Arsenal said:
Studios can switch their support very easily since all the codecs for both formats are the same. They will follow the money. Right now, the money is being spend on HD DVD movies.
Blu-Ray is EXTREMELY reliant on PS3 owners buying movies. I dunno, I have my doubts that they will be out there in droves deciding the format war, especially after the novelty wears off. Sony seems to have made sacrifices in their stand alone systems (and their partners') in order to get the PS3 out the doro and IMO that will end up hurting the format's chances in the long run. Toshiba is killing them in the stand alone player market - those are the people who go buy movies on a consistent, regular basis.
Man... what a late reply.
Anyway... whatever numbers HD-DVD are doing NOW in this early portion of the game...
it's for naught. It's sales in the 5 digit range. When the PS3 roles into town, by end of next year, the figures for HD players will be more likely in the 8 figure range. 10,000,000 HD capable players on market. And most of those will be PS3s.
No matter how well you think they can do, they simply can't beat that kind of simple maths. Even if a majority of PS3 owners don't embrace BD, just a fraction is all that's needed from that massive group to quash HD-DVD numbers.
The thing that gets me is that... I don't really hate HD-DVD per se; there's nothing to hate... but all the hope and support it gets... will not only be rendered meaningless in less then a year... but it'll be the thorn that might cause the industry to continue to remain splintered.
Unless you're a really hardcore HD fanatic, have the money, and you just HAVE TO experience HD stuff now... I just don't see why you'd be making decisions on a fledgling format right now; much easier to see things play out while problems are rooted out.
Even if by some freak chance, BD manages to lose despite it's combination of overwhelming advantages... HD-DVD would be forced into a situation similar to what BD to HD-DVD should be in; universal the stubborn hold out studio will be replaced by Sony-Columbia Tristar... indeed, they'll be even more stubborn to make the change to HD-DVD then universal are.
But what will likely happen... if HD-DVD is successful at gaining significant traction... is that hybrid players will become the standard. But even that is far from a great solution... it'll mean all the early players and indeed all the BD players on the PS3 become outdated; would mean tens of millions of consumers lose out...
Well... if it comes to that, it would suck for me... having to wait until those hybrid players come out with good performance at low prices (sub 200 prices).
Is the soundmix the same as the DVD? The volume of the music was lowered quite a bit for the DVD release, compared to the theatrical cut. I'm wondering if they changed it again for the HD release.