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Default bye bye HD DVD

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/19/tech...ney_technology

bOB
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Default bye bye HD DVD

Same death as Beta VCR. A better system but more advertising weight on the
lower
quality machines.





"Bob Urz" wrote in message ...
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/19/tech...ney_technology

bOB


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Default bye bye HD DVD


"NewsGroups" spar@plaus wrote in message
...
Same death as Beta VCR. A better system but more advertising weight on
the lower
quality machines.



"Better" in the case of Beta is debateable, I still remember when movies
came on one VHS or two Beta tapes, that right there is enough to push me to
VHS.

The ironic thing is that in this recent case "Beta" won, BD is the more
expensive proprietary Sony standard, with higher storage capacity, but in
terms of picture quality and other features I can't tell the difference and
doubt most consumers will either.


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Default bye bye HD DVD






"Bob Urz" wrote in message
...
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/19/tech...ney_technology

bOB


"NewsGroups" spar@plaus wrote in message
...
Same death as Beta VCR. A better system but more advertising weight on
the lower
quality machines.



Whats better about HD-DVD?? Blue ray is higher capacity. Thats better in my
book although I really don't care about either format except for data
storage. DVD is plenty high resolution for me.


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Default bye bye HD DVD

"Michael Kennedy" writes:




"Bob Urz" wrote in message
...
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/19/tech...ney_technology

bOB


"NewsGroups" spar@plaus wrote in message
...
Same death as Beta VCR. A better system but more advertising weight on
the lower
quality machines.


Whats better about HD-DVD?? Blue ray is higher capacity. Thats better in my
book although I really don't care about either format except for data
storage. DVD is plenty high resolution for me.


HD DVD may be a bit cheaper, though I can't see that it's dramatically
so. The similarities far outweigh the differences. It came down to:
In order not to repeat the Beta/VHS fiasco, one had to win, and early

Blu-ray sounds cooler. .

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Default bye bye HD DVD

"Better" in the case of Beta is debateable, I still remember
when movies came on one VHS or two Beta tapes, that right
there is enough to push me to VHS.


There were never any two-tape Beta movies. BII was introduced before
recorded movies became common (as far as I remember).


The ironic thing is that in this recent case "Beta" won, BD is the
more expensive proprietary Sony standard, with higher storage
capacity, but in terms of picture quality and other features I can't
tell the difference and doubt most consumers will either.


Blue-ray won among the studios for two reasons -- it had greater capacity,
and it could NOT be manufactured on DVD equipment. The latter meant that it
would take longer -- perhaps much longer -- before pirated BD disks
appeared.


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Default bye bye HD DVD



HD DVD may be a bit cheaper, though I can't see that it's dramatically
so. The similarities far outweigh the differences. It came down to:
In order not to repeat the Beta/VHS fiasco, one had to win, and early



Exactly. I was rooting for HD-DVD all along, but at some point it became
clear that something had to give, I'm just glad somebody won so I can
eventually think about buying HD, I was holding out before not wanting to be
screwed. As you say, the formats are so similar that I don't really care one
way or another so long as there aren't multiple competing standards.


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There were never any two-tape Beta movies. BII was introduced before
recorded movies became common (as far as I remember).



Video West in Woodinville had loads of them in the early 80s. I was a little
kid, but I clearly remember the glass cases they kept the then expensive
rental videos in, one VHS tape beside two Beta tapes and when you'd ask for
a movie, they asked whether you wanted VHS or Beta.

BII was a case of too little, too late, VHS already had a foothold, and the
equipment was cheaper, partly due to being less sophisticated, but partly
also due to not having to pay royalties to Sony.


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Default bye bye HD DVD


"James Sweet" wrote in message
newsrLuj.1333$JF.3@trnddc01...


HD DVD may be a bit cheaper, though I can't see that it's dramatically
so. The similarities far outweigh the differences. It came down to:
In order not to repeat the Beta/VHS fiasco, one had to win, and early



Exactly. I was rooting for HD-DVD all along, but at some point it became
clear that something had to give, I'm just glad somebody won so I can
eventually think about buying HD, I was holding out before not wanting to
be screwed. As you say, the formats are so similar that I don't really
care one way or another so long as there aren't multiple competing
standards.


