**Official HTF HD Formats Ind./Retailer/Studio Support Thread-*SEE POST 3176, p. 106* - Page 13

Originally Posted by Jari K

This is true. It´s now pretty clear that at least the customer won´t "win" in this war.. "Buy two players and be happy!" is not exactly something that can sell the whole HD-concept.. People stick to DVD.

I still sometimes dream that IF there would´ve been "one format" from day one. Best qualities from both HD DVD and Blu-ray. That would´ve been sweet. "But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake.".. Back to reality..

Originally Posted by ReggieW

One last thing before I sign off for the night.......

I am sorry Jari if you thought I was gloating with the "Paramount dropped BD get used to it statement." I simply found more and more of the speculation being quoted as gospel, so I guess it just got a little under my collar. A few pages ago, my first posting after the news initially broke was that this was shocking and unfair to customers who had invested in BD titles. I really expected more studios to go neutral over time, not to drop and switch. I can only imagine how BD supporters must feel, as I certainly would be upset if Warner dropped HD-DVD after all the support I'd given them.

I certainly know why Bill Hunt is quite on edge now, as he must be thinking if Paramount can come out of left-field with this, what about Warner? A studio who everyone knows is more than biased towards HD-DVD. If WHV goes, will they take New Line with them? This certainly justifies Ron's stand on keeping this forum neutral. This decision is certainly no boon for lovers of film.

Just wanted to clear up my position.

And yes, I think we'll all remain friends in the end!

Originally Posted by Virgoan

And didja get a load of those 29 titles they've announced?

Y-a-w-n!

Originally Posted by Dan Hitchman

Microsoft is behind this, I am sure of it. They want both formats to fail and have stated this in not so many words before... for the whole world to see.

Originally Posted by Matt Leigh

I actually didn't know that AVC was in the cards for HD-DVD. To my knowledge then there has never been an AVC encode on HD-DVD but I may be wrong. MPG2 is probably never going to be used in the future on the format in any sort of scale for anyone to worry about.

I still see HD-DVD = VC1 and BR = AVC as I'm sure there are incentives on both sides financially to use the encoders. Once to pendulum swings too far either way and one format or the other goes down I can see the codec going down with it.

I certainly don't think this has anything to do with Live! and digital downloads. End of the day that is a massive war to fight on its own and still requires some kind of box to hook up to a TV that is not yet available for purchase. The 360, while a great multimedia device is a hard sell to people not interested in video games so that sure isn't a mass market gateway.

DDs will happen, it'll just take many many years.

Originally Posted by ReggieW

And yes, I think we'll all remain friends in the end!

Originally Posted by RAF

(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:

Originally Posted by Virgoan

And didja get a load of those 29 titles they've announced?

Y-a-w-n!

Originally Posted by Jari K

Now this BS starts from the trolls.

"Blades of Glory", "Transformers" and "Shrek the Third". Is that somewhat better than 29 titles (or whatever)?

This is probably the most ridiculous aspect of the whole "format war": People are saying that "they don´t care about the titles from Sony, Fox etc", BUT suddenly want "all the titles from Universal and now Paramount". And of course vice versa. Let´s get real here. BOTH camps has some great films. You simply can´t choose your **favourite films** by choosing "one format".

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

RAF,

that's only true for BD titles produced by Warner and Paramount which seem to favor HD DVD for audio. It's a studio decision. Not a format issue.

In virtually all of those cases there was plenty of room on the BD for Dolby TrueHD lossless at the very least, but the studio chose not to provide it.

Originally Posted by Douglas Monce

I don't think the studios are interested in whats fair, they are interested in what makes them money.

Doug

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

Uhuh. And now there's a link with Parmount confessing in a wall street journal article:http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...DYyMzAwWj.html

Originally Posted by Tim Glover

A-Freakin' Men RAF. I was just thinking the same 'regulars' (God Bless them) are rather upset and now 'boycotting'. Priceless. Does the phrase whats good for the goose is good for the gander apply here? Probably not.

This will be a bit harder than usual from me...

Seems like our good natured 'burying the format war' thread was only good until lines in the sand were re-drawn. In other words, for some here, I'll play fair here UNTIL I no longer get my way and will take my ball and go home.

The inconsistenties remain: Ok for some to be exclusive as long as it's Blu-ray...but those in HD DVDs camp are clearly 'twisted & eeeeevil'

Bill had already lost ALOT of credibility here and his latest post is kind of desparate.

Many HD DVD Insiders were getting hammered by questions of where's the marketing....why are you guys mum so much? etc...

Guess they knew something.

Originally Posted by Dave Mack

Both formats owners lost today IMHO...

We were so close, one studio away from ONE format and now MS pulls this crap for a format they really don't give a damn about. They just want to have a stalemate. J6P thinks, "Screw this. I'm not buying TWO new players, DVD is good enough for me..."

Anyone who wants good quality, high bitrate HD physical media are now going to be a "niche" consumer. Just like with DVD-a and SACD. Who won there? The ipod.
Everyone says, "So What? Get both Players! Be format neutral!" Yeah, except without mass adoption, many smaller or older films will probably NEVER make it into EITHER format.

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

Uhuh. And now there's a link with Parmount confessing in a wall street journal article:http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...DYyMzAwWj.html



I guess it was a lucky guess on Bill's part... huh?

Originally Posted by Neil Middlemiss

I want films from every studio and I want them in High Def. If I have to own both pieces of hardware to do so, shame on the studios, but so be it.

Originally Posted by Neil Middlemiss

For me (and almost everyone else in here) it is about the film; it is about those golden moments of screen gems that the wonderful world of film gives us. The explosive, bombastic popcorn popping adrenaline films; the thrilling, creepy, tense, scary-as-hell bloodfest films; the tender, sweet, happy & romantic films...but always, the films!

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

I also agree that it may not be realized by most as of yet,
but this move will most likely result in more studios going
neutral by this time 2008..