so whos winning in the price department currently? (seems pretty even to me, but i havent looked that hard)

whats the predictions on when either/both format will have sub-$100 players (retail/msrp, not walmart-style sale priced)?

12/26/2007 3:28:58 PM

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?tag2=slickdeals&tag=slickdeals&ie=UTF8&plgroup=1&docId=1000183001&plpage=1

12/26/2007 4:11:31 PM

synapse, probably 12 months from now. They have to phase out old models. My guess is Blu-ray profile 1.0 players will be dumpped. I'm not really sure what new features the toshkba HD DVD players will have, since theypushed 1080p this season...

12/27/2007 12:43:39 AM

i watched 2001 last night and it was really beautiful. really deep and thick and rich and filmy like. really nice in about the opposite way that Transformers is.

I'm watching NIN: Beside You in Time live HDDVD in TrueHD. it freaking rocks, sounds and looks incredible. Its really well mixed

12/28/2007 1:47:19 PM

Decided I'm going with HD-DVD today. I was gonna buy a PS3 and use it as a Blu-ray player, but I realized that the only reason there is a format war is because Sony is pushing Blu-ray through the PS3, while the game functionality takes the back seat.

HD-DVD players are really cheap, plus I think I get about 7 free movies. I'm excited.

12/28/2007 6:52:26 PM

so i don't know much about this, so it may be a stupid question, but do upconverting dvd players do the same thing as hddvd players? i would imagine not, but all the ads say they play dvds at 1080p.

12/28/2007 10:11:19 PM

Quote :

"so i don't know much about this, so it may be a stupid question, but do upconverting dvd players do the same thing as hddvd players? i would imagine not, but all the ads say they play dvds at 1080p. "

Those players are doing exactly what you described them as, upconverting the image coming off of the DVD. Natively, I think normal DVDs are like 720x480, so the player upconverts the image to match your television set. HD DVD and Blu Ray have native 1080p images

12/29/2007 12:49:14 AM

Quote :

" I was gonna buy a PS3 and use it as a Blu-ray player, but I realized that the only reason there is a format war is because Sony is pushing Blu-ray through the PS3, while the game functionality takes the back seat. "

I do believe that the format war exists solely because Microsoft was pushing HDI.

Toshiba was on the verge of capitulating when HD DVD got pushed back to a release time frame within shot of Blu Ray but was persuaded otherwise.

In an even bigger twist of irony, the PS3 is a far more open platform then the Xbox360 which makes me laugh a tad at your 'game functionality takes a back seat' viewpoint.

12/29/2007 2:26:32 AM

so yes i am part of the blu ray crowd now.

spiderman 3 came with the ps3. i filled out the form for 5 free movies, i think 4 of the 5 i havnt seen.
so thats good.

does anyone rent blu ray? blockbuster?

12/29/2007 9:57:51 AM

Quote :

"I do believe that the format war exists solely because Microsoft was pushing HDI. Toshiba was on the verge of capitulating when HD DVD got pushed back to a release time frame within shot of Blu Ray but was persuaded otherwise. In an even bigger twist of irony, the PS3 is a far more open platform then the Xbox360 which makes me laugh a tad at your 'game functionality takes a back seat' viewpoint."

I think you are missing the point. Sony released a $500-$600 console, very few people bought it. It's common knowledge that the PS3 was not selling well because of the price point. What do you think one of the most expensive features inside of a PS3 is? Blu-Ray. There really isn't any controversy about this, the reason Blu-Ray is alive is because of the PS3. The post above mine is a perfect example of why Blu-Ray is still selling, people realize they have a Blu-Ray capable machine and go pick up a few movies. For many, there was no choice in the matter, they got what Sony gave them.

Sony's placed a higher priority on getting a Blu-Ray player into the homes of Americans than a game console. The DVD Forum decided on HD-DVD as the successor to DVD, but Sony, so fond of pushing ridiculous new formats, decided to support Blu-Ray.

12/29/2007 12:35:05 PM

You're argument is retarded because very few people payed the idiot tax initially at 600$. PS3 console sales picked up drastically after they dropped the price to parity with 360 elite/premium/whatever.

Difference being, I already have an high def player while an Xbox owner has to buy an add on drive. You also can't call that 'putting gaming on the backend' as you clearly have no idea how titles will handle technically superior ps3 two years down the road. The machine is clearly a farther reaching device in practically every aspect.

The strategic move by Sony is also the reason that there are millions of Blu Ray drives available with about a million HD DVD drives- and thats after they dropped the price to near nothing to move older units.

