jiggawhat

I keep seeing the same tired arguments again and again here. I think the majority of us know that neither BD nor HD-DVD would ever supplant DVD. If HD-DVD won over WB, they still wouldn't be able to take over DVD. It's just not going to happen and I'll give you two reasons: 1) Both formats were released way too soon and 2) Not enough of an upgrade over the predecessor.

The first VHS was released in 1976 and DVD around 1997, which is 21 year difference. In contrast, DVD to the HD-DVD was only 9 years. Now this is a big hurdle in the sense because people had built up huge collections before migrating over to DVD. I'm not going to go into why DVD beat VHS because that's obvious, but is there anything other than a difference in audio or video quality that would compel one to upgrade? Interactivity who cares? How many of the J6Ps watch extras on their discs? Do you think it's going to be any different to either HD format? Only the cinephile cares about these things, not the masses.

Who in their right minds are going to replace their 1000+ collection let alone a 100+ DVD collection. I will not I know most of you here won't. The soccer moms damn sure won't. A lot of movies just don't offer enough of a difference to be worth the trouble or expenditure to upgrade. Plus the fact that most studios aren't willing to foot the bill to remaster titles like Warner does.


Now I keep hearing about Sony and their unfinished specs, 50GB discs with no extras and the many failed formats, their prices are going to be sky high now that there is no competitor yadda yadda.

I think we should thank Sony that they came on board. Do you think that Toshiba would have accelerated their pricing decline had Sony not been in the race? I think not. Do you think Toshiba would have bothered to get Paramount on board if they were winning? They had to lower their prices because they were getting killed in sales. People will say they are paltry but they are still getting killed week after week and they were the ones with the head start! By the same token, Sony wouldn't have picked up the pace on interactivity and QC on their discs had it not been for HD-DVD. I do think it was a sort of a debacle on their part by bringing out profiles and bonus BS etc., but at least they are trying to match if not beat what interactivity has been available on HD-DVD discs.

I think firmware upgradability on a player is one of the worst things to happen in consumer electronics because it serves as a crutch for companies to release a product that is buggy or incomplete and expect people to upgrade it. Most people don't even know how to install a driver on a computer and giving them the responsibility to have to possibly brick their player is ridiculous. Add all those features beforehand and test them, don't do it after the fact. People who own 360s know this all too well when tons of em were bricked after one of their seasonal updates. Both HD and BD players have had to have numerous firmware updates to fix problems. This is why I keep saying both these formats were rushed out and used the consumer for QC which is terrible.

Now to people who think pricing on players is going to go up now that Toshiba is dead, all of you are crazy. Exactly the opposite will happen. More companies we feel confident that their looks to be a clear winner, after all, who wants to release a player on a format that could be dead? I think that could be a reason more people didn't join Toshiba in releasing players. Pricing is only going to decline, but as with DVD, you're going to have the low, mid, and high end segments. Look at Denon, they still have a fucking $3,800 player out. Come on Denon, no player is worth that much. We are only going into the second year of these players and both are incredibly cheap. Don't worry as we will have have a $99 dollar BD player by the end of the year mark my words.

Everyone be happy now. I know most of you hate Sony like I hate George W. Bush, but we need to move on and leave the format war behind us. Too much bickering, name-calling, and hate has been caused because of two different plastic or whatever the hell it's made of discs. I think it's not sour grapes it's the fact that the one you supported lost. I mean some of you it's like your favorite sports team losing and I can understand that, but don't let it override your judgment.

MetalGator311

All bets are off right now, MS probably sees the writing on the wall. An HDMI 1.3 internal Blu "Xbox 360 Ultimate" could change things

Gizmo

Do you really think we would have Blu-ray players at $299 if it wasn't for HD DVD? They would still be $600+ if the CEs had there way and they would all be Profile 1.0.

jiggawhat

No I agree with you. I think pricing on both sides would not have been lowered without one another. But I don't think HD-DVD would have dropped pricing but for the sales defeats it kept suffering. It became a vicious circle as BD was beating in software sales then Toshiba dropped prices, then Toshiba caught up, then Sony dropped prices. Kept going back and forth like that even until the present.

Gizmo

The A1 launched at $499 and the A3 is still in the $199-249 range. Not that much of a drop as a $1,000 Blu-ray player down to $299. Obviously the PS3 also plays into this as well as it would be near impossible for anyone to want a $600 Blu-ray player when the PS3 is by far the better, cheaper choice.

jiggawhat

Do you honestly think the A1 would have been at that price had that BD player not been there?

cmvolt

Do you really think we would have HD-DVD players at $99 if it wasn't for BLU-RAY? I think the desperation called in the inbred Walmart legions to adopt the HD-DVD format ( which pathetically wasn't much ) to stop molesting their sisters and enjoy what Toshiba had offer.

Gizmo

Yes, as Blu-ray launched 2+ months later...

cmvolt

yes they did...and they never had to look back...talk about you head start...

jiggawhat

And that matters why...

Toshiba knew BD was coming out with a player at some point. They knew they were going to be in for a fight and price was one way they could win.

DVD Polizei

The HD format wasn't introduced too soon. It just wasn't left to co-exist with both formats, allowing more market penetration.

Second, leaving clerks at Best Buy and Circuit City to be your frontman for HD, was a bad idea. The entire HD industray is doing a massively shitty job at informing its customers about the benefits AND the reality that HD will not look great for every movie AND the amount of perceived difference will depend on the television size.

And for the record, I don't "hate" Sony. I just dislike their tactics, and this is certainly not exclusively of the Blu-ray thing. I also embrace Blu-ray as an HD format. I am cautious however, on how Sony will treat its new and existing consumers. Sony could do a complete turn-around, and I will gladly embrace them as well if it happens.

fitprod

You do realize that the original price point of the A1 was around $999 right? They slashed the price right before the launch date in an effort to derail the Blu-ray players which were going to be at the same price.

fitprod

IIG

I work for a cable company, and I don't quite buy this. At first I was really surprised at how much everyone, especially older people (55+), loved their HD. Now, I realize I was wrong to insult the general consumer's intelligence. People want high definition any way they can get it, and will go to whatever lengths to maximize the use of their HDTV sets. The expensive HDMI cables that these customers consistently purchase just to avoid the pack-in component cables proved alot to me.

I believe that Blu-Ray will overtake SD DVD if for no other reason but natural progression. And VOD and HD downloads? I don't even see it in contension for a quite a long time. Rather, I think people will see Blu-Ray as an extension of current DVD. It looks like a DVD player, it plays DVDs, but behold... it also plays the HD upgrade called Blu-Ray. Once the prices become more mass market friendly, I don't see how Blu-Ray is much of a tough sell. My best guess would be that we'll see prices like that for some players sooner than later. I don't think anyone is considering that J6P will be getting rid of that 100+ DVD collection, either. But why not build upon the collection with titles exclusive to their new player, and that supports HD sound and picture? I think that's how the BD transition will go, and most other scenarios are unnecessarily unrealistic.

sentineles

Wow. I haven't patronized dvdtalk in years or at least as regularly as I have following the announcement. For the record I am "red" and disappointed. More disappointed in the reaction from those in the community than the actual decision. With each passing argument, I realize how the internet (and the lack of physical confrontation [not referring to assault] or the need to stop to listen to their debater to construct a counterpoint) is more polarizing than anything I can think of. The debater who stuck his/her fingers in their ears and shouted "LaLaLaLa" over and over never looked like anything other than a fool. I guess the old motto of losing/winning gracefully is gone.

I purchased HD-DVD add-on for the 360 last year (thank you CC 40 off 200) and have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy it immensely. I only have 5 movies and about $60 invested in them (thank you GCO last year) but the apparent BR win stings the wallet none-the-less. I signed up for Netflix shortly after I purchased the drive much like I did Gamefly shortly after I purchased my 360 b/c the prices for the respective media was entirely too high for me to consider ever building any collection. Much less I look at my DVD collection and old videogame collection with remorse now, wishing I had just saved my damn money since I rarely re-watched/re-played most of them. (Everyone gasp for me since I joined this site for DVD Bargains). However, I do not feel my money was wasted and I never really cared who eventually wins this war. But I am still holding out hope that HD-DVD prevails simply b/c I'm already familiar with the format and BR just seemed technologically behind HDD and partly b/c I feel Sony's products are severely overpriced and that the company really does not care about anything other than the bottom line. Then again I guess neither does any company but I'm guessing my feelings date back to those teenage angst years where you just hate something for some asinine reason (mine being PSX killed my much beloved DC and the worthless Sony Vaio I had 8 years ago and the overpriced, average 32" Wega). I have stayed "red" thus far b/c when I started to be remotely interested in Blu-Ray (early/mid 2007) what I found for reviews on unbiased websites was that the BR copies of most movies were minimally inferior to their HD-DVD counterparts. I also did not care for the fact that the player I purchase today could be a full un-upgradeable firmware version behind the player sitting next to it on the shelf. Now don't misunderstand me, I am all for the idea of upgradeable products but I am apparently hearing similar reports of recently released products not being capable of upgrade to the latest firmware (ie 1 GB, etc). Also at the time, it seemed like Sony was the only studio releasing anything substantial on BR. It appeared to me that it was not until a couple of months ago that Sony finally compelled its partners to release more material on BR. Also when I was looking into BR, I realized that about 80% of my movie viewing came from WB or Universal so for those reasons I stuck "red." Now with the news and a nice influx of newer material from the partners, the only thing holding me back is price as it has all along.

Now onto my questions for the group. Does anyone else remember the netflix story from less than 3 months ago? http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=9202 I am not up on my fanboy sites, is that an HD-DVD fanboy site? I am a little surprised when you combine that story with the fact that it seemed like more HD-DVD players entering the market than BR this winter. (Did I not due my fanboy civic duty by printing 1000 copies of that out and giving them people looking at BR players? From what I can find on some sites, it appears that random shoppers decided to share their slighted opinions with other random shoppers. Do these people not realize we are in the age of the most informed consumer ever?) Why would the studios care about Netflix? They are the enemy just as much as you and I are when we download illegal music. One disc, multiple users is not what Hollywood is about. I remember once reading that the only thing Hollywood is good for is selling you the same thing over and over and over again. Where are/were my assumptions about BR wrong? Does anyone else feel that one of the bigger losers with this decision is the Wi-Fi Alliance/manufacturers? If they could have ratified 802.11n 2 years ago (as was the target), they could have offered an alternative to this "war." (Anyone following that ratification knows that all the negotiators for the original BR/HDD argument found work elsewhere quickly.) Then again I may feel this way because iTunes has taught me that I don't need physical media but not everyone may feel that way. If a Netflixish solution had been in place with HD digital distribution, how many would have used it if downloads took minutes not hours? I have been hoping since the CEO of Netflix joined the MS board that a similar solution will be available for the 360. To me the ultimate HT solution is to have a server in one room with all your media on it sending your media to your HT via the wireless network but no such affordable solution exists yet.

Sorry for the long post, a lot on my mind with this decision. I originally came here to post to see if there were other people who while disappointed really were not upset over it but that appears to be a common theme here. Onto to enjoying my HD-DVD player and movies until a good BR player reaches $200 - $300 and hoping Toshiba and Sony combine operations in an attempt to grow the market and not leave anyone feeling left out. As jiggawhat said, this “war” was like all non-bloodshed wars… the winners feel great for backing a winner, the losers feel stung temporarily by the decision but the ultimate outcome is a better for there being a “war.”

sentineles

One more thought I forgot to include in my novel posted above. Fans of HD media should be thanking fans of either format if the war is over. I remember reading an article/op-ed (on cnet I think) about the format war several months back imploring people not to sit on the fence. At the time, they thought the war would last longer and you would get more use out of your player but that's irrelevant. The article said that if people failed to purchase HD media, the message sent to studios would be that the public did not care about HD media. It would not send the message that the public wants an unified format. The author did not express support for any format just for Hi-Def entertainment. Therefore instead of stomping my feet and yelling that the Blu sucks, I want thank all of you for supporting HD media enough that studios are choosing one side instead of just opting to revert back to SD.

PerryD

What was the XA1 going to cost? $5000? This is a fun game making up numbers.

Qui Gon Jim

Make no mistake. Things may be looking up for Blu-Ray, but things are very bleak for PS3. XBox is killing them on attach rate and Wii outsold them 3-1. PS3 is still on the fringe, and by no means successful.

Qui Gon Jim

Great post.

Qui Gon Jim

Yup. The price war started before there were even players in stores. Original price points were at a cool K.

raven56706

once cheaper blu ray players come out, they wont need the PS3.

Plus XBOX is killing them in the game front.

Qui Gon Jim

I agree. As soon as a comperable/cheaper as well supported SA BD player hits, all these people who swear by their PS3 to play movies will drop it like a hot potato in favor of a dedicated deck.

Sony as a whole needs BD to be successful, but I am sure SCE is a bit burned that that BD is being built on the cash-in of the video game market chip. Sony wants BDs to sell, but SCE want PS3 buyers to spend their money on PS3 software, not BD movies. It does not help their bottom line.

wewantflair

I agree. I'm waiting for a (relatively) cheap BD deck that is very reliable and 2.0 compliant, and my PS3 goes up for sale. That's a shame, since I would really like to use it for games, but between the Xbox and the Wii, there is just nothing on the PS3 that interests me.

raven56706

yeah and thats what i am waiting for.... my ps3 collects dust and even with the xbox live problems, i still would rather play COD4 on xbox360 then ps3..... plus killzone and gran turismo doesnt do anything for me....

and not to mention, ps3 doesnt decode dts-ma

Travis Bickle

Just sharing....

HD DVD Fallout Could Create Marketing Nightmare
by Laurie Sullivan, Tuesday, Jan 8, 2008 5:00 AM ET
THE BLU-RAY HIGH DEFINITION DVD format moves to the forefront at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, as Toshiba begins to face the fallout. The buzz that began after Warner Bros.' announcement last week to stop pressing movies in the HD DVD format now appears as a loud roar.

The Time Warner studio's plans to back the Blu-ray disc format will have it stop distributing movies in HD DVD later this year. Warner Bros.' crushing blow to the HD DVD format could soon become a marketing nightmare.
Toshiba had been expected to introduce a fourth-generation HD DVD player at this year's CES, but during the press and analyst presentation on Sunday spent less than five minutes talking about the technology. The only mention of the format came at the end, along with an accompanying press release.

"Blu-ray recorders record 30% more information than HD DVD, and they always will," says Ron Cameron, training manager at Panasonic, who adds that the players with recorders selling in Japan today will move into the U.S. market in 2009. "Consumers are building an incredible library of movies, and when Blu-ray recorders come to the United States, those who bought HD DVD players will want to know why the salesperson didn't tell them."

Cameron believes Warner Bros. made the move to Blu-ray because of the long list of companies supporting the technology.

Los Angeles-based marketing consultant Rochelle Winters believes it's a moot point because in 10 years, when today's 15- to 20-year-olds become the main buying public, everything will be digitally downloaded. "There doesn't seem to be a craving for a high-resolution home experience, except for sports, among the next generation of consumers," she says.

"On the plane from Burbank to Las Vegas, I overhead a retail executive talk to a young store manager about reorganizing the store floor to reflect what he saw as the new supremacy of the Blu-ray format."

Warner Bros.' departure from the technology leaves Paramount and Universal as primary HD DVD backers. Reports from conference-goers say it appears that Toshiba remains committed to the format and that talk of the demise is premature.

Meanwhile, Panasonic, Philips and Sony announced new Blu-ray players. Sony moved forward to roll out a high-definition version of its spherical digital living room PC, the VAIO TP Home Theater PC. The media hub integrates a Blu-ray Disc drive, built-in DVR and BRAVIA Sync technology for one-touch play. The model comes with two external CableCARD TV tuners to watch and record both HD programs simultaneously.

Sony also introduced a sub-$200 internal BD-ROM drive that can upgrade an existing desktop computer into a high-definition Blu-ray Disc player, as well as a DVD and a CD player. The BDU-X10S drive comes with CyberLink's PowerDVD BD Edition software for playback of commercial movie titles, recorded Blu-ray Disc home videos, DVD-ROMs and CD-ROMs.

Panasonic debuted its first integrated home theater system with a Blu-ray player. The unit will play standard-definition DVDs, support Blu-ray's depth of colors, and offer Dolby TruHD and DTS-HD 7.2 surround audio.

Philips plans to begin selling a $349 Blu-ray high-definition DVD player in April. The Philips BDP7200 player, which offers picture-in-picture, is expected to display video in 1080p.

Here's the link to the article: http://publications.mediapost.com/in...38011&p=372801

Tracer Bullet

No, no, no. The digital switchover has nothing to do with HD.