HDDVD vs BluRay -- who cares? many folks could opt out....

[ROF]

I would say if you found and use videohelp.com regularly you are not a "average consumer"

Although not 100% true it is a good point. If you actually use videohelp.com, support those looking for help at video.com, and become knowledgeable on most subjects at videohelp.com you are no longer an average consumer but are an avid consumer. Even if you don't consume much you at least have more knowledge on the subject than others. Even lurkers here can fall into that advanced category.

[SatStorm]

@ guns1inger: Yes, that: I'm notorious on butchering the english language (that's why I don't post so often)

[guns1inger]

No offense meant, so long as you spell colour with a U you are OK.

[Marco33]

How can we get excited about a new format when they are still pumping out poorly transfered dvd's. Why should we believe that things will get better when HD (B-ray) dvd's come out?

[guns1inger]

I can't get excited about it until someone creates an affordable HDTV that can produce a good picture with a normal DVD, let alone anything actually HD. I have seen $10k + plasma and LCD TVs that I wouldn't spit on if they caught fire.

[NiteLite]

Not neccessarily. Look at DVD AUDIO and SACD as an example, both far more superior formats than the Audio CD and both High Resolution Audio. They both have failed miserably.

I would not say Failed yet as both camps continue to make and sell new discs. I still buy both and many others also.
The problem was and still is that the manufactures, both hardware and software, never advertized their product with enough inspiration to educate the consumer. They failed. Not the product...yet.
Anyone interested can still purchase and enjoy.
NL

[kamuixtv]

In my place, the success of a certain technology is PIRACY and a brand name. Since DVD got pirated the DVD related products prices went down and when PS3 comes out, kids will say "Look ma...there's a new Playstation again". People (mainly parents) will consider the legacy of Sony products (The average consumer thinks Sony is a superior product...damn...It's a Sony). On the other hand sales of Xbox360 (which is a supporter of HD-DVD) is very low in Japan (http://www.the-magicbox.com/topten.htm) a lot of Japanese still buys PS2 (strange...) and PSP. And when the time PS3 hits...those who will have it will also have Blu-Ray. When PS3 dominates, Blu-Ray will benifit from it.

[BJ_M]

Is it possible that the looming, consumer-unfriendly HD disc format war is over before the first bullet is fired? Possibly. The lines were drawn in the sand months ago and depending on which reports you read the HD-DVD group consists of mainly of: Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC and Warner. The Blu-ray group has deeper ties to more diverse markets including Sony, Samsung, Pioneer, Philips, Panasonic, LG, Dell, Disney, Fox, Lion’s Gate and more. Clearly there is more studio, hardware and computer industry support for Blu-ray over HD-DVD despite the fact HD-DVD will get to market a few months sooner.

More disturbing trends come from the talk about how many titles will be released. At the recent Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, the HD-DVD display in the Toshiba booth had no more than a handful of titles. Industry sources tell AVRev.com that when HD-DVD launches on March 15, 2006 that there could be as few as four titles available to play on the new players. While that seems implausibly low, even a dozen titles will be tough to lure early adopters over after recent failures of high resolution audio formats like SACD and DVD-Audio. Consumers remember with their wallets and will want to see enough titles to tempt them to take home a new HD disc player. Blu-ray’s exact launch date isn’t public but the conjecture is that it will be around May 1, 2006 with each of the supporting studios offering a dozen titles to start. Both HD-DVD and Blu-ray are expecting significantly more titles to be released each consecutive month as to grow the titles available to consumers.

Copy Protection: The Studio’s Option
Industry analysts say the reason Blu-ray and HD-DVD have taken so long is that there has been so much behind-closed-door conversation about copy protection. The fray over HDCP would leave over 7,000,000 consumers out of luck who can only connect their HD sources to the HDTVs via analog connectors. It is highly unlikely that the new HD-DVD and or Blu-ray will boast analog outputs for HDTV for piracy concerns. The players will likely allow downconverted video at 480p be sent via the analog outputs – not full resolution 1080i. The 1080i HD signal will be sent via HDMI connections but what is most interesting is that a handful of studios are choosing not to encode their material with watermarking or copy protection. While the players will be connected to the Internet and will receive copy protection scheme updates as hackers try to break the code – it will be the studios who decide if their material is in fact encoded when the disc is made. The question comes down to – if you are a studio looking to make a new HD disc format work is it in your best interest to screw over 7,000,000 early adopters who have HDTVs with no HDCP copy protection? At some point they will need new sets and will upgrade but for now wouldn’t you want them to be buying players and discs to help establish a new HD disc market? The studios look to be saying yes.


