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Should I worry that I may be collecting a dead format? (1 Viewer)

dkny75

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Sure you could be buying a dead format but the same goes with Blu-ray. I agree with some people that it'll be a while, if ever, before we see a clear cut winner. I have over 1500 SD DVDs with a lot of them being anime and foreign movies. Unfortunately my HD-A1 isn't region free for SD DVDs so I have two players hooked up. No big deal to me. I figure either way, it will be a while before we see independent films, foreign films, and anime on HD DVD or BD. Yes there are a few titles out there but it will not be the norm.

I got my player for under $400 and with my amazon discount movies like Batman Begins are only $17 and change. After watching movies like the Searchers and Blazing Saddles on HD DVD I can't ever watch them again on SD. I've built up a nice HD DVD library and have even imported them from Japan (Brothers Grimm, Equilibrium) and will do the same when the European titles are released since there's no region coding on HD DVD right now. I'll be able to get BD exclusives such as Rambo and Terminator 2 from overseas.

I don't think studio support is the deciding factor many make it out to be since support is not static. They can switch support at any time. Obviously Sony and Fox and Universal will ride out whichever format they support til the end. Companies such as Lionsgate, Disney, Weinstein, and other mid majors can always change sides.

BTW, don't you find it odd that even though Warners supports both formats they are definitely more aggresive in releasing HD DVDs? Yes HD DVD came out first but how come they aren't releasing the same movies on BD just to catch up? Just because you support both formats doesn't mean you have to equally support them. Just look at their high definition website.

www.wbhidef.com
 

Jeff Savage

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Aug 21, 2001
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I just purchased a HD-DVD player and what did it for me was the price. If you are looking at getting a top notch upconverting DVD player anyway then the price jump to HD-DVD at this point is not that great. Heck I spent more than what I paid for the A1 on my first DVD player.

Having Microsoft support means a lot too. They have very deep pockets and a desire to have the XBOX360 win over the PS3. Toshiba is another big company. It is not like these two (and the other HD-DVD supporters) are mom and pop shops. I do believe that they are in it for the long haul.

I also think that up to this point the people releasing HD-DVD discs are making darn sure that every release has the best possible picture quality. This does not seem to be the case with Blu-Ray.

I believe that we have only seen the first couple of moves in a long battle. Neither format is going to fold anytime before late 2008 (my opinion). In the end the Studios will follow the money. If HD-DVD's continue to outsell Blu-Ray it will not matter how many CE companies are making which type of player. The Studios are going to release on any format that will make them money.

Laters,
Jeff
 

Mathew_M

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I think this is somewhat of an old arguement taken from the VHS/Beta days. I don't have any stats to back it up but I speculate that the porn industry has gone mostly to the internet. Gone are the days of sneaking behind a curtain into the 'Adult XXX' section at your local Mom & Pop video rental store.
 

Mathew_M

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Here's my take on the format war: Sony will botch it up per usual. Sure the studios are jumping on the Blu-ray wagon but will the consumers do so? The PS3 is looking more and more like a lame duck and unless players fall below the magic $200 price point...

What might end up happening is that HD-DVD becomes the LD of the 21st Century (adopted by the cinephiles) and Blu-ray flops slowly towards Beta like status--popular amongst professionals for storage purposes but dead for consumers.
 

Dave Scarpa

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It's a chanch being an early adopter but from all indications so far you picked a winner, Blue Ray as I predicted seems to be falling behind, Delays in the PS3's and Now reports that they are overheating isn't instilling much confidence, then there's the less than steller performances of the early disks, the expensiveness of the players, and now the Xbox360 getting a HD-Drive (Even a crippled One) at $199, every indication is that HD-DVD is gonna stick around. These are my opinions and I don't own a player yet (Although the 360 add on is Preordered, I'll buy one to get my feet wet and if and when the ICT Flag goes on I'll buy a standalone)
 

jim.vaccaro

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I think people overestimate the influence the porn industry has on, well, pretty much everything.

