Kmart Drops Blu-Ray Players 392
Lord Byron II writes "K-mart has decided to stop selling Blu-Ray players in their stores, primarily because of the high cost of Blu-Ray compared to HD-DVD (now under $200). They will continue to sell the PS3 for the time being. Will lower prices speed the adoption of HD-DVD in the upcoming holiday shopping season?"
Does this mean no blue light special... (Score:5, Funny)
Darn...
Re: No Blue Light special on Blue Ray (Score:5, Insightful)
Not for the immediate futher, but don't rule them out yet... Sony has lost this kind of match before, back in the Beta vs VHS battle. Seems they forgot the lesson learned then.
It means the lower cost and wider availability of a player, either player, will determine the outcome. Sony charged high prices and licenced their Betamax technology in the 70's, thus we had VHS as the eventual winner. Not learning from their prior mistake? No deja fubar?*
*fubar spelt that way for you anal types.
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2. With everyone saying, "Oh man, a sub-100$ HD-DVD player, that's going to win the format war for sure!!" I think there is one thing that people are forgetting- HIGH-DEF is not yet for the masses.
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Re: No Blue Light special on Blue Ray (Score:5, Informative)
I'm really getting tired of people who don't know what they're talking about making a big issue of 1080i vs. 1080p when it comes to a source device. Obviously, 1080i and 1080p are very different when it comes to a display. However, Any 1080p display worth its purchase price is going to be able to convert from 1080i to 1080p effectively losslessly. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: "Due to interlacing, 1080i has twice the frame-rate but half the resolution of a 1080p signal using the same bandwidth." In short, a 1080i signal and a 1080p signal contain the same data, just formatted differently. To go from 1080i to 1080p (this is simplified and doesn't account for various framerate differences), you take every two 1080i frames (540 lines each), weave them, and you have a 1080p frame.
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"Many people can't tell the difference, but people who can afford HD typically care"
but in fact it's already contrafactual on its face. Perhaps 1% of ppl in the market for these devices can tell the difference and care. The other 99% will buy what the salesperson at the big box store tells them is the best.
Which means that more will buy the more expensive 1080p stuff, but not for the reason GP states.
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What frame rate are you assuming the 1080p content is in? Standard formats have only one frame rate for 1080i (30 frames/sec, 60 fields/sec, plus the 1000/1001 ratio rates) but have 3 choices for 1080p (24, 30, and 60, plus the 1000/1001 ratio rates). For content originating in 24 fps motion picture film, or its digital equivalent, encoding it as 24 fps onto the disc is best.
If you are converting 1080i30/60 to 1080p60, that works fine. But the source material may not be in that format. It might be in 1
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Blah blah blah, who gives a shit?
How's the picture look to Joe Sixpack? Nice and clear with warm colors? That wins over the techno-babble jabber malarkey.
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If only it were so easy then de-interlacing wouldn't be a problem. But it isn't that easy and de-interlaced 1080i does not have the same spatial resolution as 1080p. Likewise, you can't take a 1080p signal and just add in some interpolated frames to get the same temporal resolution as 1080i. Thinking that you can is ju
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It would appear sir, that it is you who does not understand the issues here.
1080i means the signal is interlaced. What is interlacing? Put briefly; back in the 1930's, you simply could not transmit as much data to a television back in those days. You were very limited in what you could transmit reliably given the transmitters, receivers, and noisy equipment
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I was under the impression that CRTs required 50/60 (PAL/NTSC) non-interlaced frames per second to avoid unpleasant levels of flickering, but that there was only enough bandwidth for 25/30- which looked bad- so they sent fifty (or sixty) half-frames instead.
Parent is completely wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. With interlaced TV and video signals, you are sending twice the amount of half-frames (fields) per second, not the same amount. In
Re: No Blue Light special on Blue Ray (Score:5, Insightful)
As for data storage? Well I'd love to get with that, but again, there's no way I'm getting a writer until two things happen
1: Someone wins this spat.
2: Whoever wins decides they've tapped out the 'adopt early and pay big coin' brigade, and prices for writers drop to something reasonable.
Re: No Blue Light special on Blue Ray (Score:4, Insightful)
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(Especially when DVDs I had already bought started coming out in "super criterion extended bonus editions" 4-5 years later)
Where's the source? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Does this mean no blue light special... (Score:5, Funny)
No clear winner, yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No clear winner, yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
The pirate community has made a decision: h.264 files on DVD+Rs.
So if that's your criteria, you just need to get a DVD player that can playback 1080p h.264.
Re:No clear winner, yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and before DVD-Rs came out, it was Divx DVD-rips on CD-Rs. That only tells you what writable format is popular now, not what will be popular next.
