It's incredibly short-sighted to say this is 'good news' for Blu-ray.
Small sized TVs - and they are, by far, the bulk of what is being discussed here - even if they are supposedly 'HD' are absolutely not good news, for Blu-ray - or high def more generally .
If there were ever HD TV sizes guaranteed to get people dismissively saying "is that it!?" it's got to be a 32" - 37" set (even 40" - 50" is not exactly ideal).
Unless you're going to treat your TV like a PC monitor and sit inches away HD is pretty much wasted on that size of set.
Combine a small HD TV and a relatively expensive Blu-ray player & the relatively expensive movie and what do you get? Turned off customers telling their friends and rels that it's a rip-off and a waste of money, is what.
It is good news for BluRay. No, not every HDTV sold leads to a BluRay sale, but it's a lot tougher to get people to buy a BluRay player if they don't have an HDTV first. This creates a larger group of people to sell BluRay to, even if most of them won't end up buying it any time soon.
Your argument about biology is overstated. It follows the fallacy that people won't buy something if they can't tell the difference in their own home. People buy a lot of stuff they don't need and convince themselves they did need it. Other people will not be able to test BluRay (or whatever) in a situation similar enough to their own home setup to know that their home setup wouldn't show an appreciable difference with BluRay.
As much as I enjoy a good old debate if the best you can manage is to rely on what boils down to a 'people can be conned' argument then I'd not bother if I were you.
Some impressionable sorts are like that, most, when it comes to their hard earned, are not.
Even PS3 owners I know are still buying DVD because when it's upscaled (on their 720p 50" sets) & played through their vanilla Dolby Digital 5.1 kit it looks & sounds 'good enough' - and leaves the expensive alternative Blu-ray movie looking a very poor deal.
So that's small HD TV sets and they are not even 1080p.
That's not a great way to show off the benefits of Blu-ray over HD TV services nor upscaled DVD. Don't even bother trying to argue over this, it plainly just isn't.
Blu-ray can have all the no-name $200 players it likes but ultimately if it can't shift the movies then it really isn't going anywhere.
It's the new Laserdisc. That's all. Accept it & enjoy.
mfm: A lot of people bought DVD based upon the 5.1 demos in stores even though well over 90% of people don't have a properly functioning 5.1 system even 10 years later.
And it's not a "people can be conned" argument. By and large these people convince themselves they want something better. "Keeping up with the joneses".
Who said anything about 1080p? You don't need 1080p to appreciate BluRay. More importantly, you don't need 1080p to buy BluRay.
You're just letting your anti-BluRay stance get in the way. Every HDTV sold makes it easier to sell BluRay players. No, it's not a slam dunk, most of these HDTVs will never have a BluRay player attached to them. But it still make it a lot easier to convince someone to buy a BluRay player (esp. with them available for $100-$200 now) if they don't also have to make a $500+ investment in a TV at the same time.
He either spoke in error, it was mistranslated, or he's just a nut. These figures don't make any more sense than the article that 30% of video disc players sold in Japan last month were BluRay players.
Either way, again, you're trying to change it to be about whether BluRay will succeed or not. That's not the issue at hand here. The issue is whether this increase in HDTV sales is good for BluRay. Yes it is, it presents more opportunity to sell BluRay players.
"These figures don't make any more sense than the article that 30% of video disc players sold in Japan last month were BluRay players."
Actually they were claims about 'shipped' numbers, not verified sales.
"Either way, again, you're trying to change it to be about whether BluRay will succeed or not."
No that's not how this debate has worked at all.
Shawnmos said this was good for Blu-ray. I disagree and said that small 720p/1080i HD TVs were not good for Blu-ray or any kind of high def because they reduce the 'benefit' and produce a lot more dissatisfaction and the "is that it!?" response - and btw that's dissatisfaction of the worst kind, ie direct experience spread by word of mouth amongst friends and family.
You can whirl around in ever decreasing silly little circles all you like but what I've said is correct.
It had nothing to do with the wider debate you introduced (about Blu-ray "succeeding" or not). In fact I have said all along that I think Blu-ray will be there as a niche product, just like Laserdisc was - and probably the Samsung guy was right in that it will stay relevant for maybe about the next 5yrs.
Do try and keep you Blu-coloured glasses from stopping you seeing what's actually said and not what you think has been said.
People can't be dissatisfied until they've already bought a BluRay player and found out it doesn't make a huge difference in their home, can they? If a lot of people are going to be turned off, sounds like they're going to make a lot of sales first!
Upscaled DVD is a joke. Upscaled DVD is 720x480, just like regular DVD. Claude Shannon proved a long time before you were born that you can't make information that isn't there. It's lost, not hidden.
It can be 1280 x 720 (sometimes it's really 1366 x 768) or 1920 x 1080 after it's upscaled and on a PAL TV set it starts off at 720 x 576 (a 20% higher resolution from the starting point).
If upscaling is such a joke - and yet many people think the improvement 1080p high def offers is so close as to make high def an unnecessary expense - then how much closer to that "jokje" is a small HD TV set (at normal TV viewing distances) that's a 720p/1080i unit?
Obviously it's a truth you just can't or won't admit.
"Claude Shannon" Oh dear, talk about scrabbling about at the bottom of the barrel.
“It's rare if a month flies by without some random university or DIYer proclaiming that the next major jump in battery technology is just over the horizon.”
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Good news for Blu-ray.
It's incredibly short-sighted to say this is 'good news' for Blu-ray.
Small sized TVs - and they are, by far, the bulk of what is being discussed here - even if they are supposedly 'HD' are absolutely not good news, for Blu-ray - or high def more generally .
