Could Warner Bros. Abandon HD DVD in 2008?

[Bob Black]

Originally Posted by 1more4HDDVD

Bob, you and I are part of an exclusive club. I have 200+ HD DVD movies and 3 HD DVD players!

No matter what we say about HD DVD, at the very least we can say we put our money where our mouth is!

No doubt about it! I also bought 3 A2's during the $99 sale and made new adopters out of 2 uncles and my brother-in-law for Christmas.

I just realized I forgot some older Blu-Ray titles in my data. I'll need to rectify this, though it likely will simply skew the BD-exclusive titles down even further as their early releases were generally poor. But I think the point was clear anyway.

[Bob Black]

Originally Posted by JerryDelColliano

Hell, I spent $3,000 for my PS3 on the first day so we could be FIRST with a real home theater oriented review. 36 hours later we had a full 5500 word review written - and I still don't play the thing.

Wow... $3K for a PS3 and Sony couldn't get $600 for the thing!

[Robinson_A]

Well I'm going to chime in with my two cents. This thread is so long I hope to touch upon everything I've noticed thus far...

1. Who cares which format is more expensive to produce/reproduce? The end result is roughly the same price to the consumer for both players (with the exception of the $100 or so dollar HD DVD player sale) and titles. If Sony or Toshiba or whomever looses a few bucks here and there due to higher costs, so long as it doesn't translate to me I don't care.

2. I highly doubt reproduction costs or costs in general are going to be THE deciding factor in this so called war.

3. Can we quit calling it a war. I'm tired of it being trumped up as some sort of "war". I doubt anyone at Sony or Toshiba is loosing sleep over there being two formats. Hell, everyone is in bed with everyone else at this point you don't have to be an insider to tell everyone's got their hand in the same damn cookie jar. If there's one format or two it doesn't really matter. We're all still getting the content we want in the resolution and quality we crave. And don't give me that two formats are bad for the consumer argument. Why, all of a sudden, is it so important that we have one format when the CE world is dominated by choice. How come no one is complaining about there being both an X-Box 360 and a PS3 in the marketplace?

4.I'd love to know how many of this topic's more passionate posters actually own a next generation player be it HD DVD or Blu-ray? Show of hands. Truth be told I can know everything there is to know about something on paper but until you own something for yourself and live with it day in and day out you can never know everything.

5. This goes out to you Blu-ray camp, STOP IT with the menus that take a day and a half to load. I don't buy a movie to watch the menus and I sure as hell don't buy a move to watch a stupid "now loading" screen.

6. To the HD DVD camp, can we get some consistency with the audio quality please.

7. To both parties, make better remotes.

8. Does John Q consumer really care which discs outsell the others? All the average joe cares about is if he wants to buy Die Hard 4 it's in the store when he goes. So far, every-time I've wanted a next gen disc, be it HD DVD or Blu-ray, my local store(s) have had them. Once I have the disc in hand I'm not thinking about much else other than mission accomplished.

9. Lastly, do you think Warner Bros. will abandon HD DVD in 2008?

Happy New Year everyone.

[GizmoDVD]

Originally Posted by Robinson_A

4.I'd love to know how many of this topic's more passionate posters actually own a next generation player be it HD DVD or Blu-ray? Show of hands. Truth be told I can know everything there is to know about something on paper but until you own something for yourself and live with it day in and day out you can never know everything.

I currently own an XA1, A3, and a PS3.
In the past I have owned an A1, A2 (3), A3 (2), 360 AO (3).

Ive since sold off all my older stand alones to family members, and sold off all the AO's om Craigslist. I'd love to buy a Blu-ray SA player, but refuse to buy a player that can't play all the special features on discs. I'll pass until 2.0 comes out, which hopefully wont be 18 months like it took for 1.1 to come out.

[prerich]

Originally Posted by Robinson_A

Well I'm going to chime in with my two cents. This thread is so long I hope to touch upon everything I've noticed thus far...

1. Who cares which format is more expensive to produce/reproduce? The end result is roughly the same price to the consumer for both players (with the exception of the $100 or so dollar HD DVD player sale) and titles. If Sony or Toshiba or whomever looses a few bucks here and there due to higher costs, so long as it doesn't translate to me I don't care.

2. I highly doubt reproduction costs or costs in general are going to be THE deciding factor in this so called war.

3. Can we quit calling it a war. I'm tired of it being trumped up as some sort of "war". I doubt anyone at Sony or Toshiba is loosing sleep over there being two formats. Hell, everyone is in bed with everyone else at this point you don't have to be an insider to tell everyone's got their hand in the same damn cookie jar. If there's one format or two it doesn't really matter. We're all still getting the content we want in the resolution and quality we crave. And don't give me that two formats are bad for the consumer argument. Why, all of a sudden, is it so important that we have one format when the CE world is dominated by choice. How come no one is complaining about there being both an X-Box 360 and a PS3 in the marketplace?

4.I'd love to know how many of this topic's more passionate posters actually own a next generation player be it HD DVD or Blu-ray? Show of hands. Truth be told I can know everything there is to know about something on paper but until you own something for yourself and live with it day in and day out you can never know everything.

