This story has a host of interesting possibilities.

CBHD (or HD DVD China as it was once known) differs from 'our' HD DVD only with the modulation they have chosen to use, the hardware is identical (to a gen 3 Toshiba HD A3). Firmware is all that's needed.

The issue of content is where the real tale will be told.
We await developments.

As for the Blu-ray fanboys?

Same old same old.

Unfortunately for them Blu-ray disc sales have not rocketed, in fact they bump along at around the $8 million level per week (according to the Nielson numbers), even the big blockbusters that were expected to appeal to the 'PS3 demographic' (like the Batman films) have made little impact.

That much touted '300% increase' rests entirely upon the recent pick-up in PS3 sales, not Blu-ray movie sales nor Blu-ray standalone sales
(and even there the PS3 remains firmly trailing in 3rd place in the overall sales numbers in this gen of game console - not that I personally could give a flying one about any body's game consoles).

PS3 owners obviously buy the occasional movie but by and large they are not dedicated movie fans building serious collections.

That was always the double-edge of the sword where they used the PS3 game console to sell in multi-millions very quickly.
Even casual buyers from that gaming 'pool' could sustain a lead over the HD DVD side when the format war was young but now that the war is long over it leaves Blu-ray looking very unimpressive.

The irony is that Blu-ray is turning out exactly as some of us predicted.
Blu-ray is a high margin niche product that is currently incapable of interesting the mass-market - especially at a time of looming recession and when, to fully exploit the benefits of Blu-ray, you also need to shell out a stack of cash on new audio kit and a very large 1080p/24 HD TV.

Amusingly the Blu-ray cheer-leaders keep on talking about sub-$200 players, but there is absolutely no sign of them whatsoever......and HD DVD already proved you don't really see any serious movement until you get to $100, and how many years away from those prices is Blu-ray, hmmmmm?

It'll be too late.
VOD via DVR (= HD on your HD TV all the time) along with downloading (even Sony have unveiled 2 new downloading services, for the PS3 and their Bravia HD TVs) and other new services will fragment the market so much that Blu-ray simply cannot become 'the next DVD'.
The market has changed so much that that is impossible now.

(....and the reason why that did not apply in the same way to HD DVD is that, thanks to the Twin Disc & combo discs, HD DVD could simply have become DVD, in the event that it had won & all disc produced in future would have been duel HD DVD/DVD)

Anyhoo, Warner took the big sack of cash and the higher margins of the supposedly more secure high margin niche.

Meantime the people with sense took the supposedly 'dead' HD DVD format and built up very nice high def collections for very very little money (even including a spare player in case of breakages or accidents).

There are still lots of the HD DVD catalogue (many great classics) that are not available on Blu-ray and they are selling for minute prices (I currently am paying £2.99 = $6......I couldn't even get the DVD for that).

Sadly by the time Blu-ray matures to the point where it might have stood a chance that chance will be gone.

The one part of this 'debate' few want to address is just how disappointed both sides of the format war have been at the public's lack of interest in disc based high def.

Maybe people ought to be giving a little more consideration why, having got out of the disc -based high def market, Toshiba are clearly in hurry to get back in.

Maybe Toshiba have a very good point (that upscaling and upconversion is all the mass-market will pay for)?

There's certainly precious little sign of any serious mass-market demand for Blu-ray so far, no matter what lies and half-truth the Blu-ray fanboy element continue to spout.

I love how you fanboys from both sides are falling of each other to argue about a disc format that only lives on in a communist country you will never go to.

When BD was first released, it truly sucked, HD-DVD was better in every way. It took a while, but BD got thier act together and the POS3 is now the only BD player that can do absolutely everything except RS-232 and ethernet control for automation systems.

You fanboys then somehow turn this into a 360 vs PS3 argument because you have one system and not the other.

actually the PS3's biggest fault as a BD player is its inability to bitsream DTS:MA and Tolby TrueHD audio....it can decode them internally...but some of us have receivers that would do a better job of audio processing but can't take advantage of it because the PS3 can only decode those two formats, but not bitstream them...

