Blockbuster chooses Blu-ray: is the war over?

[josetjr]

Who still rents at Blockbuster? I haven't given them a penny since they hustled me a few years ago charging me a late fee talking about how I brought in the movie 8 hours after I had dropped it off. I told them it was impossible since I was at work during that time.

Netflix is much better and they carry both formats.

Many other people and I use blockbuster online. And once we are done with the movies we take them back to a physical blockbuster store and get another movie without paying. And you have 7 days past your due date to return without getting charged $1.25 "restocking fee". All those movies for $17.99 /month or less. It at least beats waiting for your next netflix movies. And when I was a netflix member they stalled way too much in sending sometimes.

I still laugh at those who pay to rent at blockbuster though.

[stiltman]

I'm just about ready to give up on BB for my renting. I've had one on the top of my queue for 2 months now. It bounces between available and short wait all the time. The last 4 times I have sent movies back and new ones were shipped, it showed available but they didn't ship it.

Looking at my queue right now it shows no movies out and none shipped, How's that happen? They received 3 movies yesterday morning, now over 24 hours later, nothing shows out or shipped. I can almost bet that the one movie at the top of my queue (that shows available) will not ship once again.

[edDV]

I'm impressed with Netflix for e-mail reporting each step in the process and predicting delivery. I'm in a remote area and they keep sending me surveys to determine actual delivery times. I think they work closely with the post office to trim delivery times to difficult areas. Netflix is a great customer for the US Post Office and it seems those red envelopes get special attention.

Sometimes I choose an obscure title like a PBS documentary on Les Paul and move it to the top of the list and presto! It gets shipped. Volume and automation rule in this business. Netflix is a smooth efficient operation.

[stiltman]

Looking at my queue right now it shows no movies out and none shipped, How's that happen? They received 3 movies yesterday morning, now over 24 hours later, nothing shows out or shipped. I can almost bet that the one movie at the top of my queue (that shows available) will not ship once again.

I was right. They didn't ship it again, even though it's been showing as available for the past 3 days.

I think their system is messed up, as they actually shipped my second in the queue that was showing long wait.

[rhegedus]

@ Sat - Sorry if you got offended, it wasn't my intention.

@ Dere - May I suggest we continue as pm?

[Nilfennasion]

My god, is this thread still going?

I have only used Quickflix, the Australian answer to the Netflix service. I think the main reason I stopped is because of the lack of helpful information provided on the site that determines the quality of a prospective title. When I was a reviewer, we listed every parameter a consumer would need to know about a given title. NTSC/PAL formatting, 16:9 Enhancement, actual Widescreen aspect ratio, the proper Widescreen aspect ratio for the film in question, comments about why there might be a difference where one existed, what formats of soundtrack were included on the disc, what was on the disc beside the feature film, you name it.

Quickflix was literally a select-and-pray proposition, or outright deceitful at worst. Twice, I had a Star Trek film in my queue because the page said the video transfer on the disc they were loaning out was 16:9 Enhanced. It was not. I complained repeatedly. I informed them that I had not just bought a 103cm Plasma TV so I could watch inferior quality transfers that had been recycled from a Laserdisc for all I knew. These complaints were pretty much ignored, so I have taken my cash back to the bricks-and-mortar Video Ezy. Sure, it is harder to get my hands on titles that are of interest to me but happen to be obscure, but at least they do not go out of their way to spit in my face.

If my experience was indicative of how the online rental market is now, and in other countries, then the online rental concept is doomed to the fringes.

[DereX888]

Well, I cant say anything because I dont use any by-mail rental, I usually buy it if I want it.
But it seems to me like its still a big hassle if you have to order it and wait until it arrives.
At least thats how it was at the early days of netflix and 2 others when I tried them.
I dont get it, disc pressing plants cranked out billions of discs already, and there are still queues?
Maybe its just me, but I rather go to the store and pickup whatever I feel like at that moment. If I want to rent Forrest Gump now, I dont want it 3 days later, I want it now
Unless netflix and others will switch to "downloading rentals" Im not going to use them while theyre still on snailmail delivery.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Unless netflix and others will switch to "downloading rentals" Im not going to use them while theyre still on snailmail delivery.

