So now that the end to this format war APPEARS to be in sight, how many of you folks who have been waiting to join the hi-def dvd world will now go out and buy a Blu Ray set-up?

Or do you plan on waiting a bit longer?

I'll let the dust settle and watch prices to see if indeed it goes down and if so, I'll add it to my Xmas 08 list.

There should not be many (any) fence sitters here since we are by nature early adopters.

There should not be many (any) fence sitters here since we are by nature early adopters.

Seems that I've seen several postings that prove that to be incorrect sir.

:)

Seems that I've seen several postings that prove that to be incorrect sir.

:)

Please reread: should not is not are not.;)

Untill Toshiba actually ANNOUNCE they are folding the HDDVD tent, nothing has been resolved. Once that happens you are going to have a single format, but also 500,000 plus pissed off recent HDDVD adoptees. HDM is still a mess!

There should not be many (any) fence sitters here since we are by nature early adopters.

I agree, the early adopter train left the station. I don't know what the proper term should be for those that aren't early adopters but buy just before the average person jumps into a new product.... techno tweeners? ;) :D

I was planning on going Blu-Ray, unless IT was on the receiving end of a body-blow like HD-DVD just got. If there were 2 formats, I was going BR.

That said, I have no idea what player to get. I did a ton of research on SD DVD players and like the Denons for under $500, but now if I get BR they don't sell anything in that price range. Will have to look elsewhere I guess or go with a PS3, :rolleyes:

I was planning on going Blu-Ray, unless IT was on the receiving end of a body-blow like HD-DVD just got. If there were 2 formats, I was going BR.

That said, I have no idea what player to get. I did a ton of research on SD DVD players and like the Denons for under $500, but now if I get BR they don't sell anything in that price range. Will have to look elsewhere I guess or go with a PS3, :rolleyes:

Are you saying there are no BR players under $500? Maybe you need to look again (prices have changed from July of 2006).

Heck Wal Mart has one for around $340 plus a rebate now I think...

Edit: WM considers the 5 free movies a "rebate".

Not unless I can buy one for <$200USD,the prices for DF players are rediculous.
BTW:OP your title is misleading,a software player is for PC's.

There should not be many (any) fence sitters here since we are by nature early adopters.
No, many of us here are often late early adopters. IIRC, there are terms for the 5 stages of technology adopters, but I forget what the 2nd stage is. While I have had a HDTV for 3 years, I have been holding off on getting a HD media player for several reasons: waiting for prices to fall, the software & features to become more stable, enough content to make it worthwhile, and for an indication as to who would win this stupid format war. I only occasionally checked the HD media avsforums in large part because of the pointless and repetitive attack threads here. I did come to the conclusion that Blu-Ray was probably going to win a few months ago because of the increasingly shrill and hostile tone of the HD-DVD, ah, supporters. Not that the Blu-Ray fanatics are that calm either, but the tone of the HD-DVD fanatics suggested desperation and denial. Why people act like nasty children with regard to two not that different formats, both backed by different line-ups of large corporations who are only acting for their bottom line, is beyond me.

Anyway, I will likely buy a Blu-ray player by this spring, waiting for more 1.1 compliant players to hit the market to offer some product choices and maybe see some more list price drops by then.

I'm a fence sitter. I don't want to spend the money to go Blu.. Prices are still way too high. If me, a HD movie enthusiast, feels it's still too pricey.. then imagine the general public :\ I didn't invest much into HD-DVD ($99 A2 & few movies on sale at Amazon)..but price is what got me into it. I have a big f*ck-off HDTV and just wanted to experience HD movies. Format had nothing to do with it.. price did. Blu-Ray is, at minimum, $300 more than what I paid to get in in the first place... I also DO NOT WANT the monstrosity that is the PS3 in my living room. It's the best Blu-Ray player available too.. which is sad.

(/rant).. but yeah.. still on the fence. :)

There should not be many (any) fence sitters here since we are by nature early adopters.

I am by nature an early adopter (DVD mid 97, Tivo early 99) but for HDM I am a fence sitter. Two reasons, the main one being the format war the secondary reason being the flakiness of the players.

