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Paramount to Drop Blu-Ray for HD-DVD
JM78 writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation will be dropping support for Blu-ray Disc and going solely with HD-DVD for their next gen DVDs. "Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, said consumers seeking to switch to high-definition DVDs will be enticed by the movies available for HD-DVD players. He added the lower price for the Toshiba devices will appeal to the family market. 'It's a game-changer, what they're doing, and it's why we decided to throw in with them,' Katzenberg said."
I smell someone making an argument to get a better deal.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
I sure hope so. I've been holding off buying into one of these technologies until the format war ends. This sounds like it could be the beginning of the end.
Will this make Sony feel...blue?
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
I have to ask myself, what's the motive a studio would have with going toward HD DVD technology vs. Blu-Ray?
It seems to me that they are trying to steer towards a format that contains half the data storage capacity with the goal of having yet another format go obsolete sooner rather than later. They must make a ton of money when people re-purchase titles on a new format. Soon these same studios will be 'crying' because they don't have enough data space on a disc, therefore they have to push a new standard.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I know I don't. It really doesn't matter if Blu-Ray or HD-DVD wins out in the end, there can't be that many consumers out there who are planning to start upgrading their existing DVD collection to one of these formats. I have an HDTV and regular DVD's look just fine. I know these new formats offer better quality, but the difference and enhancements are not enough to warrant an upgrade. From VHS to DVD was worthwhile, this is just a stop gap measure. I personally don't plan to upgrade at all until something significantly better comes along. Maybe the next generation after this...
"''Spider-Man 3'' will only be available in the Blu-ray DVD format when it is released by Sony Pictures, while people with Blu-ray players won't be able to enjoy the action-thriller ''The Bourne Ultimatum,'' which Universal Pictures will release only in HD DVD."
I hear a slow, solemn, lazy church bell ringing in the background.The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything. - Oscar Wilde
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa141.html# dp
I don't think this was the best time for Paramount to jump ship on the Blu-ray line. While they _may_ have looked at the numbers involved, units sold, etc., all of that data was over the last year or so. What they didn't really consider was that a lot of non-videophile (aka., people who would buy a specific HD-DVD / Blu-ray player) purchasers were going to start purchasing PS3s...
...
With Sony's recent price drop, the sales of their console have increased. As far as consoles go, this isn't a tremendous jump -- they're still trailing behind Microsoft and Nintendo as far as sales. As far as HD-Movie players go, however, this is quite a jump. According to 'figures' and sources., they are seeing up to a 135% increase in sales after their price drop. That's a lot of Blu-ray players on the market that weren't there a short time ago.
Personally, I'm pissed! I purchased a PS3 during the price drop and I'm ok with what Sony has to offer for the console and with what movies are presently out (though, admittedly, I'd like more on both fronts), but you'll notice I said 'ok', I didn't say I was a raving Sony fanboy. I think there could be more selection of movies and games -- and it saddens me that I will now not be able to own a 1080p copy of Transformers to watch on my 51" HDTV because some pockets were apparently lined.
I understand that I'm not the norm in the market -- a lot of people don't have HDTVs, and a lot of people that do don't have big-screened HDTVs, but even with that, I think that it's a big step backwards for Paramount to alienate my class of shopper.
Then again, I'm sure everyone who was alienated by the Betamax -> VHS move was saying the same thing then
To the darkened skies once more, and ever onward.
Blogger "Swanni" says the HD-DVD folks coughed up 100 mil to help Paramount reach the decision.
- js.
http://www.tvpredictions.com/bluraypay082007.htmI has thought HD DVD was dead, in m home city in the UK there are only four shops selling "next gen" disc's. Virgin Megastore which only has a collection of Blue Ray films at the insane price of £25+, Anouther Virgin Megastore (yes my city centre has two) which has Blue Ray discs and a small bay of HDDVD discs (half the display of blueray) and the other two are Woowoths and Game both of which sell them because they sell PS3's. Afer nosing around those places as wellas Son,panasonic,comet,dixons and a audiophile shop I've only seen blueray players.
Since I now own a PS3 I might buy a Bluray film if its as cheap as a DVD but to be honest I can't see a difference, i is bugging my that Shrek the Third, Transformers and Bourne Ultimatium are alll goingto be HDDVD only they were the only three films I've liked all year.
Its more like making sure the format war doesn't end. Blu Ray has been kicking HD DVD in the rear of late (2:1 sales ratio), so at best this will just even things up so as to prolong our misery. Or prolong our good excuse not to blow several hundred dollars...
MiniDisc?! You've heard of me, right? Right??! Hey, you think Playstation 3 will want to hang out later?
Too much porn on Blu-ray now?
I had thought HD DVD was dead, in m home city in the UK there are only four shops selling "next gen" disc's. Virgin Megastore which only has a collection of Blue Ray films at the insane price of £25+, Anouther Virgin Megastore (yes my city centre has two) which has Blue Ray discs and a small bay of HDDVD discs (half the display of blueray) and the other two are Woowoths and Game both of which sell them because they sell PS3's. After nosing around those places as well as Son,panasonic,comet,dixons and a audiophile shop I've only seen blueray players. Since I now own a PS3 I might buy a Bluray film if its as cheap as a DVD but to be honest I can't see a difference, it is annoying that Shrek the Third, Transformers and Bourne Ultimatum are all going to be HDDVD as they were the only three films I've liked all year.
See the stories on www.thedigitalbits.com
The Victor Company of Japan called.
They said they want their market disruption techniques back.
Previously Blu-Ray sales had been about 2:1 in favor of Blu-Ray, though the whole year (66% to 34%, to be exact). Sony Blu-Ray players in the last few months have actually been outselling Toshiba standalone players, and that's not counting the PS3 numbers.
Target had announced they were only offering a dedicated Blu-Ray player in store, and Blockbuster was only going to offer Blu-Ray in store.
Now, with Paramount and Dreamworks the equation has changed. Blu-Ray still has really significant exclusives in Fox, Disney, and Sony (Star Wars/Pixar/Spider Man!). But, it will take much longer for Blu-Ray to win, if it can eventually. This means there is actually a war, as opposed to HD-DVD claiming tehre was a war and slowly fading away which is what was happening previous to this announcement.
