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

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MaX_PL

Banned
i have no idea but theyre idiots.

i shouldnt havent offered a return policy on my auction though. they have 3 days to return.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
Panajev2001a said:
They also have a major class-action lawsuit on their hands and tons of lawyers going at them with the almost 100% sure guaranteed huge punitive damage just waiting to be imposed on their sorry Mickey Mouse-like butts ;).

All they have to do is put small print on the back of the box like EA does with their sports games when they shut down the online servers to force someone to buy the yearly update.
 

shantyman

WHO DEY!?
ManaByte said:
DIVX was different in that it is actually pretty similar to some of the DRM being used on HD-DVD and BRD discs. In truth, it is very (scarily) similar to BD+, which is kind of funny that Bill Hunt is humping Blu-Ray so heavily when he was so against DIVX.
I completely disagree. Divx was formulated as something that would expire, it was not DRM in the modern sense. BD+ is a form of DRM that could potentially do these things but to my knowledge has not been mentioned like that.

It's really not an apt comparison and there is nothing odd about Bill Hunt 's opinions.
 
ManaByte said:
All they have to do is put small print on the back of the box like EA does with their sports games when they shut down the online servers to force someone to buy the yearly update.
It'll never happen.
 
OokieSpookie said:
They still actually do those, at least something like it.
I have seen machines pop up in the grocery store where you pick a movie and it spits out a disk that expires.


If you are talking about RedBox, those don't stop working, they just charge you late fees.

That's just an automated rental service of good-old DVDs.
 
ManaByte said:
All they have to do is put small print on the back of the box like EA does with their sports games when they shut down the online servers to force someone to buy the yearly update.

You missed your calling, you could have been a star on highdefdigest forums :lol
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
ManaByte said:
All they have to do is put small print on the back of the box like EA does with their sports games when they shut down the online servers to force someone to buy the yearly update.

No, that is not like that... unless EA also comes at your door and takes the disc away from you or destroys your copy of the game so that you cannot play it anymore unless you buy a copy of the new version.

Not to mention that basically turning every disc sold into an undefined time rental one would generate quite nasty PR shit-storm against them...
 

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
Blu dominated again............in my house. :D

Got CastAway and Ed. Scissorhands from the Amazon BOGO, and from Netflix:
Shoot em' up' and Royal Space Force: Wings of Honeamise

All on the same day. Not a bad haul at all.

CastAway I watched bits of. Kinda soft in parts, but looks great in others. The island during the day looks pretty sharp.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Ignatz Mouse said:
If you are talking about RedBox, those don't stop working, they just charge you late fees.

That's just an automated rental service of good-old DVDs.

They do sell some discs that have a "will expire in <X> hours after the opening date"...

Buena Vista (Disney again) experimented with a technology called ez-D (similar tech was invented earlier by FlexPlay Technology... and also the later SpectraDisc).

... umph... they already set a precedent with this... I am not sure if this explicit rental system cannot really be challenged by a court though...

Consumers avoided en-mass this kind of discs and retailers do not jump of joy and make a lot of efforts to order giant stockpiles of them.

As a choice consumers mostly ignored them... if forced upon them on all movies they purchased by some companies... I am not so sure Disney would like to see what would happen ;).
 

Oni Jazar

Member
Panajev2001a said:
They do sell some discs that have a "will expire in <X> hours after the opening date"...

Buena Vista (Disney again) experimented with a technology called ez-D (similar tech was invented earlier by FlexPlay Technology... and also the later SpectraDisc).

... umph... they already set a precedent with this... I am not sure if this explicit rental system cannot really be challenged by a court though...

Consumers avoided en-mass this kind of discs and retailers do not jump of joy and make a lot of efforts to order giant stockpiles of them.

As a choice consumers mostly ignored them... if forced upon them on all movies they purchased by some companies... I am not so sure Disney would like to see what would happen ;).

Ya Flex play and I've seen it at gas stations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexplay
 

Nicodimas

Banned
The hd-dvd camp could be getting the 1000 Indie Movies. It is supposed to be a wide variety of content at that. Heres hoping this actaully happens.. I am always curious what hollywood misses in there pickups of these movies.

