Home Theaters

Usually, the news from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is all happy and makes all who hear it feel like this might be one area of human endeavors where everyone wins.

the assumed winner yesterday

This year, news of the early demise of HD DVD brought sorrow to many, as it looked like all the big players were pulling out of the HD camp and moving to Blu-ray country. Now, another day has passed, and it seems the early results, much like political polls, were wrong. Although Warner Bros are still moving to Blu-ray, the bailing of Paramount seems to be incorrect. Perhaps the changes of yesterday were true, and some quick maneuvering was done to keep Paramount in the HD camp - at least for now.

  don’t retire the logo just yet!

So HD DVD is not dead yet, and some quality movies will be available for awhile. This may give the Blu-ray camp less to celebrate, but now, after another day, it seems they have less again to celebrate. Many new Blu-ray players were introduced, and with the announcements were the small, less verbalized ones about the lack of upgrades for older players. It seems that for the best results, Blu-ray and HD owner alike will have to purchase a new Blu-ray player.

Not to be outdone, the third incarnation of high definition (or you might say high density) drive came out to play again. A company called New Medium Enterprises brought out a HD VMD player at the show. This format uses a red laser, making it much cheaper to produce, as only one laser is needed for the VMD and standard DVD formats. (All other high definition players have a blue laser, and a red laser included for SD DVD playback.) The largest problem to adoption of this format would be the lack of a major studio producing movies for it. A quick check of the NME site shows less than 20 releases available.

this appears to be the big selling point, a kids show that no kid I know has any idea about. Too bad, it’s a great idea, and holds as much data as the other two formats.

It seems like the VMD format is doomed, which is too bad, because lower costs, and usage as a storage medium for data should have made it a shoo in .

Next comes the major changes in the viewing screens. The newest technology seems to make all the older, thicker, heavier designs an anachronism.

Hitachi’s 1.5″ (total) depth LCDs

This too, is a problem for those who are devotees of the home theater and high quality reproduction hardware. There is so much change this year that there just won’t be enough discretionary dollars to make all these purchases. Consequently, some things may actually fade away for awhile, as quick adoption rates usually spell success, while slow ones cause new ideas to fade.

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