Great article on all the post format war doomsaying... (1 Viewer)

[Douglas Monce]

I never thought that prices would go down right away. But I was taken back when the prices actually went up. I was at Fry's Electronics the week that Toshiba announced they would no longer support HD DVD. That very week the sticker price on their blu-ray films, which had for the most part been $19.95, went up to $24.95. And they are still going up. Some of them are pushing $30 now and I'm not talking just Fox titles either.

It was pretty obvious that they had decided that now that there was no competition, they could charge a higher price.

Now I know that the MSRP didn't change, but frankly MSRP is irrelevant. What counts is what is actually coming out of my pocket.

Doug

 

[Brandon Conway]

Well then, complain to Fry's that their prices aren't competitive.

 

[Douglas Monce]

But thats just the point. Fry's prices are still competitive because the prices have gone up everywhere.

Doug

 

[Robert Crawford]

Not everywhere.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Com'on, Cees. I was speaking to his rather inflamatory approach to this discussion right from the get-go and then side-stepping and backtracking at his convenience, etc. (w/out ever actually conceding any points nor reasonably addressing others' counterpoints) and all the while being quite condescending accusing people of being "disingenious" and then backtracking to "naive" and now "Pollyanna" despite claiming we should agree to disagree. And this is not the only time he's been this aggressive w/ this topic.

Anyway, perhaps I did overreact a bit. Maybe it was his "disingenious" remark, and his less than truly apologetic backtrack to "naive" that got to me. Still, there are folks that like to go trolling through enthusiast forums around the net, and this would be one hot topic for them...

_Man_

 

[Professor_Echo]

I honestly think you have not only misinterpreted just about everything I've posted in this thread, but apparently my "long history" of not being friendly on HTF forums. I'm not sure how less than thirty posts in two years causes one to draw that conclusion, but so be it.

I gave up on message board arguing/debating long ago. My posts on this thread have not been inflammatory, but relatively insightful and certainly detached to the point of being as objective as I could be in assessing the situation and the topic at hand.

I'm sorry you seem to be applying your own agenda to everything I wrote and reading into it with commensurate bias, but that's your privilege. Still if it truly has reached the point where you can no longer see beyond that, then please do ignore me.

These forums should be polite enough to include everyone's point-of-view whether or not it addresses your every concern or fulfills your expectations at all times. I don't think it's fair to call someone a troll or suggest that they are in "bad form" simply because they don't conform to the standards set by a select few. None of my posts have violated any of the rules set forth by HTF, so if you continue to have a problem with what I have to say and the way I say it, please make your life easier and stop reading them.

I'm sorry it's reached this point, but I will no longer respond to your posts. I recommended we agree to disagree and now I'm going to follow my own advice and leave you to your own pursuits with no hard feelings on my end whatsoever.

 

[TravisR]

I certainly don't think you've behaved in an inflammatory way and you haven't done anything other than state your opinion. That being said, your opinion relating to this topic certainly seems to have a "Blu Ray is doomed!" bias to it (and other people have a "Blu Ray is going to be massively succesful" bias as well). Maybe you're right but it's pretty early to be saying that it's going to be a failure.

 

[Professor_Echo]

EDITED FOR REDUNDANCY: See next post. Is there a way to delete a post?

 

[Professor_Echo]

I acknowledge that my posts could indeed be read as having the bias you suggest, but I really don't see myself as having an agenda one way or the other. I'm basing my opinions on my own set of deductive reasoning and relatively educated forecasting, which can, I admit, tend to lean toward the cynical. The latter could definitely yield somewhat of an "agenda," but it's not always or necessarily an accurate one with regards to the way I truly feel. And how does that differ from most everyone else who has posted on this thread? Don't we all have an inherent bias that can insinuate itself despite our best intentions?

I believe I stated somewhere earlier in the thread that at the present time and in the foreseeable future the lack of titles in the BD canon make it a tough sell for me. I work as a film historian, writer and teacher and my investment in same cannot be fulfilled by only watching films of the past 20 years. This was expressed more in depth in the earlier post. Combine that with some expertise in corporate thinking and marketing processes, along with some general observation and deduction about the changing faces of technology and, yes, you could indeed come up with an agenda. As such I concede that my posts may not have been as objective as I planned, but at the end of the day I just don't see where in any of my posts I ever indicated that anything was FACT. It was MY OPINION and CONJECTURE every bit as much as anyone else's who has posted here.

