For an informed view on connected entertainment in the UK & Ireland, visit Cue Entertainment
Blu-ray Discs have several appealing aspects
in that they are high-tech, convenient and portable. But most of all they offer
indisputably the finest quality in home entertainment, and the industry must
make that their calling card.
The format offers high definition pictures –
in stereoscopic 3D if you want it – with lossless sound that surpasses anything
that has gone before. When connected to an HD flat panel screen and a home
cinema sound system, the result is a front-row seat for a multi-million dollar
movie, high-class television show, rock concert or opera. Within the Blu-ray
Disc and player lies the potential for perfect reproduction of audio-visual
content – the ultimate in quality entertainment.
Those of us in the business tend to assume
that the quality of Blu-ray will sell itself but the consumer has a completely
different view of quality, one that is based more on the “look and feel” of
their smartphone or tablet device than on the ability to recreate a semblance
of reality in the living room.
The increased consumption of content on
hand-held devices means that the need for accurate reproduction of such
intangibles as “light and shade” and “dynamic range” has been overtaken by the
far more tangible concepts of “bright” and “loud”. Because live entertainment
is amplified and distorted, and theatrical lanterns and effects supplant
natural light, the point of reference has moved.
When life becomes a simulation of music videos
on TV, consumers expect delivery of this digitally recreated reality in a
format appropriate to daylight consumption on the move. They redefine quality
as this ability. It becomes the defining term for a responsive touch-screen
tablet that can make YouTube videos look good. It does not reside within a
series of boxes in the main viewing room at home; it follows the owner out into
the world.
Here too, lies the problem with S3D screens.
People in the trade argue that the best quality stereoscopic images for the
home come from Full HD 3DTV screens with active shutter glasses, as supplied by
manufacturers such as Panasonic and Samsung. With 1080p resolution, a wide
angle of view and minimal reduction in brightness, such screens are the perfect
complement for a 3D Blu-ray player.
Yet the biggest news in 3D at the recent IFA
consumer electronics show in Berlin was the glasses-free TV from Toshiba, a
quality brand if ever there was one. Here is a screen that has lower resolution
than other models, a narrow and sharply defined angle of view for a maximum of
nine viewers, and a price tag around €8,000 (£7,000) when it goes on sale in
Germany towards the end of the year. The market penetration figures will be
interesting.
A Nielsen survey of US households in November
last year revealed that one in five HDTV owners received standard definition
programmes only. Most of these viewers were very happy with the quality of
their picture.
Other studies, at least one of which was
conducted by Toshiba, have shown that at normal living room viewing distances,
the screen has to be 42-inches or larger for the average viewer to discern the
difference between SD and HD. Despite this fact, which is related to the acuity
of the eye, sales of smaller HD screens continue to do well and owners no doubt
appreciate the quality of the image.
There are trade-offs in almost every area of
home entertainment in both sound and pictures, and it is rash for any
manufacturer to assume that higher fidelity to the original will by itself
boost sales.
The quality of the sound from the Sony CD
Walkman – and to a lesser extent the MiniDisc Walkman – remains far better than
the format that all-but replaced it, the well-known mp3 player. Digital Audio
Broadcasting (DAB) is a poor shadow of the FM service that the government would
like to switch off, yet a 2007 Ofcom survey showed that 94% of respondents said
that DAB offered “much better”, “better” or “the same” sound quality as FM. The
issue is not one of performance, much more of poor and low-cost FM receiver
design.
Few of us hear the un-amplified human singing
voice or the natural sound of a musical instrument anymore. Since almost
nothing is acoustic, quality judgements depend on experiencing the electronic
and often pre-distorted sound. We ignore the natural dynamic range of the human
voice or the acoustic guitar; “play loud” is the order of the day.
The visual equivalent – the range of greys
between black and white – is similarly compressed on both broadcast and many
cinema screens. For most of us, our eyes no longer need to adjust to the dark,
street lighting pollutes the night air and “black as the night” has lost its
meaning. Similarly, “fade to black” has become “fade to grey” on many domestic
screens, which are judged more on their thickness than their colourimetry.
As with audio, there are genuinely
high-quality alternatives to lack-lustre flat-panel displays. Video
professionals admired the Sony OLED displays at the IBC exhibition. At their
best, these screens resemble a window in the wall with true blacks and a wider
range of colours than any LCD or Plasma display. Such quality comes at a price,
which gives rise to doubts about consumer acceptance of a screen that is both
smaller and more expensive than a conventional TV.
It is not that science and technology cannot
enhance present-day sound and picture performance, it is just that pound for
pound, investment in the quality of smartphones and tablets produces a better
return.
This brings us back to Blu-ray, the
near-perfect format that struggles to achieve its potential, despite creditable
performance in the US and Germany over the past 12 months. It offers quality
beyond satellite and terrestrial HD broadcasting and better sound and vision
than most broadband connections will ever allow but it must deliver more than
that in order to win the affections of the consumer.
Rovi Chief Evangelist Richard Bullwinkle
regards the connected Blu-ray player as the Trojan horse in the battle for the
main screen as it combines the visible and audible benefits of higher quality
with the attractions of over-the-top video from the internet.
He says, “One of the things I am most excited
by is the fact that so many manufacturers are building connected Blu-ray
players. If you are happy with your existing flat panel, you may not want to
change it just to go online. But maybe you would buy a connected Blu-ray player
and plug that into it. You get all these new features and it costs, what, £150?
It is a much nicer entry point for a lot of people.”
It is no accident that Blu-ray in the US and
Germany outperforms the UK: Best Buy and Media Markt in those countries are
among the stores that sell discs and hardware with equal enthusiasm.
If you
lead the audience to better quality entertainment in the home, perhaps you can
make them buy it.
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