Not wasting my time on new Digital

Both CD and DVD offered advantages to consumers that made them a no-brainer to adopt once software became plentiful and hardware prices dropped. With the new DVD formats, the advantages are clearly less but they are more compelling than just "better sound". Through mainstream systems, the better sound of SACD and DVD-A was not better enough. But I think the better picture of the HD DVD formats (on HD displays) will be better enough, and combined with the greater capacity of the discs, you have something that will move consumers to upgrade. And the barriers to adoption are fairly low. The new players will play old DVDs, correct? So you won't replace your old collection necessarily, but you may be motivated to get a new DVD player by the prospect of buying (or renting) an entire season of Deadwood on a single disc.

The improved PQ of 1080p over DVD's current 480p is pretty obvious and most of us who have HD displays, even if not 1080p, will go for an HD player as soon as Netflix starts offering the formats on a good number of new or interesting older releases. Netflix, along with Blockbuster, has some power in how this plays out (which formats do they offer?). The studios probably have more power.

Blu-ray at least promises interactivity, and I imagine that what this really means is you'll be encouraged to buy things directly while watching content. That's a big enough carrot to drive development of some pretty clever promotions, which may suck consumers in.

The next generation of broadband into the home is a wildcard here if HD on-demand begins to materialize.

I only wish Viridian was totally on target with his assesment. However the numbers do not support his views.

Before CBS/Columbia made the hugh committment to jump into the then new CD technology, we formed focus groups in several parts of the country to evaluate consumer trend in this medium. Would they pay the $800.00 for the entry level player? Would they pay near twice the price for the software? Would they buy titles they already have in LP or Cassette ? The list goes on, but that was crux of what needed to be evaluated. The results from these focus groups was an overwhelming resounding YES!!! So armed with that the plunge was taken.

Guess what? Did not happen in the numbers expected, in fact nowhere even close. Wish the hell it did, would have saved a ton of jobs. Also resistance at the retail level was another area encountered, that was not foreseen. Retailers had to regear themselves to accomodate this new medium. All of this held true for Capitol and RCA as well.

Even new releases in both LP and Cassette and the newer CD format, the LP contiuned to outsell the CD by a far margin until about late 1988 some seven years after the introduction of the CD Players and by that time the price of CD Players had fallen dramatically, but prices on CD software remained much the same.Software prices remained high losses had to be recovered from previous years, and have remained high since.

Comparing DVD Video to Music CD is an apple to oranges comparison. Music CDs are bought individually and are added to ones library. On the other hand DVD Video is a different animal. If it was not for the vast majority of rental libraries such as Blockbuster and the like the DVD Video market would near collapse under its own weight.

Case in point in my own vast collection I have precisely three CDs that I already have on the LP format. If I posses it in LP or Cassette, I see zero reason to add the same title in CD format. And to this day not everything has been transferred to CD. Same holds true for the DVD Video format.

We will see if Sony with Blue Ray can weather a 7 year storm in this day and time. However thier recent debacle with SACD and DVD-A proves otherwise. The Corporate environment has changed dramatically in recent years, no longer will Corporations pour resources into a medium that show a poor return. Now its all about the numbers, there are no more visionaries heading these Corporations now. And in the final analysis it is the end consumer that ends up with an obsolete purchase.

D_Edwards: My center channel is a hold over from my previous mains. It's a Vienna Acoustics Maestro or Theatro. I don't recall. It's a good sized center channel, but will be replaced at some point to match my mains. My LFE went out on my receiver recently, Yamaha RXV-995 so its a good enough excuse to replace it and try something along the lines of what you suggested. Like I stated earlier, I'd love to be able to cut down to one set of gear that handles music and HT well. My listening space is my living room right now. I'm hoping to put the house up for sale in the next month or two. Next place will have a basement, which translates to "I can do what I want down there". I don't plan to make any drastic changes in my current space as the room already has too many problems. When I'm ready, I'll shoot you an email for advice. Thanks.

sony has to figure out another way to generate a royalty now that their cd patent has run out. this was the reason for sacd,which was a flop. i thought there was alot of issues with cd's myself unitl i had aberdeen components mod my tact millenium mk3 and a northstar 192 transport. this transport can be used as 16/44.1 or upsampled at 24/96. the 24/96 works toghether with the dac's in the tact amp and sounds the best to these ears. the mod aberdeen accomplished is the best digital i have heard since digital came out. i am listening to many cd's that i deemed unlistenable. aberdeen components has overcome the many complaints we all have had with digital. when i heard the amp and transport for the first time. i was shocked at how good digital can really sound.a previous mod to my tact amp sounded lifeless and broken compared to what i am hearing now. i have had people over and asked how my cd's can sound so much better than what they have at home. it was also good to hear after the mod, the company proclaim the tact millenium mk3 amp the best sounding amp they ever heard. it should be a test piece for the rest to be compared against. i know everyone has heard these statements before, but the aberdeen components mod is THE REAL DEAL !!!! this is not some gimicky mod that you dont know what you are getting. you can call them and they will be glad to tell you what and why what they do works. their email is [email protected]