Netflix has that now,over 4,000 movies to choose from.

[Nilfennasion]

DereX:

Paradoxically, the "I want it now" issue was but a minor concern to me when I was with Quickflix. I joined them in the first place because they rented out titles that were very difficult to find elsewhere. Given that I use the IMDB's bottom 100 like a shopping list, you can imagine the kind of fun conversations I have with idiot staff members at Blockbuster about films like Eat And Run.

Thing is, though, a lot of the independent, small-time distribtuors of DVD in this country still believe that anything is good enough. They think they can just shovel a VHS transfer from an old release print that was made in the 1970s onto a DVD and people will buy it. That attitude might have flown here in 2000, when the format was young and the films in question had more of a novelty factor. But when an online rental service is charging you money for things you would not watch on a 51cm CRT, leave alone a 106cm Plasma, one tends to decide that rarity of titles is not necessarily that big a selling point.

That is why I find being able to hold the DVD's cover in my hands and look at the disc information provided is such a big help. If I had my way, the tabled information format that Sony uses on their SD DVDs now would be a compulsory standard. It tells one just about everything they need to know about what is on the disc, clearly and precisely. That makes the decision-making process incredibly easy for me. Conversely, the almost total lack of information some distributors like Peacock Films put on DVDs here pretty much makes it a no-sale right off the bat.

Wanting it now as opposed to three days from now is never that bad an issue if you learn to pace yourself.

[DereX888]

DereX:

Paradoxically, the "I want it now" issue was but a minor concern to me when I was with Quickflix. I joined them in the first place because they rented out titles that were very difficult to find elsewhere. Given that I use the IMDB's bottom 100 like a shopping list, you can imagine the kind of fun conversations I have with idiot staff members at Blockbuster about films like Eat And Run.

Thing is, though, a lot of the independent, small-time distribtuors of DVD in this country still believe that anything is good enough. They think they can just shovel a VHS transfer from an old release print that was made in the 1970s onto a DVD and people will buy it. That attitude might have flown here in 2000, when the format was young and the films in question had more of a novelty factor. But when an online rental service is charging you money for things you would not watch on a 51cm CRT, leave alone a 106cm Plasma, one tends to decide that rarity of titles is not necessarily that big a selling point.

That is why I find being able to hold the DVD's cover in my hands and look at the disc information provided is such a big help. If I had my way, the tabled information format that Sony uses on their SD DVDs now would be a compulsory standard. It tells one just about everything they need to know about what is on the disc, clearly and precisely. That makes the decision-making process incredibly easy for me. Conversely, the almost total lack of information some distributors like Peacock Films put on DVDs here pretty much makes it a no-sale right off the bat.

Wanting it now as opposed to three days from now is never that bad an issue if you learn to pace yourself.

Oh well, I dont want to derail this subject offtopic again, but when DVD was at its infancy, I tried to move some people to make a petition to DVD Consortium about compulsory inclusion of some standard at least text formatted "table of contents" with at least basic infos about the content (movie and such). But no one listened to a 15yo kid's idea hehe

But my gripe with netflix were not the unpopular titles. I understand no company will keep 100s of copies of a title that will be rented out maybe twice a month (were similar I guess - I too often am interested in a movies that almost no one ever heard about).
My point was that even 'blockbusters' weren't stocked in enough amounts, and if today anyone still have to wait in queue for say "Pirates of Caribbean III" it means shitty service to me. Alas I rather buy a copy of it on a way home than wait 2 weeks. There simply are no excuses for such titles. I will not support such business.
Other than that I think I keep/live rather slow pace, compared with most people I know

[Nilfennasion]

People rarely listen to fifteen year olds, even when their ideas or statements are so close to the truth as to be carved in stone. That is something I want carved onto my tombstone when they put me in the box, sadly.