When you look at all the factors involved, VHS and DVD's victories in their respective wars had relatively little to do with any choices made by the porn industry.
 

Cees Alons

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I don't know.

Several years ago, a DVD e-tailer, who started by not selling any porn, once told me he almost went belly-up, and only made it because he reversed his decision about the XXX.
In fact, it made him rather wealthy after a few years.

Although my previous post was partly in jest, I'm afraid the influence of XXX-on-home-media is still underestimated, rather than overestimated.


Cees
 

jim.vaccaro

Second Unit
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Jun 27, 2005
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But relatively speaking, XXX stuff is a niche market. What percentage of the average consumer's DVD collection is pornographic? I'd imagine it's pretty small.

At any rate, my HD-A1 arrives next week, so now I have a vested interest in the format. If me buying porn on HD-DVD will ensure that it wins the war, then I guess that's a sacrifice I'll just have to make. :D
 

Vader

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I don't think there is any worry, whichever way the war goes.... In either case, it will be a long, drawn out affair, and by the time the war is decided both camps will have a significant customer base, and a significant initial investment not easy to simply write off. Whichever side loses will represent a significant market for "combo" players, and I would be very suprised if the losing side does not jump at the chance of re-couping at least something by allowing this. Personally, I am getting more tired of the stupid bickering and name-calling going on between the two camps, than the war itself. While I jumped in to HD-DVD for the PQ, I am open to any eventuality that the market might dictate. I also do not see the necessity of re-purchasing my current HD-DVD library (albeit only 5 titles at present), as combo players are all but a certainty at some point (hopefully sooner rather than later)....
 
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From where I stand, the war will be decided by two things: 1) cost to consumer, and 2) cost to consumer. Okay, and maybe movie selection.

Seriously, if Joe and Jane Middleamerica go into Wal-Mart because they are hearing about a newfangled fancy high-def way to watch movies on their cost-cutting HDTV (also bought at Wal-Mart) and see HD-DVD players going for half of what Blu-ray players go for, I think the choice becomes clearer. Almost all of us jumped into DVD early in its life. We are the early adapters (I bought my first DVD player in June of 1997). But, ya know what? We are NOT the people that decide a format's fate. The people who will decide if HD-DVD or BRD emerges triumphant will be the average consumer who shops at Wal-Mart, Target, and to a lesser extent, Best Buy and Circuit City. If you buy your A/V equipment at a small, local high-end store and scoff things like home-theaters-in-a-box, you do not have a place in this equation. DVD has become a juggernaut success because the players became cheap very quickly as did the software. And because this happened DVD became a self-fulfilling prophecy; more and more people bought it and it became the defacto standard (I was shocked at how quickly VHS fell away).

As a very recent HD-DVD owner (got my Tosh A1 four days ago) I am naturally very nervous. And not because there are more studios currently supporting BRD. The thing that makes me the most nervous is that two-thirds of the major studios supporting HD-DVD (Paramount and Warner) are also supporting BRD while the non-Sony BRD supporters (Fox, Disney, Lionsgate) are NOT also supporting HD-DVD. It seems that Warner and Paramount are hedging their bets (or maybe Universal knows something no one else does). Do Fox and Disney believe in BRD so strongly that they feel it unnecessary to support HD-DVD at all? I don't know the answer to that, but it makes me equally nervous and irritated. I want movies like Lord of War, Speed and Pirates of the Caribbean in HD, and I would like them on HD-DVD because that's the format I chose.

While I think the immediate future for HD-DVD looks grim, vis-a-vis studio support, I think, in the long-term, HD-DVD will most likely emerge the winner. HD-DVD makes more sense from a business viewpoint for the studios.

