Edward
Bartender
- Messages
- 25,078
- Location
- London, UK
It seems to me that the entertainment industry will have a much harder time selling us new formats now, as the market is fed up with buying the same stuff over again on vinyl / cassette / CD.... etc. This can only be a good thing, as any changes are more likely to be designed to play prior formats (e.g. all Blue Ray players can play DVDs).
I guess it's an individual thing - I understand what you mean about "every day wear;" I'm just one of those folks with a terminal hoarding impulse, I suppose. [huh]
There's the rub: HD formats are never going to offer you any real benefit if you're not plugging them into a TV that has the resolution to display the difference. Like anything else, any perceived "upgrade" in TV, home movies, etc is worth only what value the individual user ascribes to it.
That I can understand. I think it's less of an issue now in an age when most shows that have anything of an audience will be out on DVD almost as soon as the series run ends, but I know what you mean about having a stockpile. In my case, I have so few tapes that anything worth keeping can be quickly and easily transferred, but I'd hate to do that with hundreds of tapes.
Very true. Have to move quick, though - very few retailers here in the UK even carry VHS anymore. Strange to see something like that that was once so hi-tec come and go. Myself, I'm looking forward to the greater convenience of a DVD HDD recorder. There are models out with huge hard drives on which you can store programmes for time-shifting (I can never find a blank tape in a hurry!), and anything you want to keep may be burned from the HDD to DVD at a later stage. To be honest, though, time-shifting forf me is really little more than an after-thought nowadays, as with the proliferation of free to air digital channels in the UK it is a very rare thing for a show I might miss to not be screened several times in the one week, and/or available for free download online. Nevertheless, to have that capability in the same box as a good DVD player would be a bonus. If only they would release one of those that also played Blu-Ray.... one box where formerly one might have required three! (VCR, DVD, Blu-Ray).
Yes, that's the thing. It is clearly better (though not anywhere near so much so as DVD vs VHS), but you have to have a TV capable of showing the difference. Also, unless the film on the disk was originally shot in Hi-def (as I understand it, this would only really be within the last five years or so), there is no advantage to be had over a DVD in an 'upscaling' player.
Lady Day said:
I guess it's an individual thing - I understand what you mean about "every day wear;" I'm just one of those folks with a terminal hoarding impulse, I suppose. [huh]
LizzieMaine said:
There's the rub: HD formats are never going to offer you any real benefit if you're not plugging them into a TV that has the resolution to display the difference. Like anything else, any perceived "upgrade" in TV, home movies, etc is worth only what value the individual user ascribes to it.
That I can understand. I think it's less of an issue now in an age when most shows that have anything of an audience will be out on DVD almost as soon as the series run ends, but I know what you mean about having a stockpile. In my case, I have so few tapes that anything worth keeping can be quickly and easily transferred, but I'd hate to do that with hundreds of tapes.
Very true. Have to move quick, though - very few retailers here in the UK even carry VHS anymore. Strange to see something like that that was once so hi-tec come and go. Myself, I'm looking forward to the greater convenience of a DVD HDD recorder. There are models out with huge hard drives on which you can store programmes for time-shifting (I can never find a blank tape in a hurry!), and anything you want to keep may be burned from the HDD to DVD at a later stage. To be honest, though, time-shifting forf me is really little more than an after-thought nowadays, as with the proliferation of free to air digital channels in the UK it is a very rare thing for a show I might miss to not be screened several times in the one week, and/or available for free download online. Nevertheless, to have that capability in the same box as a good DVD player would be a bonus. If only they would release one of those that also played Blu-Ray.... one box where formerly one might have required three! (VCR, DVD, Blu-Ray).
nola89 said:
Yes, that's the thing. It is clearly better (though not anywhere near so much so as DVD vs VHS), but you have to have a TV capable of showing the difference. Also, unless the film on the disk was originally shot in Hi-def (as I understand it, this would only really be within the last five years or so), there is no advantage to be had over a DVD in an 'upscaling' player.
