Your HD DVD/Blu-ray purchase plans?

[dodge]

Hd Dvd Bs!!!!!

I am not going to give one red cent to those greedy corps coming out with either format of HD DVD!!! Neither one of my 2 HDTV's has HDMI or is HDCP Capable. They both have 2 sets of 1080i component in and one has a DVI.

I will get my HD DVD from the same place I got my regular DVD player, from out in some rich person's trash.

 

[007BlackMan]

Pioneer has a Blu-ray DVD Player comming out in june of 2006. This player's suggested price is $1800 bucks. It has backward compatibility with standard DVD's and can output 1920x1080p throught it's HDMI cable. The new Elite BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player doesn't support DVD-Audio or SACD. How many people do you think will be buying this player at $1800 bucks?

 

[Ilya]

Well, so far our poll pretty much reflects the overall market confusion about the two formats.

After the first 100 votes:

Only 29% are ready to embrace a new format. And the votes are evenly split!
12% are planning to buy HD DVD, 12% are going to buy BD, and another 5% suspect they will end up buying both.

53% of our forum members (who registered their votes so far) are not ready to buy the announced players and are going to wait:
14% will wait for a dual-format player (who knows when this is going to happen!)
20% will wait for a clear winner in the format war.
18% will wait for prices to come down.

19% are simply undecided.

 

[sclaws]

My current plan is to get the Toshiba HD-A1 for HD-DVD, then cover my BluRay bases with a PS3

 

[Ilya]

My current plan is to get the Toshiba HD-A1 for HD-DVD, then cover my BluRay bases with a PS3

That might actually be a good plan! Both formats + a game console, all for less than $1000
Looks like both products will be heavily subsidized by their companies. So, why not take advantage of that!

 

[vurbano]

A fool and his money.

 

[chipvideo]

I'm going to wait until one of the two happens first or both.

A hd dvr with blue ray recorder built in, the prices of renting blue ray from netflix is cost effective.

 

[sclaws]

A fool and his money.

Guess so. I didnt earn my fool's money to wait around and complain on online forums forever...HD is one of my few stress relievers (and according to the doc, I need a few more!), and I for one am very excited about either format. I predict a long, drawn-out battle between both sides, so rather than wait months for the battle to conclude, I will enjoy HD-DVD early and often To each his own.

 

[vurbano]

Guess so. I didnt earn my fool's money to wait around and complain on online forums forever...HD is one of my few stress relievers (and according to the doc, I need a few more!), and I for one am very excited about either format.

I can watch HD just fine with my 250 dollar Linkplayer2 and non DRM HD WMV movies at 8-9 mbps from sites like this http://www.hd-tec.com/magazin.html until this craziness is over. The first 2 or 3 years of this nonsense will be at a "please screw me" price and the players will be 2 times the size and price that they will be in 3 years.

I predict a long, drawn-out battle between both sides, so rather than wait months for the battle to conclude, I will enjoy HD-DVD early and often To each his own.

How? just where do you think you are going to get all of these HD DVD titles from? It will take years before all of the movies are converted and cut to HD DVD. We tend to think of ourselves as a large group but we HD enthusiasts are just a drop in the ocean. Not enough volume there to inspire the release of everything on HD DVD. I couldnt think of a worse purchase at this point than buying the first generation product to play something where there may not be more than 20-30 titles available for years to come.

 

[sampatterson]

I am waiting until they have computer versions (not standalone players) then I will buy them.

 

[sclaws]

I can watch HD just fine with my 250 dollar Linkplayer2 and non DRM HD WMV movies at 8-9 mbps from sites like this http://www.hd-tec.com/magazin.html until this craziness is over. The first 2 or 3 years of this nonsense will be at a "please screw me" price and the players will be 2 times the size and price that they will be in 3 years.
How? just where do you think you are going to get all of these HD DVD titles from? It will take years before all of the movies are converted and cut to HD DVD. We tend to think of ourselves as a large group but we HD enthusiasts are just a drop in the ocean. Not enough volume there to inspire the release of everything on HD DVD. I couldnt think of a worse purchase at this point than buying the first generation product to play something where there may not be more than 20-30 titles available for years to come.