Fence sitting until blu-ray players reach $99

Fence sitting until blu-ray players reach $99

Same thought ;-)

This time i may be a late adapter.

I'll go BD once there are no movies being released on HD-DVD exclusively, or maybe even to the point that no movies are being released at all on HD-DVD. When I say "go BD", I mean I will start buying movies on BD and not just renting.

Being an early adopter is not a yes/no thing. There are degrees of risk taking. I'm a fence sitter, now I'm just waiting for a death rattle to come from Toshiba and I'll buy a Blu-Ray. If nothing changes in the next 3 months, death rattle or not, I'll buy a Blu-Ray player.

I have been a fence sitter. I will probably go Blu-Ray in the spring. I am HTPC kind of guy so I am waiting on a few kinks to be worked out with the software players.

hd dvd only for now. a 2.0 player in the 299 ballpark, or dual format solution is my next purchase but I'm not in any rush.

I will continue to wait as the quality of the players will only improve, the prices will only drop and the selectin of titles will only increase.

I've been sitting on the fence on this. While WB decision has brought us a lot closer to ending the war I still need to wait until it's confirmed. If Universal or Paramount switch back to neutral or Blu exclusive then it might be time to head for the stores. I feel it's still a little to early to jump in just yet.

I'd be feeling like a HD DVD owner if I went out and bought a BD player today and then next week WB announced that they've changed their minds again.

I am jumping in with a PS3, the 3 Pirates movies (ordered from Amazon), bought Italian Job off of another poster here, and already had the BD version of Babel (free + $5 shipping).

I jumped about 2 weeks ago with a 40GB PS3. I love this thing.

-DVDs look great upconverted.
-Blu-Rays look and sound great.
-The player is very fast. It feels just like a SD-DVD player when its playing Blu-rays.
-Its quiet I cant hear it at all from 10ft away when the movie is playing. My Optoma HD72's fan is louder in econo mode.

I'm glad I waited this long but it was time to choose a side.
If HD-DVD threw a hail mary and won in the final seconds I wouldnt be upset. I would still have a game system.

Or do you plan on waiting a bit longer?

I'm still waiting for more content. I have 150 titles in my Netflix queue, exactly zero of which are on HDM. To be fair: I don't rent much current release material from Netflix, getting those titles from my local small store. Which still doesn't have any HDM.

-Bill

Fence sitting until blu-ray players reach $99

Better buy some ointment for that rear but I guess since you just bought your 1st DVD player a couple of year ago (waiting for $99 DVD) you're used to the fence.

I was a fairly tentative HD DVD adopter, and this experience has led me to the decision that I will not even consider going Blu until all studios are publishing on that format. Until that happens, I'd still have to purchase some HD DVD to have access to all titles, and purchasing HD DVDs does not seem all that appealing right now.

I also want an ethernet connection, mainly for firmware upgrades. Until this shakes out, Comcast provides quite a bit of HD movies and programming to hold me over.

hd dvd only for now. a 2.0 player in the 299 ballpark, or dual format solution is my next purchase but I'm not in any rush.

Exactly. Hopefully, prices will drop on HD DVD movies with the Warner announcement and we can load up. The whole BD profile thing is what turned me off of Blu in the beginning and until that is settled, I will enjoy what I have!

I will still buy HD-DVDs for those that are available and I really feel I need. Previously I purchased many HD DVDs that I would not have bought if I believed the format would go belly up (which has not happened yet either).

I bought into HD DVD because while the hardware (in my case A1) was quirky it had high quality components (good audio DACs, powerful processing capabilities, network capable, etc). Bluray on the other hand was offering more or less a traditional DVD player that could access a larger store of bits and the price was fairly high.

If the price for Blu-Ray players were near what they were for HD DVD players (like the Onkyo or AX-2) then I would jump in. However, I don't believe the current Blu-Ray players have the network capability or dual video stream processing capabilities and certainly not for $600-$800. When they do and HD DVD is buried and given final rights I will dive back in and start a Blu-Ray collection. My fear is that by then the market may have gone niche and software and hardware prices will not come down and may eventually fade away.

