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Posted by RCE Defiant on 03/22/07 15:30
"Uncopyrightable" <why@why.com> wrote in message
news:UOidnbZFoZaeGp_bnZ2dnUVZ8qjinZ2d@giganews.com...
> Temsonic wrote:
>> "RCE Defiant" <peterfcukthespimstones@hotcoldmail.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:56evjaF280u9hU1@mid.individual.net...
>>> I initially thought HD due to the monster that is MS being behind it but
>>> now it's looking more and more like Blu-Ray film media sales are
>>> outstripping HD by 3:1 whihc don't look good for the HD camp. I'm
>>> holding off buying any next gen media reader until HDMI 1.3 is out and
>>> the dust settles on the format scuffle. What are your thoughts on who's
>>> going to win? I've seen a few drives come out that will play both
>>> formats so it looks like manufacturers are edging their bets.
>>>
>>
>> The real problem right now is that the non-AV enthusiast public (i.e.
>> probably more than 90%) have never heard of or don't care about HD-DVD or
>> Blu-ray, and it seems the majority of the rest of us are taking a
>> wait-and-see approach, firstly because of the format war and secondly
>> because of stupidly high pricing. Naturally the war will be decided by
>> who sells the most units, and to sell large numbers the product needs
>> mass market appeal.
>>
>> Joe public only really got to grips with DVD and widescreen CRT TV's a
>> few years ago and they're already being told it's all out of date, and
>> from what I gather most of them can't see any particular benefit from HD
>> other than the associated bigger screen sizes. I firmly believe that the
>> main driving factor behind the public's willingness to jump from VHS to
>> DVD wasn't solely about picture and sound quality. Yes, they were part of
>> it, but it was mainly the move from tape to disc - which suddenly enabled
>> menus, chapters, optional subtitles, different audio tracks, angles,
>> non-linear extras, etc - which caught their imagination.
>>
>> To the AV enthusiast, improved picture (including anamorphic widescreen)
>> and sound (DD5.1 and DTS as standard) are the best features of DVD over
>> VHS, and those features are improved again with the HD formats, but we're
>> talking about mass market appeal here, not what the enthusiasts think.
>> How many posts do you remember on this and other forums along the lines
>> of "How do I get rid of the black bars?", and even now I know very few
>> people with a 5.1 system to actually take advantage of what's available
>> to them on the discs. Most people still don't appear to have learnt how
>> to set up their widescreen TV's properly, HD is the least of their
>> worries.
>>
>> There's also the costs involved. It's only recently that the prices on HD
>> panels have started to come down to more sensible levels. Even so you're
>> still looking at almost £1000 for a really decent one and that's before
>> you shell out another thousand for a Blu-ray player... Most people would
>> _never_ pay a grand for a media player no matter how all-singing and
>> dancing it is, they live in the real world where even £100 is a lot of
>> money to justify spending on a new toy, let alone one where they might
>> struggle to appreciate the difference between that and something they can
>> pick up for £20 in Tesco.
>>
>> Of course, the PS3 is now on the scene which could change things, though
>> at present it's lacking in features I would consider essential in a HD
>> player, e.g. it can't upscale standard DVD's to 720/1080 and it can only
>> output HD at 1080p, not 720p, meaning you have to rely on your 720p
>> screen accepting a 1080i signal and downscaling well if you want anything
>> more than standard def progressive output.
>>
>> In the case of the early adopter AV enthusiast, there's also a different
>> issue that isn't considered so often. As you say, some companies see dual
>> format drives as the answer right now. The problem here is that we might
>> buy a dual format player, set about collecting a mix of HD-DVD and
>> Blu-ray discs, then at some point in the future one format wins out, and
>> before you know it we need to replace our players but can only buy
>> hardware for the format that won, rendering half our collections
>> obsolete.
>>
>> I've just realised what a stupidly long answer I've written, so I'd just
>> like to add my favourite two points as to why I think HD-DVD will win and
>> then be done with it: Blu-ray has region coding and has banned porn.
>>
>>
> OK, i think you lost the argument when you said 'Blu-ray has banned porn'
> I really think one major factor in VHS sales was porn, from the movies to
> home, DVD just increased this faster and further, I firmly believe the
> driving force behind the format war will be porn.
> Long live porn!!
>
Porn does rule.
--
RCE Defiant
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