Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HD-DVD delayed again...

http://news.com.com/Toshiba+to+delay+HD+DVD+player+launch/2100-1041_3-5992869.html?tag=nefd.top

It seems like we may never have that format war. Blu-Ray has almost all the studios supplying content to its format and now may have first mover advantage. It seems like the only ally HD-DVD has right now is Bill Gates. Still, I think the HD format will be going the way of DVD-A/SACD. The average buyer doesn't have a HD compatible television or know 480i from 1080p. Also, I still get a feeling that the average buyer is still not sold on widescreen because of those black bars. I was in the DVD section a large retail chain store and an older women was asking another customer the difference between full and widescreen and the guy said he had a widescreen TV and STILL prefered Full-Screen because he hated those black bars (though I guess image distortion from streching 4:3 video to 16:9 or missing like 30% of the full picture didn't both him).

I wouldn't invest in a player until Blu-Ray stops issuing movies like Charlie's Angels II in its initial roll-outs and gives us some title like LOTR and Star Wars. Of course, these titles will be double dipped in the future, so why invest now?

Here's the latest I've heard on various topics as of December 6.

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Here we are poised on the cusp going into the final stretch of the transition. And poised, and poised, and poised...

The House took the Senate DTV transition bill (Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 -- Title III of the budget reconciliation bill - S. 1932), and amended it by deleting everything and substituting the text of H.R. 4241 (the House version of the bill) and sent it back to the Senate. It's been sitting there since November 18.

Then came Thanksgiving.

Of course the Budget bill is sort of important and they're going to have to get it out before too long. Presumably the staff is working on some sort of compromise for the conference committee; hopefully it won't be to set the transition date and leave out everything else (eg. consumer education) for later.

In the meantime we can all anticipate the new toys that will be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (January 5 - 8), and some of us are also waiting to hear what new Apple toys Steve Jobs will announce on January 9 at MacWorld Expo in San Francisco.

Read that some NBC, Sci-Fi channel (Battlestar Galactica), and USA network shows will now be available (via iTunes Music store) on the little low-def 320 x 240 pixel iPod screen (NTSC and PAL only) to add to the ABC/Disney fare.

The Blu-ray Disc people are already hyping their big CES roll-out announcement, and hinting that Blu-ray high-def players will be in stores sometime this spring (calendar equinox or meteorological?). I'm guessing that means sometime from March to May.

Apparently the Blu-ray Discs are going to start out single layer only (25 GB), with the full-spec 50 GB dual-layer discs coming out a little later as production techniques are worked out.

The satellilte folks over at DirecTV are finally getting local channel HD beaming into people's homes (in Detroit) and the other eleven first-tier markets by early 2006. Cost of the new antennas and MPEG-4 receivers is reportedly free after a $200 rebate, or $99, or something else depending on . . . well, hard to say.

FCC Commissioner Martin has been talking about moving the cable companies toward a la carte channel pricing (you only pay for the channels you actually want to watch). The cable companies are understandably opposed. We'll see if this actually goes anywhere.

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Sutter