HD DVD- DEMISE ... long live blue ray

Cool. I can't wait for even cheaper HDDVDs.

Lessee... did Beta and Laserdisc get cheaper or more expensive after the hump?

The price of the content dropped, for sure. I have a box of LDs that I paid pennies for when DVD hit. Some were unopened with $99 price tags and I don't think I paid more than $5 a disc.

HDDVDs are already coming down in price. I just ordered 6 more this morning and didn't pay more than $18 per disc, which is almost 50% in some cases. There are at least 100 titles on HDDVD and I only have about 30 of them at the moment. Each time I buy a bunch, I have paid less per disc.

I think everyone figured it would turn out that way in the end. Happened ever quicker though...

Hehehe, nice pic!

Cool.

Will they continue producing titles at a higher cost, though? Or do ya think - with nearly all the studios backed out already - they're just gonna leave it at those 100, and move on to other things?

Toshiba hasn't made any announcement that they're throwing in the towel just yet. I'm sure we'll see some more new titles from the studios that are still on board, at least until some sort of announcement. Studios have jumped ship, one or two and dropped exclusivity and are putting titles out on both formats.

Will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

It's sad to see a good technology dies, and the work of so many researchers was in vain ...

I dont think its going anywhere for a while, also a shitload of people bought cheap hddvd players for xmas. They arent all going to dump them immediately for blu ray. I havent watched a hd dvd on mine yet, it uprezs regular dvds so beautiful I have been very happy with it.

a 100,000 bought HD-DVD players. Don't act like it's HUGE number. Also I can buy a regular DVD player that upgrades regualr DVDs to 1080p for under $100.

Uprezing DVD players cost about $100. People definitely aren't going to buy HD players just to uprez.

Just because a small number of people bought them isn't enough reason for them to continue to produce movies for small audience. I've been hopeful too, but HDDVD is pretty much dead in the water at this point. Gonna take something big to save 'em, but I guess there's still a chance.

It's over. Warner was the last company to put movies out in both formats and they hated that. No compnay is going to do that now. It's not cost effective. No one in the blu-ray cmap is defecting. That would prolong a format war that is bad for business. That's why Warner went blu-ray.

Oh, I know it's over...but Toshiba doesn't seem to want to throw in the towel. Until they do that, I think we'll still see some new titles. Not as many as Bluray, but we'll see some.

I don't care either way. We've got both here.

no shit. it blows HD awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay .... bye HD. it's been real

That's like saying "I can't wait for cheaper 8-track tapes." why bother. So what if a HD-DVD player only cost $50 if only 25% of the movies out there will be on HD-DVD why even bother?

if Microsoft had included a HD-DVD player on the XBOX 360 HD-DVD would have won. Warner and FOX would have defected to HD-DVD by now and the others except Sony of course would have followed. At the very least they should have added it to the XBOX 360 Elite and ate the extra cost.

Because I already have the HDDVD players.

So if I have a choice between, let's say "The Devil's Rejects" on HDDVD for $15 or $30 on Bluray, I'm not stuck paying the higher cost for what is essentially the same product. Even you can't argue with that one.

There's a chance that might have been the case had Microsoft added it to the console originally, but that would have priced the console $200 bucks more and look how that worked out for Sony...they're stuck playing catchup in a market the OWNED not more than a year or two ago.

The only titles they'll see are from Paramount and Universal. Warner will put out HD-DVD titles until May.

Toshiba should do theright thing and just give in. what is the point? They are already selling HD-DVD players at loss. How is selling more for a format they know is dead gong to help? It'd be different if they were making money on selling hd-dvd players. Also microsoft isn't really much of an ally by keeping their HD-DV add-on at $180. They could have dropped the price to $129 right after Labor Day and that might have made a difference.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Doesn't really matter much now.

Worked out wonderfully for Sony. Blu-ray won. PS3 will catch up very soon. it's the better system.

XBOX 360 20 GB $350
wi-fi add on $100
XBL 1 yr subscription $50

Total $500

PS3 80 GB $500
wif-fi included
blu-ray player included
online play FREE

Total $500

My point was to point out that MS wasn't really toshiba's friend. They COULD have done things and didn't. Bill Gates isn't retarded. He wasn't going to back blu-ray which is made by SONY. So what chocie did he have? He wanted to have somehthing in his back pocket until he got his HD movie rental service going on XBL. He has that so he couldn't give 2 shits if HD-DVD lives or dies.

Bluray might be breathing easier, but I don't think the PS3 is just yet. They've still got a ways to go, and the library of games isn't there. So long as titles are available on both systems, they're going to have a hard time catching up without a HUGE price drop.

Also, XBoxLive could be $500 a year and it would still be a better product than what Sony offers. The one thing I can't stand about the PS3, besides the lack of game titles is the online matchmaking. They've got some catching up to do there, and Home isn't going to do the trick.

