The cost of the High Def player and High Dev DVDs is not that important

fryet

The more I think about it, I don't think people are that price sensitive to the High Def DVD players. At this point, if you want a High Def TV, expect to pay $2000 or more for it. If you want High Def programming on your TV, that will often require extra fees to get the High Def cable, plus rent a High Def tuner (otherwise, plan on spending at least another $100 for the tuner yourself). To enjoy the High Def sound, you need to buy a home theater system. To be able to record, like you used to do on your old VCR, you will need to buy a DVR. After spending all of that money, do you think $500 for a player, and an extra $10 per disc is going to deter people away from the High Def players. Until HDTV's are $500, High Def DVD players are going to be a niche product, and people in that niche are used to spending more for quality entertainment, and will be willing to pay higher prices to get it.

µCOM-4

You can get a 30" widescreen HDTV for under $600 so yes price does matter for quick adoption. If you're talking about early adopters who would pay high prices well that's pretty obvious. Prices will have to come down to below $250 for any HD player to take off. Most people are pretty content with cheap upscaling DVD players anyway.

KY-HD

Upscalers are worthless.......Just my opinion. After trying one out I returned it immediately back to BB. It actually looked worse than my 480i Pioneer 300 disc carousel. Then again it was an early form of the technology, a Samsung. And yes I was using the DVI out on it. Yes I read the instructions carefully(three times actually). If anyone has had better luck with one let me know. But on my Sony 60" LCD we610 it just didn't cut it for me . To me, since I have already payed an arm and a leg for my HDTV, cable service, Boston Acoustic surround, and seating furniture, I guess I could give a leg(ball park of $500-$1000) for the DVD player I will just not be replacing all my dvds with HD one's, only the important ones. It's only money anyways

So bring on the HD format in what ever way possible, I don't need to see faded out colors anymore!!

borromini

Some folks are happy with their upconvert DVD players. I have a Bravo D1 and it produces a slightly better picture than what my Sony projector can produce. It's been hit/miss for some folks. For me the Bravo D1 was worth it because it will play DivX movies of which I have a small library of.

__________________
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"

maicaw

The DCDi upscaler in the Oppo is significantly better than anything in the Samsung - I have both - don't dismiss upscalers without experiencing DCDi --Superbit DVDs look every bit as good as PBS "HDTV" - but not as good as real CBS/NBC OTA-HDTV.. Fox and ABC somewhere in-between

__________________
--------------signature -------
My HDTV equipment is certified organic - mostly plastic
No genetically modified electrons or photons are used in it's operation
RocketMan -- Tambourine Man -- Lucy {userName=1},{P/w=1}

mshulman

The cost will be important for one reason. It may help determine the winner between HD DVD and Blue-ray. If both were released on the same day, and 1 was significantly lower than the other, it would probably stand a better chance of succeeding.

RSawdey

...unless, of course, the more expensive one was significantly better in some way... I've been an S-VHS owner for many years because of the significantly better quality.

LordGamer

I believe HD players are suppose to debut in the $1,000 range.

While yeah, the tech crowd will pick them up, the mainstream community won't even go near them. I will wait till there is a clear winner and I'm able to get one around $300-400 ($500-600 for a recorder).

doggie

And how many people have abandoned CD players in favor of SACD and DVD-Audio since 1996?

Mineo1983

Ill tell ya i just got the zenith DVB318 with the DCDI technology and the superbit dvds are amazing on it when upconverting to 1080

__________________
FD Trinitron Wega 34" CRT XBR960
Xbox 360 with HD-dvd Add on
Motorola DCT3416 I DVR HDTV Capable Comcast Cable Box
Dell Dimension E510 3Ghz 2Gbs Ram
Dell UltraSharp 24-inch Widescreen Flat Panel LCD Monitor

iserum

i have DENON 1910 upscaling DVD player, the PQ is very good as compared to component video inputs, since HD DVD is coming very soon it is not worth paying more than $150 on upconversion DVD players.

New movies and animated movies look extremely good with upconversion dvd players. Old movies PQ does not improve with upconversion.

__________________
Panasonic 50PX80U/Pioneer BDP-51FD /Toshiba HD A, ISF Calibration
DIRECTV HMC,Harmony Remote One
Apple TV2, Yamaha RXV1700
Def. Tech. Mythos III, V & Gems, Super Cube III
Power Conditioner: Belkin PF40
Panasonic TC-P46ST30/OPPO BDP-93
APPLE TV2,Harmony Remote One,
Polk Audio Soundbar SDA.
Belkin Power Conditioner

µCOM-4

The Zenith unit has an upscaler by Faroudja?

holtzd

I agree, the cost of the player doesn’t make much difference. What does make a difference is the availability of the DVD’s them selves. If they are not available at the rental stores or from Netflix the format will be of no use to most people. I know that some of you buy a lot of DVD’s. I buy a few but most of what I watch are those that I rent. For me, and I suspect a lot of other people, the player will not be of much use if I can’t rent the movies to play in them. Having two formats in the market will assure that the rental stores stay away from the new format.

doggie

And are people or rental stores going to be willing to shell out 5 times the cost for a Blu-ray disc versus a DVD disc. I doubt Netflix would be willing to ship a $25 DVD (at-cost) in the mail given how many get wrecked or lost. I know the SACD and DVD-Audio market penetration isn't exactly fortelling of Blu-ray's future, but have you ever walked by the SACD and DVD-Audio sections of Best Buy? I think there's a larger selection of 12" laser movie discs in stock.

SLedford

doggie, a $25 "cost" to the retailer (whether Best Buy or Netflix) will probably result in a $40 - $50 cost to the consumer. That high a cost is probably enough to doom the format, whether BR or HD.

How comfortable are you with the $25 cost number? Did you read this somewhere or are you speculating? $25 is about what I expected the initial retail price to be for HD / BR DVD's.

One of the things that has really helped DVDs take off is that you can get new releases for around $15 or so (jumps to $20 after the first week) at Best Buy. One can sort of justify buying if you think you will watch the movie more than once. At a cost of $40 - $50 a disk, renting becomes the best option. That kills the ownership cash cow that the movie industry is currently enjoying.

Hopefully they are not that shortsighted or stupid and will keep disk prices close to what the public is used to.