Blu-ray growth by the numbers. How do you think its doing as a format? (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

The first time I watched a television program broadcast in HD (I believe my first was CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), I knew I would never be able to go back to SD unless there was no alternative available. And I've found that an HDTV actually accentuates the flaws in an SD broadcast (blockiness, false contouring, fuzzy quality instead of razor sharpness).


But, I do know that other people who enjoy TV as much as I don't have as discerning an eye. My neighbors had had their HDTV for about four months and called me over to calibrate it (I really think they wanted to show it off since it was a 70 inch screen and mine wasn't that wide). They were watching a college football game on ABC, but they weren't watching ABC-HD but rather the standard ABC channel with the 4:3 image stretched to fill the 16:9 screen (and they thought that was the way it was SUPPOSED to look!) After showing them where the HD channels were on their cable box, you should have heard the ooohs and ahhhs. They had NO idea they weren't already watching HD. After the calibration, I brought out the Blu-ray player and put on THE SEARCHERS. Mike (the neighbor) went and bought a Blu-ray player the next day.

 

[benbess]

MattH.: Nice story. Sometimes it takes the personal touch to win converts...

 

[Cinescott]

The first time I saw HD was the day I was going to buy a new DVD player. I think it was around 1999 or so (I was on my 2nd). There was a display at the front of the store showing a football game on hi definition tape in 1080i. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen and I don't even like football. The picture was so clear compared to anything that had been available before. I clearly remember being able to read the hats of the people in the stands. As we so often say here, "my jaw dropped."


Everything I had read during the early, early AOL dialup days of the internet confirmed that DVD was transitional, that there would be a hi definition disc format eventually and here we are. Blu-ray is here, 1080p is not unusual and there are people born in this decade that will know little else than super ultra resolution images.