> afraid of a consumer revolt. Most consumers don't like for things to
true enough. That's why we may see DVD forced down our throats by not
releasing titles on LD anymore, or even on VHS.
But I'd rather get out of the hobby than watch cubed movies...
Ja ne!
Jeroen
Jesper Lauridsen
>In article <314228f0....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, d.and...@ieee.org
>says...
>>DVD will provide 3.5Mbps AVERAGE.
>For a full-length disc. For shorter programs the studio can choose to run a
>higher average bit rate, and I suspect the player manufacturers' demo discs
>will run as high as 8-9 Mbps.
That assumes that the player is able to spin discs at varying speeds -
and still read the data of this 10X density CD. Don't forget that it
will have to decode it at this speed as well. This will put higher
demand on transport and decoder quality.
From what I've heard, any bit rate variation will be done via a RAM buffer.
That doesn't allow shorter films to have a higher bit rate average.
--
Jesper Lauridsen | Their, there, they're - 3 words, 3 spellings,
rors...@daimi.aau.dk | is that so hard to understand?
David D. Andaleon
>In article <314228f0....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, d.and...@ieee.org
>(David D. Andaleon) wrote:
>
>> 8Mbps MPEG2 bitstreams do provide excellent quality. I agree.
>>
>> DVD will provide 3.5Mbps AVERAGE.
>
>Yes, but so was the 8 I was referring to. MPEG2 is usually varianle, ne?
>There were few peaks of 9Mbit/sec, but the average rate was 7-8 Mbit/sec.
>D1 master running beside it, difficult to see diff, no artefacts. Drop to
>below 6 Mbit _average_ and blocking galore.
>
>J
No. 8 Mbps MPEG2 is typically constant bit rate. Look at the history
of MPEG. The original application was for CD-ROM and at the time
their specifications included getting data off the disc at 1.5 Mbps
(constant bit rate). Include audio track and miscellaneous bit
streams and you end up having 1.15 Mbps for Video CD.
BTW: Video CD has already taken off in Asia, and just starting to
appear elsewhere in the world. The Asian market is abandoning
pre-recorded VHS tapes for Video CDs, which sell for about $3 (USD)
(of course, China does not observe copyright laws). The US market is
attempting to leap frog Video CD and go directly to DVD
However the CBR 8 Mbps is designed for the highest bit rate instances
(normally I frames). DSS is a classic example of constant bit rate
(CBR) MPEG2.
Commercial use of variable bit-rate MPEG2 has just begun appearing
with the advent of DVD.
David D. Andaleon
>In article <314228f0....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, d.and...@ieee.org
>says...
>Also keep in mind that 24 fps film can be encoded much more efficiently than
>material originated as 59.94 Hz video, so just because a video source might
>need 6 Mbps (as a previous poster mentioned) doesn't mean that a film source
>can't be done in 3.5 Mbps average. (It also means that 133-minute discs of
>video programming are much less likely than single-sided discs of 133-minute
>films.)
Excellent point. Many performance rich encoders have a 3:2 pulldown
or detelecine capability. This option allows the encoder (using
internal of external information) to discard redundant information,
which is inserted by trasnsferring 24 fps film to 29.97 fps NTSC.
This capability is not available for PAL.
DVD production houses will encode films at 24 fps, which will give
much better quality at the same bit rate, OR equivalent quality at 80%
of the bit rate.
>DVDs aren't *exactly* CDs -- the tolerances are a lot tighter even though the
>manufacturing processes are similar. I think it'll take a few years to get
>DVD disc replication costs down to CD levels.
DVDs will still use an embossing techniques to stamp out the movies,
but I agree, the die will be much more expensive and the yields will
initially be below CDs
David D. Andaleon
>Sorry, but I will believe it when I see it. The hype around CD did not get
>CD going. The fact that Philips forced it on the market did. However,
>there are alternatives now.
Rumours are that many companies will be forcing DVD on the market.
For example, video releases of motion pictures may be introduced on
DVD six months earlier than on VHS.
