HDTV and Home Theater Podcast #252 - Blu-ray Backlash

[film11]

Having just picked up an A30 for $115 at Circuit City (after the Toshiba announcement), I have absolutely no intention of purchasing a BR player for $400 that can't even measure up to HD-DVD specs. As others have said here, I'll use it as an upconverting player, while taking advantage of the over 400 HD titles out there,

Any future HD movies, I can usually get day-and-date on HD OnDemand. I already have numerous HD films archived on my DVR that are not on BR, from Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL to HARD DAYS NIGHT to DARK CITY to SIN CITY to the pseudo-doc AMERICAN CANNIBAL. This month the Tarantino/Rodrigues GRINDHOUSE films are being presented both in the individual expanded editions, as well as the original Theatrical version with the faux trailers, all in HD! All six STAR WARS films are also available in HD on cable.

With some people being able to utilize HD downloads as well (which may grow in upcoming months), there seems to be very little reason to get an over-priced BR player. Even if prices drop $100 for earlier profile-challenged machines, you're still paying more for something that isn't even up to HD-DVD specs and prices.

The tactics used by Warners and the home video community to eliminate choice leaves a very bad taste in my mouth as well. If HDM eventually does not perform as well as the industry hopes, they should point the finger at themselves for eliminating the best entry point for mass-adoption.

[jordanm]

Please notice a blu-ray muti-disk player:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/sto ... 1644516277

Here is a blu-ray player with ethernet for web and updates:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/ ... -95FD.Kuro


HD-DVD is a better consumer format with the same quality picture and required hi-def audio, ethernet, etc. Consumers also use MP3 because of ignorance of what hight quality music is and convienence. Face it, we are lazy and ignorant as a rule.

The multi disk is so new it is not available, yet; it becomes so in 2 days. Additionally, it is huge, one measurement is 31+ inches, making it 3 x the size of one of my 301 disk units.

The other player with ethernet for web and updates is in a class by itself (I wouldn't expect less from Pioneer) and is $999 but is still a single-paly unit. Today Tiger Direct sent me an email selling off the Toshiba HD-A3 HD-DVD Player with 7 free HD DVD movies for $89 (and the A3 was only $129 before this). Some comparison!

[jordanm]

Any future HD movies, I can usually get day-and-date on HD OnDemand. I already have numerous HD films archived on my DVR that are not on BR, from Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL to HARD DAYS NIGHT to DARK CITY to SIN CITY to the pseudo-doc AMERICAN CANNIBAL. This month the Tarantino/Rodrigues GRINDHOUSE films are being presented both in the individual expanded editions, as well as the original Theatrical version with the faux trailers, all in HD! All six STAR WARS films are also available in HD on cable.

Agreed, I am just waiting until the end of month until my cable carrier (Cox) has HD OnDemand (it is already a month later than initially promised). I have the same bad taste in my mouth and btw, Sony completely bucked the DVD Forum (Council?) to release Blu Ray in the first place, and Warner's tactics??? Sheesh how they did what they did at CES to gain traction-I won't touch that now. Neither Sony nor Warner can be held blameless for the war they created and orchestrated by bucking or breaking from what was the industry "standard".

[dabhome]

The war ended to soon and to close to Christmas. The war should not have been over until both formats were complete, compatible in capability and price (not in specs or future, but in actual shipping product).

By ending the war so close to Christmas the companies did not allow people to enjoy their entrance to HD movies. It was far enough away so they could not return them, but not far enough away to really begin to like them. This just leaves a bad taste in their mouth. I suspect that most of the people who got HD-DVD players will not make the jump to Blu-Ray anytime soon.

If instead the war had ended later this year, say right before the next Christmas season. There would have been less backlash. In addition, there would have been a larger group of people used to HD movies.

Blu-Ray won primarily because the movie studios liked the extra security. But, this is not for the consumer. No matter how you put it extra security is a pain for the consumer. From region codes, to upgrading players, to the cost for low end providers, to the ability to create your own disks.

As for Blu-Ray supposedly being a better standard. The studios are having a hard time convincing people the quality of HD is better then upconverted DVDs. Imagine trying to convince them the extra space makes much difference. So far in practice it has not. Even if it did, the difference would be even smaller then between upconverted DVD and HD. The law of dimensioning returns.

