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MYoung
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 369
Location: Madison, WI
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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| ThomasW wrote: |
Yes, now that you mention it I think I read somewhere that Sanyo, NEC, Kenwood and others are supporting HDDVD. But action speaks louder than words. Why did not Kenwood for example put out a line of HDDVD player models ? Or NEC, as "home cinema package" together with their plasma displays ?
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It's not like there were lots of companies besides Sony initially producing Blu-ray players. It's also not like those stand-alone players are flying off the shelves right now as the prices are still high compared to HD DVD hardware. There are what maybe 6 companies producing stand-alone Blu-ray players now? Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, LG, and Pioneer? I think from the beginning, Toshiba was in the best position to produce quality hardware to allow the HD DVD format to catch on. The other companies were probably waiting for the format to catch enough before they started investing lots of money for making a player of their own. They then probably realized that HD players aren't very lucrative yet because the format isn't catching on. Toshiba and Sony are both taking heavy losses on hardware. Let's also keep in mind that the PS3 dwarfs the other stand-alone Blu-ray players in sales. I have to wonder how profitable the stand-alone players are for companies like Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, and LG. Also, Intel and Microsoft are big players. Microsoft's HDi is part of what's giving HD DVD the interactivity edge over Blu-ray right now.
| ThomasW wrote: |
The biggest danger as I see it with blu-ray winning the war is that smaller, independent companies will not join in and produce blu-ray movies due to the high costs of producing these. Many movies available at least on DVD today will definitely never make it to blu-ray.
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I am afraid all high-def movies eventually will be of the character like "Saw IV", "30 days of night", "Click" and "300"..... 
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I agree. If Blu-ray does win then hopefully it will win enough to become affordable and accessible to independents. There are some interesting titles on HD DVD as a result of it being a more affordable format, with hopefully more to come. As I've said before, I'd love to see short films on 3x DVD, taking advantage of both HD DVD's resolution and more affordable DVD replication. I just wish better authoring tools were available. Think of all the short films made by students that could be released independently! HD DVD has/had real promise there. It's the cinephile's format.
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MYoung
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 369
Location: Madison, WI
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| MYoung wrote: | | ThomasW wrote: |
Yes, now that you mention it I think I read somewhere that Sanyo, NEC, Kenwood and others are supporting HDDVD. But action speaks louder than words. Why did not Kenwood for example put out a line of HDDVD player models ? Or NEC, as "home cinema package" together with their plasma displays ?
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It's not like there were lots of companies besides Sony initially producing Blu-ray players. It's also not like those stand-alone players are flying off the shelves right now as the prices are still high compared to HD DVD hardware. The PS3 makes the most sense as a Blu-ray player as it's upgradable to profile 2.0, costs around what a standalone player costs, and likely won't depreciate as much once profile 2.0 comes out. I've also heard it plays games, not that everyone's into that. There are what maybe 6 companies producing stand-alone Blu-ray players now? Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, LG, and Pioneer? I think from the beginning, Toshiba was in the best position to produce quality hardware to allow the HD DVD format to catch on. The other companies were probably waiting for the format to catch enough before they started investing lots of money for making a player of their own. They then probably realized that HD players aren't very lucrative yet because the format isn't catching on. Toshiba and Sony are both taking heavy losses on hardware. Let's also keep in mind that the PS3 dwarfs the other stand-alone Blu-ray players in sales. I have to wonder how profitable the stand-alone players are for companies like Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, and LG. Also, Intel and Microsoft are big players. Microsoft's HDi is part of what's giving HD DVD the interactivity edge over Blu-ray right now. Also, what about Microsoft's HD DVD attachment for the Xbox 360? I found an article that put sales of that add-on at 100,000 in January of 2007.
| ThomasW wrote: |
The biggest danger as I see it with blu-ray winning the war is that smaller, independent companies will not join in and produce blu-ray movies due to the high costs of producing these. Many movies available at least on DVD today will definitely never make it to blu-ray.
