how biased is this article?

"Will early Blu-ray adopters overcome their animosities at Sony for forcing them to abandon their initial investments in Blu-ray because of incompatibilities between Profiles 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0?"

nobody is FORCING anyone to do anything...1.0 players will play 2.0 discs...just not the 2.0 content...nobody will NEED to upgrade anything...

What a frickin liar you are. But then we all know that is the only thing that you know how to do.

what did i lie about?

It is not a mandatory part of the Blu-ray spec to be able to play SD DVD, actually.

The profile mess has yet to hit home & when it does that's a sh!tload of consumer anger & bad 'word of mouth' for Blu-ray.

This is just paid research.

If youy pay someone to ask the appropriate questions you can get any answer you want.

It's just more Blu-ray BS trying to talk-up their format before the big HD DVD moves hit.

what big HD-DVD movies? only 2 studios even make them anymore! they are done....Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pirates, Spiderman....all movie franchises that are distributed by BLU RAY EXCLUSIVE STUDIOS!

learn2read.

Moves.

Movies.

See a difference?

fair enough, read it quick...I apologize...

but regardless...what moves can they still possbily have to make?...

they are already practically giving away their hardware...what kind of a loss do you think they are taking on those hardware sales?....

and you talk about Sony being anti-consumer...i don't see the HD-DVD group out there letting the people know that when they buy an HD-DVD player that if they want a movie the only studios they can choose from are Paramount/Dreamworks, and Universal....

I just love my Betamax...I just keep playing the same 30 year old movies over and over...
Been burned once, not again. I have been holding out and will continue to do so. I did break down and get an upconvert so my second hdtv wouldn't be a complete waste.

Well, I know everyone likes to poke fun at Beta but most people don't know that Beta as a format survives to this day. It has evolved greatly since its early days but Beta is still very much in use in TV stations around the country. You will be hard pressed to find a single TV station in this country that doesn't outfit its field crews with digital beta cams for gathering content.

I Think I will stay with my standard dvd player. I have alot of movies and if I buy a Blue_ray, I'll have to add another player to my rack Damn more wires. I don't think blue_ray players will play standard dvds

They do play standard DVDs.
I don't think I've seen one blu-ray player that does not play DVDs. They aren't that stupid yet.

and, it's Blu-ray, not Blue-ray.
Look it up on wikipedia for the reason.

Another uneducated poster. No wonder HD DVD manged to sell any players at all.

BLU-RAY players play DVD's just fine. Anyone that claims otherwise is yanking your chain.

OMG!...Blu-ray players ALL play standard DVD's...and ALL upconvert SD-DVD's as well...

wow...

R.I.P
HDDVD
March 31, 2006 - January 4, 2008

Who goes to video stores anymore? On Demand is where its at now. NO lines NO waiting and NO late fees.

Before stage6 cracked down, it was a great place to watch on demand BSG or SG episodes.

Good quality, no waiting.

Now, if we could get a service around that charges maybe $1.50 for a permanent copy of that quality, or a subscription fee ($10 a month for unlimited), we'd have ourselves a real winner.

and NO bandwidth for HD
and NO infrastructure to support it..

VOD HD is not going to happen for a VERY long time, is ever.

Personally, I like to OWN what I buy, rather than pay-per-view..

I agree.
If it had better quality, I'd even pay up to like 40-50$ per months.

(In exchange for some crappy expensive cable TVs or whatever)

"BSG"

C'mon season 4!!! :)

For on-demand? Hell yeah. That's pretty much what I pay right now anyway.

Instant access to your fave shows and movies, and you can burn 'em.

So the quality isn't HD..as I said before...who cares? HD has a 17% market penetration for a reason. No-one cares. It's a status symbol.

lmao..

Again, HD? Who cares.

There's ample bandwidth for SD On-Demand. WE just haven't seen a decent implementation of it.

Stage6 is close, but they need a subscription model and they need to start getting the networks on board.

no 1080p, no 7.1 surround, no uncompressed audio....

it took DVD 7 years to surpass VHS...HD will pass SD...

hell, some people still have ANALOG ONLY TV's!!

no 1080p, no 7.1 surround, no uncompressed audio....

...no worries.

You seem to think that you and that rascally band of HD owners makes up a majority somewhere.

Thankfully, most of us still don't care. SD On-Demand @ 192 will be just fine, thank you.

This is true.

But you're using this as an argument against On Demand...which, by your statement above, doesn't have to be fast enough to carry HD for... 7 years.

:)

I think we can live with that.

Actually it took Apple 3 months to catch and pass the number of movies Blu-ray has sold in almost 2 years.

Clearly their customers don't give a damn about 7.1 or that ludicrously wasteful uncompressed audio or any of the rest of the specs the kiddies love to shout at anyone they can.

you are correct in that HD is FAR from a majority...and if you don't have an HDTV then Blu-ray and HD-DVD offer you ZERO benefits...

but for those of us with HDTV's and 5.1 or 7.1 channel home theaters...this stuff is important news....for us SD on-demand is NOT just fine...because we don't want pixelated 480i/p video, with stereo sound....we could get that on a 13" SDTV if we wanted to...

You seem to be aware that the HD market is miniscule...

..and yet you actually also seem to think the On demand market cares about you and your little band of early adopters.

They don't. HD isn't going to be mainstream for several years yet. Until then, On-Demand services will focus on SD delivery.

If, and that's a big if, they get that right, they'll start pumping out HD streams. Probably at about the pace cable and satellite are doing; Channel by channel.

By then, I am sure, our "tubes" will be more than capable of handling it.

you've got it wrong though...i dont think the on demand market really cares about HD...but what gets me is when people say things like...

