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All Equipment Being Equal

The modern system, Onkyo HTS780B 7.1 Channel Home Theater System= $439 U.S. appx, Panasonic TH-42PHD7UY 42" Plasma Display (16:9, 1024x768, 3000:1, HDTV - SKU: TH42PHD7UY) Price Range: $1,999.00 - $2,745.36, now we come to a hard decision because the HDTV push has created a new technology- Blu Ray DVD. This is cutting edge, still, and may be adopted, it is likely to be adapted, the difficulty lies in whether to invest in this new technology now, in it’s infancy, or to buy a product at a less expensive outlay and wait for the technology to mature? It’s an easy question for some, because budget isn’t a factor, but if you are like me, budget matters, and investing in new technology can mean spending money that may prove to be fruitless. At present here is what it means, “Employing Blue Laser technology (which has a much shorter wavelength than the red laser technology used in current DVD) high definition DVD enables a disc the size of a current DVD disc (but, which much greater storage capacity than a standard DVD) to hold an entire film at HDTV resolution or allow the consumer to record two hours of high definition video content.” [Silva, 2006]

To Blu or not to Blu, isn’t really the question, if we know that the technology will eventually get here, then we can buy into it at any point, but it often makes good sense to wait six months or more for the market to absorb the new technology and find a low range price. Blu Ray is not a sole lock technology and in competition with it is: “HD-DVD is supported on the hardware side by Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, Thomson (Note: Thomson also supports Blu-ray). On the software side, HD-DVD is supported by New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures (also supports Blu-ray), Paramount (also supports Blu-ray), and Universal Pictures. Microsoft has also added its support to HD-DVD.”[ Silva, 2006] The question isn’t easily answered, but we know for now that if we’re aware of the changes that may come we can at least begin to prepare ourselves what lies in that future path.

Cutting down the middle of the issue in our systems today could be resolved by a purchase of a nice unit DVD that will convert VHS tapes, and, doesn’t cost an exceptional amount; in this scene what we have is the best of all three worlds, we can watch current DVD’s, we can convert the tapes that many still have, and, because the cost is not too excessive, we can then be ready for a re-purchase when either HD-DVD or Blu Ray comes to dominance in the market.

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