The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
DVD is great. I love it. The improvement in picture and sound over the ageing video format is ten fold. But I have a worry…
As many of you may be aware, whenever a new technology comes out there is a battle to try and get it established as a ‘new global format’. VHS and Betamax slogged it out for about 4 years with the underdog (in terms of picture quality at least) winning through thanks to the majority of video player manufacturers building machines for it. And DVD is the new kid on the block and looks set to be the standard for some time to come.
It takes a long time to get a new global format established. The top electronics manufacturers have to get together and agree on the specifications. A difficult task given that they will each be passionate about their own perspective on the technology, particularly in relation to how cost-effectively they can build the hardware to support it. A good example of a failed attempt at a new global format is recordable DVD. There are to my knowledge 5 different versions of this format across data and video.
During all the time it takes to establish, agree upon and build hardware for a new global format such as DVD, technology marches on at an exponential rate. About a year ago I read a news article on the BBC news website that caught my eye. The Japanese had just developed a new DVD disc that could hold 110 gigabytes of data, and was the same size as the current DVD. This compares favourably to the 4 gigabytes approximately that DVDs currently store. Think about this for a second. A disc with that much capacity would mean that you could store movies at ZERO compression. That means no MPEG grain or artefacts on your screens. Every frame would be perfectly digitised. It would simply be the most perfect representation of the movie you could get (within the constraints of current TV resolution – HDTV is another thing altogether). And obviously even the longest of the long movies would be on one disc, probably on the same layer. But this fantastic advance was simply too late. Because we have now committed to the DVD format it will be many many years before any manufacturers are brave enough to try and establish a new digital disc movie format. There will no doubt be a market for the use of the new disc with computer systems for backing up data etc.
So my worry is that, based on the way things currently work, the speed at which new global formats are established lags far too far behind the advance of the technology.
Now before you all start shouting at your monitors and flailing your arms around (or is that just me??) I am well aware that it would be impossible for the two to keep developing at the same pace. But I do feel there is potential solution, for the DVD market anyway.
It seems that across the years there have been a few constants in the business. The first is the CD/DVD itself. Although the granularity of the data imprinted upon it has reduced, and new layers have been added, the physical size and concept has remained the same. The laser that reads the disc has changed in frequency and spectral position, but is still basically a laser pickup device. So the size of the disk and basic design of the reading mechanism stays constant. Obviously this is a winning formula, and one which the 110 gigabyte disk follows on with. So this leads me to ask why can’t a generic DVD player be designed where the components that change over the years are replaceable? Just as you upgrade a graphics card in a PC why can’t you slot in a new chipset (and possibly new laser pickup if required) into your DVD player? If they started digitising movies at zero compression on this new 110 gig disc, I would certainly pay £150 or so for a new card to slot into my player to be able to play them….wouldn’t you? And since the specifications for the card would be a new global format (OK – so that might take a while!) then manufacturers would not be taking such a risk producing the cards because the market for them would not only be their own brand of players – but every player in the world. Now that’s a market they would happily do some serious price warring on to get a piece of!
I appreciate this is a slightly simplistic view, but it does seem to me that we need to be a bit more forward thinking when embarking on a new global format. Maybe the manufacturers know this. Maybe they will make more money this way. Who knows.
All comments and verbal abuse welcomed!
As many of you may be aware, whenever a new technology comes out there is a battle to try and get it established as a ‘new global format’. VHS and Betamax slogged it out for about 4 years with the underdog (in terms of picture quality at least) winning through thanks to the majority of video player manufacturers building machines for it. And DVD is the new kid on the block and looks set to be the standard for some time to come.
It takes a long time to get a new global format established. The top electronics manufacturers have to get together and agree on the specifications. A difficult task given that they will each be passionate about their own perspective on the technology, particularly in relation to how cost-effectively they can build the hardware to support it. A good example of a failed attempt at a new global format is recordable DVD. There are to my knowledge 5 different versions of this format across data and video.
