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MYoung
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 369
Location: Madison, WI
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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Hypothetically speaking, if all the studios stopped making DVDs and released in a HD format, and that HD media was the same price as DVDs, I think they would be vastly ahead in the end. People would start buying HD players like crazy which would drive the hardware prices down even further. Those HD players would still be able to play DVDs so no worries about backward compatibility like there was with VHS and DVD. Plus, once people get HDTVs that can really take advantage of HD then they'll start replacing titles they've already purchased once they realize the eye candy. The studios aren't thinking outside of the box. They are thinking short-term profits when the whole idea of a new format is all about long term profits. This does have parallels with the record industry. $20 music CDs anyone?
My whole point is that studios could be making more sacrifices to get the HD format going. In business you have to take risks to reap rewards. I'm not even being specific to HD DVD. The same applies to Blu-ray. Toshiba is no doubt taking losses left and right for HD DVD. We have incredibly affordable HD DVD hardware now and what happens? Warner jumps ship. How can I not question that business decision in the short term after so many people have invested in HD DVD over the holiday? If 6 months down the road they were still experiencing sluggish sales then I'd agree that leaving HD DVD would be a good business decision. The argument that companies can do no wrong because they have highly paid execs is bogus.
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kal
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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| greg_mitch wrote: | | kal wrote: | | MYoung wrote: | | They aren't charging people more for HD because it costs so much more to produce. |
Sure they are, to some degree, but I agree that they're basically charging more because they can.
Most movies are already scanned in 4K long ago so the masters are there. But the following is all new costs as compared to DVD:
(1) New HD disc replication centers or existing replication center upgrades need to be paid for/amortized.
(2) New Audio formats need to be mastered. They're not allowed to use basic DD/DTS based on the HD-DVD and Blu-ray standards.
(3) Yieldes are incredibly low compared to DVD so cost per disc is much higher. The more you produce the cheaper it is per unit.
(4) New authoring tools for menus and disc compression, editing, etc need to be paid for/amortized.
(5) Probably other things I'm not thinking of since I'm not in the video reproduction business myself ...
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Don't these same costs apply to BD? |
Of course. Same issues.
| Quote: | | Terrible idea to drop DVD and just release HD DVD. |
Or drop DVD and just release Blu-ray IMHO.
| Quote: | | EXCELLENT idea to stop releasing DVD's and start only releasing Twin discs! |
Twin discs? You mean DVD/HD-DVD or DVD/Blu-ray combo discs? I don't like the idea. Terrible idea. They cost more to make and the market segment of people that actually want to own both DVD and a HD format on one disc seems to be small.
The DVD/HD-DVD combo discs did not sell very well if I remember correctly. Likely because they always cost more than the equivalent Blu-ray only disc.
And from a marketing standpoint it seems like a horrible idea if they're hoping to sell HD-DVD.
For example, here's an ad from a flyer for the movie '300' which is on DVD/HD-DVD combo disc and also on Blu-ray alone:
No mention that the HD-DVD version is a combo disc so in the end the consumer sees it and goes Blu-ray because it's perceived as cheaper.
Kal
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kal
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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| MYoung wrote: | | People would start buying HD players like crazy ... Plus, once people get HDTVs that can really take advantage of HD then they'll start replacing titles they've already purchased once they realize the eye candy. |
You're assuming that when shown HD the average person will want to switch once they see the 'eye candy'.
Studies have shown that the average population generally could not care less about HD when shown the advantages over SD.
People just don't care about HD. There is no 'eye candy' to the average person. They really just don't care. Seriously! It may seem hard to believe to us since we live and breath this stuff but we're the fringe minority. We're the exception.
I'm not talking about people not understanding the differences. I'm talking about people that have been shown the differences and educated about it so they know. In the end they just shrug their shoulders and say "DVD is good enough for me".
People want quantity over quality. More channels. Not better looking channels.
People are all excited about watching movies on 2" screens on their phones/PDA's at lower than VHS resolutions! They don't care about quality. It's all about quantity.
Kal
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jask
Joined: 17 Mar 2006
Posts: 10187
Location: kamloops BC
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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| greg_mitch wrote: | | kal wrote: | | MYoung wrote: | | They aren't charging people more for HD because it costs so much more to produce. |
Sure they are, to some degree, but I agree that they're basically charging more because they can.
Most movies are already scanned in 4K long ago so the masters are there. But the following is all new costs as compared to DVD:
(1) New HD disc replication centers or existing replication center upgrades need to be paid for/amortized.
