Why all the Doom & Gloom?

[JoeSp]

I am begging to wonder why all the doom and gloom over BluRay? Is it because with the lastest releases it now has the same or better PQ then HD-DVD titles. Is it because 21st Century Fox and Disney are now releasing titles on BluRay?

Is it because the PS3 as a BluRay player is outperforming the Samsung and is considered to be an excellant BluRay player? That the Panasonic and Phillips BluRay players don't suck and also are getting great reviews?

Is it because the 50gb discs are now widely available?

Is it because there is finnally a $499 BluRay player to compete with Toshiba's $499 player? (The PS3 20gb if you did not know?)

Is it because the BluRay products are finally getting to the market and getting excellant reviews?

More and more people are saying that HD-DVD has won. Won what? You can't win a race if it has just started -- remember the tortise the hare story? I read that the PS3 as a BluRay player has problems -- but it does not. Once the remote gets out what are they going to say then? I have a feeling that by the end of March much of the news we are reading right now on BluRay is going to be considered BS. Don't know why--just a hunch!

 

[mike1973]

Here we go again

 

[teamerickson]

To much negative press for Blue Ray this week. I guess Joe needs to defend his baby. Maybe some day more analysists and economists will be on his side.

 

[navychop]

Well, somebody's going to eat crow. Unless they both stick around.

 

[vurbano]

Probably because of its anemic disk sales.

 

[csschrot]

I haven't said anything about HDDVD or Bluray. However I did buy HD-A1 because I could great a player for under $400 not a game unit. As for the 499 blu-ray player great for you. I have never liked buying a game unit to watch movies on. Everybody can talk about how good it is but it is a GAME PLAYER. That is what it was designed to do. If the main purpose of the unit was to play movies then maybe they shouldn't have called it a PS3. So everyone can keep going on about how great Blu-ray is I just think they are pricing themselves out of the market.

Shawn

 

[BlackHitachi]

Doom and Gloom. Well i am waiting for a good crisp picture from blu ray. I figure after 8 more HD DVD movies then i will rent some blur ray from blockbuster and maybe find one!:

 

[JoeSp]

I wish this was my baby because it is going to make someone alot of money. And yes, I was addressing all the negative press. When there are crisp pictures coming from new BluRay releases and there are more players on the market being sold you would think the news would be more positive.

I have had several folks e-mail me from this site who have purchased PS3s and have bought quite a few BluRay movies. They don't post because of the personal bashing that goes on here and who can blame them. You guys are relentless and you know who you are. You have kept any decent BluRay discusion from ever happening on this site.

If you guys were more open to allowing BluRay discussion without all the mud flinging you might find out that the BluRay customer base is growing quickly. But I guess you guys would rather bash, throw mud, spew names.

And this seams to be what the press is doing too. And someone is going to eat crow but I doubt it will be Sony. The sales of the PS2 and attacchment rate are high enough to help offset some of the loss on selling the PS3. If BluRay movies sales increase the way I think they will Sony might start breaking even by next Xmas. If that happens all the analysists and economists will be wrong.

Reminds me once of a class in statistics that I took in college. First day the professor made this statement. 'All statistics prove is that liers can figure and figures can lie. You can make any statistic say anything you want to prove.' I thought that this was very provocative coming from a professor teaching statistics but since I have found out he was very right.

Another thing , bad news gets press and good news gets the back page. Would you want to be the person who announced first that Sony blew it and lost its entire business? Man, wouldn't that make you famous.

Finally, while my horse is taking a breath, the name for this forum should change. Having the title state 'WAR' is what is bringing out the hate. Maybe it is time we seperate the HD-DVD and the BluRay discusions into seperate forums under a new title "HD Movie Formats". That way moderators could kick folks out who are trolling to bash. Then we could have decent discussions over both formats and folks could actually get good information about both formats. That way they could make a decision on a purchase based on what 'positive things' users had to say about the format that they support.

How about it - Scott?

