The potential collapse of the hi-def disc...
 

Am I the only one worried about what seems to be this nagging feeling that the hi-def format might actually flop? As an avid supporter of HD in general, it's about the movies for me, not whether they're on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. But there are those out there who either support one format and leave the other to its own devices, or won't support either format until there's a clear winner. One day someone is saying that Blu-Ray is leading sales; the next day, someone else is touting HD-DVD as the leader. And from the looks of it, things aren't going to get any better anytime soon, what with another hi-def format on its way from overseas (Not that VMD has a lot going for it, but I foresee even more confusion if titles and/or players start popping up in stores). I would hate to think that the actual losers of this format war might be the consumers who have tasted the wonders of HD on disc, only to lose it sometime down the road.

How can something flop that hasn't been out for a year yet?

It may well be as much of a flop as Laserdisc, but I can live with that.

Whether it be now or 5 years from now, if companies produce cheap HD movies, people will buy them....unless they continue to make cheaper SD alternatives. :lol:

At this point, I think both formats could die and be replaced by something else. I recently bought the HD-A2 with the Amazon 3 + 5 deal and was able to return my standard upconverting DVD player to Costco...so my "upgrade" cost was about $50. (excluding the movie I kept - 300 and the other 5 free ones)

So I don't feel bad if it HD-DVD flops, I get a better upconverting player ...although the startup time is pretty bad IMHO

I'll jump in when my current player dies. At this point 480p is good enough for me. Being an early adopter I have a 6 year old tv without hdmi. I'd estimate it'll be another 3-5 years before I'm willing to re-invest in a whole new setup.

I don't know, but he is talking about Blu-Ray and HD DVD, both of which have been out for over a year.

Sounds a bit too much "Chicken Little" at this point. I don't see much actual evidence to support this hypothesis.

Too be honest, I see hi-def media more mainstream than laserdisc ever was. I've seen more commercials for blu-ray and hd-dvd than I did for laserdiscs.

If HD flops, well I still have all those beautiful movies to watch. The only thing I would be worried about is another even better format coming out.

Just want to make sure you know both formats work over component up to 1080i...

Unless they decide to flip the HDCP switch, that is.

the potential collapse of Hi Def Discs...

yeah, I don't see this whole HD thing really catching on and sticking.
I give it two more years and then it's back to standard defintion and NTSC

:rolleyes:

VHS will actually return once these silly "disc" formats fade away.

I think it's much too early to count Beta out of the race . . .

Exactly what I was going to say. DVD killed both VHS and Laserdisc but it took awhile for that to happen. The likelyhood of that happening though is small I think. Both camps have thrown way to much money in the ring for something else to come in and take their market away. It would have to be a step up in quality at a good price with major studio support...and I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

HD is not going anywhere. It is extremely popular and HDTVs sales are at an all time high. This X-mas will be huge for HD. The problem is getting the knowledge of how HD works to the mass consumer. Try explaining HDMI, 1080p, etc. to Joe Sixpack and they stare at you blankly.

I always laugh when I see the huge signs saying "You must have HD programming to get High Definition on you HDTV" at all electronics stores or departments. People just see the HD sign and still think it's going to look like it did in the store when they hook up their cable coaxial to it. I can imagine the complaints they have to deal with when people get home and their cable looks even shittier than it did b/c it is a standard signal stretched out over a 16x9 screen on a 55" TV.

I think price is as much a problem as the lack of knowledge of HD. BR is still crazy expensive compared to standard dvd and many of the HD & BR titles are running on sale for $25 to $35 on titles that you can buy for $5 to $10 on dvd. People just don't care to pay that much of a difference for something they really don't understand. Titles prices are going to have to hit $10 to $15 sales and players are still going to have to come down (especially BR).

Gone are the days when people will pay $250 for a Star Wars Laserdisc boxset (which personally makes me very happy). Granted HD titles are a far cry from that price point but back when laserdiscs were priced that, brand new VHS were released at $50 to $100 a pop. Everyone has been spoiled by dvd's cheap price on software and hardware.

HD will succeed. There will always be an HD option from now on...it's just a question of if it will be BR, HD-DVD, or something completely different.

The original DIVX format flopped within the span of about a year.

I'm worried, sure.

I still have a SACD/DVD-A combo player, and scant few titles to play on it, despite the obvious superiority inherent to those formats.

DVD sales have peaked. Both software and hardware.
It is now a (slowly) dying format.
It is going to trend down from here on out.

The HD formats are in their infancy in terms of market penetration now, but their trends are upwards and they have nothing but wide open spaces ahead of them.
Both of them may not be in mass production 10 years from now- but at least one will be format that most of us will be picking up when Justice League 3 or Transformers 4 is released to video.

there also isn't likely to be another completely different format that suddenly springs up out of nowhere. These formats entail billions of $ in R&D and associated infrastructure costs. It is not a cavilier decision to just try to start a new one. the wheels for both of these have been in motion for years, in conjuction with the studios.
Another format is not going to happen until these have peaked, which is still a loooong way off.

