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360 HD-DVD Add-on Dropped to $179
Joystiq reports that the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 has been permanently dropped in price to $179. Additionally, Bob Barker style, you get five free movies too: "Appearing at Comic-Con in San Diego, the announcement was made amidst promotion for the HD-DVD releases of the film 300 and the cheerleader epic, Heroes. Not content with just a twenty dollar dip, Microsoft has extended Toshiba's 'Perfect Offer' promotion to Xbox 360 owners, awarding five free movies with purchase. The hard part now is choosing between Casablanca and The Dukes of Hazzard. Naturally, the Xbox Live Marketplace wasn't left out in all this news as 300 will be making its way to the service in HD on August 14th, while free content for Heroes will arrive sometime before its HD-DVD release."
Save $20, save the world
$20 got them 3 days of coverage from all the major news outlets... It's been on the front page of Google news for days. Tiny price-cut, tons of press. Geniuses. They really are amazing.
rtfa, not only a $20 price cut, but 5 free hd dvd movies. As expensive as these things are, your getting at least a $100 in bonuses. This might make me go out and get one, provided I could get the season 1 of heroes as one of my 5.
The 5-free thing is just a "me too" for the offer that is currently available for BluRay players.
You can't pick whichever ones you'd like. Similar to the BluRay offer, you have strict restrictions on which crappy movies you can get free. The list is available in PDF format only. Check it out. No Heroes.
This (pdf) looks like the rebate form they've been using along with the list of discs you can choose from. That form expires in a few days, so there may be a new one somewhere else with different discs.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
HDDVD is done. Target just announced they are only supporting BR. Blockbuster only stocking BR in stores was the beginning of the end. I love the $20 price break, wow twenty whole dollars, now I'm going to rush out and get one...
//TODO: Insert catchy phrase
I guess that's 20$ less than I *would* have spent, had I intended on buying this, or any "next generation" movie format. Until this entire thing sorts itself out, I refuse to buy either. I personally hope they both go down in flames, and in return, we can get something the entire market agrees upon. Not only that, maybe we'll get something less locked down. (I know, it'll never happen, but one can always hope.)
My interest in next generation formats has very little to do with movies, anyway. I'm much more interested in high capacity removable storage for my PC. One that doesn't include moving parts, and one that I can easily hand off to my relatives and not worry about getting back.
1) Target does sell the Xbox 360 HD-DVD and they also sell HD DVD players on their website.
2) You are underestimating the sophistication of the market if you think that just because you can't walk into your local Target and buy a BR, that is going to affect people from making an informed decision on what to buy for a relatively technical piece of kit. The internet wasn't around back in the day of Beta/VHS.
3) Target customer service for tech pretty much is non-existant. If you want to by something fancy/technology-wise and you're not an internet-informed / internet-shopper, you go to Best Buy or Circuit City - both are HD dealers.
4) Not saying who is going to win the format war, or if there will be a truth when/if folks just publish on a duel-format disk and the cost of duel-format players drops. But this isn't a huge blow that people are making it out to be.
Anyone really buying into BD/HDDVD? I'd rather just watch a HD movie on one my HD movie channels or the occasional $6 rental off the Live Marketplace.
That is not true. Target agreed to a limited exclusivity agreement with Sony to carry only their BR player for a time. They still sell hd-dvd movies, as well as the HD-DVD addon for Xbox360. Assuming the war is still ongoing after Christmas, they will start carrying hd-dvd drives too.
Does the 360 (or the PS3) upconvert regular DVDs to higher resolutions? I can't find anything official either way.
Since most of these HD-DVD / Blu-Ray topics as of late are all flamewars akin to ps3 vs. 360. I thought I'd jump in and try to add some reason.
I bought the 360 hddvd add-on because I wanted to see what some of these movies were like in 720p (I don't own a 1080p tv). I found a great deal on craigslist and that was really the only reason I bought one. The movies look fantastic; much better than upconverted dvds, and noticeably better than movies on HD channels over Dish Network (from the compression I assume). In addition to the higher quality the way the menu works while watching a dvd is much friendlier (something that always annoyed me about dvds) and they have a new way of presenting some of the extras. NetFlix rents both hd-dvds and Blu-Rays now, so for that and the $100 or so i paid for it, it was a decent buy.
Obviously there are downsides. I hate playing it through the 360. The fans are noisy (not initially but eventually) and the start-up is a mild annoyance. I don't want to speak out of turn, but I assume I'd have the same problems playing blu-rays through the ps3. Theres just nothing as convenient as a stand-alone player... but theres something to be said for saving $300 when buying into unproven technology.
There are no "winners/losers" here yet, anyone claiming so is a fan-boi or uninformed. There are still some great movies you can only get on HD-DVD (and vice-versa with Blu-Ray) so people who are fans of those will still gravitate towards their respective studios and what format that studio supports.
