Comments on: Daily Blog – Brian Florian – February 20, 2008: HD DVD MAY BE OUT OF THE GAME, BUT BLU-RAY STILL HAS SOME WORK TO DO.

By: bmz

bmz — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:32:28 +0000

Addition: There will be, for the foreseeable future, a large price differential between HD and SD players and discs; hence, Blu Ray will remain a niche market.

By: bmz

bmz — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:26:34 +0000

John,
I wish you were right, but the SAF factor means that Ovation’s concerns are probably accurate. I have seen many homes with HDTV’s, but none of them, except for mine and my sons” have large enough screens to actually see HD resolution from the distances at which they watch (to be sure of my sons — I bought their HD TVs for them). The most popular size HDTV being purchased today is 37 inches (this is consistent with what I have personally observed). The largest (other than my own) I have seen in homes is 50 inches. However, the 50 inch screen, was being watched from 16 feet away–this four to one screen size to distance ratio has been amazingly consistent in all the other homes I have visited. Call it the SAF factor — or the designer factor (check pictures of Interior designer design rooms — the four to one factor — consistently). At four to one, you can’t distinguish between 480p and 1080p.

By: John Johnson

John Johnson — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:27:21 +0000

Once everyone has an HDTV, and there is pretty much no other choice at the TV stores now, no one will want to stay with conventional SD DVDs. By that time, also, Blu-ray will be a standard codec on all players. So, if some consumers wait until then to buy a player, it will have Blu-ray decoding by default.

By: Ovation

Ovation — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:46:16 +0000

Your wish may prove illusory. There are just too many people who think SD DVD looks “good enough” for Blu-ray to be anything but a complimentary format. I doubt it will remain as niche as laserdisc, but I doubt even more that it will supplant DVD. HD DVD had a very slim chance of that with its combo discs (despite the fact that “enthusiasts” seemed not to like them) IF they had become single inventory releases once the production capacity for that got up to speed (SACD should also have gone that route with hybrids–but the ship has long since sailed).

I remember posting somewhere (could have been here at Secrets–more than one place, at any rate) that “upconverted” DVDs would make HDM a hard sell with the masses. I got the “no way, the difference is HUGE…blah, blah, blah” responses from several sides. However, when I went HD with a display (front projector) last summer, I added an HD PVR to my gear. SD DVD, processed by my Sony AW15 fed via component 480i looked nearly as good as HD cable. Not quite, but the difference was not overwhelming. I was content to wait for HDM player prices (whichever format–I wasn’t picky) to fall before I plunged into that. In fact, because SD DVD looked so good, my ceiling price for going HDM became far lower than my ceiling for SD DVD back in the day. (I spent 700$ in 2001 for SD DVD, without regret–even though there were lower priced players. For HD DVD, I spent 170$ and was only willing to go to 200$ as a “try-out”. If “blu” was that inexpensive at the time, I may well have tried that one first.). I consider myself an “enthusiast” (though not as fanatical a videophile as others I’ve encountered on the net) and while the better HD DVDs have convinced me that HDM is worth having, my wife doesn’t see the big deal (thankfully, she indulges and even helps finance my hobby). Some of my friends have been impressed, others, not so much (the “big” screen–64 inch 16×9 impresses them more).

Unless Blu-ray studios only release Blu-ray titles and stop SD DVD releases, I don’t foresee the masses going “blu” (and even if they do so, it could backfire). Hell, my parents got their first ever DVD player on the morning of 25 December 2007!!! And, believe it or not, they are not the only people I know who did not have a DVD player (I know several who could easily afford it if they wanted).