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Warner Bros. Picks Blu-Ray Over HD-DVD
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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This is soo soo stupid!
HD is better and cheaper, WTF?!?
Its far from "better".
You know what though? People have seemed to forgotten that you just plain don't have to buy this stuff.
Let it shelf warm and just keep buying dvds. I know I will especially since the hddvd and even more expensive bluray movies are 100-200% more expensive. Stuff that crap. Even new release dvds are too much lately being $30-$40 on release. I wait until they are $10-$20 which can take up to a year, but I'm a patient person when it comes to most movies. I don't feel as though I'm missing out, the movie will always be around, so I'll wait. I still havn't gotten around to watching the last matrix movie yet. One day I will when I get around to buying it.
People have too much money to burn and not enough sense left in their brain wallets to realise "we don't need to buy this", but unfortunately this is a consumer whored based society now and people have a plastic card where their sense used to be. And then they bitch and moan when fuel and interest rates go up due to too much consumer spending, but that's another consequence with nothing to do with formats.
Anyway, just think "Do I actually need this"?
InorganicMatter
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This is soo soo stupid!
HD is better and cheaper, WTF?!?
In the highest technical sense, BD is "better." In reality, there is *zero* noticeable difference between the two. Blu-ray's larger capacity allows for higher bitrates than HD DVD, but we are talking about 40mbps versus 30mbps, when anything more than 20mbps is insanely excessive.
Cheaper...yeah, won't argue there. Sony requires huge licensing fees for stamping discs and building playback equipment. This is one of the large reasons Warner switched - Sony cut them slack on the licensing fees.
Sixthsense
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I'm sorry, did you say more expensive Blu-Ray movies? hold on while I clean the soda off my monitor. Blu-ray movies can be had as cheap as $9.00 with B1G1 for $14 from various B&M and ecommerce sites. On a side note since I'm so nice
it's not a total loss for the HD camp as both sides utilize VC-1. As far I'm concerned this silly format war is over, ( actually it was over when Blockbuster decided to rent out BR exclusively via their B&M outlets)
4saken
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No one paid Warner Bros anything! I hate when these retarded rumors start and idiots start believing it.
marcusj3000
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What most fail to realize is that Blu-ray is expensive and that most movie studios are going with it because of the even more restrictive DRM schemes that are going to be deployed. this will screw the consumer big time. the licensing deals won't last and sony will start jacking up the fees to license certain aspects of this technology. The studios are lying thru there teeth when they say they want the war to end, no they just want to find the most restrictive and costiest format to try and bleed more money from us consumers.
Basically they are trying to soften the blow they are about to recieve from the striking writers when they finally settle on the new contracts. They have found out that microsoft and others have started listening to the consumers and are not willing to put up with overly abusive DRM schemes any longer but sony never waivers in there DRM attempts.
If you like comedy listen to sony say it will remove DRM from artisit music, but truth be told they will remove it from lesser selling artist and keep DRM on the Higher selling artist what a joke.
Basically they are trying to soften the blow they are about to recieve from the striking writers when they finally settle on the new contracts. They have found out that microsoft and others have started listening to the consumers and are not willing to put up with overly abusive DRM schemes any longer but sony never waivers in there DRM attempts.
If you like comedy listen to sony say it will remove DRM from artisit music, but truth be told they will remove it from lesser selling artist and keep DRM on the Higher selling artist what a joke.
marcusj3000
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DUDe be it money are some kind of discont on fees are services it has been proven time and time again businesses don't break contracts because it suits the interest of the public. They do it because there is an incentive for them to change. Warner had a contract with penalties with HD-DVD so the only way they would back out and go to the competitor is if the competitor offered some kind of incentives to do it and cover the penalties. It's called business 101 for the business challenged. They were paid something and it will come to light sooner are later in financial reports from the company, to think it is because they thought it was right you should never try to open a business because you are a fool.
I love the way people regurgitate nonsense from 2006 like it was fact. It was slightly more expensive to make a BD about a year ago, like about 25 cents a disk and that would only have shrunk since then. This is has never been reflected in consumer pricing of disks.
I will be glad when this is over so we can see and end to the fan boy nonsense. I can't believe people get so carried away by a movie formats that are basically identical in picture quality, sound quality and aggravating DRM. About the only difference is the physical disk medium.
This ranks up there with picking a fight over which end of the egg to crack, the big end or the little end.
You're believing a bunch of random bullshit rumors. WB has an armada of its own lawyers. I'm sure it was well and fully versed in doing everything it did, legally.
WB has denied that it took any money, and as anyone who frequents AVSForum knows, WB has been promising for quite some time that it would examine exclusivity based solely on sales. Bluray beat hd dvd in sales every week of last year. Every. Single. Week. WB simply did as it had promised it would do.
