Just curious. I myself watch BD on my PS3.

Phat

I have the Toshiba HD-XA2 for HD DVDs and the PS3 for BD. Very happy with both.

PS3 for BD.

Result of this poll is surprising, although not entirely unexpected. The percentage of standalone BD players should be concerning to BD CE companies.

It's so ridiculous how the movie industry has become dependent of the gaming world*
While HD DVD could at least stand on its own, Blu-ray would be completely out of the question without its gaming machine.

*I know I may be biased here. But I've always seen motion pictures as a higher artform while games (which I do enjoy to play every now and then on the PC) are cheap entertainment to me. It makes me sad to see the dependency go the wrong direction.
And don't give me that "media hub" crap, something that ships with a game controller is not a media hub.

P.S.: to steer away from creating too much controversy. When I speak of "higher artform" and "cheap entertainment" it boils down to this: I have much more respect for Robert DeNiro than I do for the creators of Metal Gear Solid.

I have chosen both the standalone player and the Xbox add-on, even though I use the add-on on a PC as opposed to the Xbox itself.

It's so ridiculous how the movie industry has become dependent of the gaming world*
While HD DVD could at least stand on its own, Blu-ray would be completely out of the question without its gaming machine.

*I know I may be biased here. But I've always seen motion pictures as a higher artform while games (which I do enjoy to play every now and then on the PC) are cheap entertainment to me. It makes me sad to see the dependency go the wrong direction.
And don't give me that "media hub" crap, something that ships with a game controller is not a media hub.

P.S.: to steer away from creating too much controversy. When I speak of "higher artform" and "cheap entertainment" it boils down to this: I have much more respect for Robert DeNiro than I do for the creators of Metal Gear Solid.

It's an interesting concern you raise. I wouldn't agree that Robert Diniro somehow "deserves" more respect than Hideo Kojima because I think they both bring important value to the entertainment industry in their respective areas.

I do wonder if the fact that a gaming console makes up a huge percentage of ownership might not skew the type of movies that sell on optical media and ultimately the types of movies that get made or get resources or get put in high definition formats etc?

A movie like Crank for instance goes very well with a game console dominated player market but what about dramas and other less action oriented films?

Result of this poll is surprising, although not entirely unexpected. The percentage of standalone BD players should be concerning to BD CE companies.
It's all about the pricing. Toshiba's player is cheap, the BD players are not. BD supporting companies knew the competition's pricing strategy since CES '06... it's pretty clear from their pricing of players released last fall that they aren't concerned at all. I do agree that they should be though.

It's all about the pricing. Toshiba's player is cheap, the BD players are not.
I would say "affordable".

They certainly can't be called cheap. "Cheap" would mean that they are stripped-down players that don't have decoders for advanced audio formats like DD+ and TruHD, and don't have very good upscaling, and can't play CDs, and don't support the full-spec interactive language of the format, and don't have network ports or usable on-board memory, etc.

A good thing nobody came out with players that were stripped down and cheap like that - since it sure would have been hard to sell those for $500. What's that? Someone DID? And they priced them at what? $1,000??

:)

I would say "affordable".

They certainly can't be called cheap. "Cheap" would mean that they are stripped-down players that don't have decoders for advanced audio formats like DD+ and TruHD, and don't have very good upscaling, and can't play CDs, and don't support the full-spec interactive language of the format, and don't have network ports or usable on-board memory, etc.

A good thing nobody came out with players that were stripped down and cheap like that - since it sure would have been hard to sell those for $500. What's that? Someone DID? And they priced them at what? $1,000??

:)

If you have trouble selling something at a low price, double the price and people will think it is worth buying.

The relatively high numbers of the Xbox add-on are a bit of a surprise.

I use the A1 for movies.

Hey,

It's BR on PS3 for me.

And,.. I love all the other stuff I can do with the ps3 as well, CD's, DVD's, SACD's, games, internet, file transfer from my living room pc, mp3 juke box with visualizations, Photo slideshows while playing mp3's.. It's crazy how amazing the PS3 is.

-Brian

I do wonder if the fact that a gaming console makes up a huge percentage of ownership might not skew the type of movies that sell on optical media and ultimately the types of movies that get made or get resources or get put in high definition formats etc?

Very interesting post.
That does seem to describe BRs choice of movies.
J

HD-A1 and PS3 for me. Interesting how less than 10% of HD viewers are using BR standalones.... OUCH!

Very interesting post.
That does seem to describe BRs choice of movies.
J


Yes, Blu-ray movie releases might tend to be very friendly to the gaming demographic.

The ps3 just proves price is everything. The standalone BD players are so much more that pepole don't want to buy. I think this poll would be much different if standalone BD players were at the 500 buck mark. Infact I may have a BD player as well although I still think I'd have gone HDDVD first either way...

I use the Blu-ray drive in my Sony AR290 laptop, so there's no choice I can select in the poll.

I needed a new laptop, and this way I have an HD option for the next 6-9 months until standalone players have more reasonable prices and shorter load times. I'll probably get an HD DVD player for our home theater then, so we'll have both formats.

Until then, I just connect the laptop to our HT using HDMI and SPDIF. My Harmony remote controls everything, including the laptop.

It works well, although I wish there was a way to get lossless PCM audio into my receiver, which doesn't have an HDMI input. That's one advantage of standalone players: analog audio outputs.

I was also pleasantly surprised to select the Blu-ray option on Netflix and see a dozen titles in my queue switch to that format.

Consoles are the only way to go in the first stages of a format war.

Maybe I'll consider a standalone in 2008...

just goes to show that blu ray rightfully should be dead by now.

Quote "just goes to show that blu ray rightfully should be dead by now."

Well, it doesn't read that way to me at least.

Anyway, what's done is done and I'm sure it's not going to die now.

I was a little bit worried about chooseing a format that would go away but it's clear that's not Blu Ray. I am very glad HD DVD had such a strong start because it seems clear that had a big influence in convincing studios Blu Ray should be done right (you know well master-ed and stuff.)

-Brian

Base PS3 + Base 360 + hd-dvd = $1000

Premium PS3 + Premium 360 + hd-dvd = $1200

This is the price range of some of the single format standalone players.

Considering that you get a couple of HD/BD movies in there and systems that together can provide do a LOT more functions on HDTV's (network streaming, direct media players, chat, online HD downloads, gaming yada yada) it's a wonder to me some people are really waiting for hybrid players.

The 2 game consoles together easily provide more value than a single hybrid will ever provide.