Ive been abused more then a TJ Crack Whore on this forum, yet i am the one on the short leash here? Whatever, so now comments from movie producers is "Baiting" or bashing HD DVD? Whats next, computer chips in my forhead that disables my brain from thinking about sony?

While I agree that the presentation of the link could have been more diplomatic, the director of HD DVD's highest selling, notable exclusive release reacting in a such a way to yesterday's news seems noteworthy.

The WB quote towards the bottom of the opening post read, "Warner said it
would continue releasing in the HD DVD format until the end of May, although
those releases would follow the standard DVD and Blu-ray releases."

I haven't read past page 13 of this thread yet, but am I the only one reading this
statement as a possible release date delay on the HD-DVDs as compared to the
SD and Blu releases of the same title?

Your posts have been continuously and unequivocally designed to cause contention and bash HD DVD while praising Blu-ray unconditionally. Your blind faith and inability to rationally discuss either format went from quickly tiresome to actively causing fights here. You know exactly what you're doing and yet you don't stop. So yes, you're on a short leash. And those comments from Michael Bay were clearly chosen in order to do exactly what you always do: Bash HD DVD. It's your own posting behavior that's led to this.

Of course... the very next page after I post :)

Noteworthy? More of a no-brainer. What if WB announced it was going to support HD DVD only? Then what would Bay have said? "I still think Transformers on HD DVD is way cool! Bravo, WB!"

WOW, I just got off work and this shocked the hell out of me! I have both formats, but I liked HD DVD more. I plan on keeping my HD DVD player and movies because it is a great upconvert player. I will definitely be buying more Blu-ray now but I will definitely not pass up any great deals on HD DVDs!

As a recent purchaser of the infamous $99 hd player, this announcement bites. But, I'd rather have this news come out sooner rather than later. Now, I can stop the bleeding somewhat early with 19 titles and call it quits. (I'm sure I won't be alone.)
I wonder what this means for the future of SD DVD now that the HD market is, for the most part, now owned by a company that doesn't profit by its technology?

Okay, you knew it was coming:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/hd/warner_bros_turns_blu.html

You mean, like EVD? Yeah, that went really well.

After sleeping on it, I think I'm going to sell my player and 7 "free" movies. I already own an Oppo and don't need my A2 for upconverting. I'm not the kind of person who purcashes many movies because there are very few I want to see more than one time, let alone own. Maybe HD titles (both formats) being somewhat slim compared to SD fortunately kept me from purchasing more HD-DVD flicks. Even those BOGO deals contained almost nothing I wanted to own. Yeah, I'm picky! I'd keep the player, but feel it will even be worth less by the time Blu-ray players are under $200.

I still believe in HD physical content. I'd love to see it expand greatly. Maybe this announcement will do that and the wars spurred it on.

That's what it sounds like. The BD and DVD version will debut first, and then the HD DVD shows up a few weeks? later. Of course, May isn't that far off anyways.

It sounds to me like Day/Dates will be BD and DVD, and then later, the HD DVD version, until the end of may. Thats how i read it tho.

I am going to guess Target. They already have given more shelf space to BD and have a BD end cap set up. I think they will clearance out titles later this year. With the WB switch, I'm sure Best Buy and everyone else will be changing their HD sections very soon.

I'm sure that's the case. I just wonder how much of a window. Will April titles make it to HD DVD? I'm going to guess that I Am Legend will be the first exclusive they release.

Stop warning these tools and just ban them. Christ. This guy adds nothing, NOTHING at all to discussions. He should have been broomed months ago. Honestly.

I find it ridiculous, after being told a couple weeks ago that he was on thin ice, Harry Lime, who does little more than troll, made post after post yesterday trying to cause static with no consequence whatsoever. The posts were deleted, but he was not.

For all the stuff that went down with DFNYC, he did not behave like that and he is sitting on the sidelines.

This would be great news, indeed, though CES may be too soon a time frame to expect an announcement. Hopefully their msrp won't increase more than $10.

*****

As for my two cents on the format war, I went Blu back in June when the sales gap hit 2-to-1, figuring the outcome was only a matter of time. It's been a long tumultuous seven months, but in the end Warners (thankfully) sided with the majority.

I would venture a guess to say that I Am Legend will be a BD exclusive. Speculation on my part, but quite likely to happen.

This kind of sucks since I've yet to choose which side to go with. I was hoping the "war" would bring down BR player prices and bring quality up.

So, the consensus seems to say the best BR player right now is the PS3 (at least from what little I've read on here). It just seems crazy that there are no other real choices. Plus with the "war" possibly coming to an end, I doubt we'll ever see a decent BR player down to the $150 range. Is that pricepoint just a pipedream?

I guess I just need to be more patient. Hopefully things will look better towards the end of the year.

This definitely sucks for everyone. I firmly believe HD was the better format (features, interactivity, price). The only negatives were the scratching issue and dual sided discs. I own both formats so I'm not totally peeved, but it stings a little.

I'm not totally up on the scene but does anyone really think the infamous BD 1.1 update would have happened if HD wasn't around touting it's interactivity and features? I doubt it. BD would have been sold as-is and we would have followed the same double-dip release schedule DVD has seen(bare bones first and feature laden later).

Great news! I could care less which format won, as long as there seemed to be a winner, and this looks like BluRay will prevail now with 70% of the movies will be on this format.

I was waiting and waiting, and I now I will be buying a BluRay player in the near future, as I will finally make the jump to 1080 to watch movies. Fans like me are the reason Warner Brothers chose a side, there were too many people I know on the fence waiting for this war to end, and too much money was being lost.

With what appears that most everybody will jump on the Blu-Ray bandwagon, I think we will see a price drop in console players over the next year, especially now that the Profile 1.1 specification is finalized. (Profile 2.0 spec won't add much to 1.1.) I wouldn't be surprised that the price of players drops to the US$250 range or less within one year.

By the way, you can already master Blu-Ray discs at home--a couple of companies offer Blu-Ray disc burners. And Apple likely to offer Blu-Ray support on their current iMac models very soon will also add to the Blu-Ray momentum. :)

According to the rumor in the AVS insider thread, the BDA spent almost $1 billion for this to happen. $500 millions to keep Fox from switching sides, $500 millions to entice Warner to drop HD DVD.

^ exactly

This isn't about the "fans" at all. If the fans had made a decision (i.e. one format was clearly outselling the other) this decision would have been reached long ago.

But since they seemed to be close in sales figures, their decision had to be bought.

There is no fan influence in this choice, IMO.

This is EXACTLY why I didn't invest in the technology and I do not see myself getting invested any time in the next year.