NY Times: Warner to Release BR/HD-DVD Hybrid Disc! - Page 2

I think it will depend on the cost of the discs.

It would future-proof you in the sense that in case one format fails, you don't have to buy or re-buy discs for the 'winning' format.

It allows the consumer to buy with much more confidence since s/he can't go "wrong."

I don't know if anyone here was a part, but many people here are definitely part of paying much more money for HD discs. A lot of people buy up near every HD disc released which I always though would actually hurt us in the long run, encouraging a higher price point for the new formats. Funny how "several dollars" turns in to $10 or more!

This helps Netflix. lol The only way this makes any sense is if there isn't a price increase or simply nothing more then the extra cost to mfg it. As mentioned there is no benifit to having both HD formats to the viewer on one disk.

the reason to buy??? so you can have your beloved high def content to show off on your "reference system"!!!!!

if you are addicted to hd in any way or form as i am, you WILL buy them....

the studios have us by the ball$ and can do whatever they want and still know they will sell these, even if the price is double,,, they suckered us in fellas and we're in for the ride..........think about it.

Does anyone know, or have read, whether or not these discs will play in existing HD DVD and BD players? For example, is one physical side HD DVD and the other side BD....so you would just flip the disc to get the appropriate format?

That would make the most sense to ensure all existing players could make use of this.

curlyjiv,

I think that's the basic idea.

Wrong.

Niche sales of a 25K pressing of discs aren't even a blip on the studio radar screen. If they want to continue to make good profits they have to get the new HD discs down into the $10-$15 Target and Walmart pricing categories that attract the masses.

And as to competition, in a sense they are competing with themselves. Services like Xbox Live and iTV are going to continue to drive down "rental" costs for those who don't want to own.

The real juicy money is in media sales and you can bet that the studios know this and really want this format war over. They make something like 90% profit on the retail price of a disc, whereas on a direct download they probably make $1-$4.

Com'n Warner. If you want to save yourself some bucks and only manufacter one, dual format disc... fine. We won't even ask you to pass along the savings. But don't try to sell this crap to us at a premium as some sort of format war insurance policy like we're a bunch of idiots

Costs on these things will probably be outrageous. I can't see them costing less to manufacture than the current HD DVD / DVD combo discs, that's for sure.

If Warner thought people were complaining loudly over their HD DVD / DVD combos, "they ain't seen nothing yet."

IF these ever come to market I suspect most people will just flat out not buy them, or buy them and scream till they are blue in the face over the added cost.

Just look at all of the "Stop the Combo" threads that sprout here at AVS on a regular basis.

You will not only have HD DVD buyers complaining (as they are now) about how they don't want to pay for some other format they don't need, but you will get that same argument on the BluRay side as well.

Great! So now both forums can get "STOP THE COMBO" threads semi-weekly.

Warner must be having a good laugh... or some nutcase or plant has gotten themselves into a position of power over there.

Let me think ... Oh! Yeh! ... the reason I purchased HDDVD and not BD was because HDDVD players could play any DVD I own (except BD, natch ) and the upscaling quality of the Tosh player is simpy superb.

I just can't get worked up about combo-formats, dual-formats, dual-players, etc. To me the majority of new movies released by the studios are terrible (there are exceptions). If Criterion were to totally suport BD, I'd have to think long and hard about purchasing a second HD player, this time BD. But for Time/Warner libraries ... it all depends on what they'd release on their dual-format. Casablanca looks superb both in its HDDVD cut and in having the Tosh upscale a regular DVD, whereas the Searchers is different ... better HDDVD quality, but then it is a much newer movie.

Let 'em throw whatever disks they want. They threw DIVX and we threw up. They threw Betamax and we threw up. Instead of releasing more quality movies in a particular format, they're blowin' their budgest on new formats, dual players, etc.

In five years, it'll all be down the drain anyway since the only way to get new media into our systems will be via their tightly controlled and DRM'd-to-death broadband delivery.

2 cents worth of rant.

I only watch HD on 1 source, if I had another source, and I wanted to make certain I could watch ALL HD Discs I owned, I would buy another player.
Thats the whole thing, I don't want to have to have 2 different tech. players, with a combo player(or2) I could play anything, anywhere.

The day I waste my time trying to watch HD on a laptop, is the day I hang myself.

a dual HD format disc in a Combo player....... do i get a choice as to which format i would like to play?

lol

Exactly, it would be like choosing DD, DD+, DTS, TrueHD, etc... The whole war would become a check box choice. lol

With this LG player now being official, this Warner news is major snooze worthy.

That's why I prefaced my comparison with "...all things being equal (codecs, etc.)..." In any event, codecs come and go; they have no bearing on whether or not a medium is superior. MPEG2 just happens to be the codec that was chosen for films released on Blu-Ray, but any codec can be used. As far as a medium is concerned, storage capacity, durability, and compatibility are the things that are important. In terms of storage Blu-Ray is superior to other media, but because of the the thinness of the protective layer, it may or may not be as durable as HD-DVD depending on whether or not TDK's coating is as resilient as they claim. Given that both HD disc formats are new, it is too soon to say that what we have seen from either of them so far is what we can expect to be the norm in the future. Both will be trying to gain consumer favor with increased storage and new innovations in film transfer. I'll take whichever one becomes the standard, but I tend to think that Blu-Ray has the upper hand as a disc medium because of its storage capability.