"Im not buying blu-ray because on-demand is going to take over!"

when we both know that on-demand has not really even gotten SD material right, and the implementation of HD on-demand on a wide scale is YEARS off...

really what it comes down to is people have a blind hatred of Sony, and its sad...

look, I have a PS3, and use it as my blu ray player, I also have a 360 and have contemplated on many occasions buying the HD-DVD add-on, the major reason i have not is the limited audio capabilities of the 360 in general...but i have also contemplated buying an HD-DVD stand alone many times recently...even though blu ray has won this there are PLENTY of titles that are out on HD-DVD NOW that I want, and i have no idea when the blu-ray versions will be released, or when the last two studios will switch...

im damn format neatural, i just want this to be over...i lean blu-ray because i have a PS3 and it happens to be a great blu-ray player so it was easy to go that route...

people saying they will skip out on an entire generation of formats because its a Sony backed product are just crazy...if HD-DVD had "won" i would have kept my blu-rays as is, and probably gone out and bought a good stand alone HD-DVD player the second Warner had gone exclusive...but it went the other way...

I have HD PPV with Dish Network, if I chose to use it.

480i though looks like crap, but P isn't terrible when up-converted.

Anyone remember the super floppie--the 120 meg floppie disk? Or the click of death
more popular one?

http://www.sandisk.com/C...essRelease.aspx?ID=4079
Synopsis: They say their 12 gig microcard is the cat's meow.

Yep, "Laser Servo" 120 drives. They were backward compatible with regular 1.44 MB floppy disks, too. They weren't half bad.

i still have 3 of them never bought a single 120 disc for any of them just used them because they r/w time for regular floppies was outstanding.... of coure now i use a 4gig usb drive i bought for $16 bucks... amazing how things change so fast

Yeah, the read/write times were incredible on those drives. I certainly was not used to seeing regular floppies being accessed that fast.

It reminded me of when I first got an Epyx FastLoad cartridge for my Commodore 64. That 1541 drive practically left skid marks compared to what it did before. :)

The Expert cartridge loaded games off disk in 6 seconds, that was awesome. Then the Action Replay cartridge did the same, when games still took ages to load. That really did not make sence, when origional games took ages in comparison.

HD war is over before people even noticed it began.

VOD run over them both.

until you realize that your cable company does not have anywhere near the bandwidth to provide 1080p video that isn't compressed to hell and uncompressed HD audio....

please, the ability for cable companies to offer quality anywhere NEAR the level of HD Media is YEARS away....

lmao...

Have you been out for a while?

No-one gives a rats a** about HD.

It's too bad that most HD discs don't offer "HD" audio to begin with. 1080p? It's overrated. Until the infrastructure is in place and the demand is there, 1080i is more than sufficient for broadcast and VOD, and offers no difference in resolution.

Well, 1080p is very nice...IF you are sitting within four feet of the screen. I saw an article once back when 1080p TV's were first coming out that said something like 95% of consumers don't have good enough vision to differentiate between 1080p and 720p from beyond about four or five feet. Well, how many consumers watch their TV's sitting four feet away from it? Practically none I would think.

What is technically superior and what the human eye is good enough to detect is often two VERY different things.

Trust me on this...don't let Aredo see this. He'll give you a 3 page lecture on signal theory, completely disregarding the breakdown point of the human eye and ear.

*chuckle*

Ooh, I surely did not wish to give the impression that I would not choose it if given the choice.

I should have said that it's overrated as far as the majority of consumers are concerned. I would love to know the percentage of 1080p HDTV owners who are actually utilizing 1080p source material and are aware of it. :)

Lol that is exactly what I was thinking when I read that post lol.

Yes, agreed. That would make a very interesting study indeed. It would be fun to do like an old Foldgers style commercial where they "secretly replace your 1080p TV with a less expensive 720p" and see if you can even tell the difference...or even notice that the picture has changed at all!

Someone also needs to do a Coke vs. Pepsi type of "taste test" in a local shopping mall and she just how many people can actually pick out the 1080p set vs. the 720p set at a normal home viewing distance for whatever screen size they are testing with. I bet you anything the results would be very eye opening, to say the least.

I am a loyal Cramcast customer. They have promised to upgrade my digital support, so that I may receive total HD level content within 3 years, both internet and VOD. This makes me happy as hell. Oh, wait. I live in a place that isn't heavily populated for their means... I am a loyal Cramcast customer. I will pay increased rates for their areas that are more populated to get the better service, and be abandoned, because I live in a place less worthy of higher bandwidth. Live on, VOD!!! I will enjoy your dominion over discs! Just give me another 10+ years, and I will worship VOD and kill goats in thy name!

The truth is the vast bulk of the mass-market market is only ever going to have an HD TV in the size range 32" - 50".

Most either cannot afford to go larger or have no space or desire to turn their living room over to be dominated by a vast TV set.

When all is said and done it's still just TV afterall.

Looks like BestBuy are about to move. My local store (Allentown, PA) has taken all it's HD DVD stock (players and media) off the shelves..

Anyone else seeing similar? It was all there at the weekend (about 30/70 split in favor of Blu ray). I asked a member of staff, and they hinted it was being discontinued..

Looks like HD DVD's demise is happening even quicker than Gartner predict...

I didn't realize Hollywood__ moved to Allentown, PA. Hey, I know who else claimed to live there...

Who???

I remember Deacon saying something about a Target in...Whitehall, I believe. Then he tried to argue with me about whether or not there was a Wal-mart near the Allentown/Macungie town line.

This was back during the $99 HD DVD player sale...

:)

You're funny.

