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

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

It makes no sense to do a software swapout. My software is fine. I can see them offering a certificate or coupon good for $XX off a player. Hopefully it will be BD Live player with full audio internal decoding (like the new Panasonic BD50) as HD DVD owners are used to those features.

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

Hear hear, Adam.

Haven't read the entire thread yet--this point may have been made. Amplifying on your point of a software swap being problematic, why would I want to trade my Babel, Dreamgirls and Training Day HD DVDs for the lower resolution audio of their BD counterparts? Similar situation with supplemental content not being available "in band" as intended on the Order Of the Phoenix and Blood Diamond BDs.

I second that mention of a hardware discount on a 2.0-compliant player being a much better (and less patronizing) idea. But gee, then there's the pesky issue of there not being very many of those.

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

I agree it would probably be the easiest to do a send us a upc from your HD DVD player and get a coupon for $ off a BD player. A reasonable gesture and one I would take advantage of if possible.

I am one of the Christmas HD DVD people but really the only person I feel sorry for is my brother who thought me saying "I'll wait until the new year to see how things turn out" meant I don't want to pay for a new player and ended up buying me one as a present.

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

Or the studios go back to licensing their films out to companies like Image, Anchor Bay, Pioneer, etc., to do the transfers and releasing. Then the studios will just get a cut of the sales for basically no work on their part. Sure, we'll pay a premium, but I'll gladly pay for quality releases.

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

The problem is, most people no longer have UPCs from their player boxes. Most sent them in for the 5 free discs offer.

I think if anything is going to happen, its going to be a software (not hardware) tradeout, funded mostly by the studios. You would bring in an HD-DVD and swap it for the same (or possibly a different) title in Blu - all at the retail level. It would help to ease the pain (and bitterness) of early adopters who went Red and it would get people in to retailers to, as the studio would hope, buy additional discs while they trade in their red ones. The retailers are happy because they get reimbursed for the trade-outs and hopefully sold some additional discs and perhaps a blu player at the same time. The customer still feels the pain of the HD-DVD equipment purchase, but at least he still has an upconverting DVD player and most, if not all, of his software library has been converted to Blu at little or no cost.

I don't think it will be hardware because the equipment manufacturers don't really have a reason to do it. They would probably look at it like "Why should we cover for Toshiba?". If Blu ends up being the only format, we will have no choice but to buy Blu players if we want to enjoy packaged HDM. On the software side, however, we have already given the studios money for their movies.

Now with all of that said, I don't think we'll see anything happen, despite Bill Hunt saying the idea was warmly received. I would love to see it happen, I just don't think it will.

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

A have doubts due to the expense it will cost those companies and the low units sold issue. Some of these titles will need to be restored plus a new HD transfer. It's possible, but the number of titles would be low due to those concerns and some studios not liking to license their assets like Warner.





Crawdaddy

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

The software trade-in doesn't hold water. If I already have a title on HD-DVD, I'm not going through the hassle to trade it in for a BR version. As long as my HD-DVD player still works, I'll watch that title on HD-DVD. If down the road the disc gives out, I'd pick up a copy on BR. A software swap is more of an insult than a peace offering. A hardware incentive would be a more attractive offer for people without a lot of disposable income.

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

What would be the difference? It would still not sell very well.


Cees

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

I disagree.

Elite, Pioneer, Image, and Criterion all did this for many years. For 3 of the 4, film restoration and release onto laserdisc was their only business for quite some time. Image branched out; Elite and Criterion followed the market to DVD. The LD market was tiny. Prices were high, which justified the expense to a degree. With HD, the market is probably already bigger than LD ever was.

Warner did license their films to Image for distribution on laserdisc.

Anything is possible.

My point is, if it turns into a niche, there are companies who take over. And it's really not such a bad thing for enthusiasts. I do agree the output would be smaller, but such is life in the niche world.

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

The difference is, should the market become niche, we could have some great companies step in to continue getting us product.

It would still not sell very well, yes. Laserdisc never sold very well. Didn't stop me from enjoying laserdisc.

Did studios care about LD not selling very well? Nope, they continued to let Pioneer and Image release their product with runs as small as 500 pieces. Why would the studios care so much about sales if they were doing zero work? They were simply collecting a check from laserdisc distribution.

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

Didn't they do something similar to this when DIVX died? I think it was a $100 rebate, since DIVX players were still able to play "open" DVDs.

