The Guy On the Hill: Why Hollywood Doesn't Want You
to Have HD DVD
There's a minor point we should have addressed on the
subject of HDTV: the relationship between HDTV and DVD. Presently, DVD is the
highest-resolution video-storage format we consumers have available to us. But when the
DVD standard was finalized, no standard had been developed for HDTV, so DVD was designed
to be compatible with existing televisions. It incorporated MPEG-2 video resolution and
frame rates because those are resident in the NTSC and PAL/SECAM video formats. DVD does
use HDTV's 16:9 aspect ratio and Dolby Digital audio format.
In the US, HDTV is linked to the ATSC DTV format. ATSC sets
two definitions for digital television: one for standard definition (SD), which is either
640 lines by 480 lines or 704 lines by 480 lines at 24p, 30p, 60p, or 60i; and the other
for high definition (HD), which is defined as 1280 lines by 720 lines at 24p, 20p, or 60p,
or 1920 lines by 1080 lines at 24p, 30p, or 60i. (To cut through all the jargon, 24p means
24 progressive frames per second and 60i means 60 interlaced fields per second --
sometimes stated as 30 frames per second.)
DVD's specification more or less encompasses ATSC's SD
spec, except for 60p. The next generation of DVD players will probably output
digital-video signals from existing discs in the SDTV formats. However, the HD formats
have almost three (2.7 to be exact) or six times the resolution of DVD, and, at 60p, use
twice the frame rate. That means that DVD doesn't even come close to the resolution that
HDTV is capable of providing.
Does this mean that even higher-resolution video-playback
formats are in the works? You betcha!
In late February, nine companies (Hitachi, Ltd., LAG
Electronics, Inc., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Pioneer Corporation, Royal
Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation,
and Thomson Multimedia) established the basic specifications for a large-capacity,
optical-disc video-recording format called "Blu-ray Disc." The Blu-ray Disc,
through the use of a 405nm blue-violet laser, can store up to 27GB of data on a
single-sided, single-layer, 12cm CD/DVD-sized disc. At the moment, the Blu-ray disc is the
leading contender for the future generation of HD DVD formats.
But there's a huge stumbling block ahead of its
establishment as a viable format: Hollywood. The studios will fight any format they feel
doesn't offer them protection from rampant digital copying. The film industry has seen the
record industry get its knickers in a twist over "runaway" consumer copying of
CDs, and it's scared to death that digital storage for movies leaves Hollywood vulnerable,
too.
This reasoning ignores a few crucial points, however. In
all the discussions, two words get tossed about indiscriminately: copying and piracy.
These are very different activities.
Copying, by and large, is done by individuals. Take me, for
instance -- I have a huge CD collection, several computers, and two portable MP3 players
my wife and I use to "jam" the noise our gym inflicts on its customers. So I
regularly transfer CDs to one or the other of my computers and rip new programs we can
then take to the gym. This is well within established "fair use" of the discs I
have bought and paid for. Does this harm the record industry? Not a bit -- in fact, I've
been known to buy discs I wouldn't normally purchase, just so I can listen to their music
while working out.
"Ah," I hear you saying, "that's different.
The record industry is really just concerned about all those file-sharing sites such as
Napster and Kazaa." Yes, but I'm not so sure that even file sharing qualifies as
piracy. It might be just a coincidence, but if you check the industry's books over the
last few years, you'll find it experienced its most profitable months when Napster was at
its peak. Once the full-scale assault on file sharing went into effect, record company
profits went in the dumper. One explanation might be that file sharing actually promoted
record sales. People used Napster to browse, and when they found something they liked,
they bought it. Or, if you find that far-fetched, certainly the most active music buyers
among the Napster users did. In any case, no matter where you stand on this argument, it
would be difficult to equate each download with a lost sale.
So what about real piracy? There's no question it exists:
Millions of pirated CDs, DVDs, and other digital copies are available around the world.
But here's something that is hardly ever addressed in discussions about actual piracy:
Pirates don't care about sound or video quality. Do you think that all those Britney
Spears CDs being marketed in Sri Lanka are bit-for-bit copies of the original? Hah,
I say, and hah again. Chances are, they were recorded off a cassette (or at least
off of the analog outputs of a CD player).
