Analyst Declares Blu-Ray the Winner
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yeah but it has just started to catch on in the market these past few years. There's still alot of VHS material out there.
HD BluRay
A few points. DVD came out 3/27/1997. I know because I laid out $500 (?) for the Pioneer DV700. So that makes it ALMOST 9 years. I had an extensive laserdisc collection and within TWO YEARS the last laserdisc was pressed. No more annoucements after 2/1999. So it really took a few years longer than that for DVD to really catch on. When you go into Best Buy and watch people buying DVDs by the handful you know it's caught on.
Second point. VHS is DONE. I can ONLY find VHS tapes at Target and FYE (Coconuts, metro NY store) and maybe some other places. Lets face it, they're bulky (whereas Beta was nice and compact and 8mm or MiniDV even better) which translates into shelf space which translates into $ sold per square foot which is what retailers look at. So if you REALLY want to buy that tape for 6.99 you gotta go hunt on ebay or the like for it, whereas a DVD player can be had for as little as $20.00 and most likely the same movie will be on DVD for the same price.
As far as the new DVD "standards" go...my advice is don't buy nuthin. These guys are just for the most part rich, middle aged (white or yellow in the case of Japan) men who just want to be able to see who can piss the furthest and could care less about what you guys want or need. Do you really think a 10GB difference in storage is gonna make your like ANY different. Do you REALLY think they're gonna sell you all 9 seasons of the X-Files on 2 BD discs? And as far as extras are concerned. Puh-lease. Most people don't watch them and if they need so much space for extras why don't they try making a better movie? Hollywood is making more and more crappy movies and people are going less because of the price. The basic rule is...stay home---> less money from move--> less money to "movie stars" --> better product.
Again...vote with your money. Don't whine, don't write letters, make petitions. These guys DON'T want Joan of Arcadia on because they don't get enough viewers? Let's see what they do when no one watches. That's all capitalists understand (NOT that there's anything wrong with capitalism)...MONEY. Don't give it up so easy and they won't piss on you
A few points. DVD came out 3/27/1997. I know because I laid out $500 (?) for the Pioneer DV700. So that makes it ALMOST 9 years. I had an extensive laserdisc collection and within TWO YEARS the last laserdisc was pressed. No more annoucements after 2/1999. So it really took a few years longer than that for DVD to really catch on. When you go into Best Buy and watch people buying DVDs by the handful you know it's caught on.
Second point. VHS is DONE. I can ONLY find VHS tapes at Target and FYE (Coconuts, metro NY store) and maybe some other places. Lets face it, they're bulky (whereas Beta was nice and compact and 8mm or MiniDV even better) which translates into shelf space which translates into $ sold per square foot which is what retailers look at. So if you REALLY want to buy that tape for 6.99 you gotta go hunt on ebay or the like for it, whereas a DVD player can be had for as little as $20.00 and most likely the same movie will be on DVD for the same price.
As far as the new DVD "standards" go...my advice is don't buy nuthin. These guys are just for the most part rich, middle aged (white or yellow in the case of Japan) men who just want to be able to see who can piss the furthest and could care less about what you guys want or need. Do you really think a 10GB difference in storage is gonna make your like ANY different. Do you REALLY think they're gonna sell you all 9 seasons of the X-Files on 2 BD discs? And as far as extras are concerned. Puh-lease. Most people don't watch them and if they need so much space for extras why don't they try making a better movie? Hollywood is making more and more crappy movies and people are going less because of the price. The basic rule is...stay home---> less money from move--> less money to "movie stars" --> better product.
Again...vote with your money. Don't whine, don't write letters, make petitions. These guys DON'T want Joan of Arcadia on because they don't get enough viewers? Let's see what they do when no one watches. That's all capitalists understand (NOT that there's anything wrong with capitalism)...MONEY. Don't give it up so easy and they won't piss on you
MW390 said:
Wrong.
DVD was standardized in 1996 and first players became available well before Christmas of 1996, during Fall.
I don't mean to hijack the thread or start any flaming, but since I was a teenager back during the betamax vs. VHS era, I was wondering...
I think that most people I've read any information from agree that betamax was the superior format, but of course lost the war. What were the factors that caused this to happen? And, can we look at those particular factors in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray case?
I think that most people I've read any information from agree that betamax was the superior format, but of course lost the war. What were the factors that caused this to happen? And, can we look at those particular factors in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray case?
Perhaps in Japan...T2k said:
In this country, DVD was not launched until February-March 1997. The first (region 1) DVD titles appeared in stores only in March 1997 (March 19 if I am not mistaken) and initially only in several "Test" markets. I remember back then some of our local Audio/Video stores in Ohio had to "smuggle" DVDs from Chicago!
Stacy A said:
Betamax originally could only record for 1 hr on an L500 tape. The next version had the time increased to 2 hrs. VHS when it came out of the gate had 2hr and 4hr record speeds on a T120 tape (which I had the honor of paying $22.00 at J & R Discount Electronics around early 1978). So it was the tape capacity. No one could convince Akio Morita (the president and I believe founder of Sony shortly after WWII) that VHS would "eat his lunch" because he had the better format. JVC I think had the original patent on VHS tape and they were rival companies. What's really ironic is that Videotape was first employed by Bing Crosby and the company he used was Ampex
So I guess one could say that he with the longer length wins but not necessarily. 15 Gb versus 25Gb doesn't mean much to the great masses much like the US is 11 trillion in debt. (people's eyes glaze over after a number of zeros), so it may boil down to 1 - pitcure quality, 2 - Backward compatibility, 3 - machine price and capabilities and 4 - software price
Stacy A said:
I think youve hit the nail on the head and the reason HD DVD will probably win at least initially. The winner will do the most volume. The format that ends up dominating the movie rental shelves. IMO
What format can most people afford? HD DVD
What format will allow reasonable PQ for HD movies on one disk? HD DVD dual layer 30GB. Most of my HD movies from D* run 8-15 GB with 5.1 audio at 1280x1080i. I would be very happy at 30 GB.
