Some Blu-Ray, HD DVD Discs Sell Only 200 Copies 214
An anonymous reader writes "Much has been made of the strong sales for some recent high-def disc releases (such as 'Casino Royale' on Blu-ray), but a new Sony research report reveals some startlingly low sales numbers for other titles released on the next-gen formats. When disc sales of under 1000 can land you on a weekly best-sellers list, you know your format is in its infancy."
Similar to Vista. (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I talking about Vista or HD-DVD/Blu-ray?
Re:Similar to Vista. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also laden with high prices. The most expensive conventional DVD's (with few exceptions) are priced in the $18-$22 range. The average price of DVD's I pick up are under $12 each.
The HD DVD's listed are in the $20-$40 range. When DVD's are good enough, doubling or tripling the price is going to slow adoption. The old Laserdisk format came with the promise to drop in price to below VHS. (When VHS was $20 each for blank tape)
Due to the requirement for the format to be DRM free and the higher quality, the studios simply refused to release content except at very high royalty rates. The promise of lower prices never materialized. (much like LP's and CD's) DVD's finaly started to drop enough in price to gain market acceptance over VHS.
It is here all over again. New format, high prices, good enough format in the channel. Unless someone does something to kickstart the format like a good price war, things are going to have a slow start. DRM is going to slow it even further as the restrictions on ripping to the kids Zen or iPod video and to Media Center PC's cripple the functionality.
You have a new format at higher prices that does less than your old format. A higher quality picture is nice, but the price (dollars and function loss) is kinda steep.
Re: Similar to Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
I think (and hope) future movie discs will have even more commentary tracks, and extras. Already DVDs are a great value, once one has filtered out the 98% of movies that suck. I look forward to Lawrence of Arabia with twice the quality of the current two-DVD package, and one or more commentary tracks. HD "Stuck On You", not so much.
I hope also, perhaps unrealistically, that the commentary tracks are also available in an unencumbered form (even if at super low quality) so I can listen to them while I commute, and work. I can dream, can't I?
Re: Similar to Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I expect to see this at about the same time as I see the entire Beatles catalog released on an MP3 CD at 192 Kbs ready to load into your iPod, Zen, iRiver, or Zune. (not counting the release in the flea market from someone's trunk)
The ability to put more data content on a single disk does not mean they will. HD will be reserved for HD content, not collections of SD shows. CD's will be reserved for CD format audio (with a few exceptions of extra DRM digital tracks and DRM player for your Windows PC. To fit on the redundant tracks, the digital content is at low bitrates and the CD holds less music to make space.)
Re: Similar to Vista (Score:4, Interesting)
A DVD like "The Corporation" is quite amazing for how much is jammed on it -- 6 hours of interviews plus a 2 hour movie, all on a "2 hour" DVD. And recently companies are putting out 2 movies on one DVD -- "48HRS / Another 48HRS" comes to mind. In an HD world this could be "Batman 1 2 3 4 5" on one HD disc. Sure it wouldn't be the special editions, but it would still be handy for a Batman marathon (even though I only really like the first and last ones. I'm more likely to have a Lethal Weapon, Robert De Niro, Mel Gibson or David Fincher marathon.)
I see the movie studios responding to the market better than the record companies. Yes DVDs started off ridiculously expensive, but now they are ridiculously cheap (unless you like the BBC). Also, the special editions have become the standard editions in many cases. Called double dipping when done too soon after the first release, this is a huge value add and I love it. Run a search on Amazon (I did 500 such searches recently when I was updating my favorite movies page [just-think-it.com]) and you will be amazed at the value.
Like buying a new machine in 2006 to forestall having Vista rammed down their throat, now is a great time to stock up on DVDs. And I think the same will be true with HD discs in a few years. No they probably won't be unencumbered, but they will bring value and I will probably get an HD player. Beethoven's 9 symphonies alone were enough to get me to buy a CD player.
