From my experiences online, it seems like there's a higher percentage of geeks with significant problems with Wal-Mart than there is in the rest of the population. Is it possible that that had an effect?
To tell the truth, my main problem with Walmart isn't that they put small business owners out of business anymore, because that's already done. My problem is that buying from Walmart drives up the trade deficit...but just try going to a B&M outfit and NOT buy Chinese. I have a problem with it being Chinese from a human-rights perspective, and from the perspective that, again, buying Chinese drives up the trade deficit since they want us to buy their crap and they won't buy our stuff without it being made there (meaning they get the jobs either way.)
And to get further off topic, that highlights why I get mad as hell when the Neocons go on about illegal immigrants taking "our jobs." Look, corporations are shipping the white-collar jobs to India, the blue-collar jobs to China, and you're worried about Mexicans taking the farmhand jobs and the bottom-of-the-totempole construction jobs? At least the Mexican farmhands have to bother to sneak into America! More than you can say for the Chinese and Indians who really ARE taking our jobs, eh?
Back on-topic:
I bought an Everex StepNote for my wife for Christmas, which shipped with the lowest end version of Vista available. It was terrible, so I installed Kubuntu. Aside from wireless not working properly and the headphone jack requiring a bit of kernel hackery (and of course the Linux Unichrome drivers suck ass), it works pretty darn good. Much zippier than I expected, after seeing how badly Vista was running on the thing. Everex, if you want to get some repeat business, first consider using Intel mobile processors, then think about using a board that uses, say, a mobile Radeon chipset, or at least make sure their kernel includes support for the gpu's mpeg2 decoder...okay, basically, just make sure the darn thing will boot Linux, all the ports work, and that compositing and video playback work on an Ubuntu install. And ditch the gOS concept, please, if you want Ubuntu on a laptop, because having to maintain a wireless Internet connection isn't feasable everywhere yet and saps the average battery to boot. If you need a light OSX-y setup, consider either working XFCE apps into your e17 setup, or consider getting awn applets working with it, and work on hacking some effects into XFCE's compositing system, at the very least a rotating cube and an Exposé effect.
My current desktop running GNOME with Compiz-Fusion, Avant Window Navigator, and Gnome-Do is a perfect model for such a system, but it's probably too much of a resource hog. I am running it on an older eMachine right now (I know, I know; it's been significantly modded, though, including a better PSU) and it works well, but I'm thinking that if Everex sticks with the Via C7s, this may be too much for 'em.
Exactly right; when a person buys a PC with Windows pre-installed, it counts as another install of Windows.
The Microsoft spin-machine is brilliant, though. If your computer came with no operating system at all, then of course it's 100% safe to assume that the copy of Windows that will obviously go on that machine is naturally a pirated copy. There's absolutely no way anyone would ever grab a Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Suse, Fedora, FreeBSD, etc. ISO and install that, because those aren't Windows, right? I mean, the only other remote possibility is that the person is running OSx86, right?
Amen. No, what will actually happen, because it's already happening, is that the BDA will spin this as being entirely Toshiba and Microsoft's fault for cobbling together a HD disc format and getting it to market years before the BDA was ready, thereby necessitating rushing BD players and titles to market, tarnishing the reputation amongst early adopters, and causing manufacturers to drop player prices to sub-$1000 levels before they were ready to. Then, "HD DVD fanboys" will get the blame for continuing the heinous crime of talking about HD DVD as a reason for Blu-Ray's continued lack of adoption speed. Finally, HD DVD will get the blame for forever tarnishing their monopoly on HD physical media, because early consumer confusion killed it, of course.
Hey, if HD DVD had been coated with the BD hard coating, I think it would have been a 100% no brainer--HD DVD. Who cares that HDi was Microsoft? It's just basically XML and JS mixed together, nothing particularly special. The inclusion of VC-1? Blu-Ray has it too. There are no overwhelming advantages or disadvantages to either format, period. And both types of players play DVDs just fine.
