Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Industry/Retailer/Studio Support Thread
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Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet
What was the other format that competed year after year with DVD to drive prices down? (hint... it wasn't the flash-in-the-pan DIVX)
Why... it was *other* DVD players. Intra-format competition. As long as you have more than one company making players... they'll compete with each other. Same with Compact Disc. Remember, both DVD and CD players first hit consumers @ $1K. Prices quickly fell over the next few years.
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Granted. It's funny but I've just realized that my introduction and buying into DVD is almost virtually the same as my buying into HDM.
Let me explain. When DVD was introduced I, like most people, were put off by the high cost of the hardware($500) and lack of titles. But within a few months prices quickly became affordable. My first player was a Toshiba 2nd or 3rd generation player and priced at about $240. I bought in. I always thought DVD titles, if you shopped around, were easily affordable. DVD did have competition in it's early history..the Laserdisc format. Not much competition I grant you but for aspiring video enthusiasts it was a no brainer to choose between the two. Laserdisc hardware was still expensive and the average cost of a DVD title when compared to the same Laserdisc title was 1/3rd the cost. VHS was also still popular but so technically inferior as to not even be funny. DVD's introduction couldn't have been timed any better.
Skip ahead a few years. I thought the $500 Toshiba A1 was way to expensive for my taste so I waited. Well...I didn't have to wait to long before Toshiba lowered the price of their A2 to $245 in June. Needless to say...I am a Toshiba fan!!!! My 1080p TV is Toshiba. This laptop I'm typing on is a Toshiba. Quality products at an affordable price.
I don't think you can say with any certainty that, in a single format entertainment system, there will always be competitive pricing among that formats manufacturers. I think it depends a great deal on the POPULARITY of the format. Again, using Laserdisc as an example, there was no concerted effort made by any Laserdisc hardware or software manufacturers to reduce pricing to an affordable level. Why? Obviously because the Laserdisc format did not gain mass acceptance. It wasn't in their interests to reduce prices nor was their any motivation to do so. This was not the case with the POPULAR DVD format. Competition between DVD hardware and software manufacturers worked beautifully and ideally.
That Toshiba was instumental and a major player in lowering the introductory costs of BOTH HD formats is indisputable. I hate to think what would have happened if Toshiba had gone under during the "blitz." I fear that Blu-ray would have started down the LD trail with manufacturers, hardware and software, pricing their products on the high end of the spectrum with no fear of competition, even amongst themselves, thus assuring that HD would remain just a niche product.
I say it again. For HDM to take the next step to mass acceptance, low pricing is crucial and the way to achieve low pricing is through format competition. End of rant.
But there's controversy even among high end audiophiles (I've seen the debates).