Is this my wife? JK of course...she has similar concerns.
I know there are more questions than answers with the whole HD disc situation, but I'm ok with that. I'm a tech geek, and am excited about getting my hands on the new eq. and seeing how it performs. The market will do what it will do, and in the meantime I'll have some new eq. to try out, plain and simple.
The format battle itself is unfortuante, but considering the weight of supporters behind both sides I don't think either will cave in soon, and each format will eventually find a niche in the marketplace. My opinion is that HD-DVD will eventually gain majority studio support, primarily due to market recognition. Blu-ray, by the specs, is superior but a market newcomer. All things being equal, the newcomer is likely to be a harder sell vs. the brand recognition of DVD/HD-DVD.
I hope the HD authoring and distribution process is more efficient and steady than you predict, but you are right--it will take time to release films on HD media (Content production and DVD authoring is part of what I do for a living to pay for my tech toys).
I concede my opinions just that, and I may be wrong, but I'm fine with my choice to be an early adopter and I do understand why others do not share the same enthusiasm.

 

[BobMurdoch]

BobMurdoch i was reading your post about not buying a DVD-Audio Player or Super-Audio Player because you can't play them in your car. Well your right about one of them the DVD-Audio CD will not play on a regular CD player. SACD-Hybrid CD's can be played on your computer or in your car.

Thanks for the clarification, but since I still can't copy the songs to a PC (and then back to my Treo, I'm still not interested.....)

 

[Alan Gordon]

I can watch HD just fine with my 250 dollar Linkplayer2 and non DRM HD WMV movies at 8-9 mbps from sites like this http://www.hd-tec.com/magazin.html until this craziness is over.

BH: How does the transfer rate for Blu-ray Disc compare to HD-DVD?

AP: Well... on Blu-ray Disc, when you're playing a Blu-ray movie, the player is actually spinning an one and a half times normal speed. So you always have a guarantee of 54 megabits per second [Mbps]. And I believe the HD-DVD format runs at about 36Mbps [Editor's Note: 36.5Mbps to be exact]. For a Blu-ray movie application, you've got 54Mbps. So that allocates for us 40Mbps just for the video alone. Right? Which is an awful lot of data. Now think about that. ATSC Standard high-def broadcasts are about 20Mbps, so we've doubled the available bitrate.

Bill Hunt, of The Digital Bits interview with Pioneer's Andy Parsons.

~Alan

 

[teamerickson]

HD-DVD will win. It's all about economics.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/next-gen-dvd.ars

 

[Ilya]

Welcome to the forum, teamerickson!

 

[raymo721]

I am with Longhorn and Vicw, until I can watch it through my component in HDTV I won't be buying! After spending 5K on my MITS I won't be buying a replacement set for years just to support the HDMI copy protection police!

Same here!---Ray

 

[mb1058]

We are fooling ourselves if we think the most informed are making this decision. It will be made by the masses who will probably buy what lasts the longest (discs), cost the cheapest (players and disks), and which disks are the most plentiful. I think the format decision willl be decided within the first year to 18 months.
Mark

 

[drummerguy]

I won't be buying either format for a LONG time. I got burned during the VHS/Beta videotape war (yes, I bought Beta), and ended up with a library of useless Beta tapes after my Betamax crapped out. Won't make that mistake again!

Plus, with the news that the players will down-convert the signal if not run into an HDMI input, that just seals it for me. My HDTV has one HDMI input, and that's reserved for my satellite box HD and OTA programming. No way I'm moving that to component inputs so I can watch the occasional hi-def DVD through the HDMI input. There's absolutely no point in buying a hi-def DVD player and running it into component inputs if the signal is downrezzed to where it's only slightly better than standard DVD. And I just bought my HDTV last year; not planning on buying a new one for a long time.

So no hi-def DVD for me. Too bad, I was looking forward to it. But these studios and manufacturers have made a total mess of this situation.

 

[BobMurdoch]

I feel the same way. They didn't learn with VHS/Beta, DAT/Digital Compact Cassette, and SACD/DVD Audio.

ANY Time you have two competing formats come out they both are miserable failures (The only exceptions being VHS and DVD which fended off an early challege from Divx from Circuit City).

Especially with all the content restrictions for the new generation. With DVDs plunging in price, I'm gonna wait until they make it compelling. My HD DVR can record HD just fine for those popcorn movies that I want to see in HD.

 

[Chado]

My HD DVR can record HD just fine for those popcorn movies that I want to see in HD.

Don't you mean HDLite?? Sorry I couldn't resist.