HD DVD looks back on 2007
By Steven Kim 
posted Jan 7th 2008 11:13AM
posted Jan 7th 2008 11:13AM
In a press release, the HD DVD Group is rallying the demoralized troops around the accomplishments made in 2007. Citing almost one million players in North America and a good (by HDM standards) library of titles, 2007 was a good year for the red camp. There's the requisite cherry picking of factoids, but the release does play to HD DVD's strengths of affordability and interactive features. We're glad to see HD DVD put on a brave face; and as we've said, HD DVD has been declared "dead" before. Maybe this is sign that team red has shaken off the cobwebs from this week's blows. The real test will be if HD DVD will be able to generate some more forward-looking optimism.
C'mon, man. You can't still be holding out hope for these guys. They've been declared "dying" before. This is the first time they've actually been dead.
It's all over, people. Nothing more to see here.
Please someone win already. I don't care who, I just want to see a clear winner!
@Chebwa
Agreed. With the mass majority of the content going to Blu, theres no reason to assume HD-DVD will be going anywhere in the future. If you're going to announce anything, apologize for the consumer confusion and inconvenience you have caused and express your regret for not having merged the formats early in the game (not that that is only HD DVD's fault, mind you). It is time to move on to migrating from DVD up, not continuing a format war that isn't going anywhere.
Apologize? Wouldn't there be a lot less people even into HDM if it were not for the reasonable costs associated with getting into HD DVD? I've always known I'd also eventually be getting a BD player, but if HD DVD had not existed many of us would have been forced to wait until late 2008 or early 2009 to be able to finally have a dedicated HD movie source for our displays. I think this is similar to why Toshiba believes their product was still the more customer-centric. If HD DVD ceased to exist today, do you expect there to be a surge in BD player sales? Overall, I think you would see less adoption of HDM more than anything, since so many who don't want to pay the higher prices will just have to wait for them to come down. I think HD DVD offered HDM now to a lot of ppl, rather than later. As I said before, I knew I would eventually get a BD player, but now I am forced to have nothing until players cost much less, and hopefully when they are full featured.
"As I said before, I knew I would eventually get a BD player, but now I am forced to have nothing until players cost much less, and hopefully when they are full featured."
What the hell kind of a price point are you looking for when it comes to relatively new technology? The BDP7200 is $350. Or you could get an older PS3 model (20GB) on eBay for as low as $300. And nobody is forcing you to wait. You want new technology, you pay for it. That's how it is now and how it will continue to be. If you want it cheap, wait. Normal DVDs don't look THAT BAD, you know. Nobody is putting a gun to your head to invest immediately.
Thank God HD-DVD is dead, it was a pain in the ass to say out loud anyway.
Ugh... you talk as if Blu-Ray should cost as much because it is state-of-the-art. They are BOTH relatively new technology. One became more affordable much faster. You only reiterated the fact that people have to pay more or wait.
I have both players and I think HD-DVD is better. I even have a HD-A3 1080i and I think movies look better on my 56" 1080p TV than with, say, the PS3.
Unless you have both you can shut the hell up.
As far as I can tell the only people who like Blu-ray are people who own a PS3, and since I own one I can say it is a mediocre gaming platform(as compared to the other choices) and a OK Blu-ray player.
Personally I like convince/quality combination of the xbox downloads over both disc's. Physical media is so yesterday. If either format dies I wouldn't loose sleep but I think HD-DVD is the better all around product with out getting into details; which I could.
"Unless you have both you can shut the hell up."
lol so unless we like throwing our money away, we need to keep our mouths shut
Got it.
at 250$, you're getting a blu ray player running profile 0... no PiP, no web connectivity, etc.
I like to think of it this way - Blu-Ray has been declared dead before, it's just a matter of making it happen again.
The only people who declared Blu-Ray dead are Anti-SONY, anti-Blu Ray, pro- Microsoft, Pro HDDVD, FANBOYS who weren't smart enough to predict that HDDVD was going to be the next "betamax" due to its
#1 smaller capactity
#2 lack of support (by more than Microsoft, NEC and Toshiba and a couple others)
#3 the fact PS3's would inevitably put BR players in more homes than 360's add on drive (which cost almost 48% of the PS3's msrp at its introduction)
HDDVD was dead on arrival. Once Warner, APPLE and SONY decided on Blue Ray, HDDVD was basically attacked, CHAINSAWED IN HALF and left for pigeon food.
@Flashpoint, you forgot a few:
#4 optional DRM
#5 finished spec
#6 cheaper to produce
#7 better image quality despite lower capacity
yeah, HD-DVD is sooooooo terrible. Outside of higher capacity what exactly makes BluRay better than HD-DVD?
