Blu-ray officially for movies 2005/2006
 

Source: The Digital Bits / EE Times

Is this technology compatible with existing DVD players.

I haven't looked to see, but off the top of my head, I would say no for this reason... your current DVD player uses Red laser, while Bur-Ray uses - yup, you guessed it a blue laser. The red laser is "bigger" than the blue laser, so I doubt it would be able to read the smaller pits created by the blue laser.

Cheers

Well then I think it's safe to say this format doesn't have a chance in hell. I aborted my VHS collection a few years ago and have since spent almost $1000 purchasing DVD movies, which is a lot of money for a kid who doesn't have a real job yet.

Considering people have embraced this format so quickly, it will be almost impossible to convince anyone to invest in purchasing a new player even if they can play their old movies, they would resent having to purchase a new technology so soon.

When buying a computer, there's an understanding that the technology will be replaced in a few months.

But nobody buys a CD player or walkman expecting it to be useless in a few years. And frankly I don't understand all the hype for HD video, it just seems like a desperate attempt to make people buy things they don't really need.

I think though, that since DVD's have been taken onboard by consumers we have finally moved into the realm of wanting good Home Theatre. In the older days we didn't give a damn, but now HT is a huge market. And with HD TV's becoming more popular and TV stations in the U.S. going to HD, I'm sure people will want to see their bought movies in HD also. I would think though, that manufacturers would includes oldschool DVD lasers in their new machines so that old DVD's aren't obsolete. It can't cost them that much nowadays right?

Aaron

Check the blu-ray FAQ section of www.blu-ray.com. It will answer most of the questions you're asking, including current DVD's being playable in the upcoming blu-ray players.

I understand this and agree 100%, but technology is constantly outdating itself and people will just have to accept that. About 3 years ago, I bought a very nice Integra (Onkyo's higher end) DVD changer that was top-notch. Less than 2 years later, Target was selling players for $100 that had all the features of my Integra plus some, and that was all still within the same common format. That's technology, and always will be, whether blu-ray or HD or any other format.

Fortunately, my outdated Integra was constructed much better than anything Target sells, so at least it still has that going for it.

Have they solved the caddy problem yet? Last time I looked into Blu-Ray, each disc required being played in a caddy, like those first-generation CD-ROM drives back in 1993.

A Caddy is a good idea just like DVD-RAM. Protects the disc from damage and gives a lot more space to stick on labels that won't effect the way the disc plays. I use double sided DVD-RAM disc and they are great.

Ron Evans

I second that motion. We end up storing the CD/DVD in a case, which is kinda like a caddy anyway. The pain with the old CDROM caddies was that they were associated with the drive, offering none of the protection or labeling features that Ron mentioned.
I'm all for a slim-line case that permanently seals each disk.

Gah! That's crazy talk. You know how thick my beverage coasters would be if everything came in a caddy?

1) most manufacturers for blu-ray and HD-DVD have indicated
players will support the "old" DVD. How they do this doesn't
matter. Probably there is a red laser in there as well

2) as far as I know the caddy system for blu-ray is ONLY for
recordable media. It has a very soft layer that can easily scratch.
More so than CD (which is more reseliant than DVD!) or DVD.
Since the movies will be on pressed discs this shouldn't be more
of an issue than current DVD's

And then the whole DVD collection thing. I have around 150 DVD's
myself and I would not want to re-invest. But, as said, all players
should be backwards compatible so you can still watch them. New
movies you simply buy on Blu-Ray then for example.

Whether or not you want to re-invest into a movie on blu-ray
boils down to a few things. If you still have friends on SD systems
you might be able to sell your movies to them (the ones you wish
to replace). Or if you want the ultimate version of a movie the
same goes. Personally I'm not too interested in HD since no-one
has it here yet and DVD looks superb projected with a good
projector. Can it look better? Sure it can. But that's always true.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman :
If you still have friends on SD systems
you might be able to sell your movies to them (the ones you wish
to replace). Or if you want the ultimate version of a movie the
same goes. Personally I'm not too interested in HD since no-one
has it here yet and DVD looks superb projected with a good
projector. -->>>

It's going to be a win-win situation for everyone. DVD sales have been through the roof for several years now, but this year for the first time the DVD market started to taper off. A lot of people see that as a sign of market saturation. DVD sales are still brisk, though, and that will continue, IMO. Now the market for used DVDs will be amazing as titles come out on Blu-Ray. HD-equipped people will be driving the new market by buying Blu-Ray discs and dropping used DVD copies of the movies they replace into the used market.

As far as interest in the new High-Def DVDs goes, I bought a Sony 34" direct-view 16:9 HD set about a year ago. It's a multi-synch model that can natively display 720p, 1080i or 480p and 480i. I have HD cable that comes in at 720p from the box and it can look amazing. Depending on the source and how well Comcast is running that day it can make my DVDs look pretty bad by comparison. I'm not sure how it would look on an SD set, but for people with HD sets it's instantly apparent. My HD set shows the flaws of the source material SO much more than I was ever aware of before I got it. Regular cable is almost unwatchable to me now. I seldom stray from the HD channels. Some of my DVDs that looked fine to me before look terrible on it. Personally, I can't wait to be able to buy films on Blu-Ray. I think the market will explode.

I agree that convincing people their DVDs don't look good enough anymore is going to be a tough sell. People think that just because it's digital it's the ultimate. There doesn't seem to be any interest in adopting a better audio format than the compact disc for instance. If anything, the public is going backward with MP3s.

<<<-- Originally posted by Marco Leavitt : I agree that convincing people their DVDs don't look good enough anymore is going to be a tough sell. People think that just because it's digital it's the ultimate. There doesn't seem to be any interest in adopting a better audio format than the compact disc for instance. If anything, the public is going backward with MP3s. -->>>

Well, almost anyone can see a drastic difference between High-Definition and SD, where most people can't hear any difference between 16-bit/44.1KHz audio and 24-bit/96KHz audio and, in fact, average listeners can't tell the difference between 24/96 audio and a 192 Kbps MP3. Selling someone audio that they can't distinguish from that they've got is a lot harder sell than video that looks so much sharper than DVD that it's hard to go back.

A guy I work with declared the other day that "DVDs look just as good as movies." Another person I know had no idea "28 Days Later" was shot on video until I told her. I'm not so sure that regular-type people are going to see such a dramatic difference, and even if they do, they might not care. I hope I'm wrong.