What is Digg?Sponsored by Backblaze
Your Hard Drive Died? There, there... view!
backblaze.com - Find out how to back everything up over the Internet--your girlish sobs are making us uncomfortable.
71 Comments
- Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32Laserdisc 2.0
- Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30Does this surprise anybody?
People have been predicting the demise of these formats since they were announced, and it's only coming true. Consumers just aren't ready for it. - CiXeL, on 10/12/2007, -8/+28Helloooooo. most of us are simply trying to feed ourselves and survive in this crap economy rather than worry about buying a HD DVD or Blu ray player.
- Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24In other words Blu Ray is risking its entire existance on the PS3 not sucking.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Yeahm really, was this news to anybody. You dont even have to ask yourself why these things aren't flying off the shelves.
$1000 hardware
$40 movies
marginal upgrade in quality
50/50 chance that a year from now you're $1000 hardware is sitting on the shelf of a thrift store next to a box of betamax movies. - halosniper7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1530million-so they sold 2?
- mikelikespie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14@tenlaw
I'd estimate that more people have broadband internet than HDTVs. - Pharaoh777, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11It's hard to sell players when they're not on the shelves.
- purplegang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Just six years ago I bought my first DVD-R recorder for about $1100.00. The blank disks cost $10.00; a month before I bought my first disk the blanks cost $16.00. I was able to make exactly zero usable disks with that system. This was the year 2000, but the hardware wasn't all that great, and the software was worse. A few years later the recorders that worked were $250.00 each and the disks were a buck. Also by 2003 there was a plethora of decent software that worked. Now the machines, disks, and software are practically given away for free.
Anyway to the point, I'll probably buy a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray recorder some day, but I'm going to let some other sucker lead the parade this time. - MillenniumGuy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I am ready for an HD media standard format for delivery of HD from a store to my house. I just refuse to pay until a standard is decided. Also I need to be sure that whatever format is available can be played on all of the devices that I want to be able to view my paid content.
I have been paying for HD content delivered to my house (Via VOOM Network until they collapsed and now via DISH NETWORK) for over 2 years now. I have been waiting for some way to get HD movies into my house, but the market has not yet provided an acceptable transport. - mikelikespie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9It's obscenely expensive, and not that many people can even enjoy it. I don't know how many people I have seen with wide screen HDTV's that just stretch the normal picture to fit the screen so everything is out of perspective (this is a huge pet peeve of mine). It just shows how little people can care about picture quality.
DVD's seem fine for most people's general usage. I remember when they came out they were expensive, but a huge deal. Why? Because VHS sucked. DVD's really don't suck all that much, and there is very little incentive for people to switch over unless they are videophiles or have lots of cashmoneys. - FishyJoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Most people don't even have HDTVs. DVD gained quick adoption because every tv was capable of taking advantage of it. The same case can't be made for these new formats.
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I want to spend $1000 on lame-duck technology that won't be compatible with second generation equipment (if it survives that long), but I'm fresh out of million dollar bills.
- KayinNasaki, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7DVD had a massive advantage over VHS. No video degrading, no tracking issues, multiple sound and language options, no rewinding, bonus features and extras.... Atop better quality.and longer play times.
What does Blue Ray offer? .... Better quality. Quality that 90% of people won't notice because they don't have a good enough TV to see it.
Even though it's not practical now, I'm pretty sure Streaming will be the next step simply because it'll be the next thing that can introduce more improvements then simply quality. - aiken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Perhaps the most interesting thing about these numbers is the ratio of player revenue to media revenue. To me, it says that people are willing to shell out $500 for a player, but are using netflix for the movies (which makes perfect sense). Heck, I wonder how much of that $5m *is* netflix?
- Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Exactly. The players run at least 500 and you would need an HDTV to see any benefit. People are pretty happy with the dvd experience right now. Add to that the fear of buying the player that is destined to be the dead format and is this any surprise?
- tastycheese, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Does this surprise anybody?"
Aparantely, it must surprise the people who made those "early projections"... otherwise their projections would have been more accurate. - crombenevolant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Actually DVD's sat on the shelves with a minority market share before they really took off. For those of us who were early adopters it was impossible to find DVD's to buy in the first year or so, let alone rent.