Part of the problem with online services is economic feasibility. If they charge a flat fee to post you a number of DVDs every so often, they have to make up the money somewhere. Whether it be slower turnarounds, less discs to distribute among more people, or whatever, somewhere the money is made up in the service. That is why all the bitching about council amalgamations in Queensland is so funny to me at the moment. Every one of the four councils that was amalgamated near where I live was in debt to the tune of multiple millions of dollars, so the only people surprised that they were amalgamated are effectively retards. It is the same with rental services so far as I am concerned. If you want something from rental services or governments, such as the rental services being able to send you the latest titles as soon as they are released, or having separate councils, you have to pay for it somehow.

Not that I am in any way saying your criticism of them not sending these titles is invalid. These businesses should have anticipated that customers would want the latest and greatest as a matter of priority and worked out how to make that economically feasible for themselves. Instead, they figured that they would be able to make money by sending what the customer wants whenever they get around to it. If the pirate video-trader networks were as well-organised and clandestine as the pirate software-trader networks of the Commodore 64 days were, Netflix et al would be redundant. It would be more profitable for the studios to simply allow free copying of their content and sell the media on which it is to be copied.

The sad thing is that if Quickflix had kept reliable and easily-discerned information regarding the video and audio transfers contained on discs for a discerning customer like me to read, I would still be with them. Instead, I am taking all the money that I used on Quickflix and putting it into the bricks and mortar stores that Quickflix were thinking they would make obsolete. Seriously, places like Quickflix/Netflix et al should employ guys like you and I to do their thinking for them.

HD-DVD has the same problem compared to Blu-Ray, so far as I can see. The whole 300 thing provides elegant proof of such. I do not want to see "seamlessly" branched views of what the scenes looked like before they were composited. I want to see the best presentation possible of the film. I want to see the films that I grew up with and made me want to write fiction rather than assemble computers for a living. The Blu-Ray camp is providing the vast majority of those films. It reminds me of that scene from Click in which a dying Adam Sandler is telling his son that family comes first. Sony paid close attention to what happened with features like seamless branching or featurettes on SD-DVD, and made the correct judgement that content comes first. When RoboCop is released on Blu-Ray, I will be buying it along with a player. The whole world could fall down around me and I will be reciting the dialogue along with the disc. If the HD-DVD camp had taken the time to realise that early adopters care more about content than they do features, they might have put up a better fight.

Or at least that is my way of looking at it.

[DereX888]

People rarely listen to fifteen year olds, even when their ideas or statements are so close to the truth as to be carved in stone. That is something I want carved onto my tombstone when they put me in the box, sadly.

Part of the problem with online services is economic feasibility. If they charge a flat fee to post you a number of DVDs every so often, they have to make up the money somewhere. Whether it be slower turnarounds, less discs to distribute among more people, or whatever, somewhere the money is made up in the service. That is why all the bitching about council amalgamations in Queensland is so funny to me at the moment. Every one of the four councils that was amalgamated near where I live was in debt to the tune of multiple millions of dollars, so the only people surprised that they were amalgamated are effectively retards. It is the same with rental services so far as I am concerned. If you want something from rental services or governments, such as the rental services being able to send you the latest titles as soon as they are released, or having separate councils, you have to pay for it somehow.

Not that I am in any way saying your criticism of them not sending these titles is invalid. These businesses should have anticipated that customers would want the latest and greatest as a matter of priority and worked out how to make that economically feasible for themselves. Instead, they figured that they would be able to make money by sending what the customer wants whenever they get around to it. If the pirate video-trader networks were as well-organised and clandestine as the pirate software-trader networks of the Commodore 64 days were, Netflix et al would be redundant. It would be more profitable for the studios to simply allow free copying of their content and sell the media on which it is to be copied.

The sad thing is that if Quickflix had kept reliable and easily-discerned information regarding the video and audio transfers contained on discs for a discerning customer like me to read, I would still be with them. Instead, I am taking all the money that I used on Quickflix and putting it into the bricks and mortar stores that Quickflix were thinking they would make obsolete. Seriously, places like Quickflix/Netflix et al should employ guys like you and I to do their thinking for them.