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

I disagree with you because the market has changed now for software and people won't buy a product that is not priced competitively and if that product doesn't move enough units to justify the cost of getting it ready for a HDM release, I don't see it happening in the immediate future.

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

I can't see any retailer signing up for the administrative headaches such a scheme would entail.

I agree that if there's going to be anything, it will most likely be some kind of a coupon against a new BD player for current HD-DVD owners. Yeah, a lot of us don't have our UPCs anymore, but there's other PoPs that can be used - cover page of the manual, for example.

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

While it's true that the swap-out Warners title drive is more for purple than red folks (I'm purple, so I'm less entrenched either way), the swap-out still makes sense in terms of garnering grass-roots studio loyalty amongst the early HDM adopters. These are the people willing to spend $10-$40 per HDM title, why not offer a trade-in (time limited window, of course) for those who don't mind swapping out as many of the HD DVD version for the BD version of a Warners title that the early adopter owned? You aren't forced to swap out all your HD DVD titles, just the ones you feel you weren't giving anything up(in terms of features, lossless audio, etc), and then you don't have to be as worried as to when your HD DVD player kicks the bucket in a few years after the dust has settled and the CE manufacturers have moved onto primarily BD players or perhaps combo players, and then you're left scrambling to find a HD DVD player off Ebay, Craig's List, etc. (or just finally re-buying those titles in BD if you want to watch it again, or hoping they still make combo players - I remember the LD days, and I hope I learned my lesson from the aftermath of LD=>DVD migration).

If you swap the HD DVD version out now for the BD version, you have a longer horizon for viable BD player offerings in the future (unless you believe everything is going the downloadable route, then just don't buy anything at all and just wait for cheap affordable internet access at break-neck speeds).

I think retail stores would welcome any idea that gets people in their stores, and promotes store loyalty in terms of becoming the main supplier to potential HDM customers. It may be a little logistical work up front (during the time window for the swap-out promotion), but it could pay off later in terms of continual sales to this jilted HDM fanbase in the future.

It'd be up to Warners to do the swap-out idea (they didn't force anyone to buy a piece of hardware to play their HD DVD offerings), but the BDA would be the ones who would implement a hardware voucher for HD DVD player owners (not Warners) towards a BD player purchase, so let's not get all venomy towards Warners if they did try to offer a few nuggets in trade for those on the red side of things. I understand it would cost Warners a pretty penny to produce all those swap-out BDs, but they did receive a nice chunk of change (either in real money or other means of windfall to go blu), so it'd be nice if they used some of it to reach out to their customer base.

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

The part of me that still hasn't caught up to the end of the format war thinks there will definitely be some sort of retail trade-out engineered so that each trade is somehow counted as a sale, thereby creating many a press release trumpeting the overwhelming consumer response to the end of the format war, all on the backs of previously purchased HD DVDs.

But really, at this point, they have no more need for such press releases.

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

I can't see WB bearing the brunt of any trade in program. It would have to be a BDA thing. It could be either $ off a player or get an additional X number of titles by mail with purchase of a player.

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

LOL.

This won't be a popular comment, but I'm a little played out on freebie software (in no small part due to HME), especially when it likely would be pre-selected or restricted to a group of titles that aren't as attractive to me a what I really want.

Hardware discount please (even though I agree with what Cappelletty said many posts ago about this whole notion of corporations being magnanimous about this).

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

I suppose could take some of that 450 mil payout and cover the change over costs. But as callus as Warner was in not protecting the consumer by announcing their decision prior to the Holiday season before the holiday purchasers laid out their cash, I tend to think Warner (and/or the other studios) will do nothing at all.

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

No, the enthusiast market is large enough and dedicated enough where we would pay $39.99-$49.99 for titles - excluding the discounts that would be available online.

We like to think we wouldn't, but most of us would. We may not buy as much, but they would sell enough titles to support the business.

But no, it won't happen in the immediate future. And it would only possibly happen if it were to stay a niche market and the studios lose interest.

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

Posted by Robert Crawford:
This is why I have no plans to go Blu (or purple). HD is is niche with me, let alone the rest of the world. I chose HD DVD for the low price of a fully functioning and updated (and updatable) player; but also for the HDM content. If I ever get my 5 freebies for buying the player, I will have 25 or 26 HD discs. There really are not many more of available HD offerings that I even want. I am going to support SD DVD now because for me, that is where the content is. This may change in the future, as Warner put out the most (and IMO best) catalog titles of classic films. They may continue to do so for Blu. However, I keep hearing that the classics did not sell all that well in HD, so I doubt they will do any better for Blu. Even if an exchange program comes about, I doubt the titles I would exchange will be available for some time.

