This is a great offer for those of us with both formats that would like to migrate their red Warner discs. In my case I'll be moving Matrix trilogy and the first 4 Harry Potter titles.

For discriminating movie buffs, there is no better picture/sound media than Blu Ray NOW.
Even the most expensive up-converters can't reproduce the kind of detail HD media can give. (I also own the Toshiba XDE-500).

The world has moved on, and so have I.

Just like VHS and Betamax... or for most geeks DVD+R and DVD-R - you take your chances and place your bets, you cover both sides... or you simply wait till there's a clear winner.

Personally since I don't possess a flat screen bigger than 32in, I see little reason to jump on the BluRay bandwagon... nor did I see a reason to jump on the HD bandwagon... I don't buy movies, I use netflix... I'm more interested in something that reads my DIVX rips and looks good on my TVs than something that supports 1080p.

Smart money is on Upscaling HDMI DVD for now... till a day comes that Blu is the common and inexpensive.

Which is why he's saying it's lagging in adoption - more and more people are coming to the realization that they don't need blu yet... that it isn't going to rock their worlds.

Kudos that "the format" for HighDef DVD has been choosen... but deep down inside it wasn't the merits of the format that won the battle (just like VHS) it was the fact that Sony learned... and paid alot of $$$ to get people to only market THEIR product... I'm not going Blu till I can get a GOOD player for less than $80-$100

i haven't visited the warner website in a while.

but i recall the perception i had at that time was that warner seemed to be highly eager to get its foot into the online sales door. so i don't think it is a scam.

however, people have to know that in addition to negotiating a "physical product" between a consumer and a business,

one also provides valuable information via billing and shipping, which is useful for marketing. such information always pays for a company.

perhaps warner is paying some of it back to the customer by this sales gimick.

I like how they contradicted their "industry leading" statement by telling you that the BRD version will have fewer or no special features like on HD-DVD.

lol, got to laugh at the article - such a highly cynical view of the offer available.

To break down, for owners of HD-DVD movies, the situation was:
Yesterday: you chose the wrong format. Want it on Blu Ray? sure, go and buy it at full price.

Today: you chose the wrong format. Want it on Blu Ray? sure, only $5 (or you can still go an by it full price if you want..)

I can't help but think that it's a good offer, it's just up to you if you want to take them up on it or not - either you want the movie on Blu Ray or you don't.

You have to love such absurd statements as:
"Furthermore, with HD streaming media making serious inroads, and Blu-ray lagging in adoption, there's no guarantee that even that replacement copy holds any long-term value."

As you see, having a non-volatile hard copy of a title that can be watched whenever one choses without paying for an additional viewing, or of being lost - IF an archival copy is even allowed with a streamed copy - provides no value.

Yup, who can rationalize the possession of a non-volatile and paid for copy of a title that you might want to view multiple times....

And such an analysis provides no logic nor indication of intelligence. In which case you would be better not buying into any of the formats nor watching any of the movies, as you won't understand them anyway.

On the other hand, considering the insipid level of intelligence demonstrated in far too many of the current releases, may be that 'challenged' demographic is precisely what they are counting on with this promotion!

And if that is the case, this promotion will most likely be a resounding success!

One would think that those who bought into HD-DVD had already been converted to the desire for a hard HD media format, and that with the advent of BR winning the format war, that they would already be buying BR titles.

But I love the talk of "being able to retire" an already purchased HD-DVD player for which they already have competative quality titles.

Afterall, the primary concern is evidently now the additional 1u rack space that 'retiring' that HD-DVD unit affords along with the ability to spend still more money to simply duplicate what one already has.

Anyone buying into that asinine rational, not only directly contradicts the primary reason for their going with HD-DVD in the first place, but makes it readily apparent why they might now pay more simply to 'retire' a perfectly good player with perfectly adequate media providing them absolutely no additional functionality.

But then these same dweebs rationalize replacing of their car as soon as the same model is offered in a new color, as theirs has been "relegated to the junkyard of failed technology".

The marketing mavens just live for this sort of idiocy.

LOL!

Another tired argument from someone who picked the wrong horse. And to respond to the statement, they aren't really getting anything but a backup, let me tell you. As someone who was dual format through the entire affair, it allows me to finally retire the HD DVD player on my rack to the junkyard of failed technology. That alone is worth the price of admission.

quote :
But is this an olive branch to out-of-luck early adopters, or a simple cash grab for a format that's not succeeding either?

---
Lost the argument here. Every sign is pointing that Blu Ray is taking off, so saying it's a format thats not succeeding... isn't supported by facts. And streaming the movies is such a long way off. I don't mind streaming stuff, but I'm still one of those who actually like to have the item in my hands. When I seriously like an album I've downloaded, I go out of my way to find it for real.

I would be disappointed with to go from a widescreen to full screen and no features.. Are they just wanting to disappoint the customer how purchased early again?? (ANYONE that has a HD DVD has to be disappointed)

How many Blu-Ray's have you seen that are full screen?

Do Blu-ray titles even come in full screen? That would completely defeat the purpose of buying Blu-ray, as all HDTVs are widescreen.

With the fact that many ISPs have plans for or have caps in place I seriously think that movie streaming isn't going to take off, at least not as a third-party thing. If the companies that do plan on offering movie streaming they are going to have to think about partnering up with the big dogs like Verizon and AT&T if they even have a glimmer of hope of surviving.

RE Blue Rays taking off -- the adoption rate isn't increasing nearly enough for it to become a success, and without radical price cuts across the board, it seem unlikely that it ever will. Recent news about netflix's experience with cracking blue ray disks make me further leary of BD as a archival medium.
RE Rent vs Buy: a new disk format really needs to be successful in both markets. Blue-Ray disks are proving substantially more fragile than DVDs in shipment -- google netflix and blue ray cracks. I've personally been using a VUDU download box for about a year and a half -- it's troublefree and the video quality is excellent; while substantially more expensive ($4/day) than Redbox ($1/day) per rental, I get real high definition video and don't have to make a trip to the store.
RE downloads and caps -- Certain Idiot cable providers (*cough* Time Warner, *cough* Comcast) are trying to preserve the cable half of the business with bandwidth caps in the 150 to 250GB range. Verizon FIOS, where it's deployed, is picking up substantial customer base because of this -- and *SO FAR* they've stated that they don't *need* to. I get the impression that Verizon is less interested in the CATV third of their business than in the broadband and voice, and is more than willing to use the competitive edge.