The rumor is that Microsoft paid Paramount $50M, and Dreamworks $100M, to make this switch (until now they had been neutral). Why would Microsoft do this? Pretty simple, if consumers are confused about which format to buy they are more likley just to download HD content from the only provider currently sellign HD content online. That provider is Microsoft...
Bad news basically for consumers interested in HD content, as this will really kill sales for both formats through the year. Consumers want one choice.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
that they would choose HD-DVD, when Blu-Ray's the one that hasn't been totally pwned, yet.
But yeah, doesn't matter to me, I'll just download for free until they make the price more convenient than dealing with the piratebay. Not that hard to do, really. Three or four bucks? I'd go for that, every time.
All day long.
expandfairuse.org
I guess in the end we will end up with both formats, just like with DVD+ and -.
:)
Great, paying for two licenses always rule! Because one open one wouldn't do!
What was chinas next-gen format called now again? I would assume their players will be cheap
(That's irony).
Consumers won't buy into either format until they see some signs of stability.
As long as it's on-again, off-again, now-you-see-it, now-you-don't, consumers will just hold off.
Once a company declares it will support either format... or both... it should stick with whatever they've announced. Fickle commitments that change every six months just hurt both formats.
As with the stock market, what investors hate is uncertainty.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Mod parent up!
:D )
(Only eight more to go after this post...or fewer if you are a good mod
Neither format has caught on at all, and the only players that are in homes in any sort of numbers are the PS3. I think that most people who have a PS3 bought it as a gaming machine and don't care that it can play any sort of DVD. Any format decision made by any studio is subject to change without notice; if Blu-Ray becomes dominant I am sure that Paramount will make Blu-Ray disks. Other than all of the major studios going to only one format, the only significant format change by a studio would be if Sony started to sell their movies in HD-DVD.
It could be that this is not a Beta / VHS format war, it be a Laserdisc flop and neither of the new formats will catch on; so far, it does not appear that people see a compelling reason to buy either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray players and disks.
to use on Linux, after having paid for the appropriate hardware? Or are we required to pay for the hardware + Windows + software + disk?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
It seems to me that a really big reason why neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD are likely to catch on is the simple fact that sneakernet in general is going the way of the buggy whip.
Nor is it that regular DVDs are “good enough,” as some have suggested, but rather that we’re already moving beyond the station wagon filled with tapes, to simple high-bandwidth networks.
It won’t be Blu-Ray that kills HD-DVD, or vice-versa, or even regular DVDs. It’ll be YouTube, iTunes, Bittorrent, and garden variety video-on-demand from your local telco monopoly. Sure, there’re plenty of shortcomings with all of those today, from quality to DRM to “ownership” to the time it takes to acquire a movie. But neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD intrinsically offer anything better over the online equivalents for those with bandwidth.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Are missing out.
Last I checked, physical disks costs $100 for 500GB in a USB enclosure. That's faster than Blu-Ray can write, cheaper, and portable. Most games and media will fit onto an HD-DVD EASILY. If you're backing up to Blu-Ray discs then I think you silly. Even USB sticks can hold 4GB on them, and the next generation will 'up' that even higher. Again, faster writes, and cheaper pricing.
Personally, I want HD-DVD to win the 'format' war, because in reality, it's going to be the LAST physical format. The 'next' generation is going to be streaming media entirely. Look at how long it took for people to move from VHS to DVD -- oh wait, they still haven't! The same is true for a physical format like HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. I just want what will be cheaper in the long run. I can go to WalMart now and pick up a DVD for $5. Do you think I will ever be able to pick up a $5 Blu-Ray disc? Won't happen. Sony has a bad history in terms of media and closed formats, and BR will be no exception. HD-DVD is cheaper to produce, and that means as factories convert, it will be even MORE cheap. And the plus is that a lot of HD-DVDs are dual sided, one side being the HD content, the other being a regular DVD.
This 'war' is just idiotic -- just choose the cheaper format and move on. Or do you want to get higher pricing on your media, so that when the streaming content comes along and costs virtually NOTHING, that you are arguing it down from a higher price?
It's going to be harder to say "Hey, you were paying $30 for that BR disc, now you can pay $20 for streaming media."
Or would you rather say "Hey, you were paying $15 for that HD-DVD, now you can pay $10 for streaming content."
I know which one I'd pick.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
now that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have the studios pretty much split between them, they guarantee that the best selling players are going to be the dual format players. If you consider that most people don't have an HDTV, by the time they do such players will be plentiful. Who wouldn't buy one under those conditions? Executives at Paramount and other studios can look forward to many bidding wars for exclusives on the releases of blockbusters. All they have to do is not sell total studio commitment to a format and just do it piecemeal via movie.
Just reiterates my resolve that I'll buy a player when there's a decent dual-format player.
I am backing whoever defeats DRM so I can connect an HDMI cable to my MythTV box and record.watch Hi-Def content. Until that happens I will record analog only and get the High-Def content through other channels.
I mean, the disc, any format, is obsolete, and this just helps push downloading as the primary format. HD-DVDs are cheaper to manufacture? Downloads have no manufacturing cost.
Everything else aside, I realized I don't buy DVDs to watch them again. How many times can you watch one thing? I buy stuff when I like it enough that I want to hand to other people I think should watch it. And on occasion to kind of show support for something like a show that was cancelled.. but that's not that common. 99% of the time they just sit there, taking up space.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
annoying!
While I'm dreaming, maybe Microsoft will adopt the Linux kernel and open source its next OS as well.
For those of us who aren't following this issue very closely, would anyone care to explain why the obvious solution - a player that will play both formats - isn't feasible at the moment?
A-Bomb
I call baloney because of the archival quality I've found with CD's. We were promised decades and I've not seen anything like that. My tapes were worse, but continuing to stuff files over to new HD's has been the answer for me. We depend on HD's to fail, so we compensate. We were not alerted to the short life of CD's, and DVD's that we burn. I have no reason to believe that the new HD or Blu-Ray disks will be any better for the long term.
