I'm a little baffled why the majority of the studios decided to support BD from the beginning. You would think they would be more interested in cheap production and higher profit margins. If current DVD facilities can easily accommodate HD DVD production and can output HD DVD at a higher rate than BD, wouldn't it make more sense to support the red camp? With cheaper production, the studios can afford to pass on the savings to the consumers thus promote HDM adoption at a faster rate. HDM mass adoption depends on lowered prices and volume distribution.
As it is, BD won the niche market. BD is technically superior to HD DVD, albeit slightly with its greater capacity. Although its software implementation is shoddy compared to HD DVD, it can be remedied as the players progress & mature. But the promises of even greater capacity is there.
The downside is that BD is a more expensive technology to carry the exact same content as HD DVD. For the home theater enthuists that's inconsequential since they typically spend more on electronics anyway.
So now we have a declared winner of a niche market. Great. Now how do get the mass consumers to adopt? BD was heavily supported by HT enthuists and PS3 owners but the mass consumer is more conscious about price & value than anything else and here the industry has opted for a more expensive solution. Is that their plan all along? Gain the HT enthuisists niche market and ever so slowly get the mass consumers to adopt. I don't doubt that eventually consumers will adopt the new standard, but it would have been a faster adoption had the industry chosen to support HD DVD. Although, nowhere near DVD of course.
I'll tell you what's not going to happen. The majority of consumers will not pay $25-$35 for a typical movie regardless whether it is Hi-def or not. The majority of consumers will not pay $400 or $300 for a movie player. Most consumers will not replace their DVD library with their HD counterpart. For new movies and movies they didn't already own is where they may opt for HD. For that to happen the price of HDM has to drop to the price level of regular DVDs and DVDs will have to drop in price as well accordingly. The hope is for HDM to go around $12-$18 and DVD to go around $6-$8. As for player price: less than $150. From the expectation set by DVD sales, people have become use to only pay a certain amount for their movies. They'll welcome new and improved technology to replace the old but not the price premium for it. Let's see how long BD can reach that point.
As it is, BD won the niche market. BD is technically superior to HD DVD, albeit slightly with its greater capacity. Although its software implementation is shoddy compared to HD DVD, it can be remedied as the players progress & mature. But the promises of even greater capacity is there.
The downside is that BD is a more expensive technology to carry the exact same content as HD DVD. For the home theater enthuists that's inconsequential since they typically spend more on electronics anyway.
So now we have a declared winner of a niche market. Great. Now how do get the mass consumers to adopt? BD was heavily supported by HT enthuists and PS3 owners but the mass consumer is more conscious about price & value than anything else and here the industry has opted for a more expensive solution. Is that their plan all along? Gain the HT enthuisists niche market and ever so slowly get the mass consumers to adopt. I don't doubt that eventually consumers will adopt the new standard, but it would have been a faster adoption had the industry chosen to support HD DVD. Although, nowhere near DVD of course.
I'll tell you what's not going to happen. The majority of consumers will not pay $25-$35 for a typical movie regardless whether it is Hi-def or not. The majority of consumers will not pay $400 or $300 for a movie player. Most consumers will not replace their DVD library with their HD counterpart. For new movies and movies they didn't already own is where they may opt for HD. For that to happen the price of HDM has to drop to the price level of regular DVDs and DVDs will have to drop in price as well accordingly. The hope is for HDM to go around $12-$18 and DVD to go around $6-$8. As for player price: less than $150. From the expectation set by DVD sales, people have become use to only pay a certain amount for their movies. They'll welcome new and improved technology to replace the old but not the price premium for it. Let's see how long BD can reach that point.
No, but that's where DVD started. It will take a year or two... but who knows, maybe they will plummet. But given netflix is dishing out bluray, that market will thrive (given it is sustained). Players will drop soon enough. The real question is can netflix survive. That doesn't make the studios nearly enough compared to disc sales.
This same argument came into play when DVD hit the market. I don't think anyone is expecting an overnight success. I won't start buying BD movies, but rentals? hell yeah if I have the option.
Then we have to factor in broadband... if it gets any better, we might see Apple and Netflix duke it out some more in that arena. I still personally think the market isn't ready. And it has to compete w/ DVR's.
That's great that we are moving forward. I'm sure most consumers would welcome that too, but they will not pay a price premium for it. They'll take the faster Core 2 Duo over the old Pentium 4 at a lower price. When BD becomes the same price or lower of today's DVD we'll see mass adoption of BD.
ACtually, that's not at all where DVD started. They were REALLY trying to attract people to the format and were running some insane specials on movies in the early goings of the DVD launch. I'm sure I'm not the only one that got in (many times over) on the 3 for 99 cents DVD sale on 800.com (yes, 33 cents per movie), many of the reel.com specials, and other absolute steals on movies back then. Its once the format started getting adopted that those sales ended.
