Blu Tide Continues to Turn: Porn Studios Ready to Abandon HD-DVD?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I just call things as I see them

Then you need glasses, real thick ones.

Who cares about "elements" of the disc"

The millions of people that answered the studios survey do. As expensive as they are to produce, why do you think its still on DVD's?

the first time Jericho was on it was like a serial. If I MISSED an episode I went to CBS.com and caught up, sometimes I went to the TV section of my VOD AND WATCHED IT IN hd, FOR FREE.
Funny how nobodies doing this stuff but it remains available, guess these dumb corp
types arent as smart as you(even tho they can spell "arrogant")

Who cares. This is not the habits of the american public as a whole. People in tusbucket Montana don't have VOD yet, what are they supposed to do? Alot of people do not have access to broadband or cable, what do they do? America is not 100% wired, but every home in the America has at least one DVD player. And when that player breaks down, they will get another player, likely a bluray player because it can play HD and their DVD's as well with better quality than their old DVD player.

And do I watch tv on my computer? All the time, since my 37in monitor does double duty as a computer desktop and HT screen. Convergence has happened big time in my house.
And its funny how I couldnt get anybody interested in laser, but EVERYBODY wants to
know how to hook their computer up to their TV like I do.

So just because you are doing this, does that mean everyone is doing this? No, I know no one who uses their computer screens as the basis of a HT. So are you playing DVD soundtracks through computer speakers? Hmmm, what a quality upgrade over real speakers with a relatively flat response. Covergence has happened in your house because your priorities are different financially speaking. I have a very good Sony 26" monitor I use for my home office. I do not watch movies in my office, I work there. I watch movies in my hometheater where I have paid VERY careful attention to the rooms acoustics, stray light reflecting back on the screen, the calibration of my set, and using a RTA to get a flat in room response from my speakers. I other words, it is designed for movie watching, and it would not be fun to work in there unless I was doing movie reviews.

No, its not news, but you don't seem to understand it

No, this I understand. What I do not understand is your square peg in a round hole perspectives of the American publics viewing habits. You seem to think that your cheap low budget way of doing things is what ALL of America is doing. Its not, and you need to get out in the world as see this.

I do live on another planet than you, its called EARTH'

You live on earth, in another reality than we do.

All of America has hard drives, in ipods, dvd recorders, computers, PDA's, you name it.
And yes they have disc, but to say that its one or the other is kinda stupid even for you.
I listen to hard drive music, and STILL have the first record I ever got (honkey chateu)

Does the public watch movies on their PDA? No. Does the public surf on a IPOD? No. listening on a computer hard drive is a step down from listening on CD, and a huge step down from vinyl, so that is further evidence that quality is not your first priority. We do not use these gadgets to do all of the same thing. PDA are organizing tools for your schedule, your numbers, and notes. You don't watch movies on them. DVD recorders are for copying DVD's, VHS, and programs off the television. You do not organize your schedule of store numbers on it. Your thought process is spread like peanut butter with no apparent critical thinking given to it. And guess what, it is like swiss cheese when held up for scrutiny.

Tell that to David Bowie. A few years ago he made a bond offering, based on future sales of his catalog. Sold fifty million in bonds, and hasnt had a serious hit in decades
AND the cost of producing something has no relation to its intrinsic value.

David Bowie does not own any films. You are talking about the value of ones career, not the value of a classic film. More apples and pears.

people shop and most see no difference between a CD and a movie, both are forms of entertainment. Doesnt matter how much they cost. Getting the production cost down
to where you can make money is econ 101, because people dont give a rats ass how much it costs, they still will only pay so much.

People see no difference between a CD and a DVD??? Since they're package differently and found in different sections in a store, I would think everyone would know the difference. If people want a bluray player, they have proven they will pay the cost to get one. People have proven that inspite of what a bluray disc costs, they will pay for it.

Which is why vod is gonna give you a swift kick in the netherregions, the infrastructure
is there, the cost is miniscule, and the potential profit is hugh, a paradigm shift is all that has to happen, and it will happen, if it hasnt already

This is what I mean about making assumption with no evidence. Nobody agrees with you that the infrastructure is there. And if it was there, then why are cable companies doing these kinds of things

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...ay-30-a-movie/

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...t-sued-ov.html

If the infrastructure was there, there would be no need to limit or slow down traffic would they? The cost is not miniscule. Cable is expensive, there is no profit potential at this moment or Walmart, Google and cinemovie would not have gone out of business, and there is no indication whatsoever that folks are shifting the way they view movies. You are just plain lying, or ignorant as hell.

Today.
Tommorrow , after the dollar futher devalues, and people are broke, most will still have some kind of computer, cable, sat dish.
VOD will be cheap, and just a buttonpush away. 2050 is a tad late, try 2010.

You are a plain idiot, 2010... right, most folks who KNOW what they are talking about say its at least a decade away. You are dreaming, unrealistic, and pretty damn ignorant on this whole subject. Pathetic.

[pixelthis]

Sir Terrence the Terrible]Then you need glasses, real thick ones.

ER, NO, I think I have you pretty well summed up




The millions of people that answered the studios survey do. As expensive as they are to produce, why do you think its still on DVD's?

