To owners of HD-DVD players, including me--

Bad news for HD DVD indeed...Crap. I was rooting for HD DVD.

I sold my Xbox w/ HD DVD player (never had time to play it) and bought a $175 player from Amazon with 10 free DVDs just last week. I don't regret it though. Still a killer deal and the Blu-ray players are not cheap at all.

Definitely won't be investing any more in HD DVD though at this point. Unless the HD DVD group makes some sort of amazing announcement soon and really turns things around again. Which I doubt.
 
Good. I never liked HD-DVD's name. It confused the common consumer by stating the obvious while Blu-ray was left to sound like an alien weapon. I've rooted for blu-ray (the seemingly underdog, but not really) from the gate.

That (the simple name) is probably the only (except cost) reason HD-DVD's are being sold. I read a chart in a technology magazine which compared the two formats stat by stat, and I have to say blu-ray looked much better on paper.

EDIT: Read the editors note which was updated on this older article... jeez oh man, I'd say this is one of the many fat ladies singing.
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6463_7-6462511-1.html
 
Wait, how is the name "HD DVD" more confusing to the common consumer than "Blu-ray?" HD DVD states exactly what it is...Blu-ray sounds as you put it, like an alien weapon. :)

Makes little difference though, in the end. I don't think the success or failure of one or the other ever came down to the name, honestly, but I could be wrong.
 
Jared Meyer said:
Wait, how is the name "HD DVD" more confusing to the common consumer than "Blu-ray?" HD DVD states exactly what it is...Blu-ray sounds as you put it, like an alien weapon. :)

Makes little difference though, in the end. I don't think the success or failure of one or the other ever came down to the name, honestly, but I could be wrong.
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My point was that I was rooting for Blu-ray from the start because it seemingly had better stats, but I had also thought HD-DVD would win simply because of consumers going for the name which was simple. In a confusing format war, I was thinking the consumer would go for the HD-DVD for it's self descriptive name.

ie "What the hell is a blu ray? I want HD!!!... oh look an HD-DVD, I'll get that"

of course that is simplified, but there are lots of people out there who I thought would choose HD-DVD because of it.

And you are right, it doesn't come down to a name. BUT I think HD-DVD would have won because of it's name in the consumer market had it not been for the Playstation 3 and some ruthless Blu-ray businessmen who have been getting these studios to commit to their side.


EDIT: Remeber BetaMax vs VHS? This is a classic example of how a better format can lose the war due to consumers, price and crafty businessmen. In this war, it seems the more expensive Blu-ray has beaten HD-DVD... a rare occasion in which the lower priced unit didn't determine the outcome of the format war.
 
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Jared Meyer said:
Wait, how is the name "HD DVD" more confusing to the common consumer than "Blu-ray?" HD DVD states exactly what it is...Blu-ray sounds as you put it, like an alien weapon. :)

Makes little difference though, in the end. I don't think the success or failure of one or the other ever came down to the name, honestly, but I could be wrong.
Click to expand...


Exactly Blu-ray is a lot more confusing to a consumer. HD-DVD makes sense. DVD=Digital Video Disc, HD=High Definition then combine the two. Blu-ray on the other hand....um A "ray" gun that shoots "blu" lasers?
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
My point was that I was rooting for Blu-ray from the start because it seemingly had better stats, but I had also thought HD-DVD would win simply because of consumers going for the name which was simple. In a confusing format war, I was thinking the consumer would go for the HD-DVD for it's self descriptive name.

ie "What the hell is a blu ray? I want HD!!!... oh look an HD-DVD, I'll get that"

of course that is simplified, but there are lots of people out there who I thought would choose HD-DVD because of it.

And you are right, it doesn't come down to a name. I think HD-DVD would have won because of it's name had it not been for the Playstation 3 and some ruthless businessmen who have been getting these studios to commit to their side.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's what I was saying. I agree.
 
I wonder if HD DVD finally goes kaput, if we'll be able to get a firmware update to make our players capable of reading BLU-RAY discs. From what I understand they use the same lasers and compression codecs. Probably not possible.
 
Batutta said:
I wonder if HD DVD finally goes kaput, if we'll be able to get a firmware update to make our players capable of reading BLU-RAY discs. From what I understand they use the same lasers and compression codecs. Probably not possible.
Click to expand...

Seems very unlikely. Anybody wanna buy a HD A3 player :).
 
Cheesesailor77 said:
blu ray has warner, hddvd has paramount. how does this news end the war?
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Warner Bros has a much bigger library than Paramount that includes 6,600 features, 40,000 television titles and 14,000 animated titles from Warner Bros Pictures, Castle Rock, Warner Independent Pictures, Lorimar Pictures, RKO and MGM (pre-1986). Paramount has just over 1,000 titles total.

upon hearing the news, I did a little online research on players. today, I ran out and bought a Playstation 3. i was surprised to learn that it generally provided better picture quality than the available entry-level Blu-Ray players.
 
My wait may soon be over. I've really been in no hurry since I don't plan on "upgrading" my current library, rather I would just buy HD for any new purchases. I'll still wait a bit longer before making the purchase, though...

I was pulling for HD-DVD, well, because it wasn't SONY. But in the long run, it really doesn't matter as long as there is only one format.
 
Good thing I didn't buy an HD-DVD player for Christmas (I was going to).

I'll be bitter about this loss for a couple weeks.
 
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