But I will admit that as soon as my love/hate DVD company ALPHA makes the leap to Blu-Ray, I'm there, dude!

 

[TravisR]

So are the people who think that Blu Ray will eventually become successful. Their guess is just different than yours. I don't think you have an agenda but when your opinion is at odds with most people's here, you have to expect some resistance to your posts. In other words, coming into an HD thread and saying that Blu Ray probably isn't going to make it isn't going to be a popular opinion.

 

[Paul_Scott]

...rewording

 

[Gregory Vaughan]

Your blind optimism is another's reasonable supposition. At this point the evidence just isn't in to know whether the end of the format war will make a difference in people buying decisions or not. I know I never considered an HD player before the war ended, but bought one last month at least knowing all new HDM releases would be in that format. I assume I'm not the only one, but who knows at this point how many people will follow. However, I made the decision based on what I considered to be a well reasoned hypothesis.

We'll see soon enough what the post format war landscape looks like, but at this point it's all pretty much guesses. Anybody who thinks they can confidently predict what's going to happen is deluding themselves.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Thing is I haven't seen any data to lead me to believe there is widespread dissatifaction with 480p in dvds amongst mainstream consumers now. Nor do I think there is suddenly likely to be in 18 months (when bd players should hit sub $200 price points). All my experience suggests just the opposite- HDMs as a solution to a problem few outside even this sub-forum have. Are other people here really seeing signs to the contrary?

 

[Douglas Monce]

Well I think the industry sees a problem in the fall off of sales of SD DVD. I'm not totally sure however if it is really a fall off, or if sales are just not increasing a the rate they once were.

Its like the box office a few years ago when every one was saying that Hollywood had gone bust. Well the fact of the matter was that the box office was up from the year before, just not up as much as it had been in years past.

Doug

 

[Gregory Vaughan]

I just don't think there needs to be dissatisfaction with standard dvd for HDM to be successful. If you're buying an HDTV, you might as well have an HD player, there's nothing to lose. All that has to happen for it to be successful is for prices to drop. Since I assume they want it to be successful, I'm assuming they will aggressively pursue dropping prices.

 

[Robert Crawford]

There you go. The folks I helped buy new HDTVs almost bought BR players, but were turned off by the pricing of software and hardware, but that doesn't mean if the costs come down some, they won't change their minds especially after viewing HD material on their new displays for a while. There isn't a HD broadcast yet that I viewed that looks as good as the best HDM presentations I've ever watched.

 

[Marc Colella]

You lose portability - and to many people that's a big deal.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

No hard feelings now. And again, my sincere apologies for needlessly escalating the matter.

_Man_

 

[RobertR]

Sounds like ultimately we'd have to have BR players for cars, bedrooms, etc., which means they'd have to be a lot cheaper.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Was there really quite that much dissatisfaction w/ VHS and LD though before DVD came along (and was promoted heavily to the masses)? Sure, I agree people were probably more dissatisfied w/ VHS back then, but I never heard anyone (not an enthusiast) think out loud that they wished for a better format. But yes, I do agree that the VHS->DVD move is a definitely bigger one than DVD->BD/HDM.

And amongst folks who do buy biggish HDTVs, I often hear about how disappointing SD material (even DVD) looks when they go from a 27-32" 4x3 TV to a >=mid-40" HDTV. Well, some do eventually get used to it, but I suspect many of them can be won over by good quality HDM. Certainly, there's gonna be a real push toward HD programming on cable/sat. And will the majority of people still be satisfied enough w/ DVD after they get used to HD for much of their regular programming? Maybe, or maybe not quite.

Sure, I wouldn't expect BD to ever win over the masses like DVD has. But it's really a big unknown how far BD can actually go, assuming the studios and CE companies to get too greedy and mess it up. And I think that as enthusiasts we *should* try our best to help BD succeed for our *own* good, if nobody else's. I mean what exactly is the alternative anyway?? And it most certainly would not help (but would make things worse) to be overly cynical about the situation as that would just scare people off and turn the "doomsaying" into a self-fulfulling prophecy...

_Man_