Blu-ray and HD DVD, a brief history in the Format War

Very Biased. I tried to read it, I really did. Bear in mind that I think Blu-ray will win out eventually, and I have no particular love for Microsoft, but that whole article was extremely biased.

On a related note, anyone else notice the rash of HDDVD players that went on sale over the weekend? My friend bought one for $90. Personally, I still don't see enough of a difference in either Blu-ray or HDDVD over my current player to warrant the cost of an upgrade.
 
Biased, yes, but altogether factually accurate. I'm sure an HD DVD diehard could make could spin the same facts differently but you'd still be dealing with the same set of facts.

As for the HD DVD player, those are a discontinued model Toshiba couldn't sell through. They were selling them at a loss a year ago for $500 and didn't unload them all. There were 50,000 of them and they sold out relatively quickly. Word of warning though, they were first gen HD DVDs, and don't even output 1080P. I briefly considered picking one up so I could watch Serenity and Army of Darkness in high def til I realized that.
 
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Firestreak said:
As for the HD DVD player, those are a discontinued model Toshiba couldn't sell through. They were selling them at a loss a year ago for $500 and didn't unload them all. There were 50,000 of them and they sold out relatively quickly. Word of warning though, they were first gen HD DVDs, and don't even output 1080P. I briefly considered picking one up so I could watch Serenity and Army of Darkness in high def til I realized that.
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Really? Do you have a link to an article or something on that? I'd love to rub it into my friend's face.
 
Firestreak said:
Biased, yes, but altogether factually accurate. I'm sure an HD DVD diehard could make could spin the same facts differently but you'd still be dealing with the same set of facts.

As for the HD DVD player, those are a discontinued model Toshiba couldn't sell through. They were selling them at a loss a year ago for $500 and didn't unload them all. There were 50,000 of them and they sold out relatively quickly. Word of warning though, they were first gen HD DVDs, and don't even output 1080P. I briefly considered picking one up so I could watch Serenity and Army of Darkness in high def til I realized that.
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Not quite. Fry's electronics was selling the latest models for the same price; not everyone was selling discontinued units. They don't do 1080p, but for $90 most people wouldn't care; an easily affordable HD player for practically the same cost as an upscaling DVD player? That's a hell of a deal, even if it only goes to 720p/1080i.

Also, while the basic facts might be the same, the bias in the presentation of those facts is huge. Just look to how Fox news and CNN would report on stories from Iraq to see how much a bias changes the story using the same facts.
 
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Not sure about that Bajaratt, all I've heard about were the Toshiba A2s.

Here's the link Alanon.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/High-Def_Retailing/Toshiba/Best_Buy/Best_Buy_Drops_Toshiba_HD_DVD_Player_to_$99_Supplies__Very_Limited/1134

99 is still a nice price but it's a glaring problem to not warn consumers on.
 
Well, I can assure you that it's true. I work at Fry's and we were rather surprised to see that the new HD-A3's we had gotten in the day before were going on sale. I grabbed one myself during my lunch break, it was way too good of a deal to pass up. It came with 300 and Bourne Identity in the box, unfortunately that 5 free movie deal had already expired.
 
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Your A3 won't do 1080P either. This stuff is discontinued and basically being thrown away because nobody bought it at a reasonable price, even at massive losses. If they start selling a 1080P for around 100 bucks I'll bite, but I doubt they're going to because those actually sell. The 1080i's have been sitting around in storage for over a year because the HD DVD adopters opted for a higher quality machine.

No offense intended at your purchase, for $100 it's a good deal, assuming your TV is 1080i and you aren't ever upgrading it. Plus if you ever get a PS3, you can get Blu-rays for dual releases and stick with your A3 for Universal and Paramount movies.
 
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Firestreak said:
Your A3 won't do 1080P either. This stuff is discontinued and basically being thrown away because nobody bought it at a reasonable price, even at massive losses. If they start selling a 1080P for around 100 bucks I'll bite, but I doubt they're going to because those actually sell. The 1080i's have been sitting around in storage for over a year because the HD DVD adopters opted for a higher quality machine.

No offense intended at your purchase, for $100 it's a good deal, assuming your TV is 1080i and you aren't ever upgrading it.
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No shit it won't do 1080p, you think I couldn't read what was stenciled on every side of the box before I bought it? The A30 and the A35 are the latest 1080p units, but those are 4-500 each, so no thanks.

Just because something isn't in 1080p doesn't mean the picture is shit and it's unwatchable; it's not like you're not going to enjoy the movie just because it's in 720p.

The A3's aren't discontinued units, they just came out. While most people bought the A2's, there's nothing really new in the A3's, they're just a newer model; so those who bought an A2 really aren't missing anything by buying last year's model. They're the entry-level units, yes; but they're still a shitload more enticing than a $400 blu-ray player(which don't sell), especially for someone who isn't compelled to buy the latest tech as soon as it comes out.

I'll live with my 720p HD-DVD's for now and I'll be happy I made the purchase, even when it's plugged into a 1080p tv. Later on, I can upgrade to a 1080p machine when they come down to a reasonable price, just like everyone else. It's an entry purchase, something basic that will get people to buy it to get exposed which will lead to upgrading later on. Maybe if a blu-ray player could get down below the cost of an arm I'd snag one.

Plus if you ever get a PS3, you can get Blu-rays for dual releases and stick with your A3 for Universal and Paramount movies.
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That was my line of thinking, although I'm still waiting on the PS3 to become worth buying for myself. The $400 model is the most tempting, since I'm not going to sell back my hacked PS2 anyways, but still not worth it for a couple games.
 