HD-DVD has the same problem compared to Blu-Ray, so far as I can see. The whole 300 thing provides elegant proof of such. I do not want to see "seamlessly" branched views of what the scenes looked like before they were composited. I want to see the best presentation possible of the film. I want to see the films that I grew up with and made me want to write fiction rather than assemble computers for a living. The Blu-Ray camp is providing the vast majority of those films. It reminds me of that scene from Click in which a dying Adam Sandler is telling his son that family comes first. Sony paid close attention to what happened with features like seamless branching or featurettes on SD-DVD, and made the correct judgement that content comes first. When RoboCop is released on Blu-Ray, I will be buying it along with a player. The whole world could fall down around me and I will be reciting the dialogue along with the disc. If the HD-DVD camp had taken the time to realise that early adopters care more about content than they do features, they might have put up a better fight.

Or at least that is my way of looking at it.

I shouldn't reply since I agree with most of the above (where's the discussion then ) but I'd like to point you out to the fact, that Sony is not only a BR-DVD media format provider like Toshiba for HD-DVD, but unlike any other company in the world it is a content producer and provider and distributor as well. If it wasn't, we would have 99% of the same movies released on both hd formats obviously
Sony = Giant BR bully-monopolist if you ask me. Im sure you know that too, that it just CAN'T be good for consumers at all, even if it is or looks fine and innocent now at the begining.
That alone disqualifies whole BR camp to me, and IMHO it should to most of people as well (content/prices/anything else we discussed here aside).

PS
Sony, as a BR-DVD owner, movie making studios owner, and a distribution channels owner, is already engaged in what in theory is illegal in USA and for what Microsoft has been chased by US DOJ. This behemot company is already hurting releases from studios-competitors by not releasing their movies on BDs. Of course it is not 'sony - the electronic maker' who do this officially, but since sony owns big chunk of wordlwide distribution channels in various forms (again: from studios thru distributors through even music labels and up to retail stores) it is in fact simply same practices as i.e. Microsoft did to eliminate Netscape from the market by promoting Internet Explorer only on its Windowses until DOJ kicked its ass (too late, as always).
Toshiba and "HD-DVD camp" doesn't have any even remotely equal means to do the same against Sony...
Thats the main reason why I really don't want *anything 'sony'* to become any market standard.
Have a look at i.e. memory cards:
Sony's Memory stick and SD Cards are exactly same thing, the difference is only in the shape, and in the price - Sony's product as always cost more (apparently just for their stupid logo, because both MS and SD consist of same flash memory LOL).
Do we really want to pay i.e. buck or few more as a hidden yet compulsory 'sony tax' (in the form of licence fees) for every movie we will buy if BD becomes market standard? Because thats what will happen as soon as sony will have monopoly.
Yes, HD-DVD camp will still charge us *some* licence fees in every movie we will buy if HD-DVD becomes the market standard, but since 'HD-DVD camp' doesn't have as much influence in the entertainment industry as Sony does (if Sony-owned studio releases movie on BD and pays exorbitant amount of licencing fee to Sony-owned BluRay Group, does it really pay anything? Apparently it doesnt pay a penny, the funds only shift from one branch of the same corporation to another Whilst it is a real hefty payment for those outside the 'sony group', got it? WIth HD-DVD this doesn't happen, all licencees pay "real" and exactly the same 'format licencing fee', thus no one takes advantage of its monopoly).

[MOVIEGEEK]

Just a note about HD-DVD:their players are selling 2:1 now because the prices are dropping fast,Toshiba is getting rid of the A2 series to make way for the A3 series.The HD-DVD format is finalized but older players still need firmware updates to play newer discs.
All HD-DVD players are required to have ethernet ports for online features and firmware updates.
As for BD:Blu-Ray uses a form of Java that is difficult code to write,the players are also having problems playing some discs.
The BD format is still changing and some older players also need firmware updates.

Both formats will be around for years and both offer outstanding PQ.

[SingSing]

So far, I only heard about HD is think about making hybrid disc. I think hydrid disc will help, based on what happened on DVD.

