One MILLION DVD-Audio Players sold!!

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by RetroSmith, Mar 24, 2003.

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  1. RetroSmith

    RetroSmith Forum Hall Of Fame<br>(Formerly Mikey5967) Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Coast
  2. KeithH

    KeithH Success With Honor...then and now

    Location:
    Beaver Stadium
    Mikey, you know what the age-old rhetorical questions are with this sort of subject. It goes something like this:

    How many people who bought those one million DVD-Audio players did so with any knowledge beforehand of the DVD-Audio format? Furthermore, how many people who bought those one million DVD-Audio players have since learned about the format and are purchasing DVD-Audio discs?

    In a similar sense, how many people who are buying DVD-Audio discs are using them on DVD-Audio players?

    Of course, the same sorts of questions can be asked with respect to sales of SACD players and hybrid SACDs. One has to be careful in making a correlation between sales of high-resolution audio hardware and software and market penetration.
     
  3. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    Excellent!!! The more players the more movies will be released...DVD/DVD-A Players & Movies are the absolute best buy in entertainment today! Yes! Great news...Hopefully the pricing on DVD-A will decrease as well...
     
  4. KeithH

    KeithH Success With Honor...then and now

    Location:
    Beaver Stadium
    To build on my point, one has to remember that SACD and DVD-Audio players are backwards-compatible with ubiquitous formats -- CD and DVD-Video. While one million DVD-Audio players sold is an encouraging statistic, one still has to be careful in interpreting its meaning.
     
  5. RetroSmith

    RetroSmith Forum Hall Of Fame<br>(Formerly Mikey5967) Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Coast
    question

     
  6. Jason Brown

    Jason Brown Forum Resident

    Location:
    SLC, UT
    I'm not sure Keith's talking about expensive players.

    I have a DVD-A player that I only play movies on (since I have a universal player with better DACs and a video shutoff).
     
  7. John Carsell

    John Carsell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northwest Illinois
    Oh Boy.....here we go again.
     
  8. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Re: question

    Considering that:

    1) many SACD players are also DVD players
    2) some SACD players don't cost much/any more than similar CD-only players (my 775 was under $150 I think)

    it doesn't seem that out of the question that many people with SACD players don't even know they have them. Same goes for DVD-A.
     
  9. ksmitty

    ksmitty Senior Member

    I purchaed a Denon DVD3300 a couple years ago at premium price to boot.
    I wish I had waited though and took the SACD route myslef. It seems that the majority of good music is being released on SACD to me now. I will of course break down and purchase a SACD player sooner or later but have decided to wait and see what develops further in the SACD/DVD Audio format wars.
     
  10. emilsjr

    emilsjr New Member

    Location:
    San Jose
    So out of the 45,259,250 DVD players, 1 million play DVD-A. Looks pretty poor to me.

    And Keith's point is dead on correct.

    How does mass market = expensive DVD-A player?

    [removed - HZ]
     
  11. Khorn

    Khorn Dynagrunt Obversarian

    Re: question

    WRONG! I bought my DVD-A capable player for movies only, so did almost everyone else that I know. Most people who have these machines couldn't give a flyin' fidoo about high rez audio in any format.

    AFA audio goes it (my DVD machine) stinks in comparison to my SACD/CD player.

    DVD-A is embedded in many low to medium cost DVD players that people by primarily for movies and that is the figure they are quoting.
     
  12. GabeG

    GabeG New Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Re: question


    I said the same thing about Sony's rhetoric about selling 1 million SACD players: Most purchasers of both SACD and DVD-A capable machines don't use the capability. They use them to play movies on and maybe cds.

    Most DVD-A players aren't expensive at all. In fact Panasonic is going to be launching a player that will be streeting at less than $100.

    I know I'm a broken record about this stuff, but these PR numbers don't mean a thing. Also most purchasers of Hybrid SACDs (and soon DVD-As) won't be listening to the higher rez offerings.


    - Gabe
     
  13. RetroSmith

    RetroSmith Forum Hall Of Fame<br>(Formerly Mikey5967) Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Coast
    Re: Re: question

    >>>>No, it isnt.
     
  14. RetroSmith

    RetroSmith Forum Hall Of Fame<br>(Formerly Mikey5967) Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Coast
    Re: Re: question


    >>>>Luke, dont you think that if you DIDNT know that, you are a really uninformed buyer? I think most people today are VERY informed and know exactly what they are buying. The net makes that easy to do.
     
