That's just weird to me. I only buy stuff at Target when theres a crazy sale or a misprice (I bought the Band of Brothers tin for $5.50 about 2 years ago). Their regular price on HDM is just so ridiculously high (similar to Best Buy) but Target has yet to have a good sale on them.

From what I've read, BB is by far the largest seller of HDM, so whatever they do is going to be the biggest influence.

BB cant start phasing HD-DVD out until they stop putting it in their weekly ads for cheap with free movies. If they do, they will have alot of pissed off customers who purchased a player from their store, but cannot buy titles there anymore.

If we start seeing no hd-dvd ads in the weekly ads, thats a good sign of a phase out.

That kind of surprises me. Wonder if that includes the free titles they give away with player purchases or if the recent BB Christmas sales made a big difference in which store was the top seller.

I won't be surprised. I think Rob Enderle (very pro HD DVD) posted a few days ago at HTF that since it looks like HD DVD is done that "we" should focus on downloads.

I also read that the HD master for Lawrence of Arabia is finished but the marketing guys are deciding on what extras to put on there. I think it's still up for an '08 release.

Most people still buy in store as opposed to online. And although Best Buy's pricing is higher than Amazon, they have a heck of alot better title selection than their competition. They seem to push HD much more than anyone else with their advertising.

I don't think it'll happen right away. The way I understood it was they were going to ease out of HD DVD. Possibly by just not reordering stock or very little of it. I think they'll do it quietly as to not piss off Toshiba as much. I mean really, which format is Best Buy going to try and sell people to? I don't think they'll push the one with 20-25% of the market. I wouldn't want to piss off my customers.

Yeah, I don't think anyone is close to Best Buy when it comes to B&M selection. Circuit City is pathetic when it comes to their hi-def. WTF are they doing over there? On release day, they couldn't find their 3:10 to Yuma shipment but it was "somewhere in the back" according to an employee at the local CC. Completely pathetic.

And yet Disney only released 30 titles on Blu-ray last year, no more than Paramount released on HD DVD.

Z, that's apples and oranges. You are comparing the number of releases to the quality of releases. Most if not all of the Disney titles were full featured releases with top notch PQ and AQ.

There are few perfect "apples to apples" comparisons people can legitimately make in this format war. I think that's one of the major reasons for all the stupid bickering. That and the fact that people seem to just enjoy fighting with each other . . .

But comparing the quality of releases to the number of releases certainly isn't one of them.

Oh, and I don't think Josh disagrees, judging by his studio report card where he gave Disney/Buena Vista an A-, tied for second place above all studios.

Then I'm not sure why he even brought it up. Jim was talking about promotion and title quality, not releases.

Mod Note: This whole rigamarole is beyond tired. It seems like the only reason threads exist is here is so that the same seven or ten people can rehash the same arguments over and over and over. Someone makes a comment that someone else perceives as offending one format or the other, then they feel compelled to point it out, which puts everyone on the side of their respective format, and over what? Pro-B made an offhand remark. It wouldn't have meant anything had Qui Gon Jim not bothered to point it out. Once he did, though, we get people coming in to condemn Pro-B, then other people coming in to defend Pro-B, and you know who hasn't even made a post since? Pro-B.

You guys have to learn to let the little things go. I've seen more format bashing in the past week and a half than I have since Blu-ray debuted. What is so difficult about discussing these formats without the endless nitpicky fights that serve no purpose? Why do I have to post a mod note every two pages in any given thread? This is worse than Political Talk. Get over yourselves and your chosen format and just enjoy the goddamned movies in high def.

Could you keep us posted? Visiting there just makes me more appreciative of balanced forums (even if there's bickering from time to time).

Does anyone know the release date for Lawrence of Arabia?

When I went to the Blu-ray demo in early 2006 they showed a scene from this movie compared to standard def and it was one of the major eye opening events that got me on board for HD video. Just an amazing difference.

I recently sold my DVD limited edition and thought the BD was coming soon, but I also thought Wizard of Oz was coming in Dec 2007 and that didn't happen.

LoA is scheduled for HDnet next month. I hope it's the new master - should be a nice appetizer for the eventual BD.

Fry's is the only one that competes on selection, but they only have a couple dozen stores at best. Should be interesting to see what they do, considering they had already doubled their Blu-Ray section before the WB announcement.

Cool. I had missed that post.

BTW, the review for Life of Brian seems to indicate that all of the supplements from the Criterion have made it to the BD release. Kind of shocked, but at least I can sell one more DVD later. I was able to get the BD during the B1G1 at Amazon so this one is a cheap upgrade. I can probably get more for the Criterion than the $8 the BD cost me.

Oh man, you have no idea how much I'm looking forward to Life of Brian. I think I'm calling in sick the day it comes in!

Doesn't sound like a huge AV upgrade, but we really couldn't expect a low budget movie from the 70s to be that. However, it at least seems like a step up from the current DVD and that wasn't true of Meaning of Life.

I'm really excited about this one. I buy all the Python releases over and over. I still have the Criterion LD of Holy Grail. This one will be welcomed into the collection.

You should come check out my circuit city. You would expect some order there, but no, they have all the titles mixed up and in completely random order. I try to support them but they just make it so hard.

Same at the Best Buy by my house, they showed they had over 30 instock and had to go to the back to pull one for me. The guy only brought one out instead of restocking the floor space. Makes me wonder if they just hold on to stuff back there for their employees.

Well said!