I must not be a tv addict like most everyone else. I really don't care if
they stopped producing all HD tv equipment tomorrow. I do have a LCD
projector I use for movies sometimes but even that is only 800x600.
Honestly, I think a good quality hi-fi VCR produces an acceptable picture.
I'm more picky about the sound quality than the picture and stereo VHS has
quite good sound.

Mike


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I must not be a tv addict like most everyone else. I really don't care if
they stopped producing all HD tv equipment tomorrow. I do have a LCD
projector I use for movies sometimes but even that is only 800x600.
Honestly, I think a good quality hi-fi VCR produces an acceptable picture.
I'm more picky about the sound quality than the picture and stereo VHS has
quite good sound.



I quit watching TV years ago, but I do have a 56" widescreen HD rear
projection set that I got for free and I watch a lot of movies. Having used
DVD for years, VHS looks awful to me, I have a nice high end Sony VCR, but
the resolution and dynamic range of the format are just not adequate. HD
compared to standard DVD is a much more marginal improvement, it's night and
day on a plasma or LCD panel which has to scale lower resolutions, but on a
CRT projector I can see much less difference.

The sound of a good hi-fi VHS deck is good, but it lacks 5.1 surround.




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"William Sommerwerck" writes:

"Better" in the case of Beta is debateable, I still remember
when movies came on one VHS or two Beta tapes, that right
there is enough to push me to VHS.


There were never any two-tape Beta movies. BII was introduced before
recorded movies became common (as far as I remember).


The ironic thing is that in this recent case "Beta" won, BD is the
more expensive proprietary Sony standard, with higher storage
capacity, but in terms of picture quality and other features I can't
tell the difference and doubt most consumers will either.


Blue-ray won among the studios for two reasons -- it had greater capacity,
and it could NOT be manufactured on DVD equipment. The latter meant that it
would take longer -- perhaps much longer -- before pirated BD disks
appeared.


HD DVD can't be manufactured on normal DVD equipment either.

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Default bye bye HD DVD

James Sweet wrote:

"Better" in the case of Beta is debateable, I still remember when movies
came on one VHS or two Beta tapes, that right there is enough to push me to
VHS.



Yeah I have to agree, I sort of cringe everytime I see that "Beta was
better".

I worked on a lot of machines since the dawn of consumer recorders and seen
some betas with really good pictures along with some vhs machines with
really good pictures. But an equal amount of crap from both.

To me beta was destined to fail because of the mechanics of the machine, was
too complicated and too fragile for a consumer product. Even if you wanted
to give total credit for "having a better picture", it was sort of like
owning a Jaguar of the time, if it ran, it was a really nice car, if it
didn't, was an expensive trip to the repair shop.

I don't remember how many revisions to that "rewind kit" Sony and Zenith
distrubuted but it never worked well even with them selling it at cost. Was
more of a waste of time to install it. Didn't fix the problem.

And that's what I remember the most, damn near all the betas that came in
for repair was some mechanical problem, it doesn't rewind or fast forward
unless it's in play and I hold the scan down, can't count the number of
times I heard that one.

I think one thing that pushed vhs into the plus column via word of mouth was
simply that many repairs were quick and really fixed the problem. On those
early machines "during the war", replacing the video heads on most was a 20
minute job. Some half that if the idler had to be replaced. Belt kits to
install were mostly straight forward except for a few connected to the
mechanical counter.

The betas on the other hand failed in all these areas, the heads were hard
and complicated to replace, some idlers were ok but some were "over and
under", half on the top of the chassis with the other half on the bottom.
Many had belts in them that must of been designed by a sadist.

Worse was, even if you got everything to spec and working properly, you knew
it likely was going to come back in 6 months to a year with exactly the same
problem. Like the Jaguars, was the nature of the beast.

