Blu-ray wins. Yawn.
Blu-ray has all but won with Warner’s recent abandonment of HD-DVD. Some are declaring this a victory for consumers, as it resolves the format war dispute. In the long run, maybe. In the short run, not so much. I just had to tell my dad to return the $199 HD-DVD player he just bought, and I went over his Blu-Ray options with him. He could buy Samsung’s poorly reviewed entry-level Blu-Ray for $330 (65% more than he paid for the HD-DVD player). Next least expensive option was to fork over $400 for a Playstation 3 (hint: my dad is not exactly the GTA IV type). All other options were more than $400. He’s going to wait it out. Most other consumers will too, until players fall to the sub-$200 level.
Settling on an HD format is a victory for consumers, but most of us aren’t celebrating just yet.
Comcast & Panasonic unveil portable DVR that’s ugly as sin
For all the talk of Comcast’s new open platform tru2way, the device they chose to lead with is not going to win many advocates. It’s a portable DVR player which you can take with you to catch up on your backlog of shows.
Problems:
1) Yuk. Ugly. Looks like something Tandy would have put out in 1986.
2) Too big.
3) How will shows get recorded while I’m on the road with my entire DVR?
4) Only 60GB in the hard drive? Whachoo talkin about Willis? Much smaller iPods come with double that capacity.
It would make a lot more sense to provide a decent, high-capacity HD DVR and USB-enable the thing, then allow people to use USB keys to integrate with a much more streamlined device (or just allow that device to sync with the DVR via USB). I’m thinking an iPod Touch on steroids for on-the-go.
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