Welcome to the Unreasonable Stance, where our own Devin takes the minority opinion on a tech matter and defends it with convenient data, spun numbers, fanboyism, and insults until he proves, without a doubt, that those that disagree with him are filthy mouth-breathers.
You’re probably thinking I’m crazy. Well, maybe I am. But that’s just because I have crazy love for HD DVD and have faith that it will end up on top of this little format scuffle. The “coup” by Blu-Ray has inspired some interesting, if misguided satire (Godwin alert), and convinced the easily swayed masses of critics that yes, it’s over. But it’s far from over — and this was only a glancing blow. HD DVD will bounce back for the knockout punch.
They’ve still got a war chest, and they’re still willing to throw down, as we saw during the Super Bowl. $30 mil? No problem. When you’ve got $150 HD DVD players selling like hotcakes, you can afford to drop that kind of cheese. Sure, the PS3 is now coming into its own and is the “best Blu-Ray player,” but is your dad going to buy a $500 game console when all he wants to do is watch the Bourne Trilogy in HD? No, he’s going to go to Best Buy and pick up an HD DVD player and a ton of movies that are already out — as you know, HD DVD still has a tremendous selection despite some studios’ vacillating loyalties.
That’s a key point: an installed base. $150 is a birthday present, it’s practically an impulse buy. And the studios aren’t going to ignore the millions who decide that they’d rather go HD DVD and put that other $300 towards, oh, I don’t know, movies.
So what else is at that price point? Well, the Apple TV for one thing. But streaming video is still a pipe dream. People like discs (call it “force of habit”) and they don’t like being told when and where they can watch their movies. Apple TV is great for what it is, but a recent test of HD streaming video was worrying; people aren’t getting what they think they’re paying for just yet. It’ll get better, sure, but people have money now, and HD DVD’s superior compression puts its image quality above Blu-Ray, to say nothing of shady streaming stuff.
At this point, the studio count doesn’t even matter. They all hauled butt to get the best movies they had released for either player or both, so 90% of the library is ready to go; the rest is new releases, and who wants those? And with an installed user base growing with every bill-and-a-half set-top box, distributors can’t afford to ignore the whole market segment. Anyway, Paramount is still hanging out, and I don’t know if you’ve heard of a little thing called Star Trek, but combined with Iron Man and Cloverfield, I think we’ve got a pretty solid season coming up.
So don’t lose hope, HD DVD lovers. We, with our cheap players, great image quality, and solid library, will overcome. The studios are a fickle lot but they’ll soon realize their mistake. Microsoft (and possibly Micrahoo!soft) has got our back, and if all else fails, we’ll always have Transformers.
You are right!
D00d seriously you are a d00sh for thinking this let alone typing this up. I think I will ban this site from my network now thanks for making this decision easy for me.
Dude, if you don’t like the website, just don’t come here. Banning a site? Unless you unconciously always click on it, then yes, do that. But banning a site from your network if you don’t plan to ever come here again, …no comment.
Finally somebody makes sense. HD DVD will win in the end regardless with all the baseless & false/misleading HD DVD negativity caused by the BDA. Did you all know that Sony paid off several news sites & article writers to talk shit about HD DVD after the Warner news?
Warner has less than 4 months to come back to HD DVD in an exclusive manner. We all know they made the wrong decision and now they are kicking themselves for going Blu-Ray exclusive.
Anyway once Disney & MGM become HD DVD exclusive (Will be announced within 2 weeks time) things will change and HD DVD will further regain its momentum.
We can eventually all say Bye Bye to Blu-Ray and their profile plagued format & obsolete non-upgradable players currently in the retail chains & in people homes.
Disney and MGM coming to HD DVD? Where did you hear that?
You had me up until “HD DVD’s superior compression puts its image quality above Blu-Ray.” The two formats use the exact same compression codecs, and the exact same resolution.
That was exactly what i was going to say. video quality is the same. He should have mentioned the extras and HDi on HD DVD.
HD DVD put customers first. Blu Ray put out an unfinished product knowing they first and second generation players would have to be replaced to take advantage of Profile 2.0. Sony got scared Toshiba had the better, more complete product, so Sony put out what they had and threw money around to get the studios on board. If the studios wanted to settle this, they would support both formats and let the consumers decide.
I can’t believe people are still getting upset by these posts, aren’t people reading the fucking title anymore?
I’m with you, man. Think we should dumb it down some? “The totally fake, comment trolling, yet relevant and humorous post” is too long.
Please ignore this small, italicized, unimportant preface because it’s small, italicized and unimportant…
And who can’t argue with Red = Sexy?
Blue = Sadness…
So there, people do not want to be Sad when they watch movies…. they want to watch Sexy movies!!!
