The HD DVD group official stance: "We are still supporting HD DVD" - from highdefdigest phone call
link (http://www.highdefdigest.com/)

Blu-Ray: "The market will decide" - from press conference just now
link (http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/07/live-from-the-blu-ray-press-conferenece/)

So what do you think? Sounds like it's up to us.

The market will decide... if only. Let's get ALL studios neutral and then the market truly can decide.

Its never been up to us. If every studio released in both formats, then we could decide, which would have been a landslide for HD DVD.

What the BDA is doing right now is like Ford convincing 75% of the gas stations to not sell gas to GMs and then turn around and brag about how much better their cars are and how it's "The Consumers Preference".

Pathetic.....

"The market will decide" almost sounds like there was a can of PEPSI and a can of COKE on a table, and we got to sip them both a choose. So far nothing, has resembled such a circumstance, from day one choices have been made for us. The BDA/SONY writing a fat check then saying "the balls in your court people" is disingenuous at best.

bet places like best buy, circuit city, target and walmart help with what they decide
is going on the shelves.

Its never been up to us. If every studio released in both formats, then we could decide, which would have been a landslide for HD DVD.

What the BDA is doing right now is like Ford convincing 75% of the gas stations to not sell gas to GMs and then turn around and brag about how much better their cars are and how it's "The Consumers Preference".

Pathetic.....


right, hd dvd hat 40% of all studios and still out outsold 3:1.

The market has been deciding, the vast majority of early adopting home theater enthusiasts have gone with blu-ray.

Titles from neutral studios mostly sold better on Blu-ray last year.

For example, the last Paramount title ("Disturbia") sold on Blu-ray was 68:32.

It is very possible that if all studios had supported both formats, that a) adoption might have been much faster, and b) Blu-ray might have won.

I bet if HD-DVD got Warner at most the sales would be 70:30 in HD's favour.. which is what Blu Ray was doing when WB was neutral.

Its never been up to us. If every studio released in both formats, then we could decide, which would have been a landslide for HD DVD.

What the BDA is doing right now is like Ford convincing 75% of the gas stations to not sell gas to GMs and then turn around and brag about how much better their cars are and how it's "The Consumers Preference".

Pathetic.....

Talk about hittin' the nail on the head with that!! BAM!!!

100% agree!

Its never been up to us. If every studio released in both formats, then we could decide, which would have been a landslide for HD DVD.

What the BDA is doing right now is like Ford convincing 75% of the gas stations to not sell gas to GMs and then turn around and brag about how much better their cars are and how it's "The Consumers Preference".

Pathetic.....Are the studios obligated to support both formats? Are they not allowed to have a say?
You forget that most studios were exclusive to Blu Ray in the beginning and it was HD-DVD sending out cheques to get studios to go neutral or HD exclusive.

(and theres still no proof Fox or Warner accepted payments)

The market has been deciding, the vast majority of early adopting home theater enthusiasts have gone with blu-ray.

This has to be the funniest remark I've read in last year and a half. I'm sorry I don't want to sound insulting, but I can't believe you are serious? Are you?

95% of the Blu-Ray format has been picked by GAMERS not by home theater enthusiasts by buying Playstation console in hopes of playing PS2 games in next gen flavor with a bonus of Blu-Ray. The number of sold standalones is pretty clear indicator what home theater enthusiasts picked. This is why Sony purposely made Playstation 3 logo out of the same font as Spiderman. It didn't become clear why they did it, until the format war. They pushed the movie format on gamers and that's an absolute fact.

I'm sorry but I completely disagree. Are you sure you forgot to add a smiley behind your statement, because it's obviously humorous. I just simply can't believe that anyone can even think that Blu-Ray so far has been anything but a HUGE majority a gamer's format that became extremely insulting to home theater enthusiasts by polluting and mixing the two in an unidentified mass.

The market truly decided VHS over Beta. Not this one.

The market truly decided VHS over Beta. Not this one.Its funny. Sony bowed out when VHS had a 70:30 market share lead over Betamax.
BR has had a 70:30 lead all year...

Of course the market will decide. There were two HD products, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, plus DVD and countless other ways of getting movies. Not enough people choose HD-DVD for it to survive in that marketplace, in large part because people decided to sit on the sidelines due to the two comepting formats. This imaginary world where studios are neutral and consumers make choices based on hardware alone is just not the world we live in. If I were constructing a fantasy world, I wouldn't build it around the "better" format for storing 0s and 1s on a silver disc.

Its funny. Sony bowed out when VHS had a 70:30 market share lead over Betamax.
BR has had a 70:30 lead all year...

Not really.. I think it's closer to 60:40 year to date.. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the correct number is 62:38

This has to be the funniest remark I've read in last year and a half. I'm sorry I don't want to sound insulting, but I can't believe you are serious? Are you?

95% of the Blu-Ray format has been picked by GAMERS not by home theater enthusiasts by buying Playstation console in hopes of playing PS2 games in next gen flavor with a bonus of Blu-Ray. The number of sold standalones is pretty clear indicator what home theater enthusiasts picked. This is why Sony purposely made Playstation 3 logo out of the same font as Spiderman. It didn't become clear why they did it, until the format war. They pushed the movie format on gamers and that's an absolute fact.

