One of the most important questions that seems to be overshadowed by the media hype surrounding HD formats such as Blu-ray and HD-DVD:
Will it help me enjoy my movie more?
Certainly, throw away your VCRs and buy yourselves DVD players. Apart from the fact you can’t get movies on VHS anymore, DVDs are more reliable, there’s less ‘annoying’ hiss from the audio and there’s none of the annoying snow on the screen. And you won’t ever get tape stretching or unthreading itself inside your machine.
DVD doesn’t have these problems. And DVD players are dirt cheap. What problems does DVD have that require us buying Blu-ray? A slightly lower screen resolution? Is there anything in a movie frame that I could see in 720 or 1080 lines that I couldn’t see in 576, that will help me enjoy the movie more?
I like the way you think :). This is a perfect example of the way consumers need to think in an electronic age where vendors are increasingly pushing ‘features’ to differentiate their products, knowing all the while that the features are so hard to use and of so little benefit as to be useless to the majority of the population. Consumers need to be wise to this, and use their knowledge to ensure that they get the best deal for them, rather than taking the salesperson’s word that the most expensive is the best.