eugimon Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Well, michael bay = childish tempermental ultimatums, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wm cheng Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Why can't we just all band together and not buy anything at all, until the format wars are over. Its not like its food or essentials, we've been pretty happy with SD for the last few years, I bet if this happens, they'd wake up pretty darn quick! Ultimately, its us who buys the stuff even with this dual format stupidity that fuels this war (I have both a Beta & Laserdisc player in my basement! - but I've learnt my lesson, I'm not getting anything else until they settle this!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted August 21, 2007 Author Share Posted August 21, 2007 Well, I for one really don't want to wait another couple of years before this "tiff" works itself out to see high quality HD media on my expensive plasma TV. For folks like me these "two formats" are not all that expensive to get into and now that I own both I find they both have quite nice features and strengths. I'm sort of happy there is a format war going on... wars are good for the "economy" and despite what people say and bitch about they are good for the consumer. Competition breeds invention and when there is a media fight like this usually the consumer benefits in the long run. Prices on both sides are dropping all over the board, lots of movies are coming out or waiting in the wings and special offers abound. One thing a lot of people are not really saying is that this next gen media situation is a non-issue. HD media is a rich man's sport... your average joe is not going to run out and spend two grand on a plasma TV, another two grand on a high end receiver and speakers, another $500 on a HD media player and nearly double the price of a DVD movie for the actual HD movie discs. Most people I know are satisfied with DVD and their average SD tube television or their just above average 720p LCD TV. Out of ten people I'd venture a guess that less than one of them is "entrenched" in this next gen media war... and that half a person is most likely like me and owns BOTH format players. Buy in now or wait, the only thing you have to lose is money... but if you are getting high quality entertainment for that money then what's the problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugimon Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 meh, I'm happy to let the rich folk duke it out and drive down the price of these machines. I'm pretty satisfied with how upconverted DVDs look on my set... well, it could be better, but it's not a grand better, imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghadrack Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 And that.... is about the most honest appraisal of all this hullabaloo you will likely ever see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 I'm with JsARCLIGHT. The competition between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, if nothing else, has kept the discs priced reasonably and competitively. I already own a PS3 and an Xbox 360, both of which I bought for gaming purposes. Might as well buy the HD-DVD player for the 360 and buy my discs on whatever format it's available on. As for Bay's whole temper tantrum, he might jump off the the boat, but that boat's going to keep on sailing. I'd read that the CGI models for the film cost so much that Paramount decided they're in for three films minimum. And at the end of the day, yeah, Transformers certainly exceeded most of our expectations, but there are certainly better directors out there than Michael Bay. As long as they don't get Uwe Boll, I'm fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Shade Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 At the way things are going with the format war and the way it's dragging on, I say we should all hold out for this and this. The capacity of it really boggles the mind. Seriously, with Paramount/Dreamwork's decision to go HD-DVD and prolong the format war, I'm in no rush to upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugimon Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 (edited) so it looks like the paramount/dreamworks bit is only for 18 months, at the tune of 150 million dollars. Nothing says desperate like a payoff. Edited August 21, 2007 by eugimon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted August 21, 2007 Author Share Posted August 21, 2007 Even mediocre businessmen and generals can tell you, 18 months can turn the tide in any war. Microsoft (who we all assume is the money behind the new tactical push in HD DVD) has very deep pockets and they could bribe their way into market dominance in the near future. We all know that Universal is staying loyal due to financial benefits they receive to stay loyal. You know Sony has the same tactics and you know they are giving large incentives to their partners to stay on their bus. In a sense this is one of the few openly visible capitalist market wars in which it seems the companies only care about which companies are on their side and the consumer, who by all accounts is what should really matter, is almost a secondary concern. It's interesting to watch the "generals" line up their brigades for retail combat, to see the "assaults" in the press via press releases and the posting of specs, release dates and rumors... then as the "war" spills over into the civilian population, people "take up sides", staunch supporters and haters lash out at each other in the secondary trenches of the online opinion world. And through this maelstrom all anybody wants is to be entertained... and just like any war if you have the money you can rise above it all and come out ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugimon Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 (edited) yeah, this is true. Seeing how the sudden surge of Blu Ray discs only happened this year thanks to the PS3. My point, which I obviously didn't express very clearly, is that many consumers will see such a blatant move as a sign of weakness, that the HD folk can't rely on their technical strengths or their library and using cash to direct the market place. and if MS is behind this move, their money would have been better spent putting HDD in all new elite and premium boxes. Sony has pretty much proven that for the average consumer HD players alone are not worth the money, but that an HD player + gaming console is considered a good deal. Edited August 21, 2007 by eugimon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bandit29 Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Not a big fan of the format wars. It's we, the consumer that loses out. Yes I do own a PS3 and have bought a few blu-ray discs but I'm no "blu-ray pwnz guy" I just rent on Netflix and if its worth a purchase(or repurchase) than I'll go buy it. Say like Black Hawk Down..omg. Even with competition, the prices for movies aren't that great in stores. Who wants to pay 29.99 for Employee of the Month(well who actually wants to see it lol) or 34.99 for Fantastic Four? lol Online pricing is a little better. I think the HD market is too small right now to be fought over. Its like satellite radio. I'm really guessing here but how big is the market? 