One comment from Warner was that they has followed the consumer and the consumer had made their decision. Well they were wrong on that in two ways. Firstly, the consumer has not decided and if anything the momentum was starting to swing towards HD-DVD and away from BD. This is not a decision in favour of the consumer but rather in favour of Warner!

Straw poll suggestion over 90% of people think it's game over for HD DVD now..

http://poll.pollcode.com/dB4n_result

What are you going to do you have nothing else to live for now that your religion (the war) looks to be ending. You really have gotten yourself all worked up about this. I for one could careless I have both formats. You really need to get a life.

Check again
43%

Joey, please... seriously.

The wording of the choices suggests Blu-ray bias all over.

Yep, this is the final nail in HD DVD's coffin.[/i]

[i]I suspect HD DVD will pay off some other studio now to counter.

Yeah, okay... "final nail", "some other studio", etc.

Care to offer an opinion on where you think this poll was first conducted? I have a good idea.

Anyway, there's only been one "counter" involving a studio pay-off... and that happened Friday.

90% = the first 2 options. i.e. the end, or close to the end.

Oh I see you’re allowed to twist the results to support your argument?
Sorry but NO, it says EXACTLY what it says. 4*% say its game over, the rest say its not good for them but not over yet.

43 + 45 = 90...

Hmm.

Must be fuzzy math.

This is nothing but another corporate ploy to get people to buy all over again (i.e., double-dipping) and f*** over the consumers yet again? Standard DVDs are just fine. Besides, Hollywood hasn't made anything in over 25 years worth seeing, let alone buying.

I agree with that statement. Most people think SD DVD is more than enough.

SONY = rootkits, DRM, the inability to play a purchsed mp3 on your other players, over PR'd products, pay offs to companies and the king of all, SPIN!!

At the end of the day business is about profits and if that means a company can buy peoples minds so be it BUT NOT MINE!

sorry that warner hurt your feelings and chose a different format than you...

and I'm sure Microsoft is SO much more consumer friendly...get the hell out of here...

"DRM, the inability to play a purchsed mp3"

Another clueless idiot. Where do they all come from.

MP3 cannot have any form of DRM, it simply does not support it.

Now go back in your hole, and cry some more for your failed format.

PS. Anyone seen Hockuspokus recently? I think someone should drive round to his trailer park and check up on him..

Microsoft is not the main backer of HD-DVD. Toshiba is.

Before mouthing off at someone and calling them a clueless idiot read what they actually said first. He mentioned nothing about adding DRM TO a mp3... so who is the clueless idiot?

Secondly, there has been mp3's with DRM in the past. The most famous example was the creators of soft-lock - it was commercially used by some artists but died a horrible death because of its lack of popularity. I spent a very long time reverse engineering it.
Dont try and use the 'clueless idiot' ploy when clearly you dont have any clue yourself.

What's with all of the whining about interactivity? Are there really that many people that care about the special features, picture and picture, and 80 different audio tracks? In my opinion DVD took off when you could just buy the stupid movie in its original format on a single disc at a low price. Come find me when every release on the high-definition formats isn't the limited collector's edition. Until then, upconverted $5-$10 DVDs are "good enough" against the overpriced and overstuffed HD/BR releases.

I never pay more than $15 per movie on BD...

except boxed sets i have like Planet Earth and The Sopranos season 6 Part I and II

Sadly, when there is only one format left you are going to have to be prepared to pay more than $15 unless you don’t mind waiting for the title to become a bit older. Goodbye to buy one get one free

I love how Hollywood has gotten so desperate in this whole situation that he wants to prove he is better than you but comparing SAT scores, W-2's, TV size, and the capabilities of your remote control....

what a tool box he is...didn't have much credibility to begin with...but he has gone off the deep end now...

"I have inside information that Warner will be going HD-DVD exclusive at CES"

BAHAHA!

I can't imagine MS ever going Blu in the Xbox, so where does that leave 360 users? Only getting HD games but no HD movie content and having to buy another player for movies? That's the ultimate kick in the boys, that's for sure.

As far as BD, our local super-shop was selling both HD-DVD and Sony's 300 BD player for $99. So, that about throws that comparison out the window too...