I was sitting in my neighbrhood bar last Friday night,
talking to a few friends, when we were approached by a young woman towing a suitcase.
"CDs? DVDs?"
"What have you got?" I have no idea why I asked.
"Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, Episode
II . . ."
"Let me see." Sure enough, she had DVDs with
crudely copied covers -- they looked like unprocessed anamorphically squeezed screen
captures. I realized I'd never seen a pirated video and -- strictly for research purposes,
mind you, and with the intention of purchasing tickets to the films in question -- I
bought Spider-Man and Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones for $10
each.
My companions were horrified -- one, a commissioning editor
at a magazine that purchases my work occasionally, warned me that his bosses wouldn't let
him bail me out of jail on the company credit card when the copyright police busted down
my door in the middle of the night.
Here's what I got: One disc (Episode II) wouldn't
play in my Arcam DV88 at all. I had to watch it on my laptop. It was -- of course --
filmed with a video camera in a theater and was a washed-out, low-contrast, frequently
underexposed version with an echoey, undifferentiated soundtrack. It was lower resolution
than the worst video reception I've ever had. Spider-Man was similar, although it
was actually better filmed (shades of Seinfeld!). It was even widescreen. Like the
other DVD, it was extremely low resolution and sounded like a bad DSP setting on a cheap
receiver -- and it had lots of audience response to the film's zingy one-liners.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining about the
quality of these instances of copyright theft. They were precisely what I had expected.
But this is what Hollywood fears? Yes, I have now seen both films. As a comic book
fanboy, I was charmed by Spider-Man and would now like to actually see the
movie. Clearly. And yes, I can't wait to buy the real DVD and get (oh please, oh
please) Sam Raimi's commentary track.
Episode II also lived up to my expectations, which
means I'm not anxious to see it on a big screen, other than to appease my sense of
obligation for having pirated it. But again, I feel as though I haven't actually seen the
movie -- not the one George Lucas made, at any rate. I feel like I've read the
novelization -- or, more accurately, the comic book.
I find the whole thing baffling. I could have seen either
movie for less than the pirated DVD cost me and I would have had a better time. And I'm
still going to buy the legitimate DVDs when they come out. I don't have a projection
system in order to watch blurred, washed out images that are barely intelligible. So who
actually buys this stuff?
The answer, I guess, is the guy who likes being first no
matter the cost, the guy who likes putting it to the system, and, probably, the guy in a
bar who is more prone to an impulse purchase than he might be in a video store. In other
words -- nobody who is already buying the legitimate commercial release.
It's like we're living in the '50s again. Back then, you'll
recall, Hollywood opposed the construction of drive-in theaters because people with
binoculars might get to see a movie for free. Of course, they wouldn't get the
sound and they wouldn't have the same experience they could have had for the price of
admission, but they could do it. And the type of person who would have been content to
watch an entirely soundtrack-free movie through binoculars would have never paid
his buck fifty to go in.
Later, of course, Hollywood opposed the VCR, claimimg it
would kill moviegoing as we know it. Instead, it created a whole new revenue stream for
the industry, one that keeps the bottom lines of many studios in black ink and multiple
commas.
So it's no surprise that now Hollywood, Inc. is holding up
HD DVD. The studios are, strangely, devoting all their attention to the dweebs who already
hold their product in such contempt that they'll destroy films just to obtain them outside
of legitimate channels. You'd think the studios would cater to the customer base they've
already won over and is willing -- no, make that eager -- to purchase its wares.
But no, they know we'll buy HD DVD when they give it to us. It's all the folks out
there who won't buy it that have their hearts all a-flutter -- the ones who might
steal copies, without regard to quality or morality.
I'm not going to waste my breath on those consumers -- in
my opinion, anyone willing to endure the crap I put up with to see my two pirated films is
already suffering enough. But I do wonder when the film industry will care as much about
its most enthusiastically loyal customers as it does about some schmoe who's sitting up on
a hill lip reading in the dark.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
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