BD-Java should be able to produce better content. But, so far it hasn't. So once again the war should not have ended until the public saw movies coming out on Blu-Ray with better content. The problem is HD-DVD came out with better content.

Future Blu-Ray players will be able to perform as well as current HD-DVD players. But, again this is not true yet (except for the PS-3). Although the PS-3 is a good Blu-Ray player, it has a lot of negatives. The biggest being it does not work with standard remote controls. It also is not a standalone player. Many people do not want a game player.

Finally, price. Blu-Ray is still too expensive for most people vs. the benefit. It is not just the cost of the player, but the cost of movies. Until the cost of players and movies come down in price it will never take off.

The only possible positive is that now that Blu-Ray has won and it has to compete against DVD, maybe movies and players will come down in price. However, it may also spell the slow death of HD.

[allchemie]

Jerry,

are Warners and Disney SO greedy that a customer base of a million in this country alone aren't enough to sate that greed? How many businesses in this country today would give their left **** to have a base like that??

Whether they are or they aren't too greedy is besides the point. Since standard dvd's are still outselling Hi-Rez discs by a very large margain, the Walmarts, Targets, etc. were complaining that adding two formats to their competitive square footage was wasting them a lot of money. They only wanted to make room for one format. Even Netflix and the other online and mailing disc companies didn't want to stock two hi-rez formats.

As in Lord of the Rings, they all wanted: One Format to rule them all, One Format to find them, One Format to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. My apologies to Tolkien:-)

Greg

[ahaer]

HD-DVD's enhanced features were it undoing... Why? because it prevented studios from making a simple re-master of ALL new releases into a basic DVD/HD-DVD combo disk. Instead each HD-DVD required much more work to make the fancy menus and all the "extras".

Toshiba should have spent there promo money saying to studios that they would cover the extra cost of making a combo disk so that EVERY new DVD was also a HD-DVD. (Of course there is a fundamental question if that is what the studio really wanted). I never understood why they produce/stocked both a DVD and a DVD/HD-DVD disk of the same movie...

Remember S-VHS??? One day there were a few S-VHS movies in blockbuster then a month later every new release was S-VHS. It was a no-brainer - single SKU for two customers. Contrast this with D-VHS (which did not play in older players) which went no where. Toshiba should have learned from this example.

HD-DVD's strength was that it was from the same group as DVD so that they could have flooded the market with the DVD HD-DVD combo disks. Imagine how different things would have been if the head lines were "30 million HD-DVD disks purchased vs 2 million BluRay"

Oh well, too late now...

[Richard]

Historically, every time a combo solution was promised the promise failed to materialize in any numbers of significance. The most recent example is DVD Audio and SACD...

[ahaer]

SCAD and DVD-Audio combo format would have been the same as making a HD-DVD/BluRay combo disk.

the DVD/HD-DVD would be more like a CD/SCAD combo or a CD/DVD-Audio combo. In all cases it would allow someone to buy media in the "old" format (DVD/CD) that would play on their current players but would also help them to build a library of HD content that would provide them an incentive to buy the player in the future. Ie. "I have bought 20 combo dvds in the last 2 years - maybe its time to get the player too." Instead of "no need to buy the player since all my movies are only DVD"

But to make the point again - this would only have worked if they had released all new DVDs as DVD/HD-DVD combo disks only...

[Richard]

the DVD/HD-DVD would be more like a CD/SCAD combo or a CD/DVD-Audio

Sorry for the misunderstanding and assumption... yes, that was the original plan. I did see a handful of SACD/CD combos at the beginning, it did improve but was rarely part and parcel of any major pop release where it really would have count. The DVD Audio/CD combos didn't show up till towards the end, limited but at least major pop titles, when it no longer counted anymore.

[jerfilm]

Speaking of the DVD-Audios and Super CDs, I picked the wrong format on that one as well. Watch me the next time around - Missouri picks the next President, Rutledge picks the wrong format......8 track quad, quadrophonic discs, what was that other coded quad format -- Columbia records I think it was???

No, what I was going to say is, I gave up on the CD thing entirely, but I notice that every once in a while, when a Classical CD arrives it is a compatible SACD. Sadly, my CD players are all DVD players and so far, I haven't found one that will decode SACDs.......

Isn't it a shame that they come up with these wonderful, but basically worthless, enhancements??

Jerry