Slashdot Mirror

Yep, that wasn't just limited to training videos, there were similar things that was shown directly to consumers, and look what they found when someone examined the cables that was actually used, which is, yep, impossible with training videos:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/03/23/monster-hdmi-difference-scam-still-kickin-in-frys-electronic/
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/17/hdmi-cable-scam-used-to-fool-in-store-customers/

Yep, that wasn't just limited to training videos, there were similar things that was shown directly to consumers, and look what they found when someone examined the cables that was actually used, which is, yep, impossible with training videos:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/03/23/monster-hdmi-difference-scam-still-kickin-in-frys-electronic/
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/17/hdmi-cable-scam-used-to-fool-in-store-customers/

"The side effect," warns the consumer group Public Knowledge in an educational video it has put out on this question, "is that SOC would break all eleven million HDTVs in the US that don't have digital input.

Not only that, but blocking all analog outputs would break 80 million standard-definition televisions. True, SDTV is the past and HDTV is the future, but the present has always been a mix of the past and the future. So I don't see how "The vast majority of consumers would not have to purchase new devices to receive the new, high-value content" when it isn't yet true that "[t]he vast majority of consumers" already own an HDTV.

With HDMI the connection issue is a thing of the past, you nowadays can replace the CRT SDTV in your living room with an HDTV and then hook up a PC to a HDTV

Fixed that for you. The latest numbers state that two-thirds of TVs in U.S. living rooms don't have VGA or HDMI inputs because they were purchased before the late 2000s, when TVs with VGA or HDMI inputs became affordable.

Well those households are not really in for a modern console either, there is a load of games on new consoles which are almost unplayable on TVs because you cannot read the fonts.

But it is not as dominant on consoles either, it is mostly on sports titles and racers

Would you consider martial arts a sport? If so, what PC fighting game would you recommend for people who like the style of Super Smash Bros. series better than that of Street Fighter series?

This is not common on the consoles either, outside of Super Smash Brosh I am not really aware of a popular clones of that genre on consoles. Most fighters go the way of Street Fighter.

Because VGA sucks on LCD - you've got to convert the signal to analogue and then convert it back to digital again.

What's the market share of LCD HDTVs vs. CRT SDTVs? Last time I saw U.S. statistics, two-thirds of living room TVs were still the old boxy things because they were purchased before the late 2000s when LCD HDTVs became affordable.

With HDMI the connection issue is a thing of the past, you nowadays can replace the CRT SDTV in your living room with an HDTV and then hook up a PC to a HDTV

Fixed that for you. The latest numbers state that two-thirds of TVs in U.S. living rooms don't have VGA or HDMI inputs because they were purchased before the late 2000s, when TVs with VGA or HDMI inputs became affordable.

But it is not as dominant on consoles either, it is mostly on sports titles and racers

Would you consider martial arts a sport? If so, what PC fighting game would you recommend for people who like the style of Super Smash Bros. series better than that of Street Fighter series?

There is still the PC, with no such restrictions

PCs lack lockout-chip restrictions, but in practice, they do have a screen size restriction. There are three kinds of monitors used to play video games: HDTVs, SDTVs, and small PC monitors.

HDTVs: These can display signals from a PC's VGA or DVI port, but not all of a publisher's audience has one yet. A study found that two-thirds of living rooms still had CRT SDTVs.

SDTVs: Unlike video game consoles, the PC platform does not have SDTV output as a standard feature. There is a PC-to-TV adapter, but it's sold separately, not sold in stores, and not advertised on TV, so few if any of a video game publisher's customers even know it exists.

Small PC monitors: These can display signals from a PC's VGA or DVI port, but you can't comfortably fit four people around a typical 19" widescreen. This has caused PC game developers to concentrate on genres that would not benefit from TV output, such as first-person shooters and real-time strategy, and keep genres that would benefit from TV output, such as fighting and party games, as console or multi-console exclusives.

I'd love to develop a social multiplayer game for PC, but until HDTVs become more widespread, I fear that there won't be an audience.

The real victory for indie developers will be to release games on platforms that don't discriminate, like the computer for instance.

Say I design a video game for multiple players that is not FPS or RTS. It's designed such that there is no disadvantage for a player if other players can see his view of the playfield. One way to do this is to place the view far enough out that the entire relevant portion of the arena is visible, like in Final Fight or Bomberman or Smash Bros. or ball sport sims. Another way is to make the players cooperate against the game, like in Rock Band or the "Grand Prix" mode of Mario Kart. So the most efficient way to do this is to have four players sitting on a sofa, holding gamepads, and looking at one big monitor.

