Saving HD DVD??

[Seth=L]

I've ignored Audioholics biased view of the format war for quite sometime, but this is a little too much for me.
I've always come here for the great reviews, but with articles like this, I just don't trust this site anymore.

Please remove me from your membership.

This is pathetic, this might be worse than my temporary retirement thread. No wait, I hear the votes coming in, my thread was lamer. You almost had me with the lameness.

 

[aberkowitz]

I love this format war. IMHO it should continue at least until Blu-Ray manufacturers quit trying to fleece the consumer and release profile 2.0 standalones under $200.

Why do companies have to be fleecing people if they charge high prices? If you don't like it- DON'T BUY IT! We're not talking about a daily staple that you need to live your life- it's a relatively advanced piece of CE equipment that right now only holds the interest of less than 5% of the CE-buying world. Please explain to me why Sony is obligated to charge anything less than the market clearing price- which right now is in the $400 a player range.

Don't you remember how much first generation DVD and CD players cost?? The first CD player to ever hit the market cost $900, the first DVD players cost anywhere from $500-800. In the mid 90s CD changers (and we're not talking very high-end) still cost in the $400-500 range. The first gen iPods which only had 5 or 10 GB of space cost $400 and $500 respectively.

Prices will come down... they just take time and they take a better understanding of the benefits of the new technology on the part of the consumers. In 10 years DVD players have dropped to 1/10 of their original prices, and today you can get an 80 GB iPod today for $250. BD has been officially out for just about 20 months now.... as far as prices go they are right where they should be.

 

[tomd51]

The "Let HD DVD Die" petition is up over 9,000, FWIW...

I honestly could care less which high definition format is the one carried forward, but I do see more promise for the Blu-ray format. Knowing both formats can currently produce a similar offering in terms of a quality, HD experience, my decision is more so based on future expandability and functionality and believe me, I've read more information on both formats than I'd ever care to. I also don't care for the fact that Toshiba (sans Onkyo's rebadge) is the only HD-DVD player manufacturer, this is not such a good idea in principal for consumers.

Personally, I'd like the industry to just choose one format to standardize and move forward with it. While in the short term this would likely result in less BOGO type of deals for the media, the price of hardware would likely need to fall in order to incent viewers with SD/ED players to make the jump to the new "standard". This move will also be more prevalent with consumers purchasing newer, larger televisions that are capable of higher resolution viewing, wanting the latest and greatest viewing experience without breaking the bank for it... -TD

 

[ivseenbetter]

I've ignored Audioholics biased view of the format war for quite sometime, but this is a little too much for me.
I've always come here for the great reviews, but with articles like this, I just don't trust this site anymore.

Please remove me from your membership.

I totally agree with you Shamus! All of these darn opinions are really getting in the way. I don't come to an Audio-based forum for opinions...I want facts!

Anyway, since Shamus is leaving, can I have his 70 posts?

 

[avliner]

Wow- you're almost begging for a negative rep with that one, huh???

Well, based on what the guy said on his last paragraph, I wouldn't say I'm begging for a bad rep at all...

 

[j_garcia]

Wow, up to 9000? I signed it at 1100...and that was only a few days ago.

 

[Duffinator]

It's now 9,448.

 

[mtrycrafts]

What history?
SheepStar

As in forgotten history

 

[rmiller413]

Even if Toshiba stopped producing HD-DVD players today, and recalled all the remaining players from the market, the Blu-Ray manufacturers would still be competing with each other. It's not like the prices of DVD players stopped falling just because DIVX packed it in.

I'm still waiting for one of the formats to have more than a handful of movies I might want to watch. At this point that format is unlikely to be HD-DVD.

 

[Thaedium]

I've ignored Audioholics biased view of the format war for quite sometime, but this is a little too much for me.
I've always come here for the great reviews, but with articles like this, I just don't trust this site anymore.

Please remove me from your membership.

lol! That was great. I didn't think anyone could have such a vested interest in the format war that they would get so upset they'd just quit being intelligent alltogether. Poor guy must have a hard time in life whenever anyone disagrees with him.

 

[hyghwayman]

Wow, up to 9000? I signed it at 1100...and that was only a few days ago.

The save HD DVD petition is over 29k, that is almost 3x the Let it Die petition!

Oh yeah, I voted to save the HD DVD format.

 

[stratman]

As noble as this petition is, unless the hard numbers (sales+profits) climb nothing will change, Universal's Craig Kornblau said, "we will be watching consumer adoption very carefully," in corporate speak this is simple: whatever format sells the most is where we are headed. Don't be fooled by noble gestures like petitions when you're dealing with a corporation with investors and a bottom line. Though I find the effort noble, unless HD DVD can pull a rabbit out of it's a**, it will be a tough sell to corporate rulers.

 

[dobyblue]

The customers have chosen, and the vast majority didn't choose HD-DVD.

Bingo! Any arguments to keep HD DVD around or winning or not compelling enough for me.

HD DVD is not designed to have all studios releasing 1080p content on it. It's a 720p/5.1 format.

Even Amir Majidimehr stated on behalf of Microsoft that only they can get the most out of the VC-1 codec.

Well that's great with a small release schedule, but if everyone wanted to release on HD DVD you'd see a massive drop in releases with lossless audio and a massive drop in quality releases. There just wouldn't be enough time to spend making all the releases look good.

With 18 Mbps extra bandwidth and 20GB more space, Blu-ray is ready for mass market numbers. That's the long and the short of it.

Warner's Blu-ray Discs have outsold their HD DVD offerings throughout the entire 2007. Their decision was an easy one and shows that only propaganda artists would have you believe there are some inherent replication issues when it comes to Blu-ray.

More than half the "save HD DVD" signatures are jokes.

Keep in mind over 350,000 copies of "300" sold on Blu-ray.