Just as DVD meant a five to ten time increase in storage capacity compared to CD, Blu-ray Disc will increase DVD capacity by five to ten times. This is due, among other reasons, to the usage of a blue instead of a red laser and improved lens specifications, allowing for a much smaller focus laser beam which enables the recording of much smaller and higher density pits on the disc.
Due to the fact that the data layer on a Blu-ray Disc is placed much "closer" to the laser lens than in DVD (or even the HD-DVD proposal), there is less distortion resulting in significantly improved tolerances. Hence, more precision and ultra high storage densities are made possible.
As a result of Blu-ray Disc being manufactured as a single substrate disc comparable to CD, but unlike DVD (and the HD-DVD proposal), the manufacturing process does not involve the bonding of two substrates, resulting in less production material, a shorter production time and hence lower production costs per disc.
Blu-ray Disc has the same physical characteristics as DVD and CD, and like its predecessors, it also does not require a cartridge. This makes it possible to create Blu-ray Disc products that are backwards compatible with CD and DVD, allowing for a seamless transition to the new technology. Likewise, the technology is perfectly suitable for integration in small form factor equipment, like notebook computers.
Previously, we've discussed about how long it would last before DVD and even BD disc disappear in our movie/video viewing experiences. As more and more US consumers adopt subscription streaming supported by Netflix or other services, the fact is that the majority feature-length movies are still rented on physical discs-DVD/BD or others.
As in streaming movie fields, Netflix actually surged past Apple in 2011 to be the largest US online movie service, but which still did change DVD and BD discs’ leading place in movie rental domain, when Netflix tried to separate its physical DVD rental from online services.
According to the leading market research company, The NPD Group, people are renting fewer movies as in the transition period of shifting from physical DVD/BD disc to streaming movies.
From the data of NDP’s report, we can see that DVDs and Blu-ray discs from Kiosks, brick-and-mortar retailers and Netflix Movies by mail reached 62% of the movie rental orders for the first half year of 2012. The rest amount of 32% was shared by subscription streaming, pay TV VOD, and Internet VOD. But the overlook picture of the movie rental is: figure of physical discs has declined by 17% while digital streaming movies increased by 5% during the past few years as a whole market trend.
Comments from expert (Russ Crupnick, senior vice president, industry analysis for The NPD Group.): “The movie-rental market is clearly undergoing a sea change, as consumers become better equipped to access on-demand and streamed movies and are more comfortable with available delivery options,” Crupnick said. “Even so renting physical discs from now-ubiquitous kiosks in grocery stores and other venues have taken the lead as the most popular movie-rental method in the U.S.”
So we can tell, to some extent, physical discs of DVD and BD would be
with us for the next few years probably. But as the analysts showed us,
DVD and BD are losing their priority gradually. No matter what formats
or ways that would be, good news is that it’s becoming more and more
convenient. As users, just enjoy your movies. DVD collectors or BD
lovers, what do you say?
Before DVDs, if that’ll ever come the day, leave us, there are still so many movie lovers addicted to DVDs. They prefer to enjoy movies with DVDs at home in the living room. But chances are that sometimes after searching all day for a classic DVD you’ve collected and inserting it, when you realize that it’s damaged.
That’s way annoying, isn’t it? Although news came from Disney that: users can get new copies from without requiring customers to purchase a new one (but not free: DVD for $6.95 each and Blu-ray $8.95). They only referred to Disney DVD movies. The following software would help you backup your DVDs as digital copies.
Super
Super-simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer is a freeware for video converting provided by FFmpeg, MEncode, MPlayer, etc. With it you can convert DVD to many video formats (and .iso images) you need for your portable devices or for other purposes. In addition, it could merge several videos into one. It is said Super even accept custom option for users.
Its operating interface seems to be kind of complicated, which may make it difficult for some users for the first time. Till now, it only supports Windows OS. The biggest flaw I personally think is there’s even no way of getting support and help: email, telephone or live chat, nothing works.
