[icruise]

Originally Posted by mrtew 

This thread has just become an excuse for the HDDVD and Blu-ray people to keep bickering over nothing now that the war is over. I motion that it be closed.

While you may have a point about the bickering, I'd say it's a little premature to declare the war completely over. Even if the writing is on the wall, there's still going to be many developments in the coming months.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by mrtew 

This thread has just become an excuse for the HDDVD and Blu-ray people to keep bickering over nothing now that the war is over. I motion that it be closed.

Is there something wrong with having an open digital media bickering topic?

[ort888]

This is the most popular thread on the whole forum.

If you close it, you'll just start seeing format war threads three times a day.

[brassplayersrock²]

yeah, with 5 pages in 2 days, i'd say keep this thread open

[mrtew]

It was an eventful 5 days with the end of the war and the reaction! Now it's degenerated into nerds arguing about why Apple eliminated floppys ten years ago. I'm still trying to get over the loss of the cassette tape drives in the Commodore PET. I can't get RatRun onto my MacBook thanks to the takeover by the evil floppys.

[icruise]

Pretty much everything that goes on here is nerds arguing about one thing or another.

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by goMac 

I think people think they need optical discs, but I don't think they actually do. A lot of people in this thread would insist that people also need 1080p content on discs with 7.1 (uncompressed of course) surround sound, and I don't buy that either.
.

Need? We don't *need* any of this crap. We *want* it. And if folks want their discs, then it would be a bad business move for Apple to take them away, and that's the way it'll be for a few years more. I think you're overestimating the average person's upgrade cycle. Most people don't buy a stack of hard drives to back up their TV shows.

[aristotles]

Originally Posted by Chongo 

Seagates take on the whole mess
Seagate CEO: Blu-ray won the battle but lost the war - CES 2008 - Consumer Electronics Show - CNET.com

That was great. Thanks for the laugh. What this clueless CEO seems to forget is that people either have no internet access at all, low end broadband or monthly caps on bandwidth use.

Physical media is here to stay. How do you loan a DRM'ed multi-GB file to a friend for the weekend? Please. I see all of the HD DVD fanboys jumping on the download bandwagon even though they have not thought things through. Download might be a reality 10 years from now but it's not going to happen unless internet access becomes cheap, unlimited and ubiquitous.

His terabyte drives are useless without fat pipes and uncapped bandwidth to feel them.

BTW. I have to say that I find GoMac to be the most entertaining. I bet that if HD DVD was winning, GoMac would be touting HD DVD physical media to the heavens and would say that HD downloads are not practical right now. How about a little less fanboyism and a little more intellectual honesty? I understand that you hate Sony for some reason but let's get real here.

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by goMac 

To clarify this, I just saw a TV commercial for Walgreen's online photo submission/printing service. So yes, you can do this online.

ARGHHH!!!! YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!

Of course I CAN do this, but the point is that people DON'T all do this--HENCE THEY WANT THEIR FLIPPIN' DISCS!!!

(pants heavily...wipes sweat from brow...relishes Blu-Ray version of Sunshine...regains calm)

Now answer my question about X-box Live! Can I get my Firefly in true HD or what?

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by icruise 

Pretty much everything that goes on here is nerds arguing about one thing or another.

I would argue that these discussions are more "geeky" than "nerdy."

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Helmling 

Need? We don't *need* any of this crap. We *want* it. And if folks want their discs, then it would be a bad business move for Apple to take them away, and that's the way it'll be for a few years more. I think you're overestimating the average person's upgrade cycle. Most people don't buy a stack of hard drives to back up their TV shows.

Are you saying you're the average consumer? Look, I'm sure every consumer would love to have a 1080p TV with a 7.1 surround system. But for most consumers, 720p with 5.1 or even stereo audio is more than adequate. And for the sizes of most tv's that is the most they will ever see.

Originally Posted by aristotles 

That was great. Thanks for the laugh. What this clueless CEO seems to forget is that people either have no internet access at all, low end broadband or monthly caps on bandwidth use.

Seriously. I wish you guys would stop throwing that FUD around. This is not 1995.



People who don't have high speed broadband aren't even a target market for Bluray anyway. I find it hard to believe that people who don't have an internet connection have an HDTV and are buying Bluray discs.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by goMac 

People who don't have high speed broadband aren't even a target market for Bluray anyway. I find it hard to believe that people who don't have an internet connection have an HDTV and are buying Bluray discs.

