Why do so many here seem to wish for the death of HDM?  

It's one of those lame "If I can't win, I don't want anyone to win" mindsets.

I think the answer is "Bitterness". This site has been more pro HD DVD since I found it and that format seems to be a sinking ship. Those that have become emotionally involved in that format are now bitter and rooting for unhappiness on everyone else.

We have a winner!

I don't know if I see people bashing the advent of HDM or the strides it making as a whole. I think most people do want to see it succeed. The reason most of us are into AV is because we love going to the movies. What movie fan wouldn't want to experience better than movie theater quality in the comfort and quiet of their homes??

I think the bigger problem right now, as others have already pointed out, is the popularity contest between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, and to a lesser extent the VOD/downloads people. It doesn't surprise me that people are so adamant about belonging to one side or the other, it's our nature to choose sides, especially when money and emotion has been invested into supporting something. Of course, once they belong to a side, the other side is always wrong.

The reality is that the two formats, while having differences, are fairly similar in application and in end results: 1080p video, with extremely high quality audio.

I think that because we have HD and BD factions battling one another, there ends up being those on the sidelines who would rather it all just went away, supporters and all. I'm starting to feel that way with each new thread I read turning into a HD vs BD troll fest, regardless of the topic.

Maybe what you're sensing and reading is the output from those people. The ones who are tired of the endless and pointless debate over which is the superior format and which will overcome the other.

I think once HD-DVD truly dies and the movies of all studios are available on a single format (sometime later this year, in my view), we'll see most of the people here who are now claiming that they'd rather be dead than a Blu-Ray owner posting in the model-specific Blu-Ray threads on AVS. And once they own the format, they'll want to see HDM succeed just as much as current Blu-Ray owners. But that will take a little time.

Grapes. Sour grapes.

Yup - it is. The answer is that the people advocating such are not true movie fans - I liken it to bitter angry college football conference rivals. For whatever reason they're either for Toshiba or against Sony (or more broadly HD DVD and Blu-Ray) and their team has just lost the big game against their hated rival. Rather than root for their conference in the bowl game, they'd rather see Sony lose to a non-conference opponent.

I'll state it again, I don't believe anyone who holds the nonsense OP points out can truly call themselves a movie fan.

Is it really that many? Have you compared the amount of those who wish ill on HDM vs. the amount of members on AVS as a whole? Sometimes the minority is just louder than the majority.

I think HD DVD isn't as hype driven, it's supporters have always known it's odds were not as good, and now that BD has pulled ahead, it's easier to have perspective. On the other hand I don't think BD supporters have had to sober up in quite the same way, I think many are still war-focused and in the honeymoon of the WB decision.

My perspective hasn't changed all that much, I own BD and I support it in the sense that I buy plenty of disks, but my owning it hasn't changed me into a "fan" in the sense that I'm blind to all the issues laid against it. Some are issues that would have faced HD DVD had it been in the driver's seat, others, the more frustrating ones, belong solely to BD.

I hope they pull it off, but I'd would be foolish to look at it as a foregone conclusion. One of the reasons I supported HD DVD to begin with, was my suspicion that though blu-ray had a greater chance of winning the war, it also had a greater chance of losing the peace.

I think that's probably true and I think a lot of people will be laughing about that switch for a long time.

Seriously though, what's with the whole "I'd rather die than own..." bit? I've actually seen a couple of HD-DVD people write that in their posts (I don't think I've seen any BD people write anything that dramatic). I can't understand that at all. My wife and daughter: yeah, I'd die for them. A piece of electronics that I paid a lot more for than it cost the manufacturer to make and that is only an insignificant and replacable part of my present life: no thanks, I'll keep breathing.

There has been plenty of vitriol and bitterness on both sides. You might forget the hostilities around here after the Paramount decision.

I agree with previous analogies that basically there are a lot of bitter sour grapes folk out there who are angry that the side they picked is losing. The really amazing thing is that in some cases they spent as little as $99-$149 on a player, bought a handful of movies and are still bitter.

I wonder if they are still bitter about Beta vs. VHS? After all a 1st generation tape machine cost about the equivelant of $2000 in today's dollars. Yet we see hate and vitriol over players and movies that cost a fraction as much.

Truly sad.

Yeah, reminds me of the "better dead than red" anti-communist phrase from the 1950s. Mades no sense then. I'm no commie either, but if it came down to my life or living under a hammer and sickle, well comrades, I guess that'd be an easy choice to make for me.

and the whole "I'd rather die than own". . .come on - give me a break, it's a box with wires and gizmos in it that makes pretty pictures on the screen. Who freakin' cares who makes it or what color cases the discs come it.

