LG: No go on combo of Blu-ray, HD DVD

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I'm with the crowd, here...: and for ONCE, I actually read EVERY SINGLE POST before responding.

I'm looking for a reasonably priced, decent quality "upconvert" DVD player that will bring my small and slowly growing DVD collection up to "near-720P" quality when I play it, and also record at near that level of quality -- something less than $200 -- probably closer to $100, and leaving it AT THAT until all this "dust settles."

I think from the MANUFACTUERERS' point of view, both Blu-Ray and the HD-DVD crowd (due to licensing restrictions, Blu-Ray can't even USE the initals DVD as a description or comparison in its promotion), have, as usual, set initial prices so high in an attempt to recover 100 %+ of their R & D expenditures before they ever start cutting prices for more mass appeal. They KNOW there is a certain customer base with enough money, enough desire, or both to drive initial sales regardless of price.

I USED TO BE an "early adopter" when that was much more affordable and reliable, but these days it has to be something new, inexpensive and widely hailed as the first and only of its kind, and some sort of "revolution" I can't stand to live without before I'll "go there."

While I've yet to actually even SEE an HD-DVD, the local Best Buy has had the Samsung model on display for months now... hooked up, curiously, to a Samsung 720P LCD for A LONG TIME before they finally switched it to a 1080P... The first time I decided to check it out, the freakin' demo disk wouldn't even RUN! The last time, it WAS PLAYING, ON THE 42" Samsung 1080P LCD, and I watched it through several movie previews on the disk... What I saw was NOT encouraging...

First, even though it was a Samsung disk on a Samsung player, I got the little "hourglass" for SEVERAL seconds between each track. Second, although the picture wsa, for the most part, ASTOUNDING when the demos were playing, I noticed more than a fair share of "artifacts" within high-motion sequences... little "staticy" spots where entire pixel segments sometimes as large as a fingernail were completely dropped for a split second, along with a few jagged edges on moving scenery along cliffs.

I commented to one of their "ever-so-knowledgeable" salespeople that I was seeing a few artifacts, and he said, "Yeah! Isn't the picture GREAT?!?"

I also agree that if the two platforms don't merge at some point, one of them is likely doomed to fail, and it's probably too early to tell which, although I agree it could very well be BOTHl... Since RAM Hard Drive and Flash ROM prices keep coming down, I see no reason there might be a very near future where NOBODY has a need for disks of ANY type. Instead, they'll by everything on a flash ROM, stick it in a slot on their TV or computer, download it once, and it will be there for good (or for the rental period, if it's rented). Or something quite similar could be done via the internet, as is already done with services like iTunes.

Hard drives, themselves, which are a notoriously outdated form of hardware BOUND to be replaced before too much longer, could be replaced with some much faster form of flash ROMS which can be added to simply by putting more in little slots on the side of your computer, or replacing existing ones with higher-capacity ones -- and if new news recently reported by ZDNet pans out, they could be 100 times fastet than what we're using now.

So no, although I'd LOVE to have Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, or both, I'm waitnig until the dust is WELL settled before I make ANY moves in THAT direction.

Nappy Viewings!
Jeff; Posted by: Jeff Hayes Posted on: 10/15/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use