Posted by TheLetterK on 01/12/07 21:49

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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