It's OFFICIAL: CNN Declares HD-DVD Dead!

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Yea!!! now Sony will sell Blu-ray players for a better price... right... guys... hello. Sony is here to help us... right???

I expect a modest BR player/disc price INCREASE in the near future.

Competition WAS good.

Meh, the downward price trend should continue. There were a lot of people who avoided both formats because of the "format war". Now that HD-DVD is out of the picture, consumers who were on the fence about their HD format choice can confidently choose any number of BD models. BD manufacturers will compete with each other on price, which should drive the average price down.

 

[eleison]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Meh, the downward price trend should continue. There were a lot of people who avoided both formats because of the "format war". Now that HD-DVD is out of the picture, consumers who were on the fence about their HD format choice can confidently choose any number of BD models. BD manufacturers will compete with each other on price, which should drive the average price down.

Haven't BD manufacturers been competing with each other? But yet the players were close $400? In any case, I own a HDDVD player. The deal was too good to last. How many $$$$$ did toshiba lose trying to win this war? Those HDDVD players were probably sold at a lost.

Well, off to the clearance racks for the discs and maybe I can snag an xa2 for cheap

 

[TheTony]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Yea!!! now Sony will sell Blu-ray players for a better price... right... guys... hello. Sony is here to help us... right???

I expect a modest BR player/disc price INCREASE in the near future.

Competition WAS good.

Meh, the downward price trend should continue. There were a lot of people who avoided both formats because of the "format war". Now that HD-DVD is out of the picture, consumers who were on the fence about their HD format choice can confidently choose any number of BD models. BD manufacturers will compete with each other on price, which should drive the average price down.

I have no doubt a downward price trend will continue, but am fairly skeptical it'll move as swiftly as it did with a competing format around.

If they want to remain relevant, that progress will have to continue. I think that was part of HD DVD's undoing - getting too complacent with the progress they'd made.

 

[HannibalX]

Man, now I won't be able to laugh at people for taking sides anymore.

 

[Brovane]

I am glad this is settled.

 

[Ricochet]

Originally posted by: TheTony

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Yea!!! now Sony will sell Blu-ray players for a better price... right... guys... hello. Sony is here to help us... right???

I expect a modest BR player/disc price INCREASE in the near future.

Competition WAS good.

Meh, the downward price trend should continue. There were a lot of people who avoided both formats because of the "format war". Now that HD-DVD is out of the picture, consumers who were on the fence about their HD format choice can confidently choose any number of BD models. BD manufacturers will compete with each other on price, which should drive the average price down.

I have no doubt a downward price trend will continue, but am fairly skeptical it'll move as swiftly as it did with a competing format around.

If they want to remain relevant, that progress will have to continue. I think that was part of HD DVD's undoing - getting too complacent with the progress they'd made.

That's my feeling as well. The price decline will not be as significant or as swift without HD DVD competing. People keep saying that the BD manufactorers will compete with each other on price, but we have not seen any significant player price drop even during the holiday season. To get a fully functional player with the upgraded profile one has to spend $400.

I honestly hope that the BD Consortium will try to promote HDM to the mass market and not keep it as a novelty item, limiting it to the niche market for an extended period. Sony engineers have created a great product. BD has a lot of potential (more so than HD DVD). It would be a shame if price stagnation lead to consumer disinterest.

 

[Gulzakar]

Now I get to pick from a craptastic selection of Blu-Ray players. Woohoo!

Where is my profile 2.0 player? No, I'm not buying a PS3.

 

[TecHNooB]

Time to purchase a PS3

METAL GEAR SOLID 4!

 

[GTaudiophile]

So what is the best BR player out there for the money?

 

[LordSnailz]

yes! good excuse to go pick up a ps3 now

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
So what is the best BR player out there for the money?

The Panasonic BD50 will have profile 2.0 support and will be out in a few months.

Right now the only profile 2.0 capable player you can buy is the PS3.

Prices will drop, just like they did with DVD players, $400 -> $200 -> $100 -> $50. The HD-DVD player prices were artificially lower becuase Toshiba decided to lose $100-300 per player to try to counter the PS3.

 

[Reckoner]

Sony........ <shudder>

Now that Blu-Ray has won, you can kiss all those nice deals you've been watching goodbye!

 

[aphex]

F Toshiba. They deserve this. I hate that company with a passion.

Sorry for those of you caught in the crossfire, but Toshiba sucks IMO.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: PaulNEPats
Sony........ <shudder>

Now that Blu-Ray has won, you can kiss all those nice deals you've been watching goodbye!

Panasonic, Samsung, Pioneer, Onkyo, even Toshiba will be making blu-ray players. It's an industry-wide format that is not controlled by Sony. Microsoft can even make an xbox add-on if they want to.

Deals on discs may well continue since the studios and player makers still want to establish blu-ray and get it to compete with regular DVD.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Gulzakar
Now I get to pick from a craptastic selection of Blu-Ray players. Woohoo!

Where is my profile 2.0 player? No, I'm not buying a PS3.

Why not, it's a damn good BR player for the price.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
Sony lost on BETA, which was better than VHS abd they lost on mini disc which I likde better than CD.
I guess they were due for a win.

I could have predicted it though. I bought a HD DVD player about a mnonth ago.
A few years ago I bought a diesel truck partially because diesel was cheaper then gas. About two weeks later diesel shot up in price and still costs more than gas.

CD was a Philips/Sony joint thing. So they won on that.

 

[TheTony]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
So what is the best BR player out there for the money?