During all the time it takes to establish, agree upon and build hardware for a new global format such as DVD, technology marches on at an exponential rate. About a year ago I read a news article on the BBC news website that caught my eye. The Japanese had just developed a new DVD disc that could hold 110 gigabytes of data, and was the same size as the current DVD. This compares favourably to the 4 gigabytes approximately that DVDs currently store. Think about this for a second. A disc with that much capacity would mean that you could store movies at ZERO compression. That means no MPEG grain or artefacts on your screens. Every frame would be perfectly digitised. It would simply be the most perfect representation of the movie you could get (within the constraints of current TV resolution – HDTV is another thing altogether). And obviously even the longest of the long movies would be on one disc, probably on the same layer. But this fantastic advance was simply too late. Because we have now committed to the DVD format it will be many many years before any manufacturers are brave enough to try and establish a new digital disc movie format. There will no doubt be a market for the use of the new disc with computer systems for backing up data etc.
So my worry is that, based on the way things currently work, the speed at which new global formats are established lags far too far behind the advance of the technology.
Now before you all start shouting at your monitors and flailing your arms around (or is that just me??) I am well aware that it would be impossible for the two to keep developing at the same pace. But I do feel there is potential solution, for the DVD market anyway.
It seems that across the years there have been a few constants in the business. The first is the CD/DVD itself. Although the granularity of the data imprinted upon it has reduced, and new layers have been added, the physical size and concept has remained the same. The laser that reads the disc has changed in frequency and spectral position, but is still basically a laser pickup device. So the size of the disk and basic design of the reading mechanism stays constant. Obviously this is a winning formula, and one which the 110 gigabyte disk follows on with. So this leads me to ask why can’t a generic DVD player be designed where the components that change over the years are replaceable? Just as you upgrade a graphics card in a PC why can’t you slot in a new chipset (and possibly new laser pickup if required) into your DVD player? If they started digitising movies at zero compression on this new 110 gig disc, I would certainly pay £150 or so for a new card to slot into my player to be able to play them….wouldn’t you? And since the specifications for the card would be a new global format (OK – so that might take a while!) then manufacturers would not be taking such a risk producing the cards because the market for them would not only be their own brand of players – but every player in the world. Now that’s a market they would happily do some serious price warring on to get a piece of!
I appreciate this is a slightly simplistic view, but it does seem to me that we need to be a bit more forward thinking when embarking on a new global format. Maybe the manufacturers know this. Maybe they will make more money this way. Who knows.
All comments and verbal abuse welcomed!
If you're on about what I think you're on about they are called Fluorescent Media Discs (FMDs). I'm not sure if it's exactly the same thing but it sounds about right, given your technical details.
I know you're new so you wouldn't know this but I've mentioned a couple of times about DVD being inferior for films compared to an alternative in the not-too-distant-future. The difference being, as you mentioned, the possibility uncompressed video.
Unfortunately by the time they are ready for marketing, DVD and even maybe DVD-RW will be far too established for them to be viable.
I know you're new so you wouldn't know this but I've mentioned a couple of times about DVD being inferior for films compared to an alternative in the not-too-distant-future. The difference being, as you mentioned, the possibility uncompressed video.
Unfortunately by the time they are ready for marketing, DVD and even maybe DVD-RW will be far too established for them to be viable.
Not only have the Japanese created a disc...
But a couple of years ago a russian scientist created a disc that provided more than 50 times the amount of data than a DVD...
Also several electronics compainies have already developed more advanced disc systems, which they currently plan to aim at the professonal market...
However, I cant imgaine DVD will be going anywhere anytime soon...
The industry as a whole has spent such a large amount of time and money promoting DVD, and getting it to replace VHS tape format.
Coupled with the loss of face and trepidation of a market being asked to purchase ANOTHER format (for at least another 10 years)
DVD will be the next/current standard... And will stay this way for a good while yet :)
But a couple of years ago a russian scientist created a disc that provided more than 50 times the amount of data than a DVD...
Also several electronics compainies have already developed more advanced disc systems, which they currently plan to aim at the professonal market...
However, I cant imgaine DVD will be going anywhere anytime soon...
The industry as a whole has spent such a large amount of time and money promoting DVD, and getting it to replace VHS tape format.
Coupled with the loss of face and trepidation of a market being asked to purchase ANOTHER format (for at least another 10 years)
DVD will be the next/current standard... And will stay this way for a good while yet :)
not now my friend you can now record onto dvd for a meer £1500 there are 2/3 differnt modes of recording normal and high quality (so two then) normal is like video quality and high is DVD quality still bit too rich for my blood at the moment
Except if you want to record something off the telly, you have to have VHS.
At the moment anyway....
At the moment anyway....
I think even if something better comes out, DVD will be the main format, it's like 2000,beta and VHS, 2000 was great and double sided,betamax created by the wonderfull sony was the best type of video but VHS was the prime format and took the lead.