So between the 800.com deal and the 8 free DVDs I got free with my first player, I probably wound up with 40-50 titles right away with very little cost (other than the player, which was around $250 as I recall).
While we've had a couple buy 1 get 1 free sales for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, there hasn't been anything even close to what they were doing to jumpstart DVD sales.
JulesMaximus
No Lifer
- Jul 3, 2003
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My Blu-Ray player is profile 2.0 ready.
Not that I care. I tried the whole "picture-in-picture" special features thing; saw no point. I like watching my special features in full screen, not in a tiny PiP window that I have to squint to see.
Not that I care. I tried the whole "picture-in-picture" special features thing; saw no point. I like watching my special features in full screen, not in a tiny PiP window that I have to squint to see.
whats the big hoopla about capacity? are you talking in context of eventually using BD as computer media (rather than just film)?
I dont see why it matters, as if 53gb is superior to 51gb (example). for what? to fit more commercials and worthless "extra features" on a disc?
Maybe if you want to fit Godfathers 1, 2, 3, in high-def into a single disc maybe...but as it is i dont think capacity is a problem
I dont see why it matters, as if 53gb is superior to 51gb (example). for what? to fit more commercials and worthless "extra features" on a disc?
Maybe if you want to fit Godfathers 1, 2, 3, in high-def into a single disc maybe...but as it is i dont think capacity is a problem
There is not a single triple layer HD-DVD on the market, the real comparison is 50 GB vs 30. This has already resulted in some HD-DVD's having SD special features while their Blu-Ray counterparts get HD for everything.
Viper GTS
- Aug 23, 2003
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Ask yourself why the Blu-Ray version of Harry Potter 5 got its special features in 1080p, while the HD DVD version had its special features in 480p.
And all that hoopla about HD DVD being region free? Well there's a reason. The HD DVD version of Harry Potter 5 has the following language soundtracks:
* English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround (48kHz/24-bit)
* English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
And the Blu-Ray version:
* English PCM 5.1 Surround (48kHz/24-bit)
* Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* Danish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* Dutch Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* German Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* Swedish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* Flemmish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* Catalan Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
* Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
Who needs region free when all the soundtracks you want can fit on a single 50GB disc?
mrSHEiK124
Lifer
- Mar 6, 2004
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You know what pisses me off? The insistence of whoever is mastering these BR discs to use PCM tracks; WHY?!
Here's a shitty comparison example; CD audio is 1411 kbps, most of my FLAC files are, let's say 900 kbps. That's 64%. So if you had a 2 hour PCM 44 kHz/16-bit/2ch soundtrack (unlikely), it would be 1,240 MB, compared to the 790 MB the lossless track would use. The difference is MUCH larger with a 6 channel track; you only save 450 MB of space with a 2 ch track, with 6 ch it's 1350 MB. That's enough space for at least 3 more of those alternate language Dolby tracks. That Harry Potter disc could use the extra 1350 MB of space for more video bitrate, no? Why waste almost one entire DVD-5 worth of space on AUDIO when you can utilize near half that much and have the same exact thing on the listener's end?
BR spec supports Dolby TrueHD, I don't know why they don't use it...
Hi Def is dead. My SD DVD discs look almost as good as HD DVD, That's played on a Tosuba Hd-A2 with upconversion. The Blu-Ray camp can't even make a single player that works correctly with all of the BD discs released. DVD for the win.
- Aug 23, 2003
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Some reasons I can think of:
1) No licensing fees for PCM soundtracks
2) No requirement for player/receiver to decode TrueHD
3) WB encoded their releases for the lowest-common-denominator (HD DVD), so they only had to master each movie once to release on both formats. So even if they could have saved space using TrueHD instead of PCM, they weren't going to re-master the movie just for Blu-Ray; too costly. We might see higher bit-rate encodes after May when they dump HD DVD.
- Aug 23, 2003
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If you can't tell the difference (look at Peter Parker's face), it might be time to wipe the Vaseline off your TV screen.
Or get a quality HDTV. Maybe even get an eye exam?
Even though there is a difference, to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, he said an upconverted image, not regular dvd.....
Actually, Jpeyton, I don't like your politics, so I just feel like arguing with you......:laugh:
And the difference is not nearly as noticable when you're sitting a normal distance from your TV rather than 3 feet from your PC monitor.
I'm not saying unconverted DVDs look as good as HiDef, but its in the ballpark.
I'm not saying unconverted DVDs look as good as HiDef, but its in the ballpark.
- Aug 23, 2003
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mrSHEiK124
Lifer
- Mar 6, 2004
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Uh, did you miss where it says, in your own post, that the HD-DVD version has TrueHD? That's what confuses me, both formats support it, yet they only utilize it on HD-DVD.
Everyone that says HD formats aren't any better than SD isn't as nitpicky as I am or must be using some crappy equipment. My friends can tell when I'm watching an HD broadcast or not "Dude, is that HD, I can see his pores".
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