How to view

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ned c
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How to view

Post by ned c »

There has been discussion elsewhere about the potential demise of DVDs. I use DVDs a lot to distribute films to actors, crew, interested individuals and Festivals. I have some old home made DVDs and many commercial DVDs that play perfectly. So what is the future if DVDs drop from sight? Streaming is highly variable, not only dependent on connection speed but also the time of the day and apparently the complexity of the image. I can stream from YouTube at all speeds but sometimes have problems streaming from Vimeo HD. I also want to view on a full screen; 50 inches plus at home and on a cinema size screen at the movies. I have seen Blu-Ray projection of our films at our local cinema and the results can be superb. USB drives? I don't think so. SD cards? Not at the present prices. I like DVDs, the face can carry details of the film; the case can be a source of extensive information. So; I for one hope that DVDs/Blu-Ray will be around for a few more years.
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Dave Watterson
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Re: How to view

Post by Dave Watterson »

I share your hope, Ned. Sending films to competitions electronically is one thing ... but for friends / crew / patrons / helpful location owners etc a neatly labelled and packaged disc looks good and last well so far as we can tell.

USB memory sticks are much lower in price than they used to be. e.g. Amazon UK are selling a 16Gb memory stick for £5.42. Each GB is around 9 minutes of film at BluRay standard. There was a time when blank BluRay discs were not much cheaper than that!

The computer industry always seems to assume everyone is on an extremely fast broadband connection with no data cap. Even in America and UK that is far from the case and huge areas of the world are at the dial-up modem level ...
A.K. Williams
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Re: How to view

Post by A.K. Williams »

I too would be sorry to see the DVD system expire and be replaced by... what?

But then I am something of a 'traditionalist' perhaps or more likely just get used to something which does the job adequately and therefore fail to see the need for change, but I am sorry in many ways to say that such things are out of our control largely. No matter how many people might protest the next 'big development' will eventually be forced upon us and we must adapt or retire from whatever it is we do.

I take some comfort from the fact that mini DV tape still survives despite R&D and marketeers, but I understand that even the 'professionals' are slowly being weaned off the format particularly where ever greater capacity and cheaper memory cards are becoming more readily available.

I cannot imagine a world without books for instance and yet something tells me that future generations will wonder at such things in museums one day while consulting whatever digital gizmo might be in fashion at the time.

I was always quite satisfied with VHS and could never see myself switching, I was pretty determined not to be captured by computer and resisted for years and now have four and as for that internet thing...

If the android telephone that I feel unable to be without to-day is anything to go by, I have to say that 'technophilia' lies dormant in us all and not many
will escape, but to lose the DVD...

Tony Williams.
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TimStannard
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Re: How to view

Post by TimStannard »

What none of this is addressing is the quality that people are happy to put up with. BluRay trumps DVD clearly, but whilst there is an obvious difference between VHS and DVD the difference is less proounced between DVD (ie Mini DV resolution) and BluRay. Proof of the pudding - BluRay sales failed to take off and people were still happy to buy DVDs.

Forget 4K, even the HD revolution only really means something to those of us who make films or the cinematophobes. What really counts (and we all know this) is content. The wedding videographers who contribute to forums I frequent all say that DVD is the format that sells. My own small sales of school Christmas productions seems to bear this out.

You want more proof? Music! CDs were a marked improvement over vinyl (although the covers weren't!). Yet most (young?) people buying music are quite happy with the lesser resolution of the dreaded mp3.

Is this a bad thing? Are people who listen to mp3s or watch DVDs philistines? I don't think so. It simply means the resolution quality has surpassed the acceptable level, and things can be judged again, quite rightly, in terms of quality of content rather than quality of delivery format.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
ned c
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Re: How to view

Post by ned c »

I agree that content is King but delivery is an important part of the viewing experience. I have a selection of VHS recordings both professional and home-made and they are poor compared with DVD. If you project BIG and I mean cinema size then Blu-Ray is definitely better than regular DVD. The price of blank Blu Ray discs is way down now, less than $1 each for hub printable. so why not go for the best?

mp3? There is a substantial revival of vinyl with the claim that it is more "organic" whatever that means? With my hearing it doesn't really matter.

Actually HD does matter; have a look at some old U-Matic recordings; once the broadcasters standard now truly awful.

The problem nowadays is that we are at the mercy of the marketing people desperate to sell the next big thing. My question is that if DVDs are on their way out as suggested what will we have as handy copies to hold at home and view? I don't want 50 films on a hard drive and I know that suppliers are desperate to get us into the cloud so that they don't have to physically supply us with real goods, have no inventory and make loads of money with minimal effort. Oh, and expect to be hacked sooner or later.

ned c
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TimStannard
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Re: How to view

Post by TimStannard »

ned c wrote:I agree that content is King but delivery is an important part of the viewing experience.
You're quite right Ned. I was considering the delivery to the typical home user and not the equally (more?) important issue of big screen. Perhaps the two need addressing separately. To answer your question:
ned c wrote:The price of blank Blu Ray discs is way down now, less than $1 each for hub printable. so why not go for the best?
for home distribution Is that because most people can play DVDs, not many can play BluRay. Ideally, of course, we'd produce both and there's little to stop us doing so.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
Michael Slowe
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Re: How to view

Post by Michael Slowe »

I blame Apple for encouraging the demise of discs (DVD & BD).
They prematurely omitted disc drives and burners from their MacPro and MacBooks computers. They seem bent on transferring video making to their versatile (too clever by half!), iphones. However, I think that discs will be with us for much longer than the professional world thinks. There is the typical 'little old lady' who wants to see your film (and her grandchild's wedding), who is most unlikely to be able to download it. All the others who have posted opine what I appreciate, the convenience of discs.

When it comes to big shows however, including cinemas, the file on a drive is becoming the norm. The professional world long ago deserted tape (Digi Beta, HD Cam & all). It's all files now, and they can retain all the meta data so beloved by the post production people.

Ned is voicing what I often find, that streaming is still not completely reliable or satisfactory, so, for me it's discs or files on good fast drives. Once drives are solid state, cheaper and, above all, almost completely resistant to failure, that will be the time for a sea change.
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