 

[Sarang]

I don't completely hate Blu-Ray but I think Sony should make some smart decisions one being to recall most, if not all, of the BD-25 MPEG2 movies and replace them with either BD-50 MPEG2 or VC1. This or BD-25 VC-1, whichever can yield the best picture.
All this being said I hope Toshiba wins but not because I hate Sony, more because I want HD-DVD to become a great subsidy to help Toshiba rapidly bring down the price of SED and get them in consumers homes. Meanwhile them mainstreaming SED I hope will destroy inferior flat screen technologies that can't meet CRT PQ that SED can.

 

[CochiseGuy]

I have had several folks e-mail me from this site who have purchased PS3s and have bought quite a few BluRay movies. They don't post because of the personal bashing that goes on here and who can blame them. You guys are relentless and you know who you are. You have kept any decent BluRay discusion from ever happening on this site.

I respectfully disagree; I think the Blu-Ray / HD DVD discussion here is fairly civil, especially compared to other websites / forums. I have seen very little "personal bashing", and thankfully so. I think when posting in forums if one disagrees with a post, one should dispute the information in the post, not attack the poster. And, respectfully, in my humble opinion, some of the topic subjects and info in some of your posts invite opposing posts disputing the info. I don't see that as being "relentless".

As to your "Doom & Gloom" topic - no doom & gloom here; quite the opposite. I enjoyed a very enjoyable week of HD DVD. I was pleasantly surpised by how good "King Kong" was. The Dolby TrueHD soundtrack on "Superman Returns" was excellent; the house was rocking so loudly the cats took to hiding under the bed. And yes, BR owners can enjoy both titles on their format of choice, except of course no TrueHD audio for the BR "Superman Returns" (No dig intended, just stating fact). And, while "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" is not available in my HD format of choice, the standard DVD upconversion was very enjoyable. Kudos to Disney for consistently producting top quality DVDs.

So, I enjoyed a good week of HD DVD, and am happy your are enjoying your PS3 & BR discs.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All.

 

[JoeSp]

Posted by Sarang:
"All this being said I hope Toshiba wins but not because I hate Sony, more because I want HD-DVD to become a great subsidy to help Toshiba rapidly bring down the price of SED and get them in consumers homes."

I would also like to see SED at a resonable price but Toshiba has already stated that this technology will not be cheap. Estimates are that 50" SEDs could go for $5000 or higher. I hope not but new tech is always expensive. And Toshiba is not going to get alot of money as M$ with their new HD-DVD drive is probably taking sales from the low end Toshiba HD-DVD standalone. Several posters have already stated they took their Toshiba drives back and purchase the M$ HD-DVD drive. How is that benefiting Toshiba? M$ is getting all the money especially since VC-1 is their proprietary compression software. Boy, get into bed with M$ you better lock up your babies!

 

[mike1973]

Yeah, this discussion is downright civil compared to MANY others online. Most people here seem to prefer HD DVD. The simple answer as to why is that they have been available for almost a year now and are reasonably priced when you couldn't find a BD player under $1000, if at all. Will the PS3 change that, I doubt it. Most people don't buy a game system to watch movies. Don't get me wrong, I plan to get a PS3 with my Christmas bonus from work but I highly doubt if that will change the fact that I love my XA1!

 

[Sarang]

Posted by Sarang:
"All this being said I hope Toshiba wins but not because I hate Sony, more because I want HD-DVD to become a great subsidy to help Toshiba rapidly bring down the price of SED and get them in consumers homes."

I would also like to see SED at a resonable price but Toshiba has already stated that this technology will not be cheap. Estimates are that 50" SEDs could go for $5000 or higher. I hope not but new tech is always expensive. And Toshiba is not going to get alot of money as M$ with their new HD-DVD drive is probably taking sales from the low end Toshiba HD-DVD standalone. Several posters have already stated they took their Toshiba drives back and purchase the M$ HD-DVD drive. How is that benefiting Toshiba? M$ is getting all the money especially since VC-1 is their proprietary compression software. Boy, get into bed with M$ you better lock up your babies!

