I'm not surprised about MPEG-2. They may have been encoded by Sony and Fox is just releasing them as is (although they do have advanced audio codecs rather than PCM).

Not suprising given Sony's track record. They still dont have their shit together.

Also, in a move likely to disappoint Blu-ray early adopters, apparently none of MGM's first titles will include any supplemental features, nor any exclusive HD content (aside from "unique interactive pop-up menus"), despite the discs' premium $39.98 list price.

haha. ridiculous.

Err, I think Sony and their rah rah camp are trying to drive people AWAY from BD.

I just don't get it.

I have been watching everything using the A1 since I got it. But my display (Tosh HDX82) does a very good job of upconverting, so my DVDs have been looking pretty good with a regular DVD player for years. Depends a lot on the mastering quality of the DVD, though.

Maybe, like in Brewster's Millions, they'll inherit a lot more if they can spend everything they have now and have nothing to show for it? The only catch is, no one can know. Shhhh.

uhh...guys....i'm not SERIOUSLY surprised

For those of you stating that HD DVD supporters are cheap, let's put it this way. If the prices were flipped, $363 for the Samsung (what I paid for the Toshiba) and $600 and something for the Toshiba (price on Continental for the Samsung) I still wouldn't have bought the Samsung. Why would I waste any of my money on something that doesn't blow me away quality wise?

Don't get me wrong, if a better Blu-ray player comes out and the movies look BETTER than HD DVD then i'll probably buy a player. But why would I spend more money on something that's supposedly "Beyond High Definition" when it will only match the quality of HD DVD. Personally, I think the BDA painted itself into a corner with all it's marketing but not being able to deliver.

Well I am. If the MGM flicks are being released by Fox, well, I thought that Fox was going to do a better job than Sony. So, color me shocked.

BD: "One Step Foward, Two Steps Backward"...

I would've bought neither.

As others have speculated, I think these were actually created by Sony a while ago and just coming out through Fox because of the recent distribution deal.

So, you get the "best" of both worlds. Shitty Sony quality and shitty Fox pricing.

I am pretty sure that Sony wasn't ready to launch BR, but wanted to get a player out there so that HD-DVD wouldn't be the only HD player on the market for 8 months. They pushed the crappy Sammy out the door and put out a few crappy movies to make sure people couldn't say "only HD-DVD gives you HD movies."

I don't know if this strategy has paid off or not. Although the nerds in here are laughing at them, there have been a lot of stories about Best Buy and CC clerks pushing BR, so it's hard to say how this has played out with the less informed consumer.

The real thing to look at will be attach rate when the PS3 comes out. My guess is that many people buying PS3s will buy 1 or 2 to check them out and then they will see that the quality isn't much better than regular DVDs and never buy another, especially at $40 MSRP.

I am one of us crazies with a HD-DVD player right now and even I'm saying that I won't be upgrading the majority of my discs to HD. The quality difference isn't worth $20 each to me when I have 500 DVDs. Why would they think that the average PS3 purchaser would buy more than a couple? Plus, the content on BR just isn't there. The only movies on BR that I would even consider buying are T2, The Usual Suspects and Kill Bill if it comes out.

To me, BR is looking a lot like UMDs -- will sell well to the PS3 crowd for a while, then that fad will trickle off. At this point, the movie lovers who will be considering buying a standalone player are going to pick HD-DVD over BR just because HD-DVD has better movies available than BR.

Even if the rumored $500 BR player comes out, why would you choose it over the HD-A1 if you were looking at the two side by side on the shelf? I just don't see it, unless you are going to assume that people think BR will win the war because of PS3.

Assuming that PS3 is going to do well beyond the first 6 months is a big assumption at this point as well. As a proud video game nerd, I'm not going to buy one, and most major media outlets (podcasts, etc) are advising consumers to do the same. There is no killer app for the PS3 right now.

Well, which movies are "better" is purely subjective. However, you're probably finding more movies you like on HD-DVD because at the moment there's more movies released on HD-DVD period. That may change as time goes on.

In fact, considering the amount of exclusive support for Blu-Ray, the odds are that there'll be more titles people will want on Blu-Ray only than there will be on only HD-DVD.

Check out the chart The Bus did a few pages back:
Right now, Blu-Ray has support from the studios that released 75% of imdb's top 250 films. HD-DVD only has 44%. Weighted, BD jumps up to 85%, with HD-DVD creeping up to 50%.

Lots of factors. Price is the main advantage HD-DVD has right now, so eliminating that you're left with quality, availability of media, and preceived viability of the format.