What if there was a war, and nobody came.
The High Def format war seems more like a clown pie fight to me. Neither side is offering me anything that I want.
The technology is so laden with anti-customer "features" that, frankly, I hope the both lose. I think this is a realistic possibility as downloadable HD content becomes commonly available, which you hit on later in your post.
Peter
Downsize DC Today!
As for the rumor posited above in another post that Microsoft paid a combined $150M to these two studios to induce a switch, the answer is obvious. Microsoft sells an HD-DVD player add-on for XBox 360, and likely hopes to see game titles released in the future utilizing it. It has totally thrown in with the (worse) HD-DVD system, and can't change horses now since Sony owns BluRay. Microsoft has a huge stake in seeing HD-DVD win.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Adobe went with Blu-Ray as the only high definition recordable disk supported by their Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS3 editing suite. You can see the list of what works here.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Paramount is the biggest studio of 2007 with 18% market share.
January 1-August 19, 2007
Overall Gross: $6.585 billion
Rank Distributor Market
Share Total
Gross* Movies
Tracked 2007
Movies**
1 Paramount 18.1% $1,189.5 15 11
2 Warner Bros. 14.8% $974.8 23 13
3 Buena Vista 14.1% $930.6 16 8
4 Sony / Columbia 14.0% $924.6 19 16
5 Universal 11.3% $745.0 13 11
6 20th Century Fox 10.9% $719.9 17 9
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/
Microsoft slashed the price of their HD-DVD addon as soon as Target and Blockbuster decided to only carry Blu-Ray. (Technically Blockbuster stores that already have HD-DVD content can still keep it, but all new purchases will be Blu-Ray solely).
Supposedly, sales of Microsoft's uber-cheap HD-DVD player skyrocketed right after they slashed the price. I wonder if someone at Paramount saw a huge surge in HD-DVD player sales the past two weeks and based their decision solely on that factor. Sure the 360 add-on is cheap right now, but there are two things to consider. First, you really need a nice $400 console to begin with, and then a $179 add-on, versus a $500 or $600 PS3 so the price is basically the same. Second, even if you get the player cheap, what good is it if you won't be able to buy movies for it in the future?
The last big showdown was supposed to be two months back when The Matrix movies were all released exclusively on HD-DVD the same weekend as Pirates 1 and 2 being released exclusively on Blu-Ray. Pirates stomped all over HD-DVD. I'm sure I will come across as a fanboi here, but while competition is good, when it comes to formats, it is better to have one industry standard. Everyone who dumps big money into a format will be pissed if and when that format loses the war. We're only punishing consumers. Even with this switch, the vast majority of the studios are backing Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray offers more storage, Blockbuster is backing Blu-Ray, and so is Target.
All Paramount is doing right now is dragging this out longer than they need to. All the big summer blockbusters will be coming out around November or December, right? Of those big movie purchases that will decide the market in the pivotal holiday season, how many will be Paramount/Dreamworks movies? Transformers and Shrek 3.
Blu-Ray has Pirates 3, Spiderman 3, Harry Potter, 300, Ratatouille, Simpsons, The Bourne Ultimatum, All 4 Die Hard movies, Knocked Up, Oceans 13, Fantastic Four 2, Surf's Up (never underestimate DVD sales on a kid's movie like this), Rush Hour 3, etc.
People forget that Blu-Ray had to come from behind, and is establishing a sizable lead, and after the holiday season, that lead should widen significantly. It should also be noted that Warner Brothers committed to release all their content on Blu-Ray as well eventually, so the Matrix movies will be getting Blu-Ray releases as well, which takes away one of the big current HD-DVD exclusives.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I would mod you up if I had the points.
You are exactly right. There is a limit to the kind of resolution that is useful for viewing movies. There is also a limit to how high the frequency is before people can't tell a difference. Ditto for the audio quality.
DVDs were fine for the standard NTSC sets, and presumably for the PAL ones as well. But there was a need for an update now that HD tvs are becoming increasingly common. I wouldn't care to say that there will never be an update of significance or value to the HD devices, but it will be a long time coming.
Both formats can handle 1080p, the blu-ray discs just can handle a bit more wiggle room. Honestly it doesn't appear that the extra length is really going to be useful. The number of hours on a single HD-DVD is much longer than the amount of time that I can spend watching content. Few movies are long enough to require a change of discs, and with the trend being somewhat away from the extra content that I am accustomed to anyways, I don't think that the extra disc on the rare occasion where it is needed matters.
Overall though the HD-DVD is better. Or it is at least lacking region codes and some of the more draconian measures that are only on the blu-ray system.
Google's hard drive study is kind of a great thing when you think about it.... it just shows that archiving to disk is cheap and efficient.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
This move makes no sense. Consumers have spoken and they prefer Blu-Ray by a 2-to-1 margin. Yet here Paramount comes and drops Blu-Ray for HD-DVD. Paramount is trying to dictate to consumers what product to buy. If history has told us anything it's that when belligerent companies try to force their unwanted product on consumers, the product always fails. Paramount is about to learn the hard way.
I predict Paramount will sell very few HD-DVD discs and end up abandoning the format in favor of the consumer-preferred Blu-Ray. Dropping Blu-Ray for HD-DVD is like dumping your super model girlfriend to date Rosie O'Donnell.
DVD vs. HD is noticeable for me even on a 19" LCD computer monitor (1280x1024). DVDs are like blurry!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Let's say you buy a Blu-Ray player and forty or fifty movies. Suddenly Blu-Ray goes belly up, and the several thousand titles already out go into clearance bins, so you pick up a bunch more. How have you been burned? A player is under $500 now, and it'll still play all the movies you bought. And by the time Sony packs it on on Blu-Ray you'll probably even be able to get a spare player for a couple hundred dollars.
Now if you buy a $1000 player and then only buy two titles, I'll grant you mught get burned in the long run. But then you'd be an idiot.
