High-Def Format Wars - Battle of the Freebies

An anonymous reader writes "It's come to this: eager to introduce the masses to the virtues of the next-gen DVD formats, the studios and manufacturers backing HD DVD and Blu-ray have begun giving discs away. It all started last month when Microsoft pacted with Universal to give away copies of 'King Kong' on HD DVD to consumers buying the XBox 360 HD DVD add on. Sony followed that up by offering a free 'Talladega Nights' Blu-ray with the first 500,000 PlayStation 3 units sold in the U.S.. Now today, HD DVD backer Toshiba has announced that it will give away *three* free HD DVD discs with every player sold for four months beginning on November 1st. With all these freebies, more people will likely have received free HD DVD/Blu-ray discs by the end of 2006 than will have actually paid for them."

Comments

Free Movies

[Ucklak]

I remember when I paid $199 for my Toshiba DVD player way back when, there was a free movie signup as well.
Lost in Space, Stargate, and Six Days Seven Nights were included.

Re:Oh the silliness of consumer marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple reasoning? I guess this is the excuss you give when you have no facts to back what you say. When DVD players cost $500 there build cost was still much higher than $25-50 prices come down when volumes go up, also when the chinese start making knock off units which dont have to recover the R&D costs. Consumers all want new technology at build cost and then complain about outsourcing to india and that it broke after 3 movies. Forget your reasoning and learn some facts.

Re:How high-def do we need?

[Control Group]

I can't help but think "Man, those guys look all blocky and stretched" when Hockey Night in Canada is on.

That's the magic of HD. SD sports on a big screen (like my 50") are blocky and stretched. Sports in HD on a 50" screen, though, make me wonder how I ever watched sports in SD. The aspect ratio alone, which allows you to see more of the field at once, is worth the price of admission.

For me, at least, the leap from SD to HD when watching sports is literally equivalent to the leap from VHS in EP to progressive scan DVD. It's just plain better.