Whatever. I'm sticking with the ol' trusty DVD format while I wait for direct downloading.

This should erase any residual sting from losing out with Betamax back in the 80's

Blu-Ray it will be... now the prices should get more in line with regular DVD movies and players. Which is what the smart consumer was waiting for all along.

yawn. 30-40 for a blu ray dvd or 10 bucks for a dvd. yeah the war is over. and dvd won.

I love HD DVD. I have a standalone HD DVD player and the 360 add-on. I have no regrets either. I have plenty of movies that aren't available on Blu-ray (...yet) just like there are plenty of exclusive Blu-ray movies. No matter what anyone says it kinda sucked for both sides b/c you couldn't get everything you wanted in your format. IMO, lots of movies aren't necessary to have in HD (on an HD disc). They look great upconverted. For example, I watched Gone in 60 Seconds (SD DVD) upconverted and it looked fantastic. Maybe when The Dark Knight releases on Blu-ray I'll pick up a PS3.

Toshiba would find non-tech savvy people with something of a following, write them a big fat cheque, shower them with hardware and media and het them to praise their inferior product.

I feel for the people that invested significant money by listening to those that they shouldn't have.

I hope lessons have been learned all around.

1) Don't hawk hardware when your not a hardware guru
2) Don't take hardware advice from media reviewers
(esp when it's obvious their praise is bought and paid for)

'grats

um, right?

wait a minute, where's the USB drive on this thing?

oh fuck, I just sneezed and blew away $3000!

It's a wrap fuckers, Sony's trojan horse worked.

wasn't affordability a big factor in that "here's why" post as to why Harry couldn't just get both?

For this guy to say that $$$ didn't influence his editorial stance is an insult to our intelligence.

If this happens, something similar to HD-DVD might rise from the ashes because let me put it in terms of the prosumer video camcorder market - Panny fully put their support and money behind P2 cams, which record up to 1080p to super expensive memory cards on cams that cost upwards of $5k. Canon came along and, with the HDV and AVCHD codecs, are revolutionizing the cost structure of high definition image aquisition. Couple this with the excellent and hard-to-beat Brevis 35mm adapter, and you have a ton of people who no longer see any reason to spend the 10k it costs to put together a panasonic P2 system. What you can get is, SAY IT WITH ME NOW, 'GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE MONEY'. Same as DVD is for now versus BD. As far as Sony and the camcorder market? They dropped the ball altogether, doing what they always do, trying to slow or stop the release of new technologies at lower prices altogether, although they may yet bring up the rear with this new cam and format they have coming out. As long as they price it correctly (which they are often wont to do) I'm with whomever puts out the most affordable product with the best features.

The only difference between that market and the home video market is the studios. But in this case, if the studios don't see people buying into BD en masse by the end of this year, you can kiss it goodbye. They will be looking for a newer, cheaper tech that delivers HD to get their back catalogue sales back up. They did the same thing to LD when DVD came out. If DVD can be cheaper to manufacture and for consumers to adopt in the long-run, why NOT abandon another technology? They're in it for the software sales, not for the players and certainly not for the company that has the most to lose if the format doesn't take hold with consumers.

So yes, I agree that the biggest problem with BD right now is the titles first and foremost, because I'd probaby spend the money if they would put out some great hi-def bells and whistles treatments of classic films, but seeing crappy movies with more pixels and more detail doesn't make them any more exciting. Their second biggest problem is cost, and that's a big hurdle that I honestly think they just can't overcome. The average consumer will not buy the PS3 as a player, most people already own their favorite films on DVD and the difference isn't big enough to joe and jane consumer like it was from VHS to DVD, and this whole format war left such a bad taste in people's mouth that I think you might see people avoiding BD purely on principle at this point.

Like I said in my post in that TB, I do not regret it because I didn't own an upscaling player and not only does it do that, but I also get to enjoy a ton of hi-def movies for way less than BD would cost me. I don't want another games system and I don't like watching my movies on one. If I spent all that money on the PS3, I'd still wind up wishing I had a good, upgradeable standalone BD player, so I'll just sit and wait.

What I'm saying is, there's still not enough content to make it worthwhile to spend that much money. For the HD DVD player, I was like, ok, and I'll have some great movies in high-def to boot. I looked at the purchase like a great upscaling player with a high-definition bonus. I thought about whether or not the format would lose and it didn't matter to me cause the price was so low and the movies were free!

I'm not saying I wouldn't buy BD at all, I'm saying that the price will have to come way down, the spec will have to be 2.0, and there will have to be a better selection of titles. I still will not replace most movies that I already own on DVD with BD. I don't need stuff like Trading Places and Easy Rider in BD. So the studios dreaming of some new miracle format that will magically boost back catalogue sales again like DVD did are living in a pipe-dream. DVD was it. The next time you see something like that, where all movies, big, small, great, and bad are bought in a new format will be when the generation coming up only has a newer format other than DVD to choose from. Even then, it will be tough as DVD set a home video standard that's hard to beat as far as quality and price and the titles will be available for a long time to come. One could argue that upscaling itself was like the studios and the manufacturers shooting themselves in the foot by making the argument for HD even more difficult.

Go fuck yourself, technophiles!

If not for exclusive games like Gears of War,Mass Effect,Bioshock and HALO 3, this doorstop would be just a fucking shelf piece. Now that the PS3 sales are surpassing Xbox 3-shitty and the Wee Wee, the console war has just gotten more interesting.