These "surveys" are from the retired, the homeless, and anyone else with time to waste on a "survey", which I and most working people hang up on


Who cares. This is not the habits of the american public as a whole. People in tusbucket Montana don't have VOD yet, what are they supposed to do? Alot of people do not have access to broadband or cable, what do they do? America is not 100% wired, but every home in the America has at least one DVD player. And when that player breaks down, they will get another player, likely a bluray player because it can play HD and their DVD's as well with better quality than their old DVD player.

Every home has a DVD player? What about the ones that dont have a TV?


So just because you are doing this, does that mean everyone is doing this? No, I know no one who uses their computer screens as the basis of a HT. So are you playing DVD soundtracks through computer speakers? Hmmm, what a quality upgrade over real speakers with a relatively flat response. Covergence has happened in your house because your priorities are different financially speaking. I have a very good Sony 26" monitor I use for my home office. I do not watch movies in my office, I work there. I watch movies in my hometheater where I have paid VERY careful attention to the rooms acoustics, stray light reflecting back on the screen, the calibration of my set, and using a RTA to get a flat in room response from my speakers. I other words, it is designed for movie watching, and it would not be fun to work in there unless I was doing movie reviews.

Once again a statement makes a valiant effort and bounces right off of your skull.
I dont use a "computer screen" as a basis of my HT, I use my HT monitor to surf the web

AND WATCH VIDEO , and I AM USING IT RIGHT NOW.
As usual you have it backwards, I play computer audio through my HT receiver because its so much better than any computer speakers can be.
Its nice that your HT is designed for movie watching, what a friggin waste.
Mine is designed for movie watching, video watching, audio listening, web surfing, etc.
SINCE I ONLY DO ONE THING AT A TIME THAT WORKS OUT.
Its just as much fun to "work" in my HT as watch a movie or listen to an album.
Maybe you'll learn enough to expand the capabilities of yours one day



No, this I understand. What I do not understand is your square peg in a round hole perspectives of the American publics viewing habits. You seem to think that your cheap low budget way of doing things is what ALL of America is doing. Its not, and you need to get out in the world as see this.

Actually it is. I KNEW a lady who was a big deal in her church choir, and a guy who was a director on a cruise ship and cut a few albums, Both had stereos with a record changer in the top. A friend with the best Axioms you can get still has a 35in crt set.
YOU THINK WALLMART IS GOING BROKE selling all of those chintzy HTIB sets
and boomboxes? I know one thing, their marketing dept is a lot better than yours



You live on earth, in another reality than we do.

I live in reality period, splash some water in your face and join the rest of the species


Does the public watch movies on their PDA? No. Does the public surf on a IPOD? No. listening on a computer hard drive is a step down from listening on CD, and a huge step down from vinyl, so that is further evidence that quality is not your first priority. We do not use these gadgets to do all of the same thing. PDA are organizing tools for your schedule, your numbers, and notes. You don't watch movies on them. DVD recorders are for copying DVD's, VHS, and programs off the television. You do not organize your schedule of store numbers on it. Your thought process is spread like peanut butter with no apparent critical thinking given to it. And guess what, it is like swiss cheese when held up for scrutiny.

You'd better check. I think you're horse is double parked.
People are doing ALL of those things.
the japanese are forgoing conventional computers, they are using PDA'S, cellphones,
and ipods and such to download files wand watch and listen to them.
The advent of glasses you can wear to present a 40in picture in front of you will only accelerate this trend. the more portable the better, people dont like to be tied down


David Bowie does not own any films. You are talking about the value of ones career, not the value of a classic film. More apples and pears.

AGAIN you totally miss the point, you say that the "value" of music fades, well, heres someone who made millions from a music catalog composed of stuff decades old



People see no difference between a CD and a DVD??? Since they're package differently and found in different sections in a store, I would think everyone would know the difference. If people want a bluray player, they have proven they will pay the cost to get one. People have proven that inspite of what a bluray disc costs, they will pay for it.

Of course people se no difference, as far as cost, they are deciding weather to spend precious money on a CD, or DVD, and which one they want.
Ones a movie, ones music. big deal, the most important point is which one do I spend my money on?
If they want a CD they'll get a CD , DOESNT MATTER IF A MOVIE COST MORE TO MAKE OR NOT.
Indeed, some movies are cheaper to buy than CD

This is what I mean about making assumption with no evidence. Nobody agrees with you that the infrastructure is there. And if it was there, then why are cable companies doing these kinds of things

YOU dont agree with me.
Twenty years ago my cable had no stereo at all, now it has digital audio, the computers
were measured by the memory they had because they had no hard drives.
take a look around, its a different world out there





If the infrastructure was there, there would be no need to limit or slow down traffic would they? The cost is not miniscule. Cable is expensive, there is no profit potential at this moment or Walmart, Google and cinemovie would not have gone out of business, and there is no indication whatsoever that folks are shifting the way they view movies. You are just plain lying, or ignorant as hell.

The cost of the net wasnt 'miniscule" either and look at how that worked out




You are a plain idiot, 2010... right, most folks who KNOW what they are talking about say its at least a decade away. You are dreaming, unrealistic, and pretty damn ignorant on this whole subject. Pathetic.[/QUOTE]

AND FIVE YEARS AGO THEY WERE saying that 1080p was at least 10 to twenty years away. And most had CRT sets , LCD was an expensive toy.