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Stringer is pretty frank and straight forward. Personally I don't see Paramount as that big of a deal. They did move 90,000 players though thanks to their weekend sale, which coupled with Paramount makes them a little more competitive(in the US, outside of the US market HD DVD is dead), but Blu-ray has a big holiday coming out, we'll see what he thinks in January.

Pirates 3, Harry Potter set, Die hard set, Terminator 3 should all sell well. Ratatouille or whatever it's called is supposed to be good for children. Superbad probably won't move players but it'll sell well. HD DVD has pretty much fired all its shots so far this year. I don't think they can give away players that probably costed them 700 to make for 100 bucks anymore, now that they cleared their stock.

People try and compare and the notion it's desperation to the PS3, saying that lost 200 or so per system at launch. Let's not forget that Sony gets $10 per game sold. Which means that takes 20 games to even out. Also makes big cash on accessories and downloads and what not. For most people probably won't make 200 back, but the royalties needed to make cash on selling a high def player at a loss? You'd need to buy more HD DVDs than are out now.

Personally just don't see that happening again until they actually cost 100 dollars to make. At this point if Toshiba doesn't actually win, and eliminate Blu-ray from every market in the world, they'll be so in the red it's unbelievable. That's nothing that's just not likely.

The real question is, how much longer is Toshiba really wanting to put up this fight? They are the only HD DVD hardware producer. They are selling at big loss. They are pumping out millions into advertisements and they're making very little progress. They predicted 3 mill by end of the year and are barely past half a mill. They have to pay studios for temporary studio support. Considering at this point, for them a stalemate would be the best they can hope for, what is the point of them going on? At a stalemate, the standalone Blu-ray players are still being sold for cash, and Sony is still getting royalties from disc sales. If HD DVD is going for the long haul they can't keep selling at loss which means they have to raise prices and give up more marketshare.
 
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Firestreak said:
By the way, here's the Stringer interview, as expected, the "stalemate" is wildly out of context.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents
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Not really, I don't remember anyone here(unless you're tlaking about elsewhere on the internet) blowing it out of proportion saying that Sony was conceding or that they were regretting blu-ray or anything like that(especially since I was the only one who commented on it). He still says their in a bit of a stalemate; that much hasn't changed and that's exactly what I said.

He admitted that they were winning on the "merits" of the disk until Paramount went HD-DVD exlucisve. He also pointed out that in consumer electronics, it's always a race to bring down prices. Which by selling their units 40-60% cheaper, they can get more units into households than blu-ray, but then HD-DVD already had more stand-alone players sold than blu-ray to begin with.

So far I haven't seen anything in the interview that would change the context of that article. Maybe some idiots misinterpreted it, thinking that somehow Stringer was conceding the format war, but just saying there's a stalemate is accurate.
 
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I assume you know the rules of chess and what the word, "stalemate" means. If you say, "this is a stalemate" you are saying the war is over and no one won.

It's important the exact sentence he said.

"We have a sort of stalemate at the moment."

Which means he doesn't think of it in that sense. Rather at the moment they're in comparable positions.

It's a very minor change that means something profoundly different. Of course the internet got plastered with, "we're in a stalemate," without anyone saying the entire sentence. Let it be a lesson not to derive any meaning out of an incomplete quote.
 
Firestreak said:
I assume you know the rules of chess and what the word, "stalemate" means. If you say, "this is a stalemate" you are saying the war is over and no one won.

It's important the exact sentence he said.

"We have a sort of stalemate at the moment."

Which means he doesn't think of it in that sense. Rather at the moment they're in comparable positions.

It's a very minor change that means something profoundly different. Of course the internet got plastered with, "we're in a stalemate," without anyone saying the entire sentence. Let it be a lesson not to derive any meaning out of an incomplete quote.
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He's talking about how they're basically tying right now and there's no path to victory. That's a stalemate, neither side is defeated, but neither can get an advantage over the other. The game isn't over yet, but that doesn't change the significance of what he's saying and that's what people(me in this case) were focusing on.
 
If you don't add in the "at the moment" to the end of that, and put it in the context of the entire transcript, it is basically saying that the war is over and no one won. That's what stalemate means by definition.

The AP article also vastly changes Stringer's tone, making him seem very pessimistic by only focusing on a few areas.
 
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Forget HD-DVD got Transformers, Blu-Ray needs Taboo, Devil in Ms. Jones, Debbie Does Dallas, Dirty Debutantes #69 and whatnot to win this war by this christmas!
 
Negorissimo said:
Forget HD-DVD got Transformers, Blu-Ray needs Taboo, Devil in Ms. Jones, Debbie Does Dallas, Dirty Debutantes #69 and whatnot to win this war by this christmas!
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Something about DDD in 1080p makes my heart fill with warmth. and my pants too...

Personally I think the most important part of that article was the graph comparing the cost of 360 vs PS3 with equivalent equipment in regards to this format war (not the gaming war). And the small little note saying that it's barely more expensive to make a BLU-RAY than a HD-DVD, far less than people had made it out to be.
 
Taurothar said:
Something about DDD in 1080p makes my heart fill with warmth. and my pants too...

Personally I think the most important part of that article was the graph comparing the cost of 360 vs PS3 with equivalent equipment in regards to this format war (not the gaming war). And the small little note saying that it's barely more expensive to make a BLU-RAY than a HD-DVD, far less than people had made it out to be.
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Very true Tauro, price is a big factor in this war going on. The best example is the Wii, that ironically doesn't even play DVDs...
 
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