Good times :)
 

Dot50Cal

Banned
Nicodimas said:
The hd-dvd camp could be getting the 1000 Indie Movies. It is supposed to be a wide variety of content at that. Heres hoping this actaully happens.. I am always curious what hollywood misses in there pickups of these movies.

Good times :)

Link? Not to be skeptical, but 1000 movies is a lot of encoding time. This has to have been in production for at least some of the titles. With the sales tanking, is this really going to happen?
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Dot50Cal said:
Link? Not to be skeptical, but 1000 movies is a lot of encoding time. This has to have been in production for at least some of the titles. With the sales tanking, is this really going to happen?

You are better off just ignoring him, if a person is even partially convinced that a bunch of indie movies could possibly save a dead format.. there is nothing you can say to change his/her mind.
 

Nicodimas

Banned
:D I just thought it was cool that some indies were getting released. I think people got to pay attention to what is going on a bit more than that. I am not omnipotent so I dont know when and which just heard the rumor.
 

maharg

idspispopd
terrene said:
+ The movie industry has seen what happened to the "mp3-ization" of the music industry and would probably rather eat their mother's shit than go through that.
+ HD movie watchers are videophiles, or else they wouldn't have made the big investment, and would vastly prefer a 50gb version of a movie to the 8-9 gig version.

The other points ignore the fact that storage is ridiculously cheap and only getting cheaper. In a box about the size of an x360 you could easily have a 2TB disk array.

The first point quoted above is absurd. If the movie industry learns that they need to be afraid of online downloads and do everything in their power to stop them, they learned the wrong lesson.

For the second point, mainstream adoption will never - ever - hinge on what videophiles want. When talking about DD, a lot of people in this thread switch between videophile adoption and mainstream adoption to suit their point. If we're talking about the mainstream, it's features and convenience that'll win out over superior encodes any time. When and whether DD will be able to achieve that goal is an open question, but at least keep the argument on one topic.

Basically, I'd rather physical formats stay around as long as possible. I'd like for there to be high end options. But the truth is, if DD succeeds it'll be as a rental service supplanting movie buying altogether. I doubt most people will buy permanent licenses to movies any time soon, but give them a good rental model that actually works and it could take a huge chunk of the casual market.

I think at this point we might end up with DVD, BR, and DD coexisting for quite a while. DVD will be the first to go, and DD will eat into Blockbuster other disc rental services long before it eats into BR. Eventually though (talking decades here), I'd be surprised if DD wasn't the end result, though. But when it's discussed in this thread, the timeline is either ridiculously short (2010!) or ridiculously long (DD will NEVER take over! -- not an exaggeration, several people have said this).
 

thaivo

Member
VanMardigan said:
Blu dominated again............in my house. :D

Got CastAway and Ed. Scissorhands from the Amazon BOGO, and from Netflix:
Shoot em' up' and Royal Space Force: Wings of Honeamise

All on the same day. Not a bad haul at all.

CastAway I watched bits of. Kinda soft in parts, but looks great in others. The island during the day looks pretty sharp.
Van do you watch the whole movies? I usually feel that that is the only true way to watch a film. Watching it in bits and parts because you have too much to watch sometimes devalues the experience I think.
 
Mifune said:
What are these 1000 indie movies?

big_fat_lies.jpg
 
Nicodimas said:
The hd-dvd camp could be getting the 1000 Indie Movies. It is supposed to be a wide variety of content at that. Heres hoping this actaully happens.. I am always curious what hollywood misses in there pickups of these movies.

Good times :)

SO hd-dvd is going to start releasing youtube movies?
 

Killthee

helped a brotha out on multiple separate occasions!

Snah

Banned
maharg said:
The other points ignore the fact that storage is ridiculously cheap and only getting cheaper. In a box about the size of an x360 you could easily have a 2TB disk array.

Storage is not cheap. The cost of a blu-ray sized disc on a HDD would be roughly the same as some of the expensive retail costs of blu-ray discs.

Is it getting cheaper? Of course. Fast enough? Not really.