In theory, the PC can implement such a design. Input would be through USB gamepads connected to the PC through a USB hub like the one that comes with the Rock Band set. On the output side, HDTVs can display VGA or DVI signals from a PC, and a $40 adapter converts VGA signals into composite or S-Video for an SDTV. Examples of such games include the Serious Sam series and the Lego $MOVIE series. But in practice, SDTV rules two-thirds of U.S. living rooms (source), and most people don't know that these adapters exist because major chains such as Walmart* and Best Buy don't carry them. So what would be a good way to market a console-style multiplayer game for the PC?

Ironic, sense Mr. Business Genius just had all his HDnet programming cut from Time Warner cable, supposedly because he was complaining that they were putting him on a pay tier instead of the free one. Sad day too, HDNet and HDnet Movies were the only decent channels on that pay tier (well worth the $6 a month extra).

Now a lot of folks might think they have HD TV and have a DVD player that is either 480p or an upscaling one but that's not HD-DVD. It just doesn't seem like it's possible for those numbers to be correct. If you look at the income distribution as well, it suggests to me that the sample set is flawed if nothing else. Computer ownership went down? HD TV ownership is substantially different than the Neilsen numbers. Original xbox numbers are consistent but PS2 numbers went down? The $50k to $75k folks own way more gadgets than the $75k+ crowd? 'splain that to me.

Not everyone who buys a PS3 does so because they want to play Blu Ray discs (In fact, one would assume that a minority do).

While I don't disagree with your statements, I'm curious why you would assume only a minority of PS3 owners are Blu-ray watchers. The PS3 was touted by review sites as the best Blu-ray player on the market for the money for quite a long time. This year old EngadgetHD article says that 87% of PS3 owners watch blu-ray. I can't read the source of that info at work, 87% seems a tad high to me, but saying it's a minority sounds a little off.

Yeah, how dare they not pander to the 1% of people that had a HDTV at launch

Granted. But look at what happened when Nintendo underestimated the number of people who would didn't have high-speed Internet access in 2001 but would get it over the GameCube's lifetime. The original Xbox ate GameCube's online lunch.

and the 10% (estimated) that have one now!

Google [ hdtv penetration ] links to this Engadget article that cites a Leichtman study claiming HDTV penetration has surpassed one-third of U.S. households.

I've never had a PC that could not display on a SDTV.

The desktop PCs I saw at big-box stores have VGA or DVI out and that's it. All PCs can display on an SDTV with a $50 VGA-to-composite adapter. But because big-box stores don't carry these adapters, the general public doesn't know they exist. There are aftermarket video cards with built-in scan converters, but most home PC owners never seem to replace their video card before throwing out the whole PC.

Nowadays HD is the standard

Sure, there are standards for HDTV transmission. But can you cite a source stating that the majority of U.S. homes with a TV have an HDTV? The latest figure I could find was 34 percent. As of right now, developers of video games designed to display on a TV have to target the rat's nest of mandatory DRM that is game consoles.

and the PC is better at doing that

Then why do so few PC games have a mode designed to split a 32" HDTV, compared to the 19" monitor per player that most PC games assume? It might even be a form of DRM, so that people who want multiplayer have to buy more copies of the game.

I can count how many times I've rooted for Real on a one-bit integer. Yesterday, I didn't even need that.

What does this even mean? I guess it means you aren't rooting for Real.

Well, you damn fucking well should.

RealNetworks are the good guys here. They are trying to make DVDs more convenient and useful, and they fucking bent over backwards trying to make this thing be totally obviously not a piracy tool. If RealDVD cannot win this court case, that means no-one will be able to do anything, no matter how fair use it is, without the permission of the big movie studios and organisations like MPAA.

Why does RealDVD encrypt the saved DVD images? So it won't be a useful piracy tool. And because Kaleidescape encrypt their saved DVD images, and that may have helped them to win their case.

I've actually had a chance to see RealDVD and it's a good program. It's actually kind of Apple-like, in that it does one thing well and does it pretty. I'd buy it for my Grandmother to use.

So, I'm rooting for RealNetworks on this one and you should too.

