Quote Originally Posted by bobsticks
I don't think that this point can be touched upon enough. My own experience with HD-DVD is that the limitations of the original source material is quite evident on some of my "old favorites". Neither Caddyshack nor Goodfellas offered enough of an improvement over the DVD versions to truly wet my appetite for explorations into the back catalogue.

Do I regret the decision to go HD-DVD? Nah, it was a buck-fifty add on to the X360 and newer titles like The Departed, Children of Men, and Batman Begins are solid, but I have to admit that if I were in the market for a dedicated player it would probably be Blu-Ray if only because it offers more of the new releases in which I'm interested.

I would be surprised if many X-Box owners and early adopters didn't feel the same way.
At least the add-on drive is not a huge up front investment, and it's a tied to a device that has other useful functions. I look at HD-DVD in much the same way as anyone interested in SACD or DVD-A -- if there are certain titles that you absolutely must have in the higher resolution format, then by all means go for it. But, go into the transaction knowing that title selection and availability might not expand by much in the future.

Even if Universal goes neutral and Blu-ray wins the format war, I think that Warner, Paramount, and Universal will continue to issue HD-DVD titles for a little while, which would buy time for the Blu-ray player prices to tumble down to more attractive levels.

Quote Originally Posted by drseid
In my case, the reason why I buy "old" movies in HD (or DVD for that matter) is I feel in many cases they are better than the new stuff that is coming out. Of course there are many exceptions and I will buy those new films just as readily as any of the classics that I tend to go for. I just find that a lot of the newer stuff never gets watched by me again, so I pay money for a disc that gathers dust... Again, just one person's choices here, but I think I represent a much greater percentage of film *collectors* than many think. New movies may indeed appeal to many other film purchasers, but I don't call many of those folks film "collectors" in the sense I am talking about as a general rule.

Film collectors are a small segment of the population of video purchasers and as such they (we) will not be the factor that determines which format comes out on top most likely... At the end of the day, a sale is a sale (or a rental is a rental) and if the new stuff draws the most sales/rentals, what classics collectors like myself do will most likely be irrelevant from a macro perspective. From a micro prespective, it could determine if the classics get released by either format, as it shows there is a demand for those titles by "X" amount of people willing to buy (and if "X" equates to enough sales for a decent profit, someone will release the given films in time).
You're touching on a fundamental market question that gets at the more problematic issue that Blu-ray will run into even if it wins the format war with HD-DVD -- is the market for HD resolution big enough to supplant the now-entrenched DVD format?

When the DVD came out, it provided multiple upgrades over VHS aside from the improvement in video resolution. The DVD offered up 5.1 audio, anamorphic widescreen, random access search, integration with PC drives, interactive capabilities, a compact form factor, and supplemental features that were previously only available on Laserdisc. Anyone with a regular TV could benefit from the many improvements that the DVD provided over VHS.

With HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the difference primarily comes down to the picture resolution (and to a lesser degree, the audio resolution), and here you're still talking about a market in which less than half of households own a HDTV. Without the HDTV, there's no immediate incentive to upgrade (unless you own a HDMI receiver and want lossless audio).

Even before these HD formats came to market, some analysts speculated that the DVD was already "good enough" for the majority of consumers. Obviously this will change once HDTV ownership increases. But, I don't see HD-DVD and Blu-ray creating a mad rush of people looking to replace their DVD libraries. Consumers might replace selected favorites, but this won't be like the DVD format, which fundamentally changed the home video market by shifting consumers more towards purchasing rather than renting movies. The DVD greatly expanded the number of video collectors. But, if someone has already accumulated hundreds or thousands of DVDs, I doubt that even a majority of those titles will get upgraded.