Ironically, it looks like WB will be releasing the most HD-DVD movies before the format dwindles away...

"Amazon's music and movie head Peter Fancy said that sales of Blu-ray discs have started to increase since Warner Bros. made the announcement to support only Sony's format, going from a 50/50 split with HD DVD to over three-quarters of high-definition movie sales."

Wow... given all the press about how Blu-Ray discs were outselling HD DVD by 2-to-1 or 3-to-1, NOW someone mentions a near even split in disc sales. Where was that kind of detail a few months ago in those Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD "articles?"

Not to mention that Warner stated that one of the primary reasons for siding with Blu-ray exclusively was because of more sales on that format... and that the consumer has "clearly chosen Blu-ray". With a 50/50 split? Whatever...

miketechno, who cares about small independent films anyway? Every small/independent film i've ever seen sucked..lol

Way to go blu-ray we got universal!

Well, the small, independent film makers out there might care. They are the ones that will be paying all these rediculuous fees.

Considering Clerks and the Jersey 'trilogy', one of the funniest film series of the last 15 years started out as an indie project, with a budget of $22,000 (funded on credit cards, no less); I'd have to say that you can't dismiss indy films quite so easily.

Yup! I agree with you, Kevin Smith is the sh!t!

ahh clerks, man that came out in 94, now i feel old

the original halloween also was independent

You are not going to believe this, but last night I was going to offer Clerks as an example, as well as the rest of the View Askewniverse films. I love those.

"...we got universal!"

Hopefully because of this I can one day have high-def versions of Serenity and Firefly on one format... if Fox ever decides to release it.

Youd be surprised, there are some pretty decent independent films out there.

What an ignorant statement. If no one liked them they wouldn't be making movies. There is a market for them just because you don't like them means nothing. You know what they say about opinions?

So far Fox can keep their movies. They are the most over priced movies so far. They use the format as a reason to rip people off.

"We" got Universal. Spoken like a true pathetic fanboy, like you are a part of something special and had something to do with it personally.

The perfect example of someone needing to feel like they belong to a group, no matter how ridiculous, just to feel important.

You people need lives.

I agree with you completely H_.

For the most part I agree with you. However, for Firefly I will make an exception... even though Fox is the reason why we only have one season to enjoy in the first place.

Get...outta...my...head...

LOL

Here is an incredibly EYE OPENING quote from the Digital Production Buzz e-newsletter from Feb. 20th, 2008 written by Larry Jordan of the larryjordan.biz web site that everyone here should take a very close look at and think about before they start celebrating the loss of HD DVD. This man is very intelligent, very well informed, very educated and he knows what he is talking about.

Blu-ray: HD costs more than you think!

In a recent conversation with Bruce Nazarian , president of the DVD Association , during The BuZZ podcast , we were discussing the sudden s*** toward Blu-Ray HD DVDs. While Blu-Ray may be good for Hollywood, it won't be good for small independent producers. This is due to all the hidden fees tacked on to replicating a Blu-Ray DVD.

For example, producers of industrial and non-broadcast content are required to pay a $2,500 licensing fee to author and distribute Blu-Ray.

Then, each producer is required to pay a $3,000 one-time AACS license fee, plus a per-title fee for EACH replicated Blu-Ray disc. Currently, Sony DADC is quoting that fee at $1,585 per title (per complete Blu-ray disc project).

Then there's the per disc replication cost, which varies by quantity, and finally, there's a $0.04 per disc fee for AACS and $0.01 per disc if you want SONY DADC to administer the payments to AACS on your behalf.

As Bruce indicates, we may be standardizing on Blu-Ray, but the prices won't be cheap.

Wow, $1500 per title. To a that\'s not even pocket money to Hollywood exces. They spend more than that on coke every evening...

And 5c on every $20 Blu-ray disc. Outragous...

Is this guy for real???

real or not, to be honest I don't think ANYone expects all those small filmers to start making super HD movies right away.

I mean, those indies film are best watched at certain quality (right now) compared to some of the hollywood movies.

Yes,

But to you it's months pay MinuteMaid.

Once again you miss the point completely.

Newegg has a BD Player for a HTPC for 140 bucks today. I'm seriously debating whether to snag it or wait till BD Writers sell for around 150..

I wonder how easy it's going to be for Universal and Paramount to release on Blu-Ray. Is there enough capacity to produce the disks in a timely fashion? Since all the other studios already have their spot in line I wonder where this leaves them.

i'd be charging paramount an additonal licensing fee if i were part of the BDA, the jump ship and then come crawling back few months later, shouldn't be for free.