Because if you cant back up what you say with references, then you are just blowing smoke out your ass. It really comes down to what you were taught in grade 3 when you did your first research report and had to cite sources. Every fact had to be cited, and what wasn't was deemed to be fabricated. So it doesn't matter whether you care or not, you took the time to post a "fact" and should defend it.

That said a biased report was just released at CES 2009 showing that Blue-Rays 3 year adoption rate is actually 3% higher than the DVD at the 3 year mark. Good news for Blue Ray right? Well the problem comes when comparing DVD Movie sales to Blue Ray Movie Sales and the results aren't so close. The number of Blue Ray movies sold is 30 million after 3 years of sales. DVD movie sales however were at just under 130million movies sold after 3years. Why the difference in numbers?

Well I couldn't really find too many reliable explanations, most point out the fact (along with other posters in this thread) is that Blue Ray hardware is being given away for almost free. Buying an LCD TV? Take a Blue Ray player for 50bucks with 3 movies. The PS3 includes a Blue Ray player which COUNTS under the Blue Ray associations numbers. Much like the PS2 counted under the DVD sales numbers. Anyways this is all just speculation, but just thought Id do the GGP's homework for him/her as I was interested to see if he/she was actually correct.

Apple didn't "bet that farm on HD-DVD." They have a seat on the Board of Directors for the Blu-Ray Disc Association. Jobs made an earlier statement saying that licensing costs are the reason they haven't adopted Blu-Ray. Spending money licensing Blu-Ray for Final Cut (right now) would be a waste. Adding a Blu-Ray drive to Apple computers will drive the price up.

I wouldn't say that Apple has "ignored their professionals" regarding Blu-Ray. They are waiting for a bleeding edge format/technology to mature.

"I want my FCP Suite 3 that fixes the problems with the current one and give me native suite bluray menu authoring."

Calm down. Take a deep breath. Go to your cave. Find your power animal. Slide.

From the article:

Note that high-definition shows can only be watched or recorded from over-the-air ATSC digital broadcasts

Even XP's Media Center supported QAM and it came "free" on most computers sold. And the Vista Media Center TV pack makes Media Center about perfect. And best of all you don't have to pay a monthly fee as you do with Tivo. (As of yet, it's probably only a matter of time before M$ starts charging!)

Doubled since HD-DVD's demise.

Again, a ridiculous hit piece article. And slashdot promulgated it.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/25/blu-rays-market-share-has-almost-doubled-since-hd-dvds-demise/

BluRay isn't a success yet, but this slashdot article is painting a misleading article of the situation.

wrong link previously http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/08/16/cea-turns-down-1080p-over-component-proposal/

Unfortunately it is not Sony's fault. The governing body (CEA) over the video spec has turned down the proposal to 'allow' 1080p over component.

The week before, market share of BluRay was WAY up. BluRay sales were up 16% despite DVD sales being down 10%.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/13/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-septembe/

And selling players for cheaper is a bad thing? Sales accelerate when prices drop. DVD players are $35, it must be a complete flop!

It's about time for these ridiculous slanted anti-BluRay articles to end. BluRay is having a tough enough time without slashdot airing repeated hit pieces.

In the digital cable, MythTV isn't very useful; however for those of us who use analog cable (which will be the majority of Americans for a while), MythTV does have some life left.

You haven't heard of Project Analog Crush yet, have you?

Netflix is changing their policy and will start charging a premium of $1 to $2 extra a month for Blu Ray rentals. It does make sense to pass the extra cost of Blu Ray discs on to the customers who use them.

Well, I looked up the stats, and I must say I'm shocked to find that two-thirds of Xbox 360s are connected to an HDTV. Still, that means they're pissing off 33% of their potential customers.

No, you're thinking of Windows-based laptops. http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/03/03/new-macs-connecting-to-hdtvs-they-just-work/

As a follow-up, apparently the new blu-ray discs equipped with "BD Live" require a system update to function. "Dewey Cox" is just the first of these discs.

Perhaps it has something to do with the city of Boston being unwilling to bend over and take it from Verizon, so Verizon just ignores the whole downtown?

Just FYI, I've been working as a programmer in the film/video graphics industry for the last 12 years, so I'm very familiar with the difference between 8bit/component and deeper colours. "Washed out black and saturated regions" are actually symptoms of poor colour mapping, usually NTSC (16-235) video being displayed on a non-NTSC (0-255) monitor, and have nothing to do with 8bit's low dynamic range (which can manifest as visible banding in certain colour ranges).