Right now they're not, but I'll bet you anything they're buying DVDs. Blu-ray (and HD-DVD) are niche products right now, but the idea is that Blu-ray will replace DVD and will eventually have the same sort of market penetration. Whether downloadable video will take off before that happens is open to debate, but I personally doubt it.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Sony to distribute content in DivX format

[Brien]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Are you saying you're the average consumer? Look, I'm sure every consumer would love to have a 1080p TV with a 7.1 surround system. But for most consumers, 720p with 5.1 or even stereo audio is more than adequate. And for the sizes of most tv's that is the most they will ever see.

Uh, do most people even have that?

[PaperNotes]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Mr goMac, since you're the all round genius who knows everything will you please explain to us noobs what happens to ISPs when consumers have to give up on physical media and start downloading 20GB movies (and games if you want)?

I'll answer it since you're plain thick anyway (please mods, don't waste time explaining to me how rude that is). ISPs pass the cost of all that bandwidth usage on to subscribers. They're already having a problem with it and putting in all sorts of download caps.

Now what happens when movie files get larger, as they inevitably do, and reach 50GB for a HD4K movie? Or games get so big that they become a 50-100GB download?

Costs for ISPs just keep going up.

Now you can argue for another 14 months about how that's wrong and that you're right because you're a master server technician, or is it an software developer, or is it a pro gamer who knows everything about PC gaming hardware, or was it a master Open GL programmer, or was it a senior politician who can talk endlessly about politics, history and religion. With you, it's a new credential every day depending on what debate you get yourself in to.

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Are you saying you're the average consumer? Look, I'm sure every consumer would love to have a 1080p TV with a 7.1 surround system. But for most consumers, 720p with 5.1 or even stereo audio is more than adequate. And for the sizes of most tv's that is the most they will ever see.



Seriously. I wish you guys would stop throwing that FUD around. This is not 1995.



People who don't have high speed broadband aren't even a target market for Bluray anyway. I find it hard to believe that people who don't have an internet connection have an HDTV and are buying Bluray discs.

Originally Posted by Brien 

Uh, do most people even have that?

This has brought up before
99.99 of sets that are not a CRT/CRT-RPTV are "720p", and they are 1080i(allegedly there were a few 1080i plasma sets). It has been in the last 2 years or so that the 1080p sets have been on the market. The vast majority are plasma/LCD/LCOS/DiLA scaled to 768p, DLP sets are the exception and have true 1280x720p. Samsung still sells 42", 46" and 50" 720p sets. Their 1080p line are sets 50" and larger.


Cable on demand services don't use the broadband part of cable to deliver content, If you downloading to your computer then yes. DirecTV's on demand service, on the other hand, does require a BB connection for 90% of it's content.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Ces08: Microsoft Will Consider Going Blu-Ray, If Consumers Demand

Like I said, the momentum shift has been ludicrous.

[PaperNotes]

Anyone who thinks the retail channel needs to be eliminated has to watch Bee Movie and see what happened to the eco-sphere when the bees seized making honey.

They also need to bear in mind this factoid. Only 80% of movies ever produced worldwide made it to VHS. Less than 45% of movies ever produced worldwide made it to DVD. It will take years to redigitize movies to HD and even then companies only do so when they think they can sell enough copies. People will be watching celluloids, VHS and DVD movies for a very long time.

[exca1ibur]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

They also need to bear in mind this factoid. Only 80% of movies ever produced worldwide made it to VHS. Less than 45% of movies ever produced worldwide made it to DVD. It will take years to redigitize movies to HD and even then companies only do so when they think they can sell enough copies. People will be watching celluloids, VHS and DVD movies for a very long time.

Perhaps so but people aren't buying HD equipment for only catalog titles. They are buying it for future titles which are being done with HD in mind. So if anything, all NEW content will be prime for it. Most things now are mastered in HD and down-converted to DVD and SD broadcasts.

[Chongo]

XStreamHD unveiled press conference, live - Engadget
Hmmmm

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Are you saying you're the average consumer? Look, I'm sure every consumer would love to have a 1080p TV with a 7.1 surround system. But for most consumers, 720p with 5.1 or even stereo audio is more than adequate. And for the sizes of most tv's that is the most they will ever see.



Seriously. I wish you guys would stop throwing that FUD around. This is not 1995.



People who don't have high speed broadband aren't even a target market for Bluray anyway. I find it hard to believe that people who don't have an internet connection have an HDTV and are buying Bluray discs.

No, I don't think I'm the "average consumer." I've said so repeatedly. If there were HD movies for download on iTunes, I might purchase them if they also had commentary tracks (which I love), and I have the extra drive storage to archive the stuff.

