Digital Home is advising readers to purchase neither a HD-DVD player nor a blue-ray player based on the existing sales of both players. Early adopters have only purchased 25,000 HD-DVD players in the last 150 days resulting in a market too small for content providers to bother with. Even if Disney managed to get one in five HD-DVD owners to purchase the $15 HD-DVD edition of the Lion King, it would still result in gross sales of only $75,000. Sales results for Blue-Ray devices were not available but the assumption was that they lag behind even HD-DVD sales making the argument to wait even more compelling.
Digital Home suggests that, even if HD-DVD sales increase by a ten-fold magnitude, it still make take a year before one million units ship. As such a high definition DVD player may not be a wise gift until Christmas 2007 or even possibly Christmas 2008. In the meanwhile, they recommend watching high definition movies on cable since a monthly subscription to a high definition movie network is generally less than the cost of purchasing one HD-DVD or Blue-Ray movie per month.
News source: Digital Home Canada
Digital Home suggests that, even if HD-DVD sales increase by a ten-fold magnitude, it still make take a year before one million units ship. As such a high definition DVD player may not be a wise gift until Christmas 2007 or even possibly Christmas 2008. In the meanwhile, they recommend watching high definition movies on cable since a monthly subscription to a high definition movie network is generally less than the cost of purchasing one HD-DVD or Blue-Ray movie per month.
News source: Digital Home Canada
And why would they slow down normal DVD production, when people still want DVDs?
Think about this:
VHS > DVD:
The Video Quality difference from VHS to DVD was huge
It went from an analogue format to a digital format to allow greater versatility
Because it was a digital format, it allowed a great number of things to be done, such as menus, chapters and your standard FF/RWD, it also allowed zooming and 'on-the-fly' processing of the image to make it look better and enhanced
DVD > HD Media formats:
The Video Quality difference is about 1/2 that of the jump from VHS to DVD (and even less than that if an Upscaling DVD Player is used)
The amount of features provided by the new formats is neglegible, menu's will still exist, chapters etc
So, if it took 6-7 years for the mainstream user to transfer over to DVD from VHS, how long honestly is it gonna take for the mainstream userbase to transfer over to the HD media formats? 10? 15 Years? maybe even never.
For a long time to come an Upscaling DVD player is by far the best value for money.
The Video Quality difference is about 1/2 that of the jump from VHS to DVD (and even less than that if an Upscaling DVD Player is used)
Where did you get that because it's obviously wrong. When comparing solely image quality and not simple gimmicks like menus or different angle feature, the quality difference is huge with those new 1080i and 1080p HD movies. DVD is a joke against 1080i+ HD and I barely can watch DVDs anymore because of the noticeable worse image quality.
Infact, the latest HD movies on a decent HD screen make home movies for the first time look like on the big screen with all the details and imperfections which are visible on the original film negatives but no longer visible on DVD or comparable. Movies like Blade Runner or Lord Of the Rings just unbelieveable better on HD than on DVD. Trust me, if you see it once, you'll never want to go back to DVD ever again.
A decent upscaling DVD player can deinterlace without artifacts and can also upscale the picture remarkly well.
Regardless, i really dont think either HiDef format will ever go mainstream. Its just way too soon since the introduction of DVD and people are not gonna upgrade to such formats for a long time to come. Sure, the tech enthusiast will go for the best tech, but the mainstream wont.
If anything HD-DVD and Blu-ray will probably die by the time HVD launches.
the fact that you have to have a new tv as well as a new player makes these sell less
I understand why the Americans insult the Canadians sometimes now.
Ah!
Ah!
400 000 in US, 600 000 in Asia = 1 000 000. Until march another 1 000 000 in small portions PS3s is Europe too. Go to school HD DVD fanboys
Ah!
400 000 in US, 600 000 in Asia = 1 000 000. Until march another 1 000 000 in small portions PS3s is Europe too. Go to school HD DVD fanboys
Wrong, 400,000 in US and 100,000 in Japan thats it, not 600,000. Your Sony Math is misleading people, stop doing it.
Ah!
400 000 in US, 600 000 in Asia = 1 000 000. Until march another 1 000 000 in small portions PS3s is Europe too. Go to school HD DVD fanboys
Wrong, 400,000 in US and 100,000 in Japan thats it, not 600,000. Your Sony Math is misleading people, stop doing it.
If you think 600 000 = 100 000 then your math is wrong pal
Ah!
