New Line already announced they are going Blu-ray exclusive...

 

Likewise. Standard DVDs are fine for now.

 

Nothing good comes from letting 1 company or 1 format have control over things >.<; It makes a company lazy not having competitors, and it gives then no accentive to make changes...After all why do they need to? There's no alternative to what's available @_@;

 

I think what he is saying is that, without a competing business/format, Blu-Ray can charge what they want (within consumer tolerance). There is much truth to this type of situation.

 

Tell that to my $12 HD-DVDs.

 

I know that... what I'm saying is, New Line announcing a release of the Lord of the Rings movies on Blu Ray would 100% kill HD-DVD. That, or Starwars.

Oh really? uhhhh... JVC owned VHS. Phillips owned Compact Disc. I don't see anyone boycotting them. Sony and it's partners developed Blu Ray no differently than the other formats.

So can DVD. But they don't. they make it affordable. DVDs were $30 when they first came out, and look at them now... $12.00 to $20 for a new release at Wal-Mart. You people are paranoid over nothing. I've worked in retail electronics for YEARS. The death of HD-DVD is a GOOD thing. It means companies can concentrate on 1 format, which means less confusion for the average stupid consumer, who likes his choices made for him, rather than by him. Now that Joe Average's mind is made up, he can buy the player and movies, and be happy, never having to make sure "will this play on my machine?" Trust me, I had people trying to cram 8mm camcorder tapes into DV camcorders back in the 90's.

Not to mention I read a study recently that 63% of adult Americans could NOT find the USA on an unlabeled globe. Sad.

 

Building the Blu-ray player into the PS3 was probably one of the smartest decisions Sony ever made. Initially, it was a major gamble, but it's paid off now. Not only is it still one of the cheapest Blu-ray players, but it is the most feature-rich of them all and is constantly being updated. Even if Blu-ray flopped as a movie format, it still would have worked fine for games. Now that most of the studios are Blu-ray, it'll probably drive sales of the PS3 even more since it really is the best Blu-ray player out there and the only one I recommend when people ask me about players. The only way I'd recommend anything else would be if there was a dual-format player in the same price range.

But it certainly seems like we are nearing the end of this format war. It was leaning towards Blu-ray eventually being the victor for a while. If someone can release a Blu-ray player in the $200-$250 range like HD DVD players have reached, I'm sure it would draw it to a close that much faster, which would be nice. It's not so much that I dislike HD DVD (other than the fact that I don't own a player), but more that I hate the format war and always preferred Blu-ray due to it's larger capacity (which I'm sure we'll see a use for in the future). Once the war is over, mass adoption can really begin. I only hope that prices stay around the $20-$25 per disc that I've been buying titles at. $35 is too high.

 

Who said anything about boycotting them? If you're not happy with something, I believe in simply not giving a company my money. Right now DVD is in full swing, and I doubt that's going to change any time soon. I have no personal thing against Sony, and i'd have the same problem if HD-DVD led the market. Having two formats would have been great for both the consumer and for the market.

There's also the fact that there's yet to be a NEED for new formats. In fact most companies don't use the DVD to it's full capacity or potential. DVDs will also last forever, have pretty solid quality, and I can't see them ever not being backwards supported.

Until Sony, who is coming out the leader in this instance, gives me a good reason to buy from them then I won't be making the change. If they could put all of an anime, or TV show season on a single disk which would save a considerable amount of room on a shelf.

I don't need a sharper and sharper picture...I don't need to be able to see the slightest skin blemish on the actors on screen...or for the picture to be more real. If I want realism, i'll get off my ass and see the sights (should it be a real location). I don't need to see every single detail in crystal clarity, of how a Transformer changes; because honestly, i'm not in a movie experience for the details but the package as a whole.

At the moment, it's wasteful of resources to constantly upgrade to the "newer and hotter" format. I certainly don't do that with gaming any more, as I buy used or considerably slashed prices on new products (unless I absolutely want it now); so I certainly don't mind the waiting game. If the movies I have currently get scratched or die, sure i'll consider getting the new format; and hopefully it'll truly be affordable by then.

My bottom line is, right now, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray hasn't earned my money and I feel the public in general either: A) Doesn't understand about the new formats B) Doesn't feel the need to change things C) Doesn't care D) Doesn't want to spend the money or E) Any other possible reasons or combinations of the above.

Look at PS3 buyers, not too long ago data came out that said "Less than 50 percent of PS3 owners buy Blu-Ray movies". While Blu-Ray might be a winner for now, for all we know it could still become a loser to DVD in the end if the market as a whole doesn't adopt.

 

Awesome news at http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents. Sounds like both Paramount/Dreamworks & Universal are coming over to Blu too and soon. Like maybe even this week. Also, Transformers will be released soon on Blu. 2008 is turning out to be a wonderful year.

Well... we've had SOME confirmation this morning of the details of the Financial Times story from last night. While the studio isn't yet commenting, reliable industry sources are telling us that Paramount is indeed preparing to end their HD-DVD support and announce a return to the Blu-ray fold. Details are currently being finalized, and an announcement is expected as soon as they're complete. Paramount's first new Blu-rays will almost certainly include many of those titles that were cancelled last year, but that were already packaged and ready for shipping, so you could see them in stores very quickly once the studio announces.

Meanwhile, sources are telling us that Universal has also been talking with the BDA, and is looking to follow Paramount and Warner's lead as soon as possible.

On a related note, Times Online in the U.K. is now reporting that as many as 20 additional firms currently backing HD-DVD are also considering defection in the wake of Warner's Friday announcement, including Fujitsu, Lenovo, Kenwood and Pony Canyon (which is a major Japanese film and music studio).

