FrankJH said:
Crystals of any decent size havent even worked in the labs yet to my knowledge, so how long do you reckon before they are manufacturable to the size required? At least keep with a technology thats reasonably available now - we dont even know if crystals will be available for the NEXT format change let alone this one!!!!
Crystals is just an example, it might be a biological based medium, rats brains or something
FrankJH said:
Why are you only considering a 3hr film, there is a lot more stuff than just films that people want to store and purchase etc etc?
Most films are around 90 minutes, it is about as long as most people want to sit infront of the TV. When you talk about storage we come back to how optical media is a pretty weak solution for data storage, a HDD is preferable to many people and I am sure offline storage etc will be more oft used before long.
As I said before I don't think the film length or the 1080p aspect will use anything like 50gb so they aren't really reasons for huge disc space. However there are some more likely reasons for large storage. One is that the new LCDs can produce a broader range of colours than the old RGB formats but as yet these aren't really used properly. So we might see more colour channels if you like, in a similar way to which inkjet printers are often now 6 colour.
Another is 3d images / holographic television. Both of these are a way off, the latter further than the former although some very good 3d images can be produced already. Not in a living room friendly way mind.
FrankJH said:
Just because the premium stufff right now is 1080p - doesnt mean the media cant be capable of the next level up does it? The original film is better quality that 1080p so why not convert to as high a transfer quality as possible?
It comes to a cost/effort to worth ratio. Most people are happy with MP3 despite the lower bandwidth to CD because they can't tell the difference. TV will get to the point where no-one short of Steve Austin will be able to tell. Already many people are saying that the difference between 1080p and 720p is negligible and some can't really tell if there's a difference at all. So why make 1280p for example if you and I can't actually tell the difference? Only a spec junkie will buy it.
FrankJH said:
Of course something willl come along within our life ttimes- maybe two or three format changes after this one, but we can only move up as much as we can manufacture today - so why not give ourselves as much leeway by investing in the size available right now rather than having to change AGAIN when the capacity of HD-DVD runs out
Because increasing the size costs money in research and development and if it has no actual return it is not worth the expense. It is like buying far more food than you could eat and watching it gradually go off. R&D is expensive, it needs a return in the short term or it doesn't get done.