1 or 2% of home movies sold? By the time they are done fighting they'll probably be another format on the horizon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted August 21, 2007 Author Share Posted August 21, 2007 Actually the mandated shift to HD will "end" the fence sitting. SD is supposed to be on it's way out and HD is supposed to be on it's way in. If the path actually flows the way "they" (the industry) have planned it, SD will be completely gone like black and white TV's in the coming decade. I hear folks talk all the time that by 2020 everyone will have HD, that nothing but HD will be sold and that folks who "refuse" to upgrade will simply be left behind like my mother with her VHS deck... lord knows I have to listen to her complain about how she can't rent movies anymore because no one rents VHS. HD will be the only media soon. At the point when HD supplants SD, and only then, will we see the next true generational advance arrive. Digital downloads, holographic disc, etc. etc. etc. are all just the delivery media... the next big push in picture quality, which will be the next true advancement, is decades away. For my prediction the next "format" will be digital downloads. Once that hits, it will pretty much doom everything else. And at that point we'll see the same "problem" we have now with digital music... there will be virtual monopolies with singular huge corporations as the once source everyone downloads movies from like Itunes. Then we'll all really be screwed as the sellers will have complete control over what we have access to, when we can access it and how much it costs. I for one fear the day that I pay money for "nothing" but data with no real solid tangible thing in my hands. Speaking as someone who got cooked by Napster not once but twice, corporate controlled downloaded media is the devil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Actually the mandated shift to HD will "end" the fence sitting. SD is supposed to be on it's way out and HD is supposed to be on it's way in. If the path actually flows the way "they" (the industry) have planned it, SD will be completely gone like black and white TV's in the coming decade. I hear folks talk all the time that by 2020 everyone will have HD, that nothing but HD will be sold and that folks who "refuse" to upgrade will simply be left behind like my mother with her VHS deck... lord knows I have to listen to her complain about how she can't rent movies anymore because no one rents VHS. HD will be the only media soon. At the point when HD supplants SD, and only then, will we see the next true generational advance arrive. Digital downloads, holographic disc, etc. etc. etc. are all just the delivery media... the next big push in picture quality, which will be the next true advancement, is decades away. For my prediction the next "format" will be digital downloads. Once that hits, it will pretty much doom everything else. And at that point we'll see the same "problem" we have now with digital music... there will be virtual monopolies with singular huge corporations as the once source everyone downloads movies from like Itunes. Then we'll all really be screwed as the sellers will have complete control over what we have access to, when we can access it and how much it costs. I for one fear the day that I pay money for "nothing" but data with no real solid tangible thing in my hands. Speaking as someone who got cooked by Napster not once but twice, corporate controlled downloaded media is the devil. I can't argue with your logic. DVRs and on-demand cable programming have already proven the digital distribution model for video. I can't say I like, though. I like owning physical media. I've never bought a song on iTunes, because I'd rather buy the actual CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo Leader Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Digital distribution I say is great for rentals and trials, but when it comes to the final product, I would like a physical piece of merchandise that I can handle, use, and trade in whatever way I see fit. Digital downloads only crowd a finite hard drive and what happens in your hard drive with all your music and movies takes a dump? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha OTS Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 I like owning physical media. So do I. I don't think that factor's going to change much for me any time soon either. This will sound nerdy, but my dvd shelf is an expression of my personality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roy Focker Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 I still wonder how this format war of exclusives helps the consumer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bandit29 Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Just a quick side note. Saw Black Hawk Down and House of Flying Daggers on Blu-ray at Best Buy for 13.99 each Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugimon Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 I still wonder how this format war of exclusives helps the consumer. it helps indirectly by keeping the competition going, which hopefully translates into players coming out at lower price points then would have happened if there had been only one format. It kind of sucks in the short term though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeszekely Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Just a quick side note. Saw Black Hawk Down and House of Flying Daggers on Blu-ray at Best Buy for 13.99 each House of Flying Daggers was bad. I don't mean the movie was crappy. I mean that, for an HD transfer, it looked pretty bad. The DVD version upconverted looks better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ladic Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 dvd had no competion and prices went down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Hingtgen Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Having all that new storage space and better codecs means nothing if the people putting stuff out don't know how to use it. Same as how many 360/PS3 games look no better or even worse than many XBox/PS2 games---they've got the tools and equipment, they just don't seem to use them. I own DVDs that look worse than VHS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugimon Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 dvd had no competion and prices went down. I dunno, did DVD player prices halve themselves less than a year after being introduced? I honestly don't