Warner Goes Blu-ray Exclusive Options

[iwannadie]

I wont buy a blu player, I have an HD stand alone player and its great. If Hd is left behind Ill just snag up all the cheap movies. For future release Ill go download content but never blu.

[PerfectGun]

Wow! It's definately not looking good for HD-DVD now. I don't think MS will do that Ultimate 360 machine with built-in HD-DVD, it would be a very stupid move. I've rented a few BR discs and notice that the quality varies from movie to movie.. Some look great and some look downright pityful. Doesn't matter to me really, I don't plan and will probably never purchase a BR movie and most definately won't buy one of their players.. It just a shame that region lock and no standard quality measures seem to be norm for Blu-ray and that is what the "consumer chose".. (?) Sorry, this format was decided by suits and bags of money and not the consumer.

This post has been edited by PerfectGun: Jan 5 2008, 12:55 AM

[BoNeZ]

maaaaaan...MS really messed up by not putting the HD-DVD player in their consoles as standard. With how many millions of consoles sold...pshhh

i really wish they had...this woulda been over a looong time ago.

Actually when I heard about MS bringing out the HD-DVD player for the 360 as a bolt on, I thought it was a brilliant move from a business and marketing standpoint.

1. It allowed them to get the 360 out to many consumers who don't (or didn't at that time) give a rip about HD at all. They just want to play games. They had the cheaper console, much cheaper. And hey, if you want to watch HD movies, they'd hook you up.

2. People can say what they will about either of the formats, but I personally don't think one was technically superiour over the other. Each had some pros and cons (fanboys go away :-) ). However, from a productization standpoint, if you're not 100% certain that your format will win, why embed the hardware. Sell it as a bolt on and if the format you're backing doesn't win out, guess what, you can simply sell a different bolt on later.

This is somewhat akin to being an arms dealer, no matter which side wins, you come out smelling like roses.

--BoNeZ

[sillyboydarryl]

Why on earth do you people insist on bringing up the porn issue. It means nothing today since most of it is spread through digital means.

But truth be told some of you are so blind loyal to HDDVD that nothing really matters anyway. You guys will be the next beta max guys 5 years from now. Sitting alone in your dark basement with pictures of little red HD-DVD disk boxes bouncing in your head wondering why they cant find their favorite movie at their local WalMart.

Who cares people. I have 2 HDDVD stand alone players and my PS3. I would like HDDVD to be doing better but in the end I just want one format to win and it looks like that will be Blu-Ray.

But this war was over before it began. Disney won this war long time ago.

I'll agree with you on the Disney part..

And I'll agree that porn for the most part is based on digital streaming as their means of distribution. But that doesn't change the fact that there is a demand for their product on HD discs. That doesn't change the fact that the demand was strong enough to get the HD DVD exclusive porn industry to move to Bluray..

porn was responsible for both VHS and DVD popularity (technology wise.. )

do a history check up on what moved the technology forward..

The good ol army.. and the sex industry...

I couldn't agree with you more on Disney though... specially with them acquiring Pixar...

[bulge2]

ive always been on the backbecnch - my brother bought loads and LOADS of DVD's and i knew they would be effectively superseeded by another format designed to take the money off everyone.

personally ive been hoping that HDDVD would have more support, just because im anti-sony, but i dont think the 'war' is won yet.

its not just Betamax V VHS again - there are other ways to view HD movies at the moment - legal or not.

Digital delivery media is going to be the winner (eventually!) - look at itunes and how they effectively cornered the market with mp3's that were freely downloadable (and still are). the same will happen with video content.

everyone can see how the 'war' will pan out, but they wont get any of my cash until there is a digital delivery system in place that i can play on my PC, xbox360, PS3 or whatever.

but then im not who they sell current media too so.......

[sillyboydarryl]

For those of you trying to judge the quality of video..

dont bother at this stage...



for those that jumped on DVD early ... we all noticed horrible grain and horrible blacks on dvds .... now .. they've mastered encoding for that format..

the same is true for both HD DVD and Bluray..


I've watched both formats and noticed some movies look amazing at some parts.. and then awful encoded in other parts...


from what I remember ... the Fifth Element was a perfect example as to how they encoded it wrong the first time and a recall was made right away.....

the studios are still learning ....

[Heet]

Buy hard drives instead. Thats what im doing. And at 1TB at a time too.

