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Yo Slysoft Guys...read THIS

Yes, what a pleasant surprise. But I told you, to "wait and see", didn't I?
Now, if Warner / New Line go HD DVD exclusive (well, 20% of their titles already are) BD (as a movie format) is dead as a doornail (UMD). Let's wait and see... ;)

My biggest fear right now is that this pushes more consumers away from both formats. When it looked like BD had the lead, more consumers were apt to buy into HD as they could get (most) of the movies they wanted on BD. Now, it's not so clear with studios split again. That may just turn people off from HD altogether and sales for both sides plummet. Wait and see indeed! :)
 
What makes you think that? Sony (Columbia) I understand, as they have high investment in the format. But Disney? AFAIK they were even involved in the HDi design for HD DVD. They will go where the money is. Regardless of region coding or DRM or copy protection. They always did.

Except that they seem to be pushing BD even harder now with their BD "tour". I knew they had a hand in HD DVD, so, it's indeed possible that if BD sales start to seriously drop and HD DVD sales go way way up, that they'd switch, but, currently it seems very unlikely. They seem to believe that BD is technologically better with BD-J. I remain skeptical on that one until I see BD-J in action vs HDi. Nonetheless, you're right, they COULD switch, but, I just don't (yet) see that happening.
 
Even if I personally would love to completely drop BD support in AnyDVD HD, we need to crack BD+ in a timely fashion (6 weeks, what do you think, Peer?) just to demonstrate Fox, that BD+ is no reason to stay Blu-ray exclusive. :D

You get your shot soon. Oct 2nd I believe is when the first Fox titles are going to be released. You can bet your BD player that they'll be using BD+.
 
Except that they seem to be pushing BD even harder now with their BD "tour". I knew they had a hand in HD DVD, so, it's indeed possible that if BD sales start to seriously drop and HD DVD sales go way way up, that they'd switch, but, currently it seems very unlikely.
I predict HD DVD sales to increase dramatically as soon as players reach the magical 199$ this holiday season.

They seem to believe that BD is technologically better with BD-J. I remain skeptical on that one until I see BD-J in action vs HDi. Nonetheless, you're right, they COULD switch, but, I just don't (yet) see that happening.
You can see BD-J in action with "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. Problem is, they don't work well on anything else than a PS3 ...
 
You can see BD-J in action with "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. Problem is, they don't work well on anything else than a PS3 ...

Somehow I am so utterly not surprised to hear this. LOL.
 
I predict HD DVD sales to increase dramatically as soon as players reach the magical 199$ this holiday season.

I REALLY hope so. I'd LOVE to see HD DVD win the war. Now that I am getting my movies off Amazon, I'm finding it a LOT easier to find HD DVD's for some strange reason. My local store better get on the ball. BTW, did everyone see Netflix's take on all this? They've rented both formats since the beginning of each. They said there is NO clear winner according to rentals!! That's awesome!

You can see BD-J in action with "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. Problem is, they don't work well on anything else than a PS3 ...

Really?? That was BD-J? I wasn't aware of that. Pretty neat I guess. Those are the first two movies I bought on BD. The only other one I own is 300 and very much now regret getting it on BD because I missed out on the interactive features of HDi. However, once again, my idiotic local store didn't have it on the shelves in HD DVD. That was the week I decided I'm done with buying movies locally and now have Amazon Prime. :)
 
The only other one I own is 300 and very much now regret getting it on BD because I missed out on the interactive features of HDi.

Funny, I am watching 300 w/HDi right now, blue screen director's commentary, it is awesome.

You should get a rental at least.
 
Funny, I am watching 300 w/HDi right now, blue screen director's commentary, it is awesome.

You should get a rental at least.

Yup, that's exactly what the plan is. I will indeed rent it through Netflix one of these weeks. Last week I bought the Bourne movies on HD DVD. I LOVE those movies and on HD DVD they look SO good. I can't wait for Bourne Ultimatum to come out. I'll definitely be buying that one, too. The funny thing is James gives me a hard time for buying a PS3 and supporting BD...but, I have 3 BD movies vs a SLEW of HD DVD movies. :D I was just looking over there....Matrix collection, Batman Begins, King Kong, Serenity, V for Vendetta, Fearless, and the 2 Bourne movies. HD DVD ROCKS!!!!!! :)
 
I REALLY hope so. I'd LOVE to see HD DVD win the war.
I believe that in the long run it will, but not only because of price, but for political reasons.

I believe the "players" in the game (studios, CE manufacturers, software developers, authoring studios, replicators, ... ) are uncomfortable with Sony's power.

Sony is a (big!) content provider, so it is a competitor to the other studios.
Sony is a (big!) CE provider, so it is a competitor to the other manufacturers (who certainly don't like the pricing of the PS3).
Sony is a (big!) replicator for BD, AFAIK the only one who can replicate BD50
Sony is a (strong!) member of BDA, I don't believe BDA can make any move without Sony's approval.
Sony is a (big!) provider of copy protection technology.
EDIT:
Sony is a (big!) provider for professional BD authoring tools / software.
The list may go on, Sony is very powerful in many places (AACS, BD+, even DVD Forum where HD DVD is developed).

