Warner Blu Ray Only--End of Combo Players? - Page 3

Why does everyone refer to these as coasters??? I am a proud HD DVD owner and I will still be watching my beloved discs in 1-2 years time.

Not like I'm going to say, "Oh no honey! We can't put that lowly HD DVD in our player. They don't make those anymore and it will blow up our theater if we press play."

Does this kid actually know that not only does Michael Bay support the movie Pearl harbor, but was actually the director!

Blu ray is unfinalized and not region free. Big strikes for me. Blu is nothing more than a really fat bitch. Kinda like the wife from Everybody loves Raymond, but you add a solid 250lb to her.

I will support dual formats, because each have issues, but HD-DVD is at least more versatile.

If everything is blu-ray I probably wont support it. Why support something because it is the only option. People HAVE A NEED TO BUY ANTHING PUT IN THEIR FACES. I want quality, so I will wait and maybe one-day blu-ray finalizes blu-ray version 55555.0

Its not about advancement, but about money. Look at HDMI and look at the unnecessary issues with this.

Why does this latest step by blu-ray feel like the british in the war of 1812 (they burned down the white house, then eventually left because there was nothing left to do...---leaving the US to declare victory!)

Because its the only option, duh!

I most be missing something here. I guess since you're calling the media coasters you think the players will self destruct? I have CDs well over 10yrs old and they still play fine. I haven't yet felt the need to protect my coffee table with one of them. There are many older then me on this board playing LPs 50 years old. I have an A2 and Sammy 5000 both of which I expect to use for many years to come.

I really don't care what format wins since I can play both. I really don't understand the gloating coming from the blue side here. Competition is good for the consumer. If eventually all studios move to blu only, there is no motivation for discounted players or media.

True. I am happy I can just put the damn thing in and enjoy some hd...

1-2 years
I'm still enjoying my laserdiscs 20 YEARS LATER ! And I hope to still be enjoying my HD-DVD's in 2028 !

I believe that HD-DVD isn't going anywhere. It's likely that DF players will eventually become the norm as the technical kinks get worked out, and the drives become easily and cheaply produced. The rest is just software. Look at how many times we have thought we saw the end to Vinyl LP Records, yet not only are turntables and records still available, but are doing quite well as a Hi-End niche market.

Actually, most people don't, either...

I hope too, but you can't compare an analog audio format which lasted 70 years selling billions of LPs (a majority as collector's initial releases) to a digital video format which lasted 2-3 years selling a few million with a minority of new stuff

I hope not. I'm currently HD DVD only through the add-on, and I'd like to eventually buy a dual format player so I don't have to rely on the add-on forever. Only problem is I want one that will give me final Blu-Ray specs, while being around $200 or so.

If you have a bunch of HD DVD disks and don't want a bunch of players in your equipment rack, you better buy a dual format player now. After the ones in the current distribution pipeline are gone there will be no more.

You are a 'legacy' user.

After Toshiba loses the remaining movie companies, you will see those racks of HD DVD disks slowly empty until there are none left. It makes no business sense to build players for disks that, in a year or so, aren't anymore. That's about when the mainstream purchases of HD players/disks will commence.

--- CHAS

Actually, I wrote Oppo after the 5K came out and asked them if they were considering it. The response I got said "Oppo has no plans" for this and indicated that neither format was "mature or even potentially viable." Pretty direct response I thought.

One thing I didn't consider is that Toshiba might market a dual player. I think that is our best hope for a full featured combo machine. Who knows how long that would take, though.


Universal has no commitment and Paramount might have an out clause. I'd say with HD DVD canceling their session at CES, the writing is on the wall. That doesn't mean Blu-ray has won; only that HD DVD has lost. The ONLY thing that could extend HD DVD would be for Disney to switch. No chance, I'd say.


Why does everyone cite this no-talent assbag? His movies are complete crap. Transformers looked cool (so did The Island), but just like ALL his movies featured bad movie-of-the-week quality of acting and storytelling. Bay is the American Uwe Boll. He needs to go back to directing Playboy video centerfolds.

With the money he has accumulated, why does he need talent?

I think maybe Warner discovered that making the dual-format discs were more expensive. And maybe Sony decided to make it less expensive to Warner as a way to push Blu-Ray. And Sony maybe making an empty low cost promise to push consumers and distributors to Blu-Ray...probably not lowering prices in the end. Any of this is not "with" or "for" consumers, it's a matter of money. The experience with Sony is that they don't really make anything cheaper...only if sales don't go as expected and they might even let the thing dye out. This HD thing is something they WANT, and so are pushing.

