My guess would be that only a small percentage of people have their computers hooked to their TVs. We are geared from past technology to having a PLAYER to entertain us, that is always connected to our TV. My computers are in a totally seperate room, and I would not enjoy watching movies in there.

Dave T2

Playing a movie from a computer would be a frustrating experience for more than half the target movie market IMHO. Also, stand-alone player prices will quickly fall to perhaps one fourth the price of the cheapest computer capable of playing them.

I'm a little confused by the term "HDV in the topic.
HDV is tape *only.* Nothing else, in any other format, is HDV. HDTV, but not HDV. HDV is an acquisition-only format. It's not a deliverable in any standard sense; it ends up either as HDCAM, D5, 1080 on a BD disc, 720 on an HD DVD disc, SD on a DVD, Beta for SD broadcast, or on the web as high-def in one of several formats, including SD iPod.
We don't need HDV players, and while HDV will be with us for a while still, the days of tape are all but over. It started with the early Firestores and Nnovias, and moved to solid state mem, with XDCAM now being the broadcast industry standard for ENG, and soon the new XDCAM EX, and who knows what else. It no longer is about format, but about codecs and bitrates. There is no point in having a tape-based playback device for future use, because the future is tapeless.
Maybe I missed a point somewhere in the original post?

I think the point of the original post was to ask why we need to buy a dedicated device to feed HD content to our TVs when our computers can already be used for that. "HDV" was a misnomer.

Why do we need dvd players???

Yet just about every household in North America has at least one.... same thing.

"Why are we all holding our breaths for HDV burners and economic multi-format HDV players"

Another reason may be that most of us aren't "holding our breaths" for HD or Blu-
Ray hardware or software.

Chienworks: Exactly and sorry for the misleading misnomer. Not so long ago the PC was to be the center of the entertainment system - what happened? I have not had a DVD player for nearly two years and people who see movies at my place are mystified!

Of course that's how Gates & Jobs plan our homes to be configured. The frig and washing machine chatting to their compatriots across the web, calling in new supplies and maintenance. The house matted with optical fibres and all entertainment piped in from servers and tracking you around the universe so your entertainment follows where-ever you move. The reason this isn't already in every house is that most houses were built a little while ago, computer systems perform are less well than claimed (see black frame problem), and specialised systems are generally better at performing specialised tasks. Over the years I haven't noticed that computers have become less troublesome, because the tasks and software always stretch the available systems just a bit beyond what it can easily handle. Computer systems get superseded faster than over-ripe oranges, and if you recognise that most people who had a VCR didn't know how to use it, then you probably have a good insight into people's reluctance to hand over to technology. A DVD player: switch it on, open the drawer, put in disk, play. I spend too much time already sorting out people's computer problems!

MH,

It will happen. But I think it will be the generation that is in their teens and twenties that will do it. I don't think the 30 and above generation will embrace it.

For my generation, you had to have a large Stereo amp/receiver with big advent speakers, turntable, cassette deck to enjoy music. We strived to get the best quality out of our vinyl records. Now people are happy with a 5 watt soundcard playing low bitrate MP3s or a boombox. (even these are dying) over 2" speakers. My point being, that each generation embraces its technology.



Dave T2

When someone can make a media server as simple as a disk player, then perhaps we can move to digital downloads instead of optical media. It's getting close. TViX players are relatively simple and will play almost anything from an internal hard disk, a USB flash disk, a network or anything you can connect to it. These players solve the problem of having the computer next to the TV. Just connect them to your computer over Ethernet or WiFI and view away. Of course, the film industry will have to get over its pirating paranoia before we'll see this become mainstream.

Nope, I don't think so. Or at least only when the entertainment pod is as reliable and as simple to operate as your toaster.

I don't see a time when Uncle Harvey says after a Thanksgiving meal, "Well, let's go into the living room and boot the TV."

What I DO question is why there is a need for HD-DVD and BD as a movie delivery medium when those same codecs can be used today with DVD-9 blanks. Well, okay, I know the answer, I just don't agree with the rationale.

"What I DO question is why there is a need for HD-DVD and BD as a movie delivery medium when those same codecs can be used today with DVD-9 blanks. Well, okay, I know the answer, I just don't agree with the rationale."

=====================================================

You're forgetting that there are tremendous time constraints on red laser media. It's great for short home movies, but the whole idea behind hd dvd/blu ray is to produce a disk that holds larger volumes of more detailed video... something that red laser disk STILL ***can't*** do.

(I starred the "can't" because there is yet another format that has recently been produced... the 50gig dvd. A red laser disk.... although it does take a different kind of dvd player to playback..... not sure if this format will go anywhere though)

Well, I am beginning to think that red laser is actually enough of a solution that blue laser disks and burners and players may be overkill. When I first heard the claims made for WMVHD, I thought Gates was smoking something, since I never bought into the argument that lower bit rate high def was truly viable.

