Hi-Def Media Lovefest: The war is over and we can all go home.

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Well, my brother picked up the A30 last week in preparation of his new TV being delivered later this week, but he's taking it back. A guy we work with is a dealer for Samsung and he get get him a dual format player for a little under $500, so that's the route he's going.

Anybody know how well the dual format players perform?
 
The Samsung's supposed to be profile 1.1 and fully compliant with HD DVD's feature set, so he should be fine. At $500, that's a heck of a deal.
 
VanMardigan said:
The Samsung's supposed to be profile 1.1 and fully compliant with HD DVD's feature set, so he should be fine. At $500, that's a heck of a deal.
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does it to 1080p 24 for both formats? If so, I'll sell the XA2 and go that route as well. Im going dual format at some point, and the girlfriend would be much happier not having to remember what colored case goes where.

Also, since it allready has an ethernet port, is there any chance of becoming BRD 2.0 compliant via firmware?
 
StoOgE said:
does it to 1080p 24 for both formats? If so, I'll sell the XA2 and go that route as well. Im going dual format at some point, and the girlfriend would be much happier not having to remember what colored case goes where.

Also, since it allready has an ethernet port, is there any chance of becoming BRD 2.0 compliant via firmware?
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It is 1080p/24.

Another question, how is Battlestar Galactica on HD-DVD? If I were to pick it up in HD rather than standard DVD, I wouldn't be missing out on episodes or anything right? I know the DVD releases are kinda odd. I've never seen an episode of the show, and I figure that I might as well go the HD route to get the most out of it unless it's missing a ton of features and such.
 
Ignatz Mouse said:
I don't think dual-format players are the future. I think there's too much overhead in each spec to make it worthwhile, and by the time they would be able to get to mass-market prices (Q4 2009, I would guess) the format war will have been settled.
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I think the belief that the HD format war will be settled within the next 2-3 years is optimistic at best. While Blu-Ray has the clear advantage it's not like HD-DVD has nothing to offer, and price-wise it's at a much better position going forward - at least enough to remain competitive until the price difference between the two formats is negligible (i.e. we see 1080p players for both formats priced under $100 within a 20% price range of eachother)
 
I don't see why one would think multi-format support is somehow a bridge too far. The overhead required to support one or the other format in hardware is enough to basically cover the other. There's nothing particularly exotic about either standard anyway, outside of maybe DRM. But variants of Java and XML for general interactivity and the exact same video formats supported for the actual playback? Come on.

Retailers not wanting to stock two different formats? You're not listening - the format distinction will get downplayed in the scenario I proposed meaning that retailers would just stock them together as if they were one format. File them together alphabetically because with hardware that can handle either format and do it cheaply enough (holiday 2008, see you there), it'd be little different than finding one DVD in the rack that has a DD soundtrack, and another that has a DTS soundtrack.

Ignatz Mouse said:
Dual format players are the wishful-thinking solution for people who want to purchase movies with abandon (or already have).
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Thanks for that brush off. I'm happy to take a bet on this because even if I lose you still owe me from the last bet, so we could call it even. :p
 
StoOgE said:
Also, since it allready has an ethernet port, is there any chance of becoming BRD 2.0 compliant via firmware?
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I think 2.0 requires 1GB permanent storage, which I believe is more than HD DVD requires. So I guess it depends on how much onboard storage the Samsung has.

Dual format players are the wishful-thinking solution for people who want to purchase movies with abandon (or already have).
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How about folks who are tired of the format war, see no end in sight, and want to enjoy all the HD movies available without regard for Sony or Toshiba? We all wish that this stupid war didn't exist. But it does, and with analyst after analyst predicting a stalemate, it would be nice if CE manufacturers allowed us the choice of both formats on one device. I'm sorry if you're already emotionally invested in Sony, Ps3, and Blu Ray, but there are people who don't care and just want movies in high def. Most people have chosen to wait it out (that would be the majority of consumers), and others to just pick one side for now (that would be you). Others have chosen to pick both sides, because we want all the movies (that would be me).
 
Not sure this is the place, but I don't wanna create too many new topics in one day.

Does anyone have some HD capture equipment and do me a favour, and capture this: -

6ouff41.jpg


in high definition? The movie is 28 Weeks Later and it happens towards the end of the film. I believe it's been released in Bluray only, not sure about HD-DVD
 
VanMardigan said:
I think 2.0 requires 1GB permanent storage, which I believe is more than HD DVD requires. So I guess it depends on how much onboard storage the Samsung has.
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looks like 256 MBs. So I guess thats no go on 2.0. Thats really the only thing that makes me think about doing this. I still love the idea of a dual format player though.. maybe they could immplement the networking portion of it, but not be full 2.0 compliant because of the storage?
 
