Turboultra.com

“I’m the Idiot Who Bought an HD-DVD Player”

Okay so this guy has some points here and there. Tactics here and there were shady and all in all I’m pretty bummed about the death of HD-DVD. The article mainly circles around the idea that the “Idiot” who was an early adopter of HD-DVD, was basically a cheap skate, and wanted too be cutting edge without cutting their wallet. Hey, I totally agree. I’m in with that circle. But take this into consideration, I got a high definition video player, which upscales amazingly well, with 5 free HD-DVDs, for $99. And yes, they did come! I got all five last night (several months later but hey they did come). With Bluray, back in Nov 2007 they were around $349 at the cheapest, and then Bluray movies at around $30 a pop. Given later on Sony jumped on the free movie band wagon, and started offering Bluray discs with their players as mail in rebates. Anyhow, jump ahead a couple of months. HD-DVD “dies”. Bluray reigns victorious. The US economy is on a downward spiral. Consumers begin buying less and less luxury goods and focus on savings and the necessities. Prices begin to rise in almost every market. Sure, Bluray is the winner, but who’s gonna buy a player now? They’re still just as expensive as a couple of months ago. In addition to that, the real “nerds” of the format war already know that come the fall, the new Bluray profile release may render a large number of current generation players virtually useless to play discs created after the profile update. Okay they’ll probably still “play” the movies, but no extra features. So jump ahead to Nov. 2008. The economy hasn’t looked so bad since the 80’s. Spending is at a crazy low. The price of gold has gone through the roof. Black Friday rolls around. No one has a ton of cash to spare. But it’s a spending frenzy weekend. We’re Americans, we’ve got to buy stuff. Plus we just got that check in the mail from the “Economic Stimulus Plan” not too long ago. Lets go out and spend some money. Am I going to see a Bluray player for $99? How about $200? Doubtful. The fact of the matter is Bluray may be too expensive for the average American to purchase in the not too distant future. DVDs are cheap and they play great on HD-DVD players. HD-DVD players are cheaper than ever and movies are on the move with stores trying to liquidate their remaining copies. I’ll most likely use my holiday savings money on some other random gadget or a device to play some new downloadable media. Later I’ll use my birthday and Christmas money hunting around the bargain bin DVDs and saving the rest of it for the harder months ahead.

Who knows maybe with the surge of HD-DVD players and purchases of HD-DVD media on the horizon, the format can be resurrected from the grave. Maybe Toshiba will see that the US consumer now wants cheaper products, so they can have high definition and not have to spend some serious coin. Maybe we can still have a repeat of the 80’s with betamax and vhs…. and the decline of the US economy (see any parallels here?). I know, it’s just wishful thinking. I still think, I’m smart, I bought an HD-DVD player early.