D-VHS Will Never Be Mass Market
Dear Gary: DVDs are only in 1/8 of American households (30 million). They’ll be in 1/2 of American households (125 million) within a few years. The next step is the phase-out of low-end CD players—since low-end DVD players (a) cost only slightly more and (b) do two things. People are perfectly happy with DVDs. When it comes time for a replacement, the replacement will be a disc whose player is backwards compatible—and not a tape. People are NOT, I repeat, NOT, going to give up the random access capability of discs (menus and other goodies), to get a better picture, given the fact that they know that discs can (and will) give a better picture a few years down the line and they are NOT going to buy a machine which won’t play their old DVDs! But that time may be a long way off since DVDs, relative to what went before, are so good, and what comes after is a minor improvement in terms of conveying the essential information contained in the frame to the viewer. D-VHS is nothing but a curiosity which is not worthy of wasting time on. I already know what’s on the frame of the films I see in the best cinemas. I am, thus, interested in methods of conveyance of that info to my household in a more detailed fashion and in a way which is backwards compatible with my collection. LaserDiscs were never a mass media product, so backwards compatibility, although achieved in a few of the more expensive initial players, was never really an issue in the long term. How many LD owners even worry that their collection is obsolete? My DVD collection is several times bigger than my LD collection and I only occasionally look at LDs, which are not on DVD—yet. For the majority of DVD player owners, (a) they love their DVDs, (b) have TV sets which for the most part can’t even resolve all the info on their DVDs, and (c) wouldn’t even give D-VHS a second thought.
Bob Morris
Editor-In-Chief Gary Reber Comments:
ou have a well-taken point, which I don’t dispute. I am simply saying that for serious enthusiasts who love HD, the D-VHS D-Theater platform is a winner and delivers true “HD-plus” picture quality along with the best Dolby Digital surround sound available for movie soundtrack playback. It isn’t expected to become a mass market movie delivery medium, as is DVD, but it can, I believe, at least establish a firm foothold in the way of followers and set a level of performance expectation in the development of a backward compatible HD version of DVD for the future. Until the reality of HD-DVD or another name for an HD optical disc format is here, D-VHS D-Theater serves those enthusiasts who want “the best that it can be.”
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