Truth is, you dont know, and neither do I, but when you bet against something happening you are usually wrong, at least technologically.
Again, 320 gigs is 99 bucks, memory is cheap as dirt, cable modems are pretty much it.
And you are a typical corporate shill, a yes man telling people what they want to hear.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Sir Terrence the Terrible]Then you need glasses, real thick ones.

ER, NO, I think I have you pretty well summed up




The millions of people that answered the studios survey do. As expensive as they are to produce, why do you think its still on DVD's?

These "surveys" are from the retired, the homeless, and anyone else with time to waste on a "survey", which I and most working people hang up on


Who cares. This is not the habits of the american public as a whole. People in tusbucket Montana don't have VOD yet, what are they supposed to do? Alot of people do not have access to broadband or cable, what do they do? America is not 100% wired, but every home in the America has at least one DVD player. And when that player breaks down, they will get another player, likely a bluray player because it can play HD and their DVD's as well with better quality than their old DVD player.

Every home has a DVD player? What about the ones that dont have a TV?


So just because you are doing this, does that mean everyone is doing this? No, I know no one who uses their computer screens as the basis of a HT. So are you playing DVD soundtracks through computer speakers? Hmmm, what a quality upgrade over real speakers with a relatively flat response. Covergence has happened in your house because your priorities are different financially speaking. I have a very good Sony 26" monitor I use for my home office. I do not watch movies in my office, I work there. I watch movies in my hometheater where I have paid VERY careful attention to the rooms acoustics, stray light reflecting back on the screen, the calibration of my set, and using a RTA to get a flat in room response from my speakers. I other words, it is designed for movie watching, and it would not be fun to work in there unless I was doing movie reviews.

Once again a statement makes a valiant effort and bounces right off of your skull.
I dont use a "computer screen" as a basis of my HT, I use my HT monitor to surf the web

AND WATCH VIDEO , and I AM USING IT RIGHT NOW.
As usual you have it backwards, I play computer audio through my HT receiver because its so much better than any computer speakers can be.
Its nice that your HT is designed for movie watching, what a friggin waste.
Mine is designed for movie watching, video watching, audio listening, web surfing, etc.
SINCE I ONLY DO ONE THING AT A TIME THAT WORKS OUT.
Its just as much fun to "work" in my HT as watch a movie or listen to an album.
Maybe you'll learn enough to expand the capabilities of yours one day



No, this I understand. What I do not understand is your square peg in a round hole perspectives of the American publics viewing habits. You seem to think that your cheap low budget way of doing things is what ALL of America is doing. Its not, and you need to get out in the world as see this.

Actually it is. I KNEW a lady who was a big deal in her church choir, and a guy who was a director on a cruise ship and cut a few albums, Both had stereos with a record changer in the top. A friend with the best Axioms you can get still has a 35in crt set.
YOU THINK WALLMART IS GOING BROKE selling all of those chintzy HTIB sets
and boomboxes? I know one thing, their marketing dept is a lot better than yours



You live on earth, in another reality than we do.

I live in reality period, splash some water in your face and join the rest of the species


Does the public watch movies on their PDA? No. Does the public surf on a IPOD? No. listening on a computer hard drive is a step down from listening on CD, and a huge step down from vinyl, so that is further evidence that quality is not your first priority. We do not use these gadgets to do all of the same thing. PDA are organizing tools for your schedule, your numbers, and notes. You don't watch movies on them. DVD recorders are for copying DVD's, VHS, and programs off the television. You do not organize your schedule of store numbers on it. Your thought process is spread like peanut butter with no apparent critical thinking given to it. And guess what, it is like swiss cheese when held up for scrutiny.

You'd better check. I think you're horse is double parked.
People are doing ALL of those things.
the japanese are forgoing conventional computers, they are using PDA'S, cellphones,
and ipods and such to download files wand watch and listen to them.
The advent of glasses you can wear to present a 40in picture in front of you will only accelerate this trend. the more portable the better, people dont like to be tied down


David Bowie does not own any films. You are talking about the value of ones career, not the value of a classic film. More apples and pears.

AGAIN you totally miss the point, you say that the "value" of music fades, well, heres someone who made millions from a music catalog composed of stuff decades old



People see no difference between a CD and a DVD??? Since they're package differently and found in different sections in a store, I would think everyone would know the difference. If people want a bluray player, they have proven they will pay the cost to get one. People have proven that inspite of what a bluray disc costs, they will pay for it.

Of course people se no difference, as far as cost, they are deciding weather to spend precious money on a CD, or DVD, and which one they want.
Ones a movie, ones music. big deal, the most important point is which one do I spend my money on?
If they want a CD they'll get a CD , DOESNT MATTER IF A MOVIE COST MORE TO MAKE OR NOT.
Indeed, some movies are cheaper to buy than CD

This is what I mean about making assumption with no evidence. Nobody agrees with you that the infrastructure is there. And if it was there, then why are cable companies doing these kinds of things

YOU dont agree with me.
Twenty years ago my cable had no stereo at all, now it has digital audio, the computers
were measured by the memory they had because they had no hard drives.
take a look around, its a different world out there





If the infrastructure was there, there would be no need to limit or slow down traffic would they? The cost is not miniscule. Cable is expensive, there is no profit potential at this moment or Walmart, Google and cinemovie would not have gone out of business, and there is no indication whatsoever that folks are shifting the way they view movies. You are just plain lying, or ignorant as hell.