Most people don't.

And we're not even talking about Bluray anymore. I got into this becuase you're insisting that Mac might phase out drives any day now, and I'm insisting that's years away.

[exca1ibur]

For any PS3 owners that want to stream content from their Mac...
Nullriver Software ~ Media Link PS3

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

Anyone who thinks the retail channel needs to be eliminated has to watch Bee Movie and see what happened to the eco-sphere when the bees seized making honey.

They also need to bear in mind this factoid. Only 80% of movies ever produced worldwide made it to VHS. Less than 45% of movies ever produced worldwide made it to DVD. It will take years to redigitize movies to HD and even then companies only do so when they think they can sell enough copies. People will be watching celluloids, VHS and DVD movies for a very long time.

Actually, I suspect direct downloads are much easier to prep than BluRay's, so this argument works in favor of iTunes-like distribution. My gripe is that those don't have all the cool extras that DVD's and Blu-Ray's come with--which is why I actually purchase movies for myself.

[Chongo]

Jobs did kinda gloss over iDVD(none or minimal updates) in the iLife Press Conference. He made it sound like no one burns dvds anymore, he was of course pushing AppleTV as the delivery method for home HD movies

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by exca1ibur 

For any PS3 owners that want to stream content from their Mac...
Nullriver Software ~ Media Link PS3

EyeConnect is not bad either, thats what I use to stream to my DirecTV HR20 HD DVR

[exca1ibur]

Possible $199 Blu-ray player? Doesn't look like it may come to the US, but it will make it to Canada.

Blu-ray.com - CES 2008: Daewoo / Daytek Blu-ray Player

This, I think, are the specs for that machine. full 2.0 spec...
Blu-ray.com - IFA 2007: Daewoo Blu-ray Player

[aristotles]

I don't think you guys are considering Warner's role in the format war and in the history of the development of the HD DVD format. Initially, Warner rejected the whole concept of the Blu-ray along with Toshiba when Panasonic and Sony offered them partnership in exchange for support for Blu-ray being introduced in the DVD forum as the replacement for DVD. Warner was too invested in DVD patents and royalties to support a DVD killer and they later became one of the founders of the HD DVD format. Warner switching to Blu-ray exclusively means that they are giving up on their baby (HD DVD).

This is as significant as if Sony Pictures had gone neutral or HD DVD exclusive.

To reiterate, the co-founder of HD DVD has abandoned their own format in favor of the competition.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Oh trust me, HD-DVD fans know it is show over for HD and movies. Why do you think since the announcement the discussion has suddenly moved to "we don't need anything on optical, we should all just download them".

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Warner: Profile 1.1 Blu-ray Titles Coming Soon | High-Def Digest

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by exca1ibur 

Possible $199 Blu-ray player? Doesn't look like it may come to the US, but it will make it to Canada.

Blu-ray.com - CES 2008: Daewoo / Daytek Blu-ray Player

This, I think, are the specs for that machine. full 2.0 spec...
Blu-ray.com - IFA 2007: Daewoo Blu-ray Player

it is and I'll but that if it's $199

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Check out the sales results for the last 7 days:
The Product Wars fought on Amazon.com

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Check out the sales results for the last 7 days:
The Product Wars fought on Amazon.com

Which should come as no surprise to anyone. I probably would have bought a movie or two but the latest announcement has discouraged me (and I'm guessing that's common amongst HD DVD supporters), while at the same time really bolstered the BD fans.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Check out the sales results for the last 7 days:
The Product Wars fought on Amazon.com

No surprise there, but I'm amused that aS is now touting Amazon sales numbers, despite the fact that he used to say they're useless.

The ironic part is that they've have become more and useless as time has gone on, presumably because brick-and-mortar hi-def movie sales dwarf Amazon sales these days.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

Which should come as no surprise to anyone. I probably would have bought a movie or two but the latest announcement has discouraged me (and I'm guessing that's common amongst HD DVD supporters), while at the same time really bolstered the BD fans.

I didn't say it was a surprise, just to have a look. In fact there might be a jump in sales on HD due to Pans labyrinth being discontinued and fire sales.

[hyteckit]

Most consumers don't care about Bluray or HDDVD. You can tote Hidef and awesome 7.1 channel digital lossless sound all you want. Most consumers don't own a Hidef set or even a surround sound setup.

Over a 1 year and a half period, only 500,000 Bluray standalone units sold and less than 1 million standalone HDDVD units. Both are doing poorly.

