No one is going to kill the goose that's laying the golden egg.
DVD has not even come close to market saturation yet...until that happens we will get no HD DVD.
My bet would be about 5 years from now, most all titles will be on DVD, everyone who wants those oddball titles will have them.
Then HD DVD will rollout...very expensive, and of course pointed at us, the people who got DVD started (and before that, LD)
This is unfortunate, but that's the way it works, if they rollout HD DVD to soon standard DVD could take a big hit in sales because 1/4 of the people who own DVD now would upgrade and severally cut back on buying standard DVD.
OR another sales model...what if HD DVD were rolled out tomorrow.
Players starting at $1,500 to $2,000, three to five studios supporting it with 5 titles each. Let's say those titles cost 40 to 50 dollars each...after all, upon initial rollout they are shooting at the people who spend alot of their money on HT, these prices are in line with LD prices, and the POSSIBLE upgrade of picture quality.
So at first the manufacturers could shoot for a nitch market...how many of you are going to bite???
Not I, with tiltles like the Pledge, Swordfish, and the Superbits, standard DVD can be very close to broadcast HD...for me HD players would have to get to a price point of around $750, and at $40 per disc I'd buy maybe one or two per month...nothing like I buy standard DVD.
However if they wait several years to rollout HD DVD, then they can start to phase out standard DVD and we will all have to comply eventually.
GEE, can Lucas get out 3 or 4 versions of TPM by then?