Re:No clear winner, yet. (Score:5, Funny)
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Maybe it's just early in the morning, but this guy just won the internet.
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You can get HD with 1.4MB floppy disks too...
Lossy codecs will allow you to compress ANY resolution down to ANY size. It's all a matter of degree. The fact is, the more bits you have available, the more detail you can preserve. High-def disk formats offer MUCH more storage, and so can store a MUCH higher quality picture.
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Works nicely for me.
No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:5, Informative)
The backers of HD-DVD are being far more intelligent from a marketing stand point than Sony+Blue-Ray. Cheaper players, Combo discs (Standard DVD + HD-DVD in the same package) and they have better penetration into the markets that actually matter (Wal-Mart, for example).
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Re:No. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I have one word for you ... (Score:3)
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Which, btw, is great from iTunes, and is only 1 of 2 reasons I can see the demand for a video iPod (the other being BSG).
Re:No. (Score:5, Interesting)
Rumor is that we'll be seeing players costing between $100 and $150 in the next month, which is almost low enough to be in the 'Impulse Buy' range. Because HD-DVD players are of course backward compatible, and typically offer some sort of upscaling, they'll sell enough of these things to consumers who aren't even particularly interested in buying HD-DVD discs so that there's not nearly as much of a chicken/egg situation between players and discs. For now, there's enough content to get by and make it worthwhile.
So, no. We won't see a massive rush to upgrade to HD-DVD. However, players should begin to slowly seep into the marketplace, and after a few years, it'll be 'mainstream'. HD-capable TVs are also becoming increasingly common these days, and I'd bet that consumers shelling out money for a new TV will also spring for a HD-DVD player, considering the low price.
Unless sony drops the price of their Blu-Ray equipment, Blu-Ray is dead in the water. Have they already forgotten BetaMax?
But it's not just the player... (Score:2)
Great post, though. I hadn't realized just how cheap those HD players were getting... it's going to be a lot harder to talk the wife into an XBox 360 now... dang it...
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It's a funny thing. When you become a landlord
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I'm generally a sports watcher so blu-ray, hd-dvd and such really don't matter to me, but I know I get the same experience watching nfl on my 26" sd crt as i do watching it on my uncles 52" sony.
It's all about content.
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Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Video downloads on the 'net are typically offered at VGA resolution, if not less, and are almost always compressed to hell.
iTunes does it. Netflix does it, and as far as I know, so does Amazon.
If you want a comparison of just how much bigger a 1080p image is than a typical VGA download, look here [wikipedia.org]. Oh, and the smallest box in that image is more than twice the size of a YouTube video.
An HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc holds something like 20-40GiB of high-res video. 99% of broadband connections today cannot stream that much that quickly, and even a download would take prohibitively long, and be incredibly cumbersome to store due to the huge size of the files. I'd daresay that the internet backbone couldn't handle those sort of loads even if HD streaming became commonplace and there was broadband connectivity to support it.
Streaming's cool, but removable storage is going to have the edge in the video market for the foreseeable future if it's HD we're talking about.
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Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a directly comparable situation. Blu-Ray isn't going to die because it lives in every PS3 that is sold. Even if all the other studios switch (and it will take a lot for Disney to lose face and switch) Sony will continue to offer Blu-Ray content for the forseeable future. Not to mention, Blu-Ray burners store more and are likely to be predominant in the storage arena unless the HD-DVD people start making cheap burners too. So on second thought, maybe it is comparable in the sense that it actually took Betamax a long time to die, twenty-seven years according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. In that length of time, chances are neither HD-DVD nor BluRay will resemble what we see today, if they exist at all.
Fact is, Sony had a chance to end this war before it started by compromising a bit and agreeing to use HDi/iHD instead of BD-J. Its hatred for all things Microsoft caused it to make a monumental blunder. And in snubbing Redmond, it couldn't even come off as a champion of the people because of the extreme "Sony Style" DRM built into Blu-Ray.
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Of course Disney was a prime backer of Divx (because they're greedy bastards)... but that was half-hearted, since in Europe (where Di
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Does that mean it's going to win? No. But it certainly doesn't sound like it's losing.
Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player: $100, this Friday, Wal-Mart
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/01/toshiba-hd-a2-hd-dvd-player-100-this-friday-wal-mart/ [engadget.com]
Best Buy offers Toshiba HD-A2 for $100
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/01/best-buy-offers-the-toshiba-hd-a2-for-100-too-and-other-hd-dv/ [engadget.com]
Rain Man (Score:5, Funny)
Ray: Kmart sucks.
Irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Irrelevant (Score:5, Funny)
So yeah, people still buy electronics at Kmart
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People slightly more affluent than those that buy their electronics at Wal-Mart...
