This guy’s done a pretty thorough analysis of this and it seems pretty clear. Now if only the combatants would stop fighting and the HD-DVD studios start releasing on Blue-Ray, then more will buy Blu-Ray players and the price will go down to a reasonable level.
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Well if “cost” and not being a sucker to DRM is any issue at all, I would think the intelligent move would be to stick with cheap DvD’s and find an upconverting player.
Thats my plan. I hate DRM and will subvert it as long as I can.
I’d argue that it’s not even close to being decided, and it won’t be decided until a reasonably priced HD or Blu-Ray player comes out, at a price in the $100-200 range. The chart encompasses such a small part of the market as compared to regular DVD sales that it is still insignificant.
The fact that Sony owns both Blu-Ray and Sony Pictures would tend to skew the numbers as well. Everything released by Sony Pictures would be Blu-Ray Only, by default.
The whole thing is a debacle, though. With the HDMI requirement, and the need for practically a small computer to decode and assign rights, I think the whole idea of HD is broken.
I wish you were right, bobbo. Upscaling is also expensive in terms of the hardware necessary (at least if you don’t wanna fool yourself with cheapy solutions) and even so it is no way comparable to the Hidef quality of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. Buy a PS3, it’s got both, upscaling for old DVDs (improving somehow your visual experience) and Blu-Ray for 1080p DVD pleasure.
The big sign to me that the war is almost won was Blockbuster pulling the plug on HD DVD.
Now with a Blue Ray player under 500 it is my plan to get one and join Blockbuster online. Will not buy any disks but at least I can watch them without fear of becoming obsolete and not spending much money.
3–Is it really an expense issue? I’ve read reviews concluding that “very good” images can be had by upscalers and it is more an issue of just finding the right combination of player and TV as they interact in many strange electonic ways. That makes sense to me.
Right now, I am very happy with my big screen standard TV I have been using for 15 years. I never directly watch TV–its 25 feet away and in the corner of my eye.
As long as the picture is not “bad,” I resist anything battery driven that I can’t replace the batteries on AND I am resisting anything with drm infection. Don’t know how long I will last, but a college try its going to get. Thats why I’m on my 4th version of Linux. As in all things, consumerism reflects our values as much as the maximum amount of disposable income we might have?
NOOOOOOOOO! What will I do with my HD-DVD 360 add on??? Ebay. Seriously, I don’t think it’s over.
#5 Upscaling is not the way to go.
I’ve recently hooked up my old PC to the living room BRAVIA 40″ LCD and I really can see the difference from HD to upscaling…
And, mind you, using VLC to play DVDs at the LCDs native resolution is way way better than using a DVD player connected to component analog, Just can’t compare… But still HD (DIVX files, because you can’t decode HD H264 on a lowly old PC…) is radically better than upscaling…
Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD Player price $255 on Amazon.
I think the future of both HD and Blue-Ray is still in question.
I bought a Samsung Upscaler DVD player price $69
Decided? Yep, I think it is. HD Video on optical media is pretty much stillborn. I have a Media Center box on the Westinghouse 42w2 and regular DVD is very good, off air HD is somewhat better and I’ll get a BlowRay/HDHDDVD drive when they are $29. Tell me why we need physical media with fiber to the curb? Uh… we don’t!
Notably regular DVDs are missing… why? Because they are still outselling HD stuff by 20:1…. at least.
If HD-DVD is dead from that chart (and really, it’s not… who taught you stats?) they both are dead in the market anyhow.
In other words – it’s too early to call because no-one is buying.
Upscaling is nowhere near as good as HD and that’s a fact. Many are happy with the quality of standard DVDs and that’s great. On the other hand, I worked in television production for many years and am really critical of picture quality. I’ll get a Blu-Ray when the prices come down.
Hiram Swartz – Blow-Ray?? Did you do that on purpose? That’s a riot! ROFLMAO!!! What a great name for the HD-DVD guys!
Lies. Damn lies. And Statistics. Did anyone read what was actually being charted?
Those are NOT charts of Blu-ray or HD-DVD revenues or marketshare.