Me, I'm keeping my HD DVD player--bought when it was in Oppo price range, though it's much cheaper now, boo hoo--and will buy a BD player when Profile 2.0 takes off and is affordable. Unfortunately, if too many of us take that stance, it never will take off. Whoops.
The argument here is that combo devices wouldn't make sense because HD DVD is obsolete; you're replying to a long list of examples of obsolete, incompatible devices that are still available. I've never seen a combo floppy drive, but I have seen 3.5"/7-in-1 card reader drives. Also, when you go to Wal-Mart, of those VCRs, most of them probably also have a DVD player built in.
Look, it's like this. The HD DVD and Blu-Ray drives use the same laser, same form factor media, same codecs...the players are expensive NOW but that doesn't mean it has to be that way forever. If China sticks with their CH-DVD plan, it's conceivable that you'll see units that, with minor adjustment, will play both BD and HD, along with playing the umpteen gazillion different 5.25" spinning-disc video formats that have come out in the past few years.
I for one could see this as Chinese movie pirates' foot in the door, as well as a vector for imports and cheap high-def manufacturing. Manufacturing HD discs without retooling DVD manufacturing lines was one of the main benefits of the thing; I doubt that studios and production houses will shell out for low-run things like independent movies (especially straight-to-video...c'mon, pervs, there's straight-to-video OUTSIDE of porn) and exercise videos.
Same here. Freak electrical storm took out my TV and DVD/VCR combo, decided I wasn't getting another SDTV, so after spending several hundred dollars on an LCD TV, a little over $150 for a high-def DVD player with 7 movies seemed like a no-brainer. Most the fanboys on teh Intarweb are determined that we need to feel stupid for spending that amount on a player that "won't do real high-def" instead of spending $500+ on a Profile 1.0 BD player, but I think I know who's stupid in this situation. And while I wait for BD to come down to mortal status, I'm using my player as a DVD player (good upscaler in good upscaler price range? you betcha) and grabbing a few titles that are unlikely to be on BD for a while. I might even get an XBox drive so that I can...you know...back my movies up.
Also glad to hear I'm not the only person out there who didn't like "300." *wink*
My A3 takes nearly 30 seconds to boot. Fairly annoying, but I've had decent DVD players that took nearly that long.
And yes, it's useful. 30 seconds to boot vs. 2 hours to watch a movie on average; you do the math. Turn the player on, grab something to drink, then take a movie off the shelf. By then, the thing's on and you're ready to sit down and feel your ass grow.
Regular DVDs look fantastic on it, yes. I would recommend that people not turn on the black and rgb enhancement, though; those features seem to boost ringing artifacts.
Just got Spartacus and 2001 on HD DVD for my birthday. They look and sound unbelievably fantastic.
I know it's the only choice for the future, but don't believe the Blu-Ray hype. Yes, it'll have greater storage capacity; no, it's not that big of a deal. There are only so many bits required to do good 1080p h.264. I know people are acting like, oh wow, look, now that HD DVD is dead, Blu-Ray players will be cheaper and movies will look even better! From what I've seen and been hearing, that's not even close to happening yet.
This WILL bite studios and manufacturers in the ass, mark my words, unless they act quickly and decisively (which means taking a loss.) Doesn't help, either, that Disney's latest catalog "from the vault" release, 101 Dalmatians, is being pushed as a DVD release. All I'm seeing pushed as Blu-Ray releases in mass media are the movies most people would rent, rather than own, anyway. Right now, it's smelling like a massive failtrain, and unless things give in the future, we'll be doomed to a few more years of movies released in 480p.
Re:And now that office mate is . . .
on
Donkey Kong and Me
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You DO know that Bill was a programmer, wrote for the Altair, and had a reputation for writing tight code, right?
Feeling superior towards other classmates does not make up for the education you missed by not cooperating with your peers. Humans are social beings, and the best learning happens in a social context. You learn a lot from seeing others make and correct mistakes. Yes there will be others(or you) that are only asking for fishes, not wanting to fish by themselves. You could help yourself more by explaining how to fish, than to walk away. They might give you a fish later when you are hungry.
