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Kmart Drops Blu-Ray Players
Lord Byron II writes "K-mart has decided to stop selling Blu-Ray players in their stores, primarily because of the high cost of Blu-Ray compared to HD-DVD (now under $200). They will continue to sell the PS3 for the time being. Will lower prices speed the adoption of HD-DVD in the upcoming holiday shopping season?"
Until the pirate community has made a decision, I'm waiting before I commit.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
No. There's no content available, and the improvement over DVD isn't nearly enough to make people rush out and buy any kind of HD DVD any time soon.
Who the hell buys electronics at Kmart, anyway?
K-Mart is still around?
It makes sense, in a twisted kinda way. If you were the average joe who had no clue, which would you want? Something with an unfamiliar name, or something named with HD and DVD right in the title? What if that second one was around half the price?
Just a little bias in the article post: "They will continue to sell the PS3 for the time being".
1.) The PS3 is a Blu-Ray player, arguably the best, that's what I bought mine for.
2.) "Time Being" meaning to imply Kmart may drop the PS3 also? And not sell all 3 of the current generation game players? Not likely.
HD-DVD could win, but in general people are not buying quality 1080P HDTVs at Kmart, they are buying cut rate 720P stuff that doesn't look that much better with HD-DVD than upscaled DVD.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't good for Blu-Ray, but it isn't the sky falling either.
Letter To Iran
Video-on-demand, both on cable and via internet, will make blu-ray / HD-DVD irrevelant ...
... and with ever increasing affordable, even free (ie. YouTube / Wifi, etc), bandwidth, VoD is well on the way to drive the newer physical HD formats to a premature extinction.
Sure some people will buy / use such players, but most people are skipping right to utilizing video-on-demand instead
Ron
It's about the Kmart market. They don't exactly get the upper-income bracket as their customers... As previous posters have already stated, You won't sell many Mercedes Benz in the ghetto (although some might get stolen...).
Sorry to be that harsh, but it is the reality that the people shopping at Kmart are shopping there to get the product that is cheap and meets their function, which means HD-DVD for them, because it is cheap and meets their function, overall specs be damned. Sony et. al. blu-ray camp needs to step up their manufacturing to bring down their costs. They also need to start getting some real marketing and PR done and soon. This holiday season may decide the format war. The PS3 helps, but they need to get some games out for that. I myself have only bought 2, and one of them I don't even play because I forgot how much I HATE FPS's on consoles (give me my mouse...).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
It's movie sales that count, so even if they sold a ton of cheap players unless that translates to dramatically higher media sales HD-DVD still has problems - and look at the lackluster release lineup the rest of the year!
The best week HD-DVD ever had was the recent Transformers release. In that week, Blu-Ray movies still managed to outsell HD-DVD! So what happens now that Spider Man 3 and other large hits are coming out Blu-Ray only?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People don't know anything about one format or the other, or even care, but they know HD is good and DVD sounds familiar and easy to use. HD-DVD was a great move because it leveraged the gajillions of dollars that have already been pumped into marketing "HD" and "DVD", and the familiarity that goes with both.
Not for the immediate futher, but don't rule them out yet... Sony has lost this kind of match before, back in the Beta vs VHS battle. Seems they forgot the lesson learned then.
Will lower prices speed the adoption of HD-DVD in the upcoming holiday shopping season?"It means the lower cost and wider availability of a player, either player, will determine the outcome. Sony charged high prices and licenced their Betamax technology in the 70's, thus we had VHS as the eventual winner. Not learning from their prior mistake? No deja fubar?*
*fubar spelt that way for you anal types.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Rumor has it walmart will have the toshiba A2 hd-dvd for $98 on this friday
http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?section=secret
Huh. I can go down to Costco and pick up a name brand 42 inch 1080(P!) LCD HDTV that actually does have 1920x1080 pixels, for just over a thousand dollars. It has HDMI and all sorts of other connectors out the wazoo. HDTV is not out of the range of as many people as you think, and the situation has improved 100% over last year. When I go for a walk, I'm always seeing a new shiny, new wide screen monitor through someone's window, where there was none before.
It's a funny thing. When you become a landlord, you notice that people you think would be desperate enough not to want to pay $60/month for cable ALMOST ALWAYS DO--and they almost always prefer to neglect everything else but the cable TV bill. Back when I owned real estate, I used to cut my poorer tenants slack. I'd pay the water bill so they wouldn't let my lawn die. I pitched in on the electricity and gas because I couldn't see them living in the dark, shivering to death.