I still like the idea that some portion of HD content is unencumbered. I think it is natural that the more time-consuming stuff to listen to (face it, you never need to watch the extras) like "Making ofs" and director commentaries be available in MP3 form. Make it 24kbps or something, I would be more than happy with that. While you are at it, ban the group commentaries -- those truly suck. If someone has something to say, use all that space to put it on a separate track, or at least manage it like the excellent Bond Double Oh 7 editions do.
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This is not a blanket rule; listen to the Futurama commentaries, for example.
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Re: Similar to Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Similar to Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
I may well be in the minority here - but when I buy a DVD, 99 times out of 100, I have no interest in the extras and commentary. I buy it to watch the movie. That 1 time out of 100, I'll buy the collectors edition.
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Yeah but then you'd miss some really funny things like the waxing scene from 40 Year Old Virgin... The outtakes on that scene were worth the expense of buying the DVD from the Previously Viewed section at my video store...
Re:Similar to Vista. (Score:4, Interesting)
A good many of those have poor transfers also. In fact, after recently purchasing a hi-def television, I've begun to notice drastic differences in picture quality between different dvd's. The tendency seems to be $10 for crappy transfers, $15-$20 for hi-def remasters. Of course, nearly any DVD from Criterion will be around $30. So, the price isn't that big of an issue for me.
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I've notice that for older films. This is especialy true for DVD's under $2. As a collector of the cartoons I grew up with, 2 hours of early animation at $99cents a copy is a much better value to me than 1950's rock and roll at $12.95 for 48 minutes of stuff.
Let's face it. I can buy a fairly recent (less than 5 years old) DVD for less than $6 new. Ice age and Ever After I just picked up at the grocery store for 5.95 each. Have you checked the price on 20 yea
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DRM is only a concern to maybe 0.01% of the market (roughly the # of slashdot posters to bitch about it). The key limtiation in install base not DRM. DVD had stronger DRM then VHS. almost no one cared. Ditto with blu-ray/HD DVD vs DVD. People do not tend to
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My Mum doesnt care about DRM at all but she refused to buy any DVD player which wasnt Region 0.
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They're not quite as big a deal here in the U.S., because frankly very few people watch imported content of any sort, but the few people that do can go out and get them without any problems. (Also, I've heard that most of the cheap Chinese DVD players are Region 0 anyway, right out of the box. Never tested it, because I don't have any non-Region-1 discs, but
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Certainly not true of the $30 player my wife picked up from Sam's Club as an emergency replacement for the kids' player -- didn't like the Region 2 discs (Star Cops) I just got. My Linux box doesn't care, my (well, my employer's) Windows laptop helpfully asked if I wanted to change the region (but it'll only do it 5 times total). Some (Disney IIRC) discs have control code which queries the region and refuses
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Re:Similar to Vista. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Similar to Vista. (Score:4, Interesting)
What about the music market? Would you say the same thing? I'm guessing that number is going to jump.
If only such a small percent of the market is concerned about DRM, then why has adopting it been such a problem for the entertainment market?
DRM isn't a concern to me only because it's so easy to crack.
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Apple seems to be doing fine with DRM. Although music is a different thing to video. Right now even DRM free video is a bit clunky to move around. When data transfer speeds reach sub 10s transfer times for decent video you might have an arguement but people are not yet wanting portable video en mass. Some geeks liek me and you have our video Ipods and motorola smart ph
What about your target audience? (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I understand, even many of the early HDTVs don't have the correct plugs for these players for full resolution.
Format War: Not good
Having to buy movies again(at 2X the price): NG
DRM: NG
~$2k to see the difference at home: NG (yes, I'm including the price for a HDTV; market penetration for those are still bad, after all).
Result: Slow adoption. Could even be termed 'niche market', at least for now. The analysts may have said that blue ray is catching on as fast as DVD, but not faster if you look at it as a percentage. Most of that came from Casino Royale sales. I think that an important point would be that the HD standards require a new TV, DVD didn't. So I think that you have will see a brief surge of (rich or spendthrift) buyers to help justify the HDTVs they already purchased. After that, it'll be much more difficult.
