Are there any converts here?

I am. I had the Toshiba A-1 and almost 30 HD Dvds. And Ive now done the Conversion. I enjoyed the player and some of the movies. But content is the key and I found myself buying crap like Serenity and I was disapointed with some stuff like Apollo 13. I realized that if I wanted all of my favorite movies that Blu Ray was the way so my HD collection Hit Ebay and Ive never looked back since. I didnt want to go half ass with one or the other and I felt Blu Ray had the advantage so Ive been going all out and have loved every second of it.

Got a PS3 and about 12 Blu-rays. Love it! I researched the movies prior to purchase so I don't get a dud like Hitch or Fifth Element. All in all, the PS3 with the bluetooth remote make a great experience. Much better than the A1's quirky slowness or the Xbox 360's loudness! Still, I'm not much of a joiner so I'll stay format neutral for the time being.

Hi, Matt. Is there any reason you don't want to support both formats? Other than the principal of the matter? I realize that some just don't want to have two players, though. Still, the best content selection will come from supporting both, of course.

I can't speak for Matt, but the main reason I supported Blu-ray alone is that I will be able to get just about every HD-DVD on Blu-ray with the exception of Universal and right now, some music titles. Wasn't worth the player investment and HD-DVD movie purchases for me.

I just ordered the Samsung Blu ray player from *******, good price and a free movie and firmware disc included. I currently have an A1 & the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add on, and 60 HD-DVD's. I love HD-DVD and never had any real problems with my A1, little slow loading but the 360 add on is fairly fast. However, I wanted to experience what Blu Ray has to offer, and there are some movies that I wanted that won't come out anytime if ever ( Sony titles ) on HD-DVD. I suppose I'm really a lover of hidef above any format. I would have bought a playstation 3 but you can't find them anywhere around me, but then I decided I really didn't want another game system despite the great value of the ps3. I love my 360, and never owned a ps2, I prefer the games on Xbox & 360 more. I'm not sure who will win this format war, maybe a hybrid player might be the final outcome. Sony doesn't usually give on any of it's formats whether there is mass oppeal or not ( made beta for years after, MD, memory stick, etc ). I do think that for the average person to adopt a hidef format the will need to get their prices way down, maybe within $50 of sd-dvd. At this moment HD-DVD is moving more quickly in that direction, also the format seems more finalized than blu-ray, especially in the audio standards. However, we will have to see what happens, in the mean time I will just enjoy hidef in whatever format I can get it in.

My plan was to buy an HD-A1 and then a PS3 to have total choice of films. However, just before I bought the PS3, I decided to return my A1 (quirky ass machine...) and switch to the A2. Well, the A2 was delayed past my PS3 purchase and now, I've been so impressed with Blu-Ray and the PS3, I haven't felt the need to jump back into HD-DVD - at least anytime soon. It's not worth it to me just for Universal. Instead, I'm going to watch where things go this coming year for HD-DVD before I make a decision.

Microsoft made the decision for me with the $199 360 add on. Initially I was a Blu-ray fan, but only for its higher capacity (the talk of 4 layer BD and all that), but since both formats are identical in video and audio it was the price that got me to jump. I've got nothing against Blu-ray and would have jumped onboard for the right price, like rr6966, I love both formats because they bring us High Def Movies. I do find it sad that we are in this most pointless format war.

Sell the HD DVD already...There I made up your mind for you...or support both and enjoy the ride.

I have the same reasons. HD-DVD small exclusive selection (relatively speaking compare to Blu-ray's) does not warrant an extra player.

Here's from a blu-ray fan perspective, why would I wanna support both formats? When supporting both formats would only prolong the war, thus slowing down the BD penetration. The sooner the war ends the better. Studio would announce more new releases faster without any hesitation. Once the war is won, Universal will come around, so what's the point of wasting my money?

At current the status quo, blu-ray market will survive on its own, enough studio supports, enough CE support, rapid BD players penetration with PS3, constant flow of blockbuster line-ups.

Subtrack titles from Warner and Paramount available on both formats and HD-DVD still has more titles available than Blu-ray. Hence, HD-DVD still has more exclusives as of 12/30/2006. I do think this will change in the next six months, assuming HD-DVD doesn't announce more studio support at its press event on January 7.

I have an A1 that I bought off of ebay for $300, just got the PS3 at Best Buy for $500, so for $800 I am format neutral. I think this is a steal for new bleeding edge technology, but what do I know.

That's a worthless argument. it will be invalid in the next few days

I'm a format neutral person ( I own more formats that most ever known existed, from Edison talking machines, Pathe records, 2" Quad video, HDVS, LD, VHD, CED, Beta, MD, DAT, DCC, D-VHS, W-VHS, UMD, etc.), but I think I'm gonna side with BD and have a ever so slight bias for BD. But that's for one reason and one only. Hardware. On my setups, while BD is far from perfect, I've had way too many little playback bugs with the A1/XA1/A2, that may be solved with a future updates. While I had bugs with BD, they were never in re: to playback of the format. I have about 70 or so HD DVD's. So temp, I doing BD only. I will most like buy a XA2... when things are a bit more settled and get rid of some G1 machines. The "chunkiness" of the HD DVD players that some report don't bother me all too much.

Oddly enough If HD DVD looses this format war I will most like buy more used cheap HD DVD disc that people get rid of for BD. Same goes for BD, if it's the loser. But I doubt that will happen soon.

So I doubt I'm a convert. HD DVD rules... but so do BD!