That's attention to detail that I can respect. :)

Hollywood_, how has the Suncoast in LVM been handling high def media (or Circuit City on Grape St, for that matter)? It's been about 4 years since I've left the Valley, (yeah, I miss it, and even if the only news I'm hearing is about this...I'll take it!).

I work at Best Buy and I can 100% assure you that is entirely false. At least at the store I work at, HD DVD players are outselling Blu-ray players by a factor of 10-to-1 since the HD DVD price cut. They literally can't keep them in stock.

Wrong Hollywood you twits. Somejackass who has a crush on me has to emulate me ..... again.

Check the spelling or number of ______ afterwards.

I'll be damned...I usually catch when it's your clone...

Oops.

You reply to the one person who knew it wasn't you?

Twit, eh? :)

LOL

Hi fake Hollywood. Still full of s*** I see.

I always copy and paste your name into something else on ignorant post like the one above.

Toshiba selling HD DVD players is no longer a measure of HD DVD marketshare, since they moved their focus to selling remaining stock as upscaling DVD players.

The $100 firesale price will surely help too.

So really your 10:1 number (if it's true), against Blu-ray is pointless, you should be comparing it to other DVD players.

No the point is, if this guy lives in Allentown PA, then he/she is not Dave Peterson, who the real Hollywood__ posted his details in the past.

So either these are different people, or Hollywood__ is wrong.

"Will early Blu-ray adopters overcome their animosities at Sony for forcing them to abandon their initial investments in Blu-ray because of incompatibilities between Profiles 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0?"

I think this is going to be a major thing. When profile 2.0 comes out and they buy a disk and it doesn't work and they find out they have to buy a new player, they'll buy HD DVD.

"If the high-def disc player price battle keeps raging anyway, what kind of financial impact might be felt by Sony, whose Blu-ray technology is more costly to produce than HD DVD?"

This I think will be another big thing. They're loosing money on PS3's and they're going to loose money on blu-rays.

I hope MS makes games for the HD-DVD addon. Tht would be really cool and also more people would buy the HD-DVD player. Then maybe they can make a 360 with a built in HD-DVD sometime in the future.

Actually, the disc will work fine. You just won't get the additional Profile 2.0 features (picture-in-picture and network features). The movie and additional content will work fine.

BTW there is NO CHANCE Microsoft will make games for the HD DVD add-on. They'd fragment the market for one (and we all know what happened when SEGA did the same thing with the Mega CD and 32x).

"They'd fragment the market for one..."

Ahh, in much the same way the BDA is going to do to the Blu-ray consumers? After all, the examples you mentioned allowed additional content to be enjoyed on the Mega Drive/Genesis, often on re-released titles.

Except this "new" content failed to s*** units, leading to the failure of both hardware platforms. Microsoft aren't going down the same path, that's for sure.

You just won't get the additional Profile 2.0 features (picture-in-picture and network features). The movie and additional content will work fine.

Nice, but nothing definitive on that yet.

...and how are all those folks with 1.1 or 1.0 players going to feel when they get that disc with this great content home and find that cannot use a good deal of it?

Oh, that's right... they knew what they were getting into. They *deserve* to get shafted because they we're stupid enough to have faith in a Sony-backed format...

They are going to feel like million bucks! :D

A million Deer?

Perhaps if we put those deer in front of (insert whatever the hell it is deer really like here) and then suddenly rip it away from them. :p

Of course, that would imply I actually give a rats a** what a deer thinks. I think they taste good. That's all I need. ;)

/too much caffeine/

Yes, too much... xD

Nah...

No such thing. That's like saying there's such a thing as too much sudden onset of heart-palpitations and uncontrollable shaking.

Right?

You feel that? The tingle means it's working!

As far as the 32x is concerned, I would agree with you. It was indeed a failure, barely achieving it's task of serving as a transitional peripheral and offering the public a sneak peek at 32-bit gaming until the Saturn arrived (which was also a failure, for the most part).

However, the Sega CD actually revitalized the Mega Drive/Genesis for a brief period. It lasted long enough for Sega to come out with a redesigned revision of it, as well as a rather unpopular CDX "portable" Genesis (cool device actually... reminded me of what Darth Vader's portable CD player would look like). The Sega CD wasn't necessarily a failure though... it just came to the scene too late in the Mega Drive/Genesis lifespan (and the growing popularity of the SNES didn't help either). Working Designs almost single-handedly boosted sales of the units with their fantastic various RPG series (Lunar I & II, etc) when it seemed all was lost.

I actually still own a working first-gen Sega CD and 32x, as well as a Power Base Converter (for Master System games) for my first-gen (no lock-out chip) Genesis. Those were happy times. :)

Rambling again... sorry.

lmao...

*way* past the tingle, man.

Friggin' noobs. :p

Regardless, people...HD-DVD will be dead and you will have no choice but to get Blu-Ray. Who in here still buy VHS over DVDs?...nobody? okay, then...enough!

"HD-DVD will be dead and you will have no choice but to get Blu-Ray."

I strongly reject this claim !. Id rather use torrents than buy films for blu-ray, and if the studios wont support me then I wont support them.

My DivX player with USB and upscale does me fine for now.

I don't buy either VHS, DVD, or HD/Blu Ray. and I never will. We already have a fantastic distribution method and have for more than a decade.

Again, I will never buy another Sony product (and yes tht includes watching their movies) after the rootkit fiasco. I don't do business with criminals.

Seriously?

Parents.

Parents buy VHS for their kids. It's still a HUGE market. Most kids movies/shows come out on VHS well in advance of any DVD releases.

You can still buy on VHS? I had no idea.

Wow. No Target, Wal-Mart, or Kmarts around you?