While it's certainly true that HDMI 1.3 can support >8bits, that is of course no guarantee that all video passed along it is >8bits. The PS3 uses nVidia's RSX chip, which is based on the GeForce 7900, and like all nVidia chips of that era it uses a max 8bit per channel framebuffer (textures may be deeper, but not the framebuffer). Even potentially deep-colour Blu-Ray movies must be decoded and rendered into this 8bit framebuffer, so the PS3's output is bottlenecked at 8 bits. That's why you've never seen any articles actually confirming real deep-colour, only marketing literature and misleading online screenshots with "washed out blacks".

I always get a chuckle when PS3 fans bring up their beloved "HDMI 1.3" bullet point, because the fact is, it's only good for passing through TrueHD and DTS-HD audio. Oh, whoops...

Well, cheap DVD players can be had for under $50 today, and started out above the $500 range, so there is no reason to believe it won't (yes, I'm ignoring your region code issue).

Check out someone's comment at EngadgetHD where someone went back into internet archives and compared prices for DVD+2years to BluRay+2 years, which is about where we are, and both priced up about equally.

I am in sales but don't sell electronics, I'll leave you to your assumptions on that one.

So why would you lead us to believe otherwise:

So you basically have a complete lack of understanding of the sales process is what you're saying. It's ok, I hear this propagandist nonsense from customers of mine even as I'm trying to point them towards the product that fits their needs and budget rather than the more expensive product that makes no sense for their personal situation.

The reason I separated individual points of your posting was to point out how each of your assumptions was flawed.

It's easy to find flaws when you only post half of the thought. Though, you probably should have googled my points before assuming they were.

Each of your responses are also baseless, unsubstantiated nonsense. Where is your cite for your magical 40-50% acceptance rate for HD capable tuners, and even if the rate is 50% how does that become classified as "early adopter phase"?

You're right. I really wish I researched that number a little better. I forget where I heard/read it, but I was so wrong. Hopefully this month, with sales from the holidays, they'll break 20%. I don't know how they keep the shelves stocked.

The "down scaling" from 1080i to 720p was your reference, not mine, I was telling you it's not done and you responded that it's not done. What are you arguing? My television is 1080i as are virtually all HD units available at all major electronic retailers today and they do, in fact, display 1080i picture. You claimed these sets somehow "down scale" the image to 720p. I'm still waiting for clarification on that.

And it is a perfectly legitimate reference, though, may to not confuse you, I should have said down scalling 1920x1080 to 1366x768(I know, it's a hair better then 720p). 1080i draws a screen that is 1920x1080, albiet in 2 passes, but still requires 1920x1080 pixels to display all data. Call me crazy, but I'm not sure how we're going to jam those pixels into a fixed pixel 1366x768 device that is 1080i capable.
Google native resolution. Here is the second link from a wonderful FUDsite, since many have issues with the accuracy of the first link at Wikipedia.

Fixed-pixel displays follow a few basic rules:
No matter the resolution of the source material, whether VHS, DVD, or HDTV, a fixed-pixel display will always convert, or scale, it to fit its native resolution.
If the incoming source has more pixels than the display's native resolution, you will lose some visible detail and sharpness, though often what you're left with still looks great.
If the incoming source has fewer pixels than the native resolution, you're not getting any extra sharpness from the television's pixels.

While you could have a CRT that is 1800x1600, overdrive it and display the details, albiet it will have the details but may not be as sharp as a 1920x1080 native device. No matter how hard you try, you can't overdrive an LCD or Plasma. There are 1080i TVs capable of displaying a 1920x1080 picture, but considering the circuitry required to improve the bandwidth isn't nearly as pricey as the pixels, chances are, if it is an LCD or plasma that is 1080i capable, it will have a native resolution of 1366x768. The extra pixels above 720p are for overscan.

So if you loose detail, and when a DVD is upscaled, is the difference going to be that noticable? I have a co-worker who can see it, but says, for the price, it isn't worth it. I can see a huge difference, but I am sitting 8ft away from a 110" 1080p screen and have better then 20/20 vision, so I'm not a good candidate for an

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/01/09/bd-has-not-been-compromised-yet/ I don't think either one of them is really having any effect on ripped content yet according to the above.

