[olePigeon]

Upcoming BDXL discs won't be compatible with existing Blu-ray players | The Toybox | ZDNet.com

So agressive marketing for Blu-ray had it win the format war. HD-DVD from the beginning required manufacturers to support a certain set of specs (one of which being firmware upgradeable), was cheaper to license, cheaper to produce, and many movies were dual format. Blu-ray wasn't any of those. So a bunch of people ran out and bought 1.0 players, then had to buy 1.1 players, then had to buy 2.0 players if they got a 1.1 that still wasn't upgradeable, just so they could use the features on the Blu-ray movie.

Now Blu-ray is introducing a new format that doesn't play on any existing players, even with a firmware upgrade.

It's too bad Blu-ray won. I said from the very beginning this was exactly how Blu-ray was going to pan out; it's Sony.

[Big Mac]

Won't BDXL be essentially doomed by not having access to existing Blu-ray players? I don't understand the target market for such technology.

[The Final Dakar]

[BasketofPuppies]

And if you wanted to buy an HD DVD player, you had your choice of Toshiba or... Toshiba.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Won't BDXL be essentially doomed by not having access to existing Blu-ray players? I don't understand the target market for such technology.

Not if they only release the latest movies and games on BDXL. It'll force people to buy a 3.0 player.

[Spheric Harlot]

So Blu-Ray commits suicide by alienating a mainstream market already disenchanted from the preceding format war by foisting ANOTHER hardware switch on the poor not-so-early adopters already (or at least attempting to)?

Am I reading this right?

Who shat in these guys' brains?

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

Not if they only release the latest movies and games on BDXL. It'll force people to buy a 3.0 player.

Why would that happen? Everything is DVD dual-release now, still, isn't it?

[BasketofPuppies]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

So Blu-Ray commits suicide by alienating a mainstream market already disenchanted from the preceding format war by foisting ANOTHER hardware switch on the poor not-so-early adopters already (or at least attempting to)?

Not quite.

Although, don’t expect to see Avatar or Alice in Wonderland on this format just yet as it the technology won’t be released to the consumer market initially.

It's not intended for consumer use, at least not initially.

[Big Mac]

It's definitely a doomed format unless the roll out is very gradual. Blu-ray itself is a tough sale for the vast majority of consumers who are content with DVD (as far as their consumption of physical video media is concerned), and they can't possibly afford to alienate the cutting edge of the consumer spectrum that is currently on board with Blu-ray.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Why would that happen? Everything is DVD dual-release now, still, isn't it?

I mean for the Blu-ray release, it could be exclusively BDXL. Why is this any surprise to anyone after they forced two upgrades on people already with 1.0 and 1.1. They'll just do it again. It's not like you have any other options.

[The Final Dakar]

BTW, I really wish the format war thread had been resurrected for this. I miss that thread.

[BasketofPuppies]

By the way Profile 3.0 already exists. It's ignored because all it does is add support for audio-only Blu-ray Discs.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

1) No movie or consumer disk will ever ship using this technology. These studio's know people will not upgrade to a new player for ANY damn movie that comes out.

2) Currently even though BR disks are 50 gigs and many movies come on 25 gig disks and fit comfortably.

3) Studios purposely split movies/tv series etc into multiple disks as a marketing tool. It costs them an extra $0.50 to add another BR disk but then they can write "2 disk special edition" on the box and give the illusion of better value. Both these disks will be 25 gigs. Even worse (And this happens ALL the time) many multiple disks special release movies come with the movie on BR and then they include 2 or more DVD's for the special features as it was never filmed in HD anyway. So you walk in to buy the new Lord of the Rings BR multi disk special and you find out some of those disks are just DVD. They could have easily fit these on a BR Disk of their own or crammed it into one of the 3 BR disks already included. Again, MARKETING.
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2313...gstrilogy.html

4) BR currently is 7% of movie sales.

5) People are already moving away from physical media as DVD sales are tanking. In 2 years it will be way worse. People are not going to move to BR for the most part, they are going to netflix, Hulu, Torrents, iTunes, Xbox, PS3, Wii.

6) If anything these new disks will just be used for burning data. This will also be a niche as it is expensive, nobody can read the disk off of the special reader, slow, time consuming. Portable hard drives and memory sticks will fill this need.

7) Before your precious HD-DVD died they were also planning on upgrading to a 51 gig disk which would have also been incompatible with the old players.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...1GB_HD_DVD/949

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

No movie or consumer disk will ever ship using this technology.

+1 The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 3 characters.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

+1

Praise from caesar.

