Blu Ray over/under $

Thanks Ears...just as I suspected. The key thing is ability & motivations of the two consortiums. HD-DVD camp is led by Toshiba OK, but the two other important mfrs are NEC and Sanyo. NEC is already hedging its bets and purchased a 45% equity stake in a Sony Blu Ray JV. Sanyo is going through a large restructuring excecise due to a lack of profitability. Also note that its not just about DVDs and home entertainment but high capacity storage in recorders and PCs: HP, Dell and Sony are from the IT side of the equations supporting Blu Ray with many others as well all leaning that way. Microsoft is supporting HD DVD for now but only as an optional add on to X Box 360 and the primary reason for supporting it is to battle PS3: but their key issue is market share of X Box itself and narrowing the gap: besides all lose money on the game machines and make money on the games themselves with the long-term objective making these game machines the center of home entertainment systems and digital home at large: thus the standard of Optical Disk Drives is less of a strategic issue for Microsoft and they will end up supporting both as add ons if needed. But for Blu Ray, Sony has developed it and spend R&D etc: there is much more committment: note also Sony is market leader in the ODD market at large: its not just about DVD players. Finally for Intel, again may not a big issue anyway: X Box, Ps3 and the upcoming Nintendo's Revolution all moved from Intel to IBM architecture anyway.

So expect a war during 2006-7 but ultimately the writing is on the wall.

The writing is far from being on the wall for all of the reasons I have enumerated, but time will tell. I only hope that ONE of the two formats makes it as far as DVD titles. The DVD rental market is very important in this. If BlockBuster and Netflix, for example, elect not to purchase Hi Def DVD titles in the volume they would need to satisfy customers, for example, hi def DVDs for the rental market won't make it. This is only one example of some significant scenarios that could easily torpedo the Hi Def DVD. Blu-Ray cost for players and disks right now is a guarnteed loser. But that could change.

I bought a DVD player at Sears for 32 dollars about a month ago for a back up CD player in one of my casual listening systems. But it plays DVDs just fine. 32 dollars vs 1800 or 1000. Last year, new vinyl outsold SACD and DVD-A combined. Let's see what happens.... ( BTW- niether side will do well at the beginning of release dates for sure)

Agree with that Rysa4...early on it ain't gonna be pretty.

Again, I think people aren't gunna be doing a mass exodus to HD DVD or other here, like the industry hopes! It won't be even 1/3 of what the DVD rush was years ago, I garantee it!
People already have the convenience of the Disc. The quality jump won't make most do nothin by enlarge. And at high prices, they definitely won't do a thing!
BAsically, WHEN HD replaces Standard dvd player/disc pricing, and that's all you can buy is hd dvd players, then people will start buying into the format. None sooner. And they certainly won't care what format is what, as long as they can play all the discs. So, I be you'll see universal players at the very least coming in a couple few years if these people can't sort out their format problems. Cause they won't be selling a ton of anything regardless.
For most, the novelty of DVD is nothing new. They already have that. A quality upgrade never moved the public from one format to another. It has always been more about convenience and content over quality for buyers! That's the truth.

Mr F-Lamb- I am wondering if you have ever seen an HD-DVD/Blu Ray DVD next to a standard DVD on decent displays?

I know you wont believe me, but there isnt a very big difference. I can only assure you that I can see some difference, but not that much. Now on the 65 inch 1080P Panasonic Plasma, may be the difference will be more apparent-

but it is hard to sell folks on something that is more expensive ( understatement) for not much of a perceived difference. When do you think Hd-DVD/Blu Ray players will hit 100 dollars ( or 32 dollars for that matter?) And lets see what a bluray disc costs-or even if BB will rent them at the same price.