Re: HD DVD camp issues press release
Monday, January 7, 2008
Member since:
August 2007
August 2007
A little off topic but I think that Wii outsold every other console! HMMMMM Nintendo a company that got beat down buy Playstation and then had a major comeback......I wonder if there is another company that will comeback. Don't get me wrong I own and like Sony products and own an HD DVD player for now. This HD battle is just exhausting and confusing. I am at the point where I am saying who cares, are HD Movies really that important? Sure they are cool but these companies have wasted my time and money and I have nothing to show for it but a negative experience. Not Toshiba's fault but now consumers are going to say I am not buying any HD player right now because there is no clear option! So watch for the sales slump in Bluray's camp and sales increase for HD DVD as the players are bought up cheap.
[Post edited by Ironbull on Jan 7, 2008]
[Post edited by Ironbull on Jan 7, 2008]
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Member since:
September 2007
September 2007
Ironbull refers to the current situation as an "HD battle" and I couldn't agree more. Just about everyone refers to it as a "war". This, my friends, is a misleading metaphor. As others have pointed out before me, the real "war" is between the current "king" which is standard DVD and whatever
will replace it in the coming years. The current high profile skirmish is but a smaller "battle" within
the larger "war" which we know is coming, but hasn't been really "fought" yet. Many things can still happen. I'm an electronics enthusiast, who in 40 plus years has seen a lot of things come and go. If
something is powered by electricity, is shiny and has a light on it, I would probably like to buy it. For the record, I own a Toshiba A1, A2, Xbox 360 with HD DVD add-on, and an eighty gig Playstation 3.
Yesterday I sold my A3 to a cousin for $99.00 for use as an upconvert DVD player. I still keep around 2 LaserDisc players and a huge stack of LaserDiscs for sentimental reasons. Did I mention I was an enthusiast ?. I enjoy reading posts in this forum, but rarely post myself. I do however enjoy the critical analysis of lots of subjects and I find the current situation interesting. Sometimes you have to step back to be able to get enough perspective to see the big picture. I knew when I started buying HD movies what the risks were. HD DVD could fail, Blu-ray could fail and even the unthinkable - They could both fail. Consider this hypothetical scenario: In the near future Toshiba
finally gives up, let's say summer of '09. They announce they will begin producing Blu-ray drives.
Has Blu-ray won? Maybe. What factors would speed up the adoption of HD media by most average,
typical hard working Americans? Obviously it helps to have an HDTV to really enjoy your HD media.
When will HDTVs be the norm and not the exception for most people? Will the digital TV transition in
February 2009 be a factor? Who knows?
The following is taken from dtv2009.gov:
At midnight on February 17, 2009, all full-power television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting in analog and switch to 100% digital broadcasting. Digital broadcasting promises to provide a clearer picture and more programming options and will free up airwaves for use by emergency responders.
Does that mean that every American must own an HDTV by that date or risk not being able to watch TV? Of course not. But you will need a TV with a digital tuner, not necessarily an HDTV.
You can get a converter box and keep your old TV set with rabbit ears if you wish. Most likely though, a lot of people will use that date as an excuse to buy themselves a new TV. Most likely some kind of LCD flat panel or whatever is cheapest at the time. What will be the percentage of people by that time that have an HDTV? Who Knows?
How long will it take most people to give up their DVDs and start buying solely the last man standing Blu-ray? Who Knows. Will they be willing to replace their DVD collections with Blu-ray?
Will they see a benefit or value in doing so?
Think of the past. How Long did it take for us to transition from the clearly inferior VHS to the clearly superior DVD format? Even with only one format (DVD) as the only successor to VHS, and even when the differences and benefits were vast, it still took years for people to give up their beloved
"tapes" and buy the new-fangled "DVD". The DVD players had to get cheap. The movies available had to be numerous and cheap (like VHS). The rental stores better have lots of them and pretty much there had to be no place left to get VHS before the transition was finalized. I can still today go to Best Buy and buy a new machine that will play VHS (most likely it will have a DVD player attached to it.) When will Blu-ray enjoy a similar scenario? When do you think most people will give up their beloved DVDs ? ( it's been so good to us). How long will that take?
Is there a huge value or benefit that most people will see with Blu-ray.? Let's see: It's still the same size 5" disk. Higher resolution, looks good on my new TV. Hhhmmm what else?
Is there a huge difference for most people between an upconverted DVD and a Blu-ray movie?
What if by the end of 2009 some as yet unknown format, or service or technology comes forth?
One that is clearly more convenient, or smaller but with more capacity, or cheaper or just plain a better value? What if everyone goes to it in droves? Could Blu-ray even though they are the last man standing still lose? Yes. Stranger things have happened. Could they win? Yes, by the same logic, but technology is a fickle thing to predict.