Without declaring a winner the main advantages are...Blu-Ray more space and plays on PS / HD-DVD can play on regular DVD players and less expensive for manufacturers (now plays on XBOX). If you analyze these features I would say Blu-Ray for computers and HD-DVD for movies.

We have a clear view of Sony's strategy which is bad for consumers because it's gonna be more expensive in the end. I think Toshiba is not doing much, a better strategy might come from the main feature. Given that HD-DVD plays on regular players, their movie houses should stop making regular DVDs and exchange them from the market. By promoting the feature, consumer fear goes away and begin to build an HD-DVD library; simple.

To me, Sony seems to be winning the war, but because they're pushing. In the money-cost vs. consumer issue, I thought HD-DVD might come up because most people just see the movie and it's less expensive than Blu-Ray. Most people don't dwell on the tech and quantity of features; this should be diferentiated on regular and special editions but HD discs aim at having everything there to justify price. Another bad for consumers.

I hope on CES more dual format machines come out so price lowers, and I also hope Warner and others reconsider strategy...having both formats in the same package is the solution until dual-format machines proliferate. No one format should push on money issues alone and win, in fact having both for now should make for development and economy thru competition.

See, consumers shouldn't really voice a decision. Manufacturers should've agreed on something from the beginning, so why make it our problem when prices are too high and the formats are still polishing bugs and refining quality? Don't say one or the other regardless of price, we consumers shouldn't care as much about the media-format as for how much it's gonna cost us.

WHAT WE NEED IS A CHEAP-RELIABLE UNIVERSAL PLAYER AND ALL MOVIES IN ALL EXISTING FORMATS AND EDITIONS. If good universal players come, then format doesn't matter, just cost.

of course there will be universal players in the future. even if paramount and universal switch sides this week. why? because there are about 1,000,000 potential customers out there who own hd dvd's now and will have hd dvd playback on their list of requirements for their next player.

if denon or pioneer can spend $25 in parts and licenses to make their next bd/dvd player a bd/hd dvd/dvd player, you think they won't add it to the spec sheet as a matter of course? (remember, bd gives you the blue laser, dvd gives you the optics, and sigma will probably sell you the SOC cheap ).

they won't call it a dual format player...they'll just call it the new universal player, and every manufacturer at the mid level and higher will join them so they don't lose the "battle of the spec sheets."

everyone will require bd/dvd/cd playback. but also, some people require sacd, some require dvd-audio, some require hdcd, some require mp3 playback from dvd+rw, and now some will require hd-dvd playback. adding support is easy, and the marketing dept will demand it.

I hope you're right in this. I'm a Samsung UP5000 user, and when it breaks down, I still want to play my HD DVDs on the next player. Just in case, if HD DVD goes down this year, I would probably get an extra HD DVD player if there were a clearance sale somewhere. It's too bad that the universal players didn't come out earlier in the high def world. I think that competition is good for the consumer and drives down prices. It would have been preferrable to me if the companies that suffered here were the format-exclusive machine producers.

true, but it's hard enough getting the new tech working all by itself. iirc, one or two of the first bd players didn't even play cd's. also, the first gen hd dvd players were basically general purpose computers handling everything in software instead of soc (system on a chip). but things like soc are now available, and it's that kind of technology that makes universal players viable (and cheap).

plus i think you have to factor in the two sides trying to defeat the other side in the beginning, so i don't think there was any incentive for bd player manufacturers to make hd dvd look like it had a future. but with all the hd dvd owners now, i think there's plenty of incentive to cater to them, given the ease. (of course, if hd dvd won, it would be much harder to accommodate bd in a universal hd dvd player).

given that i'm an hd dvd supporter, i think we're looking at the 2nd best of all possible worlds, post-format war.

dvd changed features a million times. why do all the losers who bought hddvd players make such dumb remarks. also there isnt a analyst around who doesnt have the ps3 in the lead for sales by the end of 2010. a console is not a 1 year thing. the ps2 is 10 and going strong./ most of these guys who say so must have a 33% failure rate 360 and a dead in the water hddvd player. 0 for 2 not bad

There were also analysts who said the ps3 was going to have an American install base of 6 million by 2008.

Its getting its butt kicked by the RROD, and the wii.

Metal Gear is rumored to be available on xbox within 9 months of PS3 release.