Format Factory
This is an awesome free format converting tool: videos, audios and images are all supported. Formats can be easily converted with it with a nice icon-driven interface, including DVD to other formats. Besides, it could be applied for batch media conversion.
It's a pity that there’s only Windows version available at the moment.
Well, these two are not professional (specialized) in DVD ripping, though, they work well. Too many other tools for DVD to be listed here, I’ll introduce some other ones, maybe some of the best paid ones from my personal experience, just for your references.
DVD seemed to lose its favor over the years; more and more people tend to watch movies online. If for better effects, they usually would prefer Blu-ray movies rather than DVD ones. So people would wonder if DVD would be replaced? Just the way it took the place of VCD years earlier.
With great improvements in BD technology, digital HD and 3D demand (for better UE), BD’s march to people’s life becomes possible and needful. Back to the BDA’s reference in 2011, BD showed its great possibility to the world’s media industry.
Will DVD be displaced then?
Pros: It’s just a matter of time; DVDs will be taken over by BD, sooner or later. It’s how technology moves: isn’t DVD the replacement of VHS, VCD back to the late 1990s’, to some extent? BD could provide better visual effects, audio and video quality. BD also possesses larger storage volume of 25 GB which is about 10 times that of DVD. HD TV and 3D effects requirement are acting as accelerator for BD’s promotion. That’s to say, BD can meet people’s needs for visual enjoyment to the most. And more and more laptops even do not contain a DVD driver which makes it impossible to view DVD movies in laptop for some.
Cons: In a general way, BD does takes too much to afford for many people, far more than that of DVD. Both the disc and the player, which would be a real headache, stop it’s becoming widely-used. Worse still, there are always poor pirated so-called BD disc (could be cheap as DVD or even cheaper) would cause bad impact to BD. There is lacking of BD movie source, many blockbusters would not be available these days. Besides, HD online video players, HD TV, are also taking part into this video battle to win its own place. Online 3D and HD videos are becoming easier and easier to obtain.
Since its launch back to 2000, Blu-ray took 3 years for the original model. By the year of 2006, commercial applications began, just for 1 and half years’ time, it beat HD DVD. According to the research data of In-Stat, the selling share in North American of BD and DVD was 38% and 62% separately. Japan, as the birthplace of BD still remains as the biggest consuming market. And till the end of 2010, the number of users from the large video rental company that have chosen BD has reached up to 15%. In-Stat predicted that 2015 would be DVD’s last year when BD rules the markets.
The fact is that newly-risen technology would like to be subtitle to the older one. Or may there exits some tech. else of even more astonishing features than BD? To me, I would most likely to choose affordable ones, and convenient ones. Probably streaming media, online movies would be my personal choices; all I need is just network and laptop. What do you say?
Many analysts believe that DVDs are doomed to be disappear, although once as a main media of movies/videos, with the development of digital version movies uploaded online, there's little room for its existence. Worse still, the new risen Blu-ray HD movies also rub salt to the wounds. Sooner or later, DVD will leave us.
DVD collectors may feel disappointed about such result, while the sell of DVDs or the years were going down at a rapid speed. Not just from the stress of Blu-ray, some of the newly-released laptops even do not have a built-in DVD driver which makes it harder for DVD's survival.
These somehow force people to watch videos or movies through the modern way-online viewing, what we call streaming media. Continuous, real-time and temporality, these three outstanding features out weight some limitations of streaming media. Viewing online, you need no driver, no waiting, even portable devices like cell phone, pad, or pc, which do have no DVD driver.
One biggest problem of watching through streaming media online is that you have to pay for it. And it allows you to watch it in 24 hours only, otherwise you have to repay it. Besides, it actually costs almost the same as a DVD.
One more thing, people would like the background story that may be embedded at the end of the DVD movies, some even include another end of the movies. After all, you have to wait for months or maybe longer for the movies set online for people to pay and watch.
To some extent, the statistics below could tell something (image from MacRumours)
Personally, I'll choose online movies mostly, however, I prefer the way DVD is, maybe as a collector's choice. It can store your data, and you don't have to worry about the network, or the limitation of certain data stream. What do you think? Will DVDs still be alive years later? Or will BD die as well?
