SPCR

Yay! The format war is over. Now we can get back to increasing consumer acceptance ---> lower priced hardware.

Damn I was hoping that HDDVD would win... although over the last 4 months or so it became apparent that it was over. Sony basically through marketing and mis-information lead everyone to believe they had a superior product, although the capabilities were much the same. Glad to see it sorted out though.

Blu-Ray is more capable when it comes to DRM.

I'm more interested in how much the EU will fine Sony. I think they're looking at vast billions of €.

I too, was hoping on HD-DVD to win. Simply because i don't much care for DRM and silly Region Coding and of course because Sony has a bad trackrecord concerning these.

Ah well, at least when prices drop i won't have to think about which format now.

since microsoft and toshiba had so much at stake in this venture, shouldn't they have done what sony did? flood the market with hardware? what would it have cost them to include an HD-DVD drive in every xbox360? $20?

the only thing i really dislike is having to call movies "blu-rays" from now on... as in "i'm going to buy that movie on blu-ray disc"... DVD sounds nicer.

Blu-Ray only won because Sony paid off the big studios, which Toshiba could not (thus I'm 99% certain that the EU will fine Sony badly). Bundling drives wouldn't have made a difference.

Thank goddess. I'm so glad hd-dvd is out finally. Blu-ray here we come! And if you don't like calling it blu-ray, just call it BD...official abbreviation.

I will just call them DVD's still.

ahhh once again gay ass region locked dvds that when I buy in the states hate my european equipment and vice versa. crap like that discourages me from even BUYING dvds.

mr. poopyhead wrote:since microsoft and toshiba had so much at stake in this venture, shouldn't they have done what sony did? flood the market with hardware? what would it have cost them to include an HD-DVD drive in every xbox360? $20?

I don't think Microsoft had so much at stake. Yes, you could buy an HD-DVD add-on for the XBox 360, but that was an add-on. Nothing to stop them from releasing an external BR drive. I don't know what the licensing revenue for HDi was/is for Microsoft, but I believe it can be a stand-alone technology (e.g. not purely tied to HD-DVD).

For Toshiba, on the other hand, this kinda sucks. Although I guess they won't have to be selling HD-DVD players at a loss any more.

-D

klankymen wrote:ahhh once again gay ass region locked dvds that when I buy in the states hate my european equipment and vice versa. crap like that discourages me from even BUYING dvds.

There are plenty of region-free DVD players out there, and when it comes to software something like VLC will play them all too. Not that I disagree with it being an annoyance, but it shouldn't be a major problem as long as you get good equipment.

floffe wrote:

klankymen wrote:ahhh once again gay ass region locked dvds that when I buy in the states hate my european equipment and vice versa. crap like that discourages me from even BUYING dvds.

There are plenty of region-free DVD players out there, and when it comes to software something like VLC will play them all too. Not that I disagree with it being an annoyance, but it shouldn't be a major problem as long as you get good equipment.

99% of dvds I encounter will play on VLC. And then I hit one that doesn't. So I have to use windows or something else to play it. and then this program tells me "you're dvd drive is the wrong format, please change it. you can only change 6 times" So I'm fine while in VLC, but every once and a while I hit one of those dudes. Now I'm down to 4 more changes, should hopefully be enough to tide me over till I have a BD drive
Still it's annoying.

I'm probably going to be watching high def DVD's on my PC well before I do on my TV...just because of the investment involved for the signal chain...but there is no way that I'm going to invest in Vista just to play DRM'ed DVD's.....is there a player utility that'll work under Ubuntu? I'll dual boot for watching movies

CA_Steve wrote:I'm probably going to be watching high def DVD's on my PC well before I do on my TV...just because of the investment involved for the signal chain...but there is no way that I'm going to invest in Vista just to play DRM'ed DVD's.....is there a player utility that'll work under Ubuntu? I'll dual boot for watching movies

How about investing in OS-X just to play DRM'ed DVDs. After all, Macs do DRM just as well as Vista (e.g. the OS is just as locked down).* For HD formats under Ubuntu, see this documentation.

-D

*I had to say this, I'm so tired of all the Mac users out there who carp on DRM in Vista when OS-X is just as restrictive if not more so.

It was strange watching a highdef war while people broadly accept MP3 sound.

people care more about movies than music. for whatever reason. humans are primarily visual creatures. which is why people get hd-tvs, but not surround systems (I mean good ones, not htibs)

aristide1 wrote:It was strange watching a highdef war while people broadly accept MP3 sound.

Amen...

klankymen wrote:people care more about movies than music. for whatever reason. humans are primarily visual creatures. which is why people get hd-tvs, but not surround systems (I mean good ones, not htibs)

1. They have no idea or conception what they are missing.

2. Music by nature lends iteself to repeatability. There's no movie I want to sit through several hundred times. The score for Gladiator? I quit counting after about 500, and it's still going strong.

No movie has ever put on as great a roller coaster ride as a brilliant score.