Maybe 'ol Joe was a bad analogy. However, you'll have people buying into this next generation format if only to have the latest item on the market or because of hype and not being aware of its capabilities. Heck, you might even have someone buying all this equipment then hooking it up to the monitor with an S-video cable.

I'd be the one buying the technology for what it offers in capacity, rather than quality. Since I don't care about movies (in general), I have no intentions of upgrading for the sake of quality. In other words, if Blu-Ray can allow me to squeeze 10 or more regular DVD titles on 1 disc, then the technology is for me, if not, I'll pass. Since I only like older shows (80s and before), and don't want to see TV shows that were meant to be seen 4:3 vertically letterboxed, I'm sticking with the regular DVD format. However, if Blu-Ray (or any other technology that comes along) will allow me to move all my bulky discs onto just a couple of discs that will hold my entire DVD library, then and only then will I justify the cost of switching to Blu-Ray. Unless this is one of Blu-Ray (HD-DVD's) features, I have no reason to upgrade.

Looks like you won't be upgrading then since one of the most attractive things in the viewpoint of the studios is that they can use a new encryption scheme on these new formats to make it more difficult to copy. Like it or not, the studios have no intention of handing us the ability to make "mix DVDs" from our existing discs.

Thoretically, studios could release full seasons on fewer discs than we get now though, so that is a plus.

I think even some older TV will benefit from HD and they won't have to be letterboxed (bastardized) to fill out the screen. I'm sure one of the hardware specs on all players will be 4:3 side bar generation.

Two things ... one, not sure what prompted that in what he said, but two, shyeah, that encryption scheme will last a full week before it's cracked. Remember that that language was exactly what they used when regular DVDs came out. And copy protected VHSes, for that matter.

I believe that the part you misread was actually saying just that.

I still don't understand why somebody who needs to have the latest item on the market would only buy one of the two latest items on the market. I know a lot of gadget type guys, they'll justify buying both by reading through threads like this and, rather than deciding on a preference, just say "Well, this is better this way, but that is better that way, so I need both!"

I think if you read back, this poster said he wants to squeeze the shows he already has on DVD onto a new format to reduce the number of discs he needs to use.

Now, I and anyone with a nugget of intelligence knows that whatever encryption is put in will be broken within hours. A new Everest to climb if you will.

BUT, that does not mean that it will be legal to do so. Like it or not, breaking even the current format's encryption is a felony.

As we all know, as it has been made abundantly clear this week, the discussion of copying DVDs even in a theoretical form, is not permitted on these forums.

Does anyone stop to think that if that ONE disc gets screwed up, they lose A LOT of material? God forbid it rots or something else happens to it, you lose all those movie/tv shows/etc all on one disc. Storing a bunch of different things on one disc doesn't make me feel any better at all. In fact, it makes me a little more nervous.

Yeah, if something happens to a disc of a TV season, you'll have to go out and buy a whole new disc. Compare that to DVD sets, where if one disc breaks all you have to do to replace it is go out and.... buy a whole new set. Also, multi-disc sets cost more to make than single discs, so the seasons sets should be even cheaper.

To be fair, current DVD CSS protection was broken largely because Xing didn't encrypt the CSS decoder in one of their software decoders. So it was more the fault of incompetence than any real ingenuity on the part of the hackers.

As an example, the original DIVX format has yet to have its encryption hacked, although to be fair I doubt anyone has cared to try for a good number of years.

Hello! If it's possible to squueze 10, 20, or even 100 regular DVDs onto 1 HD-DVD or Blu-Ray DVD recordable disc, what's to keep you from backing them up to a 2nd or 3rd disc for safe keeping? We are talking theory of the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD format, so if it's ever made into a recordable format and it's possible to get many more regular DVDs onto 1 of these new discs, why wouldn't it be possible to do backups as well? All I know is I would rather own 10 discs that hold a library of 1,000 movies/TV shows, and have backups of these discs in a safe box, rather than have to find the room to keep 1,000 regular DVD discs!

I don't see the extra space as a feature. Were space the only issue, we would be seeing the same packaging of every movie that we see with the LOTR Extended Editions. Special Features cost quite a bit to produce, we are not all of a sudden going to see 50 hours of special content just because there is space for it now.

Here is hoping that these guys don't fragment the market too badly. I personally dont think that I can justify 1K x 2 for entry level, first gen players. I love tech but have never really been a first adopter. No one will care that the HD Movies are cheap when a player retails for $1000. At $30 player prices there are still many out there with no DVD player. Second, while many guys can justify spenindg $1000 x 2 on a DVD player, their wives will NOT !

Here is a nice read regarding the upcoming format war:
http://www.dvdreview.com/html/new_format_war.html

Reading through this thread it seems the biggest benefit of Blu-Ray is the possible future ability for people to pirate mulitple DVDs to the same disc. Yeah I know, everyone here will only be backing up the DVDs they own. Problem is the people that use stuff like this legally are a tiny percentage of users. I know about 50 people with DVD burners now and can't think of a single one that doesn't use it purely to steal movies. Nice to see how bad this might get with Blu-Ray burners.