I thought you'd get modded down - I'm glad it's not so. The overwhelming reaction of the online community over the Warner announcement made me very angry as it was clear it was the phraseology of the news titles, fueling the fanboys, that was causing significantly more damage than the announcement itself.

This alone gave the fanboys more reason to troll 'the war is over' in such force and with such conviction as never before.

Why was this so out of place with fanboys, nearly the ultimate of online extremists? Well, it's flat out counter their interests and even starkly in contrast with the overwhelming opinion of Sony after the rootkit scenario. With still plenty of support behind HD-DVD, the cheaper technology, the more consumer friendly technology (both now and including any fears for the future - got to love a company that wants to stop you lending or selling on your property, right?) and HD-DVD AACS and region encoding being optional, more dedicated players in peoples homes made it the true consumer choice (the PS3 isn't dedicated Blu-Ray - it's a games console, however I view the 360 add on as a dedicated player as it has NO other function and is a full optional purchase, not bundled with the console. Finally a lot of people have bought them as they also work on PCs), by far the most logical choice for the majority of online enthusiasts was HD-DVD. So what if per-layer Blu-Ray held more? Most of us are unlikely to afford a burner in the next 15 years.

The only thing Blu-Ray had going for it was the pushiest marketing scheme ever. I'm disappointed in HD-DVD on that front but never thought it would take in so many online. A carefully orchestrated viral campaign from a Sony backed product would not surprise me in the SLIGHTEST, considering their consistent history of such. The only surprise would be that they pulled it off so subtly compared to their previous attempts. I guess one of the other Blu-Ray backers would have stepped in and overseen its careful deployment, though I'm still surprised at the total lack of tact when someone from the Blu-Ray camp was very publicly quoted as saying "they knew what they were getting into" about early adopters when people started to complain about the redundancy of all the very expensive first (and second?) generation players other than the PS3. I'm also surprised about the small scale of the backlash from that comment alone currently. I mean: what more proof did people need of Blu-Ray's total lack of regard for their customers, even those so loyal they'd spend so much on the earliest systems?

I own neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray systems, or a 360 - I wouldn't have minded a PS3 IF they'd maintained backward compatibility (I admit I love my mini PS2, ironically rubbish DVD player that it is - GREEN screen if you want RGB out? hah) but I would never have bought one as I couldn't bring myself to support a format that was so likely to attempt to trample over and even strip yet more consumer rights in the future.

...and a catalog of 1000 or so HD-DVD movies already on the market...

There are 378 HD-DVD movies on the market.

It's true that there is no wireless HDMI (due to the enormous bandwidth requirements of uncompressed high definition video), but a new standard is emerging called Wireless HDAV.

In a nutshell, there's a real-time 1080p H264 encoder on one end, then a UWB wireless link (claims of up to 10m) followed by an H264 decoder. Hopefully they will allow one to directly inject H264 content (from a cable/iptv box or from other sources), then use this technology to send it to the TV for decoding. Applications such as video game consoles can pass through the H264 encoder first.

This was just announced so technical details such as video bit rate are anyone's guess, but if this was correctly implemented we may one day be able to get rid of the rat's nest of wires behind our entertainment systems because everything will self-configure wirelessly.

Seems to me no one has mentioned something which to me says a lot:

"For a long time, Hollywood was lopsided in favor of Blu-ray: 7 of the 8 major movie studios (Disney, Fox, Warner, Paramount, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) supported Blu-ray, and 5 of them (Disney, Fox, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) release their movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. Only Universal was exclusively HD-DVD. Now that is rapidly changing what with HD DVD exclusive converts Paramout and DreamWorks Animation, and Warner Bros now for Blu-ray." (this from http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/boost-for-blu-ray-warner-bros-will-release-high-def-titles-exclusively-in-that-format/)

So in summary, we have:

HD-DVD Exclusive:

Paramount/Dreamworks

Bluray Exclusive:

Disney
Fox
Sony
Lionsgate
MGM
Warner Bros

Not mentioned in the article above, I believe Universal Studios is actually HD DVD exclusive, but rumours seem to indicate that they aren't that way by contract, so they COULD jump ship. Further, New Line Cinema is owned by Warner Bros, so it would stand to reason that they will end up Bluray exclusive.