Well I was more referring to discs of sales themselves though I know at one point they were being subsidized to lower price. Can anyone verify if production cost has gone down on them so as to allow Toshiba to get a small profit?
Also Joe do you know any site I can direct people to where they can purchase SED's?

 

[JoeSp]

Sarang, SEDs will not be available till next Spring or Fall. For some reason Both Toshiba and Cannon have decided not to release the SED this Winter. I don't know why. It also seems they have decided that the smallest SED is going to be 50". I was hoping for a 40" for the bedroom. I guess I am going to have to wait and hope what I have read is wrong.

 

[mike123abc]

I think the main reason SED keeps getting put off is that the price of LCD and Plasmas has been collapsing faster than the SED folks can handle. That is why they are going for the over 50" market, since that market at least has not gone through the floor in pricing. A decent 52" LCD runs 3-4k range does not make a 5k SED price look so bad.

 

[tnsprin]

I think the main reason SED keeps getting put off is that the price of LCD and Plasmas has been collapsing faster than the SED folks can handle. That is why they are going for the over 50" market, since that market at least has not gone through the floor in pricing. A decent 52" LCD runs 3-4k range does not make a 5k SED price look so bad.

Sony's SXRD, only a year and a half ago one of the most expensive HDTV's, now are under 2000 for the 50 and 55 inch. So prices are changing fast.

 

[alexgmny]

I am holding off Sony and its blueray. Due to the fact that I still remember BETA and MINIdisk. I purchased a minidisk player and now I use it for paper weight. I have a xbox360 so I got the HDdvd driver. It works good enough.

 

[navychop]

SEDs will be available in Japan in late 2007- at best. They may make it to the U.S. in 2008. That is, if they do in fact enter mass production. Their entry date has slipped several times. The manufacturing method they will use will be similar to the LCD process, not the process they originally intended. This will make the cost of production higher, but will allow conversion to LCD production if it becomes necessary.

The initial Toshiba HD-DVD player was taken apart and revealed to be a PC that they rigged to work as a dedicated HD-DVD player. Not a bad set up, just a quick out the door overkill approach. They accepted huge losses on the players to kick start sales. Not a bad approach, and they certainly have had some success at it. The next model is rumored to be MORE expensive, not less, but may actually be designed as a player, not a converted PC. With the higher price and (eventually) lower cost of production, they should eventually make a profit on the players.

 

[JoeSp]

Navychop, how come if the HD-A1 was bascially a computer it runs so slow on startup? Also, I have read were many folks have taken back their Toshiba's and purchased the 360's HD-DVD player. I have a feeling that as the new year progresses and folks start seeing considerably more BluRay players from differant manufacturers and more BluRay movies from differant studios that the perception will be that BluRay is up and coming. If someone came up with a standalone BluRay player for under $500 (lets not discuss the PS3 here for this) then this 'contest' might be over. I now wonder if the new players from Toshiba and RCA will do well?


I also predict that if Toshiba cannot start making money on their HD-DVD drives and people keep exchanging them for the 360's much cheaper HD-DVD drive we might see a BluRay player from Toshiba before the end of 2007. I have never seen a new format launch on the cheap and survive. Toshiba has to start making money from this venture sooner then later. If M$ is the only one who is going to be making money (they own the codec so Toshiba is not making any money there & the 360's HD-DVD drive) then how can HD-DVD survive?

 

[navychop]

"...how come if the HD-A1 was basically a computer it runs so slow on startup? ..."

My guess is- because it's basically a computer and not a purpose-designed device optimized for one function.


I tend to think BD will win out in the end, due to broader support in both studios and the computer world. The higher specs will be telling. Even though I personally despise Sony.

I will likely wait it out until a winner emerges, or it becomes apparent that both will survive. I think most people are planning that approach. I also am unlikely to pay $1,000 for a player, no matter what it does. I previously thought I'd wait for a recorder- but I have DVRs, what do I want with a bunch of discs laying around? I'll buy a few HD discs, just like I do DVDs. A few. If a good BD player were available for $400, I might take a chance. Maybe up to $500. But no more. No need to tick off the wife. I can wait for things to settle down.