I still see myself enjoying my smattering of HD discs on my HD player. The player is an excellent upconverter, so I will be a reasonable happy camper. No, upconverting is not as good as a "real" HD disc, but we all know there are quite a few HD titles which (in the words of several reviewers) "do not offer all that much of an improvement over their SD counterparts".

Posted by Dave Anderson:
I can only agree that people will pay those prices if it stays a niche market. I was a LD enthusiast, when discs were regularly $29.99 to $39.99 (often more for "special" releases). However, I knew I was a niche buyer then and that LD would never gain mass acceptance. I may have even enjoyed my elite status, as one who knew LD was (then) the only way to enjoy movies in their OAR and with great sound. Now that a movie can be had for $5 with OAR and great sound, the masses will experience sticker shock at the prices you quote.

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

Times are different. The studios are very impatient. They want to return to the days when they were making huge amounts of dollars. They are not going to give it 6 years. If blu-ray does not show vast improvement in 2 years then support for it will be dropped by the studios. They are not going to support a niche format.

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

I've been purple for the last while but only because I won at the Casino and used the money to buy my PS3. My mindset now and for the last while was to only pick and choose the HD/BR movies that I really want, unlike my days with SD-DVD, when I used to buy 1 or 2 DVD's a week. Prices have gone through the roof on the software and we don't get the deals that those in the US get on amazon. I find myself watching more movies on the TMN HD channel. Picture looks great and audio is 5.1. I really don't think that BR will take off as well as the BDA thinks. The US economy is beginning to tank and their talking recession through 2009. When consumers hear about this, people start loosing their jobs, can't pay their bills, whose going to fork out $300+ for a new BR player and software costing $25+. 10 million players by end off 2008, I don't think so. Hell in Japan the Wii out sold the PS3 by a 3to1 margin.

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

To answer the original question, no I don't think there should be some sort of peace offering. At the end of the day, those who bought into HD DVD knew exactly what they were doing, the same as those who bought into Blu-ray; they were buying into a format that wasn't supported by every studio, with no guarantee that every studio ever would.

However, I think there will be some sort of offering as a PR exercise, because even though anyone who bought into this game is an early adopter (including those who bought into it for Christmas), the game now is about getting the mass market to adopt high definition.

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

Not a chance. I think those Blu-ray BOGO sales have cemented certain expectations among Blu-ray software buyers that all they have to do is wait a certain amount of time for the item to go on sale. Any BR title priced more than $19.99 is going to suffer. Sort of a "fallout' effect from the last quarter if you will.
Also, the "enthusiast" has a much larger selection of choices to satisfy their cravings ie satellite and/or cable HD channels including pay-per-view as well as upconverting S-DVDs.

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

Robert Crawford said:


I think we're at a similar point in the life-cycle as with SD-DVD around 1999-2000. Players had been out for about 18 months, residing mostly in the hands of early adopters. Studios releasing a lot of action films to have a quick hit in the weekly sales. It took quite a while (until about 2004) to get the flood of classic / catalog titles. Warner Bros. was among the first of the big studios to put out desirable titles (new or catalog) on SD-DVD.

Studios are working with manufacturers to bundle discs with players, or subsidizing BOGO sales at (r)etailers. These incentives push consumers to buy specific titles, rather than the ones that they really, really wish to have; they just get "whatever's on sale" to try out on their players. Also, a lot of the early titles are action movies that make for an impressive demo / light-show on a big-screen HT. Good for in-store demos, and aimed squarely at the 25- to 44-year-old male demographic.

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

All I know is my wife keeps asking me, "when are they going to release Sleepless In Seattle?And I have to respond, Honey, you just don't count. Firstly...your a women and secondly, your not an "early adopter."Some people just don't get it do they.
Anyway, she says it's OK for Warner's to keep the payoff if they would just hurry up and release, You've Got Mail. Ahhhhhhhhhh...such a forgiving soul.

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

I am glad WB went Blu, and I can not wait to start buying WB classics on Blu-ray. Let the classic HD releases truely begin.

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

Don't hold your breath, seeing the demographics they go after in HDM.

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

A peace offering, are you kidding me. Every single person who invested in HD-DVD knew the risks. No way should Blu-ray pony up for someone else's choice. Bill Hunt's comments are laughable.

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

Well, it is always easier to spend other people's money, right?