Reason for those dvd’s not looking better than vhs’ is that they were made from same old low quality ntsc video master. Original camera negative film has been “HD” for last 60 years. If the camera negatives have been archived properly and film is restored properly. 60 years old movie will look as good as new.

OK. I stand corrected.

The quality of the transfer does indeed appear to be the main limiting factor. I erred in not recognizing this fact. FWIW, here’s a Web page I came across that nicely summarizes the issues.

Still, if a good transfer of an older movie does not exist, then I assume there will be little added value to an HD version of the movie.

In any case, this point (while worth getting correct) has little bearing on the main points of the blog entry.

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/06/12.10.shtml

All the stuff that Ted is talking about will NEVER happen. Studios will never get it together enough to come up with a universal, compelling rental scheme, and our broadband (in the U.S. at least) will never reach the necessary penetration or speeds to make it worth while.

We are at the very least years…YEARS…away from any of the myriad of downloadable film strategies offering a comprehensive catalog and drm strategy that consumers will be willing to live with.

Downloadable HD is literally a pipe dream, and the pipes are too small, and fair use of the pipes is in dispute. Blu-ray is a physical reality, a paradigm that people are already used to, and it comes with all the extras and packaging that people want to let them know that they own something.

I’ve got my PS3, and I’m sure a bunch of other people will be joining me real soon.

What do you mean no HD versions of older films exist?.

It can be done, as you say, but it won’t result in the stunning quality that you see with modern movies. There are old movies that don’t look much improved in standard DVD vs. VHS. From what I understand, they won’t look that much better, if at all, in HD. That’s all I meant. I revised the text slightly to clarify this. Thanks.
- Ted

Reason for those dvd’s not looking better than vhs’ is that they were made from same old low quality ntsc video master. Original camera negative film has been “HD” for last 60 years. If the camera negatives have been archived properly and film is restored properly. 60 years old movie will look as good as new. Have you seen eg. Vertigo’s restored version?

Update: After writing this, I noticed that David Pogue also posted a column today on this topic. He takes a much more pessimistic view of downloaded movies. I don’t disagree with his assessment. However, he is talking about the present. I am talking about a hopeful future.

Oh, dear. I found David Pogue’s arguments very persuasive, especially once I followed his link to the comparison shots of HD Apple TV, Blu-ray, et al. Check them out for yourselves.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/apple-tv-20-vs-blu-ray-dvd-hd-cable-the-comparison/

I, like Ted, will not even consider upgrading to a blue-ray player until the price of the equipment drops to less than an $100 and the price of the disks drops below $20. If neither of those happen, I might never enter the blue-ray world. Currently, the thought of missing the blue-ray revolution does NOT fill me with dread, but instead gives me the feeling of having found many hours and countless hundreds of dollars to spend actually having a life…

This is assuming, as well, that you have an AppleTV and don’t want to watch movies at your friends’ houses.

The TedFlix idea of watching watching any movie is very compelling, but I’d never pay $30/mo unless I was otherwise paying that much to buy new DVDs, which I’m not by a longshot. Some people are, however, and it would work for them.