The most common hybrid DVD is those movie DVd with widescreen side and full screen side. For family who has a large screen TV, widescreen is great for family viewing, yet the kids can always play the full screen in their room on their kid/teen TVs that often have built-in DVD players.

HD hybrid disc can do the same. Plays HD DVD side with your HD TV. Plays the DVD side on any other DVD player/TV, like in the minivan, kitchen, kids room, ...

I believe even HD or BD become main stream, there will be still a lot of DVDs to be wanted. It is not like when DVD replaced VHS, due to DVD's advantage on random access and much slimmer form factor.

[VD]

My local BlockBuster rents both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. They are both on the wall next to the new releases.

[FulciLives]

So far, I only heard about HD is think about making hybrid disc. I think hydrid disc will help, based on what happened on DVD.

The most common hybrid DVD is those movie DVd with widescreen side and full screen side. For family who has a large screen TV, widescreen is great for family viewing, yet the kids can always play the full screen in their room on their kid/teen TVs that often have built-in DVD players.

HD hybrid disc can do the same. Plays HD DVD side with your HD TV. Plays the DVD side on any other DVD player/TV, like in the minivan, kitchen, kids room, ...

I believe even HD or BD become main stream, there will be still a lot of DVDs to be wanted. It is not like when DVD replaced VHS, due to DVD's advantage on random access and much slimmer form factor.

I've heard that a lot of the hybrid HD-DVD discs ... the one's that have SD DVD on one side and HD-DVD on the other side ... have been having a lot of playback issues.

I actually read somewhere that boiling the discs in water can help. Someone said this use to work on XboX games that wouldn't play on the original XboX and that people were doing it now for those problem discs.

I know that sounds crazy doesn't it yet several people said it worked for them. Other people said the problem is just some "residue" on the discs and that very hot water and dish washing soap can do the same thing without the boiling yet other people said they tried that and only boiling worked.

Forgot where I read that (rather long) thread at but I think it might have been CD-FREAKS ... not sure though.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Conquest10]

I have not had any problems with the hybrid discs. Play back just fine on either side.

[DereX888]

I have not had any problems with the hybrid discs. Play back just fine on either side.

Neither did I. All play fine on each players.

Maybe someone please post a specific title that need to be 'cooked' in order to play on SD-DVD player instead of spreading gossips?

[FulciLives]

I have not had any problems with the hybrid discs. Play back just fine on either side.

Neither did I. All play fine on each players.

Maybe someone please post a specific title that need to be 'cooked' in order to play on SD-DVD player instead of spreading gossips?

I didn't make it up you know. After all I'm more for HD-DVD than Blu-Ray.

Again I think it was over at the CD-FREAKS forum. Might have been the AVS forum. Had to be one or the other cause that's about it for me video wise other than here and doom9's AviSynth forum but I know it wasn't there.

Sorry I don't remember or have a link etc. but I'm not making shit up on purpose.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[DereX888]

I have not had any problems with the hybrid discs. Play back just fine on either side.

Neither did I. All play fine on each players.

Maybe someone please post a specific title that need to be 'cooked' in order to play on SD-DVD player instead of spreading gossips?

I didn't make it up you know. After all I'm more for HD-DVD than Blu-Ray.

Again I think it was over at the CD-FREAKS forum. Might have been the AVS forum. Had to be one or the other cause that's about it for me video wise other than here and doom9's AviSynth forum but I know it wasn't there.

Sorry I don't remember or have a link etc. but I'm not making shit up on purpose.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

I didnt say you are making it up, chill out
I read it on few forums for a while too, but usually when I ask for a disc title or a link to a credible source - there either are no answers, or I get the HD titles that I have myself and I know it DOESN'T need to be boiled in order to play (because it plays fine here).
Hence its a gossip IMHO.
Or mnaybe some very, very extremely unusual conditions have to apply (like some not-so-good player, and some not-so-good print of HD disc, or such). Usually its "someone knows someone who knows someone who had to boil it" etc

I didnt mean to pick on you Fulci, Im just a sucker for gossip-and-halftruths debunking

[videopoo]

Sony paid close attention to what happened with features like seamless branching or featurettes on SD-DVD, and made the correct judgement that content comes first. When RoboCop is released on Blu-Ray, I will be buying it along with a player. The whole world could fall down around me and I will be reciting the dialogue along with the disc. If the HD-DVD camp had taken the time to realise that early adopters care more about content than they do features, they might have put up a better fight.

