Blu-ray Player Prices Hit 2008 Highs

An anonymous reader writes "HD DVD is almost gone and Blu-ray prices are already on their way up. TG Daily went through average retail prices of some of the popular Blu-ray players and found that you should expect to pay at least $400 for an entry-level Blu-ray player, while you could get a player for less than $330 in February. It really should not be a surprise for all of us, but it is interesting to see how quickly retail adjusted to the new situation and increased prices."

Comments

Look how quickly I adjust too

[glop]

by not buying the now overpriced gear...

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[calebt3]

...as all the sheeple swarm past you to get a drive that they know will not be rendered obsolete for a while.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Beardo the Bearded]

It's a golden age for Blu-Ray - a golden age that will last forever.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[squiggleslash]

The joke being that almost all the Blu-ray players on the market right now are obsolete. BD Live has been part of the spec since November, but pretty much nothing supports it, and most Blu-ray players can't even be upgraded to support it. The PS3 is about the only safe bet right now.

Oh, and the other joke is that BD Live just brings Blu-ray up to (nearly) the same level as HD DVD. Yes, at the time WHV threw its weight behind Blu-ray, Blu-ray was both more expensive than HD DVD, and less powerful (capacity excepting.)

Great decision Hollywood. You went for the format that's out of most people's price range, that's unlikely to be in people's price range for a while, and which had less features (and thus less clear advantages over DVD) than HD DVD. In practice, I suspect you've doomed HD media to a niche, while the vast majority stick with DVD for movies they want to own, and PPV and the various download services for content they want to see in HD.

I still find the decision incomprehensible.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Jeremy Erwin]

Oh, and the other joke is that BD Live just brings Blu-ray up to (nearly) the same level as HD DVD. Yes, at the time WHV threw its weight behind Blu-ray, Blu-ray was both more expensive than HD DVD, and less powerful (capacity excepting.)

Did you actually use those more "powerful" features?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[provigilman]

Yeah....what he said!

Seriously though, you just hit the nail on the head. Where are the Blu-Ray movies with multiple branching plots like House on Haunted Hill 2? Where are the players that are actually to play the $30+ movies I'll be buying? Why should I get anything but a PS3 as my media device?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[letxa2000]

Look how quickly I adjust too by not buying the now overpriced gear...

Exactly. I'll adjust by using my normal $70 DVD player, probably for years to come.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[feepness]

The joke being that almost all the Blu-ray players on the market right now are obsolete. Were all your DVD players obsolete when component video came out? What about when Surround Sound came out? Why does having an extra feature that is not required to watch the original movie make a player obsolete? How about DVD+/-R?

This isn't rocket science. You move the player to the bedroom or the kid's playroom or you give it to your Mom and you get a new one if you want the features so bad. If you don't, well then your player isn't obsolete, is it?.

I still have and use a DVD player I got in 1999. It still works perfectly fine.

It is attitudes like this that contribute to our garbage ridden throwaway society.

Yes, at the time WHV threw its weight behind Blu-ray, Blu-ray was both more expensive than HD DVD, and less powerful (capacity excepting.) So at the time, it was less powerful (except where it wasn't) and more expensive (because it wasn't being dumped below cost). Of course, BluRay had the greater capacity to improve, whereas a 3-layer HD-DVD was a tech demo pipe dream.

You went for the format that's out of most people's price range, that's unlikely to be in people's price range for a while, and which had less features (and thus less clear advantages over DVD) than HD DVD. In practice, I suspect you've doomed HD media to a niche, while the vast majority stick with DVD for movies they want to own, and PPV and the various download services for content they want to see in HD. You keep telling yourself that. The price jump is a minor glitch given that there is no longer a war going on and they aren't dumping them below cost. Do you think HD-DVD player prices would have stayed low if BluRay had thrown in the towel? They would have risen more. By Christmas they will be down to $200. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Why is it the same people who were convinced that HD-DVD was going to take off now suddenly think that download media is going to be the thing?

I still find the decision incomprehensible. The capacity of human beings for engaging in self-deception never ceases to amaze me.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[otis wildflower]

Did you actually use those more "powerful" features?

You mean like PiP? Sure did, the _300_ commentary was pretty sweet (once I got a disc that wouldn't freeze), and the 1st season of Star Trek is all about the PiP..

Networking? _Transformers_ had downloadable images, presumably _Be Kind Rewind_ would have been great with this feature (user-contributed sweded videos)...

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Admiral Ag]

The obvious move is to get a PS3 then. It is a decent media centre as well, and everyone who buys one can have the added pleasure of humiliating me at Warhawk, since I am the worst player on God's green earth.

Sometimes I wonder if the anti-PS3 crowd are simply those people who publicly predicted its failure and are now desperate not to be proven wrong. e.g. the "I'd rather have trousers full of rabid ferrets than buy a PS3!!!" meme.

I bought a PS3 out of curiosity with Blu Ray, and after watching 2001 and A Clockwork Orange in HD (would buy Eyes Wide Shut for the nudie bits, but wife objects), I'd say it was well worth it if you're a film buff.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[fyrie]

I did. Heroes season 1, 300, and Beowulf all have some pretty sweet PiP. My blu-ray player is a drive in an HTPC so I'm pretty safe profile update-wise, but I'm just sayin' that the interactivity/extras that HDDVD is capable of now crushes what's out there for blu-ray at the moment.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[PO1FL]

You went for the format that's out of most people's price range, that's unlikely to be in people's price range for a while, and which had less features (and thus less clear advantages over DVD) than HD DVD. In practice, I suspect you've doomed HD media to a niche, while the vast majority stick with DVD for movies they want to own, and PPV and the various download services for content they want to see in HD. You keep telling yourself that. The price jump is a minor glitch given that there is no longer a war going on and they aren't dumping them below cost. Do you think HD-DVD player prices would have stayed low if BluRay had thrown in the towel? They would have risen more. By Christmas they will be down to $200. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Why is it the same people who were convinced that HD-DVD was going to take off now suddenly think that download media is going to be the thing? Uh, $200 is a LOT to play DVDs, granted really nice DVDs, but the to vast majority of people, thats all it is. A fancy, more expensive DVD. When its down to $150 for medium quality unit, thats when people are going to start adopting HD media.

As for download media, I don't think that will be able to "take off" until off-the-shelf computers start coming with more memory as a standard feature. Storage is cheap, obscenely so, but until a basic off the shelf computer comes with more than this that's all your average user will have for memory. 2GB. In other words, not enough for more than one movie. If that. A lot of (non-computer savvy) people don't realize how much memory things like movies use. Most people don't have more than, say, a few gigs of memory, not because its too expensive, but because that's what their computer came with. They don't realize that they need more (if they want to store music,movies, etc. on their computer). I saw the same thing in a discussion about computer graphics the other day. Its not that people are choosing to use outdated equipment. They just don't know they need more. They assume their computer comes with everything they need, and they get angry when they find out it doesn't(like trying to use intergrated graphics,which are still standard issue on most pcs, to play a graphic intensive game, or when their computer doesn't have enough memory.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Shabbs]

And the final joke is that a lot of Blu-ray movies are being re-released with updated Profile 1.1/2.0 features now that Blu-ray has finally caught up, sort of.

So, not only do you get screwed into double dipping on the hardware, they also screw you into double dipping on the software.

Brilliant!

And they say the "better" technology won. Yup, sure sounds like it.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a safe bet that 99% of the "anti-PS3 crowd" haven't no interest in Bluray or any other HDM system

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[divisionbyzero]

Two words: Copy Protection. Not that it matters. Whatever protection there might be will be broken, just as it was for DVD. Since compressed HD movies aren't that much larger than DVDs and the infrastructure for pirating DVDs is already in place it won't be long before we see Blu-ray movies showing up on 'Torrents. So, they decided to kill competition that would have driven sales of their movies in order to secure the short term benefit of copy protection that will be broken Real Soon Now. Idiots. But, since they are idiots they get exactly what they deserve. Unfortunately, that means a ridiculous amount of money rather than a completely ridiculous amount of money, and, therefore, they won't even know what they missed out on.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Berkyjay]

Why don't we all just by the super cheap HD DVD players now and make Hollywood jump back to HD DVD. Then we can buy all the cheap Blu-Ray players and make them jump back again. Yessss, dance Hollywood dance.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Albanach]

Storage is cheap, obscenely so, but until a basic off the shelf computer comes with more than this that's all your average user will have for memory. 2GB. In other words, not enough for more than one movie. If that.

You do realise the difference between RAM and Hard Drives, don't you? Those Dell's all come with a hard drive between 250GB and 500GB - easily enough to store several downloaded HD movies. I'd expect all but the cheapest one could even play the movie in full 1080P HD with a suitable monitor attached and run Vista at the same time.

I really don't see many desktop apps that demand more than 2GB of RAM. I'm certainly not rushing out to upgrade any of my 2GB machines.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[danielsfca2]

I think you're a little off the mark with the "memory" comments. I don't think the amount of memory (RAM) has much of a bearing over downloadable content. 1GB or 2GB is absolutely enough to play even HD content. I know because I've played a Blu-Ray rip (in x264) on my dvr PC which has 2GB of RAM. When you say "2GB. In other words, not enough for more than one movie. If that," I think you are thinking of hard drive space and not memory. I clicked the Dell link in your post and looked at the cheapest pc on that page, the one that's $379. It comes with a 250GB hard drive standard, which is the smallest I've seen on a mainstream desktop lately. 320 or 500GB is just as common. Even 250GB is plenty of room to store lots of downloaded movies, be they in h.264, xviD, or even full-on drive-hogging MPEG-2. And I would expect that someone who bought movies for download would just grab a USB2.0 hard drive at Costco if they ran out of room for the movies. Cost: under $200. Install time: 2 minutes. Capacity gain: +750GB.

Also I think most PCs, even cheap ones, that you see from here on out are going to come with 3GB of RAM or more, since you need that in order to run Vista without losing your mind.

By the way, your first paragraph is absolutely right. Even if I did have an HDTV (I don't), and didn't have a ban on Sony-backed crap in my house (I do), I would wait a while on buying a Blu-Ray player at these prices. $200? Try $50.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[burgundysizzle]

I did also, lots of the HD DVD movies came with U-Control features to move seamlessly into PiP mode to get an explaination of what was happening, how something was made, or view the picture before (for example) special effects were added it. It was both very informative and generally quite interesting to watch.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[PO1FL]

Sorry, I guess I had a massive, unexplainable brain fart. So you and Albanach are completely right. *note to self: check facts before posting

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[EggyToast]

But, how is that different from "Super collector's bonus editions" of DVDs? Same movie, but more outtakes and commentary? It's par for the course for DVDs that came out early in DVD's lifecycle to have a re-release with more "features." If you care enough for the features, you plunk down the change. If you just want the movie, you're already set.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[ecavalli]

But you're forgetting the most important Blu-Ray player of all: the PlayStation 3.

I'm no PS3 zealot, but the system is not only the most popular BD player (by a huge margin), but it's also what the average person thinks of when they hear the word Blu-Ray. Sony's decision to pin the hopes of their new format on a game machine that just so happens to be very easily updated with whatever future tech Sony invents was a clever move by the firm, and it's going to continue to pay off, regardless of how inferior the other BD players might be.

To the average person, those other Blu-Ray players simply don't exist.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[batkiwi]

A few points:
-The DVD player I bought in 1999 had component video output and optical/co-ax surround output
-Dolby Digital surround was part of the ORIGINAL spec for DVD
-I bought a reciever too early. It supported DD but not DTS. Saving Private Ryan only had surround for DTS, the DD track was stereo. I was angry.
-New profile Blu-Ray players will NOT be $200 at christmas. What makes you think this?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[pionzypher]

Bravo sir, bravo.
You have, in one posting both lambasted the wastefulness of our society and managed to take a jab at the download model. So which is it? The HD wars left me a bit blase regarding the upgrade. Coincidentally, my old DVD player works as well. Thus, I will most likely avoid purchasing a BD player. I am aware that there is a perfectly viable market for BD, I won't debate it. Your arguments though seem to be based on the presumption that BD is more "futureproof". This, I would argue is irrelevant. It seems plausable that consumers would opt for a disc-less system, given a viable source for HD content and a HT player with a few TB of storage. I may very well be off the rocker on this, but most of the arguments against it also applied to Mp3s not so long ago.
 
    I suppose my point is that yes, DVD still works. The HD content on television isn't overly compelling. If I have a burning desire to watch a movie in HD, I download it. So far, Planet Earth is the sole HD movie that imo was worth watching in HD. I'll wait to buy until they're either far less expensive or the features and content unavailable in DVD, are compelling enough. If at that time, there is no alternative then yes... I will eat my hat and purchase a BD.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Thaelon]

So, not only do you get screwed into double dipping on the hardware, they also screw you into double dipping on the software.

Double dipping?

Last I checked some movie studios were approximately decadipping at this point:

1. The original movie on VHS
2. The original movie on Laserdisc
3. The director's cut on VHS
4. The original movie on DVD
5. The director's cut on DVD
6. The digitally remastered version DVD
7. The super magic ultra awesome edition DVD (Aliens quadrilogy, I'm looking at you)
8. The blu-ray version
9. The director's super, mega, ultra freaking awesome blu-ray edition
10. The director's super, mega, ultra freaking awesome blu-ray edition with 2.0 features

And let's not forget some awesome features of DVDs and probably blu-ray as well. How about "user-prohibited actions"?

Yay, I'm forced to watch previews on a movie I paid for. Or I can't skip the FBI warning. Or I can't skip the stupid menu animations.

The alternative is to download a DVD rip DRM unencumbered, no FBI warning, no forced previews - hell, no previews. No user prohibited actions. I could store it easily on any media I choose - such as carry it to a friend's house on a thumb drive. I could fast forward and rewind more easily than a DVD. I could store it on a big fat network drive with thousands of others. I could stream it anywhere I have the bandwidth to watch it. It's easily transferred from media to media - as fast as you can copy files.

Tell me again why I should buy DVD or blu-ray discs? They couldn't compete even if they were free.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Shabbs]

The difference is, there was a competitor that offered all that from the start (HD DVD) for a "cheaper" price (yes, the prices were subsidized and crazy low). That's why we saw The Matrix Trilogy, V for Vendetta, Batman Begins etc... only on HD DVD and not Blu-ray.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Hodejo1]

I posted this on /. Saturday HD-DVD and the Early Adopter Premium. HD-DVD is dead, but with new-in-box players now so cheap ($75) and HD-DVD movies dropping to less than ten bucks - Amazon just announced they will unload titles for $8.95 - the article makes a strong case that the dead technology has arguably become the better fiscal strategy. How? The user goes HD-DVD until Blu-ray player prices drop below $100. For less than the present day $400 cost of a Blu-ray player you can buy an HD-DVD player today ($75) + a Blu-ray player tomorrow ($100) + 22 HD-DVD videos from Amazon.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Al Dimond]

Why don't we? Because the lack of organization among individual consumers renders them unable to manipulate market forces strategically like that (usually the best we can do is make rational decisions for personal benefit). Why wouldn't it work even if we did? Because after one swing of the pendulum (the one that's happening right now, for example) one format will already have enough installs for Hollywood to ignore the other one. Why wouldn't we want to? Format wars suck.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[terrymr]

Already did - I needed a new DVD player and could pick up an HD-DVD player with two movies for $60 at my local walmart.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Pichu0102]

I really don't see many desktop apps that demand more than 2GB of RAM.