DVD is so popular now that it's wiping VHS off the shelves and doesn't leave any room for any competitors.
DVD is so popular now that it's wiping VHS off the shelves and doesn't leave any room for any competitors.
The thing is, to be able to fit 140GB on a disc, the laser needs to change frequency. We currently use red frequencies to read CD's and DVD's.
If the frequency is changed to a blue laser, then the wavelenght is reduced and so the tracks on a DVD can be closer together, allowing for more data on the same size of disc.
You idea about having an upgradeable DVD drive seems good in principle, but it would be a nightmare.
To upgrade the actual laser would be very expensive for a start.
Also, with there being 2 different vloums of disc, you may not be able to get the film you want unless you buy the upgrade. Whcih some people may not want to do.
How about releasing the film on both sizes? Thats just not cost effective I'm afraid. It would work out far too expensive.
I think it'll be a good few years before we move away from DVD's as they are now....
If the frequency is changed to a blue laser, then the wavelenght is reduced and so the tracks on a DVD can be closer together, allowing for more data on the same size of disc.
You idea about having an upgradeable DVD drive seems good in principle, but it would be a nightmare.
To upgrade the actual laser would be very expensive for a start.
Also, with there being 2 different vloums of disc, you may not be able to get the film you want unless you buy the upgrade. Whcih some people may not want to do.
How about releasing the film on both sizes? Thats just not cost effective I'm afraid. It would work out far too expensive.
I think it'll be a good few years before we move away from DVD's as they are now....
Some amendments/additions to my article above:
You can read the news story on the new disc by going to http://news.bbc.co.uk and searching on the word 'gigabyte'. The first search result that appears is the article in question. (sorry - I cant post the direct link here)
It is in fact 140 gigabyte not 110 (!!!)
A current DVD can store up to about 17 gigabytes if it is double sided and dual layered (the 4 gigabytes I quote is just one side single layer).
You can read the news story on the new disc by going to http://news.bbc.co.uk and searching on the word 'gigabyte'. The first search result that appears is the article in question. (sorry - I cant post the direct link here)
It is in fact 140 gigabyte not 110 (!!!)
A current DVD can store up to about 17 gigabytes if it is double sided and dual layered (the 4 gigabytes I quote is just one side single layer).
DVD is great. I love it. The improvement in picture and sound over the ageing video format is ten fold. But I have a worry…
As many of you may be aware, whenever a new technology comes out there is a battle to try and get it established as a ‘new global format’. VHS and Betamax slogged it out for about 4 years with the underdog (in terms of picture quality at least) winning through thanks to the majority of video player manufacturers building machines for it. And DVD is the new kid on the block and looks set to be the standard for some time to come.
It takes a long time to get a new global format established. The top electronics manufacturers have to get together and agree on the specifications. A difficult task given that they will each be passionate about their own perspective on the technology, particularly in relation to how cost-effectively they can build the hardware to support it. A good example of a failed attempt at a new global format is recordable DVD. There are to my knowledge 5 different versions of this format across data and video.
During all the time it takes to establish, agree upon and build hardware for a new global format such as DVD, technology marches on at an exponential rate. About a year ago I read a news article on the BBC news website that caught my eye. The Japanese had just developed a new DVD disc that could hold 110 gigabytes of data, and was the same size as the current DVD. This compares favourably to the 4 gigabytes approximately that DVDs currently store. Think about this for a second. A disc with that much capacity would mean that you could store movies at ZERO compression. That means no MPEG grain or artefacts on your screens. Every frame would be perfectly digitised. It would simply be the most perfect representation of the movie you could get (within the constraints of current TV resolution – HDTV is another thing altogether). And obviously even the longest of the long movies would be on one disc, probably on the same layer. But this fantastic advance was simply too late. Because we have now committed to the DVD format it will be many many years before any manufacturers are brave enough to try and establish a new digital disc movie format. There will no doubt be a market for the use of the new disc with computer systems for backing up data etc.
So my worry is that, based on the way things currently work, the speed at which new global formats are established lags far too far behind the advance of the technology.
Now before you all start shouting at your monitors and flailing your arms around (or is that just me??) I am well aware that it would be impossible for the two to keep developing at the same pace. But I do feel there is potential solution, for the DVD market anyway.
