Format war over. Checkmate HD-DVD

[zoobie]

I think Joe 6-Pack is too drunk to think, period.

[Nilfennasion]

Depends on who you define as Joe Six-Pack, really.

Some people in this forum like to wave the concept around like a magic wand, claiming Joe Six-Pack does not care about this or that or what have you. Nice theory, of course, but wholly unscientific and prone to oversimplification. The average buying public is made up of many individuals who have differing tastes, differing ideas, and in some cases differing sensory responses. A lot of people just simply take what they think of a situation ("I don't care") and extrapolate it over an entire population using the Joe Six-Pack magic wand ("Joe Six-Pack does not care").

Funny thing is, in 1999 many people told me Joe Six-Pack does not care about the visible difference in visual quality between VHS and DVD... look where we are now.

[ViRaL1]

"There aint nothin' over till it's over."

Eventually prices will come down, yes. But this isn't it. Ask yourself this...

If the cheapest Blu-Ray player is $400 (40GB PS3) and the cheapest standalone is even higher, why would the HD-DVD camp be selling their players for $100 or less?

[stiltman]

My 2 cents

I own a 3 year old 42" Plasma with one HDMI jack and it's 1080i.
I will not replace it until it dies even though I can tell the difference between my 3 year old Plasma and the new ones on store shelves that are less than half the price I paid.

I can not tell the difference between 720p and 1080i via Broadcast signals

I can not tell the difference between my up converting DVD player set to 720p or 1080i. It still looks like 480i/p to me

I went to buy the player at Walmart and they were already sold out. I was told they only had 4 in stock.

Do I care which format wins? Nope
All I wanted was a player and the 5 free HD-DVDs
Plus, I was willing to buy a couple HD-DVDs that were on sale

[DVWannaB]

Wrong. You need to go back and read my post. I am trying to interject some real-world man on the street views which is FAR less technical and more esthetic.

Your argument is far reaching and has no basis in what is going on in the world today. Secondly, I did not say I did not care about HD. I in fact LOVE IT!!! It has been long in coming and should have been here before the time it became widely available. In fact I said regular Joes dont care about format wars or about what is interlaced or progressive. They cannot, like you have suggested, articulate the fact that they have been stuck with a legacy technology (SD) that was developed before the 1950s, actually (in the USA). They only know that this is what it is and no more. People who have seen HDTV displays will say, "hey that looks great, how much" and then will say, "OK, I will have to wait on that", because most people are not willing to pluck down $2000 (as an example) to get one, when they have become accustomed to the $200 to $500 SD TV sets. Again, the techincal argument about makes HD is immaterial to most people. All they care about is that the screen is large (+) and the HD content looks great (+). Then there are those who get the HDTVs home and end up returning them because the SD picture looks like crap. I believe people are aware that HD looks better, but there is the cost factor (I understand prices are going down) and content. When you add up the cost to buy a HDTV, subscribe for HD content, buy a HD or BluRay player, all of a sudden you realize that the overall cost to entry and monthly are prohibitive to entry. DVD made a more seemless and inobtrusive entry, because it essentially replaced or went next to your VCR. Now we have buy all new stuff.

In response to what your grandmother experienced. Who has not had a "bad" movie or disc moment? I bet your grandmother cannot explain what caused the "bad" experience. All she knows is that something isnt working right and thats it. Lets replace the disc with a new one. That has no bearing on people's TV watching of over-the-air, cable and then sattelite/DVD habits developed over the years.

[DVWannaB]

Depends on who you define as Joe Six-Pack, really.

Some people in this forum like to wave the concept around like a magic wand, claiming Joe Six-Pack does not care about this or that or what have you. Nice theory, of course, but wholly unscientific and prone to oversimplification. The average buying public is made up of many individuals who have differing tastes, differing ideas, and in some cases differing sensory responses. A lot of people just simply take what they think of a situation ("I don't care") and extrapolate it over an entire population using the Joe Six-Pack magic wand ("Joe Six-Pack does not care").

Funny thing is, in 1999 many people told me Joe Six-Pack does not care about the visible difference in visual quality between VHS and DVD... look where we are now.