In this case however, the competing formats will effectively kill each other out and they will battle for a niche market until something better (ie simpler, cheaper) comes along (like Toshiba's 5 layer DVD's). - WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Apple supports Blu-Ray
I would not be surprised if the next upgrade includes Blu Ray players.
I guess you could buy a new one and put the drive in the old one if you want to. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@whereami
I agree. Price is THE factor for the bottom line which may end up being the biggest volume of sales in movies. I just don't see that many buyers out side of digg backing up HDDs much less knowing how to.
What I am wondering about is when the PC companies are going to start shipping these things ( 18-20 months is my guess ) - chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9I would be very surprised if the even get a 5% add-on rate for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive. I have a 360 and have no intention of getting that drive because my PS3 will play Blu-Ray discs if I want to watch high-def movie. If it's a numbers game, Blu-Ray is going to FAR outpace HD-DVD players simply because of the number of PS3s that will sell. I think only about 20,000 of those Toshiba HD-DVD players have sold, meaning that on November 17th, there will already be 20X as many Blu-Ray players in households than HD-DVD players.
PS3 also sets the high bar for Blu-Ray players at $500 (low end PS3). Meaning that stand-alone Blu-Ray players will quickly drop into the $300 range IMO. - zeppo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5While the mac mini and related macs are fast enough for HD DVD or Blu-Ray they wont exactly be compatible because they don't have HDCP compliant video cards
oh forgot to mention in my previous post here is the list of HD DVD and Blu Ray release schedule so far
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7460494&&#post7460494 - deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Doesn't surprise me a bit. I've been going out of my way to discourage people from investing in either format. Normally I wouldn't give a ***** what people wasted their money on but I feel like it's my moral obligation to inform people about the dangers of DRM, format wars and image restraint tokens.
- vuke69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I already know which format will win...
Whichever one DVD Jon cracks first. - WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Tenlow:
Yes. for the most part. depends on who makes it to 100$ each and cheaper movies than the other. - aiken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4And V for Vendetta Oct 31, that will be a big one for showing of HD.
- PFS1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@WhereAmI- I dugg you up...you make a excellent point. Right now, that would be a pain in the ass for the average person. But I would say that the pains in the ass with downloading- and the "too many things that could go wrong"- could easily be solved by the right killer app.
MP3 players were intimidating to the average computer user, and largely a niche market, before the iPod and iTunes came out and made it mainstream. It made it easy for anyone- not just technophiles- to rip, convert, and organize the tags of, and even BUY all the digital music they wanted. Before then, I'm sure people would have been intimidated by the processes involved with doing all those things.
So I think you are right in the meantime, but I think with the right killer app, people would benefit more from the advantages of online/streaming content than from the adantages of HDDVD/blu ray. The iTunes movie store is a start, but there's a lot more room to go in quality and variety of playback devices. It's a market waiting to be blown wide open, and when it is, the next gen discs will be put to death. - WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4DRMs can be broken, hell you should be happy
a whole new adventure! - crombenevolant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4For the majority of consumers and even early adopters it is not the titles but the pricing. When Xmen3 came out last week I bought the widescreen version for 14.99. I could of chunked out 500-1000 on a HD/BluRay player and then payed 40 bucks for the same movie. And yes that movie would have looked slightly better than the upscaling my progressive scan player does.... But on the other hand the DVD looks pretty damn good and I've got enough money left over to nearly buy two more movies....
- WhiskerTheMad, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Bottom line is, people don't see a real reason to move to the new format. DVD was a quantum leap beyond VHS in almost every way, these new formats are like... what, DVD plus?
Who cares? Who wants to buy umpteen-jillion dollars worth of new equipment for DVD plus? What's the benefit? DVDs work fine, and I can get a $20 player from Wal-mart, along with four movies for another $20 (admittedly, these movies will suck, but still).