The inability to differentiate and properly use they're/their/there, and usage of the non-word "costiest" invalidated every point you might have been attempting to make, sorry.
QFT
marcusj3000
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Once again to those that don't have a business degree, companies sail in the direction the money flows. This is something that can't be disputed and can't be written off. THe contract they had was made so that they couldn't go with the competitor. Be a complete idiot and believe them when they say they didn't get anything and you are a fool. You don't break a contract that hits you with multimillion dollar penalties just because you feel that the competitor has something better. Their was a contract with the HD-DVD camp that surely had a penalty for breaking it and going to the competitor without just cause and terms expired.
The was some kind of compensation given to make the switch what it was is not known yet. Don't be naive to think companies do something for nothing. The studios don't endorse formats for nothing they expect compensation for thier backing and they get it for sure. Go read a book about economics then try to make a better argument about something you have no knowledge about. And if analyst are saying there had to be somekind of compensation you best belive their was because studios are all about money and nothing else matters but the green.
marcusj3000
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I don't really care myself I don't own either and don't plan on buying anytime soon. This isn't a big jump past current DVD's and the xtra cost isnt even justified. I just hate seeing people showing support for companies that only plan on how to bleed more money out of everyone. Consumers these days are dumber than they were in the past and will believe and buy everything companies tell them nowadays.
Incorrect. Resolution is only one advantage the HD formats have over DVD. All that extra space also buys better encoding, which buys fewer or no compression artifacts, dithering, color bleeding, etc etc etc. The image from a well mastered film on HD-DVD or BluRay absolutely blows away what a DVD can offer.
Someone saying they can't afford the new formats, that I totally understand, but to say that they aren't a huge leap over DVD is 100% wrong.
alg7_munif
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I feel sad because as a Blu-Ray supporter, I would now need to pay more for Warner movies if this exclusivity is due to some kind of payment by the BD camp to Warner but HD supporters are lucky because they don't need to pay anything. If Warner still support both format, I'm sure that BD will still outsell HD anyway but the price should be cheaper without any exclusivity deal.
Anyway, I think that the price won't go down much as long as the format war is still there, the truth is they are at war but actually we are paying for it because of the exclusivity deals. I hope that this format war will end and BD will become the winning format since if you see the trend from CD, DVD and now, the storage size is getiing bigger anyway so why don't we just choose a larger format already?
I doubt that a single winning format would make the price goes up, we only have one SD DVD format but the price still dropped because of higher sales and lower manufacturing cost. What will hold the price up is the ongoing battle for exclusivity and we as a consumer are actually paying the price.
Btw, I think that a blue disc case looks better than a red disc case
Anyway, I think that the price won't go down much as long as the format war is still there, the truth is they are at war but actually we are paying for it because of the exclusivity deals. I hope that this format war will end and BD will become the winning format since if you see the trend from CD, DVD and now, the storage size is getiing bigger anyway so why don't we just choose a larger format already?
I doubt that a single winning format would make the price goes up, we only have one SD DVD format but the price still dropped because of higher sales and lower manufacturing cost. What will hold the price up is the ongoing battle for exclusivity and we as a consumer are actually paying the price.
Btw, I think that a blue disc case looks better than a red disc case
marcusj3000
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Yes but how many folks have the TV to watch this better resolution. Analog TV's still out number HDTV's and that won't change to much because of the hardships that is going on in the economy and the fact that most folks don't care much for HDTV or HI Def formats at this time.
I wasn't arguing that point, it is obvious since DVDs outsell everything by a huge margin. I was arguing the point that the HD formats have little advantage over DVD. The difference in image quality between the two is enormous, and for many reasons other than just resolution. Whether or not people buy them is a totally different thing.
Same thing with laserdisc vs VHS. There was no question that laserdiscs looked far better and offered more features (they directors commentary and extra features almost a decade before DVDs did), but VHS sold more regardless.
Hah, all this talk of Blu-ray now controlling 70% of the market for as long as the studios keep their current alliances - Almost sounds like its a huge thing.
In reality, it will probably mean 40 more movies on the Bluray side this year, with perhaps two blockbusters. Which is nothing compared to the 80,000 or so titles on DVD. As one person mentioned, get rid of all of the "Santa Clause 3" quality movies and really - its looking kinda sad for both Bluray and HD-DVD.
It would be nice if the studios could/would actually convert more than 1% of its 3-star or better movies in their collection less than 10 years old, but its just not economically sound - especially considering DVD releases this year are still outselling their hidef counterparts (either format) 20:1.
