Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Industry/Retailer/Studio Support Thread
(Clarifying note for those who don't know me: I own 5 HD players - three HD-DVD and two BD players and about 75 discs in each format so I really don't have a horse in this race. I also have the necessary equipment to view 1080p/24 content and listen to any HD Audio codecs that the camps throw at me so I'm talking from experience, not conjecture. Everything is HDMI connected, etc. etc. etc. with up to 7.1 sound capability. I'm all about the best looking and best sounding content not whether the disc comes in a blue or a red case.)
And I'm sitting here laughing my ass off for a number of reasons.
In the first place, I guess that Bill Hunt isn't the industry "insider" that he claims he is, or he wouldn't have been surprised by today's announcement. So much for that. And unsubstantiated claims about the source of any money under the table from Mr. Gates or anyone else doesn't increase his credibility one iota. If you state something, please back it up with facts. It's looking more and more like his position is on shakier ground than I thought. We all take Sony announcements that "the war is over" with a grain of salt. Looks like prudent people should save some of the seasoning for The Digital Bits.
Secondly, I love how some people here keep stating things in this and the other format Smackdown thread - sometimes quite opinionated and often based on statements that aren't really backed up (but allowed to stand based on the policies of the HTF) - and then proceed to go to other forums and talk about how the HTF no longer allows discussion of the format wars.
Hello!
McFly!
Anybody home?!?
You know who you are and all one has to do is read through the 7+ pages of this thread (so far) and see that these claims are totally untrue. As long as you don't violate clearly defined and reasonable forum rules you are free to claim whatever you want about your favorite format - even if you don't back it up with facts. Just don't start spewing in other threads since it not only was getting annoying (and off topic) it was getting boring. We get it. You think Blu-ray rules! How many threads do you have to start to try to get your point across? And to be fair, the same applies to advocates for HD-DVD. I find it especially telling that the ones complaining about the HTF limiting format war discussions to two areas are the very people who thread crap on a regular basis. But why lie on other forums and say the HTF doesn't allow HD format discussion? Prevarication doesn't prove a darn thing and ruins your credibility.
Thirdly (if that's a word), I really think that we will see something significant happening to the price of HD-DVD hardware by the latter part of the fourth quarter that will make today's Paramount announcement seem like a minor salvo in the format war. If the Blu-ray camp doesn't respond with similar price reductions then there are going to be an awful lot of people crying Blu-tears. Not even
Bill will be able to stop the
Hunt For
Red November (with apologies to Tom Clancy) if my prediction comes true. As it stands right now a person with an XBox 360 can get what is essentially a free HD-DVD player. For $179 you get the player with King Kong in the box. I understand that there is currently a promotion that also allows you to walk out of the store with an HD-DVD copy of The 300 and a rebate that gets you 5 titles from a list of 15. If a person hasn't started amassing any HD media (so that he/she don't already have the titles offered) that's seven (7) HD-DVDs which probably costs ~$200 including tax. Even if you were able to find all seven titles for $20 each new (highly unlikely unless you really shop around and hit some great bargains) the net cost of the player would be only $39. Before you jump all over me and tell me that you already have to own an XBox 360 (there are millions of them out there so this offer is limited to just those folks) I understand this. But it was just my way of noting that the HD-DVD camp seems to be much more serious about aggressively pricing the HW than the Blu-ray camp. And that's why my gut tells me that they will do this again for the non-Xbox population. I would think that the magic number, like it was for DVD, will be to break the $200 price point. If that happens, the floodgates (not the Billgates) open!
And all this moaning about a format war not being good for consumers? I'm sorry, but I disagree. We all know that Blu-ray and HD-DVDs cost about the same - even though Blu-ray discs are more expensive to produce. Hmmm.... I wonder why the price is the same?
And what's wrong with players coming down in price as each camp tries to lure new customers? Does anyone really think that Blu-ray discs would list for $27 if there were no HD-DVDs? I certainly don't - at least not at this time.
Finally, let me state once again that I love both formats and each of them has their strengths in my experience. The picture quality on both is superb. My favorite player happens to be my PS3 Blu-ray device. It reacts quickly, has very nice ergonomics (even though I purchased the DVD remote I find myself using the game controller because it works quite well) and it offers great information on the display - including both video and audio codec bitrates, which is important to me. On the other hand, the Toshiba HD-DVD player offers Internet interaction built in as a feature(coming at some point to Blu-ray we are promised). But since I consider the HD audio side of HD media the real advance, in my experience right now HD-DVD has a real edge in this area. You can tweak an SD-DVD to look
almost as good as
some HD discs via video processing but you can't improve on the SD audio bitrates due to size limitation on most SD discs. If you take a close look (or really a close listen) to titles available on both formats (mostly Warner titles and, up until today, Paramount) 9 times out of ten the audio on the HD-DVD will be better. Where the Blu-ray version offers bitrates of 640kbps, the HD-DVD equivalent offers bitrates of at least 1.5Mbps. That's something that people with even a modest (but capable) sound system can hear.
I could go on and on talking about my actual experiences but I prefer now to sit back and let the fur fly in this thread (you know, the place where the HTF no longer allows discussion of format wars).
One last observation. There seem to be zealots on both sides of this issue but am I the only one to notice that Blu-ray fans tend to be a bit more aggressive?
I'll leave you with two quotes:
Quote:
| The lady doth protest too much, methinks. - Bill (definitely not Orion) Shakespeare |
Quote:
| The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. - Mark (HD-DVD) Twain |
You're suggesting that the reason that Paramount won't sell *discs that are already pressed and packaged* is because they'd lose money??? I suppose they would lose less money by not selling those fully-produced and packaged discs instead?
(That won't mean anything to anyone except Averry and me, unless you also know Minot.)