For the second point, mainstream adoption will never - ever - hinge on what videophiles want. When talking about DD, a lot of people in this thread switch between videophile adoption and mainstream adoption to suit their point. If we're talking about the mainstream, it's features and convenience that'll win out over superior encodes any time. When and whether DD will be able to achieve that goal is an open question, but at least keep the argument on one topic.

And that's why Blu-Ray will win, and DD will be in a perpetual state of disarray for the immediate future. It's easy to buy a disk, and put it in a player and press play. It's a bit more difficult to have to select, download, and manually manage your movie collection on a service that isn't standardized and on a hypothetical box that doesn't exist. And, contrary to what you may think, visual fidelity will play a role. People buying new HDTVs will be buying them with Blu-Ray players pushed at the store. Where, exactly, are all of these DD boxes that will be able to play and STORE content? It's a pipe dream for the forseeable future, and certainly a pipe dream throughout the lifetime of blu-ray and when it hits its peak.


Basically, I'd rather physical formats stay around as long as possible. I'd like for there to be high end options. But the truth is, if DD succeeds it'll be as a rental service supplanting movie buying altogether.

But it won't supplant movie buying altogether (at least, in DD's present state). It may supplant different models of renting, but that's it. If anything, people want to OWN their content. This goes for music and for movies. They may want to rent movies they haven't seen, but for their favorites that they will watch a few times, they will desire ownership.

This has been proven time and time again. Rental services are nothing new, and they haven't supplanted permanent forms of ownership of content.

I doubt most people will buy permanent licenses to movies any time soon, but give them a good rental model that actually works and it could take a huge chunk of the casual market.

I think at this point we might end up with DVD, BR, and DD coexisting for quite a while. DVD will be the first to go, and DD will eat into Blockbuster other disc rental services long before it eats into BR. Eventually though (talking decades here), I'd be surprised if DD wasn't the end result, though. But when it's discussed in this thread, the timeline is either ridiculously short (2010!) or ridiculously long (DD will NEVER take over! -- not an exaggeration, several people have said this).


I think most people realize that DD is the future, but this is a thread about HDM wars. It's about Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD (or was). Blu-Ray will be a viable success for the next 10+ years and beyond, and when people laugh at DD it's because it's not a threat to Blu-Ray during its lifetime.

There are significant hurdles that DD must face, and eventually I believe they will overcome them, but it's not only going to take a monumental overhaul of the internet pipes and infrastructure, but also technological changes in the forms of storage capacity and the studios working together to form some sort of common model, and CE manufacturers to support that model with a single, standardized box to process the content. As you suggested, this will take decades.

I can see a future where, with one click of the remote, you can instantly download whatever you want, whenever you want, and have it be in the highest quality imagineable, delivered quickly with no fear of storage limitations. However, this is a very, very long ways away and it is beyond when Blu-Ray will still be relevant.
 

avaya

Member
maharg said:
Not saying it's not important, just saying that it's where to look for consumer trends in a lot of ways. Using the world average when a major market is substantially ahead of the curve is a little deceptive. It at least requires a caveat notice.

South Korea's numbers on that chart are crazy btw.

I agree with you on this. However I don't believe that the ownership model for video DD will threaten DVD or HD optical in any major way, I see it co-existing.

I will lay off the usual infrastructure arguments which still remain a major obstacle and focus on consumer motivation.

My view comes from the environment that music has today, it's been ripe for DD services for a long time with manageable file sizes, a “monopolist” (the loosest definition i.e. >25% share) in Apple spearheading the way with an iconic product in the iPod and content owners now willing to sell without DRM (which is self mutilation) to loosen the grip of the monopolist.

Maybe a dominant player can establish itself in the living room but with so many different industries competing for that space: The CE's, the Telco's and software giants this will be a battle that no one can likely win decisively.

You will have so many competing platforms, that it will make it a nightmare for the consumer. The idea of transferring movies between platforms is going to be difficult to say the least. It's consumer confusion on a much larger scale.

Maybe if the studios come together and form an effective cartel(without the price fixing) they can establish a closed standard (FairPlay style) which all the competitors in the marketplace can license from. This is the only way DD for video will ever succeed on a large scale.

