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spreadheadtom

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The death of HD DVD?
« on: January 08, 2008, 12:41:00 PM »
I'm sitting on a $400.00 HD DVD player right now.....I'm gonna try and sneak it back to Best Buy.  I'll tell them that I got it for xmas  ::)

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article3153038.ece

From Times OnlineJanuary 8, 2008

Blu-Ray takes inside edge in war with HD-DVD
Up to 20 firms backing HD-DVD consider defection after Warner opted for Blu-Ray and Paramount is poised to followLeo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent
The sprawling consortium of technology and media companies assembled to promote the HD-DVD format of next-generation high definition discs faces a spate of defections to the rival Blu-Ray Disc consortium.

As many as 20 companies currently part of the HD-DVD Promotion Group could be preparing to remove their names from the alliance’s 130-strong membership list, The Times has learned.

Paramount yesterday emerged as the latest major Hollywood studio poised to switch allegiances.

Despite the huge armies of technology companies ranged against each other in the format showdown, Paramount has turned out to be a pivotal figure. Its decision in August to give exclusive backing to HD-DVD was seen as a potentially devastating blow to the prospects of Blu-Ray, and to the strategy of Sony’s president, Sir Howard Stringer.

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Sir Howard consistently argued, though, that the Playstation3 games console, which includes a Blu-Ray disc player, would put the format in people’s living rooms around the world more quickly than HD-DVD players would be adopted by consumers. But Paramount, like other members of the HD-DVD group such as Fujitsu, Lenovo and Kenwood, has hedged its bets. It offered exclusivity in August on the basis that it could reverse the decision should Warner Bros switch to Blu-Ray.

The threatened exodus from the HD-DVD format follows last week’s decision by Warner Bros to back the rival Blu-Ray Disc format, whose main technology backers include Sony, Apple and Dell.

One Tokyo-based analyst said that the defections could represent the final nails in the coffin of Toshiba’s HD-DVD standard after a bitterly-fought “format war” that has run for a little over one year.

Eiichi Katayama, of Nomura Securities, said that the battle between the formats, which display films and video games more sharply in an era of ever-growing television screen sizes, was now “entering its final phase”.

Pony Canyon, a major Japanese music, animation and film studio and part of the giant Fuji Television media empire, said that although it was currently part of the HD-DVD Promotion Group, the decisions of US studios meant it would “choose Blu-Ray in the end”.

Several other Japanese firms – including content producers and electronics component makers – said that their support of HD DVD was “under review” and that they knew of many others in the same position. Others, who admitted that they had previously been waiting for “clear market momentum”, said that it had now probably arrived.

Backers of HD-DVD point to the relative ease of producing the discs, and the lower cost of building machines capable of reading them. Unlike previous format wars, particularly the notorious Betamax v VHS skirmish in the 1980s, the war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD has effectively been decided in boardrooms, rather than electronics showrooms. The decisions of the major studios have come well before those of customers, who have generally held back from picking one format for fear of backing a loser.

Facing a future with only Universal Pictures as its major Hollywood supporter, Toshiba and HD-DVD, said analysts at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, could quickly find itself isolated. But HD-DVD does retain a few potential trump-cards, most notably Microsoft. It is the presence of Microsoft on HD-DVD’s list of supporters, say many of the promotion group, that preserves hope that the format could yet prevail.


Offline John Kelly

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2008, 12:46:22 PM »
I wouldn't necessarily go into "return mode" just yet, but this is seriously bad news for HD DVD and its supporters (of which I was one).  The worst part about all of this was that Warner was in talks to go HD DVD exclusive along with Fox.  But Fox was paid a hefty sum by Sony and backed out of the deal, and Warner would not go without Fox forcing them to go to Blu as well. 

To be fair, HD DVD still has the two largest movie studios exclusive to their side (Universal and Paramount), but many people don't feel like that will be enough.  We'll see - it's all about what Toshiba and Universal do over the next few months. 

I won't be buying discs in either format anytime soon, though.  The entire thing has left me pretty jaded on the industry as a whole.  They should have figured all of this out *before* anything got into consumer hands.
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Offline gewwang

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2008, 12:48:27 PM »
I still haven't even gotten the 5 free ones that came with my player back in October.

Offline Tim

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2008, 12:50:51 PM »
I won't be buying discs in either format anytime soon, though.  The entire thing has left me pretty jaded on the industry as a whole.  They should have figured all of this out *before* anything got into consumer hands.

I don't disagree with you at all there but why did you think this instance would be handled any better than Beta/VHS? You could see this coming a mile away

edit: not trying to single you out, I just thought that it was pretty obvious that early adopters of either media were running a big risk of being left with expensive equipment and a stash of movies that were incompatible with the new standard.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2008, 01:04:46 PM by Tim »
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spreadheadtom

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2008, 01:00:04 PM »
I'm searching the internets now, but I know I read TODAY that Paramount is backing out.


here it is....sent to me in an e-mail.

