Truth is stranger than fiction. And that would be the case if Sony actually goes VC-1. Or if Microsoft decides to make a BD add-on.

I have thought about getting the Samsung, but only for $500 or less. No way in hell I will pay $1000 to watch a movie at home. The PS3 won't be easily found until sometime next year. But I would get the PS3 for gaming mostly.

The better idea is to wait until after Christmas to see if the Sammys get marked down in stores. You can get a new one on Ebay for $600 or so, but I'd rather not buy one there. Plus, I kinda want to wait and see if Disney decides to support HD DVD. LionsGate, based on heavy rumors, will produce for HD DVD.

Fox's library would be the reason that I would get a BD player.

For those interested, Amazon only has 5 A1's left in stock. Once they're gone, they're gone.

I wonder how much commission you would have made on your A1 sales.

Tell me about it. If Toshiba asked me to be a sales rep for HD DVD, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Like I said, I used to sell DIVX and if i could sell something I had no interest in, I could definitely sell this. Just don't ask me to sell BD cause I couldn't do that in good conscience.

Coffin?

It makes about 0 sense for Sony to go with VC-1 over AVC. All their royalties come in the MPEG-2/4 flavor. Either DVDfile is wrong, Sony worked a giant deal out with MS(I doubt), or Sony is bowing to pressure from within the BDA.

Regardless, did anyone really think Sony would stick with MPEG-2 for the life of Blu-Ray? How else will they justify re-releasing their movies five times over?

Yep, and another would be that Sony knows they are taking a bath on the BD50 discs, hence no other replicator touching them, and need to find another way to handle the BD25 storage space problems.

[Do I even dare wade into this? Oh what the hell...]

If the rumor about Sony going to VC-1 is true, that is good news for BD player owners because we already know that VC-1 delivers good results and is much more space efficient than MPEG2. What's not to like?

Perhaps the studios have been having problems getting AVC to work as well as we already know VC-1 does. But to spin this rumor into Universal jumping ship to BD is the most remarkable non sequitur I have yet seen in this forum.

$400 would be tempting but since I am happy with HD DVD I would probably wait for a lower price before buying a BD player. There are some Sony/Columbia and Fox titles I would like to get, if they are ever released on a high def disc (although nothing announced so far is of interest to me). While it is theoretically possible that Fox could eventually go neutral, that isn't a realistic possibility for Sony/Columbia.

I am in agreement with namja's CE industry experts: I think that both HD DVD and BD will survive and even thrive. Eventually I will have to pick up a BD player to watch movies from BD only studios. But I would expect it to take at least a year before the prices get low enough to tempt me and I will have plenty of HD DVD releases to play with in the interim.

So, perhaps that means I am not a "die hard HD DVD guy", just someone who is happy with what I have for now.

I'm more about content than format. If Blu-ray puts out quality discs I want and has the players down to $400 I will come aboard. However, I have some loyalty to HD DVD for putting out a great affordable player and 2007 belongs to them as long as they remain a strong contender. If Blu-ray has it together and has a quality $400 player in Jan 2008 and many exclusives I want then I will buy one.

With the exception of Sony, I can't see why a studio would align itself with only 1 format. What's the benefit?

Serious answer from a die-hard HD DVD guy:

$400? Nope.

Now that I have an HD DVD player, fantastic HD DVD quality, and great upconversion, I've become very patient about BD. Even at $300 for a player with some decent quality BD releases, I'm not sure I'd bite. I'll wait for a while longer (a year... maybe two?) and see how the format war shakes out now that I've picked a side. I don't see any logical reason that I (as a consumer) should buy two formats and two pieces of hardware that do essentially the same thing. I've voted with my wallet. If it turns out that the marketplace doesn't agree with me, or if both formats remain viable for a long time with some exclusive studio support, I'll re-evaluate. But I won't be going to BD for a long time. When players are dirt-cheap, there are dozens of high-quality titles I want, and it's clear that I won't be able to expect that stuff on HD DVD.

It's going to be painful at times. I figure that Sony will be putting Spider-Man 1&2 out on BD for the theatrical release of 3. I imagine that Fox will be putting Alien and X-Men stuff out shortly. And probably Die Hard in time for the 4th movie. That's going to suck. But I'll wait it out...