This argument would also be moot if HD DVD had managed to actually ship when it was supposed to. Sony continued developing Blu-Ray because it bet, correctly, that HD DVD would miss all of its initial completion projections.

Basically what I'm saying is that you did half assed research and your reason for buying an HD DVD player over a ps3 boils down to saving money and nothing else. You aren't getting a better value by far (hey guess what, you'd have gotten 5 free movies with the 399$ console as well).

I also write this as someone who has shat on the PS3, Sony, and Blu Ray for months.

12/29/2007 1:12:06 PM

With the HD-DVD spec being better defined (all HD-DVD players have to be able to do certain things, like connect to the internet) I would say HD-DVDs offer a better value in that they're able to provide richer content. If you look at any two movies out on both HD-DVD and Blue Ray, you're going to find much better additional content on the HD-DVD.

12/29/2007 1:15:58 PM

Not entirely.

I think with BD profile 1.1 the feature package of both is near equal.

12/29/2007 1:20:06 PM

So will the new disks still work on the old players?

[Edited on December 29, 2007 at 1:21 PM. Reason : I assume they would.]

12/29/2007 1:20:55 PM

Yes, however you won't be able to access the special features such as PIP.

12/29/2007 1:26:18 PM

Quote :

"You also can't call that 'putting gaming on the backend' as you clearly have no idea how titles will handle technically superior ps3 two years down the road."

what are you talking about? give reasons and not just say things like you know what you are talking about. i say the xbox 360 is practically superior, so now what?

12/29/2007 1:27:08 PM

And you'd be wrong because it clearly isn't on any hardware metric invented by man.

This has been discussed to death and the argument always ends with XBOXLIVE LAWL.

12/29/2007 1:31:28 PM

i thought it always ended that xbox had WAY more and better games than any console out and xbox live is bonus, but what do i know.

12/29/2007 1:33:27 PM

XBOXLIVE LAWL

12/29/2007 1:35:30 PM

i just thought the point of a gaming system was to play games, and it seems that m$ is outdoing the competition by a long shot in this respect. so in practical terms of what most consumers want m$ is hitting the nail right on the head in my opinion.

[Edited on December 29, 2007 at 1:37 PM. Reason : asdf]

12/29/2007 1:36:46 PM

Right see now we're not on the same topic.

I stated that who knows what the ps3 game scenario is going to look like.

Are you going to stick to the claim that the PS3 library, which I admit is pathetic right now, isn't going to get substantially better? Well maybe it won't, that doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm arguing against a claim like 'putting gaming on the backburner' when the ps3 has better gaming technology (processing,storage, open standards for controller/bluetooth devices, built in wireless, built in HD etc) is silly.

12/29/2007 1:40:52 PM

oh ok that makes sense. i just misread what you posted there. glad you cleared that up.

12/29/2007 1:42:13 PM

From a business standpoint, it's hard to argue that Sony seems more interested in winning a format war rather than a game console war, which is ironic considering its a fucking PLAYSTATION.

I can't tell you the last time I saw a commercial for the PS3 advertising gaming, it's all been Blu-Ray commercials.

12/29/2007 1:44:40 PM

I can't find the thing I read that originally said this, but don't you have to use two different compilers to make use of both the power processor and the 8 other SPEs?

12/29/2007 1:47:13 PM

I just want to jump in this convo and say that I got the HD DVD player that goes with the XBOX 360. I have a Plasma 1080i 50in tv and the movies are amazing. I don't have much to compare it to but I wanted to put my 2 cents in. The movies also have a lot of extras. Blue ray does have the advantage on movie selection in stores though. I hope HD DVD wins this battle just b/c I have one.

12/29/2007 1:51:27 PM

lol

12/29/2007 1:57:49 PM

Quote :

"From a business standpoint, it's hard to argue that Sony seems more interested in winning a format war rather than a game console war, which is ironic considering its a fucking PLAYSTATION. I can't tell you the last time I saw a commercial for the PS3 advertising gaming, it's all been Blu-Ray commercials. "

I don't think sony really had a solid business plan for either. The entire company is just recently gaining focus on what to do with itself.

That being said, the recent ps3 commercials are cool, if bland.

Quote :

"I can't find the thing I read that originally said this, but don't you have to use two different compilers to make use of both the power processor and the 8 other SPEs? "

I don't have much knowledge of the dev kit for the ps3 but from my understanding, you treat the SPE's as you would treat threads in multithreaded PC's but keeping in mind that the SPE's have access to only their local memory cache, and not the other SPE's. Difference being, you can assign one thread per SPE.