You can't compare SD and HD DVD or BD. Seamless branching failed because of players not the spec. Futhermore, both BD and HD DVD are equal as far as bitrates and quality go and that will never changed. Once you hit a certain level, increasing bitrates do you no good. BDs only real advantage is BD-J and were years away from seeing any fine examples of what Java can do with HD content on disc- maybe someday someone will show the world what BD can do?

In addition, because few content owners who can actually afford to release a title on BD, is why I support HD DVD. If your happy will the all the crap the studios spew out, then BD is great. Your right, folks do care about content but MOST content is not owned by the studios.

[Nilfennasion]

Sometimes, discussing why one agrees is just as much fun as arguing. Weird, I know...

Sony is a good example of how today's overregulated, overtaxed world requires diversification to stand a chance to get ahead in. When the DOJ suddenly decided that studios could not own theatres, they effectively took away the ability of the film industry to be self-sustaining. Of course, there is no indication that it might still be self-sustaining otherwise, but it is like the old joke about the salesman who loses money on every sale but makes it up on volume. Of course, studio accountants are also a bit shifty about bookkeeping as a rule so they do not have to split the profits in too many directions. But when you have to pay half of every dollar your product makes to some conglomerate who does not even bother to properly maintain the facilities on which they show your product, obviously you want to change things around a bit.

I was talking about this a bit with my editor once, and this prompted him to ask me what I think the studios want. And that was when it hit me: which studio in their right mind would not want total control of the revenue stream and a hundred percent profit to the studio? That is the real reason why there has been a minor buzz about the growing percentage of directors shooting in digital. Because the studios want films to be shot, distributed, and eventually sold in digital. In its best implementation, it will cut shipping companies, customs services, and other such leeches off their hide.

But in order to completely eliminate the now-worthless cinema out of the equasion, you have to offer the home viewer an alternative they either perceive as better or at least equal. VHS failed in that respect because composite videotape looks ghastly to begin with, and looks worse every time it is played. DVD was always intended as a transitional format, getting the buyer used to the idea that films and television screens have not been the same shape since the 1950s, among other things. Blu-Ray is simply the latest step along the path. If you start selling the public discs that contain a progressive, 1080 line representation of a film, the biggest separator between cinema and home video is effectively eliminated. Interlacing artefacts are the only effective reminder left that you are watching home video and not the cinema (well, that and framerate differences, but those are not so obvious to those who do not know).

Now, onto your other points. I am not exactly happy with the idea of any one company owning a standard, and believe that things other than just coming in to hassle the owner years too late should be done. The idea of Toshiba setting the standard for any disc format has revolted me ever since they began their stupid ad campaigns informing us that the zoom button is to get rid of the black lines on widescreen films. Great, Toshiba, thanks for undoing all that hard work we did at the site to explain to the great unwashed that when you cut and shut a film, you might as well kick a director in the balls before wiping your butt on his negative. So HD-DVD grossly offends me for much the same reason BR seems to be looked down on by others here, just with the names changed. Although I would maintain that given some of Toshiba's other behaviour in other areas, there's more reasons to hate Toshiba than most people are aware of. If it had not been for Sony backing down and working on a compromise (although companies like Matsushita et al had to tell the two groups to do this), we would have had a similar format war with SD-DVD. Toshiba have been complete pricks of the worst kind. The kind that people fail to notice.

I really think it is quite irrelevant to this site for the time being, anyway. Does anyone who visits this site even have the capability to duplicate discs in either format?

[jagabo]

The idea of Toshiba setting the standard for any disc format has revolted me ever since they began their stupid ad campaigns informing us that the zoom button is to get rid of the black lines on widescreen films. Great, Toshiba, thanks for undoing all that hard work we did at the site to explain to the great unwashed that when you cut and shut a film, you might as well kick a director in the balls before wiping your butt on his negative.

