It's telling when the early adopters (many of us on this and other boards) are so disenchanted with the format war. I, for one, will not buy any version of a high def player until the prices come down to the point where it doubles as an affordable replacement to my current DVD player or unless a dual format player comes out (unlikely).
That said, it seems that the consuming public may also be reaching a point where the increased resolution isn't as groundbreaking as with DVD vs. VHS. The picture on my HD plasma off of DVD looks pretty darn good. While HD broadcasts do have a shinier, cleaner appearance and higher resolution, I'm not distracted my artifacts or fuzzy edges when watching movies right now. I question whether I actually even need a higher resolution format.
Now, I've heard the other side of the argument that the real benefit will be in the lossless audio compression and the extra space to store extraneous volumes of encyclopedic information about the movie that I am watching, btu I just don't buy it. Right now, I am so over saturated with multi-media applications that I yearn for simplicity and straightforwardness. I rarely watch the extra content on DVDs any more, and usually opt to spend a few lses bucks and buy the movie-only version of DVDs when possible, opting against the special editions. This makes me question what they are going to put on a DVD that I will be compelled to watch when I really don't have much interest, or time for that matter, in watching what little is placed on DVDs as they now stand.
I think a good argument coudl actually be made that having the secrets of movie making revealed cheapens the movie watching experience, making us more aware of the tricks used to make movies and robbing us of our suspension of disbelief (which is critical to enjoying the show, IMO).
Finally, is lossless audio really that much better? I simply can't imagine having an audio track that sounds any clearer or more real, without the addition of extra speakers. I know that there is a theoretical gain in lossless audio. But what does that translate into when our ears process it? Isn't the fact that our ears actually discard considerable amounts of audio cues the basis for lossy audio compressors in the first place? Adding back information that is going to be ignored by our brains seems like an excercise in futility.
Just some thoughts ... slow day at the office
/rant