Amen! And I'll add: you won't last long in the real world if you don't learn to play well with others.
Can't stand cheaters; I also can't stand arbitrary academic policy.
You jest, but it's true! Emacs really does seem lean compared to its current contemporaries, and I've seen it suggested as a "lean alternative" to modern IDEs.
To make sure it's future-proof as possible, the new name needs to be ETACS.
Well, I can only talk about the A3, because that's what I've got, and that's the one that sold the best.
It'll only do 1080i. Not a problem if you have (like me) a cheaper set.
Another thing: Nearly 40 seconds to boot. Not horrible (it's not a 5-minute wait to play a movie, in other words) but far longer than my first DVD player.
Finally: I had a really anal-retentive JVC DVD player, and it was more permissive than my A3. I have a few home-authored discs that I KNOW are NTSC that the A3 identifies as PAL. For those, I have a cheapo DVD recorder that plays them (but looks like poo.)
Aside from those gripes, it does a fantastic job of playing DVDs. If you have a kickass (read: expensive) TV, you probably don't need an upscaler at all, but if you're like me, the HD DVD player is raftloads better than a DVD player over composite cables.
1. Burn purchased music to CD. 2. Rip with a decent ripper, using lame --preset standard 3. Listen and enjoy. There will be the slightest of loss in quality.
Well, you hit the nail on the head there; most movies just aren't high-def quality even if they're scanned in at a high resolution. Until studios start using HD equipment, or start springing for the process used for the classic Star Wars trilogy, people will feel a little ripped off.
It's equivalent to early DVDs, though. Remember getting some of those early discs and seeing excessive film grain? That was the first thing I thought of when I got my HD DVD player. I've seen the same thing on other peoples' Blu-Ray players as well.
If you're a movie junkie and have to have high def right away, by all means go right ahead. If you don't like staring at crappy transfers, though, you ought to wait.
Having followed it for a while (and I have to say I'm not neutral either, since I own an HD DVD player) and it does sort of suck, especially given that HD DVD was ready to fly in 2006 and Blu-Ray still isn't 100% there yet, but give it a few months and the BDA members will figure out they have to get the prices down and have to compete to get the thing to take off. People like me will make out like bandits. The people I feel sorry for are the people who bought early Blu-Ray players and couldn't really afford it, and are left trying to unload the things on eBay to unsuspecting suckers, since, despite any protestations to the contrary, are basically paperweights (or, if you go for the optimistic HD DVD outlook, great upscalers.)
Personally, I don't feel cheated. I lost a TV to lightning about Christmas time, bought an HDTV, and the player cost much less than an Oppo and looks dern near as good. So I at least have a really nice upscaler until such time I find a BD player I want to get; I'm not in as huge a hurry to get a BD player as companies like Warner would like.;-)
I'm going to stop taking an interest in tech for at least another year or so.
At Christmas time, I had to replace my TV and DVD player. Since HD DVD units were so cheap, I bought one. Less than a week later Warner Brothers announced they were dropping support (by May, but they seem kinda firm about that; then again, they were firm about staying neutral two weeks prior to that...not that that means anything.)
About the time I took an interest in DVD-A discs and started buying (hey, they can play in DVD players, it's a no-brainer, right?), all the local retailers pulled DVD-A off the shelves and went SACD exclusive. A few months after that, of course, they went back to being CD-exclusive.
A while back there was interest in doing county-wide wireless (I live somewhere where Internet service is shoddy.) About the time I took notice, some cable company asshats started a lawsuit. No high-speed internet for me!
(Ditto for Dish's deal with SkyBlue. For whatever reason they only offer it in certain ZIP codes. Whisky, tango, foxtrot, over? It's SATELLITE SERVICE!)
