Blu-rays are 8 years old and DVDs still cling to them like a cancerous tumor. Why?

[jono3000]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

it was when the first BD films where released (50 First Dates, The Fifth Element, Hitch, House of Flying Daggers, Underworld: Evolution, xXx, and The Terminator in the US)

Thanks

[gregmasciola]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

...Only renters have that notion of "more than once" built into their psyche....

That's not true at all. For most people, the main reason to buy a movie or TV show is because they know the will watch it again. If they only planned on watching it once, buying it would be a huge waste of money.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by gregmasciola

That's not true at all. For most people, the main reason to buy a movie or TV show is because they know the will watch it again. If they only planned on watching it once, buying it would be a huge waste of money.

Be careful... you are responding to him using reasoning and logic. Whenever that contradicts a point that he has made, he will just relentlessly reply and continue to make absurd arguments until you just give up replying to him because he just has to be "right" about everything, even when he's as far as from it as one can possibly be.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

no I just post with integrity and hope that others do the same. If he seriously exaggerated just to make a point that does not actually help with making the point and there is nothing wrong with calling it out

As for Sheldon if you mean extremely knowledgeable, that is true. But I would rather be like Sheldon than Zack (being ignorant while other intelligent people need to pretend the comments are not ignorant just to be nice.)

I specified in my post that his intelligence is NOT what I was referring to. It's how like him, you have a tendency to focus on details that are insignificant to the main point of the conversation. Pay attention.

And it's still ridiculous and absurd the level at which you clung to that one aspect of his post. It's just you being good old obnoxious you, as per usual (more on that later).

not at all, why would that be true there are many reasons to watch a particular title. For example You yourself mentioned previously your wife watching a title your wife likes, since you went out of your way to mention it is a title your wife really likes, I am guessing it might not end up as high on your list.

And your guess would be completely wrong. Between this and the Sheldon comparison above, you are 0 or 2. Great track record so far. Go back and read what I posted again. Here, I'll quote it for convenience.

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

My wife's favorite movie, and one that I also enjoy a lot, is "Blast From the Past" with Brendan Fraiser and Alicia Silverstone. This particular movie has not been released on Blu-Ray, so we still watch the DVD when the mood strikes.

The only reason that I made it a point to state that it is her favorite movie is because it IS her favorite movie. She has stated this to me several times. My personal all time favorite movie happens to be Back to the Future, which I do have on Blu-Ray (but FYI, I happily rewatched the BTTF films on DVD many times during the few years between me adopting the Blu-Ray format in 2007 and the movies being released on it in 2010 with no regrets what-so-ever, despite me amassing many Blu-Rays during that time period). I still enjoy Blast from the Past a lot and find it very funny, and I enjoy rewatching it with her. In fact, I already owned the DVD that we have prior to meeting my wife, and she hadn't seen the movie at all before she first watched it with me years ago. It just happens to not necessarily be my absolute favorite movie in my collection, and probably wouldn't even be in my top 10, but it still ranks pretty high overall out of all of the movies that I own. I actually like that movie more than a lot of movies that I own on Blu-Ray (not all, but a lot). Stop jumping to baseless conclusions.

You claim intelligence and integrity and yet keep missing the point of very simple things like this.

I buy lots of movies with the intent that someone watches them (mostly me but there were some titles I bought that I really did not care for and they were bought so others would enjoy) nothing further. Some people are renters while others, like myself, are buyers. Only renters have that notion of "more than once" built into their psyche.
Even though some films I will watch again, I just see it as an added bonus if I do.

The bolded statement doesn't make much sense. Typically people buy movies because they at least potentially intend to watch them more than once. The idea that renters have a "more than once" idea built into their mind is absurd. Typically people rent the movie, watch it, and then are done with it. If they went into it expecting to want to watch it more than once and then they'd just buy it up front.

but isn't that the point? the minute you say it is a trade off you lost the argument because it should be does there need to be a trade-off and why?

But the point that I've been making and that Octagon has made is that MANY THINGS are a trade off.

