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Posted by: Paul Clarke at February 20, 2008, 12:04 pm

Topic: Toshiba to give up on HD DVD, end format war Forum: groupsrv

Alric Knebel wrote: Quote:AZ Nomad wrote: On Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:50:54 -0600, Alric Knebel wrote: On Feb 19, 1:36 pm, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote: Laser Discs were widely adopted? I suppose there were more titles on LD than HD-DVD, but it was still very much a niche item. (I hooked mine up a few months ago and it's amazing the *thrummmmmm* it makes spinning up that huge heavy disc..). So what? Once it's spinning it's quiet enough, and LDs were a much better medium than VHS tapes. The sound of the best ones still beats DVD sound. All true, but LDs had their own problems not experienced too much by DVD, like warping (shades of vinyl) and rotting, which plagued early ones, poorly produced ones. The best sound LDs were the last generation sporting DTS and DD in a less compressed form than DVDs. I had about 1,500 when DVDs launched. I looked at the size of LDs and said, "Nah. Right technology, wrong size." The look reminded me too much of LPs, including the hole in the middle, which reminded me of both LPs and 45s. I'm glad I waited. You missed out. They were far supperior to tapes, didn't wear out. The worst thing was the short playback per side. You had to get up and flip every hour or so. They had decks that could play both sides, but any movie longer than two hours had more than one disk. I used to run a setup with two players, both with double sided playback. And they didn't have the fucking FBI warning. That's just it: I did NOT miss out. I intentionally waited because I knew about all of those things you mentioned: the flipping, the time limitation. I saw the advent of CDs, and I figured it was a matter of time before it got down to that size. Now EVERYTHING is that size, a nice standard size for several types of media, making devices all compatible. And if the size of the discs got any smaller (as they attempted with CDs sometimes back) they'd be TOO small. But for cinephiles it was a nice bridge between VHS and DVDs. LDs introduced me to the widescreen format for home video, plus the concept of the 'special edition', with documentary features and audio commentaries, etc., originated with LDs. There are some superb special editions on LDs that have not been, and in many cases will likely *never* be, equalled. Much of the Criterion Collection LD editions, such as their version of Lewton's "Cat People", will not be ported over to DVD, because of licensing issues. So those who did not get into LDs *did* miss out on some superb editions of classic films. -- “…I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. You can say it's my job to fight it, but I don't know what it is anymore. More than that, I don't want to know. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He would have to say, ‘O.K., I'll be part of this world.’” http://www.filmfanaticoasis.blogspot.com/

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