I just got a flyer yesterday for Dish and was seriously considering calling, due to their HD DVR pricing scheme sounding great. Um...wait, looks like a patent troll got their DVR service shut down. And does anyone remember how DirecTV was going to be cheaper than cable? Yeah...right.
So, the TiVo patent runs out in 6 or 7 years, huh? Damn...you mean I have to wait until the middle of the next decade to get in on DVR goodness? No, no, no; I won't be getting a TiVo. Anyone who uses GPLed software yet patent trolls is worse than pond scum.
Not too many people have complained that the Slashdot writeup gets it almost completely wrong...
I for one applaud the NPD Group's efforts to make sure people understand their figures, and understand the trends at work here; unfortunately, Slashdot once again proves that consumers and techies don't like to be bothered with fact.
Explain how HD-DVD was ever going to win, when they always had fewer studios, had worsae media sales the entire time the public could buy Blu-Ray (usually about 2.5:1 advantage to Blu-Ray), and the Blu-Ray format had millions more players going into homes with the PS3. You had fewer consumers, fewer movies, and the only advantage - cheaper hardware - was only going to last a year or two at best as economy of scale brought Blu-Ray prices down to HD-DVD player levels.
I figured that Blu-Ray would lose because 1.) Sony was a heavy-hitter in that arena, 2.) it had the major studio support (due to stronger copy protection), and 3.) Stephen Spielberg sided with Blu-Ray, and in this arena he always picks wrong. Two of those (2 and 3), btw, were true of DivX. I forgot 4.) relied on a gaming platform, a traditionally short-lived media platform, as the major cause of adoption.
In doing so I forgot the lesson of the PS2, which was that sometimes (as with DVD) Sony picks right AND that a gaming platform can cause mass adoption of a movie format.
I still say it was never as clear-cut as people let on. Taking a look at Amazon's numbers suggests that the tide was turning at Christmas time and would likely have continued had Fox and Warner gone HD DVD. But they didn't, so boo-hoo, I can enjoy my DVDs on a great upscaler (my HD DVD player) until buying a BD player makes sense; it's not like I was out any more than I would have paid for a good upscaler.
I know y'all are desperate for people like me to feel stupid about our purchases, but I can't. Not when I made out like a bandit, I can't.
Yeah, my prediction is that BD manufacturers are going to have to follow Toshiba's lead and do the deep discounts just to get their foot in the door. Otherwise, we'll see DVD hang in there for a long while yet. I mean, it doesn't take much arithmetic before the average person feels like an idiot for considering BD right now.
My guess is that if they kill off HD DVD dead in a hurry, by Christmas BD manufacturers are going to be saying, "oh crap oh crap oh CRAP what do we do NOW???" and that thing they'll do is the same desperate cuts that Toshiba made this past Christmas. And it'll work; look up eproductwars' listing on HD DVD vs Blu-Ray and you'll see that HD DVD was (barely) pulling ahead from Thanksgiving to the time of WB's announcement.
Either way, the winning camp has a much larger battle ahead. 93% of whatever small percentage high-def discs have is still a small percentage; don't roll out the barrels yet.
here's no chance it's coming back, not when HD-DVD has 30% of the market
30% of a very small market.
Provided it's truly over, then what Blu has to overcome next is the fact that they have far less than 10% of the movie disc market, and have to overcome DVD sales with players that are 10x the price of a Wally World DVD player, with the requirement of a new TV that's 5x the price of a SDTV, and movies that are 2x the price of DVDs, in a sagging global economy.
Whoever the eventual winner may be (and I agree that it's not quite over yet), I feel sorry for them, I truly do, because it's going to be a hard sell.
Frankly, by waiting you'll make that money back on a cheaper blu-ray player anyway. Too bad they won't exchange your HD-DVD disc for a blu-ray disc, but you are still doing well with the dvd copy.
I'm glad I'm not the only person in the world with this philosophy. Heck, I still have stuff on VHS that at best won't be replaced until the VHS copy no longer plays, and, in some cases, never replaced. I forsee the same happening with my DVDs and HD DVDs; some things I'll get in Blu or whatever comes after that, and some things will just die with the player.