-watching a Blu-Ray that doesn't have lossless audio
-watching a Blu-Ray that has a poor transfer
-or in your case, skipping content that one may really like and would otherwise be interested in rewatching just because it's not available in HD.

I've only "lost" the argument in the sense that you keep trying to frame it around your anal retentive personal preferences, as if the way that you choose to do things is what should be considered "normal" and the "default" way of doing things for everybody. And you act like anyone who makes viewing choices that are even remotely different to your own has some form of "OCD." You are trying to thinly (and I emphasize thinly) veil this under a more general definition of OCD, when really the problem is that you are just so full of yourself that you can't comprehend why anyone would do anything differently than you without having a supposed 'mental disorder.'

You may not consider some of the bullet points above to be a trade off, but they are on at least some level. And that's my point. Maybe watching a DVD of content unavailable in HD is a compromise that is "too far" for your preferences, and watching a Blu-Ray with a relatively poor transfer, while still a compromise, isn't "too far" for you. For others watching a DVD isn't "too far"... and for them the negative compromise would be not watching certain content that they enjoy again. They may prefer to watch things in HD when the option is available, but for them watching the content that they want to in SD when it's the only option is not even remotely a "deal breaker" or some terrible trade off that they can't live with.

And on the flip side of that coin, there are other people out there who are even pickier than you, not only refusing to watch SD content, but also avoiding Blu-Rays that lack lossless audio and less than stellar transfers. The people on that end who will only watch the best quality Blu-Rays could easily make the same OCD argument against you watching BDs with lesser transfers and lossy audio as you are making towards anyone who opts to watch content on DVD that is not available on Blu-Ray. From their point of view, you are trading off quality in favor of the content when choosing to watch a BD with a so-so transfer. Why would you do that Anthony? Huh? Why? For the love of god and all that is holy, why? How can you live with yourself for making such a decision? You must have a case of OCD for putting up with the negatives that go with a movie with that kind of transfer!

The bottom line is that we could pick apart your choices and how you do things and call it a compromise, a trade off, and OCD as much as you can someone watching a DVD of content not available on BD.

And frankly you even bringing OCD into this conversation in the first place was ridiculous and absurd. OCD implies that the end result has a negative impact on someone's life. I.e. they have to turn a light switch on and off 5 times whenever they enter or leave a room, or obsessively straitening out fringe on their carpet for hours on end.

Simply watching content in SD does not have a negative impact. It's only negative from your point of view because you are so bothered by it. Others aren't. And the whole "can they live without it" aspect of your argument is ridiculous to bring into this because technically we all could live without ever watching another movie or TV show again. We just would prefer not to have to live that way. One could argue that collecting movies, or even just watching a lot of them (whether purchase, rented, streamed or whatever) is a form of OCD, based on the way you just keep throwing that term around willy nilly.

not at all, the issue is you are still pretending it is 2006 when your point might have been somewhat valid. We are 2014 all my friends have BD players and my DVDs have been moved to bins a long time ago because the shelf space was needed for my BDs. Why do you assume that in 2014 the only film a group of people can agree will make all of them happy can only be found on DVD?

I made no such assumption. You are at least 0 for 3 now (more like 0 for 4 due to the whole ridiculous one sided OCD argument of yours as described above).

My point wasn't to assume that there aren't plenty of movies that could be chosen from on Blu-Ray. My point was to simply ask what if you were with a group of people, for whatever reason they decided that they wanted to watch a particular movie, and that movie happened to be one that's not available on Blu-Ray, and the only option would be DVD... how would YOU react? It doesn't matter if this is one of many gatherings with these people and usually you guys pick out a Blu-Ray to watch. Maybe this time someone happens to own a particular DVD (or borrowed it from someone they know), and decided to bring it along, and everyone else is interested in watching it. How do you react when and if such a one-off occasion occurs? Do you raise a stink about it and potentially ruin everyone else's good time because of you not wanting to bend on your preferences? Or do you go ahead and make an exception? Frankly both options have potentially negative results (either you having to put up with watching something in SD, or possibly upsetting the people that you are with by arguing against it). Does it mean that it will be OCD on your part no matter what you pick?

