I actually wasn't referring to any member.

I was speaking of the various interests in the media.

Honestly, I expected closer to 60,000.

Sorry, that wasn't clear to me and may not have been to others. You might be more specific next time.

Last night I actually saw a PS3 being sold at Best Buy. This is the first one I'd actually seen sold since they're scarce to say the least.

What was interesting, though, was the guy bought a PS3 and about 10 SD DVDs and 5 PS3 games-- I saw the total price was over $1,000. Not one single Blu-ray title but 10 SD DVDs.

I guess he bought the PS3 for its gaming ability instead of its Blu-ray playback feature. Who would have figured that?

Either that or he doesn't know what Blu-Ray is.

He may have been buying gifts with it being Xmas and all...

We seem to be WAY off our guesstimates earlier - which I can't find BTW.

Looks like HD DVD and Blu-Ray are in trouble. Regardless of which one of them is winning, it's like arguing over who got 25th or 26th place in a race of 30 people.

Or care?

Also, the selection isnt what most people are going to want to buy. Even on the HD side. Next year better see some of the big guns of films coming out on each side. Remember, Batman Begins, Superman Returns, and King Kong were not huge BO hits like Spiderman, Jurrasic Park, or Lord of the Rings were.

In regards to HD/Blu Ray not doing so well:
The following is JMHO

I think most of us HT fanatics forget that the general population could give a rat's ass about new technology like HD DVD or Blu Ray. I know if i was not such an electronics nut or movie buff, I would be waiting to buy any new technology. I would not own the type of HT system(s) I own currently. They would be some $50 Wal Mart HTIB made by RCA. TV's are a different story IMO, the visual WOW factor on a good TV will get people to buy an HDTV. However the general populous is not going to know what the difference between i and p are nor will they care most likely and they certainly are not going to plop dowm $3k for a high end tv when they can go to Costco or Wal Mart and get a TV that "looks just like the $3000.00+ one they saw at Tweeter"

Will HD DVD or Blu Ray survive? I hope so. The 800lb gorillas need to make the technology affordable/understandable for the average Joe if they want sales of their product (Toshiba and M$ have made an attempt at this but it's not good enough at this point). The format war doesn't help anyone either which everyone here already knows so I'll refrain from comment on that.

I remember buying my first DVD player for around $300 or $400 when DVD was in it's early phases and people thought I was nuts. People think I'm nut's for the HD DVD player I bought but just as it was in the early adoption of DVD so it shall be for HD DVD or Blu Ray or both.

Bottom line I guess would be that Sony and Toshiba need work on getting the technology affordable so that average Joe will buy in to one format or the other. Then the smaller sharks like LG,Sharp,Philips, etc can capitalize on making a dual format player. Then, everyone wins.

True. Plus he can buy 10 SDDVD's for the price of 4 Blu-Ray discs.

I can kind of see both of surviving, unfortunately. If HD/BD remain a niche market, then they'll both survive just like competing video game systems. If they expect to tap the huge mainstream market of regular DVD, we need $150 players by the end of next year. I could also see hybrid players doing well priced at $250.

I love HD-DVD on my 10' projector screen, but how many people with smaller HDTVs are going to think it's worth $500 or more for a player. Those people are going to wait until the price is below $200. They'll buy into the format but not for the prices that are out there now.

I disagree. I dont think that its they dont give a rats ass at all. First of all ill bet a good percentage dont even know what the new formats are after all I dont see alot of advertising for either of the formats. Maybe every once in awhile you will get an advertisement for a movie and it will say also available in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray but that is about it. Without a serious commitment by these formats to get these technologies out there and in peoples minds there is no way it will be widely adopted. I think it is very safe to say, going by the monster sales figures for HDTV's, that the general population does want HD and are willing to pay some serious cash to get it. HDTV's sales are skyrocketing and that is putting it lightly and thy are still a fairly expensive purchase.

So you have a healthy percentage of the population that just doesn't know squat about the formats due to the poor advertising factor and then you have the damned format war to scare off the people that do in fact know about it and are interested in it. No matter where you go on the net, which is the only real place to get any info on these formats, you have people writing columns saying to wait it out and not to buy into either format right now. This scares the hell out of the average consumer. Then you have the high prices to top all of this off.

I just dont buy your comment that people dont give a rats ass about technology. We are a technology driven country and people eat technology up if its a good product and its something they are interested in. MP3 Player, Cell Phones, Notebooks, PDA's, etc. People eat this stuff up and are more than willing to upgrade to better technology when improvements are made. Ad for home theatre, Everyone is interested in home theatre these days, just look at SD DVD numbers to see that. Americans love movies period and they will buy them, its just a matter of which format they are going to buy them on. Just go to DVDwars.com and look at the google numbers for HD-DVD lately. There are alot of people looking into these formats on the net, unfortunately the info that they will most likely end up getting by looking on the net is to wait and not buy into either of these formats at the present time.