The cost of the net wasnt 'miniscule" either and look at how that worked out




You are a plain idiot, 2010... right, most folks who KNOW what they are talking about say its at least a decade away. You are dreaming, unrealistic, and pretty damn ignorant on this whole subject. Pathetic.

AND FIVE YEARS AGO THEY WERE saying that 1080p was at least 10 to twenty years away. And most had CRT sets , LCD was an expensive toy.

Truth is, you dont know, and neither do I, but when you bet against something happening you are usually wrong, at least technologically.
Again, 320 gigs is 99 bucks, memory is cheap as dirt, cable modems are pretty much it.
And you are a typical corporate shill, a yes man telling people what they want to hear.

What makes this so pathetic is you have a old man who has never worked in the film or television industry trying to make sense of something he hasn't a clue about. This armchair idiot is challenging the information accumulated through the largest CE reporting firm in the world, and industry analyst that have been covering this industry SPECIFICALLY.

Well Pixel, this is much like your 720p is better than 1080i post. No detail, no figures or links to support anything you have said. You read stuff, and think you have a deep understanding, when it is just cursory. I do not have to argue this any further. Everyone is profoundy aware that you do not know what you are talking about.

[pixelthis]

this is funny as hell.
You represent EVERYTHING that is wrong with corporate america.
You, and an army of marketing hacks that think like you, (when they bother to think)
who will beleive the "knowledge" of a poorly done survey before the evidence of their own eyes.
And when the "evidence is correct the comprehension is low to nonexistent.
Well, at least you and the other hacks are off the streets and out of trouble.
You certainly arent going to screw this country (or planet) up any worse than it already is.
You're not even capable of that.
There have been massive changes in the market in the past few years.
We have had five music stores close where I live.
and the changes to come will be even greater.
And there you'll be, clinging to your "survey", based on what college students collected
working part time, as you go down for the third time.

[hermanv]

Reading some HD/Blu-Ray updates on CNET both parties admit "off the record" that actual sales numbers of both players and disks are dismal. They would drop Hi-Def in a flash if it hadn't become a matter of corporate pride.

I also see endless discussion about the price of the players, I think it's largely irrelevant, I paid through the nose for the earliest "progressive" DVD players. So the hold up is the price of software. HD-DVD disks can be made on standard DVD equipment, so titles should sell for the $12-$15 I usually pay for DVD movie titles. My system with standard DVD is good enough to easily show the quality difference (resolution) of standard DVD. The public sees little value in upgrading to a medium that's double the price, player costs be damned. And while some Hi-Def movies are clearly excellent many are not any better than DVD payed through a decent up-converting conventional DVD player.

One other issue I have with Blu-Ray is the depth of the information layer, I have plenty of ordinary DVDs that require a quick polish to play smoothly. I can just imagine a Blu-Ray world where if your pre-teen or younger kids handle the disks, that they are ruined forever.

I know not everyone will agree with my opinion, but the members of forums such as this are not a valid consumer cross section. Some (many?) of us paid the price of a car for just stereo, for those, cost is secondary to the pursuit of excellence.

[filecat13]

Physical media is already EOLed (end of lifed) as far as I'm concerned, so I have no compelling reason to care if BR or HD DVD dominates the market or even survives. My physical media consumption has steadily declined over the decades.

I had a thousand LPs before the market and the mainstream manufacturers abandoned the format. I had a few cassettes, but skipped them and their many defects to go from LPs to CDs. I had many hundreds of CDs when SACD and DVD-A arrived then failed to penetrate. I stopped actively buying CDs once I started with multichannel stuff, and in the past two years, I've purchased maybe three DVD-A and two SACD discs that were special enough that the artist and or label deemed it worth the trouble. Otherwise, I just legally download everything I want.

For video, I rejected VHS for much the same reason as cassettes: an inferior technology with poor quality and poor longevity, and a clumsy and cumbersome user interface. However, I had hundreds of laser discs until DVDs came along and killed an already fragile market. DVDs were so much better than LDs most of the time, that going to DVDs was easy enough, but I never repurchased a movie I had on LD in a DVD format. In fact, I still only have about 150 DVDs, most of which were purchased near the beginning of the medium's life cycle. Most movies just aren't that interesting that I want to see them more than once or twice, and I certainly don't need to own them to view them a couple of times.

Also, the Blockbuster/Netflix/Hollywood Video/Vudu/whatever business model sucks. The instore or online experience is horrendous in most cases, though Netflix does better than the others. I think I bought two DVDs in Target this year as an impulse buy ($6 each), and I still kind of regret spending the money since one viewing was enough for me. I'm pretty much done with buying DVDs because as I wrote earlier, it's EOL as far as I'm concerned. The BR/HD DVD fiasco irritated me enough that I don't want to encourage these companies to continue putting consumers in the middle when they can't or won't work to reach productive agreements on media standards.