...
I am afraid all high-def movies eventually will be of the character like "Saw IV", "30 days of night", "Click" and "300".....
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I agree. If Blu-ray does win then hopefully it will win enough to become affordable and accessible to independents. There are some interesting titles on HD DVD as a result of it being a more affordable format, with hopefully more to come. As I've said before, I'd love to see short films on 3x DVD, taking advantage of both HD DVD's resolution and more affordable DVD replication. I just wish better authoring tools were available. Think of all the short films made by students that could be released independently! HD DVD has/had real promise there. It's the cinephile's format. |
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 4899
Location: Flower Mound, TX
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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| greg_mitch wrote: | Nick, being from the UK you probably don't understand the whole Walmart analogy.
Cheaper prices does not mean less quality to the majority of Americans. If you have ever been to a Walmart on Friday night and seen how busy they are of people buying all sorts of junk you would understand.
Maybe to some elite hobby snobs less price = less quality (not specifically calling you a snob unless you want the title  ). But most are value oriented, like myself. |
I agree with this mostly. I would point out that very very very few consumers can hear a difference between a $50 CD player and a $1000 CD player. The average consumer does not think, "wow, that $1000 player must be way better." What they actually think is, "what moron would pay $1000 for a CD player?!?!?"
Somewhere around $200 is the magic price point for A/V media players now. BD will not take off until there are $200 players. Joe average does not see a big enough difference between SD DVD and HD DVD/BD sitting 10' from his 55" TV to justify spending $500 on a player--period.
If BD died tomorrow, we would see 2 main things happen:
1) Adoption rate would significantly increase due to two factors:
a) $150 players
b) no need to wait any longer for a winner
2) An increase in the number of movies available in HD partially driven by demand from #1 and partially because studios have it easier and cheaper.
If HD DVD dies tomorrow, adoption rate will pick up, but not significantly, largely due to player price. Given production costs and only mildly higher demand, you will not see the movie releases pick up significantly either.
So, for those that what HD movies NOW, helping Blu Ray win is the wrong move! You are just helping to slow adoption rate and the rate at which HD movies are released. Why would you want to do this?
Again, I'm still amazed that given that the exact same movie can be stored with the exact same quality on both, why would anyone in their right mind cares about the storage mechanism--the least important part of this? Why would anyone want to pay significantly more for a different storage mechanism that has bigger functional restrictions? I really wish I could understand it, but it so defies logic that I can't get my brain around it.
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A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station....
Last edited by Person99 on Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:56 pm; edited 1 time in total
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overclkr
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 4227
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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Don't forget about the ridiculusly high price of movies.
Cliff
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greg_mitch
Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 5320
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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| overclkr wrote: | Don't forget about the ridiculusly high price of movies.
Cliff |
I can watch an unlimited amount of HD DVD's for 13.99 a month. That is really cheap! 
To me, player price is more important. I don't have a big collection of DVD's either though.
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greg_mitch
Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 5320
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Person99 wrote: |
Again, I'm still amazed that given that the exact same movie can be stored with the exact same quality on both, why would anyone in their right mind cares about the storage mechanism--the least important part of this? Why would anyone want to pay significantly more for a different storage mechanism that has bigger functional restrictions? I really wish I could understand it, but it so defies logic that I can't get my brain around it. |
People often argue movie selection was the cause. We had no control over this.
The biggest cause, marketing creating confusion. No one can argue marketing doesnt win this.
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WanMan
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10270
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:28 am Post subject: |
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| papalek wrote: | | WanMan wrote: | | I wonder if Toshiba will some something to the cell processor as payback for losing. |
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Sorry, my brain is well caffeinated, but the fingers are not. I'm getting communication dropouts between the two. 
Sony has handed over to Toshiba to manufacturing of the cell processor that Sony uses in the PS3. I am wondering if Toshiba will be corporately vengeful and do something to those manufactured processors.
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