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Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

#61
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1/7/08 at 10:54am
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by FrancisP
The company that owes customers is Warner because they lied to their customers. After one of Warner's executives talked about hd exclusivity, they spent the next several days denying that's what he said. They even issued press releases supporting blu-ray and hd-dvd. They did not give anyone any notice of what they were doing. In my book that's fraud. They should issue refunds to customers who bought any hd-dvds between that date and the date the news leaked out.

You are right that most people bought hd-dvd players knowing that they could be paperweights. However most people did not know that the war would be decided by who could put more 0s on their check. They assumed that the consumer would decide.
As a dual format consumer, the move of Warner does little to affect my ability to view a High Def release, but you are right. For Warner to dismiss the rumors of a month and a half ago and let the average consumer be taken in over the Holiday season is pretty callus. Many hundreds of thousands of HD DVD players have been sold since the original rumors began, money that the consumer could have placed in something else had Warner been upfront with their plans. Does anyone actually believe that the highly anticipated Twister release rescheduling to May, the month the the Warner/HD DVD contracts run out, was coincidental?

As far as us early supporters, we (should only) get into these technologies with our eyes open and should know that any money spent has a good chance to be spent on the wrong side.

As a side note, with a collection of over 300 High Def titles (both formats), my enthusiasm of both HD and BD has taken a major downswing since about the time of the announcement from Paramount/Dreamworks. This type of fighting between the warring groups was getting old (at best) and my interests, for the first time in over 2 decades, has moved away from my film collection. the fighting has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I personally wish a pox on both of their houses.

At this point, I think both sides have lost and the likelihood of either format hitting the mainstream consumer is most assuredly not a sure thing. Welcome to the next LD.

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#62
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1/7/08 at 10:59am
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert George
Oh please, this whining and hand-wringing is getting down right pathetic. I AM one of these people and I don't think I "deserve" anything. I'm a grown-up and I made my choices with my eyes open. What do I have for that? I have a shelf (several shelves, actually) full of great HD media and a terrific player to play it with. I got what I paid for.

Warner made a business decision. Regardless of their reasons, it's done. And everyone on this forum and the others as well, should have known something like this was going to happen. One "side" was going to "lose". If so many people were not so emotionally wrapped up in this corporate competition in the first place, we would not be having this conversation. We would be looking forward to having a high quality HD format with all studios fully committed to taking as much of our money as possible. I certainly am.

The format war is over. To the victor the spoils. In this case, fans of movies in HD will actually get something out of this. Yeah, some guys will have to buy another player. Sorry, that's life in a world where corporate hacks make the rules. Consumers never had any say in this so-called war, and we have no say now. Why do so may have such a hard time with that.
I think it's worth quoting that again since its the most sensible thing posted in this thread.
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#63
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1/7/08 at 10:59am
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Does anyone actually believe that the highly anticipated Twister release rescheduling to May, the month the the Warner/HD DVD contracts run out, was coincidental?
Nope.


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#64
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1/7/08 at 11:26am
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
But the HD DVD consumer who invested in over 200 HD DVDs deserves something (IMO).

Why? Why does this person deserve anything? Seriously did this person not know what was going on? So we should also compansate all of the people who purchased beta? DAT? SACD/DVD-Audo? Hell why not laser disks why we are at it.

Please. They knew what was going on, they knew that their perspective choice might loose.

I think the "you owe it to us" stinks. However if they do give some sort of "deal" to come to blu-ray that would be nice. But I don't think one should "expect it".

Good lord.


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#65
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1/7/08 at 11:30am
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy_Saunders
I agree with this statement wholeheartedly, I the consumer have opened up my wallet many, many times to cast my vote that I believed HD DVD was the best choice for me. I also have a PS3 however I have not bought any blu ray movies for it since I wanted my vote to be clear, HD DVD was what I wanted. I feel like my best interests as a consumer will be ignored by Sony and The BDA , and I for one would rather go SD than support a format that I don't like, I and I imagine others like me will simply not purchase BLU and go back to old SD viewing habits.
I totally agree. I feel......well, I just feel real bad! Anyway, I still enjoy HD to much to give it up entirely but instead, I have taken a new tact. My new "toy" is a HD-DVR through one of the DBS satellite services. It has an internal 250GB hard drive (30 hrs of HD) and I added an external 500GB hard drive using the USB port for a total of 750GBs and 90 hrs of HD storage. The best part was the HD-DVR was "free" with a 18 month subscription.

