I agree....I did a 180 on this last year.

I criticized MS for not putting an HD drive in the 360...now, it makes sense to me. They kept the cost lower and dedicated it to, guess what, gaming.

With the external hd-dvd drive, those that wish to watch hd material can do so. Sony is forcing someone to pay for something that they might not use (and its pretty pricey!).

Also, how many kids have hdtvs in their bedrooms?? How many gaming systems do you think end up in kids bedrooms versus on a living room tv??

If parent's take the plunge and buy a PS3 for their kids (which I dont think many will), I bet a good percentage of those will be in their bedrooms and not on an hd set. This will also hurt BD.

The more and more I think about it, I just feel that Sony is miscalculating. But, we wont know until its released I guess.

I can see the headlines now - "Blu-Ray 'blu' HD DVD away!" :D

rotfl

Yes, because everyone is clamoring for Jay & Silent Bob in stunning HD quality!

Guys guys...

Let's not be petty. As long as HD DVD has Doom and Van Helsing, we CANNOT throw stones.

Those are bad movies, but Basic Instinct 2 and Ultraviolet are worse IMO. ;)

It would take 10 back to back viewings of Van Helsing to equal the suckitude that is Ultraviolet.

I wouldn't be surprised that most of the anti-BD crowd,pro-HD crowd are exaggerating their experieances.

In fact I couldn't read the entire thread linked earlier since it became the same old story with each reply and all sounded like a bunch of whining instead of discussion. With everyone ignoring the realistic replies that companies do pay to have products displayed on end caps in view of more customer traffic. So that is probably the main reason why BD is on the demo shelf HD was before.

So if I were to go pick something up at BB today,I just thought it would be interesting to see if their is any of the 'horror stories of BD pushing' were true or a figement of overactive imaginations.

Like I said.....

You're a few weeks too late.

Question: what the hell do you care?

My experience at BB BEFORE the BD launch was great. The BB manager actually called around to other stores, found me an hd-dvd player, coaxed it from the other stores manager then picked it up himself the next day. It was an excellent customer service experience all around.

Since then, when I have gone to BB, they have moved the HD-DVD endcap to inside an aisle, but it is still there. Ive been in 2 that did this.

The BD display is on an end cap, but very small and really uninspiring. Like I said previously, the magnolia area of one of the stores had an XA1 hooked up to a MITS 73in 1080p set. They were playing Serenity and it looked magnificient!!

They obviously thought so too since it was the main display in the magnolia area. They did NOT have a BD setup in the magnolia area at that time.

VERY interesting stuff from AVS. This guys works for a porn company.

Here here!

Sony is so intent on controlling everything themselves that there is going to be a bottleneck. The same thing happened with Technicolor, back when Technicolor actually used three colored strips for negatives. Technicolor was the only company who could process films shot with Technicolor stock, and since the colors never fade and they look so good, everyone wanted to shoot on Technicolor. The demand became so high that studios had to book the processing years in advance. It became such a pain that eventually the studios just stopped using Technicolor all together. That's when they switched to just being another processing house like any other. If Sony really tries to hold on to all of the technology themselves, there will be a backlash.

And seriously, if porn is only available in HD DVD, then that will become a secret selling point. It's not something Toshiba is going to openly advertise, but people will know it.

No porn is a death sentence for a video format. You'd think that Sony would have enough stats on VHS/DVD XXX sales to be aware of that.

That being said, is there any HD-DVD porn available yet? Any formally scheduled? I have to admit that this is one area that I haven't been focusing my attention. ;)

I dont buy the porn argument....again, I think its still too niche market to make a difference.

In the VHS days it was a big deal....now, people just get porn on the internet.

Maybe one day it will be a big deal, but im not clamoring for porn on hd at all. Some of those people would look gross in hd!!

I think releasing excellent quality, day/date movies and huge catalog titles is what will solidify one over the other.

$4.28 billion in 2005 DVD sales/rentals according to Adult Video News. That's not exactly what I would call a niche market.

Agreed... porn is definitely NOT a niche market.
The porn industry is HUGE.

The question is what percentage of those who purchased porn DVDs will take the leap to HD porn? Maybe most will find DVD is good enough for porn, or maybe it's too good (a turn-off perhaps)?

However having the porn industry supporting your format (ie. HD-DVD) is a definite advantage, even if it's a small one. It gets more people to purchase HD-DVD players for the sole purpose of improved quality and that can easily spill over (no sick pun intended) to purchasing discs from regular studios.

Can't wait to buy my first porn title in HD-DVD!!!! :up: :up:

Don May Jr. of Synapse Films mentioned a while back that he wouldn't be able to release movies like Thriller or The Image on Blu-ray because of the hardcore shots in those films.

I think that Blue Ray not supporting the adult industry would be a huge blow to them. With that said, I have never purchased or rented an adult dvd ever. I just love the convenience of being able to purchase a movie via download.

I stopped by Best Buy this afternoon and just as I was about to look at the BD display and see if a clerk would 'help' me. Someone was already looking and a clerk was trying to sell it too him. So I dipped into the asile right next too it pretending to look at the tvs and overheard most of the sell.

The clerk seemed clueless like in stoned clueless "Ah umm ohh ahhh,you know this is like ahh, hmmm uh you know...like great because ahhhh hmm uh". He basically played on the customers ignorance and tried sounding 'technical' with, "This is like a computer and everything man,super powerful". And then says "The format has The Terminator on it,you know dvd is overrated! How can you watch The Terminator on dvd?" and he didn't know a thing he was talking about. Obviously he was making it up as he went along with his many 'ah umms oooo yeahhh umms'.