Now with hybrid players appearing I wouldn't be surprised if we see a dual format thats basically invisible to the consumer. In 10 years (or whatever, i'm making an example) the majority of people will own a hybrid player, you'd head to BB or CC and pick up the latest release not even really paying attention to whether it has a Red case or a Blue case.
Not really sure where I'm going with this. Heh. I'd say if you own a 360, a hd tv and you're into the hd craze. Its only a couple of hundred dollars, its been fun for me and I've probably gotten that much enjoyment out of it. If you don't have an hd-tv, you don't really care about the hd craziness thats been going on, or you don't have $200 to blow on tech that you'll throw away in a few years, I wouldn't even worry about it. You're missing out on a few lines of resolution but nothing you should kick yourself over.
Why spend $100 on Wifi? If you're not right beside your router (I like wired connections when I'm close enough anyways) just buy a $40 access point, a $20 switch, and you've not only saved $40 but with that hardware behind your TV you can connect ALL your consoles (and any other network enabled device) back to your router without having to worry about individual wifi adapters.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Well, I guess I could use this as a PC drive. I had looked previously at this, and the price-drop as well as the movies is atleast a little enticing.
... still ... something to look at, and thats speaking as someone who owns a PS3 with only 1 BR movie (yea, taledaga nights)
However, looking at the posted PDF for the Toshiba rebate (assuming a similar plan) the movies are a little thin on selection.
But
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
I'd agree if the porn industry wasn't backing HDDVD.
the only reason was that sony said they didnt want "questionable stuff" on their format. there are pornos being released on both. actually the FIRST video released on both formats was a porno.
Except that there are FAR more titles on HDDVD than BluRay. Go check for yourself.
Sony is just refusing to lease their production lines to stamp porn discs. They've had this policy for DVDs as well. Now it's a bit of a bigger deal in the case of blu-ray, since apparently they require new pressing equipment and HD-DVD doesn't, but it's hardly a deal-breaker. If blu-ray takes a commanding lead, new production lines will come on line that will stamp anyone's discs.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Sounds like someone is upset they bought a ps3 and/or bluray player
just if I could use it instead of the cyclone sounding drive in my 360 I'd be happy.
Actually what I'd really like is just being able to cache and spool games of the faster, quieter HD - ignore my post - as you were.
...of upconversion.
The reason upconversion on the player side makes sense is because it happens in the digital domain. Whereas if you go over component and have your TV upconvert it, it's lossier - it has to go to analog and then back to digital again and then gets upconverted.
Past that it just becomes a matter of which thing is better at conversion, your player or your TV.
The main gain from upconverting players is that they force you to use a 100% digital connection.
1) It SOUNDS to me, everwhere I read - here or Digg - that it IS over because Target is carrying them with exclusive endcaps. That is the prevailing opinion.
2) Walmart's revenue is 351 billion. Target's revenue is 59.4 billion. The Target news does not whipe out the WalMart news.
There's plenty of reasons to have a wireless console. Cat5 isn't very attractive looking anywhere in the living room, and many people have PCs outside the living room. I generally agree with you though, console accessories are so heavily marked up, it's easy to justify DIY workarounds like you suggested.
Well you could down load Hero's avi's onto you PSP and then playback via your PS3 then via HDMI or component with smoothing and uponversion to 720p, 1080i or 1080p resolution. An easier way would be to get the AVI's and convert them to PS3 format (do a google search for "PS3 avi files") then you can watch Hero's on your HDTV rather than your PC screen. It will cost you the time to download the Hero's avi files and possibly $29 for the converter software and of course a PS3 and a HDTV.
A media centre could do the same thing but how much is a media centre that will smooth and upconvert avi/mp4 files to a HDTV?
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
The promised implementation of upscaling in that old ps3 article has already been done like two months ago. Both DVD's and older ps2 games are upscaled.
Hmmm... Pie...
Most actors are ugly enough in stanrdard definition. Or so I heard :-)
add HD-DVD reading capabilities and HD output to the wii.
That's how I would value them as the movies are $20 on Amazon (and that's where I buy them), but it should be noted the HD DVD's MSRP are $25 so the potential savings is $125 in movies... (If of course you want them...) which would make the player $55.
It doesn't really help anyone on the fence, it's still more expensive to get a 360 and this drive than to get a PS3.
If you didn't need the Xbox, then it wouldn't be a peripheral.
No reason to lie.
Apart from Casablanca, I wouldn't buy any of these if they cost just $1 each. A bonus offer is really no offer at all if you didn't want the bonus anyway. I'd rather pay for one priceless movie than get 5 worthless ones for free.
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I'm guessing that the grandparent has a 360 instead of a PS3, if they're considering the drive.
Still, a 360 will play back H.264, MPEG2 or WMV format versions of whatever you're downloading too, so the recommendation still stands.
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