CompuServe Messages

Steve… There is SO much more to the equation. Example: I own a Sega Genesis. Throughout the life of the machine, the carts have cost around 50 bucks, average. Now that Sega CD is out, the CD games are around 60 bucks, average. Why is that? After all, the hardware in the cart is at least 20 times more expensive than the hardware that makes up a compact disc. The Sega CD games are not going to enjoy the economies of scale. But, even if they did, I doubt the price would come down. After all, Sega knows that we'll pay 50-60 bucks for a CD game…so why charge less? It can also be justified by it's new wiz-bang-ness…it's new, it's CD, its high tech…thusly, there is a cost premium involved. Also, people have said that MPEG is equal to VHS quality, or S-VHS. Well, I tend to disagree (at least, the MPEG movies I have seen). First of all, the conversion from the film to the MPEG stream is a frame conversion that is not 1:1. It's 24 frames per second being converted to 30 frames per second. You can occasionally catch where this makes a difference. Also, MPEG by nature will screw up some minor detail in images, when converting the frames. I watched Star Trek Six on CD playing on the CD32, and there was clearly some artifacting happening around the edge of someone's hands as they moved in a particular scene. Minor, sure, but videophiles are NOT going to adopt this technology. It's already been poo-poo'ed in the CEForum. There are several odds stacked against the MPEG technology from a home video point of view. If it is going to make it in the consumer market, a player has to be made available that is dirt cheap. Maybe this WILL happen, since it doesn't need to be able to record. Of course, the fact that it cannot record might make it a less than desirable consumer product (for viewing movies only, I mean). So, unless a cheap player comes out, it hasn't a chance in the consumer market (again, strictly speaking as a movie player). In the pro-sumer, videophile type markets, it's too low quality to bother with. Laser disc is still the way to go, and unless a new technology emerges that beats laser disc, videophiles won't be switching anytime soon. This doesn't even take into account the whole structure in place for VHS movie rental places, etc. Who is going to take the first step to get the thousands of movies in stock that use this new technology, and will the movie houses make their new titles available on videoCD? Sure, it is all a wait and see kind of thing, but my money is against it. I suspect it will go the way of digital compact casette, or CD+G. It's nifty, it's keen, but to invest in a machine to play this new stuff just won't make sense to the millions out there who don't care about CD-I, CD32, or anything else that has these capabilities. Jim