Vista?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[mqduck]

2001 and A Clockwork Orange in HD (would buy Eyes Wide Shut for the nudie bits, but wife objects) No Eyes Wide Shut, but your wife doesn't mind a movie where a guy cuts through a womans clothes and rapes her?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Professor_UNIX]

The alternative is to download a DVD rip DRM unencumbered, no FBI warning, no forced previews - hell, no previews.

Nothing's stopping you from buying the movie and then ripping it of all the extraneous garbage. Inconvenience isn't a sufficient justification for breaking the law. Pirating a movie is a lot worse than violating the DMCA to copy a movie you own in my opinion.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[zippthorne]

"Nothing's stopping you from buying the movie and then ripping it of all the extraneous garbage."

Nothing but the law. Unless you program your own DRM circumvention software, you have to obtain it from someone who is breaking the law simply by giving/selling it to you.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[phoomp]

Seems to me a little suspect that the only device fully compatible with Sony's spec is Sony's device.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Zencyde]

I'd like the crowd to know that I'm just singin' and dancin' in the rain. : )

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[pixelslinger]

What do you mean? Violent confrontation is still used every day!

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Pahroza]

I can't hear that song without thinking of A Clockwork Orange. Thank you for the memory.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[ardle]

If only someone could make a Blu-Ray->HD-DVD copier...

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[LordVader717]

Get a DVD player which ignores the mandatory trailers/FBI warnings. Any PC software player I've used has allowed for this.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[arivanov]

Very good assessment. Applause.

Frankly, as a result HD lost the war at least in Europe. Most HD-ready TVs around here are 1344x768. PAL is 576. If the scaler is good it looks good enough so why bother? US due to the NTSC measly vertical resolution is a different story, but US is not a sufficiently big market to drive the prices of HD kit down to the point where they are pallatable.

This is all besides the fact that the BR encryption is not properly broken yet. I can keep all of my DVDs on a small NAS in the loft and stream them to my TV(s). I cannot do that with BR and frankly, I am not tolerating 300+ disks worth of clutter in my living room ever again. No chance. So there is no way in hell for a format that I cannot rip to enter my house. In fact I got a PS3 as a freebee last summer and I donated it straight away to ensure that stuff does not get into the living room by the backdoor.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[ppanon]

Yeah, it's a really smart move on their part. After all, with the US housing market downturn, the global credit crunch, North Americans worried about a recession and cutting back discretionary spending, they raise their prices! I smell an economics prize in the offing here: how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The greedy jerks deserve what they'll get.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[i_b_don]

$200 is not a lot to pay for a HD player. Have you seen what plasma TV's are going for? You think people will plop down $1-4k on a big screen HD ready plasma TV and squirm at $200?!

I don't think you understand this market. The sub $200 is when low income people buy players whereas middle income and high income people will adopt way before that point. There are a lot of people in the "middle income" bracket who have $5k entertainment setups and they won't have a problem with $200.

d

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[teh kurisu]

It's actually quite interesting to see 720p HDTVs appearing in many homes, but without any form of HD content being played on them. I suppose the driving factors are the form factor and general aesthetics, as well as the need for integrated Freeview boxes for the digital switchover (which happens in my region this year).

I'm less convinced that picture quality has improved dramatically, from an SD source. My parents have a 32" Samsung LCD with an SD Sky box, connected via SCART. The screen is 'good' enough that the encoding artefacts of the MPEG2 stream rear their ugly head. Not only that, but the inadequacy of the SCART connection starts to show, with diagonal lines showing on dark patches of the screen.

What I have found, though, is that DVDs played through the HDMI port look much, much better than DVDs played through the SCART socket. I notice that a lot of modern DVD players have an HDMI output built-in, so I suspect tha

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[DrXym]

The joke being that almost all the Blu-ray players on the market right now are obsolete.

Yeah, and USB 2.0 is obsolete because USB 3.0 is out. Right?

BD-Live is an optional feature for blu ray players. Your 1.0 or 1.1 player does not become obsolete because it can't hit the internet. Indeed, 1.0 or 1.1 players will continue to play new Blu Ray content for as long as it is produced. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to wait if you're on the fence, but the features of 2.0 themselves really don't justify the wait. A better reason to wait if you need one is for better deals and better players. Many CEs are in the process of releasing new models soon.

You only have to look at what HD DVD did with web connectivity to see what an utter waste of time it was. I remember a big splash headline that that 30% of users of Transformers HD DVD used the "live" features and 30% again revisited them again. In other words not even 10% of early adopters bothered to use the feature more than once. And early adopters are the group most likely to even bother hooking up a player.

BD-Live might allow a disk to launch a studio's generic portal / store, or an online high score table, or some twitter like blog, or some scene sharing features. But these are hardly earth shattering features. I only see BD-Live being worth the bother is if a studio uses it to give users a "movie of the week" freebie or some other substantial reward for visiting.

Mandatory managed copy might make network access worth it too but that is going to require player support and no one seems to be talking much about how it will eventually work.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Registered Coward v2]

Were all your DVD players obsolete when component video came out? What about when Surround Sound came out? Why does having an extra feature that is not required to watch the original movie make a player obsolete? How about DVD+/-R?

This isn't rocket science. You move the player to the bedroom or the kid's playroom or you give it to your Mom and you get a new one if you want the features so bad. If you don't, well then your player isn't obsolete, is it?.

I still have and use a DVD player I got in 1999. It still works perfectly fine.

It is attitudes like this that contribute to our garbage ridden throwaway society.

And here I was blaming it on the Republicans. Thanks for the clarification.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[balloonhead]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you HD-DVD fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a HD-DVD (a Toshiba HD DVD player HD-E1) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to read a 1st generation disc. 20 minutes. At home, on my PS3, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Toshiba, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this attempt to load the title menu, the remote will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even the volume control is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various HD-DVD players, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a HD-DVD that has run faster than its Blu-ray counterpart, despite the HD-DVD's faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram and an external blu-ray via USB 1.1 runs faster than this cutting edge HD-DVD machine at times. From an entertainment standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that HD-DVD is a superior format.

HD-DVD addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to watch HD-DVD over other faster, slightly more expensive, more usable systems.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[weg]

Or I can't skip the FBI warning.

Well, that's just to make clear that all customers are criminals. They might have bought two out of the 10 items you listed (VHD version, DVD version, etc.), but most customers didn't buy all of them, as they were supposed to. Thus, the average customer inflicts about $150 in damage on the movie industry per movie he buys!

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[iainl]

"Were all your DVD players obsolete when component video came out? What about when Surround Sound came out? "

That's odd. My DVD player from 1998, the year before your 'old' one, had those features.

However, I'll also note that it was rendered obsolete by an early firmware that couldn't handle the deranged acrobatics that the likes of Van Ling put players through.

Long Live Laserdisc.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[meringuoid]

Nothing's stopping you from buying the movie and then ripping it of all the extraneous garbage.

Wouldn't you have to use some kind of tool to bypass the DRM in order to do this?

Inconvenience isn't a sufficient justification for breaking the law.

Isn't such a tool itself illegal?

Pirating a movie is a lot worse than violating the DMCA to copy a movie you own in my opinion.

But both are illegal. Might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[arminw]

.....Nothing but the law.....

US laws that is. There are many places software to copy DRM protected content can be gotten, well outside of the US. If there are millions of ordinary citizens breaking a given law, it is time to change such a law. Prohibition anyone?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[encoderer]

Yes.

I bought a 40" LCD on Sunday but I won't be touching a Blue Ray player for at least a year. $150 is actually my sweet spot. That's what I picked-up my first DVD player for in late 2000.

I get 720p from my cable provider and while I'd love to have 1080p content, I'm perfectly content waiting.

I find your logic flawed. It's about cost/benefit. I get a dramatic benefit going from my 30" 4:3 tube to going to a 40" 16:9 LCD. I get a large number of cable channels at 720p compared to the 480i I was used to. I get up-converted picture from all my DVDs. I get the benefit of a native wide-screen format. I get the ability to plug my computer into the TV and have it be not only usable but a pleasure to use. I save a load of space in the living room, and an all-around pleasing aesthetic.

With Blue Ray, the ONLY thing I get is the ability to use full 1080p. That's nice, and something i will definitely purchase eventually, in fact, Blue Ray is the sole reason I went for 1080p instead of saving $3-400 and going 720p.

But that's the only benefit. And I get so much benefit out of the move from 480 to 720 that going the extra mile to 1080 is not at all a necessity in my mind.

ESPECIALLY because in due time these things will be $75 just like todays average upconverting players are.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[MrMacman2u]

Good lord man! Don't you know that buying overpriced pre-alpha beta twaddle the very instant it hits the market is part of what makes you an American?! Stand up! Be proud! Whip out those credit cards and salute properly like a good consumer sheep!

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Anonymous Coward]

Saturday I posted on /. something about "HD-DVD" and "dead turd", I got modded down. Lets se how we do this time.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Steauengeglase]

"Why is it the same people who were convinced that HD-DVD was going to take off now suddenly think that download media is going to be the thing?"

Because they are tired of buying the same content for different media?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Midnight Thunder]

Already did - I needed a new DVD player and could pick up an HD-DVD player with two movies for $60 at my local walmart.

In a few years you could even sell it as a collectible ;)

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[geekoid]

OK, sick violence is good, bheeks and boobs bad.... so, so sick.

OTOH, I never understood why someone would marry someone who would disallow them from having something they want(monetary reasons aside).

I ahve some thing my wife doesn't like. We just don't weatch those thing together. Now I'm lucky in that we do like a lot of the same things.
I want a wife not another mother.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Inglix the Mad]

"The joke being that almost all the Blu-ray players on the market right now are obsolete. BD Live has been part of the spec since November, but pretty much nothing supports it, and most Blu-ray players can't even be upgraded to support it. The PS3 is about the only safe bet right now."

Only if you care about chatting online a la Ratatouille or web based crap. Even a 1.1 player will do that stupid PiP commentary. I find this particular line of logic comical from HD-DVD supporters considering that their favored spec was pushing a vaporware disc size.

"Oh, and the other joke is that BD Live just brings Blu-ray up to (nearly) the same level as HD DVD. Yes, at the time WHV threw its weight behind Blu-ray, Blu-ray was both more expensive than HD DVD, and less powerful (capacity excepting.)"

Oh please. You couldn't get lossless audio on HD-DVD without sacrificing something else. HD-DVD was also a great deal closer to the edge of it's capability, whereas the BDA pushed spec has more room to grow.

"Great decision Hollywood. You went for the format that's out of most people's price range, that's unlikely to be in people's price range for a while, and which had less features (and thus less clear advantages over DVD) than HD DVD. In practice, I suspect you've doomed HD media to a niche, while the vast majority stick with DVD for movies they want to own, and PPV and the various download services for content they want to see in HD.

I still find the decision incomprehensible."

This was a patent royalty war so get over it. The BDA wanted to break the Toshiba stranglehold over DVD royalties, Toshiba wanted to protect them. That's why HD-DVD was "cheaper" (that and the fact that Toshiba was selling them at a loss in an attempt to grab market / mind share) in the end. Toshiba was willing to use a lower capacity disc, knuckle under to a Microsoft codec (which the BDA ultimately left in as optional, but not many discs will use), and use a less powerful disc language. So in the end, the feature "checkbox" war wasn't about you the consumer, or even the studios (although BD has less regions than your beloved DVD), or quality Hi-Def movies. Nope, it was about Toshiba rejecting BD as the DVD successor all in the name of filthy lucre then trying to spoil the party with their own format. Heck Toshiba's new push for "Super Up-Conversion" only exists now because they lost the Hi-Def format war.

Why don't you get over the price as well. DVD in year 2-3 was 600$+ for a good player. Unless you wanted a 4 bit DAC that left you with artifacts on-screen. Those you could get for 450$-500$. I was there at the beginning of DVD with crappy transfers, desync'd audio, screwy players, et al. If anything, early BD has done better than early DVD.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Hi-Def downloads either. For all the crowing about how codecs get better, file sizes still manage to magically increase. I think it's got something to do with the resolution increasing... Of course you're free to live in fantasy land. Me? I think we've got at least 1 more physical format beyond Blu-Ray before we have the installed base for HD Downloads.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[j_166]

"Format wars suck."

Tell me about it. My father fought in the first Format War against VHS. Some of the things he described were absolutely horrible. Betas disappearing from stores in the middle of the night, never to be seen again, mass graves on the edge of town where thousands upon thousands of cassettes were covered over. Entire villages burned and re-formatted, sometimes in the span of weeks. There was this one time when Victor Henry Stevens just came through and distributed free tapes of some kid's show to all the kids in my town. Had the effect of turning the kids against their parents almost immediately. All of a sudden you were at risk of being turned in if you showed up at school and talked about some beta exclusive movie you saw the night before. The old man was never the same after the summer of '82.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[BosstonesOwn]

No way Sony wouldn't do that ! You must not talk ill of the mighty Sony.

I am depressed . I got a PS3 and now it just sits there. I mean even the over priced bluray movies , we don't watch in it. After beating R&C and The simpsons , the system just sits collecting dust. I thought about installing linux but , really that is of no value to me. I love my quad core, and the system makes my hd videos from my pc look like crap.

I wish it was not given to me as a gift , then I could have gotten the free 5 movies and maybe returned this thing. Bahh mind as well unplug the sucker , all it does is waste energy.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[CrazyTalk]

car telephones are obsolete?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[feepness]

If you no longer use something because it lacks newer features, then it is obsolete. Let's think of some examples of obsolescence together, shall we? The Commodore 64; wax cylinders; violent confrontation; car telephones. Does their obsolescence render them unusable? I'm not entirely sure, but I think that's what I was saying.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[BosstonesOwn]

This is Slashdot ! Facts we don't need no stinkin facts.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[ashitaka]

I'd be interested in hearing how you do the streaming. Media PCs beside the TVs?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Blondie-Wan]

I still find the decision incomprehensible.

It might be more comprehensible once you realize that even with HD DVD's acknowledged advantages, Blu-ray titles were still outselling HD DVDs by a fair margin. If you're Warner Bros. and you're trying to decide which of two formats to support, and practically all your cross-platform hi-def releases are selling more copies on Blu-ray than on HD DVD (even when the HD DVD version has more features, as 300 does), which format are you more likely to pick?

Remember, too, that everyone (studios, consumers, retailers, etc.) wanted the format war to end, and with Blu-ray already having an edge in studio support (Disney, Fox/MGM, Sony/Columbia) over HD DVD (Universal, Paramount), if Warner went with Blu-ray it would surely decide the war instantly since Blu-ray would have the overwhelming majority of exclusive studio support, whereas if Warner went with HD DVD it'd give the two platforms roughly equal studio support, thus prolonging or even stalemating the war.

Both of those facts gave Warner ample reason to go with Blu-ray, and that's even before taking into account any kind of payoff or "consideration" from the BDA. There simply wasn't much reason for them to go HD DVD-exclusive; at most, they could've remained neutral and continued to release on both platforms for a while longer.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Anonymous Coward]

The "anti-PS3" crowd are made up of people who:

1. Remember Sony's continuous bad behavior, including things like adding rootkits to their CDs.

2. Realized that the PS3 was an attempt to win in the media market by leveraging a near-monopoly in the console market. Well, that's over, it succeeded in winning with Blu-ray but at the expense of losing market share. Sadly, that trend might reverse itself.

