I'm sitting here watching Das Boot on LD, as I said in a past post it was the only version of the movie I owned. Laserdisc was around for some 20 years or so. I never met anyone who even owned a LD player. My LD collection mainly comes from the fact that I got them cheap. Still I own 400 or so movies on LD. Yet I've met maybe 5 people locally who even know what a LD is. LD sold something in the arena of 1 million players, was supported mainly by Pioneer, had insanely expensive media, and had more releases than anyone would know what to do with. Yet anyone could have and still can hook these things up to their TV, be it SDTV or HDTV. Regardless of its limitations it was still a good format, a well done LD can still look pretty darn good considering how old the technology is.

Neither HD DVD nor Blu Ray have that kind of support... yet. Yet many of the same LD comparisons can still be achieved. Both have trivial installed bases. I doubt many of the PS3s sold are actually being used to play Blu Rays, I bet a good number of these people don't have TVs that fully support the format and won't gain anything by it. I liken this to my PS2. Currently I use it as a solely as a DVD player, though I never bought it for that intent. My intent when buying it was not to have it be a DVD player, I already had one. I'd already had a DVD player for two years when it was released. I highly doubt that PS3s are mainly being purchased for Blu Ray movies, the bulk majority are likely for gaming systems. The same reason I use an A2 as my HD DVD player and not an Xbox 360, it is an afterthought to the game console that some will use some will not.

The real winner in this will not be decided by software available now or ever. Had that been the case everyone would have owned a LD player simply for the content. Heck if anyone was to place the LD title alongside its VHS counterpart quality was not the obvious problem either. Ever try watching a standard VHS movie on an HDTV? Its not something I'd do unless exceedingly desperate. The LD is still good enough to be enjoyable so long as the TV's comb filter is of a decent quality.

So both HD DVD and Blu Ray can offer quality. What will sway the consumer? Price. This will come down to price. The cheaper format will likely win. Why did VHS win? Generally because it was cheaper. I remember when VHS blanks were selling for way less then Betas as Gold Circle back in the day (at a then cheap $10 :)). From a technical standpoint Beta was better, I've used both VHS and Beta, Beta had a sharper picture. LD was better than VHS for video quality. Yet for all their merits neither was a market leader.

I'm convinced this will be an issue of price. Whoever hits the magic number first that gets people buying will be the winner. You could release another 200 titles for either format tomorrow and it will make no difference to anyone except those who already have decided what format they want to own, and make them happy with an increased movie selection.

When John Q. Customer walks into the store and sees the player for $100 thats the one he'll buy. That will be the winning format. Not the one with the most titles available at the time. The titles will follow. When I bought my DVD player in 1998 there were a handful of titles compared to what was on LD. If it was about content I'd have purchased LD then. What showed up on the then standard 27 and 32 inch TVs wasn't that much different with the earlier releases. DVD movies themelves however were cheaper even then. The players quickly became cheaper. LD became a thing of the past. MUSE/HiVision proved that technologically more could have been done with the LD format, but what prevented it was cost. Technically they could still tool up factories to produce those, but they'd probably not be cheap if past costs indicate anything.

Does anyone even have a direct figure as to exactly how many households in the United States have switched to HDTV? My guess is there is a lot of room in the market, as many probably have not yet migrated to HDTV, let alone thought about purchasing HD DVD or Blu Ray. If HD DVD reaches the magical pricepoint when these customers adopt it will win.

I believe Blu Ray is way behind in standalone players at this juncture, but the current volumes either format has sold are a drop in the bucket.

I think I saw recently that is about 20% of households have HDTVs. I don't have a cite off hand, but you should be able to find it.

Adam

I'm sitting here watching Das Boot on LD, as I said in a past post it was the only version of the movie I owned. Laserdisc was around for some 20 years or so. I never met anyone who even owned a LD player. My LD collection mainly comes from the fact that I got them cheap. Still I own 400 or so movies on LD. Yet I've met maybe 5 people locally who even know what a LD is. LD sold something in the arena of 1 million players, was supported mainly by Pioneer, had insanely expensive media, and had more releases than anyone would know what to do with. Yet anyone could have and still can hook these things up to their TV, be it SDTV or HDTV. Regardless of its limitations it was still a good format, a well done LD can still look pretty darn good considering how old the technology is.

