You are remembering incorrectly.

Same here.

But he did tell us so.

Well, a day later and what I'm most wondering about now is what this will mean for the PS3. I tend to think that anyone that wanted to spend $400 on an HDM player has bought one, so that market is pretty much tapped out. For all intents and purposes future PS3 sales will be solely on its merits as a game console. Someone better come out with a $200 Blu-Ray player pretty fast if WB's gamble is going to pay off.

I still don't get some of the hd-dvd fanboys at other forums claiming that they are going back to standard dvd or VOD. After tasting full hi-def picture and sound, how can you go back to standard dvd or half-assed downloads?

What did he do that was so wrong? I personally was glad to see the link where Bay stated Transformers would be coming to BR. Just because Bay took a few shots doesn't mean that the other message has to be lost as well.

Have you not read his posts? Every chance he gets, he states BR is a superior medium b/c the bit rate is higher, or the storage space on discs is greater. This isn't a thread to discuss the technical merits of the technology. He's just baiting people into heated discussions.

That's what it's going to take for me to get a BR player (1.1).

BTW, OT, but if I did get a BR player Profile 1.1, will I have to worry about future special features not working because they require the 2.0 profile? Or is 1.1 it and 2.0 just has some extra storage and such?

Right - and his column shows he's thrilled as hell to be right. For some reason, you made the comment that he clearly wasn't.

No, I haven't, actually. I'm fairly new to this forum - I've only been in the HD world (in terms of discs, anyway) for about a month and a half.

All I'm judging is that one post, and it contained information I found useful.

Agreed...that's crazy talk (seriously sour grapes) IMO and those people who do go back to SD DVD are going to be turning Blu very fast I think when they realize how shitty standard def looks...

Are either of the two points you stated lies? Obviously WB thinks Blu-Ray was the way to go and they travelled that road. The funny thing is the allowed continued bashing of Sony by some posters in this thread when Sony isn't the only company involved with Blu-Ray. They make only a portion of the players and release only a handful of movies on Blu-Ray.

Well, since you haven't been around here long, just take the word of many here that he continually makes outlandish statements to bait people into arguments.

Like you said man, you've only been in the HD forum for a month and half. I've been around since near the beginning. I've read such incendiary crap from that BD shill that would make your head spin if you think that he wrote yesterday was bad.

It's all about putting it into perspective. For Bill, what he posted last night was practically a compliment and was certainly reserved.

But is it not warranted? Since almost Day One, he's been saying that this would happen. He's taken mud slinging from tons of people, notably me, and all he has to say one year later is "I'm right". He could say alot more.

No, but he states that BR movies look better as a result of those two factors. A fact that has been repeatedly refuted by numerous people. Yet, he continues to make that absurd assertion. That is the problem with his posts.

Most of those people who state that just despise Sony for whatever reason and feel that they have to rebel against the HD medium. I never understood this. I don't like the gas prices but know my car needs gas so therefore I buy it. It beats the hell out of walking.

Hear, Hear! for oldtimers!

Just because I've been in this forum for 90 days doesn't mean I haven't read Hunt's crap from the beginning.

Don't get me wrong - I prefer BR to HD-DVD. But anything he writes, to me, is pure garbage. I just don't find him to be very professional. Granted, it's his site, and he's free to do with as he pleases...but I stopped reading him a long time ago.

Geeze, i think i would rather be a TJ Crack Whore at this point for real, the abuse on this forum for stating facts is insane!

BTW, new additional info has been posted. Toshiba has now CANCELED the One on One Executive meetings in addition to the 2 hour CES Press Conference. You can read more here:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=10234

I am just surprised at all the immediate posts stating that they are off to buy a BR player.

Personally I think the prudent thing to do is wait until the smoke clears and see what happens over the course of the next 3 to 6 months. It has only been a day and Toshiba has not yet had the time to make a true counter attack or even wave a white flag. Yet every BR person is obnoxiously declaring victory (like they were a troop in the Middle East doing something significant ) or lots of HD-DVD people are stating they are off to the store this week to buy a BR player and dump their HD-DVD player and discs.