3. Realized that the PS3 is gimped compared to the Xbox 360. Compare games that came out for both. Without an exception, the Xbox 360 version is superior. In some cases, ridiculous hacks were required to get the PS3 up to par. (For example, DMC4 requires a 20-minute install to bring load times down to Xbox 360 levels.)

4. Realized that the PS3 has the same crappy games that the PS2 did. If you want online play, go for the Xbox 360. If you want quirky games using a new control scheme, go with the Wii.

5. Remember that Sony removed backwards compatibility from the PS3. You cannot buy a PS3 that supports PS2 games any more - at least in the US.

I'm sure I've left more out, but believe me that the anti-PS3 sentiment was earned.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[danielsfca2]

Happens to us all on occasion. I actually called a computer a "hard drive" once. I had my geek card suspended for 6 months!

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[CottonThePirate]

I for one don't like the idea of my player being hooked up to the internet. I like to watch movies, if I want to interact I'll get on my computer, or play video games. I guess that makes me an old fuddy duddy. Most people who listed that they use these features are probably "into" movies, so they like the PiP commentary or what not. I like movies, but I don't care about the directors or actors personal lives or what funny thing happened while they were filming this scene. For me I just want to put a disc in, hit play, watch 10 minutes of messages telling me that it's wrong to pirate their movie but ok to pirate my time to tell me about it, and then watch the movie.
The other thing that scares me about the ethernet hookup is that somehow it will make fair use harder with your discs. If all the players can be upgraded it may mean every 6 months there is a 2 month period where I can't take movies on the plane with me(on the lappy's hard drive)

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[plague3106]

Well, feature-wise yes BR might just now be up to HD DVD, but IIRC, doesn't having a blue laser mean it can store more data than an HD-DVD? That's why I really wanted BR to win; so that when burners for computers come out, we can have discs that store a huge amount of data beyond what HD DVDs would.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[SETIGuy]

OTOH, I never understood why someone would marry someone who would disallow them from having something they want(monetary reasons aside). Almost all marriages are all about disallowing your spouse from having something they want.

Usually that something is another sexual partner.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[mqduck]

No Eyes Wide Shut, but your wife doesn't mind a movie where a guy cuts through a womans clothes and rapes her? Replying to my own comment here. Maybe it's because of the giant penis statue in that art lady's house?

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[i_b_don]

I hear what you're saying, but I think you're incorrect. When people go out and put down the money for "the entertainment system", MOST people aren't really very techno literate and they buy what's hot and what the sales person recommends. Everybody buying one of these systems today will be sold on the sales pitch that "blue ray won the format wars and therefore you're investing in the future when you buy this player".

You think the sales person who sold them a $1-2k plasma and a $1k sound system will tell them "aw, i'm sure you won't notice the difference between 720p and 1080p. No need to spend an extra $300 right now" Hell no.

d

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[arivanov]

Aaa... Sky box... That is the reason why I decode on a Linux with an Nvidia. I tried using a Phipips upscaling DVD and it ended up being an utter disappointment. CPU and GPU power is CPU and GPU power. Not all Silicon is created equal and this about says it all.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Thaelon]

Care to link to a place where I can download such software or buy such a player?

I currently use XBMC, but I think it's forced via hardware to ignore its owner when trying to skip things.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[terrymr]

"My father fought in the first Format War against VHS"

Mine didn't - he was a navigator on a spice freighter.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Grishnakh]

I suppose my point is that yes, DVD still works. The HD content on television isn't overly compelling. If I have a burning desire to watch a movie in HD, I download it. So far, Planet Earth is the sole HD movie that imo was worth watching in HD.

Yep, Planet Earth in HD is amazing to watch. Thank you, Pirate Bay! I didn't even have to waste money on an overpriced Blu-Ray player to enjoy this series.

Re:Look how quickly I adjust too

[Grishnakh]

Do you think HD-DVD player prices would have stayed low if BluRay had thrown in the towel? They would have risen more. By Christmas they will be down to $200. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Why is it the same people who were convinced that HD-DVD was going to take off now suddenly think that download media is going to be the thing?

Yawn... Wake me when BD players are $40 like DVD players are. DVD didn't really take off until Apex sold their players for under $100.

I for one was never convinced that either HD-DVD or BD would take off. Why bother with those obsolete formats when you can just download everything (many times for free)?

This isn't rocket science. You move the player to the bedroom or the kid's playroom or you give it to your Mom and you get a new one if you want the features so bad.

This is Slashdot: people here don't have kids. What forum did you think you were posting on anyway?

PS3

[Enderandrew]

Meanwhile, there are rumors that once the PS3's start rolling out with 45nm CPUs and GPUs that they will drop $100 in price.

$400 for an entry-level player, or $400 for the PS3?

Re:PS3

[Quasar1999]

Umm PS3 is already $399... if it drops $100 then wouldn't it be $299?

Re:PS3

[DigiShaman]

With the increase in blue ray and the fact Sony needs to start making a profit on the PS3, I'm willing to bet the 45nm process is to keep the PS3 price from raising if not keep it the same.

Re:PS3

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

Hey now, this is slashdot. You can't honestly expect the same technical knowledge and math skills that you see in abundance on such sites as digg!

Re:PS3

[failedlogic]

Yeah, true. But previous poster when above and beyond - by posting the price of the PS3! I would never have expected that (are our standards that low??).

Re:PS3

[Xymor]

I believe that there's a good chance MS drops the price of the 360 around GTA4 release, so Sony will most certainly drop ps3's to keep it competitive.

Re:PS3

[Rezell]

I recently bought a PS3 for it's Blu-ray capabilities and it's ability to adjust to changing standards through firmware downloads. I didn't buy it because I wanted PS3 exclusive titles, I bought it because it made the most sense per dollar in terms of watching HD movies. It should be noted that my decision to buy a PS3 was preceded by my purchase of a high end HDTV television. I've been impressed with the PS3 in terms of hardware, compatibility with my WinXP 2003 x64 and media server (don't flame me for running the nightmare ;), and general design. It's quiet and doesn't heat up enough to cause alarm even when used during extended periods. Two days before my PS3 arrived bad things started to happen, my 360 Elite burned up the GPU. So now I sit and play my PS3, which is admittedly deficient in online play when compared to XBL, yet I'm thinking about selling my 360 Elite and all my games. What good is a console if I have to treat it like frail child? I haven't had my 360 for nearly a month due to repairs, yet MS offers one free month of live while still charging me for the current month that my console is in warranty and under repair. Sony has a lot of ground to cover in terms of installed console user-base, but Blu-ray and a system that doesn't break when you look at it funny might just be their ace in the hole.

Re:PS3

[_KiTA_]

Hey now, this is slashdot. You can't honestly expect the same technical knowledge and math skills that you see in abundance on such sites as digg!

Bah, Digg's not THAT good at math. I asked a few of them to add up the following random hex numbers and half the site freaked out:
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.

Re:PS3

[SteveTheNewbie]

799

Re:PS3

[DemingBuiltMyHotRod]

Bah, Digg's not THAT good at math. I asked a few of them to add up the following random hex numbers and half the site freaked out:
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.

31F

Re:PS3

[amplt1337]

*sigh* I think I missed the joke... that's not anything funny encoded in ASCII, so...? Is it just about digg folks not getting computers?

Re:PS3

[Doctor Faustus]

I think I missed the joke... that's not anything funny encoded in ASCII, so...? Is it just about digg folks not getting computers?
I had a suspicion it was a decryption key to something, so I Googled "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" and "09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0", and got 52,000 results between them.

That's one of the keys to decrypt HD-DVD video.

Re:PS3

[nullChris]

... Which caused a stir on digg, when they yanked all articles with that key in the text.

Re:PS3

[_KiTA_]

... Which caused a stir on digg, when they yanked all articles with that key in the text. ... Which caused them to be reposted to Digg en mass, then to half the Internet, as well as allowing us poor ol' Slashdot fogeys to laugh at all the Digg-trolls who constantly mocked Slashdot for, well, not being Digg.

Great- no more format war!

[goatpunch]

This monopoly is so much better for the consumer.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Volatar]

I do agree. Though having to get 2 players so you could watch everything is still more expensive.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Harmonious Botch]

And for Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, S Korea, Mexico, India....

Re:Great- no more format war!

[the_other_chewey]

This monopoly is so much better for the consumer.

Yeah, because we all know this evil DVD monopoly drove DVD player
prices to insane heights...

Seriously, this is basic supply and demand at work (more would-'ve-bought HD-DVD
buyers now go for BluRay) and will certainly improve over a probably rather short time.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[DrXym]

This monopoly is so much better for the consumer.

Monopoly? Last I heard, virtually every major CE manufacturer with the exception of Toshiba was competing for the blu ray money in your pocket. Even Toshiba has a 50% stake in a company producing blu ray drives so I'm sure they come out of their period of mourning soon enough.

Prices will drop through competition and economies of scale.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Kensai7]

Rightly said. The raise will certainly be temporary. In a couple of months Blu-ray competition will drive the prices again down.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[RobBebop]

Calling Sony's victory with Blu-Ray over HD-DVD a "monopoly" is like saying Sirius' proposed merger with XMSR is a monopoly.

No sir, I don't buy it. With as many entertainment and content distribution options completing in the Audio and Visual domains... no one company can ever establish a monopoly. The only thing that can happen is the companies become entrenched with technology that isn't adopted, supported, or interoperated with and that leads to business failure.

And yes, Sony bought the format war with hundreds of millions of potentially well-spend bribes, but their is no way for them to bribe there way to some kind of vertically-integrated "entertainment" monopoly. It would cost too much. I am not worried, unless they make a play at merging with Comcast or something.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[MightyMartian]

Well, if people weren't such "the JOnes' got it!" retards, and simply said "Well, we'll wait until prices came down" those prices would crash.

As it is, I don't understand it, as there's so little real advantage for most people until they upgrade all of their home entertainment system. Quite frankly, I'll happily wait another year or two, and let all these mentally retarded early adopters waste their money. Fucking idiots.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[fm6]

Please. Do you consider DVDs to be a monopoly? How about CDs? A standard format is not a "monopoly", not unless the format is proprietary.

Here's what's going on: both Blu Ray and HD-DVD players were being sold at a minimal profit — a loss, even — because both sides were trying to grab market share. End of format war, end of need to grab market share.

The problem has been that everybody with any brains has been waiting for the format war to end before plunking down their hard-earned cash. When consumers don't buy, sales are low, and when sales are low, there are no economies of scale. No economies of scale means high manufacturing costs, and thus high retail costs — unless the product is being sold at a loss.

So of course prices go up. But that's a short term thing. Right now, every consumer electronics company on the planet is gearing up to manufacture Blu Ray players by the million. When you manufacture something on that scale (especially electronics, where the fundamental technology is subject to Moore's Law) prices crash.

In a year or two, Blu Ray players will be as cheap as DVD players are now.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[mcvos]

Well, you save $30. Wasn't a HDDVD player $100? And $330 for BluRay means a total of $430. Now you only have to play $400. Or nothing, ofcourse, if you don't care about HD content anyway.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[vivek7006]

Yeah, because we all know this evil DVD monopoly drove DVD player

This time its different because the blu-ray consortium is not giving licenses to tom-dick-harry shop in china to make cheap players. So unlike the DVD, this time around we wont be seeing cheap DVD players. I still remember that it was some Chinese brand (apex?) which broke the $100 barrier for DVD-players and became the largest selling dvd player right behind Sony. With tighter licensing restrictions, thats not going to happen this time around with Blu-ray payers

Re:Great- no more format war!

[iapetus]

Toshiba was working hard at the bribery as well. That's not how Sony won the format war - they did it with the PS3, plain and simple. An excellent player, sold in a business model where it doesn't need to make a profit (and can even afford to make a loss), with millions of people who will buy it for its non-movie functionality and likely end up with at least one or two movies on top. HD-DVD lost when Microsoft didn't include it as the standard drive for the XBox 360.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[robertjw]

This time its different because the blu-ray consortium is not giving licenses to tom-dick-harry shop in china to make cheap players. So unlike the DVD, this time around we wont be seeing cheap DVD players. I still remember that it was some Chinese brand (apex?) which broke the $100 barrier for DVD-players and became the largest selling dvd player right behind Sony. With tighter licensing restrictions, thats not going to happen this time around with Blu-ray payers

If your statement is true, and I'm going to assume it is, this means we also won't see a huge blu-ray adoption. The VHS to DVD format adoption is easily the fastest I've ever seen. Faster than LPs to tape, faster than tape to CD. in fact, I remember buying my first CD player in about 1989. CDs had been mainstream since what, 82, but seven years later a good player was still $300? It took a long time for the CD to completely take over the market, mostly because the players were expensive.

If the studios are smart, and I think they are, the prices of blu-ray players will only be high for the next 6 months or so. After that, the studios will subsidize their production. The only way people are going to buy ANOTHER new copy of that old movie they love is if the player is cheap. The best way for the studios to make money is to get those players in the hands of the end users.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[lcohiomatty86]

I would say that this has nothing to do with monopoly and a lot to do with the prices going back up to what they should be, with the cost of technology and all. It takes a LOT of processing power to decrypt and play an HD disk so it is understandable that at this point the hardware would be expensive. also, there are a lot of R&D costs to recover that were spent in developing the blu-ray players. over time as the technology gets cheaper and more units get sold, prices will go down with competition.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[goatpunch]

Moderation 0
    20% Insightful
    50% Overrated
    30% Underrated

What a waste of mod points (and replies) on a throwaway comment

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Zymergy]

Don't Forget about the famed Apex AD-600a! http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/21/1233235
http://www.nerd-out.com/darrenk/600/history.htm

It was the model to have (with the correct firmware revision) with its famous "Engineering Menu" which allowed the "Macrovision" encoding to be *disabled* and you could change it to *any* region code as many times as you desired.
DRM sucks. This Apex model *Proved* that fact to me with its 'usefulness' back in 2000 (when I took off work early to go buy one from Circuit City). It's now 8 Years old and still kicking! Good Times.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Grave]

HD-DVD (which arrived at retail in mid 2006) lost because the 360 (which arrived at retail in late 2005) didn't include it as standard? Putting an HD-DVD drive into the 360 at the time of launch may have been an impossibility due to the maturity level of the technology. It certainly would have been a financial impossibility for the price, which was considered high at the time. Had the 360 been $100 more at launch than it was (which would've also meant MS would be losing substantially more money per console), adoption would have been much slower than it was. Microsoft is more concerned with winning the console war than fighting in a storage medium war. Offering the HD-DVD addon was merely a ploy to slow PS3 adoption and possibly hurt Sony. What might have been more effective would be if they had offered a $200 Bluray addon instead of the HD-DVD offering. Thus, the sales case for the PS3, when the games library was so small, would no longer have included BR. BR is the only reason I bought my PS3. Having the option of playing a few exclusive games at some point is nice, but not an argument for buying yet another expensive console when I already own a 360 that will be able to play 95% of the games the PS3 can (at least of the ones I'm interested in).

