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Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

post #1 of 153
1/7/08 at 6:21am
Thread Starter 
While I am pleased that it finally sounds like the format war may indeed be on the road to its conclusion (it was always idiotic to have two competing HD formats) I am in no hurry. I've predicted from the very start of this, a year and a half ago or whenever it was, that the only way any HD format would replace SD is if the companies forced it on the Average Joes and stopped producing regular DVDs. Otherwise, HD will remain a niche item.

I am curious as to the feelings of other fence-sitters who have remained out of the HD circle and are satisfied with SD. Does Warner's recent announcement in supporting Blu-Ray exclusively sway you at all?
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post #2 of 153
1/7/08 at 6:26am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

I've been sitting on the fence as well. To make matters worse for the studios, I've significantly cut back on my SD DVD purchases so as not to have to double dip once an HD format was settled. The funny thing is that the two HD titles that I want to buy are from Warners - "2001" and "Blade Runner". Looks like I may be making the plunge. Maybe things will be settled by the time I get my tax refund!
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post #3 of 153
1/7/08 at 6:35am
Thread Starter 

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

It is a problem deciding what to purchase. I've also been resisting the recent new versions of Kubrick SD's like 2001 and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE... if BD does become the main format, why bother? I had the same dilemma recently when I tried to decide if I should get all the James Bond films in the Ultimate Set... I mean, Bond is a great example of a franchise which will be prime choice for BD. But for now, I went with the SD Collection. Who knows where this will go?
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post #4 of 153
1/7/08 at 7:38am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

no actualy this has made me stop and reasses even more if its time to up grade, price being the biggest setback, i know all the places that have BOGO deals and all, but really what is the cost of pressing a HD DVD or BR disc compared to SD, how long befor the dump bin at walmaty has eithr at 5 bucks a pop, at that point then they will see the numbers in sales rise to what they the studios had expected, and no more of this half-assed stuff, lets see you buy a hd format disc and all of the special features are in standard def, come on, its like buying a color tv and the only station in town only shows black and white.

my biggest concern is how much longer this is going to drag on, and how its going to affect actual catalog titles from getting released, if wb or any of the studios wanted these to work it was a simple process, given title , sd version cost $19.00 the day of relkease, then the competing format HD versions should be the same, lower the cost and see how many make the switch. as for me. i have to wait till it falls in the better price range.
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post #5 of 153
1/7/08 at 7:41am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

I've got a friend who has a Blu Ray player (and an HD DVD player) so I've bought a few Blu Ray titles here and there that I watch at his place. Now that the format war seems to be over, I'll probably start picking up more and more BR discs. However, I buy alot of titles that won't be available in high definition for years (if ever) so I'll never be the guy who says "I stopped buying SD in 1998 because I'm waiting for HD". Over time, I have no doubt that I'll replace alot of my titles with HD counterparts but it'll take years and years so I have no problem with buying both SD and BR discs as of now.
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post #6 of 153
1/7/08 at 7:51am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

I don't see going Blu-Ray before the 2008 Christmas season. First, DVD's are just fine for me. Yes, I see the improvement HD offers, but IMO, it's not as significant as the jump from VHS to DVD (all considered). I'm still enjoying my DVD's just fine. When prices reach a decent level for both hardware and software, and there's stability, then I'll look into jumping. All the stuff with HDCP, different profiles, etc. are issues I don't want to deal with to sit down and watch a movie.
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post #7 of 153
1/7/08 at 8:52am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

What I've done is simply stopped buying "new releases" of contemporary films that I might have otherwise purchased, knowing they are obviously going to be released in hi-def. So I've cut my buying back to strictly golden age Hollywood, classic foreign, experimental, new-wave and art-house releases. Stuff that's not likely to show up in any other format for many years. When I eventually reach the point in my collection where I'm ready to catch up on more modern releases which may be of interest (there are significantly fewer); I'll switch over and slowly begin to upgrade certain titles that I feel are greatly improved. It's nice to hear that this format war is on it's last legs.
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post #8 of 153
1/7/08 at 9:04am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

As an owner of both I was banking on HD DVD as the winner because of the price, but it now seems I bet on the wrong side (sorry mom and Bestfriend for the HD DVD players for christmas.. at least it upconverts!) I had only been buying the HD DVD versions of the movies I wanted, but after this whole deal I feel bummed, so I won't be buying anymore HD Discs for awhile, maybe never again.
I still have my netflix account and I'll be renting from now on....
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post #9 of 153
1/7/08 at 11:16am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Absolutely. The moment the BluRay players are $99, I'm there.
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post #10 of 153
1/7/08 at 11:27am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

I've been holding off going to an HD disk format. I *DO* have an awesome HD set and enjoy HD programming, but my current 600+ DVD titles look pretty damn decent when up-converted.

