It’s not under a thousand, but DLP sets are getting pretty cheap. I have its big brother, the HLS5086W, and so far I like it a lot.
I need to check out some newer DLP sets on display. Previously DLP was completely out for me because my eyes are really sensitive to the “rainbow effect”. I hear this is drastically reduced in new sets.
I didnt even consider DLP, I dunno if it’s the rainbow effect or what but I can’t stand looking at any type of rear projection set.
My choices were wait a year, fight the wife and go plasma or grab the CRT right away.
Uh? so that thing is just to drive ps3 sales or what?
$999 and it comes out a month before the ps3?
The thing thats $300 cheaper and plays the same overpriced poorly encoded movies, AND games? (and uh, it’s a computer!)
No surprises here…early format, early technology, shoved out too soon to a barrage of hype. Let’s just hope it gets better (and I happen to like the special features and such, so let’s hope they also get the space situation figured out). Having said that, i’ll be waiting awhile to adopt the new DVD technology until they iron out everything (and until I can afford a really nice HD TV!)
Derek
Arcadia Project Open!
http://www.stormcloudcreations.com/arcproject.htm
Sure it’s a new technology… but come on, when DVD was introduced the quality difference to VHS was immediately obvious. That’s one fucked up launch for Blue-ray, what Jake and Hetz described shouldn’t have happened.
I have to disagree here, because the jump from VCR tapes to DVD discs was huge and very “necessary” in the minds of virtually everyone who ever watched a movie at home.
Differences from tape to disc:
- No more rewinding.
- Much more durable media.
- Dramatic improvement in the ability to watch scenes out of order, or to repeat scenes.
- Allowed the introduction of the easily watched “special feature” which dramatically drove sales of discs.
- Not so hot for the consumer, but advertisers could but their stupid commercial blobs at the very start of a disc and the player could be programmed to disallow skipping past it, thus making the format a lot more attractive to content producers.
- Less storage area needed.
- Reduction in manufacturing costs of the media.
Differences from DVD to high definition discs, whatever the flavor:
- More expensive.
- Looks prettier.
Now, don’t get me wrong, more pixels is nice and all, but seriously, who cares? The jump to high-def media isn’t anything at all like the jump from tapes to discs, not even close. People who buy new televisions may well be buying high-definition sets in increasing numbers, but there’s virtually no correlation between those people and the people who are willing to pay more money for more pixels.
The move to DVD was perceived as necessary to everyone–everyone, that is, who ever had to rewind a tape. It was expensive at first, but in addition to the people who wanted prettier pictures, consumption was also driven by people who wanted the convenience of discs.
What convenience does HD-DVD and Blu-Ray offer? Zero. So to dismiss these various launch problems as things that will go away once the early adopters finish thrashing things out over the next year or so is largely a pipe dream, I think.
EDIT: Damn you, Chris Nahr! Dammmmn youuuu!
Behold my awesome powers of telepathic post preemption! :)
Offhand I’d claim the stutters are to a weak cpu decoding the content when the compression format shows too much delta. Dramas will be fine, Action will suffer.
I agree with those who are saying the jump to HD-DVD or Bluray isn’t the same as the jump from VHS to DVD. DVD->High Def DVD is more like the jump from CD to SuperCD or DVD-Audio… And we all know how much SuperCD and DVD Audio took the mainstream consumer world by storm…
We live in a world where most people are just fine listening to 96kpbs mp3s. Most people just aren’t that particular about their audio or video beyond a certain quality. Eventually we’ll all have HDTVs, but only because it is getting more difficult to find new SD TVs for sale… there just isn’t really that much demand for this stuff outside of the niche AVphile community. The only thing that makes this whole situation interesting to me is the fact that Sony tied the PS3 to Bluray, risking their big proven cash cow on something that looks like it still has a lot of bugs that need working out, without much time to get it all sorted out.
To be fair thge very first DVD releases don’t exactly compare well to the cutting edge Superbits and collector’s editions of today. Sure, blu-ray and HD-DVD don’t have the same kind of convenience upgrade, but the fact that cassettes are so far in our past isn’t exactly bad news. HD formats offer like 6 times the pixels, plus more bandwidth for advanced audio and interactive features. I’m already watching my favorite shows in HD, and I’m a little bummed at the idea of buying DVD sets of these shows which will look nowhere as good as the broadcast.
I’d agree with that, and I’m sure people will get better and better at doing HD video transfers and everything will be great, someday. What is more worrisome in the short term is whether or not the persistant rumors about more fundamental problems (such as extreme difficulty in manufacturing multi-layer Bluray discs) are true and if they are true, how might they impact the PS3 launch?
I admit I’m a bit of a Sony basher, so I’m biased, but I think it is impossible to look at what we know so far about Bluray and the constant delays surrounding it (and the PS3 delays*) and not come to the conclusion that some people at Sony probably aren’t sleeping that well these days. The stench of more problems than they care to admit is hovering over Bluray and the PS3, as a software developer that has worked on some great projects and some not so great ones, I know that stench well and can smell it from a mile away – will they pull out a miracle? Maybe… but I refuse to believe everything is going just honky-dory based on what we do know so far.