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha! Yeah, right... Name one consumer electronics product that was popular and DIDN'T result in a race to the bottom-of-the-barrel, shitty, but ultra cheap line of Walmart specials.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[iapetus]

Blu-ray was hardly mature when Sony included it in the PS3. I'm not saying it made sense from Microsoft's point of view to go with HD-DVD. Just that not having that sort of mass market distribution of a below-cost player when Blu-ray did was what actually killed HD-DVD. You're hung up on the question of the console wars here - that's not what this article is about, and it's not what I was addressing. Again, having millions of people world-wide equipped with Blu-ray players just because they wanted a PS3 is what gave Blu-Ray such a massive install base advantage over HD-DVD, and if HD-DVD had been the standard in a competing console, levelling the playing field, then it would most likely have been the winning format.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[master811]

The problem has been that everybody with any brains has been waiting for the format war to end before plunking down their hard-earned cash. When consumers don't buy, sales are low, and when sales are low, there are no economies of scale. No economies of scale means high manufacturing costs, and thus high retail costs -- unless the product is being sold at a loss.

Erm your getting confused, prices will be high because of supply and demand, NOT because of economies of scale. If something is heavily in demand, prices will go higher because consumers WILL pay extra, when demand is low, prices WILL drop to encourage consumers to keep buying.

Economies of scales only applies to manufacturing (and whatnot), NOT the actual sales themselves.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Trogre]

Okay, but what makes you think the BR consortium is going to suddenly start dishing out licences to the Chinese knockoff shops? I don't know what they charge, but even if they do loosen their exclusivity, I don't see the price of a licence being practical for cheap manufacturing to make a difference. They're really that paranoid about losing control.

This format (I'm not going to call it a standard) is much more tightly controlled than DVD or the CD.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[emmons]

Um, wow. So that must be why CPU's still cost tens of thousands of dollars?

Re:Great- no more format war!

[fm6]

"Supply and demand" is a principle; it's not a law of nature. Yes, supply and demand are two important factors in setting prices, but they're not the only factors. The cost of manufacturing something is a factor too.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[fm6]

What do chinese knockoff shops have to do with anything? Mainstream electronics companies are perfectly capable of dealing with this. And they have every incentive to manufacture in mass quantities. This kind of business doesn't make money selling in small quantities at high prices. This is Henry Ford economics.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[yorugua]

Also, remember there was a format war between DVD and a format supported (IIRC) by CircuitCity called Divx.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Do you consider DVDs to be a monopoly?

Definitely*. Try producing a DVD player in the US without paying a lot of money to the DVD copy control association and agreeing to implement their DRM. It won't take you long to hear from their lawyers. It only a few days for ME to hear from them back when I hosted some open source DVD stuff on my web server.

* I'm assuming you're talking about commercial, consumer video DVD stuff here since that's what the whole thread is about.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[sholden]

The cost of manufacturing is a factor in determining supply.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[oblivionboy]

Unless of course we run out of aluminum! :)

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Registered Coward v2]

This time its different because the blu-ray consortium is not giving licenses to tom-dick-harry shop in china to make cheap players. So unlike the DVD, this time around we wont be seeing cheap DVD players. I still remember that it was some Chinese brand (apex?) which broke the $100 barrier for DVD-players and became the largest selling dvd player right behind Sony. With tighter licensing restrictions, thats not going to happen this time around with Blu-ray payers


I disagree - my guess is price drops are on the horizon - and taht's one reasons studios put their weight behind Blu-ray. They don't need two formats that require seperate inventories and higheer costs; they want one that lets them push as many movies a spossible. In order to push disks thay need wide spread adoption of the players; which isn't going to happen at $400 a pop. The manufacturers want to recoup development costs; but once that is done then it becomes a choice of high margin low volume or high volume low margin and price wars. Once one manufacturer lowers their price to capture more marketshare then others will follow - driving prices down; and ultimately leading to licenses for cheap model as Sony et.al looks to license revenue to make up for lost profit margin. My guess is that a rodamap for widespread adoption was presented to teh studios; who decided it was doable and threw their support behind Blu-ray.

In addition, teh drive to make PCs media centers will result in greater demand for Blu-ray drives in tehm; given PC manufacturers puch to lower component prices that will increase demand for low cost drives - so what do you do - license the tech and see the margin on your high end machines erode (but realize that at high prices teh total adoption numbers will be small and once you saturate the market prices must drop to maintain sales); or keep prices high and choke off the market and piss off teh studios who want volume? I bet on licensing.

Finally, while HD is dead it still is a threat - if the studios decide that Blu-ray is not going to be adopted they could start releasing HD movies and encourage manufacturers to take up the spec again. It's not liek once you stop making soemthing you can't restart; plus tehir is already an installed base that probably would buy up new movies as well. I doubt that would happen; but the way to kill taht threat is to get Blu-ray machines in as many homes as possible as quickly as you can while making as much money as possible in teh process.

My scenarion - $200 for this holiday buying season; dirt cheap for teh next. That way you get early adopters to pay the premium; then get the large mainstream crowd volume; and finally get the Wal-mart shopper and second player buyer.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[cgfsd]

China will have a major role in the price of BluRay players. (Whether we like it or not)

I wonder where the Chinese HD-DVD will come into play. If the Chinese choose to adopt the CH-DVD format and ignore BluRay the cost of the players will remain high and BluRay will be as short lived as HD-DVD.

If the Chinese adopt BluRay and ignore the patents (Like they usually do) then we will see $50 BluRay players in a year or two.

As I see it, the fate of BluRay is now in China's hands.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[fm6]

So that's why DVD prices are so high! No, wait a minute....

The kind of monopoly that matters to this discussion is a manufacturing monopoly. All manufacturers license technology from somebody who has a "monopoly" on it, but if lots of competing manufacturers license the same technology, it does little to raise prices. You could even argue that having a standard technology that enables a lot of different companies to compete directly with each other helps lower prices. Which is pretty much what happened to the DVD market.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[L0rdJedi]

No blu-ray players under $200 before Christmas 2009

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/a-299-sony-blu-ray-player-but-no-cheap-chinese-models/?ref=technology

Re:Great- no more format war!

[WebCowboy]

Seriously, this is basic supply and demand at work (more would-'ve-bought HD-DVD
buyers now go for BluRay)

This isn't exactly supply and demand; there was some not-so-ethical market manipulation going on here:

* Movie studios were bought off to supply content in blu-ray over HD-DVD in desperation to catch up in selection.
* Blu-Ray hardware manufacturers (including and especially SONY with their PS3) supplied distributers and retailers with many models at prices below the cost of manufacture, and gave MSRPs that allowed for more dollars per unit in margins. HD-DVD hardware makers were not nearly as aggressive as they were cheaper to make in the first place, but margins on an HD-DVD unit were smaller so stores made less profit.
* Wal-Mart was encourages to use its huge, nearly monopoly-status position in the industry to steer the market towards Blu-Ray.

Toshiba and friends simply didn't play dirty-enough pool, especially in terms of bribing movie studios (the biggest downfall). In any case, the abrupt increase in prices isn't to do with a spike in demand--the demand for HD video players hasn't jumped THAT abruptly to account for it. The main reason is that they've killed the competition and now the manufacturers have decided they want to make decent money on Blu-Ray, instead of barely scraping by or even losing money dumping units...soooo, they've abruptly raised the wholesale cost and now retailers are passing on that cost (they have to--it is lean times for retail right now).

That's what happens when an over-engineered, unnecessarily-complicated technology out-markets what in some ways is a more elegant solution.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[mikeabbott420]

I'm not convinced the studios are or should be in a hurry to see a full transition. They may think taht the slower and more expensive the transition the longer the studios can charge a premium for blue ray and the more disks sold in DVD they can hope to eventually sell a second time in blue ray.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[robertjw]

Yeah, Sony execs wouldn't lie. Of course they are going to say the prices will stay high, if everyone expects the price to drop no one will buy them now.

Mr. Glasgow expressed hope that price levels wouldn't collapse the way they did for DVD players.

How many movie titles does Sony own? Selling billions of new blu-ray disks is going to be much more profitable than selling the players, especially when they have competition in the players, but no competition in the titles they own. This is what they do with the playstation and microsoft does with the Xbox. Subsidize the player so consumers will buy the games.

Believe the corporate press releases if you want to, but mark my words. As soon as Sony thinks they have captured all of the early adopters the price will drop like a stone. It's all about profit, and they are going to screw the consumer to make a buck.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[bhagwan]

Watched my Apex 600a last night, in fact. Hands down the best player I've ever owned, and there are 8 others in my house right now. Best in regards to: Durability Features (including cd+g and kar-a-oke functions) Longevity Ease of use Weight Of course, I'm a little crazy. I have my Atari 2600 and my Laserdisc player hooked up to the same TV as my HD-DVD and HD Tivo (with various other game systems in the same area). No PS3 yet though. Just not impressed with either the player or the format. I do beleive it's got more potential than any other on market product. But Flash Memory ets cheaper ever day, and IMO, discs are dead.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Registered Coward v2]

I'm not convinced the studios are or should be in a hurry to see a full transition. They may think taht the slower and more expensive the transition the longer the studios can charge a premium for blue ray and the more disks sold in DVD they can hope to eventually sell a second time in blue ray.

I guess it would depend on two factors - the profit margin on Blu Ray and how long they can keep a premium price. My guess is that they will be able to maintain a price delta between BR and regular DVD based on the higher quality picture; and as long as BR players can play regular DVDs it's to their advantage to increase its penetration - more customers for the higher priced, higher quality (and presumably higher margin) BR disks while still having a large market to sell regular disks, who may eventually decide they want the higher quality BR disks and buy a second copy. for the studios, a lot of BR players doesn't mean the DVD market goes away; it just adds a whole new market for BR disks. Studios could even release BR versions before they release the DVD version if they think people will buy DVDs before BR if offered both options. At any rate, the studios and hardware manufacturers interest diverge when it comes to player pricing due to the nature of the markets.

Personally, I haven't taken the plunge yet simply because the improved quality is not that big of a deal to me, yet. Of course, I just got HD TV so that may change as I see the difference (I have access to a PS3 so technically I have BR already just no a dedicated always available player). Most of my movie watching is done an an 80g Zune anyway while traveling so my own needs differ from the target BR market.

Re:Great- no more format war!

[RobBebop]

I read your comments and the GP comment... it seems like you both have good points. The conclusion I draw is that Sony benefited from being a horizontally integrated entertainment company with a Movie/Game platform. And Toshiba should have signed a deal with the Microsoft Devil for them to produce a natively HD-DVD compatible XBox 360 (albeit, in 2006 - a year after the original XBox 360 was produced).

Toshiba/Microsoft could have leveraged their entertainment empire by sending consumers with broken XBox 360's the HD-DVD/XBox after most of the original ones burnt out. Free upgrades do wonders to build consumer good-will.

Hindsight is 20/20, though. In any case, I still would argue that Nintendo has "won" the current Video Game generation war, not Sony. And I think most people would give the silver medal to Microsoft...

Re:Great- no more format war!

[Grishnakh]

If the Chinese adopt BluRay and ignore the patents (Like they usually do) then we will see $50 BluRay players in a year or two.

Of course, while they can certainly ignore the patents for products sold within China, the same doesn't apply to stuff sold here in the USA. If they try to sell patented stuff here, it'll be held up by customs.

Now that may be a shortlived problem, however. Pretty soon, China is going to start flexing their muscle: if we refuse to allow them to sell patent-protected products (unlicensed) here, they can threaten to bankrupt us by calling in all their loans to us. Remember, they own most of our mortgage market.

Not so fast.. HD VMD the next contender?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/technology/10dvd.html?ref=business out..

From article: A new system that is incompatible with Blu-ray, called HD VMD, for versatile multilayer disc, is trying to find a niche. New Medium Enterprises, the London company behind HD VMD, says its system's quality is equal to Blu-ray's but it costs less. By undercutting the competition in production, replication and hardware costs, it thinks it can find a market among consumers with less disposable income, particularly outside the United States.

I have my doubts, but it would be interesting to see what it could possibly bring (and a jab at Sony is always a "check plus" in my book)

So much for rapid adoption

[foxalopex]

I would have thought the Blu-Ray group would have liked faster adoption after the demise of HD-DVD but it seems by keeping prices high they might end up slowing themselves down. What would be even more ironic is if the Blu-Ray group collapses themselves in a few years due to lack of demand. That would be a good laugh.

Re:So much for rapid adoption

[cbart387]

It would be even more hilarious if the market swung again in HD's favor and HD comes out on top in the end. Think, discount HD players (since we KNOW they lost) vesus expensive Blu-Ray (since we KNOW they won).

Re:So much for rapid adoption

[aaarrrgggh]

Sony was selling the equipment at a loss to win the war, at least for pressing the disks (technically leasing the equipment...). Prices have to come up now so they make a profit. Simple business.

Unfortunately, they didn't realize who their competition really was.

Re:So much for rapid adoption

[timbo234]

What would be even more ironic is if the Blu-Ray group collapses themselves in a few years due to lack of demand. That would be a good laugh.

I was browsing a local video/music store here yesterday and saw they're trying to flog each Blu-Ray movie for about £27! That's unbelievable for just a movie, even the crappy ones. Hopefully it will fail and they'll have to drop their prices. Prices like that actively discourage me from ever touching anything to do with bluray.

Price go up, price go down

[Mogster]

Potential competition from HD-DVD helped keep prices low to attract consumers. HD-DVD has lost so there is less incentive to keep the prices low. Once there are more manufacturers producing Blu-ray players then prices will start to drop again.
Market forces at work

Re:Price go up, price go down

[MtViewGuy]

Prices are high now because player electronics are still pretty expensive to implement, considering how big Blu-ray players are nowadays.

But with more intergrated, smaller Blu-ray player chipsets now in full production, expect Blu-ray players to get physically smaller and less expensive to manufacture. This will lead to dramatic price drops, probably starting early this summer.

Meh....

[hchaudh1]

Now how can I turn this into an anti-Sony rant.

Still competing with DVD

[PIPBoy3000]

If people continue to purchase DVD players (which are easily under $100), the Blu-ray player prices may drop after a few months. For many people, the quality of DVDs are just fine and they don't have the massive television displays to support them anyway. The cynic in me thinks we're seeing a price hike so stores get the cash from all the early adopters who bought HD-DVD and now feel obligated to buy a Blu-ray player.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[AbsoluteXyro]

I certainly hope those prices do come down. I just bought an OPPO upconverting DVD player to tide me over until prices become palatable. I am not paying more than $200 for a god damn movie player, I don't care how H it's D's are.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[Pecisk]

I am getting kinda tired from this meme and it just gives impression of fox who can't get the grapes (Nah, HD is all way down to be closed, we have hacked our systems to play DVDs without control, so they just fine). Yes, HD-DVD and Blu-ray didn't matter until new line of high definition displays with reasonable price. However, now they kicked in and anyone who has seen results (Samsung K.I.N.O. line is very big example) would be stupid to claim that it isn't better (it is and man, I have seen movies/formats on so many types of monitors/displays/cinema screens). Well, it is expensive to adapt HD video, but people will do it slowly.

So my impression that Blu-ray rises just because people start to see reasonable displays to watch those HD discs with. NOW there is reason to addopt it. Sadly for Microsoft and people who oppose Sony, they won this time. In fact, with right strategy.

Yes, I left out all issue with DRM, because it doesn't matter for common people. Like it or not.

Of course, just mine two cents,
Peter.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[debest]

I am getting kinda tired from this meme (referring to DVD being "good enough")

Hey, I agree that HD is tangibly better than standard DVD. But for me (and a whole bunch of other people), it is not nearly enough better to justify switching media formats (and, necessarily, upgrading hardware that is already paid for and working perfectly well).