Until there is a decisive winner, I'll be waiting a LITTLE longer. However, I had been leaning towards BluRay...and hopefully I'll be able to adopt the format later this year...
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post #11 of 153
1/7/08 at 11:31am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

On the fence but not willing to jump off yet. I can get most new SD releases for under $7 and my Oppo player upconverts beautifully on my 40" widescreen TV.

If players come down to under $200, and titles available for under $12, I might consider making the jump. Until then I am perfectly happy with what I have now.
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post #12 of 153
1/7/08 at 11:32am

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Quote:
I've been holding off going to an HD disk format. I *DO* have an awesome HD set and enjoy HD programming, but my current 600+ DVD titles look pretty damn decent when up-converted.

Until there is a decisive winner, I'll be waiting a LITTLE longer. However, I had been leaning towards BluRay...and hopefully I'll be able to adopt the format later this year...

I agree completly and I am in the same boat!
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post #13 of 153
1/7/08 at 1:08pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Eventually Ill upgrade, probably around this time next year.Blu Ray players will probably have fallen in price, even more by 09 .
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post #14 of 153
1/7/08 at 1:13pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

I've been purple (having both Blu and HD) since a little after Christmas (was HD-DVD on the Friday b4 Black Friday) and I guess I'm glad that the war is supposedly close to being over, but I've found it hard to pull the trigger on a few on-sale Blu's because I have the SD and mentally can't justify getting the Blu edition.

I'll agree that the upconversion makes SD look pretty damn good.

I only have 2 HDs (Blade Runner and Batman Begins, Hot Fuzz on the way) and 4 Blus (Cars, Ratatouille, PoTC 3, Casino Royale, with Road Warrior, Deliverance, and PoTC 1-2 on the way).

Most of my purchases of late have been because the Blu/HD version had stuff the SD didnt (commentary for Warrior and Fuzz has the stuff the 3 disc SD has). There's been some deals that I've let slide because I had the SD (was interested in some of those deals for 14.99 at BB but changed my mind in the store today).

Still really waiting how all this shakes out. I don't know that any studio is going to go Blu only with any release since SD still is where the $$ is.
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post #15 of 153
1/7/08 at 1:20pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

It's taken me nearly 10 years to build my SD DVD collection. I'm not at an age where I can spare another 10 years to rebuild it - even if many of my 'Golden Age' classics are reissued on Blue-Ray which I doubt. Also, many of my DVDs are from different DVD Regions - is it not true that there's no such thing as a mulit-region Blue Ray player?
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post #16 of 153
1/7/08 at 2:16pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

IMO, I don't think that some of you understand what is going to happen. As soon as the war is formally over, the only new releases will be on BD. There will be a massive SD close-out sale, and once they are gone, there will be no more.

By the end of this year, BD players will be down to about $99 and everybody will be getting one, regardless of their display. Do not forget that in 13 months (2 months after the upcoming holiday season, the TV channels will be dropping their current broadcasts too.

For those of you that will cry "foul" because everything that the studios have isn't in a BD format yet, what is to stop them from releasing - err re-releasing - anything with an SD format - but on a BD disk?

Glenn
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post #17 of 153
1/7/08 at 2:21pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn Overholt
IMO, I don't think that some of you understand what is going to happen. As soon as the war is formally over, the only new releases will be on BD. There will be a massive SD close-out sale, and once they are gone, there will be no more.
There's literally no chance of that happening. If SD keeps selling, they aren't going to stop producing SD discs.
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post #18 of 153
1/7/08 at 3:08pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn Overholt
IMO, I don't think that some of you understand what is going to happen. As soon as the war is formally over, the only new releases will be on BD. There will be a massive SD close-out sale, and once they are gone, there will be no more.