Video editing tools could always beautify your personal videos before you uploading to websites for sharing. There are many of these programs that can be found, such as YouTube video editor, iMovie, etc., as have mentioned before. This article would introduce some other free video editors for readers’ reference.
1. YouTube video editor
As the largest video sharing hub in the world, YouTube offer users an easy way to edit the videos they’ve uploaded to the YouTube website. Some of the basic video editing effects and also some new features exist as face blurring, 3D, etc. YouTube Video editor absolutely make your video editing and sharing effortlessly.
2. Windows Movie Maker
This free movie maker for editing videos by Microsoft has been discussed before in my previous blogs. In windows XP OS PC, you can make your own videos, and then edit the picture, audio effects for better viewing. Microsoft has many add-ons for this movie maker. Updates are available in the official Microsoft website.
3.Wax
Wax is definitely a good choice as a high performance and flexible video compositing and special effects software, whether for personal use or for business use. You can compose your dream video sequence with ease by using this tool. Being used as either a stand-alone video editor or as a plugin to other video editor, it would always perform well. It supports many video formats and also can create 3D viewing mode. It’s perfect for both beginners and professional users.
4. Zwei-Stein
Well, this is free for personal use. With a technical interface, this full featured editor can edit up to 256 video, audio, and still image clips, each with up to 64 effects chained serially. Cropping, panning and custom effects are easy with automatic key frames.
5.ZS4 Video Editor
As the new incarnation of Zwei-Stein, ZS4 Video Editor is advanced video editng and compositing toll with over 150 built-in video effects.
Many other video editors like Avid FreeDV which supports both Mac and Windows. This solid video software provides basic video and audio editing capabilities, as well as up to two streams of real-time effects. But it is not available any more.
Maybe you can choose one that is suitable for your video sharing needs. Although people do think that free ware like Windows movie maker just change videos slightly. After all, they’ll make your videos full of fun with some basic effects for free.
As a graphics editing program developed by Adobe Systems, Adobe Photoshop is mostly regarded as the most wonderful image editing tool ever. Cropping, slicing, drawing, typing and many other editing functions are all available in this software for image. However, Adobe Photoshop can also be a video editing tool for you to do some basic editing effects as well-help you create and enhance visual effects and motion graphics, or to prepare still images and text for inclusion in video projects.
As to the video editing function, it is an extend edition to Adobe CS5/6, which is comprehensive and efficient with a broad compatibility of video file formats such as MOV, AVI, FLC, MPEG-4, and FLV formats and easy workflow. Video layers can be easily modified, with features like adding text and the animating singe images, by using the simple combination of keys. Besides, 2D elements of an artwork could be turned into 3D version without efforts. In this Adobe CS5 extended edition, extrusions of texts, an available library of materials for three-dimensional and even wrapping two-dimensional images around 3D geometry are all possible.
It is still a shot to people to see standard and extended versions of Photoshop version5/6 have video import and editing capabilities, with a video editing timeline in it. It is quite easy to import videos into Adobe Photoshop, similarly to adding images into Photoshop. Importing the videos from your devices to a new Photoshop document, and then going back to the import dialog to select the second option for any subsequent videos, which is simple, one video each time, is all you need to do for video input.
With this video editing function, your videos can be adjusted in a better way. Color and exposure adjustments, as well as layers, work just how you’d expect them to. If you like, you can add borders, textures, filters, and even audio tracks to your video according to your preference. Once the editing is finished, you’re presented with just a handful exporting options. It's no Premier, Final Cut, or even iMovie, but Photoshop aficionados will feel right at home inside the new video editor.
22 years have passed since 1990; Adobe Photoshop has always been the best image editing tool around the world. The 6 versions during the past two decades also show how Photoshop improves, with more features & functions added and modified each time. Video editing certainly outstands among these astonishing developments.
Besides, the following video from YouTube is for your reference(there are more in YouTube if you're interested):