I'll take a shot at that. Joe Six-Pack is the general buying public who has never heard of videohelp.com nor cares to visit. I would also include your definition is pretty on the money until you added your high-hat remark, of course. Furthermore, I challenge you to go to any electronic store and ask the sales clerk this very question about the average everyday person that comes into their store and wanders over the HDTV and ask questions. Go to various stores, make a note of the responses you get from each store and sales person. Then come back and post your findings.

Somehow you have turned this conversation into one where you have somehow determined my comments to mean people dont care about visual quality. I wonder where I posted such a statement. Reading comprehension, ... just maybe?

[videopoo]

I think WannaB was pointing to the fact that most don't see a difference between Progressive and Interlaced...and many don't see a difference between SD and HD....sad but true.

[DVWannaB]

To go a bit further to what poo said above, I am merely pointing out the general ignorance by viewing public and I used my wife as an example. She somewhat represents people I encounter at work, at school at the movie theater and family.

Add to that the confusing technology and formats, etc. Its a lot to understand for the average Joe. Throw in a healthy dose of misleading advertising and what you have is one really messy complicated scene. I look no further than the amount of posts on this site for guys who have bought the new HD camcorders that were advertised to be "FULL HD 1920x1080". Only to find out the cam only does 1440x1080 with a effective resolution of 1280x720. Now isnt that a dose of reality to add to the other problems associated with these new cams (particularly avaliable SW). Now imagine the non-videohelp.com folks out there that bought this cam?

[Heywould3]

I think WannaB was pointing to the fact that most don't see a difference between Progressive and Interlaced...and many don't see a difference between SD and HD....sad but true.

i dont think that its not seen i think that if a person says they dont see it its because they dont care about it. detail is not important to them. its impossible to not see the difference between sd and HD uness you are blind. my kid is the furthist thing from a videophile or anything in the like.. she is happy with a small 19" crap color tv.. BUT she does love animal planet and discovery channel and nature type shows. when i showed her what the jungle or ocean looks like on my HD tv she was floored. she said it looks like im there. i cant get her away from my tv now. i told her about it many times and she always said.. cool dad.. but she didnt give a shit.. but find a reason for her to be interested and things and opinions change.. find joe sixpack and something that he is interested on tv .. IE football US or EU put him in front of a good HD game and he will never go back.. but put that same guy in front of it watching a Opra and hell say to hell with HD.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Nilfennasion et al,
The A20 does a poor job of deinterlacing that's why I let my HDTV do the work but it has a better upscaler(ABT) than the A2.
The A2(which is on sale) will still look good on most HDTV's,this price point will encourage J6P to buy an HDTV.

[videopoo]

i dont think that its not seen i think that if a person says they dont see it its because they dont care about it

Thats basically the same thing...but I was referring to Progressive vs. interlaced really

[Heywould3]

i dont think that its not seen i think that if a person says they dont see it its because they dont care about it

Thats basically the same thing...but I was referring to Progressive vs. interlaced really

thats a tough one to judge. a 1080P tv will upconvert 1080I. and since LCD is P anyway its real tough to see. but it is noticable but you have to wait for motion. im not refering to motion blur due to response time im refering to interlaced vs P blur. its noticeable in 720P vs 1080i slightly. what i see is in 1080P or 720P when something moves the pic stays very HQ strong detail. but when you watch the same piece in 1080i you will see a degredation in quality or detail in the areas that are moving. its slight but i see it. i think the same thing is true with al i vs p pictures even DVDs. watch a dvd in 480i and 480P and you see a difference, dont you?

[thecoalman]

...Except Joe Six Pack has a freakin' DVD collection and is not about to replace that with a HD-DVD or Blu-ray collection. DVDs are just fine for Joe Six Pack! He's not about to get suckered into another format war, not after what he went through with Beta vs VHS. Not too mention, Joe Six pack doesn't own an HD TV.

Thanks for playing.

Ahhh but he can play his DVD collection in the HD player which is the hook, people give too much credit to the consumer. If the consumer is buying a player for $600 questions will be asked, they'll do reseach etc. On the other hand they see a box with high definition written on it for $100 which isn't that much more than the box with the regular DVD player they aren't going to care if its BD or HD-DVD, most wouldn't know the difference to begin with. They purchase with their wallets not their brains.