When I found out that oh, 80% percent (my experience) of the people in this situation in life would rather have deluxe fucking digital cable TV than running water, or heat... I lost all sympathy. I mean, this was at a time where I just got basic cable six months before, because it was like $3 more after I got the internet package from Comcast. I will not ever pay that much for freaking TV. So, anyway, I kicked their asses out and eventually sold my rentals. They now live in cold, dark closets of apartments and I'm much happier.
Lesson is, if people slowed down on the Cable, starbucks, restaurants and other money pits in their lives, a vast majority of them could afford nice things. Maybe it's not some strange coincidence that lots of people who aren't good with money end up the low person on the totem pole?
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
It's hardly no surprise, since standalone Blu-ray player cost as much as a low-end PS3, which is also a gaming console and a media center. There is no reason for anyone to buy a standalone player, so there is virtually no market for the standalones.
1. I swear if I hear another stupid VHS/Betamax argument again I'm going to shoot someone (although it's not as bad to the stupid dumbasses who say, "The winner will be whoever the porn industry sides with!! Ignoring the fact that the porn industry played only a part in that war - it was NOT the deciding factor)
2. With everyone saying, "Oh man, a sub-100$ HD-DVD player, that's going to win the format war for sure!!" I think there is one thing that people are forgetting- HIGH-DEF is not yet for the masses. Less than half the people in the country have HDTV. That will change after Christmas, but it hasn't yet. It is a premium item. The people who do buy HDDVD/BLURAY are people who can afford the premium (typically). This HDDVD player is the "Coby"/knock-off brand of HDDVD player (Yes, I know Toshiba is not a knock-off brand..). This is a 1080i player, not 1080p. Many people can't tell the difference, but people who can afford HD typically care. Nobody spends 1000's of dollars on a system to add a 100$ player. Until HDTV's are cheaper and get near the 500-700 range for a 42" or above instead of around 1000-1400, then HD player prices will matter. This one player, (which is only going on sale for a few days, this is NOT a permanent price fix) is not going to win the format war. It will convince some people to get one and a few movies (despite that the 5 movies that come with it really suck donkey balls.) This will help the HDDVD camp for bragging rights for a few weeks, and their sales MIGHT top Bluray for a while, but this player will not "win" the format-war.
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
Also, you may have noticed that poor people are more likely to be smokers, which is a HUGE money sink. If the kids go to bed hungry, the electricity gets shut off and the car is repossessed, a smoker will STILL find money for a pack of cigarettes.
People can ruin their lives because of their vice, be it nicotine or TV.
I wonder when this battle over formats is going to end so I can actually start buying HD movies. Seriously, it's very annoying. I certainly don't want to invest in a player until a winner emerges. I don't do TV, can't stand almost all of it, but I like my movies and SF shows (Mmmm, River Tam in HD..), I'd rather like to have more than three episodes per disc too, whole seasons even. For that I would happily re-buy much of my collection.
As for data storage? Well I'd love to get with that, but again, there's no way I'm getting a writer until two things happen
1: Someone wins this spat.
2: Whoever wins decides they've tapped out the 'adopt early and pay big coin' brigade, and prices for writers drop to something reasonable.
www.red.com
4k camera shooting at up to 60fps
or 2k at 100fps if you prefer
I agree with you. I want HD movies, but am not going to buy anything till a format is chosen. I am not buying DVD's right now, because I don't want to buy them then replace them with HD versions once we have a winner. Of course, the MPAA probably thinks sales are down because people are pirating everything
With your second point in mind... Not everyone is going to go out and drop "1000's of dollars" for an HDTV. In fact, the masses will probably go out this holiday season and buy TVs mostly using 720p instead of 1080p. Why? Price and marketing. These TVs fall into that 500-700 dollar category that seems to be the sweet spot for most buyers. Also, that 500-700 dollar set also has the magic letters HDTV on it, which most people will just look for that instead of 480p, 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. The people that will be looking for these players at KMart will fall into this category.
If you'd just do what we tell you and quit yer gripin' everything would be chocolate sprinkles and rainbows! -AC
I haven't yet decided which format I'm going to choose for my upcoming home theater purchase, but reading reviews it is certainly evident that writers insert their own bias when reporting on the format war. This submitter is no exception.
