Like there's an alternative?

You essentially just waited out the war. Wow. Congratulations?

Not to kick someone while they're down, but Beowulf HD DVD which was supposed to have TrueHD 5.1 Lossless audio according to here:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...lf_HD_DVD/1381

Has now been confirmed to NOT have a TrueHD track, but a standard DD+ track instead, just like american gangster (which was also promised a TrueHD track and mysteriously removed at the last minute). Is this something they are doing to give people a reason to re-buy the movies on BD later?

There wasnt a separate thread for Beowulf and i didnt want to start one, so i put the post here. If the mods feel it needs to be moved, by all means, move it.

Quote for truth.

I'm purple so i have my bases covered, but i loved the format war because without competition you get a stale product with little reason for improvement. Without HD-DVD i truly believe that the prices wouldn't be as good, adoption would be alot lower, and awareness would be minimal.

You have to admit that HD-DVD brought some truly great things to the table with Interactive features, Region Free, and being at an afforable cost. With luck all of these will be adopted by Blu-Ray.

Now that Blu-Ray has what they have always wanted, lets see what they can do with it. Hopefully they seize this opprotunity and make the most of it. Or else this might not be the day that HD-DVD died but the day that HDM died as well.

Thank you. That's a healthy attitude to have. I don't understand why it is so rare.

Nah. I'd bet it's just a bandwidth concern since both of those movies have IME, right? If Paramount and Universal are withholding features to compel people to rebuy their movies on Blu-ray, lossless/uncompressed audio would be one of the least compelling options to most of their target audience.

I'm waiting for Jack Ryan movies to come out on 3/25. Please don't cancel them!!! I have both BD and HD DVD, and even though this announcement means it's over, my Toshiba A30 is far from gone and my 65+ HD DVD titles will last me for a while. Who knows when Paramount and Universal will re-release all of those titles. I can see Transformers being a big one, but what about JACK RYAN's, MUMMY's, FACE/OFF (although I know this one was ready and pulled at the last minute) APOLLO 13 and so on. Plus when will Universal re-release BOURNE TRILOGY.

Like I said the FORMAT is dead, but the movies might take a while to make it to BD.

Sadly, my receiver doesn't even support TrueHD, so naw, I won't be rebuying for quite sometime.

I jumped on the HD-DVD ship the day after Christmas, when I picked up an HD-A3 at a great price.

I was in the market for an upconverting player anyhow, so even though I originally thought I'd sit out the whole format war thing and see how who would eventually come out on top.

I'm bummed, naturally, but it's not the end of the world. No complaints with my HD-A3, and I picked up a few HD titles here and there in the last month to show it off a little. Plus, the player does an excellent job upconverting my SD discs.

I'm assuming my Toshiba player will last awhile, so it's not like I'm left with non-functioning technology.

And yes, once Blu-Ray players dip in price I'll take that plunge, too.

I'm sad that HD DVD didnt win but am glad its over. Feb 8th, I saw alot of Universal HD DVDs on sale at amazon and almost ordered some but didnt. I'm glad I held out from buying any more HD DVDs. Paramount and Universal will be HAVE to go blu-ray soon.

Very sad that HD DVD has been declared dead, but I have no regrets. I will always have much love for Universal for their unwavering support of the format

hot damn...

beta won this time...

I'm disappointed, for sure. Never would have bought an A2 for $200 last August. My Oppo was working fine for upscaling. I mainly purchased because of price and it's a bit sad thinking I'll have to wait another year until Blu-Ray is low enough for me to purchase. $200 is my line. I'm glad I only used Netflix and didn't start a library.

Evenso, it's a good thing to have only one format.

edit... spelling...grrr.

It's a real shame that it's happening so soon, but not a shock it happened. Ironic that the same day that it announces, Universal comes out with a totally sub-standard bare bones release of a huge prestige movie (American Gangster) in a combo disc instead of porting over all the deluxe edition bonuses in HD which is more likely what a BR version would have been like.

I think it's just par for the course for Paramount (which did similar things for Transformers and to an extent the Face/Off release as well). I'm a little surprised at American Gangster since its Universal, but not overly shocked. I think it speaks more to the limits of HD DVD than anything.

whomod said

Why wouldn't you just stick with SD if difference was min to none? I got a few of the old films like Robin Hood and I think the upconversion is at least as good. With the discs being at least $5 more per disc for the non-HD version (more like $10-$20 if you buy them on sale or used), then only the die-hard HD loyalists would splurge for something that is only different on paper. The difference just isn't that great when you really look at the picture.

On the films that do matter, then we'll pick them up. Or wait. Any film that is BD only I wait on until the dust settles. I want to #1 wait for a player that is finally announce to be upgradable to the new resolution or one that does good upconversion for older SD-DVDs. How many times did we double-dip on DVDs because a new one came out with better/fixed video? BD is in that period now.

