Time will tell. This is only day 1.

Haha, very true.

I cant see how the combo players wont go down in price for this very reason. Just hold onto your HD-DVD discs until the combo players go down to $200.

They did some things with HD DVD that nobody else did, including Universal, and I expect that they'll put the people who did that work on the Blu-rays now.

I'm saving up now just to be able to splurge on discs. I could end up getting hundreds. :D

seconded

Will Amazon do a big BOGO? I'm anticipating this so much right now...

I don't remember calling them bastards?

Business is business.

The closest to real numbers I've heard for the various offers to Warner are $450 million from the BDA and $375-400 million from Microsoft/Toshiba. But Microsoft wanted exclusive digital download rights for a decade included also and that was a huge sticking point for Warner. This started long ago shortly after the Paramount move. The BDA was not going to let Warner get away. In the end Warner made the move mostly for the sake of the HD optical media market and not money. They believed correctly that a split market would make HD a niche market forever.

All the titles I've paid for were B1G1 offers, Circuit City's wonderful deal, etc. So, the only issue is the XA2 I bought (I figure some coming up disco'd sales will help me break even or better). But damn, that XA2 a nice SD DVD upconverter, so I'm not really angry per se. I just hope the Blu-ray hardware will be offered from Toshiba in the future.

In the end, I hope there will be low prices and not as many problematic BD discs that I've been reading about.

I emailed them. Again. Even gave them a link to the WB press release.

...and they even have that Price Guarantee too...So if they drop in price fast, we may get some extra cash back in our pockets. Nice.

They'll probably change it to "does not include HD DVD titles."

I doubt prices on discs will fall this soon. It'll probably be a while.

= J

YOU just RUINED my Banana Dance, buddy.

:sad:

I actually hope you're right. Because I want to save some more $$$. Need to recoup a little from holiday shopping.

Well this is kinda shocking. Not that Warner went Blu but that they decided not to be neutral. I've been a supporter for HD for quite awhile now and it seems sad that this could be the end. The war has done so much for the HD media that it would take forever to explain, but the biggest one is price. If there was no war we wouldn't be even close to prices we are today.

I'll be happy with my HD-A1 until i can get a Combo player or a blu-ray player that's 1.1 for under $300. I will probably sell off some of the HD-DVD's i have but only the ones that i don't love. But i would love for Paramount and Universal to unload a huge amount of cataloge titles in the next few months just to say that they didn't give everything they could. Hell throw out Godfather, Hitchcock, Classic monster movies, and a bunch of tv shows. That would be a cool way to go out.

Penton-man at bluray.com had said that there is another studio still in the works as well that will be coming aboard soon.

Sadly, I have to agree with you. I'll continue to buy HD DVDs; I have DVDs I bought in 1998 that still play flawlessly, and I have no reason to believe I won't be able to enjoy them years from now.

The higher start-up cost to get into Blu-Ray is something I didn't want to deal with, and this announcement doesn't change that.

The only one i could think of would be Weinstein. Universal isn't going out yet and neither is paramount unless Toshiba lets them out of the contract.

I bought a PS3 about 14 months ago.

I just bought my 2nd HD player (one for our theater room where the PS3 is and one for the living room with new TV we got at x-mas).

Doesn't bother me one bit. I didn't like that the PS3 couldn't easily integrate with my system with that stupid blue tooth remote. So when my good up converting DVD player started going out I got an A3 to replace it. I use it as my main DVD player.

And the same for the living room. Why would I buy an Oppo or something when the A3 is so cheap (I know, the Oppo maybe every so slightly better, region free and such). But it is so close, not worth the difference IMHO.

Personally, I don't know why anyone would "regret" being in HD. Even today. I mean it is not like there is some chip inside the thing that will suddenly lock the player up. The units, discs and all will work fine and they are still an excellent up converting DVD player. There is still no blu-ray machine I would run out and buy today. I certainly wouldn't buy a 2nd PS3 for the living room.

And at recent prices why wouldn't you buy HD titles? With all the BOGO free stuff they are no more then SD titles.

Will be interesting to see if BR prices actually go UP now. I think they might, at least for the short term.

WOW to Amir's comments on AVS!

Ladies and Gentleman, sounds like Hd-dvd is in fact dead, or as close as possible.

I don't think he said anything particularly outrageous.

Pushing VOD all of a sudden? I'm wondering if MS bailed on Toshiba before the WB announcement.

You do realize he transferred divisions over a month ago, yes? I'm not sure what you are referring to WRT his "pushing" of VOD, as he has always acknowledged the likelihood that VOD would step up and take a strong segment of the market.

Great News...Now I can go blu ray finally.

Now heres to hoping no dvd/blu ray double sided combo discs ever pop up...