Also for the most part when there is movie watching at someone's home it is at my place in my HT on my 10' wide screen. And when I am invited elsewhere and we will be watching movies usualy I am asked to bring them since most people are not collectors/buyers.

That's still besides the point. That might usually be the case, but what do you do when/if there is an exception?

Try to think outside of your anal retentive box when replying to this. This is a hypothetical scenario. The actual norms of your gatherings are besides the point since this is meant to be a "what if" exception and not the rule.

Heck, let's remove you from the equation, since you claim it is unlikely that it will happen to you and you apparently can't think outside of your box when it comes to hypothetical scenarios happening to you. Since you seem to feel that your viewing standards are the end all / be all that people should follow, what happens if someone else with roughly the same preferences as you (but with a completely different group of people that they hang out with) finds themself in a situation such as this? How do you feel they should act to avoid any and all possible negative outcomes for themselves and everyone else involved, since putting up with any remotely/potentially negative outcomes consitutes OCD behavior according to you?

no just shows that you have a gift for bad decisions and self delusion since you would rather blame "quality" than bad choices.

This is a ridiculously obnoxious comment on your part. And you are just purposely being mean spirited at this point.

Bad choices? The TV that I picked has been highly rated, and won the 2013 Value Electronics shoot out, and tied for first in the 2014 shoot out. I did my research going into this. It just so happens that I apparently ended up with a "lemon" set after the first couple of exchanges that were done for size and then for the buzz issue. My experience has been contrary to most, but I just had the dumb luck of getting the "lemon" set, and I'm dealing with the aggravation that goes with it. I'm also not blaming quality, itself for what happened. But my determination and quest for quality is what indirectly lead to this situation occurring. It may be the exception and not the rule, but the fact remains that I wouldn't be in this situation at all right now if I hadn't decided to upgrade.

But you will of course cling to the way that you've framed this since you will go with whatever argument you can to be "right," if only from your own view point if no one else's, because that's how you always post.

Frankly even when I have on occasion agreed with you on certain topics (with this, of course, NOT being one of them), it's hard for me to want to post anything stating so, given the generally obnoxious nature in which you post and how, even when wrong or out of line, you just keep on pushing away at it. It's ridiculous and it adds nothing of value to the conversation or this forum.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

lol

Given the length of many of your posts, you are in no position to keep laughing. But go ahead and do so anyway. It will just be the cherry on the top of your pile of hypocrisy that you've built up over the years.

[MrsMiniver]

Originally Posted by gregmasciola

That's not true at all. For most people, the main reason to buy a movie or TV show is because they know the will watch it again. If they only planned on watching it once, buying it would be a huge waste of money.

For most people, they don't watch movies more than once.

[Optimus]

Originally Posted by MrsMiniver

For most people, they don't watch movies more than once.

He's talking about most people that choose to buy a movie, not most people in general. At least that's how I read it.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by MrsMiniver

For most people, they don't watch movies more than once.

Bullshit imo. Most people I know watch films more than once. Whether it's old timers like Zulu, Casablanca etc.. Or Frozen for the younger folks. If you have evidence to back your 'most people' comment up I am waiting.

[schan1269]

I wonder how many people complaining here about DVD (and one even says DVD has to stop...whatever) watch on LCD.

Those of us with plasma, and especially those of us that import PAL, don't have issues with DVD.

LCD needs 1080P(HD OTA as well) content to be watchable.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by OptimusL

He's talking about most people that choose to buy a movie, not most people in general. At least that's how I read it.

While poorly worded, I think the original point was that people who only buy movies (and never rent them) will have movies that they don't watch more than once. While people who both rent and buy movies will only buy movies that they want to rewatch.

Originally Posted by schan1269

I wonder how many people complaining here about DVD (and one even says DVD has to stop...whatever) watch on LCD.

Those of us with plasma, and especially those of us that import PAL, don't have issues with DVD.

LCD needs 1080P(HD OTA as well) content to be watchable.