[videobread]

I hope HD DVD has won. Sony is nothing but trouble. Allways trying to corner the market. Remember Beta-Max? Bugs on Sony CD's. Play Stations that are not backward compatible. Blu Ray discs that are a different physical size than DVD. Sony is a scammer company with overpriced product that I personally boycott.

[thecoalman]

I think Joe 6-Pack is too drunk to think, period.

Agreed... however for me it needs to be joe-case-of -beer

[Heywould3]

I hope HD DVD has won. Sony is nothing but trouble. Allways trying to corner the market. Remember Beta-Max? Bugs on Sony CD's. Play Stations that are not backward compatible. Blu Ray discs that are a different physical size than DVD. Sony is a scammer company with overpriced product that I personally boycott.

beta max was and is a better format than VHS and is still used in the video industry BTW. it was bad markiting is all. sony runs into problems when they come out with proprietary technology. IE their memory sticks. there tvs and some other electronics are great.

[RLT69]

I hope HD DVD has won. Sony is nothing but trouble. Allways trying to corner the market. Remember Beta-Max? Bugs on Sony CD's. Play Stations that are not backward compatible. Blu Ray discs that are a different physical size than DVD. Sony is a scammer company with overpriced product that I personally boycott.

Right this is an obvious troll. :P


1. SONY DOES EQUAL BLU-RAY.

"The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray Disc technology and responsible for establishing format standards and promoting and further developing business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

2. Why does size matter anyway? <insert obvious joke here> It's a different technology. HD-DVD requires a different laser anyway. So it doesn't matter if it's a different size.

3. PS3 is backwards compatible - there have been some issues which recent updates have fixed but PS3 did not lock out PS2 or PS1 games.

Please troll somewhere else

[Video Head]

...Except Joe Six Pack has a freakin' DVD collection and is not about to replace that with a HD-DVD or Blu-ray collection. DVDs are just fine for Joe Six Pack! He's not about to get suckered into another format war, not after what he went through with Beta vs VHS. Not too mention, Joe Six pack doesn't own an HD TV.

Thanks for playing.

Total agreement. Until the general public sees that a new product is going to benefit their lives, or they percieve that everyone else already has one, they will not jump. DVD did sit on the shelf for a short while, with many wondering if the format would survive...all too recent memories of Betamax. But once they saw what it provided over VHS it almost wiped out the old format overnight. Same with CD over vinyl or cassette, although it took longer to take off due to sustained high pricing of the players. Early adopters will buy any new cool technology or toy that comes along regardless of price, but once the slide starts then all of the "me too's" can't get to the store fast enough to become part of the club. I'm not convinced that the HD formats offer the consumer a great enough advantage over plain old DVD to switch. Especially considering that they have just converted their VHS collection to DVD, most likely at great expense. To most consumers, good enough is good enough.

VH

[Video Head]

I hope HD DVD has won. Sony is nothing but trouble. Allways trying to corner the market. Remember Beta-Max? Bugs on Sony CD's. Play Stations that are not backward compatible. Blu Ray discs that are a different physical size than DVD. Sony is a scammer company with overpriced product that I personally boycott.

beta max was and is a better format than VHS and is still used in the video industry BTW. it was bad markiting is all. sony runs into problems when they come out with proprietary technology. IE their memory sticks. there tvs and some other electronics are great.

Betacam is the pro format that is still used today. Betamax was the consumer format that flamed out. They are completely different.

[Heywould3]

I hope HD DVD has won. Sony is nothing but trouble. Allways trying to corner the market. Remember Beta-Max? Bugs on Sony CD's. Play Stations that are not backward compatible. Blu Ray discs that are a different physical size than DVD. Sony is a scammer company with overpriced product that I personally boycott.

beta max was and is a better format than VHS and is still used in the video industry BTW. it was bad markiting is all. sony runs into problems when they come out with proprietary technology. IE their memory sticks. there tvs and some other electronics are great.

Betacam is the pro format that is still used today. Betamax was the consumer format that flamed out. They are completely different.

That may well be. but the consumer betamax format is and was still better than VHS weather its used in the industry or not i guess i didnt dig that deep into, just assumed for some reason.

In the professional and broadcast video industry, Sony's Betacam, derived from Betamax as a professional format, became one of several standard formats; production houses exchange footage on Betacam videocassettes, and the Betacam system became the most widely used videotape format in the ENG (Electronic News Gathering) industry, replacing the 3/4" U-matic tape format (which was the first practical and cost-effective portable videotape format for broadcast television, signaling the end of 16 mm film — and the phrase "film at eleven" often heard on the six-o-clock newscast, before the film had been developed). The professional derivative of VHS, MII (aka Recam), faced off against Betacam and lost. Once Betacam became the de facto standard of the broadcast industry, its position in the professional market mirrored VHS's dominance in the home-video market. On a technical level, Betacam and Betamax are similar in that both share the same videocassette shape, use the same oxide tape formulation with the same coercivity, and both record linear audio tracks on the same location of the videotape. But in the key area of video recording, Betacam and Betamax are completely different. BetaCam tapes are mechanically interchangeable with Betamax, but not electronically. BetaCam moves the tape at 12 cm/sec, with different recording/encoding techniques. Betamax is a color-under system with linear tape speeds ranging from 4 cm/sec to 1.33 cm/sec.

In a sence i was right in my thinking just didnt have all the info it seems. the source of that quote was wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax

[Wile_E]

If HVD ever comes out, we won't have to worry about this dual-format war anymore. It's the whole industrys fault for not standardizing on one format and working together on it. But we have greedy companies from both sides, that want their own proprietary format that they can license out to the other side. Where was the DVD Forum and other standards committees? Why they allowed dual-formats is beyond my understanding.

Once everything goes solid-state memory, we won't have to worry about discs either. Just plug in a standard memory card to watch a movie.

HVD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc

[Ai Haibara]

1. SONY DOES EQUAL BLU-RAY.

Is that actually what you meant to say?

2. Why does size matter anyway? <insert obvious joke here> It's a different technology. HD-DVD requires a different laser anyway. So it doesn't matter if it's a different size.

I'm probably wrong, but I thought I heard they were using similar/the same (blue?) laser components. I've no idea if that's true or not, though.

3. PS3 is backwards compatible - there have been some issues which recent updates have fixed but PS3 did not lock out PS2 or PS1 games.

Didn't the most recent lower-price PS3 they released not include backward-compatibility for PS2 and PSX titles? (I think someone said that if you needed it, it could be added, but I'm not sure.)

[Video Head]

Sorry Heywould3. I wasn't trying to slam you, I was just noting the difference in the formats. Many confuse the two as they use the same case. Betacam is component, the tape speed is much faster and the audio is far superior. The equipment for Betacam - cameras, recorders and players - is all pro level.

[Heywould3]

solid state is the way to go. and will in my opinion be the final fomat when it comes. at least for a long time. in the same way (resin disks) have been around for ever. we are close now. flash drives hold enough for at least one full dvd with extras now. get the cost down and we might have a winer. this is all just my opinion not a prediction im no fortune teller :P

[Chuck584]

That's it. HD-DVD has won.

HD-DVD players are now under $100.

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9809165-1.html

At that price, I'd buy one.

Went to 3 Walmarts today. Couldn't find one.

Hard to win a war when you have no ammo.

[Heywould3]

they will be on line for that price in no time. newegg tiger or zippy will grab some and sell at reduced price.

[stiltman]

THIS PLAYER IS FOR NOTHING
IT IS NOT FULL HD IT CAN HANDLE 1080i ONLY....
SO IT IS SOMETHING LIKE BETTER DVD PLAYER..WAR IS NOT OVER YET

It will do 1080p @ 24fps (Firmware Update 2.5 enables this functionality)


BTW, did anyone actually get one?

[SCDVD]

The achievable price for HD players is very close to a standard DVD player. From a manufacturing point of view, there is little difference. Some of the component manufacturers are trying to get a premium price for the HD parts (laser, chips etc.). But when it gets down and dirty with competition in full swing, the market price for HD players won't be much above todays DVD player prices.

[MOVIEGEEK]

It will do 1080p @ 24fps (Firmware Update 2.5 enables this functionality)


BTW, did anyone actually get one?

That firmware is for the A20 and XA2.
BTW:My Dad went to Walmart this morning and they were all sold out.

As for movies on flash memory I totally agree:no moving parts,scratches on discs,write errors and no lasers to wear out.

[tmelo38]

Just one question, does anyone know if these HD players play PAL dvd's?
I'd buy one in a flash.