From: D. M. 'S. M. <ros...@gm...> - 2006-02-24 15:44:15
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On Friday 24 February 2006 9:52 am, Chris Cannam wrote: > I listed five serious advantages, one of which really counted as three. > DVD has no _usability_ advantages at all, except for the smaller size of > the box and the ability to seek to certain predefined positions quickly. With the tradeoff that you often can't "fast forward" past the damn previews and copyright notices and whatlike, because they're locked out from being skipped, and getting a disc to play often involves sitting through multiple tedious cutsie graphical segues (which reveal key parts of the movie before you've even had a chance to watch the damn thing) before anything interesting is possible. > It all really depends on whether you think the better picture and sound > quality and shinier media are worthwhile tradeoffs for the worse usability. Picture quality being "better" is debatable too. It's better when it works well, but a VCR makes a little static, while DVDs have disturbing brightness fluctuations, random, amorphic green patches, and occasionally stutter or stall outright. Bad patches on tape tend to be short and tolerable. Video tapes were the standard for 20 years. DVDs are already slated for replacement with the Next Big Thing, and surely the Next Big Thing After That will come soon after. It's to the point where it doesn't make any damn sense to invest in this kind of technology at all anymore. I'm with you, Chris. I really don't like DVDs much. The only really cool thing about DVDs from my perspective is that many of them come with audio tracks in other languages. That would be cool if anyone in my family would ever let me get away with changing the language, which they never do. -- D. Michael 'Silvan' McIntyre ---- Silvan <dmm...@us...> Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621 Author of Rosegarden Companion http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/ |