I'd like to have HDTV, ps3, etc... But I baulk at the price tag every time. I could go cheaper if I was willing to have HDTV in monitor sizes (27"), but I want one at least as big as my current 32" TV. Add in that I don't have cable or satellite and you'll see that my available content is limited and expensive. Not time to adopt yet.
Heck, with the whole casino royale best seller thing I wonder how many people bought the HD discs by mistake, thinking they were getting some kind of deluxe version, but still playable on their DVD player?
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I'd
Re:What about your target audience? (Score:5, Informative)
And, composite video is for low quality 480i. Component video allows 1080i/720p, but of course only on a high definition set. There are plenty of TVs out there with component video that only handle 480i.
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The keyword there is new TV purchases. If my 12-year-old 32" Panasonic dies today, then yes, I'll go out and buy a HDTV; but not a minute sooner than I have to (the longer I wait, the cheaper they get). Given that most TV's last at least 10 years, even if every new TV sold was HDTV, you're looking at 10 years to get 100% market penetration.
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while it doesnt necessitate people being required to buy new TVs, alot of consumers will buy new TVs because they "think" they need to. that and the fact that salesmen will try to capitalize on those consumers that walk into a store and dont know any better.
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Not all HDTVs actually include a HD OTA tuner; on top of that it will be possible to view digital television on an analog set through the use of a converter/tuner box. The broadcast changeover will influence some people, but only people with money (or willing to go into debt) who have probably already purchased an HDTV.
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When DVD finally took off here I dont think you could find a player that actually wasnt region free. And as half the DVD's available were other regions, you'd certainly find every salesperson and every consumer review saying that you should make sure you get a region free player.
"People do not tend to try to copy their DVDs"
Until they get a media center of some kind. In which case physical media becomes a pita that you dont want to deal with.
HD media simp
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HDCP? Image Constraint Token?
The fact is that the DRM on high def discs has gone so far in terms of fear of copying that it ha
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Adoption rate among early adopters means almost nothing. Once BluRay saturates the market of people who really care about HD content, it's going to have a really tough sell, because the vast majority of people won't se
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Not Similar to Vista. (Score:3, Interesting)
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It's easier to do this on VHS or DVD - just buy a cheap Macrovision killer, and you can dub to VHS.
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Even if you do have a HDTV and a HD player you can still play your older DVD movies so if you see a High
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The same could have been said of DVD at the time. Its obvious that HD discs are still in the early adopter phase and probably will be until Christmas at least when players get to be cheaper and the number of titles jumps. I expect there is also some linger
To consumers, not more laden (Score:2)
To a consumer this does not appear to be the case:
1) Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs are not region limited for at least the first few years; Thus the format is more appealing.
2) Can you record output onto a VCR? No, but you could not do that with DVD anyway.
3) Physically there is little apparant difference
4) Most people do not back up or rip DVD's today, so that being harder with the new format is a non-issue.
To the average consumer, the new
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Some Blu-Ray, HD DVD titles selling like crazy... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah cause it's not like Walmart or some online merchants contribute much to home video sales...
I hate to break it to anonymous submitter, but depending on when a disk was released, it may have -zero- reported sales when a summary report like this is generated. And said movies may very well suck anyway, and not be selling for that reason alone.
So much for the sensationalist submission title.
Re:Some Blu-Ray, HD DVD titles selling like crazy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if Wal-Mart isn't on the list, weekly sales of less than 1000 copies isn't good news for the next-generation titles (particularly because all the HD/BD discs I've seen tend to be the "money makers"--not box office flops). Lots of the movies do suck, but that never stopped people from buying them in massive quantities on DVD or VHS.
