"Keith G" wrote in message
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"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
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"Keith G" wrote


sneeyip


We've seen DVD audio and SACDs fall on their arse

The fall was expedited by the excellent performance of the audio CD.


I agree that for 'digital' a good CD is all I need, but there were a
number of factors that went into the early demise of the DVDA and SACDs:

Not so much "early demise" as failure to ever take off in the first place.

They were greedily/discouragingly priced to start with; they needed an
expensive player; they didn't sound *that much* better (if at all) on
'hifi' equipment and almost certainly wouldn't have done on 'domestic'
(electrical hardware shop) kit and the first available titles seemed to be
not much more than obscure 'samplers'. Factor in also that I asked about
SACDs in a well-know music store (can't remember its name for the life of
me - HMV, Huntingdon?) and the sales assistant didn't know what I was
talking about!!


I agree with that assesment. The public simply couldn't see the point of
DVD-A or SACD. CD was (and remains) more than good enough for 2-channel
domestic replay and was readily available at an acceptable price with a good
choice of material. What did DVD-A or SACD offer the public that CD didn't?
nothing that they wanted.



Wait and see - the remasters and releases are coming thick and fast;
there's no price premium for BluRay rentals and BD players are dropping
fast in price. I predict they will kill the ordinary DVD off if the
Internet doesn't do it first - things are moving quickly in the
audiovisual/entertainment world nowadays!

IMO Bluray was launched slighlty too soon, timing is important in
introducing new AV formats, do it too soon and the public are wary of yet
another new format whilst they still regard the format before as the "new"
one. Launch too late and someone else has introduced a new format of their
own and stolen the market.

Fortunately for Bluray the 'format battle' with DVD-HD held it up long
enough. By now DVD has been around long enough to no longer be "new" and VHS
has gone the way of obsolete formats.

I agree that Bluray will eventually displace DVD, but there's plenty of life
in the DVD yet. The backward compatability means that people can replace an
old DVD player with a BD one and still play their DVDs on it. This will help
get BD players out into homes, and then you can sell BDs even to those who
can't see the difference

(Thank Gawd for the radio and LPs! :-)

No, thank gawd for radio and CDs!


David.