James, an HD DVD loyalist, calls to our attention a petition with 24,000-ish signatures asking Warner Bros. to continue to support HD DVD:
You had an article shortly after the WB exclusivity announcement on the 4th of this month, right? Well, I think this could make for a great follow-up that gives your readers the opportunity to voice their opinion, and hopefully sway the minds of the studio executives who’ve acted prematurely and stuffed words in the mouths of consumers everywhere.
You can find the petition here. Keep in mind it has risen from 6,000 signatures to a promising 24,000 in only four days!
Ugh, format wars. They’re so disgusting. We hate them.
Save HD-DVD! (Warner Brothers, The Consumer Has Not “Clearly” Chosen Blu-Ray) [PetitionOnline]
(Photo:William Hook)
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@Hodo: I suppose I deserved the immature counterattack.
My sunk costs are $0 as well. My 1080p TV doesn’t do 24hz, but I’m not that ridiculous. But that leaves you with a lost bet doesn’t it?
My support for Blu-Ray is pragmatic at best. I was actually rooting for HDDVD up to the first week of January, but I obviously let it go.
@dgcaste: My wrists hurt because I have MS, by the way.
@dgcaste:
Ok, taking your response at face value and believing you for a moment, why do all of those things (that you mentioned in your posts) matter to you? Specifically, if we want to “talk specs” (or pros and cons) if you don’t own a BD player of any kind (including a PS3), why would you care if my pros/cons were slanted away from BD?
I’ve already disclosed the reasons why BD winning is upsetting to me . . . how ’bout you share the reasons why a ‘slanted’ pros/cons list upset you? Hmmm?
@dgcaste:
And?????
@ereusch:
The US was/is HD-DVD’s best chance of mass adoption. In Europe, BD outsells HDDVD 3:1 and in Japan, BD outsells HDDVD 14:1.
[www.digitaltvnews.net]
@randombob:
Here is the petition to make HD-DVD go away:
[www.petitiononline.com]
On to the matter at hand, I was appealing to the fairness of the ending war. Ordering ammo for a dying soldier in critical condition might lead the public to believe that he still has a chance to kill one more enemy.
Also, I want the format to be adopted with its characteristics at face value. That will drop the price, and I can get one. It’s more important to me that a winner materializes and adoption spreads than a single format winning. If this somehow was about HDDVD being taken in by all the studios, and Blu-Ray eating dust, my arguments would have been the same. I’m tired of DirecTV’s HD-lite, of upconverting DVD players, and having to download content in 1080p, hook up my laptop to my TV with hacked timings and annoying overscan to be able to get some pure ~2 megapixels served to my neurons.
@dgcaste:
I THINK we’re in agreement then. HD DVD would have been preferred, because prices were (and still are) better, but keeping HD DVD on life-support as it were, will only induce market confusion, keep adoption rates low (and therefore volumes) resulting in (continued) high pricing for what pretty much everyone has to admit is going to be the winning format at this stage, BD.
None of my above argument is in disagreement with the above or what your position is. It is more of a statemwent around what the current situation is, a bit about how things got there, and a little commentary of my own.
Unfortunately, whether or not HD DVD dies will have little to do with BD’s success at this point, as we’re heading into a pretty deep trough of a recession, and people won’t be lining up to pay top dollar for over-priced BD players, which will kill adoption in the short run (12-18 months) at which point HDM (m is for media) of any kind will likely be a niche format akin to LaserDisc.
Don’t you feel good that you shut this troll up?
Interesting timing on Blu-Ray ‘making it’ with the global economy getting cold pants. But if it’s true that the PS3 will drop to $299 that’ll be a good incentive. I mean, people will not want to leave their house afraid to spend money on gas and things, but they have to do something at home besides burning old newspapers for heat.
Camon you HDDVD supporters. Just let it be. We can’t have HDDVD, BluRay DVD, DVD, EDDVD, etc etc all in the same market. Makes it hard on the consumers. Just get a $399 PS3 (w/ 40GB HDD) and you can play games and watch BluRay movies.
If the reason behind your petition is valid, then you should’ve petitioned when Iomega Zip drives were going out the door.
red state lost a long time ago.
go blue!
higher capacity and better growth prospects.
On a technical level, I think the only difference we’re seeing between the two formats is that Blu-ray more consistently utilizes lossless audio due to the larger capacity. While people keep saying HD-DVD is cheaper, in my experience HD-DVD movies themselves are more expensive because the good movies are always worthless combo discs. Any purported “cost advantage” in manufacturing discs is going straight into distributors’ pockets.