Neither HD DVD nor Blu Ray have that kind of support... yet. Yet many of the same LD comparisons can still be achieved. Both have trivial installed bases. I doubt many of the PS3s sold are actually being used to play Blu Rays, I bet a good number of these people don't have TVs that fully support the format and won't gain anything by it. I liken this to my PS2. Currently I use it as a solely as a DVD player, though I never bought it for that intent. My intent when buying it was not to have it be a DVD player, I already had one. I'd already had a DVD player for two years when it was released. I highly doubt that PS3s are mainly being purchased for Blu Ray movies, the bulk majority are likely for gaming systems. The same reason I use an A2 as my HD DVD player and not an Xbox 360, it is an afterthought to the game console that some will use some will not.

The real winner in this will not be decided by software available now or ever. Had that been the case everyone would have owned a LD player simply for the content. Heck if anyone was to place the LD title alongside its VHS counterpart quality was not the obvious problem either. Ever try watching a standard VHS movie on an HDTV? Its not something I'd do unless exceedingly desperate. The LD is still good enough to be enjoyable so long as the TV's comb filter is of a decent quality.

So both HD DVD and Blu Ray can offer quality. What will sway the consumer? Price. This will come down to price. The cheaper format will likely win. Why did VHS win? Generally because it was cheaper. I remember when VHS blanks were selling for way less then Betas as Gold Circle back in the day (at a then cheap $10 :)). From a technical standpoint Beta was better, I've used both VHS and Beta, Beta had a sharper picture. LD was better than VHS for video quality. Yet for all their merits neither was a market leader.

I'm convinced this will be an issue of price. Whoever hits the magic number first that gets people buying will be the winner. You could release another 200 titles for either format tomorrow and it will make no difference to anyone except those who already have decided what format they want to own, and make them happy with an increased movie selection.

When John Q. Customer walks into the store and sees the player for $100 thats the one he'll buy. That will be the winning format. Not the one with the most titles available at the time. The titles will follow. When I bought my DVD player in 1998 there were a handful of titles compared to what was on LD. If it was about content I'd have purchased LD then. What showed up on the then standard 27 and 32 inch TVs wasn't that much different with the earlier releases. DVD movies themelves however were cheaper even then. The players quickly became cheaper. LD became a thing of the past. MUSE/HiVision proved that technologically more could have been done with the LD format, but what prevented it was cost. Technically they could still tool up factories to produce those, but they'd probably not be cheap if past costs indicate anything.

Does anyone even have a direct figure as to exactly how many households in the United States have switched to HDTV? My guess is there is a lot of room in the market, as many probably have not yet migrated to HDTV, let alone thought about purchasing HD DVD or Blu Ray. If HD DVD reaches the magical pricepoint when these customers adopt it will win.

I believe Blu Ray is way behind in standalone players at this juncture, but the current volumes either format has sold are a drop in the bucket.


I absolutely agree with you. The format with the least expensive player will garner the share of the market. If the rumors of a cheap HD-DVD player from China is true then HD-DVD may well win the war.

I think I saw recently that is about 20% of households have HDTVs. I don't have a cite off hand, but you should be able to find it.

Adam

28% according to this source. http://www.tvpredictions.com/cea040907.htm

I've been saying the exact same thing ever since the initial prices were announced for both formats, which is why I have an HD player and not a BD player right now.

However, Toshiba really should start pushing the studios to drop their MSRPs to at least the level of BDs, and possibly work out something along the lines of Sony's buy 2 get 1 free deal. Price of media is a major part of the purchasing decision, and even if the customer decides to buy the cheaper player, when they go to the next aisle to buy movies for it, they might change their minds if they notice that the price tags for all the movies on the player they just picked out are higher than the one they didn't.

these competing formats are the exact same size...and can technically be played in the same player (LG combo drive). So if the low cost HD DVD players come out this year that will do nothing but force all manufacturers to make combo players. At that point the only thing to sway studios to jump on one format or another would be a drastic difference in production costs.