Having seen what a 25MBit/sec HDV video looks like in MPEG2, I was initially convinced that a 46 minute limit was indeed the best I could ever hope for with red lasrer. More recently however, having looked at several profesiional mastered HD DVDs like "The Goodfellows" masted in VC1, I am now totally convinced that h.264 does a truly superb job of video rendition at far lower bitrates. A lot of my experiments using XVid, DiVX, other h.264 codecs has convinced me that BluRay was an essential format for 2 hour mobies in the mpeg2 days but that red laser disks may be a totally adequate delivery format for movies with properly configured h.264 encoding.

I am not arguing for red laser hi def commercial disks....and am personally delighted that 25 and 50GB disks for data and video are nearly available for mere home hobbyists like me. I am, however, so totally disgusted with all of the format war hype, copy protection crap, and outrageous pricing of blue burners / blank disks / etc. that I would personally be glad to see Sony and all the other major players watch their greedy tactics blow up in their faces.

Larry

I agree 100% Larry.

Serena, I agree for the masses, but that should not be the case here, even though I feel a lot of the guys here who are always talking of new HD-DVD palyers don't seem to know they dont need them either. Now let me put you dear Serena on the spot; do you have a DVD player?

Absolutely! But I have to say I've had it a long time. I do have a DVI cable to run from from my editing suite to the projector, but generally I find that a nuisance because the arrangements between my theatre and the editing suite mean I have to plug things in. The DVD player is connected permanently. Presently planning a new house, so I guess I'll have to think about all this stuff. But in the proposed design the projector will be much further away, so very likely I'll maintain separate systems (see, I'm older than 30!)
Also I confess to being one of those h-fi people of past generations, and computers don't hack it for me. Guess it doesn't matter when music has distortion purposely built in!

I think the real question though is do we need any form of read only disk player. A single under $100 HDD can now hold a full movie of 2K DCI compliant video at a quality that surpasses HDCAM SR. The problem now is affording a display device to do the quality of that content justice. Also I don't see the major studios letting copies of their masterpieces out of their grasp at that quality any time soon.

Tape is dying, or for the those pros amongst us here, dead; discs are in the E.R. and looking rather pale too . .

OK, my 'umble experience: I recently took my 1gb pendrive for a test-drive at PC World - I had copied to it several "flavours" of compressed vids I'd made. I plugged it into one of those stylish, all-white and glass and chrome 'Family' 7" photo/vid/music display frames. It worked. Oh yes, it ALSO had speakers too!

From where I'm standing, not only is it NOT about delivery hardware formats, it is quickly becoming, from what I can tell, NOT about the compression either - it IS about WHO scambles and claws to the top of the heap/pile in OWNING that compression/delivery mechanisim.

How far off are we from having MyWork.com accessible by cable/satellite to ANYWHERE from a shared NLE/DVD Authoring centralised repository? Months? And once again it will be about distribution and who owns the method of distribution/access that will be calling the shots .. and then we all start again.

Each generation embraces its own technology - ok? But it will only be that technology we are ALLOWED to embrace, at that time and only when the finance departments give the nod. Me worried? Nah! Intrigued? You bectha! But I'm intrigued by our constant disconfabulistics and disconfabulations on the matter. I suppose, was it ever thus.

The next BIG thing IS here. It is only when we are allowed to buy/share into it that is the guiding force. Having it metered-out to us mere mortals, available on stream from that big server in the sky, is the thing to watch out for.

Me paranoid? Nah! Humanoid!

Grazie

I think we're in-between technologies at the present time. The wonders of the intelligent building exist for those able to afford it and its maintenance costs, but I suggest is not yet a reality for most. Similarly you can download your movies, but presently Australian broadband is too slow unless you pay a great deal for the connection. So being able to put a movie on a hard-disk is just right for a commercial digital theatre (2K or 4K), but of no interest to me because it's presently inconvenient. I collect movies, so having them on optical disks is convenient. I try not to see or collect crummy movies, so the current cost of a DVD or BD is fine. A collection of $100 HDs would be unlikely.
Really this is a generational thing. I'm of that lot who value quality over quantity, whereas media is now towards quantity of choice for watching (or part-watching) once and forget it (quality being only of some interest).
One of the issues about relying on computers for all functions is the rate of obsolescence. I bought my DVD player when they were expensive and it's still a great player. Probably have to replace it if it fails. In the store I've got functional computers that are as much use as nothing.
Be nice when high quality projectors become really affordable, but I think we might be forgetting that newly introduced technologies are always very expensive. The cost of projectors for a given quality has dropped enormously since I bought mine. Now, by the time the original lamp needs replacing it's probably better to buy a new machine.