As for Walmart, Google, and cinemovie going out of the download business, infrastructure might have had something to do with it, but don't overlook the poorly conceived and executed business model and the general ugliness of their presentation platform. Did they care about anything other than trying to make what they thought would be easy money? They couldn't even copy the one clear example of a successful business model. Obviously, they had no good ideas of their own.

Most of my video watching is through HD OTA broadcast, legal download, or stream. (I've never had cable or sat.) The day that iTunes or some other service has a viable infrastructure for delivering to me the media I want in HD, I'm on board. It looks to me like that will happen this year or next, unless media companies continue to be stupid. In that case, I just won't buy their shirt (remove the "r"). There's a word that starts with "f" that reflects my regard for them.

Making business plans and decisions based on surveys is weak and inefficient. It lacks innovation, initiative, and vision. Plus, people tell you things that they think they want or they think they'll do, when in fact they will do the opposite. The biggest example of this dumbness is the BR vs. HD DVD fiasco. It's the "ultimate consumer survey" in that people are asked to make a choice that impacts their wallets. The dumb media and manufacturing companies think the "survey" is as simple as "Forced to make a choice, which will you choose, BluRay or HD DVD?" The companies and the news media think they now know the answer: BluRay.

Well the overwhelming consumer choice is actually "neither."

You'd think somewhere in these companies a decision maker would have had either Business 101 or Marketing 101.

Is Apple really the only company that's been thinking this through? Piece by piece it's built most of the hardware needed, software needed, and most of the infrastructure needed to deliver the content. If it can make it all work in the next 12-18 months, a lot of people are going to be surprised (and should be fired) for missing the obvious opening that is before them.

There are two full generations of people that have substantial market power now who will abandon physical media in a heartbeat when a digital solution truly presents itself. They are not trapped in the mentality that mourns the loss of an album cover with pictures, liner notes, and track listings on them, or that wants to have an entire second disc of useless junk that couldn't make it into the feature film or that just drags out the director/producer's ego for all to see about what a majestic thing the making of a film is--again.

Jim Morrison said it pretty well 40 year ago, "We want the world, and we want it now." That's what the majority of the kids and young adults I work with want when it comes to media, and the generation above them, which includes my own children, already passes more information (audio and video) around electronically than it does physically.

Now, if only someone would devise a business plan and marketing approach that would capture them as legal customers rather than suing them over a dead business model and crippling the content to the point of making it worthless to consumers, then they wouldn't need a pandering survey to justify screwing people with an old, indefensible business model that's costing them revenue and customers. Instead, they'd be making money and winning customers.

So I hope both BR and HD DVD die soon and die hard. I certainly won't miss them. They're the ultimate expression of the arrogance, conceit and hubris of the status quo in media and electronics.

[Ajani]

Physical media is already EOLed (end of lifed) as far as I'm concerned, so I have no compelling reason to care if BR or HD DVD dominates the market or even survives. My physical media consumption has steadily declined over the decades.

I had a thousand LPs before the market and the mainstream manufacturers abandoned the format. I had a few cassettes, but skipped them and their many defects to go from LPs to CDs. I had many hundreds of CDs when SACD and DVD-A arrived then failed to penetrate. I stopped actively buying CDs once I started with multichannel stuff, and in the past two years, I've purchased maybe three DVD-A and two SACD discs that were special enough that the artist and or label deemed it worth the trouble. Otherwise, I just legally download everything I want.

For video, I rejected VHS for much the same reason as cassettes: an inferior technology with poor quality and poor longevity, and a clumsy and cumbersome user interface. However, I had hundreds of laser discs until DVDs came along and killed an already fragile market. DVDs were so much better than LDs most of the time, that going to DVDs was easy enough, but I never repurchased a movie I had on LD in a DVD format. In fact, I still only have about 150 DVDs, most of which were purchased near the beginning of the medium's life cycle. Most movies just aren't that interesting that I want to see them more than once or twice, and I certainly don't need to own them to view them a couple of times.

Also, the Blockbuster/Netflix/Hollywood Video/Vudu/whatever business model sucks. The instore or online experience is horrendous in most cases, though Netflix does better than the others. I think I bought two DVDs in Target this year as an impulse buy ($6 each), and I still kind of regret spending the money since one viewing was enough for me. I'm pretty much done with buying DVDs because as I wrote earlier, it's EOL as far as I'm concerned. The BR/HD DVD fiasco irritated me enough that I don't want to encourage these companies to continue putting consumers in the middle when they can't or won't work to reach productive agreements on media standards.

As for Walmart, Google, and cinemovie going out of the download business, infrastructure might have had something to do with it, but don't overlook the poorly conceived and executed business model and the general ugliness of their presentation platform. Did they care about anything other than trying to make what they thought would be easy money? They couldn't even copy the one clear example of a successful business model. Obviously, they had no good ideas of their own.

Most of my video watching is through HD OTA broadcast, legal download, or stream. (I've never had cable or sat.) The day that iTunes or some other service has a viable infrastructure for delivering to me the media I want in HD, I'm on board. It looks to me like that will happen this year or next, unless media companies continue to be stupid. In that case, I just won't buy their shirt (remove the "r"). There's a word that starts with "f" that reflects my regard for them.

