Number of people who don’t know they need an HDTV to view HD content? Survey says… 40. That would be the number of people out of every 100 that have no idea that an HDTV is even required to view HD content. This is according to results of a Best Buy phone survey of 1012 adults in the continental US, as reported by High Def Digest and Home Media Magazine.
Discuss "Exploring the Depths of Format War Ignorance" here. Read the article.
1) The % of people who think that buying an HDTV automatically gets them HD, even though they don't have HD cable or sat.
2) The % of people with HDTV's and HD cable who still don't know that they need to switch from channel 2 to 252 to get the HD picture.
3) The % of people who get all of the above right, but still listen to the speakers in their TV's.
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(Sys 2) HTR-5740, 5 disc DVD with SACD, JBL E20's & E10's, PS-12, SA 8300HD, Sanyo Z4 , Electric 92" Screen
1) The % of people who think that buying an HDTV automatically gets them HD, even though they don't have HD cable or sat.
2) The % of people with HDTV's and HD cable who still don't know that they need to switch from channel 2 to 252 to get the HD picture.
3) The % of people who get all of the above right, but still listen to the speakers in their TV's.
We use the speakers in our TV.
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Denying Rights to Music lovers.
Denying Rights to Movie lovers.
Just from gauging how little my friends and family know about HD and its puts and takes, I am not surprised by these number at all. Pretty sad state of affairs none the less.
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Actually, if they have an ATSC tuner, a workable antenna, and some local HD content they might be good to go.
But I digress...
How many people do you see driving Corvettes or have big, shiny off-road type vehicles without a scratch can really appreciate what they can do. It feeds their ego, impresses the weak-minded, and keeps 'em happy.
Some people simply don't want to be "educated" as to what's needed. They get it into their heads that all they need is a HDTV and that's about all that matters to them. You can bet that some salesman tried to get the idea across about needing source material (most likely involving a larger sale) but odds are they simply ignored it. That they are actually satisfied with their picture and purchase is what really scares me but to each their own.
As for HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray, I'm still sitting this one out. I'll deal with upconverted standard DVD's (which ain't that bad) until a clear direction emerges here. I lived through the quad wars and the VHS/Beta wars so I'm not in that much of a rush.
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My wife is one of those. She was not impressed with the big screen LCD set. She knew we needed to replace the broken SD TV but didn't have any feel for the HD at all. She can't see the difference between a movie in HD or upscaled SD. She can see the difference between HD broadcasts and SD broadcasts but doesn't care. She watches it for content, not picture quality. she can operate the remote control but can't operate the individual components of the system. My wife is very typical of the average consumer in that regard. She likes to watch TV and recorded movies but is oblivious to the details. So the numbers don't surprise me.
More amazing to me are the HD hobbyists who don't understand that you need to have programming broadcast in HD in order to see HD on your screen. Some assume that an HD channel broadcasts only HD. I see a lot of that on these forums.
They don't know cause they don't care. My 14 year old is perfectly happy watching MTV on a 27" CRT. He knows that we get HD MTV comming out in 5.1. He admits it looks and sounds good. But he doesn't care.
I calibrated a friend's system. We wrote the settings down so that he could go back to them. When the power goes out and the system resets to all zeros he leaves it there. It still works.
Another friend calibrated his own system. Sounds like crap. I brought my SPL meter over and got him to run test tones. We both watched the meter jump around all over the place. It was good enough.
I bet butchers aren't surprised when most people don't know or care where Tenderloin comes from.
Not at all surprised by these poll results. I wouldn't go so far as to think any of these polls are totally accurate, but the fact is that EVERY poll of this type comes back with - at least - similar results to these.
I've said since the beginning that migrating to HD-DVD and/or Blu-ray requires too large an investment of money for the average person to ever care. It's all fine and dandy to hit the $200 mark for a HD-DVD player, but that doesn't even begin to describe the true cost.
In order to truly see and hear the difference between HD-DVD/Blu-ray and DVD, you MUST have a HD Monitor and a 5.1 surround speaker setup. And I would say that you not only need a HD Monitor and 5.1 surround, you need a GOOD HD Monitor and GOOD 5.1 surround.
Lots of people out there have displays that have HD resolution, but in all honesty, they aren't really very good displays. People buy them because they are flat and cheap. You know the kind of displays I'm talking about. The LCD or Plasma displays that have some brand name you've never heard of and a price tag that makes you wonder what is wrong with it. Well we (internet A/V enthusiasts) may steer clear, but lots of people out there gobble up those displays because they are a flat panel and maybe even because it has the "HD" tag on it.
Even worse is the audio side. Surround sound is something that most people know about now, but that doesn't mean people are doing it right - far from it! First off, TONS of people who DO buy some sort of surround sound setup do NOT set it up correctly. The speakers are misplaced, those God awful wireless surround speakers are very popular, the setup isn't calibrated at all etc. etc. And very very often, what is being bought is some cheapo HTiB. And even worse than that is when people spend a good chunk of money, but they do so on a B*ose system!
So now, even if we look at just the small percentage of people who have a HD monitor and 5.1 surround, how many of them have a less than good quality HD display and/or some cheapo or crap HTiB surround sound? I'd wager a LOT.
Play a HD-DVD or Blu-ray movie back on such a system and the benefits over DVD are going to be minute or lost altogether. Dolby TrueHD doesn't sound any better than regular DD when played back through a B*ose system or a $300 HTiB. 1080p24 video doesn't look all that much better on an uncalibrated, 1024 x 768, 500:1 contrast, 18ms response time, 32 inch LCD flat panel viewed from 10 feet back.
Sadly, that kind of setup is more common and that is among people with any sort of HD display and surround sound at all!
To put it bluntly, educating people is not the solution. The simple reason is because people just don't care! We may care. But we're also the kind of people who notice audio/video problems in a movie theater. We're the kind of people who don't like mp3 audio because we hear the compression. We're the kind of people who don't really watch internet pirated movies because they look crappy and don't have surround sound. We are the only type of people interested in HD-DVD/Blu-ray and we are a very small minority.
The average person bought into DVD because even on a 19" CRT using just the built in speakers, the difference and improvement over VHS was still obvious! The same CANNOT be said of HD-DVD/Blu-ray.
Average people do not care about quality. So long as they can get an idea of what is going on, that's good enough. Most people don't really watch movies or listen to music with any sort of involvement or attention anyway. It's just background noise. Just something to have on for a distraction. People talk through movies, talk on the phone, eat, do other things, etc. etc.
Long story short, DVD ain't going anywhere. Downloads may eventually cut into the DVD market just as they have the CD market, but that's about it. HD-DVD and Blu-ray are VERY MUCH the SACD and DVD-Audio format analogues of movies. They're basically fighting over a consumer market that can't sustain them anyway. Even if there had only been one high res audio format, it still would have died. The same is true of HD movies. Even with only one format, people still would not have cared and still would not buy it. What the masses want is quantity and cheap. DVD can deliver that. Downloads may present an alternative.
The only way HD is EVER going to take off is if it becomes the ONLY thing out there. When the only TV you can buy is a HDTV, the only things being broadcast are HD channels and the only movies for disc sale OR download are HD resolution, THEN the masses will buy HD. But not because they ever asked for it or even wanted it. Even if/when that happens, you can be guaranteed that they still won't be buying surround sound setups and that if they do, it'll be some cheapo/crap surround.
For "us" who actually care about and want HD movies, our best bet is just to wait about 25 years. In the mean time, if we really care about HD content, we should grab as much as we can, because both of these HD disc formats are DOA.
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Exploring the Depths of Format War Ignorance
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