I'm not judging your point of view, I was just taken aback by your comment that my point of view didn't make sense.

You were the one judging others points of views.

And again, I'm on a Ph D student budget, have 195 dvds, and have had a DVD player since X-mas 1998. So I certainly don't spend much per month on DVDs. Especially now as I only buy 1 or 2 a month on average, and often have gone a month or two without buying any this year.

So I can't afford an HDTV and can't afford to buy a ton of DVDs. Your logic only applies to people with huge collections who really are spending a lot on DVDs every month. And that's simply a minority of people. Even here on DVD Talk it seems like those with the huge collections here also have HDTVs or projectors. So I'd say that point is just a bad guess on your part.

I'm sure there are a few exceptions where people do fit yoru rule and could save up for an HDTV buy buying a few less DVDs a month. But not nearly enough to generalize the point.

Anyway, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I've never been a collector of anything. I buy dvds because I love movies. They are more than good enough for me, and as I said I'll eventually start buying new movies on blu ray and replace some essentials like LOTR and SW, but that's it because I'm perfectly happy with DVD otherwise and don't feel like I'm "settling" for anything.

From our friends at Video Business, a round-robins view of the format war:

EARLY MARKET FOR HIGH-DEF UNSURE
Need to reach more than early adopters
By Chris Gennusa 10/31/2005

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Until some basic questions are answered, it will remain unclear whether high-definition discs represents a watershed opportunity for Hollywood.

Chief among uncertainties:

• How many current DVD enthusiasts need to migrate to the next generation to make the investment worthwhile for studios and hardware makers?

• How many consumers will hold out until inexpensive high-def players and TV sets come to market?

"It's always a very calculated decision to invest in a new format," said Victor Matsuda, a Sony exec with the Blu-ray Disc Group. "What's best for the consumer [will be Sony's] fundamental principle."

Independent media analyst Dennis McAlpine estimates that likely early adopters represent just 5% of the prospective market for any emerging technology.

"They will go and buy the newest technology," McAlpine observed.

But more than just early adopters need to shell out for high-def players before the format turns profitable, he added. Suppliers might have to capture 20% to 25% of the current DVD market to start seeing high-def profits, the analyst estimated.

"HDTVs need to get big first," McAlpine said. "Consumers [might have] to buy a high-def player and [high-def] TV, [so] it may take longer for [high-def discs] to start turning big profits."

Unsurprisingly, hardware makers claim consumers won't be turned off by the premium price tag--likely upward of $1,000 at a minimum--of first-generation high-def DVD players. Some simply expect the benefits such as better picture, more interactivity and enhanced special features will prove compelling selling points.

"Consumers, when they see an HD DVD playing, tell me, 'My DVDs don't look like that,'" says Mark Knox, advisor with Toshiba's HD DVD promotion division. "The next generation of DVD presents a lot of new business opportunities. For instance, hardware retailers may be able to sell new sound systems along with HD DVD players."

Knox added that the price of HD DVD players might come down pretty quickly as succeeding generations of HD DVD players will be built with fewer parts.

For the small independent retailers, studios might have to offer very attractive revenue sharing deals to make it worthwhile for the mom and pops to quickly jump on board. Consider retailer Bob Achille, who doesn't expect long lines at his cash register when next-generation DVDs initially hit the market.

"There was much less confusion when DVD came out, because it was mostly a physical change exactly like [the] CD [transition] that audio went through years earlier," said Achille, owner of Video 7 in Shelton, Conn.

"It was easy to accept since it was priced lower than VHS. [High-def] is confusing the hell out of consumers," he recalled. "They confuse it mostly with the timing of mandatory digital TV signals. Of course, HDTV is not mandatory, and HDTVs [that] consumers are buying aren't being fed HDTV signals very often."

An early morning addendum from Video Business:

HIGH-DEF RIVALS IN RACE TO MARKET
HD DVD faces fewer technical hurdles
By Paul Sweeting 10/31/2005

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Despite onetime promises of a speedier launch, both the HD DVD camp and the Blu-ray Disc group now are focused on 2006 as the dawn of the high-definition era.

HD DVD boosters say hardware and movies will be available by March; and the Blu-ray camp … well, proponents don't specify when their system will be available, except to say definitely in 2006.

The ever-slipping launch dates, along with the shifting alliances of companies supporting the two standards, inevitably raise questions about how close either format is to being ready for commercial rollout. Few outside the companies directly involved in the formats' development have seen anything beyond prototype players and a few, essentially hand-encoded demo discs.