I'm sorry but I completely disagree. Are you sure you forgot to add a smiley behind your statement, because it's obviously humorous.

No worries, I am serious and don't feel insulted. I don't agree with you at all however :) I simply don't look only at stand alone players but the bigger picture.

The truth is many gamers are home theater enthusiasts. Video games systems help push the sells of TV's and sound systems in a major way in retail stores such as Best Buy (#1 HDM seller from what I've read).

I like to think of this in terms of (ironically) my favorite triology in movies:

By the way I'm HDDVD

Starwars - The battle is waged and I feel good about the Republic (HDDVD)

The Empire Strikes Back - Sony makes a big blow with Warner

Return of the Jedi - With not much hope left the lone Jedi (Toshiba) returns and triumphs!!

If only life were like this...you gotta admit this was nice wishful thinking

The studios decided... with a little help from BDA.

Unless everyone started out with neutral studios.. there was never any consumer choice.

... I just simply can't believe that anyone can even think that Blu-Ray so far has been anything but a HUGE majority a gamer's format that became extremely insulting to home theater enthusiasts by polluting and mixing the two in an unidentified mass.

And people say BD fans are arrogant and obnoxious? :eek:

Of course the market will decide. There were two HD products, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, plus DVD and countless other ways of getting movies. Not enough people choose HD-DVD for it to survive in that marketplace, in large part because people decided to sit on the sidelines due to the two comepting formats. This imaginary world where studios are neutral and consumers make choices based on hardware alone is just not the world we live in. If I were constructing a fantasy world, I wouldn't build it around the "better" format for storing 0s and 1s on a silver disc.

I'm sorry but I have to interject. HD DVD is, contrarty to Blu-ray fans desires, a format that is still available and hold 40% of the catalog market share, and also available everywhere. The people have not even started choosing, so it's fictitious to say not enough people chose. Again, Blu-Ray was picked up by early die hard Sony fans, which you can see by the insanely aggressive and cult-like sabotaging and attacking by Blu-ray owners. Of course it's not fair to say all, as there are quite understandably a few home theater enthusiasts that picked Blu-Ray based on the fact that it had better specifications, but majority of Blu-Ray fans (gamers) are simply over the top die-hard that they go out of their way to actually attack people and physically try to sabotage them not to pick up HD DVD>

The mass market was supposed to start adopting HD DVD this year and Sony outplayed Toshiba in the checkbook game. We all know that HD DVD would've won this year if it was on the merits and the economy of the formats.

Its never been up to us. If every studio released in both formats, then we could decide, which would have been a landslide for HD DVD.
Not true. Since the start, there have been plenty of Blu-Ray fans who supported Blu-Ray for technical reasons (e.g. capacity and bandwidth for audio), irregardless of studios. In many older AVS Forum threads, people assumed the format war would come down to price verses capacity and audio formats. Even if every studio released in both formats, it would not have been one-sided.

There is no market to decide. With ANY exclusive studios, it's just not a single market. It's really two separate markets. Kind of silly to compare sales between the two.

I saw somewhere from a thread this morning about Star Trek HDDVD. They are predicting that about 100k movies will be sold this year. We've seen a lot of post claiming that HDDVD is dead due to the Jan 4 Warner's big news. Assuming that sale predictions becomes true, will it change anything? Even if StarTrek gets sold at 20bucks per copy, that's 2m.

And people say BD fans are arrogant and obnoxious? :eek:

That part I find funny as HD DVD fans constantly bashed people for buying the PS3 as well as making statement "I don't want a toy in my home theater, but a reall movie playet, etc" or "The PS3 is going to suck as a movie player" despite the PS3 being superior to most of the HD DVD players. Also the numerous times they'll result to comments of the PS3 getting killed by the Wii or 360 in sales when sales numbers are posted for blu-ray versus hd dvd.

I read that 60 million HDTV sets have sold in North America since 2000.

That would appear to me that given current player stats... something like 1,000,000 of those chose HD-DVD.. and 2 or 3 million (depending how you classify PS3 owners) chose Bluray...

That sounds to me like tops 5,000,000 have decided which format to go with... and 55,000,000 are still yet undecided.

Basically less than 10% of the market has decided so far.. and of that.. probably only 6% have chosen Bluray.

I'm sorry but I have to interject. HD DVD is, contrarty to Blu-ray fans desires, a format that is still available and hold 40% of the catalog market share, and also available everywhere. The people have not even started choosing, so it's fictitious to say not enough people chose. Again, Blu-Ray was picked up by early die hard Sony fans, which you can see by the insanely aggressive and cult-like sabotaging and attacking by Blu-ray owners. Of course it's not fair to say all, as there are quite understandably a few home theater enthusiasts that picked Blu-Ray based on the fact that it had better specifications, but majority of Blu-Ray fans (gamers) are simply over the top die-hard that they go out of their way to actually attack people and physically try to sabotage them not to pick up HD DVD>

The mass market was supposed to start adopting HD DVD this year and Sony outplayed Toshiba in the checkbook game. We all know that HD DVD would've won this year if it was on the merits and the economy of the formats.

