I think the beginning of the end for HD-DVD was when Warner chose Blu-Ray.

Mintz, please don't take this the wrong way:

no shit?

Thankfully I realized HD-DVD was headed down the tubes awhile ago and sold my HD-DVD player. It is going to die. I think.

If I had a 1080p set, I would currently own an HD-DVD player for the XBOX 360. At least now I know that Blu-Ray (probably a PS3) is in my future --- but not until I have a 1080p set.

Understood, but I was commenting on Oculus' last sentence, "Could this be the beginning of the end for HD-DVD?"

If you haven't sold your HD-DVD player yet, you better do it soon.

Mintz I see where you're coming from, but in my world, I didn't flinch when Warner chose Blu-ray. It is a large studio but it still doesn't affect 100% of the movies that come to my doorstep like Netflix's decision does.

Because of Netflix, I am now thinking of buying a PS3: something Warner never could have done single handedly. Though it is true that Netflix chose to drop HDDVD because of Warner, they didn't have to.

----------------------------
"Oculus is just this guy, you know?"

Netflix's decision is big for my household as well. We have greatly enjoyed Netflix's limited, but emerging selection of HD-DVDs.

While I do believe the hd-dvd days are numbered, I don't see why someone would want to hurry and sell their player asap. Yes, blu-ray will most likely win the format war if they haven't already, but there are still good movies available on hd-dvd that you can't get on blu-ray at the moment. Paramount, Universal, and dreamworks are still exclusive, so I guess I will enjoy it while I can. It's not like my player will just explode when blu-ray wins...instead I will just pop whatever dvds or hd-dvds and continue to watch them until blu-ray players drop in price and you know it will happen soon. Besides, my player is nice for upconverting current dvd's and they look really great. When the time comes for a blu-ray purchase from what I've read the ps3 is currently the only player to support all of the blu-ray features.

I also believe hd-dvd was/is the best current option for consumers but never reached its full potential to studios. It's price and features are ahead of sony's at the moment and they do not have all the drm that are included on blu-rays. Sony was smart and let ps3 pretty much win the format war. Too bad microsoft didn't add the hd-dvd player at launch because it probably would have changed this whole deal around. Oh well...

BTW, Beowulf comes out in a few weeks for hd-dvd and I am really looking forward to finally getting to watch it. Also, Transformers still pwns my face off.

True, my HD-DVDs will always work in my HD-DVD player. At some point I will want to consolidate equipment, though.

Ya, hopefully when they come out with a cheaper dual format player.

This and Sony using the ps3 to convert Blu-Ray movies to the PSP is the reason that the ps3 is coming to my house in the future.
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Don't forget the story of the Betamax and VHS. The Betamax was a far superior product, and many thought that it was surely the wave of the future. The porn industry chose VHS as their format, and all of the sudden things swung in a new direction. The porn industry again is late on their decision of format, but I bet it will have a large impact on the war again.

I heard that the porn industry had chosen HD-DVD. However, it's not 1990 anymore, and now porn is delivered via the internet, eliminating the need to repeatedly return videotapes (ala Patrick Bateman). I don't think the porn industry's decision had nearly the clout for this war as it did for Beta/VHS.

God help us, looks like Toshiba is ready to drop the HD-DVD. Looks like sony has one this fight...*hugs and kisses to ps3*

Guess a ps3 purchase is in my future, but probably distant future. I have read some places that the ps3 blu-ray player is the only one that can take full advantage of the blu-ray format features and some blu-rays will only play on it.

Maybe I can get some remaining hd-dvd's for cheap somewhere?

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Toshiba/Reuters,_NHK:_Toshiba_to_Pull_Plug_on_HD_DVD/1473

I don't see how HD-DVD can recover.

"Wal-mart says it will only sell high-definition DVDs in the Blu-Ray format in its 4,000 U.S. stores. The discount chain will phase-out all HD DVDs by June."

If it were not for the porn industry, our home theater and internet would be 10-20 years behind where we are now. But, I'm unsure if the porn industry can save HD-DVD. For one, HD makes actors look worse as it shows their blemishes. For second, porn is mostly distributed via the internet now. Is there really that big a demand for porn on a high capacity optical disc?

Will I get a PS3? It depends if Microsoft releases a Blu-Ray drive addon for XBOX 360.

I haven't seen anyone on the net from any site offer an argument of how HD-DVD can recover. At least this was settled relatively quickly. Chris Lanier seems to think a BD drive for the 360 is an impossibility because of some technical details about DRM and Java.

