Should WB and the BDA give HD DVD owners a "peace offering" to welcome them to Blu? (1 Viewer)

[Douglas Monce]

I think they better damn well do more than wait. They still have to convince the general public that an HD format is better than what they have now. So far they have been doing a pretty crappy job.

Doug

 

[Sanjay Gupta]

In my book a 'peace offering' would be made to bring about 'peace'. Thus any 'peace offering' would abviously be made only while the 'war' is still on. Once HD-DVD throws in the towel, the 'war' will be over and thus will nullify the need for any 'peace offering' to be made. The companies involved, exist to make money for their shareholders, not to go around giving handouts, which is what the 'peace offering' would be if made after HD-DVD officially throws in the towel. Thus in my opinion if there are any 'peace offerings' to be made, they will be now, or they ought to be, rather than later.

In the current situation, the only party that ought to be making any kind of 'peace offerings' is Warner, since it is their customer who might feel cheated due to their decision to go Blu-Ray exclusive. It might make good sense for Warner for PR purposes to try and make up to their HD-DVD customers. As for the 'offer' itself, personally I feel, that instead of it being a simple exchange of title for title, there should be a small fee for the same. This would also serve to cover Warner's costs towards the excercise. I don't know exactly how much it costs Warner to manufactur a Blu-Ray disc, but I presume a $3 - $5 fee ought to cover the cost of manufacturing and also any costs incurred for the replacement excercise. I am sure lot's of people might find such an offer quite reasonable and enticing. I know, I would jump at any such offer if I were in the predicament that so many may find themselves to be due to Warner's decision.

 

[Ron-P]

The joe six packs of this world are not ready for HDM, it will be a very, very long time before Blu-ray or any other type of HDM is accepted on a mass scale.

As for doing a crappy job, hardly. The advertising has been done well, the shelves of all my local stores are lined with Blu-ray and they all have displays set up promoting it. Not much more they can do other then wait for J6P to accept it and buy in and that will not happen fast.

 

[Douglas Monce]

I'm not so sure of that with the rate that HDTVs are being sold.

Doug

 

[Rich Allen]

Yeah, but how many are really watching HD and how many are watching a stretched SD picture? Every bar arround here has lots of HD tvs but no real HD pictures on them and most of the patrons are happy with that.

An SD dvd picture on an HD tv looks pretty good to most of those people. At least good enough to not justify spedning the extra money for a real HD player.

 

[Edwin-S]

The only thing holding it back is the price of software, and to a lesser extent hardware. HDM will move slowly as long as HDM media is priced 10 dollars higher than SD. I bought into this early, but even I sit back and think long and hard about whether I want to spend 30 or more dollars to replace a title that I already own on DVD. Most of time I just put it back on the shelf. A lot of movies are impulse buys and the impulse to buy is vastly reduced with 30 dollar price tags.

 

[Cees Alons]

The best and simplest "peace offering" they could do to their customers is: reverse the decision to stop bringing out HD DVD from June 1st on.
After all, they were making a lot of money on it, so it's not an expensive offering.


Cees

 

[Scott Calvert]

Wow. I can't believe the hostile reactions I've read toward this idea. What is the matter with some people?

It is a promotion idea to trade in HD-DVDs for the same title on Blu-Ray. It's a promotion which would benefit a segment of the consumer base and hurt no one. It's a great idea that would help out a lot of people who bought all those warner dual-releases on HD-DVD.

 

[Manus]

" The best and simplest "peace offering" they could do to their customers is: reverse the decision to stop bringing out HD DVD from June 1st on.
After all, they were making a lot of money on it, so it's not an expensive offering. "

The notion that a dual-format world could survive has come up before . Gamers are not ' confused' when asked to select between X-box and PS3 or even Wii so why is it so implausible that movie fans would be able to make that choice ?

Having a single format does not IMO guarantee widespread HD adoption . Many of us here only really got going with our movie collections when Dvd arrived and have no intention of rebuying them all again . If that proves to be the case , sales will remain quite sluggish even if player-sales ( PS3 included )
increase .

For those who enjoy World Cinema , Region Coding is another complex issue posing problems. I dont believe that my collection of Sds suddenly became worthless with the advent of these formats . 'Casablanca' looks fabulous in HD but it will be some while before Hitchcock , John Ford or Film Noirs become available.

~M~

 

[bigluigi]

Yay....right!!! I can just picture thousands of early Blu-ray supporters that paid $500 and up for their equipment, and their reaction to HD-DVD buyers that paid $98 (don't forget the 5 free titles) getting some sort of Blu-ray equipment credit.

I don't think so.

You don't want to p*ss off those PS3 boys lest they stop buying movie titles and start buying games instead...which they may or may not do anyway (so confusing).

It would make for some interesting "na-na nanna na" threads, however, on some forums.

 

[bigluigi]

It's just an example of how strongly HDM enthusiasts were emotionally involved with their format. Fortunately or unfortunately, as an early adopter, sometimes commitment to a product goes along with the purchase. It may seem trivial to "outsiders" and even some "insiders" but, more often than not, where money is involved, trivia goes out the window.

I'm still having a hard time rationalizing Warners' decision. My personal feeling is that Warners "sold out" HDM to a format dominated by an expensive gaming machine for Christ sake and that given more time, HD-DVD could have made significant progress toward mass adoption with lower pricing and more studio support. But, we will never know...

 

[Manus]

" I'm still having a hard time rationalizing Warners' decision. My personal feeling is that Warners "sold out" HDM to a format dominated by an expensive gaming machine for Christ sake and that given more time, HD-DVD could have made significant progress toward mass adoption with lower pricing and more studio support. But, we will never know..."

At last somebody calls it as it is ...

Cheers !

~M~

 

[RobertR]

I'd go for that, but I'd want them to be the identical titles, not "more or less similar". In particular, I'd want to know that Warner is producing classic titles previously available only on HDDVD.

 

[DavidJ]

I don't know all the little cute icons, but if I did I would give this post one of those cute thumbs up.

 

[Cees Alons]

David,

Thanks!
And as a reward I just gave you those cute little icons in your "reply" editor (it's a setting in the account profile).


Cees

 

[Dave Moritz]

After actually thinking about this topic for awhile now. And after some serious thought I now have to say that nether WB or BDA should have to give anything away to HD-DVD owners. I have HD-DVD and why should WB or BDA need to give me anything for going Blu? If they want to have great sales to encourage firt time buyers, I am all for that. And I would not mind picking up great deals on Blu-ray titles. But BDA owes me nothing because I purchased a format that lost the war. It's a shame that HD-DVD lost but its days are numbered and I do not see BDA needing to spend money or loose money to make up for people that made the wrong choice.

 

[Douglas Monce]

I have to agree. Why should Sony or have to pay anything for actually winning the format war. Not that I'm convinced that they have won yet. And Warner didn't create either format. Frankly we are lucky they supported both for as long as they did. It just seems like a silly, slightly smug notion that is right up there with "the format war is over" being announced about a year ago.

Doug

 

[Paul Arnette]

Only if I get a similar "peace offering" from Paramount.

 

[bigluigi]

Now THIS is what I call a "peace offering." It's simple, direct, and requires the least amount of paper work. Cees....if I was President, I'd appoint you my Secretary Of State.

 

[PeterMano]

But, wouldn't that means warner bros would have to give back that $500 million you guys are all so convinced they took? Gee, that could get sticky, couldn't it?