Not quite. Smart consumers will hold off but others will buy blu-ray discs because they bought a PS3 and then to play the same movies around the house they will probably get stand-alone blu-ray players. The same goes for HD-DVD and the XBox 360. Others simply won't care and will decide to just pick a format and buy the player because they don't know how to choose the best one (just like trying to figure out which plasma TV to buy; they are all different). Others will ask the sales associat in the store which is the better one and depending on biases, preferences, etc. the sales associate will give her/his opinion and the customer will buy based on that. Or the uninformed consumer will ask their local tech geek at work, or a relative or a neighbor what they bought and get the same or will ask what they should buy themselves and go off that. Simply put, in my opinion most people just aren't going to wait assuming they have the money to buy now and they will buy w/o a care as to whether they bought the better one (or thinking they did get the better one when they may have chosen unwisely). Those who have a lot of money will buy players and discs for both.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
While Sony got an exclusive on HD standalone players from Target for this holiday, Target has had will continue to sell the Xbox 360 HD DVD accessory and HD DVD titles.
:).
It's amazing how much Sony can spin out of buying some retail end-caps
My video compression blog
_Deadline Hollywood Daily_ is reporting that HD-DVD promoters paid Paramount and Dreamworks $150M to switch. At least $150M: that's just a couple of immediate deals. $150M is enough for those studios to produce at least one or two movies, either of which could return $300-500M even before being released... on HD-DVD.
--
make install -not war
First the spec development process, then the time-to-market, and now the market shakeup are all making certain that both standards will be obsolete by the time that one of them has one their little war.
Neither one is anywhere near cutting edge any more, as technology marches on.
These competing standards (that's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one) are both losers. When I go buy movies, I still buy DVDs (despite having an HD TV for 3+ years). Know why? Because it plays in my player.
Eventually, a common player will be affordable for both HD and Blu. At that point, do you know who will win my business? That's right... Netflix. With the industry proving to me that ownership is dumb... I've gone from buying 3-5 DVDs a month to 1 every three months. When I get an upgraded player, I don't expect that there will ever be a movie that I'll want to own.
Am I wrong, or has the format "war" done nothing but alienated consumers and shown that companies are too egotistical to work together to create standards that are actually beneficial to the end users... and for that, I trust them as far as I can throw them.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
I think paramount is probably accepting a wad of cash for a limited exclusive period. I mean really, 100mil and maybe a 1 year lockin to HD-DVD. If bluray has won in a year, they'll start pressing BD's again. If HD wins, then they just keep pressing HD's. I doubt they'll make 100mil off bluray this year, so its a big win money wise, and really thats all the suits care about.
I've noticed at all the rip you off outlets (Visions) HD-DVD movies tend to be more expensive then blurays ones for exactly the same movies. I wonder why?
Because HD-DVD ships you combo discs that play in both normal DVD players and HD-DVD players - and you get to pay extra for the priviledge.
As a bonus, sometimes the layers seperate and destroy the disc 300 had that issue. It's not common though, just like the Blu-Ray layer seperation issue was in small batches. Still, paying extra for discs where you only want the HD content is really annoying.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sony Executive: I just don't understand it. Why did Blu-ray fail?
Sony Lackey: We think the format war between our format and the HD-DVD made potential customers uncertain about...
Sony Executive: Nah. Our format is better. Everyone wants our format.
Sony Lackey: Well, perhaps the world isn't ready for Blu-ray, or HD for that matter.
Sony Executive: No way. Everyone likes HD. It's your job to ensure that.
Sony Lackey splutters
Sony Lackey: I... er... I guess the only other possibility is that consumers objected to the DRM technology we put into the standard...
Sony Executive: Yes! Exactly! I don't know what the hell this DRM is, but you gotta get rid of it! Problem solved!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
But Blu-Ray only got that momentum from the PS3, before it's release HD-DVD was outselling Blu-Ray. That's _9_Months_ with the lead!
Yes, and please re-read where I said the sales figures were 2:1 for Blu-Ray FOR THE WHOLE YEAR. Sure HD-DVD was selling better before, but in lower numbers (in July only 100k HD-DVD players had been sold World Wide!!) so with a 2:1 sales advantage Blu-Ray had already caught and passed total number of disc sales.
Of course it was the PS3 that made that happen, essentially Sony bought that round. But you don't have to be for or against Sony to see the plain truth of what effect that had, just as you don't have to be an HD-DVD backer to realise what a huge deal for DVD the Paramount/Dreamworks deal is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seems to me they'd be better off just coming out with a version of the XB360 with an integrated HD-DVD.
Are you kidding? That is exactly what they must NOT do. That would mean you could buy an HD-DVD disc in a store or rent one online, instead of paying Microsoft $10 per movie that you can't even get off the 360.
That's what I was saying was part of the plan. Make sure people have NEITHER a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player, so that they'll really only download media.
Finally, how about getting the studios to stop charging a premium for those combo format HD-DVD/DVD discs?
Total agreement; if I want an HD disc I'll buy an HD disc, if I want a DVD I'll buy a DVD.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If Microsoft would just release a Blu-Ray drive for their Xbox 360, I'd buy a 360, the HD-DVD drive, the Blu-Ray drive and upgrade the rest of my AV gear to HD and 6.1 surround. That's several thousand dollars worth of equipment waiting to be bought and all it needs is an affordable combo HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player.
Or you can buy neither Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive and simply pay Microsoft $10 directly to download HD movies.
Which plan do you think helps Microsoft more? Microsoft does not sell AV gear. They only sell an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player once. Potentially, you will buy hundreds of movies in the course of a lifetime...
Now do you see why the Elite does not come with an HD-DVD drive? Or why Microsoft has publically said there will be no new physical media formats? Microsoft intends to make sure that claim comes true.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As soon as I read the headline, I was reminded of the DreamWorks clan( Geffen, Katzenberg, and Spielberg ) all wearing Microsoft "BoB" hats back when Microsoft reinvented the user interface of the future. It was a short time after that when we all saw Bill Gates join in the mug shots as they all announced the DreamWorks Interactive partnership( Microsoft and DreamWorks ).
