HD DVD's CES 2008 booth tour

HD DVD and Blu-ray had their booths right next to each other and as you might expect the amount of traffic was night and day. As you can see in the pictures, the HD DVD booth was pretty desolate, but the seating at the stage was full of people watching the demonstration. We also tried to say hello to our friends in press relations, but like many people this late in the show, they already left.

Gallery: HD DVD booth tour

[Jonathan Bergeron @ Jan 10th 2008 3:37PM]

Well people do feel uncomfortable visiting the deceased.

[hemmy @ Jan 10th 2008 3:50PM]

I LOL'd.

[cronick @ Jan 10th 2008 4:59PM]

What if you threw a party and nobody but the 4 guys you hired to cater the bash showed up?

Happened to me once. I woke up 3 days later on a train in Zurich

[alex @ Jan 10th 2008 5:38PM]

Red is Dead.

[Juice @ Jan 10th 2008 3:37PM]

Is it official yet?

BlueRay crowned winner?

[Eddie @ Jan 10th 2008 3:49PM]

Blu Ray is what we thought it was, but we let it off the hook.

If you want to crown their ass, then crown 'em.

[Eddie @ Jan 10th 2008 3:50PM]

They are who we thought they were, but we let them off the hook.

[Larry @ Jan 10th 2008 3:58PM]

@Eddie
LOL! Classic Denny Green. Now he's out of Arizona. It's pretty sad hearing that some of the benefits of this great format will disappear. But hey, Blu-haters still have HD-VMD!

[Larry @ Jan 10th 2008 3:58PM]

@Eddie
LOL! Classic Denny Green. Now he's out of Arizona. It's pretty sad hearing that some of the benefits of this great format will disappear. But hey, Blu-haters still have HD-VMD!

[Munkyboy @ Jan 10th 2008 10:04PM]

Who has the power to make it 'official'?

[Ten Dolla Bill @ Jan 10th 2008 3:38PM]

That picture is actually pretty funny

[Juice @ Jan 10th 2008 3:39PM]

I think if they would have found a way to have had it standard in XBOX 360 it might have had a fighting chance.

[Mike @ Jan 10th 2008 4:18PM]

I agree. The price on the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 is great, but I can't bring myself to buy it knowing that BluRay could become the standard. If the HD-DVD drive was bundled with my 360, there is no question what I'd be using now.

[computer.dude.28 @ Jan 10th 2008 5:09PM]

If HD DVD actually goes under, and Blu Ray becomes the standard.. will 360s ever see a Blu Ray drive, or are we screwed?

[IndiaTech @ Jan 10th 2008 10:35PM]

I would say screwed... Pretty much.

[NovaLand @ Jan 11th 2008 1:11AM]

MS will add $300 and a blu-ray-player built-in in their console, remove the non-blu-ray-edition and then tell everyone that the extra charge is what happens if you don't listen to daddy.

[Kiwi616 @ Jan 10th 2008 3:39PM]

I would still visit. I love to look at nostalgic media. Might as well put eight tracks and tape cassettes in the same booth.

The future is Blu skys!

[bob sakamano @ Jan 10th 2008 3:40PM]

it looks like hell

but the population is the complete opposite

[Evan @ Jan 10th 2008 3:41PM]

|RIP|

[Juice @ Jan 10th 2008 3:42PM]

They needed V. Belmont up in there.

[Kiwi616 @ Jan 10th 2008 3:45PM]

Someone should distract the reps while another crazed BD Fan should get a Sharpie and draw X's through Warner, HBO, and New line in the sign above.

[ark_v2 @ Jan 10th 2008 3:51PM]

That photo is kinda sad.

[Fernando @ Jan 10th 2008 5:56PM]

I know, no need to make fun of them :(

[ark_v2 @ Jan 10th 2008 6:35PM]

I'm not making fun. It does look sad.

[ark_v2 @ Jan 10th 2008 6:36PM]

I'm not making fun. It does look sad.

[ark_v2 @ Jan 10th 2008 6:36PM]

I'm not making fun. It does look sad.

[Quentin @ Jan 10th 2008 3:52PM]

Did any of you guys catch pictures of the tumbleweeds at the booth?

[Quentin @ Jan 10th 2008 3:52PM]

Did any of you guys catch pictures of the tumbleweeds at the booth?

[Bender Bending Rodriguez @ Jan 10th 2008 3:52PM]

Want to know what it's like to be dead? Then click the link below...
• http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadgethd.com/media/2008/01/hddvd0032008.jpg

[Chebwa @ Jan 10th 2008 3:52PM]

"What if HD-DVD threw a party and nobody came?"

[Kalen @ Jan 10th 2008 3:55PM]

I'd go, but only because I'm the guy who would go to the loser kids Birthday just so he wouldn't feel bad

[Jonathan @ Jan 10th 2008 10:56PM]

There was even going to be a party for you. A big party that all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend the companion cube. Of course, he couldn't come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn't come either because you don't have any other friends because of how unlikable you are. It says so here in your personnel file: Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned. SHALL. NOT. BE. MOURNED. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you're adopted, so that's funny too.

[Eddie @ Jan 10th 2008 3:54PM]

It really is lonely at the top.

