I totally agree this !!!

One you thing many are not taking into account is that many people who buy DVDs might not have been that into movies or home theater before DVD, but now are. DVD has literally made new fans and increased interest and also it has educated people on things like anamorphic transfers, widescreen and OAR vs Full Screen, progressive scanning, compression, black levels, artifacts, edge enhancements and overall picture quality.

Also, in the time DVD has gained popularity, video/encoding tools on the internet have vastly increased. There are entire 'scenes' dedicated to backing up movies using various codecs and it also has made people experts on the subject. Alot of it seems really complicated too. These people will definately want the best movie format.

I also find it hard to imagine that when the "big movies" like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc get HD-DVD releases that everyone will sit around and have no desire to buy these. They will buy whatever hardware it takes.

As HD-TV gets more popular people will also want the same quality for the movies they buy and DVD will not provide that. HDTVs are becoming cheaper and cheaper too and they are all over stores these days displayed prominently. You don't have to go to speciality stores anymore for them.

Finally, home computers had something to do with the initial success of DVD because many people bought DVD-Rom drives first before moving on to DVD standalone players. And some only use DVD-Rom drives for their movies. If HD-DVD-Rom drives come out then the same thing will happen all over again.

I'm buying an HD-DVD player as soon they come out. And I hope it is very soon.

Not far enough away as far as I'm concerned.

I know that I will want to upgrade as soon as its available, and I can't be trusted to hold back.

Will power is not one of the things I possess. I held out for DVD as long as I possibly could (didn't convert from VHS until 2001), but I don't think I could do it again.

I converted in 2001 as well. I don't see myself getting into HD-DVD until I can start buying them used.

Or until a www.deepdiscounthddvd.com exists

hard to say when they'll come out, but I don't think they'll ever supplant DVD as the dominant movie format.

Joe Six Pack isn't going to buy new equipment and rebuy his movie library just for better A/V quality. DVDs caught on because they offered so much more over VHS than just A/V quality like extras, instant scene access, no rewinding etc.

A great comparison is CDs. They've been around for over 20 years and nothing is close to challenging them (in the purchasable music front anyway, mp3's are popular just because they can be downloaded illegally) as the only advancements new formats like SACD and DVD-A have offered is better sound quality.

Things like HD-DVD, SACD and DVD-A will never be more than niche market products for audio and videophiles. Better A/V quality just isn't enough to get the mainstream market to upgrade and re-buy their entertainment media.

AFAIK, no radio station broadcasts in 5.1 format. Therefore, your comparison is a little off. Moreover, 2 channel music is good enough for most people, including me. Joe Six Pack will eventually walk into a Best Buy, see a clip of a sporting event in HD, and want that at his home.

HDTV sets are flying off the shelves at retail stores. Sony and Samsung cannot keep up with the demand for their LCD and DLP sets. As sales continue to grow, hardware prices will be driven down and more people will have HDTV sets in their homes. Soon those people will realize that DVD that used to provide superior picture to NTSC now does not look as good as before.

Also, Hollywood better rushes out HD-DVD or contend with piracy off HBO-HD or Show-HD in EVD format. For me, as soon as the firewire out on my cable box is active and there is a workable solution for archiving HD contents on a harddrive, I will record everything of those channels and sell off my DVD collection.

Regular DVDs look damn fine on an HD set. I don't think HD-DVDs will look enough better to make people upgrade their DVD player and rebuy their movie library, other than videophiles.


It's a factor, but there will always be some cheap losers out their that don't care about paying artists for their work that will pirate music, movies, etc. regardless of what the industry does.

I have to disagree. DVDA/SACD audio gives you higher resolution audio but unless you have the speakers to resolve this resolution it's all for naught. However once someone has a HDTV and they grow accustomed to HD-DVD they will never escape the "what is wrong with my TV" feeling every time they go back to DVD.

I'm rethinking my current DVD purchases. Moving more to rental than purchasing. I just watched my friends $1700 Hitachi HDTV and the sports channels are freakin' amazing!! HDTV will be in everyones budget damn near in two years. After that DVD sales will start to diminish as they will be inferior to regular broadcast.





Depends. If the studios price HD-DVD at $29.99 and up then I might disagree but once they move sub $24.99 it's over for DVD as far as new releases. No one is going to put up with inferior pictures. Most of us don't listen to SACD or DVDA 5-6 hrs a day but studies show 5-6 hrs a day of TV watching happens in most households. There are more eyes on TV than ears on speakers so to speak.

To each his own. Even my parents noticed that DVD is inferior to HD and asked me to turn off Open Range and show something in HD to them after watching a basketball game on ESPN-HD last month.

Even the attitude on this board is changing, three months ago the same question was asked and only 4-5 people defended HD-DVD. Now, I have counted at least 8 HD-DVD enthusiasts in this thread.

If the industry is smart, it won't even be an issue.

Once HD-DVD players/recorders are down to the sub-$100 level, there will be no need to even produce standard DVD players. People will eventually need new equipment, and they'll get an HD-DVD player/recorder by default.

DVDs will probably come out in both high and low-def formats for awhile, like they do now in both Widescreen and P&S. Some cinephile titles may only come out in HD, and some family fare may only come out in DVD.

I forsee a not-too-distant future where all new DVDs will be HD, and people will buy them w/o realising it, but will notice how good it looks.