Matt - HD-DVD technology DOES NOT have a better picture than Blu-ray. That's an ignorant statement. Some studios started using different codecs between the two at one point but that has nothing to do with the technology of the players.
umm.. flashpoint
betamax actualy held more data than VHS
all the tv stations used betamax to store their recordings because its a better format
@ flashpoint:
I love comments like yours - flaming fanboys where by the very nature of your comment it is obvious that you are, in fact, a fanboy.
1) Smaller capacity does not matter for films. It POTENTIALLY matters for games, where developers can put more content in a game, but not for movies. If you put yourself in the shoes of an ignorant consumer who walks into a store that features HD-DVD and Blu-Ray equally on the same display then they will see that there is no to virtually no difference between the formats in both audio and visual quality.
2) HD-DVD had a lot more support in the beginning when many of the studios had not gone Blu-Ray exclusive yet, namely, Fox and Warner. Toshiba had a very large retail prescence with its Qosmio PC's and the HD-DVD moniker was everywhere. It is only is recent weeks that such support has started to wane - meaning, it was impossible to see this back in the first days of the format war.
3) When the PS3 came out it sold EXTREMELY poorly - I can barely mention the large numbers of PS3's that were on eBay as a result of people wishing to make a quick profit. If anything, it looked like the PS3 would be a small factor in Blu-Ray penetration.
Don't forget that not everyone uses a PS3 to play Blu-Ray movies - there was a study a couple months ago that stated that nearly half of all PS3 owners didn't know that the PS3 was HD, let alone had a Blu-Ray drive - something not helped by the fact that (I don't remember exactly) most if not all PS3's do not include the necessary cables for an HD signal out of the box.
kthxbai.
@wickedpheonix
You are wrong about capacity. The extra capacity means I get to watch all the extras in glorious 1080p vs the 480i that would fit on the HD-DVD.
@ JTM
Well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this then: very few special features are really worth it to me. Last time I had a movie that I liked the special features on was the complete Star Wars collection - for every other movie I really couldn't care less, and that means a bit considering the fact that I have the entire LOTR series extended editions among many others. In that case, I would rather the producers cram more special content in there because if there's more in there, then there's a greater possibility that there's going to be something that I actually like.
Furthermore, not all content will be benefited by 1080p - primary example will be unfinished footage (deleted scenes) that's included with the movie - the picture quality is usually crap either way.
Go back to sleep HD DVD...a deep eternal sleep.
i hate to remind you folks that the betamax - VHS format war went of for nearly a decade
im willing to bet that we will be talking about both formats same time next year... in a very similar fashion
as we did last year..
and the year before...
your_boring@hotmail.com
That war also happened before The Web was created. Technology moves faster as time goes on and especially now that people are better informed about technology (by virtue of the web) there's no way this war will last a decade.
I'm at the point I don't care who wins, just give me a definitive format so I can buy a player.
Seriously dude... go get a Blu-Ray player.
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
Toshiba: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
Toshiba: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
Toshiba: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Toshiba: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Toshiba: I don't want to go to 2008 CES.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
Toshiba: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, can you hang around for a couple of
minutes?He won't be long.
"Toshiba: I don't want to go to 2008 CES.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don't be such a baby."
Funniest post EVAR!
ROFL Damn, Thank you for this. That was great!!!
Let's make it clear. Everyone who thinks that HD-DVD still has a chance, after warner left, after the news media as a whole declared that a crushing blow, after they cancelled the HD-DVD press conference yesterday, after microsoft didn't say ANYTHING about hd-dvd in their own conference... Well guess what, You are an IDIOT if you still think there is a chance.
All the HDDVD guys bitch about a complete profile spec, but then they say they don't need the extra room of a bluray because they don't watch special features... WHICH IS THE ONLY THING YOU GAIN FROM THE 1.1 and 2.0 profiles!!
Or they complain that the PS3 player is useless because it doesn't have an IR remote? grow up, use the very nice BT remote. Anyone who has been on the sidelines waiting, go buy a PS3. You are guaranteed to have a great movie and gaming experience. It will be worth the money, and it won't be ditched by all sides on the format, now a sure thing...
"We're glad to see HD DVD put on a brave face"
Why are some people happy to see this format war continue?
It's hypocritical. Most of the people who say they want the format war to end seem to mean they want it to end on their terms, ie. their chosen side wins. As soon as it becomes clear that the other guys have the upper hand, they want to prolong it as long as possible.
The war needs to end and for all intents and purposes, it has. All these press releases from the HD-DVD group remind me of what I see from DCC just before that format was killed. You can expect to see positive releases from the HD-DVD group until literally the day before they pull the plug, so I don't see this bit of PR as anything other than what it is: desperation.
The plug will be pulled sometime in 2008.