Of course it looks that way when a person sports blublockers. :cool:

I don't sport those blublockers and don't fall into your "We" that is for sure. Then again the vast majority don't either :D

Not true. Since the start, there have been plenty of Blu-Ray fans who supported Blu-Ray for technical reasons (e.g. capacity and bandwidth for audio), irregardless of studios. In many older AVS Forum threads, people assumed the format war would come down to price verses capacity and audio formats. Even if every studio released in both formats, it would not have been one-sided.

I am convinced the "right" format appears to be the winner because the bandwidth/storage advantages. But, I also suspect the technical superiority had nothing to do with Warner's decision to go Blu-ray.

It is only a matter of time for HD-DVD. And it is plain silly to assert that the "majority" of Blu-Ray owners are so "over the top die-hard that they go out of their way to actually attack people and physically try to sabotage them not to pick up HD DVD." That's baseless hyperbole, to say the very least.

And we do not all "know that HD DVD would've won this year if it was on the merits and the economy of the formats." The media sales figures and the most recent stand-alone sales figures show that to be more hope than reality.

I'm sorry but I have to interject. HD DVD is, contrarty to Blu-ray fans desires, a format that is still available and hold 40% of the catalog market share, and also available everywhere. The people have not even started choosing, so it's fictitious to say not enough people chose. Again, Blu-Ray was picked up by early die hard Sony fans, which you can see by the insanely aggressive and cult-like sabotaging and attacking by Blu-ray owners. Of course it's not fair to say all, as there are quite understandably a few home theater enthusiasts that picked Blu-Ray based on the fact that it had better specifications, but majority of Blu-Ray fans (gamers) are simply over the top die-hard that they go out of their way to actually attack people and physically try to sabotage them not to pick up HD DVD>

The mass market was supposed to start adopting HD DVD this year and Sony outplayed Toshiba in the checkbook game. We all know that HD DVD would've won this year if it was on the merits and the economy of the formats.

Its funny. Sony bowed out when VHS had a 70:30 market share lead over Betamax.
BR has had a 70:30 lead all year...

The difference is that the studios released on both formats back then, and the market truly decided. Hardly the case in this instance.

Of course it looks that way when a person sports blublockers. :cool:

I don't sport those blublockers and don't fall into your "We" that is for sure. Then again the vast majority don't either :D

I think with responses like that, I'm sure a lot of people take your seriously.

It says a lot about your credibility. Have a great night and you are free to live in your reality I guess.

The market will decide... if only. Let's get ALL studios neutral and then the market truly can decide.

infinity+1 ;)

"The market will decide" almost sounds like there was a can of PEPSI and a can of COKE on a table, and we got to sip them both a choose. So far nothing, has resembled such a circumstance, from day one choices have been made for us. The BDA/SONY writing a fat check then saying "the balls in your court people" is disingenuous at best.

No there was a can of Coke and a can of Pepsi. And you did get to choose which one you wanted. You could have chosen one, the other or both. We all entered the format war hopefully with a realistic understanding that it wasn't going to be pretty but that someone would likely come out on top - by nook or by crook. Since money talks how surprised can you be that Warner walked (or Paramount for that matter or any other studio).

But I agree that "the market will decide" is a gratuitous statement made from the winning side.

It is only a matter of time for HD-DVD. And it is plain silly to assert that the "majority" of Blu-Ray owners are so "over the top die-hard that they go out of their way to actually attack people and physically try to sabotage them not to pick up HD DVD." That's baseless hyperbole, to say the very least.


I think you need to visit places like Blu-Ray.com and HollywoodInHiDef in order to really understand what I'm talking about. From people working in retail stores downright lie and mislead customers showing them a DVD display and saying it's HD DVD and then coming back to Blu-Ray.com to brag about it (in more cases then one) to the fact they go and hide HD DVD titles behind regular DVD titles or Blu-Ray titles while waiting for people to come and pick up HD DVD so they can attack them with Blu-ray has won and HD DVD is crap rhetoric, or sending their family members and wives to different Walmarts to sabotage sales of $99 players by getting in the faces of people waiting to buy them shows the things for what they are. I don't have to make them up, they are all very real.


And we do not all "know that HD DVD would've won this year if it was on the merits and the economy of the formats." The media sales figures and the most recent stand-alone sales figures show that to be more hope than reality.

And what is that? HD DVD has killed Blu-Ray SALs so far with numbers reaching 3:1. One month of better sales is what you are grasping for? And I still havent' seen those December numbers.

PS3 aside as we all know what the deal is there.

Its never been up to us. If every studio released in both formats, then we could decide, which would have been a landslide for HD DVD.

What the BDA is doing right now is like Ford convincing 75% of the gas stations to not sell gas to GMs and then turn around and brag about how much better their cars are and how it's "The Consumers Preference".

Pathetic.....

Agreed.

The average consumer has only made one choice in this HD Format war, and that decision was to stay out of it.

Agreed.

The average consumer has only made one choice in this HD Format war, and that decision was to stay out of it.

