HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray [misc discussion]

[takao]

Yep DVD was the right format, at the right time and without direct competition. It also quickly broke the important price barriers which sped up it's take up. Remember DVD is probably the most successful and quickest adopted format in recent age...

actually i would say DVD did more than that .. it actually changed consumer behaviour... before DVD people either recorded themselves on VHS in crappy quality or rent movies ...nobody bought movies .. nowadays buying movies have taken really off.. i would say it single handed saved the movie industry from getting getting bankrupt in some cases

actually what's interesting is how big the market for lower priced HD-recorder/DVD-recorders for TVs are ... sure not the same quality but sales wise it has been doing magnificent compared to either HD format (HD recorders are very late to the market around here)

I still would not pay €599-999 for a BD player here (those are the prices I saw in the Sony centre before xmas), and I normally always buy new formats.

i think they now finally have 1 player for 399 (BDP-S300 on amazon.de) and samsung 2 others in the 400-500 range

I bought laserdisc, I bought cdi, I bought vcd, I bought minidisc, I bought DCC, I bought SACD..... All of which failed the mainstream even though they offered better quality, better technology... The fact remains formats take off when the consumer is ready for them, and in that respect... DVD will continue to be the biggest seller for a long long time.

as a early adopter you always get raped on consumer electronics (less so on computers if you are a smart buyer) .. i still remember looking for a cheap AV receiver 2 years ago for my parents house and the selection was disastrous .. those with hdmi + 7.1 + component etcwere all ridiculously priced at 700-800 euros around here so it brought up a dilemma "future proof very expensive now or get a lesser cheap AV receiver until then"
needless to say i had a cheap working AV receiver and skipped the first buggy hdmi devices and we still don't have a new TV at home so it would have been useless ... better get the stuff in 2 years from now when everything has matured

the decision was close this christmas but my mother made it clear "i want a new backing oven and cooking field" ... and oh boy did i nearly got a "how many gadget i could have bought for that" heart attack when my father told me how much those two things did cost ... the new gigantic kitchen machine from october not even figured in...

 

[0098386]

Isnt 2009 suppose to be the time when broadcasters start using the DTV frequencies that will force most people to buy HD ready sets?

*le sigh*

It's not directed at you personally but so many people get this wrong.

HD sets are not required for Digital TV. Digital TV has been big in the UK for the past 9-10 years now, way before HDTV standards were set. When or if (if your country is still using analogue) the old signal is switched off you just buy a Digital reciever box. No new TV or the sorts required. (and the good news about the analogue switch off is the promise of increased bandwidth for broadcast HD!)

On a side note we've started switching off analogue TV here, yet digital TV reception is still nowhere near as wide as analogue. Silly government.

And it's no doubt BR is going to be huge. I just think it's not going to happen anywhere in the time frame folk are suggesting. Especially going off the DVD and even Digital TV adoption rate. 10 years on and some people still don't have DTV recievers here, and they're a necessity!

 

[takao]

DVD wasn't cheap when it was a new emerging technology like BD However VHS was dirt cheap when DVD started to take hold of the market, you are looking at the picture wrong.

By your analogy VHS should still be here, DVD will be phased out by BD just the same as VHS was phased out by DVD.

Ed

buying retail VHS tapes was anything but cheap ... since it predates the EURO a few years i remember VHS retail tapes selling for 150 Schilling (more than 10 euro) for the budget titles and more like 200 for the rest while the DVDs sold at that time already for 250 (less than 20 euro) or so and that was for completely new releases and the prices dropped relativly fast for newer releases since there was no market for retail VHS

the BR of today costs significantly more than DVD ever did compared to VHS


also if DVD would be going away it'S sales would be dropping for players and movies .... which they don't
last year it still was a double digit increase in sales for DVD AFAIK

on digital TV: in our house we get DVB-T and DVB-S and our TV is a Telefunken from 1992 (great picture btw)

 

[spyker3292]

Got my first Blu-ray vid today. 3:10 to Yuma.