At this point, it LOOKS like a pretty lopsided situation to me. Add in that while supposedly HD-DVD players (and PCs with HD-DVD in them) have outsold bluray players, (again supposedly) bluray titles themselves seem to have outsold HD-DVD, especially in non US markets.

I have been reading about this since the news broke yesterday on places like http://engadgethd.com/ and http://avsforum.com/ and it really sounds like even the HD-DVD diehards (for the most part) are conceding victory to bluray.

-Verxion

See, legally the copyright expires, of course. But technically it doesn't. If a copyright holder places "technological measures" to prevent someone from copying/accessing a work, then as long as the measures continue to function, you are legally prevented from using the material once is has entered the public domain, because the "technological measures" are given force of law.

Nice try, but:

a technological measure `effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title.

Once something has slipped into public domain, it no longer has a copyright owner to protect the rights of. The technical measures would still be in place, but they would not be given the force of law after the expiration. CSS, Fairplay, PlaysForSure, and to an extent AACS and BD+ have all been broken by groups working underground. If commercial entities would be able to reproduce public domain works for profit, the force behind the cracks would increase tenfold.

As much as I hate the DMCA, it doesn't give an indefinite term to copyright. I suppose it's possible that an unbreakable DRM could be created (though I doubt it), but that's not the force of law.

"Does it really matter"

Now imagine a TV station or the latest Movie producer. Those seconds do matter. Imagine a 50 GB HD movie. Few extra seconds add up, and if it didn't we'd all be content running our 300 mHz Pentiums because "what's an extra second, right?"

Firewire 800 already supports multiple forms of transmission, including coax, optical, and Cat 5E. Here's an article from 2005 about FW800 and coax: http://www.engadgethd.com/2005/09/14/coax-making-a-comeback/ It's just that most people don't know about it. So when the next technology is announced and people get all amazed at the "new" features, I laugh and say "no, that was there with the old revision".

See also: Target Disk Mode.

The costs of disc production are not significantly different for either format and sometimes Blu is cheaper by virtue of only requiring a single layer disc vs dual for HD DVD. You can see a fairly old article here. Chances are prices have dropped since that was written.

You seem to be mistaking a one week swing due to a major release for a trend. You also seem to suck at math, since 64/36 is not 2:1. You also should have taken another two seconds to find the archived data, which showed HD-DVD coming into October with a YTD market share of 34%, lower than the current YTD figures.

No. The Dreamcast died and went away because it was outclassed and Sega just gave up. The PS3 is here to stay for quite a few reasons, the most important being:

1) The exclusives. When MGS/FF/Singstar/GT get released, sales will skyrocket (and they're currently pretty closely mirroring the 360's first year of sales, which isn't bad).
2) Blu-ray. The PS3 is Sony's ticket into success in the HD movie market. They'll make sure it succeeds if not for that reason alone. Despite what Stringer says, Blu-ray is clearly outselling HD-DVD, and the PS3 is the only reason for that.

You're free not to believe me. It does however mean that you fail at finding information yourself. What that means for your future only you can ponder upon.

The link that it should take you two seconds to find

according to this weeks Nielsen VideoScan numbers, courtesy of Home Media Magazine, Blu-ray took the lion's share of the HD movie sales again this week with a 71% to 29% split

What's really interesting is that there is only one HD DVD title in the top ten this week

Last week (29/10-4/11)
Blu-Ray: 71%
HD-DVD: 29%

Year-to-date:
Blu-Ray: 64%
HD-DVD: 36%

Since Inception:
Blu-Ray: 61%
HD-DVD: 39%

Feel free to apologize.

"For players its' 5:1 including the PS3 and 360 HD DVD attachment."

A little perspective is needed for this statement. 5 million PS3's have been sold, and a little over 210,000 HDDVD addons have been sold. We can accept the fact that not all PS3's are purchased with movies in mind (in fact, only 40% of PS3 owners know about BluRay movie playback on PS3), while 100% of HDDVD addon purchases are done with the full intent of playing HDDVD movies.

These facts don't tip the scales, but I think they need to be considered.

I am just waiting so I don't buy the equivilent of a VCR/Laser Disc player/walkman. I wish one of them would win already!

Though I understand the thinking, when the Toshiba HD DVD players hit the $100 mark they were very competitive than the regular upscaling DVD players, so effectively you get the HD DVD playing functionality for free or damn cheap at that point. If you do Netflix they carry a wide variety of HD DVD including new releases, so you never have to worry about getting "stuck with" a dead format, and you still have an upconverting DVD player. The only HD DVD's you would get "stuck with" would be the 5 free HD DVD's that come with it.