If it can decode them then it's quite obvious that it can passthru the bitstream untouched over the HDMI ports, which are 1.3 and probably upgradable to 1.3b and higher thru firmware upgrades.
It's highly likely that Sony couldn't add bitstream passthru support for those audio formats just because there were some license constraints not allowing it to.

first of all decoding and passing through bitstream are in no way related at all...lol...

the problem is im not convinced that the PS3 has a fully functioning HDMI 1.3 output...Sony says it does, but if it did it should be able to bitstream those formats...but Sony is mum on the subject...there should be no license problems considering they got the licenses to decode them...

Hellcat,

hate to break it to you Hellcat, but profile 3.0 is for music albums only...nothing to do with movies...

moving on to the rest of your laughable post...

the PS3 and 360 versions of Rockband and GH have THE SAME downloadable content...EXACTLY the same lol...GTA4 is the most overrated POS game to be released in a long time...360 players can have their downloadable content...i doubt anyone will buy it...nobody will be playing that game anymore by the time it comes out...

oh and about the PS3 making Sony money...hate to break something else to you...Sony's Playstation division posted a profit for this quarter....they started making money on the PS3 quicker than MS did with the 360....whoops...you lose...

Just because the Playstation division posted a profit does not mean the PS3 was profitable. The profits are coming from the PSP and PS2...whoops..you lose...

see but that is the brilliance of Sony's gaming strategy....instead of abandoning their gamers like Microsoft does...they continue to support their consoles....

Yet again you are WRONG. MS only stopped making the Xbox because Nvidia stopped producing the GPU they were using in it.

Just do yourself a favor and stop talking! The hole is just getting deeper and deeper.

Funny how you always post crap and accuse others of not including links to your speculation yet you do what you belly ache about. I see its do as I say not do as I do. Can't have it both ways windbag.

what do you need a link for...tell me what you think is false and ill prove you wrong...

yeah ok...they also stopped publishing games for it too...Sony still does that...AND manufactures hardware...

and you're an idiot...you think Nvidia actually manufactured all of the GPU's that went into those consoles?? nonsense...MS had plants all over the world producing the consoles...they abandoned the xbox because they wanted to get the 360 out the door...you don't need to make stuff up man...

They had no choice but to continue to support the older console that is still severely outselling their current console... still, to this day. There was no strategic brilliance in that. It merely highlights what a spectacular failure the PS3 has been so far as a gaming console compared to the PS2.

Why would they want to publish games for a dead platform?

"you think Nvidia actually manufactured all of the GPU's that went into those consoles??"

Uh...yah...that is kind of the way it works.

Oh please!! The POS3 is by far the biggest seller of BloRay players out there. It's so noisy it is pathetic. EVERYBODY bye a TVIX or Popcorn hour and enjoy your HD that way much cheaper =)

I wish that I could find a popcorn hour.

"i hate Sony, and don't even own a PS3, so therefore im just going to bash them and try to convince you to buy a failure of a niche market product so that you don't support Sony, because their product beat out HD-DVD and i still cry myself to sleep cuddled up with my favorite movie on HD-DVD"

What is really interesting to see is how Blu-ray just sort of fell off the face of the earth shortly after HD DVD was gone. Without its major competitor out there to keep things interesting, almost no one cares about Blu-ray any more. Sure, they sell a few of them now and then, but all the excitement about high def disc technology is now gone in the minds of the consumers. Blu-ray now get little more than a yawn when mentioned to consumers in the stores.

If you go into the stores, no one is talking about Blu-ray any more and very few people are buying it. Prices for the players and the discs haven't hardly dropped at all since HD DVD went away. And, with no major competitor out there any more, why should they?

There is an old saying that the Blu-ray camp would be wise not to forget: be careful what you wish for....because you might just get it.

It will be very interesting to see what 1 billion people in China decide to do with their version of HD DVD now that they have it.

wow...a post made up entirely of speculation and no facts that can be backed up...you win the prize!...

again sales up 300%...Fox saying they expect BD to make up 12% of their sales by the end of the year...yeah its just going away....get out of here...

get back to me when you have some real facts...

the FACTS are that since HD-DVD was pushed aside sales of High Def media has grown...and is continuing to grow...