That's the reality of it. DVD burners exist primarily to steal movies, not to back-up movies. Anyone who says otherwise is pissing on your leg and telling you it's raining.

Thanks for the link.
I should point out that I interpreted this article to be very biased.

First of all, the guy picks Blu-Ray(BR) as his choice successor to DVD. OK, duh, of course it's going to be biased. But hold on. He is quick to point out that in the BR camp he watched "Aladdin" on a Panasonic player. However, he didn't mention which movie + which player he saw in the HDDVD camp; this is quite vague.

Next, I don't pretend to be a high-def expert but I don't think it's a good idea to judge picture quality(PQ) using an animated feature. The PQ will not be the same with a feature using live actors, hence, the two really aren't comparable in this regard.

He also picks-on the movie "Waterworld", while I agree was a horrible movie, really doesn't justify one format over the other. I'm sure Blu-Ray will launch with equally bad movies. Now, does this mean Blu-Ray sucks?

My personal take is that more storage room is always a good thing but not necessarily mandatory. Proponents in the HDDVD camp have stated there is plenty of room in their technology for what they have to offer. The more cost effective format will win this so called war.

Personally, I'd rather they invented a hard drive that can hold a million gigs. This way all our movies whether DVD, HD-DVD, or Blu-Ray can live on our hard drives, and we can play them directly to our monitors. Let's remember that DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are merely formats that hold information. The greater the space to hold this information, the greater the quality and quantity that can be stored on it.

I'm a bit confused. The first link mentions that since it's inception over 127 million DVD players have been sold. The article goes on to mention that over 70% of U.S. homes have DVD players. Well, the current U.S. population is around 295 million and 70% of that is 206 million. Clearly, if 127 million players have been sold since DVD's inception that puts them in much less than 70% of homes. In fact, that puts a DVD player in about 43% of homes and that is not even considering homes with multiple players or homes that have upgraded from a past player.

I bring this up because I am always wary of the stats being thrown around with HD DVD and TV. How can the industry expect HD DVD/BR to surplant DVD, when by 2007 (two years after the release of HD DVD) only 60 million (according to the first article) U.S. homes will have a HDTV? And why do all these stats expect the sale of HDTV to increase so rapidly? I think you can purchase a regular TV for around $100-200 and an actual HDTV probably costs $1000+, so what family (besides enthusiasts) are going to plop down that kind of money to replace their current TV that still works fine or even to purchase a new TV when they can grab a regular TV for so little and play DVD's on it for so little?

You do realize that a "home" consists of more than one person, yes? The average "dvd-owning" home actually owns more than one DVD player, if you look hard enough at the stats.

I didn't think about the definition of "home" until after I had posted. I also figured that perhaps the 70% statistic included PS2's and computers as DVD players as well rather than just stand alone players.

Edited to add:
There are about 100 million homes in the U.S. so the 70% figure would seem more accurate than I previously thought. But it also makes the HDTV statistic of 60 million homes by 2007 even more shocking to me. Because in essence the article is stating that HDTV will rougly be in as many households in 2 years as DVD is today.

Not to mention people upgrading from ealier generations. Including DVD-roms I've owned 9 dvd players.

Yeah, if they are counting ALL DVD players (Computer and game system), me and my wife have purchased 9. We are in the market for another one possibly (HDMI hookup with upconversion)

I have argued and argued with people that those stats on HDYV can not be accurate just from my own personal survey of the land so to speak. HDTV took a huge leap I would say thanks to Super Sunday, the number of people I know owning HD sets tripled this week to six (I was included in this group of buyers). However, everyone I know seems to own a DVD player except older families (I would believe around 60-65 percent have DVD)

I doubt it, I thought, correct me if I am wrong, there will not be an S-video hookup, or component hookups. I thought the standards at least initially only called for DVI or HDMI. That would make sense because it would add extra security for their anti-piracy and force people to hook the thing up in a way to gain a benefit (digital with no conversion to analog).

I'm pretty sure the studios know the encryption will be hacked very quickly by bootleggers. I don't think that is priority number 1 since it is inevitable as always.

It only makes sense that the thing they are looking at the most be "plug and play" recording that any J6P can do without effort. This is pretty much all I see in work all day long, many people trading burned dvds. This is why they come down hard on companies selling Component- upconverting dvd players. Too easy for people to upconvert a film and burn at the higher resolution.

As it relates to disc space, I won't comment until I see the actual hardware specs, codecs used, and bitrates of the files.

strangely enough I don't know that many Joe-six-packs...I do however know quite a few Joe-12, or 20-packs...come to think of it I know a few Susie-six-packs as well!

Maybe we need to update our generalization to go with the new-age of drinkers :P

Tom Hansen

I believe the plan is that the players will only output HD-resolution video through the digital output. All video will be downconverted to standard-def when using the component or other outputs.