What has been the successor of music CDs ? Something of even higher quality sound? SACD?
DVD Audio? Was anyone demanding those formats or were companies trying to push them on consumers?
What about MP3s? A much lower quality sound format than CD, but people seem to really like their Ipods. Why? Seems like people sometimes are willing to give up a lot of quality for a bit of convinience. If I was making a roadtrip back in '92 I had to take a small suitcase full of cds to listen to the songs I wanted. Now all that and more fit in the palm of my hand and I can't really hear the diffrence.
Is Blu-ray (higher resolution movies) something most people are demanding or will demand at some point, or is it something being pushed on the consumer who really didn't ask for it. Can most people see a difference?
So many questions. No one really knows the answers. The future is yet to be written despite what you or I or anyone else may think, or believe, or know, or think they know.
Falcon 01 asked, "why would Microsoft blow money supporting HD DVD.?"
One short answer could be, "To hurt Sony."
If I remember correctly, one of the main reasons Sony released the first Playstation was "To hurt
Nintendo." Sometimes these things become more personal than business. Sometimes there are long business strategies. Why would Microsoft blow millions with the first xbox getting into a new business that they had no previous experience in?
Short answer: To slow down Sony. Microsoft saw Sony as a threat. How successful was the Playstation 2? was that success eating into PC gaming? Great PC games always spurred the
buying of upgrades, hardware or even whole new computers. What if these PC gamers moved to Playstation consoles and abandoned PC games and the buying of computers, and hardware and upgrades. Would that hurt Microsoft whose bread and butter is selling windows on new PCs? Would it not make sense then to "get into the game" and try to slow down the highly successful
Playstation brand by providing it with some competition. Sony might get too big or rich for it's britches. Microsoft sees enemies under every rock and they have lots and lots and lots of money.
Personally I've decided to slow down my purchases of HD movies in either format for now, even though I can play either format. I'm going back to upscaling DVDs. I can get at least 2 new DVDs for the price of 1 HD movie (usually around $30.00). The movies being released now aren't that great anyway since the market is still so small. Has anyone see Bram Stoker's Dracula on Blu-ray? I got it for $10 at Fry's on one of those BOGO sales and I still feel ripped off. A lot of these are of marginal quality VS the regular DVD and they have the guts to charge us $25.00 retail. There's a tiny disclaimer on the "Extras" for Dracula: "Special features are not rated and may not be in High definition." Great. It does not say which of the 6 special features is or isn't HD. I assumed none of them were. Who has time to read reviews of every disk they want to buy?
I don't want to end up spending thousands or even hundreds of dollars on disks that will just end up in a box next to my LaserDisks.
I chose both sides at the beginning of this battle, but now I'm leaving both of them until the dust settles. Remember that old classic favorite from Ecclesiastes:
"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill but time and chance happeneth to them all."
Good Night Everyone.
[Post edited by gmelgartex on Jan 8, 2008]
will replace it in the coming years. The current high profile skirmish is but a smaller "battle" within
the larger "war" which we know is coming, but hasn't been really "fought" yet. Many things can still happen. I'm an electronics enthusiast, who in 40 plus years has seen a lot of things come and go. If
something is powered by electricity, is shiny and has a light on it, I would probably like to buy it. For the record, I own a Toshiba A1, A2, Xbox 360 with HD DVD add-on, and an eighty gig Playstation 3.
Yesterday I sold my A3 to a cousin for $99.00 for use as an upconvert DVD player. I still keep around 2 LaserDisc players and a huge stack of LaserDiscs for sentimental reasons. Did I mention I was an enthusiast ?. I enjoy reading posts in this forum, but rarely post myself. I do however enjoy the critical analysis of lots of subjects and I find the current situation interesting. Sometimes you have to step back to be able to get enough perspective to see the big picture. I knew when I started buying HD movies what the risks were. HD DVD could fail, Blu-ray could fail and even the unthinkable - They could both fail. Consider this hypothetical scenario: In the near future Toshiba
finally gives up, let's say summer of '09. They announce they will begin producing Blu-ray drives.
Has Blu-ray won? Maybe. What factors would speed up the adoption of HD media by most average,
typical hard working Americans? Obviously it helps to have an HDTV to really enjoy your HD media.
When will HDTVs be the norm and not the exception for most people? Will the digital TV transition in
February 2009 be a factor? Who knows?
The following is taken from dtv2009.gov:
At midnight on February 17, 2009, all full-power television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting in analog and switch to 100% digital broadcasting. Digital broadcasting promises to provide a clearer picture and more programming options and will free up airwaves for use by emergency responders.
Does that mean that every American must own an HDTV by that date or risk not being able to watch TV? Of course not. But you will need a TV with a digital tuner, not necessarily an HDTV.
