CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

69shelby · Joined: 05 Jan 2007 Posts: 102

ld's are a buck)

outwest · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 212 Location: Honolulu

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

What makes you the grand oracle to predict the future? And what audience will accept what titles are there now as I doubt a lot of studios are going to continue offering up new titles for a dead platform. People buy into a system that offers them something, like an increasing number of movies to watched.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Yup. That's one of the main reasons I sold mine. I didn't want to keep around an extra player just for a static collection of older releases.

Especially since I mostly rent, and only buy a few disks that I want to watch multiple times, it didn't make much sense to me. Sure I could have loaded up on a bunch of cheap disks at Amazon, but most of them I had no interest in owning. So why have an extra player that only offers maybe a dozen disks I really want, with no more coming ever and no rentals?

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:35 pm Post subject:

I'm keeping my HD DVD player just to watch Miami Vice.

Wink

Seriously, though - if you're into that genre and you like the Michael Mann style, it is an awesome looking/sounding movie. I've played it for a couple friends and the sound and music are awesome.

SC

**kal** · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject:

Moose · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 788 Location: Minnesota

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

That, and the original outlay of $$$$$$, is why I rent. At least 50% of all movies released are utter garbage, IMHO, and probably 20% are genres I'm not interested in, so I wouldn't even rent any of them. Of the 30% that are left, probably 20-25% are only worth watching once, maybe twice. There are VERY few movies that I want to *own*. I can rent for a dollar or two a disk, and then I'm not collecting hundreds of movies I'll never watch again.

Clarence · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 6:35 pm Post subject:

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Yup, if you enjoy collecting for collecting's sake, more power to ya. I don't particularly, and my discretionary $$ for HT stuff is limited, and (sadly) I don't get to have guests over to pick a movie all that often. It's mostly my family. So, for me, renting usually makes more sense.

I'm not doing so well on resale value of my disks, but that may be because they were HD-DVDs. Smile

(And from the HD-DVD freebie list to boot!) The disks I sold on ebay went for $5-9, so I'd have lost a lot if I'd actually paid anything for them. (As it was, I sold my freebie disks and my HD-A2 for exactly enough to cover the original cost of the player. Smile

) I bought Transformers used for $20 shipped, and sold it for $12. So between the cost per disk, and the hassle factor of reselling, I don't expect to do too much buying with the intent to re-sell. I'll either buy it and plan to keep it, or rent it.

**kal** · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject:

Over the last 5 years or so I've bought most of my DVD's used from Blockbuster for about $10/each. I just sold about 200 of them back to Blockbuster when they had a "we'll pay you a minimum of $5 per DVD" sale. So I essentially 'rented' most of the discs for $5 each for about 3 years (on average) for less than it costs to rent.

We have lots of people over too so renting is not an option anyway.

Right now I'm buying mostly Blu-ray new from Amazon.com. Hopefully in less than a year I'll also be buying these used from Blockbuster like I used to with DVDs. I have over $500 in credit there just waiting. Smile

Kal

Clarence · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:25 pm Post subject:

How did you accumulate $500 in Blockbuster credit?

**kal** · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:27 pm Post subject:

Sorry , that wasn't clear, I fixed my post:

outwest · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 212 Location: Honolulu

Grand oracle? Nope. not me for sure. For several years every big box and neighborhood store has been selling pallet loads and truck loads of HD-DVD players and discs. It just seemed to me to be a safe statement that this merchandise would be filtering out through the secondary market for years.

By extrapolating from my experience with laser discs, I guess I was just trying to say that if one has HD-DVD, the enjoyment need not end just because the format is dying. There might even be some benefit as the players and discs fall in price. There is no argument that a big downside is that a great new movie will not be available, but I find that when I am watching a great classic movie on laser disc, my enjoyment is not lessened by worries that the latest blockbuster release is not available in the format.

True. Someday I might not be able to find a player that is in working condition. I feel that will be far enough into the future that I will have gotten more that adequate return.

Clarence · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:42 pm Post subject:

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:59 pm Post subject:

I tend to agree with outwest. I bet HD DVD players and software will be around for a LONG time. Anybody wanna take a guess at how many LaserDisc players and LaserDiscs were ever been sold? LD was very niche-y! The movies were expensive, the hardware was expensive, and only true enthusiasts - real videophiles - ever owned them. Still, look how many are still around!