So at $100... why not?

[Note, I left this same reply on TFA's comments but thought I'd copy it here cuz slashdot is cooler.]

This reminds me of a deadline a few years ago set by the FCC to include working firewire ports on set-top boxes. This would allow a digital connection to certain TV's as well as to recorders like D-VHS or computers (using D-VHS emulators.)

http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/02/01/does-your-cable-box-have-a-firewire-port

That mandate deadline came and passed without compliance as well. Boxes never had ports, or had ports removed even though OEM's like SA and Moto included them, or had ports that weren't functional.

The FCC has been a joke since it was created. Like most of government, despite any good intentions, it has proved ineffectual in enforcing many of its own mandates that has resulted in loss to the consumers while effectively enforcing protections for certain corporations like the Cable Cos resulting in loss to competition.

For me, I've given up. I've basically voted with my feet and stopped subscribing to cable. If I hear about something of interest, I can usually download it or have a friend record it or wait for it on DVD and rent it. The result is that I watch less TV, which may be a good thing or maybe I miss things I would enjoy or maybe it doesn't make a real difference except that the Cable Cos, as well as the content creators, advertisers other related businesses and the FCC (through included taxes), are not getting my money because of this stupidity. You may want to consider the same.

At this point you should be asking, what is stopping TiVo or Microsoft from creating two-way, multi-stream CableCARD devices? The answer is, some CE companies are not happy with the certification specification that CableLabs has decided on. As we previously discussed, the point of contention is the OCAP requirement...

...to put it in layman's terms, this would cut out the middle man, -- where the middle man is your cable company. With OCAP, TiVo couldn't deploy their software on a two-way host device without the cable company's approval, so the concept of going to the store and buying a TiVo that works anywhere wouldn't exist unless every cable company agreed to distribute and support TiVo's OCAP software -- this is how the long-awaited Comcast and TiVo agreement is going to work. The same might also be said for Vista Media Center, Microsoft would have to develop an OCAP VM in Vista Media Center and then work with each cable company to get them to deploy their user interface...

...In the end, we hope that the FCC steps in and requires CableLabs to certify two-way devices that do not require OCAP.

What, you didn't hear? DirecTV is bringing another bird online shortly for additional HD bandwidth... http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/07/07/directv-10-la unched-successfully-gears-up-for-september-action/

you have an STB now with a firewire outputm, the CableCard will eventually replace it

I don't need to worry about what they'd like to replace it with - there's an FCC mandate requiring the cable companies to supply firewire access.

Ease of use - roger that - Myth requires time, energy, & expertise to setup. But, the theme I'm supporting here is options. As I said originally, with Myth I have a database that I can take with me. There's value in knowing what I've seen and what I haven't.

As for content providers, I've got four ways to capture at the moment - Analog cable, S-video, QAM, and 1394. I could have 5 if I put an ATSC antenna on my roof. Let them attempt to shut those down and there will be 5 more to take their place. I sincerely believe that as fast as they try to lock things down we will find new ways of opening them back up. That's the way it has always worked, because in the end they have to open it up enough for me to view it. On the other hand, if I put my eggs in Tivo's basket I have one source with one easy kill switch - the "broadcast only" flag. I'd rather take my chances with the other coders/hackers. It was easy for the gov't to shutdown ReplayTV's commercial skipping. Impossible for them to squelch Myth. Tivo has to conform to stay around. That's reason enough for me to go the extra mile with a home brew. Granted there are three HD channels I can't currently record (pay content), but for me that's not a deal-breaker. The cable companies themselves solved that with HBO On Demand.

"They just want to know if the media will last,"

Apparently BD is having problems with that too :)

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/16/blu-ray-disc- coatings-starting-to-rot/

So you can buy an expensive, rotting, DRM-laden format with region coding... or a cheaper, less-DRM, region free format (HD DVD). Hmm....

just to point out...
$300 HD-DVD players ARE here. Over memorial day weekend you could pick one up at Costco for under $300. Toshiba had a $100 off rebate that helped a bit:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/30/hd-dvd-rebate -promotions-a-success/

I saw a story a few days ago with actual numbers but I couldn't find it when searching.