Video Asylum

Posted by jbmcb (A) on February 21, 2006 at 17:42:30

In Reply to: huh? posted by Joe Murphy Jr on February 17, 2006 at 09:41:32:

> But you will still be able to play High Definition movies on your PC with the other Operating Systems in a downrezzed form

According to Microsoft's PVP-OPM documentation, it will be digitally blurred, not downrezzed. I'm sure it will look fantastic ;)

> Part of the AACS requirement for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD allows for at least 1 copy.

That's under debate right now. Yeah, you can make a copy, but, as it stands now, the watermarking features will disable playback of your copy.

> No player will require an internet connection to play the movie.

No, but they are talking about adding in protection against modding your player, so when it does call out for internet features, it will kill your box if you try to do anything the manufacturer doesn't want you to (think region-free player mods, disabling Macrovision, disabling forced content playback/ads, etc...)

> The MPEG2 format on the next gen discs will be better than what you can see on DVD, HDTV or D-VHS/D-Theater today.

Right, 'cause there's more space for the codec and a higher bitrate available. It won't be signifigantly better than D-VHS, it has about 7Mb/s higher data rate for HD content.

> As for VC-1 being "artifact city", you could not be farther off base: it will rival the master as well.

Then I hope Microsoft has cooked up some amazing new encoders, the current WMV9 HD "showcase" stuff is awful.

> this version (MPEG4/v.10/H.264 AP) will rival the master.

I've seen H.264 stuff as well, and haven't been impressed. I'm hoping the recent 'fidelity' changes will improve things a bit.

> How much money do you want to lose on this bet?

My friend is an acute videophile. He's got the dedicated room, fancy seven channel surround, isf calibrated RPTV, and about five hundred DVD's. He's already pissed that he has to buy DVDs two or three times until he gets a properly transfered anamorphic print, he can't fathom rebuying a film AGAIN, along with a new player and monitor, just so he can get HD.

He's a perfect representation of the movie buyer's ideal, core market, and the proponents of the new formats have him thoroughly pissed off. I know more people like him, which leads me to belive there won't be enough market for two new incompatable and restrictive formats.