And while I have no gripe with Blu-ray peacefully coexisting with DVD, what I fear is that Blu-ray gets enough penetration that the industry can start ignoring the DVD format (VHS started dying off seriously when tapes stopped being distributed for new movies). When a studio is able to justify releasing a "Blu-ray exclusive" title, DVD will be toast quickly. Then I'll be stuck with an unsupported format that will continue to be "good enough" (for me, anyway) for years and years to come. I really, really don't want to deal with new un-rippable, premium-priced discs that will force me to buy a new player at minimum (and a new TV to see any benefit at all).

Sure, this won't happen for awhile yet (heck, DVD may yet outlast Blu-ray in the market), but the swift end to the HD format war means that Blu-ray has much more of a chance of supplanting DVD.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[gad_zuki!]

>So my impression that Blu-ray rises just because people start to see reasonable displays to watch those HD discs with

I have a reasonably display (37") for HD and really dont have a need to jump to the format. DVDs from my old Sony 480p DVD player look amazing. What looks terrible is my SD directivo. Right now I'm motivated to buy a HD tivo and HD service from directv. The cost of this for 12 months is what a bluray player costs me today. I watch more TV than I do movies. I seriously doubt I'm unique in this regard.

That said, the first thing people are going to do when they get an HD set is pay for HD cable or satellite. They arent going to spend 600 dollars on some fancy player for movies. They might if it costs 200 dollars or less, but that wont happen for a long time if ever. Think of all the HD content Im going to get for only 10 dollars more than Im paying now.

That said I doubt the digital download revolution will ever happen but HD via cable and satellite is here. Toss in some on-demand services and theres very little incentive to get a bluray player. For film geeks and videophiles it'll be a must-have, but then again so was the laserdisc.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[Miguelito]

VHS started dying off seriously when tapes stopped being distributed for new movies It took several years for that to happen though. There were still tons of movies produced on VHS for a long time, mostly to rental stores. The reality was that those who actually bought movies, vs just renting, overwhelmingly migrated to DVD quickly. I've had a DVD player (first was Creative's first DVD kit for the PC) since late 1997 and since I started buying movies I really liked, I completely stopped getting VHS. But until DVD really took off in rental stores, VHS still had a pretty large market. VHS isn't completely dead either... though it's got far less studio support anymore. Hell, I remember that for a good decade plus after VHS "won," you could still get movies for projectors (never was as simple as buying tapes or DVDs are of course, and I don't mean theater sized projectors)... 4th grade teacher at my grade school used to buy a movie for the whole school to watch each year around the end of the school year. Only one I really remember was Tron.. and that was maybe a year after it was in the theaters.

DVD movies had the bonus in the early DVD days that often movies were held back from retail release (gotta artificially create those "rental windows" for Blockbuster and the like) were released on DVD right away.

Blu Ray might eventually supplant DVD, but it won't happen until the players come down in price a lot as well as movie prices drop. The players eventually will, remember that DVD players remained pretty expensive for the first year (or two) after the format first came out, then dropped fairly rapidly. Disney pushing it's library out on BR only might have a big part to do with it.. if they take that risk and do it. Wouldn't surprise me at all though, they love getting people to buy their stuff again, and using crap like "we're only opening the vault for this short time" to scare parents into buying a movie so their kids can have it.

The biggest hurdle that Blu Ray is really going to have, is convincing people that it's worth changing. It was a no-brainer from VHS to DVD.. no rewinding, better video quality, no degradation of the quality over time, chapters, etc. Blu Ray is more of a evolutionary step vs the revolutionary step that DVD was.

For the curious.. I have both HD and BR. I have a PS3 and a 360 with the add on. I preferred BR from my first experience with it (several months after I'd already had the HD add-on). Yes it's anecdotal, but I've had numerous issues with HD playback, HDi content and discs damaged to unplayable out of the case, vs nothing but flawless playback and features on the BR side. Not to mention 2 failed 360s already (not 1st run, one was an elite).. but that's a different rant. :)

Oh, and I only buy the BR copies of things that I care to see/hear in HD, I still overwhelmingly buy DVD.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[Ragnarr]

Tivo HD only works with OTA and cable currently. The satellite providers have a waiver from having to provide cable cards to their consumers from the FCC; without cable cards your Tivo HD can't even give you program guide information unless you're OTA. Your only options are the in-house products from Dish (pretty good) or D* (not so much from what I've read).

Personally, I just gave up Dish so I could enjoy TivoHD; the interface means more to me than being able to stick it to my crappy cable company.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[shoemilk]

I'm assuming, like a another poster, by meme that you mean "DVD is good-enough". I hate to tell you, but like DRM, it is. I was an early adaprter to DVD, I remember shelling out a lot of cash to replace my VHS collection and the main reason I did it wasn't because of the quality, it's because it took up less physical space and I didn't have to rewind when I was done. Audio DVDs are supirior to CDs, but they're nothing more than a neiche market, just like Bluray will be.
Throughout this "war" , I asked people around me if they'd ever heard of blu-ray or HD DVD, not only had the majority not heard of them, but a lot of thought blu-ray was blue tooth.
I'm back in Japan now and there's huge push for blu-ray at the electronic stores. They have two 42" HD Tvs next to each other, one plays blu-ray, the other plays "DVD". Both of them are recordings off of an HD channel. Even my wife, who has zero interest in technology walked in and said, "Wow, what super crap low quality setting did they record that DVD on?"
Personally, I think it's hallarious that the supposed advantage of this stuff is for the better quality but you can by HD DVD/VHS combo players.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[sremick]

That said, the first thing people are going to do when they get an HD set is pay for HD cable or satellite. They arent going to spend 600 dollars on some fancy player for movies. What are you talking about? I myself and plenty of other people who watch more movies than TV would do precisely that. If I'm going HD, why would I go halfway and settle for a measly 720 lines and stereo sound, limiting myself to whatever crap the satellite provider feels like pushing down the airwaves at that moment? When I can get the movie I want now, in 1080p and fully-discreet digital surround-sound? Movies are where its at for us home theater fans... watching TV is a secondary thing.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[CBravo]

Some DVD players are cheaper than a DVD. I bought one for 33 euro a couple of months ago and it included a SCART cable, remote control and batteries for the remote.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[scharkalvin]

I also have an Oppo DVD player, and I really like it. It's the best DVD player out there for the money. I will wait to buy a BD machine until Oppo makes one. I think they will probably produce a 'universal' BD player that will also play all CD, and DVD formats as well.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[qoncept]

That said, the first thing people are going to do when they get an HD set is pay for HD cable or satellite. They arent going to spend 600 dollars on some fancy player for movies. They might if it costs 200 dollars or less, but that wont happen for a long time if ever. Think of all the HD content Im going to get for only 10 dollars more than Im paying now.
As prices drop there will be no reason not to buy a BD player. They are expensive now because they cost so much to make, but manufacturing processes improve.

Anyone spending that much on entertainment now likely has money to throw around. Probably half of the people I work with have HDTVs, all of them have HD cable or (mostly) satellite, a few have HDDVD/BD players, and most have plans to get them in the near future. At the end of the year if a BD player is $200 and a good upscaling DVD player is $75, they'll be spending the money.

That said I doubt the digital download revolution will ever happen but HD via cable and satellite is here. Toss in some on-demand services and theres very little incentive to get a bluray player. For film geeks and videophiles it'll be a must-have, but then again so was the laserdisc.
Of course it's going to happen. We're basically already doing it with satellite and going to full digital broadcasting next year. Internet connection speeds may not be getting faster as quickly as we'd like, but they're never going to stop getting faster. When that's the cheapest way for the conglomerates to give us movies, that's what they'll do.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[gad_zuki!]

Yes i know. I meant the DVR directv sells. Tivo is like the word Xerox now.

Re:Still competing with DVD

[Doctor Faustus]

What looks terrible is my SD directivo.
Mine did, too, but it looks a lot better now that I spent some time playing with the colors. Turning the backlight up and the brightness down helped a lot, but I think it makes it use more electricity.

PS3 Sales the motivator here?

[Gat0r30y]

At 400 bucks, why not just drop an extra 60 for a PS3? Perhaps Sony has a good marketing strategy, make all the other BR players so damned expansive that people wont mind dropping the extra dough for a game system even if they don't want/need it.

Re:PS3 Sales the motivator here?

[Anonymous Coward]

> At 400 bucks, why not just drop an extra 60 for a PS3?

They want something that they can stack other 19" components on?

Re:PS3 Sales the motivator here?

[Grimbleton]

Silly, just put the PS3 on TOP. Problem solved.

Re:PS3 Sales the motivator here?

[lostchicken]

PS3 or not, Blu-Ray players (as with most modern A/V stack components) put out a boatload of heat. They really shouldn't be stacked without at least some breathing room. I'd bet that the top of the PS3 was designed like it was for that express purpose.

Re:PS3 Sales the motivator here?

[Doctor Faustus]

At 400 bucks, why not just drop an extra 60 for a PS3?
That list put someone I'd never heard of on top. If you look farther down, you'll see it's the same $400 at Best Buy as a stand-alone player. Circuit city is the same.

Re:PS3 Sales the motivator here?

[mikeabbott420]

i've been watching dvds on my ps 2 recently (dvd broke) and i hate using the gamepad as a remote.
Sure it works but it's awkward compared to any other dvd player I've used.
I'll probably get another DVD player just for the remote.

Wait till the spec shakes out

[powerlord]

I'm not really surprised but this, but not because HD-DVD is dead.

Blu-Ray recently add the "Profile 1.1" and "Profile 2.0" specs to their list (and yes, to all you HD-DVD supporters playing at home, Profile 2.0 does FINALLY bring Blu-Ray to feature parity with HD-DVD). Also, as we've been reminded time and again (especially by posters on /.), what percentage of TV owners even OWN an HDTV that could benefit from a next-gen format?

Once the specs have settled a little, and as HDTV adoption increases, I'd expect to see economies of scale kick in (as opposed to the price war going on between the BD camp and the HD-DVD camp).

Something else to keep in mind though, is that the PS3 is probably going to be leading the charge in the price war for the next few years.

If $400 is the average price for a BD player, then the $400 PS3, as a current "Profile 1.1" and guaranteed future "Profile 2.0" player (according to Sony's press release from last years E3), makes it a steal as the best priced (and more "future-proof") unit. On the other hand, so long as the PS3 is competing with the XBox 360, they can not keep the price that much higher than their competitor, and they MUST include the Blu-Ray Drive, since PS3 games are shipped on BDs.

It'll be interesting to follow the market as a whole as the PS3 ages into its life cycle, the price drops, and HDTV adoption increases.

  (I know at least 5 people in the past week that have finally decided to look into HDTVs that didn't know anything about it. Yes this is anecdotal evidence, but its more people than I have personally seen looking at getting an HDTV at a given time.)

Re:Wait till the spec shakes out

[Moonpie Madness]

Tellme, what version of HD-DVD is going to have feature parity with blu-ray? Lossless sound, large capacity, minimally decent support from studios. Oh what's that? Never? Oh. Wonder why blu-ray won out.

The price hike is because customers are willing to pay more for blu-rays than they would have paid for hd-dvd. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but they are out there. Why not cash in? Once the early adopters are fed for another year, then we can see some cheap players. Blu-ray is not catering to the bottom. It's the best mass produced movie tech ever produced, certainly far far far ahead of hd-dvd. It will be a long time before we see $30 blu-ray drives.

If that's not what you want, then by all means wait or never buy at all. But the economics are predictable and not really sinister at all.

Re:Wait till the spec shakes out

[Doctor Faustus]

Profile 2.0 does FINALLY bring Blu-Ray to feature parity with HD-DVD
How many people really want picture-in-picture, anyway?

Now, what would be cool would be if my PS3 could stream the commentary video over to my laptop through the LAN, sync'ed to the main picture it's displaying on my TV. Lots of people use their laptops on the couch.

Re:Wait till the spec shakes out

[powerlord]

Tellme, what version of HD-DVD is going to have feature parity with blu-ray? Lossless sound, large capacity, minimally decent support from studios. Oh what's that? Never? Oh. Wonder why blu-ray won out.

I've sided with Blu-Ray for the past year or two, but if you take a look at the "Profile 1.0" standard, then there were certainly some areas where HD-DVD was "ahead".

Things like a second audio and video decoder for PiP output that "Profile 1.1" added (something HD-DVD included from the beginning), means that content providers don't need to "fake" the feature by providing a second full copy of the movie with the video inserted, something that should save space which is always a "good thing" even on a Blu-Ray Disk which may have more to burn. Another feature like the mandatory local storage space (256MB for "Profile 1.1" and 1GB for "Profile 2.0") and the mandatory internet access in "Profile 2.0" are also things HD-DVD included as part of its standard.

On the other hand, the forthcoming ability to download a movie from a disk to a portable player was something the HD-DVD group talked about, but dropped from the standard before it was released, whereas the Blu-Ray group decided to add it later on. Likewise HD-DVD started out with better Codecs mandatory, and while they were added as optional to Blu-Ray, original Blu-Ray disks were made using an older DVD Codec which hurt them in comparison to HD-DVD video.

So, yeah, I think Blu-Ray had way more potential, which is one of the reasons that it won out, but when the Blu-Ray "Profile 1.0" spec came out, the specification itself was behind the HD-DVD specification.

The price hike is because customers are willing to pay more for blu-rays than they would have paid for hd-dvd. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but they are out there. Why not cash in? Once the early adopters are fed for another year, then we can see some cheap players. Blu-ray is not catering to the bottom. It's the best mass produced movie tech ever produced, certainly far far far ahead of hd-dvd. It will be a long time before we see $30 blu-ray drives.

If that's not what you want, then by all means wait or never buy at all. But the economics are predictable and not really sinister at all.

Absolutely. Blue-Ray is still catering to "early adopters", although I'd say we're a bit beyond that point, maybe the start of real "mass adoption" but thats a small quible. You're right that with HD-DVD out of the picture they can jack up prices to what the market will bare, but I think that because there is a clear winner, in the short term, the fact that there is a definitive winner will mean faster adoption of the technology, which in turn means lower prices. Maybe not a $30 Blu-Ray drive, but considering a BD-R drive sells for $400 today (check newegg), I could easily see it dropping to $100-$200 within a year or two, with a comparable drop in stand-alone BD players during the same time frame.

That isn't that long in terms of technology, and is not that long to wait. I for one am looking forward to buying lots of cheap DVDs and BDs from Blockbuster in the future. :)

Re:Wait till the spec shakes out

[powerlord]

Why would you want the commentary streamed to a different screen?

Most people usually have enough of a problem following the action on screen with subtitles also available, now you're talking about people looking at different screens at the same time?

PiP seems like a much better way to do this.

The only time I see a laptop being useful is if I'm:

A) looking something up (in which case I usually am not paying attention to the screen anyway)

B) doing something in the living room to keep my wife company while SHE is watching TV

In both of those cases, the laptop is independent of the screen anyway, so, while I could see it as a "Gee Whiz!" feature, I don't see where streaming the Second Picture to another device would be useful in reality, but I"m curious about the idea so please let me know how you see it being useful.

Re:Wait till the spec shakes out

[Doctor Faustus]

The problem I have with subtitles, and the reason I would never use picture-in-picture, is that it blocks the screen.