They were the smartest of us all.

The market will decide... if only. Let's get ALL studios neutral and then the market truly can decide.

Great post, and if that ever happened, we know how it would turn out.

AVS Forum is now infested with gamers...This is why you will see a lot of members buying standalones even on Blu-Ray and dual format players, because they are true home theater enthusiasts.

So those who enjoy gaming AND are home theater enthusiasts are an infestation, eh?

The complete lack of tact in this post is astonishing. I can only hope that this is born of your recent frustrations and not of pure ignorance.

:(

They were the smartest of us all.

Nope. The ones that bought Blu-ray were.

Obviously, some people are still upset and are letting their emotions get the best of them.

There are lots of very reasonable Blu-Ray owners, including many stand-alone owners. According to Toshiba's figures, it looks like there are more Blu-Ray stand-alones than HD-DVD stand-alones. I have found that big-box incompetence is format-neutral. The fact that there are those that are too zealous (on both sides) does not give one license to mis-characterize a diverse group of people. And, again, we don't "all know" what you seem to believe.

I think you need to visit places like Blu-Ray.com and HollywoodInHiDef in order to really understand what I'm talking about. From people working in retail stores downright lie and mislead customers showing them a DVD display and saying it's HD DVD and then coming back to Blu-Ray.com to brag about it (in more cases then one) to the fact they go and hide HD DVD titles behind regular DVD titles or Blu-Ray titles while waiting for people to come and pick up HD DVD so they can attack them with Blu-ray has won and HD DVD is crap rhetoric, or sending their family members and wives to different Walmarts to sabotage sales of $99 players by getting in the faces of people waiting to buy them shows the things for what they are. I don't have to make them up, they are all very real.



And what is that? HD DVD has killed Blu-Ray SALs so far with numbers reaching 3:1. One month of better sales is what you are grasping for? And I still havent' seen those December numbers.

PS3 aside as we all know what the deal is there.

I think with responses like that, I'm sure a lot of people take your seriously.

It says a lot about your credibility. Have a great night and you are free to live in your reality I guess.

I think that you are being to harsh. Did you ever think that the PS3 is selling because of the BD ability as opposed to it's gaming power? BD sales easily out rank sale of PS3 games....

The point is I don't know what people are using PS3s for and neither do you. You can't make these random judgements. I'm 27 and find the PS3 to be a value for my interests. Get this....most gamers....like movies!

This may be true, but the major problem is that you are putting a gamer (in majority of cases a casual movie watcher) in the same category as home theater enthusiast.

What you see as a problem I see as a solution. Well problem for Toshiba, granted they tried to go the same path but MS rejected them in regards to integrated a HD DVD drive into every 360.

Up until PS3 and format war AVS forum was completely devoid of gaming. A lot of people are simply annoyed with this as AVS Forum is now infested with gamers defending Blu-Ray.

Gamers defending blu-ray and gamers attacking blu-ray. Gamers defending hd dvd and gamers attacking hd dvd as well.

The reason why I say this is because I've been reading AVS for a long time (years) and it was a true home theater enthusiast place. Gamers <> Home Theater Enthusiasts

I've been an active member of AVS long before December of 2007. Your generalization simply isn't true.

This is why you will see a lot of members buying standalones even on Blu-Ray and dual format players, because they are true home theater enthusiasts.

Facts are a portion of home theater enthusiasts did indeed buy stand alones. Another portion of home theater enthusiasts have purchased the PS3 and 360 add-on as well. Bottom line is the vast majority went with blu-ray, happens to be the format that scores better on PQ and SQ on average as wel. :D

Of course this has nothing to do with HDTVs as any device these days, even DVD players that did upscaling were selling HDTVs. Playstation 3 is just another venue like any other just like Xbox 360 for example.

You are highly mistaken if you believe that people who buy consoles don't have an impact on other consumers electronics such as buying HDTV's and audio equipment.

I think you need to visit places like Blu-Ray.com and HollywoodInHiDef in order to really understand what I'm talking about. From people working in retail stores downright lie and mislead customers showing them a DVD display and saying it's HD DVD and then coming back to Blu-Ray.com to brag about it (in more cases then one) to the fact they go and hide HD DVD titles behind regular DVD titles or Blu-Ray titles while waiting for people to come and pick up HD DVD so they can attack them with Blu-ray has won and HD DVD is crap rhetoric, or sending their family members and wives to different Walmarts to sabotage sales of $99 players by getting in the faces of people waiting to buy them shows the things for what they are. I don't have to make them up, they are all very real.



And what is that? HD DVD has killed Blu-Ray SALs so far with numbers reaching 3:1. One month of better sales is what you are grasping for? And I still havent' seen those December numbers.

PS3 aside as we all know what the deal is there.


When the PS3 is counted(as I feel it should be).....the market is at 85% Blu....

For the record....I own both formats...but i know when a ship is sinking....
98439

The HD-DVD booth and the Blu-Ray booth...

I think with responses like that, I'm sure a lot of people take your seriously.

It says a lot about your credibility. Have a great night and you are free to live in your reality I guess.

