Who is going to win the Format War and why? - Page 4

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Yes, in general that is true and certainly a good perspective to have.

However, there are those situations when one has been at a board for a while and has learned whether someone is reliable or not, or clearly has a bias, or not.

For example, there are certain regular posters here at HTF that (if you spend a decent amount of time here), you know they are knowledgable and legit posters. You can take what they say as pretty definitive info.

The same goes for any forum. But the reliability of any one poster is really only going to be evident to those who spend time at the forum and know that particular person's history.

I'm not really speaking to any specific piece of info here, I just wanted to point out that any forum can have their their very own David Boulet, Robbert Harris, etc... And at AVS, you know sspears is an authority on DVD player performance, Cjpay is a compressionist for WB, etc...

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Criterion took a full year after DVDs initial debut before they released a title on the format and I have a feeling it might be a bit longer than that for HD. The problem with Indie releases is money. These titles don't sell in high volumes even on standard DVD so the studios are going to want to put their product out to the largest potential market. Is that HD-DVD or BD, who knows?

I would suspect thats its also more than likely cost prohibitive at this time to release smaller titles across both platforms. This is especially true since BD has yet to provide the necessary tools to encode discs using VC-1.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

It seems to me, though, that some of these indie labels might find themselves tapping into something of a goldmine here- yes, the market for HD-DVD and Blu-ray is still small, but so is the available CONTENT- I'd wager that owners of either format would be willing to buy just about anything that's available to them to show off their new toys. Don May told me that he actually used to sell more units back in the LD days with Elite largely due to this- it was a niche, collector-driven format and folks would buy just about anything to show off their systems. I'd guess that some really good looking indie titles in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray would sell really well for their respective companies, precisely because the market is so starved for content in both formats right now. Speaking of Synapse specifically, the HD transfers (all 1080P) of films like LEMORA, STREET TRASH, and LONG WEEKEND that Don did are stunning. They'd look friggin' amazing in one of these HD formats and probably sell really well because of that if nothing else.

Vincent

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Thanks for your opinion Andrew - it is noted.

Some would rather that nothing negative ever be said about one format or another on the forum. But unfortunately, discussing the good and only the good (or sometimes only the hype) is not a very realistic way to determine the real situation.

If I am to be targeted for linking information which is useful to everyone's decisions, simply because some of it is not "palatable" then so be it.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

What's he saying is that your comments have given some members the perception that you have a definite agenda to downgrade the other format. That perception might be right or wrong depending on the person reading your comments. Either way, he makes some good points which are definitely not pertaining to just your posts alone, but many posts made by other members could also be taken as such. It really makes it difficult for those of us that are format neutral because it really doesn't service us well.






Crawdaddy

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Yes, the personal nonsense needs to stop because it serves no purpose whatsoever.




Crawdaddy

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

This was BCI/Eclipse's justification for diving into HD DVD so early, although their first releases are still some months off. From a Video Business article back in May:


I'd be more than happy to fork over obscene amounts of money to Synapse, Blue Underground, Criterion, and Anchor Bay as soon as they have their first HD releases ready.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

I don't know when that will happen, though. So far the places that are able to handle HD DVD are limited (though not so limited as BD, which relies at the moment entirely on Sony), and they're understandably interested in serving Warner and Universal first. I hope that will change soon, but indies don't seem to be in the picture just yet.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Right. Goldhil's Chronos has still yet to materialize, and Magnolia Home Entertainment's titles are nowhere to be seen. BCI reports that at least two of their August releases -- Night of the Werewolf and Vengeance of the Zombies -- are "on hold". HDNet has four HD DVDs available for pre-order on their site, but there's no release date attached.

That just leaves Concert Hot Spot's titles as the only indie releases on the immediate horizon, and I personally wasn't bowled over by the quality of their first release.

Oh well. Even if they're months off or even a year or two away, some of these smaller labels can count on my support whenever they have a chance to dive in.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

I don't understand your post, since HD DVD has media coming and except for The Terminator at the same price point?




Crawdaddy

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Are you trying to enhance this discussion or just push your agenda by being argumentative?






Crawdaddy

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

I have no idea if there's any merit to this, but the long-standing rumor I've heard is that Toshiba is heavily subsidizing the cost of HD DVD hardware, and Sony is heavily subsidizing the cost of Blu-ray software.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Except of course that you quoted from the post immediately above yours.


Cees

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

So your post which "had nothing to do with the previous 10+ postings" was in fact in reply to the post immediately above it.

I see.


Cees

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Why is it never possible to have a debate on these topics without it degenerating into these pi$$ing contests ? Particularly when its requested right from the off ( and re-iterated several times later on ) ?

Given how early it is in the 'HD age' it has been depressing to watch people wave their Bluray or HD-DVD flags since long before either format's hardware or software arrived and deny the undisputed truth ( I hope) that in this instance one single format would have been better than two for all of us for many reasons .
As a devout HD agnostic, I can honestly say who WONT win the format war. The consumer ! I dont believe either format was ready for launch from a hard or software point of view (Mch. Lossless/MPEG2 ? ) and this fact quite simply illustrates the disdain that all concerned have towards their prospective customers.
Oh, and btw, how can the same industry that invented the aberration that is Region Coding to try and reclaim all those lost profits afford to chuck million$ at a war that simply cannot be won quickly (if at all ) ?

