Comments Regarding High-Definition DVD
Dear Gary:
Those of us who embraced DVD completely, and have large libraries thereof, know that a bad story is a bad story, no matter how glossy its presentation, and we soon discovered that MOST movies are deemed from mediocre to even failures by one or more viewers in any group of three or more. Therefore, why pay more for them? This problem is made worse by pre-recorded high-definition of any kind (remember high-definition DVHS?). Minor flaws become glaringly obvious, and the premium price paid discourages future buying.
An expensive HD disc of a garbage movie is still garbage. Another way of looking at this is that acquiring a bad movie in high-definition is like using a supersonic aircraft to reach your corner drugstore: it is a wasteful expense. In view of this basic fact, the likelihood of Blu-ray Disc becoming the phenomenon that was DVD is nearly zero. My wife and I have already decided that we will stick with standard DVD until it is no longer being produced. If and when that happens, we will still NOT switch to Blu-ray. Instead, we will download from the Web, or we may just give up. We are now seniors on fixed incomes, and we already own so many DVDs that we can view them repeatedly for years without much chance of being tired. New purchases HAVE to be limited.
We sincerely hope that the movie studios will NOT attempt to stop producing standard-definition DVDs. They will harvest negative publicity so strong that they might kill sales of any and all types of pre-recorded movies. As of 2008, we are willing to spend $5 to $15 per DVD (other than for special extended editions), paying the higher price only for positively reviewed major releases.
High-quality DVDs are sharp and stunning on our 92-inch screen, using an Epson PowerLite Home 10 front projection system, 5.1 surround sound, and high-quality component connection cables. We attain about 525p resolution. Anything beyond that is overkill for us, considering our eyesight limitations. More interesting is the fact that relatives who use a 63-inch high-definition TV system put up with inferior sound, frequent pixelization (especially in the case of broadcast content), and aspect ratios that are almost never right.
I suspect that Blu-ray might, at best, attain the success of LaserDisc® as a niche market for the wealthier videophiles. Whether it will last as long as LaserDisc did, only time will tell. That format’s competition in pre-recorded movies was rented VHS. Blu-ray’s competition will continue to be standard DVD, which is quite adequate for 95 percent or more of all the movies produced.
Replacement of existing DVDs that consumers already own with comparable Blu-ray is out of the question. We ourselves never got around to replacing most of our LaserDiscs with DVDs, and we still resent Pioneer for ceasing production of all LaserDisc players. Old ones are hard (and expensive) to fix. After we lost our Pioneer Elite LaserDisc/DVD player we decided not to buy any Pioneer product again, except to replace the Elite player with their last LaserDisc player production unit. Both of our remaining LaserDisc players saw extensive use during 2007, so though obsolete, they continue being useful.
We were early adopters of VHS, Super VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD. Now that we have mostly been burned regarding older
formats, we have decided that the right attitude is NEVER AGAIN, even if a new format becomes affordable. Paying lip service to retro-compatibility is not enough. The ideal “replacement” DVD system would have been a player capable of recognizing whether a DVD placed on its tray is standard- or high-definition and plays it at its very best. It should be self evident that such a possibility is far beyond Blu-ray’s reach.
Harold A. McAllister
Managing Editor Danny Richelieu Comments:
Every Blu-ray player released is and has been backward compatible with DVD, and each is able to recognize whether the “DVD” placed on its tray is standard- or high-definition. I put DVD in quotes, because neither of the HD optical disc formats are “high-definition DVDs”; HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc are both completely different formats than DVD.
I agree with you that it will be difficult—probably impossible—for Blu-ray Disc to become the phenomenon that was DVD, but DVD was arguably the most successful consumer electronics product to ever be released. It will be tough for anything to be as great of a phenomenon as that again! But does that mean Blu-ray Disc can’t be successful? I believe Blu-ray can be a success, even if it never fully supplants DVD.
But it probably will fully supplant DVD some day, even if (and when) digital downloads become a major source of income for the studios. There will always be consumers who want to buy physical media. I still buy all of my music on CD and vinyl when available, not only because it sounds better than the downloads do, but because I enjoy owning the physical media.
You can rest assured, though, that the studios will not supplant DVD with Blu-ray Disc until DVD is no longer selling well. Even with the great phenomenon of DVD, it took the studios 10 years to stop releasing their movies on VHS.
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