Video Asylum

Posted by DavidLD (A) on June 30, 2007 at 05:39:13

Consumers adopt new technologies for a variety of reasons, some having to do with cost, some with quality.
The real winners are the technologies that increase the quality AND lower costs at the same time.

DVDs and their players didnt really catch on with the masses until the players got in the sub $50 range despite the fact that the video quality was superior to VHS.

Now people have libraries of standard DVDS that are generally of good technical quality, and they are not about to abandon that investment for the sake of something that costs considerably more per DVD even if the quality is marginally better.

The High Defenition format that will win is the one that can come up with a $50 player and price the new DVDs at the same price as the old 480p DVD's. People have learned to expect improvements in electronics gear every year that cost no more than whatever was of inferior quality last year, and they aren't going to change.

So long as DVD's in high definition formats cost $10 (or more) than standard formats, and the players cost in the hundreds of dollars (when people are used to the $25 players that generate a fine 480p video) the whole idea Blue Ray or HD is dead in the water from the standpoint of the mass market. It will be a curiousity mainly of interest to videophiles who want the best of everything.

Personally, I think both high definition formats are going nowhere fast other than as a curiosity for the video freaks. As the 480p upconversion units for standard DVDs get better and better, they represent another form of competition. Either that or someone will come up with a new format that solves all the problems of both current HD formats and produces at least 720p (maybe 1080p) on a player for $50 or less. My hunch is this new (cheap but exceptionally good format) will be out by maybe 2011 or so.

Meanwhile I'm just sitting here watching all the stupidities and hoping that both new formats fail in the marketplace quickly, so that the industry has some real incentive to build something both better and cheaper.

This dream the studios seem to have that everyone is going to suddenly rush out and buy a $30 HD version of every one of the movies already in their DVD library in 480p along with a $500 player is nothing more than a huge pipe dream. They are living in a fantasy world they made themselves, and reality has already started to set in.


David

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