redford

Well today, I'm off to Best Buy and Circuit City and any other electronics store I can find to see if they have any HD-DVD or BluRay displays or demos up yet. I actually don't expect to find any because of the mess so far of the formats. The title of this post actually sounds more like that classic Leonard Nimoy series about the paranormal rather than a DVD shopping excursion, hehe.

I'll report any findings, though I'm sure the lion's share of you have already been to said retailers (if you live in the U.S. that is).

My short comments on the whole thing (and this probably belongs in its own thread). Ultimately it will be *content* not quality that sells the format. Whichever format can have enough storage and provide quality discs with enough extra features will and should win out.

My dad has a Philips CRT set and HD on DirecTV. He gets all of the available channels, and so far despite being impressed with HD, he's also really put out and disappointed with the lack of variety and paying extra for getting comparitively little. He is unimpressed that being an early adopter, the possibility of ICT on his set. So he's putting off a purchase. Furthermore, he doesn't even watch the HD channels half the time and is thrilled to watch the standard resolution on his new HD panasonic set which doesn't even have the HD channels.

Now for me, yeah, I think he is a bit off there, but he is also Joe Consumer, the kind of guy with too much money to burn that the companies are going after. A classic early adopter that is currently building his own souped up home computer with the best video cards, memory, etc.

But for him, HD is falling short, particularly because of all of the missteps. Even with the computers, Windows delay of Vista isn't helping matters.

Personally what also bothers me about the lack of a standard is that the PC world will be divided between BluRay and HD-DVD drives, which ultimately could hurt or impede progress, and with two formats there could be less selection. Just looking at the UMD intrusion and space has got me disappointed in that whole thing.

Ultimately, *content* and most likely storage and multimedia will declare the winner of this war, but both sides would still do a better service for consumers if they had agreed on a common format. We should have been listening to 5.1 DVD audio for years now, but instead the best we have in the common marketplace is still 1983 technology CDs. I just hope HD and HD-DVDs aren't headed down the same path.

I still remember as a small child seeing a VCR demonstrated for the first time back in 1978. I remember the salesperson taped a football game, and I was thoroughly unimpressed, lol, because I couldn't tell the difference between the live action and the recorded game, and I remember thinking, so you can delay what you see, big friggin' deal, what's the point? lol

My novel-long thoughts for the day. Hope I can find a good demo though, I'd like to see this in action.

Nimbus

If you have a high end electronics store in your area I would check there. There is a good chance they will do a HD DVD or Blu Ray demo at some point and they will probably already have the HD DVD player on demo.

redford

Thanks. I think there's a Howards here, a well known SoCal electronics store. If you've been here, the ads have an old guy wearing a crown "I am the king". Cheesy ads, but quality store. My dad bought his first laserdisc player from the La Habra store back in the early 80s when most people where still getting their minds behind the idea of one of those new fangled VCRs, hehe.

I'll go check it out.

Well, it decided to pour down rain here today, so I had to cut it short and just went to a Best Buy. I must say I'm kinda disappointed at the employees general lack of compete awareness of the entire format. Usually the staff there is pretty well informed.

First I went into the DVD section, but didn't see a single placard for either HD-DVD or BluRay, though the first disc doesn't hit shelves until 4/18, right?

So anyway, I ask a sales guy if he knows when the first bach of HD-DVDs will arrive, and he just looks at me dumbfounded like I'm speaking Russian or something, and then something clicks and he says yeah sure, go to the electronics department, tons of HD *TVs* there. And, points out to check out DLP, the latest new tech.

So I go there, and sure enough tons of various TVs, home theaters and DVD players are there. So, I ask a sales guy there if they have any HD-DVD players there yet and when they expect them, and he says yeah sure, already got 'em, and points me in the direction of the DVD players.

