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Hi-Def Media Lovefest: The war is over and we can all go home.
- Thread starter HyperionX
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Midas said:
It's mentioned in other articles that they're doing this to honour "commitments" made to the HD DVD group.
Which doesn't necessarily mean they're legally bound, but they simply have told HD-DVD at some point that they could rely on their support "for at least the next x months" and they're just being gentlemen, and sticking to that. The releases will come after BD and DVD though.
gofreak said:Well then, go watch, and enjoy! And look forward to the dark knight!
(It really is a crap-ton better than the old batman movies)
I agree, and having seen 6 minutes of it (The Dark Knight) as a little gift from Warner Bros in the IMAX in Amsterdam I can without a doubt say that Heath Ledger makes an awfully brilliant Joker. It helps that parts of the movie are recorded in the best HD quality possible right now, which makes the experience all the better.
@Midas: Yes, I believe they have a contract with the HD-DVD group. Not entirely sure.
sinnergy said:
I've imported BRDs from the US - although clearly you have to be careful about what you bring over, there are plenty of sites that'll tell you what's region free. Obviously I prefer the HDDVD totally region free approach, but still...
sinnergy said:
Have you ever used Blu-ray?
HocusPocus
Member
Philanthropist said:
And I feel bad for anyone who wastes money on Transformers for Blu-Ray as well.
HD-DVD is dead. No 5 stages needed. I'm selling my collection on Monday outside of a handful like the Bourne Trilogy and Serenity. I just can't part with those because there is no equivalent on Blu-Ray right now. I just kind of hate it that the market completely shut out HD-DVD, and there was really no choice about it. Content was blocked with backroom deals right out of the gate. That's a spooky though for the movie industry imho. Oh well my PS3 which is only a Blu-Ray player is right here, and so are my 20 movies for it. I guess that collection grows. I still think Hollywood is fooling themselves if they think High Definition movies are going to be a huge revenue stream for them. I was wrong though about HD-DVD, so maybe I'm wrong about that too. I don't think Blu-Ray will ever replace DVD like DVD replaced the VCR tape.
sinnergy said:
Get the BR Remote, it's a lot easier to use. As a matter fact, I need to get that thing myself soon, seeing as my PS3 instantly went from fun game console with all kinds of snazzy features to a more viable HD Media player. I only own two movies so far, Casino Royale and Underworld. I also have the Toto 25th anniversary BRD, and that's it.
Next month I'm getting the remote and Reign Over Me.
Battlezone
Member
Pristine_Condition said:
Oh snap, that's right around the corner from us. I'm gonna go see if I can get a sneak peek.
iapetus said:
One such site: http://bluray.liesinc.net/
Personally I think region encoding is a mess on Blu Ray. I can understand why studios might want *some* movies to be encoded. A simple example would be Ratatouille that appeared on BD in the US while it was still in the cinemas in the EU. Region encoding means the US gets the movie on disc earlier than would have been possible on HD DVD. It doesn't explain why encoding is so slapdash with some studios encoding everything and others like Warner really not caring about it all.
plagiarize
Banned
the point is that you can do the same on Blu-Ray with settings and pop up menus... not that you can't do it on HD-DVD.Laurent said:
favouriteflavour
Member
So should I even bother getting Ultimatum on HD DVD now? I have confidence that Ms will use HD DVD for thenext console so I hould be able to watch it years from now
Pristine_Condition said:Enderle Alert!!!
Yes, here's Rob Enderle, right on time. Making an ass out of himself again.
Of course! What a shocker. Now he's dropping his earlier prediction (the one that he actually made twice--once in 2006, and again a few months ago) of an HD DVD win, like it never happened, and saying Uncle Bill's ultimate Microsoftian dream of digital downloads is coming really really soon.
I guess I can expect ol' Doofus Rob to show up at my crib and install that magical FIOS line any day now... Since he's now saying we're all going to have all this wonderful bandwidth in our homes by next Christmas, I'm guessing he's going to be really busy installing all those cables!
:lol
All these quotes come from the LA Times article here, BTW:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dvd5jan05,0,4795448.story?coll=la-home-center
I guess hack Staff Writer Dawn C. Chmielewski is one of those lazy journalists who doesn't know what a paid-off quote-machine Enderle really is, or she's too lazy to care.