It does seem that blu-ray has a lot more exclusive titles coming out in the next few months. February looks really good! The fact that MPEG2 video has looked really good on blu-ray and that titles that are on both hd-dvd and blu-ray look identical makes it a tough road for hd-dvd. They need to release the LOTR and The Matrix trilogies. I think that will sell a lot of hd-dvd players. Forget Kong, pack in The Fellowship of the Ring with the 360 drive and watch them fly off the shelves!

The crazy thing is, the best way to get into high definition video is to buy a game console. Who would have thought that 5 years ago. I used to dispise playing dvd's on the XBox and PS2.

I used to be a HD-DVD supporter and owned the HD-XA1 and sold it because i couldn't resist the price i was offered by my friend.

I waited for the 2nd generation Toshiba to arrive and it was delayed and got fed up waiting so i ordered the Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player instead and haven't looked back.

The Sony player is so much nicer than the Toshiba i had.

You haven't used the A2 then. Speaking of delays wasn't the Sony delayed 4 or 5 times. The A2 was delayed 3 or 4 weeks.

more then that for the A2, and what about the first generation HD DVD? it was something like a 9 months delay

Too many mistakes and a history of failed propriatory formats scare me form Blu-ray. If someone told me a year ago that Blu-ray would be far behind HD DVD in sales after the launch of the PS3 and many different stand alone players, I'd never believe it. Factor in Sony's depleted bank account and it's pretty clear Blu-ray won't be around for long.
I suspect it won't be long before the studios start releasing on HD DVD.

Universal and Fox have too many must have titles and neither ship is going to sink any time soon.....this means two players for my household.

So, are you saying that you expected Blu-ray to be far ahead 6 weeks after the launch of the PS3, and 3 weeks after the launch of Sony's BD player? Toshiba launched last spring! Also, if it's so clear Blu-ray won't be around for long, why are so many HD-DVD supporters buying blu-ray players? Surely they wouldn't do that if they thought Blue-ray wasn't going to be around for long? And, if it "won't be long before the studios start releasing on HD-DVD," why haven't any of them announced a switch? Why keep it secret?

Mark - I'm afraid your seriously self-deluded. At this point, HD-DVD would be more aptly considered the "proprietary" format. With Toshiba going it alone, and all but one studio supporting the other format, how can you possibly envision a scenario where Blu Ray "won't be around".

The following things would have to happen for Blu Ray to go away:

- The PS3 goes away.
- Sony switches to HD-DVD
- Fox switches to HD-DVD
- Lionsgate switches to HD-DVD
- Pioneer switches to HD-DVD
- Samsung switches to HD-DVD
- Disney switches to HD-DVD
- Panasonic switches to HD-DVD

The following things need to happen for HD-DVD to go away:

- Toshiba switches to Blu Ray
- Universal switch to Blu Ray


Which of these scenarios is more likely to occur, would you think?

I got nothing against the underdog in a good fight, but some people really need to snap out of their spell.

Why are so many people blindly defending the Toshiba/Microsoft duo? A combination of the richest man in the world and a Japanese electonics company that was indicted for espionage against the United States in the 80s (http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu...01-NBC-10.html)?

Are these really the people we need to be sticking up for with our last breath?

What Innerloop is trying to say in the previous post is that Toshiba and Universal by themselves have been able so far to sell more discs than Sony and the rest of the companies that are behind BluRay. Then, imagine what would happen if Hd DVD would have more support.
Therefore, it is still too early to predict what can happen here. As he said it in the post...AT THIS POINT>>>>

Not another BD vs HD-DVD thread.

It's about converts. I really don't imagine you would have too many one way or the other. It wouldn't make much sense to just up and sell your player and your entire movie collection to switch.

By the way I have a BD player to play the handful of exclusive blu-ray titles, however, my HD-DVD to BD ration is around 8 to 1. I buy on HD-DVD if I can. I just prefer it over BD most of the time.

I definately am a "convert." Made the switch around 3 weeks a go and feel very Confident about my choice.

I have however been taking a beating from the HD-DVD Fanboys, but oh well, I will keep defending my position.

I feel the PS3 is the best HD Player on the market.

~Josh

Good point, Matt.

I also noticed that pretty much EVERY person posting such a story has picked up a PS3.

This leads me to believe that a good chunk of the initial HD-DVD supporters are, as other have theorized, very price-sensitive buyers. Which is understandable, if you have two nearly identical products, one of which is $1000 and the other is $500, there's a clear motivation to buy the cheaper one and fight for its survival.

But now that PS3 has bridged the price gap, mostly, a few people are crossing that bridge. And once over the bridge they pretty much seem to agree that the two systems are about the same, but with different software options and different hardware quirks.

Toshiba is playing their cards right - if they can continue to keep a price gap between themselves and Blu Ray, they'll continue to pick up a segement of customers who are more price-sensitive. But that strategy can't last forever. Once the player prices/parts drop a bit more, the difference between $200 and $250 isn't could to sway people like $500 vs. $1000 did.

The best thing Blu Ray camp could do now is find a way to get a super-cheap player on the market to blunt that advantage. Because once that is eliminated then the software support is the issue that will sway people most

..Also - this "HD-DVD owners are picking up cheap PS3s" might explain the odd effect seen on the Amazon tracking data. At around the time of PS3 release (and XBOX add-on release), HD-DVD sales started a gradual decline while Blu Ray sales were flat. Look at the period from around 11/1 to 12/1.

Possibly this effect was HD-DVD owners getting their first BD player (PS3) and ramping up their libraries, which meant spending less than they had previously on HD-DVDs. Hard to say really, but it definitely surprised me that HD-DVD software went down during that period (its bounced back now, but I don't have a theory for that!)