Tarantino

I'm going to keep mine around and buy HD-DVD's for cheap. Why not, right? Eventually, I'm sure I'll go Blu Ray, although I didn't want to.

My best friend sold all of his the other night.

= J

DVDKrayzie

Purchased White Noise 2 and Zodiac today with that $5 BB coupon.

I thought I was nuts buying so many HDMs, but I can't believe how people are freaking out and selling off all their discs/players just days after the Warner announcement. The discs still work (They're not DIVX), what the hell is the point of selling them all if you've already invested the $$ in them? The only thing that worries me is when it's time to upgrade my current BRD player (after the 360/PS3 generation), I won't want to hang onto my xbox with HD-DVD players just to play the discs, but as they pointed out on AVS, Sony sold Beta players long after Beta died and Pioneer STILL makes a Laserdisc/DVD combo player.

As long as Toshiba isn't completely stupid, when they are forced to make BRD players because HD DVD has died (which I really hope won't happen, but seems inevitable now), they will probably include HD DVD support in their machines. Flipping out and selling all your discs because the format isn't the "winner" is pretty stupid. it's not like VHS/DVD/Laserdics, the 2 formats are basically the same damn thing. Even the cases are the same size so it's not like you'd even need a different storage solution years down the road.

Trevor

DVDKrayzie,

I disagree strongly with your above, and can definitely see reasons for people to sell off their hardware/software.

For many of us, jumping on the HD-DVD bandwagon was a very recent decision. Personally, I can still return for full refund most of what I bought. And then recoup most of the rest on ebay/trades/whatever. If we are brand new to the HD scene, why start with a format that is all but certainly dead? Why not return/sell what we have and start fresh with a format that will likely be here next year?

Sure, they may be affordable combo players someday, but that is not certain, and they won't be as common as plain BluRay players.

The reason why SD will never die and may even beat BluRay is that discs and players are cheap, and that they are everywhere. I can take my SD discs to work, to each room of my house, to my car, to all my friend's houses, etc. In a few years, the same may be said for BluRay players. It will almost certainly not be said for HD-DVD or combo players.

Many would rather have a format that they can play everywhere, not just on one of their TVs.

And that's just one reason why it is not "flipping out" or "stupid" to get rid of all of our HD-DVDs now.

Cabinet space is another. My space is limited, so why would I want a HD-DVD player for what will someday be a small collection compared to my BluRay library?

chente

Hanging tough. Hell, I still use my LD several times a week. I'll pick up more HD titles as they drop in price. I've got about 75 of them now.

whomod

Make it 114 (down with ship and 28 no longer support).

I'm going to return the Blu-Ray tomorrow. I had put away the HD-DVD player thinking it pointless after the WB announcement. I wasn't at all happy and even less so after getting the Sony BDP S300. This was before i became aware of all this Profile 1.0, 1.1 nonsense. Even before the PiP issues became known to me, I was completely disappointed with the experience in comparison to my Toshiba HD A20 player.

So after a couple of sleepless nights, I've come to a decision. I'm going to return the Blu-Ray player. I thought of just getting either the PlayStation 3 or else the Panasonic both with Profile 1.1. But then that would just set me up for the day when profile 2.0 would come out and I'd be disappointed all over again. Funny how with the Toshiba (and HD-DVD in general) I didn't have to worry about this nonsense.

So right now I put my Toshiba back on the cabinet and removed the Sony back to it's box, and I have to admit that it feels real good.I have the superior product back on the shelf.

So yeah, I'll take advantage of any good HD-DVD deals now and after that... I guess its back to SD DVD. This entire debacle has killed my taste for HD. If I ever get the HD movie jones, I still have my X-Box 360 and XBox live to download HD films from. Apart from the that, the Toshiba does a superb job of up-converting SD DVD's anyways. As with most of America, that's good enough for now.

Especially since after all this, I'm not entirely convinced that the end of HD-DVD spells the ascension of Blu-Ray. Not wit hthese high prices for BASIC 1.0 players and even higher prices for the 'luxury' of having what a basic HD-DVD player had (such as ethrnet port and PiP). This still unrealized potential that Blu Ray enthusiasts speak of still way out in the horizon. All that potential basically means HARDWARE upgrades as opposed to Toshiba's periodic firmware upgrades. Which is just another way of saying 'spend another $500 bucks on another player' next year etc.. No thanks Sony. Find another sucker.

MEJHarrison

I don't regret jumping on the HD DVD bandwagon. And I plan to keep and enjoy my player and movies. But it seems a bit silly to me to spend any more on it at this point. It's true that my HD DVD is still working great and hopefully will be for a good, long time. But it won't last forever.