Like it or not digital distribution is the future, so neither of these formats is going to be DVDs replacement. Aren’t we all just fighting for the replacement to LaserDisc? Or even better CED?
@dandd:
Bring back 8 track tapes
Bring back laser discs
Bring back Beta tapes
Bring back DAT
Laserdisc FTW
@bostonhockey: The current infrastructure simply can’t handle that kind of network traffic. There needs to be significant upgrades in broadband capacity before downloads of HD content become an everyday reality. I could see this happening in Japan, but not here for a number of years.
I would not discount HD-DVD/BD methods of delivery just yet.
@KarmaChameleon: not to mention that current HD content streamed through cable or satellite sucks, bits are stripped and shaped.
I do not see how everyone says that digital distribution will be so quick in coming… Aren’t we having enough trouble getting ISPs to allow users to utilize the bandwidth they pay for? Yes there IS the concern of piracy but the ISPs are not really on the hook for that so it seems more like they do not want to mess up their business model of over selling.
I see digital distribution as a viable future media but NOT for HD content in the next 3~5 years like some people seem to think. Yeah I will soon be able to download any movies I want for an SD TV for a price but three things will need to be set in place:
1. Bandwidth bandwidth bandwidth…. and an ISP willing to let users use more than what little is needed for basic surfing and email.
2. Massive storage, this in the form of more prevalent home storage devices. Everyone nowadays is buying laptops and some of the interest in solid state will keep these small for awhile. We need more storage solutions that consumers will just plug into their home network (I know they are there, just not in the hands of many average Joes).
3. Lock down on the files. The DRM on the Blu-ray discs only look bad for those of us who want to backup/copy. To the studios its great. Until we can really lock down files tightly I do not think the studios will go for all digital. Unless they develop a business model of low quality (slightly better than cam-vids) videos with little to no DRM but HD videos with protection on it to prevent you from even sending the video output to a TV connected on your local network (no streaming to TV without a license for the TV).
@lordeirias: That’s one of the main ideas behind the DOCSIS 3.0 standard, not let people p2p more, but to be able to stream Batman Begins in about 4 minutes.
And on DRM, we could talk about it all day, but studios are starting to realize that DRM does more harm than good.
Do the HD-DVD holdouts simply see it as the next generation of ‘DVD’ because of the name? I was never dumb enough to buy into it; why wouldn’t a consumer look into the specifications of the disk? 50gb sounds better than what HD-DVD offers… I don’t know.
As far as DOCSIS 3.0 goes… I’ll never see that down here in the bible belt. I’ll take it either way. Or some FiOS.
Rofl do these people seriously think this is going to do anything at all?
I mean I feel for them but thats the risk you take to be early adopters.
Just buy a normal upscaling DVD player and avoid the $30 cost of new Blue Ray movies.
“50gb sounds better than what HD-DVD offers… I don’t know.”
Every single one of you that believe HD DVD tops out at 30gb — and that Blu-ray is superior because of the added storage space — five seconds of your time is all it would take for you to find out that HD DVD has 51gb discs coming out very soon. Also, unlike Blu-ray which is an unfinished product, all existing HD DVD players will be compatible with these higher capacity discs.
Enough said.
Shutup SEGARS, you’re screaming into the grand canyon.
@LatherRinseRepeat:
Toshiba didn’t go it alone the DVD group picked HD-DVD as the successor because Blu-ray was nowhere near finished, Sony were the ones who took it on themselves to go it alone to fight the DVD group and start the War. Sony had no choice but to pay off these studios to get Blu-ray to win otherwise the PS3 would have had no games and no movies.
By the time the Blu-ray proponents realise that they’ve paved the way for “You are legally allowed to play this disc on a single playback device and a single display. You are required to purchase additional licenses for playback on additional players and displays,” they’ll be begging for HD-DVD.
Of course, the BD adopters are also likely to be the ones just *HAPPY* to need to pay $30 for the disc, $10 for the content license needed to display the video on their television set, $10 for the content license to stream audio to their external audio receiver ($20 if they’d like the 7.1 track), another $10 to play it on the TV in the bedroom, another $10 to play it on the laptop, another $10 to play it on the portable BD player, and on and on and on.
@RvLeshrac: Those $10s at the end should be $20s. (Gotta pay for the player and the display, natch!)
As an owner of both formats. HD-DVD is better because the “spec” is solid. Blu-Ray is a fractured profile, and is in the process of screwing over it’s early blu-ray adopters.
In other words…. Sony is still being Sony.