Video Asylum

Posted by David Aiken (A) on June 28, 2007 at 13:42:27

In Reply to: RE: My apologies posted by Jack G on June 28, 2007 at 05:22:24

No offence taken—I did insert the smilie for good reason.

Yes, the US did have the head start but only for HD DVD because it seems that Toshiba and the HD DVD side decided not to care about anyone else. That may have been a critical mistake. I don't know how much of the decision to get BD out of the door fast in other parts of the world was determined by the fact that HD was ignoring them but it was probably a very good marketing decision and it also probably hasn't done HD DVD any good.

The region coding on BD annoys me. In Australia, DVD players are region free because of a court decision that said it was illegal to prevent access to material on discs encoded for other areas. The Australian courts apparently took the decision that people had the right to be able to play discs from other regions which were legally acquired, either by purchase in other countries and brought back into Australia by the purchaser, or by purchase over the internet. DVDs released here are region coded—the court decision did not restrict the right of DVD makers to regionally code discs and choose their disc release strategies—but it did result in pretty well every player now sold in Australia being region free. I've heard no comment about whether that region free status for players has followed through to the hi-def players or whether that battle is going to have to be fought again. I'm not overly worried about region coding on discs if players are region free.

I think you may well be right about DVD quality being 'good enough' for most people given the price differential for players. The difference between DVD and hi-def disc prices here doesn't seem as great in relative terms as it appears to be in the US. A lot of BD discs here are selling for anywhere between roughly the same price as some new release DVDs to a few dollars over. On some the difference is greater. Our new release DVD price is significantly higher than yours—often between $30-40 Australian which is roughly equivalent to $25-34 US. More than a few BD discs are being released at the $35-40 Australian mark. The disc price isn't a major issue for me on that basis. I keep hanging off because I'd like a machine that can handle both the Dolby and DTS new audio formats, and none seem to handle the new DTS formats yet, and which incorporates the BD video changes coming in later in the year. I can't see the point of buying a machine which can't provide all of the features of the format. Hopefully by the time such machines appear, prices will have fallen a bit anyway.


David Aiken