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Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:28 am
by Big Magilla
Here's a very good, quite cyncial, article on why retialers support the more xpensive Blu-ray players over HD.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/jeffkleist/editorial010108.html
Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:24 am
by Eric
Yes, the format war sucked, but not having a format war will likely also suck. Expert analysts still suggest both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray may go the way of laserdisc. There is a perception that there isn't enough perceptible difference between an upscaled regular DVD and a hi-def disc.
This perception apparently has never watched, say, Happy Feet on hi-def disc, but the consumer will have to be the final judge. I've read articles that speculate the average consumer is not particularly concerned with image quality and would rather watch their movies in piecemeal on YouTube for free, given the option. So long as prices on Blu-Ray discs continue to hover at or around twice as much as regular DVDs (to say nothing of $400 at best for players when even upscaling DVD players can be had for $70), they'll write their own ticket into obsolescence.
Personally, I'd like to hope not, because a 1080p image shown on a 1080p set is magnificent.
Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:09 am
by dws1982
Supposedly the Blu-Ray folk paid Warner somewhere in the range of $500 million to go Blu-Ray-exclusive, and paid Fox a similar amount not to go format-neutral and begin supporting both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. New Line I believe has also announced that, as a subsidiary of Warner, they'll go Blu-Ray too, which means we can expect similar announcements from other Warner subsidies--HBO, BBC.
At any rate, Blu-Ray may kill HD-DVD, but I don't see it supplanting DVD any time soon--it's too expensive (and this won't exactly get prices on Blu-Ray players to drop), and the difference between it and regular DVD won't be significant enough for a casual viewer to jump ship. My guess is that Toshiba pulls the plug on the HD-DVD experiment soon, and goes to work on a next-generation format to kill Blu-Ray.
Edited By dws1982 on 1199549572
Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 10:43 am
by Eric
The difference now is that HD-DVD is basically dead. Warners (and Sony) just made your decision for you.
Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 8:27 am
by anonymous1980
Story here.
What is the difference between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD in terms of quality?