Thankfully, such delusions are limited to a few nuts.

You're clearly not looking hard enough...

i think part of the reason you are seeing the digital download people vs hdm because there is no better place for that to be discussed.... digital downloads should get their own forum when they remove the hd-dvd ones.

i think some of the hd-dvd folks are lashing out at bluray and thats alot of what you are seeing (and some of it is deserved). i think we would have seen a very different outcome to this war had bluray not had the studio support and let the formats be judged on their merits alone.

but to me next gen movie is not about the quality of the movie.... but more of the interface and how you consume movies. this to me is the key and its one area both physical formats are pretty bad with. you have to manage queues for netflix (and wait for them to mail the disc to you which brings supply problems into the equation), go to the video store, go to best buy/b&m stores to consume your video.

Being able to sit at your couch at choose any movie and a few mins later start watching it is a far better way to consume movies. Now they have their own problems too. Not everybody can access them, quality varies between services, no extras, movies can potentially be removed from the services. But the key difference here is digital distribution can and will improve over time and is far far more upgradable where physical media wont be getting any better than it is now (atleast very easily because it would require a rewrite of the spec). We see/hear all the time that people are pissed off that they have to buy 6 different versions of each movie and then throw all those out the window when the next format comes around and there will always be that next format but this really doesn't apply to digital distribution.

To me the ultimate movie service is netflix merged with an on demand model. Where you have the massive library available to you any time and it gets around the need to own discs because you can always just re-rent it anytime you want to watch it again. It meets the collectors needs and then some because you have access to a far greater collection than almost any collector. Also since you dont own the movie you get free upgrades over time as the next format comes along its a seamless upgrade. It also doesnt have the same limitations as netflix where stock supply is a problem as is waiting 24hrs to actually get the movie and having to manage a queue (always having to add new movies).

I wasn't lurking around here during the Paramount decision. Probably busy with work or studying for the bar or something.

Anyway, a few months before that a lot of people were calling on Universal to go neutral. I thought it would be better for everyone to drop neutrality altogether and end the war. My expectation was, Paramount and WB would most likely go to BD because that was the quicker exit. The Paramount decision surprised me, but didn't anger me. I thought it was the right thing to do - pick a side. So even though I was/am a PS3 owner and hoped for Paramount to come over, I would never have expressed vitriol or bitterness for them picking the other side. Actually, I was glad to see everyone get off the fences and see where things really stand.

As it turns out, it probably ended up being the best thing for BD. I doubt WB would have been so strongly courted had Paramount not jumped first. In the end, it was probably the wrong thing for Toshiba to do. They won the battle on that day, but lost the war because what's good for the goose is also good for the gander, and Sony could play those games just as well.

Anyway, I didn't see the hostilties then, but if they existed, they were misdirected and unfortunate. But that doesn't justify the antics lately of the hard core HD DVD proponents. Need I say anything so trite as two wrongs don't make a right?

If you start out from a point where quality does not matter then it´s easier to take a step down.

Oh, give me a friggin' break. Do you honestly believe for one second that, if the shoe was on the other foot, the Blue side would just graciously concede defeat? The hostility from them (a more immature age demographic by anyone's reckoning) would border on the near-homicidal.

As it is, in the face of almost-certain victory, the rancor from them continues. You can read posts all around the web by these "sore winners," reveling not in the fact that Blu-ray dodged a bullet, not in the fact that their investment is likely safe, but in the fact that the HD DVD supporters whom they've been demonizing all this time have been cut off at the knees.

Yup, they's real AV enthusiasts, they is.

Maybe it is bit of bitterness at the moment and maybe trying to have some hope that HD-DVD will have a future. If HD-DVD had essentially won, I am guessing the response would be similar from the Blu side. But eventually, they would come around to support the format that comes out on top. I believe the HD-DVD supports will come around to support Blu-ray eventually. Just at the moment there is some hope that something is still going to happen to help HD-DVD survive and they do not quite see it as unwinnable yet. But I think soon enough that will change and more people will take their choice less personal and adopt the format that will be the standard.

Of course, no matter what, some will refuse to accept it and will go with other options as upconverted DVDs, HD downloads, and HD movies on cable, but I don't think it will be the majority.

No, I don't think they would graciously concede defeat but at some point would have to concede defeat and buy into what ever format wins. But the attitude you mention is quite easily seen on both sides with just about any forum I have read. At the moment people just take all this too personally.