1) The technology is cheaper and easier to manufacture from both a hardware and software standpoint.
2) It is ideally named. Everyone by now recognizes the term "HD" as "high definition" and the phrase "DVD" is already a household name. Put them together and it stands for a recognized product that has been made better. Blu-ray? You don't know how many people have asked me, "what's that?" If I say that it's another kind of high-definition DVD, then they immediately understand.
3) So far, 30GB has been adequate for the movies. Some people have complained about the supplements being in 480i. I might be alone here, but so the hell what? I don't have time usually to watch the supplements and they are not the reason I buy a disc. As long as there is a first-rate audio/video presentation of the film, isn't that what really matters? And if for some reason a studio needs more than 30GB, then why can't they use a triple-layered 45GB HD-DVD disc? I seem to recall that this technology is possible.
4) Even though Fox, Lionsgate and Disney seem dead-set on BRD, there really is nothing chaining them to this format, unlike Sony (for obvious reasons). There have even been rumblings in the industry of Lionsgate supporting HD-DVD in the near future. If BRD ends up falling apart, there is nothing stopping these studios from suddenly starting to manufacture HD-DVDs. And if BRD does completely fail, Sony will hop on-board HD-DVD. It's not like they're going to go sulk in a corner and lose out on the hundreds of millions of dollars they will make re-selling us their catalog in HD. They lost with Beta, yet eventually supported VHS. They lost with MiniDisc, yet eventually supported CD-R. They lost with ATRAC, yet eventually supported MP3. If they lose with BRD, then they will eventually support HD-DVD.
5) And I have to agree with the above statement about the porn industry. If adult film distributors decide to go with the cheaper-to-manufacture HD-DVDs, then that will most likely decide the format war. Don't kid yourself; there is a reason that DVD took off so fast and that reason contains three Xs. That said, it might be a bit different this time around. Will people pay premium prices for their smut in HD? Will SD-DVD remain the medium of choice for porn? I think it might. Do you think people abandoned VHS porn so quickly because DVD looked better. Uh-uh. It's because it was easier to access their favorite scenes, it was a smaller and more convenient format and the producers could jam hours of it onto a single disc, effectively doubling or tripling the time limit of VHS. Well, these same producers could jam even more content on HD-DVD than SD-DVD, but will they? Why do that? You just hurt your sales. Buying three discs of SD-DVD porn that has an equal amount to one HD-DVD disc looks like a better deal...plus three SD-DVDs will probably be cheaper than one HD-DVD.

Remember DIVX? Not the current A/V encoder, but the shamelessly absurd pay-per-play DVD rival in 1998? People were nervous about that then and this very forum was abuzz with what-if scenarios and dooms day predictions. But it was a bad idea that never took off because the mass market rejected it. The mass market (not us videophiles) will be the deciding factor. And I believe (for the reasons above) that HD-DVD will eventually be the winner.
 

Doug Miller

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Gregory --

Good post. I'd forgotten how many things that Sony has put out... that have failed.

I'm still riding the fence. I know my first player will be a 360+HD add on, or a PS3. I was an early adopter on DVD (my first player was a second generation Toshiba,) but this format war has kept my money in the pocket. If one of the sides would have blinked, I'd already have one.

Doug
 

ppltd

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I tend to agree with most of your thoughts, and have voiced some myself before. One minor comment. I think it will not take BD falling aaprt for the current BD sxclusive studios to press HD-DVD disks, just enough HD-DVD owners. Once they see a revenue loss, they will become dual format studios. This includes Sony studios, who have little to do with the Sony hardwre division.
 
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Thomas:

I agree with your statement. I was just giving a worst case scenario for the BRD studios.

If Warner and Paramount can support both formats, I don't see why Fox, Disney and Lionsgate cannot as well. It's in the studios' best interest to get a new format launched so they can start recycling their catalogs (again). By being stubborn and limiting themselves to a single format, they are going to do nothing but prolong the acceptance of one format in the market, and thereby delay hundreds of millions they could be making very soon in re-releasing their catalogs in HD. Release both formats and let the consumers decide.