Well, HD DVD does in fact use superior compression since the majority of Blu-ray movies use MPEG2 (though they are starting to finally move away from that space and bandwidth hog). Same goes for PCM. Blu-ray should STOP USING IT and stick with Dolby TrueHD, like HD DVD does for lossless.
Dang, you really are clueless. No, the majority of Blu-Rays do not use MPEG2. Not even close.
On the other hand, since Blu-Ray has significantly more storage space and a 33% higher bandwidth, it is possible to get the same result using MPEG-2 on Blu-Ray that you can get on HD DVD using H.264 or VC-1. That is not to say that Blu-Ray disks are primarily MPEG-2, they are primarily VC-1 and H.264.
I’d just like one format to win so this can be over. All it would take is either Universal or Paramount switching camps and we’re done.
Tony your right, I agree 100%. I am positive that Warner got paid, I don’t care what anyone say. Who would be stupid enough to go to one side when you can make more money on both sides! Specially picture in picture, on line purchases… & the list goes on (thats a lot of money). Toshiba & MS have a good thing going. Now Warner is denying the money, but I’m sure there top dolor lawyers can find a way to hide the money from the economy or public. The sad part is that Warner is switching because people have spoken, & they are saying Blue Ray. Sure Sony is getting ahead with Blue Ray, but they F’ed up in the gaming industry by put a Blue Ray in PS3. they knew that Blue Ray player must win cause in the gaming they are not doing so well. For those of you that are thinking oh it will soon. Ya, by then the next generation system will be out. Also, Fox & Warner plan to go to HD DVD side, when Sony found out, they emptied there packets, & we all know ladies & gentlemen “money talks” not people. Well there is my two cents but I still got a dollar left to say LOL
Sigh. People have to believe that Warner got paid I guess. Makes you feel better for choosing the technically inferior format that the customers didn’t want, not even when Toshiba dumped the players for $100 less than production cost.
Warner decided to go Blu back in September. They informed the HD DVD camp about this some time between late October and mid November. This resulted in a flurry of activity from Toshiba and Microsoft, offering Warner VERY large incentives to stay neutral. The latest offer I know about for sure was $300M offered to Warner in December. This was rejected by Warner. I am not sure where the $500M number comes from, it may be pure fiction, but it seems more probable that it was the price of the incentive package offered to Warner during the last days of negotiation before Warner announced.
The payout to Warner from the Blu-Ray is pure fantasy. Warner made the only reasonable business decision they could make. They needed to end the war, and the only way they could do that was to go Blu. If they had stayed neutral or gone HD DVD, the war would have gone on for another 3 years at least. Now the war is over.
face it, bluray all da way, even warner having to make movies in both formats would cost them more money than they would if they just used one format, HD DVD is going to die, and as for your comment on bluray on ps3, it’s absolutely imperative that they have it because games are becoming more complex and larger in size, microsoft is the one that f’d up for not putting an hd dvd drive, as for using multiple dvd9’s people say that but what happens in multiplayer when your disc doesnt have the map people change it to? start unloading & loading different discs? i dont think so that would cost time and connection issues within the servers, as for sony ponying up money? what about hddvd ponying money for universal paramount? bluray is more expensive yet people still buy more of the format!? ludicrous huh?
To Warner Bros.
Let me get this straight: you contribute to the development of HD DVD, release movies for 2 years then take a 500$ offer from blu-gay group to switch and punish the existing 1 million customers of yours. All because Sony wants to own our asses! 150$ for hardware is hard to resist. You’ll be back, consumers will continue to buy HD DVD and you’ll be stuck with PS3 users for ever!
Long Live HD DVD!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not a die-hard fan of Blu-ray, but I bought a Panasonic Blu-ray player and I’m buying Blu-ray movies as if my life depended on it. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because I want Blu-ray to win… Seriously, I would hate for Microsoft to have made the right choice and once again being the key software provider, which would be the case if HD DVD “won”. Not the greatest reason, but a reason nonetheless.
However, despite all that, I completely agree with your analysis.
I’ve been thinking myself “why isn’t Blu-ray doing the same as HD DVD, they are getting beat up here by Toshiba’s price dumping!!” The $150 machines ARE certainly “impulse”-priced. If it weren’t because I already have a Blu-ray player and thus have filled up what I think is THE available space for player, I might have gotten an HD DVD player. Not the 1080i model that’s going for $150 (interlaced?? Why would anyone in their right mind buy it…unless they have a non-1080p TV??), but a 1080p model going for a bit more, along with 5 movies… To answer my own question, I think the reason is that Sony doesn’t want to teach consumers low Blu-ray prices! It’s probably already hating the price that Toshiba’s persistence has resulted in. There’s a reason for wanting the “war” to continue!