You make a few excellent points!

The format war was in very large measure the source of attention and conjecture.

Without that issue, the fact that there is little compelling reason to purchase the system with its exorbitant price of entry (even as Sony continues to lose money on the units) and the continuing price of media consumables for a only an incremental improvement over commodity priced upscaled DVDs continues to bode poorly for the platform.

And despite the fanboy below who seems to think that a projected increase to 12% is significant after several years availability, the platform is not healthy.

The fact is that China developed the format as an alternative to either format as they have the market and the economies of scale to drive their own standards - as they have ben doing in many technologies.

The fact is that they are increasingly not dependent upon us for market content and this will only increase with time.

The irony is that I initially favored BluRay simply for its technical advantages, but I must admit now that I wish HD-DVD had won. Its favorable price points would have allowed it to assume a much more significant market player.

And the oft touted incremental recordable capacity of BluRay for data has remained, at most, a technological footnote rendered all but moot due to its high costs and competing commodity alternatives.

he has not made ANY points...he has just made stuff up lol...he says that if you go into stores people are not talking about BD...well my grandmother overheard a conversation about the latest Panasonic BD player while she was getting her hair done the other day!...see i can make crap up to!...he posted no facts or numbers...just pure speculation

please...12% of sales per title is impressive considering the small percentage of people that actually own HDTV's....i think the last estimates i saw were from 2007 and it said that something a little less than 30% of Americans owned HDTV's...

so lets see now....

if i remember right...HDTV's started to get introduced to consumers through major retail chains in the 1999ish time frame...meaning...in the past almost 10 years...HDTV adoption has grown to about 30% (a little more to allow for the year since i've seen data)...and blu-ray growth from to 12% of sales per title in the short time its been out is not impressive?...come on...

also your logic about HD-DVD and its favorable price point does not hold water...Toshiba could not have kept up that price battle over the long term...the price slashing that the format war caused (on both sides) was artificial to say the least...Toshiba was taking such HUGE losses on hardware in an attempt to spur sales they could have never survived long term if the prices kept coming down...they were getting slammed week after week in sales and they needed a kick in the rear...their strategy was to cut prices and take losses...it did not work for them in the long run...

No one cares about Blu-Ray, what?
Do you work for Microsoft or Toshiba, perhaps?
Really, what the heck are you talking about? Blu-Ray hardware and movie discs are being sold and getting more and more market share every month.

Gee gameboy, have you ever taken a business course? as your rambling obviously indicates you have oo business management experience nor familiarity with the financial analysis of the BR-HDDVD format war.

What turned the tide for BR was simply that Sony shipped a player in every PS3 creating a larger base, where HD-DVD was an optional add on. Oh.

And its fascinating to listen to you still fighting a war that has largely been lost in the US and which has even less of a basis for China and Asian markets where the potential market is HUGE - along with the potential to produce content between Indian and Chinese production houses.

And your comments regarding HDTV in the US are incredibly ignorant!

Your business acumen is amazing, just as it is amazing that in the US that the percentage of HD capable TVs is not near 100%!!!

Why? As you so astutely reason, the US has been on a forced march to replace analog TV!

It is not a market choice! The government has mandated a change to digital TV.

And you say that with this forced change with the easily incorporated ability to have at least 1080i or 720p capability that ONLY 30% have chosen any HD capability!?!?!?!?

If you are correct, then HD is a failure!

If 70% of the "new" market has chosen to ignore HD despite having to switch to a new format TV, it only PROVES that upscaled DVDs are overwhelmingly sufficient for the majority of the market!

So tell me about the success of BR in a market where only 30% have HD capability and only a fraction of that are capable of displaying 1080p!

And after how many years of hype and promise, Sony has not yet even realized all of its profile 2 capable players - you know the version that Sony intended to be "version 1"!!!

Bottomline, a HUGE portion of the developing world market has dumped BR and is going with an alternative format. BR loses there.

You claim that only 30% of the artificially driven forced 100% digital TV market conversion is HD compatible - meaning 70% refused to even take advantage of SOME FORM of HD capability despite its being the norm in digital TVs! That is astounding!