Toshiba says it will begin commercial production of HD DVD players in December. Sony hasn't provided a date yet for Blu-ray players to start rolling off the line, but if the company expects to include Blu-ray technology in PlayStation 3 consoles when the videogame format launches in the spring, it had better get the Blu-ray factories going soon.

So how realistic is either side's plan for a 2006 launch?

From a technical perspective, the format closest to being ready for launch is HD DVD.

The blue laser used by both formats will require a new type of laser diode and a new optical pickup, but the rest of the guts of an HD DVD player will be pretty much the same as a standard DVD player. HD DVD discs also are essentially the same as standard DVD discs from a manufacturing perspective, though some new mastering equipment will be required.

The biggest question mark hovering over HD DVD launch plans involves the matter of studio support.

Warner, Paramount and Universal have said they will release HD DVD movies as soon as hardware is available in the U.S., but Warner and Paramount have said recently they also will support Blu-ray. So, although studios might be contractually committed to releasing a few titles on HD DVD to support the format's launch, it's unclear how far they'll go beyond that.

Still, Blu-ray's targeting of even a 2006 launch could prove problematic.

After all, the format isn't set yet, with moves afoot to change its interactive engine from a system based on the Java programming language to one developed specifically for optical discs by Microsoft and Disney. There also are proposals to tweak the copy-protection scheme and to add an entirely new capability to create low-cost, short-form high-def discs based on existing red-laser technology.

Until such wrinkles are ironed out, a hardware manufacturer would be pretty foolish to start building Blu-ray boxes.

Meantime, Sony is under intense competitive pressure from other videogame platforms to launch PlayStation 3 as soon as possible and says PS3 consoles will be able to play Blu-ray movies in addition to games. How it's going to pull all that off, it hasn't yet said.

Another major hurdle for Blu-ray Disc concerns the discs themselves, whose thin depth present special manufacturing hurdles many feel have yet to be completely overcome. For, though all of the new processes that go into making a Blu-ray disc might work as planned in a lab, getting them to work in a high-speed, commercial replicating plant could take a lot of trial and error--and a lot of time to fine-tune.

Were it not for the competition from HD DVD, Blu-ray backers would almost certainly be planning for a 2007 launch, rather than 2006.

Perhaps these people just like to watch films and aren't that concerned with the best possible A/V quality? Which goes back to what Josh is saying. Personally, I have a fairly high end system and I have absolutely no plan to replace my entire DVD collection. While the better A/V would be nice, knowing that I'm not watching the best possible audio/video presentation by no means affects my enjoyment of the film.

I talked to a lot of people about this in the past few weeks. Here is what I found out.....

A vast majority of people don't care much about special features on a dvd and probably never even watch them. Face it guys, people like us are the minority. Most of them buy dvds because they are on sale or getting cheap. Again, most of them have stopped buying dvds because of on demand programming that cable companys offer. The claim that they don't rewatch movies often enough and now on demand has an HD picture with DD sound. I think if dvds ae going to be 25 bucks each and players are going to be 1000 bucks, people are just going to rent more, go to the movies more and order on demand videos more. This is absolutely bound to happen if standard dvd formats are not going to be made anymore and everyones dvd players become junk.

I don't think they are going to stop producing standard dvds anytime soon. Heck you can still buy VHS copies of alot of movies. I think the vast majority of the buying public will continue to purchase dvds until the price for HD players and HD media are affordable.

I do think that VOD (pay-per-view) is picking up and will likely continue to pick up in the future and will help bridge the gap between standard dvds and HD dvds.

For some reason I don't think the number of people going to the movies will increase.

A few months back in one of these threads (I'm pretty sure it was on DVDTalk...), I mentioned that the 2005/06 launch wasn't set in stone and that we may even be looking at 2007. No one believed me then. :(

Yep, I remember that. I was the only one who thought that the 05 launch was all hype and no substance... that there was never any possibility of either format being released.

Increase in PQ is actually a bigger jump than VHS to DVD. No one is forcing you to rebuy anything.

I'm sure they will be just as happy, actually more so, continuing to sell lower quality dvds to a mass market. All they care about is making money.

These are the exact same arguments against DVD years ago. DRX is right on the money with his reply. The difference in PQ is much greater than the difference between VHS and DVD. Ot is far from "minor and marginal" and if you have ever watched HD, then you would never say that.

Unfortunately, it is looking like they expect many who already own an HD set to buy a new one, and THAT will be the downfall of any next-gen format.