The director gets to decide what aspect ratio to use to shoot the film. Maybe he gets to decide what comes out on the HD/BD/DVD. My preference is to view the film in its original AR. But the director has absolutely no say in how I choose to view the film once I've bought it. If I want to view it cropped to bits, upside down, backwards, with the colors inverted, and/or every scene out of order, that's MY BUSINESS. I have no problem with a player offering these OPTIONS.

[gshelley61]

I have not had any problems with the hybrid discs. Play back just fine on either side.

Same here. Many of the dozens of rental HD DVD's I've watched have been combo discs. No problems so far.

I've neard about the combo discs problems and the boiling thing, too. Just hasn't happened in my case.

[Nilfennasion]

*takes a moment to pause and add jagabo's name to the long list of those who have never worked in, or more accurately been press-ganged into working in, customer service...*

[FulciLives]

I didnt mean to pick on you Fulci, Im just a sucker for gossip-and-halftruths debunking

I thought you were questioning my ... what's the word? ... truthfulness ... I guess that works LOL

I guess I understand what you are saying now so A-OK with me but yeah I did have a bit of a knee jerk reaction (i.e., how dare that bum claim *I* am lying!)

No harm no foul. I'm all good

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[DereX888]

Nilfennasion, absolutely no company is an angel with gold wings. They always want more PROFIT and they always will, no doubt. After all WE want them to act that way when we buy their shares.
But.
Given the choice between one giant evil corporation like Sony, that is actually already some kind of of half-monopoly (producing releasing distributing its own content on its own format), and another corporation that only own distribution format, the choice is simple, isn't it?
Why would I want to (or anyone else) voluntarily support creation of a total entertainment monopolist?
BluRay doesn't give us anything more or less than HD-DVD does (yes I know, more space ATM) but the major difference is that supporting it is a straight forward path to a Sony World Domination if it "wins", while Toshiba will still be Toshiba. SLightly more richer perhaps, but certainly no monopolist at all.
Im sure most of us don't want another Microsoft-alike monopolist around.


Fulci -

[SatStorm]

On IFA (Germany) Toshiba told to the guests that by late September, HD DVD standalones gonna appear in the European market for under 300 euros. Made by Toshiba of course.
Also unofficially sources (that means random people that used to stay long on the Toshiba / HD DVD stand without be any officials or related with the stand) said (spread...) that surprises to be expected around Xmas from Praktiker (a German based Walmart-like chain in Europe) and MediaMarkt (another German based Waltmart-like chain). They didn't say what kind of surprises.

Sony said about the same things for the blu ray standalones in their own stand, but with one difference: They talking for standalones around 499 euros. Regarding the faith of the European BD titles, they wasn't much enthusiastic (or maybe they were too bored to answer questions...)

Combo players appeared in IFA from Samsung. Unofficially, they told to the media "we don't know if those duo players gonna be 100% compatible with Blu Ray yet".

From what my fellow that went to IFA understood, all the standalone manufactures wait BD final specifications, so to start producing Combo players (they referred to them with the term: "Duo" Standalone Players).
So, now we know the term they gonna use for those players: "Duo Standalones".

Onkyo also presented 2 HD DVD players. One "cheap" (600 euros) and one expensive (1300 eurossssssss). People laughed with the prices...

The HD DVD presence in IFA was very strong this year. Maybe Sony don't care to push hard BD in Europe yet?

"300" sold in both BD /HDDVD formats for 20 euros inside the exhibition. It was possible because they said it was a "Promotion for HD".

HD DVD titles was present on many stands.

I expected a much more aggressive presence of Sony in IFA this year.

[SatStorm]

Oh, and DiVX gave to everyone passing from their stand a free CD with DivX 6.7 and Author 1.5.
Full registered versions!

[SingSing]

The BluRay vs HD format war is heating up before the Hoilday shopping season.

This weekend saw many movies released in DVD and BluRay only.

Samsung also jumps in with a BluRay player with free BluRay discs. Are the bundled titles any good ?