Paramount following Warner out the HD DVD door?
Posted Jan 7th 2008 10:29PM by Richard Lawler
Filed under: Blu-ray, HD DVD

The Financial Times is reporting that Paramount is preparing to use a get out clause in its HD DVD exclusivity deal, and go back to Blu-ray, about 4 months after ending its dual-format release schedule. The move would be a result of Warner's switch to Blu-ray, using a "get out" clause in Paramount's promotional agreement with the HD DVD camp. No details on what it might take to rip up the contract and make Michael Bay very, very happy, but if the rumor proves true this could make the slow death he predicted for HD DVD a very, very fast one.

Offline macdaddy

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2008, 01:06:05 PM »
yup. saw it from a mile away...

word is that paramount is only hd-dvd exclusive for another bit of time, then they, too, will go blu. hell, sony is selling toshiba some plants to make chips - i would not be surprised if the hd-dvd phaseout was a part of that deal...

funny thing is, m$ wants both sides to lose, so that they can (hopefully, by then) own the downloadable content arena (i really hope that scenario doesnt come true, but i know that is the redmond, wa strategy).

with any luck, blu is here to stay. the format is superior (more storage space, which should equal better encodes - the only reason they are the same now is that studios only want to transfer once, so they do the lowest common denominator, and hddvd is the weak format here, 'cos it doesnt have the space). the new standard, already updated for the ps3, allows the pip stuff, and blu-ray live will be forthcoming very soon, which is a much richer feature set than what hd-dvd has to offer...

no real reason to wait, just go blu, or you will likely regret it...
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Offline John Kelly

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2008, 01:13:25 PM »
yup. saw it from a mile away...

word is that paramount is only hd-dvd exclusive for another bit of time, then they, too, will go blu. hell, sony is selling toshiba some plants to make chips - i would not be surprised if the hd-dvd phaseout was a part of that deal...

funny thing is, m$ wants both sides to lose, so that they can (hopefully, by then) own the downloadable content arena (i really hope that scenario doesnt come true, but i know that is the redmond, wa strategy).

with any luck, blu is here to stay. the format is superior (more storage space, which should equal better encodes - the only reason they are the same now is that studios only want to transfer once, so they do the lowest common denominator, and hddvd is the weak format here, 'cos it doesnt have the space). the new standard, already updated for the ps3, allows the pip stuff, and blu-ray live will be forthcoming very soon, which is a much richer feature set than what hd-dvd has to offer...

no real reason to wait, just go blu, or you will likely regret it...

Actually Blu-ray Live will finally bring Blu-Ray to the *original* feature set of HD DVD.  HD DVD was superior in absolutely every category except for storage space, which was just overcome with the HD DVD-ROM 51.  It had much less intrusive DRM, supported managed copy (being able to rip your discs to a PC for playback/archival), an easier programming language (ask anyone who works with it if they like BD-J and they'll just laugh at you), and had advanced online features that Blu-ray still doesn't support. 

And the worst part about it is if you own a Blu-ray player now it is not possible to update it to the final standard.  You will have to buy a new player.


But I'm not bitter. ;)
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spreadheadtom

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2008, 01:17:05 PM »
yup. saw it from a mile away...

word is that paramount is only hd-dvd exclusive for another bit of time, then they, too, will go blu. hell, sony is selling toshiba some plants to make chips - i would not be surprised if the hd-dvd phaseout was a part of that deal...

funny thing is, m$ wants both sides to lose, so that they can (hopefully, by then) own the downloadable content arena (i really hope that scenario doesnt come true, but i know that is the redmond, wa strategy).

with any luck, blu is here to stay. the format is superior (more storage space, which should equal better encodes - the only reason they are the same now is that studios only want to transfer once, so they do the lowest common denominator, and hddvd is the weak format here, 'cos it doesnt have the space). the new standard, already updated for the ps3, allows the pip stuff, and blu-ray live will be forthcoming very soon, which is a much richer feature set than what hd-dvd has to offer...

no real reason to wait, just go blu, or you will likely regret it...

Actually Blu-ray Live will finally bring Blu-Ray to the *original* feature set of HD DVD.  HD DVD was superior in absolutely every category except for storage space, which was just overcome with the HD DVD-ROM 51.  It had much less intrusive DRM, supported managed copy (being able to rip your discs to a PC for playback/archival), an easier programming language (ask anyone who works with it if they like BD-J and they'll just laugh at you), and had advanced online features that Blu-ray still doesn't support. 

And the worst part about it is if you own a Blu-ray player now it is not possible to update it to the final standard.  You will have to buy a new player.