It may just be that the manufacturers have done a poor job of educating consumers about benefits of the new format(s), but that doesn't change the fact that people see no reason to upgrade. - dr00, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7i'm not surprised at all.
especially since dvd's perform just fine.
not only are people not ready, it's just not needed, especially given the cost of upgrading - masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I really don't want everything to replaced by the internet. It's fine and all for places like Japan and South Korea, but we just don't have the capabilities here in America and we won't for the forseeable future unless somebody really steps up as a leader in broadband.
Rather, until that time comes, I'd like to see the end of disc video formats. There's no reason for discs to have a specific resolution and specific codec. Rather, all DVDs should be data discs, and the players should simply read many types of formats and be updatable. That way, you can run a 100x100 video or a 8000x8000 video if you want, just as long as it physically fits on the disc and as long as your player supports the codec. And if the player doesn't support the codec, then you could go online, download some updates, burn them to a disc, and stick the disc into the player and the player will update itself.
Granted, Hollywood would never allow such a thing, but if a company could make such a product for a mass market price, I think it could become the next big innovation in electronics. - WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I know that some people that buy a PS3 plan on buying Blu-Rays, as those some also have HDTV's.
The ones with a 360 also will get a PS3, as I have found. There was enough time to get both for them. And they will not be buying the HDTV attachment for the 360, since they have Blu-Rays. - chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3>"I think it's amazing how much effort has been put into the hardware with no apparent focus on content."
Uh, I assume you are referring to everything BUT the 200 or so games in development for the PS3... - BMW7Series, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7To me, it seems like another money-grabbing opportunity by those media conglomerates, forcing us to re-buy all of our movies on yet ANOTHER format.
- darksheer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31080p is not the ONLY HD out there. 99% of HD content is only 720p...and most HDTVs sold are capable of reproducing 720p
- chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Well, add $240M to Blu-Rays hardware total when the PS3 launches (400,000x$600).
- aiken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Er, are you suggesting that there is no material difference in picture or audio quality? Because if so, you're flat out wrong.
It may be that the improvement isn't worth it, or that the formats are doomed, or whatever. But to say there's no difference between Bluray/HDDVD and plain old DVD is just silly. Or am I misinterpreting "no redeeming value"? To me, that means "worthless." - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Will i be able to upgrade my mac duo or a mini to play blu ray? I think my mac would be a perfect movie machine then
- zeppo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would say its also because no recent major blockbuster movie has been released on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray yet. In fact Batman Begins was only released for the HD DVD format on October 10 and King Kong won't be released til November 14.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The best thing about these new formats (okay, the ONLY good thing) is that we'll finally get some format standardization. 1080p is 1080p no matter where you live. Not the 480 lines of NTSC compared to 576 lines of PAL type stuff.
Who knows, the US might even eventually switch to the superior 240V power system instead of lossy 110V :) - WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I am surprised it has made that much myself.
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3right, streaming will be the next step after this, and people will use Blu's to store stuff, as according to you, Blu's have better quality. you never said anything about HD.
- 298th_Scat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I demod both HD and Blu ray.. The TV's however were 42" I couldn't really see that much of a difference.. However the one thing I couldn't stand is the speed..
They are both insanely slow.. Proccess is this
Insert Disc..
wait 30 seconds.. .. .. ..
Menu may or may not start to load.
Hrm.. Maybe I need to reinsert the disc.. Hit eject button..
Wait 30 seconds... .. .
Disc may or may not eject.. - Galroc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21280x720 is 720p
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3kirashira
We cannot count them without another survey, as 360 owners do NOT have to buy the attachment.
In other words, look at chriskzoo. He stated he has no intention of getting that drive. He is not the only one. - WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree. What is the point of having the newest technology without the newest movies?
However Underworld:Evolution was a bit back.
oh and a couple points could be its your favourite flick, or its just a good movie. - WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Thanks for responding,
No one cares, I even put it in ABCD answers above, and they just dugg me down :(
***** - Bopple, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm ready for it, but so far this crap is way overpriced for what it is. Plus, I don't want to get stuck with whichever ends up being the betamax format. (I know, BetaMax is a much better format than VHS, but it never made it in the consumer market, only the professional market).
Plus, only a choice of 2 HD-DVD players and 1 Blu-Ray player right now? - slaystench, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm in total shock!
-
Show 51 - 71 of 71 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is