(2) New Audio formats need to be mastered. They're not allowed to use basic DD/DTS based on the HD-DVD and Blu-ray standards.
(3) Yields are incredibly low compared to DVD so cost per disc is much higher. The more you produce the cheaper it is per unit.
(4) New authoring tools for menus and disc compression, editing, etc need to be paid for/amortized.
(5) Probably other things I'm not thinking of since I'm not in the video reproduction business myself ...
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Don't these same costs apply to BD? But #1 has proven to be considerably larger for BD!
Terrible idea to drop DVD and just release HD DVD.
EXCELLENT idea to stop releasing DVD's and start only releasing Twin discs! |
Lots of interesting points!
I would argue that the cost of production is not a huge burden-existing dvd production and packaging lines could be retrofit very easily as it is only the writing/verification process that has changed.
Audio mastering is a production and re-release cost to the studios, and would have little physical production cost impact,aside from patent Licensing.
Yields and lack of market penetration are more indicative of the fact that most consumers see this as an unrequired upsell- the average guy is going to hook an upscaling dvd player to his HD display ( that every manufacturer is pumping out right now),input an HD cable/Sat signal and sit back and watch the large collection of sd-dvd they have and remember the raping they took on early adoption of CDs and DVDs. They younger generation are going to the net for content, and are so used to high turnover of software/hardware that they will not drop big bucks into a media and/or player that is not required and may be obsolete or unneeded given the current ease of access to media.
I think both formats need to learn the lesson that the music companies learned,make the media cheap and people will buy the gear and hard copies of the movies.
I was under the impression that a large part of the cost difference to the studios when using BR was licensing?
edit: sbelling...doh
Last edited by jask on Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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garyfritz
Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 12088
Location: Fort Collins, CO
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: | | People just don't care about HD. There is no 'eye candy' to the average person. They really just don't care. Seriously! |
While it's changing, most people don't have a display that would show the differences. And even if J6P gets hisself one o' them fancy new HDTV's, if he sits 12' from a 36" screen (which is probably typical), he's not going to see any differences between SD and HD anyway.
| Quote: | | People are all excited about watching movies on 2" screens on their phones/PDA's at lower than VHS resolutions! They don't care about quality. It's all about quantity. |
Yup. HD must be a very small corner of the market. It's fairly amazing the big boys are duking it out as hard as they are to dominate it. They must be really scared about DVD sales slowing down so they're trying to force the HD transition whether the market cares about it or not.
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MYoung
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 369
Location: Madison, WI
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: |
You're assuming that when shown HD the average person will want to switch once they see the 'eye candy'.
Studies have shown that the average population generally could not care less about HD when shown the advantages over SD.
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Define average person. 80 years old with glaucoma? I'd like to see the test conditions and test subjects of this so-called "study". Was this study done on a 27" TV? Show an "average" person a football game in HD and SD and ask them which they prefer. You'd have to be blind, drunk, or watching from a distance on a smaller TV not to see the differences. The jump in video quality is a lot more significant going from DVD to HD verses VHS to DVD. I have heard reports of "average" people commenting on how "TV looks more clear than movies". They're referring to HDTV verses DVD. This is almost the same argument as "VHS is good enough" of 13 years ago. So yes, I'm going to assume that when shown HD the average person will want to switch once they see the "eye candy", assuming they can afford it. $30 a movie -- not very affordable. The differences between HD and SD are even more obvious on larger screens and I think it's pretty safe to say that the average TV screen is getting larger too.
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kal
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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This is not just one study - it's what the entire industry has been saying for years: The average person only cares about size and not quality.
People want big TVs. People want flat TVs. People couldn't care less about resolution.
The average person would rather have a 65" TV playing DVD than a 60" TV playing HD-DVD/Blu-ray. Size is all that matters! It's all the average person knows.
Kal
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MYoung
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 369
Location: Madison, WI
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: |
Twin discs? You mean DVD/HD-DVD or DVD/Blu-ray combo discs? I don't like the idea. Terrible idea. They cost more to make and the market segment of people that actually want to own both DVD and a HD format on one disc seems to be small.