No offense but you have zero idea of what the current trends are as well as any sense of the history of gaming related to home theater electronics. If stating basic facts makes me lose credibility in your mind I can live with that.

Anybody that takes you seriously would end up being very misguided. It is clear you have no desire to accept the truth.

And yes, I like my reality so far, it isn't perfect yet but perhaps Universal and Paramount will shift in time to blu-ray as well and I will no longer need my HD-A3. I also would like my friends and family to be able to buy just one player and have access to all the studios. Some friends have avoide HDM all together for that reason despite liking what movies they have viewed in my home.

Thank you Warner for starting off the year with fantastic news and thank you Sony for fantastic products :D

So those who enjoy gaming AND are home theater enthusiasts are an infestation, eh?

The complete lack of tact in this post is astonishing. I can only hope that this is born of your recent frustrations and not of pure ignorance.

:(

I think you just want to read what I wrote in your head as some kind of justification.

You are flapping and flipping my words to fit your idea of shocking and to somehow find an insult. There's nothing insulting. Infestation is a large number of something overcrowding a certain place. And yes, AVS has been infested with gamers. There's nothing false or insulting about that.

And I don't know what you read, but I only said that for the most part, PS3/Blu-Ray = gamers. You want to say that's not true? You would be only lying to yourself.

And for information of all very impolite and extremely rude Blu-Ray fans here, nobody is frustrated, the only frustration I feel comes from Blu-Ray fans fears that Blu-Ray won't be able to seal the deal even with Warner and you are all over the place screaming how people should sell their HD DVD titles and player IMMEDIATELY.

It really is humorous to watch. Btw, I am the same as you, I like to game but I'm first a home theater enthusiast and unlike Blu-Ray poised fans for the most part, I own both formats in several flavors when it comes to players including the PS3, but the PS3 was bought simply because I was screwed over like many where i expected games and I got Blu-RAy movies instead for a whole year. Talk about Sony's consumer appreciation.

It is only a matter of time for HD-DVD. And it is plain silly to assert that the "majority" of Blu-Ray owners are so "over the top die-hard that they go out of their way to actually attack people and physically try to sabotage them not to pick up HD DVD." That's baseless hyperbole, to say the very least.

And we do not all "know that HD DVD would've won this year if it was on the merits and the economy of the formats." The media sales figures and the most recent stand-alone sales figures show that to be more hope than reality.

I'm a BD owner now, the menus are ugly and I really wanted a region-free format, but as long as hardcoat remains stable, I'll deal and support it.

That said Bill Hunt is still has zero credibility with me and always will, and Blu-ray.com is an absurd place that I never set foot, and never will. I mean c'mon, I was on some crazy list that rated anti-BD people, and got a "tier zero" and was accused of being paid by Toshiba.:rolleyes: Now here I am with 16 BDs, if that makes anyone feel stupid, good, it should. I'll probably buy way more software than half the nine-year-old's that engaged in all this smear crap just for the sport of it.

Oh, and I watched TRANSFORMERS last night, Michael Bay would have to wash his hands before I'd let him pet my dog.

folks the bd fud has to stop. hd was not outsold 3 to 1.

there is a thread around here.

hdm total was 300 million
bda said they sold 170 millio
hd dvd was 130 million

that was for 2007. bd did not stomp hd by the bdas own numbers.

warner for whatever reason decided to end it by picking bd. but the reason clearly was not overwhelming sales superiorty.

The consumers, ie. the market, never had a chance to decide. Studios and CEMs and big money decided this with the consumers being left to pretty accept what's left or go with nothing.

Given the fact that Sony, a controlling party of one of the two formats involved in this owned 3 studios, consumers would have had to decide which movies they liked best to jump in and hope the end result was a positive one.

At the very most, you could say this was decided by a single demographic, PS3 owners.

For the sake of HD discs, I hope the rest of HD hungry consumers agree with that decision.

This has to be the funniest remark I've read in last year and a half. I'm sorry I don't want to sound insulting, but I can't believe you are serious? Are you?

95% of the Blu-Ray format has been picked by GAMERS not by home theater enthusiasts by buying Playstation console in hopes of playing PS2 games in next gen flavor with a bonus of Blu-Ray. The number of sold standalones is pretty clear indicator what home theater enthusiasts picked. This is why Sony purposely made Playstation 3 logo out of the same font as Spiderman. It didn't become clear why they did it, until the format war. They pushed the movie format on gamers and that's an absolute fact.

I'm sorry but I completely disagree. Are you sure you forgot to add a smiley behind your statement, because it's obviously humorous. I just simply can't believe that anyone can even think that Blu-Ray so far has been anything but a HUGE majority a gamer's format that became extremely insulting to home theater enthusiasts by polluting and mixing the two in an unidentified mass.

Since when are gamers... not a part of the market? They spend money too, and those who bought the PS3... choose to do so.

If you are in the market Right now, you can choose too. One format has most of the major studios, and the other has 2 studios. Thats a choice. And thats up to the market to decide. Having more studios has always been an Advantage of BD. Just as a low end, low priced HDDVD player was an advantage of HDDVD.

