Dumb Blu-Ray Question

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by PrinceAllen

That's what I'm wondering...What is the limit to the picture & Sound quality?

Blu-ray already surpasses the average person's setup. If there is ever a new higher resolution (video OR audio) physical format, it won't get anywhere other than very serious movie people. It'd be a new laserdisc.

The only alternative would be something completely unlike the cinema experience. Interactive media, fully immersive. Possibly 3D or VR. That would require a complete overhaul of the way we receive entertainment media though, and that definitely won't happen overnight. We're having a hard enough time getting people to give up their tubes and get HD. Anyway, I'd say that venturing down that path is more akin to video games than movies. The only thing that would work for movies would be 3D, and since current movies aren't designed with 3D in mind (usually), a release on a 3D format would not give them any sort of benefit (or it would be artificially applied, which would sully the idea of seeing the director's intended vision).

Anyway, even of the "ondemand" services that provide 1080p, the quality is subpar compared to BD. The resolution might be 1920x1080, but the picture and sound can't handle the same high bitrates BD can, so things get compressed a lot more. What good is a high res picture if it has more compression artifacts for it?

Originally Posted by Blu-ray Fanatic

+1 What can be better than blu-ray? How much more clearer can it get for pq and aq? In 10-15 years, we'll be saying the same stuff about blu-ray like how we do with dvd and hd dvd.

Quality on a flat screen of limited dimensions can only get so high, and then the law of diminishing return takes over. Higher resolution screens at the sizes most of us use, we'd not be able to tell the difference between 1080p, 2K, 4K, etc. All a higher resolution would do is make the pixels smaller, and that would only even be noticeable from within about 12 inches viewing distance. This is not like the jump from 480i to 720p. Going from 720p to 1080p isn't even always noticeable by the average person from a typical viewing distance. And you expect the average person to care about a higher resolution that will look exactly the same as the BD already does on their 1080p screen?

Sound systems can always "improve" by adding more points of "contact", but the average person does not worry about that anyway. If better audio quality became available in another format (and was NOT AT ALL possible in BD for SOME REASON), only VERY SERIOUS home theater aficionados would care. It might hold appeal with a very small group of people, but merely having 100-point audio won't make the average person adopt a new format when they don't even use more than the 2 inside their TV set.

But really, even if something else comes along and steals the title of "standard HD format" from BD, does your collection of BDs stop working? And if the film looks and sounds as good as it ever will on BD, why would you even worry about having to replace it? I mean, sure, if BD dies completely (won't happen unless another physical format replaces it) and your player stops working, you might. But so what? Are you going to start crying about your VHS because you can't get a VCR so easily anymore?

[BluMood]

1920 X 1080 is the new standard for the rest of our lives. FEDERAL LAW. Guess which format rules the HDTV world for picture and sound. BLU-RAY !!!

Forget that crappy internet download stuff people. It's geeky junk for people that have computer dreams that somehow translate into home theater. When the price of discs & players reach the DVD level there will only be "The One".

[Agent Bond]

It doesn't get any better than Blu Ray as far as I'm concerned!