>And DVD's target market is not interested in it - ask your average VHS
>user. And LD users won't switch unless it offers the same or better
>quality.
DVD will be introducing a paradigm shift. VHS and LD users are used
to the linear play paradigm. Just look at Video CD 2.0 and take a
peek into the types of capabilities that DVD will begin to introduce.
The initial releases will be linear only, just like Video CD 1.0.
>Make no mistake about it : if DVD gets some miraculous improvement by
>September and it surpasses LD, I'll be the first to get it. Knowing
>however that miracles of this kind do not happen, and having seen what DVD
>quality MPEG2 looks like, I am definitely _not_ interested, and am quite
>confident that 100% of LD collectors are equally _not_ interested.
When was the last time you saw DVD-quality MPEG2? What does that
really mean? C-Cube Microsystems (Milpitas, CA) has a demo room with
a 100-inch line-doubled, rear-projection display and has a VBR demo.
I would say it's quite comparable to LD. AND just I case you're
concerned about the display it also looks great on a Sony trinitron
monitor.
Duggerman
"Beating A Dead Horse" ?
I knew you could.....
Duggerman
t...@delphi.com
>DVD will be introducing a paradigm shift. VHS and LD users are used
>to the linear play paradigm. Just look at Video CD 2.0 and take a
>peek into the types of capabilities that DVD will begin to introduce.
Movies are linear play, so what's the big deal, IEEE-glick?
>When was the last time you saw DVD-quality MPEG2? What does that
>really mean? C-Cube Microsystems (Milpitas, CA) has a demo room with
>a 100-inch line-doubled, rear-projection display and has a VBR demo.
>I would say it's quite comparable to LD. AND just I case you're
>concerned about the display it also looks great on a Sony trinitron
>monitor.
was likely a made-to-look-bad special item. And I guess the compression
artifacts don't matter; a small price to pay for a paradigm shift, I guess.
John Steinbock
on Sat, 16 Mar 1996 20:30:04 GMT,
>For example, video releases of motion pictures may be introduced on
>DVD six months earlier than on VHS.
For most intents and purposes, video releases of motion pictures are
already being introduced on LD 3-4 months earlier than on VHS (if one
looks at when they're priced for consumers rather than video store
owners) yet certainly noone would argue that the companies doing this
are forcing LD on the market...
John Steinbock
AlenSmithe
making only shitty pan and scan versions on VHS, a way of forcing LD onto
the market. I was satisfied with VHS for a while (I had only a 20" TV at
the time), but I was fed up with seeing wonderful widescreen films at the
theater and having to see them cut up beyond recognition at home, so that
was the primary factor that got me to break down and get an LD player (and
replace my TV with a bigger one, and start saving for a new sound system,
and spend all my money on disc, etc!)
It was all for my own good though, I've gotten to love the LD format and
can't watch anything on VHS anymore!
David D. Andaleon
>"Paradigm shift"???? BULLSHIT ALERT!!! Break out the shovels.
>
>Movies are linear play, so what's the big deal, IEEE-glick?
>
Reminder:
People probably also thought that encoding/compressing video to a
bitrate capable of single-speed CD player was way too conservative.
Regardless MPEG1 was created and became a standard. These people also
probably believed that no one would what to buy/rent movies on a CD.
However, VideoCD (74 min. of MPEG1 video, MPEG stereo audio, increased
interactivity with VideoCD 2.0) has taken off in Asia and starting to
appear in Europe (~1M players in '95, 4-8M players in '96).
But hey, let's just use those CDs to play audio.
DVD - digital versatile disc, a.k.a., digital video disc.
(I'm sure you'll find some descriptive definitions of D-V-D)
The DVD promoters at least had the vision to understand that
digital video wasn't everything. Any LD-ROMs out there?
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
Bill Gates, 1981
>
>Funny you don't mention the line quadrupler, or the fact that the "LD"
>was likely a made-to-look-bad special item. And I guess the compression
>artifacts don't matter; a small price to pay for a paradigm shift, I guess.
