38

1/17/2008 4:15:28 PM

Quote :

"Warner has set a suggested list price for $35.98 for the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions."

sweet fucking shit, that is absolutely awful for ANY movie, no matter how pretty it looks. at some point people have to draw the line between being visually entertained for a couple hours and being ripped off....or maybe thats just me

1/17/2008 4:51:39 PM

i know i won't buy any movie for that price

1/17/2008 5:02:14 PM

I have a few criterion dvds that were roughly that price. probably wouldn't do it again, though.

1/17/2008 5:05:21 PM

found some blockbusters in the area that rent blu ray at least. Not spending $35 on a movie...........

1/17/2008 5:10:59 PM

as if $35 wasn't enough

$35.98!!

Why stop there, might as well make it $36.97!

1/17/2008 5:11:59 PM

39.99 would be better.

1/17/2008 5:28:05 PM

At least when Warner tried to price gouge people on HD-DVDs in the past they were DVD/HD DVD combo drives.

Now it looks like they've just fully bought on to the "fuck it, everything else is overpriced" bandwagon.

1/17/2008 6:04:07 PM

well they figured if people are willing to pay $400 for a player vs $99-200 then that means they will be more than willing to pay $40 a movie rather than $25

1/17/2008 7:07:14 PM

which totally explains why the Blu-Ray versions of Warner movies are more expensive than HD DVD versions....

o

wait


They still have the cheapest catalog releases which, given the average quality of today's new releases, is what I care most about.

[Edited on January 18, 2008 at 11:23 AM. Reason : d]

1/18/2008 11:21:59 AM

all you care about is that it has a blu ray stamp on the disc. You'd watch a 2 hour long video of grass growing in 1080p if it came on blu ray.

1/18/2008 11:27:27 AM

1/18/2008 11:36:15 AM

we just got a new blu-ray player with our new 52" LCD HDTV (its in a room with lots of glass so LCD over the plasma).

we got 10 free blu-ray movies which is awesome but I dont really want to spend 35 bucks for every new movie, that being said how is the quality of a regular DVD on the new HDTVs?

1/18/2008 11:42:34 AM

^^thats weak by your standards. Doesn't it need to be 1600 pixels wide for you to make a point?

1/18/2008 11:43:52 AM

Quote :

"all you care about is that it has a blu ray stamp on the disc. You'd watch a 2 hour long video of grass growing in 1080p if it came on blu ray."

so true.

Also, very clever and witty.


BUT -1 for not mentioning that I'm a Sony fanboy.

[Edited on January 18, 2008 at 12:25 PM. Reason : d]

1/18/2008 12:25:12 PM

1+1 = 2

1/18/2008 12:32:37 PM

^^^^I think my next purchase will be a plasma. Some of the tech they have been showing in plasmas, particularly at this year's CES, is extremely impressive. I've always had a problem (personally) with LCDs and motion blurring. Just can't seem to be able to ignore it.

1/18/2008 12:56:29 PM

i'm not around HD, plasma, LCD enough to tell any faults. it all looks good to me

1/18/2008 1:58:53 PM

^^^^^, get a $9 subsrciption to netflix... I get all my blu rays from there.

also, the quality of a normal dvd is based off your player... we have a ps3 that upconverts dvds and they look awesome... check your player online.

1/18/2008 2:50:38 PM

Upconverting will always look like shit in my eyes. Blu-ray has spoiled me.

1/18/2008 4:07:03 PM

whatev, some DVDs can look pretty damn good upconverted. LOTR comes to mind.

1/18/2008 6:00:15 PM

You will feel differently once you see it in Blu-Ray.

1/18/2008 8:07:59 PM

Well there's a shocker! I wonder why that is?

Doesn't mean that current DVD's don't look good upconverted. Can they look better as a hi-def disc? absolutely. Does a DVD look better upconverted on an HD TV than it did on a standard dvd player on a standard TV? absolutely!

1/18/2008 8:11:13 PM

i loled.

1/21/2008 12:26:46 AM

my Blu-Ray upconverts! Perfect! Can't wait to watch movies all wednesday night!

1/21/2008 1:47:22 PM

http://www.petitiononline.com/SAVEHDD/

1/21/2008 2:49:21 PM

^^I thought that was a good feature of my player, but I was messing with it the other day and found the video quality of DVD to be noticeably better, and free of artificats (halos) if I set the player to output 480p to my 1080p set, and having the tv scale it. I don't know if its the player, or if the tv's scaling software is causing conflicts with it, but in my case upconversion is a useless feature.

1/21/2008 5:32:28 PM

it really depends on your equipment.

Sony bravia tvs have good scalers

pioneer elite recievers have good scalars
and an expensive blue ray player probably does too

1/21/2008 5:35:22 PM

Quote :

"Sony bravia tvs have good scalers "

Hm, that's what my TV is, so maybe that's why.