Re:Wait till the spec shakes out

[powerlord]

Well, I can see that argument being made against subtitles, but PiP is for a second or third viewing of a movie. It isn't meant for first viewing features.

I can see having "Directors Video Commentary" in a PiP box, so you can see the people commenting, besides just hear them.

Likewise, I could see animated movies perhaps being able to present "rough cut" footage in a PiP, so that people could see the comparison to the on-screen final cut.

Also a feature similar to the original "Rabbit Hole" Matrix pop-outs, but instead of jumping from the movie, have the main movie pause, open the PiP window, play a few minutes about how a particular special effect was done, with the effect in mid-motion as the main picture, then close the PiP and un-pause the movie.

I also don't know if the PiP is supposed to be resizable, or repositionable, both of which could have a major impact on both usability, and wether it would block an important/key element of a scene. If it can move, then I would hope directors might take this into account, without abusing it, to minimize its impact or to make sure they can point out something (again, perhaps pausing the main movie). If it CAN be resized/repositioned, then maybe it could also be used like MTV "pop-up" videos, with tid-bits overlayed onto the screen throughout the movie.

Well blow me over with a wistle

[giorgist]

This may reflect badly on them in the long run.
The price has little to do with cost, but more to do with what you can get away with.
Ultimately making the consumer more pessemistic

G

Why go stand-alone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just get a drive and rip them on your computer and playback via MythTV. You are already recording and playing back HD TV content, right? http://www.amazon.com/Liteon-Reader-Black-Retail-Pack/dp/B0010ZWYF8

Not just not a surprise...

[CannonballHead]

It should almost be expected. If people are willing to pay more money for it, I honestly have to say that I have no problem with the company charging more for it. If you work in a computer support company, and your client is willing and able to pay you $60 an hour, are you going to offer him $30 out of pure spite towards your wallet?

Re:Not just not a surprise...

[fitten]

I've never had a client approach me and say that they were willing to pay a certain amount, what could they do for me... usually, they say what they want and get a quote. You quote what you think they'll pay and if they aren't, then you don't get the job. You rarely, if ever, know how much they're *really* willing to pay.

Re:Not just not a surprise...

[Zorque]

If the shop next to you goes out of business, and you charged $60 before, are you going to start charging $80 just because you can? People are going to look for a different shop.

hmm

[greywire]

this probably wont happen, but:

What if by declaring hd-dvd dead it causes hd-dvd to become more popular than blu-ray?

By this I mean, the prices of drives are dropping because they are getting rid of them. The movies, too. At the same time, blu-ray is going up.

Will a lot of people even know that hd-dvd is dead? They will just see how cheap it is.

If this were timed right, hd-dvd could hit a critical mass very quickly. Yes they'd lose a bunch of money on the current supplies, but that's going to happen anyway. If at the right time they could resurect it and keep the prices way below blu-ray they could make a comeback. In the mean time they don't really have to waste money on advertising etc.

Myself, I would buy an hd-dvd burner and media right now if the prices were really low, just for storage purposes. They should continue to sell them for pcs for storage purposes.

Just a crazy idea. And what a coup it would be...

Re:hmm

[Dogtanian]

Will a lot of people even know that hd-dvd is dead? They will just see how cheap it is. The majority of people who know enough about it to know why they want it (and why it's better than "ordinary" DVD) will know why it's so cheap.

If at the right time they could resurect it and keep the prices way below blu-ray they could make a comeback. Unlikely- the format has been publicly disowned, and this has been accepted (and even pushed by) the industry across the board (including retailers, hardware manufacturers and film studios). Even if HD-DVD becomes briefly popular because of Lemming-like selling-off, it's not going to come back to life. The studios aren't going to shift back their multi-billion dollar commitments simply because of a brief price-driven surge.

People will *know* that the reason HD-DVD is cheap is because it's dead. That's not a good long-term plan. At best, some studios might release a few more films in HD-DVD format than they might have otherwise.

A similar suggestion was made when HD-DVD was starting to seriously flounder, but before it was clear that it was going to be abandoned. Toshiba slashed the prices, and some thought it might kick-start things. Even that was clearly a desparate measure, but things were different then- the race was still going.

Now the HD-DVD horse is dead, the defibrilators have been packed away and the vets have gone home.

It's not going to happen.

Myself, I would buy an hd-dvd burner and media right now if the prices were really low, just for storage purposes. I wouldn't; even if the price is relatively cheap compared to writable Blu-Ray, I still doubt it's *that* cheap. As the price of BR falls, it'll pass it. Meanwhile, you'll have committed your existing data to a soon-to-be-obsolete format, you'll have to faff about with EBay to get another drive to read your discs if the first fails, and supplies of writable HD-DVD discs will likely dry up quite quickly and soon rise in price, since I can't see them being manufactured for very long now. (It's unlikely there's a critical mass of existing HD-DVD burner users who'd be worth keeping the HD-DVD-R factory lines going for).

Re:hmm

[greywire]

Just a little too much wishfull thinking I guess.

I just despise Sony and their formats...

Re:hmm

[m4cph1sto]

I for one am enjoying my growing collection of $13-15 HD-DVDs on my $130 HD-DVD player (which I bought to replace an old broken DVD-upscaler). In a few years there will probably be enough good titles available only on blu-ray that I'll be interested in buying a blu-ray player. Or a PS3. And by then I'll probably get either one for under than $200.

Am I happy that my format of choice lost the war? No. But I'm not particularly upset about it either. In fact I think I'm getting a pretty good deal out of this situation.

Re:hmm

[evilviper]

I just despise Sony and their formats...

Yeah, CDs and DVDs were such pieces of crap. Damn You Sony!

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD is Crap its a real pain in the ass to work with.

Im sure blu-ray will be worse Sony just want to rootkit everyone.

Re:hmm

[greywire]

CD's are hardly a Sony format. The actual technology was mainly developed by Philips, but they did collaborate with Sony to get the final product going. Considering there was nothing else out there, it really didn't matter how they did it, unlike today.

DVD's weren't created by Sony either, though they certainly played a role in defining it. But more credit goes to Philips and Matsushita than sony.

You can credit Sony with creating the 3.5" floppy, though.

So what other failed formats did Sony bring us?

Memory Stick -- while everyone else uses SD.
UMD (PSP) disks -- why couldn't they just use a mini DVD?
Min-disk -- actually was kinda cool, if only it was used by everyone like CD's..
Super Audio CD -- no comment
Beta -- ok, so it was probably superior in many ways.
Clie -- ok, not a format, just a nice PDA that is unnecessarily made incompatible by having memory sticks and a modified PalmOS.

Don't get me wrong, they make really nice hardware. If only they could go with the standards instead of being different just for the sake of being different (or to foist more DRM on us)

Supply and demand at work

[DrXym]

With the format war over and uncertainty removed, retailers are starting to sell these things close to their MSRP again. I shouldn't worry though. More and more models are appearing from more and more manufacturers including no-names so the prices are going to head south.

Prices in Euros

[Goonie]

How much of this is due to the fact the US dollar has dropped a lot in value recently?

Not that this is a bad thing - it will help to correct the imbalances in the US economy far more than bleating about NAFTA or whatever other nonsense is coming out of your politicians at the moment...

Re:Prices in Euros

[Klaus_1250]

Probably has something to do with it, but I think the main reason was that the prices in the US were just insanely low in order to fight the Format War. No point in keep selling units for a price that doesn't turn in profit. The price-level here (Europe) has not even been near that of the US.

Price in euro's is here (Netherlands) is 325 euro (500 dollar) if you purchase from a online webshop. A more common price is 350-385 euro (538-590 dollar). Suggested retail-price by Sony is 385 euro (590 dollar).

Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[nobodyman]

This is an utterly foolish move by manufacturers and retailers, because it presumes that HD-DVD was the *only* obstacle to widespread adoption. In fact, Blu-Ray may have won the battle vs. HD-DVD, but it is far from winning the war. Digital download is becoming increasingly popular, and many consumers are just fine with their current DVD's.

Some advice to the Blu-Ray camp: You still haven't convinced us to buy, and raising prices ain't gonna help things.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[i_liek_turtles]

I find it funny that the same Slashdot that thinks the telcos are dragging their feet and barely keeping up with XviD downloads (US broadband sucks, don't get me wrong) is the same Slashdot that thinks HD discs won't last long because people will download their HD content.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[rsborg]

Some advice to the Blu-Ray camp: You still haven't convinced us to buy, and raising prices ain't gonna help things.

Not to mention competetiveness vs. DVD.

However, keep in mind, the US Dollar is much lower than, say, even 6 months ago, so this could be a symptom of dollar devaluation.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[feepness]

Some advice to the Blu-Ray camp: You still haven't convinced us to buy, and raising prices ain't gonna help things. Some advice to the cheap-ass camp: You ain't an us. I pay my nanny more than $400 a week.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[manekineko2]

Some advice to the cheap-ass camp: You ain't an us. I pay my nanny more than $400 a week.

Some advice to the ostentatiously rich camp: You don't get adoption of a format by selling it only to the ostentatiously rich. That's how you end up with laser disc.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is this "us" you speak of?
Sorry bro but you do not represent the majority but rather a minority with a very vocal voice that has little to no attention paid to it. Remember all those people called the 'sheeple'; well they represent the majority and they move the market. Not some nerd on Slashdot who has pipe dreams with phantom industries they like to make up(put your money where your mouth is).

I know you don't like to hear it but digital download for HD movies is still a long ways away. Will not even put much argument into it but you can favorite this post and look back at it when the majority have Blu-Ray players that can play DVD's also as they slowly phase out their scratched DVD's.

The trendy terms around Slashdot seem to be about bragging about your old DVD collection, digital downloads and upconverting. Yawn.......same old wrong predictions as usual where the tech world is headed and what the average citizen likes to watch.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[afidel]

I wouldn't call it MUCH lower, it's lost about 7.5% vs the dollar index in the last 6 months. That is significantly faster inflation than CPI but that just shows how small a percentage of the total economy imports are.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[nobodyman]

I seriously doubt that these same 'sheeple' are rushing out to buy blu-ray players when

• prices are going up
• the US is rushing headlong into a recession
• 'sheeple' can't tell the difference between 480p, 1080p, and a damn microwave oven.
• 'sheeple' *can* tell the difference between a $400 player vs. a $50 player, and $30 discs vs. $15 discs.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[feepness]

Some advice to the ostentatiously rich camp: You don't get adoption of a format by selling it only to the ostentatiously rich. That's how you end up with laser disc. I am far from ostentatiously rich. My wife works for the three days the nanny is here. She makes more than that so it is a net positive and she also enjoys getting out of the house.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[Dan541]

This is an utterly foolish move by manufacturers and retailers, because it presumes that HD-DVD was the *only* obstacle to widespread adoption. In fact, Blu-Ray may have won the battle vs. HD-DVD, but it is far from winning the war. Digital download is becoming increasingly popular, and many consumers are just fine with their current DVD's. My format Bittorrent (.avi,DivX,[insertanyplayableformat] ect) is going strong and Im just fine with it.

Some advice to the Blu-Ray camp: You still haven't convinced us to buy, and raising prices ain't gonna help things. They certainly havent convinced me to buy anything.(At All)

~Dan

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[Have Brain Will Rent]

Not to mention that $400 a week is a pretty damn cheap nanny... kinda gives the impression of a wanna be rich person calling their babysitter a nanny. Oh and a 914 isn't a "real" Porsche either.

Re:Psst... you haven't won the war yet.

[ashitaka]

There is some validity to the download viewpoint.

Two days ago I taught my wife how to download Hi-Def torrents of the Japanese historical dramas she's been watching on our standard def TV's.

Now she sees no reason to watch the TV anymore as the stunning detail on the traditional kimonos is just drop-dead beautiful. This raises an interesting point. Regular North America TV doesn't have much beyond nature documentaries that can benefit from high definition, but Asian TV programs can be an art unto themselves.

... and I still don't have a TV ...

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

So, blu-ray players are expensive. I guess that is an issue. I've got a media centre (and remote) I built, and I still don't see the benefit of DVDs (except to re-encode them in xvid/mp4). Forget blu-ray, bring on downloadable content.

And yes, we'll get that eventually. Maybe. one day...

Re:... and I still don't have a TV ...

[pkulak]

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694

Re:... and I still don't have a TV ...

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

oh, I still WATCH tv ... I just do it on a monitor. Mmm, much more elitist-snob.

What about the media?

[rworne]

I was buying blu-ray right and left in late 2007. Since Feb '08 I have not bought a single title. Why? Prices of media jumped beyond my threshold and I went back to DVD.

I find it hard to buy titles like "No Country for Old Men" for $26.00-29.99 on Blu-Ray when the same title can be picked up for less than $14 at Target on DVD. Another gripe is high prices on back-catalog titles I already own on DVD. Sorry, I will not buy a $26+ BR title when I have already purchased the same title on DVD two or more years ago.

When retailers start aggressively pricing media again, I'll go back to buying the format. Otherwise upscaled DVD looks quite good on my PS3.

Re:What about the media?

[donaldm]

I actually do agree with you on this but for different reasons. Basically there is a big difference between Bluray (BD) movies and DVD movie on a HDTV especially if that HDTV is 32" and above and the bigger that HDTV is the more you can pick the difference especially if the HDTV is 1080p. As for prices the difference between a BD (even HD-DVD for that matter) movie and the same DVD movie could be as much as 50% although I have noticed that a few (not that many though) BD movies have actually dropped to within 15% of the same DVD movie.

Still it is rare for me to buy movies on BD or even DVD since I prefer to rent if I really want to watch that movie and since our Blockbuster rents BD and DVD at the same price I would rather rent a BD movie over the same movie on DVD. My son on the other hand does buy TV series on DVD and if the show does not have that must have detail then I don't think it is worth it to buy that same show on BD disk when the DVD is just as entertaining.

Some of the problems I find with people who say they can't see the difference between a BD movie and a up-converted DVD movie is they have a small HDTV or even a SDTV and for some who do have a large HDTV they use AV or composite cables instead of component or HDMI cables which do make quite a significant difference. Actually some of the complaints from som is that AV (composite) cables come with the player or TV and that is good enough especially if they have no technical knowledge and are "conned" by their department store into buying expensive cables. "Monster Cables" are IMHO a rip-off although they do work well.

Of course for people who still can't tell the difference between a BD movie and the same movie on DVD with a reasonable sized HDTV with correct cables I suggest getting their eyes tested or a "seeing eye dog". :-)

Re:What about the media?

[Doctor Faustus]

When retailers start aggressively pricing media again, I'll go back to buying the format.
So don't buy it. Netflix charges the same for Blu-Ray as basic DVD.

Re:What about the media?

[rworne]

I don't... That's the point of my post. I would pay a slight premium over DVD, but not much more than $5. But most retailers will heavily discount popular titles on DVD and leave the BR titles at/near full price. I won't pay a $10-15 premium for a BR title.

Alternative Theory: Joe Consumer sees $400 DVD

[mkcmkc]

...player and says "Why would I want to buy that?".

Re:Alternative Theory: Joe Consumer sees $400 DVD

[Jugalator]

Salesman walks away with the man from his wife a bit and whisper, "just between you and me, the porn quality is awesome!"

Deal!

Re:Alternative Theory: Joe Consumer sees $400 DVD

[afidel]

Porn is the LAST thing you want in HD, seeing the flaws just ruins the illusion. It's the same reason porn lighting tends to be much more soft and mellow than many blockbuster action films.