Certain people could have seen this coming. Back in August of last year why did Toshiba feel compelled to offer 'financial incentives' to get Paramount hd-dvd exclusive? Paramount cashed in but when at the same time a similar deal was offered to Warner, Warner refused. Remember, Toshiba kept extolling their lead in standalone players and how cheap players would save allow them to build a huge lead over BD. In some circles a $98 sale on unsold A2s could be seen a desperation move to sell inventory. These A2s had a $299.99 msrp price tag, Toshiba was expecting to sell them at $299 not $98. Plus all the free disks that they gave away eats into their pocket further. Toshiba ate a huge loss on those players for that 1 day sale. Yet even with the sale BD regained the standalone lead from late November to December. HD-DVD players have always been 1/2 the price of BD players since the format war began, yet did not even come close to the 1.8 million players by the end of 2008 they once said they could sell. People are quick to overlook Toshiba's own business reports about how actual standalone sales were falling far behind their own projections. Toshiba once promised 500-600,000 standalone players sold by March 2007. In reality they got nowhere near those numbers. But they sold their format based on these projections. Was Warner watching when they kept falling farther, and farther behind these projections?

If HD-DVD wins i will buy my movies in that format, simple as that, until then i will buy nothing buy Blu-Ray and tell everyone i know what i think is the right format to choose. I´m lucky though, thanks to the PS3 i can be certain that there will be cheap and good BD players for the next 10 years while HD-DVD supporters can only wish.

Well im not looking forward to a situation were region B titles for 42$ will be the only option for me.

Even if HD on Disc fails there will come more options (hopefully better), its not like they can go back and just release movies on DVD. The bar has been raised.

I don't think I've seen anyone wishing for the death of HDM. But there are lots of things about current HDM that are not as good as SD. Colour Range/TV Response time? Region Free players - what good is a movie experience if they only ever sell a movie in the US and you are in the UK? Live events and documentaries on SD were filmed at 50hz now they are 24hz - and that's somehow better for live events and documentaries etc.??

I watched a demo in a TV store with the best plasma they had showing a clip of Kingdom of Heaven. The biggest plasma TV they had was really noisy in the picture. The other one was better and they were comparing HD and SD on it, saying "just look at the resolution compared to SD" etc, expecting us to be really impressed. I wasn't. That clip was crying out for more resolution and it just wasn't there. True those plasmas weren't quite 1080p (because of the problems making full 1080p plasmas that size), whereas 90% of the LCDs in the store where 1080p but they don't have the black levels and response time of plasma). So I think we all want HDM to succeed, but we don't always believe all the marketing hype, we don't want region control just used as an excuse to charge double for UK region discs and players, and we want all the frame rates that were available in players (including UK frame rates!) to be available and used when it's best suited for the content on HDM, and we want even higher resolutions and less noise/grain and compression artefacts

Eh, You DO know that most region A discs are infact region-free, even though there is a Region A symbol on the cover. And more and more discs are now marked with ABC.
And the ones that ARE locked gets an release on region B just a month later or so.

PLUS some online stores are now offering region free players.

It was the same with DVD in the beginning and that didn´t became a problem now did it?

Just give it some time. Prices on region B discs are actually beginning to fall and the special sales have already begun.

Somehow DVD players have largely become region free though technically they are not suppose to be. Maybe that is an advantage SD has but really shouldn't. On the other hand, regional coding perhaps is a requirement for some studios to release a title that would then not be available at all. And I believe the majority of the releases are region free (or all region).

There are online stores offering region free Blu-ray players (region free for Blu-ray discs)???? Example of a store/player please because I think it's impossible

If an online store is offering a region free player, then it is not legal. I doubt it the case otherwise we probably would have heard about some crack.

All this pricing stuff if usually only the US. HD-DVD is hardly cheap outside the US market that I have seen. Though cheaper then Blu-ray, the HD-dvd players are still probably US$700 over here, I can get a PS3 cheaper. And disks on both formats costs around US$40 each.

A good page on the stat of Blu-ray disks can be found here:

http://www.blu-raystats.com/stats.ph...rBy=RegionFree

You can see which are regionally restricted and not, size, codecs, etc.

Yes I know, I own a couple of region A titles.

But its much easier to purchase HD DVD since you dont have to check if it will work. Preorders are even worse since you have no idea unless its a warner title.

And the ones that are locked and do arrive later is just overpriced...

It's not just region coding either - if and when a high def disc is available in the UK it's several months later than the US, we generally pay a lot more for it, and chances are we get less features and probably a lower bitrate picture, and that's for catalogue titles that haven't been in the cinema for years.