Making business plans and decisions based on surveys is weak and inefficient. It lacks innovation, initiative, and vision. Plus, people tell you things that they think they want or they think they'll do, when in fact they will do the opposite. The biggest example of this dumbness is the BR vs. HD DVD fiasco. It's the "ultimate consumer survey" in that people are asked to make a choice that impacts their wallets. The dumb media and manufacturing companies think the "survey" is as simple as "Forced to make a choice, which will you choose, BluRay or HD DVD?" The companies and the news media think they now know the answer: BluRay.

Well the overwhelming consumer choice is actually "neither."

You'd think somewhere in these companies a decision maker would have had either Business 101 or Marketing 101.

Is Apple really the only company that's been thinking this through? Piece by piece it's built most of the hardware needed, software needed, and most of the infrastructure needed to deliver the content. If it can make it all work in the next 12-18 months, a lot of people are going to be surprised (and should be fired) for missing the obvious opening that is before them.

There are two full generations of people that have substantial market power now who will abandon physical media in a heartbeat when a digital solution truly presents itself. They are not trapped in the mentality that mourns the loss of an album cover with pictures, liner notes, and track listings on them, or that wants to have an entire second disc of useless junk that couldn't make it into the feature film or that just drags out the director/producer's ego for all to see about what a majestic thing the making of a film is--again.

Jim Morrison said it pretty well 40 year ago, "We want the world, and we want it now." That's what the majority of the kids and young adults I work with want when it comes to media, and the generation above them, which includes my own children, already passes more information (audio and video) around electronically than it does physically.

Now, if only someone would devise a business plan and marketing approach that would capture them as legal customers rather than suing them over a dead business model and crippling the content to the point of making it worthless to consumers, then they wouldn't need a pandering survey to justify screwing people with an old, indefensible business model that's costing them revenue and customers. Instead, they'd be making money and winning customers.

So I hope both BR and HD DVD die soon and die hard. I certainly won't miss them. They're the ultimate expression of the arrogance, conceit and hubris of the status quo in media and electronics.

I couldn't agree more.... well said....

It seems that so many corporations miss the fact that what most people want is a convenient movie watching experience, not a disc....

It seems that so many corporations miss the fact that what most people want is the convenience of listening to music when and where they want (whether on the go, in their car or through their stereo/ht setup), not a disc....

And as much as the thought hurts us 'audio/videophiles'.... many people are willing to sacrifice quality for convenience....

But the corps will hold on tight to their surveys and not realize that these are the same surveys that predicted that; a particular candidate would have a landslide win in a primary, one day before that candidate lost the primary... Surveys and statistics don't mean all that much...

They will look at the 'trend' towards bigger and better TVs and think 'betcha by golly wow, this means that what consumers really want is bigger and better discs'.... not seeing that for the same price of yesterday's tv, consumers can get a bigger and better tv....

Where consumers violently opposed to the Pentium 2? I really doubt they were, but you won't find a new computer being made with one anymore, simply because for the cost of one now you can get dual core... soon to be quad/quin/sextuple core processors.... Apart from hardcore computer gamers, most consumers really don't need all these processors upgrades but the market will keep giving it to them...

Can Blu-Ray take the DVD player market? Sure, if it follows the path of computers and tvs and so for the price of a dvd player you get a backwards compatible Blu Ray player and for the price of a standard DVD you get Blu Ray discs.... Now whether all this can happen before people embrace the convenience of legal downloading... well, that's another story...

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Physical media is already EOLed (end of lifed) as far as I'm concerned, so I have no compelling reason to care if BR or HD DVD dominates the market or even survives. My physical media consumption has steadily declined over the decades.

I had a thousand LPs before the market and the mainstream manufacturers abandoned the format. I had a few cassettes, but skipped them and their many defects to go from LPs to CDs. I had many hundreds of CDs when SACD and DVD-A arrived then failed to penetrate. I stopped actively buying CDs once I started with multichannel stuff, and in the past two years, I've purchased maybe three DVD-A and two SACD discs that were special enough that the artist and or label deemed it worth the trouble. Otherwise, I just legally download everything I want.

For video, I rejected VHS for much the same reason as cassettes: an inferior technology with poor quality and poor longevity, and a clumsy and cumbersome user interface. However, I had hundreds of laser discs until DVDs came along and killed an already fragile market. DVDs were so much better than LDs most of the time, that going to DVDs was easy enough, but I never repurchased a movie I had on LD in a DVD format. In fact, I still only have about 150 DVDs, most of which were purchased near the beginning of the medium's life cycle. Most movies just aren't that interesting that I want to see them more than once or twice, and I certainly don't need to own them to view them a couple of times.

Also, the Blockbuster/Netflix/Hollywood Video/Vudu/whatever business model sucks. The instore or online experience is horrendous in most cases, though Netflix does better than the others. I think I bought two DVDs in Target this year as an impulse buy ($6 each), and I still kind of regret spending the money since one viewing was enough for me. I'm pretty much done with buying DVDs because as I wrote earlier, it's EOL as far as I'm concerned. The BR/HD DVD fiasco irritated me enough that I don't want to encourage these companies to continue putting consumers in the middle when they can't or won't work to reach productive agreements on media standards.

