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Blu-ray Adoption Soft, More Still Own HD DVD
MojoKid writes "A new study by Harris Interactive notes that currently,
one in ten Americans (10%) own an HD DVD player, while just 7% own a Blu-ray player. Crazy, right?
More Americans own HD DVD right now than the 'winning' format, Blu-ray. If you think about it, that statistic isn't that shocking. When HD DVD was around, it was far and away the 'budget' format for high-def. The players were cheaper, the films were cheaper. In other words, it was a format more ready to thrive in a down economy. Blu-ray was always viewed as a niche format for those absorbed in A/V, not the common man's format. The survey also found that on average, consumers purchased approximately six standard format DVDs in the last six months, compared with one in HD DVD format."
If you had no format knowledge, and someone told you you could have HD DVD or Blu-Ray, which would you pick? Probably the one you thought you knew, High Definition DVD. You might even think it was more compatible with your existing DVD stuff. Blu Ray? What's that?
more people own hd-dvd players than own ps3s? really?
At normal viewing distance I honestly can't tell the difference.
I have a 720p capable LCD hooked up to a 360 (via HDMI) with the HD-DVD add-on. Really can't tell the difference between a DVD upscaled on the 360 and an HD-DVD. Not a stellar setup, though, so ...
The other day I was in Blockbuster and watching their BluRay demo disc (Hancock) on a proper Sony 1080p capable telly. It does a sliding effect where it shows the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD (presumably with DVD suitably fuzzed to exagerate the effect, although maybe they're just honest and don't need to do that). Up close the difference was obviously quite noticable, but at normal viewing distance it was really hard to tell.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
The first HD movie I watched was "300" on my mates' PS3 linked to a 46" Hi-Def TV (full 1080p). I'll never watch another Hi-Def movie again.
The definition was so good that I could see the seperations around the actors and knew exactly when they were in front of a green screen and no on set. Totally ruined the visuals (which is, in all honesty, the only reason to watch that movie).
Total waste of money. I'm happy with my 24" monitor and DVD drive in my PC (which actually runs up to 1920x1200, higher than Hi-Def).
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
That was how Sony convinced the producers that they had won, by counting PS3's instead of stand alone players. This is no different than some of the Apple people claiming 10% market share but failing to state that it included phones!
Personal account, only one of the circle of friends who has a PS3 have more than two blu ray movies. Most don't even use it to play regular DVDs, it is the "KIDS MACHINE".
HD-DVD loaded faster, have less expensive players, and less expensive movies. It also had some great shows/movies out early that Blu Ray did not. I have both players now, I would have loved HD-DVD to have won. Why? Because of the G-D ads that too many Blu-Ray movies force you to sit through. See, that AD thing is probably another reason movie producers would favor Sony over HD. They could force you to watch their ads for other products because HD stated that that feature was not allowed - not so in Blu-Ray
Well with http://red2blu.com/ I could get the blu-ray versions fairly cheap, but my HD-DVD player is again, faster and less prone to abuse by the dvd creator.
Sony screwed the consumer over by lies and buying off the movie producers. They are getting exactly what they deserve, flat to falling sales. The players are overpriced and worse the movies border on extortionist in pricing. I do not buy new Blu-Ray movies, I rent them on occasion, but if they are higher than standard DVD I will just wait till the price goes down. This has two effects, by the time the price comes down the movie may no longer be interesting to me meaning I didn't need it anyway, the second being that perhaps one day they will get the hint.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The definition was so good that I could see the seperations around the actors and knew exactly when they were in front of a green screen and no on set. Totally ruined the visuals
Movie theaters nowadays use a 1080p or bigger format with an even higher bitrate than Blu-ray Disc. Had you seen the film in a movie theater, might you have noticed the same compositing failures?
YES. Here's the real problem. If you call up the average schmoe with an upconverting DVD player connected to an HDTV and ask him if he has "an HD DVD player" I'd wager that at least three times out of 10 that guy says, "Uh-huh."
Leaving that aside, the linked Web site is trying to make a faulty extrapolation from the data. I own an Xbox HD DVD drive that I haven't powered up since last October, a PS3, maybe three or four HD DVD discs and about 90 Blu-ray titles. And yet I do not own a "Blu-ray player." But if I had responded to this survey, my participation would have been used as evidence that Blu-ray adoption is soft. Nuh-uh.
300 is a bad example. I own it on HD-DVD, and think it looks terrible compared to most movies on either HD-DVD or BR. I hadn't picked up on the green screen obviousness, but I assumed it was likely do to the digital effects. It looks like it was filmed digitally and then they put the film "look" back in.
Watch Dark Knight on Blu Ray sometime -- that looks fantastic.
Why was this modded insightful?
By now, everybody knows that some comments are incorrectly moderated Troll/Offtopic/Flamebait/etc early on, and will eventually be modded correctly.
In fact, I'm starting to wonder if people post things like "Why was this moderated as a 'Troll'?" after good comments, regardless of whether it was actually moderated as a troll, just to piggyback off the comment's success.