We taped "The Sound of Music" on ABC HD the other night and my wife (it's her favorite movie) has already watched it 3 times on my 9' wide HT screen. She says she gets a "bigger kick" now watching it on the big screen than on the smaller 56" in the FR. Now....she finally agrees with "bigger screen...bigger wallop."
Just out of curiosity, I did compare the standard DVD version of this film upscaled through my HD-A2 with the HD taped broadcast on the big screen, and, of course, the HD version blew the DVD version right out of the water which may explain my wife's re-enjoyment of this classic film.
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#66
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1/7/08 at 11:52am
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

A BR player instant-rebate (worth the price of the HD player) is the most practical.
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#67
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1/7/08 at 12:03pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
I feel like my best interests as a consumer will be ignored by Sony and The BDA , and I for one would rather go SD than support a format that I don't like

I view the "best interests" of an HT consumer to be delivering the best video and lossless sound on HD media.

I'm not going to tell you that Sony and the BDA exist to better the quality of human life out of compassion and love. But after turning around from their early-launch debacle, Sony has out-performed almost every HD DVD release in terms of absolute quality: using new 1080p transfers that are unfiltered all the way through to compression (high bit rate compression) and full lossless audio on every disc. That's something that Paramount and Universal (and even Warner) can hardly claim. And Universal's desire to recycle decade-old HD transfers to save money on their HD releases has had even HD DVD fans - who would normally have been very cautious about criticizing their most committed HD DVD-only studio, crying foul. If anything, Paramount and Universal (and even Warner, when it comes to sound) need to work hard to catch-up with the high-bar that the BD-only studios have been consistently delivering.


Quote:
As a dual format consumer, the move of Warner does little to affect my ability to view a High Def release, but you are right. For Warner to dismiss the rumors of a month and a half ago and let the average consumer be taken in over the Holiday season is pretty callus.

Agreed. it's one of the reasons I started this thread.
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#68
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1/7/08 at 12:05pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ppltd
At this point, I think both sides have lost and the likelihood of either format hitting the mainstream consumer is most assuredly not a sure thing. Welcome to the next LD.
That's a great thing to me. Laserdisc generally had the OAR, nice extras (not just fluff featurettes) and was made for a movie fan. If high def doesn't catch on, it'll still give me all the above and an HD picture to boot.
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#69
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1/7/08 at 1:42pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ppltd
At this point, I think both sides have lost and the likelihood of either format hitting the mainstream consumer is most assuredly not a sure thing. Welcome to the next LD.
I am not sure how that is neccessarily such a bad thing. I for one was more than satisfied with the titles available on laser disc and I personally had a collection of almost 4000 titles of which I probably still have about 1200 titles lying around. Why should we care whether HD becomes a mainstream format or not? For I am sure that the studios will continue to release titles in HD even if Blu-Ray ends up being limited to only a laser disc like niche market, which by the way I personally think is highly unlikely. I am also quite sure, that Blu-Ray will definately be a much larger market, even if just a niche one, than laser disc ever was. Actually if you look at the current worldwide install base of Blu-Ray, thanks to the PS3, it probably is already larger than what laser disc reached in it's entire lifecycle. With almost all new televisions being HD, I am sure the consumer will ultimately want HD software to watch on it. Almost every single person that buys a DVD player costing more than $150 - $200 is most definately going to just buy a Blu-Ray player instead and I am sure that although the major DVD player sales might lie int he sub $100 category, there are still large enough volumes for price categories above that.

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#70
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1/7/08 at 1:46pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

First of all, thanks, DaViD, for pointing me toward the new Panny Blu-ray player. I've got my eye on it. (Didn't realize it could be 2.0 compatible. Cool.)

Second, perhaps the real group that deserves some consolation is the early Blu-ray adopters who purchased profile 1.0 machines that will rapidly be obsolete with 1.1 and 2.0. Those are the folks who should receive some recognition/compensation from the BDA.
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#71
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1/7/08 at 1:48pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

I'm not sure how I feel about trading in the Web Enabled version of my Harry Potter 4 for the less content version of it. It's like trading in my BMW for a Kia.