Economy of scale on the Bluray standalone won't be anytime soon at those sales numbers for Bluray standalone units. You are looking at less than 100,000 units sold for each manufacture making the Bluray units.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Here's a question: Have Hi-Def player sales exceeded reg DVD player sales. I would hope so, as the market should be saturated with the latter. If the answer is no, then yeah, we've got a while to go yet.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

Economy of scale on the Bluray standalone won't be anytime soon at those sales numbers for Bluray standalone units. You are looking at less than 100,000 units sold for each manufacture making the Bluray units.

Ya, so? Didn't we cover that on page 8?

The point is they are looking at the long term, it took quite a while for DVD's even to really get rolling. There is still money to be made and it is the only way I can get movies I like in HD so I am willing to pay for it.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

Most consumers don't care about Bluray or HDDVD. You can tote Hidef and awesome 7.1 channel digital lossless sound all you want. Most consumers don't own a Hidef set or even a surround sound setup.

Over a 1 year and a half period, only 500,000 Bluray standalone units sold and less than 1 million standalone HDDVD units. Both are doing poorly.

Actually, that's pretty impressive.

In the first year and a half, only 870,000 DVD players were sold in the US. The number jumps to 1.4 million DVD players if you include another quarter's worth of sales: from inception in March 1997 to December 1998.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

HBO Confirms Switch to Blu-ray Exclusivity | High-Def Digest

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

Here's a question: Have Hi-Def player sales exceeded reg DVD player sales. I would hope so, as the market should be saturated with the latter. If the answer is no, then yeah, we've got a while to go yet.

Not even close. In July 2007, 2.3 million DVD players were sold in the US. From January through July 2007, 10.2 million players were sold. Hi-def is nothing compared to DVD.

[Dakar the Fourth]

That is massive. Well, hopefully there'll be a spike once the war resolves, as I imagine that its had some negative effect on sales.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

Not even close. In July 2007, 2.3 million DVD players were sold in the US. From January through July 2007, 10.2 million players were sold. Hi-def is nothing compared to DVD.

And these millions of DVD players are in the context of an already huge installed base. Hi-def software sales are just a couple of percent of DVD.

I think a realistic goal would still mean single-digit % software sales in 2008 for hi-def vs. DVD.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

BD+ has not been compromised, yet - Engadget HD

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Oh trust me, HD-DVD fans know it is show over for HD and movies. Why do you think since the announcement the discussion has suddenly moved to "we don't need anything on optical, we should all just download them".

Shift? I had a downloading rant while HD-DVD was alive and well. How quickly you seem to forget.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by Eug 

And these millions of DVD players are in the context of an already huge installed base. Hi-def software sales are just a couple of percent of DVD.

I think a realistic goal would still mean single-digit % software sales in 2008 for hi-def vs. DVD.

They're not even a couple of percent. I would be surprised if they were even 1% combined.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

They're not even a couple of percent. I would be surprised if they were even 1% combined.

They are now greater than 1% combined.

[ort888]

I think downloads, DVDs and Blu-ray can and will co-exist. They have to.

I don't think DVD are going away anytime soon and Blu-ray will probably never surpass DVD. Blu-ray will always be a fringe product. It will be viable, but fringe. At best I think we'll see Blu-ray with about 25% of the sales of DVD.

Downloads will eventually win, but it will be about 5-10 years before it's convenient enough to make a huge dent.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Shift? I had a downloading rant while HD-DVD was alive and well. How quickly you seem to forget.

More like how easily i scan past your drivel.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by Eug 

They are now greater than 1% combined.

In player sales they're right about there (total of 131.9 million DVD players sold as of 8/03/07). But in disc sales I wouldn't believe it.

[hyteckit]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Ya, so? Didn't we cover that on page 8?

The point is they are looking at the long term, it took quite a while for DVD's even to really get rolling. There is still money to be made and it is the only way I can get movies I like in HD so I am willing to pay for it.

I'm responding to someones argument about economy of scale about 3 pages back.

Sony is losing sh*tloads of money of the PS3. Sony is lost over 800 million dollars the previous quarter on the PS3 division having to sell the PS3 at a huge lost. Sony needs to be profitable on the PS3 division soon or it'll be in serious trouble.

If everyone is just buying PS3 as a Bluray player, Sony is in deep sh*t. The more people buy PS3, the more money Sony losses. The attachment rate for Bluray movies to PS3 is about 1. Hardly enough to cover the loss of $200 to $300 per PS3 sold.