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In my opinion, the HD DVD/DVD combo disc had great potential, though that potential was squandered. At the very least, those discs should have been priced the same as a regular HD DVD. Sure, they cost more to make, but really, how much more could they possibly have been to produce? $5 per disc more? No way! I'd chalk it up to greedy studios thinking they have something special that they can charge more for. Ah yes, more studio marketing exec handiwork. Combo discs should have served as a bridge from DVD to HD DVD. The combo discs also suffered from some technical issues. My Knocked Up combo disc will sometimes completely lock-up my HD-A1. It plays fine on my HD-A2 though. I read that some people claimed the combo discs were coming from the factories with dirty surfaces. I'm not sure how accurate that is.
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MYoung
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 369
Location: Madison, WI
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: |
The average person would rather have a 65" TV playing DVD than a 60" TV playing HD-DVD/Blu-ray. Size is all that matters! It's all the average person knows.
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I don't believe for a second that if an average person were shown a 65" TV playing DVD and a 60" TV playing HD-DVD/Blu-ray that they'd choose the 65" TV playing DVD.
Had you said 32" TV playing DVD verses a 27" TV playing HD, I might agree with you.
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greg_mitch
Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 5320
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:06 pm Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: |
Twin discs? You mean DVD/HD-DVD or DVD/Blu-ray combo discs? I don't like the idea. Terrible idea. They cost more to make and the market segment of people that actually want to own both DVD and a HD format on one disc seems to be small.
The DVD/HD-DVD combo discs did not sell very well if I remember correctly. Likely because they always cost more than the equivalent Blu-ray only disc.
And from a marketing standpoint it seems like a horrible idea if they're hoping to sell HD-DVD.
For example, here's an ad from a flyer for the movie '300' which is on DVD/HD-DVD combo disc and also on Blu-ray alone:
No mention that the HD-DVD version is a combo disc so in the end the consumer sees it and goes Blu-ray because it's perceived as cheaper.
Kal |
No, not combo discs. Twin discs. Both HD DVD and DVD on one side but on different depth layers. If they can sell these for $20 maybe $15 on release day they would clean up. They look like a regular DVD, they play like a regular DVD, but if you put in the correct drive it reads the HD layer! What is not to like? (price maybe?)
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/09/11/toshiba-and-memory-tech-unveil-new-triple-layer-dvd-twin-disc/
I agree about the combo prices...they aren't advertised enough and they were too expensive when pitted against the lesser blu ray disc of the same title.
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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: | | everything always looks so straightforward when you're not involved in the middle of things since you only see the clean and polished exterior and none of the day to day issues/complications |
You make a lot of cogent points in this thread, Kal, but this one is especially insightful. We all love to bitch and second-guess, but most of us have experienced situations where the tables were turned, either in our personal or professional lives, and it was probably quite irritating. Of course, we keep doing it anyway. 
lyd
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WTS
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 1276
Location: Calgary
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:18 am Post subject: |
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Okay fine BR is winning. Now if one BR manufacturer could actually come out with a BR player that actually works 100% like my XA2 does I'll look at buying it. And no I don't want a PS3, I already have a Wii, besides I want a real BR player.
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kal
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:07 am Post subject: |
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| MYoung wrote: | | In my opinion, the HD DVD/DVD combo disc had great potential, though that potential was squandered. ... Combo discs should have served as a bridge from DVD to HD DVD. |
The studios issuing them also thought that they had great potential but combo discs failed to sell well because:
(1) Nobody liked the idea of paying extra. (I agree that they should have been priced the same as other HD-DVDs).
(2) Most HD-DVD fans couldn't care less about DVD. These fans hated the fact that they were paying for something they'd never use.
(3) The DVD users did not care about HD-DVD as much as the studios thought they might. (see above when I mention that the average person couldn't care less about HD).
| WTS wrote: | | Okay fine BR is winning. Now if one BR manufacturer could actually come out with a BR player that actually works 100% like my XA2 does I'll look at buying it. And no I don't want a PS3, I already have a Wii, besides I want a real BR player. |
Ok, I have to bite Walter... why isn't the PS3 a valid Blu-ray player? It's still regarded as the most versatile (and fastest) BD player out there even if you only use it 100% for playing Blu-ray and DVD. If I had to buy all over again today, it's the BD player I'd buy again.
Kal
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Clarence
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 3827
Location: Smith Mtn Lake, VA
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:23 am Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: | why isn't the PS3 a valid Blu-ray player? It's still regarded as the most versatile (and fastest) BD player out there even if you only use it 100% for playing Blu-ray and DVD. If I had to buy all over again today, it's the BD player I'd buy again.