The more pressing problem is that no one really needs these discs. There are about 30 million HDTV sets, which is still a small fraction of all televisions in this country. Of those, most people think DVDs look good enough. Why buy an expensive player with wacky DRM schemes and maybe-HDCP and all kinds of other bogus crap, only to have to buy more expensive movies that are presently nowhere NEAR the quality difference that DVD had over VHS? I have an HDTV, and I've seen some amazing HD-DVD content, but I was an early adopter of DVD players and I'm just not doing it again for HD/BD players. It's someone else's turn to fund the birth of this industry.
Wake me when I can get the player for $100 and the disc gives me something better than "great high-definition video mastering" on one of my TVs. I can play my DVDs anywhere, and they mostly look pretty good with progressive scan. Maybe that whole "multiple camera angles" vaporware from DVD would be a good thing to include so I could have some fun with my movies.
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It doesn't look like these titles are all so new that you'd be correct (and anyway, new releases nearly always have greater weekly sales than ones that have been around awhile). The real story here is in comparing the HD/BD sales to regular DVD sales--the low rate reported here would probably remain quite low.
Even if Wal-Mart isn't on the list, weekly sales of less than 1000 copies isn't good news for the next-generation titles (particularly because all the HD/BD discs I've seen tend to be the "money makers
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Re:Some Blu-Ray, HD DVD titles selling like crazy. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I suspect that most people will think DRM is whatever their techie friends tell them it is.
And in this case, far more than in the case of DVD, early adopters/techie consumers will have been stung by things like buying a very expensive television with HD resolution and later finding they can't watch either of the new formats on that TV because it doesn't have an HDCP connection. The geeks are also wise now to the fact that disabling technologies are a PITA, since they've sat through numerous tedious copyri
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Well, they probably all have 720 sets, which means they'll be miffed in a few years when 1080 is mainstream, anyway.
I wouldn't touch a HD TV unless it's 2160 (twice 1080 and three times 720, so upscaling will work neatly for both). Most sets I see on the market now are 768, and since no-one is looking at those through letterboxes, it means they're upscaling from 720 to 768, which is pitiful. You're better of
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Nonsense. It's called room for expansion.
When I had a nasty SD 4:3 television, I still made a point of buying anamorphic DVDs, and I still enjoyed my Xbox.
Then, when I got a widescreen HDTV, I needed only tell my DVD player that I now had such a TV, and tell my Xbox the same thing, and boom; done.
So, yeah. People with 720P sets will get a benefit out of HD-DVD/BluRay. And, at some point, if they upgrade their displays, boom.
Re:Some Blu-Ray, HD DVD titles selling like crazy. (Score:2)
Strong sales (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Strong sales (Score:5, Informative)
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You're Right
Did you read the article you linked to? The first 500,000 users who register on the PlayStation Network will receive a copy. Every time they did this in the past, they shipped the disc directly to the registered user and not to retail.
Besides, they sold 200,000 PS3s the first two weeks in the UK and the Casino Royal numbers two weeks after the UK launch launch were only 100,000. I think that the majority of new PS3 users would register for their free disc; therefore the free offer numbers a
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secondly, they reported substantial numbers in the US and have not mentioned UK or european sales yet.
finally, if you are so convinced that they are embellishing their numbers, why is the 100,000 figure noteworthy for them when they also bundled talledega nights with the US
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Be thankful (Score:3, Insightful)
...that even brick-and-mortar distribution allows for titles with modest sales numbers to find an audience. Consider this: you know those giant anime racks at Fry's and Best Buy? While there are many individual SKU's, few sell more than a handful. Teading NewType USA and AnimeOnDVD, I've seen a couple different writers note that many anime titles will sell only a few hundred copies region-wide in their entire lifetime. Production and distribution must be pretty efficient for that to be possible, right?
Having said that... don't cry for me, Argentina, I think the slow Blu-Ray sellers will survive. If you're bemoaning The Fifth Element only moving about 900 copies a week and making the top-10 for it, well, maybe your format needs more appealing films than 10-year-old sci-fi dreck that The Daily Show once called "the gay Star Wars."
