High Definition: One Year Later
 

Since it's been about a year since the release of BluRay, (14 months since HD DVD), I am curious to know how well these formats have caught on here among DVD fans with many early adopters.

Still waiting, but a recent editorial on The Digital Bits has me strongly swaying toward Blu-ray. Once the players hit under $300 I'll surely spring for one. I'm itching to get the full output from my set up.

Adopter of both, my gaming systems (PS3 and 360) helped me to get into the new formats relatively cheaply. I wouldn't have bought stand alones otherwise.

Pressured myself into purchasing an HD player this week after getting in on the $20 Matrix collection misprice. I can't just have those discs waiting on the shelf! :)

I'm HD DVD exclusive.

I voted I'm waiting, but I would prefer HD DVD to win.

I have both a XA2 and a PS3.

Have an HD-A1, but would like to get a BD Player. This format war pisses me off to say the least, so I'm very selective as to which HD titles I buy. If I do buy a BD Player, I will be very selective for that format as well.

Both.

There's a multitude of reasons for me. Most importantly, I don't have an HD display yet - the screen sizes keep increasing while the prices continue to drop. (I'll probably get one at the end of the year)

I also feel like waiting until there's a clear winner in the format war. It's crazy that you have to buy two different players (yeah, I know there's hybrid discs and players on the horizon) to enjoy all of the releases from major studios. Is it Universal that will only release their movies on HD-DVD?

And this thing with cracking the AACS on the discs - I think that could possibly kill both formats, forcing the creation of a brand new type of format that carries an even higher encryption method and finally merges the the two major HD players.

By 2001 you could buy a DVD player for under $50 - that's when DVDs really started to take off (and drop in price). I'm not really interested in paying $400-$500 for a first generation player. I'd rather wait for the price to go down and the quality and features to go up.

Lastly, most of the films I enjoy haven't yet made it to HD discs - so I can wait.

I currently HD DVD exclusive (HD-A1 since September) but am not ruling out buying a Blu Ray player if the prices come down to a level I can stomach and Fox stops skimping on the extras.

I voted Blu-Ray since I have purchased a PS3

Still waiting to buy a HD TV. Hopefully the 8th Gen Pioneer models coming out soon will convince me to finally go HD. After that i'm not sure which format to go for. Blu Ray is in the lead but I do like HD DVD :)

Never going to happen.

It is mathematically impossible to do what the MAFIAA wants to do with encryption. The fundamental problem is that encryption is for person A telling a secret to person B without person C eavesdropping and finding out the secret.

What the MAFIAA wants to do is have the studios (person A) tell the secret (the "movie") to the customer (person B) while at the same time preventing the same customer (person C) from 'eavesdropping.' You can't simultaneously tell your secret to somebody and except them not to know what your secret is.

They can make it difficult, but they can not make it impossible. Regular DVDs were easy to crack because the MAFIAA didn't even hire professional help. With AACS, they hired the professional help and it was still cracked faster than DVDs were. It's basically the resources of hollywood versus every single bored hacker in the entire world. Hollywood just can't even come close to matching that level of effort.

One thing to keep in mind is that even though the copy prevention system on DVDs was cracked early on, the adoption rate and sell-through rate of DVDs and DVD players was unprecedented in consumer electronics and consumer video history. Cracking DVDs did not create an appreciable problem for the studios, the cracking of AACS is unlikely to do so either.

It does mean that I can play HD-DVDs on my windows pc and very soon on my linux pc too with no more of an investment than a $100 HD-DVD drive.

With the 360 I've been tempted to buy the HD add-on many times, but I'm waiting for the end of the format war

Well, just want to say a few people might want to take another look at HD from up on the fence. I did not pay $400 for my first HD DVD player a little under a year ago. Current deals have people picking up players for between $200-$300 usually with several free disc. BD is still quite expensive but they are starting to drop. All the comments people constantly make about hoping so and so wins, while at the same time saying they have not purchased either is silly. It can't win if everyone sits around not buying anything. The format war will not end anytime soon, that is the bottom line - it could be years still before this thing is decided and it may never be decided (combo players will just dominate the market).

Oh, I have both.

Still waiting. Either for a winner, a $100 price point, or the format that will render these two obsolete.

I have both. I bought into HD DVD on day 1 and prefer it slightly over Blu-ray, but I think one of two things will happen: Blu-ray will eventually win out, or both will survive. This Christmas should be a great time to buy into either format because they will be very aggressive with promos, etc. I think Christmas '07 will determine if we have 1 or 2 formats beyond 2008.

Bought a HD player last year and totally love it. Will probably buy a BR player by Christmas. Hopefully by then it's below the 500 dollar mark.

Still waiting and happy to wait. My dvd's look fine and I love my theater.

<i>Mod note: Althought there is an HD-DVD forum I'm going to leave this here since putting it there would be kind of like preaching to the choir ;)</i>


WRT answering the question, I haven't bought into either yet but will eventually/maybe go the route of using the Xbox360/PS3 and then once the format "war" has settled I'll pick up a stand alone player of whichever wins.

You have your wish. Sony just announced a price drop to $499 making their player cheaper than the PS3. Not sure when it goes into effect though.

Supporter of both... A1 and PS3 20g. Im pretty sure both formats arent going anywhere for a while. I hated the war at first, but I think its going to be what drives the hardware prices down. Now I just wish the price on the movies themselves would drop.

Still waiting/borderline not interested -- Was real close to jumping a deal for HD-DVD player a few weeks ago, but passed. Still curious about the new formats, but it came down to several factors for me when i really thought about it:

• After close to 10 years of buying DVDs, I just couldn't see paying a premium price (above $10-$12) for titles again;
• I'd just be replacing titles in my collection since there are very few contemporary releases that interest me anymore; and
• I just didn't see my viewing habits changing -- I don't have the time to go back and watch everything I own as it is.

Supporter of both (Xbox 360 HD-DVD & PS3 20Gig).
It's interesting, because the movies that I have in my collection are mostly all HD-DVD (the exception being Casino Royale & Ricky Bobby). However, most of my viewing of new titles (via Netflix) are almost all Blu-Ray titles. I've stopped buying DVD's unless there is an HD version available (the exception being TV sets).

I predict that both formats will actually survive; but it'd be really nice if the prices of the movies dropped.