This is a joke, right?
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post #19 of 153
1/7/08 at 3:29pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Regardless of the HD DVD format war, I'm planning to invest in a full-HD TV within the next few months, and my main viewing emphasis will be DVDs, whether SD or HD. I already have a good upscaling DVD player, so I'll first see how upscaled SD DVDs look on the new TV. However, I suspect that I will invest in a Blu-ray player later in the year. The Warner announcement has certainly encouraged me to take the plunge, although I will still be interested to see how quickly Universal and Paramount react to the news and start supporting Blu-ray - both those studios have significant films that I'd want to have in any HD collection.

Another point is that, as far as I know, no current Blu-ray player can internally decode DTS HD Master Audio. I hope at least one player with this capability will be appearing during 2008. Once BDs are mastered with advanced authoring, which will happen quite soon, the lossless audio codecs (DD TrueHD and DTS HD MA) can not be output as bitstreams to be externally decoded by a receiver - they will have to be decoded by the player to allow any required mixing of additional audio tracks such as commentaries. The resulting mixed audio track will then be output as PCM.
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post #20 of 153
1/7/08 at 3:41pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

I'm not HD capable right now but have a big SD collection. What do most SD DVDs look like upconverted?
I've heard that it looks really good regardless.
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post #21 of 153
1/7/08 at 3:43pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kenNew
It's taken me nearly 10 years to build my SD DVD collection. I'm not at an age where I can spare another 10 years to rebuild it - even if many of my 'Golden Age' classics are reissued on Blue-Ray which I doubt. Also, many of my DVDs are from different DVD Regions - is it not true that there's no such thing as a mulit-region Blue Ray player?

That's true - Blu-ray players observe region-coding for SD DVDs, although I understand at least one European company is now offering a Blu-ray player that will play Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs (I believe you have to specifically select the region via the remote each time, which sounds a slight pain).

It's worth remembering that there are also regions for Blu-ray but, just to confuse us, they are different from the regions for SD DVDs! It's not so significant from a technical viewpoint (unlike the PAL speed-up issue for SD, all BDs reproduce films at the correct speed!), but it may have some significance in terms of software choice and pricing, both of which will probably be better in the US than in the UK.
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post #22 of 153
1/7/08 at 3:54pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Nope, not yet. When Blu Ray starts releasing foreign films like Nights Of Cabiria and Breathless, silent films like Sunrise and Intolerance, classic American cinema like All That Heaven Allows, Double Indemnity, Stagecoach on hi-def and players drop to $99, then I will seriously consider it.

Sorry but I'm not into mainstream junk like Spiderman 2, Batman Begins, Pirates Of The Caribbean, etc. which seems to be the rock Blue Ray and HD DVD are building their consumership on.
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post #23 of 153
1/7/08 at 4:02pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Dude, have you been drinking the Bill Hunt/David Boulet shill Kool-Aid or what?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn Overholt
IMO, I don't think that some of you understand what is going to happen. As soon as the war is formally over, the only new releases will be on BD. There will be a massive SD close-out sale, and once they are gone, there will be no more.

By the end of this year, BD players will be down to about $99 and everybody will be getting one, regardless of their display. Do not forget that in 13 months (2 months after the upcoming holiday season, the TV channels will be dropping their current broadcasts too.

For those of you that will cry "foul" because everything that the studios have isn't in a BD format yet, what is to stop them from releasing - err re-releasing - anything with an SD format - but on a BD disk?

Glenn
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post #24 of 153
1/7/08 at 4:09pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

It totally depends. I have an Oppo 970 and it does a killer job. I got THE SIMPSONS MOVIE for Christmas and it looks great. I just depends on the source material-- CHILDREN OF MEN, which is a combo disc, looks stunning in HD on my Xbox 360 add-on, but the SD side is flat in comparison.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blu
I'm not HD capable right now but have a big SD collection. What do most SD DVDs look like upconverted?
I've heard that it looks really good regardless.
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post #25 of 153
1/7/08 at 4:13pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Absolutely not. Still waiting for the prices to come down and the quality to reach it's Zenith. I didn't jump into SD, and I'm not about to jump into HD (i.e. BR).
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post #26 of 153
1/7/08 at 4:56pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Harris
I've been sitting on the fence as well. To make matters worse for the studios, I've significantly cut back on my SD DVD purchases so as not to have to double dip once an HD format was settled. The funny thing is that the two HD titles that I want to buy are from Warners - "2001" and "Blade Runner". Looks like I may be making the plunge. Maybe things will be settled by the time I get my tax refund!