What does that tell ya gameboy? It says "screw HD" in bold letters. It says that they don't even care about upscaled DVDs! It says that SDTV is just fine - by a 70 to 30% margin!

Dispite the fact that I think your stats are off, just like your illogic.

Especially, as by your logic and stats, 1080p has but a TINY fraction of the 30% HD capable market, and if it accounts for 12% of the title sales, then it says the major percentage of the market is not even buying at media at all!

And if the HD-DVD players at $120 could not generate significant market share, why in hell should a $400 cost of entry player make headway? Or are there simply more idiots with money who are looking to buy overpriced toys for only an incremental improvement in picture quality for the same schlock that is considered disposable in SDTV or an upscaled DVD?

The fact is, at $120 (and media competitive with current DVDs at $8-$14), I would consider buying an HD player; but at $400? Nope! Few if any are. Just as I am not interested in a $400 game platform that I can feed $60-$75 a pop games.

But I love your "the $400 versus $120 cost of entry doesn't make a difference" rant! LOL!

There's big trouble in River City!

But I am glad that you support BR as you live at your parents and sit around all day playing games.

So you think that HD is a success if after a FORCED conversion where HD capability is the norm in digital TVs that ONLY 30% have any form of HD capability? LOL! And you think that after 10 years of HD availability and a forced market conversion of essentially 100% of the market, that a 30% adoption rate is GOOD?

Contrary to your assessment that this is "impressive", the fact is that it stinks.

Out of every 10 people who HAD to buy a new TV, ONLY 3 buy ANY form of HD capable set! And if your figures are correct, it absolutely SUCKS! And you are imagining a growth of 12% of a 30% market resulting in a WHOOPING 3.6% total marketshare - a very limited niche market, while losing and ignoring the largest growth segment on the globe. Yup, things are looking up!NOT! LOL!

Talk about lost opportunities despite a forced market conversion!

Have fun wishing and hoping as you continue to hallucinate! The fact is, you are still trying to convince yourself as you still fight the HD-DVD versus BR format war. The larger market doesn't care. You are at best a niche in a niche market.

And now the largest alternative expanding WORLD market is going a different direction.

Sorry BR!!!

"Without its major competitor out there to keep things interesting, almost no one cares about Blu-ray any more."

Nobody ever cared about it to start with besides being bombarded with obscure fanboi wars.

"...well my grandmother overheard a conversation about the latest Panasonic BD player while she was getting her hair done the other day!..."

They are trying to address the whole teenage pregnancy situation so this case should be in minority.

Funny how cescam66 got censored below but you get away with this barrage of profane insults.

I guess not even BN staff have the patience to read these essays.

Such compassion from the same guy who maintains that mentioning the Holocaust and the numerous European genocides in the past 70 years is unfair to the Euros.

OK, how about if we include the tractor blockades of EuroDisney? Feel better now?

You are not well educated enough (although you think so) to discuss international politics.

Hence my personal answer to the comment above: You are a ****ing a******

My public answer: Yes, I indeed believe these issues have nothing lost in a debate about the EU sanctioning Intel or MSFT or coming up with any other Tech policy discussed in this forum.

Folks, this is the guy who chastises OTHERS for language and personal attacks.

The fact is those issues and the continuing issue such as the treatment of the Gypsies/Roma, the failure to assimilate the Arab migrants into European society resulting in yet another generation of pogroms, continuing widespread institutional anti-Sematism (as IF the previous experiences weren't sufficient - and just why won't the court take up the issue of restitution for the seizure of Jewish property, artworks and gold from the complicit Euro banks?), genocide (take your pick), and other insignificant issues simply aren't sufficiently important enough to occupy the EU courts!

Nope! What is important is which US sources cpu is running the US sourced OS. For you see, the EU is not sufficiently capable to produce its own alternatives and to provide their citizens with an alternative choice. At least not in a FREE market.

Instead their court is used used to establish trade policy rather than via the proper commerce apparatus of government as a means to restrict trade with Europe just as ISO and the other mechanisms of the past have been used.