...
[EDIT] Just for all you folks keeping a scorecard at home, here's a repost of Doofus Rob Enderle's rant just four short months ago:
:lol :lol :lol
So, just four months ago, Rob Enderle thought HD DVD had time to wrap up the whole game by getting Disney and Warner on board. Now that Blu-ray is winning, the whole thing is too late, and suddenly super-high bandwidth internet connections are going to magically appear in tons of homes before Christmas 2008.
Seriously, you can't make this stuff up...
Welp, thats it. I'm selling off both my HD DVD's and Blu-ray's. Its all over. Time to preorder FiOS for whenever they get around to putting it in here 5 years from now and invest in media servers, a new Vista MediaCenter PC and buy a Wireless N router.
Zombie James
Banned
Digital downloads are the future... in maybe 10 or 15 years. Even today, downloadable movie services compress their shit so badly that you won't even get close to the quality you'd get from a disc, be it 480p content from Netflix or 720p content from Live Marketplace. It just doesn't compare.
Laurent said:
You got it all wrong, sinnergy stated that BRD didn't have a pop-up menu. Only later to find out it actually does. So he was wrong, and came back on that. Iapetus and me only pointed him to the error of his statement.
No harm done though. Just enjoy your Blu future.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Ponn01 said:
5 years?:lol
You people that believe in digital downloads are on crack.
That wont become a viable option far down the line the majority of people in this country still dont have a internet connections fast enough for that.
_leech_ said:
qft Blu Ray has a long future ahead of itself.
All I really want is LOTR in high def come on baby
My bad, I should never jump inside a conversation too early in the morning...Vashu said:You got it all wrong, sinnergy stated that BRD didn't have a pop-up menu. Only later to find out it actually does. So he was wrong, and came back on that. Iapetus and me only pointed him to the error of his statement.
No harm done though. Just enjoy your Blu future.
Synth_floyd
Banned
Why would you go and sell your HD DVD players and DVDs after hearing this announcement? Just because you believe that the market will stop supporting HD DVD soon doesn't mean the discs and machines you have now will suddenly stop working. Or is there some need to feel that you have a "winning" machine (I bet this feeling accounts for a lot of the fanboy-ism on the internet)? I mean it still does what it was built to do, play movies.
Opus Angelorum
Member
Well personally I can't justify having a £200 machine just to play 15 or so films, especially when I have a PS3 and any future films I buy will be Blu-Ray.
Opus Angelorum
Member
Suikoguy said:
Correct.
I bought the HD-DVD machine assuming that I would need both formats to enjoy modern and future film releases. Now the 60 - 40 number has changed to 85 - 15.
DarkJediKnight
Member
Why is Harry Potter Blu-ray still #1 on amazon? Is the BOGO still on? A friend of mine with a PS3 wants to spend about $200 on Blu-ray as of today. :lol
Opus Angelorum said:
But it doesn't take away the movies you have and can enjoy now. Who knows how long it will be before Batman Begins arrive on BRD? And hey, 300 is a little better on HD-DVD with all the features. If anything, you can get a decent amount of movies in the upcoming 'sale' of WB HD-DVD and enjoy them for years to come.
Perhaps even get a decent amount of money out of it if the movies you want are available for a good price on BRD, and collectors want to pay a lot of money for HD-DVD's. Don't just throw away your system yet, you can get a lot of mileage out of it still.
Now I don't own an HD-DVD player, and no movies, because I wanted to sit things through a bit more. Had the scale somehow tipped towards HD-DVD, I might've gotten one and be happy with what I currently have.
wow the rancid sony hate on AVS is scary.
also did you US'ers really have a $99 hd dvd player for sale at some point in time? that's £45 (a days wages for most) here and compare that to the cheapest we have at ~£180 ($360)
cant believe you lot are so stingy, always moaning about hardware prices but getting them at half the price most of the rest of world does
anyway my HD viewing choice was made the day i decided i wanted a ps3 to replace my ps2, the equipment that introduced me to DVD's.
also did you US'ers really have a $99 hd dvd player for sale at some point in time? that's £45 (a days wages for most) here and compare that to the cheapest we have at ~£180 ($360)
cant believe you lot are so stingy, always moaning about hardware prices but getting them at half the price most of the rest of world does
anyway my HD viewing choice was made the day i decided i wanted a ps3 to replace my ps2, the equipment that introduced me to DVD's.