[wud_e @ Jan 10th 2008 3:55PM]

It's pretty sad if you ask me. I love Toshiba as a Brand. I can't stand Sony products because I've had pretty bad experiences with them. Not to say Sony Sucks. I think it's sad that Warner made the call the right before CES. There was speculation last year. Why not announce your jump back then? I don't own HD DVD or BLU-Ray so this is just the perspective of an outside looker.

[hothotdisco @ Jan 10th 2008 4:01PM]

I LOLed so hard when i saw that picture with the empty booth.

[OneAboveAll @ Jan 10th 2008 4:09PM]

Look at the guy in main picture with his hand up, looks like hes gesturing "turn out the lights the party's over." I'll give you some ABC gum if any of you older guys know where that quote is from.

[Kiwi616 @ Jan 10th 2008 5:03PM]

Naaah i think he is trying the imaginary noose around the guy in the HD-DVD shirt.

[mrarmageddon @ Jan 10th 2008 8:50PM]

I was really pulling for HD-DVD to win, but I guess Warner had to shoot its wad in trying to please customers and investors, and now HD-DVD has a bit of a mess on its hands.

And I totally agree with Juice that an integrated drive in an XBOX360 would've allowed for much better penetration into the market.

[Kaito @ Jan 10th 2008 4:18PM]

I thought people would atleast stop by to check out what movies that blu ray doesn't have, and won't get. That in fact could have been a last ditch effort by Tosh. But yeah WB is a bunch of punks. HD DVD was probably going to fail at some point, so they could have atleast finished their contract.

[Rob @ Jan 10th 2008 5:08PM]

WB is finishing their contract. Their announcement was that they'd go Blu-Ray exclusive as soon as their contract expires in May. The ones that behave like complete thugs was Paramount. As soon as they received the check from Toshiba, they packed their bags, recalled all Blu-ray titles, canceled all future orders, and gave their Blu-ray customers the middle finger. Now, that's crappy. When they come back to Blu-Ray with their tail between their legs, I hope customers boycott all their titles for a month. So, they'd learn to treat their customers with a little more respect. At least WB told the world that they'd release their scheduled titles until May.

[reductant @ Jan 10th 2008 4:23PM]

Cheaper players, DVD/HD DVD Combo discs, ability to copy...wow, it's so great Blu-Ray won right? I look forward to at least getting bargain-bin deals on HD DVD movies and I'll continue to buy myself Blu-Rays.

[Rik @ Jan 10th 2008 4:28PM]

Come on guys, not even the winner of this "war" is going come near the sales numbers of DVD and VHS. The era of the discs has simply passed.

[Geir E @ Jan 10th 2008 5:57PM]

What is it with everybody beliving the era of discs is over? DVD quality is possible to download without too much hassle. but HD quality? I can't see joe regularguy donload 20-40gb of data for one movie on current broadband connections in us. even on 10mbit it would be tiresome. And who on earth is going to store their 20-40gb movies for backup?

[Rik @ Jan 11th 2008 6:00AM]

But why would you regular guy want to buy such equipment? Seriously what are the drivers behind it? Actually most people DO store large amounts of data on a relatively cheap exernal HD, so don't overestimate the backup use of BR/HD-DVD

DVD broke through, but remember that the quality difference with VHS was huge (and on many existing TV sets as well), not only in the way that it offered better picture quality but also because it allowed random acces and the degradation of your media after playing it a lot was much less. And let's not speak about the fact that those old VHS tapes were quite large.

So now BR/HD-DVD. First of all you'll have to go and buy a new TV set for it, and then what you get is better picture quality. Those are a lot less advantages than DVD had over VHS... so why would you average (who still represents the gross of the market) buy equipment like this en masse?

[mike @ Jan 12th 2008 4:33AM]

the degredation was not alot less, it was 0. Dvds are digital.. no degredation. Watch the movie 100000000 times and it will look the same (providing the disc still physically reads after that many viewings lol)

[mmh @ Jan 10th 2008 4:29PM]

LOL the WB logo's still there.

http://www.engadgethd.com/photos/hd-dvd-booth-tour/573495/

[DrXym @ Jan 10th 2008 4:32PM]

Okay, so I want Blu Ray to win, but I hate pictures like this. It's very easy to capture a picture that makes it look like there is no interest in a format. We got these stupid pictures for PS3 launches too, often snapped by people either before or after the event had run. I expect that HD DVD got plenty of visitors, even if many were gawpers visiting to see the trainwreck that Warner made of their show.

[Chris Herzog @ Jan 10th 2008 5:02PM]

I'd like to know when this picture was taken, because every other picture I have seen from CES you can see bunches of people in isles. I don't see any in these sets of pictures.. (and for ALL the people that have flocked to BD and they are next to each other.. you would expect some)

Yes.. It's a format war, but seriously. Can we try any harder skew this view?

[Nogami @ Jan 10th 2008 6:49PM]

It was probably taken today (Thurs), because I took much the same photo around 11am - the booth was deserted except for a couple of reps who were looking kind of lonely. I felt kinda bad for them...

[ark_v2 @ Jan 10th 2008 8:58PM]

Is because it was taken today. The ps3 ones they took weren't from the day; it's engadget. Do you think they'd laught on HD DVD that bad?