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If Star Wars is fantasy (not that I disagree) then there is simply no justification for calling a movie in which the lead antagonist is a ball of molten something-or-other than can cool and solidify on contact and grows and gains power from being attacked with nuclear weapons and ca
Will Never Last... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I can see the difference easily. (Score:2)
As soon as I get a new display I will upgrade to Blu Ray. That doesn't mean I plan on buying movies over again. Though I might consider an update to some favorites like Blade Runner.
Though, I think uptake will be slow based entirely on people who have high resolution displays.
There is another Reason... (Score:2)
When disc sales of under 1000 can land you on a weekly best-sellers list, you know your format is in its infancy."
End Quote
OR, the format is in its death throws.
A Luddite on Slashdot! (Score:3, Interesting)
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People who do care about the quality of the sound and image. That was easy. Next question please.
Nobody needs/wants it (Score:2)
As an early adopter, it's kinda "meh" (Score:5, Insightful)
about walking barefoot in the snow to school every day... BUT
When Laser Disc came out, it was definitely a video-phile's format in that publishers
like criterion rushed to make the very best discs possible. They would remaster prints,
add interview audio tracks with directors, create great liner notes, etc, etc.
Discs were made for movie lovers by movie lovers.
DVDs saw the same sort of attention when it was first released, but in my opinion not
to the same degree.
And now we have HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and what's available on this awesome new format?
It's not Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, it's Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai. It's not
The Lord of The Rings, it's Eragon.
Meh.
The Reason: Choices Suck (Score:3, Insightful)
Based on what I've seen on the shelf at best buy, HD-DVD offers better movies, but I'm reluctant to fork over the $200 for the 360 HD-DVD add-on for a format that seems to be sinking even worse than BluRay.
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Ill almost bet that at this rate you've exhausted any movie worth actually watching.
HDTVs getting cheaper (Score:2)
Just a month ago I agreed that there wouldn't be much demand for HD DVD/Blu-Ray since few people have HDTVs. But I've been noticing more and more television programming being broadcast in high-definition and got interested in two particular types of show: sports and nature documentaries. The series Planet Earth [discovery.com] looks particularly cool so I checked into HDTV prices.
I found a nice 32" LCD 720p set [amazon.com] for $904, having fallen from around $1200 a few months ago to below the magic $1000 mark. I've always though
When 300 comes out (Score:4, Interesting)
A movie with the potential to do the same would probably be 300. I'll be very interested in seeing if it doesn't kick start this format war into the next level.
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Don't count on it. The high amount of grain in the film (a stylistic decision by the director) means that it won't benefit as much from the extra resolution of HD over DVD as movies with cleaner prints like Crank do.
Of course 300 has had unprecedented amounts of marketing money spent on it, maybe they will keep up the spending and convince people to buy the HD edition(s) too.
There is a fix (Score:2)
-Charlie
(1) At full retail, sales don't count.
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Netflix (Score:5, Interesting)
What _average_ viewers are really like (Score:5, Insightful)
Another couple I know recently bought what called a "high definition" set. They were proud of having gotten a good deal on it. They mostly used it to watch DVDs and standard-definition broadcasts. They thought the picture was great. When they weren't around, I, curious to see whether HDTV was really the mind-blowing experience it was supposed to be, tuned the set to the local NPR affiliate. The picture looked good but not all that great... not the sort of 35mm cinema experience I was expecting. On closer inspection I saw that something on the set's faceplate said something like "Enhanced Definition" or "Enhanced Digital" or something like that. I sneaked out their instruction booklet and leafed through it. It wasn't a high-definition set at all. It was a regular set with some kind of electronic sharpening effect. They didn't know and didn't care. I didn't tell them.
I don't think the average consumer understands high definition or cares about it. They buy a set, the picture looks "good" because of technology improvements--the perfect geometry, high brightness, and high contrast of solid state screens compared to picture tubes... and because it's digital, and their cable company's analog signals were crap.