Really the only thing that Warner's announcement did for me was to make me go neutral about a month or two sooner than I had planned. I picked up a 40GB PS3 on Tuesday and have been pleasantly surprised by it. In fact after playing with it for about 5 minutes, I decided that my HD DVD player will now be used for HD DVDs only. All DVD time will be on the PS3. In my opinion, it's a much better DVD player than the Toshiba A2. It is much quicker to start up, more responsive to remote, shows time remaining on the TV screen, plays sound and subtitles at 1.5 speed (I sometimes watch trivia tracks and commentaries at 1.5 speed), change video settings on the fly, not only has a good frame advance feature but will go in reverse as well. There's probably other benefits, but that's all I can remember off the top of my head. Nothing major (the Toshiba is an awesome player). It's just the little things I appreciate.

Bludhound

I honestly thought it was going to be a dual format universe, but Warner completely killed that notion. I've been unloading my HD-DVDs and will rebuy them in Blu-Ray if/when those studios go Blu.

Cedrock

I sadly bailed a few days ago, as the longer you wait, the less money you will get back. I wish hd-dvd won but at least the higher capacity format won this time.

TheMovieman

Don't want to start a war here (and I'm asking this for real), but has BD fully utilizes the higher capacity? I know for sure Fox has not, but what about the others?

tylergfoster

The fact that anyone is returning their players is reason in itself to jump ship. If every Best Buy gets ten people returning their HD-DVD player and buying a Blu-Ray player, then that's not only going to drop HD-DVD sales but it's going to boost Blu-Ray sales by a fairly massive number. Of anything, this is the most compelling reason as to why one can say the format war is over: as long as people believe it's over, then it's over, because they're all going to go into their megastores and put that belief in action.

Being an employee of Best Buy, I've been surprised by how many customers (both HD and Blu) that know Warner switched sides, and literally all but one of them thought this was the end of HD-DVD. Additionally, I've seen more sales of Blu-Ray players this week than any other week I've worked there (I started in June).

candyrocket786

Keeping all my HD-DVDs and will continue to buy both HD and Blu.

Trying to sell HD-DVDs at this juncture is about as ridiculous as trying to sell SD-DVDs for extra cash.


Take the Loss... Enjoy the Player.... Watch the Titles....

whomod

With that same disclaimer, I've always wondered what the point of higher capacity is anyways.

Are the studios now going to rush to produce even more extra documentary/featurette content? To me, it's sounds highly unlikely.

obispo21

The general idea is that Blu-ray, with higher capacity *and* bandwidth, provides a path for less digital compression which could equate to better video and audio quality (e.g. Nature's Journey).

A secondary benefit is that longer movies and extra features might be able to fit on a single disc instead of split across multiples (e.g. Clockwork Orange).

--

I like HD DVD better as well - the usability and special features just seem so much nicer. Things look very bleak for them though.

I've started swapping many of my Warner HD DVDs for the BD version when I can find good sales - but I'm going to keep a few that were technically better on HD. I'm also hanging on to all my Paramount and Universal releases until some official statement is made.

All my purchasing now is focused on Blu-ray, but if some events turn around I'd definitely start buying again.

RoboDad

Unlikely or not, it is happening. I've encountered some reviews that include the amount of space used, and some Blu-ray titles use more than the 30 GB that would be available on a single HD DVD disc. If I recall correctly, the latest Harry Potter title is an example. Due to the extra capacity of the Blu-ray disc, most of the extras are included in 1080p HD, rather than the 480p that is included on the HD DVD. The result is that the Blu-ray contains nearly 40 GB of data.

Burnt Thru

seems like a totaly valid questioin. though i look at it from the other perspective and wonder if we really want the capacity fully utilized right at the start of a format launch. isn't it nicer to have some space to grow into along the lines of dvd?

wewantflair

Come on, now...take a good look at what you just wrote there. If the subject were anything else in the world other than the format war, would this line of reasoning make any sense to you? Should food manufacturers half-fill their product packages at the beginning of a new product line? Should shoe manufacturers release a limited size range when releasing a new design?

Shouldn't the studios endeavor to release the best products they possibly can right out of the gate?

Dane Marvin

^ They really should. Especially since the extra space is one of the main selling points of upgrading from SD to an HD format. As a special features enthusiast, I am extremely pissed that several studios (like Fox) have left off tons of extra content on their HD titles that could have easily been ported over from their SD counterparts. Why would someone want to upgrade their SD title to HD for a cost of about 40% more if the HD title has less content on it (think Kingdom of Heaven, Cast Away)? They should be doing all they can to convince SD consumers to upgrade and releasing bare-bones titles is not the way to go.

As far as jumping ship on HD-DVD, I was never an adopter but I don't blame the people who want to hold onto their titles that are exclusive to HD-DVD (Zodiac looks enticing). Still, if you truly love the HD experience, I wouldn't protest Blu-ray...

GameOver

This pole is totally biased...Why no choice for like i will keep supporitng and purchasing HD DVD.All 4 are negatives towards HD DVD. Tipcal Blu Ray Fanboy post,they love the sarcasm!

namja

This thread is very similar to this thread:
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=521689

Please continue this discussion in that thread. Thank you.

namja
Moderator, DVD talk Forums