I participated some in the rent vs own thread and found it quite interesting actually. Some views I'd never considered. Lately, some other questions came up that I'd like to hear other peoples opinions on. They don't fall under the scope of that thread, so in the interest of etiquette, I'll start this one.
BR right now in my home, gives me basically the same visual experience I can get in a theater. Even some of the newest ones save but some like Imax or a 4K. So, with the resolution being on a par with as good as most of us can see locally, I find myself much more likely to enjoy Home Theater as a whole.
Some of the discussion in the aforementioned thread dealt with previous formats, advances in technology, where it's going, costs, etc. I have far more experience with the evolution of computers than I do with that of entertainment or HT. My first computer was a TRS-80 Model III and my first 5-1/4" floppy drive cost $1400. I'm going to make some comparisons with computers to HT to begin the discussion.
It goes without saying, hardware has come a long way, and a person would be crazy to think it has nowhere left to go.
"There's nothing you can't do in 16k of ram."
"10 Megabytes! What would you need 10 Megs of storage for?"
'A video card with 256K of ram? What for?"
"No one will ever use 2.1 Gigabytes of space...".
"Bigger than a 26" tv?"
Perhaps some here remember comments about the resolution available on dvd.
While some of those statements might seem a bit dated, remember the first computer I worked on had a hard disk that cost $10,000, and the computer w/os cost >20. I can remember reading in Byte Magazine "If the personal computer ever becomes a viable tool for business, the Bus architecture will be the model on which it is built."
Now don't take this the wrong way, I think blu-ray looks great. But it has definite limitations, not the least of which that frames are made up of data from several frames before, and that limitation is the Achilles heel of our digital media, always has been. IMO, that is the #1 item I think should be addressed when formats evolve past blu-ray. As it is, panning as an artistic tool for cinematographers has been eliminated for all intent and purposes. Something of the vastness of scenes gets lost with that. Complete frame data could eliminate this. Again, this all IMO.
Remembering back, the first 3D PC games, Wolfenstien, Doom, Doom II, Duke Nukem, Quake, etc. I owned all of them. Wolfenstein I never really played. Doom on the other hand, that I spent some time at. Now, has anyone here actually loaded Doom up on a PC and seen what it looked like lately? Remember, this was revolutionary. The begining of something incredible. To see it now, you will seriously wonder how you identified the walls from the floor. It is mind boggling. The advances to Doom II were huge, and yet, looking at that today will blow your mind as well. Come forward to Quake, and I had to buy a new video card for $450 to play the game. That did look great, but without the vid card, it was unplayable on even the fastest systems of the day. Move on to todays games, and they're more like watching newsreels on TV than gaming. And I make no bones that I'm sure there's tons of room for improvement still.
When I look at BR as a format, and try to compare it to the computer industry, and about the only difference I see is that in the computer industry, areas can evolve without advances in the others (to some degree). Other than that, it's very similar. Many products can adapt to new tech without replacement. Analogous to say, a firmware update on your BR player.
We must be approaching some limit of res that we need. Homes as a rule won't have screens > 120". Many much smaller. At a certain point, peoples eyes won't be able to resolve more, so there is going to be a place where you really need no more res. I don't think we are there quite yet, but close. At least for the
BR right now in my home, gives me basically the same visual experience I can get in a theater. Even some of the newest ones save but some like Imax or a 4K. So, with the resolution being on a par with as good as most of us can see locally, I find myself much more likely to enjoy Home Theater as a whole.
Some of the discussion in the aforementioned thread dealt with previous formats, advances in technology, where it's going, costs, etc. I have far more experience with the evolution of computers than I do with that of entertainment or HT. My first computer was a TRS-80 Model III and my first 5-1/4" floppy drive cost $1400. I'm going to make some comparisons with computers to HT to begin the discussion.
It goes without saying, hardware has come a long way, and a person would be crazy to think it has nowhere left to go.
"There's nothing you can't do in 16k of ram."
"10 Megabytes! What would you need 10 Megs of storage for?"
'A video card with 256K of ram? What for?"
"No one will ever use 2.1 Gigabytes of space...".
"Bigger than a 26" tv?"
Perhaps some here remember comments about the resolution available on dvd.
While some of those statements might seem a bit dated, remember the first computer I worked on had a hard disk that cost $10,000, and the computer w/os cost >20. I can remember reading in Byte Magazine "If the personal computer ever becomes a viable tool for business, the Bus architecture will be the model on which it is built."
Now don't take this the wrong way, I think blu-ray looks great. But it has definite limitations, not the least of which that frames are made up of data from several frames before, and that limitation is the Achilles heel of our digital media, always has been. IMO, that is the #1 item I think should be addressed when formats evolve past blu-ray. As it is, panning as an artistic tool for cinematographers has been eliminated for all intent and purposes. Something of the vastness of scenes gets lost with that. Complete frame data could eliminate this. Again, this all IMO.
Remembering back, the first 3D PC games, Wolfenstien, Doom, Doom II, Duke Nukem, Quake, etc. I owned all of them. Wolfenstein I never really played. Doom on the other hand, that I spent some time at. Now, has anyone here actually loaded Doom up on a PC and seen what it looked like lately? Remember, this was revolutionary. The begining of something incredible. To see it now, you will seriously wonder how you identified the walls from the floor. It is mind boggling. The advances to Doom II were huge, and yet, looking at that today will blow your mind as well. Come forward to Quake, and I had to buy a new video card for $450 to play the game. That did look great, but without the vid card, it was unplayable on even the fastest systems of the day. Move on to todays games, and they're more like watching newsreels on TV than gaming. And I make no bones that I'm sure there's tons of room for improvement still.
When I look at BR as a format, and try to compare it to the computer industry, and about the only difference I see is that in the computer industry, areas can evolve without advances in the others (to some degree). Other than that, it's very similar. Many products can adapt to new tech without replacement. Analogous to say, a firmware update on your BR player.
We must be approaching some limit of res that we need. Homes as a rule won't have screens > 120". Many much smaller. At a certain point, peoples eyes won't be able to resolve more, so there is going to be a place where you really need no more res. I don't think we are there quite yet, but close. At least for the