On February 2nd Welcome to the Jungle (The Rundown in the US) will be released on BD in Europe. It will have all the bonus features from the DVD plus something that's called "Jungle Stories" and it is distributed by Sony:

bild.jpg
 
Jeff-DSA said:
It is 1080p/24.

Another question, how is Battlestar Galactica on HD-DVD? If I were to pick it up in HD rather than standard DVD, I wouldn't be missing out on episodes or anything right? I know the DVD releases are kinda odd. I've never seen an episode of the show, and I figure that I might as well go the HD route to get the most out of it unless it's missing a ton of features and such.
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comes out next week. From what Ive heard it includes the mini series that kicked off the new series as well as season 1.
 
Nerevar: There's no way the foramt war won't be settled by then (again, IMHO). There's too much money to be made by studios to not want to resolve it, and as volumes increase, they're going to want to go with the higher-selling format, or both.


kaching said:
Thanks for that brush off. I'm happy to take a bet on this because even if I lose you still owe me from the last bet, so we could call it even. :p
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You can cash that one in if you like (was it a week, or month?). I was certainly wrong. I'm not sure what we're betting on here, and it'll be a long time before it comes through. Clarify the terms and I'll be game. :)

I've stated why I think dual-format players won't fly. If there were that much overlap in technologies, the dual-format players *right now* wouldn't cost more than buying two separate players. That's premium-convenience pricing, not economy-of-manufacture pricing. My guess is that BD players are about as cheap as is reasonable, HD-DVD players are selling at a slight loss, and putting the two together means no help from either camp financially and the overlap doesn't help out in pricing.

If I'm woring, that high cost is just R&D for making the two work under the same hood and will drop quickly. But dual-format player prices have been sropping more slowly than single-format players.
 
StoOgE said:
looks like 256 MBs. So I guess thats no go on 2.0. Thats really the only thing that makes me think about doing this. I still love the idea of a dual format player though.. maybe they could immplement the networking portion of it, but not be full 2.0 compliant because of the storage?
Click to expand...

Well, does it have a memory card or expansion slot? I know there was talk about players without the permanent storage built in being able to expand their storage space. It's all guesswork, though, since the Blu Ray profile situation is a damn mess.
 
Hi,

J6P here. I have an HD-A3 currently which I got becuase it was inexpensive (149.99 @ HHGregg and 7 disks) but I'll be picking up the Samsung BD-UP5000 dual format player as soon as I see one in the wild and at a reasonable price ( I don't like the LG, it looks like a VCR). I don't want have to worry about formats and it seems to decode DTS-MA onboard so I'm going to go that route for now.
 
theBishop said:
Retailers are not going to tolerate stocking two formats that do essentially the same thing.
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Hmmm, they are already doing it. And since all the major studios already picked a side already except Warner, the only difference it would make if every movie studios picked only one format would be the case's colors.

As for Warner's dual stance, it is no different than retailers stocking multiple Widescreen, Full Screen, 2 Disc Special Edition and 5 Disc Collector's Edition of the same movie.
 
StoOgE said:
Im going dual format at some point, and the girlfriend would be much happier not having to remember what colored case goes where.
Click to expand...


Why would you organize movies by FORMAT? I organize 'em all, HD DVD, DVD and Blu Ray by alphabetical order....
 
VanMardigan said:
How about folks who are tired of the format war, see no end in sight, and want to enjoy all the HD movies available without regard for Sony or Toshiba? We all wish that this stupid war didn't exist. But it does, and with analyst after analyst predicting a stalemate, it would be nice if CE manufacturers allowed us the choice of both formats on one device. I'm sorry if you're already emotionally invested in Sony, Ps3, and Blu Ray, but there are people who don't care and just want movies in high def. Most people have chosen to wait it out (that would be the majority of consumers), and others to just pick one side for now (that would be you). Others have chosen to pick both sides, because we want all the movies (that would be me).
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Re: the bolded part-- isn't that what I just said?

Also, I don't see "analysist after analyst" prediction stalemate, I saw one, yesterday.

The rest is just rant. I'm emotionally invested in having one format, I'm financially invested in 30+ movies and a player.

It would be great if dual-format players were cheap and already available. I'd buy one. I do think that the movie companies would eventually settle down to one format, but I wouldn't care. And I don't think it would have that much impact on retail. I just don't think it's going to happen, for the reasons I listed above. For that matter, I think it would be great if HD-DVD had hit critical mass like its fans had hoped and forced Blu-ray to give up. That's didn't happen either.


I find it amusing that people who didn't think that Blu-Ray players would come down much from $1000 over the course of a year *do* think that Dual-Format players will hit mass market-prices quickly, without the benefits of subsidation that the dedicated players have.


Edit: kaching and Van, don't mistake what I think is happening for what I think is ideal. It would be nice if all hardware was dual and studios could pick the featureset of the format they wanted and we didn't have to care.
 