In reality, it will probably mean 40 more movies on the Bluray side this year, with perhaps two blockbusters. Which is nothing compared to the 80,000 or so titles on DVD. As one person mentioned, get rid of all of the "Santa Clause 3" quality movies and really - its looking kinda sad for both Bluray and HD-DVD.
It would be nice if the studios could/would actually convert more than 1% of its 3-star or better movies in their collection less than 10 years old, but its just not economically sound - especially considering DVD releases this year are still outselling their hidef counterparts (either format) 20:1.
If only this were true...
BD+ encryption is killing Samsung (and other) players to the point where they either start to stutter or outright will not play the Blu-ray disc. DVD never had such a strong encryption that the disc was unable to play at all. The only way to playback these Blu-rays is to get a 100watt PS/3 and use its raw computational power to decrypt these monster discs. And if Sony has its way, the encryption will only get worse.
How dense are you people?
HD formats look better than DVD, that is the point that is being argued here. If you want to post about Blu Ray's obnoxious encryption and the issues some players are having with it, fine, that is a problem worth talking about, but that (and other responses) are completely different issues, not rebuttals to "HD-DVD/Blu Ray doesn't look much better than DVD".
marcusj3000
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Still the HD formats penetration hasn't even hit 10% it has a ways to go to unseat the old DVD. Upconverted DVD's have even closed the gap further on how HD formats and plain DVD looks now. Consumers are not going to jump to HDM with the high cost it's at right now and It'll stay that way atleast halfway thru this year.
And on DRM sad to say it has gotten worst with BD. And I'll garentee that if the all the players are made to be firmware upgradable over the internet Sony's gonna make an upgrade that bricks them trying to stop pirates. Their track records shows that this will be the case.
And if sony was smart they would see that this is just a smoke screen for something bigger in the HD-DVD camp because HD-DVD is not their ultimate goal. Just think about it MS and toshiba had the funds to lure WB but made sure sony paid a high cost for the exclusive contact and will do the same for the last two because they will join them also. Just think
And on DRM sad to say it has gotten worst with BD. And I'll garentee that if the all the players are made to be firmware upgradable over the internet Sony's gonna make an upgrade that bricks them trying to stop pirates. Their track records shows that this will be the case.
And if sony was smart they would see that this is just a smoke screen for something bigger in the HD-DVD camp because HD-DVD is not their ultimate goal. Just think about it MS and toshiba had the funds to lure WB but made sure sony paid a high cost for the exclusive contact and will do the same for the last two because they will join them also. Just think
You lost me, right there. Are you saying the HD-DVD camp have some sort of behind the scenes shenanigans going on, something that will turn everything upside down?
From a technical standpoint, BR wins between the two formats. Next generation, who knows what'll happen? Maybe there won't be physical media anymore, just high bandwidth downloads... but all of that is moot to this discussion.
I've also seen nothing firm about a payout to WB, except the requisite internet rumors.
lmao !
But don't you see, it Blu-ray looks worse *because* its has issues with heavy-duty encryption. If the BD+ encryption requires so much processing overhead that it only lets you decode 20 of 24 frames in high action scenes in 30 percent of players, then without a doubt I'd have to say that Blu-ray looks *worse* than DVD.
Blah blah blah. Nobody is arguing that DVD sells way more than HD-DVD or BluRay ever has, or will for a very long time. Your initial statement in this discussion was that HD-DVD and BluRay do not look much better than DVD. Even when compared to upconverted DVDs, there is no comparison. Again, aside from resolution, there is less compression in the encoding, which means no blocky artifacting in intense colors or areas of high motion, no color bleeding, no dithering in intense primary colors, none of that stuff. I have all three formats and an unconverting DVD player, and when I say there is no comparison I mean it.
But if you want to respond to "no, the HD formats actually do look significantly better than DVDs do" with "DVDs sell better", please, be my guest. Now why don't we have an argument on graphics where I talk about how the XBox 360 looks better than the Wii, and you response with how the Wii sells more, something that has nothing to do with graphics (and in case this point goes completely over your head, the opposite would be just as ridiculous if we were talking about which system sells more).
And your last paragraph, WTF
At least your responses answer the question of how dense you are.
OMG, NO, Jesus Fuck! This is an issue with old players and encryption, not the look of the format itself. I can say without a doubt that not a single one of my Blu Ray or HD-DVD films looks worse than the best looking DVDs I own, Criterions included. There is no contest.
What are you talking about is one of many problems with old players, period. This, the lack of scripting features due to an unfinished spec, these are all problems with BR that should have been addressed in the first place. It is a huge problem and is a reason why I was supported HD-DVD over Blu Ray for a long time (even though I have owned players for both at right around the time time). But to say that BR looks worse than DVD because of what you are talking about is a ridiculous argument.