I call stale-mate :)

From what I understand HD DVDs should be cheaper to produce since they're assembled more like a regular DVD, I'm sure as time goes on production costs for discs themselves from both formats will be trivial. Studios will produce whatever sells regardless of format. Is there anything to prevent a studio from releasing HD DVD on one side and Blu Ray on the other? Probably not, it probably could be done.

Regarding HDTV how does that figure for multiple TVs? For example I've got 4 HDTVs. The percentage could be much lower. Even if you sell an HD DVD player or Blu Ray player to go with every set out there its not going to be DVD levels. Can they actaully sell these to non HDTV owners?

Same thread, different day.

The problem with the price issue is the people who are too cheap to pay for an expensive player aren't the ones these companies are marketing towards.

They are marketing towards people with an HDTV.

People who ignored the 200$ CRT on the shelf and went for the 42+" LCD, PDP, DLP.. etc and came out with a receipt totalling 1500$ or more.

They probably also got an upconverting DVD player to enjoy their DVD library and scoffed at the thought of buying into a VHS vs Betamax war when they can get 90% of the quality for 20% of the price.


Is 80% of the price worth the extra 10% of quality? Everyone around here might agree, but fyi. That isn't common opinion...

Make HD-DVD players cheaper, and upconversion players will get cheaper.

The other thing that would help some people decide, maybe just people like me who rents many movies, but purchases very few in comparison, is the hopefully eventual ability to rent an HD DVD at Blockbuster, etc...

I did just join Blockbuster Direct Access to be able to Rent HD DVD's, but there are still a ton of people that like to physically like to go to the video store with their kids, or dont trust anything on line, etc.

I would think if HD DVD could accelerate their deployment of disks in the B & M stores, have a nice eye catching kiosk or something as you enter the store, etc., might spur more interest from Joe 6P.

And then eventually allow renting an HD DVD player, like you can with game consoles. Allowing them to see the difference in their home without dropping several hundre dollars on a format that is so new.

Just a thought

Doug

I've never owned an upconverting DVD player personally up until the A2. Most of the ones I have tried couldn't come close to my old ProScan 480i DVD player from way back in the day. It is more than the resolution, the ProScan provided so much better color representation than most of the ones I've used I still use it to this day for that very reason.

Assuming the movie is halfway well done there should be a quite noticable difference between HD DVD and upconverted DVD. That said if I have to watch DVD I'll still use the old ProScan over the A2 because it still yields a better picture for a DVD. As far as I'm concerned upconverting is a solution for those who want it to look better on the current technology.

I'm sure there are many who didn't rush out and buy $1500 TVs as well, these were the ones running out on black Friday to get the $500 LCDs and $700 Plasmas. They also probably don't have as much knowledge regarding the technology. When someone throws out the cheap HD DVD player they'll probably think "HD DVD... HDTV, these must go together" and buy that too so long as its on the price lines of their cheap HDTV.

Most of the people buying HD DVD now are probably those who are the ones who bought into HDTV earlier or at higher price points. Heck, I've been using HDTVs for at least 3 years. Yet there are people buying their first each day waiting for the price to drop. If there are 28% of those that own HDTV currently, that means there is a large market share left to capture, and a good number of those are the people who are probably holding out for prices to drop.

Same thread, different day.

The problem with the price issue is the people who are too cheap to pay for an expensive player aren't the ones these companies are marketing towards.

They are marketing towards people with an HDTV.

People who ignored the 200$ CRT on the shelf and went for the 42+" LCD, PDP, DLP.. etc and came out with a receipt totalling 1500$ or more.

They probably also got an upconverting DVD player to enjoy their DVD library and scoffed at the thought of buying into a VHS vs Betamax war when they can get 90% of the quality for 20% of the price.


Is 80% of the price worth the extra 10% of quality? Everyone around here might agree, but fyi. That isn't common opinion...