If there were ever HD TV sizes guaranteed to get people dismissively saying "is that it!?" it's got to be a 32" - 37" set (even 40" - 50" is not exactly ideal).
Unless you're going to treat your TV like a PC monitor and sit inches away HD is pretty much wasted on that size of set.
Combine a small HD TV and a relatively expensive Blu-ray player & the relatively expensive movie and what do you get?
Turned off customers telling their friends and rels that it's a rip-off and a waste of money, is what.
http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/
Sorry but you can't beat your own biology & the physics involved.
It is good news for BluRay. No, not every HDTV sold leads to a BluRay sale, but it's a lot tougher to get people to buy a BluRay player if they don't have an HDTV first. This creates a larger group of people to sell BluRay to, even if most of them won't end up buying it any time soon.
Your argument about biology is overstated. It follows the fallacy that people won't buy something if they can't tell the difference in their own home. People buy a lot of stuff they don't need and convince themselves they did need it. Other people will not be able to test BluRay (or whatever) in a situation similar enough to their own home setup to know that their home setup wouldn't show an appreciable difference with BluRay.
@ why not the LS2LS7?
As much as I enjoy a good old debate if the best you can manage is to rely on what boils down to a 'people can be conned' argument then I'd not bother if I were you.
Some impressionable sorts are like that, most, when it comes to their hard earned, are not.
Even PS3 owners I know are still buying DVD because when it's upscaled (on their 720p 50" sets) & played through their vanilla Dolby Digital 5.1 kit it looks & sounds 'good enough' - and leaves the expensive alternative Blu-ray movie looking a very poor deal.
(and as EngadgetHD reported, we know that at least as late as sept 2008 720p/1080i sets are still the majority sold
http://blogs.computerworld.com/lower_res_tv_sales_outpace_1080p_hurting_blu_ray )
So that's small HD TV sets and they are not even 1080p.
That's not a great way to show off the benefits of Blu-ray over HD TV services nor upscaled DVD.
Don't even bother trying to argue over this, it plainly just isn't.
Blu-ray can have all the no-name $200 players it likes but ultimately if it can't shift the movies then it really isn't going anywhere.
It's the new Laserdisc. That's all.
Accept it & enjoy.
mfm:
A lot of people bought DVD based upon the 5.1 demos in stores even though well over 90% of people don't have a properly functioning 5.1 system even 10 years later.
And it's not a "people can be conned" argument. By and large these people convince themselves they want something better. "Keeping up with the joneses".
Who said anything about 1080p? You don't need 1080p to appreciate BluRay. More importantly, you don't need 1080p to buy BluRay.
You're just letting your anti-BluRay stance get in the way. Every HDTV sold makes it easier to sell BluRay players. No, it's not a slam dunk, most of these HDTVs will never have a BluRay player attached to them. But it still make it a lot easier to convince someone to buy a BluRay player (esp. with them available for $100-$200 now) if they don't also have to make a $500+ investment in a TV at the same time.
He either spoke in error, it was mistranslated, or he's just a nut. These figures don't make any more sense than the article that 30% of video disc players sold in Japan last month were BluRay players.
See here.
http://www.contentagenda.com/blog/1500000150/post/1760024576.html
(although they don't speak Cantonese in Taipei, he should have said Mandarin)
Either way, again, you're trying to change it to be about whether BluRay will succeed or not. That's not the issue at hand here. The issue is whether this increase in HDTV sales is good for BluRay. Yes it is, it presents more opportunity to sell BluRay players.
"These figures don't make any more sense than the article that 30% of video disc players sold in Japan last month were BluRay players."
Actually they were claims about 'shipped' numbers, not verified sales.
"Either way, again, you're trying to change it to be about whether BluRay will succeed or not."
No that's not how this debate has worked at all.
Shawnmos said this was good for Blu-ray.
I disagree and said that small 720p/1080i HD TVs were not good for Blu-ray or any kind of high def because they reduce the 'benefit' and produce a lot more dissatisfaction and the "is that it!?" response - and btw that's dissatisfaction of the worst kind, ie direct experience spread by word of mouth amongst friends and family.
You can whirl around in ever decreasing silly little circles all you like but what I've said is correct.
It had nothing to do with the wider debate you introduced (about Blu-ray "succeeding" or not). In fact I have said all along that I think Blu-ray will be there as a niche product, just like Laserdisc was - and probably the Samsung guy was right in that it will stay relevant for maybe about the next 5yrs.
Do try and keep you Blu-coloured glasses from stopping you seeing what's actually said and not what you think has been said.
People can't be dissatisfied until they've already bought a BluRay player and found out it doesn't make a huge difference in their home, can they? If a lot of people are going to be turned off, sounds like they're going to make a lot of sales first!
Upscaled DVD is a joke. Upscaled DVD is 720x480, just like regular DVD. Claude Shannon proved a long time before you were born that you can't make information that isn't there. It's lost, not hidden.
Jeez, talk about kidding yourself.
"Upscaled DVD is 720x480"
Actually it's not.
It can be 1280 x 720 (sometimes it's really 1366 x 768) or 1920 x 1080 after it's upscaled and on a PAL TV set it starts off at 720 x 576 (a 20% higher resolution from the starting point).
If upscaling is such a joke - and yet many people think the improvement 1080p high def offers is so close as to make high def an unnecessary expense - then how much closer to that "jokje" is a small HD TV set (at normal TV viewing distances) that's a 720p/1080i unit?
Obviously it's a truth you just can't or won't admit.
"Claude Shannon"
Oh dear, talk about scrabbling about at the bottom of the barrel.