Only the EU would rely on courts to determine tech policy! But hey, they may as well, as it provides an excellent cover to make it seem that they are busy - as they are doing a terrific job of avoiding tackling other rights issues of the EU constituencies!

And they have done a simply superb job in the recent pastof avoiding involvment with such issues as Bosnia (and just why was it that the US was needed there?) and other issues such as the EU assuming a proper role for financing and supplying both material and human resources for their OWN defense. Funny, that is one area where the US WANTS to reduce their international presence and the EU, who is most opposed to the US international presence, simply won't hear of it! (of course not if that means they actually have to get off their @sses and assume responsibility! I mean, who would they complain about!?)

But you see, they are the first to lament that the US is involved in too many issues overseas.

But you have to give the Euros credit for one exemplary trait! They have the whine of self-righteous indignation down cold.

"It will be very interesting to see what 1 billion people in China decide to do with their version of HD DVD now that they have it."

Ugh, make billions of pirate discs for domestic consumption, using Hollywood on blu-ray as the high def source media? Yep, very interesting.

what a ramble of nonsense...does this even deserve a response?...

So what if Sony turned the tide with the PS3??? it worked yes?? Toshiba on the other hand tried to dump prices and they failed...

you fail in your HDTV=Digital conversion lol...anyone who currntly has their TV connected to a cable source can keep their current TV's...the forced migration to digital does not mean everyone has to buy an HDTV lol...you're just an idiot lol...

again, yes the gov't mandates it...but they are mandating DIGITAL TV...not HDTV...and guess what...most people already have digital TV's lol....again....digital does not mean HDTV...

you fail because 70% of the "new" market has not "chosen" SD...again you just fail to understand what digital means...lol...

I can't even respond to the rest because it is a non-sensical ramble of crap that relies on your false assumption that digital = HDTV and that all of America is being forced to buy new TV's when this is not the case....and that anyone who has purchsed a TV in the past 20 years probably doesn't need to buy a new one at all so therefore your argument that 70% of new TV buyers is choosing against HDTV is false...

basically...your entire argument fails miserably....

Bullseye!

Go do a little experiment and you can answer your own question here. Go walk into a Best Buy or Circuit City and stand in the Home Entertainment section for a couple of hours. Count how many times a customer comes in and asks about Blu-Ray. Then count how many times ANY brand of Blu-Ray player goes out the door.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble here but NOBODY is buying these things any more! The interest in them has dropped off to almost NOTHING! The excitement is GONE.

Prices are still at or above the $400 mark on most models and some are still even above $500 (unless they are temporarily on sale or promotion) and people just are not buying them.

Sure, the PS3's are selling to the gamers, but the stand alone Blu-ray players are all but dead in the water right now from a sales stand point. Look to see these things VERY heavily discounted over the coming holiday season to get them to move off the shelves.

"...but piracy has made it nearly impossible for the movie industry to make money."

BS.

I just saw an ad in the cinema last night, promoting cinema advertising because the 'box office' was drawing in record profits and crowds. Pull the other one, please.

Yeah, I call shenanigans, the major movie studios look like they're doing pretty dang fine to me!

The movie industry knows what its doing. When they make a romance, their pretty low budget, mostly cast and crew, and it makes money. When they make a big budget movie they know pretty much if it'll do well or not. Why do you think their doing so many comic book and video game movies, because they know its going to bring in people. The industry isn't hurting, its just about a science to them by now.

The fact that they would even attempt to act like the movie industry is hurting is just astounding to me.

Ok so the pirates will buy one blu-ray rip it and sell hundreds on CBHD disks.

Moreover, the format has the capability to store a DVD version of a movie on one side of the disc, easing the transition path from standard DVD.
yea what deciding factor that was...
how consumers ever bought dvds without the vhs version taped to the case is beyond me.

That's only because the studios didn't do it right. If they would of made the combo disks the only copy of the movie available then I bet HDDVD would still be around. I mean how many copies of Transformers would be in peoples homes if there was no standard DVD version just a combo disk version.

Exactly.

Plus, VHS -> DVD was a major technology shift that provided a lot of benefit to the consumer. No tape, no rewinding, chapters, extra content, etc.