It is a "bad thing(tm)" to have "State and Church" combined, we know this. And it is a "bad thing(tm)" to have technology provider, replicator, content provider, hardware provider and copy protection provider in one person.

I believe this is one of the reasons Paramount backed out, they simply don't want to be so dependent on one of their biggest competitors.
What happens if Sony says "sorry folks, we don't have enough production capacity to replicate Transformers for the holiday season. Sony Pictures needs all our capacity for Spiderman 3".

I don't believe Paramount took this decision lightly. They probably realized "oh my god, if BD really wins the war, and it might look like this, we're royally screwed. We must turn the rudder around now, before it is too late".

I also believe some CE manufacturers will slowly move to HD DVD, some are already working on dual format devices.
 
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I believe that in the long run it will, but not only because of price, but for political reasons.

I believe the "players" in the game (studios, CE manufacturers, software developers, authoring studios, replicators, ... ) are uncomfortable with Sony's power.

Sony is a (big!) content provider, so it is a competitor to the other studios.
Sony is a (big!) CE provider, so it is a competitor to the other manufacturers (who certainly don't like the pricing of the PS3).
Sony is a (big!) replicator for BD, AFAIK the only one who can replicate BD50
Sony is a (strong!) member of BDA, I don't believe BDA can make any move without Sony's approval.
Sony is a (big!) provider of copy protection technology.
EDIT:
Sony is a (big!) provider for professional BD authoring tools / software.
The list may go on, Sony is very powerful in many places (AACS, BD+, even DVD Forum where HD DVD is developed).

It is a "bad thing(tm)" to have "State and Church" combined, we know this. And it is a "bad thing(tm)" to have technology provider, replicator, content provider, hardware provider and copy protection provider in one person.

I believe this is one of the reasons Paramount backed out, they simply don't want to be so dependent on one of their biggest competitors.
What happens if Sony says "sorry folks, we don't have enough production capacity to replicate Transformers for the holiday season. Sony Pictures needs all our capacity for Spiderman 3".

I don't believe Paramount took this decision lightly. They probably realized "oh my god, if BD really wins the war, and it might look like this, we're royally screwed. We must turn the rudder around now, before it is too late".

I also believe some CE manufacturers will slowly move to HD DVD, some are already working on dual format devices.

WOW this totally makes sense and will only hope (in time) this happens.
 
We will see. It's rumored(however, denied) that Warner is on the verge of going exclusive. That would be interesting to see if and which way they go. I think this holiday season may impact the format wars quite a bit, but, NEXT holiday season will really define it. I've stated before that once a sub 300 dollar hybrid player is released, the "war" will be over and studios can pick whatever format they want and it'll not matter. Until then, a lot of people will sit on the sidelines and watch the battle. In the end, HD DVD could win, or neither could win...it's all a guessing game at this point. As for me, I plan on buying HD DVD's whenever possible. :)
 
We will see. It's rumored(however, denied) that Warner is on the verge of going exclusive. That would be interesting to see if and which way they go.
*If* they go exclusive - which I doubt at this moment - they will go HD DVD, as they have IP in this format, and for the very reasons I outlined in my last post. At the moment Warner already is 30% HD DVD exclusive anyway. ;)

I think this holiday season may impact the format wars quite a bit, but, NEXT holiday season will really define it.
I believe this, too.

I've stated before that once a sub 300 dollar hybrid player is released, the "war" will be over and studios can pick whatever format they want and it'll not matter. Until then, a lot of people will sit on the sidelines and watch the battle. In the end, HD DVD could win, or neither could win...it's all a guessing game at this point. As for me, I plan on buying HD DVD's whenever possible. :)
That's the problem. There won't be any sub 300 dollar hybrid player anytime soon. You can be lucky, if there will be a sub 300 dollar BD player soon (unless Sony pumps more cash in subsidizing players - they *can* do it, as they deliver the content, too. Remember the "State & Church" analogy?).
But there will be a sub 200 dollar HD DVD player very soon.

Here is a nice article which explains very well, why Blu-ray players need to be more expensive than HD DVD players:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11309976&postcount=6
 
I was just looking over there....Matrix collection, Batman Begins, King Kong, Serenity, V for Vendetta, Fearless, and the 2 Bourne movies. HD DVD ROCKS!!!!!! :)

Hot Fuzz! :D
 
*If* they go exclusive - which I doubt at this moment - they will go HD DVD, as they have IP in this format, and for the very reasons I outlined in my last post. At the moment Warner already is 30% HD DVD exclusive anyway. ;)

They say they're not going exclusive but I've seen some rumors to the contrary. Who knows. If they go exclusive, I'm hoping it's HD DVD.