So in my book I wouldn't put all the blame on marketing, rental stores or
price cutting on why vhs came up as the winner, betas were just crappy
machines by design even if they had better pictures.

But like I said, I've seen as many "good" vhs decks as beta with picture
performance so I never bought into the global "beta is better" thought. On
paper beta did have "better numbers" but like anything else that ends up in
mass production, those numbers didn't translate into better performance as a
sure thing.

-bruce

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Yeah I have to agree, I sort of cringe everytime I see that "Beta
was better".


I worked on a lot of machines since the dawn of consumer recorders
and seen some Betas with really good pictures along with some VHS
machines with really good pictures. But an equal amount of crap from
both.


I've never seen any VHS machine with what could remotely be called a "good"
picture -- even by the standards of 30 years ago. (I'm ignoring S-VHS.)

Beta had slightly wider video bandwidth (just enough to be acceptable --
about 3MHz), considerably less line jitter, and better color -- both in
terms of bandwidth and phase accuracy. Sony would not license its polarity
inversion technology, and JVC was forced to use a more-complex quadrature
system that really screwed up the color signal.

Beta was a brilliant compromise of cost versus quality. VHS was utter crap
from the word go.


To me beta was destined to fail because of the mechanics of the machine,
was too complicated and too fragile for a consumer product.


I don't see where Beta was significantly more complex. It did wrap the tape
around the drum -- which was a bit more complex than JVC's (very) partial
wrap.


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I've never seen any VHS machine with what could remotely be called a
"good"
picture -- even by the standards of 30 years ago. (I'm ignoring S-VHS.)



This is starting to sound like an audiophile argument. I have a couple of
high end Sony VHS VCRs, one of which I just hooked up for the first time in
years last night and on the Sony 27" CRT the picture quality surprised me,
certainly better than I remember. It's no DVD, but on a moderate size SD CRT
it looks very good to me, and I'm much more picky than the average consumer.
Look at all the Emerson, Funai, Orion, etc junk you see in typical houses,
most people just don't care.


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I've never seen any VHS machine with what could remotely be
called a "good" picture -- even by the standards of 30 years ago.


This is starting to sound like an audiophile argument.


Yes.


I have a couple of high end Sony VHS VCRs, one of which I just
hooked up for the first time in years last night and on the Sony 27"
CRT the picture quality surprised me, certainly better than I remember.
It's no DVD, but on a moderate size SD CRT it looks very good to me,
and I'm much more picky than the average consumer. Look at all the
Emerson, Funai, Orion, etc, junk you see in typical houses, most
people just don't care.


My view of VHS is that it is _inherently_ bad -- that it is an unduly
compromised system. If the Sony unit had a "decent" picture, it would have
been because Sony paid close attention to things other manufacturers did
not.




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not.

VHS looks like crap on my 32" LCD HDTV. Even 2 hour recordings on a stand
alone DVDr look grainy. Standard cable shows lots of mpeg compression
artifacts while sat shows the least.


Everything that isn't the native resolution will look bad on an LCD TV, it's
the nature of the beast. SD content looks far better on an analog CRT, it
isn't until you get good HD content that the LCD pulls ahead under many
circumstances.


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"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:I__uj.16010$k_4.6008@trnddc04...
Everything that isn't the native resolution will look bad on an LCD TV,
it's the nature of the beast. SD content looks far better on an analog
CRT, it isn't until you get good HD content that the LCD pulls ahead under
many circumstances.


This is simply not true. Properly converted signals look quite good on high
quality LCD sets as they do on other technologies. Lousy conversions,
overcompressed video, or low resolution noisy sources look bad on any
technology. Analog CRTs often look "better" with lousy sources because they
do not reveal as much detail and soften the crap.

Lousy LCDs look lousy on even good HD sources, as do lousy examples of other
technologies. Some sets are more forgiving of certain types of signals than
others, but it has more to do with the signal processing, calibration of the
display, and the source than the technology of the display.

Leonard


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"Leonard Caillouet" wrote in message
...
"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:I__uj.16010$k_4.6008@trnddc04...
Everything that isn't the native resolution will look bad on an LCD TV,
it's the nature of the beast. SD content looks far better on an analog
CRT, it isn't until you get good HD content that the LCD pulls ahead
under many circumstances.