400 000 in US, 600 000 in Asia = 1 000 000. Until march another 1 000 000 in small portions PS3s is Europe too. Go to school HD DVD fanboys
Wrong, 400,000 in US and 100,000 in Japan thats it, not 600,000. Your Sony Math is misleading people, stop doing it.
If you think 600 000 = 100 000 then your math is wrong pal
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060911-7715.html
Ah!
400 000 in US, 600 000 in Asia = 1 000 000. Until march another 1 000 000 in small portions PS3s is Europe too. Go to school HD DVD fanboys
Wrong, 400,000 in US and 100,000 in Japan thats it, not 600,000. Your Sony Math is misleading people, stop doing it.
If you think 600 000 = 100 000 then your math is wrong pal
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060911-7715.html
What is this? Here is official SONY news pal!
http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2006/09/19/1-mill...s3s-preordered/
See the link in the article leads to the IFA 2006 report!
Get an IQ and learn to find real news, not rumors!
Why would they be buying this? It costs them big money to upgrade just for a better picture even when most of them are still on small, 10 year old TV's.
I don't think anybody is ready for this transition yet, except for the enthusiasts. Or rich people.
Or you can use Blu-Ray drive (from sony, pioneer, LG, panasonic <- available) now with your current PC.
Woah! I guess the PlayStation 3 will play a big role after all!
Care to explain?
If only 25 000 HD-DVD players have been sold so far (and probably even less Blu-Ray players), I doubt more than 100 000 will be sold in the next 6 months.
That would mean Blu-Ray (due to the PS3) would gain the lead in the amount of players.
That effect would cause the sales of Blu-Ray disks to go up, which would be (for the Blu-Ray camp) a very positive change.
How would the release of the PS3 be beneficial to the HD-DVD? That does not make any sense.
How would the release of the PS3 be beneficial to the HD-DVD? That does not make any sense.
Man cant you understand? Its the hd dvd way of "sence". No mather what, even though the world is against hd dvd they "will" win
Going by Amazon's sales ranking I would say so. http://www.thedvdwars.com/index.cfm
BTW, waiting to see who wins is stupid. If the media and early adopters pick a format now and go with it then its likely the format war will end fast. Waiting is going to make the format war longer!
You're stupid. Why should we risk wasting money because the industry is childish?
BTW, waiting to see who wins is stupid. If the media and early adopters pick a format now and go with it then its likely the format war will end fast. Waiting is going to make the format war longer!
Yeah right!
Why should i put money on something wich will be gone few months from now? Blu-Ray have not yet been launched and will have 400 000 more players with PS3 release, while hd dvd have been out a year ago and have ... ~20 000 players sold
BTW, waiting to see who wins is stupid. If the media and early adopters pick a format now and go with it then its likely the format war will end fast. Waiting is going to make the format war longer!
Yeah right!
Why should i put money on something wich will be gone few months from now? Blu-Ray have not yet been launched and will have 400 000 more players with PS3 release, while hd dvd have been out a year ago and have ... ~20 000 players sold
HD-DVD has only been out since May, a few months, not a year. Als, put your money where you want, but Blu-Ray is not going to add anything more than HD-DVD already brings. The best they can do is equal each other and at that point I consider spending $1,000 on Blu-Ray a waste of money.
They will not equal since HD DVD have no spce for improvenment:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=2601
and Blu-Ray have
They will not equal since HD DVD have no spce for improvenment:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=2601
and Blu-Ray have
Disc space has nothing to do with video quality. The codec is the key here. VC1 and H.264 all achieve better video quality using much less disc space compared to MPEG2. These advanced codecs can fit a 4 hour movie on 1 HD-DVD disc with the same high quality we are seeing from video reviews on HD-DVD.
Studios that support both formats are going to use one codec for both formats and use the same encode! Warner's latest Blu-Ray discs are using the same VC1 encode from HD-DVD.
That is the best it can get folks in regards to video quality. Both formats support the exact same codecs and studios will choose their preferred codec and use them in both.
The extra disc space in Blu-Ray is best suited for tv episodes and data, not movies.
Put it another way for you. If I rip a DVD to my hard drive, has it increased in quality just because there is more space to store it. No!
That's my fault. The original article has it spelt correctly. Still, I don't think it detracts from the meaning of the article.
In the next three months no less than SIX Blu-ray players will be available.
Panasonic
Sharp
Pioneer
Sony
Philips
PlayStation 3
Mitsubishi, Yamaha, LG, Lite-On have announced players but no street dates.