...or just no kids? :p

3 kids, they only get DVDs. I knew that you could still find a VHS player here and there, but not the tapes. That's kind of weird.

That's kind of weird.

You might be amazed, but I hear that a lot. :p

*grins*

Why does everybody anoint Gartner as some savant? We hired them to do an analysis of our business and what they came back with was absolute garbage. Their interviews made no sense and their final report was nothing more than a useless collection of buzzwords and cliches.

I agree it's amusing, especially when you look at the predictions of Gartner in 2000-2003. Very few were accurate (they predicted ipod would never succeed until a year after the ipod's sales showed they were very, very wrong.)

What you just said right there actually speaks volumes. You can have the highest paid outside consultants in the world and there is no guarantee that they won't come back with a report that is 100% wrong. How many times have we seen that happen before? Often times, the only people these consultants are capable of impressing is each other.

http://www.betanews.com/...getting_into/1199841379

read that article it states that there could be an issue with playback on 1.0 devices

Early adopters take that risk full stop.
There is a risk in any new technology such as formats etc.
People will have a differant view regardless of others, I on the other hand will not buy either untill there is a set standard.
While some movies will take advantage of the HD, there are still a lot of movies that will never use it.
And apart from a few movies in my collection, i would never buy BD or HD discs on 99% of the dvds i own atm.

"Will early Blu-ray adopters overcome their animosities at Sony for forcing them to abandon their initial investments in Blu-ray because of incompatibilities between Profiles 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0?"

ok... betanews..... problem here is even the 2.0 disks will play on 1.0 players, just with less interactive content.. You can still watch the friggin movie.... Get a clue.

Well, if it is any indication of how things are going as of late since HD DVD cut its prices, the HD DVD players are absolutely flying off the shelves at the Best Buy store I work at in Denver while Blu-Ray players from Sony, LG, Panasonic, and Sharp go unsold for weeks on end. The only brand of Blu-ray that is selling at all is the store is the Sony.

Before the recent big HD DVD price cuts the HD DVD players were outselling the Blu-Ray players by about 5-1 in the store I am at. Now I would say, with the new HD DVD price cuts, putting them just a little north of where a regular, good quality, upconverting DVD player is priced at, they are outselling Blu-ray by at least 10-1.

The store I am at is now consistantly selling out of its HD DVD players on an almost daily basis and is having to turn customers away that are coming in looking for them.

I know every single article and respected industry analyst in the world right now saying how Blu-Ray is outselling HD DVD by such a wide margine. I know I may have a very limited, first hand perspective on this issue, but from where I sit, the exact opposite is true.

If the "format war" is now over and HD DVD has really lost, I would have to say, in all honesty, that this is the single highest selling, most popular "losing" format in the entire history of the electronics industry.

Wait till you see all the angey customers that never come into your store again bercause your store sold them a HD DVD player they cant get movies for.

Some people have a skewed perspective.

Can't get movies for?

Recall that these players are still upconverting DVD players as well as HD DVD players. I think it is safe to say that it will be many years down the road before standard DVD's are taken out of commercial production.

Oh, and I already know all about angry customers. I see about three of them a week. They are the ones that bought Blu-ray players back when they were $700-$1,200 and no one ever told them that they couldn't be upgraded from Blu-Ray Profile 1.0 to 1.1 or 2.0. to be able to take advantage of the new features of future discs that would be released.

They like to come in and complain often that the Blu-Ray manufacturers had "a duty of care and an ethical responsibility" to make it clear to every consumer that they were buying technology that would soon be out of date because its firmware couldn't be upgraded. They like to say things like "for the money I spent with this company, and the thousands of others out there like me spent, they could have easily made their internal software upgradeable...if they could do it on the PS3, they could have done it on the stand alone Blu-ray players as well. These #&%#X@'s will never get another single cent of my money ever again. As far as I'm concerned, that's fraud on their part. Pure and simple."

Oh, yeah. I know all about those angry customers. They keep throwing the term class-action law suite around as they walk off in anger and disgust, mumbling various obsenities under their breath as they walk away in frustration.

you miss my point.. if you want High def picture movies... good luck on HD.. you will have your choice of about 3% of the market at this point.. Nothing was mentioned about the really less that great upconvert.

You bring up a very good point here: the quality of a DVD upconversion. What people don't fully understand is that there are actually a whole host of variables that factor into how good of a job a scaler or upconverter inside of an upconverting DVD player will ultimately do. The quality and capability of the upconverting chip in a player is only one of those variables.

A big part of the result here has to do with the quality of the camera equipment that the production company originally shot that film on. If they skimped on camera equipment, then your orginal source footable won't be all that great to begin with. If they skimped in post production and digital conversion/mastering (if originally shot on film) then that will also reduce the quality of the final upconversion as well. Recall that not all professional film cameras (and pro digital movie cameras) are created equal. The same can be said for the ability of post production/editing/mastering houses as well.

The quality of the scaler or upconverting processor inside of the DVD player you have is really only one of many factors that go into determining how good of a result you will ultimately get when you take a standard DVD and put it into your upconverting DVD player.

I think a lot of people get in a hurry to rush to judgement when assesing the quality of an upconversion that a player does. The quality of the scaler/processor is a very important factor in that equation, no question about it, but in reality, it is only one of a whole host of variables that ultimately all factor into how good a DVD actually looks when it is put into and upconverting DVD player and watched.

Again, another cheaper HD advocate.. you know what I'm sure with what people have already invested in their HD tv and theatre systems they will not care if their BD is 1.0 or 2.0 for interactive content or not, personally I could care less if I can goto the harry potter website from my bd. If you ask me, I don't think that there are tons of people out there that even care about 2.0 features, and since the BD 2.0 format will still play the movie on a 1.0 BD player.. I think you are barking up the wrong tree.