And, PS3 plays profile 1.1, whatever the hoot that means.

MS is as much a wh*** as any other business. They'll go where the money is. If Blu-ray becomes the only HD movie format, you can be sure that Gates & Co. will find a way to include it...if not as a 'bolt on' drive this generation, then in some fasion during the next.

So many people have their cystal balls in full use expressing their knowledge and insight into other business plans.

Who cares, I know I don't

Latest studio to defect, is New Line, which is now also confirmed Blu-ray exclusive.

This means that Lord Of The Rings, is now a Blu-ray exclusive release..

Watch the other studios follow suit. Universal must have VERY itchy feet right now..

New Line and HBO will follow suit.

I wouldn't be surprised if Universal will now go blu soon. I also wouldn't be surprised if the HDDVD group allowed Paramount to opt out early as well.

New Line already has. http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=808

The quicker everything gets moved over to Blu the better for everybody. Hopefully HD-DVD will just throw in the towel and get it over with, because I don't think they are going to pull out of this one. I like HD-DVD better, but I am also not blind to the truth.

Funny thought...

Can you imagine how much better Blu-ray players could be if the tables turned enough for Toshiba to start manufacturing them?

As far as DVD players are concerned, Toshiba was the world's first to offer many of the features that are now becoming quite commonplace... progressive scan, component video outputs, etc... not to mention offering the world's first DVD player in the first place.

Maybe one day we will have a Blu-ray player that offers all of the features we have been promised for the past 1½ years... and it will have a Toshiba badge on it.

I agree. Toshiba has been the leader in dvd tech for the past I don't know how long. I paid $400 for my first tosh dvd player.

I hope they do make blu-ray players and others follow suit.

I just read some of the new stories at blu-ray.com

First Michael Bay says "no Blu Ray, no Transformers 2" The BD lemmings all jump up and down little little girls.

Then Michael Bay says "Sorry, I was wrong, they got me drunk last night and I didnt know what I was saying". At which point, the BD lemmings all do the same thing, they bashed Michael Bay saying he sucks and they will never buy Transformers on any format.

Now Michael Bay says "Blu Ray is simply better" and they are all back sucking his d*** saying "We can't wait for Transformers on Blu"

This is exactly why I can't stand people like DaveBG and his imaginary clones. Say what you want to say, but at least stick to what you say.

Don't flip flop back and forth because everyone else is doing it in your tight little circle of "freinds". You (Dave) simply dont have a mind of your own and it's so obvious with your Sony brainwashing. You also try to get everyone to believe what you do to feel better about yourself.

Perfect example: Someone asks about a Blu Ray player and you suggets the worst one imaginable so Sony can sell another PS3. This is what makes you a sad person.

You were finally right about one thing (Wanrer) and I bet you didnt get a wink of sleep last night as you were posting your nonsense on every forum know to man about the Warner Blu Ray story.

The problem is the die hard HD-DVD exclusive fanboys will never buy a Blu-Ray player or BD movies now that it looks like the end of HD-DVD is near. They are all talking about selling all thier movies and players and just going with standard DVD forever just to spite BD.

Which is stupid in my opinion but you would have done the same thing if HD-DVD ended up winning this "contest".

What was my reaction to Warner going Blu Ray? As I just purchased the Harry Potter 1-5 box set and dont want to end up with movies 1-5 on HD-DVD and 6-7 on BD, I' giving my HD-DVD set to my brother after watching only one of the movies and going out to buy the BD version at Best Buy today. They have a dozen or so in stock.

Of course I won't actually have to pay for them as I have Reward Zone coupons and gift cards but that's not the point. The point is I will never be like you, which is satisfying in every way you could possibly imagine.

give me a couple reasons why the PS3 is the "worst" Blu-ray player?...

its already shown it can have its profile upgraded with a firmware update...it already has all the necessary hardware for a profile 2.0 update...its a VERY solid DVD up-converter....plus looking at it as a solid blu-ray player for $399 you get a free BD movie (spiderman 3), you get internet browsing, you get voice chat, you get video chat, and a next gen gaming system....you show me one stand alone player that can offer all of that for the price...

