Show them this image and then this one.
I don’t think you get it.
Thank you, I now know that HD isn’t worth it to me.
Not really. I don’t disagree with anything you wrote before but I was just suggesting that DVD is good enough until you see the difference. I agree that the uptake will be much smaller because unlike the switch from VHS to DVD where better quality was only one of the things you gained, that’s pretty much all you’re getting here.
Why? The difference in resolution and color are kinda striking…
I’m a big fan of HD but those images are misleading because the differences aren’t as pronounced in motion or when sitting at normal TV distances, and also whatever they used to upscale the SD DVD shot is terrible at upscaling, any good upscaling DVD will do a much better job than that crap.
No, it really won’t. It’s a bicubic resample in Photoshop, and if you think DVD players are doing better than that, you’re crazy.
DVD really looks that bad; people just don’t notice because they usually don’t have anything to compare it to.
I bet you’re one of those people who runs their 24" monitor at 800x600, with the blurriness and fucked up aspect ratio and everything.
(Although I think this shot is actually more dramatically different.)
No, I run my 17" LCD at it’s native, 1280x1024 resolution. Considering it’s about a foot away from my face, it’s plenty.
Why? The difference in resolution and color are kinda striking…
Not striking enough to make me want to fork over thousands and have most of my SDTV channels look like complete ass afterwards. HD simply isn’t that important to me and I don’t think I’m some sort of exception in this regard. I see the difference and I don’t care enough to spend that kind of money.
It’s fine if you don’t want to spend the money, but have the decency to at least lust after it. There are protocols to be observed here.
The format war is going to be won by the CE products, not the PS3. 120mil PS2s is impressive, but DVD player prices dropped a lot quick than that device price did.
Adopting Blu ray is not just about the disc though. You’ve also got to want to have the TV ($). And you’re also going to want to have HD channels from your cable provider ($). PS3 owners probably overlap something like 90% with people who have HD and HD channels. But the average consumer does not.
That isn’t because they don’t know the difference between DVD and HD. It’s because it doesn’t matter to them yet. For one, just because it’s Digital (as everything will be, theoretically, next year), it doesn’t mean it’s HD. For another, many local cable companies around the US are lazy about pushing HD signal across all channels. And they want to charge you more for it. And finally, most of the shows popular with the living room set don’t hugely benefit from HD anyway.
The slow pace of HD adoption has more to do with the programming and cable providers than anything else. They have not set up a consumer need for it, and the analog spectrum going dark isn’t going to change that. This format war is largely irrelevant to the average consumer who only just started replacing their VHS tapes with DVDs a few years ago (the formats been around a long while but it didn’t hit critical mass until around 2001-2002 timeframe).
And this doesn’t even get into digital distribution.
All in my opinion, of course :)
Honestly, the PS3 is a great system. It’s just suffering when it comes to its price, its games library, and its crappy online multiplayer, all of which will likely be remedied given enough time.
These two sentences are fucking hilarious together.
Why would you want HD channels in order to watch Blu-Ray movies?
And you’re going to need a couch to sit on ($). And a living room to put that couch in ($$$). And possibly popcorn ($).
HDTV is no longer a niche thing. CEA estimates that something like 36% of households have HDTVs, which is maybe a bit cheerleady but certainly plausible. Lots of people already have HDTVs, and don’t need to buy new ones jus to play Blu-ray discs on.
And interestingly, only about 44% of them are getting any sort of HD content. Most likely reasons: bought the TV for form factor or think that they are watching HD content because they have an HDTV.
So, we have:
- About 50% with shiny DTVs
- About 36% with HDTVs
- About 16% actually watching HD content
God forbid companies should market HD content to people not taking advantage of their HD sets!
Here’s an irony: One of the things people like best about HD sets is that DVDs look better on them. There is polling data to support this. That means average people can see and appreciate the quality difference between the presentation of the same source material. What makes anyone think they won’t appreciate 6 times the visual information?
To be fair, anamorphic DVDs on an HDTV have 33% more resolution than on a 4:3 SDTV, since they get to show every line of the picture. Still, the jump to Blu-ray (I think I’m going to stop saying “HD-DVD or Blu-ray” now…) is much larger, and not a subtle effect.
No, but the PS3 went a long way to saving Blu-Ray.
I know people like this, and its weird - they just don’t care about HD television.
But they DID buy a HD-DVD player, and of course, that player is giving them HD content. That’s the thing about buying a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player, its pretty much impossible to not get HD out of the damn things. If you buy an HDTV there is no guarantee you are going to watch TV in HD, but if you buy a Blu-Ray player (PS3 excepting with its silly composite hookups), you obviously are going to get HD out of it.
But if you are just watching normal DVD’s on your BR/HD DVD player you’re really just getting upscaled SD content, the same thing your screen will do when feed it any SD signal. Sure the player may upscale better than your TV (depending on the TV and player) but you’re not watching true HD content.