"The plug will be pulled sometime in 2008."
stop press :|
Do you goobers think that the over a million players out there are going to go by a bluray player right now. No they will still want contend for their players. A million players and a million people looking for content. It does look as if HDDVD will be second now but second isnt that bad as long as content is still produced. With no region code and no issues with imports HDDVD will be around. Get over it PS3 fangirls. I own a PS3 its nice. Does that mean I will never buy another HDDVD......??? Hell no. I prefer HDDVD.
Noone is saying HD DVD players or disks will stop working. Personally I don't have any dislike for HD DVD, I just wanted one or the other to win so I can begin to invest in the technology. I think there are many folks on the sidelines like this.
If the majority of companies go with Bluray then HD DVD will die off, slowly but surely. I agree with the above posters, wish people would sotp encouraging the format ware to go on.
All those nearly a million people will also have to make decision as to whether or not they can live with the meager selection that will be available on HD-DVD. Pickings are going to get pretty slim and they'll have to either settle for old fashioned DVD or go Blu for the Fox/Sony/Disney/New Line/Warner, etc, etc movies coming out in the future.
I have a PS3 and an HD DVD add-on for the 360 (both presents at different times).
The only thing that sucks about BR all but winning is that now I'm pot committed to jerry-rig an IR receiver because Sony couldn't be bothered to add the 10 cents to the cost of the PS3. I hate using the game controller instead of my Logitech remote.
I haven't had to do 'hacks' to IR since the good old days of the jp1 forums and my Radio Shack 1994 remote.
"jnook
@ Jan 7th 2008 12:51PM
Noone is saying HD DVD players or disks will stop working. Personally I don't have any dislike for HD DVD, I just wanted one or the other to win so I can begin to invest in the technology. I think there are many folks on the sidelines like this.
If the majority of companies go with Bluray then HD DVD will die off, slowly but surely. I agree with the above posters, wish people would sotp encouraging the format ware to go on."
Jnook if all the Bluray supporters where like yourself I would have never said anything. I think competition is a good thing but i DO see the argument for the one standard people such as yourself. I just get alittle annoyed with the "Sony Rulez M$ sucks and so does HDDVD Im so glad its dead" people that it has made me favore HDDVD more. Just for spite. When it comes to whats important "the Movies" so far HDDVD has had more of the movies I like "Batman and Matrix to name a few" but Blu has had some great ones as well. I have both a 2 HDDVD players (Toshiba HDA1 and 360 add on) and a PS3 so Im comfortable either way. My main issue is with the people yelling that "HDDVD SUX" and acting like children who are in a console wars getting on my last one.
I agree HDDVD looks to become a Niche market even more so than HDmedia is already. But I dont think that market will die in the next decade or so. It may become more marginal and more underground but it will still have life. Indipendent movie makers (I have a friend that makes Torra movies) will favor HDDVD since it cost little to place there films on the format.
I still enjoy watching my HD-DVDs :)
And I still like watching my LaserDiscs... :)
But we know the Blues were way cooler. They had Caboose, Church, and Tucker. Plus Tex. True, the Reds had Sarge, Simons 2.0, Donut and Grif. Plus, sorta, Lopez and Sister. But the Blues were way more funny.
you win. perfect.
its a legitimate strategy!
You Blu-Ray ignorant DumbA$$es! HD DVD support is about stopping Sony and their constant support for formats that are DRM infested. I, and many other HD DVD supporters know what Sony is capable of doing if they get their way. I don't have a problem with Blu-Ray. It is a good format from the wrong company! Wake up and look at the history of Sony. They are not on the consumers side.
First of all, Sony was behind the CD and 3.5" floppy disk, and something tells me those weren't DRM infested.
Second of all, you seem to be making the common mistake of assuming Sony is the only company behind Blu-ray. Here's a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_supporting_Blu-ray
Third, while Sony certainly has pulled some crap, you're quite naive to think Toshiba and other HD-DVD backers are much better.
Fourth, HD-DVD and Blu-ray BOTH feature AACS DRM. It's true that Blu-ray also supports BD+ (which has been at least partially broken and is only on a few titles so far). So to call Blu-ray "DRM infested" is pretty biased, as both formats have DRM (Blu-ray just a bit moreso).