What ever happened to being patient and seeing what the long term reaction and consequences may be? Screaming "Fire" while something is smoking doesn't necessarily mean it is going to burn.

The writing may be on the wall, as so many of you have been stating, but I will wait until it is legible.

Actually its not crazy talk. I like adding movies to my home but I won't do it if the prices for Blu players and movies stand where they are. I watched Die Hard 4 the other day upconverted and it looked perfectly good to me. Granted I don't have the biggest plasma display out there (42" Samsung) I have no use for the video gaming capability of the PS3 and frankly I think it is worse with its Bluetooth remote which doesn't work easily with my Harmony which me and my fiance use.


Does HD look better? Yes it does, but only marginally to me. And I can get a lot of HD programming and movies through Comcast On Demand with my subsrciptions to movie channels, which I added back in the mix solely because of their HD broadcasts.

Thank you.

Very sage advice Brian.

I have to admit, I panicked a little myself, and started pricing BD players this morning. First of all, the "final spec" players (Profile 2.0) aren't even out yet, the best you can do is a 1.1.

Also, there are probably many manufacturers yet to come to market with a BD player. Maybe some of these will have legacy HD DVD playback capabilities as well? (You can still find a machine that plays CD, DVD, DVD-A, and SACD if you wish.) And as you said, we have yet to hear from Toshiba, Paramount, and Universal.

Yes, the ultimate fate of HD DVD has most likely been sealed by yesterday's announcement, but the final chapter is yet to be written.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

I don't think that painting a doom and gloom picture now is a true indication of what has happened and what is to happen.

On another forum I wrote that as mush as the PS3 is dreaded by many as the culprit for the outcome of this fiasco brisk sales did not occur because there was a mass, overnight, realization that it plays BR. The PS3 is an extremely flexible HD player, bridging media and gaming together unlike another console on the market, whose only real issues were pricing and catalog. The first in my opinion has been already addressed successfully, the second is on its way in 2008 to be resolved as well.

With these two issues out of the way I have every reason to believe that the PS3 will continue to enjoy brisk sales and be considered by both gamers and film afficionados. Before and during the holiday season SONY did some very potent marketing moves and I don't see how or why they would not benefit from them in a long run. Especially with WB and their recent announcement.

Thus, suggesting that the market is tapped out and regressive trends are soon to be witnessed is frankly an incorrect statement. The PS3 appeal isn't likely to evaporate as you suggest. On the contrary with new players being announced at CES I expect that there will be a very notable percentage of tech savvy consumers who will bet on the PS3 precisely because of its technical portfolio. The notion that everyone who was interested in exploring BR yet it was uncertain about its future, thus buying PS3 as a buffer, has already done so is unrealistic. If anything, I tend to think that the percentage of people who were interested in buying a console but were partially unhappy with the PS3 current catalog and were undecided about the two HD formats is much greater than those who already acquired one.

Just as WB have looked at the bigger picture you should consider it as well. With yesterday's announcement the distrib really gave an opportunity for HD media to convincingly move forward. The smaller distribs shall have plenty of confidence to test the waters and see how far they could go with the new format. This is the kind of progression we, or at least I, were hoping for, moving beyond the purely mainstream market trend.

Finally, what many so far have predicted would be a year with a disappointing slate of new releases (2008) I see as a great opportunity for the distribs to tap into their catalog vaults. Lawrence of Arabia will be a great trend-setter and knowing that uncertainty isn't on the horizon will be a great motivator to see more catalog product.

Ciao,
Pro-B

I agree with you on the fact that people shouldn't just dump their HD-Dvd players and software. But as far as the war for the chosen HD medium the writing is on the wall and it has been signed WB. Do you really hold out hope that HD-Dvd can pull this out? If so then why?