Can we safely say the HD war is a draw -- at least for now?

[Harrison Murchison]

Originally Posted by Dave Lammey

So tell me, am I wasting my money by getting in the game with one of these Toshiba HD DVD players for $299?

Yes you are Dave. Costco has the HD-D2 player for $249.99. No need to spend more money. Oh year it's the same player as a HD-A2 with a HDMI cable in the box. Some Sam's club have'em too.

BTW...5 free movies come with the A2 or D2 player on a rebate form. That drops your "effective" cost to under $130

What are you waiting for?

[Harrison Murchison]

Originally Posted by Jason Lowe

The problem is, if you lose, you've got a $600 brick with no new movies to play on it. if you "win", you've got a $600 machine that has half the features of the new $200 machine.

That's not necessarily the case here. Yes consumers have to be concerned about content but almost everyone on this board has a camera. DVD Studio Pro 4 will author HD content to DVD-R discs that playback in the HD DVD players. This is cool to me because I"m not beholden to packaged media. I hope to get a HV20 or something of similar quality within a year and the thought of watching my own creations in HD on my HD DVD player is enticing.

Technically the HD DVD specification is more mature. Blood Diamond on HD DVD will be the first title that offers internet interactivity.

[Harrison Murchison]

Need more proof?

http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/ar...-advanced.aspx

[Peter Jefferson]

Originally Posted by Harrison Murchison

That's not necessarily the case here. Yes consumers have to be concerned about content but almost everyone on this board has a camera. DVD Studio Pro 4 will author HD content to DVD-R discs that playback in the HD DVD players. This is cool to me because I"m not beholden to packaged media. I hope to get a HV20 or something of similar quality within a year and the thought of watching my own creations in HD on my HD DVD player is enticing.

Technically the HD DVD specification is more mature. Blood Diamond on HD DVD will be the first title that offers internet interactivity.

What your forgetting is that the PS3 doesnt even require yo uto authour ANYTHING. you just bung your HDV fotage to DVD5 disc as m2t and voila.. instant HD delivery with no headaches

fair enough theres no menu, but to alot of people, menus and teh like are jsut fluff. For those producing HD content, this is a great wy to get their HD content into consumer homes.

[Rob Lohman]

Personally I don't really care much about the cost of the players. You're gonna get a new player in a couple of years anyway (new features, faster start up, etc. etc.).

The problem for me is my content library. I already own 200+ dvd's. Now I have to re-purchase a lot of movies which I'm not looking forward to. On top of that if I choose "wrong" I have to buy some movies three times.

So I'm either gonna wait or get a player and rent the HD stuff.

A third option is that we're probably moving towards downloadable / streaming content. My guess is that this will take another 5 years at least to get to an acceptable level. But it would be good to own a movie and have it automatically available in whatever best format exists on the day you want to watch it. It will be a long way before that happens (distribution being happy with double, triple or more -dips).

[Dave Lammey]

Originally Posted by Rob Lohman

Personally I don't really care much about the cost of the players. You're gonna get a new player in a couple of years anyway (new features, faster start up, etc. etc.).

The problem for me is my content library. I already own 200+ dvd's. Now I have to re-purchase a lot of movies which I'm not looking forward to. On top of that if I choose "wrong" I have to buy some movies three times.

So I'm either gonna wait or get a player and rent the HD stuff.

A third option is that we're probably moving towards downloadable / streaming content. My guess is that this will take another 5 years at least to get to an acceptable level. But it would be good to own a movie and have it automatically available in whatever best format exists on the day you want to watch it. It will be a long way before that happens (distribution being happy with double, triple or more -dips).

I think most, if not all, of the HD DVD and blu-ray players upconvert standard DVDs. So you won't need to replace your old DVDs unless you're disappointed with the picture quality.

[Dave Lammey]

Originally Posted by Harrison Murchison

That's not necessarily the case here. Yes consumers have to be concerned about content but almost everyone on this board has a camera. DVD Studio Pro 4 will author HD content to DVD-R discs that playback in the HD DVD players. This is cool to me because I"m not beholden to packaged media. I hope to get a HV20 or something of similar quality within a year and the thought of watching my own creations in HD on my HD DVD player is enticing.

I just did that for the first time ... took an HDV production, created an HD DVD using DVDSP4, played it on an HD-A2 hooked up to a 50 inch HDTV ... it looked great! Very enticing. Thanks for the tip on the Costco player.

[Gary L Childress]

Hey guys,

Not sure if you saw that Warner Bros. has developed an HD disk that will play in both types of players. Maybe the content suppliers will fix the compatability problem. Hope they won't charge alot extra for it though. The price of those DVD/HD-DVD combo disks is kind of a rip in my opinion.

Only problem is Sony as I am sure none of Sony's films (like the Bond series) will ever be released on HD-DVD unless something forces it.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Jason Lowe

The problem is, if you lose, you've got a $600 brick with no new movies to play on it. if you "win", you've got a $600 machine that has half the features of the new $200 machine.