Kal |
Ditto.
Easiest player to update firmware.
I love using the game controller as a remote... finding a trigger is a lot easier than looking for a specific button on a retangular remote. Plus the bluetooth is much more responsive than any IR/RF remote I've ever had.
Great GUI.
And my kids use it for games, too.
I wish it had a dedicated eject button, though.
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WTS
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 1276
Location: Calgary
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:43 am Post subject: |
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Does it rate right up there for great PQ along side of the top Pioneer or Denon lets say. Does it have HDMI output I've never looked. As far as playing DVD I'm sure the XA2 beats it hands down for upconverting. I can't say I know much about the PS3 as I was never interested in it to start with.
I guess I'm one of those guys who doesn't want a gaming unit for my HT.
Ahh, there you go no dedicated eject button, see not a real player, just kidding.
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greg_mitch
Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 5320
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:01 am Post subject: |
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| kal wrote: | | MYoung wrote: | | In my opinion, the HD DVD/DVD combo disc had great potential, though that potential was squandered. ... Combo discs should have served as a bridge from DVD to HD DVD. |
The studios issuing them also thought that they had great potential but combo discs failed to sell well because:
(1) Nobody liked the idea of paying extra. (I agree that they should have been priced the same as other HD-DVDs).
(2) Most HD-DVD fans couldn't care less about DVD. These fans hated the fact that they were paying for something they'd never use.
(3) The DVD users did not care about HD-DVD as much as the studios thought they might. (see above when I mention that the average person couldn't care less about HD).
Kal |
Not COMBO...TWIN! Am I ignored here? 
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kal
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:32 am Post subject: |
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| WTS wrote: | | Does it rate right up there for great PQ along side of the top Pioneer or Denon lets say. |
While not everyone [ahem, audiophiles] will agree, all of these players are just digital transports. Bits are bits.
| Quote: | | Does it have HDMI output I've never looked. |
Of course! Video output via HDMI at 1080i, 720p, 1080p, etc. 24 Hz output supported too.
It's likely the only player that may even offer custom refresh rates in the future since it's really just a computer.
| Quote: | | As far as playing DVD I'm sure the XA2 beats it hands down for upconverting. |
I would say you're right: The scaler in the PS3 isn't as good as the very good XA2. I was set to buy a standalone oppo for DVDs but frankly while the scaler in the PS3 might not be perfect to some, I find it works great and am perfectly happy with it for SD-DVD after I tried it. I'm pretty picky too.
| Quote: | | I guess I'm one of those guys who doesn't want a gaming unit for my HT. |
Neither did I. I was dead set against it, but it was the only player that's 100% upgradable. A couple of weeks ago we got Blu-ray profile 1.1. A quick 5 minute firmware upgrade via wireless internet. It's seriously as simple as going to the "check for firmware upgrade" option in the menu, hitting "ok" a couple of times, and that's it. No need to hook up the thing via serial cable or burn a DVD from a PC or dance through other hoops.
The PS3 is the only player upgradable to v1.1 since it has enough onboard RAM and an Ethernet jack (which were requirements). The Sony 300 can't do this, nor can most of the other players. It's also the only one that has the possibility of being upgradable to the last lossless audio format to be conquered: DTS-HD Master Audio. Mainly because it's the only one with the processing power required. Set-top BD players are being announced now that do decode this however.
It's also the only player with 2-3 second load times like a regular DVD player instead of 30-90 seconds like most.
I really didn't want a PS3 in the HT, but after I did the research, buying anything else just seemed stupid based on my needs so I jumped.
Kal
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WTS
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 1276
Location: Calgary
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:24 am Post subject: |
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Well you got my attention when you said it may have custom refreash rate capabilties. Is this something that Sony has mentioned or is this just someones wish list?
What do you do for a remote, I don't want a corded or otherwise handheld game console as a remote.
Can these things be laid dwon or do they have to stand up.
I guess my biggest concern/question is how does their HDMI PQ (1080P) output stack up against the other units in the BR world.
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emdawgz1
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:27 am Post subject: |
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| WTS wrote: | | Okay fine BR is winning. Now if one BR manufacturer could actually come out with a BR player that actually works 100% like my XA2 does I'll look at buying it. And no I don't want a PS3, I already have a Wii, besides I want a real BR player. |
I have a sony BDP-s1. It has been rock solid from day 1. The load time is a little slow, but other than that.... no problems whatsoever.
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Tom.W
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