"...I' giving my HD-DVD set to my brother after watching only one of the movies and going out to buy the BD version at Best Buy today. They have a dozen or so in stock."

A word of advice Hollywood...

Check the package BEFORE you leave the store. I'm not sure if you've heard or not, but Warner had to put a disc replacement into effect for the Goblet of Fire discs, in the BR set. According to reports, this disc was actually an HD DVD in the BR box set.

Met, maybe you can answer this for me, as I've been unable to find anything definitive on line.

Is the PS3 truly profile 1.1 compliant (meaning it has the secondary video and audio decoders as part of it's hardware), or is it pulling it off, with some sort of software trick?

to be honest im not really sure...i have not seen anything in writing about it...

I doubt it is just a software trick so to speak....remember the PS3 has not only the blu-ray drive like your average BD player but it also has a video card, and a 3ghz cpu with 7 SPE's to handle any grunt work needed...

as far as i know it is truly 1.1 compliant

I thought the PS3 handled everything related to Blu-Ray and DVD movie playback in software. Maybe it's just the video that's handled in software. As far as I know the Nvidia GPU is strictly used for games and not for movies.

I wish we all had some type of official word from Sony on that matter. The PlayStation 3 is certainly the most capable of handling those tasks, and appears to have all of the requirements to be even BD-Live compliant... but why Sony after all this time has not even hinted at the possibility of that is beyond me.

What's wrong with giving consumers something to look forward to, no matter how long it takes to bring to market? No one likes to play the guessing game.

"Don't flip flop back and forth because everyone else is..."

EXAMPLE:
BEFORE "I have insider information that Warner will go HDDVD exclusively at CES, it will happen, you'll see, just you watch, I can't wait for CES, you'll see. It will happen, i just know it as a fact"
NOW: "CES means nothing anyways, it's a kids show."

Flip, flop, Flip, flop, Flip, flop.

LOL.

I like this bit..

"Perfect example: Someone asks about a Blu Ray player and you suggets the worst one imaginable so Sony can sell another PS3. This is what makes you a sad person."

Sorry to rain on your parade, the PS3 is simply the best Blu-ray player out there right now, it's on par quailty-wise with the best $1000 players, it boots the quickest, it's the quietest, it's the cheapest, and it's the most future-proof.

I won't even mention it's hoards of other tricks that set it above all the other players for $399.

The decoders don't need to be in hardware to be Profile 1.1 compliant. You just need the decoders. Now seeing as the existing decoder in the PS3 is software based, all Sony needed to do, in essescence, is create a new instance of the decoder, giving 2 decoders when needed.

All the decoders are software based in the PS3, all the codecs are software based, it's all done on the cell.

This means, it's pretty much infinately upgradable, within the scope of it's hardware.

Standalone players implement all this hard-coded into DSP's, which don't offer much scope for upgradability.

All your post does, is prove your lack of technical knowledge.

Because it's not the Japanese way..

Microsoft like to promise, and mostly deliver. Sony stay quiet until the last possible moment, for fear of other stealing their thunder/ideas.

It's purely a cultural thing.

Funny that the Blu-Ray and the costs associated with it is what was killing the PS3... Now it looks like it may be what saved Blu-Ray and pretty soon, Blu-Ray will continue to help the PS3.

So this "forcing a format on you", turned out to be a great idea that paid off. Sony took a chance, and it paid off.

Wow Deacon...I almost gave you credit for answering a civil question, with a civil answer.

I should have known better.

"Sony stay quiet until the last possible moment, for fear of other stealing their thunder/ideas."

Did you miss the pre-release hype machine for the PS3, or do you have Alzheimer's?

It took Sony almost a full year to deliver on SOME of their promises, while others (like Home and MGS4) are still just flapping in the breeze.

It's funny .... that post was addressed to Dave, I see you all answered. Thanks for proving my point.

Liar.

You are absolutely right, the store showed them in stock but will not sell them as they have to go back.

I'll wait until they re-release them with the correct discs. I though it was a certain batch but I guess the problem is wide spread.

I sure did prove a point...

Where's your inside information now?