Slashdot Mirror
My current antenna stinks, and since there's fears of a recession, I sure as heck won't plunk down for a dish right now :->
I would agree with this, but the Air is one of the most over-hyped--and over-advertised--laptops ever made.
From my experiences online, it seems like there's a higher percentage of geeks with significant problems with Wal-Mart than there is in the rest of the population. Is it possible that that had an effect?
To tell the truth, my main problem with Walmart isn't that they put small business owners out of business anymore, because that's already done. My problem is that buying from Walmart drives up the trade deficit...but just try going to a B&M outfit and NOT buy Chinese. I have a problem with it being Chinese from a human-rights perspective, and from the perspective that, again, buying Chinese drives up the trade deficit since they want us to buy their crap and they won't buy our stuff without it being made there (meaning they get the jobs either way.)
And to get further off topic, that highlights why I get mad as hell when the Neocons go on about illegal immigrants taking "our jobs." Look, corporations are shipping the white-collar jobs to India, the blue-collar jobs to China, and you're worried about Mexicans taking the farmhand jobs and the bottom-of-the-totempole construction jobs? At least the Mexican farmhands have to bother to sneak into America! More than you can say for the Chinese and Indians who really ARE taking our jobs, eh?
Back on-topic:
I bought an Everex StepNote for my wife for Christmas, which shipped with the lowest end version of Vista available. It was terrible, so I installed Kubuntu. Aside from wireless not working properly and the headphone jack requiring a bit of kernel hackery (and of course the Linux Unichrome drivers suck ass), it works pretty darn good. Much zippier than I expected, after seeing how badly Vista was running on the thing. Everex, if you want to get some repeat business, first consider using Intel mobile processors, then think about using a board that uses, say, a mobile Radeon chipset, or at least make sure their kernel includes support for the gpu's mpeg2 decoder...okay, basically, just make sure the darn thing will boot Linux, all the ports work, and that compositing and video playback work on an Ubuntu install. And ditch the gOS concept, please, if you want Ubuntu on a laptop, because having to maintain a wireless Internet connection isn't feasable everywhere yet and saps the average battery to boot. If you need a light OSX-y setup, consider either working XFCE apps into your e17 setup, or consider getting awn applets working with it, and work on hacking some effects into XFCE's compositing system, at the very least a rotating cube and an Exposé effect.
My current desktop running GNOME with Compiz-Fusion, Avant Window Navigator, and Gnome-Do is a perfect model for such a system, but it's probably too much of a resource hog. I am running it on an older eMachine right now (I know, I know; it's been significantly modded, though, including a better PSU) and it works well, but I'm thinking that if Everex sticks with the Via C7s, this may be too much for 'em.
Exactly right; when a person buys a PC with Windows pre-installed, it counts as another install of Windows.
The Microsoft spin-machine is brilliant, though. If your computer came with no operating system at all, then of course it's 100% safe to assume that the copy of Windows that will obviously go on that machine is naturally a pirated copy. There's absolutely no way anyone would ever grab a Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Suse, Fedora, FreeBSD, etc. ISO and install that, because those aren't Windows, right? I mean, the only other remote possibility is that the person is running OSx86, right?
Amen. No, what will actually happen, because it's already happening, is that the BDA will spin this as being entirely Toshiba and Microsoft's fault for cobbling together a HD disc format and getting it to market years before the BDA was ready, thereby necessitating rushing BD players and titles to market, tarnishing the reputation amongst early adopters, and causing manufacturers to drop player prices to sub-$1000 levels before they were ready to. Then, "HD DVD fanboys" will get the blame for continuing the heinous crime of talking about HD DVD as a reason for Blu-Ray's continued lack of adoption speed. Finally, HD DVD will get the blame for forever tarnishing their monopoly on HD physical media, because early consumer confusion killed it, of course.