Well, I may very well be barking up the wrong tree here. That is entirely possible. Certainly wouldn't be the first time I was guilty of that. However, the fact still remains, whether the early adopters of the Blu-ray players will ever use, or have any desire to use, the new features of BD Profile 1.1 or 2.0 isn't the point in their minds. They are upset because they were never given the chance to make that decision for themsevles. The Blu-ray manufacturers made that decision for them by making no effort what so ever to inform consumers that the products they were spending their hard earned money on wouldn't be updradeable to take advantage of future feature sets of new discs.

In the minds of these consumers, they feel jilted. They feel like these big, multi-million dollar, international companies pulled a fast one over on them out of sheer greed and the blind lust for the holy grail of ever increasing quarterly profits and sales revenue.

Well, I don't own an HD DVD player or a Blu-ray player, I can't afford either one. However, I can see where these Blu-ray customers are coming from on this. I think they make a valid point. These companies could have easily put a sticker on the side of these boxes saying that their firmware was not upgradeable. They made a concious decision not to do that. Had I spent $500+ on a unit and later found out that the company made no effort what so ever to make me aware of what I would consider to be a material fact that would have weighed heavily on my decision making process, I think I would have a right to be a little bit upset too.

my last comment on HD vs BD to you my friend...

If I am going to invest in a HD/BD player again next year, I'm going to invest in the format the the NEW releases are on... Upconvert is not what I spent the money for, I want the best picture with the most movies.. not the least movies with s good picture.

Just as you would if you were buying a car, look at the price and features and decide for yourself, there is no winner or loser in the BD/HD war, there is only whats right for you and your family. For me it's BD because of the availability of true High def movies on BD.

I love movies by Dreamworks, but I also like many movies by all the BD supporters, therefore I have to go with the format that I will be able to buy the New releases for in true High def.

Hope you the best....

Did the people in 1995 know that a shelby GT 500 mustang would be available in 2007?

I'm of the exact opposite opinion.

I did a lot of research on buying my home theater gear. While it's not the most expensive, it's not the cheapest on the market, either...and I do care for the extra interactive content.

On a standard DVD, I rarely look at any of the extra material (with the exception of extended/deleted scenes). For all intents and purposes, it's wasted on me. However, when that same content became interactive, I found some value in it. For example: I wouldn't have looked at the 'making of' material on 300 or Batman Begins. However, with HD DVDs ability to compare the scene with and without the CGI, via PIP, it became something that I enjoy and use.

Don't get me wrong. The picture quality is important to me, but that alone doesn't justify the added expense of high def media, IMO. I want the whole package, and if I can't get it (or have to wait for it), so be it. I'll save the extra money, and just upconvert.

Worst analogy ever...

Mike,

It is a good business decision to 'cut your losses'. Better to sell ALL your inventory at a partial loss, rather than to retain ALL your inventory at a total loss.

Now, go warm up your Yugo, and get back to work.

the problem Mike is this....

the people that are up in arms about the profile issues are the people that don't even have BD players...BetaNews, and HD-DVD fans keep saying...people are going to be mad...the blu-ray owners are not making this a big deal, its the haters that are...

secondly...all the HD-DVD fans like to point out...that nobody buys BD stand alones...just PS3's...well the PS3 is getting its 2.0 update rather soon...so it will be a non-issue for any PS3 owner...

That analogy is so bad it can't even be considered one....

I am sure that you won't believe this but I have heard that if you have a Yugo in mint condition and low miles it is actually worth quite a bit of money to a true automotive collector now. So many of those failed so fast and were junked that the car is now an actual collector's item.

Not saying here that you are going to see one selling at the Barret Jackson auction any time soon on TV, but you never know! :) Stranger things have happened.

Oh, and as for Best Buy clearing out HD DVD inventory and selling it off to avoid losses on close out product - I am almost certain that is entirely false. I think somone fed you a line of BS there.

HD DVD and Toshiba just spent $30 Million on a 30 second spot in the SuperBowl to promote the format. The Blu-Ray camp won't be running any ads during the game because they said they couldn't get a really professional, SuperBowl caliber ad ready in time for the game. (Interesting hugh?).

Did Model T owners know the F-150 would get a redesign in 2009. Wow, that is the worst reach I've seen yet.

I'm not quite certain I believe what they claim about the SuperBowl. With Samsung supposedly the "official HDTV" of the NFL, and being the large Blu-ray supporters they are, who knows. There have been more shocking pro-Blu-ray surprises in recent months.

Well, the folks at TGDaily.com seem to believe it.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35807/98/

Wow, and I thought you would balk at the claim of the Yugos going up in value long before you would doubt me on the SuperBowl ad. :)

To be honest, I've only actually seen a Yugo once... about 20 years ago when I was in high school.

That was also the only time I've ever seen a De Lorean DMC-12 (one of the faculty members owned one).

OMG i seen collage freshman at collage with better news writing skills than any of these dorks who write these betanews articles

If you're going to comment on someone's writing skills, it might be a good idea to not have a number of errors in grammar and spelling, yourself.

Oh, that is simply too ironic... I would be embarrassed, but I'm sure you're probably too stoned to realize what you just wrote.

Actually, after reading that, I feel stoned.

Ooh, the irony. The tragic, bitter irony...

Watch out. He's probably a *pirate* on top!

I bet those "collage" freshmen can spell better than you! Once you are out of grade school, you will learn how to use a spell checker.

I give HD till May... they are just being nice to say end of 2008.

You HD fans must come over to the Dark side....

Use the Force.....

"You HD fans must come over to the Dark side...."

Actually, no we don't.

