AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - So-Called "Hi-rez" formats on their way out?

(S888Wheel) wrote:

In a generally argumentative mode .....and nearly un-readable format....

I said

And continue to use this irritaing format that is simply hard to read and
difficult to deal with. Please be more direct.

So why didn't laser disc take off? It was clearly superior to VHS and is
arguably superior to DVD.

Tom said

Not that much better than VHS/Beta and nowhere near DVD

I said

I quite disagree on both counts. DVD ghas some serious image problems that
laser disc never suffered from. There is simply no contest between laser
dics
and VHS.

Tom said

Sure there was. Price was only one. Availability was the other.

i was strictly speaking about performance.

No you weren't. If you were you'd have noted that the increase in resolution
between VHS/Beta and Laser Disc was nominal compared to the difference between
VHS and DVD.

Tom said

Picure quality
on LD varied remarkably from release to release.

As it did with VHS and still does with DVD. I persoanlly mastered the
transfer
of one comercial release for VHS and produced the commercial poduct. I spared
no expense to produce the best VHS cassettes possible. The Laser disc
produced
off the same exact masters simply killed the VHS version.

Killed? Did you produce this on DVD? I hope so.

Laser discs were
simply inherently superior. There is no way to prevent some people from
producing crappy laser discs, DVDs or VHS cassettes.

Yeah; so what? I know I raised that point but IF there would have been a
significant quality different inherent in the format than ALL but obviously
badly produced products would have been significantly better.

IME, all laser disc products I've witnessed compared to the VHS product were
"better" but the differences ranged from 'barely' to 'lots.' Generally the
differences between DVD and tape has always been "fantastic." And the
differences between DVD and Laser have been "large."

I loved Laser Disc. I love DVD even more. I love SACD and I love DVD-A but I
realize they are not really any "better' than DVD-V in sound quality (the
recording, mix, mastering, production are more important than the format) and
will (aside from being multichannel) be "transition" formats like laser disc.
What's wrong with that?

Tom said

Personally I've never seen major picture quality problems with DVD and the
basic picture quality improvement with DVD is much greater than the
improvement
of LD over VHS/Beta.

Well we totally disagree on this one. While it is more a matter of original
matterial and quality of transfer when comparing DVDs to laser discs there is
no getting around the fact that the best DVDs still have major problems with
contrast color accuracy and pixilation with sudden rapid movement in the
image.

I look very hard for these effets and seldom see them. They are sometimes
painfully obvious with satellite TV but compared to analog broadcast/cable they
are still relatively minor.

You may not notice it but it bothers me a great deal. These problems are
clearly a problem unique to the DVDs themselves.

Like the ticks, pops and speed variation of analog disc formats? No format is
perfect but DVD is "closer" to perfect than tape and Laser Disc ever was :-)

Tom said

I was a Laser-Fan and spent several thousand on laser hardware and software,
enjoying the picture improvement thoroughly, but it was not as major a step
forward as DVD, which dispensed with the analog video.

We obviously are looking at the image quite differently. Certainly some DVDs
look better than some of their laser disc counterparts but for the most part
I
find the opposite to be true. i also find the best laser discs to be
substantially better than anything on DVD.

This may be your experience. But to me DVD, has buried LD, and is now only
surpassed by HDTV.

DVDs have some serious flaws. I
live
with them because it is all we have but it is not a good picture IMO unless
you
are watching cel animation without shading.

Tom said

LPs never "gave way" to cassette.

I said

Complete nonsense. In less than 10 years cassettes went from non-existance
in
the market to total domination of the market.

Tom said

My memory may be wrong but I thought that it took nearly 10 years from
introduction before cassette captured half the market.

It had 80% or there abouts by the eighties.

By the "80s" leaves quite a time span.

Commercial releases on cassette
hit
the market in the mid to late seventees if I remember correctly.

Mid-70s and they worked themselves in relatively slowly. CD arrived in 1984 and
within 3 years had captured major market share.

