[Jari K]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Arnette

I have seen a home theater forum site that is clearly the class act of the Internet accused of some absolutely ridiculous shit from sources I never would have expected.

This is sadly true. Some sites are openly against certain people/writers, mainly because those writers have expressed their firm opinion and analysis on certain issues surrounding the format war. It seems, that if you say your opinion and even if you back your comments as good as possible, people simply don´t care if they´re supporting that "other format". In this war, people believe what they want to believe. Facts doesn´t matter anymore. From this dilemme those huge debates are rising. People refuse to believe anything that is against "their format". Shutting down the discussion is not solving the problem, nor the "wishy-washy" attitude is bringing anything valuable to that discussion.. Tricky situation. At least we could all look in the mirror and try to be more "open minded". Both formats have their merits - that´s a fact.

[ReggieW]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

Hartwig,

I'll gladly offer up an apology to you if your words were not
meant to question the integrity of our video. I am rereading your
post and the very first paragraph mentions the missing frames
and then goes on to say that it looks like Ben Williams was right.

It's very difficult not to come to the wrong conclusion on what
you might be referring to, but I will give you the benefit of doubt.

The problem is that you obviously have hit a nerve here. We have
been trying to keep this under wraps for the past few weeks in
hopes of not embarrassing Mr. Williams. However, it has become
obvious to us that words are now beginning to circulate across the
Internet about this matter and as expected, nobody comes to us to
us FIRST to ask about the facts. I would hope that for all these years
Parker, the staff and I have tried to run a site that builds itself on integrity
and that we wouldn't go out of our way to misrepresent a person,
studio or format.

As Robert Crawford stated, it's really sad when you read the other
message boards and see just how much people are twisting facts
and attacking others all in the name of a format. This war has really
torn enthusiasts apart to the point that they forget that there are
real people involved here.

Ron & Crawdaddy,

I for one appreciate the neutral stance which the HTF has maintained. Kudos to Dark Horizons & a few other sites for continuing in this tradition. Many of these other forums which were dedicated to HT hobbyists have now indeed become war zones. The studios are fighting their "war," and hobbyists now find it necessary to fight among themselves in their own war on their behalf. Worst of all, some of the editors/supervisors of these sites have deemed it necessary to feed into the war/bickering by choosing a "winner" or endorsing a format while a majority of the public remains ignorant or indifferent to both formats!

It is sad to see other sites I once frequented for quality HT information degenerate into a cult dedicated to their format of choice because of...you feel in the blank. I will adamantly state that sites who do not maintain a policy of neutrality are simply FEEDING IN TO THIS WAR not resolving it, though many of them undoubtedly believe otherwise. Even if they feel that breaking out their format pom poms is in the best interest of things, they must realize that it only alienates viewers/members and promotes a hostile atmosphere. Making degrading patronizing presumptions regarding the rationality of someone choosing to support one format over the order has become all to common place and has made many sites persona non grata for me. The HTF is the ONLY HT forum I presently post in.

It was the studios/manufacturer's who created this war by launching two nearly identical formats due primarily to greed. We should not give them the luxury of tearing the HT community apart and should hold them to account for this and NEVER FORGET THIS FACT. Sony, Toshiba, Microsoft, Disney and all of the players involved in this disgusting drama are ultimately to blame for this. Pointing fingers at fellow enthusiasts because they chose what they could afford is simply unfair & mean-spirited. It's almost as if we are supposed to dispose of our collections because of this weeks Nielsen ratings, what some executive said or didn't say, this retailer went this way, or because of a plethora of other reasons which does nothing for my enjoyment of this hobby. I certainly hope more sites follow your example and begin shutting down the war by not taking sides. As far as I'm concerned, we've already given studios FAR more than they deserve by buying into either format.

Please keep up the good work guys!

[ReggieW]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jari K

The writer is having hard time in the AVSforum..
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post11269719

In my view Jari, that writer is having problems for obvious reasons. It was simply written with him waving his format pom-poms. That article contained very few quotes from Kornblau and lots of rebuttle and rhetoric from the writer working for a site promoting it's format agenda. I have read the article and did not come away with the same impression you obviously had.

Sorry.

[Jason_V]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Crawford

Furthermore, what really bothers me is how the HT internet community has turned on each other. Even during the spirited DTS versus DD discussions it wasn't this bad with the mean-spirited and at times, misrepresented comments made against each other. IMO, the society of HT enthusiasts that resides on this forum and other forums like HTF have become so fragmented and disjointed that it looks like we're more interested in making war with each other than holding the HT industry accountable for giving us the best consumer HT products they have to offer us. We used to be brothers/sisters in arms with a common goal in this great hobby called home theater, but today, I'm not so sure what we have become at this time?

For all intents and purposes, we're all fighting the "same" battle no matter which format we prefer: the battle to watch the movies we want to watch in the best possible formats. The entire internet has seemingly taken sides as if someone's mother has been disrespected. Seriously, this is just about little discs with movies on them. It's not the end of the world. Imagine if this many people got this riled up over politics or things that really mattered. Instead, we spew bile at each other over freaking movies. Our priorities are in the wrong place.