So, what does Microsoft "BoB" have to do with this? Is there any wonder why Katzenberg is committing to back the HD DVD format of a very wealthy financial partner? HD-DVD is as much Microsofts format as it is Toshiba's IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
and that is -exactly- what microsoft wants. you to -not- buy into either HD disk platform, so they can get you later with HD downloads.
i'm not sure why more people aren't picking up on that. microsoft could have stuck an HD-DVD player in the 360, if they really cared that much about the platform. but instead they keep HD-DVD on life support, just to keep people from going one way or another, and it becoming the standard.
they want you to buy their downloadable DRM infested media files, which you won't be able to do anything with (i.e. resell, lend, borrow, etc.) other than play it on a single node-locked machine (just like they did with vista).
this is all a microsoft long-term ploy, and we all lose in the end.
Plus the PS3 can run Linux! I wonder why the Xbox 360 doesn't have a linux distro to tie in with?
I don't agree with a film looking better straight off film projection rather than scanned 2K. The most important improvement digital projection makes is stability of the film. When you are running film at 24fps through a projector, stopping each frame during the time it is projected, it is never going to be completely motionless nor flat.
Because the film is scanned at more lower speeds than it is projected, scans are truly motionless and flat.
So digital, even lowly 2K, does not have that problem and I would say that the resulting sharpness/resolution of the image as projected on the screen by a digital projector is much, much greater than 35mm/24fps film could ever hope to achieve.
On top of that, the LCD or other projection device is much larger than a frame of 35mm film. This mean the lens will have far less enlarging to do and thus introduces far less unsharpness caused by lens flaws than a higher magnification needed for 355 film would do.
I somehow missed that fine point.
Most hollywood films you would see now in the cinema were edited using Digital_intermediates; film scanned at either 2K or (probably more common now) 4K and then recorded back to film. That is 4000 pixels wide, not 4000 lines. So at the now popular 1:2.35 aspect ratio, that is less than 7MP.
Plus when projected, the actual resolution of film as seen off the silver screen is very, very low. This is simply because running at 24 fps through a projector and being stopped for a brief moment it is on screen, the frame is never completely flat or motionless. Plus the frame is tiny and the much larger magnification needed compared to a digital projector's CCD/whatever brings with it a lot of unsharpness due to lens flaws. Not to mention the positive film you see in the theater is a 3rd or 4th generation copy from the original negative.
This is why even 2K digital scans in the theater are a lot sharper than any project 35mm/24fps film will ever be. Not to mention far less black time in between frames.
Back to HD-DVD:
If you have a computer or laptop capable of playing it back and an HDTV with HDMI or DVI input (or a converter plug) you should try a downloaded HD rip. (search for "1080p" on any torrent site) I only have a 37" 720p TV with a rather good upscaling HDMI DVD player. But even at just 720p, downloaded 4 mb/sec x264 movies ripped from BR/HDVD played back on this TV using DVI from my MacBook Pro look a lot better than any upscaled DVDs.
I also can't wait for Dolby TrueHD audio from the actual discs!
That said, a far cheaper upgrade would have been h.264 on the same 9GB disk. No room for TrueHD audio, but any feature film would have fit at a high enough bitrate to put any DVD to shame.
I would love to see the sales figures for both formats plotted on an exponential graph. Does anyone know where I could find this information in this form? Maybe it could provide additional insight. (a la Ray Kurzweil) http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?pr intable=1
Who cares? Until BR/HD are completely broken like DVD is today, I won't spend a penny on them. Crippling my ability to backup my own media is a sure way of pissing me off and looking elsewhere. I can't tell you how many times the kids have scratched or damaged a DVD, only to be replaced by a backup I'd made. Thanks but no thanks.
Sony backs Blu-Ray...
M$ backs HD-DVD...
who should I make fun of?
I tell you what, neither of these s.o.b.'s are getting my money. Priority one: get the player price down. Priority two: drop DRM. Priority three: get the hell out of the way.
I was arguing with an audiofile the other day. He was saying how awful digital music is, especially mp3s and other compressed formats. I know he's right, of course. Give me a $20,000 system in an acoustically prepared room, and it'll blow the socks off the 1% of the population (or less) that can afford it.
Or take the other tack: exchange mp3s over the internet, or buy them cheaply. They sound good enough on a system that costs a few hundred. The cost of becoming an expert is a few thousand, and largely free. Paricipate in the music of your generation. Swim in it. Is that not more important than the snobbish moron who spends all his money on the REPRODUCTION of sound, which is an industrial process that makes you passive, or listen to a wide swath of music, and if someone special's in town, hear them in perfect fidelity: go to hear the music, live. That's music is the digital age. The price we pay is less-deatiled sound. But it's also more participatory. Learn to make music. Be a fan. Get to understand flatted fifths, diminished ninths -- or learn to play, for God's sake. Most of the musicians I know DON'T have fancy stereos. They hear the real thing every night, coming out of the end of their fingers.
In other words, that old guy Marshall McLuhan knew what he was talking about after all. TV was cool, but it's not "cool" anymore. Sharing stuff over the net is REALLY cool.
It's the same with movies. The catalog is very big now. Thw world movie library is enormous. Do you want to give up your living room to an absurdly large screen, and pay someone twenty dollars to see a movie that you will watch in glorious color once? No. Give me lower detail that can be shared and swapped. Make a Library of World Cinema that can be copied and watched. I'll download Bergman, if you don't mind. I'll even pony up three or four dollars, though I'd prefer to use a lending library formula. Maybe my city government, or state, could pay, just like public libraries.
Anyway, who cares about Hi-Def? It's nice, no doubt, but if the cost is paying these idiots a fortune for Steve Gutenberg in 1080p, I'll sit this dance out.
Floptical's had a short useful life as CDRW was out at the same time.
Selling Floptical's was more about marketing.
I never saw a MD-ROM, and MD had the earliest drm.
You are right, this Sony lockdown method does not work ub the US..
Of cource IOMEGA's lockdown of it's floptical didn't work either.
Oh flopticals are 8tracks now.
And CD/DVD/B*H*DVD will be obsolete evetually as well.
Solid state still beats disc's in memory capacity per volume.
SD cards with movies?
RO-SD cards?
If you want numbers, here's the site for you!
It only has Blu-Ray figures but since there's only one other format involved...