It's a good time to wait it out, let others kill the bugs this time. I was a lot more HD excited before I really watched a lot of them and compared to the upconversion. I think HD has lost some of it's shine for me.

And yes, there are enough rumblings at the shows and techs to give a hint that the higher-resolution is not too far away. It's been talked about since 2006...maybe before, but that's the first I heard of the break beyond 1080p. We're talking years, but not a decade. Probably nearer the 4 year mark. The big push is by television manufacturers, they realize that the higher resolution will help sell more big screens. They need that push as prices drop.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_H...finition_Video for speculation. If it's already out, how long before it's at the consumer level? Maybe a while, maybe not. I personally think the cat's out of the bag already...and when the TVs are out they'll need something to watch on them. What better way for BD to get you to buy the Blu-Ray2 DVDs than to have them at higher resolution than the internet or cable can play?

Since my purchasing has gone from films to now about 70% of my purchases are imports, until Blu-Ray is region-free I'll probably be more like 90% imported SD-DVDs. That way I can enjoy what I want and save $$ by not buying the first gen. BD. I'll wait for the double dips to start to arrive and buy them first.

I think it's good to have only one HD format now, but that that's only marketwise. Makes buyers easy, but it doesn't make a difference really. Is anyone here trashing their DVD players? Nope, I still need a player that will play every disc format that I've got. Upconvert them all. The great thing about the disc formats is that it's possible, so the disc format doesn't matter as much as the player. You might see some trashing their players once everyhing goes digital and they lose the discs, like many did to CD players when they got iPods, but I just don't see that appealing to 100% of the audience.

Sucks...but we all saw this coming after Warner back-stabbed them.
I'm sure we will hear more of their plans in the coming hours/days from Toshiba, Universal, and Paramount. Will there be a fire sale for discs? Players? Will they just be sent back? Firmware updates?

Blu-ray, today is your day. Stand up, slash prices, and help push HDM adoption to your side. This is it. If you choose not to, and sit on your hands, HDM failing will be because you are too arrogant. If you want out of the less then 1% of media sales, you sure as hell better start letting people know what Blu-ray is and make it affordable. Otherwise we will be having the same thread for you eventually as we all enjoy the next HDM standard or digital.

Hmmm, I wonder how cheap HD-DVD titles will become? I still have my 360 HD-DVD add-on, but only a few movies. Debating if I should dump everything for Blu-Ray or just keep what I have. I will never recoup my costs anyways.

I got into HD-DVD back in July '06 and was a big backer of the format. I did go neutral that December when I bought a PS3, but I still supported HD-DVD first.

But over the course of 2007, as the Blu-ray studios finally abandoned MPEG-2 and offered up high bitrate lossless audio tracks(especially Disney), it was clear which format was superior. I started buying WB titles on Blu-ray instead last fall and never looked back.

I'm glad HD-DVD lit a fire under the asses of the Blu-ray backers and also prompted massive drops in prices for players and movies for both formats. But the time is right for only one format to remain so the studios can start unleashing their catalog titles. I'm happy that the superior format won(even if I do still despise Sony).

Problem is, with HD DVD now gone, I don't forsee the BDA pushing those 2.0 players out as fast as they would if HD DVD was still around.

Let's get past the "arrogance" and "backstabbing" jabs.

Wasn't at least one already announced at CES? I think they will eventually get the 2.0 players out there. The real question is will they offer them at reasonable prices? Not very many people are gonna buy into Blu-ray if a decent player still costs 500+ bucks.

All the CEs have been very mum about details and pricing since CES. Guess we will find out in the coming weeks/months.

Oh, my God, we’re having a fire. Sale. Oh, the burning! It burns me! Evacuate all the schoolchildren!Listen (Screaming. Singing “Amazing Grace.”) This isn’t a fever! (Continues singing.) Can’t even see where the knob is! (Dramatic sigh.) And scene.

Why? You don't like the films anymore? The Blu-Ray versions are better?

Options are: Spend $0 and keep what you've got and go forward and buy BD.
OR sell everything and replace with Blu-Ray, costing a few $100 at least (even after you've made some $$ off your HD-DVD). Either way you end up with the same films. I know which way I'd go (or will go as I'm in the same boat).

If the HD-DVD is looking bad then I could see it. Personally I'll be picking up another HD-DVD player & some cheap HDDVDs. Then I'll wait out some BD tweaks. Saving a lot of $$ in the process. The one thing this is probably going to get me to do is join Netflix finally.

I wouldn't mind having that series on Blu-ray. Of course, it's from Fox so it'll end up costing 100 bucks even for the shortened seasons.