Re:Alternative Theory: Joe Consumer sees $400 DVD

[Plutonite]

Or: Salesman points out that these days there are women who cost 5500 US dollars an hour to bend over, and in light of such inflationary realities Joe Consumer is forced to pity his current state of affairs and just dish the 400 f*cking dollars out.

Market Pricing

[Overneath42]

Of course the prices will go up. This is basic economics at work. The supply of Blu-Ray players hasn't appreciably increased, but the demand for them has since HD-DVD has been discontinued. More demand + flat supply = higher prices. If prices stayed the same then the supply would sell out quicker and there would be shortages. Now that Blu-Ray has been declared the "winner" of the format war, the manufacturers will produce more since there will be more guaranteed sales. Hence, the supply will rise and the prices will fall.

reversed?

[PureCreditor]

isn't it usually when a format-war ends, the sales of the winning format goes up, both the players and the movies, and manufacturers have more incentive to pump out newer versions at lower prices?

i thought that's what happened when DVD-R and DVD+R finally converged into DVD+/-R.

hopefully this price increase is only temporary. When DVD players are routinely below $100, it's hard to imagine consumers other than die-hard HD fans will shell out $350-400 for something that similar. This is not VHS vs. DVD. This is more DVD vs. slightly-better-DVD.

I'm making out like gangbusters

[EmagGeek]

I have both players, so I've been soaking up HD-DVDs dirt cheap since Toshiba threw in the towel.

One thing that has been observed since Toshiba's decision is that sales of players and movies have SKYROCKETED, and Toshiba has been reported to be reconsidering their decision.

This war may not be over just yet...

Perfect Solution

[TheMeuge]

So I guess the solution to Sony's dilemma is to remove the movie-playing function from the PS3, and then offer it as a $100-$200 option.

Re:Perfect Solution

[linzeal]

Why, they still make money off each disc sold and I would be willing to bet that is a great deal more money over time.

Re:Perfect Solution

[powerlord]

So I guess the solution to Sony's dilemma is to remove the movie-playing function from the PS3, and then offer it as a $100-$200 option.

Why? They already make money on every Blu-Ray disk and drive sold. That was one of the reasons they faught so hard to make sure Blu-Ray won.

Now that they've won the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war, I expect them to throw more into the PS3 vs. XBox 360 war, and stripping the PS3 of its advantage as a Blu-Ray player would go against that strategy.

Won't bother me...

[themushroom]

...and my VHS player (cheap!) and plain DVD player (down to $40 at Walgreens).

Why bleed for bleeding edge?

HD-DVD will upconvert DVD for 780p or less

[WillAffleckUW]

Lost in the shuffle is the reality that you can still buy an HD-DVD player that will upconvert a standard DVD to a higher resolution to meet the needs of anyone who has a 780p or less HDTV up to around 50 inches.

If you don't have an HDTV set, or you have a 40 inch HDTV, you don't even need HD-DVD or Blu-Ray anyway.

hmm

[nomadic]

It really should not be a surprise for all of us, but it is interesting to see how quickly retail adjusted to the new situation and increase prices.

I am actually surprised. While I understand their motivation, in my experience the price of electronics goods almost never go up.

Sell at a loss

[kindbud]

Make it up in volume. That's the ticket.

Just kill it already.

[sethstorm]

Except actually doing something to kill NAFTA and the like would do something good for the US. We would be able to get back on our own feet, then consider trade.

Re:Just kill it already.

[ODiV]

It's not like the US doesn't already ignore NAFTA when it doesn't work to their advantage (see Canadian softwood lumber).

Re:Just kill it already.

[pokerdad]

doing something to kill NAFTA and the like would do something good for the US

Its funny how something that really ought to make the news in the US, sometimes doesn't...

A few weeks ago the Canadian government announced that if the US government ever wants to renegotiate NAFTA, that the provisions in it that guarentee oil to the US are off the table (ie Canada will not resign unless those clauses are removed). For those of you who don't know just what NAFTA guarentee the US in terms of oil, under the treaty Canada can never limit oil exports to the US.

I know its always easy, and also encourage by the press and many politicians, to rag on the bad parts of treaties while totally ignoring the parts of it that benefit your side, but that doesn't make such a stance intelligent.

We would be able to get back on our own feet, then consider trade.

You think oil's expensive now? Where do you think its going to be in five years? How much worse do think it might be then if your largest supplier of oil decides to turn the tap down a little? Which would be worse for the US economy, competing with Mexico or $20/gal gas?

Re:Just kill it already.

[Infonaut]

We would be able to get back on our own feet, then consider trade.

I agree wholeheartedly. We should stop international trade for a while. That will help us recover from the horrible state we're in. After all, it's not like much of the American economy depends on international trade. We can all work on WPA projects like building dams and bringing electricity to rural areas. Once that's all squared away, we can ponder whether we should send steam ships across the oceans to re-establish our trade connections with the rest of the world.

Re:Just kill it already.

[Anonymous Coward]

The dispute is over hardwood, and NAFTA clearly shouldn't apply when you are destroying the environment to undercut your competitors.

The Spotted Owl is now virtually extinct in Canada due to government-sponsored clearcut logging -- gee, thanks guys! And even though Canada signed on to the Kyoto agreement, its greenhouse gas emissions have increased even faster than the US's. It's quite remarkable really.

Re:Just kill it already.

[ODiV]

The dispute is over hardwood,

The dispute is about softwood. This can be confirmed in about two minutes on Google.

and NAFTA clearly shouldn't apply when you are destroying the environment to undercut your competitors.

Do you really think that the US was imposing duties for environmental reasons? Seriously?

Can't argue with you about the government's action re: the preservation of the spotted owl though. I'm not a big fan of North America's lack of respect for the environment as a whole. Then again, I could be doing a hell of a lot more personally.

So will the quality, and badly.

[sethstorm]

More and more models are appearing from more and more manufacturers including no-names so the prices are going to head south. So will the quality, after going through more than a few knockoff DVD players.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for HD-DVD

[DesScorp]

Though declared "Dead", the body is still warm. And you'd think that HD-DVD would be the natural successor to the DVD drives for PC's because they share the same filesystem, and HD-DVD drives are completely backwards compatible with CD and DVD formats. While Blu-Ray players can be made compatible with those formats, not all players are. At least some BR players on the market couldn't read standard CD's, for instance. Since Microsoft's Xbox 360 uses an HD-DVD drive, you might be able to get them to push the standard for PC drives.

Re:Perhaps this is an opportunity for HD-DVD

[NevarMore]

Its an interesting thought, essentially you'd be renaming HD-DVD from HiDef DVD to HiDensity DVD. So you'll have a higher density format that no one else can read. So you've essentially wound up with another SuperDisk .

Given a choice between an inexpensive DVD drive and an HD-DVD drive for the same price I'd grab the HD-DVD one. Might come in handy to rip HD-DVDs once the players all get purged. Ultimately its going to be another mark on the "I have stuff in the parts bin that might be useful" scorecard maybe a few more points for "rescuing" a good HD-DVD movie around 2011.

Re:Perhaps this is an opportunity for HD-DVD

[Boycott BMG]

HD DVD for PC is dead, mainly because the burners never materialized. There are still no HD DVD burners over 1 year after Toshiba announced they were making one. I have a suspicion that there are major technical barriers to making burners for HD DVD. Maybe this is the reason Pioneer and Sony decided to create Blu-Ray. If it isn't burnable and looks to be dead, anyone with half a brain will pick the competing technology. Also, I have not yet seen a Blu-ray drive that cannot read DVD's and CD's.

Re:Perhaps this is an opportunity for HD-DVD

[poot_rootbeer]

Since Microsoft's Xbox 360 uses an HD-DVD drive

The HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 is an add-on peripheral, not an integral part of the console.

And with the HD-DVD movie format having a limited amount of market time left, it's looking like history will judge the peripheral as harshly as it did the Sega 32X or the Intellivision Keyboard Component.

Hmmm...

[rickb928]

Didn't see that coming...

Who ever would have thought....

[otis wildflower]

... that the lack of competition would bring higher prices? Me fail economix? That's unpossible!

(waiting on even cheaper HDDVDs, or used (eBay or Netflix).. Then it's all Matroska all the time baby!!)

(how wicked cool of a burn would it be for Tosh to open the hardware specs to opensourcers, and someone ports VLC to the XA2?)

Average != lowest

[HalAtWork]

Now that blu-ray is the standard, more companies are willing to take a gamble and produce expensive luxury models. The average price will be higher even though the same lower-cost models are available at the same price. It's just that now more companies are putting weight on high-end options as well as offering affordable options. Prior to this point in the market, the focus was on adoption. Now it's on adoption as well as catering to those who are ready to invest heavily in the platform.

Re:HD-DVD will upconvert DVD for 720p or less

[fyrie]

Upconversion looks acceptable, but it's nowhere near HDTV/Blu-Ray in clarity and lack of compression artifacts. My set is only 720p, but even my non tech-geek girlfriend can clearly see the difference between DVD upscaled to 720p and HDDVD/Blu-ray at 720p.

I like how "2008" makes it look like a big deal.

[feepness]

So here we are less than 1/5 into the year and still coming off the post-Christmas sales into the standard summer shopping lull and this article makes it sound like this is some sort of significant data point.

Call me in six months and report numbers then.

Rich Man's Eight Track?

[xoundmind]

My apologies to Big Black, who perceptively predicted the unending format escalation by the media/hardware vendors. (And they are the same thing these days.)

Does it really make any sense to run out and buy one of these players and sink a fortune into the discs themselves? Why not just wait for the ubiquity of on-demand HD content? Aside from those of you who insist on "owning" (and we know that is not true) something.

Re:Rich Man's Eight Track?

[stussymo]

Why not just wait for the ubiquity of on-demand HD content?

Because that time is far in the future. I have broadband, the fastest I can get where I live is 1.5Mbps. At that rate it would take 37 hours to download a 25GB movie. And I'm sure my ISP would get pissed off and start charging for extra b/w usage. No Thanks! I'll take a disc please and thank you!

Broadband in the U.S. sucks! And it doesn't appear that it will get better anytime soon. For example, I live in CO and Verizon has no plans at all to bring FIOS here. There just aren't many up & coming options for most of the nation for better broadband.

Re:I like how "2008" makes it look like a big deal

[geekoid]

Oh, I ahve a feeling you will see this article again in 6 months...

Way out of price

[oniichan84]

I find the prices way out of line, this is not new technology! it is the improvement upon 1980's optics. There is no just cause for a player to cost $400. The only difference in Blueray players are the laser and processor. (the laser assembly I can see being a bit more expensive as well as the processor cause of the bit rate of HD) everything else is old hat. Modern electronics are cheap (both in manufacturing cost and quality) Everything is programmable; solid state circuitry.

Re:Way out of price

[ratboy666]

Preach on!

I agree with you. Further, I will state that the Toshiba A3/A30 are about the "right price" now (maybe a bit less expensive than they could be). Along with a "7 free movie" offer, an under $100 price point is good. Current BD player prices are completely insane.

And, HD DVD content is being dumped (ei. at reasonable prices). So, it's HD DVD for me, baby.

Also, I can burn HD content on 3xDVD (DVD5 or DVD9) and have my Toshiba play it in glorious HD. I haven't (yet) heard of success in reading DVD9 HD content on a (Sony) Blu Ray player -- can anyone actually report success doing this (the players apparently don't switch into 3x mode, but stay in 1x)? As it is, I can burn 20 to 40 minutes of full 1080i/1080p HD onto DVD media, and play using 3xDVD mode (a movies can be recorded onto 2 or 3 dual-layer DVDs).

I would like to have someone verify that this works on a BD player as well.

Re:HD-DVD will upconvert DVD for 720p or less

[fyrie]

Forgot to mention that my set is 42". I can't vouch for anything smaller than that. I do agree though on the premise that HDDVD players are now a great value priced upscailing solution.

Re:HD-DVD will upconvert DVD for 720p or less

[WillAffleckUW]

I think I said that. I specifically said that for a 720p or less HDTV set the HD-DVD is a cheaper upscaling solution, and thereby implied that Toshiba's remarketing of their existing HD-DVD players as upscaling DVD players is a cheaper solution that works great.

But, many recent (2008) DVD upscaling players can display high quality 720p or 480p output on a set up to 42 inches or so. If you are heavy into sports and have a 50 inch or more HDTV set, I'd probably just get an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player ...

Annoying memes.

[serviscope_minor]

There has been an annyoing meme on /. recently among a small, but noticable minority, namely: the free market KING and the goivernment should SFTU and GBTW so to speak.

This is a classic example of a free market failure. One player paid an enourmous amount of money ($400 million) to kill the other player. Now that the other player is as good as gone, the prices have risen.

This is an excellent example where the free market fails: corporate collusion destroyed it.

Re:Annoying memes.

[j0nb0y]

Of course if the BluRay format weren't controlled through patents and the DMCA, then this would be a non-event. Then, anyone with the right resources could make and market a BluRay player. That would be a free market.

What we have is far from a free market. Even the value of our currency is controlled by the government...

Actions like this could boost the dead HD-DVD

[sven_eee]

As the pricing of HD DVD has drop and everyone tries to clean there hands of it. I see a chance for dirt cheap HD DVD to out sell the over priced Blu-ray and create a market for it again.
Ether which way I'm just going to skip the whole HDDVD and Blu-ray thing and go strait to HVD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Discs or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Card $1 30GB cards are a big selling point for me.

rubbish.. exchange rates

[Exter-C]

This is crazy. Ive just done a quick call around and look at google products and the prices are the same or only a very small percentage higher. It seems that if I goto google.com rather than the local european sites that the prices are much higher in the US. Its probably more than likely hysteria related to the dollar being at one of its lowest points in 20 years.. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=USDJPY=X&t=3m

PS3...

[Schnoogs]

...still the best player and value out there.

Props for Big Black mention -old time fav

[spineboy]

Steve Albini was, and still is fairly tech savy. I think he was an electrical engineer before his music career took off. Saw them at CBGBs about 20 years ago. Quite good, acerbic, and insightful.

At some point, the resolution wars will end, due to the lack of need to make picture/sound information density greater than the ability of humans to perceive it.

Anyone know roughly what DPI is equivalent to what we experience thru our eyes. I had thought that digital cameras are encrouching upon that resolution.

I do concur that downloadable content is/will be the next tech wave for entertainment.

Re:Props for Big Black mention -old time fav

[AnotherBlackHat]

I can see a difference between 600 and 1200 DPI on a printed page, but I can't see any difference between 1600 and 2000 DPI.
But I don't think it's DPI that really defines the limit here;
According to http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html there are about 120 million rods in the human eye.
Even though they aren't evenly distributed, I'd hazard that a 12k x 10k display will be close enough to human perception that further "improvements" in resolution won't be discernible.

We aren't there yet, but it doesn't seem all that far off either.

-- Should you believe authority without question?

This isn't necessarily a monopoly issue...

[coyotl]

It could just as easily be explained by the destruction of the value of the dollar.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Oh stop whining

[Nibs Niven]

"Hey, want to know a secret? Vista has more features than Linux." Pfffffffttttttttttt!!!!! What? Are you out of your mind, or just being sarcastic? You're risking the wrath of thousands of very pissed-off penguins, my friend. Better don the flame-retardant (and bite resistant) suit while you've still got the chance...

Yeah, reducing trade is such a great idea...

