Wednesday, December 27, 2006

BlueRay and HD DVD: overpriced and overrated?

Just go to any electronics store now a days; you'll see why HDTV's look better: higher resolution, higher contrast, higher color accuracy and clarity.

HD programming on TV is growing -- Cogeco had 5 HD channels a year ago, they now have like 20. HDTV looks great, even on an standard resolution display (like my 480p projector): you get the benefits of higher contrast/colors, just not the resolution.
So, if you ask me, viewing HD content on TV is worth it, especially for action packed shows and movies.

However, HD programming on Blue Ray ($40 a movie, $1000 player or $700 PS3) or HD DVD ($35 a movie, $500 player or $200 XBOX360 attachment) is way, way, way overpriced.

As with all new technology, I'm sure eventually as BlueRay (Sony's) or HD DVD (Microsoft's) will catch on, these prices will converge to the price of DVD.
HD isn't even really that important, if you ask me, for comedy movies, or comedy TV for that, rather. Do you really want to see Jay Leno's chin or Letterman's wrinkles in high definition?


Even DVD's are way too expensive new: $25 average for a new movie. The only movies I pay that kind of money for are my absolute favourites, else I buy used. I don't think I'd ever pay $40 for a standard, non collector's edition movie, even if it was high definition.

I think the same thing is going to happen to movies that happened to audio cd's: the average price will go down, because people will get fed up with crap. Of course, the movie maker's would love if $40/movie stayed that way. Why should HDDVD's themselves cost 2X as much as DVD's? The process used to make them is the same as DVD, for god's sake ;) Higher resolution, woop dee doo. That's like new mp3 players coming out, replacing old models, costing 5X as much for 5X memory; which isn't the case.

Well, even though I bought a PSP the other day (which I'm excited to use for SNES emulation and homebrew, Dani as a picture/mp3 player), I hope Microsoft "wins" the format war this time. Sony's insistent use on proprietary formats is horrible.

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