But seriously. Where have you ever seen anyone or any studio mention that they are finding the 50 gigs they have now not enough space and need 100 gigs plus? Nowhere.

Who the heck wants to burn a 100 gig disk and trust that much data to one flimsy disk? Nobody.

How the heck long would a 4x burner take to fill 100 gigs and the verify? Forever.

Just forget about this stupid 100 gigs disk. It will never see the light of day.

[Eug]

By the way, it's "HD DVD", not "HD-DVD".

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

By the way, it's "HD DVD", not "HD-DVD".

Oh ok I thought it was actually HD-DVDEAD.

[Eug]

Yeah dead, but strangely enough I still have bought a few in the last year, when the disk is $4.99 and the BR is going for $20.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Yeah dead, but strangely enough I still have bought a few in the last year, when the disk is $4.99 and the BR is going for $20.

Considering you stocked up on players and movies after it died i don't find that strange at all that you are still trying to make use of your investment.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

7) Before your precious HD-DVD died they were also planning on upgrading to a 51 gig disk which would have also been incompatible with the old players.
Report: DVD Forum Approves 51GB HD DVD | High-Def Digest

So I would've had to buy 2 players instead of 4. I'm just griping, I still enjoy DVDs anyway.

I don't like the move to online content because I like physically owning the disc, and I'm completely disenchanted with Blu-ray.

[Eug]

Yeah, I picked up a HD DVD player for $50 shortly after HD DVD died. Even weirder was the fact that the players still got a few firmware updates after the format was declared dead.

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

7) Before your precious HD-DVD died they were also planning on upgrading to a 51 gig disk which would have also been incompatible with the old players.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...1GB_HD_DVD/949

That question of compatibility was never actually fully answered AFAIK. The 51 GB discs played in prototypes that were existing players with a (non-public) firmware update. However, I think the main issue was that it was a bit beyond the comfort zone for mainstream compatibility. IOW, it could work, but they'd get a lot of RMAs, so it probably wouldn't work in the real world. The rate of problems (discs not playing properly in certain machines) would be too high.

For that reason, I don't think 51 GB discs would have ever seen the light of day either.

[lpkmckenna]

Definitely no point to buying an HD player or HD TV now - there'll be 3D players and TVs in a couple of years.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Definitely no point to buying an HD player or HD TV now - there'll be 3D players and TVs in a couple of years.

Not interested in wearing stupid extra glasses to watch TV.

Not interested in replacing my Blu-ray players to support those stupid extra glasses either.

Call me when 3D TVs won't need those stupid extra glasses. My guess that will be a very long time from now. They currently cost $20000.

[BasketofPuppies]

Are there any Blu-ray Disc Videos that require a Profile 1.1 or 2.0 player? There are plenty of discs that are enhanced for them, but I'm not aware of one that won't play on a Profile 1.0 player.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Definitely no point to buying an HD player or HD TV now - there'll be 3D players and TVs in a couple of years.

3D television sets and Blu-ray Disc players are here now, and some existing Blu-ray Disc players will see firmware updates to make them 3D-capable, including the PlayStation 3.

[turtle777]

And just when I thought I might still buy a BR in the future, they cemented my belief that physical movie delivery is doomed.

I'm going to all digital distribution, now more than ever.

-t

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Yeah, I picked up a HD DVD player for $50 shortly after HD DVD died. Even weirder was the fact that the players still got a few firmware updates after the format was declared dead.

Sweet, you looking forward to getting new movies Avatar on HD-DVD to make use of all those players or are those 2 HD-DVD players only good for movies before 2009?

Guess you need an BR player for anything after that point. THat's gonna be a fun mess.

[-Q-]

I've done the same. I just didn't see the need for another device when streaming video seems to work well for most of the videos the wife and I watch.

I know the image quality isn't good, but streaming netflix has gotten to the point where it's "good enough" so I'm not missing that extra bitrate at all.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Sweet, you looking forward to getting new movies Avatar on HD-DVD to make use of all those players or are those 2 HD-DVD players only good for movies before 2009?

Guess you need an BR player for anything after that point. THat's gonna be a fun mess.

Not sure what you're talking about. I already own two Blu-ray players.
If you didn't already know, TVs and projectors can have more than one video input plugged in.

The weirdest part about his above post is he already knew that I owned Blu-ray players.

[pooka]

Why can't you just man-up and admit that you're kind of stupid, Eug? The fact that you bought a $50 upscaling DVD player thats capable of playing a few really good $2-$5 HD movies just makes you look mega-retarded. Just own it.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Sweet, you looking forward to getting new movies Avatar...