Hey, if HD DVD had been coated with the BD hard coating, I think it would have been a 100% no brainer--HD DVD. Who cares that HDi was Microsoft? It's just basically XML and JS mixed together, nothing particularly special. The inclusion of VC-1? Blu-Ray has it too. There are no overwhelming advantages or disadvantages to either format, period. And both types of players play DVDs just fine.
Me, I'm keeping my HD DVD player--bought when it was in Oppo price range, though it's much cheaper now, boo hoo--and will buy a BD player when Profile 2.0 takes off and is affordable. Unfortunately, if too many of us take that stance, it never will take off. Whoops.
Way to call the pot black, kettle...
The argument here is that combo devices wouldn't make sense because HD DVD is obsolete; you're replying to a long list of examples of obsolete, incompatible devices that are still available. I've never seen a combo floppy drive, but I have seen 3.5"/7-in-1 card reader drives. Also, when you go to Wal-Mart, of those VCRs, most of them probably also have a DVD player built in.
Look, it's like this. The HD DVD and Blu-Ray drives use the same laser, same form factor media, same codecs...the players are expensive NOW but that doesn't mean it has to be that way forever. If China sticks with their CH-DVD plan, it's conceivable that you'll see units that, with minor adjustment, will play both BD and HD, along with playing the umpteen gazillion different 5.25" spinning-disc video formats that have come out in the past few years.
I for one could see this as Chinese movie pirates' foot in the door, as well as a vector for imports and cheap high-def manufacturing. Manufacturing HD discs without retooling DVD manufacturing lines was one of the main benefits of the thing; I doubt that studios and production houses will shell out for low-run things like independent movies (especially straight-to-video...c'mon, pervs, there's straight-to-video OUTSIDE of porn) and exercise videos.
Same here. Freak electrical storm took out my TV and DVD/VCR combo, decided I wasn't getting another SDTV, so after spending several hundred dollars on an LCD TV, a little over $150 for a high-def DVD player with 7 movies seemed like a no-brainer. Most the fanboys on teh Intarweb are determined that we need to feel stupid for spending that amount on a player that "won't do real high-def" instead of spending $500+ on a Profile 1.0 BD player, but I think I know who's stupid in this situation. And while I wait for BD to come down to mortal status, I'm using my player as a DVD player (good upscaler in good upscaler price range? you betcha) and grabbing a few titles that are unlikely to be on BD for a while. I might even get an XBox drive so that I can...you know...back my movies up.
Also glad to hear I'm not the only person out there who didn't like "300." *wink*
My A3 takes nearly 30 seconds to boot. Fairly annoying, but I've had decent DVD players that took nearly that long.
And yes, it's useful. 30 seconds to boot vs. 2 hours to watch a movie on average; you do the math. Turn the player on, grab something to drink, then take a movie off the shelf. By then, the thing's on and you're ready to sit down and feel your ass grow.
Regular DVDs look fantastic on it, yes. I would recommend that people not turn on the black and rgb enhancement, though; those features seem to boost ringing artifacts.
Just got Spartacus and 2001 on HD DVD for my birthday. They look and sound unbelievably fantastic.
I know it's the only choice for the future, but don't believe the Blu-Ray hype. Yes, it'll have greater storage capacity; no, it's not that big of a deal. There are only so many bits required to do good 1080p h.264. I know people are acting like, oh wow, look, now that HD DVD is dead, Blu-Ray players will be cheaper and movies will look even better! From what I've seen and been hearing, that's not even close to happening yet.
This WILL bite studios and manufacturers in the ass, mark my words, unless they act quickly and decisively (which means taking a loss.) Doesn't help, either, that Disney's latest catalog "from the vault" release, 101 Dalmatians, is being pushed as a DVD release. All I'm seeing pushed as Blu-Ray releases in mass media are the movies most people would rent, rather than own, anyway. Right now, it's smelling like a massive failtrain, and unless things give in the future, we'll be doomed to a few more years of movies released in 480p.
You DO know that Bill was a programmer, wrote for the Altair, and had a reputation for writing tight code, right?