I've got to say, I called this one wrong. I thought HD-DVD would have pulled through as the winner.. my reasoning was that it has a more simple name, "HD-DVD" it's easier to understand than "Blueray". I was wrong. I knew that technology wouldn't be the deciding factor since they are both very similar.

I think it's cool how the market works.. the companies with the most clout in that industry end up choosing the best format and smaller companies follow suit. Free market at it's best.

I was wrong as well. I too thought that the name would be the deciding factor since the average consumer doesn't care about Java or absolute data capacity. My reasoning was that both "HD" and "DVD" are acronyms that the American consumer recognizes and identifies with quality. I thought that Joe Consumer would give the edge to HD-DVD because he's generally uninformed.

I didn't fully realize the large factor studios would play in this decision. Albeit, there was some paying off on both sides, and I still think there are more HD-DVDs watched per day in America than BDs, but the studios have decided.

Here is an article from Ign.com on "the rise and fall of hd-dvd"

http://gear.ign.com/articles/852/852769p1.html

I agree with you Midnight on the fact of more hd-dvd's being watched than BR in the states, but then there are millions of unused ps3 BR drives out there.

Update*

It is finished.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/852/852997p1.html

JDogg, the unused PS3 BD drives is exactly why I think there are more HD-DVDs watched every day in the US than BDs. Polls have shown that many (most?) PS3 owners do not know their console has a BD drive. However, when someone counts BD drives purchased by consumers, sometimes they look at numbers that include PS3s.

However, what's done is done, and even if that is the case then that will soon change in 12-18 months.

Microsoft did two favors for us:
* they didn't make us buy an HD-DVD drive with our 360
* they gave us the option to get an HD-DVD drive at a cheap price (much cheaper than Blu-Ray drives)

I thanked Microsoft for not charging me an extra $150-200 for a built-in HD-DVD drive at purchase of the console. That save me and all gamers some money that may have never been realized. Look how much more expensive PS3's are than XBOX 360's. As Midnight pointed out, PS3 owners don't know their PS3 has a Blu-Ray drive, let alone use it.

I don't think we can consider this a loss for Microsoft. It was the free-market that declared the Blu-Ray format as the winner. It wasn't PlayStation group that won it for Blu-Ray. It wasn't Microsoft that lost it for HD-DVD.

Microsoft has drilled Sony in next-gen sales. That is partly due to the XBOX 360's lower price point. The 360's success is one reason why game devs are picking it over PS3.

Where does the gaming industry go from here?

PS3 can offer Hi Def pre-rendered video scenes. They can deliver huge amounts of content on one disc that XBOX 360 can not. HD cut scenes from epic 360 titles are likely to be rendered in real-time to save on disc space.

If PS3 can think of some way to exploit the high capacity discs, then XBOX 360 could be in trouble.

Doesn't the PS3 cost the same as a 360 with the HD attachment?
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Before the recent Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive price cuts, yes. What are you getting at?

I have neither so i was just wondering. I didn't know that there was a price cut i just remember people saying that they were basically both the same price when you got the HD attachment.
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Currently playing:
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I thought the XBOX 360 was actually a little more expensive once you factored in the HD-DVD drive and Wi-Fi adapter to match the standard PS3 offering.

Still, Microsoft went with a modular design allowing anyone to pick and choose if I want wi-fi or a HD drive or a hard drive. That saved me some money and will end up giving me more upgrade paths later down the road.

So, I --- in all my life --- have never owned a standalone DVD player. With my XBOX 360 broken, we're without a DVD player.

I was thinking about picking up a $30 player from Wal-Mart.

But now I see that the Toshiba HD-A3 HD-DVD player is $100 at Circuit City and it comes with 7 free DVDs. It's awful tempting.

An HD-DVD player has to be a pretty good upscaling DVD player, right?

I would theorize the upscaling circuitry is comparable to other (cheaper) upscaling DVD players, so it could be good, could be bad. I don't know. Upscaled DVDs do look noticeably better on an HDTV, though.

I agree that it is tempting in your situation. Do bear in mind that 5 of the 7 free DVDs won't get to you until summer. Yes, it takes about 3 months to get them via rebate. Out of the 5 you are likely to only really want about 2. Google the rebate form to see if you like them.

Im just glad I have my PS3 and got rid of my 360, never looked back.