Disney, Paramount discs are available over the next 2 weeks.
Fox discs in November.
HD DVD has no additional studio support. No additional manufacturer support. It's the UMD of the HD world.
In the next three months no less than SIX Blu-ray players will be available.
Panasonic
Sharp
Pioneer
Sony
Philips
PlayStation 3
Mitsubishi, Yamaha, LG, Lite-On have announced players but no street dates.
Disney, Paramount discs are available over the next 2 weeks.
Fox discs in November.
HD DVD has no additional studio support. No additional manufacturer support. It's the UMD of the HD world.
Yes. Also Fox is backing Blu-Ray, and many small and bigger hardware companys.
On the other hand Toshiba is loosing money from HD DVD because they sell their player underpriced. The player cost is ~800 and they sell it for 400 to get it to more people. This is no good i think
Yes. Also Fox is backing Blu-Ray, and many small and bigger hardware companys.
On the other hand Toshiba is loosing money from HD DVD because they sell their player underpriced. The player cost is ~800 and they sell it for 400 to get it to more people. This is no good i think
There is no way in hell Toshiba pays $800 to make the hardware the forms a HD-DVD Player.
Now if maybe your talking about R&D and then production, then maybe I can see that..
But the physical hardware, pcb boards, and physical automated machines that build them, they already have, and probably spend less then $10 on making the units.
i aint even sure if either of those formats will win... im kinda with the group of people that thinks that hd-dvd/blu-ray's biggest competitor is the DVD format itself.... plus i think that the fact that HDTV owners are in the minority that right there is obviously going to hurt the odoption of those fancy new players.
me personally... the only thing i will like about those new formats is for the "storage" as that's about the only thing thats a HUGE improvment over standard dvd when talking pc data
bottom line (for me) = i wont be leaving dvd anytime soon
I used to debate with one of my friends why I think PC gaming is better than the PS2. I would show him how much better the quality is on PCs because you can run the game at 1280x960 resolution compared to 640x480 used on the PS2 and he couldn't see a big difference. However, I have many wmv-hd trailers and clips, plus the quicktime HD trailers and it blew his mind.
Everyone I have talked to who sees an HDTV with a 720p or 1080i content being played on it notices the improvements. Sports get a major improvement in 720p. Most of the broadcast content is actually over-compressed and badly made, but its much better than what we have now. All the reviews from HD-DVD say that they have surpassed that quality, and even surpassed the quality of the HD clips I have on my computer.
If you think its a small improvment than you have never seen HD and how bad DVDs really are. DVDs suck!
Try and find the same flaws sitting 3 metres from a 50 cm analog TV.
Try and find the same flaws sitting 3 metres from a 50 cm analog TV.
I won't see the flaws in the DVD because I will see all the flaws from your TV. Which is fine because you are not so much into quality as you are just in having something that works. There is nothing wrong with that, its your choice.
However, coming on here or telling people that DVD is perfect is a lie to those people who have never seen it. DVDs are far from perfect and HD-DVD or Blu-Ray is a huge improvement. This is an investment for people who want better quality, and most of the time, they won't know they want it until they see it in person.
BTW, I stopped purchasing DVDs a couple years ago because I knew it was a waste of money when HD movies were on their way. I still have a standard analog tv too, so I can't just go out and buy a HD-DVD player. I don't have much money myself, its just something I want and will look forward to in the future.
Also, people are going to laugh at me for this but I consider it a major issue. "Blu-Ray" is so much easier to pronounce than "HD-DVD" (2 vs 5 syllables). Considering how frequently we use the term "videotape" or "DVD" in our lives ("Did you get the new James Bond [HD-DVD/Blu-Ray], yet?", "Buy it today on [HD-DVD/Blu-Ray]!" ), I really think it's a significant issue. Whichever format prevails, we're going to be saying it a lot, and for the sake of the millions of people who will be using the name on a daily basis, I'm behind Blu-Ray for that very reason (for the most part; though specs also play a part). There's just no way to shorten "HD-DVD", since both "HD" and "DVD" mean different things, so you'll have to pronounce the whole darn thing every time you want to mention it (which depending on your field, could be countless times in a day). Also consider the poor advertisers to whom every second in your 30-second spot is priceless. Since HD-DVD is 250% as hard to say, I really think it's a significant issue.
Maybe you all think I'm nuts. But that's been one of my major concerns from the beginning.
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