[Goonie]

Your ideas were tried in 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. It didn't cause the Great Depression on its own, but it made it a whole lot worse.

Re:Yeah, reducing trade is such a great idea...

[IdeaMan]

Wow. The articles people link to are way better than the ones on the front page of slashdot.
Thanks for that link Goonie.

then they will kill it, good luck with that

[gelfling]

Unless and until they can get a legal trust fixing scheme where all the publishers decide they have to abandon DVD at the same time, and the courts go along with it, then all they will wind up doing is killing Blu-Ray. I'm not paying $400 for a player. I don't know anyone who's not in the dick measuring business who will. Sorry Blu-Ray, go sell crack somewhere else.

Good point, but...

[nobodyman]

I can't speak for this singular "Slashdot"guy that you speak of, but it's not as though your points are mutually exclusive.

Personally, I *do* think that telcos are dragging their feet with respect to services and new technologies. But AppleTV, XBox Live Marketplace, even Netflix are examples of digital download providers that are increasing in popularity. And keep in mind that you are only talking about the US market. Other parts of the world have better broadband penetration, and I imagine that digital distribution will pose an even bigger threat to Blu-Ray in those areas.

Re:Good point, but...

[i_liek_turtles]

Increasing in popularity, yes, but I doubt that those who are happy with XviD are the market that B]uRay is aiming for-- the HD enthusiast. In other parts of the world, even those with good broadband penetration, I'd still think that a 30+ GB file would be taxing. If they can actually compete, well, I feel nothing but envy. :(

Re:Good point, but...

[Dan541]

Increasing in popularity, yes, but I doubt that those who are happy with XviD are the market that B]uRay is aiming for-- the HD enthusiast. In other parts of the world, even those with good broadband penetration, I'd still think that a 30+ GB file would be taxing. If they can actually compete, well, I feel nothing but envy. :( 30GB is only the size on disk most movies I download are 700-800MB from a 4GB DVD.

It wont be long before compressed torrents start appearing.

~Dan

Not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

List all those companies selling players that you can actually buy without going mail-order or web.

That count is...um 1. Sony. Yeah, you can get others, but not easily. So let's give you an additional 1/2 because you're technically right. For all intents and purposes, only Sony is making players. There's another company making them but they're currently getting sued for making players that actually don't work. At anything.

Re:Not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

List all those companies selling players that you can actually buy without going mail-order or web. My local Best Buy has a Sharp, Sony, and Samsung available on the "low" end. The Panasonic one is sold out, unfortunately. On the pricey side they also have Pioneer and the higher end Sony.

Re:Not quite

[DrXym]

Off the top of my head you can buy players from Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Denon, Marantz and Pioneer. Since I have no idea where you live or where you buy your electronics from I can't comment whether you can find them in bricks & mortar stores or not. I expect most dedicated AV stores would stock several models. I expect stores like Best Buy etc. do too or will before long.

Looks bogus to me.

[guidryp]

I looked at the graph, it looks like a whole lot of nothing. Minor retail fluctuations with a blip up after the holidays. I would expect that of most products.

I thought I would check one of the high marks they are using as Evidence:

I looked at the Sharp BDHP20U listed as having jumped to $440. I checked amazon where it is show a LIST PRICE of $399 and selling price of $350. Only $90 different? Maybe Amazon is an outlier? Dell $329, Every retailer I have heard of was under $400.

The only number higher were listing of something called "storefront"? with a price of $100 more than list??

Anyway even if the graph was correct, it looks like a whole lot of nothing, but to top it, the data itself seems suspect. Have a look for yourself.

Bottom line nothing to see here. Just another attempt to stir up the dead war for TG page hits.

Um, fuck Sony ?

[billcopc]

If a crappy entry-level BD player costs $400, might as well buy a stupid Playstation 3.

Problem is, this will drive the numbers up for Sony to pimp dev houses into releasing more PS3 titles, even though a significant number of PS3 buyers are only interested in its movie capabilities. It's the PS2 all over again!

Re:Um, fuck Sony ?

[Doctor_Jest]

Good to know... considering the Ps2 sold 41 million units and counting... (and many of the top 10 sales figures for games in 2007 are PS2 titles...)

Now if the Ps3 goes that way... I'm fine with it... because it's my game system of choice...

Fuck Microsoft.

Re:Um, fuck Sony ?

[p0tat03]

Developers aren't stupid. They know what proportion of PS3 players are gamers, and what proportion aren't. Hell, people have been tracking attach rates (average $ spent per console owner) for all of the major consoles.

I agree BD players are too expensive for me to invest in right now, but honestly, getting a PS3 just to play it doesn't seem like THAT bad of a deal.

I mean, hell, I have an Xbox 360, I'm definitely no Sony fanboy, but even I have to admit that the PS3 is a MUCH better built piece of technology than the flimsy red-ring-a-minute 360... Now if only it had some real games that didn't involve androgynous long-haired pretty boys prancing about with swords bigger than themselves...

Re:Um, fuck Sony ?

[Doctor Faustus]

Problem is, this will drive the numbers up for Sony to pimp dev houses into releasing more PS3 titles, even though a significant number of PS3 buyers are only interested in its movie capabilities. It's the PS2 all over again!
We bought a PS3 mainly to play movies, but since we had it anyway, I still got my son Rachet and Clank for Christmas.

I think that sort of thing happens fairly often. I wouldn't be surprised if the average household who bought a PS-3 for movies also buys 2-3 games over the lifetime.

Re:Um, fuck Sony ?

[billcopc]

It almost feels like this is precisely what Sony wanted in killing HD-DVD. Not only do they get to sell PS3 consoles, but they get software sales as a bonus for twisting the customer's arm, sales that would not happen if there were affordable BluRay players in the marketplace. It completely undermines the consumption process.

Re:HD-DVD will upconvert DVD for 720p or less

[Hatta]

But does she care? I have absolutely no problem watching over the air TV via rabbit ears on a 20 inch tv without my glasses. I just don't care that much. Attempts to sell higher fidelity audio disks (SA-CD, DVD-A) have been unsuccessful because the public just doesn't care.

Re:"anti-PS3 crowd"

[Frantix]

I'm not sure what you're implying by the "anti-PS3 crowd"? That only die-hard PS3 fans are technically savvy enough to want an HD player? Or is it just a troll remark? The market is made up of a lot of different people on ALL sides of the console front; some for gaming, some for the overall capabilities of a console and, with the war being over, a BD player first and a game console second.

Most of my time is still playing PC games but I also have an Xbox and have no interest in a PS3 even for the BluRay. I have a lot of interest in BluRay but not through a PS3 or the "new" pricing scheme that they've seemed to now drop on consumers for stand-alone players. I'll bid my time and hopefully Microsoft releases a BD player at some point in the upcoming months as has been the rumor.

Re:HD-DVD will upconvert DVD for 720p or less

[fyrie]

She cares to a certain degree. When we get Netflix in the mail she'll ask what we got in HD. For TV, she'll go out of her to way to switch from analog cable to the home theater PC and kick on the HDTV tuner program if she knows something is also being broadcast in HD. On the flip side however, she will watch shows on demand from network station websites which I won't do unless I absolutely have to catch up on something. I guess you could say she prefers HD but isn't as much as a snob as I am ;).

Get a PS3

[Daniel Phillips]

Seriously. The best entertainment investment I ever made, and now they are getting cheap with bigger hard disks, running cooler, more games. And, um, a rather nice Blu-Ray player. And hdmi 1.3 (10 bit color and higher).

No Sony did not pay me to say this. Oh, and run Linux on it. The PS3 over here pretty much runs continuously, Youtube is a popular application. Did I mention built-in wifi? Geek chic too, with what amounts to a tabletop supercomputer, and games just starting to come out now that actually drive the chip.

Tell me how this works again

[westlake]

By undercutting the competition in production, replication and hardware costs, it thinks it can find a market among consumers with less disposable income.

The buyer with "less disposable income" who can still afford the HDTV set needed to view HD content?

Supplanted by alternate HD distribution?

[TheNucleon]

Hey Blu-Ray - wake up. HD-DVD may be bidding farewell, but you've still got existing and upcoming competition...

They'd better shake out the tech specs, lower the prices, and settle down on the whole get rich quick scheme, or this HD media format may just be supplanted by alternate distribution methods. Having physical media feels anachronistic to me anyhow, and the excruciating prices don't help.

I'm getting my HDTV fix from satellite - HD-capable DVR, lots of fun content, and no buyer's remorse. Sure, I don't own the movies, but honestly, once I've seen something 7+ times, am I really going to see it again? I won't say never, but rarely. I've also got FIOS, and I could see super high speed broadband eating Blu-Ray's lunch with inevitable enhancements of existing download services (e.g., NetFlix' download service).

The disc is dead, long live the disc. People still love having the media, unless the price stays too high too long - then buh-bye?

Damn straight.

[pavon]

In my defense though, there isn't much of anything I'd want more than a trouser of rabid ferrets! Giggity.

$330 Playstation 3 Plays Blu-Ray Discs

[Doc Ruby]

You can get Playstation 3s for under $330.

And they run Linux.

Sell me rights to watch, not a new media format!

[Bad Mamba Jamba]

I don't know about anybody else but I'm not buying Star Wars again just to get it on the latest media format. Hollywood needs to give up switching the media on us and making us buy the same freakin movie over and over again and sell us the rights to watch the movie in any format we want. My cell phone, laptop, iPod, Blu-Ray, and everything between and beyond. Match the movie format to the device capability and stream it to me! I'm done buying plastic coasters!

In the meantime while we wait for bandwidth and technology to catch up a little (just a little) and Hollywood screws around selling the same movie yet again, I protest and am partnering with DVD43, your favorite DVD ripper, Netflix, some 1TB USB drives, and one of these little beauties...

http://www.tvix.co.kr/Eng/products/HDM6500A.aspx/

Same cost as a Blu-Ray player. Just need to invest in mass storage, which isn't that expensive if you haven't been following the hard drive market. Especially compared to what Blu-Ray costs per GB.

Also mounts ISO images from NAS, hooks up to UPnP devices, plays streams in all the common video file formats. And heck, does photos, music, and other stuff too.

Sure I can't pull HD disks to it yet, but as soon as somebody hacks the Blu-Ray protection that problem is solved too because this thing has 1080p and HDMI outputs and is ready to go. Or maybe Blu-Ray has been hacked already and we're there on this point too? I haven't actually checked...hmmm....

Difference :

[aepervius]

There won't be tawainese/chinese knock off at wall mart under 100$, because now they have a very tight hand on the spec and won't let it escape. And IMHO, that make a big deal, because if I recall correctly price on DVD player only really dropped like a stone when the chinese knock off appeared.

Dollar value

[JavaBear]

Maybe the increase have a bit to do with the dwindling value of the US Dollar, most of this equipment are produced abroad after all.

Rapid Consumer Adjustment

[LinuxLuver]

I adjusted rather rapidly to the victory of Blu-ray over HD-DVD. I decided I *STILL* don't need it. I own a 14" tv I don't watch much. If I want a better wuality video, I watch the content on my much larger PC screen. Why on earth would I waste money on Blu-ray?

Hell, the movies are overpriced too

[Shivetya]

$30 bucks for the Blu-Ray version compared to 11 to 15 for the regular? Most big box retailers discount new releases and the online sites are great places to pick up old titles. So besides being hit hard for the player you have to turn around and actually by movies for it.

and me, having just received his free HD-DVD movies in the mail, finally, figures that I will end up with lots of cheap hd-dvd movies soon as retailers dump their stock.

Re:Hell, the movies are overpriced too

[Anonymous Coward]

So besides being hit hard for the player you have to turn around and actually by movies for it.

Perhaps, but you can also get Blu-Ray movies from Netflix as part of the standard subscription (though you may wait longer).

But who cares ?

[speedlaw]

Possibly the most pointless flame war on the internet, right after the hams with "morse code vs. no code", is this HD DVD vs. Blu Ray. Both will play a HD disc. Both are locked down with DRM. Both solidify the current system of "we distribute, you bu¥, and no copying", just like 1979. HDMI-HDCP are far from a great idea...technically....but tech is not the idea...locking in the distribution system is. Why do you think each side fought for the monopoly ? Just this reason...the ability to dictate price, and for the endless residuals for the IP in the player. A standard DVD, on my 50 inch 1080 set, still looks good enough that I don't feel the need to run out and buy the HD disc. Also, has anyone noticed the raft of second tier films the studios are slowly releasing to get maximum bounce out of the old catalog to desperate buyers ? Really...people care about this ??

Re:But who cares ?

[IdeaMan]

Definitely No-code. I mean cmon, having the code requirement is SO 1800's. Doe anyone use that anymore?
It was hard enough getting my ham license without the code requirement. The theory questions could be made a little harder I guess, but ohmygoodnessno don't require code.

-x--x x--- --- -x- x -x--x-

Re:But who cares ?

[tapi_wrc]

Both solidify the current system of "we distribute, you bu¥, and no copying"

Well, you weren't paying much attention. HDDVD allowed for copying to PMPs, Home Jukeboxes etc - the format was actually designed with 'fair use' in mind.

Re:Sell me rights to watch, not a new media format

[meringuoid]

I don't know about anybody else but I'm not buying Star Wars again just to get it on the latest media format.

Definitely not. I hear that in the Blu-Ray release, Jar Jar Binks shoots first.

Pay-per-view in lieu of blu-ray

[Deputy Doodah]

I'll just get my HD movies via pay-per-view until the price becomes less exorbitant. Blu-Ray can kiss my ass until then.

Console market update!

[GameboyRMH]

The PS3 is about the only safe bet right now. In related news, PS3 prices have recently jumped sky high, nearly back to release day prices. PS3 pre-ordering fanboys were shown to feel 7% less bad about themselves, with pointing, laughing, and TV smashing from Wii owners showing an average increase of 15%. Interest in aftermarket cooling solutions for the Xbox360's power brick was up on the news.

Anti-Trust

[brianw21]

Where is the anti trust investigators when you need them?

Blu-Ray pays off some studios, kills the competition, and now consumers are paying higher prices because there is now no competition. That strikes me as a monopolistic practice (and result) if there ever was one. I'm sorry, consumers really took it up the a$$ this time. CEA should have stepped in before these formats were released to the public.

It's just as bad as HDCP and Component Video Constraint.... anything to confuse and screw the consumer! We need a Consumer Electronics body that represents us to stop this non sense, and represent consumer rights. DRM and format wars are ruining mass adoption of technology.

You're Put On Notice

[Nom du Keyboard]

You're put on notice that higher prices than what I already wouldn't pay aren't going to get me to adopt the technology any time soon. Sorry, but regular DVD still looks good enough on the 55" flatscreen. All I know now is that when I do buy BluRay that it won't be a total mistake.

That's why I support AMD

[Mojo66]

Exactly the same would happen to CPU prices if AMD would go bankrupt. Intel would raise the prices ad nauseum.

Meh. Liked the multiregion, but that was it.

[Thag]

My housemate had a 600A, and while it was indeed multiregion capable, and inexpensive, there is no getting around that it was also just really cheap.

It glitched a lot, and sound and picture were only OK. And it was ugly, if utilitarian.

I bought a Philips 642 a few years after that completely blows it away. Great picture, better looking, thinner, and yes, it does multiregion. And for $66 bucks.

But frankly, the best DVD player I've ever owned is my PS3. Love the bluetooth remote and the upscaling.