Nowhere near it's peak, yes. Trending down, yes. But I don't think we need to get the coffin ready just yet. It is the defacto standard and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. The longer it takes for the HD format to get sorted out, guarantees more longevity for this format. I really doubt the studios will be willing to take a loss in the sales of DVDs to discontinue this format and push the HD version. They're probably waiting for enough traction in the marketplace to make it reasonable for them to do the switch. In the meantime, movies will continue to be released in both versions and the majority will still be purchased in regular DVD format.

Well, there are already two new formats out there, VMD and CH-DVD. Although without major studio backing, not sure how well they will do.

I'm a little confused. If it is trending down, doesn't that mean the peak has past?

I think you might be misinterpreting that first part. His point is that even if DVD has peaked and is slowly trending down, it's not in its death throes or anything.

Ah, you are correct. Thanks.

:up:
All of those people who have bought HD TVs are going to want to take advantage of their HD capability at some point. They are simply waiting for a clear winner in the format war.

that's why I qualified dying.
I don't think that it is going away next year- or will be gone 5 years from now.
10 years from now, though, I expect 480i/p releases to definitely be a niche of home video sales.

hell, maybe a lot sooner than that, as much of the catalog material that remains to be released is of very limited appeal.
Even remasters are going to hit a saturation point in the next few years.
There are only so many 4:3 letterbox and full frame titles out there, and only so many times they can re-package and reduce price Titanic or Die Hard or Breakfast at Tiffanys before the costs outweigh the benefit.

Hi Def discs are inevitable because that is the only way studios are going to keep making money from the same (relatively small) handfull of titles that are considered evergreen.

I think the one thing BD/HD proponents have to worry about is downloadable content. The xbox360 already has a gallery of 720p movies available for download and its only getting bigger. The 'rental' anti-copying potential of downloads probably give the MAFIAA execs wet dreams.

Bandwidth to the home will only get faster, but 1080p24 is likely to be the limit of video for the next decade or so. If the telecom oligopoly doesn't strangle broadband, we should see streaming HD over net become widely feasible within 5 years (swag) as verizon FIOS is now 15-20mbps and there are other, smaller, providers in specific regions that are even faster today.

But, as long as the discs are rippable you won't end up with the same problem that laserdisc (and dvix specifically) ran into where you've got good content in an unplayable format. Just rip to your PC once and keep the files on your hard disk each time you upgrade your PC.

Here's the reality: the market for burnable optical discs will probably die before HD DVD and Blu-Ray writables ever hit mass market pricing. With solid state getting so damn cheap (and expected to absolutely plunge over the next two years), I am very confident in this prediction. This means that what was once thought to be a PC-based storage solution as well as a movie content solution now only exists for movies. IMO, this will lead to considerably diminished enthusiasm from PC manufacturers within the next several years, as there will be no real money to be made from these discs. This is another bad indicator for both formats.

Great post, WWF.

Indeed, the worst thing that could happen is both formats dying. Like my politics, I have decided I am format neutral (though still favoring one side)... That's great for me, but I doubt this scenario will work with anyone other than a hardcore movie buff... having to worry not only about which movie is on what, but which store sells what... please, that's not gonna fly. I hope this works itself out next yr.

But it's much more than just about the solid state argument of diminishing prices. DVD collectors want more than just a thumbsize piece of plastic with the name of the movie on it. It's just not practical. They want artwork, they want Steelbooks, box sets, elaborate box sets, and making such a hug box set with a teeny-weeny solid state memory card inside, is asking for trouble. Consumers won't buy it.

I don't see how you can forecast disc media becoming extinct by the time the consumer gets affordable HD writers. What you forget is the majority of computer users...have just discovered burning on disc media. There are waves and waves of different consumers buying PCs and many of them still don't understand all of it. Slowly, computer knowledge, just the basics, have started to penetrate multiple generations.

Solid state media is going to remain the crossover media it has become over the recent years. However, it is not going to be the preferred choice for movie lovers. Sure, I'd burn a movie to a memory card for the hell of it, but you also have to think about the "consumer flow". Just because you have a solid state player does that mean everyone else will or will accept it? Nope. You put a movie on your media card and take it to your friend's house or wherever and more than likely, you're going to have a problem. They might just have disc players. So, now you're talking about another media format war which will confuse consumers.

Time has shown consumers go for something they can see and feel and put on their shelves. I suppose a possibility would have the same size HD cases and have media cards stored in them, but still, I can only imagine the problems with such a small piece of plastic getting lost.

Now, solid state disks are going to replace magnetic hard drives. They are slowly penetrating the market.

I will concede, there will probably be a point where solid state media is going to takeover where magnetic used to reign, but forecasting what sectors (no geek pun intended) will embrace the new media for its own new standard, is a tough call, because we're dealing with psychology for the most part, and little logic.

Damn, I feel for you.

You are discussing two different points. I agree that HDM on ROM has a market due to the collector mentality. It's burnable HD optical that has no real application. For pirates, downrezzed DVD-9 is available now on the torrents, and no person with a 37 inch Vizio can tell the difference between that and BD/HD.