IF FINAL FANATSY goes both xbox and ps3, then ps3 will lose. This is the key for the ps3 to have a chance.

If you look at sales vs players owned, HD-DVD still has a strong base. Even with the Warner move, HD-DVD will continue to sell fairly well with paramount and Universal here. It wont sell like blu-ray, but each will have a small amount of people still buying compared to DVD.

DVD=90% of sales ---blu ray= 7% HD-DVD=3% of total sales between the 3.

Dont care if HD-DVD going to stay below selling than 50% less then blu, cause I still get quality, and blu still has a fairly insignificant share.

Hmmm...hellgrammite has another nice point there to think about and direct our pleads to what's really important. Not only analysts, most regular fans almost sweared that because PS3 was coming with a lower price this year the Blu-Ray takeover was final. And then what happened...Wii took over the console gamefield.

We should learn a bit about these happenings and keep focused. Does the Wii quake means people don't want Blu-Ray? No, people just want what's good for a given purpose at less money. Whether we like it or not the big piece of the game-pie is not teens to adults...it's kids to teens. We parents will look for the less expensive machine that brings nice quality games to our kids, so Wii is less expensive, simple, and the interactivity is so high...it's good that our kids (sometimes us) can excercise too.

Another theory I've heard is if Disney goes Blu or HD-DVD that alone is gonna decide the war. I think that's wrong too. Disney is another kids dominated market, for which parents will look for the least expensive choice. Unless Disney stops selling DVDs and VHS altogether, it won't force a thing. I don't see Disney eliminating DVDs, specially when millions of low tech mothers have only a DVD player and maybe a PS2 or a brand new Wii.

Again, we have to plead for the flawless and upgradedable universal player and everything else to be low cost.

I don't care if HD-DVD is on the decline... I still slightly prefer it, have several discs (more than BDs), and therefore love my combo player. HD-DVD isn't dead yet, and I really don't see it dying as quickly as others are predicting. Even if it does die, it may take years before all the movies that were released on HD-DVD are re-released to Blu-ray.

By the way, I don't consider myself an HD-DVD fanboy. I own a combo player and buy movies in both formats. If nothing else, Casino Royale alone would have made me purple, but there's also PotC and some others. And likewise, still some great ones only on HD-DVD, like Serenity. To enjoy all the movies in HD, you still gotta have both formats.

Warner is definitely a big player, and it was a big announcement, but the format war rages on regardless.

DVD changed features a million times? Name one. The quality of transfers improved, and some discs started adding DTS audio tracks, but DVD has been a very consistent format throughout. (And as for DTS in DVD, most mainstream DVD players won't decode it internally, they just bitstream it out... so that's really not any change in how DVD players work.)

Also... PS3 in the lead for consoles? I've never heard that, and don't ever expect to.

You mean to tell me when newer discs come out that have interactive features, the older players can't access them, that the customer is not getting screwed?

Don

Then why did Sony make Beta players years and years after no one sold movies on Beta? If they could have made them beta/VHS they would have.

Could someone tell me who won the great DVD+RW vs DVD-RW war? And why isn't that the model?

Great point kcmurphy88! We all know what a disaster that battle was. There are two standards have managed to coexist.

Wrongo pal!!! I have the FREEDOM to: 1) Buy more and play the hell outta my HD-DVD's, 2) buy SD DVD's if a flick I want is Blu only and watch them upscaled(this will not help Blu's cause)...3) check out digital downloads on Cinema Now(I have Fios connection, it does not take a painfully long time...4)Check out Direct TV HD and Tivo movies I want, as well as many other options...Never say that one thing is the only option...

I am the consumer, J6P, I say where my money is spent and it sure as hell won't be spent on an unfinished spec, buggy BD-J infested, mess of a format..

Don

One thing to remember with that war is that there was no content being sold.

Not because I think Blu-ray is particularly better. We just don't need an ongoing format war.

When there is a clear winner, the general public will become interested, and the shift to HD dvds will hopefully speed up. I would like to see them replace regular DVDs entirely.

With an HD set, who wants to watch regular dvds? If I understand correctly, HD DVD is down to two studios? This is the event I have been hoping for. I will get a Blu-Ray player to go with my XBR5 that should be here in two weeks!

Excellent question. I was personally hoping that HDM would go the way of DVD+RW and DVD-R -- with dual format players. Unfortunately, the mass media seems to be fixated on the Beta/VHS model, and will discourage HDM adoption until there is a single format. I believe Warner and others have hard data that supports the idea that there must be a single format.