Not wasting my time on new Digital

While it's not clear whether HD DVD or Blu-ray will win out, one of them surely will. Because unlike SACD and DVD-A, these new formats have compelling benefits for the mass market.

For what it is worth. Once again Sony wants to re-package and re-sell their existing library. This marketing strategy always fails. No one with any common sense, no matter how good Blue Ray or HD DVD may or may not be, is going to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars to re-populate what they already own in an existing format.

If Blue Ray or HD DVD is a superior process, it will have to very right straight out of the box and have such a dramatic impact to make all other digital forms obsolete immediately. Thats an almost impossible task, due to the fact that costs at the retail level cannot exceed the magic $399.00 for a launch of a new format player. Software has to be priced very near current levels. At present all I see is a lot of red ink to be overcome. And for the consumer another format to deal with, that has all the potential of another SACD or DVD-A demise, that leaves consumers with outdated formats, that consumers paid far to much for. Till proven different, I believe this to be another fad, with zero substance.

There is a need for a new digital system to raise the bar, that we have had since 1982, but major breakthroughs do not occur often and are not priced at entry level consumer gear in the initial launch. In 1982 I paid a very hefty price for a first generation CD Player and the first CD discs were very expensive, when compared to the analog LP of the same period.

With Blue Ray and HD DVD I do not see that happening. These new operating systems will have to hit the decks running and the return on investment to Sony will have to be swift. Entry level consumer electronic products, due to their mass market nature, will not have the build, parts, or reliability quality to ensure consumer confidence after the launch.

But, I am always ready to be impressed beyond my wildest expectations, which happens all to infrequently and after 48 years in this hobby business, major breakthroughs I can count on the fingers of one hand. I spent a lot of years at CBS/Columbia and well remember the Quad disaster of 1975. There is not a better mouse trap, only major break throughs that deliver the promise, and that technology is expensive to R&D and deliver to the market place.

With all due respect when CD, a very flawed format, hit the streets, most people spent "hundreds to thousands of dollars" to repopulate their music collections which were previously stored on LP, compact cassette and open reel tape. So this marketing strategy does not always fail. Note also how quickly mostly everyone replaced their videocasette and laserdisc collections with the advent of DVD.

Both CD and DVD offered advantages to consumers that made them a no-brainer to adopt once software became plentiful and hardware prices dropped. With the new DVD formats, the advantages are clearly less but they are more compelling than just "better sound". Through mainstream systems, the better sound of SACD and DVD-A was not better enough. But I think the better picture of the HD DVD formats (on HD displays) will be better enough, and combined with the greater capacity of the discs, you have something that will move consumers to upgrade. And the barriers to adoption are fairly low. The new players will play old DVDs, correct? So you won't replace your old collection necessarily, but you may be motivated to get a new DVD player by the prospect of buying (or renting) an entire season of Deadwood on a single disc.

The improved PQ of 1080p over DVD's current 480p is pretty obvious and most of us who have HD displays, even if not 1080p, will go for an HD player as soon as Netflix starts offering the formats on a good number of new or interesting older releases. Netflix, along with Blockbuster, has some power in how this plays out (which formats do they offer?). The studios probably have more power.

Blu-ray at least promises interactivity, and I imagine that what this really means is you'll be encouraged to buy things directly while watching content. That's a big enough carrot to drive development of some pretty clever promotions, which may suck consumers in.

The next generation of broadband into the home is a wildcard here if HD on-demand begins to materialize.

I only wish Viridian was totally on target with his assesment. However the numbers do not support his views.

Before CBS/Columbia made the hugh committment to jump into the then new CD technology, we formed focus groups in several parts of the country to evaluate consumer trend in this medium. Would they pay the $800.00 for the entry level player? Would they pay near twice the price for the software? Would they buy titles they already have in LP or Cassette ? The list goes on, but that was crux of what needed to be evaluated. The results from these focus groups was an overwhelming resounding YES!!! So armed with that the plunge was taken.

Guess what? Did not happen in the numbers expected, in fact nowhere even close. Wish the hell it did, would have saved a ton of jobs. Also resistance at the retail level was another area encountered, that was not foreseen. Retailers had to regear themselves to accomodate this new medium. All of this held true for Capitol and RCA as well.

Even new releases in both LP and Cassette and the newer CD format, the LP contiuned to outsell the CD by a far margin until about late 1988 some seven years after the introduction of the CD Players and by that time the price of CD Players had fallen dramatically, but prices on CD software remained much the same.Software prices remained high losses had to be recovered from previous years, and have remained high since.

Comparing DVD Video to Music CD is an apple to oranges comparison. Music CDs are bought individually and are added to ones library. On the other hand DVD Video is a different animal. If it was not for the vast majority of rental libraries such as Blockbuster and the like the DVD Video market would near collapse under its own weight.

Case in point in my own vast collection I have precisely three CDs that I already have on the LP format. If I posses it in LP or Cassette, I see zero reason to add the same title in CD format. And to this day not everything has been transferred to CD. Same holds true for the DVD Video format.

We will see if Sony with Blue Ray can weather a 7 year storm in this day and time. However thier recent debacle with SACD and DVD-A proves otherwise. The Corporate environment has changed dramatically in recent years, no longer will Corporations pour resources into a medium that show a poor return. Now its all about the numbers, there are no more visionaries heading these Corporations now. And in the final analysis it is the end consumer that ends up with an obsolete purchase.