DVD -> Blu-ray only gives you better video and audio quality, which most people really don't care about. Sure, the menus are improved and can be viewed during the movie, but that's really minor too.

And for you such a huge improvement in video and audio quality doesn't matter to anyone,uh?
Yeah, sure if they still got ancient CRT SDTV sets but if they upgrade to HDTV plasma and LCD panels and projectors then they will want higher resolution video.

Not necessarily. I have seen people that think their 480i SD satellite feed looked good.(I thought it looked terrible, but you couldn't tell them any different) There is an even bigger number that think an upscaled DVD looks good.(Again I'm not one of them, but then again pretty much nobody on this board is the majority either) Not everyone is a video/audiophile like a lot of us. Not to mention that there is A LOT of people out there that still have SDTV sets.

I think if MS put HD-DVD technology for their next version of Xbox and a mini version of it for a portable Xbox handheld it could be worth while. I mean MS is more or less betting on media download so they shouldn't worry about running movies on their console, just keep making good games and add to Xbox live. Have Toshiba work on making a disk that holds more but even if they don't it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

face it guys....HD-DVD is dead....

And the winning format is still on life support. Even Sony is beginning to think twice about its ability to unseat DVD

blu ray sales are up 300% since last year...not bad for life support....

show me any proof of Sony wavering on the blu-ray format...

SGD...you fail man...your blatant Sony hating is getting old...

Being up 300% from next to nothing is still next to nothing when you compare it to standard DVD.

please...it took DVD 7 years before it was able to equal VHS sales...

people have been saying Blu-ray was dying since it launched...yet it beat out HD-DVD...and now sales are rising hundreds of percentage points...and its still dying...its laughable how people just flat out make stuff up...lol

but pendejo VHS was way before the DVD format.... what a pendejo piece of mierda

please...you're argument makes no sense...DVD was WAY before the BD and HD-DVD format too...

oh and...i know spanish...

So would you consider Blu-Ray a success since the best player is the PS3? Don't get me wrong I want Blu-Ray to win out over digital downloads and standard DVD, but if Sony keeps changing the specs every year Blu-Ray will never become main stream.

lol..

DVD-R
DVD-RAM
DVD+R
DVD-ROM
DVD-RW

DVD got too many different types as well.
I mean, I'm fine with using BR-Discs as storage right now. A bit confusing though.

BR-R
BR-RE
BR-R DL
BR-RE DL
...

...

So is the use of Linux on the desktop... I think that still puts them below 1% market share. :p

1. The PS3 is not the best BD player on the market

2. in reality Sony has not CHANGED the specs ever on Blu-ray...the specs for profile 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 were laid out in advance....we knew what was coming with the profiles they just didn't roll them out in the beginning...and 2.0 is the final spec...

and as always...remember...even profile 1.0 players can play profile 2.0 movies...just not the special 2.0 features...which just like their HDi counterparts on HD-DVD SUCK anyways...

I would consider BD a success to this point...according to some articles i've read i think it was Fox is claiming an 8% share of their titles are being sold on BD...with their expectation being 12% at the end of the year...considering where sales were last year i would consider that a nice improvement...and it should only get better as prices come down...with 300% growth this year and some major titles coming in the next few months it should be huge for the format...

as HDTV prices fall people will start to want high def content to go with their shiny new TV's...the market is in its infancy...i have no doubts that BD will catch DVD in around the same 7 year time span it took DVD to catch VHS...

Not hating at all there was a comment from the one of the leaders of Sony that said at E3.

Yeah I hate sony so much that I have a PS3 with about 50 blurays. Yeah thats a real hater alright. When sales are nothing to start with its not hard to go up 300%.

Man, last time I bought movie on disk was 1 year ago. In seven years no one will use disks, VoD is much better business model for both companies and consumers

yeah but there are ZERO VOD options on the market that can match the quality of product provided by Blu-ray or HD-DVD....ZERO...VOD services provided by the cale and satellite companies offer compressed to hell 1080i (at best) broadcasts with compressed garbage 5.1 channel audio...

while BD and HD-DVD could give me much less compressed 1080p picture with lossless 7.1 sound...there is no contest between the quality on disc, and what the cable companies can offer...

not to mention any sort of true widespread digital distribution of such large file sizes is nonsense...there is a reason dual layer BD's hold 50GB of information...because they need it...when was the last time you tried to download or stream 50GB worth of information over your network connection?