Regardless of whether or not blu-ray wins this war, I have no intention of purchasing another blu-ray disc until they get profile 2.0 on the market (and working correctly).

LOL... you will... it's not your choice..... Try to buy a betamax movie...... and in a year it will be as hard to get an HD movie.... I'm not a Sony or BD lover, I can just see the history repeating... I Have both HD/BD players.. I'm thinking hard about ebay for the HD now.....

I am your father luke, you know it to be true.....

Since it's my money, it's my choice whether or not to spend it on more blu-ray discs. Unless a movie comes out that I really want to see in high def, I'll upconvert rather than spend the extra money on the blu-ray edition of it (at least until they get profile 2.0 to market).

I have my reasons for this, and it has nothing to do with a hatred of Sony. I prefer the interactivity that HD DVD introduced with its format...things that blu-ray has only finally started to offer to the public. I purposely limited my spending on blu-ray discs, because I have no doubt that with each profile revision, the studios will re-release their movies to take advantage of the new features. It's similar to the studios releasing a movie on DVD, only to release it again a year later, as a director's cut, or with more 'behind the scenes' material.

When I spend money on high def media (regardless of the format), I want it to be, as some people have called it, a next gen experience. I'm not going to spend the extra money to get the same feature set that DVD offers, except with a high def picture. In order to buy the movie (on blu) with the features that I want, I have to wait...and I have no problem doing that.

Yeah, sad isn't it? A new format with double-dipped releases already likely... wow, what a future-proof format.

"it's not your choice"

Uh...is Sony coming to my house and shoving a blu-ray player into my desk and then reaching into my pocket to take my money? No? Then I'm not forced to do anything...it's my choice.

Where do these guys get this idea that people have no choice? Like you're living in communist russia or something.

At least you admit that it is the dark side.

http://www.petitiononlin...m/SAVEHDD/petition.html

The petition has 30,000 signatures showing that the consumer has not "clearly" chosen Blu-Ray.

Also, HD DVD bought themselves a nice superbowl commercial, whereas Blu-Ray has no commercial. Maybe that will help awareness!

When the competition is beating you, you have to advertise to boost sales. Maybe HD-DVD is losing harder than you thought. Maybe "HD" stands for, "Hardly Desirable"...

30,000 of 1.6 mil... gee I guess you are right..... NOT!

The studios have decided, not the consumer...

HD is BETAMAX.. now.. get a life you petition signer....

LOL... "Hardly Desirable"... LOL

Actually it's more like.. HD= "has died"

do yourself a favor and look at this

http://www.dvdtown.com/m...secalendar/January/2008

look at BD vs HD releases
18 BD releases
6 HD releases

Will US consumers allow the outcome of this struggle to be determined by film studios, game producers, and foreign investors, or will they ultimately insist on deciding for themselves?

As much as I wish it were not true, as long as major corporations decide for us by offering outrageous incentives for studios to back their format exclusively, the consumer has very little say in the matter. We are apparently in no position to disallow anything they choose to do on our behalf.

And yes, I agree... more thorough proofreading would be nice in the future. :)

Jacqueline, in the short time you've been writing for BetaNews, I've noticed you make a LOT of mistakes. Please do a little proof-reading before you publish an article.

Two mistakes just in this article alone:

Gartner's principal analyst for Japan also acknowledged that Sony's price-cutting moves might help to keep HD DVD on life support for a little while longer.

How much of a boost will Toshiba's Blu-ray continue to enjoy from Universal and Paramount, two major film studios that are still supporting HD DVD, to the total exclusion of Blu-ray?

Good catch. Corrected.

-SF3

Microsoft can't use HD DVD for games, without alienating 11 million existing owners, they are stuck between a rock and a hardplace. It does seem they are already talking to the Blu-ray camp however..

I haven't seen ANY evidence of " Blu-ray adopters overcome their animosities at Sony" That is just BS spouted by HD DVD supporters (besides the fact that Blu-ray is NOT a Sony only format, something the clueless editors here seem to constantly miss). What about animosities to Sharp, Samsung, Panasonic, Philips or any of the other Blu-ray hardware manufacturers????

Don't be fooled, HD DVD hardware cost the same to produce, it's almost identical technology, with identical Blue diodes, and decoding hardware, the cost differences are withing $80 of each other. The fact Toshiba can dump prices to gain a foothold, that is something entirely different. Toshiba will feel the financial strain before anyone in the BDA.

Paramount Blu-ray titles previously claimed to have been destroyed, are coming back on the market, it seems Paramount want some Blu action..

http://forums.highdefdig.../showthread.php?t=39210
http://forums.highdefdig.../showthread.php?t=39533

HD DVD is losing support from studios and retails DAILY.

Today alone, they have lost Woolworths in the UK, and CircuitCity in the US, along with 2 more studios. 2 major AV mags are calling for Toshiba to end the war, and allow for mainstream HD adoption.

Today's companies that dumped HD DVD
http://forums.highdefdig.../showthread.php?t=39607
http://forums.highdefdig.../showthread.php?t=39525
http://forums.highdefdig.../showthread.php?t=39552
http://forums.highdefdig.../showthread.php?t=38060

Your constant Sony/BD propaganda is getting rather tiring. Anyone with the IQ above a bag of doorknobs can see through the BS you keep posting here daily. Let's have yet another rundown of your stupidity.

"I haven't seen ANY evidence of " Blu-ray adopters overcome their animosities at Sony" That is just BS spouted by HD DVD supporters"

You're saying that people who are stuck with profile 1.0 or 1.1 capable players are feeling nothing but love towards Sony/BD? I know the truth hurts, but people are gonna be pissed at Sony/BD when they figure out their players are missing profile 2.0 features and can't fully take advantage of BD.