In my opinion, the studios’ choice between Blu-ray and HD DVD boiled down to the issue of space and possibly region coding. If HD DVD had the same amount of space as Blu-ray — and the same potential for more — I think we would be seeing a different situation today. Maybe the Microsoft-reason plays a part, too. Who knows.
My bet is that the war continues until the middle of the year, maybe even only to the end of May, when Warner Brothers kicks HD DVD completely. At that time, Paramount will be able to move (by the way, they were paid off by Toshiba, so get off the high horse on that issue!). And they will move! They gotta be beating themselves up right now. Heck, I’d get Transformers and the Bourne Trilogy faster than you can say “Paramount, join the Blu-ray camp now!” And Universal, being tied up on HD DVD due to Ken Graffeo’s role as both exec vice president for Universal and co-president for HD DVD, must be hating each day that passes where Universal can’t fill the need of those having Blu-ray players.
I’ve chosen Blu-ray and will be sticking with it unless it goes away entirely, and First Blood and Unforgiven are my latest purchases, now in the mail heading my way. That’ll be fun.
And I’m really looking forward to the day Lord of the Rings comes out…on Blu-ray.
And I wish my player supported profile 2.0, but it doesn’t, and I think that’s ridiculous.
Folks, be patient. Product prices are coming down — that’s the one good thing right now. As for the remaining issues…it a waiting game.
Tony your right ! You’re crazy ! ; )
HD-DVD fans just don’t get it, do they? For all Toshiba’s price slashing and selling below cost, they’re still being outsold by Blu-Ray stand-alone players. When you factor in the PS3, which many people are starting to buy *because* it’s also a Blu-Ray player, HD-DVD just keeps falling farther behind in installed base. As for movies…. more than 80% Blu-Ray the last three weeks in NA (and over 90% in Europe, 95% Japan), and few good HD-DVD titles (the largest mover of discs) on the horizon…. movie sales will continue to be a blood-bath. What you’re seeing now is not a “last gasp” attempt to win back marketshare… it’s a dumping of stock before it’s entirely worthless.
The war’s over dudes. Go home.
I like HD-DVD. But if you go to ask the salesman in any electronic store, he will tell you HD-DVD is dead. It really doesn’t matter what we know and what we say, the media has done enough damage that consumers in general believe Blu-ray is the one and is a more superior format, period. I am not sure if Blu-ray would eventually win the mass market (DVD is still 95% of the sales), but HD-DVD would not.
HD DVD players are not selling like “hotcakes.”
What in “The Unreasonable Stance” don’t you guys understand?
why does this guy even have a job?
HD is about quality not about cost.
bluray is higher quality least from my view and side by side comparisons.
hd-dvd is cheaper but theres a reason that it is so.
Pretty decent attempt at humor. I have seen first hand sales people talking people out of HD DVD player purchases, and based on the amount of “open box” units out there, it looks like the masses are switching to Blu-Ray. I own both formats, but only so I could see Universal/Paramount titles I wanted in HD. I will sell the hardware and all of the movies when all titles are available on Blu-Ray (the time is certainly coming whether you like it or not)
Man . . . had to put my waders on to get through this one . . .
Wishful thinking by this HD-DVD fanatic….
Your HD-DVD player is destined to be a doorstop in the coming 12-24 months or less.
ANd as a Dad myself I can tell you am I going to throw away $150 on a player that will never see content released for it by 80% of the movie publishing industry? NOPE… I’ll happily spend the $250 more to get the player that will play the movies I want and my kids want (Disney is BD guys) and get a game system with it. THat’s the same as I’d spend on a Wii and an HD-DVD and I won’t be left with a doorstop HD-DVD player.
I had to read this five times to understand what you meant. Hope your kids have a better grasp of the english language than that.
awwwwww. Looks like the HD DUD ans are starting to pout…. Its ok…. really. it will all be over soon. and… maybe if you are behaved. daddy might buy you a BLU RAY player for your Birthday.
One factor that I have seen no one publish is the total number of disks being manufactured and sold in each format.
Blu-ray is selling more movies but is also selling blu-ray disks in the form of PS3 games. When you add in computer recordable disks as well (blu-ray is beating the pants off of HD-DVD in PCs) the results should be interesting.
The Blu-ray firms that back the format made a wise choice. They are posting great sales without relying solely on movies.
My area of expertise is in computing. The reason Blu-ray is winning in this field is very simple – higher capacity, higher read/write speeds, and scratch resistance. Unfortunately, you can only find 1x HD-DVD recorders and disks which is killing the format for PCs (1x or 36 Mbps is over 4 times as slow as a 16x or 176 Mbps DVD player). Meanwhile Blu-ray is selling 4x disks (144 Mbps) and 6x (216 Mbps) recorders already.
