My husband Scott and I love watching movies in our home theater and sometimes living room. Our newest addition is the HD DVD player Toshiba HD-XA1 bought last April. Since then, we've enjoyed the crystal clear picture on our 92 inch screen that my husband made. We've mostly rented HD DVD movies from Netflix but have also bought some of our favorite movies to add to our collection of DVDs.
However, the news of the last few weeks has been very sad. It seems that as more movie studios decide they are going with the Blu-ray format, HD DVD has lost the format war. The scuttle butt on the HD websites is that Toshiba is no longer going to make their HD DVD player. That hasn't been officially announced yet, but it probably will be soon. Wal Mart is phasing out what stock of the players and the movies they have and Best Buy will no longer be prominently featuring the HD discs. This makes both my husband and myself sad. Not just because we “bought” into a technology that will be dead, but because it is the better format. We got a good deal on the player, and it is a good DVD player, but we won't be able to use it to its full advantage with new movie releases.
Life is full of examples where a better thing is passed over for a less better thing. What the circumstances were for the Blu-ray winning, I can only speculate. Why the movie studios choose to go with a format that requires buying a more expensive player, or a gaming system that doesn't have a remote for the player (you can purchase separately), and requiring manufacturing companies to buy all new equipment to make the discs is beyond me. I just know that it will be a long time before we can think about purchasing a Blu-ray player and discs. It would be like welcoming the enemy into our home and that's just not right.
Blog for the week of Feb. 18th
4 comments:
I couldn't help noticing that you made that post at 0355 hours. What were you doing up then?
This issue probably has to do with money. Obvious, but most likely true. Whenever the marketplace chooses one product over another, the reason is one of two things-quality, or the bottom line.
My personal theory (without research) is that by switching to an entirely new format, you can force the marketplace to buy an entirely new product. By doing this, you create a new revenue flow as the economy is essentially forced to meet your terms.
In either case, it'll be awhile before I can afford either system......
Hi Mr X,
I was getting ready for work. Sad, but true. My husband and I carpool to Milwaukee on Tuesday and Thursdays and I was waiting for him to finish getting ready so we could leave. You are right that it involves money, and lots of it. Sony is responsible for Blu-ray, and they wanted to advance the Playstation 3. I'm sure money was exchanged to the movie studios to get them to go with the Blu-ray format. That's what really killed HD DVD. The consummer didn't even get to choose. It was chosen for us.
Well, off to work. See you in class!
Heh, a very interesting read.
Blu-Ray stole the show just as VHS dominated Beta. Betas were better, clearly. But VHS won, why? Don't ask me, I'm only 19.
Just look on the bright side. At least you wont have wishy washy format choices.For example these so called 7-in-1 card readers for data storage cards for digital cameras and the like. What a pain.
Thanks Falcon, but sometimes it's nice to have choices in life and in consummerism. Not sure if that's a word or not. I wouldn't be happy if the only vehicle you could buy would be say, a tractor. Yeah, it will get you from point A to point B, but you won't like it. And, the maker of that tractor can set a price point of anything they wish because there is no competition to keep them under control. I'm still hoping another manufacturer will come up with something to take on Blu-ray.
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