[Walter Kittel]

Quote:

Furthermore, what really bothers me is how the HT internet community has turned on each other. Even during the spirited DTS versus DD discussions it wasn't this bad with the mean-spirited and at times, misrepresented comments made against each other. IMO, the society of HT enthusiasts that resides on this forum and other forums like HTF have become so fragmented and disjointed that it looks like we're more interested in making war with each other than holding the HT industry accountable for giving us the best consumer HT products they have to offer us. We used to be brothers/sisters in arms with a common goal in this great hobby called home theater, but today, I'm not so sure what we have become at this time?

I could not agree more, Robert. You know, some of my favorite posters on this forum really made me step back and reconsider my opinions of them, based on some of their posts during the 'heat of the moment' so to speak due to this 'war'.

A few folks that I used to enjoy conversing with on shared topics got themselves banned because of this 'war'.

I've found myself in positions where I had to restrain my baser instincts to keep from making mean-spirited posts that were meant to 'score points' instead of engaging in discussion.

Really a shame.

- Walter.

[Sam Posten]

From a couple of comments I made at the bluray forum regarding this panel at EMA:

Quote:

Yeah, the loudmouth who yelled "bullshit" was me, but I was sitting right next to Bill and he did a similar double take when that statement was made. He didnt go off like I did tho. I totally apologized for having said that, it was inappropriate for that forum no matter how much I felt my statement was true.

I dont think it was revisionist history per se, but really someone coming from it from a much different perspective than most HTF members would have. Understand that:

A. I'm a teacher at night and I deal with hundreds of questions about all aspects of technology and my students, coworkers and fellow HTF members alike were VERY worried about a world where DIVX was dominant instead of DVD.

B. A lot of us HTF vets had done a LOT of talking to consumers, studios, retailers, distributors and had a LOT of emotional investment in seeing DIVX die quickly

C. Hearing the actual threat of DIVX being brushed aside as no big deal by someone who theoretically should have known better made me really angry.

I really appreciated the panel accepting my apology and for Mr. Graffeo give a really detailed answer to my follow up question about what its like to be in his shoes getting constantly questioned about exclusivity. I think that question got cut off of Rons video tape, but his answer is there almost in full.

Quote:

Yeah, you can hear my apology and the start of that question here:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/files/graffeoemaclip.mp3

One thing that nobody in this thread seeemed to focus on, is that Mr. Graffeo illustrated the two things that interests Universal most:

-Low Costs of moving DVD replication to HD DVD
-Interactive elements

Of course both have benefits to the consumer, but in the end they are much more valuable to the studios. Especially as interactive SO FAR has proven to be wasted on consumers like me and it acts as a piracy deterent.

The replication response never made sense to me tho, because by focussing on cost elements the hardware manufacturers are recreating the race to the bottom that they faced with DVD, and which they all claimed to avoid in the HD era. Of course thats win/win for studios and consumers but I dont see how Toshiba wins in that or how it convinces other manufacturers to join in in making HD DVD hardware.

Note that my apology and the start of Mr. Graffeo's answer that are missing on video tape are included in that MP3 above. You can listen in for yourself and make your own decision about whether or not Ben's comments were truthful or not. From the perspective of one of the guys asking the questions I absolutely think Ben got it wrong and I was saddened to see both his devotion to one format blind his perspective and to lose him as a fellow reviewer. I met him at the EMA show and he and his wife seemed really down to earth and a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed his reviews. But his comments on those other forums were out of touch with the reality I was part of and really made HTF look bad.

There is no doubt that the guys on the panel were on the hotseat but with the exception of the badly phrased response on DIVX and my unfortunate retort, they handled things gracefully, and as near as I can tell honestly with regard to their corporate positions. They truly do understand that this is a BAD sitation from a consumers perspective and they have pressures on the corporate level. They have committments to uphold and are trying to navigate these new grounds as much as consumers are, this isn't science, it's business.

Sam

[DaViD Boulet]

I'm actually glad this topic came up and that Ron has so directly addressed the issue of the missing footage per having to switch cameras. Naturally the conicidence of the moment of that switch... right when the Universal/GE-pressure comments were made, has a certain irony, and I think a lot of people were wondering what happened at that moment during recording (I actually thought that I had skipped a video section and kept re-clicking the link until I realized there was just missing video at the beginning of that section).

Naturally we all respect Universal for sharing as candidly as they did at the event and respect Graffeo's for his willingness, as Ron puts it, to step forward and put himself in a position where he knew he might get hit with some difficult questions. I think that the only point regarding Ben's comments being addressed by members here is specific to the Universal/GE-pressure comment. I know that's all I got from Hartwig's comments and it's all that has gone through my mind: that in fact Universal *had* made a comment similar to what Ben had said: that they might be feeling pressure from GE to go format neutral.

Since HTF is officially a format-neutral site, I don't suppose that's a bad thing after all!

[Paul Hillenbrand]

Universal's president, Craig Kornblau states according to this article: Universal's Kornblau Wants Format War to Continue

Quote:

Kornblau admits that there is only a limited window of time for which this situation can be interpreted as beneficial for consumers, retailers, and studios. He says that window will start to close when players drop to a price of $200 and consumers start making their choice, which is what will guide Universal's ultimate course.

That sounds like a NO to the coexistance of both formats from Kornblau (Universal) to me.

Paul