If the BDA does things like that Blu-Ray will fail also.

That makes a lot of sense. They all ready screw them with fees so why not add more to it. If they did that they could go back to DVD only. Aftall HD and Blu were only 4% of the market anyway.

You da man! Such a great idea! The consumer will of course feel nothing of the expense to the producer. Right on!

Exactly. It wouldn't be in BDA's interests.

Paramount have been preparing Blu-ray discs for a month already. When the press release happens, expect content nearly straight away. Transformers and Bourne...

Much longer than a month. They were doing it before they switched to hd-dvd

...waiting patiently for Apex....

I've had to return every APEX player purchased (2 separate APEX DVD players over 2 years some time back) due to poor manufacturing. Every person I know who owned an APEX had to send it in for repair or return it in within 30-90 days.

Hey now... My Apex is the most reliable paperweight I ever acquired.

My first APEX (AD 1000) is still working...connected to their 20 inch flat screen in my computer room.

It seems that they started having quality issues a few months after that particular model was discontinued.

No, I'm anxiously awaiting Oppo's entry. If they simply take their current line of universal DVD players (which are already incredible for the price) and extend their capability to include true high-def media, that would be perfection.

Yeah, you can forget about seeing any more price drops on Blu-ray players or 5-free disc type promos for the next five years or so. It wouldn't even surprise me if you started to see the Blu-ray camp look for ways to quiently raise prices without drawing a lot of attention to the fact as they do it.

The ONLY reason why you have Blu-ray prices at the $399 price point today is becasue Toshiba FORCED the Blu-ray camp to lower prices to keep from being left in the dust as they did.

If it weren't for Toshiba providing the competitive alternative, you would still be paying $700+ for your Blu-ray players today.

this is true. competition is always good for the consumer.

you must be a desperate hddvd fanboy,I feel sorry for you.Of coursse the price will go down.Sony,Samsung,pioneer,sharp,philips,panasonic,....are competing with each others.

Sounds like you're talking rubbish. Dropping your prices to firesale prices when you can't afford it loses you support. You'll see the rubbish you spout when over the next few months they keep on dropping, thanks to the all the manufacturers competing against themselves, just like DVD in fact.

MikeTechno = FAIL

Yeah but it took DVD what 7 years to overtake VHS. I don't think the format has that long.

For those of us old enough to remember VHS prices, it took a good 2~3 years for prices to come down after VHS won that format war (and as I remember it, Sony was notorius back then for raising prices for their "high end" VHS devices, which really weren't that high end to begin with).

Now, with HD downloads on the horizon and cable/sat providers making more HD content available via ON-DEMAND (or the equivilent), Blu-Ray doesn't have 2~3 years to lower prices. You may see some low end players pop-up in a year or so, but prices dropping to their HD-DVD equivilent, I don't think so...

Oh, right... you mean all those manufacturers who are members of the same Blu-ray Disc Association? I'm sure they care nothing for self-preservation and profit.

While there will be plenty of entry-level players, there will also always be premium high-end players... just like it is now with DVD. Even now, it's not uncommon for high-end DVD players to cost more than even entry-level BD players now.

As with DVD, the entry-level BD players are barely worth considering... if, in fact, you care so much about better quality and superior features.

Oh that's just great. Now I have been set equal to "FAIL". Now what am I going to do??

ABORT....ABORT....ABORT!!!

No disassemble! No disassemble!

The one thing to remember is how fast technology KEEPS speeding up. What used to take 5-7 years to mature or change takes less than half that....Just look at cpu's or graphics engines/video cards for instance. I suspect BD has much less time to make inroads with their players before someone makes it yesterdays news. I can think of HD downloads or HD on demand through a cable or satellite company as two.

Holographic discs are already years into developing. If Sony is smart they will drop those prices like crazy and hurry up and get a foothold. This 1-2% market share is not going to cut it when some of the new technology like the Holographic discs come out.

Beautiful stars, better see!

Holographic discs won't be released until the H.265 codec standard will be finalized and the OLED displays won't be cheap enough to release UHDV 32Megapixel capable products. The currently projected release dates for the next UHDV standard are around 2012 as an early date and 2014 as a most probable one. Which means that HDTV and Blu-Ray standard will last for another 5-7 years before a better replacement standard gets released.

With all that space will they really need any compression. From what I have been hearing the disk space is hundreds of gigs if not more is it really needed. Just a question nothing more.