I'm in a similar boat. I've been buying quite a bit lately, but only used and ridiculously priced sale stuff. I'm dying to get 2001 and BLADE RUNNER but I'm holding off for HD stuff dust to settle. Even if it means another year or so. But those two will be my first two titles almost without a doubt.

Blind buys like SUNSHINE will also wait.
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post #27 of 153
1/7/08 at 7:10pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

The day I can purchase $5 Blu-ray disks and they will play in the Minivan for my kid, I'll jump right on board. Otherwise it'll be a niche in my life. Anymore, the idea of being constrained to the one physical location where my sole hi-def player/display would reside sounds more like a punishment than some sort of improvement. But that's just my family's viewing habits.
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post #28 of 153
1/7/08 at 7:30pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn Overholt
IMO, I don't think that some of you understand what is going to happen. As soon as the war is formally over, the only new releases will be on BD. There will be a massive SD close-out sale, and once they are gone, there will be no more.

By the end of this year, BD players will be down to about $99 and everybody will be getting one, regardless of their display. Do not forget that in 13 months (2 months after the upcoming holiday season, the TV channels will be dropping their current broadcasts too.

If your prediction is correct and SD goes completely bye-bye in the next year or so - which is what your timetable sounds like - I will happily eat a big pie made of dog poop.

Which is my way of saying that there's absolutely no way SD-DVD vanishes overnight like that. There are skillions of SD-DVD players out there and not a whole lot of BD players. Even if they do drop to $99 by this time next year, not "everyone" will be getting one. Many, many people will be happy to stay with their SD players.

I think the BR/HD fanboys fail to understand that all the unwashed masses who've gotten into SD-DVD won't be eager to replace their old collections. It's gonna take a LOOOONG time - if ever - for BR to completely eradicate SD. I've always said that the average Joe isn't going to be interested in a new format that's not a radical change. The average person saw a big difference between VHS and SD-DVD, not only in terms of picture/sound but also in convenience and features. BR upgrades the visuals a bit but isn't the revolutionary step up that VHS to DVD is.

And those people are gonna balk at being "forced" to buy into a new format when they've just gotten settled with the old one.

Face it - the tiny fraction of BR/HD fanboys doesn't represent the real world. I've seen posts here that don't understand why they even MAKE SD-DVDs anymore...
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post #29 of 153
1/7/08 at 7:34pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

I'm finally buying myself a widescreen TV, and a special at Best Buy nearly enticed me into BR. I was tempted to do so because the Best Buy deal would've netted me the TV I wanted and a Panasonic BR player for about $2400 total plus 10 free discs. It may sound stupid, but the only reason I backed out of the deal was because BB didn't have five discs I wanted! (You pick 5 at the store and the other 5 via mail.)

If only they'd had Blade Runner - or let me combine titles so that the $70 Spider-Man trilogy would count as two instead of insisting that I get 5 separate $35 or under titles - I'd have a BR player right now. Instead, I'm gonna get me an upconverting SD-DVD player and sit out the whole thing until some other time.

You know what'll really push me over the edge? If my site's readers demand it. So far they've been on the side of SD reviews, and no one's seemed to care if I go high-def. If that changes, so does my rig...
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post #30 of 153
1/7/08 at 7:38pm

Re: Since WB went BluRay Exclusive, Any SD Fans Going Over?

Quote:
By the end of this year, BD players will be down to about $99 and everybody will be getting one, regardless of their display.

LOL, you're kidding aren't you? Because it's going to be YEARS before you see Blu Ray players anywhere near $99 -- especially with the "format war" looking like it's over, there will be even less incentive than before for the kinds of sales we saw this past year.

Quote:
Do not forget that in 13 months (2 months after the upcoming holiday season, the TV channels will be dropping their current broadcasts too.

Newsflash -- if you have a HD cable box or satelitte, you can watch any HD programming on a SD set. Actually you could also watch an HD-DVD or BD disc on a SD set too if you absolutely had to. The "analog shutoff" deal is only apocalyptic if your only source of programming is an over-the-air antenna. Nearly every HD box I own has standard-def outputs on it of some kind.

Oh yeah, your standard-def DVDs can still be viewed on any kind of set, including an HD one with the miracle of upconversion.

I certainly hope you didn't throw away all your regular DVDs, because there will be hundreds of possibly thousands of titles that'll NEVER be released on Blu Ray.

Other than that, welcome back from Mars!
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