HD DVD is coming in 2006....umm ok, so what??
About 15 years ago, in my film school days (back when we actually worked with film), I was introduced to laser discs. Before that, I did have a chance to play with the ancient videodisc format, but it was mostly VHS like a lot of people.
A screenwriting instructor of mine would wheel in a 27" TV with a laser disc setup and show us examples of whatever lessons he was teaching that day.
The things I admired about laser discs were that the picture quality was very good compared to VHS, and certain discs had audio commentary and other extras. Being a budding cineaste, I was excited to have these tidbits of knowledge passed on to me.
The downsides of laser discs were that they were large and delicate, you had to make sure not to touch the mirror face, and avoid scratches. It took more room to store them, was like storing old LPs. They only held an hour at the most on each side, and you either had to walk up and flip the disc or have a more expensive player that automatically flipped it. And they were extremely expensive. Anywhere from $35 to $120 for the really special Criterion editions.
Despite the downsides, I was hooked... sort of. It wasn't till I was out on my own in Los Angeles, that I bought a laser disc player, and it was a demo model because it was on sale and could play both sides. I barely had a handful of discs to begin with, and my collection never grew past 30. This is in contrast to friends and acquaintances who had laser disc collections that numbered in the hundreds.
The costs of the discs had been the biggest hinderance to me, and I bought only the stuff I really wanted.
Several more years later, DVD was introduced. I was weary at first. The images had heavy compression, especially when looking at a movie like THE FIFTH ELEMENT, that had so much detail being mushed that it was smearing. There wasn't a big hurry to buy a DVD player, especially when they were still over $500 on the cheap end.
Then a year or so later, The Virgin Megastore on Sunset Blvd. had a huge sale on all it's laser discs. At the time both Virgin and Tower Records had large laser disc sections and a small shelf area for DVDs. Virgin was clearing it all out to make room for DVDs, I knew I had to pay attention to DVDs more.
I did a comparison to a movie that was on DVD and laser disc and saw that if the laser disc had special features, so did the DVD. This wasn't always true, but it meant that the studios were interested in adding those special features, so it wasn't just the specialty brands like Criterion doing it anymore.
I did buy a few laser discs at that sale, then within months, I bought a DVD player. I bought DVDs like it was candy. At roughly $20 a movie, it was way cheaper than laser discs ever could be. The picture and audio quality got way better, and there were tons of extras on almost every disc.
So since then, every Tuesday I been checking out what's new and great in the DVD section. My collection is somewhere over 300, I stopped counting.
Next year, HD DVD and Blu-Ray will launch to bring DVD into the Hi-Def age. I knew this would come, you can't have HDTV and no movies in HD to show on them.
But I quickly realize that there's no way I'm going to buy all the movies I have all over again in HD. In fact I really don't want to.
This is all personal choice mind you, there are people out there that want EVERYTHING in HD. I'm not one of them, I will selectively buy what I want to see in HD.
As much as I enjoy watching movies like GOODFELLAS, ME MYSELF & IRENE, FARGO, ZOOLANDER, WARGAMES, BULL DURHAM to name a few, I don't care if I have HD versions of them. My standard DVD version is just fine.
On the other hand, THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, STAR WARS TRILOGIES, TERMINATOR 2, MATRIX, ALIEN QUADRILOGY are definitely ones I want to see in HD.
In the next few years even, I suspect as HD DVD starts off, I see standard DVDs getting cheaper, especially if you buy them used, like at Amoeba Records. Early adopters will be selling or trading in their old DVDs to get HD ones, just like my friends have done with laser discs.
So it'll be a bit of a mixed bag at first, unless the HD DVDs have something really exclusive.
A screenwriting instructor of mine would wheel in a 27" TV with a laser disc setup and show us examples of whatever lessons he was teaching that day.
The things I admired about laser discs were that the picture quality was very good compared to VHS, and certain discs had audio commentary and other extras. Being a budding cineaste, I was excited to have these tidbits of knowledge passed on to me.
The downsides of laser discs were that they were large and delicate, you had to make sure not to touch the mirror face, and avoid scratches. It took more room to store them, was like storing old LPs. They only held an hour at the most on each side, and you either had to walk up and flip the disc or have a more expensive player that automatically flipped it. And they were extremely expensive. Anywhere from $35 to $120 for the really special Criterion editions.
Despite the downsides, I was hooked... sort of. It wasn't till I was out on my own in Los Angeles, that I bought a laser disc player, and it was a demo model because it was on sale and could play both sides. I barely had a handful of discs to begin with, and my collection never grew past 30. This is in contrast to friends and acquaintances who had laser disc collections that numbered in the hundreds.
The costs of the discs had been the biggest hinderance to me, and I bought only the stuff I really wanted.
Several more years later, DVD was introduced. I was weary at first. The images had heavy compression, especially when looking at a movie like THE FIFTH ELEMENT, that had so much detail being mushed that it was smearing. There wasn't a big hurry to buy a DVD player, especially when they were still over $500 on the cheap end.
Then a year or so later, The Virgin Megastore on Sunset Blvd. had a huge sale on all it's laser discs. At the time both Virgin and Tower Records had large laser disc sections and a small shelf area for DVDs. Virgin was clearing it all out to make room for DVDs, I knew I had to pay attention to DVDs more.
I did a comparison to a movie that was on DVD and laser disc and saw that if the laser disc had special features, so did the DVD. This wasn't always true, but it meant that the studios were interested in adding those special features, so it wasn't just the specialty brands like Criterion doing it anymore.
I did buy a few laser discs at that sale, then within months, I bought a DVD player. I bought DVDs like it was candy. At roughly $20 a movie, it was way cheaper than laser discs ever could be. The picture and audio quality got way better, and there were tons of extras on almost every disc.
So since then, every Tuesday I been checking out what's new and great in the DVD section. My collection is somewhere over 300, I stopped counting.
Next year, HD DVD and Blu-Ray will launch to bring DVD into the Hi-Def age. I knew this would come, you can't have HDTV and no movies in HD to show on them.
But I quickly realize that there's no way I'm going to buy all the movies I have all over again in HD. In fact I really don't want to.
This is all personal choice mind you, there are people out there that want EVERYTHING in HD. I'm not one of them, I will selectively buy what I want to see in HD.
As much as I enjoy watching movies like GOODFELLAS, ME MYSELF & IRENE, FARGO, ZOOLANDER, WARGAMES, BULL DURHAM to name a few, I don't care if I have HD versions of them. My standard DVD version is just fine.
On the other hand, THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, STAR WARS TRILOGIES, TERMINATOR 2, MATRIX, ALIEN QUADRILOGY are definitely ones I want to see in HD.
In the next few years even, I suspect as HD DVD starts off, I see standard DVDs getting cheaper, especially if you buy them used, like at Amoeba Records. Early adopters will be selling or trading in their old DVDs to get HD ones, just like my friends have done with laser discs.
So it'll be a bit of a mixed bag at first, unless the HD DVDs have something really exclusive.
posted by Anonymous at 12:28 PM
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