Oppo Digital Ceasing development of new products

[silberdrachi]

Even funnier when you talk about something like live sports which are still being mostly broadcast in 720p and only in 60fps on some stations. Something that could be argued that would have a dramatic improvement in watch-ability hasnt been updated in years. The difference between watching hockey in 24/30fps and 60fps is quite stark. But the cost to update all of those systems from the cameras, to all the editing equipment, and the broadcast equipment is just too extreme. I honestly think this is a decent part of why people are dragging their feet on the adoption of 4k, because for a significant portion of people live sports is a core part of their watching and it would show no improvement.

 

So not only is 4k not that great for TV and Movies (either broadcast or dvd/br) because most of it is upscale content, some of the content that can benefit most from it isnt being embraced. It almost seems like we have hit that limit of the end users caring about quality for cost. That over time they might upgrade when their current systems stop working but no one sees a drive to upgrade. And because of that no one in the broadcast world wants to spend a massive amount of money to "fix" something that only a tiny portion of people will appreciate.

[AshleyAshes]

 

21 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

I guess it was bound to happen as services like Netflix etc take over from Blu-Ray / DVD. 

Yup.  My own SmartTV has Amazon, Netflix, YouTube and Funimation all built in, just add wifi.  It has other streaming services I've never even heard of too.

 

But also the whole 'Home Video Ownership' thing is a recent and brief craze.  While you could always buy some movies on VHS and such the costs were prohibitive.  It wasn't untill mass adoption of DVD did you see not just movies but TV series coming to the home in reasonably affordable packages.  Sure there were always some exceptions, plenty of families had Disney movies on the shelves but it's not like you could have every episode of M*A*S*H in your livingroom till the 2000s.

 

And streaming just has consumer appeal, it's immediate instant access and it can even offer AI curated lists of suggested series.  Of course there is always the downside; Streaming services can lose licenses.  If you buy something on disc you own it forever (Or until the disc suffers physical destruction) and this has been the main motivation for my growing collection of anime discs; It's an archive of my most favourite things that I want to have on disc that can last on the shelf for 50 yearss.

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

45 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

No, it's not.  this is not a chicken and the egg issue.  It's a business.  You don't spend the money to MASSIVELY invest in resources and then offer usage of those additional resources for FREE.  Asking for 4K does not SUDDENLY become the same cost as 1080p, because it will ALWAYS use more resources.  A render farm who would be spending resources on 4K renders could be doing 4 times as many 1080p jobs in the same amount of time.  So weather a VFX company needs to buy more resources or already has those resources on hand, they are always going to CHARGE for those resources.  This is film and TV, it's not a charity.

I understand it's a business. However, the way I see it, if an industry wants to push something fancy along, then they need to be willing to take a hit on the initial investment even if that means operating in the red for an initial period. If they're just giving last generation's product with a new polish because they care about maximizing profits, then there's no point in getting the latest and greatest. But considering most people don't seem to care, then perhaps this is perfectly adequate.

 

Anyway, I ask the question because I look at Amazon. They haven't had a profit of $1 billion in a given quarter until about last year. But their stocks kept growing over time. How does a company that hasn't made $1B profit in a quarter for most of its life attain a market cap that's within spitting distance of Microsoft?

Edited April 3, 2018 by M.Yurizaki

[AshleyAshes]

3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Anyway, I ask the question because I look at Amazon. They haven't had a profit of $1 billion in a given quarter until about last year. But their stocks kept growing over time. How does a company that hasn't made $1B in a quarter for most of its life attain a market cap that's within spitting distance of Microsoft?

Amazon is it's own thing.  It's one of t hose huge publicly traded things that have investment dollars CONSTANTLY dumped in.  You see the same with Uber and others.   Honestly I won't even PRETEND to understand how it works in the long game.  But most VFX companies are not even remotely comparable to such operations.  They run often less than a hundred to a few hundred employees at most.  Also, very, very, very few are even publicly traded companies.  I can only think of Pixar, and really that's an ANIMATION company, that is publicly traded.  Though I wouldn't be surprised if a small handful of others are as well.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

 

Yup.  My own SmartTV has Amazon, Netflix, YouTube and Funimation all built in, just add wifi.  It has other streaming services I've never even heard of too.

 

But also the whole 'Home Video Ownership' thing is a recent and brief craze.  While you could always buy some movies on VHS and such the costs were prohibitive.  It wasn't untill mass adoption of DVD did you see not just movies but TV series coming to the home in reasonably affordable packages.  Sure there were always some exceptions, plenty of families had Disney movies on the shelves but it's not like you could have every episode of M*A*S*H in your livingroom till the 2000s.

 

And streaming just has consumer appeal, it's immediate instant access and it can even offer AI curated lists of suggested series.  Of course there is always the downside; Streaming services can lose licenses.  If you buy something on disc you own it forever (Or until the disc suffers physical destruction) and this has been the main motivation for my growing collection of anime discs; It's an archive of my most favourite things that I want to have on disc that can last on the shelf for 50 yearss.

 

<snipping out your anime DVD collection, I don't actually need to for the post but I don't understand or like anime. maybe in future posts I will try to keep anime pictures and I should watch them I suppose because they are quite popular but certainly not for me.>

It is a large problem however that such services often don't have what I like. Piracy is also a common cause of the downfall, where you can download the same quality videos now as streaming services. Unlimited bandwidth and fibre have had a large part to play. 

 

I still have a lot of DVDs and Blu-Ray, but I won't end up buying anymore as its just simple maths for me: 12.99 p/m for Netflix or even more for just one Blu-Ray. 

[NickTheMajin]

On 4/3/2018 at 5:05 PM, RorzNZ said:

It is a large problem however that such services often don't have what I like. Piracy is also a common cause of the downfall, where you can download the same quality videos now as streaming services. Unlimited bandwidth and fibre have had a large part to play. 

 

I still have a lot of DVDs and Blu-Ray, but I won't end up buying anymore as its just simple maths for me: 12.99 p/m for Netflix or even more for just one Blu-Ray. 

 

I buy 4k bluray discs and bought an Oppo because I want the best possible quality. Netflix is there, piracy is also there, but at the end of the day the physical disc will look and sound better. Even regular blurays, if you have an Oppo, look tremendous because of its upscaler. None of that is available on a pirated .mp4 or on netflix. I blow people's minds when they come over to watch Game of Thrones and I have the physical discs and my oppo. It looks so much better than it does on the HBO app its insane. But it seems like more and more people are sacrificing quality for convenience and price. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, NickTheMajin said:

I buy 4k bluray discs and bought an Oppo because I want the best possible quality. Netflix is there, piracy is also there, but at the end of the day the physical disc will look and sound better. Even regular blurays, if you have an Oppo, look tremendous because of its upscaler. None of that is available on a pirated .mp4 or on netflix. I blow people's minds when they come over to watch Game of Thrones and I have the physical discs and my oppo. It looks so much better than it does on the HBO app its insane. But it seems like more and more people are sacrificing quality for convenience and price. 

Some people are happy to listen to music through the speaker phone on their mobile, distorting and clipping to death. Yuck.

 

Any transcoding no matter how good and how close to original pushes the colours off and gives that white tint over the whole image, you don't ever get that on a real DVD or bluray. It's impossible to avoid, so if anyone actually cares about quality original source is required.

 

I have the older Oppo BDP-105D paired with a Pansonic AE5000 projecting on to a 92" 2.35:1 screen with moving side shutters to move it to 1.85:1, forget the brand but that screen was also $$$ but totally worth it. Personally I much prefer the look of a projected image over a OLED/LCD screen even though on a technical basis an OLED is sharper, better response time and black levels..