Right now, HD-DVD still has the edge in quality, but that edge is narrowing. HD-DVD also has the edge in number of titles available, but that edge is going to narrow and potentially reverse. So then you're left with figuring which format will last. Considering the large manufacture and studio support BD has, plus Sony's use of it in the PS3, it's hard to imagine the format dying out soon, even with HD-DVD as a competitor.

Agreed. I think Sony's (and BR's) worst fear (short of failure) is that the PS3 attach/tie rate falls low and there's no real increase in sales within that first year. After a gamer with a PS3 plugs in their PS3 to their TV and buys a Blu-Ray title and doesn't notice a difference, he's going to be hard pressed to spend $10 more on a title when after five or six movies that's going to eat up his game budget.

HD-DVD's worst fear (short of failure) is that Fox and Disney never switch camps. At best, even with importing, HD DVD owners will have great looking titles but only about 25% of the titles they want.

If both of these things happen, the studios can kiss profits from the HD format goodbye and this will remain a niche for a long time. Maybe a very visible niche, but a niche nonetheless. If neither of these happen (which is what I hope), both formats are going to succeed. Assuming BR gets its act together (and you know in the technical aspects they'll at least somewhat match HD DVD in the next 12 months) and assuming one or two studios jump over to HD DVD, then there's no reason for either format to die out.

Don't forget that the BD50s aren't out either.

Unless the BD50 becomes the standard BD release (not BD25), I think BD will sink. By standard I mean 95% or more.

Otherwise BD will always be second to HD DVD quality wise.

For example, Warner is going to take HD DVD VC-1 encodings and "port" them to BD so that the BD version will have the same movie encoding that HD DVD uses. If any extras don't fit or can't be implemented in BD (IME, for example) or aren't supported in BD (TrueHD 5.1-- not mandatory in BD) they'll be dropped. Since BD is stuck with a 5GB deficit, they'll generally have less.

I can't figure out why people want to pay $1k for a player that has half-way ported HD DVD software anyway.

BD lives or dies with BD50.

I am sorry, I was speaking only in terms of this holiday season.

In my opinion, HD-DVD has a much better selection of movies coming out between now and Christmas. The BR releases are highly slanted towards the PS3 audience, which means titles that will be appealing to 14-24 year old males. As with UMD, these titles will probably sell well at launch, but my guess would be that the selection of primarily action and sci-fi titles in BR will probably not look as appealing as the broad pallete being offered by HD-DVD to the average consumer. HD-DVD has a signifigant advantage in "classic" films. A quick look at the BR coming soon slate has very few films more than 15 years old. HD-DVD has some great ones, like The Searchers, Robin Hood, Grand Prix, Blazing Saddles, Caddyshack, Fast Times at Ridgemont, etc.

Again, that might change in 16 months. Or, Disney might decide to support both formats and you're going to have pretty similar libraries. If not, I will buy a BR player when they hit $150.

I don't really care either way, but I would rather support a format that seems to be going out of its way to be more consumer-friendly, which HD-DVD is. So, I will vote with my wallet until it seems like I have no choice.

As it is, I needed a good upconverting player, which runs $200, so I invested $160 in the HD-DVD player which is also a great CD player. If the format fails, at least I can feel like I did my best to support the format that was not shoved down my throat as a consumer because of the stupid ass PS3.

That's something I would be very concerned with if I was supporting BD now: the impact that the PS3's supposed demographics will have on the selection. However, it is assumed that the Warner titles (which account for many of the older films) will be released on BD at some point.

BD Releases for September 19th

Big Hit (Sony)
Dinosaur (Disney)
Eight Below (Disney)
Great Raid (Disney)
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Disney)
Knight's Tale (Sony)
S.W.A.T. (Sony)
Tears of the Sun (Sony)

All appear to be MPEG-2.

So many titles released on one day......that I'm not interested in.

I would've picked up SWAT...if it were on HD DVD...and in VC1 with all the extras. Oh well. Another Sony sale lost.

I only want Eight Below from that list.

The funny thing is, I actually own 5 of those movies on SD DVD, they just happen to be movies I don't really feel the need to "upgrade" to HD. The only one I would halfway consider (if it was great PQ/AQ and all extras) would be Jay And Silent Bob, but that is just because I am a Kevin Smith whore.

I was reading an internal sales report and sales of HD-DVDs at Fry's have been outselling Blu-Ray by a wide margin. Also Kmart has no plans of supporting either format for the time being.

No real surprise on Kmart. They seem to be last to the party all the time anyway. Thanks for the info!

Have any friends at Fox or Disney you'd like to drop that off at?