HD-DVD Players/Media

When are HD-DVD players going to start hitting the streets? I am thinking
about getting the new Samsung 1080i upscale with DVI outputs if it is going
to be a while.

Big Orange

BiG_Orange

"BiG_Orange" <@>,"BiG_Orange" <@> says...
> When are HD-DVD players going to start hitting the streets?

Stand alone players, with studios releases on disk available to the
public? It will be years from now. The technology isn't the hangup. The
studios simply will wait for two reasons:

1) The existing DVD format is doing so well there is no incentive to
confuse the marketplace and screw things up.

2) Piracy concerns. Hell, the studios won't even let HBO and Showtime
have all the good films for their HD channels. They aren't about to let
easily reproduced discs out into the market with HD movies until they
have a much better copy protection system.

Mark Spatny

in article , Mark Spatny
at wrote on 10/19/03 10:41 PM:

> "BiG_Orange" <@>,"BiG_Orange" <@> says...
>> When are HD-DVD players going to start hitting the streets?
>
> Stand alone players, with studios releases on disk available to the
> public? It will be years from now. The technology isn't the hangup. The
> studios simply will wait for two reasons:
>
> 1) The existing DVD format is doing so well there is no incentive to
> confuse the marketplace and screw things up.

Introducing HD-DVD titles would in no way risk the success of DVD. On the
contrary, it would fix some of the things wrong with DVD from a studio point
of view.

Pretty simple really, just release High Definition versions at higher
prices. This can be done with new titles and old, just as long as they're
the big titles...Matrix, Terminator, etc...

The industry would love to be able to sell multiple versions at different
price points and times for the same title. They do this already.

The beauty is that there would be no need to push into HD, and the market
that already exists today is far more affluent and willing to spend more
money per title if it's HD. So prices for HD could be much higher and
eventually reach a point of acceptance where titles were exclusive to HD,
but still be higher priced than if they had been released on DVD.

It would be one thing if HD-DVD players did not play old DVDs, but that's
not going to happen.

Granted, the average person is stupid, but not so stupid that the
overwhelming majority are going to be confused by packaging that clearly
promotes the DVD as High Definition along with the higher price.

Plus, there's the issue of being one of the first titles available. If your
HD-DVD is the one being shown in showrooms, you'll get more sales of the
title (even in old DVD format).

Overall, there's a lot of competition out there as well as a good sense for
HD being inevitable. There's no way they're going to turn down an
opportunity for more revenue as well as more revenue per disk.

> 2) Piracy concerns. Hell, the studios won't even let HBO and Showtime
> have all the good films for their HD channels. They aren't about to let
> easily reproduced discs out into the market with HD movies until they
> have a much better copy protection system.

That's yet another argument in favor of moving to HD-DVD. DVD no longer has
copy protection, it is lost and more importantly GONE FOREVER.

With HD-DVD they can use better copy protection, which does exist. Even if
they used the same method as before, it would still help due to the size of
the titles. Today, it's pretty easy to download any DVD title off the Net.
If it's a single layer, you can download a bit perfect copy of the disk in
the background in as little as a day or two. If it's dual layer, you can
get a bit perfect copy of the movie without extras in about the same time.

HD-DVD disks would be inherently harder to share due to the file sizes
involved.

Studios could easily insist that additional hardware-based copy protection
exists. It will never be 100% secure of course, but it's very possible to
reduce piracy to a point where it's not significant to the bottom line.

MR_ED_of_Course

Your arguments sound logical, but sadly do not represent the current
thinking of the studios. It's a fact that the studios have HUGE
reservations about releasing HD content. They are not going to do it
until the hardware copyright protections are resolved. Perhaps you
haven't been reading about how the studios are trying to pressure the
government into madating copyright technology for all HD capable
systems, including disc, tape, and broadcast - even displays. Their big
threat has been that they will not release more HD programming until the
government mandates a copyright sceme that they like, and force
manufacturers to use it.

Since none of the hardware manufacturers and the studios can agree on a
protection scheme to implement, and nothing short of an act of Congress
is going to change that, you won't see HD-DVD anytime soon.

You should watch this issue more. If the studios had their way, almost
all HD displays would be obsolete, because the copyright protection
system that the studios want implemented would specifically NOT output a
signal compatable with the current component standard, unless the
pictures going to the component connectors is downrezzed to 480P. For
HD, you'd need to go buy a display with the proper DVI connector.

Not good.