-Jerry Del Colliano

[ebenton]

There's an article on CD Freaks right now that says that Microsoft may be backing HD-DVD over Blu-Ray to simply promote the war, in hopes that *both* formats will fail. This way, they will be able to promote "disk-less entertainment" through online movies, video-on-demand, etc. Microsoft kind of missed the boat on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, but they are well-positioned to offer online service with upcoming Windows Vista OS and other hardware.

[dphirschler]

People, we are all "average consumers", that is the dumb asses, the experts, and the in-betweens. That is what the average is. Take everybody's knowledge and ignorance and merge it all together. The point is, when it comes down to spending more than a couple hundred dollars, we consumers tend to be VERY reluctant to let go of our money. There had better be a very good reason to do it. I've seen people go to several stores, read consumer reports magazines, read online web reviews, take notes, check prices everywhere, put it off for months, and finally jump in where he/she thinks is the best value for the money. We consumers are not idiots! We make mistakes sure, but we try to get the best value.

Those early adopters might tend to be more educated about high end stuff than everybody else, but that is likely because they actually bought it (and probably went through the above process).
It's a shame they are being punished. The technology that is punishing them should fail. That would be sweet revenge, and victory for all consumers!


Darryl

[scorps]

@ guns1inger: Yes, that: I'm notorious on butchering the english language (that's why I don't post so often)

Dont worry about it. The language gets butchered by native speakers too. Bet your greek is a lot better than mine (nonixistent)

[GKar]

I can't get excited about it until someone creates an affordable HDTV that can produce a good picture with a normal DVD, let alone anything actually HD. I have seen $10k + plasma and LCD TVs that I wouldn't spit on if they caught fire.

Agreed. I went into many TV stores looking for a large screen HDTV. They would not hook up a standard or upconverting DVD player (even when I brought my own) to any of their HDTV's to show the quality, they would only show you the HDTV signal.

[pijetro]

robertazimmerman wrote:

Please tell me what your definition of the "average consumer" is and then we'll know whether you're qualified to speak on our behalf.

A WalMart shopper...

Stand in front of a WalMart store..See how many people are walking out with cheaply made DVD players..They're accustomed to paying $40 for a standalone...

Unless Sony and Toshiba can get the prices down to those standards, the WalMart people i speak of, will not go out and buy something else in the near future...

Just my opinion...

[FulciLives]

robertazimmerman wrote:

Please tell me what your definition of the "average consumer" is and then we'll know whether you're qualified to speak on our behalf.

A WalMart shopper...

Stand in front of a WalMart store..See how many people are walking out with cheaply made DVD players..They're accustomed to paying $40 for a standalone...

Unless Sony and Toshiba can get the prices down to those standards, the WalMart people i speak of, will not go out and buy something else in the near future...

Just my opinion...

You seem to forget that prices have come down.

Once DVD players hit the $200 or less mark every single person I knew (other than a few "old" people who watch a 13" in the kitchen) had a DVD player.

Just about every single person in America had a VHS VCR prior to 1990 yet a 4 Head Hi-Fi Stereo VHS VCR was still $300 or more.

If people can buy a decent working DVD player for $40 then they will do so but that doesn't mean they won't spend $200 or more on HD-DVD or Blue Ray if $200 is the cheapest it can be bought.

This is year one for this new technology so it will be expensive but already it is cheaper than first gen DVD players (at least HD-DVD players will be this way).

So I expect prices to get much lower the 2nd year and by the 3rd year at the latest I'm sure the price will be at a "sweet spot" that people won't be able to help themselves. It won't be $40 but it won't be $500 either.

By the 3rd year of the DVD era a DVD player was still around $400 or more. A 3rd gen Pioneer DVD player was $550 but it cost me $725 because I opted to buy the region free model at a premium. Very few people had a DVD player yet but by the 3rd year of HD-DVD or Blue Ray I suspect as I said before that the price will be at a "sweet spot" hard to resist price.

I think the question is less about the cost and more about the "percieved" benefit.

For those with HDTV it is almost a no brainer ... for those without an HDTV it is a hard pill to swallow.

So the question is ... do enough people have a HDTV now or within the next 3 year and do enough of them think HD-DVD and/or Blue Ray is worth the price?