remember, but I don't think they did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roy Focker Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Even with low low prices does the average consumer want to buy several players to watch their movie collection? I think most people would rather buy one player that plays everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugimon Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Even with low low prices does the average consumer want to buy several players to watch their movie collection? I think most people would rather buy one player that plays everything. true true. But I'd rather see lower prices first, and then someone win the format war, rather then one format winning while players were still around the 800 dollar mark. As it is, toshiba HD players can be found around the 200 dollar mark, granted, those arent the nice 1080p models, but I doubt the 1080i models would have fallen to these prices in less than a year if it weren't for blu ray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted August 22, 2007 Author Share Posted August 22, 2007 And the more this war heats up, the deeper those discounts and bonus offers will go. Plus when you have two formats fighting it promotes further development of those formats. Just since this "war" started both formats have had upgrades in their capabilities and increases in their quality ceilings. Plus with the massive storage capacity of both formats there is even more room to keep increasing those specs for years to come. Another way to look at this "format war" is to look at it through the eyes of a video game person. This "format war" is nothing more than Playstation versus Xbox... Nintendo versus Sega... Atari versus Intellivision. The problem is that the vast majority of movie consumers are not "used to" this kind of media war. They are used to just buying one box and shoving one type of movie into it. In a sense they want freedom FROM choice rather than freedom OF choice (sing Devo song here), unlike the armies of video game nerds who are used to this sort of thing. When you buy into one expensive "console", or in this case HD media player, you are also buying into their "exclusives". Sure there are a lot of games, or in this case movies, that cross platforms but if you want to play Halo you have to buy an Xbox. If you want to play Mario you have to buy a Wii. If you want to watch Pixar movies in HD you have to buy Blu Ray. If you want to see Universal movies in HD you need to buy an HD DVD player. It does not surprise me in the least that this latest "format war" has been piggybacked onto the latest console war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoryHolmes Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 House of Flying Daggers was bad. Yes, it's a terrible movie. Just utterly atrocious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilSpex Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 (edited) You guys are all wrong! The FUTURE is on VHD (the only format with real 3D!). Click the link in my sig for the truth. Edited August 22, 2007 by MilSpex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunbuster Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 This is what Bay had to say today "After huddling with Paramount brass today (and apparently watching the '300' HD DVD -- "it rocks," says Bay), the 'Transformers' director says he understands where the studio is coming from, and that after hearing Paramount's rationale for choosing HD DVD over Blu-ray, "I like what I heard." Bay now dismisses his earlier comments as an ill-informed late night post, written in haste following dinner with three owners of Blu-ray players. "I drank the kool aid hook line and sinker," said Bay." http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Par...Back_HD_DVD/884 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted August 22, 2007 Author Share Posted August 22, 2007 More like his "money" said "You WILL agree to this or bye bye next paycheck"... to which Bay said "thank you sir may I have another". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugimon Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Bah... talk about mixing metaphors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 All the more reason I'm sticking with DVD until there's a firm winner (or I actually get a high end TV, which ever comes first). Though this Michael Bay thing is quite comical, if not entirely nonsensicle. How exactly does seeing 300 on HD DVD change BR owners ire over not having a BD release of Transformers again? Does the HD of 300 look better than the BR or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Necron_99 Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 More like his "money" said "You WILL agree to this or bye bye next paycheck"... to which Bay said "thank you sir may I have another". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JsARCLIGHT Posted August 22, 2007 Author Share Posted August 22, 2007 Does the HD of 300 look better than the BR or something? From what I've seen they both use the same codec and have the exact same visual and audio presentation. The difference is that the HD DVD version had the support to enable the "picture in picture" feature to allow the bonus content to show the blue screen "actual footage" of the movie beside the finished movie. That is the only real difference between the BD and HD DVD releases of 300. Blu Ray has since stated it's BD-J spec can and will achieve that same feature and a re-release of 300 is in the works that will match the HD DVD release feature for feature. In other words all you BD fans who ran out and bought 300 on Blu Ray the day it came out just got boned. Unless they offer a disc exchange program it's kind of a slap in the face... unless you don't care about that one, single extra feature item... which I think most people could take or leave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azrael Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 Article on NY Times But money talks: Paramount and DreamWorks Animation together will receive about $150 million in financial incentives for their commitment to HD DVD, according to two Viacom executives with knowledge of the deal but who asked not to be identified. The article goes in a little deeper about the HD-DVD deal but $150M in incentives kinda says something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guvava Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Funny thing is though that I own one of those cheap $200 toshiba hd-dvd players and couldn't be happier. I've been interested in getting a PS3 to go dual format, but there just isn't any BR discs I care to buy right now, and kinda glad I haven't blown $500 like that yet. Universal basically has a lock on everything that is basically cool to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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