What's more, word is starting to circulate at CES that major big box retailers will begin winding down in-store support for HD-DVD as soon as these studios go public with their decisions. We're told that the industry's major retail partners are already pressuring Paramount, DreamWorks and Universal to go Blu following Warner's decision.

Rumors are also beginning to circulate here that Apple's Steve Jobs may announce the addition of Blu-ray Disc drives to their Mac desktop lineup at next week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

We would caution you to keep in mind that all of this should be considered unofficial until the studios make their actual announcements. Things are moving very fast, and the situation is highly fluid. Still, it really looks like this is the end for HD-DVD, and the end of the format war overall. We'll keep you up to date with new developments as they break.

Stay tuned...

 

I didn't think either hd format(blu ray and hd dvd) were doing very good. The overall number of both formats combined is very small compared to dvd and the amount of adaption is much less than vhs to dvd were at this point.
And with gateway's new 1600p monitor/tv and the likely competing products that will be released, it seems the whole 1080p formats could be outdated before they hit mainstream. I guess there's always the download format.

 

Consumer confusion between the two formats certainly isn't helping that. And even when we do move to a higher resolution than 1920x1080, Blu-ray's capacity advantage can only help it there. Although, perhaps by then, holographic media will be ready for the home market and we'll have another format jump.

 

I don't hate HD dvd but I did like Blu-ray better. I'm glad these wars are getting close to an end. I really dislike seeing movies split between the 2 formats.

 

You guys misunderstand competition in the market place.

You can buy a Blu-ray player from Sony, Phillips, Panasonic, Pioneer, LG, Samsung...all these companies will compete against each other by trying to create the best, least expensive players they can, giving the consumer choice of hardware. There is much less choice in who makes your HD player, btw.

The studios: Warner, Disney, Fox, Sony, etc. will try and give you the best, least expensive software with awesome video and audio content, and all that bonus feature stuff, giving the consumer choice of software.

Competition hasn't been stagnated with the death of HD, it's just been opened up, as all the time and money these companies were spending on HD will now be given over to Blu-ray, and HD only companies (such as Toshiba) will no doubt enter the Blu-ray product game, forcing everyone to step up their game to hold onto their share of the market. The consumer can only win from the end of the format war.

 

I'm just hoping the "format wars" cause the price of NORMAL DVDs to drop considerably.

 

No, two formats stagnates the market. Look what happened to High Def audio (DVD-A and SACD). People refused to jump on the bandwagon because of two formats.

Americans have an addiction to latest-greatest.

It's more than just Sony, it's a group that includes Matsushita (Panasonic), Samsung, LG, and more. Sony is just the face of the group. Some people want to take full advantage of their 1080p plasma tvs. God bless 'em.

BluRay may exist as the next Laserdisc, or it could become as mainstay as DVD. Having been involved in the early "DVD vs Laserdisc" war, I've heard this all before.

Amen. At last, someone here besides me understands!

Not gonna happen. Not for a while, at least. DVD is the fastest accepted electronic invention in history. It saturated the marketplace in 7 years what took VHS 20 years! DVD will be here for a long time. it has at least another good 5 to 10 years left as a format.

 

It's Beta/VHS all over again. The superior format loses out, except that sony will win this one. The only thing that Blu-Ray had over HD-DVD was it's capacity. HD-DVD allowed for downloadable content, Blu-ray doesn't. Both are 1080p, Dolby TrueHD and use the same amount of disc space even thought Blu-Ray has a higher capacity. I can't believe that every one has been fooled. Most game programers hate the Blu-Ray of the PS3. The encoding of the disc is a pain in the ass. Why do you think Grand Theft Auto 4 was pushed back, Rockstar was having troubles with the Blu-Ray encoding and held the game back so that one platform didn't have it before the other. Why do think the PS3 is not getting as many games as Xbox and there are more Xbox exclusive games all of which look as good or better than the PS3 games.

IT"S A DAMN SHAME!

I dare anyone to do a side by side comparison (on the same brand of TV), of a movie released on both formats and tell me that Blu-Ray looks better, because it doesn't. They look the same! At least to me and my vision is 20/15

 

Well, this summer, the new Blu-ray Live players come out, which can download content (which is rather useless, honestly, coz remember all those DVDs with "exclusive downloadable content in a DVD-Rom drive" -- two weeks after the DVD came out, the site goes down. Higher capacity is a good thing. For 99% of the population, image and sound are the only criteria, and they won't care about anything else. As for HD-DVD being better, that's all opinion, and what you are wanting to do with the format.

As far as movies go, Blu-Ray was always superior because most of hollywood and manufacturers supported it, which in the end, is what customers will base decisions on.

 

Um, no actually, Game Informer reported that Grand Theft Auto was held back becuase they were having trouble fitting the game onto the 360 format.

 

I wonder what this going to do for Paramount releasing the original Star Trek on HD DVD. They were hyped quite a bit even showing "The Menagerie" in theaters to help promote it. Are they going to re-release season one on Blue-ray or go ahead and finish the other two seasons in HD DVD?

 

Personally, I'm one of the few that sides with neither, just because I think it's ridiculous to spend several hundred $$$ on a disc player when thay extra resolution is likely to be meaningless on a normal shelf TV(I have a 21" flatscreen monster that does RF, AV and S-Video). Especially in the era when you can literally find DVD players- good ones- at a grocery store for less than $30. And if you're not in a rush to get a DVD on release day there's plenty of $5-$10 retail options for older titles. And sued... the used market on CDs and DVDs is so low, some people(like me) stoped buying this crap because you can barely resell it for anything(I got sick of having to sell CDs for $1 when I paid $16+).

Yeah, I guess if your TV is a several thousand dollar model it's worth it- and you're already willing to spend extra on entertainment at that point anyway if you dropped that much into a television.