As for Walmart, Google, and cinemovie going out of the download business, infrastructure might have had something to do with it, but don't overlook the poorly conceived and executed business model and the general ugliness of their presentation platform. Did they care about anything other than trying to make what they thought would be easy money? They couldn't even copy the one clear example of a successful business model. Obviously, they had no good ideas of their own.

Most of my video watching is through HD OTA broadcast, legal download, or stream. (I've never had cable or sat.) The day that iTunes or some other service has a viable infrastructure for delivering to me the media I want in HD, I'm on board. It looks to me like that will happen this year or next, unless media companies continue to be stupid. In that case, I just won't buy their shirt (remove the "r"). There's a word that starts with "f" that reflects my regard for them.

Making business plans and decisions based on surveys is weak and inefficient. It lacks innovation, initiative, and vision. Plus, people tell you things that they think they want or they think they'll do, when in fact they will do the opposite. The biggest example of this dumbness is the BR vs. HD DVD fiasco. It's the "ultimate consumer survey" in that people are asked to make a choice that impacts their wallets. The dumb media and manufacturing companies think the "survey" is as simple as "Forced to make a choice, which will you choose, BluRay or HD DVD?" The companies and the news media think they now know the answer: BluRay.

Well the overwhelming consumer choice is actually "neither."

You'd think somewhere in these companies a decision maker would have had either Business 101 or Marketing 101.

Is Apple really the only company that's been thinking this through? Piece by piece it's built most of the hardware needed, software needed, and most of the infrastructure needed to deliver the content. If it can make it all work in the next 12-18 months, a lot of people are going to be surprised (and should be fired) for missing the obvious opening that is before them.

There are two full generations of people that have substantial market power now who will abandon physical media in a heartbeat when a digital solution truly presents itself. They are not trapped in the mentality that mourns the loss of an album cover with pictures, liner notes, and track listings on them, or that wants to have an entire second disc of useless junk that couldn't make it into the feature film or that just drags out the director/producer's ego for all to see about what a majestic thing the making of a film is--again.

Jim Morrison said it pretty well 40 year ago, "We want the world, and we want it now." That's what the majority of the kids and young adults I work with want when it comes to media, and the generation above them, which includes my own children, already passes more information (audio and video) around electronically than it does physically.

Now, if only someone would devise a business plan and marketing approach that would capture them as legal customers rather than suing them over a dead business model and crippling the content to the point of making it worthless to consumers, then they wouldn't need a pandering survey to justify screwing people with an old, indefensible business model that's costing them revenue and customers. Instead, they'd be making money and winning customers.

So I hope both BR and HD DVD die soon and die hard. I certainly won't miss them. They're the ultimate expression of the arrogance, conceit and hubris of the status quo in media and electronics.

I respect your opinion.

[pixelthis]

Reading some HD/Blu-Ray updates on CNET both parties admit "off the record" that actual sales numbers of both players and disks are dismal. They would drop Hi-Def in a flash if it hadn't become a matter of corporate pride.

I also see endless discussion about the price of the players, I think it's largely irrelevant, I paid through the nose for the earliest "progressive" DVD players. So the hold up is the price of software. HD-DVD disks can be made on standard DVD equipment, so titles should sell for the $12-$15 I usually pay for DVD movie titles. My system with standard DVD is good enough to easily show the quality difference (resolution) of standard DVD. The public sees little value in upgrading to a medium that's double the price, player costs be damned. And while some Hi-Def movies are clearly excellent many are not any better than DVD payed through a decent up-converting conventional DVD player.

One other issue I have with Blu-Ray is the depth of the information layer, I have plenty of ordinary DVDs that require a quick polish to play smoothly. I can just imagine a Blu-Ray world where if your pre-teen or younger kids handle the disks, that they are ruined forever.

I know not everyone will agree with my opinion, but the members of forums such as this are not a valid consumer cross section. Some (many?) of us paid the price of a car for just stereo, for those, cost is secondary to the pursuit of excellence.

Nice to hear from someone on this board who knows SOMETHING.
One of the reasons I wanted this silly "format war" (two bald men fighting over a comb)
to be over was that I want a HD format for collectors, people who actually care
about quality, I think there is room in the market for such a thing.
But these nimrods actually think that these formats will replace DVD overnight,
and that aint gonna happen.
Sir talky for instance, talks about his 130in screen like thats relevant.
To him all of America is consumers with hugh screens and wallets and tastes to match,
just waiting for the latest toy, he has NO clue as to what real america is like.
For most movie watching is just a diversion anyway.
With gas 3 bucks and up, their houses devalued by as much as 50% when the housing market imploded, the last thing most consumers are interested in is a new toy.
Some are worried about paying the mortage, or a 200$ a week gas bill, because their suv is "under water", gets 18 mpg, the payoff is twice what its worth, and they live 20 miles out of town.
I know that corporations like the one sir talky works for arent worried about consumers in america anymore, thats why they moved their production offshore, to be closer to "emerging " markets like china.
Well, when these emerging markets crash when america does, then what?
Sure HD sales are dismal, these morons did the EXACT thing with highq audio, why should they expect the results to be different?
THE DEFINITION of insantity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, which is what they did, you'd think the sacd dvdaudio debacle was
practice for the hd -blu mess.
Introduce two competing formats because you're such a greedhead that you can't make a deal, market both and confuse the hell outta the public, who then go into stores,
look at poorly set up "comparsions" and cant understand why they need a Blu or HD
player when DVD is about as good, and a player is 30 bucks.
At least with high end digital audio they were trying to sell to educated consumers who wanted better sound, if these tactics will confuse THEM imagine what similar tactics will do to the great unwashed , half of who still have SD sets, most under 32in.
I will tell you this, if the rest of these guys are as hard headed as sir talky, convinced that they are "right", then they WILL go down the tubes, and will be protesting all of the way that they shouldnt, because they are "right".
Their marketing survey, probably done in beverly hills, SAY SO!