[xcalixxryderx]

Digital delivery media is going to be the winner (eventually!) - look at itunes and how they effectively cornered the market with mp3's that were freely downloadable (and still are). the same will happen with video content.

Well theres still loads of people around the world who want to hold an item their buying. I love the idea of purchusing\downloading media so long as its DRM free and I can burn\transfer it wherever I want.

As far as blu-ray goes dont you have to have an internet connection for that? maybe I'm wrong but if thats the case I cant see my 70+ yr old grandparents paying for broadband just to view a movies

[Sc0rpion]

What make me laugh is the people stating they will never buy blu-ray or hd-dvd because they prefer one format to the other,
Fact is when one format win's what will you buy? same thing happened with betamax and vhs - one winner and the other faded away.

The truth is a winner will be pushed through and we'll all be force fed the scrap's that are left.
If after a while you can't buy the losing format what else can you buy

This post has been edited by BoNg420: Jan 6 2008, 02:27 AM

[iwannadie]

I'll agree with you on the Disney part..

And I'll agree that porn for the most part is based on digital streaming as their means of distribution. But that doesn't change the fact that there is a demand for their product on HD discs. That doesn't change the fact that the demand was strong enough to get the HD DVD exclusive porn industry to move to Bluray..

porn was responsible for both VHS and DVD popularity (technology wise.. )

do a history check up on what moved the technology forward..

The good ol army.. and the sex industry...

I couldn't agree with you more on Disney though... specially with them acquiring Pixar...

Disney didnt mean as much as you think. I guess you dont remember an old dvd subformat called divx(no thing to do with the codec). Disney jumped on the divx bandwagon to compete with normal dvds. The divx kicker was you buy the disc for a few bucks, then after 24 hours your disc becomes a pay per view disk. The player had to be online(dialup) and hooked to a credit card.

Circuit city pushed that format heavy with disney being exclusive, it failed.

[moddingswede]

Like someone already mentioned, if HD DVD does end up dying, I'll be right there to scoop up the deals. I just got the 360 addon in Oct, and it came with six free movies and Heroes, so I'm happy with it. Worst comes to worst, I'll just buy a PS3 someday.

[iwannadie]

What make me laugh is the people stating they will never buy blu-ray or hd-dvd because they prefer one format to the other,
Fact is when one format win's what will you buy? same thing happened with betamax and vhs - one winner and the other faded away.

There was no digital content alternative back then was there? Its not like my HD dvd player suddenly stops working either, I can watch movies on it just fine lol. I paid 150$ for the player(black friday), so I didnt break the bank on it. I refuse to buy a ps3 and wont pay More for a stand alone blu player instead of a ps3. I Might end up with one at some point but it will be bought at cost through(a friend at) denon.

Also if you think beta faded away your delirious. Beta was the Standard for all tv production and video editing because it was a superior format. Maybe you should research beta before claiming it faded away, or revise to say it faded from consumers?

[Andronicus]

The HD-A2 was selling for $99 before christmas in the US
The HD-A3 was selling for $199 before christmas in the US

each came with 10 HD-DVDs for free with purchase
300, the Bourne Supremacy, 5 more from a select list and 3 more from pretty much anything in the store (save box sets).

HD-DVDs are cheaper... if the cheapest you could find is $350 then they either jack up the price in Canada or they're simply out of stock of the cheap ones.

The cheapest Stand Alone Blu-Ray player I've seen is also $450 though.

Those prices you are quoting are not stand-alone, they are the Xbox add-on (right?)

I checked bestbuy.com as well.

Blue ray: $400
HD-DVD: $300

Same story. Although cheeper, HD-DVD is still in the same "over-priced" ball park.
(pisses me off that they are cheeper in the USA, even though the Canadian dollar is worth more!)

[iceman72]

Well I guess I will be selling my HD addon and all my movies and buy a cheap 20g PS3. It does suck. But all I want is movies. It's bad enough now that not many movies drop on HD. Now this. This now sucks. Plus HD movies are just expensive as hell. I really hate buying them. Oh well, nice try HD and M$. We still win the video game war and thats all that matters.

[sillyboydarryl]

those cheap HD DVD players had a glaring weakness...


no 1080p output....

and yes.. sony said no to porn and the companies that pressed them followed suit.. but that has changed now..