Whither Blu-Ray and HD-DVD?

Here in Canada at least, the cardinal selling feature for HD channels is Hockey on CBC-HD, plus the Movie Channels. Regarding the major networks, I've been ranting for years that the networks don't have the imagination to make use of the format's potential. Seriously, who wants to watch Leno in HD? Even ER and CSI don't justify being in HD, it's not like the shows are better that way! The best contender so far has been PBS with nature and documentary shows that actually make use of the higher resolution.

But hey, it's a Winter Olympics year, and I'm looking forward to watching skiing, hockey, and curling in HD.

The Absolute Sound also raved about SACD/DVD-A being the next big thing and tried to help promote it early on as well.

So, is Blu-ray or HD for home theater only or does it have anything to do with music and making music sound better? How many years will it take to get music releases on it?

I'm not trying to work against it, just wondering if it will be relavant any time soon. I'm an LP guy, but enjoy SACD and if one of the new formats sounds better, I'll go for it assuming there will be enough software to make it worth it.

SACD/DVD-A does sound better than CD's with evrything else ebing equalc but with K2 20 but or some other good processing CD's have goten much better in past years.Some were always goood.I used to demo speakers with Mappleshade's direct to board (that is their own hi end wire,modified mikes STRAIGHT to tape with NO BOARD (which allowed or didn't allow for filtering,EQ,compression etc etc that let's engineers become the "5th Beatle" like some seem to want to do).Japan had XRCD and a company called Venus that made great CD'd and LP's from a system called "24 bit hyper magnum sound" which sounded as good as the name was rediclulous.It also proved to me that records could be made from digital tape though of course the dynamic range wasn't as great .It was enngineering and technology that made so many badly pressed "digital" LP's in 80's-the stones ,RCA Bowie's etc.Boy if you wanted replacement wwax from the early 70's until recently you were scrwed.Now you have guys like Bernie Grundman at Classi Records aremaking BETTER sounding re-issues than the originals (sounds unlikely with tape oxidation and so forth but using multiple sources like tapre,correct original equipent,stampers etc many re-issues are now as good and in rare cases better than originals.But is this a digression or broadening the context of the argument?Could have just said that older tech can be tweaked and when companies dogedly fight (as you would expect them to given revenue that is involved) so we keep having Beta vs. VHS forever/When LP rulled from early 50's till ealry 80's at least we didn't have the "Hi-brow/low-brow" stuff with better tech like CD's improving and DVD's being so popular verus MP3 and down loaded junk.I have heard some commentators say that we are just giving the EC,Japan and now China and India the knife to cut our throats because there is no goverment support ("Interfearance in the free market" is what the executivce and congress would call it) and we are giving the Hi-Def future away when we could lead it the way we used to.But hell when Homeland security can't even demand interoprability of communiocations when it comes to Hoemland defense and you have stuff like Katrina happen could it be anything else?What happened to the country that got us to the moon and had tremendous spin offs from just that one enterprise (which may have been all vanity and the most expensive pyramid`in history just to beat the ruskies) WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!We might have complained about monopoly oif the phone company but look at what Bell Labs created?We should act like the rest of the world we taught who are now slaughtering us.Look at how much of a return the Canadians get for the goverment putting up money for a lab that has produced one grteat speaker company after another.But now?With every politician bought off we can't do anything that might mean one guy dosen't get his dough.When asked why it wasn't demanded that all ivil defnse radios be set up with goverment standards the current (Republican) goverment cried "foul" and that this was interfering with the free market.It was just total bull.We insist on stadards for everything from food to drugs to education but because it involved companioes that could all be milked (so the Dem's are culpable too) we heard that it was "Goverment Interfernece".So if we can't handle obvious things like that trying to foward looking and investing in tech standards and promotion does not fit into "the free market that serves us so well" it is no suprise we can't even think this will be helped now.The war,trade defecits,devaluation etc etc we are so screwed up and all the politicians who could influence this are afraind of losing a dime here or there (how much of the timne of a congressperson is spent fundraising these days?Half?More?) we can't expect them to think logically and help us in the future.Teir assers are on the line every two or four years and that's why we can't solve this.So we'll have to leave it to companies and happenstance and see what happens where dumbing down is the rule not the exception and fromats will rise or fall by chance or the least common denominator.DCC anyone?
Chazzbo

Bombaywalla,

I did read that little snippet you speak of, well actually skimmed it so I do not recall the actual transfer rates for the proposed formats...

FWIW It is not in the Feb TAS, and I can't find the mag it was in...

Kennyt,
>> FWIW It is not in the Feb TAS, and I can't find the mag it was in...

I was also a bit doubtful that it was in the Jan/Feb TAS as I wrote my post as I could not remember. I read that article last Friday & jogging back my memory I believe that it was in the UK magazine "Hi-Fi Choice".
Sorry about that!