DarkJediKnight
Member
Synth_floyd said:
Most of us don't want to clutter our shelf space. In fact, I want to get the HD tivo but have no room for it on my av rack. My A30 is going up on craiglist to make room in the next few months. Plus, in a year, your HD DVDs won't be worth squat. Sell it when people are still buying.
Nicodimas said:
If they feel they effectively have no chance to win 'the war' ... why would a well-run company (large or small) just piss away money?
I'm not saying I necessarily believe this list ... but assuming Toshiba will continue for over a year, simply because they 'are big', seems a bit illogical.
Xisiqomelir said:
Ummm ... yeah it is :lol
Where does this FUD come from?
Taken from coolhand at avs:
1) It is. Talk (Blu-Ray insider) finally let it slip that it cost more to manufacture BDs than HD yesterday. It had been widely accepted that it was so for a long time. HD could essentially use existing HD replication lines to produce HD DVDs (all lines made in the past 2+ years had built in capabilities and the cost to upgrade was minimal to upgrade older lines). BD replication is more difficult and entirely new lines must be fabricated at a cost of ~2.5M per line. There are ~14 lines currently (they also produce PS3 games). For reference, there are somewhere between 300-400 DVD production lines.
The biggest issue is that there are still issues producing BD50s. There are only two replicators and neither one wants to discuss costs or yields. Sony is one of those replicators and Cinram is the other. It is widely accepted that Sony is footing the bill for a substantial portion of the replication costs (a practice they are now less likely to continue). About 3 months ago Dave Vaughan said they were getting yields under 50% on the BEST LINES. They do seem to have improved on this, but that was a large reason that Paramount left. My best guess is that it costs atleast $4 to produce a BD50 right now (DL DVD is ~$.75, DL HD~$1.70).
2) Yes and no. There are minimum specs to be a 1.1 player, a 2.0 player, etc. The specs are largely driven by what it would take to perform certain functions. One of the primary functions of 1.1 is to provided PIP. There were a few BDs that had PIP commentaries and they were actually putting two copies of the movie on the disk. One for the movie and one with a picture inside it to provided PiP. Version 2.0 will offer Web Enabled/Interactive features. 2.0 is the last announced minimum standard but it is conceivable that players will go above the requirements of 2.0 if they can find benefits of doing so. Keep in mind, the $99 HD players did as much as the unannounced 2.0 players.
The real problem with the profiles is that studios won't provide extras because the players won't play them anyways and they cost a substantial amount to produce. The CEs won't get ahead on the HW side and movie into the higher profiles because there is no benefit. It costs a substantial amount to upgrade the player to the higher specs and there is no software for it anyways. So they essentially would have a player costing $100 more that provides the same functionality of its lower priced competitors. I doubt 5,000 1.1 players have been sold to the public (outside of the PS3 obviously).
1) It is. Talk (Blu-Ray insider) finally let it slip that it cost more to manufacture BDs than HD yesterday. It had been widely accepted that it was so for a long time. HD could essentially use existing HD replication lines to produce HD DVDs (all lines made in the past 2+ years had built in capabilities and the cost to upgrade was minimal to upgrade older lines). BD replication is more difficult and entirely new lines must be fabricated at a cost of ~2.5M per line. There are ~14 lines currently (they also produce PS3 games). For reference, there are somewhere between 300-400 DVD production lines.
The biggest issue is that there are still issues producing BD50s. There are only two replicators and neither one wants to discuss costs or yields. Sony is one of those replicators and Cinram is the other. It is widely accepted that Sony is footing the bill for a substantial portion of the replication costs (a practice they are now less likely to continue). About 3 months ago Dave Vaughan said they were getting yields under 50% on the BEST LINES. They do seem to have improved on this, but that was a large reason that Paramount left. My best guess is that it costs atleast $4 to produce a BD50 right now (DL DVD is ~$.75, DL HD~$1.70).
