oh my god...

even if it said "we'll never support HD DVD ever" i wouldn't necessarily believe it.

It's kinda like Tom Cruise being straight. There's too many rumors to the contrary.

Wow, so many titles I couldn't care less about owning in HD. Seriously, Pi? I can't see how that would look any better in HD. I might get Dune (Miniseries) as long as it's the director's cut.

Not much from that Lion's Gate list that interests me. I already knew about Reservoir Dogs and American Psycho. Basically It-Stinks is a guilty pleasure, so I may pick that one up.

In fairness though, their library is small. It's probably only a matter of time before they double-dip on T2. That's one reason I have yet to pick that one up on Blu-ray.

And yes, from the sound of those quotes in the press release, the format neutrality rumors are just that. Rumors. Wishful thinking on the part of HD-DVD backers(which I'm one of, BTW).

Well, if they were going to announce it, it was going to be at CES. They didn't. And it looks like BV won't either. Sure, there's a few days left, but actions speak louder than words. HD DVD is getting nothing new.

I don't like this at all. For the first time I'm feeling like that format is getting the short end of the stick.

Well, what's hurting Fox, Disney, Sony and Lionsgate is if there are any people doing what I'm doing:

I don't have Blu-Ray yet, so not only am I not buying Blu-Ray movies, I'm not buying the DVD versions of movies ever since that's about as smart as buying VHS tapes in 1998. So now, the only studios getting my business are WB, Paramount, and Universal. I'm not buying any more regular DVDs period.

Like I said, that's what I do. I don't know if anyone else does it. But if anyone else does do it, then that hurts everyone except Paramount and WB.

And look at the alternative.

With BD, all you were told is "wait wait wait...." and now the same thing is happening with HD DVD.

This whole format war is very NOT consumer friendly and some people really have very little patience.

I'd been waiting all week for some sort of good HD-DVD release news, and am pretty let down so far. Long ago (when they were jsut announcements), I was a "firm" BD supporter. On paper, it was just the better format with more studio support. Then, the BD players and generally bad releases came out while the HD-DVD camp had cheaper players, and (in my opinion) far better releases. BD had to do something big to "lose" me, and they did just that.

Now, I'm having the same feelings about HD-DVD for one prime reason, the release schedule. After this next Tuesday, there's nothing with a release date that interests me (other than the Departed), and the BD folks have a slew of movies that I'd buy. It seems that Warner won't be releasing much of anything new until it can be on both formats equally, and Paramount looks to be the same. Universal hasn't announced anything after "Hollywoodland" and they were the studio I was most looking forward to hearing from.

Even if I wanted to go neutral, there's still the problem of there not being a BD player that would suit my needs (1080p, analog outs, decodes all the audio formats), and certainly not one that would do all that and be cheap enough for me to consider buying, but come April, the pressure to cave might be too much :/.

and discouraging is an understatement... this bodes terribly for HD-DVD IMO.

Yes. Because i would rather not reward a studio for their blatant stupidity. Sony I can understand because they are trying to launch their own format, but Fox/LG are just stupid to leave money on the table. If they insist on just making HD movies available on one format (and the one that has less selling potential so far) then i will give my money to someone else and let them wallow in their own ignorance.

To each his own but I think some of you guys need to take a deep breath and relax. Neither format is going to make any huge strides all at once. everything is going to happen gradually.

People are happy with DVD.

Hmmm....let's see if Weeds will be the 16:9 it was supposed to be on the standard DVD's.

That may be the case, but BD announced ALOT of new titles today AND provided dates for them (and the day isnt over...their press event is later). It gives people something to look forward to. Im sure that hd-dvd will be releasing some titles too, but they havent announced much yet.

We have been waiting a couple months for CES and the "big" announcements from hd-dvd. It seems that most are not impressed by the few hd-dvd announcements. And, the rumors that were flying around here and avsforums for the past few months have not come to pass.

Yes, there is still a couple days of CES left, but its not looking good. If there were going to be announcements, they would/will happen during this time. If none happen, then we probably wont see big announcements (like studio neutrality and so on) for some time at least.

I'd go so far as to say there's zero doubt. It aired at 1.78:1 in high-def, so the BDs should be the same way.

...although at the same time, you could argue that the start-up costs to get going for HD DVD coupled with the tiny market are a bit of a disincentive, especially if the goal's to take advantage of the format's bells and whistles.

Well, it could've been out of courtesy to the Blu-ray camp, or if there's some sort of contractual period of exclusivity, they may not be able to announce anything. Really, though, with the PS3 being the feather in Blu-ray's camp and it only having been out for a couple of months, I'm not surprised that there are no defections. It's early yet.

Likewise. If you count titles with a general "first quarter" date, though, I'd grab the McQueen flicks too.

It just seems like Blu-ray is finally bringing their A-game. There are a bunch of titles in the Fox, LGF, and Disney announcements that I'm chomping at the bit to own. Hell, pick any one of those three studios, and their list of titles is more compelling than the sum total of what HD DVD has mentioned. Even then, most of the HD DVD titles will eventually (if not simultaneously) wind up on Blu-ray too.

Give me something to be enthusiastic about, HD DVD.