Feeling superior towards other classmates does not make up for the education you missed by not cooperating with your peers. Humans are social beings, and the best learning happens in a social context. You learn a lot from seeing others make and correct mistakes. Yes there will be others(or you) that are only asking for fishes, not wanting to fish by themselves. You could help yourself more by explaining how to fish, than to walk away. They might give you a fish later when you are hungry.
Amen! And I'll add: you won't last long in the real world if you don't learn to play well with others.
Can't stand cheaters; I also can't stand arbitrary academic policy.
You jest, but it's true! Emacs really does seem lean compared to its current contemporaries, and I've seen it suggested as a "lean alternative" to modern IDEs.
To make sure it's future-proof as possible, the new name needs to be ETACS.
Well, I can only talk about the A3, because that's what I've got, and that's the one that sold the best.
It'll only do 1080i. Not a problem if you have (like me) a cheaper set.
Another thing: Nearly 40 seconds to boot. Not horrible (it's not a 5-minute wait to play a movie, in other words) but far longer than my first DVD player.
Finally: I had a really anal-retentive JVC DVD player, and it was more permissive than my A3. I have a few home-authored discs that I KNOW are NTSC that the A3 identifies as PAL. For those, I have a cheapo DVD recorder that plays them (but looks like poo.)
Aside from those gripes, it does a fantastic job of playing DVDs. If you have a kickass (read: expensive) TV, you probably don't need an upscaler at all, but if you're like me, the HD DVD player is raftloads better than a DVD player over composite cables.
1. Burn purchased music to CD.
2. Rip with a decent ripper, using lame --preset standard
3. Listen and enjoy. There will be the slightest of loss in quality.
Well, you hit the nail on the head there; most movies just aren't high-def quality even if they're scanned in at a high resolution. Until studios start using HD equipment, or start springing for the process used for the classic Star Wars trilogy, people will feel a little ripped off.
It's equivalent to early DVDs, though. Remember getting some of those early discs and seeing excessive film grain? That was the first thing I thought of when I got my HD DVD player. I've seen the same thing on other peoples' Blu-Ray players as well.
If you're a movie junkie and have to have high def right away, by all means go right ahead. If you don't like staring at crappy transfers, though, you ought to wait.
Having followed it for a while (and I have to say I'm not neutral either, since I own an HD DVD player) and it does sort of suck, especially given that HD DVD was ready to fly in 2006 and Blu-Ray still isn't 100% there yet, but give it a few months and the BDA members will figure out they have to get the prices down and have to compete to get the thing to take off. People like me will make out like bandits. The people I feel sorry for are the people who bought early Blu-Ray players and couldn't really afford it, and are left trying to unload the things on eBay to unsuspecting suckers, since, despite any protestations to the contrary, are basically paperweights (or, if you go for the optimistic HD DVD outlook, great upscalers.)
;-)
Personally, I don't feel cheated. I lost a TV to lightning about Christmas time, bought an HDTV, and the player cost much less than an Oppo and looks dern near as good. So I at least have a really nice upscaler until such time I find a BD player I want to get; I'm not in as huge a hurry to get a BD player as companies like Warner would like.
They're determined to look like they support different media, but are determined that people will pay those Blu-Ray rates, aren't they...
Try the Kubuntu release.
I'm going to stop taking an interest in tech for at least another year or so.
At Christmas time, I had to replace my TV and DVD player. Since HD DVD units were so cheap, I bought one. Less than a week later Warner Brothers announced they were dropping support (by May, but they seem kinda firm about that; then again, they were firm about staying neutral two weeks prior to that...not that that means anything.)
About the time I took an interest in DVD-A discs and started buying (hey, they can play in DVD players, it's a no-brainer, right?), all the local retailers pulled DVD-A off the shelves and went SACD exclusive. A few months after that, of course, they went back to being CD-exclusive.
A while back there was interest in doing county-wide wireless (I live somewhere where Internet service is shoddy.) About the time I took notice, some cable company asshats started a lawsuit. No high-speed internet for me!