I already have Avatar on DVD, it's called Pocahontas.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

I already have Avatar on DVD, it's called Pocahontas.

LOLers.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Not interested in wearing stupid extra glasses to watch TV.

Not interested in replacing my Blu-ray players to support those stupid extra glasses either.

Call me when 3D TVs won't need those stupid extra glasses. My guess that will be a very long time from now. They currently cost $20000.

This.

I will *never* buy a tv that requires me to wear glasses to watch it. And then what if I have more people over than I have glasses? Some people can't watch the movie? It's idiotic.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Who shat in these guys' brains?

"These guys" just don't get it -- people are still buying DVDs. Or dual format. Or not buying. Or downloading.

BlueRay is a lost battle. Most ordinary folks can think of a handful of movies they would like to see in BlueRay, otherwise forget it.

Although the one feature I really like is disk durability. I guess they'd have to be durable, huh?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by finboy 

Although the one feature I really like is disk durability. I guess they'd have to be durable, huh?

Yeah, the closeness to the surface (along with the density) for Blu-ray requires increased durability, which adds to the cost.

That said, a similar layer can be added to DVD as well (again at extra cost). TDK has a line of these increased durability DVD-Rs for example.

[Phileas]

People still buy disks? Whatever for?

[torsoboy]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

This.

I will *never* buy a tv that requires me to wear glasses to watch it. And then what if I have more people over than I have glasses? Some people can't watch the movie? It's idiotic.

There are already companies developing 3D capable TVs that don't require glasses. Wait another year or so and they will be announcing ship dates.

[Wiskedjak]

I don't get why people are still buying/renting discs. The combatant in the format war that won me over was h.264. I haven't touched a disc since I ripped all of my DVDs onto my AppleTV.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

There are already companies developing 3D capable TVs that don't require glasses. Wait another year or so and they will be announcing ship dates.

They're already out... for $20000.

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

I don't get why people are still buying/renting discs. The combatant in the format war that won me over was h.264. I haven't touched a disc since I ripped all of my DVDs onto my AppleTV.

Blu-ray is way, way better... and many are already H.264. H.264 is nice, but not a miracle. For good quality HD you still need lots of space.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Blu-ray is way, way better... and many are already H.264. H.264 is nice, but not a miracle. For good quality HD you still need lots of space.

Perhaps so, but, for me, DVD over HDMI is more than good enough. And, video rented/purchased through the AppleTV is even better.

To be perfectly honest, Blu-Ray looks almost surreal to me. Things are crisper than real-life and it distracts me from the movie.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

There are already companies developing 3D capable TVs that don't require glasses. Wait another year or so and they will be announcing ship dates.

Awesome. Wake me up when it's no longer a gimmick.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Not sure what you're talking about. I already own two Blu-ray players.
If you didn't already know, TVs and projectors can have more than one video input plugged in.

The weirdest part about his above post is he already knew that I owned Blu-ray players.

Meaning you'll always need to keep the HD-DVD players sitting there just to play half your movies. I ditched my VHS the second I got my DVD player and later ditched the DVD player when I got the PS3. Couldn't imagine needing that many devices to hook-up and switch around.

I guess it can look sorta retro though like when people have a nice old turntable and a crate of old LP's. In your case though it will be a stylish Xbox 360 + GIANT AC ADAPTER + HD-DVD ADD-ON which I guess has a nice clean classic look

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by finboy 

Although the one feature I really like is disk durability. I guess they'd have to be durable, huh?

I'm finding BR disks to be PATHETIC with not durability but readability. Most of the BR disks are partly transparent when you look at them. Also I can be watching a disk and it starts to choke and skip ahead. I eject the disk and there is a single fingerprint on it causing it. They just seem so cheap.

I've had it with disks. If they insist on still having physical media then at least distribute them on some sort of 50 gig SD card. That way they can increase storage without needing new players and the cards are tiny and durable as hell.

Disks are so 90's.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Disks are so 90's.

All our disks got ripped, what we watch now we download or stream. Our remote is a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. That's all I need.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Meaning you'll always need to keep the HD-DVD players sitting there just to play half your movies.

Or gee whiz, he could just rip/convert them.

[Spheric Harlot]

…if he ever has a player capable of reading them into the 'puter.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Yup. Just like Blu-Ray.

There are still a handful of PC HD-DVD drives or even the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD combo drives floating around out there. If it's even the big deal to him as any of this is made out to be. (Doesn't sound like it is).