|  | Posted by Kevin Weaver on 01/13/07 02:25 
People will always have money for toys. Look at the price of gas. In California it's 2.80 a gal today. How many gas sucking SUV's are there
 on the road should tell you people will not give up on things they want
 or think they need. For Bluray-HDDVD That's something they need. :)
 
 
 TheLetterK wrote:
 > Rexunrex@yahoo.com wrote:
 >> I predict that HDDVD/Bluray will suffer in a prolonged coma, probably
 >> for the next 5 years. It may never wake up at all and may even prove to
 >> have been stillborn all along.
 >>
 >> There are 7 excellent reasons:
 >>
 >> 1. DVD is, exactly like VHS, "good enough", cheap, and ubiquitous. Even
 >> playing on my computer, the video and audio are crisp.
 >>
 >> 2. The HDDVD & Bluray hardware including monitor, video card, and drive
 >> are hyperexpensive and beyond the means of most people. The minority of
 >> newly-rich people and obsessive gamers cannot support this technology.
 >
 > The single most expensive part is the drive. I've got a box that will
 > handle it, whenever I can put a blu-ray or hd-dvd drive in.
 >
 >> The only hope for HDDVD was the Microsoft $200 USB drive, but without a
 >> good ripper program to let the consumer avoid buying a new monitor &
 >> video card, even that is useless.
 >>
 >> 3. The Bluray-HDDVD war has only just begun. Expect 2 to 5 years for it
 >> to be resolved.
 >
 > With Sony's decision to keep porn off Blu-ray, the war is over. You'd
 > have thought they would have learned the *first* time they did that.
 >
 >>
 >> 4. Actual movie theaters are far better pictures than HDDVD or Bluray.
 >> Even the low-end digital cinema projectors have a 2048-pixel wide
 >> image.
 >
 > Spread over a gigantic surface. Besides, aren't most movies shown at
 > 2.35:1 aspect ratio?
 >
 >> Compare a $4 matinee ticket to the insane cost of HDDVD & Bluray
 >> hardware -- even the game systems are expensive. If I'm going to spend
 >> a crapload of money, I'd rather it be toward LASIK treatment or a very
 >> good pair of glasses, than on computer hardware or a game console.
 >>
 >> 5. DVD's rippability is perceived by a certain percentage of consumers
 >> as a precondition for purchasing. Lack of it makes HDDVD/Bluray a
 >> non-starter. No one wants to do business with Scrooge companies that
 >> invent nasty DRM like AACS, let alone cave in to terrorist
 >> organizations like the RIAA and MPAA and cower at their feet.
 >>
 >> 6. Since the US Treasury just announced that the USA is in fact
 >> bankrupt, and the dollar is ready to crash anyway, it is only a matter
 >> of time before this suppressed news reaches the already-frugal buying
 >> public in the USA. When it does, and they lift their heads out of the
 >> sand, people are not going to rush to buy luxuries. It will be 5 or 10
 >> years before the economy recovers, if it ever does. Source:
 >>
 >> http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/martenson/2006/1217.html
 >
 > National finances are quite a bit different from personal finances. A
 > nation can operate in the red for decades, or even centuries. Though at
 > least the person writing that acknowledges that most of this comes from
 > internally-owed debt.
 >
 > "The US is insolvent. There is simply no way for our national bills to
 > be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our
 > federal deficits alone now total more than 400% of GDP."
 >
 > Of course, deficit spending on the national level doesn't actually
 > result in bankruptcy for the country as a whole. It's a rather abstract
 > notion, since the government can get whatever it wants. Its credit limit
 > is whatever the people are willing to endure before they overthrow their
 > government.
 >
 >>
 >> 7. Better technology is always coming. You may have noticed the stories
 >> on Digg/Reddit about the man who has a patent on a 100GB CDROM, or
 >> about the holographic DVD. By the time the HDDVD/Bluray conflict is
 >> resolved, people may no longer need them! Example source:
 >>
 >> http://www.dvd-recordable.org/Article1415-mode=thread-order0-threshold0.phtml
 >>
 >>
 >> Thus, high-def discs are really a non-starter today and may never get
 >> off the ground, absent some innovation such as a good, reliable ripping
 >> program, or perhaps a cheap HDDVD burner.
 >>
 >> The consumer is king and he holds the cards, not the fools who invented
 >> the latest DRM. If industry doesn't bend over backyards and lick itself
 >> for the entertainment of the king, their rush for profits may have been
 >> a true Fool's Errand.
 >>
 >> Rex
 >>
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