Ignatz Mouse said:
I find it amusing that people who didn't think that Blu-Ray players would come down much from $1000 over the course of a year *do* think that Dual-Format players will hit mass market-prices quickly, without the benefits of subsidation that the dedicated players have.
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But..............the Blu Ray players DID come down in price over the course of the year. And as far as I know, the Blu Ray CE's aren't getting any subsidization, hence the higher prices (compared to HD DVD). The combo players haven't come down in price because of lack of competition. It was LG and LG ONLY. The Samsung is out this month as the first non-LG dual format player, and that has already driven LG's price down by several hundred dollars. Heck, the Samsung is expected to retail for hundreds below it's $999 MSRP as well. Hopefully Onkyo, RCA, Denon, or some other CEs choose to jump into the dual format bandwagon and drive the prices down further, and at a faster rate.
 
Stinkles said:
Why would you organize movies by FORMAT? I organize 'em all, HD DVD, DVD and Blu Ray by alphabetical order....
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I think he meant that she has trouble remembering which player the discs from the different cases go to.
 
The Main Event said:
Hmmm, they are already doing it. And since all the major studios already picked a side already except Warner, the only difference it would make if every movie studios picked only one format would be the case's colors.

As for Warner's dual stance, it is no different than retailers stocking multiple Widescreen, Full Screen, 2 Disc Special Edition and 5 Disc Collector's Edition of the same movie.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they are tolerating it now with relatively few titles available, but even Warner's library alone in two formats is a significant amount of unnecessary shelf space. Don't forget Viacom's HD-DVD exclusivity runs out in about a year.
 
Ugh... I couldn't resist the BOGO deal again. I went and ordered Good Night and Good Luck as well as The Fountain. :(

I just ordered Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Dog Day Afternoon a couple days ago.

BOGO = the death of me
 
I think retailers would be more concerned with purchasing confusion than they would with sapce. I know space is King at retai, but as Main Event points out, there aren't a lof of dual-format titles. OTOH, I can see where there would be issues with people not knowing which that can play and what they should buy. That will dampen sales and create work for the retailer.
 
BenjaminBirdie said:
But then wouldn't the boxes look weird all mixed together? They're a different height, right?
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nope. they're exactly the same save for the color and logo, which makes me wonder why they're exactly the same. Who showed their case first, and why did the other copy it?
 
bune duggy said:
nope. they're exactly the same save for the color and logo, which makes me wonder why they're exactly the same. Who showed their case first, and why did the other copy it?
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Same height as DVD too? If so then there's no excuse, but I thought PS3 had the same box type as Blu Ray and I know those are shorter than DVD cases.
 
BenjaminBirdie said:
Same height as DVD too? If so then there's no excuse, but I thought PS3 had the same box type as Blu Ray and I know those are shorter than DVD cases.
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Blu-ray cases and PS3 cases are similar, but the spine on PS3 cases are about twice as wide.
 
dallow_bg said:
Here's the list of the new Warner titles on sale at Amazon.
The box sets are $56.
So that's 8 movies for $56.
Sell the ones you don't like.
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I couldn't resist and got the box sets...

If you have the 10% discount on your account, they are really cheap because you get the discount before the BOGO discount - so $46 shipped for two sets. Not bad at all :)
 
Ignatz Mouse said:
You can cash that one in if you like (was it a week, or month?).
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It wasn't for a ban, if that's what you're thinking, it was for money. But I never really wanted to collect on it, else I would have brought it up months ago when you officially lost. I wasn't the one who wanted that bet in the first place - this was another instance of you stating that my opinion on the subject was not based on reasoned thought, just the equivalent of wishful thinking. It's a bad assumption on your part and a bit uncalled for.

I'm not sure what we're betting on here
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That's your area - if you want to call me on my opinion by posing another bet, go ahead. I'm just trying to submit my opinion on the subject without getting pigeonholed as little more than a dreamer.

If there were that much overlap in technologies, the dual-format players *right now* wouldn't cost more than buying two separate players.
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You can get BD ONLY players *right now* that cost more than dual format players. Meanwhile the PS3 is now $399 and has a host of significant features not found in any other BD player, which all cost as much as or more than the PS3. What point does this prove?

If I'm woring, that high cost is just R&D for making the two work under the same hood and will drop quickly. But dual-format player prices have been sropping more slowly than single-format players.
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You should do this "woring" thing more often. There hasn't been as much incentive for the prices to drop right now. Yes, I certainly expect that R&D costs for combining the two in one user-friendly player are higher in these early stages (Not to mention that the BD standard has still been a state of development)
and given the more speculative nature of where this new market might go in the past year, the risks might not have justified the rewards.