What these formats need to do is get out there and advertise and have demonstrations all over the US on a consistent basis. They need to show these people just how amazing HD is and the one great thing about HD is that it speaks for itself. Put in King Kong on a sweet system and there is very little that you would need to say to someone to convince them that these formats are in fact a major improvement over SD DVD. Fact is right now this just isn't happening. Zero advertising, besides videogame magazines, and poor presentations at alot of the places that sell this equipment and what you have is a very underwhelmed general public that only remembers what he read on the net which was wait a while so you dont get burned like with Beta. Alot needs to happen and both Sony and Toshiba need to step it up a notch, otherwise these formats could continue to see very slow overall growth for the next couple years.

PS...

As an HD DVD (and now Blu Ray) owner, and as the owner of a 36" HDTV, I can say that, even with my relatively small screen, these discs look AMAZING. Granted, I agree that most people won't buy in at these prices, but the quality is present, even on "smaller" screens.

I totally agree. I have an inexpensive 37" Vizio LCD, and I don't regret for an instant buying in to HD DVD. Is the difference as huge as it would be on a 60" screen? Of course not, but it is very noticable nonetheless.

Since these are for HD-DVD as well:

Sharp Now Producing Blue Laser Diodes

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp Corp. (6753.T: Quote, NEWS , Research) said on Tuesday it has started the commercial production of blue laser diodes, taking aim at a market with strong growth potential.

Sharp in November began volume output of blue laser diodes, used to read and write data on high-definition optical discs, at 150,000 units a month at its existing plant in western Japan, Sharp spokesman Hiroshi Takenami said.

The diodes can be used in DVD players based on the Blu-ray format, championed by Sony Corp. (6758.T: Quote, NEWS , Research), as well as competing HD DVD technology, promoted by Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, NEWS , Research).

Sharp, which is entering the market dominated by Sony and unlisted Nichia Corp, plans to bring the monthly capacity to 500,000 units by the end of 2007, spending several billion yen.

Takenami declined to comment on Sharp's sales target, but the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily said the Osaka-based company aims for annual blue laser diode sales of about 15 billion yen ($127.2 million) at the initial stage.

Shares in Sharp, which forecast group revenues of 3 trillion yen for the year to March, were down 0.2 percent at 2,080 yen in the early afternoon, roughly in line with the Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index (.IELEC.T: Quote, NEWS , Research).

maybe Sharp will become the first to do dual format...that would be spiffy.

What are the chances that we'll hear an annoucement from a major manufacturer that they will be offering up a HD DVD player? I love the Toshiba, but they can't supply everyone with players. I bet some people don't like Toshiba products and would like to get a HD DVD player made by someone else. Will we hear something at CES?

Also, why did Panasonic, Pioneer, and Samsung exclusively choose Blu-ray? I wouldn't think Sony's sales pitch of "millions of PS3's in homes by the year...." convinced them that they should only make BD players.

I think the chances are pretty good. If Denon is waiting things out I think there's a good chance Onkyo will jump. They are members of the HD DVD Promotions Group.

Panasonic and Pioneer are Sony peers. They compete a lot but they also align on many technologies and IMO it's all about profitting from the patent portfolio. Samung is the Sony of Korea and wants to eat at the same table.

I think Toshiba has always been a darkhorse company. They deliver great tech..they rarely wrap their products in excellent industrial design but most Toshiba products are sturdy. I've had a few Sony products that looked great but broke down just as fast as anything.

D&M Holdings (parent to Marantz and Denon) are members as well. The thing going for HD DVD here is hopefully a further reduction is costs to manufacture. Stereophile has an interview with John Dawson of Arcam who's attitude towards HD DVD is positive but there's still a lot of risk involved for the smaller companies.

I've love to see Oppo Digital join the ranks and create a HD DVD player.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that the quality isn't present on those size screens. In fact, they often have the highest resolution, like 1080p, so the quality is probably the highest. It's just that as you jump up in size you seem to "need' the higher resolution that much more. But you're right; you sure don't have to have a massive screen to notice the beautiful picture.

You just have to sit closer with the smaller sets. I view my 50" plasma at around 9-10 feet. If I had a 30 something inch set and viewed it at the distance there would be very little if any noticable improvment in picture quality. It really is all about size of the set and distance your watching the set from. As long as your not like 10 feet back you will absoltely see a difference between SD and HD. I wouldnt see much of a difference if any moving from 720p to 1080i at my viewing distance with a 50" set which is why I am completly content with what I have.

PS...

Unfortunately, Onkyo has never made a DVD player. Not really. They just OEM from someone else, add better audio circuits, add better case, and ship it. Often Toshiba has been "inside Onkyo". But others, too.

However, the name alone would sway people who don't know the innards might be almost identical to a Toshiba-brand player.

Two things of interest to mention on the Hd-dvd front.

CES - Toshiba plans aggressive HD DVD push at CES

Secondly, Circuit City is now carrying the HD-A2 online and in-store. They had previously not carried Toshiba players.

Toshiba Hd-A2 at CC!

Ah, so now CC wants to jump on the bandwagon, huh?

Wow-never thought I'd see Tosh gear at CC. Maybe because there's no direct HD-DVD competitor like there are for TV's since CC backed Hitachi while BB backed Toshiba back in the CRT RPTV days.