Now I feel like playing, might have to crack open a copy of the new Burnout Paradise game.

If you have Netflix membership you don't have to really "buy" anything, just rent it.

I think I posted something to this extent about 2 years ago. Digital downloads is the future.

True. I do make use of online rentals, but not thru Netflix. Good call.

maybe HD-dvd is a better format...who knows.

What I do know is that I hate saying HD-DVD(say that real fast 3 times). It doesn't roll off the tongue like Blu-ray does. Maybe if they would have called it HDVD instead, I could get on board.

Ok a price drop is coming. Not sure what you mean by HUGE. XBOX Elite $400. $40 PS3 $400. Looks the same to me.

I bought my son a 360 for x-mas and to be honest I don't see what all the hub bub is about. Pay $50 then MS wants even more money to download 95% of what on XBL. If you plan on keeping a system for say 5 years then that's $250 you add to the cost of the console.

Also let's see Madden 08 on XBOX 360 $50 to play online. On PS3 FREE. Hmmm not hard to choose there. Sorry if they have the same games and playing online is FREE vs $50 I'm taking free. Most XBOX 360 exclusives are/will be on PC. So if I really want them I'll buy the PC version.

yeah itunes and xbox live also have digital downloading of HD movies. The future? yeah in 2020 maybe.


First of all most people do not have a connection fast enough to make downloading HD content convenient.

Secondly what most people don't realize their HD content isn't really HD. Itunes has half the bit rate of regular DVD and XBL has just under the bit rate of DVD. A HD download from XBL isn't going to look anywhere near as good as blu-ray or hd-dvd version of the same movie. In fact a upconverted dvd version of a movie would look better than a "HD" download from XBL or itunes.

bit rates

Blu-ray 40 mbps
HD-DVD 28 mbps
OTA HD 19.39 mbps
Cable HD 16 mbps
DirectTV HD 10 mbps
DVD 8 mbps
XBOX Live HD 6.8 mbps
Itunes HD 4 mbps

Does anyone know how much data it takes roughly to store a full HD movie with the top notch compression with the least artifacting?

I'm sure that number is WAYYYY higher than people are ready to download...and I'll bet ISPs won't be much too fond of the bandwidth tie-up either.

They've already tested 200gb blue ray disks and they've worked.. It won't be too far off at all.. But what I don't get is a blank dual layer blue ray disk is $20... that's horseshit... that needs to change ASAP.. the disk manufacturers use the same basic technology on the process of creation, so the cost should not be that drastic.. it's just price gouging right now..

Both support the compression so there is absolutely no difference between them.

The specs aren't even finished yet. The first generation players for Blu-ray will not work in 6 months. And standalone players won't be able to be upgraded so you'll need to buy a new one every 6 months just to get the latest features. And stand alone players take longer to load the disc. Pirates 3 took 7 minutes on my cousins stand alone player. But only 10 seconds in his PS3.

Old HD players are and should always be backwards compatible.

Sony taking control of this is a bad idea.

It's fucked that people's only concerns are prices. Instead of Sony's inability to make consumer friendly products. Beta went to shit because Sony controlled it all. I own several sony components and none of them work with each other. I have a universal remote that works on everything EXCEPT my sony components.

I sold my VX2000 because Sony is so stupid. All other media uses powder lubricants where Sony uses oil based lubes so if you put anything other than a sony tape in a VX2000 you run the risk of gumming up the heads.. which I did several times before I sold it. And yes I realize I have the same problem with my panasonic, but you have a wider range of media to use. I grab almost anything and use it. With Sony you're limited to sony, or run the risk of gumming up your shit.

40 gig PS3 players won't play older PS games where a 60 gig will. Sony is shit.

And all their power supplies. Don't even get me started. They don't follow any standards so if you lose or fuck up like me and loan out your DSR-11 deck and don't get the power supply back, then what happens is you can't just go to an electronic store and get a power supply like every other electronic device.

The PSP uses a 5 volt power supply, the DSR-11 uses a 12 volt but the actual adapter size is odd, making both of those components hard to buy power supplies for.

It's like each department of Sony refuses to communicate with the other departments.

But none of this matters. The real race is between media distribution. Digital download vs. disk.

I am against bluray, but I know that's a losing battle because in the end.. everyone is a moron, and they just want cheaper disks.

I don't care what technology they go with, in a few years you will be able to get a player that plays all HD types, so I'm going to wait until they stop screwing with us and acually produce a universal format.

I didnt say they will buy them to uprez. I said what I like about mine is how well it uprezs. So im in no rush to go buy a blu ray player. I had a samsung uprez dvd player before the hd dvd one not even close.

Good point.