The issue isn't that DVDs look worse then they used to, it's that they look worse than Blu-ray. I have a 1080p LCD and my DVDs look fine, better than they did on any of my old CRTs (including an HD CRT) but still far worse than my Blu-rays. I can't imagine that your DVDs look just as good as your Blu-rays on your Plasma TV.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by schan1269

I wonder how many people complaining here about DVD (and one even says DVD has to stop...whatever) watch on LCD.

Those of us with plasma, and especially those of us that import PAL, don't have issues with DVD.

LCD needs 1080P(HD OTA as well) content to be watchable.

You must have seen some shitty LCDs in your time as DVDs look very good on my 4K LCD, just as they did on my prior LCDs and plasmas. Don't get me wrong; a poor DVD is a poor DVD is a poor DVD, you can't do much about that no matter what type of display you have. But anything that's been encoded competently is eminently watchable, and anything that's done well looks spectacular, like the NTSC DVD of Revenge of the Sith or the PAL DVD of Zero Dark Thirty. Having a decent upscaler (either inside the TV or the player, thankfully I'm covered on both fronts) always helps of course, as does proper calibration of gamma, sharpness, greyscale etc.

[Kenbar]

I like having DVD's included as many people I know have players built into their tv's. I wonder how long it will be before movies are sold on thumb drives...no moving parts. Use up less floor space at the retail outlets. Streaming might be the future but there will always be folks who like having a "hard copy" like us. I imagine 8000k 3D will be the next big thing...prices need to come down and 3D glasses free TV's need to hit the market. 4000k might be just a passing trend...a stepping stone...I think 8000k 3d (glasses free) is where things will settle in and remain the standard for a while Blu-rays will be replaced by thumb drives and streaming. At least, that's what I heard here...

[Dylan34]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

You must have seen some shitty LCDs in your time as DVDs look very good on my 4K LCD, just as they did on my prior LCDs and plasmas. Don't get me wrong; a poor DVD is a poor DVD is a poor DVD, you can't do much about that no matter what type of display you have. But anything that's been encoded competently is eminently watchable, and anything that's done well looks spectacular, like the NTSC DVD of Revenge of the Sith or the PAL DVD of Zero Dark Thirty. Having a decent upscaler (either inside the TV or the player, thankfully I'm covered on both fronts) always helps of course, as does proper calibration of gamma, sharpness, greyscale etc.

Exactly, my DVD'S look fine on my LCD TV. Of course, they're not going to look as good as Blu-ray, they're not meant to. I have some pretty good looking dvds like Transformers. It up scales very nicely and runs a decent bitrate for dvd, pretty much hovers around 7.0, 7.2. I have some crap ones too. Casper looks horrible on dvd with bitrates running 1 to 2. Like you said, quality all depends on the encode. Even the best encoded dvds though aren't going to produce HD pictures.

[eiknarf]

Originally Posted by schan1269

I wonder how many people complaining here about DVD watch em on an LCD?

Those of us with plasma, and especially those of us that import PAL, don't have issues with DVD.
.

This sounds to me like you're saying that being LED (LCD) is a better TV than Plasma, that the reason DVDs look worse on an LED (LCD) is because LED requires a higher resolution.

You understand that a crappy DVD looks fine on an old 19" 420p TV because the display doesnt require high quality video, right? Now that same crappy DVD will not look good on a 42" 1080p LED TV because the TV is too good, not because the TV isn't good. So why would that crappy DVD look good on a plasma?

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by schan1269

I wonder how many people complaining here about DVD (and one even says DVD has to stop...whatever) watch on LCD.

Those of us with plasma, and especially those of us that import PAL, don't have issues with DVD.

LCD needs 1080P(HD OTA as well) content to be watchable.

This post does not make any sense whatsoever.

[eiknarf]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

This post does not make any sense whatsoever.

Haaa I know, right? I was so confused by the post last night that I woke up today and was still thinking about it! Haaaaa! So I finally replied.