(Ditto for Dish's deal with SkyBlue. For whatever reason they only offer it in certain ZIP codes. Whisky, tango, foxtrot, over? It's SATELLITE SERVICE!)
I just got a flyer yesterday for Dish and was seriously considering calling, due to their HD DVR pricing scheme sounding great. Um...wait, looks like a patent troll got their DVR service shut down. And does anyone remember how DirecTV was going to be cheaper than cable? Yeah...right.
So, the TiVo patent runs out in 6 or 7 years, huh? Damn...you mean I have to wait until the middle of the next decade to get in on DVR goodness? No, no, no; I won't be getting a TiVo. Anyone who uses GPLed software yet patent trolls is worse than pond scum.
Not too many people have complained that the Slashdot writeup gets it almost completely wrong...
I for one applaud the NPD Group's efforts to make sure people understand their figures, and understand the trends at work here; unfortunately, Slashdot once again proves that consumers and techies don't like to be bothered with fact.
I figured that Blu-Ray would lose because 1.) Sony was a heavy-hitter in that arena, 2.) it had the major studio support (due to stronger copy protection), and 3.) Stephen Spielberg sided with Blu-Ray, and in this arena he always picks wrong. Two of those (2 and 3), btw, were true of DivX. I forgot 4.) relied on a gaming platform, a traditionally short-lived media platform, as the major cause of adoption.
In doing so I forgot the lesson of the PS2, which was that sometimes (as with DVD) Sony picks right AND that a gaming platform can cause mass adoption of a movie format.
I still say it was never as clear-cut as people let on. Taking a look at Amazon's numbers suggests that the tide was turning at Christmas time and would likely have continued had Fox and Warner gone HD DVD. But they didn't, so boo-hoo, I can enjoy my DVDs on a great upscaler (my HD DVD player) until buying a BD player makes sense; it's not like I was out any more than I would have paid for a good upscaler.
I know y'all are desperate for people like me to feel stupid about our purchases, but I can't. Not when I made out like a bandit, I can't.
Yeah, my prediction is that BD manufacturers are going to have to follow Toshiba's lead and do the deep discounts just to get their foot in the door. Otherwise, we'll see DVD hang in there for a long while yet. I mean, it doesn't take much arithmetic before the average person feels like an idiot for considering BD right now.
My guess is that if they kill off HD DVD dead in a hurry, by Christmas BD manufacturers are going to be saying, "oh crap oh crap oh CRAP what do we do NOW???" and that thing they'll do is the same desperate cuts that Toshiba made this past Christmas. And it'll work; look up eproductwars' listing on HD DVD vs Blu-Ray and you'll see that HD DVD was (barely) pulling ahead from Thanksgiving to the time of WB's announcement.
Either way, the winning camp has a much larger battle ahead. 93% of whatever small percentage high-def discs have is still a small percentage; don't roll out the barrels yet.
Same here. Only overpriced if you miss the pirate-friendly features of a comparably-priced upconverter; otherwise, it's a darn good upconverter.
Guess you won't be buying a Blu-Ray player either, then, since the same WMV tech that's in HD DVD players is in Blu-Ray players.
30% of a very small market.
Provided it's truly over, then what Blu has to overcome next is the fact that they have far less than 10% of the movie disc market, and have to overcome DVD sales with players that are 10x the price of a Wally World DVD player, with the requirement of a new TV that's 5x the price of a SDTV, and movies that are 2x the price of DVDs, in a sagging global economy.
Whoever the eventual winner may be (and I agree that it's not quite over yet), I feel sorry for them, I truly do, because it's going to be a hard sell.
I'm glad I'm not the only person in the world with this philosophy. Heck, I still have stuff on VHS that at best won't be replaced until the VHS copy no longer plays, and, in some cases, never replaced. I forsee the same happening with my DVDs and HD DVDs; some things I'll get in Blu or whatever comes after that, and some things will just die with the player.