Unless price is a factor, I can't think of any reason why someone would still be avoiding BD. The PS3 is readily available at many locations. Of course, we're still waiting to see if that Sony $400 player rumor is true.

The BD software lineup for this year looks very solid. Pirates 1 & 2, and Cars will sell systems. Sony will also be releasing Spidey 1 and 2 at some point. That will also sell systems. Alot of those Warner titles will be on BD as well. BD will also get The Matrix and Harry Potter films. The BD side flexed their muscles by actually giving us some release dates. The HD DVD side was very vague. I want some more Universal info.

On that HD DVD tour, weren't we told to be patient because there will be some big announcements? Wasn't that tour last Fall? Wouldn't this have been the time to show the big announcements?

I agree completely on that one, I've got BD and HD-DVD and I'm not purchasing anything that comes out not on one of those formats. There's a lot of new releases in the past few months I would have picked up on BD or HD that I'm passing on. That makes a lot of sense, there's enough double dipping as it is.

But to boycott a specific studio because of their exclusivity to one format seems a little odd. I'm sure there's a ton of behind the scenes dealings that go into these decisions, if it were a straight money issue I bet there would be more neutrality.

I'm already terribly bored by the format war and tired of hype and long term projections. I think Digi made a great point that they're trying to replace a format everybody was pretty happy with. Hearing about how great this is going to be six months from now, every damn six months, is getting really old. I'm starting to just be complacent with whatever they give me and hope something drastic happens in the meantime. The movies do look and sound great though... at least the ones they've released.

The mess with the different profiles (I don't know if what I'm buying will be usable as a basis for reviews six months from now) and the lack of multichannel analog outs are keeping me from biting right now. I may bite the bullet anyway and pick up a PS3 in a couple of months, though.

Well for me its price still, and the fact that I don't really want a PS3 as I have a Wii and a 360 already...But if something new doesn't happen soon with HD-DVD, I will probably break down and get a ps3 (unless a cheaper one is announced. I just hope something, SOMETHING, is announced on the HD side soon (not necessarily at CES but soon.)

I don't know what tour you were on but my stop didn't say to wait for any big announcements.

And there's no value to BD. $40 barebones discs.

But let's not let this thread become a VS issue.

Please.

Yeah, clearly when Sony was designing the system, they were looking ahead by inputting HDMI 1.3 and 1080p. I'm sure I'll get a HDMI receiver this year mainly to hear those Fox DTS-HD MA tracks. I do love the little things the PS3 offers, such as showing audio/video bitrate and video codec. And I've been extremely impressed with the picture quality of the unit. It blows the Samsung away. When pricing on these were announced, I thought it was too high. But after seeing the PS3 in action, it's a great price for what you're getting. A solid unit that plays games and BD movies.

I've never paid $40 for a disc. Having all the extras would be nice, but first and foremost the technical specs of the disc should be the most important thing, right? If you're watching Master and Commander and enjoying the 1080p picture with DTS sound, I wouldn't think losing some featurettes is going to ruin the movie watching experience. but anyways...

That's the factor. Not only hardware price, but software price as well. There's a few movies that are worth a $20+ entry fee, and Blu-Ray has now announced a few of them.

But I'm honestly not ready to pay another $500 to see the other format. I only got into HD DVD because it was marginally ($250) more than what I was going to do: buy a very good DVD player. But now another player is a bit superfluous. And HD is nice, just not a big priority.

HD DVD is now holding me over until I can get something that plays BD or I get a dual player. For now, I'm getting Black Rain on the 23rd and Babel in February, nothing in March, and Payback (maybe) in April.

With BD, I'd have these titles plus Crank, Reservoir Dogs, Running with Scissors, Marie Antoinette (maybe), Commando, The Prestige, Layer Cake, the Lecter movies...

I knew BD would offer 2x the choice at 2x the price, but at 4x the choice at 2x the price, this is starting to tick me off.

c'mon, you gotta give BD some credit for what they have announced. There are some solid exclusive titles in there. I know you don't want to give them any credit.

I was expecting to get something better than the vague announcement we got from HD DVD. I still hope we get some Universal surprises.

I do agree on hardware pricing. There is no reason why BD can't release a $500 standalone player. I love the PS3, but not everyone wants a gaming system to be their primary player, even if it does produce kick ass picture. They have a solid software lineup for this year. They just need to offer up a cheaper standalone unit.

For me, I bought the HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 so I was able to enter the new format with relatively little cost. Now with the combo players coming out, it makes it easier for me to stomach the investment. I'll just buy a combo player as my primary DVD player.

But I agree, I was waiting for HD-DVD to take some steam out of BR's sails. I think the sales numbers said it all - 175k HD-DVD players versus the close to one million PS3s in the marketplace.

You can "announce" anything you want. But if the quality and value isn't there, it's no good at all. That goes for BOTH sides.

It's not that I don't want to give BD any credit. It's that they don't deserve it. Once they start releasing all (hell, i'll even ask for MOST) movies with great quality and all extras, then I'll probably be forcing myself to get a PS3 or whatever the cheapest option is at that point. Until then, although I'd love to have certain movies in my collection, i'm not really able to replace the SD version and that's what this is all about.

And this is my final word about it. I'm not going to risk another suspension debating the merits of both formats.

let's keep this thread to what it is, please.