I believe it's run by the Blu-Ray forum, but the numbers on the page I linked to appear to be the same as the weekly NPD figures, every time I have checked.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Did you actually read that rumour you linked to? Where does it say Microsoft paid off Paramount? I see only that "sources" claim "the HD-DVD side" gave them $150M for "promotional consideration".
Here's another take that tries to verify this. They don't mention Microsoft at all.
Are you quite sure your historical bias against MS hasn't led you into hasty conclusions here?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Sounds like another good rental option to me, for those that don't want to buy. And it's $4.50 to $6, not $10.
But more importantly, what's stopping Sony from also offering downloadable HD movies, from their PSN store? Even if your supposed Microsoft conspiracy were true, the movie download market is still well & truly up for grabs. Sony is also well-positioned to go after it, should they care.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
That Toshiba player is not available in their physical stores, strictly online.
That is probably why they are being dropped and they played along wiht Sony so far because they did not want to miss out in case it became standard.
This is how Sony lost to VHS. All the vcr makers viewed them as competitors so they supported VHS. Same with IBM and OS/2 vs WIndows. IBM is a mean monopoly so support the underdog which is windows.
http://saveie6.com/
Remind me again, which of the two formats is less evil? Does either of them have a hope of being played with free software?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
BluRay is bundled with PS3; that's the only reason that the market "chose" it.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
There is only one thing that has prevented me from buying a player: There is no single format supported by all of the movie studios. Give me that, and I'd be much more willing to buy in.
Unfortunately, this is a step away from that. As usual, it's all about the software, not the technology. Unless the software I want is available in the format I want, I can convince myself to keep waiting. I'm inclined towards HD-DVD, but this doesn't help motivate me.
sig fault
The marketability of HD-DVD and Blu-ray are probably both way overestimated. It's only a few fold improvement over the capacity of DVD's, but at a much greater expense. The video quality improvement is also nowhere near the transition from VHS to DVD.
Hard drive capacity costs 30 cents a gig or cheaper for some models of external hard drives. Flash memory is also getting cheaper. It won't be long before you can buy a 25Gig USB dongle for a few bucks.
Unless they brought out Terabyte-sized optical media that cost a couple of bucks for a blank disk (or less), then I won't consider the upgrade.
This decision makes no business sense at all unless someone is lining their pockets with a lot of money to switch over. Certainly it can't be because HD-DVD is superior or anything else because it isn't. If Microsoft is behind the move, I predict lawsuits over this. If they're manipulating the HD format wars to prolong them so that their download service wins out, that would strike me as absolutely anti-competitive behaviour.
thanks...best post on the subject yet. Can anybody say: MiniDisc? Can anybody say 8mm video?
You shill for Sony in virtually all of your posts yet the irony of this statement is apparently lost on you. kek
I don't care about any of this HD format stuff. I've got an HDTV but I'm not going to plunk down hundreds of dollars on something that may, or may not, be the format for the next ten years. Until Star Trek II comes out on one of the formats. Then I buy a player the next day.
I don't think the format war will ever be *settled*. Instead, there will be a universal player/writer that solves the format problem.
I was at a MicroCenter and decided to grab some DVD D/L. There was this guy holding two CD spindles looking at one and then the other then back again. He asked me, "Do you know the difference?".
I went through the CD+ versus CD-, CDR / CD R/W and then the Audio CDs where they were exactly the same except a flag (and tax) preventing it from working in some players... The look I got was a Deer staring into headlights.
Do any of us really have a format loyalty or do we just want it to work? I can understand this crap and even I'm waiting for the universal player/writer. Maybe two formats is a good thing. I might use one format for active data and another for archiving.
I'll use neither until there's a universal player/writer.
-[d]-
I get a kick out of all the people who think that streaming is going to be better for the consumer than physical media. What you're going to get is a DRM loaded stream that is lower bitrate and proprietary, and if you want to watch the movie again? Well, just be prepared to pay again. Want to take a few movies for the kids to watch in the car on a long road trip? Too bad, allowing you to save/keep a film you've paid to see isn't in the studio/distributer's best interests...
Nikki Finke reports that between the two of them, Paramount and Dreamworks were paid $150M to make the HD-DVD deal.
- move-cash-grab-or-intensified-blu-rayhd-dvd-format -war/
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/desperation
Ms. Finke is irritating and self-righteous, but as far as industry new goes, her "sources" are rarely (never) wrong.
Personally, I hope that the HVDe _Disc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatil
makes it to market as writable disc. A 500GB harddisk in a USB enclosure is nice, and I use that approach myself these days. But it is still more bulky and fragile than a CD-like disk. I also guess that the blank HVD media could be produced cheaper than a harddisk drive.
C - the footgun of programming languages
That's because there aren't any HD DVD writers.
They apparently managed to piss of Michael Bay royally. http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/21/michael-bay-res ponds-to-paramounts-abandonment-of-blu-ray-no-t/
I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft.
I'll switch when they decide to drop region encoding. I can deal with the copy protection to a certain extent, though I am not going to upgrade my TV just to be compatible with the players. For me the deal breaker is region encoding, since I do a fair bit of traveling and not being able to watch the movies I bought in Europe in Canada and vice versa is just a pain. DVD is cracked and available is a suitable form, so I will stay until there is sufficient incentive to switch.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Costco/Sams are selling the BD 301 player with 5 free movies for 450, not 600. I imagine by xmas
they'll be under 400 and Toshiba's ~250.
...with either component or hdmi inputs.
I can't think of a single gadget I've ever been happy with that has cost less than $100. Quality costs because people will pay more. Don't expect HD video (either format) to go into the sub $100 range until a new format makes it near-obsolete.
I don't know where you heard this, but HD-DVD has many more backers than "only" Toshiba and Microsoft. Here is a short list. Also, keep in mind that HD-DVD is the format supported by the DVD Forum, aka the DVD consortium, the builders and maintainers of the original DVD format, which means that every company that backs DVDs is indirectly backing HD-DVD, whether they want to or not.