They will probably buy HD DVD or Blu-Ray players someday, but they'll hardly know that they are buying them. They'll buy them when high definition essentially comes for free: when the nice-looking name-brand high-quality $129.95 players just happens to include high definition, and the only ones that don't are $39.95 el-cheapo deluxe models. They'll probably refer to them as "DVD players." And as long as they pop a disk in it and it plays, they probably won't even notice whether it's high or low definition... any more than my friends noticed whether the DVD they rented was 4:3 or 16:9.
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I stopped by Blockbuster the other day for the first time in years (a few kids will do that to you). Asked for a movie, and did my usual "is it widescreen" because some are not marked, and I hate chopped-up movies even on my old 3:2 TV. A few years ago the answer would have been "we only have fullscreen, customers keep accidentally renting the widescreen and complaining".
But this time I g
no compelling reason to move. (Score:2)
I still don't have a reason to want to bump up to and HD format. Most of the content I like and watch regularly is still only coming out on DVD's, combine that with a DVR to grab over the air stuff (including HD), and HD content through a Windows Media Center setup and I just don't see the reason to buy one or the other until there's no longer a worry about who will win.
If you really want to see the stop gap du
Yeah, some travelogs sell under 200 (Score:2)
Perhaps they need to school the stores (Score:3, Insightful)
HD/BD aside, half the time, you don't even know it the source is HD or not. At one big electronics store, a salesman told me that the signal came off a central hard drive and it was heavily recompressed. WTF? HD TVs should be showing nothing but a high quality HD feed.
So my advice to the Sountrack/Ultimate, Best Buy and Circuit City, get the best signal you can and spend some time calibrating your sets so that when I walk by, I can by wowed and say that looks better than my crappy 8 year old HDTV. Maybe then I'd upgrade my TV or get a Blueray player. Just telling me it's great isn't enough. Hire someone who can actually afford the TV to set it up for you. I'm not going to spend several thousand dollars for a product on the advice of someone who can barely afford beer and gas.
Re:HD-DVD Damage Control 101 (Score:5, Interesting)
We have sold 8 BluRay discs and only one HD-DVD disc.
On the other hand, we usually sell at least 50 DVDs on most days.
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fonts (Score:2)
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Other audio tracks can be downloaded separately.
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The best for another 20 years.... (Score:2)
Online delivery will be much like what MP3's did to those caring about audio quality, instead of going to a higher fidelity format it will go to low bandwidth, high compression (eg. much worse picture quality). But who cares when you can have any movie produced in the last 100 years directly accessible from the (pick a name) Apple iMovie website? That is the kind of choice my local videostore doesn'
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Re:its cuz they cost soooo much! (Score:4, Insightful)
HD/BD gives us better picture (on large enough displays to see it) if we have HDTVs and the right connections. Whoop-de-damn-doo. The picture is pretty amazing if done properly (bad mastering still has artifacts and fuzziness), but come on. We don't have portable playing options (almost no computer playback or handheld devices), and there is zero advantage on a standard-definition set. The movies should have been introduced at the exact same price as DVDs. The player hardware's outrageous prices could recoup the R&D costs. All in all, I'm unimpressed, very much like Laserdisc.
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Battery-powered VHS was somewhat uncommon but portable and 12V players were quite regular.
some DVDs are closed-captioned (if your TV supports it.) Lesser functionality but worth mentioning.
I have VHS tapes with this stuff after the movie. Some idiots put it before; I was going to watch the movie Harvey but they had that orville-reddenbacher
Re:Casino Royale Blueray sales a promotional trick (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Casino Royale Blueray sales a promotional trick (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, by those sales metrics, people a couple of years ago were just clamoring for the AOL cd... In fact, I suspect it was the hottest cd of all times...
Re:Casino Royale Blueray sales a promotional trick (Score:5, Funny)
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Are you talking about the editor of TFA, or Zonk? Because the only 'spin' Zonk put on the article was the name of the department from which the article supposedly originates. The rest of the text is from the cowardly reader... unless of course your allegation is that Zonk constructed the "submission" himself.
Or perhaps you're talking about the author