Price war could break DVD deadlock

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Harrison Murchison

Universal players are what it'll take for mass consumer adoption IMO.

I think the price will have to get much lower as well. At this point it's still a toy for people who want the latest gadget and have the disposable income. I love all this kind of stuff but haven't found a compelling reason to make the jump to either format. The disks do look nice on the HDTV's in the store, but not enough to make me want one.

I have a very large collection of DVD's and can hardly ever remember a time watching them when I wished they were in HD. Just last night my daughter and her husband were visiting and we watched a nice anamorphic DVD on my 37" ED Plasma screen. They both made several comments about how great it looked. I buy these DVD's on sale between $5 and $10 each. When I can do that with high def disks, when I can get a player for under $100, AND when I think it won't be obsolete in a couple years... THEN I'll make the switch.

[Dave Blackhurst]

I'll be in line right behind Boyd...

Right now there's a pretty wide disparity between supply price and demand price...

"old" (meaning a few months) DVD titles are cheap (like 2-3/$10), and look great on a $30 progressive scan DVD player on a decent flat panel display... new titles are $15-20 when they come out, deduct the $4 you'd spend on a rental, and it's still way cheaper than a trip to the snack bar at a theater...

My screen is not as big, but it's calibrated, my surround sound is done right (movies with gunfire are scary, had to pick more than one guest up off the floor <wink>), and most times my feet aren't sticking to the floor depending on how wild the kids have been... after they go to bed it's quieter than most theaters, and I can pause the extended version of LOTR to go to the "library"...

$300-400 for "HD" player and $30 a title/disk, most of which I don't want to watch anyway - at least so far, and it just isn't "there" economically...not to mention what happens if one format "dies"...

Now if I played games and had PS3 or Xbox... that may ultimately be the driver, as those units have "multipurpose" features. Standalone HD players just don't add up quite yet.

[David Moody]

Most of the 50 Blu-rays I have purchased have been off Amazon with buy one get one free sales. Free shipping. Delivered for under $10.

I am all for the format war if I can keep buying Blu-rays for that price.

[Heath McKnight]

David,

I was an early adopter of DVD, and many websites at the time offered buy one, get one free or for 99 cents. It was a one-time offer, so I convinced my friends to buy more, so I could build up my collection.

My first DVD ever was Blade. YEAH!

heath

[Heath McKnight]

I can't wait for CES, by the way, because a lot of the tech toy companies there will be showing off HD content over IP. Should be fun!

I do agree about collectables: Unlike CDs (give me iTunes Music Store), I love my DVD collection. I have some great sets, plus one of my hobbies is buying Criterion DVDs. Also, Criterion (www.criterion.com) haven't even mentioned hi def DVDs yet.

Heath

[Carlos Rodriguez]

Isn't HD over IP already happening? I mean with apps like bittorrent being utilized for this kind of thing, I think HDOIP is already a viable reality. Take Azureus for example. They have the "VUZE" app (which is like BT with a media browser) where you can download HD content now. Granted, it's content like H.264 or WMVHD, at much lower bitrates, but the products are pretty phenomenal. My ideal setup... a set top Media Center PC with an HDMI out and LG's blu-ray/hd-dvd combo player for an extra $299. Oh yeah, it's also a multi format dvd burner. Until things settle down, I think it would be cool to have something where you can switch out components, a-la media center PC.

[Chris Leong]

Yeah, it's almost here.
Check out Akamai's test site:

http://www.thehdweb.com

They're heading towards HD VOD within a year.
And it's doable. I was at the industry HD summit earlier this month and saw some wavelet compression stuff that silenced the room.
Within a few years we'll be able to email a feature film length program to each other. And I'm not talking 120x80 either.
Also a cigar box sized SDI-to-wavelet converter with hot swappable high (read huge) capacity 2.5" flash drives...
Yup, it's gonna be in interesting year.

[Michael Jouravlev]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

I think the price will have to get much lower as well. At this point it's still a toy for people who want the latest gadget and have the disposable income.

How much lower than $100 do you want the price to drop? Even $200 (HD-D3 at Costco) is a pretty good price, even if this were a regular DVD player. A decent DVD player costs more than $100 anyway, here you get both SD DVD and HD.

