Originally posted by: Number20
But if you look at the percentages of homes with HDTV in the US and the current market growth rate, you will see that adoption is going at a snails pace at best. It has been said that at current rates, it will take 20 to 30 years for over 60% of US households to have HDTV.
Bolded for emphasis. Adoption rates will pick up as prices continue to drop. And within five years, every TV sold at retail will be HD compatible.
Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
(BTW, it just occured to me: I've not seen much talk about the sound formats that HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will use. Anyone care to clue me in? AC3, PCM, Meridian Lossless packaging?)
[EDIT] I will say this. On my last trip to Fry's, I saw HD-DVD releases, and they looked rather interesting. However, when I went to the DVD player section, there were no HD-DVD players. At best, I saw players that would upconvert to 720P. Has anyone done any research on those? (not that I intend to spend money on a stopgap technology, but I was just curious.)
But if you look at the percentages of homes with HDTV in the US and the current market growth rate, you will see that adoption is going at a snails pace at best. It has been said that at current rates, it will take 20 to 30 years for over 60% of US households to have HDTV.
Bolded for emphasis. Adoption rates will pick up as prices continue to drop. And within five years, every TV sold at retail will be HD compatible.
Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
(BTW, it just occured to me: I've not seen much talk about the sound formats that HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will use. Anyone care to clue me in? AC3, PCM, Meridian Lossless packaging?)
[EDIT] I will say this. On my last trip to Fry's, I saw HD-DVD releases, and they looked rather interesting. However, when I went to the DVD player section, there were no HD-DVD players. At best, I saw players that would upconvert to 720P. Has anyone done any research on those? (not that I intend to spend money on a stopgap technology, but I was just curious.)
Initial releases will most likely feature standard DD/DTS soundtracks to maintain compatibility with older audio equipment. Every release needs to have DD for this very reason. I think the most popular codecs used on HD-DVD and BluRay after production ramps up will be the new lossless codecs from Dolby (Dolby TrueHD) and DTS (DTS-HD).
The only HD-DVD players out right now are Toshiba's. At Best Buy, they set up a special endcap with a Westinghouse 1080p LCD to demo the material. It's really nice. BluRay is launching next month, and I'm curious to see how the marketing compares to HD-DVD's, which is dreadful. Samsung's player is coming out next month with LG, Pioneer, Panasonic, and Sony following with BluRay players in August/September.