You may not want to believe it, but there is a HUGE market of consumers that have no qualms about updating harware every few years. See Electronics Boutique for an entire business built on such customers.

Sony's first dvd player, DVP-S7000, cost around $1000 back in 1997. Just be patience and prices will come down.

Any form of High-Def DVD is not going to reach mainstream acceptance until at least 2008-10, if it does at all. While I love the idea of a new format, and I'll be adopting it... I'm not convinced that this isn't going to turn out to be another Laser Disk scenario.

I think that everyone thinks the consumers are stupid because of our willingness to double dip for movies. I for one hope that blu-ray wins because it sounds like a far better format than HD-DVD. I will probably never own an HD player or tv because

1. I don't really want an HD tv. My 1997 27 inch Sanyo works just fine for me and i don't want to blow 3k on a tv just so I can watch a few stations in slightly better picture quality

and

2. The only way I would buy an HD player is if blu-ray lost and HD became the media standard


p.s. Other than that all I want is a world where all dvds are in keep cases. DEATH TO SNAPPERS!!! And gatefold kinda pisses me off too.

I don't see why they don't just merge the two together and call it something like 'HD Blu-ray' and have two different video options, (like how you have mutiple audio options on regular dvds) one to watch it in HD video and one to watch it in blu-ray video. I think this would be a smart way out, although companies are rarely ever smart.

1. It is sort of immaterial if you want a digital set or not. The newest date from the FCC has been moved up rather than back. By May of 2007, if they stick by their guns, will mark the end of analog TV sets. Of course I know it will be a long time before they are all gone, but you get the picture.

2. The picture is not just slightly better. The resolution jump from NTSC DVD to HD or BR is a nuch greater increase in the jump from NTSC VHS to NTSC DVD.

3. BR is Sony's version of HD, HD-DVD is Toshiba's. They both want to control the format because of the huge royalties involved. That is why they have not been able to come together. That said, I do think we'll see HD join up (submit) to BR in the next few months.

I don't think that's the right "jump".

How big do you think the jump will be going from anamorphic dvd played on a progressive scan DVD player (480p) to 720p? Or from 480p to 1080p on a monitor that could support native 1080p?

I'm just curious, because I don't see a difference between DVDs in 480p and my computer monitor on my LCD projector (which goes up to 1080p).

I'm hoping it will be big, but I can't imagine it being like a jump from VHS to DVD.

DVDs upscaled to a higher resolution are not the same thing as true High Definition. Real HD has much more true picture detail available in the pixels. An upscaled DVD just fills in the spaces between active pixels by copying and duplicating parts of those pixels. Upscaling cannot create detail that isn't available in the source.

It was just bumped back to 2009, wasn't it?

Your logic intrigues me. You don't ever want to own an HDTV, yet you hope Blu-Ray wins.

Well gee, thanks for your input.

I'm not really talking about upscaling. Anamorphic DVDs contain up to 33% more picture information. Progressive scanning just de-interlaces the picture (no new info). This is 'true' 480p.

I don't see a big (if any) difference in the 480p picture and feeding an SVGA signal into it (which is 1024x768 non interlaced). So, I'm just wondering how much more detail we'll actually see (obviously 1080p looks much larger on paper).

And if that difference will be as big as VHS->DVD...

I'm not a technophile at all - I still have a regular panasonic TV I bought a few years ago. I check the DVD talk forums regularly to keep track of new DVD releases, and I've been following the whole HD vs Blue-Ray thing.

I think most people still have regular TV's, and I don't understand how the FCC is going to explain to Joe Six-Pack that their regular TV doesn't work anymore, and they have to buy some kind of adaptor.

I *really* don't think that changing the TV signals is going to go over well with the general public, unless there is some aspect of the plan I'm missing.

And the FCC and the electronics companies are doing a *very* bad job of educating the general public about the upcoming changes in TV, DVD, etc.

I can't quote a source, but I heard it on the news last night about the move up of the date. The TV was background noise. It was the first time I could think of where the date was moved up and not back.

Better check all the math. A DVD, regardles of how you are displaying it has an absolute maximum of 480 scan lines. HD will max out at 1080.

When you are feeding it thru SVGA, you are still only getting 480. Upscalers can "fake" a higher resolution picture, but they won't be able to touch a full HD picture.

Most anyone with digital cable will be OK, but those without will have a nice snowy picture. I agree the FCC is doing a bad job, but the CEs are worse for continuing to sell equipment that will be obsolete very soon, when they KNOW it will be.