I think that Sony had the future in mind and Microsoft was just trying to put something better then Xbox on the market before Sony did. They didn't put much thought into the whole device, heat problems being one of them. They had to come out with all the add ons later to still compete with the PS3. HAving wireless built in is huge! I also hated running wires, now I dont have to and everything syncs perfectly in my wireless house. And with the BD inthe machine rather then beside it just hides an eye sore if you ask me. I also think almost everyone knew there was a BD player in the PS3. That was one of the largest sale points and marketing tactics Sony used. If anyone didn't know, it was old adults over 40 buying something for their kid. But Im sure the kid knew.

Yes PS3 was more when it came out, but not anymore. The Elite and 40G Ps3 are very close, plus wi-fi and BD make it cheaper.

I always thought BD would win because of the capacity. It seems everyday there is a larger hard drive or solid state being created. Why settle on something less when there is already something more. I think capacity had a huge advantage here when you start looking at multiple layered discs. And personally no offense, I always thought the HD-DVD sounded retarded. With cutting edge technology at least come up with a cool name!

I like how you completely forgot to mention the lack of a PS3 killer app...

Yeah, the PS3 is not the best choice for those that want a gaming console that has a wide install-base with online connectivity. XBOX 360 is the better gaming console when compared to the PS3. The free market has decided. The game developers have decided.

I think the only thing the black George Foreman grill has going for it is the Blu-Ray player. I see next to no other advantages of having one in my house. If there were any other advantages over the XBOX 360, I’d have one right now.

I don't care much about optical storage because in the future discs will be a thing of the past.

Digital delivery of software is the future and XBOX 360 is already dominating that scene.

When you compare the media features of the PS3 and XBOX 360 side-by-side, I argue that the XBOX 360 is by far the superior media device. Their online offerings are much more robust with movie and HDTV video-on-demand services.

The PS3 is a gadget. The XBOX 360 is an appliance.

I'm about to turn my house into a wireless media center network with XBOX 360s functioning as virtual computers running Windows Media Center. I'll have all my media centralized yet it will be able to be deployed to any TV or computer in the house as well as mobile devices like my cellphone and mp3 player. It'll also be available to me through my cellphone provider or through any computer connected to the internet. Each TV will have an XBOX 360 to pump all my owned media to it.

Right now, the PS3's advantage is purely in the one piece of internal hardware. They are behind in price-point, software, and services.

How can you say that Microsoft has a console that wasn't built for the future? It's a modular design built to be scaled-up as new components are released. You won't be upgrading your PS3 to support 802.11n or a larger hard drive without eating the cost for the hardware that the future technology would replace.

The PS3 also has, what, 8 different SKUs? They are building hardware that doesn’t scale-well, else, there wouldn’t be a need for so many SKUs. With XBOX 360, a core can become the latest and greatest just by adding on peripherals when you feel like.

We aren’t talking about a car where it’s more reasonable to buy all the bells and whistles up front. We’re talking about technology; technology that goes obsolete in a matter of months.

XBOX 360 is built around software and services. They are already playing the game. The PS3 is just in the on-deck circle.

I also think that the most expensive XBOX 360 console is equal in price to the cheapest PS3 console.

You can't say that the PS3 is a better gaming device. I also think that you can't say it's a better overall media device. It is however going to be one solid Blu-Ray player.

I don't think anyone has ever seriously argued that an out of the box Xbox 360 is a more capable device than an out of the box PS3. Most people argue that Sony missed the market for the customer they wanted to attract.

For the games I want to play, the people I want to play with, and the home theater capabilities I like (Media Center Extender) the Xbox 360 makes sense for me.

Now I am enticed by the PS3 as a BD player, but that's it, and I won't desire to buy one until at least summer or fall 08. I have never been enticed by its wireless capability. I don't like the thought of wireless online multiplayer gaming. Perhaps when 802.11n reaches a full spec I'll take a look, but as long as wired ethernet is substantially faster then I want to know I'm getting maximum data throughput.

The Xbox360 add on hd-dvd player has really good upscaling. So I would assume this one does as well. Might be worth a purchase for good looking dvd's and maybe a few cheap hd-dvd deals.

But doesn't the ordinary XBOX 360 upscale DVD's?

I'm going to hold out until HD-DVD players come down to the $50 range before I pull the trigger.

Yes, the Xbox 360 will upscale through VGA or HDMI . No HD-DVD drive required. It will not upscale via component.

I think the people here are looking for a PS3 more as a good cheap Blue-Ray player rather as a game system. That is what my family is looking at it for. Also my dad does some traveling for work so this Blue-Ray to PSP will be good for him also. But for me this will be my first real next-gen console so I will probably use it for games like Little Big Planet.
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Audiosurf (PC)