2008 Woodie Awards
High-definition formats: Does anyone really care?
Britton Peele
Issue date: 2/8/08 Section: Opinions
It's official - or at least will be by 2009: High Definition is becoming the norm.
And with a new era of big, shiny TVs and an American society that's known for usually wanting things bigger and better looking, along came the High Definition format war. Like VHS and Betamax long before, HD-DVD and Blu-ray are fighting for the title of the one true next-generation video format.
And while Sony lost the earlier war with its choice of Betamax, it looks as if it's set to win this one with Blu-ray. Sales figures are showing Blu-ray clearly is pulling ahead of HD-DVD in the format war, and more and more studios like Warner Bros. are announcing they will support Blu-ray exclusively. So before long, it looks like we may have our new standard for disc-based entertainment.
Problem is, does anybody really care?
Sure, it's easy to walk into an electronics store and marvel at "Planet Earth" running on a beautiful 52-inch TV in glorious HD. Sure, with sporting events like the Super Bowl, watching in HD somehow feels leaps and bounds above watching in Standard Definition. Sure, the idea of having Megan Fox in as big and sharp of an image as possible when watching "Transformers" is extremely appealing…
But is that enough?
We're living in somewhat odd times as far as entertainment goes. Instead of being entranced by the new flick at the movie theaters every week, a lot of us spend more time watching ridiculously idiotic and extremely low quality videos on YouTube. And we enjoy it. Some people - OK, probably a lot of them - apparently would rather download a video of shaky-cam "Cloverfield" shot on an even shakier cam by some dude who snuck his camcorder into the local Cinemark.
Let's face it. As appealing as the new technology is for some of us, has anybody really spent several hundred dollars on an HD-DVD/Blu-ray player and said, "Great! Now I can watch "Borat" in 1080p!" Somehow I doubt it, especially when the HD format tends to cost around $10 more than the standard DVD at retail. Besides, most DVD players now will upscan standard DVDs to 1080p or another of the higher resolutions, which, while not looking as good as the HD format, still looks pretty good.
And with a new era of big, shiny TVs and an American society that's known for usually wanting things bigger and better looking, along came the High Definition format war. Like VHS and Betamax long before, HD-DVD and Blu-ray are fighting for the title of the one true next-generation video format.
And while Sony lost the earlier war with its choice of Betamax, it looks as if it's set to win this one with Blu-ray. Sales figures are showing Blu-ray clearly is pulling ahead of HD-DVD in the format war, and more and more studios like Warner Bros. are announcing they will support Blu-ray exclusively. So before long, it looks like we may have our new standard for disc-based entertainment.
Problem is, does anybody really care?
Sure, it's easy to walk into an electronics store and marvel at "Planet Earth" running on a beautiful 52-inch TV in glorious HD. Sure, with sporting events like the Super Bowl, watching in HD somehow feels leaps and bounds above watching in Standard Definition. Sure, the idea of having Megan Fox in as big and sharp of an image as possible when watching "Transformers" is extremely appealing…
But is that enough?
We're living in somewhat odd times as far as entertainment goes. Instead of being entranced by the new flick at the movie theaters every week, a lot of us spend more time watching ridiculously idiotic and extremely low quality videos on YouTube. And we enjoy it. Some people - OK, probably a lot of them - apparently would rather download a video of shaky-cam "Cloverfield" shot on an even shakier cam by some dude who snuck his camcorder into the local Cinemark.
Let's face it. As appealing as the new technology is for some of us, has anybody really spent several hundred dollars on an HD-DVD/Blu-ray player and said, "Great! Now I can watch "Borat" in 1080p!" Somehow I doubt it, especially when the HD format tends to cost around $10 more than the standard DVD at retail. Besides, most DVD players now will upscan standard DVDs to 1080p or another of the higher resolutions, which, while not looking as good as the HD format, still looks pretty good.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
superdynamite
posted 2/10/08 @ 3:13 PM CST
Yes, people care. People that purchased a certain format feel the need to justify their purchase. That is why they argue.
Now that Blu-ray has won the format war, it will be interesting to see which people will fall for the slick promotional techniques of the HD-DVD manufacturers. (Continued…)
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