I know who I would like to see win … my pocketbook ! I want the best bang for the buck.
I happened to own one of those $99-firesale@Walmart Toshiba player. Even though its 1080i … it looks incredible via my 1080p projector. It has worked flawlessly since day 1 (perhaps the prompt firmware update had something to do with it).
Last week, I walked into Costco and noticed a blu-ray player that was playing a movie. I had one of the younger employees put another blu-ray disc. The thing just hung up for a long time after he inserted the disk … making the guy turn around and announce that the disk was defective. But it was just the slow loading time of the $400 machine. Shocking. I would be very upset with the sluggish performance if I plunked that kind of money.
Like I said, I don’t care which side wins … but if Sony wants to deliver a knockout punch … they need to price their players at $99 and offer the same feature set that HD-DVD offers (like TrueHD, ethernet jack, etc.). Heck, I could care less if its 1080i either. I would not shed a tear if HD-DVD losses that battle. What about my movie collection you ask ? I rent.
I can’t wait for this crap to be over. I own 2 hd dvd players. I’d hate for blue ray to win, especially because of Sony’s arrogance. And I know MS is arrogant too but hd dvd seems to be the better format for lots of reasons everyone is already aware of.
>>>”HD DVD’s superior compression puts its image quality above Blu-Ray”<<<
What the hell are you talking about? They both use the same compression codecs, and Blu-ray has the higher bitrate (40 versus 29 Mbit/s for video). There’s no way HD could have a better picture with its lower bitrate.
Man, I was with you until you said HD-DVD has better video quality. There are MANY benefits of the HD-DVD format, but unfortunately that’s just not the best comparison to make. As someone said above, they both use the same video codecs. What you’re probably thinking of is a couple of those first-gen BR discs that were MPEG2 encoded, and yes that was a stupid decision on the studio’s part.
I really did love this format, it’s just a shame that quality alone wasn’t enough to win this war. But who knows, maybe Toshiba will pull a win out of nowhere? (Not likely)
For now, at least HD-DVD will remain a cheap and convenient gateway into HD for some time:
http://www.devindra.org/tech/2008/02/02/hd-dvd-may-be-dead-but-its-still-a-good-deal/
Are you retarded, or i`ll be pc and say “special”. Blu-Ray has and is far outselling HD-Dud. The promises of Blu exclusives from Warners are Great.
HD-Dud is losing World Wide ! Maybe on Mars it can triumph, but i live on Earth.
One big problem is that HD drives are NOT selling like hotcakes anymore – and disc sales have plummented which means, yes Para & Uni will still service the HD market but beyond the top 10, they’re not going to work too hard. Yes, HD is cheap but that means nothing, most tivo drives sell for a hundred bucks but after all time, tivo still only has a few million users … I am NOT saying that Blu Ray is better or should have “won,” but that’s the choice Hollywood has made – now wheher the MASS MARKET follows, that’s another question – there are over 110 mm households in the US, until they crack 40 million, it’s also nothing.
And HD quality from downloading? Sure, fanboys will care, will the average person? No, until very recently 50% of people who bought HD bought ZERO HD programming … they jsut assumed that if it said HD in the corner of their show, they were good. Or that people watch DVD’s in their car – it’s not about quality for the average person, it’s convenience at the right price …
So, HD is dead as a retail movie format – it doesn’t help the only company supporting Toshiba* is MS and linked to the red button of death gaming console. Can HD hang around as a backup format – sure but beyond that? No. It’s like tape drives. It’s a choice that is still being sold but the averge person could care less.
*Now that Toshiba is dumping players at $99 to $129, no one lse is going to enter the market at a loss so another reason Hd is dead.
Yeah funny point about
*Now that Toshiba is dumping players at $99 to $129, no one else is going to enter the market at a loss so another reason Hd is dead.
Other Bluray manufacturers must be kicking themselves in the butt for supporting that format since majority of the people are buying PS3’s as their Bluray players… way to go Sony–good tact, we all know who’s making the real money here! As Bluray players are lowering in price, PS3’s are as well…
Anyway, don’t be to caught up w/ the cost of the players and whether or not they are being sold bellow cost. Trust me, it’s all accounted for and they’re not going to go out of business. We (the consumers) should care about purchasing it the cheapest. Also, who cares if the HD or BD group paid off some studios for alliance, it’s part of the game.
Well don’t all of you HD-DVD feel stupid now ? :)
At 5 PM tokyo time , Toshiba will announce they will drop HD-DVD all together.
Have fun with your expensive paper weights ;)
we win. =)