I agree with many who think there aren't that many people who see the need for HD Media. I wouldn't recommend it to my friends with 40" television sets whether HD or not since the benefits are marginal. For those with 60"+ screens and/or front projection systems I think it is virtually a requirement, especially once you've seen how it can look.

I was a fairly tentative HD DVD adopter, and this experience has led me to the decision that I will not even consider going Blu until all studios are publishing on that format. Until that happens, I'd still have to purchase some HD DVD to have access to all titles, and purchasing HD DVDs does not seem all that appealing right now.................................



........................... When they do and HD DVD is buried and given final rights I will dive back in and start a Blu-Ray collection. My fear is that by then the market may have gone niche and software and hardware prices will not come down and may eventually fade away.

I agree with many who think there aren't that many people who see the need for HD Media. I wouldn't recommend it to my friends with 40" television sets whether HD or not since the benefits are marginal. For those with 60"+ screens and/or front projection systems I think it is virtually a requirement, especially once you've seen how it can look.
I believe both of the above would be representative of the vast majority of consumers. Particularly, most folks with normal-sized displays, viewing from typical viewing distances, are not going to see that much of an improvement with hd disks over high-quality sds.

Yes, it is the projector owners who are really going to appreciate and pay for hd disks, but how many people own projectors? I personally know of only four projector owners in our neck of the woods. So I think the possibility, described above, that hd disk might become an expensive niche luxury is a strong one.

My wife and don't own either an hd disk player or hd disks. We've enjoyed the SD disks in our library on an HTPC-driven projector and a standalone-driven CRT television for the many years we've had the disks.

Even though it would be great to have every one of those sd movies in our library in hi def, we believe that perhaps only 30% of them (most of them relatively old movies) would be worthy of re-purchase, but exactly how many of them we would re-purchase would be directly related to the price of the upgrade disk. If they were $5, we'd upgrade many. If they were $15, we'd only upgrade a few.

We've been watching the hd battle for quite some time, and it looks like there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

We'd buy a PS3 today, but there are many titles we want that, as of today, are available only on HD-DVD. When those titles are available on BD, we'll buy a player.

Therefore, we'll continue to enjoy our sd dvds until we can buy all titles we want on a single format, or the HD-DVD-exclusive hold-outs at least announce that they, like Warner, will start releasing movies on BD at some definite point in the future. The longer that takes, the more-advanced, feature-rich, and cheaper the up-to-date players will be.

But if a flawless, high-video-quality, dual-format stand-alone were to immediately become available at say the price of the 40G PS3, we might very well buy it now and start buying the titles we want in either format. After all, HD-DVDs may become available at a very attractive price in the very near future and buying them might be a relatively cheap way to upgrade the old disks.

I'm a fence sitter. I don't want to spend the money to go Blu.. Prices are still way too high. If me, a HD movie enthusiast, feels it's still too pricey.. then imagine the general public :\ I didn't invest much into HD-DVD ($99 A2 & few movies on sale at Amazon)..but price is what got me into it. I have a big f*ck-off HDTV and just wanted to experience HD movies. Format had nothing to do with it.. price did. Blu-Ray is, at minimum, $300 more than what I paid to get in in the first place... I also DO NOT WANT the monstrosity that is the PS3 in my living room. It's the best Blu-Ray player available too.. which is sad.

(/rant).. but yeah.. still on the fence. :)

A fence sitter is "one who takes a position of neutrality or indecision, as in a controversial matter" You are not a fence sitter -- you have already made a decision and are an hd dvd supporter. In fact, no real fence sitter would choose option b).

I'm just not willing to spend $300 or more on a Blu-ray machine right now. Waited too long before Christmas to get the HD player deal for $99 (and didn't want to deal with the maddened crowds ;) ) so right now we're just waiting to see what happens.

Would love it if the combo players would drop in price! But I'm not holding my breath on that.

IF the Blu-ray players start going lower in price later this year (or whenever) maybe then we'll invest in one. Right now we've got such a large DVD collection that works just fine with our upconverting DVD recorders and 27in and 32 in TVs (only one of which is an LCD HD)...so really it's not something about which we're in a hurry to make a decision about, anyway.

DGK

Already own Blu-Ray but may get ones for family members so I need not buy DVDs, as they borrow from me.