What do I win?
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A lot of average people... (Score:2)
In other words, everyone else.
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Who the hell buys electronics at Kmart, anyway?
Answer: The average consumer.
This is NOT good news for Sony.
kmart shoppers can't afford blu-ray (Score:5, Funny)
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I was expecting sony to really drop the price on (Score:2)
Re:I was expecting sony to really drop the price o (Score:3, Interesting)
You realize that it's been years now, right? And that there hasn't been a winner yet. A PS3 is like $400. A HDDVD player is like $200. If you buy either and the associated media format fades into obscurity it's not that big a deal - especially compared to the nice HDTV you'd have to get to make it matter at all.
Motivation (Score:2, Interesting)
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Sorry to be that harsh, but it is the reality that the people shopping at Kmart are shopping there to get the product that is cheap and meets their function, which means HD-DVD for them, because it is cheap and meets their function, overall specs be damned. Sony et. al. blu-ray camp ne
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Really? I find that hard to believe, Max. While I loathe Sony, I don't think they can buy the whole market that easily. And they'd have to pay off a lot more companies than Target: Best Buy, WalM*rt, Dixons, etc.
About 30 seconds of surfing tells me that if Target received cash from Sony to dump HD-DVD, then it was money poorly spent by Sony: Target.com carries two HD-DVD players for $299 and $249 [target.com] (a Toshiba and a 'Venturer'
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$98 hd-dvd (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/21581845 [cnbc.com]
Re:$98 hd-dvd sooner (Score:3, Insightful)
http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?section=secret [ri-walmart.com]
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It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
NO (Score:2)
then again Bluray is already obsolete er I mean red-ray
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/575487/red_vs_blue_go_go_gadget_video/ [metacafe.com]
The PS3 isn't a Blu-Ray player??? (Score:4, Insightful)
1.) The PS3 is a Blu-Ray player, arguably the best, that's what I bought mine for.
2.) "Time Being" meaning to imply Kmart may drop the PS3 also? And not sell all 3 of the current generation game players? Not likely.
HD-DVD could win, but in general people are not buying quality 1080P HDTVs at Kmart, they are buying cut rate 720P stuff that doesn't look that much better with HD-DVD than upscaled DVD.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't good for Blu-Ray, but it isn't the sky falling either.
WalMart has Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87 Nov 2nd (Score:5, Informative)
http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?u1=433093-2-0-ARTICLE-0§ion=secret&utm_source=Walmartcom [ri-walmart.com]
I believe they may include the free 5 HD DVDs deal, which alone is worth $100.
I'd say that is breaking the price barrier holding back acceptance!!
(I know I'm buying two, one for us, and one for my inlaws for Christmas)
Re: You are making an assumption (Score:2)
HD enthusiasts already have players and J6P often hooks his brand new HDTV up to a progressive scan player with a composite cable. Someone needs to build these players into a good HDTV so the lay p
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What's that joke, that the definition of "expert" is "someone who can read the manual?" Seriously, I don't feel the slightest bit of sorrow for people who are defeated by the requirement that they do a (very) small amount of one-time research to fully utilize their high-dollar equipment. The more expensive said equipment is, the more senseless it is to allow your own laziness to
Re: Wow, what an arrogant stance (Score:2)
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(I know I'm buying two, one for us, and one for my inlaws for Christmas)
Yeah, that's about as likely as getting a PS3 for $99. I guarantee you that they have a dozen of those, which you will never get - lest you camp outside their store 24 hours in advance. These 'too good to be true' deals are posted to get you through the door on Black Friday; they'll be the first to go. And that's if there's any left - the workers there will probably get first 'dibs'. When you realize they're all sold out, you're gonna go to look for other deals since you're already there, which is why th
Kmart vs Wal-Mart (Score:4, Interesting)
Video On Demand Makes BluRay/HD-DVD Irrelevant (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure some people will buy / use such players, but most people are skipping right to utilizing video-on-demand instead
Ron
Re: Maybe in 10 or 20 years (Score:2)
Re:Video On Demand Makes BluRay/HD-DVD Irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
The per-user cost of the routers, servers, and set-top boxes has got to be well over twice as much as a blu-ray or HD-DVD player is now. I'm not saying it won't happen, it's just not there yet and I don't see cable companies as smart enough to figure it out.
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Sony Betamax, Sony Minidisc, Sony Blu-Ray (Score:5, Funny)
All of these things plainly belong.
Can you tell what point that I am making,
by the time I finish my song?
Three of these things belong together
Three of these things are kind of the same
Can you guess what point I am making?
Now it's time to play our game
Re:But some successes also (Score:2)
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You forgot Memory Stick, and several others.
What's the tally on proprietary formats Sony has failed to impose on the market? 11?