12/29/2007 2:03:46 PM

sony will win when the a ps3 that can play ps2 games costs less than like 250

12/29/2007 2:26:37 PM

blu-ray will win

12/29/2007 4:23:22 PM

I personally don't think either will win.

They should have buried that hatchet a long time ago: BDA adopting HDI, and toshiba dropping HD DVD.

12/29/2007 4:35:48 PM

I'd agree that Blu-Ray probably has a stronger foothold at this point, but I think HD DVD will gain momentum, and success, with the less tech savvy consumers once HD formats become more commonplace than the regular DVD.

I honestly think the "HD" in HD DVD will help

Anyway, just watched an HD DVD movie and it looks awesome, gotta love 1080p (in either formats)

12/29/2007 4:46:05 PM

Blu Ray Disc IS a lame name.

12/29/2007 5:23:22 PM

The 360 has better games, but the PS3 has better movies. Seems silly, but it's true

12/29/2007 6:08:45 PM

i'm official a blu-ray supporter.

12/29/2007 6:29:41 PM

i'm official a hddvd supporter. the only reason why is that i have an xbox 360 and no other reason why (good enough reason eh ), but i don't own one yet and i will probably wait to see who wins this thing unless i get a stupid crazy deal on one.

12/30/2007 12:08:22 PM

soon enough both players will be cheap enough to have both. picking a side is pretty silly. all this competition and these buy-one-get-one-free deals sound good to me

12/30/2007 12:46:40 PM

nevermind

[Edited on December 30, 2007 at 1:41 PM. Reason : I just don't care.]

12/30/2007 1:34:14 PM

x264 wins!

12/31/2007 5:23:53 PM

getting back to the blu-ray multi-region "problem":

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/31/first-multi-region-blu-ray-players-appearing/

1/1/2008 5:59:05 AM

seedless, at almost any given time you can get one for like 150 with 5-10 hd dvds

1/1/2008 10:37:00 AM

Happy New Year! There are no HD DVDs being released this week.

HDM Releases for January 01, 2008

* Shoot 'Em Up (Blu-ray)
* War (Blu-ray)

HDM Releases for January 02, 2008

* Resident Evil (Blu-ray)
* Resident Evil Trilogy (Blu-ray)
* Resident Evil: Extinction (Blu-ray)

1/2/2008 12:45:39 PM

Quote :

"With the HD-DVD spec being better defined (all HD-DVD players have to be able to do certain things, like connect to the internet) I would say HD-DVDs offer a better value in that they're able to provide richer content. If you look at any two movies out on both HD-DVD and Blue Ray, you're going to find much better additional content on the HD-DVD."

incorrect

1/2/2008 1:41:00 PM

We already addressed that.

1/2/2008 1:45:40 PM

Quote :

"last time I saw a commercial for the PS3 advertising gaming,"

saw one yesterday

1/2/2008 2:13:10 PM

Exception that proves the rule.

Nothing says effective marketing like advertising high definition movie footage in a standard definition commercial.

1/2/2008 2:38:10 PM

But it has the word exclusive in it.

Like a 'club' of 'cool' people.

1/2/2008 2:49:50 PM

by one i mean several, but yes, you see about equal numbers of ps3 game ads and ps3 bluray ads

1/2/2008 4:09:01 PM

Wrong.

This isn't my opinion trying to play up HD DVD.

I have NOT seen a PS3 commercial other than Blu-Ray ads in the past two or three weeks. Granted, I don't watch THAT much TV but I've probably seen that "exploding" PS3 Blu-Ray commercial 10 times.

EDIT: This commercial:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VrpfxvQKp_M

[Edited on January 2, 2008 at 5:48 PM. Reason : .]

1/2/2008 5:46:46 PM

Quote :

"Nothing says effective marketing like advertising high definition movie footage in a standard definition commercial."

Those advertisements are in hi-def as well. But point taken. I always found those sort of a futile effort before I went hi-def.

Regarding discussion at hand, I can maybe name 2 PS3 games off the top of my head and I watch lots of TV.

1/2/2008 6:19:09 PM

PS3 AD Campain


"Do you want it" (ok decent and catchy)

followed by

"Do you need it" ?????


Its a high end piece of electronics that youre aiming to sell to people who obviously dont need it and you ask them multiple times.....

[Edited on January 2, 2008 at 6:25 PM. Reason : .]

1/2/2008 6:24:47 PM