June 2006 - page 2
 6. Movies in HD on Satellite and Cable Are More Compressed Than on an HD Disc Like Blu-Ray or HD DVD. Even in 2006, the pipe is only so wide, allowing only so many zeros and ones to flow to your home for Internet access, as well as for HDTV content. This is the main reason why all channels aren’t in HDTV. Perhaps DirecTV’s new MPG4 satellite system will allow dramatically more HDTV channels in the coming years, but right now, an HD movie from the bird or over digital cable is far more compressed than one on an HD DVD or Blu-ray disc. At the same time, 1080i outputs from players don’t have the ultimate resolution of 1080p, but few viewers at this point have TVs that are able to accept such a feed. Could future players be 1080p-capable? Without question. Would scaling from 1080i to 1080p look better than scaling from 480i to 1080p? Without question.
 7. HD DVD and Blu-ray Are a Good Value. Compared to a night out at the movies, even a $30 early HD DVD movie is a good value. Between parking, a few sodas, some popcorn and the tickets, a $30 HD DVD seems like a bargain. When you consider you get to keep a damn near master-quality copy of the film for future viewing, the value gets even better.
 8. You Can Rent HD DVD Discs. Netflix rents HD DVD discs and you should expect them to rent Blu-ray titles as well. This means even if you don’t want to collect movies at $30 per title, you can enjoy them at the highest level of video resolution commercially available (show me anybody with native 1080p sources who doesn’t work in Hollywood and have access to video editing equipment).
 9. High-End Players Won’t Be Released Without Early Adopter Support. High-end audio snobs will latch onto DVD like they have with LPs and CDs, but those of us who can hear and see the difference and who are willing to pay for the conglomerate of all of the little differences will want a high-end player. With no early adopter support, fewer and fewer OEM transports will be available. High-end companies will simply wait it out to see how the format war settles. For the price of a nice RCA interconnect in an audiophile system, early adopters have the ability to cast their votes in the format war. If you think your vote doesn’t count – it does. Do your part, pay your $500 and make the policy. Those who say wait and see deserve to watch DVDs at 480i. You deserve low-compression 1080i and in the near future, 1080p!
 10. With Enough Support, Studios Will Continue To Release Titles Without “Flagging.” Nobody wants their discs “down-rezed” to 480p because their HDTV doesn’t have HDCP encryption. Studios know this and have fought the urge to add such flags to their titles. If one of the HD formats takes off, it will be hard both legally and economically for studios to try to sneak in any flagging and/or down-rezing features on discs. If nobody cares about the formats or everyone takes a “wait and see” approach to the new formats, the studio are more likely to try a dirty trick like flagging.
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