Let's also not forget that February of 2009's digital switchover is going to be a big motivator for people to buy an HDTV.
True, but this also won't affect people who have cable. And if someone has a working SDTV and wants to watch OTA content, it's cheaper just to buy a converter box (isn't there a plan to subsidize those? I haven't been paying attention)
You are forgetting the many people who are completely ignorant of that fact and can be easily convinced otherwise by the friendly sales people at Best Buy.
That's not true for all cable companies. One of the local cable companies is hot to replace their equipment with all digital TV and get out of the analog TV business.
That's different. It's got nothing to do with the digital TV changeover. If cable companies are changing to digital, they're doing it on their own.
I don't have a problem with the majority of what you said outside of the bolded part. Personally, I do not need to buy any food or product on sale. I make enough to pay full price. But only an idiot doesn't look for a sale. To somehow make the correlation between people who look for food sales and a low income bracket doesn't seem right to me. Which is where education comes in. Education from the stores, from the studios and from their friends.
DVD was introduced in 1997 and didn't surpass VHS in sales until 2003. Since Blu-Ray was introduced in 2006, I'll give it until 2012 before I decide whether or not to write them off. I got a Blu-Ray player back in August and I was impressed with the visual quality. BUT what I'm watching has to be up to matching what Blu-Ray is capable of showing off. Otherwise, there's no difference between Blu-Ray and DVD. Eventually the "awe" wears off. We'll see. Put my vote down as "Present".
I'm kind of surprised that people are already declaring Blu-Ray a failure given its recent introduction/"win" over HD-DVD not to mention the fact that standard DVDs took several years to attract a wide following. While I'm not planning on "upgrading" most of my current DVDs except for the Pirates movies and probably the Star Wars movies if/when they are re-released on Blu-Ray, I AM buying new movies as they are released on Blu-Ray instead of on standard DVD and I am starting to see some signs that prices are dropping a bit on Blu-Rays. Blu-Ray also seems to be REALLY helping drive down the costs of standard DVDs. I can't say that I've noticed a HUGE difference so far between Blu-Ray Discs and standard DVDs although, of course, Blu-Ray can put a lot more information on fewer discs and due to a mysterious compatibility issue with "The Happening" on Blu-Ray and having to exchange it for a standard DVD, I was able to do some informal comparison between its presentation on Blu-Ray vs. standard DVD and did notice some overall enhancement in terms of sound and picture quality with the Blu-Ray version. The only question I have is, what's the next big leap in technology? Downloading movies, TV, and other media seems to be becoming a big thing right now but you can't put what you've downloaded up on your TV without special (expensive) equipment (i.e. Apple TV) and watching it on a mini-screen without surround sound, while nice if you're on a trip, just isn't as fun as popping a DVD into a home theater system. It would be nice if Apple, et. al would allow you to burn your downloaded movies and TV shows onto a DVD a la music and then maybe that might really take off but the quality still wouldn't be quite AS GOOD.......yet.
And that's my major major problem with downloading: not having the physical media on the shelf to put into the player when I want it. I'm not going to wait an hour or however long to watch something when I want to watch it. Then we get into the problems of cable companies putting caps on the amount of stuff you can download. Then there becomes a storage problem. And how about extras? Nope, give me physical media any day of the week. I'll find a place to store them.
Personally, I think those people should have their TVs replaced with 14" analogue tuner portables. I doubt they'd even notice.
Of course it does... That mean less that they have to own for converting to analog. Plus, it's easy to see another reason why.. DirectTV and Dish are eating them up when it come to HD content.. Right now I get 22 HD after my cable goes full dig it will be over 100.. Plus super fast internet access.. Remember, every analog they dump it's like 3 HD's in it's place.. Plus just having an HDTV here in town isn't enough.. If you don't have a QAM you don't get anything once full Dig goes online.... But on a sidenote... Fuck BD
Actually, low income bracket people often clip coupons and look for food sales when putting food on the table is already difficult to do while paying their rent and utility bills like some of my past Mexican and black friends from the past and present. It would be foolish of them to invest in luxury items like a brand new Blu-ray player or cosmetic surgery when they are shopping at the 99 Cent store and always complaining about not making enough money to purchase new clothes, luxury items, and barely scraping by.
Please read what I wrote. I never said they didn't clip coupons. All I said was that the phenomenon of coupons and shopping for sales was not exclusive to any income bracket. I understand that. I never disagreed with you, not did I? Nice to see you making broad, sweeping generalizations, though. I doubt all low income people are always complaining about a lack of money.
Actually, I have been seeing more and more chains, particularly Wal-Mart, that are now displaying a full 1080p picture synced up to their TV display wall
I don't know if this was saracasm or not, so I'll answer honestly. When you go to the movie theater, they matte the screen depending on the aspect ratio as well. I never hear people complaining about "wasting screen space" then. In particular movies shown on IMAX screens that are not IMAX produced (just blown up in size) only take about a 1/3rd of the screen. Yet, people pay significantly more to watch such an experience. I don't see the difference.
i have an HD set... but no blu-ray player, nor do i have an HD-dvd player. for me there isnt enough "bang for the buck" to upgrade from dvds. i'd probably get a blu-ray player via a ps3, but there are no games i want for the ps3 (at least not enough to justify it's price point).
600,000 copies of The Dark Knight on Blu-ray were sold on the first day. Not too shabby. The DVD sold "only" 2.4 million copies. More info.