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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