Greg
 

hmurchison

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I don't even own a player yet I have 6 movies and will purchase 2 more tomorrow. There's little risk to spending $500 and a few hundred in discs. If HD DVD failed i'm a post on craigslist away from selling my player and discs and recouping some funds.

However I find it laughable that despite empirical evidence that supports the inertia of HD DVD that people are still buying into the Blu-ray hype.

When has Blu-ray launched on time with any product? When have they delivered quality movies in spades?

Hell Neilsen shows that HD DVD owners are happy and purchasing movies at a %300 advantage to Blu-ray.

There are %250 more HD DVD players. Could this be just a coincidence? Nay. Blu-ray was supposed to wipe HD DVD out at CES 2006. No one thought HD DVD would look superior at launch. I sure as hell didn't. I figured the codecs were the same but that someone there'd be something cheaply done.

What did HD DVD do?

They only shipped their players with interactive support in the player, networking and DL discs from the start. They only updated the firmware to move from 2 channel lossless TrueHD to 5.1 channel. The value of HD DVD is growing.

You know that the person that dicates studio support is YOU. You're the one who's buying the player and the movies. It's your money they want. All you need to do is stay the course and Lionsgate, Disney and Fox will get the message loud and clear.

I realize the studios will go where the money goes and my choices today are

1. Buy a HD DVD player for $500 get a known quantity and enjoy the budding selection of movies.

2. Wait ..claw and scrape for a PS3 and hope that gamers put down the controllers to actually watch movies.

3. Buy a player and rent my movies.

You determine the risk and the reward.
 

Mike_Richardson

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Excellent points all. I think Blu Ray is the format that has a much larger hill to climb right now.

One of the big problems for Blu Ray is that, in one argument after another, two of the central points that Sony backers make are:

1. The technology is superior

2. It has studio exclusivity on several labels.

The problem for them on those arguments are:

1. If it is, it's not showing up in the quality of the titles and...

2. Studios will go where the money is. Never say never -- remember Disney had no interest in DVD at the start and threw their initial support towards DIVX, did they not? Once studios see where consumers are targeting, they'll go towards that market like a shark eyeing a school of little fish.

Adding insult to injury to BR is that it's prohibitely more expensive to manufacture and pass along to the consumer. I'm guessing the studios are "more in favor" of Blu Ray because of copy protection issues (if HD DVD is more like regular DVD, it probably will be cracked some day in much the same manner), but if sales are overwhelmingly tilted towards HD DVD like they've been in the early going, I don't see them supporting a sinking ship just because of that angle.
 

Nickrh

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I doubt either format will be a dead format, The reason being is the Xbox 360 has the HD-DVD drive coming out and the PS3 has the Blu-ray so there will always be people that will want these formats, (maybe not Sony, Depends on how many people buy into it but we already know the Xbox 360 is doing well) Look at Sony's PSP format, People buy those UMD movies even though there are limited playback devices and they still choose to get them, A perfect example on how consoles can keep a format alive.
 

Chris Dugger

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The UMD is only being kept alive to save face....

The is a perfect example of expecting game devices to drive a format.

If Blu-Ray is expecting the PS3 to save them, I think they have another thought coming.....

These are game machines for a reason.... and if you are playing games, you can't be watching movies....

Dugger
 

Nickrh

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I doubt Sony will make it but there are a ton of people with xbox 360's and if you go to any of the xbox 360 forums they are flooded with people that have either preordered or are geting the HD-DVD drive, I think sense the 360 drive is external it will be of better quality then the internal DVD ones of the past and probably Sonys PS3.
 

Mark Kalzer

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I'd just like to chime in here and say I think we're overestimating the effect porn would have HD formats if only because I really doubt those in the market for porn are really that obsessed with video quality.

With DVD there were numerous advantages over VHS in which A/V quality was just one of, i.e. random access, durability, menus, scene selection, etc. As is the problem with mainstream adoption in general, there is less motivation to jump up to HD formats, especially when it still requires HDTVs just to take advantage of it's primary quality.
 

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