HD-DVD Wins... (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't know anything about one format or the other, or even care, but they know HD is good and DVD sounds familiar and easy to use. HD-DVD was a great move because it leveraged the gajillions of dollars that have already been pumped into marketing "HD" and "DVD", and the familiarity that goes with both.
Observations in Singapore (Score:2, Interesting)
I think this development is very telling, but its just a symptom not just of BluRay's failure, but the whole market for higher definition optical media.
I'm an Aussie but I've lived nearly my whole life in Singapore where electronic gadgets are not just a nice thing to have, they're almost status symbols, like most parts of affluent Asia I assume. When DVDs came along everyone was scrambling to get the latest devices, televisions and movie releases on the new format, but here we are in 2007 and only a hand
Is something better coming along? (Score:5, Interesting)
Blu-Ray and HD don't have enough capacity to store really good HDTV without overcompression. Everything still blurs during motion and pans. Then, when motion stops, enough data comes in for the decompressor to catch up. Yuck. That's why the demo content in the stores is either near-static scenes without camera pans, or something with so much action that you can't see the artifacts. Long, slow pans still suck. They suck for 24FPS film, too, but we have the technology to do better now.
Right now, the displays are better than the storage medium. You can buy 1080p flat screens without any problem. Some of them can even do 60FPS. We need 4x to 8x as much data on the storage medium to feed those big, fast screens properly.
This will probably happen after the NFL figures out some way to transmit football at 60FPS.
Motion Blur, not compression! (Score:3, Informative)
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The biggest cause of undesirable blur is the 24fps shooting speed of movies. The new digital projection standard includes 2K at 48fps, and 4K and 24fps. I'm really hoping Hollywood saves the movie theaters from home cinema by embracing 2K at 48fps. The experience shou
Here's what's coming in the production pipeline (Score:2)
Digital cinema systems for theaters, at 1080 x 2048 pixels ("2K") at 24FPS, use about 300GB to store a movie. A typical movie server [gdc-tech.com] stores 2TB of uncompressed video. "4K" systems, which have 4x as many pixels, are now being deployed.
4K cameras and data recorders [dalsa.com] are already available. 16 bits per color channel. "In one shot Origin can handle both the naked flame of a candle and the delicate, nuanced shadows on candlelit faces. It can handle the full glare of the sun reflected from a window and sti
Fanbois proven wrong yet again (Score:4, Interesting)
PS3 is the only Blu-ray player that matters ATM (Score:3, Insightful)
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I prefer HD-DVD anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, I know that Blu-Ray can physically hold more data, but most people in the general public aren't going to care about that. I think Sony could have done so much more with the standard, but have honestly fallen short of my expectations. I would have hoped that both "next-gen" formats would have delivered that "wow this is cool" feeling. HD-DVD does it somewhat, but Blu-Ray seems to think that HD content is enough.
What do other dual format owners think? Is there some cool Blu-Ray specific feature that I've not seen yet?
Sony response... (Score:3, Funny)
Sumbitter bias (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't yet decided which format I'm going to choose for my upcoming home theater purchase, but reading reviews it is certainly evident that writers insert their own bias when reporting on the format war. This submitter is no exception.
For example the submitter writes: "K-mart has decided to stop selling Blu-Ray players in their stores ... They will continue to sell the PS3 for the time being". The last sentence implies that they may at any time stop selling the PS3 as well. The original article however states "Of course, Kmart will continue to sell the Playstation 3, which includes a Blu-ray player", with the 'of course' implying that it's obvious that dropping the PS3 would not even be a consideration. The difference in perspective is obvious.
Now lets say the the submitter was an actual journalist in a mainstream publication. You could then easily imagine other people picking up on that inference and stating 'K-Mart drops Blu-Ray - considers dropping PS3 as well" or something along those lines.
For all submitters, if you are going to post something, keep your own agenda out of it.
Something you need to know about this posting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Something you need to know about this posting (Score:4, Funny)
I'm glad I read this before I posted my answer to the question. That would have been embarassing.
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Took on the name of its victim. We should call these "Sylar buyouts."
Player sales don't even matter (Score:3, Insightful)
The best week HD-DVD ever had was the recent Transformers release. In that week, Blu-Ray movies still managed to outsell HD-DVD! So what happens now that Spider Man 3 and other large hits are coming out Blu-Ray only?
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I would agree that in the long run it is movie sales that count, but this ain't the long run, not by a long shot.
We are still very early in the adoption phase. At this point it is all about putting players in people's houses so that they can sell them movies later. If HD DVD gets a much larger install base then the movie companies will stop producing Blu Ray content and Sony will lose.
Re:You have a strange definition of care (Score:2)