This is simply not true. Properly converted signals look quite good on
high quality LCD sets as they do on other technologies. Lousy
conversions, overcompressed video, or low resolution noisy sources look
bad on any technology. Analog CRTs often look "better" with lousy sources
because they do not reveal as much detail and soften the crap.

Lousy LCDs look lousy on even good HD sources, as do lousy examples of
other technologies. Some sets are more forgiving of certain types of
signals than others, but it has more to do with the signal processing,
calibration of the display, and the source than the technology of the
display.

Leonard



Well what James said holds true to LCD computer monitors also. If you set
the resolution to a non native resolution there are obvious artifacts where
the picture is not as clear.
Anothe example, my friend has a very nice 32" Samsung LCD TV which cost
about $1500. It has a great picture for HD content and DVDs but standard
input of any kind, be it TV, video games etc look much less clear than on a
standard good quality CRT TV. He actually bought the tv to play games and
doesn't use it for that because the quality is so much worse except with
newewer consoles which support HD.

Mike


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This is simply not true. Properly converted signals look quite good on
high quality LCD sets as they do on other technologies. Lousy
conversions, overcompressed video, or low resolution noisy sources look
bad on any technology. Analog CRTs often look "better" with lousy sources
because they do not reveal as much detail and soften the crap.


I work in the industry, we have a LOT of LCD, DLP, plasma, CRT, you name it
sets of brands ranging from low end junk to high end stuff, and a lot of
different SD and HD sources. I have yet to see an LCD, DLP, or to a slightly
lesser extent, plasma set that looked as good displaying SD content as an SD
CRT. When you scale video on a display that has rigidly defined pixels, you
WILL get artifacts. Some scaling looks much better than others, but it still
looks scaled. A good plasma set displaying high quality HD content at the
native resolution looks stunning, but display SD content that looks fine on
an SD display and it looks awful. The same effect can be clearly seen with
an LCD computer monitor, set it to a non-native resolution and it looks bad
to horrible depending on the quality of the monitor, but run it at the
native res and it looks razor sharp.

Whatever the reason behind it, in the real world, typical SD content looks
bad on flat panel HD sets, it looks significantly better on an LCD SD set
than LCD HD set, but it looks best on a CRT. Whether that's because the CRT
doesn't reveal as much detail or not is irrelevant, it looks better.


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"James Sweet" writes:


This is simply not true. Properly converted signals look quite good on
high quality LCD sets as they do on other technologies. Lousy
conversions, overcompressed video, or low resolution noisy sources look
bad on any technology. Analog CRTs often look "better" with lousy sources
because they do not reveal as much detail and soften the crap.


I work in the industry, we have a LOT of LCD, DLP, plasma, CRT, you name it
sets of brands ranging from low end junk to high end stuff, and a lot of
different SD and HD sources. I have yet to see an LCD, DLP, or to a slightly
lesser extent, plasma set that looked as good displaying SD content as an SD
CRT. When you scale video on a display that has rigidly defined pixels, you
WILL get artifacts. Some scaling looks much better than others, but it still
looks scaled. A good plasma set displaying high quality HD content at the
native resolution looks stunning, but display SD content that looks fine on
an SD display and it looks awful. The same effect can be clearly seen with
an LCD computer monitor, set it to a non-native resolution and it looks bad
to horrible depending on the quality of the monitor, but run it at the
native res and it looks razor sharp.

Whatever the reason behind it, in the real world, typical SD content looks
bad on flat panel HD sets, it looks significantly better on an LCD SD set
than LCD HD set, but it looks best on a CRT. Whether that's because the CRT
doesn't reveal as much detail or not is irrelevant, it looks better.


The CRT is capable of doing a better job of scaling the image since
it can change the actual number of scan lines, and has no discrete grid
in the horizontal direction - as long as the shadowmask or aperture grille
pitch is sufficiently finer than the raster/pixel pitch.

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