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Surely it is game over now for (Microsofts choice) HD DVD.

Ho ho ho...

Feb 11, 08 - 01:41 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

"We hear that you can get XBox HD DVD players really cheap nowadays."

A friend of mine just bought one a few months ago, plus a bunch of discs... I *tried* to tell him...

Feb 11, 08 - 01:45 pm Comment from: KingMel

Once again M$ backs the losing side, even after cash incentives.

Feb 11, 08 - 01:50 pm Comment from: Jim

Love the Take guys!!! HA HA HA

This is the revenge of Beta Max. I'm loving it! Suck it Microsoft.

Feb 11, 08 - 01:57 pm Comment from: mike_in_helsinki

Apple axes them both with iTS and TV!

I've been renting Blu-Ray discs from Netflix for several months now, and it's fantastic to be able to take advantage of my player without having to pay the completely out of line $25-35 per movie that they're still charging to buy these things.

My one gripe with Netflix is that I often must wait weeks for a blu-ray version to become available. Hello, if there are that many people renting them so as to cause these long delays, maybe that means demand is high enough that they should have more in stock?

Perhaps Apple TV will be the way to go for me in the not-too-distant future . . . Of course, I've got to convince the wife that the iPod touch is worth the money before I start in on my next gadget.

That suck.... I hope HD DVD wins... BR suck!

Feb 11, 08 - 02:12 pm Comment from: Mr. Reeee

Excellent! People finally got wise and supported the superior standard... unlike the huge mistakes of supporting VHS and DOS.

Methinks there'll be a new Sony BDP-S500 Blu-ray player in my living room sometime soon...

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId;=-1&productId=8198552921665227485

Anybody want to buy a nice 1 year old Denon DVD-1930CI upsampling DVD player?

I made the choice to go Blu-Me according to the articles and opinions I read here. Thanks MDN.

Just my $0.02

Feb 11, 08 - 02:40 pm Comment from: Cubert

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the death knell for HD-DVD.

WHOPEEE!!!!


I actually made the right choice late last year with Blu-Ray.

Although, I must confess I still have a working Sony Beta-Max Hi-Fi.. it was great for recording long long long party mixes on....

And of course, made Sony tons and tons of money in the broadcast realm.

XBox 360 is about the only thing Microsoft did right. You should read the Time article on it from a couple years ago.

While they choose HD-DVD, they were smart enough to make it an add-on unit. Now with the demise of HD-DVD, all they have to do is replace them with Blu-Ray drives. The 360 itself does not become obsolete.

Don't get me wrong, I'm Apple all the way and would love to see MS crumble. I just don't understand why they can't use the same logic from the 360 on their other applications. They might actually make something decent and give Apple some competition.

s'been fun watching all the guys at XBox sites go into a state of denial over the coming demise of HD DVD. they cannot believe that the HD format war is coming to an end and they backed the wrong side. the ones who actually bought the HD DVD add on are getting defensive over their purchase instead of just saying "mea culpa" and getting on with their lives.

Stockholm Syndrome is a terrible thing.

Feb 11, 08 - 03:17 pm Comment from: TheConfuzed1

@karrde97--

Sure, you could say the X-Box 360 was done right, as long as you consider losing $billions, before seeing only a slight profit margin comparably in recent quarters, a success.

Feb 11, 08 - 03:20 pm Comment from: Jubei

LOL. BR all the way baby. Bye bye MS-XBOX.

I can hardly see why BluRay is superior to HD, I mean, they both play 1080p, right? I'm glad MS is on the losing end, but given HD's backward compatibility to regular DVD, with upscaling, I would have guessed HD-DVD to come out the winner. A decent DVD-upscaler costs $100, and the HD-DVD players from Toshiba are $150 or less, now with 5 to 7 free movies. It seems a no-brainer since you can just use the Toshiba HD as a DVD-upscaler, at less cost than buying a good DVD-upscaler to begin with.

I can't wait to read the book on how BR beat HD-DVD, cause it seems to have been all about getting studio support and not about what consumers actually need.

I hope iTMS gives em both hell.

I'm not completely convinced that BR was all that over HD but I am so glad that this battle is apparently all but over. By this time next year, BR players should be under $200 and all the computers/home media centers/TVs/receivers, etc. should be standardized on 1080p which should tide us over for a decade or so.

Also, finally having a HiDef video standard will kill CDs and CDs' god-forsaken, still-born, stepchildren, Super-Audio CD and DVD Audio. Now, artists can just sell a combo BR & HiDef Audio disc.