2) Yes and no. There are minimum specs to be a 1.1 player, a 2.0 player, etc. The specs are largely driven by what it would take to perform certain functions. One of the primary functions of 1.1 is to provided PIP. There were a few BDs that had PIP commentaries and they were actually putting two copies of the movie on the disk. One for the movie and one with a picture inside it to provided PiP. Version 2.0 will offer Web Enabled/Interactive features. 2.0 is the last announced minimum standard but it is conceivable that players will go above the requirements of 2.0 if they can find benefits of doing so. Keep in mind, the $99 HD players did as much as the unannounced 2.0 players.
The real problem with the profiles is that studios won't provide extras because the players won't play them anyways and they cost a substantial amount to produce. The CEs won't get ahead on the HW side and movie into the higher profiles because there is no benefit. It costs a substantial amount to upgrade the player to the higher specs and there is no software for it anyways. So they essentially would have a player costing $100 more that provides the same functionality of its lower priced competitors. I doubt 5,000 1.1 players have been sold to the public (outside of the PS3 obviously).
dalin80 said:
I've really NEVER understood this.
Yes, Sony is a corporation ... and has done some shitty things ...
However, they are likely the single company with the most number of advances in A/V electronics in the world ... and this happens because they constantly reinvest money into R&D.
While its one thing to not be fond of them, if your hobby is A/V ... it really makes no sense to hate them.
OokieSpookie
Banned
Nicodimas said:
For fucks sake ...
There ARE no more issues making bd 50s and all of this is just bitter spin.
Studios won't provide 1.1 extras? THEY ALREADY DO.
Not only that but they went through extra effort to provide "fake" pip and things even before 1.1 was out.
You have gone from coming off as just amusing to sad to straight up pathetic especially for someone who was barely in the thread at all until the announcement hit.
I think they hate Sony for just letting things they make die. Pulling Support or just half-assing there product if you read enough.
I'll leave the thread for ookie
he is a little butthurt that Sony is still half-assing there blu-ray and this scares him. Just remember if your going to get into blu-ray Ps3 is the only option-Which is sad. Peace.(minus the 2 grand players).
I joined the HD war and Best buy won.
OokieSpookie
Banned
Is what real or fake?Lobster said:
Xisiqomelir
Member
Onix said:
I read it on Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Backward_compatibility
and it's on Blu-Ray.com too
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_backwards_compatible
And I'm only positing this as a hypothetical much farther down the line, like in 3 years or so.
Onix said:
A lot of that hate stems from Sony's jacked-up pricing of unremarkable tech. You pay a $400 premium for the Sony badge on an LCD, for example. I doubt many of the haters are doing any examination of useful Sony patents.
Onix said:
It's not a spec requirement. I doubt it will ever matter in players though. Maybe the odd PC burner might drop it.
Nicodimas said:
If a 'platform' isn't selling, eventually you have to kill it. Why should a company be expected to lose money on something indefinitely? Toshiba will end up pulling the plug on the HD DVD platform in due time.
That said, Sony has in fact supported certain platforms that had respectable userbases. MiniDisc, Beta, SACD have had good support given their relative marginal userbases.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
The next few weeks will be very interesting, some big decisions have to be made by lots of companies.
Regarding HD-DVD;
I do think that being region free was what killed HD-DVD, who knows what fox, disney would have done if HD-DVD had the option to put region locks in. Region-free is the direction things are going, especially as the world is increasingly global, however I think it was too early of a decision.
Another mistake was the Combo Disc. They were more expensive then the Blu-Ray counterparts, which also added to the confusion of the format (There was TotalHD, HD-DVD/DVD, and HD-DVD)
I do think that if there was a region lock option, HD-DVD would be the format that won, and the war would have been over last year, or never happened.
The whole situation warrants a damn history book!
Regarding HD-DVD;
I do think that being region free was what killed HD-DVD, who knows what fox, disney would have done if HD-DVD had the option to put region locks in. Region-free is the direction things are going, especially as the world is increasingly global, however I think it was too early of a decision.
Another mistake was the Combo Disc. They were more expensive then the Blu-Ray counterparts, which also added to the confusion of the format (There was TotalHD, HD-DVD/DVD, and HD-DVD)
I do think that if there was a region lock option, HD-DVD would be the format that won, and the war would have been over last year, or never happened.
The whole situation warrants a damn history book!
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