Those are pie charts of the gross revenues of the studios that support each format. I don’t see the jump from that data to any conclusion about a format’s dominance in the market as being obvious. It’s just as ridiculous as the oposite conclusion that revenues from Blu-ray or HD-DVD have anything to do with the gross revenues of the studios.
I still think both formats are going to die a fiery death just like DVD-Audio and SACD before them. Let ’em burn.
Big disks that you insert to play rather than downloads into a big fat hard drive, how quaint!
Also, this chart does not take into consideration corporate/industrial use nor home use, as far as I can tell from my quick-scan.
I would wonder about the value of comparing revenues especially if the HD-DVD consortium is purposely selling at cost to first establish its place in the market against a more formidable foe. (Or they should be.)
One thing I like about HD-DVD is that a standard definition version of the program can be included that will play on legacy computers, including laptops and ubiquitous portable DVD players.
RBG
#0 – Uncle Dave
“Now if only the combatants would stop fighting and the HD-DVD studios start releasing on Blue-Ray, then more will buy Blu-Ray players and the price will go down to a reasonable level.”
I have to take issue with you; the same thing has happened before, most notably with CDs. If consumers start buying in, the downward retail price trend will level off and never after drop more than a trivial percentage below that line.
The longer we collectively hold out, the longer the prices will continue to descend.
#12 – RichardL
“I still think both formats are going to die a fiery death just like DVD-Audio and SACD before them. Let ‘em burn.”
With no other alternative hi-res audio format waiting in the wings, do you mean you’re actually happy with 16/44.1??
HD video… who cares? Video quality has very little to do with content quality, it’s content quality that that’s what really counts to people with any brains.
Slow weekend, watched three movies at home this weekend. One atrocious from a major movie studio (also available in HD) and two great movies from smaller studios (not available in HD and never will be). No amount of HD could have made that awful movie better, and having HD would not have made the good movies much better.
The only thing that keeps HD alive on cable is sports… it was the original reason and still is the main reason. But do we really need Oprah or Jerry Springer or the People’s Court in HD????? Aside from some truly exceptional shows (mostly foreign) like the “Planet Earth” series recently on discovery, there is no reason for HD.
All those that say an upconverted video is “good enough” are right on the money.
Will some form of HD take over? Yes, many many years from now, when more than 5% of the population actually has an HD capable TV, HD is the standard rather than the exception, and prices are reasonable. But it will not happen due to an improved demand for quality, it will just happen due to the natural evolution of technology.
“Video quality has very little to do with content quality, it’s content quality that that’s what really counts to people with any brains.”
Yes, I enjoy Saving Private Ryan just as much on a 9″ b&w TV with a tinny 1 1/2″ speaker as I do on my 50″ XBR3 with 7.1 surround. Who needs all that stuff?
[/sarcasm]
To me, content-over-presentation snobs are no different from equipment snobs who have no taste in content. Two sides of the same coin. I insist on the highest art – but presented to me in the highest quality possible. Presentation may be secondary to what’s being presented, but it’s far from being unimportant.
Lauren – I agree 100%.
Awake – I guess you have a 1 megapixel digital camera then.
#13
I’m with you. I will be skipping the last disk based format ever to be released. Terabyte hd and fast internet connections is where I will be spending my money.
since I haven’t even toyed with either format, and have been living on the fringes of information about them, I don’t know the answer to the one thing that bothers me about this. I had been opposed to HD-DVD, based purely on the relatively small gain in storage available, but doesn’t the spec include all those little goodies (stream extras alongside the main image while playing the disc?) that BD does not?
don’t flame me. I’m asking a question.
Nice use of past-tense. Considering the fight hasn’t really begun, this article and thread are meaningless.
some one just announced that they know how to 500 G on a dvd. Perhaps if we concentrate real hard we can rid ourselves of both formats and get something that is useful on modern systems
OK,
CAN we remove the PS3, from any of this.. And get better numbers that may reflect what is happening.
I DO see a trend, to convert Everything to HD/BR and Force anyone that Wants to make a copy of it, to AFFORD $25 a disk.
#17 Would you really really want to see Oprah in HD?