Feb 11, 08 - 04:22 pm Comment from: Predrag

HiDefAudio??? Standard audio CD is not going to die as a consequence of the end of the HD format war. Having HD video standard will make absolutely no difference on the popularity, availability and record label's support of audio CD. The format is over twenty years old and there is no apparent need for an upgrade. Audio quality of it is still more than acceptable for all but microscopic percentage of music-consuming public. The only obvious trends, as a matter of fact, seems to be not towards better-quality optical media (the "god-forsaken, still-born, stepchildren", SACD and DVD-Audio), but towards (arguably) lesser-quality, compressed, downloadable audio formats (AAC/MP3). HiDefAudio will end up neither stepchild, nor still-born; it will end up a miscarriage.

As for the history of the HD war, one of the most likely reasons BD won is most likely larger capacity. Some studios were looking into the future and were not too thrilled with somewhat marginal capacity increase from existing DVD solutions. Another one might be BD's format flexibility (native AVCHD support).

Either way, the war is (for all intents and purposes) over. Let the troops go home. Let us now see some BD players for below $150.

The problem with Higher Quality audio formats (SACD -DVD-A) was not the format really...

It was the content; crap in crap out...

The format wars were over the minute Blockbuster adopted BluRay only. NetFlix is just slow on the uptake.

I have a HD DVD Player and I used to have netflix. I was thinking about returning to netflix but after they did this, I am not. I still support HD DVD and will not upgrade to blue ray.

Both formats will soon die. High def streaming will be the way to go. The reason Apple picked Blue Ray was microsuc didn't. Apple wanted a long enough delay, a long enough lead time to HD Online to be able to take off.

I still wouldn't rush out and buy a Blue Ray player (unless it's a PS3) Blue Ray will be dead in a few years. Current DVDs are good enough for me. Picture quality does not improve the story line or acting.

Feb 11, 08 - 09:16 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

@ OldMacFan

Come on... Don't you want to hear Ashlee Simpson in lossless 7.1 surround sound? It really brings out the warmth in the vocorder.

The only problem with BR is the players. There are absolutely NO standards in todays BR players. Of course Sony only recommends the PS3 as the best BR player available. They keep updating the software, but the players' firmware is unable to be updated. Sony needs to standardize it's software first.

Seriously folks... will you QUIT crying the Demise of HD-DVD as a Mac vs. PC thing?

If so... then realize that BD has far more DRM and therefore Apple is supporting DRM and Region encoding, while HD-DVD isn't as restricted.

HD-DVD is BETTER FOR THE CONSUMER!!!

Not relevant anymore. Both BD and HD-DVD have more than enough DRM to prevent the kind of flexibility we used to have with old analogue media.

The war wa hurting everyone and now that it is practically over, we'll quickly see BD standardisation, cheap players and cheap(er) movies.

As for the idea that this too will die in a few years, don't hold your breath. Current global broadband penetration is negligible. Current global demand for movies is (practically) insatiable. These two against each other guarantee long life for any physical medium for HD (Blu-Ray, as it looks). I am convinced that BD will outlive DVD as format for HD content.

It will be short lived when you wake up from the brain washing that made you think BR is better because apple supports it.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/02/11/2351205

Enjoy buying a new playe when 2.0 comes out suckers.

Does this now mean that NETFLIX's service will improve for BR discs? Or does it mean that they will now RAISE FEES for BR renters? Considering the
thousands's of obsure DVD's that NETFLIX stocks --
which is a good thing -- it does seem DISINGENUOUS
at best for NETFLIX to claim that carry the 300 to 400
odd titles in HD-DVD is a hardship and/or bad business. The facts don't support this.

It could appear that NETFLIX has decided that
DOWNLOADS are the future. . and have chosen to bypass HD optical media.

Downloads / streaming is likely the future . .
BUT THE FUTURE ISN'T HERE YET, BOYS.

and downloads/streaming that are not full 1080 P
resolution are just not good enough for the future
or the present . . . . and certainly not a good enough
reason to eliminate HD-DVD's.

Feb 13, 08 - 02:15 pm Comment from: Tommy Boy

@ TheConfuzed1: The Xbox 360 has only made a profit in that by Q3 2007 the cost of the components used to make an Xbox 360 are now less than the retail price of an Xbox 360. To that date the Xbox division had lost close to $4bn since its introduction.

Unfortunately at the same time Microsoft set aside $1bn (with the possibility of another $1bn needing to be set aside) to cover repairs, thus utterly wiping out any of the Xbox's miniscule positive cashflow.