What format would be horribly expensive and overkill? Blu Ray
Can you imagine going to blockbuster and renting a Blu ray movie? ridiculous. It will be on HD DVD. HD DVD is the most well suited medium for movies IMO and will have a sheer volume and price advantage. Blu Ray may be "better" but its too expensive to implement and most of the Disk would be wasted.
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MW390 said:
And let's not get into this because my old-old Video2000 aka VCC2000 from Grundig was far better than any of these Japanese rubber toys.
Too bad
Like alot of you, I am worried about the ICT flags. I just bought a HDTV 1 year ago.. Man I did not know anything about outputs.. But mine only has component. Oh crap!
I just started to do a little research on toshiba's DVD HD... started to get excited... and bam!
I guess we will see if they enable the flags.. if so.. no go.
As for the formats.... I think the DVD HD will win hands down.. Mainly because it is much easier to manufacture... cheaper... and companies can use existing processes to tool for both DVD and DVD HD.. and the biggie.. its backward compatible.. To me this is a no brainer for HDDVD to win.. And with the new mpeg4.. the HDDVD will have just as much capacity anyways. But neither one of these players will be worth crap to me if those flags are enabled..
Did I read correctly that Japan will not use flags on their HDDVD players? That would be interesting if the studios left the component open on one of the regions and not others.
Like alot of you, I am worried about the ICT flags. I just bought a HDTV 1 year ago.. Man I did not know anything about outputs.. But mine only has component. Oh crap!
I just started to do a little research on toshiba's DVD HD... started to get excited... and bam!
I guess we will see if they enable the flags.. if so.. no go.
As for the formats.... I think the DVD HD will win hands down.. Mainly because it is much easier to manufacture... cheaper... and companies can use existing processes to tool for both DVD and DVD HD.. and the biggie.. its backward compatible.. To me this is a no brainer for HDDVD to win.. And with the new mpeg4.. the HDDVD will have just as much capacity anyways. But neither one of these players will be worth crap to me if those flags are enabled..
Did I read correctly that Japan will not use flags on their HDDVD players? That would be interesting if the studios left the component open on one of the regions and not others.
samatha6 said:
At a "Studio head forum" at CEDIA it was brought up by one of the studio executives on the panel (Sony I believe) that 90% of HDTV's in Japan have only analog inputs and that was a big concern for them. Since the HDDVD/BLURAY will have more robust region coding it's rather apparent that the studios are out to screw Americans. Greedy Bastards
:projectorsrule said:At a "Studio head forum" at CEDIA it was brought up by one of the studio executives on the panel (Sony I believe) that 90% of HDTV's in Japan have only analog inputs and that was a big concern for them. Since the HDDVD/BLURAY will have more robust region coding it's rather apparent that the studios are out to screw Americans. Greedy Bastards
I never understood why they use region protection.. I mean if someone buys DVD's in the UK.. and then moves to the US, why is it wrong for those paid for discs to play in region 1? And if the labels are so paranoid about Pirates stealing HD, then why would they leave the components open in Japan? It only takes one person to make a copy for it to get distributed illegally. If they are going to use ICT flags.. then they better flag them all. I am thinking that the reason that Japan has 90 componet outputs on their HDTV's is because they are more hi tech.. Obviously they bought into HDTV way before they came up with HDMI outputs. Its too bad that HDTV may be crippled before it can even get off the ground.
But I really hope blue ray dies quickly. The tolererances are much more strict and by default, it will never be as robust as HD DVD. People say there will be cheap blue ray with PS3. Ever wonder why that console never gets released? ITs because of manufacturing issues. And once they do manage to get blue ray to market my 2 cents says they won't be as nearly reliable as DVD HD. DVD HD will be as reliable as DVD players since they use similar specs. Reliability is very important to me.. And from what I read about the issues with blue laser and how it bends the laser to function.. and how tight the tolerances are.. no thank you. I want a simplier machine.. simple means reliable.
I don't think people see how important the backward compatibility is.. Do you think the average joe is going to have the extra inputs on their HDTV for two DVD players and a satellite box etc? Is it true that Blue ray players won't play existing DVD content? If that is so... they are DOOMED.
In the end, HD DVD players are going to drop in price faster.. its a no brainer considering that they have a huge manufacturing advantage. The movie companies will also be able to manufacture movies cheaper and the media will also be cheaper to produce.. Everything is price driven. Price points will kill Blue ray. Sony is not my favorite company anyway.. After what they did with Altrac on PMD's and that copy protection on their audio CD's that put a root kit on your PC.. I don't like them.. Hope they lose it all like they did with betamax.
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Stacy A said:
Stacy,
Beta was Sony's format, VHS was invented by JVC.
JVC signed agreements with Hundreds of companys to produce VHS machines.
Sony wanted to maintain more control over their format and only signed agreements with a handful of companies to produce BETA machines.
The End result was you went to your local Electronics store and you had a much bigger selection of VHS players, features and prices. The only real value branded Beta Machine was the SANYO and it was CRAP.
If you you had a bigger selection of one format or the other and the Bigger selection had better price points and some with better features you choose the unit based on features, Price, and reliability. Now these decision points can slide alittle but in the end the sheer volume of MORE VHS units to choose from doomed BETA.
John
JohnL said:
No, it's not: IIRC JVC developed VHS, based on Sony's inventions - Sony licensed them the most critical things.