Keep dreaming. The fact that you don't buy discs doesn't matter, you are not a major sample for the entire world population, you know..!?
DRM crippled, low quality, low bitrate video/audio movies for online streaming and download doesn't make any sense, it's expensive and just a serious ripoff to customers. Wasting money on that stuff either you are naive or you enjoy sellers stealing your money for subpar products.
The physical renting of discs will remain practically forever, unless DRM it's completely dropped by the industry and they start selling the same exact version on discs with no copy restrictions--but that's not going to happen for sure.
After Blu-Ray discs there are Holographic discs 500GB+ available storage. By 2014-2015 the new UHDV 32Megapixel standard will take over the HDTV 2Megapixel standard with UHDV OLED panels, MPEG H.265 codec for content and holographic discs for archival storage and distribution.

"yeah but there are ZERO VOD options on the market that can match the quality of product provided by Blu-ray or HD-DVD....ZERO.."

The point is fanboy, they and the alternative sources are killing BR in marketshare.

Your passion and specs simply don't matter to the larger market. At the current price points they are doomed AT BEST to a tiny niche market segment.
Deal with it!

"The physical renting of discs will remain practically forever"

That is just flat out wrong. It may take a while for the pipes to catch up, but I will guarantee you that physical discs WILL be replaced one of these days. It may be 10 years from now, but it IS going to happen.

Damn I was just going to reply with that point and you beat me to it!

The difference in sales of standard DVDs vs. Blu-Ray discs is enormous and so spouting off about 300% increases since last year doesn't mean anything when DVD sales haven't fallen (in actual fact they are still rising steadily).

That '300% increase' isn't even equal to 1% of standard DVD sales.

So if 2.0 is the final profile why even have 1.0 and 1.1 to begin with?

So if I stick a 2.0 movie in a 1.0 player how long will it be before the movie starts. A minute maybe two. Or at least that's what some of the splash screens I've seen say.

Get back to me when VOD has the same quality as Blu-Ray and can reach 100% of the USA like Blu-Ray can today.

I'm hoping on demand video beats blu-ray.

Oh and Profile 3.0 is the final and the people with profile 1.0's won't be able to play 3.0. I know someone who has a profile 1.0 and I told him to wait before he bought it and now he said he'd never doubt me again because he's sorry he bought that 1.0. I told him to wait for profile 3.0, and maybe even wait to see what happens with download content. He doesn't buy DVD's anyway, just rents them.

The PS3 is the most bought BD player on the market, maybe not the best. And the PS3 is gaining on Xbox 360 BUT I know people who have both and they may have 4-5 games for the PS3 while they have 20+ games for the 360 because the 360 has better games. They even got Rock Band and Guitar Hero for the 360 over the PS3 because of better downloadable content, and they got GTA4 on the 360 over the PS3 because its going to have more downloadable content. So while more people are buying PS3's, people with 360s buy more games. People buy the PS3's for Resistance and for Metal Gear, the 2 only games that are worth buying the PS3 for....oh and when Little Big Planet comes out, otherwise they use it as a player. For the PS3 to make money for Sony they have to sell games because their loosing money on systems and not many (at least people I know) are buying very many games for the PS3.

Because if they didn't bring out BR when they did we'd all be using HD-DVD. Also I think if MS would have made a 360 with HD-DVD instead of an addon that can't play games only movies, the standard would have been HD_DVD too, MS really blew it there.

Oh, but Profile 2.0 is not the "Final Profile" any more. There is a Profile 3.0 planned that is audio-only.

I think the definition of "final" got lost in translation since the format's inception.

There's no denying that China's population of more than two billion poses an enticing market, but piracy has made it nearly impossible for the movie industry to make money.

I believe you mean one billion, as current estimates put them at approximately 1.3 billion.

Good catch, thanks.