1/21/2008 10:18:03 PM

http://www.betanews.com/article/Interview_Universal_EVP_Ken_Graffeo_says_HD_DVD_is_here_to_stay/1200951636

I found this the most interesting part of the article:

Quote :

"Consumers right now are buying upconverting players -- they are outselling the next-gen players combined by 10 to 1 every month. They are affordable because they are under $200 -- the average price is $85 -- and consumers want to see their movies better. So pricing is very important. We saw that on DVD: as soon as price point went under $200 and as soon as it started getting close to $100 players really started taking off because you're hitting very consumer-friendly prices. If you want to hit the mass market, you have to be consumer-friendly in price. If you want to be a niche electronic, you're going to be high priced."

And, to be realistic about it, there's really no reason at the moment to buy any other upscaling DVD player than the HD-A3 for the $150 it's currently being sold for.

[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 4:44 PM. Reason : .]

1/22/2008 4:38:34 PM

I found that whole interview pretty funny.



(no, those graphs do not include the PS3/360 add-on)


Poor Ken, now he just looks like a loon. HD DVD did approach $100, the problem is that not only did it not take off, it got outsold by $400 Blu-ray players.

[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 4:52 PM. Reason : :]

1/22/2008 4:44:46 PM

^by your passion for blu ray/sony i'm guess you own some shares?

1/22/2008 5:36:03 PM

1/22/2008 5:50:04 PM

Quote :

"I found that whole interview pretty funny."

look me so funny

[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 6:37 PM. Reason : .]

1/22/2008 6:37:12 PM

Speaking of the HD-A3:

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HD-A3-720p-1080i-Player/dp/B000U62N1S/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?tag2=slickdeals&tag=slickdeals&ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1201033825&sr=8-1

$125

1/22/2008 6:40:48 PM

In hindsight of the format war, one of Toshiba's mistakes was that they scared off any other manufacturer that tried to make an HD DVD player. Their prices were so low that they had a monopoly on all HD DVD players. They could undercut any competitor, and do so in the name of winning the format war.

The only HD DVD players we ever saw were just rebadged clones of existing Toshiba models for 100-200 dollars more.

1/23/2008 12:12:21 AM

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

1/23/2008 7:35:14 AM

i think it was a combination of that and public perception...

what she said make sense, just can't be the only reason

say the hd-dvd player tech license costs $75, the tech itself costs $50, to compete with toshiba who doesnt have to pay that fee and the tech most manufactures have to cut costs / corners or just have higher priced players to toshibas.

1/23/2008 9:15:58 AM

how was sony with blu-ray any different?

1/23/2008 9:23:20 AM

less perceived price difference, especially in the stand alone players

1/23/2008 9:29:48 AM

that's it? because as i see it, sony did the same thing by undercutting prices in order to sell THEIR player as well (and it sucked donkey balls as a standalone player)

i don't get it...toshiba didn't do anything different than anyone else...just because the margin between blu-ray players $200-300 higher than hd-dvd is less, doesn't make it any "better" of a strategy (at least, not that i can see)

1/23/2008 9:39:46 AM

Uh, Toshiba wasn't undercutting anyone because there was no one else to undercut. They were and still are the only major CE behind HD DVD. Blu-ray, on the other hand, had not only Sony but the Matsushita (Panasonic) coalition behind it. The top five patent contributers behind Blu-ray, in order of importance, go something like this: Matsushita, Samsung, Sony, Philips, and Pioneer. Of course, it was Sony with the insane gamble of putting Blu-ray in the PS3 that really gave Blu-ray a chance to succeed. They also footed the majority of the bill for disc replication and marketing.

The whole idea behind Blu-ray was so that the next gen optical disc format would have a different royalty structure than DVD, one that didn't have Toshiba getting the largest piece of the pie. Toshiba didn't like that obviously, which is why they were the lone hold out, and would have eventually conceded if MS didn't come along and whisper in their ear. This whole format war was caused by Toshiba's greed and MS's involvement.

[Edited on January 23, 2008 at 9:54 AM. Reason : :]

1/23/2008 9:52:46 AM

Quote :

"what she said make sense, just can't be the only reason"

No, it doesn't. How would another company manufacturing HD DVD players have been beneficial to anyone?

Normally you'd argue that competition would have driven price down, except we're seeing the exact opposite.

1/23/2008 10:00:17 AM

Hey

why don't we talk about why Beta is dead too.

1/23/2008 10:23:58 AM

Quote :

" This whole format war was caused by Toshiba's greed"

funniest shit said in this thread to date.

1/23/2008 10:27:40 AM

well, it's true.

That and Sony's greed.

1/23/2008 10:44:15 AM

HD DVD promo group chooses new Spokesperson




"We seem to have a lot in common."

Said the popular, young actor.

1/23/2008 10:57:19 AM

greed = root of consumer pain

1/23/2008 1:21:40 PM

^^ too soon???

1/23/2008 2:06:13 PM

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35741/98/

Quote :

"Burbank (CA) - Warner Home Video announced this week that it will continue to release titles on HD DVD for three weeks longer than it originally anticipated."

1/23/2008 2:26:12 PM