One MILLION DVD-Audio Players sold!!

Isn't it interesing how we speculate about the knowlege level and motivation of 1 million people we know nothing about to justify our own beliefs or desires about what might or might not happen in the future? To me, this is just one more statistic that may or may not indicate anything at all. I tend to belong to the group that believes that most people don't know much or care anything about DVD-A OR SACD at this point, but who knows? I hope I'm wrong. However, I fear that many of the DVD-A and SACD-capable machines that have been sold to this point to people who just want to watch movies and probably don't even have what I would consider an ACCEPTABLE sound system, much less a decent one that could even BEGIN to do justice to the hi-rez formats.

 

I'll just add that a few of the Panny DVD-A capable progressive scan players are very highly viewed and sought after by the VIDEOphile community, mainly the RP-91 and RP-82.

I suspect that the superb video quality of these players has significantly contributed to the unit sales of DVD-A capable players. I do agree that folks seeking these units for their video performance are also well aware of their DVD-A playback capabilities and will no doubt check out this feature at some point.

I wish I would have picked up the RP-82 before it was discontinued primarily for its excellent progressive scan picture quality at a very reasonable price.

Regards,

Jet

 

It's not all idle speculation; my opinions are largely based on people I know who bought DVD-V players that happened to include DVD-A (but they didn't care). Of course, this is a small, unscientific sample, but it isn't pure speculation.

And I hope most of them are smart enough to force the player into DVD-V mode and listen to the DD/DTS/PCM tracks instead, because most home theater buyers have satellite systems but do not have bass management for high-res.

 

MY opinions are largely based on people I know who bought DVD-V players that happened to include DVD-A but didn't care, also. I don't know ANYONE who has bought a "DVD-A" player, although I know a number of people that have bought "DVD-V" players that just happen to have DVD-A capability. DVD-A capability did NOT influence the buying decision. They may NEVER buy a DVD-A. I tend to think this is PROBABLY what most of the 1 million DVD-A buyers are doing. HOWEVER:

This IS a small, unscientific sample, and the ONLY valid conclusion that I can reasonably draw from it is that PEOPLE I KNOW (most of whom seem to be more interested in video than music) don't care about DVD-A. (Or SACD for that matter.) However, someone else might have a group of friends who buy a lot of MUSIC DVD-Vs that bought DVD-A players for the extra capabilities, because they are interested in DVD-A for surround that bought DVD-A players for the extra capabilities. They would look at THEIR group of frends and think "People who buy these players want DVD-A. However, this is ALSO a small, unscientific sample, and the ONLY valid conclusion that they can reasonably draw from it is that PEOPLE THEY KNOW (most of whom seem to be interested in video AND music) care about DVD-A.

BOTH samples are small and unscientific. ANY conclusion based on either of these samples OTHER than those stated above IS pure speculation. You can't base generalizations or projections about a group on a very small cross-sample that may not be representative of the group as a whole. When you do, it IS idle speculation, and you can easily end up with artificially skewed results. Which is how you end up with brilliant ideas like "New Coca-Cola." People (here, there, and everywhere else) seem to have a tendency to take what is essentially a meaningless statistic insofar as it relates to their own point of view and use that statistic to bolster their point of view. People can have entire discussions about these meaningless statistics. I find that interesting.

 

My take is that if you didnt care about DVD-A playback, you wouldnt spend the extra cash on it. You would put the money into Video playback quality.

For the same money you could get a deck that does Progressive scan, has component output, or even a carosel, like the 300 DVD Changer my brother has.

And I think everyone does research before they buy something for 200 or 300 dolllars. 15 minutes on the net will educate you to the different types of DVd players even if you knew NOTHING.

I just cant buy the argument that all these people "Didnt know" their deck was a DVD-A. People are not that stupid, especially when their hard earned money is involved.

 

I can ask the majority of people out there if they like the DVD Audio format and they will look at me puzzled. Most will say Oh Yeah ! I love watching movies in DVD because the picture is so much better. That is why I think that DVD Audio as well as SACD is going to be just a Audiophile and Audio Enthusiast type vehicle. The everage Joe don't care how good his music sounds. Ask someone about things like Progressive Scan and they know more about that then any of the Audio features of a player. I think it would have been better if the manufactures would have all decided on ONE format and went with it. I still think that BETA was much better than VHS too but that is long gone. If anyone ever noticed, most television news and journalism use BETA for their video feeds because it is a better format. Most videophile nuts will say the same thing.

 

Ksmitty, I agree with you 100 % in that there should have been ONE format.

Look at things now, we are going to have two, competing formats that:

Play Cd Redbook (first DVD-A redbook is about to come out)
play Surround
play Hi res stereo


DVD-A will also play video, which gives it a big edge, but hell, we dont NEED two formats. One format that did all of this would have advanced the art much sooner. Even IF we had to buy a new player. At least everything would be compatible.

 

The higher you go in price, the more the chance is that DVD-A will be included whether you intend to use it or not. They have also been including it in lower and lower price points. The majority of people buying higher end DVD machines do so for the video not the audio.

My DVD player is capable of DVD-A playback but, I don't think that it is good enough for that purpose. It is only in the $250-300 US range. Were I considering a unit for serious audio purposes I would be looking for something probably 10x to 20x that price point. Why? 'cause yes, you do get what you pay for in many cases and audio is important to me.