  15. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Re: Re: Re: question

    Mikey, a LOT of people just walk into a store and say "I need -blank- item. What should I get?" Trust me - I sell printers, and the majority of people who come in really have no idea of what they want. For every person that comes in to compare prices or simply walks out with a machine, probably 15 have no clue what they need/want and will walk out (without comparison shopping) with whatever you tell them to get.
     
  16. Gary

    Gary Nauga Gort! Staff

    Location:
    Toronto
    Yes but (in my neck of the woods, at least) a DVD-A player is twice as expensive as a DVD-V player. If that's true everywhere (the price), obviously these buyers want to get 'proper' DVD audio. Or at least have the capability for DVD-A!

    Just my opinion....
     
  17. Michael St. Clair

    Michael St. Clair Forum Resident

    Location:
    Funkytown
    Plenty of DVD-A players were bought by those who didn't care about DVD-A capability. The Panasonic RP-91 and RP-82 models have been extremely hot items in the home theater communities because of their reference video quality and their video features. Most of the people I know (both online and offline) that bought these models did so without making any consideration of the DVD-A capability of the player.

    Add to that the fact that most people with such models have satellite-based 5.1 systems with no bass management! Such owners are far better off listening to the DTS and DD tracks on the DVD-V section of DVD-A discs than even messing with the lossless high-res!

    Sony even has SACD-capable "home theater in a box" mid-fi DVD systems. Hardware sales figures for both formats are as meaningingless as the numbers for $12 Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd "single inventory" hybrids.
     
  18. JonUrban

    JonUrban SHF Member #497

    Location:
    Connecticut
    Lets just hope they sell lots of BOTH players. It would be cool for someone to buy a DVD player, then months later "find out" that it plays one of these "new fangled" formats.

    THere really is no need for proponents of one system or the other to always counter postive news about one format with negative news about that format in comparison the the other format.

    "DVD-A Sounds Good"
    "SACD sonds better"
    "There are more DVDA players"
    "Yeah, but thats not why people bought them"
    "Oh Yeah, well people bought SACD players don't have multichannel"
    "Yea they do, and music is better on them"
    "No way, you need a 5.1 set up to get it right"
    "Mulitchannel is a gimmick"
    "You are stuck in the '60s"
    "I only have 2 ears"
    "yada yada yada"

    We've heard it all before!!! :D
     
  19. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    All that's really saying are there some good salespeople out there.

    It's the same thing with printers. Models with card readers are generally the most expensive. Often times people come in looking for a printer who don't have a digital camera, nor are in the market for one. Yet that doesn't stop salespeople from convincing them that they should get such a model, in case they get a camera down the road, in case friends with a digital camera come over, etc...

    Whatever the case, simply saying there are 1 million DVD-A (or SACD, for that matter) players out there doesn't say much. Such players play CDs, DVD movies, AND DVD-A or SACD. We really don't have any idea how many purchased those with the intention of using the DVD-A or SACD features.
     
  20. Michael St. Clair

    Michael St. Clair Forum Resident

    Location:
    Funkytown
    Maybe the cheapest DVD-A player ($180 or so) is twice as expensive as the cheapest DVD-V player, but anybody who won't spend at least $150-$200 on a DVD player doesn't even care about picture quality, let alone better audio.
     
  21. Khorn

    Khorn Dynagrunt Obversarian

    Re: Re: Re: question

    You're looking at this whole thing from a very atypical perspective as are most of us here on a dedicated audio site.

    Take the time to go to some of the Home Theater sites whose readers vastly outnumber us audio nuts. Most of the high end DVD players that incorporate DVD-A are sold to Home Theater devotees who want the best quality video and super surround systems for movies, they don't even think about DVD-a as such. Pure audio is a minute portion of the market in comparison. If for some reason you still can't see that just go into any store and compare the number of DVD Movie titles available to the number of DVD-a and SACD titles combined.