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Reading some HD/Blu-Ray updates on CNET both parties admit "off the record" that actual sales numbers of both players and disks are dismal. They would drop Hi-Def in a flash if it hadn't become a matter of corporate pride.

Herman, I would hardly call 600,000 standalones, and 8 million PS3 world wide dismal sales. I would hardly call sales of disc which I believe would be about 6 million in 2007 alone terrible this early in a fomats release. Also take into consideration what happened to sales POST the Warner announcement. The format war has clearly taken its toll in the short run, but after that announcement, things changed pretty dramatically number wise.

I also see endless discussion about the price of the players, I think it's largely irrelevant, I paid through the nose for the earliest "progressive" DVD players. So the hold up is the price of software. HD-DVD disks can be made on standard DVD equipment, so titles should sell for the $12-$15 I usually pay for DVD movie titles. My system with standard DVD is good enough to easily show the quality difference (resolution) of standard DVD. The public sees little value in upgrading to a medium that's double the price, player costs be damned. And while some Hi-Def movies are clearly excellent many are not any better than DVD payed through a decent up-converting conventional DVD player.

What you are clearly fogetting here is the cost of digitally scanning and authoring the disc. The menus and interactivity are much more complex with the use of Hdi and BD-j, cost that DVD just does not have. Secondly, nobody can argue that some of the early bluray disc, and just about all of Universal disc do or did not look that good. But since those titles have been released, Bluray has been getting some of the best scores in terms of PQ and AQ over any HD DVD titles from 10 of the most popular online reviewing sites. It is not the technology, its the shape of the master that is at issue. Lastly, the cost of disc are already falling. What was closer to $30 several months ago is now about $19-25. Now that the war is over, prices will drop by economy of scale.

One other issue I have with Blu-Ray is the depth of the information layer, I have plenty of ordinary DVDs that require a quick polish to play smoothly. I can just imagine a Blu-Ray world where if your pre-teen or younger kids handle the disks, that they are ruined forever.

Go to youtube and look up bluray disc and sander. It is not as easy as you think to make a bluray disc unplayable. The disc is covered with a plastic coat designed to protect it much better than HD DVD has by a long shot. That is more of the concern for HD DVD than bluray.

I know not everyone will agree with my opinion, but the members of forums such as this are not a valid consumer cross section. Some (many?) of us paid the price of a car for just stereo, for those, cost is secondary to the pursuit of excellence.

Price falls with manufacturing gains. The next generation players will be cheaper than this generation, and so on and so on. Sony just develope a smaller laser that is cheaper to produce than the current laser in players. That will drive the next players prices down. Economy of scale drives down prices. But just like any technology, these things take time to happen.

[Ajani]

........I would hardly call 600,000 standalones, and 8 million PS3 world wide dismal sales.......

I have one large problem with these figures that Blu-Ray uses to claim large sales... and that is the inclusion of the PS3... sure it can play Blu-Ray discs, but are most consumers really buying it as Blu-Ray player, a videogame sytem or both?

Would it make sense for Mark Levinson to claim to be the leader in high end audio sales, by including the sales of all Lexus with Mark Levinson stereos? I doubt that most consumers buying a Lexus are buying it for the stereo...

Should DVD-A or SACD claim brilliant sales figures based on the number of DVD/Universal Players that now play their respective formats? How many of us consumers have a DVD player that plays one/both of those formats but have never bought a DVD-A/SACD disc?

I regard the PS3 sales figures as a very poor reflection of Blu-Ray's popularity... I think the standalone players are the more telling tale and 600,000 units really isn't all that impressive.

[hermanv]

Herman, I would hardly call 600,000 standalones, and 8 million PS3 world wide dismal sales. I would hardly call sales of disc which I believe would be about 6 million in 2007 alone terrible this early in a fomats release. Also take into consideration what happened to sales POST the Warner announcement. The format war has clearly taken its toll in the short run, but after that announcement, things changed pretty dramatically number wise.

I didn't say the sales were dismal, According to CNET both Blu Ray and HD-DVD manufacturers did.

Me I wouldn't really know where break even occurs. I am an early adapter of new (but stable) technologies, I'll wait.

[GMichael]

Question:

Do you want to sit back and wait for the future to get here or would you rather get involved now?

[L.J.]

Question:

Do you want to sit back and wait for the future to get here or would you rather get involved now?

You talkin' to me

[GMichael]

You talkin' to me

Nope, but I will if you like.

What shall we talk about? Porn?