That's the problem. There won't be any sub 300 dollar hybrid player anytime soon. You can be lucky, if there will be a sub 300 dollar BD player soon (unless Sony pumps more cash in subsidizing players - they *can* do it, as they deliver the content, too. Remember the "State & Church" analogy?).
But there will be a sub 200 dollar HD DVD player very soon.

Oh, I didn't say there'd be one soon. My theory, and I'm sticking with this, is that it'll be out next holiday season...pretty much when it's going to matter. Why? Well, as I've pointed out before, in the U.S. Feb 09 is an important date. It's the date when the feds have mandated that all tv broadcasts move to digital. What has that got to do with HD DVD/Blu-Ray? Well, a *LOT* of people confuse digital to mean HD, so, you will see a LOT of people buying HDTVs during the 08 holiday season. And they're going to want some "pretty" DVD's to go with it. A hybrid player, if the war is still going strong by then, will solve the consumer's problem of which to buy. As for this season, Walmart is claiming they'll have a 199 HD DVD player. That could have a serious affect on sales.

Here is a nice article which explains very well, why Blu-ray players need to be more expensive than HD DVD players:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11309976&postcount=6

Good article. Sony wasn't too bright. And that shows by the initial crappy releases on Blu-Ray that were MPEG2 encoded. They were brought kicking and screaming to VC1 and AVC. Both of those are FAR more suited to HD than MPEG2. And with those codecs, 25 and 50 gigs are no longer really required. Woops, I guess the Blu-Ray "advantage" suddenly disappears. ;)
 
Hot Fuzz! :D

I didn't buy it, but, I probably will. I rented that one from Netflix on HD DVD and it rocked. It was so funny! I did leave out Last Samurai from that list, though. :) Got that one for my b-day. But yea, Hot Fuzz will likely be added at some point as it really was hilarious!
 
I didn't buy it, but, I probably will. I rented that one from Netflix on HD DVD and it rocked. It was so funny! I did leave out Last Samurai from that list, though. :) Got that one for my b-day. But yea, Hot Fuzz will likely be added at some point as it really was hilarious!
If you liked this one, you must see "Shaun of the Dead", too. I believe it has been released on HD DVD, too.
 
If you liked this one, you must see "Shaun of the Dead", too. I believe it has been released on HD DVD, too.

Damnit! Amazon has Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead together for 47 bucks. I just CAN'T this week cause I'm buying Tiger Woods 2008 to play online with my friend, but, I'll definitely keep that deal in mind!!
 
Woops, I guess the Blu-Ray "advantage" suddenly disappears. ;)
Well, they need it for the 3 LPCM soundtracks in English, French & Spanish. :D
HD DVD folks were bright enough to make one lossless audio codec (Dolby TrueHD) mandatory, so HD DVD doesn't need space eating PCM sound.

But recently Blu-ray started to use Dolby TrueHD as well (strange... did they run out of disc space?) on the Spiderman discs.

Poor owners of 1st gen Samsung BD players, no lossless audio for you... :p
 
Well, they need it for the 3 LPCM soundtracks in English, French & Spanish. :D
HD DVD folks were bright enough to make one lossless audio codec (Dolby TrueHD) mandatory, so HD DVD doesn't need space eating PCM sound.

But recently Blu-ray started to use Dolby TrueHD as well (strange... did they run out of disc space?) on the Spiderman discs.

Poor owners of 1st gen Samsung BD players, no lossless audio for you... :p

Yea, the whole sound issue is another frustrating thing. Ok, LPCM is great and all, but, good Lord does it take up a lot of space!!! Dolby TrueHD seems like a much better idea. And, um, aren't a LOT of things on HD DVD mandatory from day 1 that are just now being considered for Blu-Ray? Something about a stable technology vs a moving target. :D Managed copy(regardless of how we all feel about it) is mandatory for all HD DVD players to support. It's a "maybe if you're lucky" feature for Blu-Ray. BD-J's working out so well for them on non-PS3 players. BD+ is a joke that doesn't benefit the consumer one bit. Etc, etc. Yes, I'm becoming more and more impressed with HD DVD each and every day. Good thing I have both! :)
 
Yea, the whole sound issue is another frustrating thing. Ok, LPCM is great and all, but, good Lord does it take up a lot of space!!! Dolby TrueHD seems like a much better idea. And, um, aren't a LOT of things on HD DVD mandatory from day 1 that are just now being considered for Blu-Ray? Something about a stable technology vs a moving target. :D Managed copy(regardless of how we all feel about it) is mandatory for all HD DVD players to support. It's a "maybe if you're lucky" feature for Blu-Ray. BD-J's working out so well for them on non-PS3 players. BD+ is a joke that doesn't benefit the consumer one bit. Etc, etc. Yes, I'm becoming more and more impressed with HD DVD each and every day. Good thing I have both! :)

I have yet to watch either format on anything but from reading here and the net HD-DVD does sound allot by far more impressive to me.
 
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