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#72
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1/7/08 at 1:49pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sanjay Gupta
I am not sure how that is neccessarily such a bad thing. I for one was more than satisfied with the titles available on laser disc and I personally had a collection of almost 4000 titles of which I probably still have about 1200 titles lying around. Why should we care whether HD becomes a mainstream format or not? For I am sure that the studios will continue to release titles in HD even if Blu-Ray ends up being limited to only a laser disc like niche market, which by the way I personally think is highly unlikely. I am also quite sure, that Blu-Ray will definately be a much larger market, even if just a niche one, than laser disc ever was. Actually if you look at the current worldwide install base of Blu-Ray, thanks to the PS3, it probably is already larger than what laser disc reached in it's entire lifecycle. With almost all new televisions being HD, I am sure the consumer will ultimately want HD software to watch on it. Almost every single person that buys a DVD player costing more than $150 - $200 is most definately going to just buy a Blu-Ray player instead and I am sure that although the major DVD player sales might lie int he sub $100 category, there are still large enough volumes for price categories above that.
From what I'm hearing, catalog titles are not selling very well and if the HDM stays a niche market, the studios might decide not to invest in releasing many catalog titles onto HDM because such an investment in new transfers isn't worth it at those volumes. Sure, we'll get every new film on HDM, but that's not going to help those of us that crave to have classic films released onto HDM.
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#73
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1/7/08 at 1:49pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Second, perhaps the real group that deserves some consolation is the early Blu-ray adopters who purchased profile 1.0 machines that will rapidly be obsolete with 1.1 and 2.0. Those are the folks that should recieve some recognition/compensation from the BDA.

Hear, hear! While I don't think I'm entitled to any consideration, I certainly wouldn't turn down the opportunity to take advantage of some.
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#74
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1/7/08 at 2:17pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Why the hell are people so worried about the losing format or trading HD-DVD movies for BD anyway? If it's in 1080p and it plays, who gives a shit which player you have to stick it in!? A hi-def movie is a hi-def movie. Be happy the titles you like were even released in either format. I'm rather disappointed in the current selection on both sides, myself.

And while we're on the subject of Warner... what idiot over there thought it'd be better to release the early cut of Payback that's completely different from the theatrical without making the theatrical available either seperate or as a 2-disc set!? Kris Kristofferson isn't even in the "Striaght Up, Director's Cut." It's appauling.
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#75
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1/7/08 at 2:19pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Viper
And while we're on the subject of Warner... what idiot over there thought it'd be better release the early cut of Payback that's completely different from the theatrical without making the theatrical available either seperate or as a 2-disc set!? Kris Kristofferson isn't even in the "Striaght Up, Director's Cut." It's appauling.
No idiot from Warner Bros thought that. It's a Paramount release.
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#76
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1/7/08 at 2:58pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

It would be a good idea but could Sony actually afford to do it? This format war has cost Sony alot of money and even though the idea of a trade in program would be nice.

Quote:
Works for me. There are strong indications that the BDA is working with Toshiba now on some sort of peaceful surrender to save themselves the rigor of a death by unmarketability. It's possible that something of this nature could be a part of those negotiations.

I would not be against that at all, and it would end the format war alot faster than it would have normally. And both Universal and Paramount could be free to instantly come out with Blu-ray titles. But I would like to know where you have seen indications that Sony is negotiating with Toshiba?

I guess it would explain Tohsiba pulling a virtual disapearing act at CES. As far as the press release and other activities that Toshiba had planned. There just seems to be so many twist and turns coming out of CES regarding the HD format war. If it true that Sony and Toshiba are talking this could get beyond interesting really fast, alot faster than any of us thought possible.

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#77
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1/7/08 at 2:58pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Second, perhaps the real group that deserves some consolation is the early Blu-ray adopters who purchased profile 1.0 machines that will rapidly be obsolete with 1.1 and 2.0. Those are the folks who should receive some recognition/compensation from the BDA.

Hah!

Of course, we KNEW from the start that profile 1.1 and 2.0 were coming in the future, and that those stand-alones couldn't be upgraded. It's why I waited and bought a PS3, which I new *could* be upgraded.