HD optical (specifically BD) was designed with long-term backup storage in mind. I contend that these enterprise solutions will simply never be brought to market. Solid state is too cheap and stable to not overtake this market.

What real market is there for burnable HD DVD or BD discs? They are not useful for piracy applications due to price, ease of use of DVD-9, and technological roadblocks. They are not useful for enterprise solutions, since the discs are too small and will be supplanted by solid state within the near future. They are not useful for home backup since external storage drives are faster, more stable, and dirt cheap.

Based on this hypothesis alone, I foresee a significant waning of PC manufacturer enthusiasm over the near-term. Companies like HP and Dell are marketing their internal BD drives not as backup solutions, but as home media hubs. I don't foresee a change here. This lower amount of support from the PC manufacturers is not a good thing for either format.

Ahh, ok. Well, it should be interesting to see what happens. We may see a dramatic price reduction which will compete with the magnetic and SSD drives.

I think you completely missed his point. He was saying (I think) that from the standpoint of writable media, both HD DVD and BD are going to be outpaced by solid state writable media both in price and convenience. You can get a thumb drive that holds more than a DVD for a fraction of the price of a drive and media. You don't have to worry about whether your media will be readable in other computers (what PC doesn't have a USB port?). You don't have to learn a new procedure to write to the media (drag and drop) and the read and write is faster.

By the time that either HD DVD-R or BD-R is to the point where the media is at an affordable level, comperable solid state devices will be cheaper and easier to use.

That leaves pre-recorded movies the only practical use for HD DVD and BD.

I believe that primary hard disk drives in computers will be supplanted by solid state memory over the next 5-10 years.

i'm not quite yet in on the hi-def formats, but i'm planning to jump in with the 3rd gen HD DVD players being released next month. the way i see it, if HD DVD dies even just a year from now, i spent a couple hundred bucks on a great upconverting player for my large DVD collection, which i needed to do anyway. plus, i'll have the added benefit of being able to play the HD DVDs that i will have acquired in the meantime.

that said, i personally believe HD DVD and Blu-ray will co-exist in a laserdisc-like niche market primarily among home theater enthusiasts for at least the next 3 to 5 years.

Yeah, and none of these fancy-smancy video formats will EVER replace going to a theater for a pure movie watching experience.

Too true. In order to effectively replicate that experience you've gotta do what I do:

1) saturate the floor of your home theater room with spilled soda, popcorn and candy bits

2) ABC gum on all the seats

3) invite a bunch of strange people to come in and take all the best seats. Said people must be at least one of the following: stinky, scary-looking, obnoxious

4) during the film's climax, turn off the projector and mute the sound in order to simulate technical difficulties. After at least five minutes of letting the film play unwatched, turn everything back on and refuse to rewind

5) before each showing, take $8-10 out of your wallet and hand it over to some pimply-faced miscreant who, in turn, must then direct you to the incorrect room in your house. If you can't find a miscreant with a satisfactory number of pimples, simply place your money on the ground and light it on fire

6) after the show, leave your house for 10 minutes to walk the streets, in an effort to simulate looking for your car. Extra credit if, when you "find" it, someone has dented it and didn't leave a note

:)

They should also be about a foot taller than you, and sit directly in front of your line of sight, preferably while wearing a big hat.

That's why when I dipped my foot in the SACD/DVD-A pool, I made sure I bought a player I wanted that just happened to support one of the formats. I bought a Denon 1600 for the dvd capabilities and it also does DVD-A. I bought several titles for DVD-A but it never took off. I made sure that I did not pay an extreme amount of money for the titles and did not blow a large wad on getting a combo player just to have SACD also. I wanted SACD but am glad I approached it as I did obviously.

I accumulated approx 20 titles that I love (including a few dual-disc versions). I still get to listen to them and enjoy them to this day. Though DVD-A/SACD/Dual-Disc appear to all be dead, I don't regret my purchase in the least. I didn't overpay for the player or software which makes the loss of the format easier to swallow. I also got a kick-ass dvd player that has lasted me for over 5 years and is still going strong.

It is exactly how I approached the current HD format war. I waited until a player hit my magic price point ($200) and will only buy titles of movies I want for less than $15. I liked HD-DVD because it plays normal dvds and I would have a nice upconverting player should the format die. I also liked the combo discs for titles such as TMNT so my son can watch it wherever. I still have many of my favorite movies in HD that I did not spend a mint on and can watch forever...just like my DVD-As. If HD-DVD lost the format war tomorrow, I would not regret my purchase. I would be disappointed but happy with everything I got and will continue to get out of it.

applesandrice,

You forgot to include the people who talk during the movie, including narrating what's about to happen, as well as the crying babies. And your added "guests" should be sure to check their brightly lit cellphones for text messages frequently during the movie...

My bad.:)

Several years back, when my sister attended a bargain showing of "Legends of the Fall" up in Seattle, one particularly inebriated audience member (not my sister) pulled a gun on another individual (also not my sister) who had apparently rebuked him for being too loud. That guy has a standing invitation to my house.

Josh -- totally. And anyone sitting behind me has to repeatedly kick the back of my seat, and/or put their feet up by my head . . .