I fully understand that many people's budgets and priorities dictate that they shop in the sub-$500 price range for a front end and, I do marvel at the technology that is available for that kind of money 'specially in the video end. I also realize that some people spend more for a set of interconnects than others do for their whole systems. Hey, its a matter of choice. Maybe we are looking at this from two totally and widely differing perspectives!

 

A USA TODAY feature on DSOTM & high rez in general say 300,000 machines for each format have been sold after about 3 yrs in market, referencing NPD Techworld as source.

doug

 

Could be....

>>>>>>Could be, Rabbit, could be.....

 

Re: Re: One MILLION DVD-Audio Players sold!!

 

Re: Re: Re: One MILLION DVD-Audio Players sold!!

Had one of those running around my house once, waited up one night until dark and shot it!

 

No kidding!

I'd love to see hi-rez succeed and become the norm, but if you ask 100 people at my office about DVD-A, 99 of them won't know anything about it. DVD means movies to them, and music is on CD. You can just forget this mass market DVD-A thing right now.

 

Addendum: I honestly believe that far more people are going to be concerned with HD DVD over the next few years than the Audio capability of DVD machines. This also presents a problem 'cause by tying DVD-A in with the DVD Video standard, you have a situation that, if you by into HDTV like I have you will be in the market for an upgraded DVD player able to handle the HD DVD Video format, whatever that turns out to be. This leaves one wondering whether it is wise to invest an expensive DVD-a player only to have it outdated very soon on the video side.

 

Actually, most DVD-A decks already have those features. It is now included on all but the cheapest DVD players from most manufacturers (except Sony).

It's exactly the same on the SACD side of things. As of a few months ago, the biggest selling SACD player was the 9000ES, which is a DVD player. People bought it primarily for DVDs, not music.

 

The idea of going out and buying a $1000 DVD-A player that is only optimized for progressive video and does not play DVD-A, MP3, WMA, etc or even internally decode DD, DTS, and so on (instead of passing it through as digital-only) sounds great.

The fact is that the electronics industry just doesn't work that way, especially with digital technology.

Besides, I bought an RP-82 for $200 nine months ago, and it largely kicked the $1000 players in the ass.

The smart way to spend money on electronics these days is to carefully evaluate products across the board based on your needs, even in price tiers below your budget. The paradigm of taking your budget and then looking for products priced accordingly and 'optimized' for the features you want simply does not apply.

Not only do I suspect that many RP-82 owners know that their players do DVD-A, I doubt they know they play WMA and the obscure DVD-RAM format. We have hit the point of feature overload, and many buyers start to see all those extra little decals and logos as more noise to tune out.

But they know all about SACD, right?

 

DVD-A

You guys in the U.S.. are pretty lucky with the price differences between DVD-V and DVD-A. In Montreal, a decent DVD-V player goes for $200, plus 15 per cent (choke) tax. The few DVD-As I've seen in Montreal go for (at least) $370. So Montrealers might be more aware of what they're getting, especially since DVD-As are pretty sparse here.

 

I'd order online from authorized Canadian dealer NBT Electronics (nbtelectronics.com). They have a great reputation. A progressive, DVD-A capable Panasonic DVD-S55S is CAD$250, which is about US$170.

This new player will be selling here for US$130-$150 in no time. And tons of people will buy it without knowing diddly squat about DVD-A.

 

Good Point!

>>>>good point Khorn, and you may very well be right.

a lot of TVs today display 1080i , and a DVD only hits 480p. Im SURE there is a big market for H DVD, that goes up to 1080. That may be the next big thing in DVD players . I mean, I KNOw I'd buy one. I already HAVE an HDTV set.

 

Re: Good Point!

If you check a few of the HT sites you'll see that HD DVD is a very talked about and anticipated event that is not too far....later this year maybe...away.

The problem is, the yahoos are at it again with one camp backing blue and the other red lasers. Of course they are both incompatible but what else would you expect! There is a coalition demanding one unified format ( good luck! and where have we heard that before) but, the corporate "oinks" each want the "whole pie" as always. Oh happy days, it's "screw the consumer" time again.

 

According to Panasonic's pressroom site the DVD-S55 will have an MSRP of $130. As far as I can tell, the only significant extra feature it has over its $95 DVD-S35 brother is dvd-audio capability. I'll bet this is why Best Buy DOESN'T carry it (they have tons of the S35). So I'm willing to bet most people who buy the S55 are buying it for the hi-res feature.

Another extra feature the S55 has: a "monitor selector". Two TV's connected to it? My guess: for dvd-audio on-screen menus, you could hook up one of those portable LCD televisions & use that, instead of firing up the "big" set or your projector system. Maybe.

[T]

 

Re: Re: Good Point!

Most estimates say HD DVD is at least 2-3 years away. Especially true when you take the two proposals out there.

 

The reason that no one has the S55 is that it hasn't been released yet. It's due in April while the S35 hit the streets in February.

 

Re: Re: Re: Good Point!

Might be at that, hope it's sooner though. Even so, that's why I wouldn't invest anything more than about $500 in a DVD machine as I consider them a "commodity" and almost in the "throwaway" category when upgrading.

With audio I want top reproduction which also requires heavier investment so I look on the two mediums as very different things from that viewpoint.