And while it's true that a common misconception is that Sony "owns" Blu-ray, it's also true that Sony is THE major backer and has the most at stake in Blu-ray winning the format war. The movie studios are still on the fence. Even the studios that released Blu-ray versions of movies have only released minor movies and old movies, and could switch at the drop of a hat at any time. Ditto Blockbuster video. If Blu-ray suddenly and dramatically lost the format war to HD-DVD, they wouldn't be impacted very much. (They've planned it that way, incidentally.) However, Sony sold its soul in including the Blu-ray drive in its PS3, and if the format fails, they'll be FUBAR.
Of course, I personally don't think that Blu-ray or HD-DVD will win the format war. The next major format is not media at all; it's network delivery of content. Ten years from now, the concept of having to put a disc into a drive to watch a movie will seem quaint.
...A buddy of mine is of the "must have everything new right this second" school of thinking...he owns one of the hybrid players. His reasoning is that certain movies only come out on blu-ray, while certain movies only come out on HD-DVD...the amount of disposable income that he has is entirely disgusting (he is a contract lawyer, his wife is an MD) so the money really means nothing to him.
In watching movies both on blu-ray and on HD-DVD, the picture quality is more or less identical. Sure, there are some subtle things here and there that an audio/videophile magazine might be critical of, but to the "normal" person the difference wouldn't really be anything to write home about.
As it stands, the only reasons why I would see someone going with one option over another option is thus: which flavour has the movies that you want on it, and how much money you are willing to spend up front. The presentation of either format is practically the same, and the differences are tiny enough that it shouldn't really matter.
I will, however, say this: while it COULD be considered only a marginal increase over DVD quality, if you play a movie that is on DVD, then play it's HD counterpart, and then play the DVD again...that "marginal increase" becomes "a massive difference."
Living With a Nerd
Toshiba has also been pushing some deals and promotions on their entry-level HD-DVD player. As an example, when I recently purchased an LCD HDTV, I had the option of buying an HD-A2 for $0.01. Of course I accepted.
And no, this wasn't a "build the player cost into the TV" trick. The price I paid was $500 less than MSRP and about on-par with what the major online sites were selling the set for.
I personally think the format war is really hurting both camps. Just look at some past format wars...
SACD vs DVD-A? Neither, both are dead.
DVD+r/-r? Neither, both are equally supported after many years.
56Flex vs X2? Neither, we now have v.90 and of course broadband.
My response to the format wars was to buy an Oppo DV-981HD dvd player. This is the best upconverting dvd player you can buy, it's better than many selling for twice the price. This player will buy me time by making my current dvd collection viewable on my new HDTV. Eventually more companies will produce dual format machines and the format war will be over, as far as the consumer is concerned. Some patent holder will be left holding the bag, T.S.!
To answer a question, there is NOTHING obsolete about spinning disks. The process of mastering and pressing DVD/CD's is the most cost effective way to produce read only copies of media. On-line downloading of video content requires lots of bandwidth that is not available on the current inferstructure. Buying dvd's or renting them is a choice up to the individual. But with it being cheaper to buy a dvd then to take the family to the movies, dvd's will still sell. Even better, borrow a dvd from your public library!
Wake me up when a single player emerges that plays both formats and costs about $250. Until then, this is just so irrelevant. Except for the fact that this lack of a standard will delay my purchase of products in either format another year.
As we all know from SCO, Microsoft funds groups who in turn fund efforts Microsoft are interested in. Obviously Microsoft is not the only sourse of funds, but the motive is clear (otherwise why would Microsoft not add an HD-DVD player in the Elite 360)?
Microsoft has taken little action to explicitly support HD-DVD, only bringing it just far enough along to keep it alive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But more importantly, what's stopping Sony from also offering downloadable HD movies, from their PSN store? Even if your supposed Microsoft conspiracy were true, the movie download market is still well & truly up for grabs. Sony is also well-positioned to go after it, should they care.
Sony will. But the difference is that Microsoft has a very solid lead there, and Microsoft stands way more to gain from all HD media being downloaded. Sony gains equally from you buying a movie vs. downloading, so they have no preference as to which you do. In fact Sony would rather you rent online and then buy the movie after.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sounds like the only problem is we need more providers selling HD content online.
Which will of course occur, but Microsoft has the largest marketshare there and stands the most to gain - they can buy all the other providers as they wish.
Plastic read-only discs are an antiquated form of data transfer.
That will be true the day the average home user cannot easily exceed the bandwidth of a home internet connection with a station wagon or FedEx envelope. I give it another decade yet, given that the maximum possible speed for a consumer home network connection has actually declined for me in the last decade.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1) The 'Format War' is a fake war put on by two competing vendors hoping to score a financial coup. It is in neither's interest to have dual format players at this time, if ever. A few may emerge for a short time, but as one standard clearly makes the 'win' the other will rapidly fade out.
2) Sony DESPERATELY needs a win here given how bad the PS3 has sold along side their flagging HDTV sales and other financial issues... they are giving away MILLIONS of discs to pump up the attach rate in order to win over gullible companies like BlockBuster and Target to their camp. The raw numbers very much paint BR as the clear winner, more than 2 to 1, in sales at the retail level, but their numbers (bearing in mind that even combined the monthly sales of HD movies barely break the level of a week in DVD sales, a few days in some cases) are artificially pumped up by the millions of freebies they are giving away.
3) The per cost unit of disc replication, all other costs aside, are in favor of HD-DVD.
4) From a manufacturing perspective the transition and switch over from DVD to BR is upwards of 7 times more expensive than DVD to HD-DVD. Given that nearly 1/3 of the largest replication faclities are not even paid off and won't be for years this is telling.
5) The movies are now both encoded identically, but HD-DVD supports better audio options.
6) Stepping over HDMI 1.1 bandwith constraints and 1080i/720p bandwidth needs in encoding is NOT going to happen so quality in video from each natively will be identical. However, reviewers are split on 'reference' when it comes to IQ for the two standards, and in many cases it appears that the cheaper HD-DVD players tend to produce on par if not better IQ than BR players and media.
personally I have yet to see a BR movie on a PS3, on the same set, beat a HD-DVD movie in terms of either video or audio quality. But that's me. It is somewhat subjective as there are very few objective measurements and tools for making said measurments available, and even those measurements that do exist are arguable just as is game IQ when arguing Nvidia V ATI
7) DRM - well duh. BR has multiple layers of complex and pain in the ass DRM, region limits, etc. HD-DVD is the clear winner here.