[bruceames]

DVD is still going strong for several reasons, primarily:

1) backwards compatibility (no reason to switch formats or keep two player connected)

2) upscaling (for most setups this solves the quality problem and makes it a non-issue)

3) cost (the difference is cost outweighs the difference in quality)

4) output (DVD releases 4 to 5 times as many titles per year, since so many titles are only viable on DVD)

5) DVD-R (see above. Warner alone has release about 2500 catalog movies on DVD-R in the last five years. The use of DVD-R has lead to an explosion (or "renaissance") of output on movies that otherwise never would have seen the light of day on DVD. Catalog on DVD was declining in 2007 and 2008 because most of the viable movies had been released already. BD-R can't be used in that way because it is too unstable and too many players don't support it. This is a huge disadvantage for Blu-ray in that sense and very unfortunate for those who are frustrated at the lack of output on Blu-ray catalog.

[schan1269]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

This post does not make any sense whatsoever.

It makes perfect sense.

Plasma has greater (spatial)resolution. And its pixels are smaller(when 1080P) than your kaleidoscope LCDs.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by schan1269

It makes perfect sense.

Plasma has greater (spatial)resolution. And its pixels are smaller(when 1080P) than your kaleidoscope LCDs.

Can someone else confirm that they're reading what I'm reading?

[eiknarf]

Originally Posted by schan1269

It makes perfect sense.

Plasma has greater (spatial)resolution. And its pixels are smaller(when 1080P) than your kaleidoscope LCDs.

Aren't they phasing out plasma TVs?

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

DVD is still going strong for several reasons, primarily:

1) backwards compatibility (no reason to switch formats or keep two player connected)

I can see why for any "average joes" who have adopted Blu-Ray, they may opt to hang onto DVDs that they already have and not bother upgrading each and every title for this reason. They may treat it as a "go forward" format in which they buy movies that they don't already have on Blu-Ray, and maybe upgrade just a handful of DVDs of major blockbusters or the like.

I personally have been upgrading most of my movies where possible and applicable, but I know that I don't represent the majority.

2) upscaling (for most setups this solves the quality problem and makes it a non-issue)

Yes and no. Upscaling does help, but even the best upscaled DVDs still don't look as good as a decent transfer on Blu-Ray. But for those who don't want to rebuy everything that they already have, I understand being satisfied by it.

3) cost (the difference is cost outweighs the difference in quality)

This really depends on the situation, though. Obviously the cost vs. quality value will to some extent be subjective to the individual.

But it does seem crazy to me when a new movie that was just in theaters a few months ago comes out, and the price difference between the Blu-Ray and DVD versions is something like $2, and people who already have a Blu-Ray player opt for the DVD unless it's a big blockbuster film or something.

However, if it was a scenario in which they decide to buy a catalog title that they don't happen to own at all yet, and they opt to buy the DVD from the $5 bin at Walmart instead of the Blu-Ray for $10 to $15, I can kind of see it.

Again, that wouldn't be my personal choice (I'd opt for the Blu-Ray), but when the BD costs 2 or 3 times as much as the DVD, I get why some people make the choices that they do.

4) output (DVD releases 4 to 5 times as many titles per year, since so many titles are only viable on DVD)

5) DVD-R (see above. Warner alone has release about 2500 catalog movies on DVD-R in the last five years. The use of DVD-R has lead to an explosion (or "renaissance") of output on movies that otherwise never would have seen the light of day on DVD. Catalog on DVD was declining in 2007 and 2008 because most of the viable movies had been released already.

And I agree with this for the most part. While I'll choose BD when it is an option, there's far too much content that I enjoy that comes out only on DVD that I wouldn't want to pass up. For me, mostly TV show content (though still the occasional movie here or there).

I have a few WB archive releases. While I would of course prefer fully pressed DVDs (or better yet fully pressed Blu-Rays) over DVD-Rs, I'll still take it over not having the content at all.

BD-R can't be used in that way because it is too unstable and too many players don't support it. This is a huge disadvantage for Blu-ray in that sense and very unfortunate for those who are frustrated at the lack of output on Blu-ray catalog.

True, but WB has been releasing some Blu-Rays in it's archive collection, but they are fully pressed Blu-rays. So, that's pretty cool. There's a few things that I've been meaning to pick up. I'm not sure how far they will go with that since I'm sure it costs them more to make than DVD-Rs, but I'm glad to see them doing so to at least some extent.