Toshiba didnt Force me to buy an HDDVD player for $100 with 5 free movies. That was my choice. Sony, didnt force me to buy a PS3, by having most of the major studios back BD. That was my choice.

Had disc sales been overwhelmingly HDDVD for the last year... perhaps the market would have decided HDDVD, and studios would have to follow the market. However, the market went the other way. Sony didnt Force anyone to buy BD. The market chose to buy BD based on its advantages.

So . . . gamers and home theater enthusiasts are mutually exclusive? :rolleyes:

I really don't understand why the PS3 is such a point of contention. My God, a multi-purpose products that works better than most standalones . . . blasphemy. This is 2008 . . . everything is integrating with everything else.

I went into the HD DVD/Blu-ray war with every intention of being format neutral. The fact that the PS3 played Blu-ray movies was a bonus, as I was planning to buy one anyway . . . it just so happened that it was and still is one of the best players out there. Then it turned out that HD DVD didn't meet the standards I developed from my Blu-ray experiences, so . . . no HD DVD for me. I guess it's because I'm a gamer that I demand better encodes and lossless audio. My love of home theater has absolutely nothing to do with that :rolleyes: Give me a break.

I'm not buying a Blu Ray player until Toshiba makes one. Until that day, I'm 100% behind HD DVD. I still plan on buying a second player so I have one for the bedroom and purchasing about 40 titles in 2008.

I'm not buying a Blu Ray player until Toshiba makes one. Until that day, I'm 100% behind HD DVD. I still plan on buying a second player so I have one for the bedroom and purchasing about 40 titles in 2008.

Since when is Toshiba such a great brand? I've always relegated Toshiba to bedrooms/backups.

Toshiba unlike Sony and Samsung, have delivered on their promises. They have offered great players so far and most critics would agree that the HD DVD titles have been better over all.

It would have been interesting to sit in the conference room when the BD consortium was at Warner the last time to pitch ($$) BD. I still plan to support HD DVD.

BR

The market will decide... if only. Let's get ALL studios neutral and then the market truly can decide.

The market ALWAYS decides. I haven't heard of any studios abducting consumers and holding guns to their head forcing them to buy HDM...???

If you don't like HD-DVD, don't buy it. If you don't like BluRay, don't buy it. If you don't (or didn't) like the whole format war BS, don't buy any HDM (plenty of people have taken that path).

If you initially bought into HD-DVD (I did) and now you feel burned and ripped off - then you should have stayed out of the kitchen - it's a no brainer that this was foreseeable - you knew the risk, you went in, stop whining; don't ever buy a BluRay disk.

It's your dollar, you vote with it. But if a lot more people vote for acceptance and your vote becomes meaningless, it's still your vote. This is a capitalistic and democratic society. Companies can put out anything they want for sale - if no one buys it they go out of business; if they don't stay up with changing markets, they go out of business; happens all the time.

If this is the biggest issue you have, then you're in pretty damn good shape! :cool:

Since when is Toshiba such a great brand? I've always relegated Toshiba to bedrooms/backups.

Ive always wondered that myself. I think its just the "sides thing"...Sony=BD, Toshiba=HD-DVD. So......FIGHT! Ya know the rest.

Toshiba unlike Sony and Samsung, have delivered on their promises. They have offered great players so far and most critics would agree that the HD DVD titles have been better over all.

It would have been interesting to sit in the conference room when the BD consortium was at Warner the last time to pitch ($$) BD. I still plan to support HD DVD.

BR

Actually Blu-ray movies have scored better in Picture Quality and Sound Quality on average based on reviews from these sites. HighDef, HTSpot, DVDTalk, HTForum,UpDisc.

This is the order I've seen posted in ranks of PQ and SQ average

Studio
Buena Vista
Sony
Fox
Paramount
Warner
Lions Gate
Weinstein
Universal

Agreed.

The average consumer has only made one choice in this HD Format war, and that decision was to stay out of it.
Now that the format war is over, the general public can buy Blu-ray and know they bought the right player for Hi Definition.
Because now there is only one. :D

Toshiba unlike Sony and Samsung, have delivered on their promises. They have offered great players.....
BR

You might want to see the abundant amount of issues reported DAILY about issues upon issues with the 3rd gen players and disc playeback issues of discs INCLUDED in the box.

Way too many issues for a product that is supposed to be superior.
Blu-ray players have their issues as well but not as abundant as HD DVD.
Just look in the HD DVD player forum. There are plenty of issues reported just TODAY.

If the 3rd gen HD DVD players were a car, it would be classified as a lemon.

The Studios and the BDA decided this format war, that is what gets in my craw. For the BDA to claim the market decided is an outright lie...not the first, and I doubt it will be the last.

The one thing they are right about tho...I DO have a choice...and my choice is to stick with HD DVD, and the BDA gets no money from me.

j

The market ALWAYS decides. I haven't heard of any studios abducting consumers and holding guns to their head forcing them to buy HDM...???

If you don't like HD-DVD, don't buy it. If you don't like BluRay, don't buy it. If you don't (or didn't) like the whole format war BS, don't buy any HDM (plenty of people have taken that path).

