Sony Blu-ray or Downloads for Xbox 360 and next-gen
What will the future gamers and movie watchers want for their choice of media? Some people believe that Sony’s Blu-ray format is doing fine in sales of Blu-ray games, data and movies, while other people have the view that Blu-ray is tanking in a big way. We do live in a world that is either very mixed in views or misinformed on facts.
One option other than Blu-ray could be the Super Upscale future for DVDs, we have heard Toshiba working on something like that and this would apparently make the need for Blu-ray movies not necessary. That would have to be seen, but if it would be possible to upscale a DVD to near Blu-ray quality. Why the need for dearer Blu-ray discs?
Price will always be an important factor in the sales of Blu-rays, since we saw HD-DVD pull out of the format war the Blu-ray prices have increased and this will not increase sales. With Billions of DVDs in the world it would be a good choice for the people and environment to increase the quality of these through technology.
Yes we do want better quality video and more data on discs but if this can happen through improved Upscaling and better compression technology, then I am all for it and also the rest of the world.
What would you want on your Xbox 360 or next-gen Xbox, Blu-ray or Downloads?
To sum-up, Blu-ray is here now and the next-gen format has not been decided. I personally use Blu-ray movies and games on my PS3, but I would be a mad man not to see that HQ Upscaling for DVDs and better compression technology that can produce almost the same results is the better way to go.
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with the tiny hard drive the 360 comes with and the ridiculously expensive addon for it, downloads are out. I love my blu ray discs and think its still more competent to have a physical copy of what you own.
Upscaling DVD’s is not going to make the picture quality any closer to HD quality picture. I do not understand why people keep lumping them togheter… On DVDs the information for High-Def is lost, no matter what you do you cannot reconstruct it out of thin air.
Better compression technology would make a difference, but the codec used in DVD’s are limited and thus we can expect nothing from this.
HD movies are vivid, and look beautiful. However for me personally, it’s not that important. I can easily sit down and watch a 2 hour SD movie and enjoy it immensly. If there is a way to upscale it to make it look even better, I am all for it. I have quite a few collector’s editions and box set on DVD that I would rather not have to replace with BD.
Therefore, I’ll take digital distribution at a lower price and no need to go out of the house for it over BD any day. IMO the current HD technology is not super duper better than the SD tech. It would have to look almost like real life for that to take place.
I have a PS3, a 360 with HDDVD addon, and I still watch more movies on regular DVD than on HD. HD movies are nice, but it’s not as great as people would want you to believe especially for the money.
Aye, at the end of the day, if the information isn’t there, then the information isn’t there - I’ve been doing photography for many years, and while it’s possible to upscale lower-res shots, you can’t create detail that isn’t there. That’s not to say upscaled DVDs can’t have nice sharp/smooth edges and no pixelation/graininess (that’s what upscaling is all about), but it’s just not possible to create detail that isn’t in the source material. That’s why I think Toshiba’s on a bit of a hiding to nothing in the long run, but as long as upscaling technology is cheaper (which will probably only be another couple of years - Blu-Ray production costs will likely go the same way as DVDs did - ie, pretty cheap after a few initial high-cost years) less image-conscious (and I’m talking picture quality image here, not the brand of clothing they wear
) consumers may well fork out for upscaling instead of the real deal.
Problem with downloads is that you can’t swap or share with friends or family. And once you lose your hard drive you lose everything. Also can 4.7 gig (DVD) of information looks just as good as 40 gig (bluray) information blown up to 42″? Although the upscaling or ‘illusion’ of seeing HD is cheaper it’s still not as good as truHD in my opinion. If I really like a film it has to be on bluray whereas the ‘not so interested’ films I rent out on DVD. And we’re missing one other thing too… the sound on Bluray is truly remarkable and it blows everyone of my Dolby Digital DVDs to shame. Bluray is still a young technology.. And like DVD or VHS it will take at least 3 years before prices come down drastically. It’s already been 24 months…. 12 to go.
Yeah, but;
the point is that the information is there, it’s just that the tech to exploit this means it has gone unused & unnoticed to date.
Super Upconversion takes the minute differences between ‘x’ number of individual frames preceding the single frame being shown and ‘x’ number of frames following it and combines it all together into that frame being shown.
You really do get true additional detail and not just an ‘ordinary’ upscale as happens now in upscaling standard def DVD players.
It’s what forensic labs have been doing for decades, NASA uses it for star field photography work.
The only big issue here is how cheaply it can be produced for.
If it improves significantly on current upscaling and is say $100 a unit then it could be the next big thing.
It’s also being incorporated into HD TVs.
It’s not just Toshiba anymore either, Sharp are buying the tech.