Make HD-DVD players cheaper, and upconversion players will get cheaper.

Yeah, I'll have to go ahead and disagree with this. As a Best Buy associate, I'll tell you right now that the most popular set that we sell has been for over a year now, and will probably continue to be Westinghouse LCDs that cost $500-$1000. Saying that the common HDTV buyer does not care about price is way off

Folks on this forum are the exception more than the rule I'm afraid.

As a Best Buy associate, I'll tell you right now that the most popular set that we sell has been for over a year now, and will probably continue to be Westinghouse LCDs that cost $500-$1000.

Wow, that's scary, that is the absolute worst technology purchase I have every made (Westinghouse LCD). The first one broke after 6 months, Westinghouse ignored my phone calls and emails for a repair under warranty, so Best Buy exchanged it for a new one (without knowing it of course). My parents have that TV and as soon as they get a larger one, it will be on craigslist....good bye and good riddens.

If Westinghouse is the standard for low cost, I'd go SD tube :o

Yeah, I'll have to go ahead and disagree with this. As a Best Buy associate, I'll tell you right now that the most popular set that we sell has been for over a year now, and will probably continue to be Westinghouse LCDs that cost $500-$1000. Saying that the common HDTV buyer does not care about price is way off

Folks on this forum are the exception more than the rule I'm afraid.


Thankyou for disagreeing with half, and proving the other half even more right.


Rule of 80/20. Granted the percentages will be skewed, but thats not the point.

Wow, that's scary, that is the absolute worst technology purchase I have every made (Westinghouse LCD). The first one broke after 6 months, Westinghouse ignored my phone calls and emails for a repair under warranty, so Best Buy exchanged it for a new one (without knowing it of course). My parents have that TV and as soon as they get a larger one, it will be on craigslist....good bye and good riddens.

If Westinghouse is the standard for low cost, I'd go SD tube :o

Different experiences with different folks I guess. I studied the Westinghouse thread (among others) before finally buying a 37W2 from Best Buy in April 2006. It's been an excellent set for my purposes and provides an excellent picture (after calibration.) Between the picture performance and price point, I feel it's an excellent value.

(Can't speak for the service experience -- haven't needed it.)

Wow, that's scary, that is the absolute worst technology purchase I have every made (Westinghouse LCD). The first one broke after 6 months, Westinghouse ignored my phone calls and emails for a repair under warranty, so Best Buy exchanged it for a new one (without knowing it of course). My parents have that TV and as soon as they get a larger one, it will be on craigslist....good bye and good riddens.

If Westinghouse is the standard for low cost, I'd go SD tube :o

I have the lvm-42w2, the hdmi/hdcp issue with the ps3 was annoying (had to use an hdmi-dvi cable to get around it). Now that I have a new receiver I no longer have the issue.

Other than that I have been very happy with it, and I feel like I got a really good deal on it as well.

One day I hope to make it my computer monitor when I move on up.

Also bear in mind the amount of people who buy HDTV's not because they're HD,but because they're ergonomically impressive in your living room and don't weigh 500 lbs like those old rear projection CRT sets.Many people have a nice 42 inch plasma tv in their living room,but don't have a single HD source running through it.They think whatever they put on it,including regular dvd,magically converts to HD.The general population is still very ignorant about this whole thing.

Wow, that's scary, that is the absolute worst technology purchase I have every made (Westinghouse LCD). The first one broke after 6 months, Westinghouse ignored my phone calls and emails for a repair under warranty, so Best Buy exchanged it for a new one (without knowing it of course). My parents have that TV and as soon as they get a larger one, it will be on craigslist....good bye and good riddens.

If Westinghouse is the standard for low cost, I'd go SD tube :o

Okay, here is yet another Westinghouse rebuttal. I've had a 32W6 in my bedroom for several months and have had no issues. I am very satisfied with the set. The PQ is very good but I will admit the black levels are not the best. Of course the Westinghouse is not the quality of my Panasonic 42PX60U but for what I paid for it, its a great bedroom tv.