Flip Flop, Flip Flop, Flip Flop,

As usual, you don't get what I said. Your little group of women over there all think one thing, and everyone goes along with it because you are a bunch of followers.

You can't help it, whenever you wan't to brainwash a bunch of people, you start with the dumbest one's first.

This was adressed to Dave. Why are you answering?

Thats right .........

Again, adressed to Dave, yet you are answering.

They did say that they wanted to go HD DVD but Fox would not budge I guess they lied about what they wanted to make you happy.

Like its been said if that is the best that is very sad.

Lack of knowledge and that proves what? Not a damn thing just a chance to flame again, nice.

"...whenever you wan't to brainwash a bunch of people, you start with the dumbest one's first"

So thats why Beta"news" chose you! Thanks for clearing that up.

????? ........... This is like arguing with a retard or a monkey.

Your posts make no sense sometimes.

Hollywood, i would consider trying to find one...and buy it now...

im not sure off the top of my head what the replacement plan is....

but in the 2nd pirates film on blu-ray there was a framing issue in the original release...where a scene or two you would see like the bottom half of orlando bloom's chracter while he was talking...Disney's replacement policy was just to call them and they sent you a new one...got to keep the old one, and it only affected a couple scenes...total freebie....if Warner is running a similar program with the HP movies you might get yourself a freebie HP movie...not that its a big deal...but whatever..

Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and then beat you with experience. lol

Flip Flop, Flip Flop, Flip Flop

Yeah OK "fernz33". Anytime you want to go toe to toe with SAT scores and W-2's let me know.

I am literally laughing while reading his posts. I can see I've gotten under his skin so badly that he's resorted to sounding like a little grade school kid. I can basically control him like a puppet simply by typing.

I love it.

I can handle idiots and liars, we are dealing with both here.

The latest update for PS3 (2.10) includes Profile 1.1 support as well as Divx updates. It's all software...

Not the japanese way? Excuse me?

I'd love to go to go heel-to-toe with SAT scores, and I'm not sure what W-2 means... do you mean Wii, cause I don't have one of those yett... oops, I mean yet (just one 't', just one).

He's saying he is smarter and makes more money than you do. LOL

I have a nice HD DVD player addon for the 360 for sale? Hollywood would you like to buy it? Plenty of Star Trek titles are available for it. LOL

I am sad HD DVD lost, but glad there is a true winner now. However, I'm moving on from disc based media anyways, so I care a lot less now.

Bye Bye HD DVD, it was a nice try.

Hollywood - Michael Vick makes more than you or I, and I don't think intelligence is well associated with money making. However, you did mention SAT, but I think thats a stupid test anyways. Anyone relying on it for intelligence is...well...stupid IMHO.

I think one of the biggest difference between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is that, I don't know about the states, but at least here in Japan, I haven't seen any (or many) HD-DVD recorder drives.

I have to burn off at least 100 to 200 Gigs a day and I use tape for final backups, and DVD was a pain in the ass. But here Blu-Ray drives you can find as cheap as around 10k Yen , (appx $99) for a used one. I bought the LG one that can write Blu-Ray and read both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD so I don't think I'm in trouble if they decide to throw away either, but still, PC storage is becoming a problem, and if HD-DVD don't come up with more PC drives, they're going to be in serious trouble.

I mean, people fill up 4TB RAID harddrives daily, and I don't mean at work. At work, it's even worse...

Yeah, so now I use the dual-layer Blu-Ray, which I only have to burn 2-3 or 4 a day.

Not too bad. Compared to like what, 50 DVDs a day ?

Anyone recall that Toshiba make a claim that all Toshiba drives would contain a HD DVD drive.

That never happened did it...

Blu-ray is leading in the PC field, by a massive margin, even Apple are now shipping Macs with Blu-ray drives.

Blu as far as the eye can see..

I have to burn off at least 100 to 200 Gigs a day

You, sir, are a 1-in-a-million case. You're not exactly the typical market for these things, and the recording market isn't what sets the standard for movies.

At $20 a disc, you're also paying a lot of money to burn that data compared to spending a quarter per DVD.