"Blu-ray is NOT a Sony only format, something the clueless editors here seem to constantly miss"

Sony is the main proponent of BD. They're the most involved with it and own most of the patents. Sony stands to gain by far the most from BD winning this war. Most of the royalties will go to Sony, so stop whining.

"Don't be fooled, HD DVD hardware cost the same to produce, it's almost identical technology, with identical Blue diodes, and decoding hardware, the cost differences are withing $80 of each other."

That's pretty flawed reasoning right there. First you try to convince us that HD-DVD and BD hardware is almost identical, then you follow it by saying BD can cost up to $80 more. I don't know where you got that number, but I for one don't want to pay $80 more for "almost identical" hardware. Although the hardware may use the same blue laser diodes, manufacturing the discs is very different. BD discs cost up to 4x more to manufacture.

If you think the price of BD players will start to plummet once HD-DVD is out of the picture, don't count on it. If HD-DVD is gone, Sony and the other manufacturers will have no incentive to reduce prices. They're already selling their players at a substantial loss, it would be foolish of them to increase that loss once the competition is gone.

Sony even said they have no plans of releasing a write once/re-writable BD drive in the near future, because there is no demand for it. Considering a stand alone BD player still costs $600+ (aside from that PS3 turd) I'm not surprised there's no demand for a writer. How much would such a monstrosity cost? Knowing Sony, I'd guess a couple of thousand at least.

I should point out that I'm aware they already have BD writers for the PC. I remember last year someone doing a review on it and the blank BD discs cost $25 a piece. What a joke.

Anyway, I predict that BD will never replace standard DVDs and will most likely remain a niche market. Although BD would be a great mass storage replacement for DVDs, that probably won't happen either. Blank BD media is extremely expensive and I don't see the price of it ever getting close to the price of blank DVD media. They're simply too complex and too expensive to manufacture.

"Today's companies that dumped HD DVD";

Woolworths in the UK (who have been struggling to stay open for some 15 years now so what do they know), Two film companies that no one has ever heard of (and others in the listed posts have said as much) and a couple of magazines who are too constantly making advertising deals to stay in print (and being journalists at heart we all know they speak the truth and have the consumers best interests at heart - not!)

Gotta love BLU! Thanks for the supporting links.

Wrong on the bdvd media and burners, the cost will come down and it will eventually replace all DVD-R and DVD-RW devices in the PC and Mac.. but the length of time to reduce the cost will be longer than it was with DVD.

"...besides the fact that Blu-ray is NOT a Sony only format, something the clueless editors here seem to constantly miss"

It's apparently something that you miss also.

Sony developed the formats known as UDO (Ultra Density Optical) and DVR Blue (with help from Pioneer). The name of the latter format was eventually changed to Blu-ray, and the Blu-ray Disc Association was formed to help establish the standards and promote the format.

Blu-ray is, has, and always will be a Sony format. You, being the proud Smurf that you are, should know this... or did you sleep during that part of Blu-ray Propaganda Class?

as of right now, the avg prices of that LG BR-burner/HD-DVD drive for PC cost about 40000yen, appx 380USD and blank media (25G) about 1500yen, appx 13USD and (50G)DL about 4000-5000 yen appx 45USD.

Not cheap, but it's not -TOO- bad.

On the price comparison site,
http://kakaku.com/specsearch/2027/
The most inexpensive HD-DVD recorder right now in Japan is the Toshiba RD-A300 at 64250yen appx 620USD
and the most inexpensive Blu-ray recorder is Sharp BD-AV1 at 57750yen, appx 550USD

The most expensive Blu-ray recorder is Sony's BDZ-V9 at 249800 yen, appx 2400USD, and the most expensive HD-DVD recorder is Toshiba's RD-A301 at 91056 yen, appx 900USD

It seems to me that Blu-ray gives me more variety compared to HD-DVD where I've only seen Toshiba recorders.

Can someone give me a link to any US comparison sites that has prices list for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray recorders?

"Although BD would be a great mass storage replacement for DVDs, that probably won't happen either. Blank BD media is extremely expensive and I don't see the price of it ever getting close to the price of blank DVD media. They're simply too complex and too expensive to manufacture."

Where do you get your information I wonder? Try 840Yen or $8 dollars for a 25GB write once disk:

http://store.shopping.ya...imedia/abr25-2x1pw.html

Thats 32cents per GB. Or cheaper PER GB than some DL media available....

I've been watching the market for some time now and its becoming more and viable as a replacement for mass storage month my month as prices decrease.

I also remember when CD-ROM burners hit the market. CD's at 650MB were $30... same story with DVD's.

BD Burners are common at sub $500 and prices continue to fall.

Woolworths have more stores than any other movie retailer (3 times as many as HMV). Because of this, when they drop something, it's significant.

It comes down to:

Sony holds the patents, therefore, it *is* Sony's format. They can, at any time, choose to part ways with the BDA, yank the licenses, and become totally proprietary.

Don;t let them fool you. The BDA is just a puppet for Sony to distance Blu-Ray from the negative Sony PR.

"The BDA is just a puppet for Sony to distance Blu-Ray from the negative Sony PR."

That's not funny, because it's probably true.

take out the probably and you've got it nailed.

"Might Microsoft -- a competitor in the gaming market against PlayStation -- act to counter Sony's Blu-ray by releasing new high-def HD DVD game titles for the Xbox 360, whose attachment HD DVD only, to the exclusion of Blu-ray?"

