I definitely think the prices will go down big time. By the end of this year you’re going to be seeing sub $300 players out in the market. By the end of next year players could go for $100 or less. If these players are compatable with DVD it would make sense for people to spend a little more for the HD value. You don’t need to replace your libraries, in fact they will impove the visual quality of those on upscaling alone.
There is a much bigger difference between HD video discs and SCAD and DVD-audio. Most people can’t even tell the difference between a CD and a 128kbps MP3 why would they pay more for an even more negligable difference?
Is there really that much difference? I could tell the BR version of Talladega Nights (free with the PS3, shut up) was much more detailed than my DVD (shut up, shut up) but that was because I was switching back and forth and specifically looking for it. Btw, the differences I noticed were in the track advertisements and the title screen - letters - which you won’t see improvements on by upscaling from DVD. But you could still read the letters
I saw a thread over on GAF where the Las Vegas Journal did a survey and found 90% of PS3 owners had the PS3 running in SD and most were using the out of the box composite cable.
HD means a lot to folks like us, but it just really doesn’t to the average joe.
How much of a difference is subjective but it is noticable. Personally I don’t even own a High Def player yet but when I watch shows like Planet Earth, Lost and Heroes on HD Cable it’s hard for me to back to standard definition content.
Um yeah, not a good argument, considering that the CD’s that haven’t been returned to distributors (where they’re either gathering dust or being destroyed) are sitting on shelves being ignored by consumers with iTunes, Rhapsody, and Emusic hookups.
Uh… you are aware that the vast majority of people still purchase their music in physical (CD) format, digital distribution is still very small in comparison.
You can claim whatever you want, but you have to be able to back it up. If you can’t explain your case well, then it’s more likely because you haven’t examined it very well. And if you haven’t examined it well, it probably has some gaping holes.
And there’s an advantage in how music is being digitally distributed, in that people can download individual songs at a low cost, in seconds, and then burned to a CD. All of which doesn’t necessarily translate to video. We’re a looooong way away from downloading a two-hour HD video with 5.1 soundtrack with that level of convenience.
Will it happen eventually? Undoubtedly. But in the meantime there’s definitely a place for a next-gen physical media format like Blue-ray/HD-DVD.
What has this got to do with the fact that you’re wrong and downloaded music isn’t thesuccessor to cd’s yet.
SCAD and DVD-audio isn’t comparable to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. SCAD and DVD-audio is a niche market and hasn’t been marketed heavily - certainly not compared to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. The new HD formats may still be small, but they have major backing by companies that really want us to switch.
and the internet is nowhere near streaming and downloading HD content - there’s a big world with slow internet connections. I don’t see either format replacing the DVD anytime soon, but I think we have at least one physical media left before download is the standard.
Cumulative. In other words, despite being outsold for several months straight, they have only recently run out of the cushion that they had built up during their early launch.
It’s not as dire as “I’m not dead yet!”, but their press releases increasingly have that tone.
If you really believed that that was the most likely reason for not getting into an in-depth discussion on a polarizing topic on a gaming forum, you would have just demonstrated a key reason I chose not to.
As for HD DVD, they are more or less right where they could be expected to be. They started off the huge underdog, they launched despite the hardware and studio partners aligned against them, and they enjoyed their brief sales lead, which ended right on schedule. They are one partner away from a dramatically unbalanced content prospect, and that one partner is increasingly losing money by not supporting their competitor. Since that partner has no real interest in losing money just to make a point (after all, they’re not Toshiba, and they’re not Sony), how long do you think that will continue? The bulk of Wal-Mart’s rumored 2m units, if they turn out not to be complete fiction, were not expected before 2008 even before the denials went up.
Finally, the SoC chip from Broadcom that would go into those players is the same sort of chip currently being sold to the BR manufacturers for their next generation of players, and you can expect price reductions across the board going forward.
Having a single standard is what everyone would like to see. There are some players who clearly are not going to be in the position of being that standard. What remains to be seen is how far they are willing to go just to prolong a bifurcated market.
The newer DualDisc format holds some promise, and is getting more retail play, but I don’t know if it’s too little, too late. It doesn’t help that the content is DRM’d and difficult to do anything with even if you remove the DRM. I really like the sound on the ones I’ve bought, though. On a side note, not being able to use your OS’s screen-shot function because your system has to use its DVD player to play your audio content is stupid.
Blu-ray’s victory grows ever more glorious: Blockbuster stocks BDs in 1,700 stores, HD-DVDs in only 250 stores.
After an initial trial period, Blockbuster has found that rentals on Blu-ray have significantly outpaced HD-DVD titles.
“We intend to meet the demands of our customers and based on the trends we are seeing, we’re expanding our Blu-ray inventory to ensure our stores reflect the right level of products,” commented Matthew Smith, SVP of merchandising at Blockbuster.