Now, I saw plenty of nifty DVD players and indeed many were marked "HD" and "upconvert" to 720p and the like made by the players LG and Toshiba, etc. But no sign of any actual HD-DVD or BluRay players. Moreover, the prices were pretty darn low for some pretty high-end models. Some upconvert or multidisc players were going as low as $67 and the highest price I saw was $334. This is not boding well for HD-DVD or BluRay when they hop on the market at a grand a piece when sitting next to a $50 player, especially the openly multiregion and multiformat Cyberhome these days.

Again, not a single placard saying anything like "Coming Soon Hi-Definition DVD: HD-DVD/BluRay, the next generation in digital video" or some such, nada. I did see a few hard drive / DVD recorders called "HDD", which looked interesting, but so far no HD-DVD. I'm not at all surprised. What WAS somewhat troublesome was that there seems to be zero buzz about it in the store. Finally, out of desperation, I asked the check out clerk if she knew, and got a dumbfounded "Dude, I have NO idea" response. What was I expecting.

I will admit, it was raining too hard and too miserable for me to make a day of it and check out Circuit City and see if there's anything there. Will def check out Howard's locally. Good, local high-end store.

This is depressing though as getting the word out about HD in general has been a long time in coming. I really believe that HD home video (DVDs) will help HD in general take off as viewers will demand more HD channels. But, it's almost as if they're TRYING to fail, which is depressing. The complete lack of awareness at a major like Best Buy is depressing. Maybe I'll try writing and see if I can get a response that way.

I can saw that I got ahold of an internal Walmart retail publication and the latest there is that they plan on adding a BluRay/HD-DVD kiosk at electronics in place of the current VHS movie videotapes. So if you wonder why videos are dirt cheap these days, they're trying to liquidate them completely, so get them while you can. I'll assume you will still be able to get blanks for awhile yet.

But as I said, depressing initially, given the fact that the debut is imminent. Thank god for the internet and e-tailers. If we had to depend on brick and mortar, how many of us, ourselves, would even be aware of the format's existence?

I was really hoping to see a demo and maybe a few of the new movies, no luck.

Nero

Someone want to give me the Cliff's Notes version of this thread?

Is the poster essentially saying he's surprised that he doesn't see any HD product out there?

Augustes

He's looking for a demo steup. From what I understood, some of the audio/video boutique stores did have demos running.

redford

It shouldn't be hard, but I'll break it down into simple English.

I was looking for maybe a demo, a few demo players, maybe some discs at a local major electronics store.

Perhaps a display. Was surprised that not even a brochure or sign was there to be had.

Further, the people who work at the store, seem completely unaware of the existence of high definition DVD altogether.

Hope that helps. Why is it so hard to actually sit down and read a few paragraphs. It's not hard really. Regardless, I may be long-winded, but I'm not blind. No need to "go over my head" and talk around me asking if there is a "simple version" of my post. You can ask directly and I'll be glad to help you out.

Nimbus

Well...you're not going to find demos unless they have a rep from HD-DVD or Blu-Ray at the store...and that is only a part of the demo tour that is going on. I don't even think BR is doing one. Why would they have discs and players in stores when they're still working on them? A quick glance at this forum would have explained that. Nothing is finished, hence the reason why all the delays. Why would you bother going to a store to look for something that's not finished?

Augustes

Because I know from internal retail publications (at least one) that there is a mock-up already for an HD-DVD/BluRay display due sometime in June.

Further, there were pamphlets and everything else concerning the XBOX, despite the fact that those were unavailable for purchase at many stores.

That's why. So, I thought I'd take a look, that's all, but please drop the internet attitude. I'm really not in the mood. I DO "glance" at the forum quite a bit. This is not a freaking elementary schoolyard. We can all play nicely here. I can do without typical messageboard politics today.

Just thought with the imminent release in a few weeks time, there might be some sign of it somewhere.

Nero

If not for the fact that I spend so much time reading message boards like this, I really doubt I'd ever have known HD-DVD or Blu-ray even existed.

Nimbus

Come to think of it....your right. However, that might not be such a bad thing since both camps are having such a hard time getting a finished product. If the general public was actually waiting for either product, then all these delays would have caused some seriously bad PR.