For example the submitter writes: "K-mart has decided to stop selling Blu-Ray players in their stores ... They will continue to sell the PS3 for the time being". The last sentence implies that they may at any time stop selling the PS3 as well. The original article however states "Of course, Kmart will continue to sell the Playstation 3, which includes a Blu-ray player", with the 'of course' implying that it's obvious that dropping the PS3 would not even be a consideration. The difference in perspective is obvious.
Now lets say the the submitter was an actual journalist in a mainstream publication. You could then easily imagine other people picking up on that inference and stating 'K-Mart drops Blu-Ray - considers dropping PS3 as well" or something along those lines.
For all submitters, if you are going to post something, keep your own agenda out of it.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
On the plus side, format wars that make people afraid to buy DVDs are good for Netflix's business. I know I started using them when i got sick of the idea of buying an "obsolete" format.
(Especially when DVDs I had already bought started coming out in "super criterion extended bonus editions" 4-5 years later)
Good job refuting
"Many people can't tell the difference, but people who can afford HD typically care"
but in fact it's already contrafactual on its face. Perhaps 1% of ppl in the market for these devices can tell the difference and care. The other 99% will buy what the salesperson at the big box store tells them is the best.
Which means that more will buy the more expensive 1080p stuff, but not for the reason GP states.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
No, it isn't. You must not have seen the terms 1080p30 and 1080p60 before. 1080p30 is "standard".
From here:
1080i30/60/90p14326542 1878367 fish monkey judder correction 1080p62.3 3:2interlacing together method judder 24fps cannot update pixels in content originating plus 1000/1000 24, 30, 60.
Blah blah blah, who gives a shit?
How's the picture look to Joe Sixpack? Nice and clear with warm colors? That wins over the techno-babble jabber malarkey.
"Forward looking" is, IMO, kind of silly. By the time your "forward looking" becomes "standard" (or even close to standard), there will be much better devices, for much cheaper prices. "Forward looking" is just ego-saving, elitist version of "early adopter". I'm very glad for many early adopters like yourself, actually. You guys get to experience the bumps, hiccups, and various other issues and iron them out for folks like me who, will eventually spend 1/10 what you paid and have a much better system than what you bought AND you'll end up buying the same system that we bought just so you can be current and have a reasonable working system in the process while early adopting the next big thing to prepare it for us.
Here's to you, Mr. Early Adopter. (Real Men of Genius)
You take the early systems with their bugs, incompatibilities, and problems and live with them and deal with them just so you can 'have it' before anyone else. (Yeah, I got it and you don't!)
All the while, petting your ego and inflating your self esteme so you can feel better about yourself and elevating yourself above the unwashed masses. (This new device makes me a better person!)
After all, you know that directing someone's attention to your new shiny gadget is easy, and it distracts them from finding out about your secret about your junk size. (Awwww... don't look there!)
So, here's to you... Mr. Early Adopter. (Real Men of Geniusssssss)
You might want to do a *little* more research before turning on the flames. You only embarass yourself.
The other poster was referring to 1080i60 (interlaced content @ 60fps). Content in this format is identical to 1080p30 or 1080p24, depending on the master material.
Personally I'm not a fan of interlaced content either, but there are some applications where it's useful.
You may be right about them not knowing about HD sources, but I will say this: Our HD TV produces the best analog Standard Def TV picture I have ever seen. Of course the SD/LowD pic does not compare to the HD pic, but it is still much better than that of our last analog TV.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Are you sure that's 100% correct?
I was under the impression that CRTs required 50/60 (PAL/NTSC) non-interlaced frames per second to avoid unpleasant levels of flickering, but that there was only enough bandwidth for 25/30- which looked bad- so they sent fifty (or sixty) half-frames instead.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Wrong again for the same reasons I stated above. Interlaced formats send twice as many half-frames as the same material would have sent full-frames. Again, the grandparent was correct, the same data gets sent, just formatted differently. Actually, there is an exception, which is the 50p and 60p frame rates because there is no equivalent 100i or 120i rates in interlaced; however, I don't think anyone is broadcasting or releasing any material in this format, most likely because there are very few cameras that can capture in this format and it would just kill bandwidth and storage anyway.
I'm not familiar with the exact details of the circuitry that does this, but I'm pretty sure it's nowhere as destructive as you make it out to be, if it's destructive at all. Basically, I believe TVs treat each individual line as a discrete piece of information, so what order you send them in should make no difference.