Some channels are really wall-to-wall Talk shows and reality TV… why HD (or more to the point, why would I spend my hard earned $$$ on a Bigass TV for that).
Not every movie benefits from higher res picture too. One notable exception is the CGI animated ones. but even so…
Anyone silly enough to invest in either format need to be slapped. There are far better optical disk platforms close enough away to make justifying the switch difficult. By the time you get setup you’d be out of date already.
Not to mention downloadable content is closer than you think.
The benefits from switching from video tape to DVD were huge, the benefits here are very minor. Well… for the consumer anyway. The benefits to the huge entertainment companies who want to take away all of our rights are significant.
Not to mention that Blu-ray lines the pockets of Sony, and Sony has to be on the top 5 most evil empires of all time list.
#15: Did you wait until DVD players dropped below $50 to buy one where they’ve now leveled off to? I doubt it. Most everyone bought when they reached a price they thought worth buying at. And the lower it got, the more bought which brought the price down. It goes down ONLY because sales volume of them increased so that manufacturing costs decreased combined with competition. Yes, the same thing will happen with Blu-Ray when volumes increase in sales of players. But only then.
#16: “The only thing that keeps HD alive on cable is sports”
Not true. I have zero interest in sports. I wanted hi-def for movies and for high-quality TV shows ever since I saw a $20,000 plasma tv and a test broadcast of hi-def signals at the public TV station I was occasionally manning a camera at in the studio over 10 years ago. While many movies are just talking heads and gain little from hi-def, special effects films and ones which are highly visual are worth seeing in that format.
Having said that, have I bought HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? Nope. Won’t either until this war is finally sorted out (ie, all studios release on one format). And then I’ll still only rent them through Netflix. Haven’t actually bought a DVD in a long time.
BTW, my upconverting DVD player (cost: $35) plays DiVX movies quite nicely.
25,
you are right…
I told many , years ago…WAIT on LCD, Plasma and HD…Wait 5 years for them to decide..What IS/WHAT will be/What is the Final product…
Look at all the changes..
Sorry, Uncle Dave, but with DVD players there was an additional variable that coincided with their rollout, which was the ramping up of Chinese production of Japanese consumer A/V. The curve I described of declining price until a given sales growth rate is reached was artificially depressed by significant drops in manufacturing costs, when Japan shifted production of most low- and mid-end consumer electonics from Japan to Malaysia and Singapore, and likewise much production from those two to China. All of this allowed profit margins to remain constant – or even increase – while retail prices continued downward, so that DVD player price decline in the face of high unit sales growth was an anomaly, IMNSHO, so that one-off phenomenon will not be repeated with Blu-Ray / HD-DVD players.
Anyway, believe what you will; I could be wrong. But in light of my track record in predicting such trends (which has made me an excellent living), I think I’ll go with what I said there. Time, as always, will tell.
• • • • • • • •
Anyway, some of you guys talk as though you have to commit to one format or the other, leading me to presume that some of you, at least, are unaware that there is a dual-format player, the LG Super Blu.
Me, I’m with a lotta you guys, DRM is the deal-killer for me at this point. Until it’s reliably hacked, I’ll sit it out.
However, it ain’t gonna be easy. Earlier today, I took my treasured Superbit edition of T5E to the store and compared some scenes (upscaled) to the Blu-Ray edition, on a 52″ Aquos, and I must admit, I was floored. There’s nothing subtle about the improvement. You just haven’t lived until you see Milla Jovovich in 1080i!
But I’ll still wait, difficult as it may be…
If we could DROP the PS3, and the 360 from these number, AND add DVD back into it…
Those numbers would change ALOT…
28, you got the right ideas…I wont purchase anything for another 5 years, until its all stabilized, and the prices DROP.
Think of those folks that Bought LCD 3 years ago…1-2 years ago…There have been many changes to LCD/plasma and HDTV…The displays are getting better, and BIGGER and cheaper.
The HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats are not going away anytime soon because the electronics companies have too much money invested in them. Since both are fairly well established as new products, my guess is that all movie companies will eventually release their films on both formats, even Sony.