You can get a converter box and keep your old TV set with rabbit ears if you wish. Most likely though, a lot of people will use that date as an excuse to buy themselves a new TV. Most likely some kind of LCD flat panel or whatever is cheapest at the time. What will be the percentage of people by that time that have an HDTV? Who Knows?
How long will it take most people to give up their DVDs and start buying solely the last man standing Blu-ray? Who Knows. Will they be willing to replace their DVD collections with Blu-ray?
Will they see a benefit or value in doing so?
Think of the past. How Long did it take for us to transition from the clearly inferior VHS to the clearly superior DVD format? Even with only one format (DVD) as the only successor to VHS, and even when the differences and benefits were vast, it still took years for people to give up their beloved
"tapes" and buy the new-fangled "DVD". The DVD players had to get cheap. The movies available had to be numerous and cheap (like VHS). The rental stores better have lots of them and pretty much there had to be no place left to get VHS before the transition was finalized. I can still today go to Best Buy and buy a new machine that will play VHS (most likely it will have a DVD player attached to it.) When will Blu-ray enjoy a similar scenario? When do you think most people will give up their beloved DVDs ? ( it's been so good to us). How long will that take?
Is there a huge value or benefit that most people will see with Blu-ray.? Let's see: It's still the same size 5" disk. Higher resolution, looks good on my new TV. Hhhmmm what else?
Is there a huge difference for most people between an upconverted DVD and a Blu-ray movie?
What if by the end of 2009 some as yet unknown format, or service or technology comes forth?
One that is clearly more convenient, or smaller but with more capacity, or cheaper or just plain a better value? What if everyone goes to it in droves? Could Blu-ray even though they are the last man standing still lose? Yes. Stranger things have happened. Could they win? Yes, by the same logic, but technology is a fickle thing to predict.
What has been the successor of music CDs ? Something of even higher quality sound? SACD?
DVD Audio? Was anyone demanding those formats or were companies trying to push them on consumers?
What about MP3s? A much lower quality sound format than CD, but people seem to really like their Ipods. Why? Seems like people sometimes are willing to give up a lot of quality for a bit of convinience. If I was making a roadtrip back in '92 I had to take a small suitcase full of cds to listen to the songs I wanted. Now all that and more fit in the palm of my hand and I can't really hear the diffrence.
Is Blu-ray (higher resolution movies) something most people are demanding or will demand at some point, or is it something being pushed on the consumer who really didn't ask for it. Can most people see a difference?
So many questions. No one really knows the answers. The future is yet to be written despite what you or I or anyone else may think, or believe, or know, or think they know.
Falcon 01 asked, "why would Microsoft blow money supporting HD DVD.?"
One short answer could be, "To hurt Sony."
If I remember correctly, one of the main reasons Sony released the first Playstation was "To hurt
Nintendo." Sometimes these things become more personal than business. Sometimes there are long business strategies. Why would Microsoft blow millions with the first xbox getting into a new business that they had no previous experience in?
Short answer: To slow down Sony. Microsoft saw Sony as a threat. How successful was the Playstation 2? was that success eating into PC gaming? Great PC games always spurred the
buying of upgrades, hardware or even whole new computers. What if these PC gamers moved to Playstation consoles and abandoned PC games and the buying of computers, and hardware and upgrades. Would that hurt Microsoft whose bread and butter is selling windows on new PCs? Would it not make sense then to "get into the game" and try to slow down the highly successful
Playstation brand by providing it with some competition. Sony might get too big or rich for it's britches. Microsoft sees enemies under every rock and they have lots and lots and lots of money.
Personally I've decided to slow down my purchases of HD movies in either format for now, even though I can play either format. I'm going back to upscaling DVDs. I can get at least 2 new DVDs for the price of 1 HD movie (usually around $30.00). The movies being released now aren't that great anyway since the market is still so small. Has anyone see Bram Stoker's Dracula on Blu-ray? I got it for $10 at Fry's on one of those BOGO sales and I still feel ripped off. A lot of these are of marginal quality VS the regular DVD and they have the guts to charge us $25.00 retail. There's a tiny disclaimer on the "Extras" for Dracula: "Special features are not rated and may not be in High definition." Great. It does not say which of the 6 special features is or isn't HD. I assumed none of them were. Who has time to read reviews of every disk they want to buy?
I don't want to end up spending thousands or even hundreds of dollars on disks that will just end up in a box next to my LaserDisks.
I chose both sides at the beginning of this battle, but now I'm leaving both of them until the dust settles. Remember that old classic favorite from Ecclesiastes:
"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill but time and chance happeneth to them all."
Good Night Everyone.
[Post edited by gmelgartex on Jan 8, 2008]
