I noticed that Toshiba said they have no current plans to release a Blu Ray player. It would be interesting instead if they came out with a killer upconverting player using the cell technology they demonstrated at CES at a reasonable price. I have an A30, and upconverted Sd disks, though not HD, look pretty darn close, and for a good DVD, not that far from HD. If they could improve on that, they could move a lot of them for those with large SD movie collections. Heck, even Blu Ray supporters would buy them to improve their old movie collections if it offered significant improvement over their Blu Ray player upconversion. And at the same time, it would help put pressure on Blu Ray to low prices on both players and movies. As you shrink the difference in quality between upconverted DVD's and Hi def movies. it is harder to justify the big premium. With HD DVD out of the picture, Blu Ray still needs some competition to help drive down prices faster. Sony has a lot of lost millions spent to win the war to make up, so they will not help drop prices on their own.
It's official: The Format War is Over! Toshiba pulls the plug on HD DVD
- Thread starter GaryPen
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a couple guys at work are from boston so I had to send this to them to help explain the situation:
That was one PATRIOT of a loss for HD-DVD.. they should have known to never go up against the GIANTS in blu..
That was one PATRIOT of a loss for HD-DVD.. they should have known to never go up against the GIANTS in blu..
Just ignore him, he's consistently wrong when it comes to predicting BD actions.
Its more to get a rise out of someone than anything.
Well it's done. Toshiba threw in the towel and their stock goes up as does Sony's. I kind of wonder if all Sony won was a battle but still may loose the war?
Think about it, thousands of HD TVs out there in homes across America but what are people really watching? Here is some info I Googled:
"As of July 2007, HDTV saturation in the US has reached 30 percent – in other words, three out of every ten American households own at least one HDTV. However, only 44 percent of those that do own an HDTV are actually receiving HDTV programming, as many consumers are not aware that they must obtain special receivers to receive HDTV from cable or satellite, or use ATSC tuners to receive over-the-air broadcasts; others may not even know what HDTV is."
It'll be interesting to see if prices for BD hardware and movies goes up or down in the short term. Long term I hope it drops at least 50% from where it is now.
Think about it, thousands of HD TVs out there in homes across America but what are people really watching? Here is some info I Googled:
"As of July 2007, HDTV saturation in the US has reached 30 percent – in other words, three out of every ten American households own at least one HDTV. However, only 44 percent of those that do own an HDTV are actually receiving HDTV programming, as many consumers are not aware that they must obtain special receivers to receive HDTV from cable or satellite, or use ATSC tuners to receive over-the-air broadcasts; others may not even know what HDTV is."
It'll be interesting to see if prices for BD hardware and movies goes up or down in the short term. Long term I hope it drops at least 50% from where it is now.
This is sort of what I was talking about in my earlier post. Sony needs to get these prices down. Not only are the masses pretty ignorant when it comes to HD technology, but everyone is starting to panic with the "Recession" word getting tossed around everywhere.
Sony has an uphill battle in regards to informing the public, as well as fighting against the market forces (i.e. milk and gas prices). We as technology geeks budget our money for these types of "toys" but the average family who is watching their wallets get smaller are not interested in HDM, especially at the current prices.
ETA: Toshiba would be facing the same thing with HD-DVD had the war gone the other way.
The mass will now see only one format and prices will drop. Things are looking great.
Either people have gotten cheap, or forgotten DVD pricing.
Either people have gotten cheap, or forgotten DVD pricing.
I'm thinkin that when all tv goes digital, people will buy HDTV's and WILL want to buy a High Definition player. My uncle doesn't have a hdtv yet, but when its time he says he will get the tv and the blu ray player with it. I mentioned hd dvd to him, but he hadn't heard much about it. Most people probably won't notice a difference, but even my folks that weren't interested in hdtv bought one. Anyone know whats goin on with VMD?
Actually I like reading his posts, it's like looking into a crystal ball: whatever he says the opposite usually happens.
Think about all the free time that just opened up.
Yeah what is one to do? Checking to see if the war was over every 5 minutes for the last 6 weeks takes its toll
ROTFLMAO! How true. :hahaYeah what is one to do? Checking to see if the war was over every 5 minutes for the last 6 weeks takes its toll
Or you could be like my in-laws, who have an HDTV, and HD programming, and still don't watch it, because they "don't like the bars on the sides" when the HD channel is showing SD content. So, they just ignore those channels completely, even when they are showing an HD version of something - they'll watch it on the SD channel. Drives me NUTS when I go over there.
On the other hand, my mother-in-law did mention to my wife the other day that they would need to talk to me about buying a new Blu-Ray player since that was the only option now - she actually thought DVD was going away, based on the "Blu-Ray won" reports on the news....
I understand! My inlaws have a nice 60ish" dlp feeding it SD through composite. My father in law says there is no way he is spending another $10 a month for HD. I asked why he spent $1500+ on a new tv then...Or you could be like my in-laws, who have an HDTV, and HD programming, and still don't watch it, because they "don't like the bars on the sides" when the HD channel is showing SD content. So, they just ignore those channels completely, even when they are showing an HD version of something - they'll watch it on the SD channel. Drives me NUTS when I go over there.
On the other hand, my mother-in-law did mention to my wife the other day that they would need to talk to me about buying a new Blu-Ray player since that was the only option now - she actually thought DVD was going away, based on the "Blu-Ray won" reports on the news....
I also cant seem to make them understand that they can get networks for free with an OTA antenna
My parents have a digital SD set hooked up to cable. The cable company provides digital feeds of many of the channels and also all the digital subchannels of the locals. They refuse to watch them inssisting that they will have to pay extra if they watch those.
sometimes you just can't convince us old farts of what we may be missing by buying a HD TV, and watching stuff in SD....
Oh, and BTW, I bet that Blu-Ray players wont really drop alot in price, but, I bet there will be ALOT of $9.99 Blu-Ray titles out there really soon!
I remember how VHS sales really started to crank up once the studios realized that people were tired of paying $79.99 for a damn VHS title. I'll bet the cheaper software will drive more hardware sales...
Oh, and BTW, I bet that Blu-Ray players wont really drop alot in price, but, I bet there will be ALOT of $9.99 Blu-Ray titles out there really soon!
I remember how VHS sales really started to crank up once the studios realized that people were tired of paying $79.99 for a damn VHS title. I'll bet the cheaper software will drive more hardware sales...
