I never said I didn't see the use in it. It sounds great to me, but in reality it probably won't go far.
Uhm, yes, they do. This is precisely why laserdisc remained a niche product, versus the inferior picture of VHS. This is also why Netflix is such a booming business.
Laserdisc remained a niche product because it didn't offer people a substansial enough upgrade from VHS.
You are presuming they won't. Have you seen the numbers for home theater sales for the past 5 years, or projected sales for the next 5. I mean, who really needs 5.1, right? Most people don't even have their systems set up correctly.
And what exactly about HD-DVD will they want to upgrade for? It offers no benefits over DVD except for better picture quality. That's simply not enough.
Only Blue-Ray requires a new player. The other standard is backwards-compatible. Of course, there's always Joe Kane's idea of adding the HD information to the already-SD info of a standard DVD. Old players play the 480P, and newer players could read the 720/1080 info. Best of both worlds.
They are backwards compatible, but not in that way. Today's DVD players have too wide of a laser to read the information on HD-DVDs. A good analogy would be a guy with fat fingers trying to press buttons on a smaller cell. They are backwards compatible meaning that HD-DVD players can read SD-DVDs.
Most DVD players used to cost several thousand dollars. Now you can get them for 50 bucks at the local drug store. Do you get out much?
Thanks for the insult. I'm well aware of the cost of DVD players. We're talking HD-DVD though. They're not the same thing.
HD-DVD uses VC-9 and MPEG-4.
HD-DVD will actually use WMV 9, MPEG-4 and MPEG-2
My TV isn't digital anyway. Commonfolk like me won't see a need to upgrade at all.
Thank you for proving my point.
And you're all forgetting that it doesn't matter what technology we have to do it. Companies have no reason to upgrade at all. DVD is a huge seller, and as of now they don't see the point in rushing to upgrade.