I believe DD for rentals has taken off. However the DD ownership model leaves a lot to be desired from consumer confidence, convenience to sovereignty.
 
Snah said:
the studios working together to form some sort of common model,

This hints at probably the biggest problem to DD right now: rights and regions. It's an issue that seems to be glossed over a bit in the states because the studios are usually there to take care of their own business. Until the studios can get over the desperate fear over what might happen to their regular revenue streams (DVD, syndication, theaters, out-of-country licensing), they have no reason to agree on pro-consumer methods let alone a common model for digital distribution.
 
from that same HDDigest thread:
Solstice X said:
I sold back all of my HD DVD WB titles and bought them in Blu. Eventually I will retire my A2 to the junk closet. However, I'm not worried since I only paid $98 for it. Minimal investment so I don't mind the HD DVD format going the way of the beta.
I think this is also big reason for the huge split.
 

terrene

Banned
maharg said:
The other points ignore the fact that storage is ridiculously cheap and only getting cheaper. In a box about the size of an x360 you could easily have a 2TB disk array.
And that would somehow be more convenient than a blu-ray player where you can take your movies anywhere why? 2 TB of storage is easily $500, and that's before the decoding technology is taken into account. Again, this must be a convenient solution, and cannot be the size of a 360.

The first point quoted above is absurd. If the movie industry learns that they need to be afraid of online downloads and do everything in their power to stop them, they learned the wrong lesson.
"Absurd?" I'm sorry, but the profitability of an entire form of media has been destroyed. You don't think this matters to entertainment corporations? It's just different arms and legs of the same companies. I'm not sure they learned to "be afraid of downloads," but I think they could see how devices that support "drag and drop" storage of feature films (that don't care whether the content on the device is licensed or not) would lead to much the same fate.

For the second point, mainstream adoption will never - ever - hinge on what videophiles want. When talking about DD, a lot of people in this thread switch between videophile adoption and mainstream adoption to suit their point. If we're talking about the mainstream, it's features and convenience that'll win out over superior encodes any time. When and whether DD will be able to achieve that goal is an open question, but at least keep the argument on one topic.
I was addressing the point of DD vs. Blu-Ray, and indeed the other points being discussed are around the size of what HD downloads would look like. If you think that nobody buying BRDs care about quality, then I don't understand why Blu-Ray exists. Mainstream is indeed a seperate topic, I'm simply stating: DD will never compete with Blu-Ray. That is a non-starter. People buy Blu-Rays because they want the definitive versions of their content, theirs forever, in the highest-possible quality. The nature of DD makes all three of these things impossible. I don't care how cheap a terabyte of storage is.

I think at this point we might end up with DVD, BR, and DD coexisting for quite a while. DVD will be the first to go, and DD will eat into Blockbuster other disc rental services long before it eats into BR. Eventually though (talking decades here), I'd be surprised if DD wasn't the end result, though. But when it's discussed in this thread, the timeline is either ridiculously short (2010!) or ridiculously long (DD will NEVER take over! -- not an exaggeration, several people have said this).
I think people's thirst for convenience and hate for awkward DRM-heavy solutions will radically accelerate the timeline for DD ownership to be a competitor against physical media, but only for DVDs. Blu-Rays serve a new purpose: not just to have "a copy" of a movie, but to have "the" copy of the movie. DD is not going to serve such a market. Even people who pirate HD content are putting it up at low-bitrate 720p.
 

calder

Member
Meh, went to buy 3:10 to Yuma at HMV on my way home and the shitty little store in my local ghetto mall didn't have it in BRD. Can't wait until they expand their tiny HD movie section, when Simpsons movie came out they only had it in DVD too.

Random side note: when I was frowning looking at the meagre selection of movies they did have on with a crap 2/$50 sale a smoking hot woman came up and started looking through the BRDs too. She picked up "Shoot 'em Up" on BRD, I know this because she was in line in front of me looking at the case while I enjoyed the view. So that's a plus for the BRD camp too. ;P


I can't be bothered to read much of this thread, but I guess I'll have to just to see what all this DD shit is coming from. I love the idea of renting HD movies DD, but for me I can't ever imagine DD being anything other than a convenient adjunct to physical media. Until we're able to buy 1080p movies with all the 2 hours of bonus feature shit that doesn't take a week to download I can't imagine buying downloadable movies really.