8) Media capacity. BR does have higher capacity potential in dual-layer. However most BR movie releases are not in dual layer nor need to be given the all but fixed encoding rates. Throw in the cost comparo of BR SL versus DH-DVD DL (the HD-DVD DL being pennies cheaper) and you again have a winner, if by a nose.
9) I have now read several articles indicating that BR discs are subject to breakdown with exposure to temperatures and UV/direct sunlight FASTER than HD-DVD media... sometimes by as much as half in terms of overall lifespan. No time to confirm this or see if there is a unbiased opinion, but if true that's a pretty big hit to the standard.
It's still too early in the 'war' for either side to have a clear advantage. The advantages each tout are often falasies supported by FUD or false numbers. If I had to declare one a winner right now it would be HD-DVD by a thin margin, and I think the market and consumer base will bear this out long run as well. Sony... if sony fails in their bid to get BR adopted as the HD standard for movie media we may just see the company come apart at the seams... they have deep problems given all the financial setbacks and failures in the last 3 years.
They never supported BD in the first place. They're restating their policy to get attention.
Both Blu-ray and HD DVD use the same AACS-128bit scheme but Blu-ray is coming out with a new scheme as AACS-128bit has been cracked already.
HD DVD has no Write and Erase format standard. After market HD DVD burners are virtually non-existent and are only supported on Windows. There is no HD DVD camcorder standard. HD DVD has lower capacity and a lower maxiumum bandwidth (bitrate). There are no HD DVD video recorder settop devices. There is no HD-DVD ROM (software) standard. Blu-ray has all of those things.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The other post pointed out HD-DVD and Blu-Ray use exactly the same codecs and audio standards.
The other thing you got partly wrong though was region coding - Blu-Ray does support region coding, but after the first year movies are region free. One nice thing is that for Blu-Ray Asia and the US are in the same region so even region coded stuff from Japan can be imported directly and used here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That requires the 360 to play. Are you suggesting that people will come in, go to the gaming section, and pick up a 360 and an HD-DVD player over a cheaper Blu-Ray player, with Disney titles and Spiderman right there at the end cap?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Which will be the one who removes DRM entirely from their media.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
This was indeed a paid for choice, they are probably making little money on either format right now so it seemed like easy money I guess:
s ney.html?ei=5088&en=d4e1f285e2f41437&ex=1345348800 &adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=118769814 3-B5wO3L/F+4r1NyAsum87vQ
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/technology/21di
Though Paramount joins my shit list for extending the stupid war.
Well I've just read that this move may cost them Michael Bay, for better or worse...
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I should have known better than to spend any time on a childish imbicile, a mistake I'll not carry further.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Two points. First, Microsoft has publicly stated that they never intend to release Xbox 360 games in HD-DVD format -- the HD-DVD add-on is purely for playing movies. Second, Microsoft has a much bigger stake in the HD-DVD format than a measly hardware add-on for their (as yet still unprofitable) game console: Microsoft licenses the HDi technology to the manufacturers of HD-DVD players as well as the disc makers. HDi is Microsoft's competitor to BD-J (Java for Blu-Ray), and is also referred to as iHD. Oddly enough, some sites claim that HDi was co-developed by Microsoft and Disney -- peculiar, since Disney is now backing Blu-Ray exclusively.
This just like a bank being rob in our eyesight,they use us by telling us about a new dvd and then change in the middle of the game
I almost bought an Oppo up-converting dvd player one month ago, since the Oppo players have received excellent reviews everywhere. We purchased a 40-inch LCD TV, and HD content from our cable provider looks great, but playing DVDs with our 2 year old DVD player just didn't look that good.
I had been determined to sit out the format war until there was a winner, but before paying $200 for an Oppo, decided to look at what there was for HD out there. I was surprised to find the Toshiba HD-A2 on sale at Amazon and a few local electronics stores for $240. It was getting mostly good reviews (a few bad reviews, but not many ... 4.5 stars on Amazon). And especially important to me was most people said its up-converting was impressive--just barely below what the best Oppo's with DCDi by Faroudja up-converting could do.
So for $40 more than what I was going to spend on an Oppo, I could get a good up-converting DVD player, that also played HD DVDs. Plus I got five free (albeit lame) HD DVDs through a rebate (if you remember to mail it in on time). Since I subscribe to netflix, I could simply rent HD DVDs and enjoy the HD quality on my HD TV, and not have to worry about whether HD DVD becomes obsolete one day.
So I decided to take the plunge, bought the HD DVD player, got a 3-ft HDMI cable from http://monoprice.com/ for $4 (they are $40-$100 at most stores, which is a rip-off, since the monoprice cables are excellent), and I was set.
And it turns out I couldn't be happier with my decision. My player does a great job of up-converting, and the HD DVD movies (what few ones are actually available) really look supurb. I haven't bought a single HD DVD movie, and I don't intend to. I'm just enjoying HD movies that I rent, and will continue to do so until it makes sense to change to something else if I need to.
Some people are saying that average consumers don't notice the difference between the HD discs and regular DVDs, but I think it depends. Everyone can tell the difference between an old CRT television and a new flat panel television, so a lot of consumers are buying the new HD flat panel televisions, even though they can be $1000+. If you buy a new flat panel HD television, you immediately learn the difference between high definition and standard definition content, because standard definition content looks pretty crappy by comparison on most new flat panel HD televisions. If someone doesn't have a decent up-converting DVD player, I think they will be disappointed watching DVDs on their new $1000+ tv, as I was. So I have to disagree, and say that many people can tell the difference between DVDs and HD discs, and really do want more out of their major new tv purchase. Whether that's getting a good up-converting DVD player, or spending a little more on an HD DVD player, or even more on a blu-ray player, it's their call. But I think that most poeple who have bought a new flat panel HD televisions are looking for a way to make that major purchase be something that looks as impressive watching movies as it does watching HD tv shows.