Quote:
Why the hell are people so worried about the losing format or trading HD-DVD movies for BD anyway? If it's in 1080p and it plays, who gives a shit which player you have to stick it in!? A hi-def movie is a hi-def movie.

True enough,

I think that the concern might be that if HD DVD really goes under this year (which it will), that 5-6 years out you'll be stuck paying as much to have your player repaired as it would cost to buy a new one, if/when your HD DVD hardware breaks. If/when your HD DVD hardware finally reaches its end, then you'll be stuck trying to find a working player to view those discs. Not that different from what I'm going through with my LD collection. I know it's been expensive keeping my laserdisc player going... it's been a few times that machine has had a visit to the repair-man... and the costs have added up to more than what I paid for it new.

This fate won't affect my DVD collection, because all future disc players will play my DVD discs (ie, no need to nurse along an aging DVD player from 2007 in the years ahead).
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#78
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1/7/08 at 3:11pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TravisR
No idiot from Warner Bros thought that. It's a Paramount release.

Well, the HD-DVD sticky here listed it as Warner. I guess it doesn't make much difference. Either way, there isn't jack the fans of the theatrical cut can do about it.
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#79
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1/7/08 at 3:14pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
True enough,

I think that the concern might be that if HD DVD really goes under this year (which it will), that 5-6 years out you'll be stuck paying as much to have your player repaired as it would cost to buy a new one, if/when your HD DVD hardware breaks. If/when your HD DVD hardware finally reaches its end, then you'll be stuck trying to find a working player to view those discs. Not that different from what I'm going through with my LD collection. I know it's been expensive keeping my laserdisc player going... it's been a few times that machine has had a visit to the repair-man... and the costs have added up to more than what I paid for it new.

I plan on picking up another HD-DVD player ether at the end of this year or right at the beginning of 09'. Only because I want to be able to bitstream my audio from my HD-DVD's to my upcoming receiver. And once I do that I will pack up my 1st gen player and seal it up just incase my upgrade takes a shit. I do not think I will be replacing any of my HD-DVD's with the Blu-ray counterpart. A well done 1080p movie is a 1080p movie, I see no reason to spend money to replace a 1080p disc with another 1080p formatted disc.

This format war will ether go on for at least a year or it will crash and burn only because the two sides got together and negotiated an end to the war.

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#80
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1/7/08 at 3:18pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Bl

Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterMano
Let's see if I understand this correctly, some guy who got a $98 toshiba hd a2 and five free movies needs to be compensated because he got burned?! Are you freaking kiddin me?

You´ve a point there, but I guess there are many people who has bought EVERYTHING (what they can, of course) in HD DVD etc.

But like I´ve said before, we all took the gamble. In some degree, even if you had both formats (most people probably still bought their HD-titles mainly in "one format").

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#81
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1/7/08 at 3:31pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
This format war will ether go on for at least a year or it will crash and burn only because the two sides got together and negotiated an end to the war.

nah. It'll be a long slow transition. The infrastructure (the HD displays in peoples homes) isn't there yet, and any optical disc format, or should I say, the Bd format, will likely just keep pace with that. So we are still looking at several years at modestly, or even morbidly shy, growth.
This despite the fact that Bd has it all sewed up in the eyes of enthusiasts..who are to ones who help to influence the J6P mass consumer (word-of-mouth).

Hey, if Sony and its BDA partners can afford to hang in there for the long haul, they will get it all. But if along the way, we aren't getting many catalog titles and studios keep cutting back (like Warner did with its planned catalog releases last year)- then I'll personally have little use for the format, and it can go swing for all I care.
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#82
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1/7/08 at 3:46pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Crawford
From what I'm hearing, catalog titles are not selling very well and if the HDM stays a niche market, the studios might decide not to invest in releasing many catalog titles onto HDM because such an investment in new transfers isn't worth it at those volumes. Sure, we'll get every new film on HDM, but that's not going to help those of us that crave to have classic films released onto HDM.
This is one concern that I too share. But honestly I feel that the studios are going to end up spending money on new HD transfers of catalog titles for broadcasting and other purposes anyhow, thus releasing them on HDM will only be an incremental cost. Also, the poor sales of catalog titles are a reflection of the poor quality of catalog titles released so far, rather than a true indicator of consumer interest in catalog titles on HDM. Seriously, how many real classics have been released on HDM so far? To make matters worse, in addition to the poor choice of catalog titles, the consumer has so far had to also worry about the choice of format and the long term survivability of the chosen format. Assuming that the market shall now move towards a single (Blu-Ray) format, the sales of catalog titles, atleast the meritorious one's, shall definately see a marked improvement in sales. Ofcourse, there is one more very important factor that the studios will have to consider to ensure higher sales of catalog titles, ie. a more rational pricing structure for catalog titles on HDM. So far, most catalog titles have been over priced and as soon as the studios realize that and act accordingly, I am sure the sales of catalog titles will also pick up. But then, there is an element of the 'chicken and egg' situation working here, thus as the HD player base increases we might see the studios gradually price titles more rationaly.