And besides, there will always be people who want to buy a cool briefcase full of shit for the movies they truly love just to have the sweet art books and kickass little spinner car. :drool
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
bune duggy said:
from that same HDDigest thread:I think this is also big reason for the huge split.

I've replaced most of my WB HD-DVD titles with BRD ones. Only ones I still need to do are Goodfellas, Unforgiven, 2001, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Terminator 3 (when the 1080p version is re-released) and Troy: DC.

Of course I still want Batman Begins, V For Vendetta, Dukes of Hazzard, Constantine, Forbidden Planet, The Matrix Trilogy, and all the other exclusive Warner titles to go to BRD.
 

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
thaivo said:
Van do you watch the whole movies? I usually feel that that is the only true way to watch a film. Watching it in bits and parts because you have too much to watch sometimes devalues the experience I think.


Of course I do. I just watched Edward Scissorhands with my wife. The whole thing. Aside from a few spots, it looked very good. Sometimes, I just pop in a disc I just got to check out how it looks quickly, that was the CastAway comment. I only have like 3 discs I own that I haven't seen, which is due to me getting the 5 free movies from that offer.

Check out the HD movie thread for some good discussion on movies. It needs some more posters.
 
Cheesemeister said:
Did you e-mail Disney privately? What did the message say?

Disney e-mail said:
Thank you for the email. We have received your contact information and will be sending a replacement to you.

If you have any other questions please reply with history to this email.

Thank you for your patience.

Walt Disney Home Entertainment Technical Support
5

I was wondering if somebody else in this thread got their copy replaced.
 

Costanza

Banned
The Main Event said:
I was wondering if somebody else in this thread got their copy replaced.
I called for mine. Just gave my info and in a week it showed up in my mailbox and I didn't need to send anything back.
 
I just want Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead on Blu Ray soon. I dont want to have to buy an HDdvd player to see these flicks, and thats it. The whole 'war' just blows from this consumers view. I want to spend money, dammit!
 

MaX_PL

Banned
man i'm starting to regret this ebay sale now.

you guys think this list plus the xbox 360 add on was a good sale at $255? i probably spent around $400 for all of this.

Blade Runner 5 Disc Set
Blood Diamond
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
V For Vendetta
Syriana
Superman Returns
The Road Warrior
Beerfest Unrated
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Dazed and Confused
The Kingdom
Serenity
King Kong
The Bourne Ultimatum
Children of Men
Knocked Up Unrated
Eastern Promises
Transformers
Disturbia
Mission Impossible III
 

SRG01

Member
MaX_PL said:
man i'm starting to regret this ebay sale now.

you guys think this list plus the xbox 360 add on was a good sale at $255? i probably spent around $400 for all of this.

Blade Runner 5 Disc Set
Blood Diamond
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
V For Vendetta
Syriana
Superman Returns
The Road Warrior
Beerfest Unrated
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Dazed and Confused
The Kingdom
Serenity
King Kong
The Bourne Ultimatum
Children of Men
Knocked Up Unrated
Eastern Promises
Transformers
Disturbia
Mission Impossible III

What condition are all of these in? You're lucky to be getting $255 if they're decently used.
 
MaX_PL said:
man i'm starting to regret this ebay sale now.

you guys think this list plus the xbox 360 add on was a good sale at $255? i probably spent around $400 for all of this.

Blade Runner 5 Disc Set
Blood Diamond
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
V For Vendetta
Syriana
Superman Returns
The Road Warrior
Beerfest Unrated
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Dazed and Confused
The Kingdom
Serenity
King Kong
The Bourne Ultimatum
Children of Men
Knocked Up Unrated
Eastern Promises
Transformers
Disturbia
Mission Impossible III

Shit, the guy who won it got one hell of a deal. You have a lot of new releases.
 
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