Oh great the biggest bulls*** artist to graze this site is back for his once a story post.
Last time it was $200, now its $99 - but you keep forgetting to back yourself up? Still waiting for you to disclose the location of these fantastic priced drives. Pity computer hardware is not cheap here so I very much doubt you can backup your claim

No person/company in their right mind would be 'burning' that much data period. Tape is the only real answer.

As for the rest of your post.... wtf?

Exactly... and if he's in charge of backups where he works, he most certainly needs to be fired on the grounds of fraud, waste, and abuse.

At our shop we have dual backup servers each with 1.5 TB 4-drive RAID 5 volumes. They synchronize on a daily basis. We provide offsite data storage, web hosting, and e-mail hosting for several customers. That combined with our own in-house storage needs and backing up our own domain controller is more than enough... and when it's not, it's easily upgradeable.

Tapes are becoming quite archaic, but I agree that they are still a very effective and somewhat reliable solution... definitely not as expensive or as time-consuming as his proposed Blu-ray solution.

uhm... you need proof?

http://www.coneco.net/idx/01202080.html
go look up prices here.

In Akihabara, you can often bargain for cheaper prices, and that's how I found the $99 drive.

Hey, not everyone checks Betanews every single day lol.

One very interesting thing is people make a very weird face on you when you give them proof data in tapes.

But at least here in Japan, if you buy a new computer, you can get a Blu-Ray for not too much as I just posted the link.

Anyone know any good link for cheap deals and stuff in the States? When I was back in the States, I always used dealsea.com for cheap deals, but I don't know about nowadays...

Combo drives and still no drive thats $200... lots of shocking reviews as well... what exactly does that prove?

In Akihabara you can bargain sure, bulls*** you can bargain a brand new unit down to $99 though. Cheapest wholesale price in Japan TODAY for the BHC-6316FBS-BK is wow 26,000yen so theres not much of a markup compaired to the CHEAPEST offered price.
And sorry to say that drive is just a peice of s***, makes the dvd reader in the xbox look like a A grade dvd player.

I would be willing to believe you can pickup a second hand one for $99 if anything.

The LG model they have as best favorates is spot on the cheapest priced one you will find in a conventional electronic store.

Just curious, what kind of work do you do that requires moving that much data. I hope you understand that bold claims of that much data daily (and easily) raises more than a few eyebrows.

This was all about the blu-ray answer to $99 HD-DVD players though? Not just a simple something you can get for your computer (if your stupid enough to purchase one of those drives – common).
For the record, its not just ‘here in Japan’ its in the USA also and ‘here in Japan’ PC parts are not so cheap

forensic work.
for record purposes, wasn't my idea, but my boss decide to make a literal, not backup but physical copy of everything.

You won’t have ANY trouble whatsoever in Japan with tape drives, no customer that deals with that amount of data will look at you strange. I find it very hard to believe that your boss chose a terrible inefficient way to make copies of everything. But then again, you’re Australian like me and not in Japan at all. Don’t forget to share your next trips plans on your blog ;) I enjoy reading it

Ouch. :)

I never been to Australia, you know.
I've been to France, US, China, UK, but never Australia.

but, no.
Depends on your target.
When you talk to IT people, you talk tape, they say of course. When you talk to top management guys who doesn't know what LAN is, you have to sort of be more creative or else they're shrug and say forget it.

Um..Paramount/Dreamworks' exclusivity to HD-DVD is only temporary. After the 18 months they are free to renew HD-DVD exclusivity, go back to both, or just support blu ray. After what Warner just did it's highly likely they'll go Blu ray exclusive also after the 18 month deal is over. Remember, they only went HD-DVD exclusive in the first place because MS paid them off $150 million

Since you chose to ignore this little piece of information that I posted earlier, allow me to repeat it.

Actually, that rumor was pretty well denied...

from http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/the-state-of-hd-dvd/

Jordi Ribas, GM of the HD DVD Group at Microsoft responded:

Microsoft provided no financial incentives to Paramount or DreamWorks. Michael Bay's additional comments about our commitment to HD DVD are similarly unfounded. We have major technology investments in HD DVD...and have more than 100 staff at Microsoft dedicated to the success of HD DVD.