Once they were gone I watched a bit of the demo and my eyes felt like bleeding. While the picture quality was obviouslly far more detailed and crips compared to the blurry 'simulated SD demo' on the other half of the screen. The BD side had a bad too detailed for it owns good that it looked like a cartoon instead of real life/movie world look to it. You could clearly see the many hairs on the actress they had posing in various shots looking 'glamorous'. Now it's not dark body hair or anything but the normal far lighter hairs everyone has(in sunlight relfections they're easier too see). But seeing all those hairs in basic light was not a good sight too see.

I'm sure i would get a headache trying to view movies filtered to the extreme with the colors cranked up beyond their natural tones on a regular basis. In fact this is my fear of the HD formats(other than lack of original audio mixes) where they would forget a films intended look and try to make it 'better' by filtering it in the extreme(which i hear Sony has done to The Terimator and other films).

I then watched some of the HD trailers in the home theater section. And a clerk asked if I needed help and I decided to ask "Are these being shown in HD or standard?" sice there were no ads or anything promoting what format they were on(but all the trailers ended with "now on/coming soon to HD". The clerk seemed just a litte more knowledgeable than the other clueless clerk and told me yes it was HD and then appolgized for some 'stuttering' in the image(I never noticed any) since they had just hooked it up and haven't fully got the kinks worked out(if any). When I said the quality look good he didn't hear me clearly(since audio from other tvs were blaring) and he cut in concered "What? Poor quality?" and I corrected him and he was relieved. He then tried to sell me on buying one when I said I couldn't afford it at the moment(ie-'open a BB card'). And I told him I don't want to(though do have a BB card) go into credit debt again and spend wisely now by not using my credit cards(unless for emergency purposes). He then politely said "hope you find what you're looking for,nice talking too you" and left since he knew he wasn't going to make a sale and left me watch some more trailers before I left moments later.

At least the clerk was not too pushy and was somehow helpful. But as in all retail stores,clerks are trying to make sales regardless of the product. The clueless clerk on BD was just trying to make a sale,nothing more,nothing less. The same with the clerk I talked too. The only difference was one actually knew a little bit about the format while the other did not.

So I didn't have any 'ooooo BB sucks man,they're like sooooo totally biased against HD and are trying to sell that shitty blu-ray format,arghhhhhhhhh' like some people. Since they definitely in this case were not 'pushing' the format. But if any clueless customer walked by and inquired about the format and a clerk saw the potentional for a big sale. Of course they would try to sell the product too the customer,that is how salesman work and busniesses run in general.

It's nearly impossible to expect total honestly at businesses. They want your money pure and simple!

Though as I mentioned with Sony filtering films in the extreme on BR. The HD trailer for Bourne Surpremacy looked too cleaned up compared to the original trailer I saw in theaters,on dvd and on tv many times before. It had a gritty grainy quality too it(probably post production digital grain from the looks of it) and all that seemed too be missing from the HD trailer.

Julie,
Can I ask why you care so much about other other people's experiences with Best Buy? I mean, do you work for them or something? Every store is different and people will have different experiences. I for one had nobody help me when I went in to buy my player, and I was standing there for over 30 minutes. But I believe that people are telling the truth when they said that BB was pushing BD to them. I can tell just how the stores around me have changed since BD's launch. All the HD DVD displays have been replaced by BD and all the BD films are promently displayed in the front of the store, where the HD DVDs are stuck waaay in the back. Plus there are BD pamphlets all over the store. So it isn't much of a stretch to realize what BB is doing to me. But then again, the stores by you may be different.

I just got back from best buy to check out the video switchers. While there, i checked out the Blu-Ray end cap which was playing sahara and damn it looked great, that is, until i got super up close to it. Then i could see a lot of defects from the encoding process. However, from normal viewing distance, i was VERY wow'd by sahara.

I then proceeded to look around for the HD-DVD player to show my cousin who was with me, to let him make a comparison. After checking everywhere, i finally found it, plugged in and not playing anything, with a big ERROR on the display. Then i saw some of the prices for the movies (combo discs = 37.99!) and then started walking out. Then one of the employees asked me if he could help me, so i got curious.

I asked him which is selling better, BD or HD-DVD? He said that Blu-Ray is selling very well, and that they had 10 units and down to 2. I told him that i heard HD-DVD is dominating sales, and he said "they sell decently because they're cheap, low end players." But then he started talking about 1080p vs 1080i and how superior sony is, etc etc. Was funny to hear it in person vs reading about it in forums. I eventually stopped him, telling him i realise the differences and that i am waiting for a ps3 myself, and he kept going on about how 1080i sucks lol. So theres my experience from BB today.

Ugh, should I even bother?

Once again Blitz, you see the problems that BD has and you position yourself so that it does not become noticable to you. Then you go and seek out HD DVD so you can do a "comparison" for your cousin and give up after you can't get it to turn on. How convenient. Then you talk to a BB employee about the differences between the two and he tells you exactly what you want to hear. I mean we all know where you and Best Buy stand on this issue, but to say that you gave a "comparison" is a joke. You didn't even see the HD DVD. Plus combos can be bought for around $23 on Amazon and all the other discs can be bought for around $18-$20. Once again it's interesting how you only point out the expensive disc, like that is the standard for all HD DVDs.