Maybe we'll get King Kong and Transformers with lossless sound sooner than later.

[Jedi Hand Wave]You don't need lossless audio...[/Jedi Hand Wave]

It's about time.

Thank you Pro B for your patience with all the shenanigans.

Once I went neutral, I never gave it another thought. I figured the competition kept the prices down, and most would get combo players.

Neither will make the announcement that they are going neutral. The next announcement will be someone from BD coming over to HD-DVD (very unlikely) or Toshiba announcing they are done. Toshiba won't let one more company leave and still try to stick around.

Will it matter that much? I watched the Transformers HD disc, and damn can the sound really be better, and would anyone really be able to notice? Not that I want to start a compare and contrast discussion here. At this point, though, can there be much difference between HD formats on quality? The jump from say, 480i to 480p was definitely noticeable, from 480p to 720p and 1080i was, but between 1080i and 1080p...I'm not sure it's noticeable. I'm sure a supposed afficio will tell me to fuck off back to composite video and 128k mp3s if I can't tell the diff, but really, at some point the differences are going to be so minute that it doesn't matter, right?

Finally! Maybe now we'll have larger video encodes from WB on Blu-ray titles...

Of course....I just finally went format neutral and bought a A3 last week, so I'm not surprised at all that this happened. Oh well, I got it for cheap and so far have only purchased 2 HD DVDs (in Amazon's BOGO last week). I have no intention of selling it, hell, I still have a laserdisc player in my home theatre, so I'm sure an HD DVD player will still come in handy for some time. I like collecting different formats.

I have to admit though, I like the performance of my PS3 better than that of the A3, so I'm personally glad that BD is the format that seems to be the one that will be hanging around (well, until the next new format gets decided on, whatever and whenever that will be).

I am worried that many of the great sales on BDs will stop in the near future though. I've been loving these BOGO sales where I could pick up Blu-ray discs for 10 bucks a pop, so if I have to go back to paying higher prices for everything again, it will be hard to get used to.

One thing I'm hoping for is that Warner will release Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, and on one disc for the film. I could see if they released it last year they'd have it on 2 discs due to space limitations (equalized for both formats), but they should be able to do it on one disc now.

I bought an HD DVD player when they were $100 because that's what I could afford, and continued to buy during BOGO sales because, again, that's what I could afford. So this news is really daunting to those of us who don't have tons of cash sitting around. All I can say is: THANK GOD FOR COMBOS.

Perfect example as to why this format war needed to end.

I do not know why all the HD-DVD owners are so confused.

I was originally an HD-DVD supporter since June 2006 all the way through November 2007 when I bought my PS3 with the walmart sale.

I figured I didn't want to miss out on such great titles such as Die Hard, Pirates, Lost, Casino Royal etc.

Then around the begining of December when the Warner rumor started up I felt pretty confident in my Blu purchases. Then with all the BOGO deals I stocked up.

Now I am 40 HD-DVD and 40 Blu Rays...and you know what...this annoucment makes me extreamly happy if only to give me security in knowing that I am no longer investing in a format that will be going away anytime soon.

I'm just going to suck it up, enjoy the HD-DVDs I have, and also enjoy The Blu side of things, which in all honesty, is just as good (if not sometimes better) than HD.

I do like the speed of the PS3, but still bought HD-DVD when they were available. I didn't like all the previews on BD. And even though I am not a fan of extras, the IME was pretty darn cool.

Also, I am sure we will still see some great sales regarding Blu Ray discs...I mean come on...we still need to hook the DVD crowd in somehow!

The bigger problem in hooking the DVD crowd is hardware costs, and right now the PS3 is the cheapest because it is subsidized by Sony. And most PS3s aren't hooked to the main family tv, so you buy another or put up with the kids playing on the main family tv....unless prices get really cheap, and they don't show signs of doing that for the players.

And this says perfectly why I will not be buying a Blu-Ray player any time soon.

I'm at the 50% mark. 85 out of 170 hd-dvd titles are Universal, Paramount or from other studios. My hd-dvds are not going any where.

I have 7 blu-rays in my collection and waiting for Lost 3 to arrive in a trade, I still have no blu-ray player.

No kidding. At least HD-DVD was getting to that point of finally being a more affordable piece of hardware. Where Blu-Ray still robs you. I was planning on buying into Blu-Ray eventually anyways but I was going to wait a couple of years for prices to come down. Now? *sighs* Who knows. I can't afford it for a while.

Fixed.

My money says these discs-o-shit stop working at some point down the road. I'm probably going to replace all of mine with SD's and never look back.

So Sony buying Warner would be out of fear but the Paramount deal to HD-DVD is a sign of smart business?

I wonder if there's any chance that the BDA could officially get "DVD" attached to the name. Article after article keeps erroneously referring to both formats as "next generation DVDs." Even some people who work for the studios and CE companies are doing it, and they should know better. Maybe they should go ahead and try to make it official.

Find a post where "I" ever said Paramonts deal was strictly smart business?
There is no doubt in my mind Tosh needed to do something and they did, so to me, this deal with WB from sony would be the same thing. In order to win, somebody had to pay.

"You burned down my house and left me for dead...consider us even."