Mark Spatny

Mark Spatny wrote:

> Your arguments sound logical, but sadly do not represent the current
> thinking of the studios. It's a fact that the studios have HUGE
> reservations about releasing HD content.

And there is no particular financial penalty for them to delay. They are
making money, hand over fist, with DVD. When DVD hits the saturation
point (another year or two) and, sometime after that, people start
ignoring DVD releases, as they started ignoring VHS releases, you might
see some movement from the studios.

It's the electronics manufacturers that want to release HD-DVD. DVD
players are a commodity item (they may hit $30 this Christmas cycle) and
there is virtually no profit left in selling the hardware.

Matthew

--
<http://www.mlmartin.com/bbq/>

Thermodynamics For Dummies: You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't get out of the game.

Matthew L. Martin

Matthew L. Martin, says...

> DVD
> players are a commodity item (they may hit $30 this Christmas cycle)

I have one in my office, for which I paid $35 at Best Buy. So we are
almost there!

Mark Spatny

"Matthew L. Martin" <> wrote in message

> It's the electronics manufacturers that want to release HD-DVD. DVD
> players are a commodity item (they may hit $30 this Christmas cycle) and
> there is virtually no profit left in selling the hardware.

Not to mention all those wonderful HDTV TV's waiting for someone to
buy them. Not much of a selling point when there is no media available
for them and a lot of people still can't even get HDTV broadcast
content.

-Eric

Eric R.

Eric R. wrote:
> "Matthew L. Martin" <> wrote in message
>
>
>>It's the electronics manufacturers that want to release HD-DVD. DVD
>>players are a commodity item (they may hit $30 this Christmas cycle) and
>>there is virtually no profit left in selling the hardware.
>
>
> Not to mention all those wonderful HDTV TV's waiting for someone to
> buy them.

HDTVs are selling quite well. It's getting difficult to find/buy NTSC
only RPTVs at this point.

> Not much of a selling point when there is no media available
> for them and a lot of people still can't even get HDTV broadcast
> content.

Haven't been keeping up with HD developments? Almost everyone in the US
can receive HDTV. It's a matter of getting them to buy the equipment.

Matthew

--
<http://www.mlmartin.com/bbq/>

Thermodynamics For Dummies: You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't get out of the game.

Matthew L. Martin

"Eric R." <> wrote in message
news: om...

> Not to mention all those wonderful HDTV TV's waiting for someone to
> buy them. Not much of a selling point when there is no media available
> for them and a lot of people still can't even get HDTV broadcast
> content.

I think this will be a tag of war between hardware and software makers.
Hardware makers can no longer make money from selling DVD players and other
NTSC equipment so they are going to push HDTV as much as possible. At the
same time, as long as people are buying DVDs by the dozens, what is the
incentive for the studios to move forward to HD-DVD?

The key player in this war is Sony who is both a hardware and software
maker. Sony is bleeding blood in the hardware business, lossing money to
its cheaper rivals like Apex or even Samsung.

Goldfinger

in article JPxlb.6569137$, Goldfinger at
wrote on 10/22/03 8:59 AM:

>
> "Eric R." <> wrote in message
> news: om...
>
>> Not to mention all those wonderful HDTV TV's waiting for someone to
>> buy them. Not much of a selling point when there is no media available
>> for them and a lot of people still can't even get HDTV broadcast
>> content.
>
> I think this will be a tag of war between hardware and software makers.
> Hardware makers can no longer make money from selling DVD players and other
> NTSC equipment so they are going to push HDTV as much as possible. At the
> same time, as long as people are buying DVDs by the dozens, what is the
> incentive for the studios to move forward to HD-DVD?
>
> The key player in this war is Sony who is both a hardware and software
> maker. Sony is bleeding blood in the hardware business, lossing money to
> its cheaper rivals like Apex or even Samsung.

I think it's important to realize the difference between broadcast HD and
HD-DVD. With broadcast, it's a decision of HD for a smaller audience or
standard for a larger audience. The revenue per viewer difference is
intangible at best.

With DVD, there is no either or decision to be made. Both can be released,
and the HD-DVD version can be significantly priced higher to the market more
likely to pay a premium for it.

I agree, Sony is going to be a leader, but I'd also expect Warner to be at
the forefront again.

It will be a snowball effect starting with expensive HD-DVD decks and only a
few titles being tested, and it will grow...just not nearly as rapidly as
the phenomenal growth DVDs experienced.

MR_ED_of_Course