$400.00?? Nope...Not now. Maybe before hand but it has to be at least, sub $200 and all the kinks worked out. I'm not even a hardcore HD-DVD, but they were first for me with affordability and quality so now I can play the waiting game.


Ive been wondering the same myself...I have yet to see a very good answer, but I am also not a CEO or CFO of a multi-million dollar corporation.

did the studios that are exclusive to blu-ray have to sign some kind of contract with them saying that they would only put out their movies with Blu-Ray for a certain amount of time? I could understand doing that in the beginning because everyone thought Blu-Ray would dominate, but i don't see a reason not to become neutral now.

As far as what I was told, yes, there were certain agreements made.

Oh...and some more rumors to throw out there...

Exactly how I feel. And I'm sure that's how most of the consumers will feel.


And ditto that.

And hopefully they'll feel more for quality than for content.

I really don't want to bother having 2 HD format players and still keeping my Malata. If Fox holds steady with Blu-ray and Sony releases some stuff I want, I probably won't upgrade until I can get a combo player that also is a region free dvd player that upconverts better than the HD-A1 for under $500. It might be asking for a lot, but I am pretty damn happy as it is right now.

Here is what I don't understand about the rumored neutrality talk: Why would any studio make a move at this point? HD sales are a very small drop in a very large bucket and studios have very, vey little to gain by switching at this point. At the end of the day, they will probably lose by being forced to support two formats vice one. You can't convince me that studio execs haven't thought this out for themselves.

The Disney talk, in perticular, is troubling. The largest stockholder at Disney is Steve Jobs who, in his own right, is more anti-Microsoft than Sony. We have already seen that Disney has decided to go with AVC over VC-1 (whether for that reason or another, no one but Disney can be sure). Apple has actively choosen AVC for their own media distribution over the Microsoft alternative. I just don't see Steve saying that Disney should support a Microsoft backed format.

just saw BD at Circuit City. First time I actually saw one of these in action.
1) PQ- I was NOT impressed. Pirates of the Caribbean was playing and the grain was so bad, it actually hurt my eyes. They showed a bunch of trailers/movie excerpts and the PQ ranged from better than SD (but not earth shattering) to worse than SD.
2) A PC-like hourglass showed between some of the menu changes. ugh
3) the picture skipped. I told the rep about this and he said 'Blue ray is not about being scratch resistant - it's all about picture quality! and then told me that 'you have to be careful handling these things'. Didn't I read somewhere that BD discs were supposedly sturdier than SD?

More interesting was the fact that CC was selling HD DVD discs as well as BD but they were not selling any HD DVD players! The rep could not explain this. But said that BD 'blows away HD'. I asked why and he said 'well, for one - BD is 1080p and HD DVD is only 1080i and you can REALLY see the difference." and the 'audio is better because you need 6 analog cables to get 'the best separation' from BD!

I aske him how can he say that BD PQ was so much better than HD DVD if they couldn't show a side to side comparison, and he said that he 'saw HD once and was not impressed' and that 'BD is twice as expensive because it's twice as good!'

My only comment on this is that CC (at least that store) was SO biased toward BD that I don't know even why they bothered to sell HD discs.

He then said that "BD will win the war because of PS3.' I said I didn't think most people used their gaming consoles to watch movies, and he said he did - he had an Xbox that was his main DVD player. He used it for movies, his kids uses it for games. So maybe he is on to something.

But I did not think this was fair marketing of either product.. just my imho. And if other stores are doing the same thing (either biased to BD or HD ) then I really feel sorry for the average person who is not very knowledgable about what is going on and may blindly believe whatever the rep tells them.

PLEASE END THIS WAR!!!!!

Meh. Salesmen are idiots. I don't know why anyone talks to them anymore. On the rare occasions I enter a store like that, I usually end up laughing at things I overhear.

Over on AVS, someone said that a person at Circuit City said that all movies are on 480i, except for movies on HBO, because HBO owns special cameras and they shoot both cameras on the set at the same time, and that HD DVD uses the transfers from HBO.

So.....

Oddly enough, Amir isn't disputing these VC-1 rumors.

This is getting interesting.

Umm, maybe because HD-DVD sales are actually better than BD at this point which supposedly wasnt expected.

If they change they are gaining the business of many hd-dvd owners (like myself). So, like WB, they are going to provide both. Not surprising to me.

Whether you like it or not, with the player sales and 360 addon the outlook of hd-dvd is good.