5. This goes out to you Blu-ray camp, STOP IT with the menus that take a day and a half to load. I don't buy a movie to watch the menus and I sure as hell don't buy a move to watch a stupid "now loading" screen.

6. To the HD DVD camp, can we get some consistency with the audio quality please.

7. To both parties, make better remotes.

8. Does John Q consumer really care which discs outsell the others? All the average joe cares about is if he wants to buy Die Hard 4 it's in the store when he goes. So far, every-time I've wanted a next gen disc, be it HD DVD or Blu-ray, my local store(s) have had them. Once I have the disc in hand I'm not thinking about much else other than mission accomplished.

9. Lastly, do you think Warner Bros. will abandon HD DVD in 2008?

Happy New Year everyone.

Hmmm? I must chime in on this
1. This post is fire!!!! Makes a lot of since when you think about it.
2. About having more than one format, well it makes the consumer buy more gear in an age where less is considered best. But who am I to say - I'm a dope that has both formats 1. Toshiba HD-A2, 360 HD-DVD add-on, and a Lite On DH4O1S Blu-ray.
3.You hit one of each formats faults - and they both have faults.
4. Happy New Year as you have given each one of us something to think about.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by Robinson_A

1. Who cares which format is more expensive to produce/reproduce? The end result is roughly the same price to the consumer for both players (with the exception of the $100 or so dollar HD DVD player sale) and titles. If Sony or Toshiba or whomever looses a few bucks here and there due to higher costs, so long as it doesn't translate to me I don't care.

This is most true. Except the title of the thread is "Could WB abandon HD DVD in 2008?" The arguement was made that it costs WB more to finally get to market a BD than an HD DVD. Replication costs, Cycle Times, and all manner of things were touched on.

The arguement arises from dobyblue denying that yields were really low. He has no proof but he sure will bring it up repeatedly even though it's pretty much not that important. I believe the others arguing for BD accepted the fact long ago in this thread that yes BD is still currently more expensive and has lower yields.

2. I highly doubt reproduction costs or costs in general are going to be THE deciding factor in this so called war.

This is another thing we can agree on. It is just something one side has going for it. It isn't huge enough to really make a difference.

3. Can we quit calling it a war. I'm tired of it being trumped up as some sort of "war". I doubt anyone at Sony or Toshiba is loosing sleep over there being two formats. Hell, everyone is in bed with everyone else at this point you don't have to be an insider to tell everyone's got their hand in the same damn cookie jar. If there's one format or two it doesn't really matter. We're all still getting the content we want in the resolution and quality we crave.

While I agree on many points, it is most certainly a war. Look at how fervently certain people respond to things about this subject. They fight over it zealously.

And don't give me that two formats are bad for the consumer argument. Why, all of a sudden, is it so important that we have one format when the CE world is dominated by choice. How come no one is complaining about there being both an X-Box 360 and a PS3 in the marketplace?

Good luck convincing the people in this thread arguing against your point that consumer choice is good.

4.I'd love to know how many of this topic's more passionate posters actually own a next generation player be it HD DVD or Blu-ray? Show of hands. Truth be told I can know everything there is to know about something on paper but until you own something for yourself and live with it day in and day out you can never know everything.

I've had BD players of some kind in my life for years! I had the 1st gen Sony player in my house for a short time. Then all I had was the 360 addon. I added the XA2 and was really happy with it. The Pioneer BD player went through the house at one point too.

Currently I have the Samsung BD-UP5000 and I'm extremely happy with it.

5. This goes out to you Blu-ray camp, STOP IT with the menus that take a day and a half to load. I don't buy a movie to watch the menus and I sure as hell don't buy a move to watch a stupid "now loading" screen.

I love the movies that just start. No commercials, no menus, nothing but the "The Film you are about to watch is Rated R," followed immediately by the film. That to me is the way to do it with the menu appearing on the bottom of the film whenever you want to bring it up. That style really works best for me.

6. To the HD DVD camp, can we get some consistency with the audio quality please.

By this you mean more lossless audio I take it. I think the big thing holding that back is actually space. The new TL51 discs should hopefully solve that issue.

7. To both parties, make better remotes.

I'm sure this is actually really important. My systems always have a nice Universal tablet of some kind. Although I do have to give MS props for the Addon Remote. That may be the nicest remote for either format right now.

8. Does John Q consumer really care which discs outsell the others? All the average joe cares about is if he wants to buy Die Hard 4 it's in the store when he goes. So far, every-time I've wanted a next gen disc, be it HD DVD or Blu-ray, my local store(s) have had them. Once I have the disc in hand I'm not thinking about much else other than mission accomplished.

Of course he doesn't care. All he cares about is getting what he wants when he wants it. The real thing is does WB care? The numbers are getting so even lately on WB titles that it appears that won't be the deciding factor either.

9. Lastly, do you think Warner Bros. will abandon HD DVD in 2008?

I think they're still trying to find a way for two formats to exist and prosper. There is a chance of that and as long as that chance exists I don't see them turning their back on either format.