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#83
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1/7/08 at 6:53pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

I agree w/ the original post. They should try to make a reasonable "peace offering". I think something like a $25-to-50 discount toward a standalone BD player *plus* a handful free swaps for BD titles just for those HDD owners would make sense.

Considering it looks like some studios (eg. Disney) might be looking at offering SD-to-HDM upgrade pricing/coupons/rebates anyway, I don't see why they can't at least offer some free media swaps for this, especially Warner.

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#84
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1/7/08 at 9:32pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
From what I'm hearing, catalog titles are not selling very well and if the HDM stays a niche market, the studios might decide not to invest in releasing many catalog titles onto HDM because such an investment in new transfers isn't worth it at those volumes. Sure, we'll get every new film on HDM, but that's not going to help those of us that crave to have classic films released onto HDM.

This is a problem for both formats. BD catalog numbers look better than HD DVDs, but this is a direct result of the BOGO offers. I have seen the raw numbers and catalog sales were up 1000% some BOGO weeks. If there were never any BOGOs the numbers would be much worse. In the US there are approx 430 titles currently availabe on BD. Offical sales numbers are approx 4.78 million since inception. The top 25 titles are responsible for over 40% of those sales! The top 50 titles are responsible for over 50% of the number of sales! 50 titles (mostly new releases) outsold 380 mostly catalog titles, and like I said, the catalog numbers would have been much worse if not for the BOGOs. A few months ago (Before the BOGOs) there was a time when the top 10 discs were responsible for almost 50% of the sales. There are a lot of great "newer films" catalog and classical catalog titles that are hovering around the 500 mark for titles sold, some of which received highest recommendation by HTF reviewers! Once the format war settles down, the formats aren't going to have the incentive to get bigger catalog titles out until there are 3-4 million standalone players in households. It will be a while before you see the classics I'm afraid. (Just to clarify HD DVD has the same problem with catalog sales.)

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#85
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1/7/08 at 9:44pm
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Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Bl

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Crawford
From what I'm hearing, catalog titles are not selling very well and if the HDM stays a niche market, the studios might decide not to invest in releasing many catalog titles onto HDM because such an investment in new transfers isn't worth it at those volumes. Sure, we'll get every new film on HDM, but that's not going to help those of us that crave to have classic films released onto HDM.

Amen, and I don't know about you guys, but I am sick of waiting for Under Siege 2, and was really hoping Sudden Death would get announced alongside Timecop.

Oh wait....we may have very different perspectives on what qualifies as a "classic".

On a serious note, I'm all for moving forward with a single format so that sales improve enough to merit classics being released. Because of that dirty rat fink Adam Gregorich, I actually sold my Hitchock set when he reported that Universal told him that the first Hitchcock HDs were on their way last fall. I know it's Universal's fault and not Adam's that they changed their mind, but he still owes me Psycho and Vertigo on Blu-Ray whenever they come out
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#86
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1/8/08 at 12:44am
  • Joined: November 1999
  • Post Count: 5,750

Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

OUCH! Actually when they finally come out I can say "I told you so"!

HTF Rules 
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#87
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1/8/08 at 1:08am
  • Joined: June 1999
  • Post Count: 1,778

Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

This is a ridiculous thread. I don't trust Bill Hunt's word anymore than I do that of the raging BR fanboy on a "Smackdown" thread elsewhere. This kind of "exchange" just ain't gonna happen. Barry Meyer and the beancounters at Warner are just laughing at us, waiting for nervous nellies to dump their HD-DVD Blade Runner sets and rebuy them on Blu-Ray. If you think corporations are magnanimous, I have about 10,000 striking writers who'd like to have a chat with you.

