That DVD Player you want for Christmas? Obsolete in 6 months.

[Dooby]

Great news for DVD enthusiasts! This time next year, you’ll likely to be able to buy any DVD title you ever craved for a dollar! (A lot of really big movies are already down to $5, as evidenced by the advertising in my last Friday-morning newspaper!)

There’s a swell piece in this morning’s Variety about Warner Bros., Universal and Paramount announcing Monday they’re issuing their titles in Toshiba’s HD-DVD format, which is due late next year. According to the Variety, those three studios alone accounted for 41 percent of all conventional DVDs sold through October.

Sony’s Blu-Ray, which comes to market in 2006, has only Sony (and soon-to-be-Sony-subsidiary MGM) in its corner so far. Sony and MGM account for 19 percent of the DVD market, according to the same story.
Side-by-side comparisons tell the tale. HD, if you’ve never seen it on a big screen, makes DVD look like dogshit. But what’s it going to cost you? From the Variety story:

Next-generation DVD players are expected to cost around $1000 when they launch late next year, with prices falling quickly as has happened to current players. Discs are expected to cost $5 or $10 more each.

How fast will those prices fall? I bought my first DVD player five years ago for $450. Today, if you’re good about filling out and sending in rebate forms, you can buy progressive-scan DVD players as stocking stuffers for $19.

See, this is why Star Wars came out on DVD a few months ago when George swore he wouldn't release them until the "new" trilogy was finished. He wanted the DVD money now, so he could bilk everyone for the HD-DVD money later.

Now a regular DVD will play in an HD-DVD player, but not vice versa. An HD-DVD player will not play a sony blue-laser HD disk. A sony blue-laser HD player will not play regular DVD's or HD-DVD's.

What the article does not mention is that Sony is going to put a blue-laser HD player in every PlayStation III. No one knows what Microsoft will put in the next generation X-Box.

[sike]

sound like a lotta hype to me....or...a lotta people are screwed [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[u2sarajevo]

It won't exactly be obsolete. It will be phased in, new releases will come out in both formats. If you have a HD-DVD you buy that version, if you don't you buy the regular DVD format.

DVD producers are not dumb. They know that people aren't going to throw away their DVD player the minute HD-DVD becomes available.

[sike]

sure....remember how mini-discs were going to replace the CD?
thats why I said it sounded like hype...I know I dont give a crap about a HD tv....

[Ninkobei]

I'm not 100% sure on the statistics, but it doesn't seem like HD-DVD or Blueray is that much better than normal DVD. I mean, who cares if they can store more information or not all that I care about is if they can store the movie and sound. I am Hoping that they will both be shortlived (shorter than DVDs, if thats possible).

[TripleDipping]

I may sound like a luddite, but how much better this HD-DVD can be when DVD is already good enough? What... images on the screen become 3-D? You can see the stitchings on an actor's clothing 20 feet away from the screen?

[sike]

You Luddite!!! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[u2sarajevo]

The HD-DVD thing reminds me of the SVHS hype...... of course that was before the internet blew hype to an extraordinary proportion.

And look how popular SVHS became.

*crickets*

[Maringa]

From an HD idiot (I have no clue about HD gizmo's) - I wonder what percentage of households have high definition TV sets at home? You may have to clue me in, but I imagine it isn't higher than 15%? The advantage of a HD DVD would only be useful if you had a HD TV. What percentage of the 15% HD TV owners are content with their existing DVD players? I would say most of them are! I guess the new HD DVD players have a hard market to get into, especially at their initial price.

I think it will be slow going at first.

I half expect the HD DVD technology to be leapfrogged by some sort of card device player....You can make a small card player, easily portable, and media is easier to protect. DVD's have a surface that can be scratched. Does anyone know if something like that is down the pipeline?

[EricaLubarsky]

Until I can afford a 1,000$+ TV, none of this is relevant for me. I have a 150$, 32" "low-res" TV and it works out wonderfully.

[ocelot_ark]

I just read an article like this in popular mechanics/science, don't remember which. There is actually an even better standard expected out in 2007. It's some kind of hologram ray, supposed to have been in the works for over 40 years...will hold a terebyte of info!