Now, compare that to HD DVD. Over a million players have been sold including 360 add-ons. A million. I wonder if LaserDisc ever hit a million in the entire time it was on the market. Obviously, there were a lot more movies and it took a long time before there was an alternative with a better picture (DVD) - that gave it staying power.

To me, the wildcards are how well the hardware is built, and how well Blu-ray does at unseating SD DVD. Hardware-wise, the first-gen Toshiba's are really, really well-built.

I never really thought so before, but if Sony doesn't get more aggressive with hardware and media pricing, I could see DVD sticking around indefinitely and BD become a 'videophile' format like LaserDisc was to VHS. Even if it was a couple years, internet-based services like the Apple Store could really start chipping away at what would have been potential BD buyers.

SC

Clarence · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject:

HDDVD seemed more accomodating for HD home video. I made several homebrew HD demo discs (on standard DVD-R) for my HDDVD player, but I've yet to be successful with a homemade BD (on standard DVD-R).

But maybe the home video authoring developers (like ulead) will have an easier time if they don't have to accomodate authoring for both formats.

I was truly format neutral. I plan on keeping my Tosh A20. And I plan on buying several more titles on HDDVD, especially at $10-12. I never got into LD, but I still enjoy having a JVC D-Theater DVHS deck, even though they only ever had 100 titles released in that format. And I recently upgraded from my base model JVC 30K (component HD) to the HM-DH5 HDMI model. I think I paid more for the HM-DH5 DVHS than I did for my A20 HDDVD. Used DTheater tapes still sell for more than HDDVDs. And a few tapes still fetch $200+. I only have about 20 titles. I think Cliff probably has 40-50 titles. A lot of people have hundreds of homemade HD tapes... DVHS allowed legit recording of copy-protected broadcast HD. But I've found it easier to timeshift and archive using .ts files instead of tapes.

HDDVD screwed up by being inconsistent with combo discs. That could've been a huge distinguishing feature... buy this combo title and it'll play on your SD DVD player today and it'll play HD when you buy a HD player and HD display. They should've dropped the SD version of the title and only offered the HD combo. And kept the price point at $19.99.

And then Microsoft dropped the ball... they should've installed the HDDVD drive inside the X360 Elite to counter the Ps3.

Although I've been pneutral/purple for a year, and avoided being a fanboy for either side (although trying to support and promote BOTH sides), I'll also admit that I've watched my PS3/BD ~5x more than I've watched HDDVD. The Toshiba and X360 (with HD add-on) was always a lot more finicky in maintaining proper 1080P and HDCP. And when I watched SD DVD, I used the PS3 over the Tosh A20.

BD really needs to release BD titles on the same day/date as SD DVD releases. Cost need to MSRP at $24.99 max with street price <$19.99 ($14.99-$19.99 amazon pricing). To improve the snails-pace adoption growth, BD needs to become fully stocked at blockbuster... full library, in stock guarantee. And they need a $199 STB. Basically, learn from the (albeit few) strong points of the red side.

**kal** · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:23 pm Post subject:

MYoung · Joined: 24 Feb 2007 Posts: 369 Location: Madison, WI

The Xbox 360 HD DVD drive was overpriced from the beginning. It was a little less than a standalone player and a standalone player contains a lot more hardware. Had the drive been, say, $100 from the beginning, I think HD DVD would have done MUCH better. That would have countered the PS3's built-in Blu-ray player, especially considering how many Xbox 360s there were out there when HD DVD started out. Also, there is some merit to the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive being a separate add-on. It doesn't force people to adopt a format so that helps the console sales by not inflating the price. Also, optical drives do wear out. The less hours you put on the main optical drive the better. I just think the add-on was overpriced from the beginning. It still is! The sales of the HD DVD drive skyrocketed when it was going to $80 for less than a day there on Amazon.com. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. Blu-ray won. I'm still waiting for my damn $10 HD DVDs! Come on Best Buy! Let me take those titles off your hands!

I have to wonder how many people were on the sideline because they were waiting for a winner. I think lack of sales have more to do with the high prices and consumer ignorance of HDM. Ask 30 random people if they know what Blu-ray and HD DVD are. See how many blank stares you get even with HD DVD getting lynched by the media and Blu-ray being declared king of HDM. HDM? Is that some kind of STD?

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:54 am Post subject: