OT, but Pioneer has announced a 9mm-thick KURO, with no measurable light coming from the black areas of the screen. WOW.

Superman Returns is definitely one I want to replace. That is one of my more problematic combos. Sometimes it works fine sometimes it freezes during the airplane rescue. I'll keep my eye out for the TrueHD version.

Here's the question: what are the significant changes for Profile 2.0 spec for Blu-ray compared to the Profile 1.1 spec, besides requiring 1 GB of local storage and Ethernet connectivity? I don't think many people will need that capability.

Because relatively few users will use BD Live, I expect most new players will be Profile 1.1 compliant, and the price of players will significantly drop over the course of 2008. In fact, a US$250 (suggested retail) player could become reality by late 2008, in my humble opinion. :) (People forget that up until 2002, prices of DVD console players remained quite high, with price floors in the US$250 range. It wasn't until early 2003 that the prices of players from the major manufacturers started to really drop; the Panasonic DVD-S35--which I bought in spring 2003--was a major breakthrough at its US$100 suggested retail price.)

That is the difference, in a nutshell. Add 1 GB of storage and Ethernet connectivity to a 1.1 machine, and it becomes 2.0. All of which would add, what, $20 to the cost of the player?

something like this?

http://images.macrumors.com/article/...warner_300.png

Yeah, but Blu-Ray has competition besides HD DVD (and vice versa): DVD. You could not say the same thing about DVD.

If warner were only looking at sales, it seems to me that they would have waited until mid-year to make this movie.

Why? because there is no denying that HD DVD gained alot of ground over the holidays in player sales, the problem is alot of those players were not in peoples hands until Chirstmas. The only way to truly gauge what impact the holidays sales would have had is to wait atleast 3 months. There were alot of players sold, which would have meant more discs sold AFTER the gifts were received.

I am not complaining, I'm glad we are only going to have one format now. But it does prove to me, that SOMETHING had to be done to sway Warner this early in the year.

Indeed. WB saying they chose the format of choice, but the numbers weren't even decided yet. In addition, WB allowed only a few titles for their BOGO sales on Amazon and BestBuy. Makes me wonder why those HD DVD titles were not permitted to be in the sale. Was it because they were looking out for the consumer, or was it because they didn't want higher HD DVD sales numbers.

According to Toshiba today at CES (if I'm reading the numbers right), they've sold 49% of all stand-alone HDM players. That number is considerably less than what was being reported/spun. If anything, it appears to me that they lost momentum in sales of stand-alone HDM players to BD and that the A2 fire-sales didn't have much of an effect on the big picture.

Thanks. So like someone else said before, about 1/3.

But shouldn't that be a US-specific pie chart? Blu-ray titles are released in HD DVD outside the US. I'm not sure how many Blu-ray titles are on HD DVD, though.

Well today was a very humbling day for me. I went into Best Buy with my tail firmly entrenched between my legs and purchased a Blu-Ray player (Panasonic BD30). I vowed NEVER to support Blu-Ray due to how much I hate and despise the BDA, but after Warner got done writing on the wall Friday, I figure I may as well give in. I will continue to buy HD DVD's for as long as the format is around and even though I think there is still hope that the format can survive I have to agree with others who have said that it is now time to move on and embrace one format. I just wanted SO BADLY for that one format to be HD DVD :(

While I could maybe see unreleased titles getting new encodes, I wouldn't hold my breath for Warner to re-release titles. They're just not a big double dipper, and when they do it's usually with drastic changes. Adding lossless audio is hardly as significant as doing a restoration or a special edition with a new transfer for a title that had a barebones non-anamorphic DVD. The focus early on from all the studios is going to be on getting more titles out. We didn't see many DVD titles get double dipped until they started running out of big catalog titles.

If they do it at all, it will likely be in the form of new special editions also released on DVD, like with Full Metal Jacket or Troy. That would make Happy Feet a candidate, considering how lacking the extras were. However, I don't see them redoing The Phantom of the Opera or 300, which already had decent extras.

I don't know if $250 is low enough for Blu-ray to be accepted by the mainstream. $200 is a psychological barrier ($199 seems so much more affordable than $200). For sales of BD to really kick in, it really needs cheaper players.

This isn't at all similar to the DVD overtaking VHS. Plenty of people, including myself, bought a DVD player for <$200 pre-2002 (got mine for $140 in Oct 1999, less than one year of DVD's launch). When DVD players were $200, VHS players were still $100. Fast forward to today, the Blu-ray players are still $350 while DVD players can be had for $50. For Blu-ray to survive, it really needs to bring the prices down more quickly. I look forward to $200 Blu-ray player prices soon, and maybe even $150 at 2008 Black Friday.

But knowing that people paid such high prices for a dvd player during that time why are people pissing and moaning about 300-400 dollar players now with better technology. The same players that you would buy for 29-49 dollars today were the ones you would have paid hundreds of dollars for when dvd players hit the market.

VHS to DVD = a hugh technological leap.
DVD to Blu-ray (or HD DVD) = improvement in a similar technology.

People were willing to fork over some money for a disc instead of tape.
Not as many people are willing to fork over same money for a better disc.

Again, looking at the market of HD players Toshiba did have the Blu-Ray camp beat on the price point but only with the basic 1080i models that have been available for over a year. their other models hover still around the pricepoint of many of the BD players on the market. I should know because in October I bought my HD-A30 for 350 bucks after using a 10% off coupon. Yes, I did get a few free movies, still waiting on them though, but the same holds for Blu-Ray players.

The answer is that WB probably felt it necessary to make a decision now so that Holiday sales in 2008 are as large as possible with hopefully a single format causing an explosion in BD player and software sales. The longer WB waits into 2008, the less likely that there is truly one formate by the next holiday season.

WB did us all a favor by making this decision now. All decisions affect some people or groups negatively but in the end the decision was made with the best intention in mind.

Well my collection has changed :) I sold all of my WB HD's (minus current HD exclusives) on eBay, and made enough for a PS3 (there are a few games im interested in now), and $100 or so worth of Blu-Ray movies. So I'm neutral now!

I will admit most of the movies I wanted were on Blu, but for a while I did not want to support Sony's high priced PS3, even higher priced Blu standalone, and HD was just cheaper.

I still have plenty of HD Disc from Universal, Paramount, and a few WB. I plan to keep the A2, and if HD does die out, just give the player to my parents as an up converter for their Plasma, then convert the rest to Blu.

I would prefer HD to win, but I always said I just wanted nice High Definition movies, and would piss, moan, and then go get the other player. Now I have both, so hell with it, and see how the chips fall so to speak.

I wouldn't even include Weinstein in that considering that it's coming up on 7 months since their last HD DVD release.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showpost.ph...8&postcount=82

I posted that you sold them already as I checked out your auction. Shame you settled for $8 a disc.

Not all of it, only every film made before 1923 is guaranteed to be Public Domain. Anything after that year (excluding stuff that accidentally slip into the PD due to a mistake or something) now won't slip into the PD due to the automatic 20-year extension Congress gave to all copyrights back in 1998.

Does that mean that the PS3, with its 40-80G hard drive and wireless connectivity (instead of Ethernet), would now be considered 2.0 compliant?

I don't think so, but I'm not sure why. I just read on another forum that Sony announced the PS3 will be made 2.0 compliant.