One thing that will help Blue Ray along is the Playstation 3 ... I'm not aware of a game system due out anytime soon that will be able to play HD-DVD discs.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[TBoneit]

what I think of is the average is the person that thinks price is the big factor in electronics. The customer that is quite happy with the cheapo 100 dollar Am/Fm/Tape/CD player with the whopping 4" speakers in a large speaker case that can easily handle the 1 to 2 watts per channel output, Buys the cheapest model of whatever size TV set the want... and so on. I see them here every day where the only criteria in their selection process is who has the cheapest one for sale, not who has the best one.

And of course I could be wrong, But I still remember my aunt who had a color TV where everybody had a greenish tint because it was set up by an expert and can not be adjusted from that setting.

[yoda313]

While the players will be connected to the Internet and will receive copy protection scheme updates as hackers try to break the code

I'm not hooking a movie player to the internet just to watch a movie I already bought. No way. Even though I have broadband and wireless wifi I don't want the hassle of having to connect it to my network. I just want to pop in the movie and go. No authentication, no "automatic" firmware updates, no "entertainment suggestions for my viewing habits", none of that junk please. When I make the move to hdtv I don't want to have to have it plugged in online. That's crazy.

[Wile_E]

no "entertainment suggestions for my viewing habits", none of that junk please.

I agree! It's already a pain with DVD's and their included advertisments! I can't stand popping in a DVD, and then waiting 30 seconds for it to come up to the main menu. Before the main menu, there are usually the FBI warnings and previews. On most discs, you can't even bypass these things! Not even if you hit stop, then play again. Plus, you then have to wait another 30 seconds for animated menus. It's a pain!

All I want is to be taken directly to the menu screen, or start playing the movie the instant the disc is inserted. Is that too much to ask? Must I have to rip everything and delete this junk myself? If Blu-Ray/HD-DVD has this junk, then NO THANKS! I already bought the movie. I shouldn't have to watch previews, trailers and advertisments for other stuff. It's already bad in most movie theaters too!!!!

[Bob W]

no "entertainment suggestions for my viewing habits", none of that junk please.

I agree! It's already a pain with DVD's and their included advertisments! I can't stand popping in a DVD, and then waiting 30 seconds for it to come up to the main menu. Before the main menu, there are usually the FBI warnings and previews. On most discs, you can't even bypass these things! Not even if you hit stop, then play again. Plus, you then have to wait another 30 seconds for animated menus. It's a pain!

All I want is to be taken directly to the menu screen, or start playing the movie the instant the disc is inserted. Is that too much to ask? Must I have to rip everything and delete this junk myself? If Blu-Ray/HD-DVD has this junk, then NO THANKS! I already bought the movie. I shouldn't have to watch previews, trailers and advertisments for other stuff. It's already bad in most movie theaters too!!!!

Boy do I agree with this and thats the main reason I rip my DVDs to get rid of all the crap. BTW I remember reading where it's possible to make four layer DVDs which would then be close to 20GB or near the size of Blu-Ray. Guess the big guys didn't want to do that because they wanted to stuff HDCP down our throats.

[InXess]

removed - error

[mikesbytes]

The VHS vs Beta argument doesn't apply anymore. In those days, VCR's were very expensive and most households chose to have one or the other. If DVD's didn't exist today and we were currently in a VHS vs Beta war, most households would probably have both, as the cost of VCR's now day is much lower.

Nowdays we are given new formats that fit on media which is almost physically identical aka the CD and its decendents. One of the Korean companies is already developing a player that will play both HD and Blu ray. So it seems likely that the consumer (excluding the early adopters) will need not bother to make a choice as the player of the future will play anything that physically fits into the tray.

[TBoneit]

Wile_E,
I agree, that is why I backup before watching. I can not stand all the blather before I can even get to the menu!

[Nilfennasion]

Indeed, even without being able to remove the copyright messages from a DVD+R DL due to the compatibility problems, nothing is sweeter than being able to hit that little button marked "menu" and getting a response other than "no, you have to watch this garbage we shoved onto your disc at the expense of the film you paid for".

If I had tens of millions of dollars in R&D money, right now I would be building a format on which copyright messages are restricted to one, and only one language, plus skippable. Thanks to DVD-Video, I know the wordings of copyright languages in at least ten times as many languages as I understand. Apparently, the DVD Consortium never heard the idea that familiarity breeds contempt.

Another good move would be to agree to a unified standard, as happened with DVD. The presence of a singular format that would play in any player designed for it, and deliver so much more than the previous adopted format to meet this requirement, is really the only thing that turned DVD-Video from a film buff's format into a mainstream product. All because a bunch of studios and manufacturers sat down and worked together on the best way to do things. Here was I thinking they might have learned a lesson from that.