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Hey, Answerman! - In Search of Stability

HDMI is simply a cable and signal format, which does nothing for the quality of the picture; plenty of other connections exist that can carry an HD signal, including good ol' VGA.

^ I don't see Blu-ray replacing DVD completely. I think it will mostly just remain a high-end DVD. Not everything will benefit with Blu-ray, especially stuff shot on video (most 70s-90s TV shows) or shot/animated in digital SD. This is different from VHS->DVD where everything benefited just from the digital format alone.

To add the progression of video on physical format: BD isn't even enough. Let's say a 70mm film was split onto two BD50s, that's still not enough when you consider the raw scan was on the order of several terabytes, and that 1080p is severely too limiting. Going forward into 4k, when we get real 4k transfers for 70mm and 35mm as well as things initially shot digitally with 4k or 8k, we're gonna need muuuuuch larger discs to hold all that info without harsh compression. Maybe it's not an issue yet, but time always marches on.

It does make a difference. HDMI is digital, VGA is analogue. To get HD video to a screen via VGA, it needs to be converted from digital to analogue at one end and back to digital again at the other end.

I'm not sure where captioning comes into things. BD subtitles arrive on my HDTV via HDMI the same way they did on my old CRT TV from my PS2: they're part of the video.

Well, in my case, there are quite a few shows that I watch online that a) haven't been licensed, or b) have been licensed, but don't have anything out.

A-cases are a dime a dozen--just look at all the sports shows. But for B-cases, I can think of shows like Case Closed/Detective Conan, which has a US licensor, but hasn't put anything out since the 90s, and Space Brothers, which I think was licensed by Sentai, but we haven't heard a word otherwise since then. Of course, you also have some really odd cases with online manga, where it's listed as "licensed", but again, nothing exists for it outside of Japan (off the top of my head, this applies to the manga Liar Game). In those cases, I honestly don't have any alternatives to streaming, unless I feel like downloading the whole series and storing it on my computer.

I'm with you on this too, Aquasakura. For all the flaws in the DVD format, at least you usually get complete translations and the home video version of the series, as opposed to bitrate-starved HD streams of the TV broadcast version with untranslated songs.

And eventually, more and more releases will be Blu-Ray only, even if it takes longer than the VHS -> DVD transition. Like I said: keeping up with the times, and future-proofing as well.

That is the implication.
There are people who claim that Internet video will make physical media obsolete, but I totally disagree with that.
Blu-ray will make DVD obsolete.
Eventually something else (possibly a solid state device) will make Blu-ray obsolete.
But we will always have physical releases of some kind.
The only way that physical media will be obsolete is if the Internet offers us all unlimited and unrestricted access to everything that has been or could be recorded on physical media. I really do not see that happening anytime in the foreseeable future.

Speaking of which with this conversation of transitioning to DVD to Blue rays or not how long did it took for the majority of people to convert from VHS to DVDs? I ask because it does seem that the transition from videos to DVD happen much sooner than it is with people converting from DVDs to blur rays.

Also what is a solid state device?

That is not true. The second version could be interpreted various ways and not just angry. For example imagining a little kid telling another to shut up and throwing a tantrum which could make it sound like a whining tone rather than an angry tone. By emphasizing he said it angrily, it confirms his tone is that of anger, not of whining or complaining. I'd say a good writing will make sure his intent is clarified, rather than leaving it vague like that in case the reader misintreprets the scene.

I agree with you. People who act like there's a guideline for writing seem very close minded or are simply parroting what their peers say without much thought. "Show don't tell' is one of those rules I disagree with. If a series wants to explain something, especially when it's necessary like explaining a backstory or how a technique or device works, it seems just fine.

I always dislike it when people try to pull subjective rules out when critiquing a work. It implies the rules are absolute from the gods, and not just created by someone personal opinion. And if they try to write themselves, they'll try to do something differently just because of some made up rule.

Speaking of which with this conversation of transitioning to DVD to Blue rays or not how long did it took for the majority of people to convert from VHS to DVDs? I ask because it does seem that the transition from videos to DVD happen much sooner than it is with people converting from DVDs to blur rays.

ATastySub wrote:

Everyone can have an opinion. That's true. What's not is that they are all equal. Those that study art, film, literature, etc have a more valid opinion because they know what they are talking about. No amount of screaming subjectivity will make the opinion of the average person mean more than those of the critics who devote themselves to analyzing a craft. You can like bad things. Everyone does. There's no need to force yourself to justify that everything you like is good. You'll probably even enjoy things more once you get rid of the knee-jerk reaction to defend every fault of everything you like.

The problem with this kind of argument is that it completely ignores the underlying fact that professional art, film or literature critics are still human beings and not robots.

They might have more academic knowledge due to formal training, but their own emotions, interpretations and preferences are still going to influence their opinions, in both positive and negative ways, and they can likewise follow different schools of thought regarding how movies or television shows should be approached and analyzed.

Critics do not universally agree with each other all the time, at least outside of the more extreme cases, and even then there are still exceptions. This diversity of reactions isn't exclusively restricted to the uninitiated masses.

Reviewer A can argue that the exposition in X episode of an anime was too boring for him or her, which causes that person to give a bad overall rating to it, yet Reviewer B might not believe so and could place more of an emphasize on discussing a different aspect of the episode, leading to a higher score. Would you be "forcing yourself" to justify liking "bad things" if you happen to agree with Reviewer B instead of A?

I'm using a 46 inch 1080p television and both the DVD player and the Blu-ray player provide upscaling to 1080p. All my old DVDs look just as good as they ever did, and in fact better than they did without the upscaling.

Yes, the Patlabor TV DVDs look bad compared to the Blu-ray version, but they don't look any worse than they ever did.

If you can afford a 1080p TV and a Blu-ray player, I think you are cheating yourself.

Just like any other field, those that have the background, the experience, and the knowledge to prove and defend their points will always be more important than a random person that happens to "like" something (myself included).

DVDs aren't the only low-resolution media out there, though -- the downloaded anime I've amassed over the years are heavily skewed to SD versions, and I can't imagine them looking too good on a 1080p TV. Especially not older files encoded in XviD or DivX. At typical viewing distance, they look better on my 32" 720p HDTV than on my 20" 1600x900 monitor.