well - i went shopping for a few discs my my hd-dvd player and the selection absolutely sucks. i cant envision hd-dvd being viable in 6 months. I wasnt the only one in the hd aisle upset.

The way I'm seeing it, if indeed the players are going to get so cheap, the amount of people that own HD-DVD players will greatly increase. If HD-DVD would therefore become a much greater market than Blu-Ray, the studios will switch.

I just got a price match today from CC on my Panasonic Blu-ray DMP-BD10A. I bought it about 2 weeks ago for $549 and now they have it at CC for $479 and there was also a 10% discount for buying online and making an in-store pick-up. So the price match dropped my price down to $431. This is the same hardware that first retailed at $1,399 but now has improved firmware.

So yes Blu-ray players are coming down in price considerably. Actually I think I was swayed to Blu-ray by what is in my opinion nicer players, I am unimpressed by the Toshiba offerings for HD-DVD. I actually think both formats will be around a while and that currently HD-DVD is targeting the discount crowd while Blu-ray is higher quality. I will probably get HD-DVD sometime but I would like to see other options than the current (mostly Toshiba) players.

Standalone HD DVD players have always been outselling SAL Blu-Ray players since day one.

the SI ghas always been in HD DVDs benefit. What I pointed out is that it is dropping. But if you mean weekly sales (or something short term) like that then tyou are wrong. At some point Toshiba admited it but said that SI and YTD are more important [Link: engadgethd.com]


how about

"One thing that may be changing is our strategy," said Dan Silverberg, Warner's vice president of High-Definition media. "When both formats launched and hardware prices were high, we made a decision to support both formats and let the consumer decide
or how about

and

"We can definitely talk Blu-ray," he said. "We are committed to the format."


looks like the opposite to me, looks like he is saying that not enough people are buying either format (and from the rest enough have both) that continuing to have the extra cost of two formats is not worth it and they are picking one side to hopefully end the war and the other people can then jump in with peace of mind.



don't know if you mean it as just interesting (i.e. stats wise) or INTERESTING (i.e. news wise) my guess WB won't make any official public announcement until early next year (even if they already made a decision)

1) Q4 is too important and they most likely don’t want to hurt sales
2) Things are not done in a day (unless bribed to do so), the disks for Q4 title are already replicated, so why lose money by throwing them in the trash. (on the other hand I don't think they have made Q1 anouncements and Q1 titles would be what are behind the scenes right now)

what you are missing is that they need to greatly increase just to keep pace


but why will people buy a format that is not supported by studios? do you buy a player to have a player or watch movies?

Keep pace? Last I checked (like bookaroni) HD-DVD players outsold Blu-Rays.

Right now I'm not going to buy either format, or I'm going to buy both. Because if I buy HD-DVD, I'm losing out on studios that produce moview I want to watch, but the same goes for Blu-Ray (especially with Paramount now). It's not practical for me to buy one, and find out I can't watch the movies I want. I'm probably going to hold off another year and see what happens, but I may buy one of each if the prices become attractive enough.

Two things about the Silverberg interview.
1- He was at a Blu-Ray press event.
2- The interview was one day before Warner's license for Blu-Ray expired.
Warner renewed it's license to use the Blu-Ray logo (FLLA) but this is all I could find about it's main license, the CPA (Content Participant Agreement). If I'm not mistaken the FLLA is needed to continue to put the BD logo on discs. The CPA is needed to produce new movies in the BD format.

So Warner was maybe still negotiating and Silverberg was just a tool in the process.

This article from TV Snob claims the exact opposite. Warner will go HD DVD exclusive:
[Link: tvsnob.com]

Whether the above article is right or the following article is right:
[Link: cdrinfo.com]

doesn't matter until it actually happens one way or the other.

Now Warner says Blu-Ray comments were misquoted and misconstrued. Warner says they have no plans to change what they are doing:
[Link: tinyurl.com]

Here is a quote from the article:

"Like any major company, we are always reviewing our strategies in every aspect of our business, it is what smart companies do. I can't say what may happen five, ten years down the line. But right now, Warner Bros. has made no decision to change course. We are still onboard with both formats, and will continue [with a strong line-up of new releases and catalog titles], just as we have in the past in supporting HD DVD and Blu-ray."

yes keep pace, players are not the end goal but a means to an end. The end is movie sales. Like you said "It's not practical for me to buy one, and find out I can't watch the movies I want". In order for HD DVD to survive it needs some exclusive studios and enough to make people willing to invest in it.

BD movie sales are higher then HD DVD movie sales. The reason is that stand alone player sales only looks at a fraction of all play back devices. Even though HD DVD has a few more SAPs out there the difference is shrinking and BD has a lot of PS3s out there. Do you think Warner (since we were discussing them) cares if the guy buying the disk has a PS3 a SAP or an HD DVD add-on or a drive in a PC? So Toshiba does not need a slight lead in SAPs but a big one to counter the PS3s.

To use an example we can both understand. Think of it as the end of the year in Hockey. team X and Y both have the same number of points and the same number of wins against each other. Y won the last game, does that mean Y is in 8th and X eliminated? No, it would depend on the goals for/against of the two clubs during the year.

no, he was at a Disney/BD event


can't see what that has to do with the price of tea in China. But let's put it this way, if your TVsnob or TVprediction bloggers are right then why was Warner at Disneys event for BD and more importantly why did they decided to pay that large membership fee and remain a member ?


Yup, looks like the one they released in 2005 saying that they were not changing course, just before they released that they were going to support both

i picked up the Toshiba A3 on sale for $199 from BB on Maryland Prkwy in Vegas on sunday. it came with 300 and Bourne Identity in the box, AND i got to pick 3 titles off the shelf (ANY titles, excluding tv series and box sets of course)!! then add the fact you get to choose 5 more titles from a selected list for a mail in rebate, and i just pretty much got a standalone HD-DVD player for free. (this same player is $349 in Canada with NO free dvd's!)

heres a link to the A3 at BB-
[Link: bestbuy.com]
seems the sale isnt on anymore, so its back to $299, but still with the free DVD offer.

they also had the Samsing BD-P1200 on sale for $349, but they only had 2 floor models left, and the sales guy actually recommended against it as apparently they've had alot of the samsungs come back. so needless to say i didnt want to take that chance as i'd be SOL from Toronto.

a link to the BD player-
[Link: bestbuy.com]

got my A2 from walmart, yippe! At this rate, HD-DVD could win, it all a numbers game.

For $100 bucks and 5 free movies, you can't lose..

Netflix HD here i come..

F.

you could have gotten 10 movies, and you bought something that won't be around for long