It took CDs
about the same amount of time to overtake cassettes. The LP gave way to the
cassette and the cassette gave way to the CD. The LP just happened to stick
around while the cassette died.

Not so; cassette died. But LPs didn't stick around. It just matured into the
'residual use' phase of the technology life cycle. Which is where it remains.

Tom said

OTOH CD dominated LP in
a comparatively short time.

So? Cassettes were already totally dominating the market. Cassettes overtook
8-track pretty quickly too.

Hogwash; 8-track never was a major market player. Cassette was an alternative
analog tape format that was better performing and more convenient and backed by
a company that wasn't about to let it die UNTIL they had a suitable replacement
format (DC.)

Tom said

IMO analog formats like VHS, Cassette and LP co-existed quite nicely just as
CD/DVD coexist now. SACD and DVD-A are a "laser-like" format, a specialty
market that will keep "going" as long as manufacturers will continue
supporting
it. Like Sony did with Beta and Pioneer did with Laser Disc. My gratitude to
both of them.

You say this as though LPs have gone away. They continue to enjoy a niche
market that has grown substantially over the past 10 years.

I said

Something like an 80% market
share. The LP certainly did give way to the cassette. The fact that both
are
analog couldn't be less relevant to my claim.

Tom said

Actually it is relevant. The 'real' technology replacement was analog by
digital.

We ween't talking about "technology"we were talking formats. So it was quite
irrelevant dispite your attempt to change the issue.

No it's your attempt to ignore the basic change agent. Digital repleces analog
because at the consumer level it offers better sound quality in a more
convenient, more robust package.

Tom said

We have also overlooked the digital format wars. Remember DCC and
Minidisc?

Vaguely.

Well why not? DAT pounded the pants off both because it was more suited to the
semi-pro market than those attempted consumer formats. Minidisc still is alive
(barely) but to Sony's credit they haven't stranded their customers and are
still working to find a "niche" for that format. maybe they should call it
digital LP-tape :-)

Tom said

How about DAT; it replaced open-reel analog tape in an eye-blink for
both studio and on-location recordings.

Balony!

Help me out here. I was under the impression that I know of a 'thriving'
professional electronics repair business that just folded about 2 year after
the introduction of DAT, simply because companies like OTARI just "went away."

I also know hard-core jazz fans, the kind that attended jazz festivals and
recorded the shows, who quickly abandoned open reel as soon as DAT was
available. Indeed, they still record the music on DAT and transcribe it to CD-R
at home.

Do you know of any companies that still record on analog open reel? Do you know
of any serious companies that still captured sound on analog open reel in the
late 90s?

I'm now listening to a great recording made in 1990 by (IMO the world's best
recording engineer) John Eargle captured "direct to two-track digital."

You might argue with some reason that DAT, as a format, may not have driven
open-reel out of the pro business all by itself but digital recording certainly
did; just DAT did for on-location recording.

I said

It is more convenient. Without that it wouldn't have made such an impact. I
agree that it was an improvement in quality over cassettes.

Tom said

And a major, major improvement over LP.

IYO. Not in mine.

Each to his own. But I think the individual recording/musical event is what
makes the magic. But, the more transparent recording AND PLAYBACK formats
enhance that experience. And, IMO, laser disc was a nice reprieve, but now just
a nice memory of how good analog became in it's dying days.

Tom said

If it were primarily convenience than
cassette would still be a major player.

No. CDs are better in quality than cassettes. They are also much more rugged
so
they are a tad bit more convenient

CDs are no more 'rugged' than cassettes except in an "archival" sense. And with
disc access they are "far more" convenient. No comparison.

Even with LPs, with disc access but no "remote controls" the cd format is not
only more reliable, better sounding (even if you restrict comparison to
background noise and odd-noise issues and speed variations), more robust (I
once bought,returned 4 copies of an LP album with significant warps and finally
decided that IF I wanted to enjoy this music I'd have to live with the warp)
and just plain better.

That some folks will argue with my assessment just isn't my problem.