It ain't over til it's over but it sure does feel like it's over
Lot of emotions running high at this time among home theater enthusiasts with the Warner Bros announcement of only supporting Blu Ray after May 2008. Barring some miracle, it does look like HD DVD won't win the format war now. I'll admit that I was a bit sad over the weekend. While I own both HD DVD and Blu Ray, I have always slightly favored HD DVD more. I own a fair number of "reference quality" titles from both formats and to my eyes, HD DVD picture quality is a bit sharper and has a bit more 3D-like depth. Also, it's a fact that HD DVD is currently a more mature product (ie Blu Ray profile nonsense) . Pricing was never a point of contention for me as I put more priority on quality than getting the absolute cheapest player. Alas, I'm not here to re-ignite a format war discussion. No point in doing that. The above are just my personal opinions.
I have no plans to to sell my Toshiba XA2 or my HD DVDs. No, this isn't out of stubbornness or pride. This weekend I was watching a few HD DVDs and I was reminded again of why I bought into HD DVD in the first place. Jaw-dropping amazing picture and sound. Sure, the XA2 is a bit slower and a bit clunkier than the PS3 but for me the XA2 picture quality, sound quality, build quality, and upgradeability make up for any shortcoming. Also the XA2 is arguably one of the best SD DVD players made due to it's Reon video processing. Watching high quality SD DVDs like the original Star Wars trilogy and Pixar movies almost feels like you're watching HD. Damn, all the sudden I feel like I just wrote an obituary.
I was talking to a few friends very recently who had just purchased an HD DVD player or were about to re: what to do at this point. Again my personal opinions:
1) If you already have a sizeable investment in HD DVD and you know that you will not be bothered by the likely scenario that HD DVD is on it's way to the history books I would ask why not keep what you have and enjoy it for the years to come? It's not like HD DVDs are going to stop working after May 2008. There are 750,000+ HD DVD owners out there so at the worse case your HD DVD players stops working after the warranty period, the chances are good that there will be a player that can be purchased used. Seriously, you can even buy a laser disc player today! Time will tell but Toshiba might even release a dual format player so that early HD DVD adopters are taken care of.
2) If you had just bought a unit or are thinking of getting one - Unless you are an avid movie collector and have that huge itch to watch an exclusive HD DVD release right now, it may be prudent to return the recent purchase and/or wait it out . If/when in fact HD DVD is confirmed to be EOL'd, that might be the best time to swoop in and pick up an HD DVD player and quality HD DVD releases at rock bottom pricing.
Who knows... while I think it's unlikey due to the economics of this format war, maybe Universal and Paramount will stick to their guns and force dual format like DVD-R+/R-. But again, I think the chances of that are very low at this point. But even if all studios shift to Blu, as I said in June of last year I think it's more likely that there will be some offering of lower priced dual format players in 2009, if not in 2008. I'm no expert analyst but I think there is a good market for dual format players as there are 750,000+ HD DVD owners out there with a lot of HD DVDs.
I have no plans to to sell my Toshiba XA2 or my HD DVDs. No, this isn't out of stubbornness or pride. This weekend I was watching a few HD DVDs and I was reminded again of why I bought into HD DVD in the first place. Jaw-dropping amazing picture and sound. Sure, the XA2 is a bit slower and a bit clunkier than the PS3 but for me the XA2 picture quality, sound quality, build quality, and upgradeability make up for any shortcoming. Also the XA2 is arguably one of the best SD DVD players made due to it's Reon video processing. Watching high quality SD DVDs like the original Star Wars trilogy and Pixar movies almost feels like you're watching HD. Damn, all the sudden I feel like I just wrote an obituary.
I was talking to a few friends very recently who had just purchased an HD DVD player or were about to re: what to do at this point. Again my personal opinions:
1) If you already have a sizeable investment in HD DVD and you know that you will not be bothered by the likely scenario that HD DVD is on it's way to the history books I would ask why not keep what you have and enjoy it for the years to come? It's not like HD DVDs are going to stop working after May 2008. There are 750,000+ HD DVD owners out there so at the worse case your HD DVD players stops working after the warranty period, the chances are good that there will be a player that can be purchased used. Seriously, you can even buy a laser disc player today! Time will tell but Toshiba might even release a dual format player so that early HD DVD adopters are taken care of.
2) If you had just bought a unit or are thinking of getting one - Unless you are an avid movie collector and have that huge itch to watch an exclusive HD DVD release right now, it may be prudent to return the recent purchase and/or wait it out . If/when in fact HD DVD is confirmed to be EOL'd, that might be the best time to swoop in and pick up an HD DVD player and quality HD DVD releases at rock bottom pricing.
Who knows... while I think it's unlikey due to the economics of this format war, maybe Universal and Paramount will stick to their guns and force dual format like DVD-R+/R-. But again, I think the chances of that are very low at this point. But even if all studios shift to Blu, as I said in June of last year I think it's more likely that there will be some offering of lower priced dual format players in 2009, if not in 2008. I'm no expert analyst but I think there is a good market for dual format players as there are 750,000+ HD DVD owners out there with a lot of HD DVDs.
posted by baconandeggs at 11:27 AM
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