Very soon two competing versions of High Definition DVD will be released. I believe the players themselves will be very expensive (~$500 +) and DVD movies will be in the $30 range. Both head units and dvd's will no doubt fall dramatically in the future.

I consider myself a technophile and am usually in the group considered a "first purchaser" of new technology. HD TV's, plasma's, DVD players, video games, blahbity blah.


Anywho, this new one does nothing for me. Granted I have not seen it yet, but watching most movies over high def satellite in 1080i versus progressive scan DVD's in 480p does not seem to bring that much added benefit. Sure it is nicer but I seem to get the most bang out of higher resolution in sports and some travel and nature video.

With technology evolving so fast and format changes every few years, I am not really excited about spending any money on HD dvd even though they will be backwards compatible with my current library. I feel like if I buy one, five years later we will have super-hi-def-purple-ray that is way better and I will have to upgrade AGAIN. It seems that the biggest benefit the new technology has is in data storage space.

Is anybody foaming at the mouth to get a hold of one these new players or will this be a big yawn? (like this thread)

 

I was at the CES in January and saw both players in person. The blue ray starts over $1200+ and the HD DVD is $600+. I think It will be awhile before we all get on the bandwagon until all formats comes out on the market. Regardless, don't ya think it is pointless in this format when everyone just wants to download movies off the net and watch them on TV. I feel this is going to be a very short lived product since the demand for movies from the net is going to increase dramatically in the next 5 years.

 

just wait for the ps3

 

I forgot all about that. But for people that have collections of movies and want to keep them you either need serious hard drive space or you burn them onto a disk and then need a player, presumably an HD player. Downloading a movie in HD format can also take FOREVER at most current connection speeds.

I don't mind spending $500 - $1000 for a piece of technology that I think is cool, but this one is worth say $150 to me over my current progressive scan player.


I am a little jealous, I would love to take in a CES someday but it always falls on a busy time of the year where I work.

 

That will have blue ray, Xbox 360 has already announced a HD DVD format add on that is supposed to sell below cost as well.

 

I love technology but I refuse to upgrade yet again until the player itself costs $35.99 at Walmart like the last DVD player I bought for my daughter. My Panasonic XP-50 DVD and my Hitachi 52" projection do just fine for 3 years old.

I have DVD-A and SACD titles and players too. I was early on that and it burned me. Never again.

 

I'll go outside and take a look once the war is over.

Sam

 

 

Aside from the early titles and early players being a hair "bright" and "tizzy" (but far less "tizzy" than standard CD), how did you get burned?

 

From my understanding Blue-Ray was supposed to hold a lot more information than 1 movie, so they are going to sell you disk with only 25% of it filled.