    From a purely audio standpoint I'm not against DVD-a as much as the way that it is implemented. They want to foist video on me as part of that format an I don't want, nor will I accept it that way. Show me a PURE AUDIO combi SACD/DVD-A player giving me the ability to easily control ALL aspects from the front panel AWA the remote without ever any need to consult an on screen menu and with true dedicated 2 channel tracks on all discs of each format and I'll be very interested. I'm not letting any company tell me how I should to listen to music or force me to pay for video circuitry in a product when I don't want or have need for it. The DVD-A manufacturers thought that they had an easy ride on the backs of DVD-V purchasers and the DVD-a format would take off just because everybody would by a DVD player for movies anyway. They didn't stop to consider that most people don't care about Hi-Rez audio at all and the ones who do have very specific tastes.
     
  22. Taurus

    Taurus Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, Texas
    I'm pretty sure of this:

    1) Most players with dvd-audio cost around $200.

    2) a: I've watched & most people as a whole (poor-to-middle class) buy the players that cost $60 to $130. Rich citizens (I know that's kind of ambiguous sounding, but I'm just making a general point) many times buy more expensive things simply because they can, so I'm leaving them out of this "explanation".

    b: Would a dvd-audio capable player offer something else to the poor-to-middle class customer? What about progressive scan? Nope. This requires a digital TV--the very large majority of ALL people don't own one of these. And to most people, the small improvement of progressive scan on TV's smaller than 36" just isn't worth it. The carousel feature, like on that gold JVC 7-disc model & Panasonic's silver ultra-thin model? This always seemed like a dumb idea for movie use IMO, and I personally see few dvd changers anyway. I have seen few of these sold.
    Built-in Dolby Digital/DTS decoding? All dvd-audio players I have seen have this. I'm sure a few people are buying them for older receivers without on-board decoders but still have the proper 5.1 inputs. Otherwise, this "feature" is worthless to anyone else.

    So, what does all the above add up to? Obviously, I have no concrete numbers, but to ME I think most (70%???) of the dvd-audio players being bought are by people that DO want to play dvd-audio discs.

    [T]
     
  23. lennonfan

    lennonfan New Member

    Location:
    baltimore maryland
    I agree. DVD-A players state that they play DVD-A -ON THE FACE OF THE UNIT!-.
    I don't buy that people that buy them are just too stupid and rich to care. Maybe a few are, but that's hardly worth mentioning. Most middle class consumers want the cheapest price (with the best quality) possible, and DVD-V players can be had at half the price.
    NO, people that are buying DVD-A players are, in the vast majority, aware that it has this capability and are waiting for their fave releases. Once DVD-A hybrids come out, SACD could well be the outsider, as they could make hybrids -all you can buy-. Therefore, in time, the word about the m/ch and hi-rez mixes of classic albums will become the prefered format for many consumers who will toss trad cd just like they tossed the cassette and 8-track.
    Hi end DVD-V players are also available to the rich that have no DVD-A capability so if someone truly isn't at all interested in DVD-A, they still have hi end players that offer what they want.
    It's also silly to compare the amount of DVD-V titles to the amount of DVD-A titles. Full market saturation of DVD-A hybrids hasn't even -begun- yet. The first DVD-A discs were, up until last year, experimental. Bugs are now for the most part ironed out, the rollout can now begin in earnest (look for Sept. as the month it starts to kick into high gear). DVD-V has been available for 6 years. The two are not comparable yet.
    Considering that DVD-A players did not hit the general market until 2000, 1 million units is very impressive. The fact that SACD sold that many as of a few months ago is also impressive. I think DVD-A will have the upper hand tho with the upcoming hybrids and the fact that most titles have additional video extras, music DVD is taking off in a really big way now. It just makes more sense, with DTS and DD 5.1 in -millions- of homes already, and all DVD players can play cds. I predict eventually cd players will become like Victrolas :laugh:
     
  24. GabeG

    GabeG New Member

    Location:
    NYC

    This is going to be true. It is almost impossible to get a cd only "kit" for manufacturer these days because it is just plain cheaper to manufacture a dvd capable kit. At this point the demand for cd only players is so low and the demand for dvd players so high, that any additional cost to make a dvd capable transport is more than compensated for by economies of scale.


    However, I still disagree that many of that 1 million knows or cares about dvd-a capability.

    - Gabe
     
  25. Justin Lane

    Justin Lane New Member

    Location:
    South Jersey
    I agree with this somewhat, but if the Beatles come out on DVD-A with the proper marketing push, I bet almost everyone of those 1 million people will be aware of the DVD-A capability of their player.

    J
     
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