@Mojo_Yungen A lot of companies backed it for a few reasons. They basically weighed the cons like no region coding with the positives:
A. Easy to market as hd-dvd just sounded like successor of dvd.
B. Low price points on hardware. Cheaper initial prices on hardware units, continued lower prices on hardware. I mean, remember that $99.00 black friday hd-dvd sale LAST YEAR? A year later and I have never seen a blu-ray player on sale for $99.99. I wish I had.
C. Cheaper prices on hardware means a potential for a larger install base. A larger install base has potential for more unit sales on discs. More disc sales equates to more profit. Companies like profit.
D. Finished spec on all players so movies released 5 years into hd-dvd's lifespan(if it wasn't dead) would work on players bought the first day. Where as blu-ray hardware has become outdated by newer specs such that there's a possibility 5 years from now that new blu-ray disc might not play on your day-1 player. You could need to buy another blu-ray disc.
E. There are other reasons too which people like Truth Teller could list off for you.
These are just a few of the potential advantages hd-dvd might have had over blu-ray and there were its cons to. Don't get my wrong, hd-dvd wasn't perfect. Like the probability/chance, some blu-ray exclusive studios were likely to never switch camp sides such as Sony Pictures.
Overall though when companies weighed the pros and cons, there were sufficent pros and chance for profit that companies decided to invest their sources in the hd-dvd format. So region coding must not have been that much of a priority to them.
a) HD DVD is an amazingly simple name for people to get. Everyone knows what a DVD is, so an "HD" DVD must be a DVD in HD. What the hell is a Blu Ray disc? I'm sure the BDA is constantly struggling to explain without accidentally calling it an HD DVD.
b) Toshiba massively subsidized their players. They weren't cheaper to make. If you think about it both formats have virtually identically requirements to output 1080p24/25/30, decode AVC & VC-1, read from blue-violet laser diodes, show interactive content. HD DVD players only sold so cheap from sheer desperation by Toshiba. You'll see $99 BD players when somebody can make a profit selling them at that price. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in a couple of years. For now content yourself with the $200 barrier which will be broken by at least one player this Christmas.
c) Potentially, but as Toshiba found out, it didn't work out that way. Blu Ray standalones consistently outsold HD DVD even at marked down prices. Maybe they should have been working on the early adopters instead of appealing to the mass market which wasn't ready for the format yet.
d) All blu ray discs from now until the format dies will play on a 1.0 player. I'm not ruling out some quality control goof which means issues occur but you'd be fully in your rights to demand a replacement disk. As for HD DVD being "finalized", no it wasn't. The HD DVD specification was tagged version 1.0. The implication being there could have been more. Issues could have also arisen if the HD DVD spec was ambiguous in places and had to be revised to 1.1 to address those issues. This happens all the time with specs (e.g. HTML, bluetooth, USB etc.)
e) Truth Teller is an idiot with a track record of being consistently wrong about everything. If you want to argue rationally you would do well to steer clear of everything he says.
I think at the end of the day, both formats are so much of a muchness, that it wouldn't have mattered greatly which had won. Both formats had more in common than things that separated them. But in the end it was Blu Ray and that's the world we now live in.
The Cobra Tag may help you win that losing battle, acting as a Bluetooth device that attaches to your key ring and connects to your phone, it gives you the opportunity to find the missing item if it's less than 30 feet away.
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@Mojo_Yungen
A lot of companies backed it for a few reasons. They basically weighed the cons like no region coding with the positives:
A. Easy to market as hd-dvd just sounded like successor of dvd.
B. Low price points on hardware. Cheaper initial prices on hardware units, continued lower prices on hardware. I mean, remember that $99.00 black friday hd-dvd sale LAST YEAR? A year later and I have never seen a blu-ray player on sale for $99.99. I wish I had.
C. Cheaper prices on hardware means a potential for a larger install base. A larger install base has potential for more unit sales on discs. More disc sales equates to more profit. Companies like profit.
D. Finished spec on all players so movies released 5 years into hd-dvd's lifespan(if it wasn't dead) would work on players bought the first day. Where as blu-ray hardware has become outdated by newer specs such that there's a possibility 5 years from now that new blu-ray disc might not play on your day-1 player. You could need to buy another blu-ray disc.
E. There are other reasons too which people like Truth Teller could list off for you.
These are just a few of the potential advantages hd-dvd might have had over blu-ray and there were its cons to. Don't get my wrong, hd-dvd wasn't perfect. Like the probability/chance, some blu-ray exclusive studios were likely to never switch camp sides such as Sony Pictures.
Overall though when companies weighed the pros and cons, there were sufficent pros and chance for profit that companies decided to invest their sources in the hd-dvd format. So region coding must not have been that much of a priority to them.
@Engadget
Plz fix reply system. Thanks.
To your points:
a) HD DVD is an amazingly simple name for people to get. Everyone knows what a DVD is, so an "HD" DVD must be a DVD in HD. What the hell is a Blu Ray disc? I'm sure the BDA is constantly struggling to explain without accidentally calling it an HD DVD.
b) Toshiba massively subsidized their players. They weren't cheaper to make. If you think about it both formats have virtually identically requirements to output 1080p24/25/30, decode AVC & VC-1, read from blue-violet laser diodes, show interactive content. HD DVD players only sold so cheap from sheer desperation by Toshiba. You'll see $99 BD players when somebody can make a profit selling them at that price. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in a couple of years. For now content yourself with the $200 barrier which will be broken by at least one player this Christmas.
c) Potentially, but as Toshiba found out, it didn't work out that way. Blu Ray standalones consistently outsold HD DVD even at marked down prices. Maybe they should have been working on the early adopters instead of appealing to the mass market which wasn't ready for the format yet.
d) All blu ray discs from now until the format dies will play on a 1.0 player. I'm not ruling out some quality control goof which means issues occur but you'd be fully in your rights to demand a replacement disk. As for HD DVD being "finalized", no it wasn't. The HD DVD specification was tagged version 1.0. The implication being there could have been more. Issues could have also arisen if the HD DVD spec was ambiguous in places and had to be revised to 1.1 to address those issues. This happens all the time with specs (e.g. HTML, bluetooth, USB etc.)
e) Truth Teller is an idiot with a track record of being consistently wrong about everything. If you want to argue rationally you would do well to steer clear of everything he says.
I think at the end of the day, both formats are so much of a muchness, that it wouldn't have mattered greatly which had won. Both formats had more in common than things that separated them. But in the end it was Blu Ray and that's the world we now live in.