The market will take over itself. The U.S. is finally moving to HD - and since the market share for HD sets is growing, it's just a matter of time before people want a home video format that looks as good, if not better, than broadcast HD.

If you've ever compared a DVD image with an HD image, the difference in picture quality is EASILY seen, even by the untrained/unwashed.

To add to Jough's post, I have read somewhere that Sony plans to stop manufacturing direct-view CRT TV sets in 2008 or 2009. This should be an indicator of how manufacturers see the future market of TV sets including HDTV.

Do you no how pissed off people will be, especially mainstream people that just bought DVD players in the past year or two, if the industry stops making DVD players, forcing studios to switch to HD-DVDs?

That's not going to happen. It would kill the market. The non tech-heads and non-film buffs would likely just say the hell with it and stop buying movies.

The smart thing is to offer backwards compatibility. That way people can still watch their old DVDs, studios can release on DVD until (and if) HD-DVD becomes the most popular format, and non-video/audio philes will have no real need to rebuy their library.

The HD-DVD spec approved by the DVD forum is backward compatible with regular DVD (I think). With red laser, it is not that difficult to achieve. Case in point is DVD and CD.

Also remember that the jump from DVD to HDDVD will not be the huge culture leap that VHS to DVD was. People won't have to get used to discs over tapes, and stores will be able to stock them side by side. All you have to do to see JSP's willingness to "upgrade" is look at the sucess of PS2. People will by new hardware to play new software as the old software is slowly phased out.

Even when the first HD-DVD will appear within the next 2 years or so it will take many, many years before the average user will jump on the HD-DVD wagon. At least 8 to 10 years, Iīd say. HD-DVD wonīt make that significant a change in sound & image quality as the DVD did over the VHS tape. Just let the so called "Early adopters" shell out loads of money when the first players and discs arrives on the market at huge prices.

Remember the sales of DVD titles & DVD players havenīt even peaked yet. Thatīs what every statistic says all over the world. Every distributor/manufature wants to milk every Dollar, Pound, Kroner, Euro and Yen before they start to advertise heavily for HD-DVD titles and players.

So no need to think about selling you DVD collection, just yet.

I think the first of this player will be out in June or August this year in Tokyo.Panasonic president said he wants the fist one to be out with those unit's.

You are right, I thought exactly same thing like you.

Will the software cost $40? $1,000 for a player? I guess it depends whether the corporate types think they're better off with a DVD replacement or a high-end add-on.

Take a look at the bottom of this page. Not only does HD significantly improve the image quality over DVD, sound quality will most likely improve. I would take dolby digital on HBO-HD or D-VHS over the best DTS track on DVD any day. Higher bitrate provides much fuller sound.


Do not underestimate the power of firewire. The FCC mandates that cable providers must have an active firewire out from their HD boxes by April 1st. Firewire connection will deliver HD quality image and sound to a recording devices including D-VHS decks. I am gearing up towards that date. Again, once recording to a PC harddrive is practical, Hollywood won't get another penny from me for the catalogue titles.

8-10 years for HD-DVD adoption? We'll be talking about a new format in 10 years.

HD-DVD likely won't see the light of day until late 2005 at the earliest, especially considering that the specs haven't even been finalised yet.

We *may* see pre-recorded Blu-Ray hit the market in time for this coming holiday season, but it's hard to say whether it'll succeed with the public without the name "DVD" in the title.

I mean, Sony has had a winning home audio recording format for years with Minidisc. There are NO advantages of audio cassette over MD (other than price - and even there, blank MDs are actually cheaper than blank cassettes anymore). Yet it hasn't caught on in the US.

Sony has a tough road to hoe with getting Blu-Ray accepted. It'll need more hardware and software manufacturers on its side. Luckily, the Blu-Ray group has most of the major manufacturers behind it, whereas HD-DVD has only two hardware makers currently pledging support, with the rest (who belong to the Blu-Ray Group) taking a "wait and see" approach.

What is most likely is that Sony and every other major manufacturer other than Toshiba will make hardware for both Blu-Ray AND HD-DVD, and let the titles decide.

It would be nice to see the format war be averted and to have a single blue laser format emerge. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

So if anything delays the acceptance of HD-DVD, it'll be the dual formats.

And for the record, both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will use blue lasers. Those lenses will also be able to emit a red beam for backwards compatibility with CDs and current DVDs as well.

Not that I'm looking forward to them but let's not forget that players with WM9 support will be released within the year. So if studios decide to add WM9 to current DVD titles we could see HD on DVDs real soon.

I don't think that's a fair comparison because sports programs shown in HD (and TV shows filmed with HD cameras) have more of a WOW factor than watching film in HD. If I want to demo something in HD on my TV or projector, a sporting event is the way to go. While movies on HD HBO and Showtime are an improvement over DVD, they still don't look as completely stunning as watching a football or hockey game in HD.

What we all are talking about in this thread is pure speculation. Each and everyone of us are just guessing. Itīs the average consumer that really decides how fast HD-DVD will be adopted... if at all. Who knows if an intirely different format will appear. None of us know that.

Excatly. But will the same happen to HD-DVD? Thatīs the question. Only the consumer has the power to decide the fate of HD-DVD with prices being the most important factor.