Goddammit, ok, I'm done arguing with you retards.
They didnt make a switch. Do you even understand that WB was supporting BOTH formats beforehand?
You're completely ignorant regarding everything you've tried to "discuss" tonight.
this whole post is fucking LOL. The samsung player SUCKS across the board. It has nothing to do with overhead, computational power, or any other random bs that you want to pull out of your ass. Samsung simply flubbed badly on a player, its like their engineers took a holiday. The samsung you're talking about will have problems with movies that every other player passes with flying colors. Avsforum has a thread dedicated to this player in the bluray hardware section.
The amount of pure ignorance coupled with absolute retarded speculation on the part of the poster in these threads is amazing.
Anyone who says there "isnt much difference" between regular DVD and B-ray needs to have his/her eyesight checked out. Not even close.
Anyway glad to see a format finally winning out. I like B-ray more than HD-DVD however I dont really care which one wins as long as one do. With two formats it will take much longer for the prices of players and burners to drop.
p.s. Why do people think B-ray and connect it with Sony? Sony is a part of the B-ray group... There are other large electronic companies. In fact I think Samsung is bigger than Sony.
Anyway glad to see a format finally winning out. I like B-ray more than HD-DVD however I dont really care which one wins as long as one do. With two formats it will take much longer for the prices of players and burners to drop.
p.s. Why do people think B-ray and connect it with Sony? Sony is a part of the B-ray group... There are other large electronic companies. In fact I think Samsung is bigger than Sony.
There have only been a dozen or so standalone Blu-ray players made so far - none of them are "old". Two of the samsung models have extreme problems with playback (one has error messages and video stuttering, the other will not play at all) The one Pioneer and the one LG also seem to have weird visual glitches.
I mean really, DVD did have some minor macroblocking issues way back when on maybe 2 to 3 percent of the low-end players (and the one badly coded Top Gun DVD) but I don't think there was ever a player made that actually would not play or give cryptic bluescreen type error messages when attempting to playback, or the rather severe stuttering or macroblocking.
MasterOfNone
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So why is everyone saying that Poo-ray has won? Just because another movie studio decides to flip-flop on their decisions and choose one format? What's to say that they don't decide to change again and support both formats?
People who already own HD-DVD probably aren't going to rush out and buy ANOTHER HD player so soon. I sure as hell wouldn't. My money would be spent on regular DVD's if the movie wasn't coming out on the format I had chosen.
Personally, I won't buy an HD player until the price of the MOVIES drops. The player price could be $300-400 for all I care, but having to pay at least $25/movie is ridiculous. I'll stick with my $5 DVD's from Best Buy and be happy knowing that they cost about as much as a rental, and I can watch them again if I want.
My Oppo HD-981 does a very good job upconverting, so I don't feel a pressing feeling to go to an HD format. Sure, HD players would look a lot better, but I'm not paying five times as much for the same movie.
http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/High_Definition_Studios
So far, neither format has an overall advantage.
People who already own HD-DVD probably aren't going to rush out and buy ANOTHER HD player so soon. I sure as hell wouldn't. My money would be spent on regular DVD's if the movie wasn't coming out on the format I had chosen.
Personally, I won't buy an HD player until the price of the MOVIES drops. The player price could be $300-400 for all I care, but having to pay at least $25/movie is ridiculous. I'll stick with my $5 DVD's from Best Buy and be happy knowing that they cost about as much as a rental, and I can watch them again if I want.
My Oppo HD-981 does a very good job upconverting, so I don't feel a pressing feeling to go to an HD format. Sure, HD players would look a lot better, but I'm not paying five times as much for the same movie.
http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/High_Definition_Studios
So far, neither format has an overall advantage.
Warner has the largest catalog of any studio.
I don't know how to make this any more clear. With Warner, bluray has 70% of all movies. Warner's defection brings both New Line (LOTR), and all HBO properties with it.
No, they "won't change and support both formats", thats what they WERE doing. There is too much investment, and organizational detail involved in producing, promoting, and distributing both formats at once for any studio. Warner was the largest studio doing so, and it has removed that from the equation.
It's pretty simple folks: Warner was the deathblow.
Universal's contract with toshiba is up, btw, universal can flip anytime, or go dual format anytime it so chooses. CES is a a prime time for them to make such an announcement.
Aside from another studio moving support, RETAILERS won't continue to support an obviously dying format. Look for major retailers to begin to move away from hd dvd rather quickly.
Some of you think this can continue indefinitely. Sorry, but Toshiba doesn't control that aspect of this fight, there are simply too many others with cards in play, and Toshiba is being dealt out.
griff30
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