I'm glad to see that a bunch of you think the Paramount announcement was good news.
Being format neutral (in spirit, I only own an A1 until the Sammy ships -- I have no problem with Blu, just not a fan of the early players), this is about the best possible decision.
I don't mean to criticize, but anyone advocating a "side" in the format war is thinking solely about themselves. Several hundred million dollars has been spent by consumers on either side acquiring content and players (Tosh/Sony isn't about to buy everyone out who got the short end of the stick). Do you really need a single color media shelf so badly that that you'd be perfectly fine hosing some other guy for a few grand?
The only drawback for single-format consumers is they eventually need a second player. But who are they kidding? Early adopters go through technology like hot cakes... Most would have probably bought a new player in a year or two, so this is really no great loss for people thinking they'd only need a single format (except the replacement will almost certainly be dual).
Paramount did the best possible thing because it will ensure that neither format goes anywhere. Perhaps widespread public adoption just got pushed a year further off (so what?), but eventually all the non-vested CE companies will have to support both (technically speaking it isn't that difficult). From a studio perspective selecting a single format is obviously best. They'll never hit their economies of scale (on slow selling catalog titles) if they have to do multiple masters with incompatible interactive features. Or we would be back in the "Superbit" days where a studio would use a marketing campaign to try to convince everyone it's better that they didn't spend any money on nice menus and special features.
From a consumer perspective, competing formats might be frustrating, but competition is *always* best. We'd be lucky to find any player under a thousand dollars by now if there were only one format (DVD was 2.5 years before it was "cheap"). Without competition we'd probably have $40 media as the standard. I would rather have a red shelf and a blue shelf at $20 each than the alternative. I'm quickly going to bridge the price gap for the Sammy when I'm saving $15-20 per disc.
I don't understand how industry insiders like "Bill Hunt" seem to think that my point of view is crazy. Talk about needing a reality check -- what sane person rags on a fellow film buff because of their hardware investment? I love movies, but I also love not blowing a few grand on a failed format. I'd rather hedge with both than lose one.
Now the big question, how many of you agree, and am I now persona non grata in the HD and Blu forums?
Being format neutral (in spirit, I only own an A1 until the Sammy ships -- I have no problem with Blu, just not a fan of the early players), this is about the best possible decision.
I don't mean to criticize, but anyone advocating a "side" in the format war is thinking solely about themselves. Several hundred million dollars has been spent by consumers on either side acquiring content and players (Tosh/Sony isn't about to buy everyone out who got the short end of the stick). Do you really need a single color media shelf so badly that that you'd be perfectly fine hosing some other guy for a few grand?
The only drawback for single-format consumers is they eventually need a second player. But who are they kidding? Early adopters go through technology like hot cakes... Most would have probably bought a new player in a year or two, so this is really no great loss for people thinking they'd only need a single format (except the replacement will almost certainly be dual).
Paramount did the best possible thing because it will ensure that neither format goes anywhere. Perhaps widespread public adoption just got pushed a year further off (so what?), but eventually all the non-vested CE companies will have to support both (technically speaking it isn't that difficult). From a studio perspective selecting a single format is obviously best. They'll never hit their economies of scale (on slow selling catalog titles) if they have to do multiple masters with incompatible interactive features. Or we would be back in the "Superbit" days where a studio would use a marketing campaign to try to convince everyone it's better that they didn't spend any money on nice menus and special features.
From a consumer perspective, competing formats might be frustrating, but competition is *always* best. We'd be lucky to find any player under a thousand dollars by now if there were only one format (DVD was 2.5 years before it was "cheap"). Without competition we'd probably have $40 media as the standard. I would rather have a red shelf and a blue shelf at $20 each than the alternative. I'm quickly going to bridge the price gap for the Sammy when I'm saving $15-20 per disc.
I don't understand how industry insiders like "Bill Hunt" seem to think that my point of view is crazy. Talk about needing a reality check -- what sane person rags on a fellow film buff because of their hardware investment? I love movies, but I also love not blowing a few grand on a failed format. I'd rather hedge with both than lose one.
Now the big question, how many of you agree, and am I now persona non grata in the HD and Blu forums?
