DivX is not limited to anything. With today's 80min, 90min and 99min CD's, you can have DivX'es up to 900Mb in size. If you want DivX'es even larger than that, you can keep them on your HD, or burn them onto multiple CD's. There really is no end of options, which is something that you do not have with DVD. Once DVD-R becomes mainstream, you will be able to fit 3-4-5 movies onto a single disc. Try that with obsolete MPEG 2 technology! NOT!
well obviously, but according to your arguement for divx, we must stick with cds for usability/compatibility/cost. multiple cds is a step backwards in usability. your arguement hinges around downloading movies for free would i pay for 4 or however many divx movies on a dvdr? no! the companies arent going to sell you many movies for a fraction of the price of one, you aren't living in reality if you think thats the way things work.
With today's 80min, 90min and 99min CD's, you can have DivX'es up to 900Mb in size.
your arguement also hinges on usability. 90-99min cds are no where near standard, i bet some drives would have trouble reading those, let alone burn them. the cost of such media is also higher.
If you speak English, why do you need the Swedish or the Japanese soundtrack? You download what you need.
ok now we're back to downloading. adding extra burden to me the consumer, how nice. if i want to watch sub or dub anime, i want the choices there when i stick the disc in.
When all you have is a stereo setup (as 90% of all consumers do) this question is really irrelevant.
according to this arguement technology should never move ahead, let alone be pushed to move foward. you want to go back to a 2 tiered system where ppl can buy low quality video and are forced to pay ultra high prices for things like laser disc if they want quality. is sound quality from dvd higher for even stereo? perhaps. it might not be entirely noticable to some ppl if you encode your audio at a high enough rate 160-192kbs at the expense of your video quality.
giving the consumer more value for the dollar is always good. surround sound was expensive high end stuff when it first came out, but now complete systems can be had for a few hundred dollars. giving the consumer the ability to take advantage of new features when they eventually upgrade is a good thing. or would you rather they have to go back and buy the surround edition.
DVD stores subtitles in the same way that DivX does. As a separate file.
As for the number of players that support subtitles, there are more software players that support subtitled DivX than there are software DVD players. Unlike software DVD players, ALL DivX players are FREE.
well duh. but for divx the price is space, space which it can il afford. you might go back to your dvdr arguement but that defeats the usability and compatibility once again.
Unlike software DVD players, ALL DivX players are FREE.
so what? most people don't watch movies on their computers. how many people run home theater using software players? if you want high quality output/dacs etc you pay for hardware, its that simple. if you want your argument to revolve around the needs of the poor who need to steal then you might as well stick with vhs.
You watch them because you've paid good money for the DVD and you might as well not let the content go to waste
your opinion must be based on some lousy dvd experience because some behind the scene features or commentary ARE interesting and add to the understanding of the movie. there are other "featurettes" that are promotional videos thrown in for good measure. if you base special features on those, then you are simply ignorant. your arguement is that there can be NO good special features which is absurd. special features on dvds have only increased in quality as dvds have advanced. in fact i only watched the special features on my phantom menace dvd so far.
I go to the theater "just to watch a movie".
because it is impossible to provide extra content at the theater in any practical manner. you can't have ppl watching special features they pick at their leisure. not to mention that the material probably isn't complete at the time of the movies release. you go to the theater for the extra quality, the surround sound, the big screen. there have always been "the making of" suppliment books to movies you can buy at the book store, even before the advent of dvd. there have been articles in magazines giving extra information about features all before dvd. there are tv specials etc.
There is nothing wrong with wanting "just to watch a movie". DivX gives you just that. Nothing more, nothing less.
thats right, nothing more at all, only less.
i'm not saying mpeg4 is a useless technology, but for the purposes you are proposing it doesn't offer anything worth changing formats for. its not just about the compression format, its about the entire package. for all you know we'll have 150+GB discs for the next format and your griping over a couple megs will become very silly. we will have to see how mpeg 4 hdtv level stuff goes, and how much processing power will be required just to play it, let alone to make a consumer realtime recorder.