If you initially bought into HD-DVD (I did) and now you feel burned and ripped off - then you should have stayed out of the kitchen - it's a no brainer that this was foreseeable - you knew the risk, you went in, stop whining; don't ever buy a BluRay disk.

It's your dollar, you vote with it. But if a lot more people vote for acceptance and your vote becomes meaningless, it's still your vote. This is a capitalistic and democratic society. Companies can put out anything they want for sale - if no one buys it they go out of business; if they don't stay up with changing markets, they go out of business; happens all the time.

If this is the biggest issue you have, then you're in pretty damn good shape! :cool:

+1

Since when are gamers... not a part of the market? They spend money too, and those who bought the PS3... choose to do so.

If you are in the market Right now, you can choose too. One format has most of the major studios, and the other has 2 studios. Thats a choice. And thats up to the market to decide. Having more studios has always been an Advantage of BD. Just as a low end, low priced HDDVD player was an advantage of HDDVD.

Toshiba didnt Force me to buy an HDDVD player for $100 with 5 free movies. That was my choice. Sony, didnt force me to buy a PS3, by having most of the major studios back BD. That was my choice.

Had disc sales been overwhelmingly HDDVD for the last year... perhaps the market would have decided HDDVD, and studios would have to follow the market. However, the market went the other way. Sony didnt Force anyone to buy BD. The market chose to buy BD based on its advantages.

I think it is absolutely funny that you people keep talking about how market decided. What market what consumers. People just started buying the thing. I mean I wish some of you would actually like come back down to earth. We all know what the deal is here and it has nothing to do with consumer choice. If anything we've seen by the studies just after Holiday that consumers prefered HD DVD, do I need to remind you or you have a short memory?

A sample of 2000 was used in a study and 43% prefered and said they would buy HD DVD, 30% was still undecided and the rest of what's left had intentions for Blu-Ray. There's some facts we can discuss. 60:40 in software sales with 4:1 capable hardware and amazing number of giveaways and bogos is not called consumer choice. It's called spreading free crap. Not to mention $500 Blu-Ray player and Sony PS3 giveaways with TVs. Talk about complete desperation to get the hardware out. At least Toshiba was selling it's players for cheap, but still selling.

It's clear who was obvious choice and what would happen in 2008 if the back room deals didn't happen.

bet places like best buy, circuit city, target and walmart help with what they decide
is going on the shelves.

Exactly, and ALL MAJOR RETAILERS want Blu only!

Man, lots of new posters with inflammatory comments. Getting ugly.

(Yes, I know I have few posts, but I'm harmless)

Nope. The ones that bought Blu-ray were.

High prices for obsolete 1.0 technology. Not quite.

Maybe the PS3 owners... of course.. if you asked someone who actually enjoyed video games.. you might get a different story.

High prices for obsolete 1.0 technology. Not quite.

Maybe the PS3 owners... of course.. if you asked someone who actually enjoyed video games.. you might get a different story.

I'm quite happy with my Sony BDP-S1, thank you. I would wager that I'm a tad happier than some Toshiba owners, for example. And I don't consider it obsolete. Interesting how the owners of these players are quite happy, but the sour grapes crowd (who don't own them) think we should be disappoinited with our purchases.

The market decided with music.. it's called P2P and Mp3.

The market will decide with movies too... already it's called DivX and DVD-R's

When you try to force the consumer into buying something they never wanted in the first place.. you'll end up seeing just how the market decides.

HDM will go down in history as yet another Laser Disc.. only with far less titles and a lot shorter life span.

Looks like the market has decided.

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc232/ilovezune/blurayhddvd.jpg

Toshiba unlike Sony and Samsung, have delivered on their promises. They have offered great players so far and most critics would agree that the HD DVD titles have been better over all.


Here's a comparison of over 1,000 titles from each format from the critics.

HDD 279HD/303BD, HTS 251HD/270BD, HTF 104HD/107BD, UD 150HD/133BD, Talk 306HD/322BD
10.31.07
HD DVD PQ SQ TOTAL Blu-ray PQ SQ TOTAL
HighDef 3.88 3.61 3.74 HighDef 3.94 3.81 3.87
HTSpot 3.96 3.88 3.92 HTSpot 4.09 4.28 4.18
DVDTalk 3.63 3.50 3.56 DVDTalk 3.69 3.74 3.71
HTForum 3.89 3.68 3.78 HTForum 4.25 4.04 4.14
UpDisc 3.98 3.80 3.89 UpDisc 4.03 4.12 4.07
Totals 3.84 3.67 3.76 Totals 3.94 3.96 3.95

HDD 279HD/303BD, HTS 251HD/270BD, HTF 104HD/107BD, UD 150HD/133BD, Talk 306HD/322BD
10.31.07
PQ SQ Total Studio
4.18 4.36 4.27 Buena Vista
3.99 4.16 4.08 Sony
3.81 4.08 3.95 Fox
4.01 3.84 3.93 Paramount
3.96 3.66 3.81 Warner
3.63 3.80 3.72 Lions Gate
3.80 3.63 3.71 Weinstein
3.71 3.63 3.67 Universal


Seems like most critics would DISAGREE with you.