Without an official statement, there is no way of knowing what kind (if any) money was offered to WB on the back end.

I fail to see how "clear" the HD market is when two major studios like Warner and Paramount have chosen to compete head to head by exclusively supporting two different formats. 2008 is certainly not going to be the HD Year (especially when you consider that the winner of this "war" is the DVD, by a humongous margin).

Indeed, well said.

Well, I would expect Universal to go neutral or Blu exclusive very soon, so that basically leaves Paramount as the only studio not on Blu-ray.

How long will that HD DVD deal last. Not very long, at worst another 12 months before they can get out their contract, more likely there is a clause that allows them to break free sooner, and pay back some, or all of that money.

Let's face it, if Paramount don't now release on Blu-ray, soon, then it's obvious that there was a payoff involved, as what company would sign up to a 18 month tie-in, with no getout clause, for free...

Likewise, what company in their right mind would willingly and voluntarily give up making profits on two formats and exclusively release on one without some incentive in the form of large sums of monetary compensation?

The market has not "clearly" chosen Blu-ray when the Blu-ray media sales should be much higher than they are right now if you consider the sheer number of Blu-ray-capable players versus HD DVD players.

If it was a good business decision on Warner's behalf, it was only because of a tremendous payoff from the BDA.

Nate, is it possible to create a "kill file" option where we could filter certain users out usenet style, or maybe a scoring system that's accessible to users like osnews and slashdot? I'd prefer to read at +1 mehself.

Greasemonkey could probably do it if you wanted to play around with it, (filtering on poster or score).

But yes, I'd also prefer to view more sane comments.

I would love to see a system like that implemented here.

Actually, a better idea would be to only allow one active registered user name/account per IP address. These smurf-tastic games get tiresome.

What is all this ridiculous talk about Warner not "listening to the consumer"? Warner IS listening, they based their decision on that Blu-ray has outsold HD-DVD disks every week in 2007. That's pretty clear indication consumers have chosen blu-ray. The only people buying cheapass $99 hd-dvd players are rednecks who shop at walmart

The HD DVD players only sold one model at $99, and that was for a very short time. Before that, and after that, HD DVD players have consistantly outsold Blu-ray players where I work by roughly five to one, and that continues right on through to today.

I don't know what consumers Warner is supposedly listening to, but they certainly aren't paying any attention to the ones I see every single day, day in and day out. The ones that are actualy spending their hard earned money on these players and their discs.

You are the only person on the planet that seems to be claiming 5:1 in favor of HD DVD sales.

Everyone else is seeing about even on standalones, and 7,000,000 PS3's

That's not really listening to consumers.

How many PS3's are out there? How many are sold each week? While some are sold to be used as players, most are for gaming. Once someone gets it for gaming, why not try out the blu-ray movies? They already own the player.

Sony decided for those consumers by including blu-ray playback in a gaming console. A good move, but hardly showing that consumers choose blu-ray.

You are incorrect. Most people who are actually interested in high definition movies are buying superior HD-DVD players. Why would anyone want to waste money on a Blu-Ray player? There are currently no Blu-Ray players that can internally decode DTS-HD or DTS-HD Master Audio yet there are a significant amount of movies on the market that use the high resolution DTS audio formats. A 1.5mbps DTS soundtrack (which is what most people get) does NOT sound anything like a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack.

HD-DVD doesn't have this kind of mess and never did. It has always supported Dolby TrueHD as well as Dolby Digital Plus (which Blu-Ray apparently does not support). Dolby TrueHD is superior to DTS-HD Master Audio in every way. HD-DVD has also never used the inferior MPEG-2 video format since its release, only VC-1 and MPEG-4.

Ooo... careful, before you invoke the wrath of aredo. :)

Just what we need, another lecture on theoretical signal theory.

"Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray"

Really? Not at the store I work at. HD DVD players continue to outsell Blu-rays by about a five to one margin with no indication of any change in that trend at all coming any time soon. I don't think the Warner guys are doing this because they were paying any attention to what the customers are actually doing with their wallets.

Of course, what does the average consumer know, they are just the ones that are paying EVERYONES bills in this whole situation. They are just the "sheep" that will do exactly as corporate Ame