Post-production houses will do their best to minimize the MPEG2
compression artifacts. Using VBR compression we'll just have to see
if it meets the public's expectation AND a digital video expert such
as yourself.
Have you seen VBR encoded MPEG2 video or just the demos at CES or NAB
or ????
David D. Andaleon
>In article <314b0ce8...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
> on Sat, 16 Mar 1996 20:30:04 GMT,
>For most intents and purposes, video releases of motion pictures are
>already being introduced on LD 3-4 months earlier than on VHS (if one
>looks at when they're priced for consumers rather than video store
>owners) yet certainly noone would argue that the companies doing this
>are forcing LD on the market...
Touche'.
I really hope the companies promoting DVD make it lucrative for the
public. DVD player cost and cost per disc being key factors.
Otherwise the public will get their digital video in other ways: DBS,
TELE-TV, broadband network.
Brad Bishop
Essentially, it said that they want to include a copy protection scheme in it
(something on the order of Macrovision (the guys to copy-protect VHS tapes)).
This kind of thing killed the DAT market and I suspect it will kill the DVD
market. I think the only reason VHS got away with it was because it was
introduced well after VHS players had caught on. Anyway, I don't like it. The
compression stuff scares me a bit also. If DVD catches on, great. If not, I
still have my LD collection (and the picture looks good to me).
Any thoughts?
Clive Rowe
--
Clive
Ask not what your country can do for you
but what you can do for yourself.
t...@delphi.com
>On Mar 23, 1996 17:11:16 in article <Re: Analysis of the DVD format>,
>'d.and...@ieee.org (David D. Andaleon)' wrote:
>
>
>>DVD - digital versatile disc, a.k.a., digital video disc.
>I think that actually should read Digital Virtual Disk.
Bryant Frazer
: I read something in the paper last week that makes me think DVD is doomed.
: (something on the order of Macrovision (the guys to copy-protect VHS tapes)).
: This kind of thing killed the DAT market and I suspect it will kill the DVD
: market. I think the only reason VHS got away with it was because it was
: introduced well after VHS players had caught on. Anyway, I don't like it.
What I like even less is the country coding that will prevent playing a
Japanese DVD on an American machine. Half the fun of being a hardcore LD
collector is tracking down the occasional expensive, uncut, import
version of a movie that hasn't been properly released in the U.S. I know
that this is often illegal, but until the U.S. distributors get on the
stick and start servicing their markets, it's a necessary evil.
If I'm given a censored American DVD and an uncut Japanese LD, I'll take
the LD every time, no matter which one has the better picture.
-bf-
--
DEEP FOCUS (Movie Reviews)
http://www.panix.com/~bfrazer/flicker/
"Build my gallows high, baby."
AlenSmithe
audio CDs, so why do it with this??
--------------------
AlenS...@aol.com <---Yes, I know AOL sucks; I'm working on getting rid
of it!
John Steinbock
on Sat, 23 Mar 1996 17:11:16 GMT,
>digital video wasn't everything. Any LD-ROMs out there?
Some. What's your point?
John Steinbock
Robert
|> WHY do they want to do that country code crap? They don't do that with
|> audio CDs, so why do it with this??
Please don't give them ideas like this. They may include it in DVD-audio
and kill it too.
Robert-
--
*------------------------- rob...@unik.no ---------------------------*
| The best about being webmaster is all the groupies. |
*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
redhead
>
> WHY do they want to do that country code crap? They don't do that with
> audio CDs, so why do it with this??
> AlenS...@aol.com <---Yes, I know AOL sucks; I'm working on getting rid
> of it!<snipped that stupid annoying long signature stuff>
I think the studios want the country code stuff because the foreign
theatrical release dates are 6 months to more than 12 months after the US.
Not so in audio. Think about it...no country code would mean people could
get a movie on dvd before it appears in the theatre in their country. That
would hit the foreign box office hard and since they provide more revenue to
the studios than the US market could be devastating to the entertainment
industry.
Read about it.
Red