If we let the market decide, we would never get as great of a format as Blu Ray. Too technical for the average Joe. The market, sometimes doesn't no better and needs to be 'helped'.


Remember, we are a country that like Desperate Housewives, American Idol and feigns education...

One thing we do know is that in many cases in this War, the "market" had nothing to do with decisions.

Did PS3 owners decide if they wanted a blu-ray player or not?
Did Paramount chose HD DVD because of the "market"?
Did Disney, Fox or Universal ever say, "we will release movies in both formats and let the market decide"?

The War so far is all about money and who is willing to spend the most.

I own both format players - Toshiba HD-A1 and Samsung BD-P1400. The Toshiba unit was purchased at Sears on clearance last summer, it had a Sept 2006 manufacture date.

The Samsung BD-P1400 was purchased NEW over Christmas from Best Buy (which pushes Blu-Ray as HDM almost exclusively). The Samsung unit is supposed to display 1080p whereas the Toshiba unit outputs only 1080i max.

There is no comparison between the PQ on HDDVD videos from the Toshiba and the Samsung BluRay player. The Toshiba wins hands down. The Toshiba videos are bright and clear whereas the Blu Ray videos are dark and less detailed. I have visited the AVS forum on Samsung and tried different settings, but the picture quality remains the same.

I am disappointed in Warner's decision.

Its never been up to us. If every studio released in both formats, then we could decide, which would have been a landslide for HD DVD.

What the BDA is doing right now is like Ford convincing 75% of the gas stations to not sell gas to GMs and then turn around and brag about how much better their cars are and how it's "The Consumers Preference".

Pathetic.....

Your analogy is pathetic...

After the paramount buyout, and $99 player sale, HD-DVD could not regain the lead over Christmas.. This is what Warner saw and made their decision over. Blockbuster did it first after a six month test run letting the "public"/"consumer" decide. while Warner waited till after Christmas.. Kapeesh..

I own both format players - Toshiba HD-A1 and Samsung BD-P1400. The Toshiba unit was purchased at Sears on clearance last summer, it had a Sept 2006 manufacture date.

The Samsung BD-P1400 was purchased NEW over Christmas from Best Buy (which pushes Blu-Ray as HDM almost exclusively). The Samsung unit is supposed to display 1080p whereas the Toshiba unit outputs only 1080i max.

There is no comparison between the PQ on HDDVD videos from the Toshiba and the Samsung BluRay player. The Toshiba wins hands down. The Toshiba videos are bright and clear whereas the Blu Ray videos are dark and less detailed. I have visited the AVS forum on Samsung and tried different settings, but the picture quality remains the same.

I am disappointed in Warner's decision.

The Samsung BD-P1400 is a great player. It had some early issues which have all been fixed with the latest firmware.. Perhaps you need to do just that..

Since when is Toshiba such a great brand? I've always relegated Toshiba to bedrooms/backups.

only thing sony makes worth having is a TV. everything else they make is high priced crap. dvd players, recievers, car audio, projectors blah blah.

Well, hey, Sony just wanted revenge from the VHS/Beta days, and they got what they wanted. I only went with HD DVD, in hopes that it would be a case of dejavu. Boy, was I ever wrong about that one... Now I felt prompted to order a PS3, which should be coming in today.

Why can't there be 2 formats when we have :D


3 Game Consoles (XBOX vs WII vs PS3)
4 type of TV technologies (LCD vs PLASMA vs OLED vs DLP)
Boeing vs Airbus
MPEG-2 vs MPEG-4 AVC vs VC-1
100 types of Cars to DRIVE


70:30 = TOYOTA:FORD. This doesn't mean that FORD manufactures inferior cars.

Everything comes down to CONSUMER PREFERENCE.

If we let the market decide, we would never get as great of a format as Blu Ray. Too technical for the average Joe. The market, sometimes doesn't no better and needs to be 'helped'.


Remember, we are a country that like Desperate Housewives, American Idol and feigns education...

And with that, you should remember that the market hasn't decided ANYTHING in regards to HDM yet. The studios and the Bluray fan base have decided to back Bluray over HD-DVD. That's a LOOOOOONG way away from the market deciding anything.

If Bluray doesn't try to become the more consumer friendly format (scrap the profile issues and stop pushing the PS3) the market will likely decide Bluray isn't the winner of their money either.

This time next year the press may be saying "HD-DVD died last year. Blu-ray dies this year"

The only thing Blu-ray supporters have won thus far is swaying studio support from one not selling format to another not selling format.. that just didn't not sell as badly as the other. They too may be using their Blu-ray players as doorstops this time next year.

It's all in how well Blu-ray can get the consumers to accept the higher priced alternative to DVD.

anotheraviator, we get it. You hope BD dies along with hddvd.

Do you have to keep saying this over and over? The sour grapes are just getting tiresome.

The consumer got to decide nothing.

what a shame

The consumer got to decide nothing.

what a shame

They decided to buy Blu-ray more than hddvd.

And.. Yes, that mattered. So, you're wrong.

time