- I don't understand what this is suppose to mean...The games are already rendered in high-def so I don't understand why releasing titles on HD-DVD would be any better...Aside from disk space (Which doesn't seem like enough for marketing purposes by itself). Please clarify :-)

HD textures needs LOTs more space, this is why PS3 exclusives look soo much better than anything seen on the 360, because there is no DVD9 limitations, you get the full 50GB...

http://gallery.greedykid...1.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1

http://gallery.greedykid...7.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1

Thanks :)

No. Just no.

The PS3 can only load in 256mb of memory at one time for its graphics, whereas the 360 has 512mb of shared memory.

So sure, it can have more on the disc, but it can't use it all at once.

Oh, and don't even think of swapping textures during run-time off the disc. Blu-Ray on the PS3 goes out a mind-numbingly slow 9 MB / sec (and when you're trying to get your game running at 60 times per sec, that's intolerably slow)... 360 can load at 16 MB / sec.

So sure, it has more storage, but it's not a whole lot of good when you can't store it all or load it fast! That's why you see games install data on your PS3.

"The PS3 can only load in 256mb of memory at one time for its graphics, whereas the 360 has 512mb of shared memory."

Tends to be something people overlook at lot when praising the larger capacity of the disks. That's one limitation that prevents the PS3 from 'owning' the 360 in graphics department.

More disk space = bigger games

More levels, and better graphics.

I'm sorry but you are incorrect there, the 6 processors can EACH load 256 into Vram on the ps3, where the 360 can handle 512 on one..

check your facts.

except you don't realize that the 360 has 512MB of shared memory, while the PS3 has two dedicated pools of memory at 256MB a piece...they have the same ammount of memory, just allocated differently....

actually the PS3 has 6 pools of 256 memory.. there are 6 pipes to 6 processors.

Nope.

It's called streaming, a technology that Cell/Blu-ray/RSX/HDD combo can do. It will piss over anything the 360 can offer.

And your numbers are flawed for loading times.

The 360 is only 8x on dual layer DVD9 media (not 12x), so it's max 12MB/Sec, and that is only at the extreme outside edge of the disc. It drops to 4MB/Sec on the inner part of the disc as it uses CLV. Blu-ray is CAV, and can deliver 9MB/Sec across the entire 50GB of disc surface. Don't forget the standard HDD in the PS3 for caching...

That is just flat out incorrect.

Yea, I'm gonna believe any type of early screenshot or trailer from Sony. Those a******s burned me with that original Motorstorm trailer. I feel like a damn fool for falling for that trick.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Never again will I believe anything that Sony passes off as "true gameplay footage." And I still have yet to see any console game better looking that Gears of War.

Really? Explain why Heavenly Sword can be completed in 5 hours then.

HD-DVD is dead BTW. I have no interest in buying any more movies on either format anymore.

5 free HD-DVD are all I'm buyin, getting the rest as rentals from netflix until a new replacement format comes out or BluRay becomes reasonable.

Exactly. If I really like an HD movie, I'll buy it but it's rentals only from now on.

I agree dizzy, I dont see the "OMG" dramatic difference in HD movies vs upscaled.

I put Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on standard upscaled to 720p into one input on my prjector and the 1080p output of my HD-DVD player into input two. I synced them as best I could and did some A/B comparison with my wife there to see if she saw that I was seeing.

Not much a difference either way. So we tried the same trick with our 65" DLP. Same thing. There was a difference but not earth shattering. I then tried Blades of Steel on BD vs standard DVD upscaled.

Exactly the same result again. I don't see the huge differences in quality.

DirecTV HD versus standard is so obvious, it's scary. The problem is DVD looks too good compared to HD-DVD / BD.

I would compare the difference between VHS and HD-DVD / BD to DirecTV 1080HD and DirecTV 480i.

Long live standard DVD which you can easily backup if you like to keep your movies perfect.

iono but I watched ratatuile... however you spell that on blu-ray compared to dvd.

the blu-ray one was much more detailed in terms of hairy mouses, a little gross though lol

I agree that there wasn't the 'wow factor' when comparing the older HP movies; however it was definitely there for Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix (in comparison to their upscaled counterparts).

i tried that same test using my lowend phillips upscale and my a20 playing the same movie in hd and the difference was huge but tried the same test on the a20 playing a hp movie dvd vs hd and very minimal... could be alot of people out there who don't know better with cheap upconverts might want to buy hd or bd because they don't realise there is better upscalers out there

Unfortunately, not enough people realize that not all upscaling/upconverting DVD players are created equally.

A decent player with good video processing such as Faroudja DCDi can make a tremendous difference.

Upconverting for me, at least until next holiday season... maybe.

I'm on the side of the lower cost. Sony has purchased studios like Warner to join them.(400m they say) So they can sell more game machines and have lic'ing control over EVERY Blue-Ray sold?? in the long run Sony will turn the million to billions.. (Great investment) Too bad for the end user. You will be stuck with higher prices...

toshi all the way with 43% of back catalog titles, and dvd replication machines only taking 5 minutes to convert to hd-dvd all paramount and universal needs to do is send the back catalog out in the masses with the greatest hits. Then get the day in date releases on dvd combo discs and only sell those and toshiba will be in the long haul.

"Toshiba's Blu-ray"?

Toshiba is on the HD-DVD side and Sony is on the Blue-Ray side.

What I meant was, for me it's HD-DVD or Standard\upscaled def but not Blu-Ray.

I think she either rushed the story or just got confused because it also stats that Sony had the price cut to keep HD DVD on life support.

I personally am on the side of Tosh in this one as like many others I have been burned (not literally like a few people with dodgy batteries) by Sony too many times.

If the DVD war goes the way of Blu-Ray I think I will just continue to buy standard DVDs and when the time comes switch to on-demand video from the web.