Or you can buy a PS3 for $600, and no matter what happens you've got a fine game machine plus digital photo reader and standard DVD player with HD upsampling. Plus it can connect to the internet in case that becomes a mainstream way of watching videos, as some are predicting.

[Harrison Murchison]

One of the things that will draw me to HD DVD is the lack of region encoding. I've always enjoyed foreign films and today's DVD Region Control only serves to hamper my ability to enjoy movies from around the globe.

The group behind HD DVD pretty much stonewalled the inclusion of region controls in their players. Blu-ray has some discs with region controls and some discs that can play everywhere.

I see universal players in the future for movie buffs. Fans love to talk about the major studios and what platform they support but the reality is DV Info has many indie filmmakers. Is your entertaintment content unworthy as juxtaposed against the major Hollywood studio content?

Both platforms seek to serve the needs of producers and consumers in varying ways. I chose to support the platform that strikes the best balance between the needs of the producer and needs of the consumer IMO.

[Heath McKnight]

My friend and I love to watch Blu-Rays and SD DVDs on his PS3 and 42 inch Westinghouse Digital LCD (1080p) HDTV. It's incredible. He also downloads HD versions of trailers for us to watch, too. And the games are wonderful.

None of my friends with XBox 360s, another fine piece of gaming equipment, have run out and bought the HD DVD add-on feature.

heath

[Khoi Pham]

Not a draw, according to Nielsen VideoScan as of 5/20, Blu-ray leads HD-DVD in overall software sales, 57% to 43% since both was launched. But in that last few months Blu-ray is outselling HD-DVD 67% to 33% year-to-date for 2007. That's a 2 to 1 margin.
As for hardware, Blu-ray has the exclusive support from Sony, Pionner, Panasonic, Samsung, Phillips and almost all of the computer industry, HD DVD has only Toshiba and MS and maybe some Chinese brand about to jump in, in the last few weeks Toshiba has been dropping their prices and give away 5 free movies, if that is not the sign of desparation, I don't know what is, they drop it so much I'm sure that it has to be sell at a loss, no major brand like Pionner, Panasonic will want to jump into HD DVD and compete at that price, sure it is tempting but I think the best HD DVD can hope for is just hang in there, no way they could win, HD DVD only has exclusive support of 1 Studio and that is Universal, Blu-ray has 5 exclusive studio, Disney, Fox, MGM, Lionsgate and Sony, so if you want to go out and buy Pirates of the Caribean and play it on your HD DVD player, forget it, Universal is the loaner, when do you think they will go neutral and start selling Blu-ray disc?
HD DVD is more mature than Blu-ray right now as far as extras goes, but Blu-ray will catch up, beside when I'm watching a movie right now, I just want to watch it, I don't gives a hoop about picture in a picture or connect to the internet for some other stuff, I just want to watch the movie.
HD DVD burner is no where in sight, but Blu-ray burner is now available, for us that is good, we can now deliver full author Blu-ray disc to our clients.
I got a PS3 awhile back, cuz I am a movie buff, I just want to watch HD movies, but now it as become the heart of my media room, it plays awsome Blu-ray movies, it upconvert SD DVD to 1080P, it plays my SD card picture, it play cds, it play games, I'm not a gamer but now I am, playing game in a 5.1 surround sound system is awsome, I can surf on the internet with it with the wireless keyboard and mouse plug into its 4 usb ports, but most of all it is my demo center for my work, I upload my HD demo into its hard drive and show my work straight from it.
The war is good, it droves the prices down fast, but cheaper is not always better, I think software is the key, no matter how cheap the players are, if there are movies that people want to watch but they don't make it for HD DVD then I don't think that format can win.

[Heath McKnight]

When SD DVD came out, within a year, they gave away 5 movies and free rentals every month for a year from Hollywood video. I took full advantage, though the WB movies stunk (Lethal Weapon 4, Sphere, that Dial M For Murder remaker, etc.).

heath

ps-I also loved that the old REEL.com would sell one DVD for $20 and you get a freebie. I took full advantage of that, too, grin. This was late 1998 and early 1999.

[Dave Lammey]

Originally Posted by Peter Jefferson

What your forgetting is that the PS3 doesnt even require yo uto authour ANYTHING. you just bung your HDV fotage to DVD5 disc as m2t and voila.. instant HD delivery with no headaches

fair enough theres no menu, but to alot of people, menus and teh like are jsut fluff. For those producing HD content, this is a great wy to get their HD content into consumer homes.

So you can create a red-laser data DVD with HD content that a blu-ray player can play? I didn't realize that -- I thought the HD DVD players were the only ones with the ability to play hd content on red-laser discs. Have you tried this? What software/hardware are you using to put the m2t content onto the discs?

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by Dave Lammey

So you can create a red-laser DVD with HD content that a blu-ray player can play? I didn't realize that -- I thought the HD DVD players were the only ones with this capability.

You can burn .m2t files from your HDV camera on SD DVD as "Data"and PS3 will play it just fine.