(* it wasn’t that long ago that Sony was assuring us they were still on track for a spring launch for the PS3)
What annoys me is people who say “It’s too early, we don’t need Blu-ray [or HD DVD].” Who the hell are you to tell me what I need or don’t? Did you bash Laserdisc because it wasn’t needed? It just gives consumers a way to watch movies at the highest possible quality. That alone is worth a lot to many people. Whether the formats are successfull (in however you want to define that term) is largely irrelevant to the enthusiast.
Personally I’m not going to spend $1k on it but hell if HD DVD gets all the studio support or the PS3 does well then I’ll gladly be a 2nd gen adopter.
In the sense of “doesn’t wear out”, yes. In any other sense, no no no no no no no no no.
Furthermore, tapes degrade gracefully. A heavily worn tape can still be watched. A damaged DVD will at best skip entire scenes, and at worst lock up the player.
Not that I’m suggesting tapes are preferable to discs. I just wish they were as fault-tolerant as analog media.
Minor feature.
- Much more durable media.
More durable? When’s the last time you accidentally scratched your tape and it wouldn’t play? Or it wouldn’t play because you left it sitting out and it got dusty? Or you accidentally stepped on it and broke it? Sorry, no.
- Dramatic improvement in the ability to watch scenes out of order, or to repeat scenes.
Granted. But that’s a minor feature. Who really cares if you can watch scenes repeatedly or out of order if it’s not a porno? (Okay, I know people care, but the vast majority of folks out there didn’t watch htings this way, and still don’t.)
- Allowed the introduction of the easily watched “special feature” which dramatically drove sales of discs.
Actually, many early discs had little to no special features. The upsurge of special features seemed to coincide primarily with the push from specialist video equipment to mass market appeal.
- Less storage area needed.
- Reduction in manufacturing costs of the media.
Both of these are clear wins, and drove adoption tons more than any of the above features. Especially the latter which opened up the thriving business of TV shows by the season for areasonable price. There were TV collections on VHS, but at $20/tape it was prohibitive to own a series you weren’t a tremendous fan of. $50 for a whole season is a damned bargain.
This is reasonably late in the game though, and only started to occur en masse after DVD had been well established.
- More expensive.
- Looks prettier.
Better sound too.
I’ll fully admit that VHS->DVD is a more compelling transition. Most of that is because there’s no ancillary equipment, though. All you had to do (generally) was go from VCR to DVD player. For DVD->HD DVD you have to actually get a HD telivision too. So uptake will naturally be limited.
People who buy new televisions may well be buying high-definition sets in increasing numbers, but there’s virtually no correlation between those people and the people who are willing to pay more money for more pixels.
There’s still plenty of standard definition telivisions out there. You expect me to believe people are paying 2-3x the cost of a SD telivision for a high def TV and aren’t interested in HD content? I don’t think so. (Yeah, there are probably some who buy the new HD TVs primarily because they’re smaller… but I’d contend that folks who buy HD TVs for vanity reasons with the attached price premiums can afford to go HD on the DVD side anyway because obviously money isn’t an object.)
The move to DVD was perceived as necessary to everyone–everyone, that is, who ever had to rewind a tape.
This is just so much hyperbolic bullshit. I finally quit buying first DVD players for people I knew last year. They were fine with tapes. Really, hitting the rewind button when you’re done is not a large inconvenience. It works just fine for people who just want to watch a movie.
This is the one of the few reasons I want HD dvd of some sort. Deadwood doesnt belong in SD.
I’d also like HD dvds of shows that are likely shot in that quality but arent broadcast in it, like The Shield and nip/tuck. FX looks like total ass on every cable system or sat system I’ve seen it on, which is like 6.
Target has a Trutech DVD player on sale this week for less than $30. That’s the price point I’m waiting for. Plus: who will win the format wars? I’m sure not gonna invest a bunch of $$$ in the future betamax.
If you are into this you really should be following the info at AVS:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=148
Recap: Both formats launched really, really badly.
The codecs arent at fault. Poor transfers are, as is a possible issue with the HDMI implementation on the Samsung. Both HD DVD and BD support the same codecs however Sony has chosen to stick with MPEG2 for now for whatever reasons.
I am buying both HDDVD and Bluray. I own an HD DVD player due to work I do as a reviewer for HTF. Its easily one of the worst launched products ever, and as soon as there is a better HD deck I will buy it (even tho the firmware fixed many of the skipping problems, the 40 second startup SUCKS, the tray opening to swap disks is similarly long, and it has the worst remote ever). I refuse to waste $1000 on a similar lame first gen deck for Bluray. Sigh, it looks like October now for the Sony Deck =(
Sam
had we not mentioned the remotes yet till kadath ? gatdamnthey are bad. I seriously can’t believe they will sell a $500 or $1000 device attached to those pieces of crap, unless they’re assuming all early adopters have a nice universal remote.