Anyone with 1100 posts on a forum dedicated to remote controls isn't in the mainstream! :)

I have three HD displays myself but I live in a blue collar world where most people are perfectly happy watching their 27" Emerson televisions while listening through the single tinny speaker in it's base. Getting these people to switch to HD is going to be a lot harder than it was to get me.

Turning off the analog signal is only going to require an inexpensive digital converter to keep these sets going. All of the billions of 4:3 sets in the US aren't going to become obsolete overnight.

Without a lot of content (and lower prices), it's going to take a long, long time to get these folks to bring an HD set into their homes.

It has been said that the porn industry decided the vhs vs beta battle by supporting vhs as the cheapest to manufacture and they will do the same with HD-DVD. I guess that sex does sell.

I have not yet seen HD set top boxes becoming ubiquitous. In fact the last time I looked at Walmart they did not even have one for sale.

I am beginning to think that the TV manuafactures are so quickly putting both a ATSC and a NTSC tuner in each 16*9 tv that they don't even need to sell ATSC STB's.

I just wish they would start putting ATSC tuners in progressive scan DVD recorders but probably that is held up by some copyright issue.

-Don B

Jervis961:

1) Porn is not what it used to be. When VHS came out it was the only way to get porn (except for nude pics) at home.

2) Your assumption that Porn will go HD DVD is wrong. Like traditional studios more porn studios expressed that they are planning on going BD

Got a link that goes along with this theory? Or are you just hoping.
My guess is both formats will do porn equally. But that is a guess. No link to prove it one way or the other.

well can't go search for all of them, but here is the first to have announced something. It is also one of the bigger ones and one that actually already has many HD titles

[Link: avn.com]

I did a search on Vivid's site and found nothing on which format they might choose.
What I found interesting about Digital Playground was this quote:
"the $150,000 professional-grade, high-resolution cameras Digital Playground uses impart extra "oomph" to the finished product."

I'm all about extra oomph.

here [Link: macworld.com]



that is the one you were looking for, right?

Yes, that's the one. Very interesting read.
One quote from that page:
"VHS ultimately won over Betamax because Betamax was a proprietary format owned by Sony, while VHS was more open."
My question is- Isn't Sony partially guilty of the same thing with Blu-Ray?

One thing I am positive about. I am sick and tired of this format war already. And I don't own either player yet.

Beta lost because of marketing. VHS marketed itself as (1) having more storage, (2) cheaper, (3) more porn (ok, not in TV ads). And it won. None of those was truly correct, except the porn. No one factor won the war for JVC, et al. It was mainly the impression that JVC managed to get across to the public of VHS's superiority. And we well know that the public doesn't give a damn about quality, that was Beta's one point.

Today, Sony seems to have learned from that. They have managed to convince both Best Buy and Circuit City to dump HDDVD in the corner for BD. Even though Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic will not have players out for 3-4 more months. And their encoder is faulty. And they can't make a dual layer disc to save their lives. It's very impressive marketing so far that people still think BD is superior.

no, if anything it is the opposite



HD DVD players - only Toshiba and an RCA labelled Toshiba
BD players - no Sony so far, just Samsung, and there are several other manufacturers (Philips, Panasonic, Pioneer, LG.....)


agree with that 100%

think i might pony up for a bluray on monday.... gotta see 5th element in hd

ed

If reports are accurate, you might just want to put a Superbit copy in and upconvert it to HD. The BD disc seems to be from a very poor master, and then run through Sony's POS encoder that clips black level.

Beta vs VHS - as I recall the VHS technology was more available for manufactures to build units around, while the Beta although of supior quality particulary in the audio dept. did not make the format as available to other manufactures.

As I recall there were a lot more VHS machins available at affordable prices than Beta machines.

And than of course once the rental stores cut back on the Beta movies........

-DonB

As i understand it, the Sony encoder isn't clipping video black, it's clipping below black. It's a non-issue as far as picture quality is concerned. It's not optimum, but it's not a fault either...it's just a bad way of setting the levels.

Now, Fifth Element is unfortunately a real issue. They either used a very poor master, or they just plain blew it. The movie only looks marginally better than the Superbit, with a lot more garbage evident.

Of the first weeks releases, Underworld Evolution looks pretty good, Terminator is acceptable and everything else is pretty bad to awful. I actually believe Hitch is worse than the SD DVD.

The second week seems a bit stronger. Ultraviolet is what Fifth Element should have been. It's beautiful in every respect. Just a not so interesting story. I watched Crash last night, and it looked very nice. Some people are having stuttering issues on the Lionsgate titles, but I didn't on that particular one. Lord of War is this evenings movie....so I hope for the best.

If HD DVD hadn't come out and set the bar so high, I doubt anyone would be complaining so vocally about Blu Ray. This is the real world though, and from a picture quality standpoint HD DVD is blowing Blu Ray away. Considering it'shardware is half the price of Blu Ray, Sony and their cronies have really blundered.

I got a tremendous deal on my Samsung, and even with that deal, I was close to returning it. I can't honestly recommend anyone pick one up yet. If you want HD movies today, HD DVD is the clear choice. I still believe Blu Ray will be the ultimate winner of the format war, but it's not ready for public consumption at this point.