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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."
HD-DVD Jon will save us... maybe it will take a ten line perl program this time.
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.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
First the rootkit, then the PS3, and now giving away "Talladega Nights"... why does Sony hate us so?
Reminds me of the time I bought a Pentium computer in the mid 1990s that came with a foot-high stack of CD-ROMs. It was a nice attempt at an intro to the possibilities of the new format, but there were only so many different versions of "Virtual Rock Gardening," "Compton's Interactive Encephalopathy," "Mavis Beacon Teachs Self-Neutering," and "The Adventures of Poorly-Rendered Cutscene Man" I could really get any use out of.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
With all these free discs floating around, I'm reminded of the AOL days. AOL supplied a generation of bored youngsters with hours of microwaving, shattering and throwing AOL media. Someday kids will remember the "good old days" when Billy knocked out Timmy's tooth with a Blu-ray and when mom made them scrub out the microwave to get all the HD goo off the sides.
I hate the term 'Sig'.
I doubt if it makes too much of a difference to their bottom lines, they can either give those movies away or let them sit on store shelves unsold.
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..
...and here I thought corporations only focused on the short-term.
Given their production rates, I expect that promotion to last through 2007...
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
So sony is shipping 400,000 ps3's but the first 500,000 get a movie when the next 100,000 show up next year? I'm getting a wii and I can use the left over money to purchase a dvd if I please :)
Is a bad choice? It's not really an HD movie.. King Kong at least hard large screen appeal especially with the CG. But Talledaga night? Not to meantion Will Farrell.... I think they just chose a movie that no one would buy in HD normally, just to get an easy freebie.
Sony really needs to pick up the slack. The PS3 would have ended the format war easily, but Sony has completely screwed that pooch. Perhaps it's Sony's fate. they did get CD and DVD, but this is sounding more like Betamax. It's true it'll be better in the long run to adopt Blu-ray, but god if it's not starting out like a lame duck.
On the other hand HD-DVD isn't exactly shining either. Both format really needs to show why "you need this now". My parents have a 50 inch CRT, and still watch VHS on it, it gives a great picture (Better then broadcast tv), DVDs also look great, they have no need to go to a new format, to rebuy all the dvds and tapes on it. That simple fact makes me wonder if it's worth it. Hell they even got the extended editions of Lord of the rings on single DVDs. Perhaps it's just not necessary yet, and won't be until we go beyond 1080p. Of course if your so anal you must have the perfect resolution go ahead, but I'll stick with my DVDs for a while (Still don't like tapes, but that's me, my parents can't get their movies on DVDs still, and for some don't feel the need.)
Well, since the discs come with the expensive players (XBox 360-HDDVD and PS3), there will be nobody returning the discs because they can't play them. Although there will probably be a few why try to play them in the old player. It won't really help persuade anyone who doesn't already have a player.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
...but I'm more likely to be swayed by the first company to offer me a break on a display that can even view this high-def content ...
...
:-)
As far as I can tell in a cursory glance over the net, the cheapest "TV-sized" display that will do 1080P with HDMI is the Westinghouse for $1100 shipped, and the cheapest panel is $800 for some 24" display
That means I'm spending around $1500 for this "experience" they're peddling, all told. Sell me the display for $400 and we can talk.
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I won't be impressed until he does it in 10 lines of VB.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Simple reasoning would tell us that you're an idiot. Just because the technology is similiar does not mean the units should have the same price. Further more I do remember when DVD players were 500 dollars a pop. It was nearly ten years ago when the technology was new. It's only now that they're 25 dollars. I wouldn't be suprised if in 2015 we're buying HD or BluRay drives for $50.
I still watch TV on 27" JVC TV I purchased in 1995. I think it looks great. The picture was awesome the day I bought it, and the picture is still great today.
I watch TV on Bell ExpressVu (Canadian Dish Network), rent the odd DVD, and watch the occasional torrent movie or TV show I missed.
You know what? I think it looks great. Of course, I sit six or eight feet back from the TV.
I am really missing anything? The new TVs in the stores look fine, but every time I visit a friend who has an enormous screen, I can't help but think "Man, those guys look all blocky and stretched" when Hockey Night in Canada is on.
I mean, WTF?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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.
I'm just wondering why they think Talladega Nights is a good showpiece for Blu-Ray technology. King Kong makes sense as the visuals are a big part of the movie. But a comedy? I'm not getting the logic.
The enemies of Democracy are
Maybe that last Star Trek movie that Shatner directed... what was that one again? The Undiscovered Country? Yeah... that'll sell some DVD players!
Blasphemy!! How dare you confuse such a thing!!
Shatner did NOT direct The Undiscovered Country (ST VI), which was a great movie. He directed The Final Frontier (ST V), which was so horrifically bad that many ST fans consider it to not have happened.
Maybe they hope you'll be laughing so hard you won't realize how much money you just wasted?
DVD works for me. Besides. Hollywierd will maybe put out 1 movie a year worth buying anyways. Everything else worth buying has been out for years.
Strangely enough, it seems that most of my TV/DVD-watching time is now spent watching TV show discs, instead of movies: Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Firefly, 4400, etc. There's a lot of great stuff coming out on TV while the latest movies aren't that great. We may even get to the point where TV shows just get released straight-to-DVD since TV execs are so incredibly stupid that they sometimes cancel the best shows (Firefly) in their first season.
If you play an 8-track on the nicest stereo system in the world, its still going to sound like "shite"
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
I'm guessing you didn't see the movie.
It's got plenty of action/racing scenes that will show off the high resolution, framerate, and 7.1 sound capabilities. It doesn't have loads of CG eye-candy special effects, but what are there will probably make for a damn good display of the capabilities of the format.
Couldn't you just bang on your helmet and lick the window?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It is not the customer's job to sell overpriced electronics to himself.
Best Slashdot comment ever
"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."
Isn't this basically the same strategy employed by drug dealers?
-MJ