Re: Are you waiting?

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:14:16 -0400, Farix <dhstranger@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Abraham Evangelista wrote:
On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:25:46 -0000, Doug Jacobs
<djacobs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

SpaceGirl <nothespacegirlspam@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

They're not though. Both formats offer stacks of interactivity, via
Java, which LD could never do. Some parts of both new formats are a
*long* way ahead of DVD and LD, but nobody is really pushing what can be
done yet. Some of the interactive features on the UK Matrix boxset are
pretty cool... even if you didn't like the movies (I didn't) they look
VERY nice. Also, as with many HD titles, they are double-sided, so have
regular DVDs on the back. So until you can afford a nice HD setup, you
can still collect.
I agree with the other poster. They are like LD in that they're aimmed at
the high-end, home theater crowd - not the mass market (despite what

I totally disagree. Nobody mass marketer in their right minds targets
enthusiasts as a primary market. They might be aiming at them with
higher quality goods in hopes of attracting them as early adopters,
but in the end it'll come down to bringing it to the mass market.

DVD players were upwards of a thousand dollars when they first hit
too, and all it took was some time, and the elimination of the
competing formats. (DIVX, LD, etc.)

It wasn't until the price dropped to about $200 per unit before DVD
players began to be adopted on a large scale. Also DivX and LD never
were much competition for DVD to begin with. Heck DVD killed the LD
market overnight.

And the $200 price point was just a matter of waiting. Well it was.
Now it's here.

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A352696011%2Cp_3%3A%24100-%24199%2Cp_4%3AToshiba&page=1

Walmart would have you believe!) The high end theater crowd is, for the
most part, taking a 'wait and see' stance. No one wants to get stuck with
yet another orphaned technology, like Betamax.

Define "orphaned". It's not as if when one of these formats wins the
discs from the competing format suddenly cease playing.

I take the meaning as that the technology is no longer supported. New
players and media will not be produced. So if one or the other does
break down, the owner is SOL.

New players are more of an issue. But Laserdisc despite dying a slow
and painful death was never really unavailable. Sales of players
continued as late as 2004.

The discs are another story though. But really if one format wins, if
your disc dies, you buy a replacement in the winning format, yes?

In contrast, Sony has the PS3 to kick along Blu-Ray sales, and Toshiba
has scheduled a $199 HD-DVD player for the holiday season. I'll bet
after this holiday, High-Def formats will sport at least an additional
10% market share. And all bets are off when they cut off the analog
TV broadcasts here in the states in 2009.

I'm not sure that the switch from analog to digital broadcasts will
affect the player market any.

And I'm convinced it will. Purchases of HDTVs (with the requisite
ATSC tuners) will remove the last barrier to adoption. Folks will end
up buying nice digital HD televisions and they'll want a nice player
to go along with it.

That said...

(And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!)

From a technical standpoint, neither offers you any benefit unless you
have a HDTV, preferably a 50" or larger 1080p HDTV.

Well, neither of them will show you the MAXIMUM benefit unless on a
1080p 50" screeb. But you should be able to tell the difference
between the two even on a 720p set.

To say the least, I've not been that impressed by HDTV's performance
over SDTV. For a standard that has a marginally better picture, it
doesn't justify the $1,000+ price.

To each his own I guess. I've been more than impressed by the
perfomance of even the little 720p sets that I can afford. I wouldn't
call it a "marginally" better picture. I've done side-by-side
comparisons with the TVs here in the house, and there really isn't a
comparison. Even on the same material with the same players, the HD
set offers a clearly superior picture.

But the real question is, as you said, does this justify the price? To
my eye, the answer was a clear yes. Mom replied with "It looks good.
But did you really spend $500 on a TELEVISION?" :-)

I didn't have the heart to tell her what the PS3 cost. :-)
--
Abraham Evangelista
.

Relevant Pages

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