News PS3 price cut won't affect format war

I use the PS3 as a DVD player and a Blu-Ray player, of course. It's excellent for both, and very quiet too

 

i think when the ps2 and xbox were out that them being used for dvds was rare but with the ps3 i dont think it was like that. people are much more knowledgable about electronics nowadays and so i think there will be many many people that will use their ps3's to watch blu rays. i think probably 50% at least. i know any movie i buy now will be on blu ray unless its on hd dvd then ill get it on dvd and have it upscaled to 1080p on my ps3. i dont support hd dvd one bit because i want this war to be over as quick as possible so that all movie companies will support blu ray.

 

My DVD player in my living room is my xbox 360. Why would I buy a standalone dvd player??

 

I was saying if they were to be defeated. Same with HD DVD, because that has exclusives with Paramount, if you want HD Paramount stuff, you'll need HD DVD.

It's all irrelevant though, HD still has very little uptake, it's still in the minority. Pretty much anyone with a TV could use DVDs, that's why it got adopted well, it was obviously better than VHS, and the benefits could be felt by anyone with a TV (basically everyone in the western world). HD formats however, only a small percentage of people can use properly, BR may be beating HD DVD slightly now, but they're still both getting creamed by DVD. There's also not a huge benefit to going HD, yeah, you can see more detail, that's nothing compared to the benefits DVD brought. Massive improvements to quality, compact, no rewinding, chapter skipping. Those were benefits the average joe using VHS could actually see and think was worthwhile, HD right now is just something fancy for younger people with lots of disposable income.

And anyway, if I were going with a new HD player, I'd go for a hybrid that could play everything, with all these exclusive deals, it's becoming more like the console wars, where if you want to watch a certain blockbusting film, you have to own a specific format, so a hybrid player makes sense for the consumer, it also means no one format will be absolutely dominant like VHS was/DVD is. Neither of them are gonna die, unless they both do due to lack of interest, as much as I think the increased disk sizes and higher resolution pictures are, it's a complete mess, with HDCP being revised every five minutes, etc.

 

Is it possible to get an accurate look at the so called format war? Last I read, BR was outselling HD-DVD 3:1 but now this guy says HD-DVD is out in front by a massive margin on player sales...


I'm just gonna close my eyes until the explosions stop, then peek my head out to see which army won, then join them and say I was supporting them all along!! Really!

 

The cheaper PS3 is going to make in roads for blu-ray surely. I'm backing blu-ray in the format wars, i'll take new technology over re-hashed old ones ta.

 

It will be that way for a long time to come.

Actually, I beg to differ a bit. Yes, the average schmoe going from VHS to DVD was a big jump. Some of us were using DVD's predecessor beforehand...VCD. It was basically VHS but in a digital realm. The jump was a big improvement when we all moved to DVD.

But-- HD, IMHO, is a vast improvement over standard-def discs just on a technical standpoint alone. We're talking more than twice the res, and anyone with an HD set (even an older one like myself) can see a major difference going from 480P to 1080I or 1080P. Hell, watching DVD's on an HD set makes them grainy (obviously) simply because they are literally half the res of what those TV's are capable of displaying (don't even get me started on cable TV!). Which was basically why DVD looked so amazing on standard-def TV's; i.e. 480P on a slightly lower-res TV.

The jump to HD is not much of one if you already had most of the hardware from DVD. If you already have an HD TV in some form and a decent surround system that can pass through PCM audio, you're golden.

The argument about the actual media cost is moot simply because the price is generally a few dollars more than standard DVD, especially when you get them on release day/week with sales/etc. I can speak from experience that I generally pay 21 dollars average for BR discs on release date versus 17 bucks for the DVD version.

The players, yes, that's an investment, but if you happen to have one of those games consoles, you're probably already capable of playing said media.

That's the only was to lessen the stink of BS that both these camps emanate in the air over their formats and still have the benefit of both.

I agree wholeheartedly with you about that. It is a complete mess. Regarding HDCP, it would be ignorant of them to not make any changes they instill backwards-compatible to current hardware via firmware upgrades.

 

there's no longer exclusivity on games, but movies, too. Yey!

 

I don't have a DVD player so I use my PS2