What would I like to see-- what I wanted even before this debacle. A solid, reasonably-priced dual-format player that's completely compliant and is going to hold up for some time. That way, I get to keep the library of 35 HD-DVD titles or so that I have and then buy the BR versions of the Sony/Disney/Fox films that i'd like to get and play them on one machine, without having to buy a game console or overpriced standalone player I don't want.
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#88
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1/8/08 at 4:47am
  • Joined: May 2007
  • Location: Helsinki
  • Post Count: 2,026

Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Cappelletty
Warner are just laughing at us, waiting for nervous nellies to dump their HD-DVD Blade Runner sets and rebuy them on Blu-Ray..

Why would they "dump" their HD DVD-releases? Players work, HD DVD-titles have the same, great quality, so I don´t believe that many will "re-buy" their HD-titles at this point. Perhaps then IF the HD DVD "fades away" and the old HD DVD-titles are "on sale" everywhere.

So I don´t believe that Warner is laughing at us, nor any fans. After all, Warner has always been THE best company of the majors. This won´t change that, nor their attitude to always deliver the "best" (well, perhaps not in the HD-audio front, though).

Rewind - DVDcompare/Site Administrator
*US PS3 (1080p) - Xbox 360 Elite (HDMI) - Nintendo Wii (Euro) - Sony PSP-2000 - Nintendo DSi
*HD DVD Toshiba XE1 (1080p) - Sony Bravia KDL-40W2000 (1080p) - Yamaha RX-V1800 (HDMI 1.3)

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#89
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1/8/08 at 9:24am
  • Joined: November 2007
  • Post Count: 13

Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu?

As a person who bought into HD DVD, I don't need any incentive from the BDA to buy a Blu-ray player (not that I'd turn one down). It's something I'll do in the fairly near future.

What has buying into HD DVD really cost me? I got a fully-specced, region-free player at a very good price and lots of wonderful films on HD. In addition, now that the die is cast, I should be able to pick up more HD DVD discs and a backup player at upcoming firesales. Sounds like a bargain to me.

When I do get a Blu player, it will be less expensive than if I'd bought it earlier and hopefully by then the spec will be finalized.

Now, if I were a board member at Toshiba, I'd be wearing a long face. But I'm just a consumer, and things appear to have worked out pretty well for me.
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#90
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1/8/08 at 10:24am
  • Joined: June 2006
  • Location: Houston, TX USA
  • Post Count: 595

Re: Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Bl

Quote:
Also, warn customers that the BD title might not always have all the same features and functionality of the HD DVD, and if that's an issue, they don't have to trade in the title and should keep the HD DVD if the features are more important than getting the BD counterpart.

If the on hand stock is lacking, provide customers with forms to fill out with the SKU/title that customers want to trade in, and that gives the retailers an idea of how much stock they need for the trade-in program on a monthly basis for a specific trade-in window, like 6 months or so.

Then above sounds like a logistical nightmare. I can imagine already long lines at Fry's and Best Buy getting even longer with people getting more irate by the minute. It would have to be some sort of mail-in deal, IMO.

Quote:
And then, when Warner Bros. reverses its decision next April? What then?

I mean, which studio do you trust?
And why?

That is a good reason for the BD folks to try some sort of peace offering. Consumers literally do not know whom to trust. I expect a lot of HD DVD people will have soured on HDM by now. I am probably a good example of the type of person they should pursue. I am not interested in paying big bucks to get into Blu-ray and dealing with its various profiles. The idea of having to buy a gaming machine to get a player just seems kind of lame to me.

Frankly, I don’t think any sort of meaningful offers will be made. I guess I am one who will stick to SD for awhile. I am keeping my HD player and the discs, and will probably snap up a few bargains and used discs here and there. I’m not going to go crazy buying HD discs, but there are a few titles more that I would like. I happen to feel that by the time Blu-ray players are affordable as HD ones were, that the “next big thing” in HDM will be just over the horizon, so I may as well wait for that.

Onkyo TX-SR606
Toshiba HD-A2. HD-A3
Panasonic DMP-BD60
Mitsubishi WD-62725 62" DLP

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