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

I have a very large collection of DVD's and can hardly ever remember a time watching them when I wished they were in HD.

Same here, but only for feature movies. For documentary stuff like planet Earth watching it in HD is a totally different experience.

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

I buy these DVD's on sale between $5 and $10 each. When I can do that with high def disks, when I can get a player for under $100, AND when I think it won't be obsolete in a couple years... THEN I'll make the switch.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are backwards compatible with DVDs, so you don't lose anything by buying an HD player. In regards to HD disks, just rent them. I don't buy DVDs anymore unless this is something that I cannot order from Netflix of Blockbuster or something that I REALLY want to own and watch over and over for several times, like "Blade Runner" that I just bought, in HD. Got it on Christmas Eve, the best gift ever.

[Mike Teutsch]

Originally Posted by Michael Jouravlev

How much lower than $100 do you want the price to drop? Even $200 (HD-D3 at Costco) is a pretty good price, even if this were a regular DVD player. A decent DVD player costs more than $100 anyway, here you get both SD DVD and HD.

Same here, but only for feature movies. For documentary stuff like planet Earth watching it in HD is a totally different experience.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are backwards compatible with DVDs, so you don't lose anything by buying an HD player. In regards to HD disks, just rent them. I don't buy DVDs anymore unless this is something that I cannot order from Netflix of Blockbuster or something that I REALLY want to own and watch over and over for several times, like "Blade Runner" that I just bought, in HD. Got it on Christmas Eve, the best gift ever.

I have to agree with Michael! Even my "old" Sony DVD player, which is now sitting on top of my Toshiba HD DVD player, cost more than the Toshiba. With 10 HD DVD's, shipping and all I paid $172.00.

On top of that, I was trying to play an old DVD for a client the other day and the only DVD player it would play on was the new Toshiba. Strange!

And, yes, I plays all of my older DVD's.

Mike

[Boyd Ostroff]

Guys, if I had a high def player and disks to go with it, I'm sure I'd like it. I don't doubt that you're happy with yours. I'm certainly not going to make an argument that high definition isn't better than standard definition. But I think you may have missed my point. I don't want one yet.

There are lots of other expensive high tech toys that I've spent a lot of money on, so this is one thing which I've just decided to sit out for awhile. It just isn't compelling enough for me to spend a lot of money on at this point, and the uncertainty about the standards makes me even more reluctant.

But you guys make a good sales pitch! :-)

[Larry Price]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

Guys, if I had a high def player and disks to go with it, I'm sure I'd like it. I don't doubt that you're happy with yours. I'm certainly not going to make an argument that high definition isn't better than standard definition. But I think you may have missed my point. I don't want one yet.

There are lots of other expensive high tech toys that I've spent a lot of money on, so this is one thing which I've just decided to sit out for awhile. It just isn't compelling enough for me to spend a lot of money on at this point, and the uncertainty about the standards makes me even more reluctant.

But you guys make a good sales pitch! :-)

I felt the same way you did Boyd...until I got my hands on one of Sony's 70" SXRD sets. Once I had that amazing, huge, picture in my living room, my appetite for an image that would take full advantage of it's capabilities became overwhelming!

I'd already been following the format war with great interest, and based on everything I read, it appeared that Blu-ray was winning. So I opted for a PS3, even though I'm not much of a gamer. I absolutely love this machine! Nearly every month, Sony updates the firmware and adds new features and improves existing ones. The machine is growing steadily.

But then Paramount threw a monkey wrench into the works by switching from supporting both formats to HD-DVD only (in exchange for $140 million bribe!) and as it happens, I'm a major Star Trek fan. So I grabbed a Toshiba HD-XA2. I find it to be an outstanding player, and it's upscaling capabilities are phenomenal!

So, now I have the best of both worlds and I'm loving every minute. After all, it's only money...

P.S. I still think that eventually Blu-ray will win, given the latest sales figures for disks and machines. Either that, or both formats will be killed off by something else. Until then though, I'm all set! :-)

[Boyd Ostroff]

I hear ya Larry. But a 70" TV isn't in my immediate future either :-)