But I'm not bitter. ;)

so I guess the smart thing to do would be buy a PS3...isn't it updateable through firmware?

edit: +T to the thread

Offline macdaddy

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2008, 01:24:27 PM »
yup.

a ps3 gets all the updates, and it is easy. it's like it is future-proof (esp. when blu-ray wins the war)

oh, and a ps3 is as cheap of a bluray player that you will find... people dont get that about the ps3 yet - it is as much of a media center as it is a game machine: stream audio, video, sacd player, hdmi out, optical out, etc... and there are some pretty good games (high velocity bowling kicks the wii bowling's a$$ ;) ) and you cant beat unreal tournament, online, in hd, with wireless keyboard and mouse support. alot of folks like that uncharted game, too, but i dont like single player affairs. ymmv.

oh, and capacity is a big issue, 'cos you can have better video encodes, and lossless audio, etc. in fact, the thing that would affect the video encodes the most up to now were the studios that do both formats chinsing on the video bitrate so it would fit on hd-dvd. blu-ray has the capacity for even better encodes than what we have been seeing. now that we dont have to worry about shaving the bitrate for hd-dvd, we can look forward to superior transfers of the matrix trilogy, and of course the lotr extended editions...

it is a great time to be into high-def right now, just make sure you go blu!

« Last Edit: January 08, 2008, 01:28:14 PM by macdaddy »
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Offline willndmb

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2008, 01:25:46 PM »
i still think in the end EVERY player will be dual format
just like -r and +r dvds

but it seems to me that bluray is more popular then hd simply based on the players you see
you can goto any store and they will have the toshiba hd player while they have 5 bluray players right next to it
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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2008, 01:27:48 PM »
Hmmmmm....I have 5 free HD discs on the way and 2 that came in the box. Perhaps I will hold off on going out and buying a bunch of HD discs until this thing finally settles.  May just give me a great reason to get a PS3 and junk my PS2.
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spreadheadtom

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #11 on: January 08, 2008, 01:31:20 PM »
Hmmmmm....I have 5 free HD discs on the way and 2 that came in the box. Perhaps I will hold off on going out and buying a bunch of HD discs until this thing finally settles.  May just give me a great reason to get a PS3 and junk my PS2.

luckily I never mailed off for my free movies so I never cut the UPC off the box.  It's going back in hopes of an exchange for a PS3.

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #12 on: January 08, 2008, 01:43:28 PM »
yup. saw it from a mile away...

word is that paramount is only hd-dvd exclusive for another bit of time, then they, too, will go blu. hell, sony is selling toshiba some plants to make chips - i would not be surprised if the hd-dvd phaseout was a part of that deal...

funny thing is, m$ wants both sides to lose, so that they can (hopefully, by then) own the downloadable content arena (i really hope that scenario doesnt come true, but i know that is the redmond, wa strategy).

with any luck, blu is here to stay. the format is superior (more storage space, which should equal better encodes - the only reason they are the same now is that studios only want to transfer once, so they do the lowest common denominator, and hddvd is the weak format here, 'cos it doesnt have the space). the new standard, already updated for the ps3, allows the pip stuff, and blu-ray live will be forthcoming very soon, which is a much richer feature set than what hd-dvd has to offer...

no real reason to wait, just go blu, or you will likely regret it...

Actually Blu-ray Live will finally bring Blu-Ray to the *original* feature set of HD DVD.  HD DVD was superior in absolutely every category except for storage space, which was just overcome with the HD DVD-ROM 51.  It had much less intrusive DRM, supported managed copy (being able to rip your discs to a PC for playback/archival), an easier programming language (ask anyone who works with it if they like BD-J and they'll just laugh at you), and had advanced online features that Blu-ray still doesn't support. 

And the worst part about it is if you own a Blu-ray player now it is not possible to update it to the final standard.  You will have to buy a new player.


But I'm not bitter. ;)

so I guess the smart thing to do would be buy a PS3...isn't it updateable through firmware?

edit: +T to the thread

The PS3 is the only player that has the possibility to update to the 2.0 profile, but it hasn't been confirmed that it will.  Other players would require hardware upgrades, not just a firmware update, which is why they'll never be able to reach the 2.0 profile.
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Offline macdaddy

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #13 on: January 08, 2008, 02:18:36 PM »
Quote from: john kelly
The PS3 is the only player that has the possibility to update to the 2.0 profile, but it hasn't been confirmed that it will.
actually, it was confirmed yesterday @ ces ;)

that, and the fact that it will auto-rip brdvd to psp.




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Offline George

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Re: The death of HD DVD?
« Reply #14 on: January 08, 2008, 02:24:47 PM »
Hence the reason why I never believe in being an early adopter of any new technology until its "finalized" for the masses.  I'll continue to sit this one out until Blu-ray is clearly the victor and goodfellas comes out on it (if it isnt already).
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