Duality

If you think HD/Blu-Ray will replace SD DVD anytime soon follow this link: http://homemediaretailing.com/../new...rticle_ID=7874

Fielding Mellish

This doesn’t shock me at all.

Hell, I’m an A/V enthusiast… and I have to admit: I’m not chomping at the bit for HD-DVD.

I look at a rack of hundreds of DVD’s on my wall, and I shudder to think of them becoming obsolete. I just weeded out a few dozen non-anamorphic releases, fer cryin’ out loud! And the last few ‘classics’ I’ve waited years for are finally arriving to SD-DVD.

All that said, I have no intention of starting over anytime soon.

onabudget

Amen, there. Having a 100+ LD collection and a weekly-growing DVD stash, there is no $ense buying every single title all over.

Sure, the are few favorites that I will double dip on, a few bad transfers that will be "upgraded" and ofcourse rentals that will have to be seen in the new format

Its entertainment, enjoy it.

marty888

I'm still replacing VHS - no way I'm going to start replacing the replacements.

darkside

If I decide to get a HD-DVD player at some point I will simply use it to supplement my DVDs. I'm certainly not going to replace very many DVDs I already own unless the prices are affordable and they come up with some amazing must have discs worth double dipping for. I'm sure that will happen with some films, but I doubt it will apply to 95% of my discs.

I've had my HDTV for awhile now and have been watching shows in HD and really its not that big of a deal. Some have tried to compare it to the change over from black and white TV to color. Sorry, but that is a major exageration. Sure its cool that you can see more detail and I like seeing the blades of grass on the baseball field, but it is not a must have experience by any means.

critterdvd

HD-DVD and BLUE-Ray are going to be niche items like Laserdisc was. They have three things not going for them: a) two different players = confusion of the lamen, b) it is about 5 years too soon, and c) people have spent thousdands of dollars on DVDs and they aren't going to do it all over again.

The only way they could get me to upgrade would be to release a mondosuper special edition of Buffy the vmapire slayer with directors cut episode and commentary on every episode.

Michael Corvin

I see all the current double dips hurting the new format. The studios are constantly re-releasing dvds, and people re-buy. Eventually the consumer will catch on, and I think they will draw the line. I think that will be with the new format.

Maxflier

Agreed.I wasn't nearly as impressed with HDTV as i was expecting to be after all the hype.

GoldenJCJ

I also agree. In addition, while I do think the improvement over regular tv is quite noticable ( and quite superior), when I watch a DVD with a nice transfer, after watching HDTV, I see only slight improvement with HD.

bboisvert

That's basically what I've been saying in these HD-DVD threads for months. (Although I'll admit it's probably worded better above. )

I upgraded to HD about 12 months ago. I got an upconverting DVD player. And I love it -- both the HD movies/TV shows/sports and the noticable improvement with my current DVDs. But I also realize that a very, very small number of people have HDTVs at this stage, even after years of hype at retail. And there's such a relatively light selection of HD programming available -- why would they upgrade? Most people think their current SDTVs, digital cable/dish, and DVDs are "good enough". Most people just got some of this stuff in their homes -- they've had a DVD player for less than 5 years. They're not looking to replace it.

And, as mentioned above, if it is going to be such an uphill climb just to get people to buy an HD set, it isn't going to be helped by TWO competing HD-DVD formats.


I'm beginning to think more and more that we're going to be looking at a third format launch in '08 or '09 -- a unified format after both of these crash and burn. I can wait.