But after watching the way this format war has developed over the past year, it's clear no one is in a rush to mend the schism. The various players in this fight all seem to have their favored partnerships on either side, regardless of where sales may be trending. I really do think that most of the movie studios are just waiting for technology to solve the impasse for them. As they continue to build two distinct libraries of content, the value of supporting both as one will grow for hardware manufacturers and I'm sure retailers would give them incentive to do so as well.
 
StoOgE said:
does it to 1080p 24 for both formats? If so, I'll sell the XA2 and go that route as well. Im going dual format at some point, and the girlfriend would be much happier not having to remember what colored case goes where.

Also, since it allready has an ethernet port, is there any chance of becoming BRD 2.0 compliant via firmware?
Click to expand...
check out the duo player review, stooge, the player seems to be working ok, but it has some glitches playing some Blu-ray titles.
:-/ I'm thinking about selling my PS3 + HD-DVD add-on to save some space and pick this player instead, also, it will be available through amazon.com next January for $799.99 ..
 
kaching, I see where you're coming from. You brought up the bet thing, so I don't really feel the need. I suppose it's a good sign for your side of the argument-- the last bet (ban) I offered was the Blu-ray player prices, street-to-street, would only be $100 over HD-DVD prices by black friday. I missed that by about $50-$100. Nobody took me up on it. Cowards!

And of course, I was wrong about Warhawk as well.

Anyway, I don't see how I lose personally, as either outcome is fine with me. I do think it's more likely that studio support will shift and HD-DVD will start being marginalized early enough, at which point the pverhead for a dual-format player makes no sense. The only way I can see it happening is if WB goes HD-DVD only and levels the playing field. Otherwise, the market is going to trend one way, and studios will eventually follow.
 
Naked Snake said:
Damn, I didn't know that (or forgot), as I just picked up two vertical shelf racks from the carpenter today that I custom designed for my future HD movie collection, had I known this I would have decreased the space between the shelves and included more of them.
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If it makes you feel any better, I think the boxes for some of the anime releases are more like DVD size.
 
Naked Snake said:
Damn, I didn't know that (or forgot), as I just picked up two vertical shelf racks from the carpenter today that I custom designed for my future HD movie collection, had I known this I would have decreased the space between the shelves and included more of them.
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Just curious, how much does that run you? (custom shelves by carpenter)
 
The Main Event said:
Hmmm, they are already doing it. And since all the major studios already picked a side already except Warner, the only difference it would make if every movie studios picked only one format would be the case's colors.

As for Warner's dual stance, it is no different than retailers stocking multiple Widescreen, Full Screen, 2 Disc Special Edition and 5 Disc Collector's Edition of the same movie.
Click to expand...


if everyone went dual format though, surely studios would pick a side, as if most people can play both formats, they only need to produce one? So a future where dual format standalones prevail is one where the software becomes even more polarised.


Extend the hypothesis to include all those pesky PS3s in the market. Won't that sway the studios and persuade them that - if they only have to produce one format disc as most standalones are dual format - they might as well produce blurays so that all those PS3 owners can also play them.

So a future where standalones are dual format could easily lead to bluray winning the software format 'war'. And its the software that this fight is about. If that happens, Toshiba and the HDDVD forum don't get all their juicy software license fees.

Dual format future isn't any kind of future.
 
StoOgE said:
comes out next week. From what Ive heard it includes the mini series that kicked off the new series as well as season 1.
Click to expand...

There are bunch of new extras and an interactive encyclopedia as well on the discs, which cool.
 
dallow_bg said:
Just curious, how much does that run you? (custom shelves by carpenter)
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I don't know if the numbers will mean anything to you since I live a different country with very different economy... I made two 1-meter high racks, containing 4 shelve compartments each, shelve width about 15 cm. The carpenter charged me about $55 per piece, and the paint job about $14 each, so about $138 total. I had them painted black to match the TV and the TV stand. I would have bought off-the-shelf commercial ones and it might have been cheaper, but I needed them to be an exact and specific height because they will double as front and left speaker stands for my humble 5.1 audio system (my eye level when on the couch would be 1-meter from the ground), and I couldn't find something that matched in stores.
 
In addition to the release of Resident Evil: Extinction on 1/1, Sony will street a Resident Evil: The High-Definition Trilogy set on Blu-ray the same day
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Thank you Lord.

BobLoblaw said:
That means I got The Last Samurai, The Phantom of the Opera, Unforgiven, The Fugitive, Lethal Weapon, The Road Warrior, Swordfish, and Training Day all for $30.90 with 3-5 day shipping. :D
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Good man. :D
 
Well, I'm bored so I went slumming to AVS in search of sales numbers. Nothing yet, but somebody says they've seen them and that they are surprising.

So, is it a rout for Blu-ray or a comeback for HD-DVD?
 
Stupid security tape crap. Got Deja Vu and PoTC from the deep discount BOGO and both cases are smudged/torn from removing that stupid security crap. :(
 
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