Plus, you do realise that Sony aren't the only company in charge of Blu-ray, right? Apple, among others, are apparently anti-DRM. So before calling us "DumbA$$es", maybe take note that karma levels are neutral.
i so agree with you, Sony is at the top of my list of companies i hate, simply cause they throw tons of money around to push there competition out of the light. they are doing the same thing with BR as they do with all other sub-divisions of there company (like SoE, they approprate mmos and destroy the true purpose of the game to fit THIER needs and not the needs of the players). so just like BR, they are forcing people to purchase BR players by using there "influence" with the movie industry.
my question is this if Sony really wants to win this format war quickly, why don;t they sell a cheap BR player to compete this HD DVD? and if you say "they won;t make a profit from the players" just remember, Sony only started making a profit from thier PS2 sales just before they released the PS3.
as for the amount of storage on HD DVD? wake up people its not an issue, that will change with time. can you say dual-layered HD DVD.
and for the record, Sony customer support is a joke. i know for a fact a close friend owns a BR player that CANNOT play the most resent BR discs because Sony doesn;t have an update for the BR player he owns.
the above was in response to you KcufSonyDRM
Without the support of Warner, or any additional major studio, Toshiba's HD-DVD is dead. Let's face it, what good is a player without content? Toshiba should step aside gracefully while they still have a positive image with their customers. Thank them for their support and invite them to join them with the winning format Blu-Ray. That's is. Cut the bs and attacks.
And to those that claim that once Blu-Ray takes over prices for media and players are going to go up without competition, they're being ignorant. HD has a bigger competition than HD-DVD, it has SD-DVD. And, as long as people don't upgrade to to HDTV, they won't go for HD content. Because you can't tell the difference on SD-TV sets. As a matter of fact, I've bought Blu-Ray movies cheaper than their SD-DVD versions. Also, some people are willing to settle with just upconverting their SD-DVDs.
Both Paramount and Universal are still HD DVD Exclusive.
Nate, so what? No offense, but Universal and Paramount haven't been bombarding us with titles at the level Disney, Sony/Columbia, and WB have. Sure they had good number with Bourne and Transformers. But that's it. Other than that, the one who's been laughing their way to the bank has been Warner because they made money from both formats.
If Toshiba continues the war under the impression that Universal and Paramount are going to keep the format alive, then they're idiots. The reality is that if WB had gone Red, then Blu would've been in a tight spot too. Granted not as bad as the one HD-DVD finds itself in right now. Nothing against HD-DVD and its followers. And although I'm a big Blu-Ray fan, and considered purple, I couldn't convince myself that it was ok to go ahead and spend over $200 on an additional player.
I said this because the first paragraph of your fanboy rant was based on facts that are not true, that is all.
Is there a link to the press release?
While Warner Bros. has chosen Blu, there is still the issue of price-point for the average consumer. Let's face it: most people cannot afford to purchase a Blu-Ray player, even for the lowest price of around $400 USD (40GB Playstation 3). HD-DVD is far cheaper, and is backed by higher quality movie makers. Ask yourself what you would rather buy. Sony-backed mainstream crap (i.e. Ghost Rider and Fantastic 4 - pfft), or quality films (i.e. The Departed, Blade Runner) that are going high-def in favor of Microsoft. I own an HD-DVD player, and I am totally content with the movie selection. Blu-Ray features weak films without as many special features, and at a higher price. I don't think it will take long for Warner and the other major Blu-backing movie names to realize no one is buying their players.
In all, I'm just sorely disappointed at the lack of integrity shown by these major movie outfits to back the more consumer-friendly brand of next generation media.
*sigh*
I agree. Warner claims it was helping the consumer out by doing this. It would have been okay if they had done this later one when costs were not such a big issue for people. It is terrible that they did it now, right after the holiday season of great HDM adoption. Warner's timing is almost indicative of wanting to cripple both HD DVD and Toshiba for all the other CE companies and studios, eliminating choice.
"While Warner Bros. has chosen Blu, there is still the issue of price-point for the average consumer. Let's face it: most people cannot afford to purchase a Blu-Ray player, even for the lowest price of around $400 USD (40GB Playstation 3). HD-DVD is far cheaper, and is backed by higher quality movie makers."
You're forgetting that the price introduces perceived value. Consumers look and see HD-DVD selling for $200, and Blu-Ray selling for $400. They know the two are competing formats. They know that one will die, just like VHS vs. Beta. They hear "HD-DVD is dying!" and they look at the prices, and they believe it - why else would there be such a price difference? One must be obsolete.
Ignore the facts here - facts don't drive sales, marketing drives sales.
"Ask yourself what you would rather buy. Sony-backed mainstream crap (i.e. Ghost Rider and Fantastic 4 - pfft), or quality films (i.e. The Departed, Blade Runner) that are going high-def in favor of Microsoft."
Your argument really fell apart here. You just isolated yourself from everyone who doesn't love sci-fi.
And don't forget, Blu-Ray prices will come down. More titles will come to Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD if they do win this format war). It's extremely likely that one of these will replace DVDs. Of course, it's also extremely likely that the market will be much different when this generation is at the same maturity level that DVD is at right now.