It seems that across the years there have been a few constants in the business. The first is the CD/DVD itself. Although the granularity of the data imprinted upon it has reduced, and new layers have been added, the physical size and concept has remained the same. The laser that reads the disc has changed in frequency and spectral position, but is still basically a laser pickup device. So the size of the disk and basic design of the reading mechanism stays constant. Obviously this is a winning formula, and one which the 110 gigabyte disk follows on with. So this leads me to ask why can’t a generic DVD player be designed where the components that change over the years are replaceable? Just as you upgrade a graphics card in a PC why can’t you slot in a new chipset (and possibly new laser pickup if required) into your DVD player? If they started digitising movies at zero compression on this new 110 gig disc, I would certainly pay £150 or so for a new card to slot into my player to be able to play them….wouldn’t you? And since the specifications for the card would be a new global format (OK – so that might take a while!) then manufacturers would not be taking such a risk producing the cards because the market for them would not only be their own brand of players – but every player in the world. Now that’s a market they would happily do some serious price warring on to get a piece of!
I appreciate this is a slightly simplistic view, but it does seem to me that we need to be a bit more forward thinking when embarking on a new global format. Maybe the manufacturers know this. Maybe they will make more money this way. Who knows.
All comments and verbal abuse welcomed!
As many of you may be aware, whenever a new technology comes out there is a battle to try and get it established as a ‘new global format’. VHS and Betamax slogged it out for about 4 years with the underdog (in terms of picture quality at least) winning through thanks to the majority of video player manufacturers building machines for it. And DVD is the new kid on the block and looks set to be the standard for some time to come.
It takes a long time to get a new global format established. The top electronics manufacturers have to get together and agree on the specifications. A difficult task given that they will each be passionate about their own perspective on the technology, particularly in relation to how cost-effectively they can build the hardware to support it. A good example of a failed attempt at a new global format is recordable DVD. There are to my knowledge 5 different versions of this format across data and video.
During all the time it takes to establish, agree upon and build hardware for a new global format such as DVD, technology marches on at an exponential rate. About a year ago I read a news article on the BBC news website that caught my eye. The Japanese had just developed a new DVD disc that could hold 110 gigabytes of data, and was the same size as the current DVD. This compares favourably to the 4 gigabytes approximately that DVDs currently store. Think about this for a second. A disc with that much capacity would mean that you could store movies at ZERO compression. That means no MPEG grain or artefacts on your screens. Every frame would be perfectly digitised. It would simply be the most perfect representation of the movie you could get (within the constraints of current TV resolution – HDTV is another thing altogether). And obviously even the longest of the long movies would be on one disc, probably on the same layer. But this fantastic advance was simply too late. Because we have now committed to the DVD format it will be many many years before any manufacturers are brave enough to try and establish a new digital disc movie format. There will no doubt be a market for the use of the new disc with computer systems for backing up data etc.
So my worry is that, based on the way things currently work, the speed at which new global formats are established lags far too far behind the advance of the technology.
Now before you all start shouting at your monitors and flailing your arms around (or is that just me??) I am well aware that it would be impossible for the two to keep developing at the same pace. But I do feel there is potential solution, for the DVD market anyway.
It seems that across the years there have been a few constants in the business. The first is the CD/DVD itself. Although the granularity of the data imprinted upon it has reduced, and new layers have been added, the physical size and concept has remained the same. The laser that reads the disc has changed in frequency and spectral position, but is still basically a laser pickup device. So the size of the disk and basic design of the reading mechanism stays constant. Obviously this is a winning formula, and one which the 110 gigabyte disk follows on with. So this leads me to ask why can’t a generic DVD player be designed where the components that change over the years are replaceable? Just as you upgrade a graphics card in a PC why can’t you slot in a new chipset (and possibly new laser pickup if required) into your DVD player? If they started digitising movies at zero compression on this new 110 gig disc, I would certainly pay £150 or so for a new card to slot into my player to be able to play them….wouldn’t you? And since the specifications for the card would be a new global format (OK – so that might take a while!) then manufacturers would not be taking such a risk producing the cards because the market for them would not only be their own brand of players – but every player in the world. Now that’s a market they would happily do some serious price warring on to get a piece of!
I appreciate this is a slightly simplistic view, but it does seem to me that we need to be a bit more forward thinking when embarking on a new global format. Maybe the manufacturers know this. Maybe they will make more money this way. Who knows.
All comments and verbal abuse welcomed!