I wont even get into Aacs

I'm biding my time building up my classic movie collection ( Thank You Fox/Warner ) while all this is going on and I honestly dont feel I'm missing out on much. Im sure the picture is/can be fabulous but the sound upgrade is minimal so far on either format to make me part with my $. For those of you who feel otherwise , Enjoy ! I hope you're doing more of what we all should be doing, ie. watching movies not formats.

Regards to all,

~M~

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

I have been waiting and waiting for Blu-ray and finally at least the Samsung player is out. While its not the player I would choose for my HT. At least someone has a Blu-ray player available. It is however getting really old that there seems to be one delay after another. How many more delays will blu-ray have before the players are all available and software titles are on retail shelves?

There where three reasons why I stayed away from HD-DVD.
1. Buggy players
2. 1080p sofware being displayer at 1080i
3. Less space for future needs and upgradeability.

Well know that there is a patch out that fixes the problems. And the 2nd gen HD-DVD player will most likely be 1080p. If Blu-ray keeps getting pushed back I will end up getting a HD-DVD player built by someone other than Toshiba hopefully. And put Blu-ray on the back burner.

I thought that Toshiba was done for but the way things are going maybe Toshiba has a chance after all? Does anyone know why they delayed players yet again!

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

If and only if Blu-Ray manufacturing can't be improved and BD-50 proves to be far too expensive with low yields, and if MPEG-2 is utilized for titles for the immediate future then I may have to hang my head and say HD-DVD, an inferior product, has won the day.

However, all this is speculation. Sure Sony botched their first transfers (so did WB on a few HD-DVD's), but hopefully that isn't all she wrote.

Warner Brothers put out lousy content at first for the start of the DVD roll out in 1997 and part of 1998 and they were HUGE backers of DVD (poor compression, many times with mis-statements about 16x9 enhancements, and 5.1 encoding for basically mono tracks, etc.). Sony had better quality and now has slipped. It looks like this time Sony's the one to trip at the starting line, but will they recover and will other Blu-Ray supporters pick up the baton and go all the way?

Dan

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

But if I told you they hit 25,000 units 3 weeks ago you wouldn't believe me anyway

And if I said there was no point in buying the Samsung until better quality BD movies were the norm, I would only be stating the obvious, but it would still be my I-pinion.

Based on the comparative reviews of the Toshibas and the Samsung, there would be no other reason to buy the Samsung other than having superior releases, which is not yet the situation.

One other factor that is VERY important to me is that I can burn my Hi Def Sony HDV videos of my kids to an HD DVD 9, using my laptop and regular DVD-R discs.

But the Samsung cannot play BD-ROM 9's burned to regular DVD discs - you can only use the BDR 25/50 media. I find this a missed opportunity.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Actually, Warners put out A list titles from the start on regular DVD(The BATMAN series, etc.) and the picture at the time looked better than laserdisc. It's only in retrospect, when we've seen the huge improvements with picture quality, that we realize that the early titles weren't up to snuff. But they looked pretty grand to a lot of folks in 1997.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

With no writable drives currently available, and no release date currently set, is this really an issue for now? I would be hesitant to think that just becuase the specs state it would play the disc it will do so problem free. I readily expect compatiblity issues for by HD-DVD-R and BD-R along the same lines of what we say with DVD-R and DVD+R.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

This number surprises me I'd love to see a source. It doesn't surprise me because I think people won't like HD-DVD, it surprises me because NO ONE has these right now, and no one around me got more than 2-3 to sell.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

His "source" was from someone on AVS claiming to be an HD DVD dealer somewhere in the US. Of course, even if he was an HD DVD dealer, most find it curious how a dealer would have access to that data, and yet even Toshiba has never even hinted that figure was remotely accurate. Then when you take in account to what purpose an HD DVD dealer might have in attempting to paint a picture of greater sales... the value of the "source" diminishes VERY quickly.

There have at least been published articles (not like the anonymous post on AVS) that have suggested that Toshiba, at that time, had "shipped" 7,500 HD DVD players worldwide. No official word on actual sales figures yet.

Regardless of all that, with over a million standard DVD players selling every month, and an installed base of over 200 million standalone DVD players... even if HD DVD and Blu-ray players sell more than 100,000 units each in their first year, it will hardly be a significant first step into appealing to the mass market.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

It's far too early in the format war to worry about how well they're received in the mass market. The FIRST people that have to be pleased are the early adopters. What I'm looking at is how well each format is being receiver by THAT group, and there's not yet enough sales data to suggest either format has an advantage. Early "buzz" on picture quality favors HDDVD at this point, though.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

"Buzzz"....

Here are some noteworthy comments from Steven Simon, Administrator on HTF, and an actual owner of both an HD DVD and Blu-ray player, from his review thread that certainly contradict what many have been suggesting about the lackluster quality of Blu-ray titles:




So while some bees may be "buzzzing" about how bad Blu-ray titles look, at least we know one trusted source with proof of his ownership of both players has a VERY different opinion.

Re: Who is going to win the Format War and why?

Are you referring to DTV TiVo Dealer? If so, there's no "claiming" going on whatsoever, and it's not anonymous. That's Robert Zohn from Value Electronics in Scarsdale, NY. Value Electronics has, according to Robert and at least one press piece I could quickly dig up, sold 2,000 players -- primarily online but several dozen were sold in his B&M store.