The Panasonic BD50 will have profile 2.0 support and will be out in a few months.

Right now the only profile 2.0 capable player you can buy is the PS3.

Prices will drop, just like they did with DVD players, $400 -> $200 -> $100 -> $50. The HD-DVD player prices were artificially lower becuase Toshiba decided to lose $100-300 per player to try to counter the PS3.

I think a lot of folks will be waiting to see the MSRP on the BD50. The PS3 is NOT 2.0 yet, but is suspected to be capable (minus, perhaps some advanced audio decoding). In fact, when pressed, a BD rep on a panel said the only hardware he could recommend for BD playback was the PS3.

I'm not sure why Sony doesn't just create a new form factor CE housing and outfit it with a stripped down PS3 (minus the game capabilities) and retail it for $50-$100 less than the PS3. It'd probably sell pretty well, would be a capable standalone BD player. Granted, it would undercut PS3 sales, but that's inevitable as other manufacturer get in on the format.

Artificial price drops or not, HD DVD did get people used to lower HDM pricing, so they'll have to contend with it.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Yea!!! now Sony will sell Blu-ray players for a better price... right... guys... hello. Sony is here to help us... right???

I expect a modest BR player/disc price INCREASE in the near future.

Competition WAS good.

I disagree. Competition delayed many people from buying either format, because they didn't want to get stuck with a useless player. Competition caused many people to get stuck with an upscaling DVD player instead of a true high definition player, and it caused people to get stuck with a bunch of discs that are the equivalent of Laserdiscs now. Sure you can still play them, but when those people buy a Blu-ray player are they going to want to keep an HD-DVD player hooked up to play a very small collection of movies? Competition basically screwed a whole lot of people who made the wrong choice. You might see fewer deals on Blu-ray discs now, and you probably won't see any more 5 free (crappy) movies for buying a Blu-ray player, but prices will drop steadily just like they did with DVD.

Competition was good BEFORE the formats were released, but once they were released I think competition had an overall negative effect. We're right where we would have been if Blu-ray had been the sole standard all along.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: TheTony

I think a lot of folks will be waiting to see the MSRP on the BD50. The PS3 is NOT 2.0 yet, but is suspected to be capable (minus, perhaps some advanced audio decoding). In fact, when pressed, a BD rep on a panel said the only hardware he could recommend for BD playback was the PS3.

I'm not sure why Sony doesn't just create a new form factor CE housing and outfit it with a stripped down PS3 (minus the game capabilities) and retail it for $50-$100 less than the PS3. It'd probably sell pretty well, would be a capable standalone BD player. Granted, it would undercut PS3 sales, but that's inevitable as other manufacturer get in on the format.

Artificial price drops or not, HD DVD did get people used to lower HDM pricing, so they'll have to contend with it.

They're still losing money on the PS3, that's why it's such a good value.

 

[TheTony]

Originally posted by: mugs

They're still losing money on the PS3, that's why it's such a good value.

That's a good point. Granted, they are making some of that up on the software licensing (game and movie).

 

[Xavier434]

1. I am glad the war is over. No matter how you look at it, this helps the consumers overall.

2. I hope that one of the first results of the war ending is that the competition will shift from HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray to Blu-Ray vs Blu-Ray. The two results I foresee would be the engineers producing more reliable players (the only true reliable player is the PS3 for now) and that the players will go down in price.

 

[Special K]

This should come as absolutely no surprise now, but:

Universal Studios goes BD exclusive

 

[Reckoner]

Hopefully the studios offer some sort of trade-in program. There was a thread talking about the possibility of this on the AVS Forums. Not that I would mind keeping my HD-DVDs, but my Toshiba HD-A1 isn't going to last forever.

 

[yuppiejr]

.. blah blah, they sky is falling, etc...

The good deals on players and movies up to this point has been motivated primarily by marketing subsidies to encourage early adoption and not the reduction in hardware or software production costs. This FORMAT was has been a distraction from the start and I'm glad it is over regardless of which camp "won." It's stupid that we had two formats competing against one another for 2 full years rather than allowing hardware manufacturers to focus on a single technology and producing cheaper/better players and software.

Blu-Ray's biggest competition has been and will continue to be standard definition DVD's which, on most modern HD sets with a reasonable player, will look "good enough" for most people. Consumers have a hard enough time understanding the jargon associated with the latest HDTV display technologies and those who upgraded from a 4:3 SD set to a 16:9 HD unit are already seeing a HUGE leap in picture quality from their existing DVD player and movies. Unlike the obvious tape vs optical disc advantages of DVD over VHS tape (no more rewinding, well treated discs don't degrade in quality as you watch, instant chapter access, etc..) Blu-Ray doesn't bring any compelling usability features to the table that will compel people to make the jump like DVD did when it replaced VHS.

I predict a much slower adoption of Blu-ray versus DVD until the price of media and players is comparable. The gains in picture quality, outside of the enthusiast community, are just too small to justify the extra player and media costs. The new audio formats are swell, only problem is that most affordable players don't do onboard decoding and there are few affordable recievers that will decode the latest/greatest from DTS/Dolby.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: PaulNEPats
Hopefully the studios offer some sort of trade-in program. There was a thread talking about the possibility of this on the AVS Forums. Not that I would mind keeping my HD-DVDs, but my Toshiba HD-A1 isn't going to last forever.

My advice is that you trade whatever you can in and you do it today. With any luck, someone might say yes. Don't assume that will happen tomorrow though or any other day.