Dual format players in my opinion are a bit premature, it's basically two companies hedging their bets, I think dualys are being marketed to the enthusiast and not the general public, hence the still high prices. I said it last year, my opinion still stands, I believe by summer's end as we get closer to Q4, we're going to see some dramatic price drops that will greatly influence the format choice one way or the other. HD flat screens sales were up (across the board both LCD and Plasma) in the HD sector, the consumer is getting an inkling on what hi-def might be, they're over the aura of a "flat TV hanging on the wall" mystique, every Tom, **** and Harry has one, that wow factor has been met, Direct TV is pushing HD to it's limit( as far as advertising) and Blu-ray is doing a masterful job of getting the word out, much to the dismay of HD DVD whose only sporadic commercial seems to be the one of Michael Imperioli of the Sopranos, not too dramatic and very bland. Christmas will really see an exciting chapter unfold, I took a very unscientific (sorry Mtry!) poll, neighbors, friends, family, etc were asked 3 things: Did they know what Hi-Def TV was? Did they know what a Hi-Def DVD was? Had they heard of Blu-ray or HD DVD? Not surprisingly, the older folk thought all TVs hung on the wall were the "new fancy TVs with super clear pictures", the younger folks did, but were more interested in the gaming aspect. Asked if they knew what a hi-def DVD was, most again, except the youngest drew blank stares and said no, Blu-ray and HD DVD was not generally known by the older folks, again the younger did know, but weren't really interested. Of course an informal poll like this is not really accurate, but it does tell you what the least common denominator(the non-enthusiast, regular joe) thinks of a particular product, the folks with the money are buying into the technology very slowly, some(the less affluent) are getting over the sticker shock of their flat panel purchases (that at the time seemed like a real bargain!), so any other gadgets are out for a while. Remember we Audioholics look at this tech with passionate eyes, but we're the minority, we don't make a dent when it comes to volume purchases, as the economy slows somewhat, this conversation might just be a moot point, if the economy really tanks it might be the end of both formats or the prices will get so low that the temptation to buy might be too great. Either way, I'm still waiting.
