Blu Ray

[Dennis Sherrod]

What effect will Blu Ray have, if any, on our chase video recordings? I would guess when the Blu Ray players come out more, they would be backward compatible for the older style DVD. At least for awhile? Also, will it have any impact in relation to our HD camcorders?
In other words, are there any negative impacts that will be affecting us now that Blu Ray is now becoming the standard?
Thanks

 

[Eric Carlson]

I can only imagine that DVD is going to be going strong for quite awhile. Most people still have SD televisions and even quite a few of those who have uprgraded to HD havent gone too far into the Blu-Ray world. There's obviously going to be a shift towards HD media, but not quite as quick as you may think. BR player manufacturers are pretty much forced to include DVD upscaling capabilities and will continue to do so until DVD starts to age.

Lots of chasers are already shooting in HD, so I'm guessing we'll start to see Blu-Ray storm videos once burners lower in price and software starts to become more common. There's probably going to be a short period of time where HD storm content starts to compete with regular DVDs, forcing late adopters to upgrade as well. Overall, I think it will be beneficial to the storm chaser community as we'll get higher quality video as well as some healthy competition in the HD market.

Of course, this is all speculation. There's some talk about digital downloads eventually taking out Blu-Ray before it can grow into it's own, but thats a different story.

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

Thanks Eric. I am using a HD camcorder also. I just wasn't sure it there would be any so called "issues" with it in the next year or so. I imagine, as you say, the DVD will be around for some time. It pretty much like that anytime a new tape, disc, or other format comes around.

 

[Mike Davis]

Blue Ray takes over as the format

Since Toshiba has announced the abandonment of their quest for HD DVD dominance, it clears the way for Blue Ray to become the accepted format of the future.

This information was made public this week. It is very much like the old days of Beta/VHS formats, where VHS won out over Sony BetaMax and their technology became history.

How effective Blue Ray will become for videography still remains to be seen, but if history repeats itself, the HD stabilized format should result in a better product at a lower cost for the next several years.

 

[K Johnson]

What about viewing the videos though? Im really worried that in 10 or 20 years time I won't be able to view the DVD (s - heres hoping i get lucky!) that I make this year? Can HD be converted to Bue ray if necessary? If not now is it likely to become possible to do this in the future?

 

[Eric Carlson]

What about viewing the videos though? Im really worried that in 10 or 20 years time I won't be able to view the DVD (s - heres hoping i get lucky!) that I make this year? Can HD be converted to Bue ray if necessary? If not now is it likely to become possible to do this in the future?

Eventually DVD will go the way of cassettes and vinyl. Meaning that, while it won't be impossible to view DVDs, it will become increasingly difficult to find devices capable of reading them. Also, I think burned discs have a limited lifetime and can become unreadable over time even if you take real good care of them. Thankfully though, it's very easy to back up your DVDs to other digital mediums. I'd recommend investing in a nice external hard drive and an anti-static bag to keep that data safe for many years.

As for HD and Blu-ray, there's no need to convert anything as Blu-ray is only a storage option for HD video. Blu-ray itself is just an optical disk like a CD or DVD, only with a higher storage capability. You can put anything on a Blu-ray disk as long as it stays under 25 gb (Or 50 gb for dual layer disks). It's only when you want to use it to display video through Blu-ray players do you have to do any encoding or conversion. (In the same way you have to do conversion for DVDs or audio CDs.)

 

[D. Hayes]

I didn't think HD was related to HD-DVD or Blueray. You're capturing in what ever codec the camera manufacture decided to use. One you get it on your computer you can convert it for any media you want to use it on.

 

[John Wetter]

HD is merely a standard (ATSC) for lines of resolution, the most common being 1920 X 1080 (1080i or 1080p). There is also 1280x720 as well. BluRay (BD) is the medium that you are reading/writing the content from. Just like on standard DVD's, you need to use a codec to put video onto the disc to play in the set-top player.

Just as you can't buy a VCR anymore without really looking, you will not be able to buy a DVD player in a few years most likely. So, any content you have will become out-dated. If there is something you can't live without, make a digital backup as Eric suggested. Optical discs were never meant as a medium that would live forever.

-John

 

[Jeff Buss]

According to the Blu-Ray site, the Blu-Ray recorders/players will be "backwards compatible" and will play current DVD's.

http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_replace_dvd

 

[Paul Redmond]

I am in the slow lane, I still use Hi8.

 

[Billy Griffin]

Jeff, you are correct. Blu-Ray players WILL play standard DVD format media.