Blu-ray, in General

[patrick]

For some reason that Prestige cover strikes me as being made by someone who didn't watch the film - I don't remember that techy night-vision green being present at all.

[Magic Hate Ball]

For some reason that Prestige cover strikes me as being made by someone who didn't watch the film - I don't remember that techy night-vision green being present at all.

They really need to just use the freakin' poster.

[Darth Lavender]

Actually, these remind me a lot of the typical Criterion cover (especially something like that 'Searchers' cover) and I mean that in a fairly good way*
Usually a bit 'arty,' and often as far removed from the actual film-poster as could be, but still pretty interesting.

* I could, of course, provide a decent sized list of terrible Criterion covers, but also a decent sized of excellent Criterion covers and a ridiculously large list of Criterion covers which kind of work, but aren't exceptional.

[jedgeco]

Could somebody point me in the direction of a good number of screencaps comparing HD-DVD to Blu-ray to DVD, or any combination of the three?

There are some links scattered throughout this thread. Good screenshots are hard to come by due to the small number of HD/BD computer drives. Most "screencaps" that are circulating are just digital pictures of the disc playing on a TV.

But I will say this - the step up from DVD to BD is even more substantial that I first expected. I've A/B'd several titles of the past few months and become more and more impressed, and my display is only 1080i. I've been saying that the difference is the jump from LD to DVD, but it's better than that; I'm tempted to say that it's as much as from VHS to DVD (although the improvements are more nuanced).

[Ornette]

Could somebody point me in the direction of a good number of screencaps comparing HD-DVD to Blu-ray to DVD, or any combination of the three?

Here's one site offering HD DVD captures.

[Walter]

I went and picked up the $98 Toshiba HD-A2 Today at Wal-Mart. Went on sale at 8am, there was a line of maybe 50+ people, I originally wanted to purchase multiple players to resell, but they limited it to 1 per customer. They also had 50" Sanyo Plasma TVs for <$1000 which also sold out extremely fast. Your chances of getting one of these HD-A2s now from WM or BB are extremely slim as they're basically sold out nationwide.

I also did this. While one Wal-Mart had sold out in 10 minutes, another in National City, CA had some left in a shopping cart by the electronics dept. checkout (go figure).

I'd really like to thank you guys for bringing the sale to my attention as I have been meaning to get some form of replayable HD content on my screen for a while, since my computer's video card is just a hair away from running 720P video and a port away from DVI/HDMI connecting ( ).

I was going to get Children of Men, as I had heard good things, but $35? Yeah right. At least not for another week's tip money.

[mikebowes]

Does anyone know if the Toshiba HD-A2 or Toshiba HD-A20 are region free capable?

[redbill]

Does anyone know if the Toshiba HD-A2 or Toshiba HD-A20 are region free capable?

hd-dvd is not region coded for hd-dvd's, but it is for standard DVDs...

[Luke M]

Does anyone know if the Toshiba HD-A2 or Toshiba HD-A20 are region free capable?

hd-dvd is not region coded for hd-dvd's, but it is for standard DVDs...

Yup, I got an HD-DVD player, a PS3 for Blu-ray and an Oppo for region free DVDs. An all in one would be nice.

[patrick]

Culver City (CA) - Over 100,000 PS3 consoles were sold in the US last week, thanks largely to the introduction of a lower-priced $400 version.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer told the Associated Press that number was significantly greater than most weekly sales for the system, which is falling in competition against the Wii and Xbox 360.

The price of the current PS3, which has an 80 GB hard drive, was cut by $100 two weeks ago to bring it down to around $500. That caused weekly sales to be around 75,000 units. Then, last week Sony launched a 40 GB version of the console, causing another spike in sales.

"It's the breakthrough we've been anticipating. We've been holding our breath," said Stringer.

Previously, the PS3 was selling around 30,000 - 40,000 units per week. According to NPD Group, the entire month of September only saw 119,000 PS3 units sold. Last week alone almost defeats that number.

Sony has struggled to find a winning version of the PS3. It originally launched a 20 GB and 60 GB version, both of which have since been discontinued. It is now selling the 40 GB and 80 GB models, but both of these have scrapped the PS2 Emotion Engine, making backwards compatibility much more limited.

I think Sony might have just locked up the format war, or at least tipped the scales heavily in their favor. Even if not everybody uses it for Blu Ray playback, that's a lot of players in homes - especially since a lot of people are buying them primarily as Blu Ray players.

[Antoine Doinel]

Sony should keep the celebration short. It's only a matter of time before both Nintendo and Microsoft respond price wise as the Christmas buying season heats up.

Additionally, it's a bit misguided to use sales figures as definitive measures of success around this time of the year anyway when they will be obviously skewed by holiday purchases.

While the Digital Bits took a bite out of Toshiba for presumably selling their HD players below cost, it amazes me that no one is criticizing Sony for taking huge losses on the PS3 in their quest for BluRay success.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I think Sony might have just locked up the format war, or at least tipped the scales heavily in their favor. Even if not everybody uses it for Blu Ray playback, that's a lot of players in homes - especially since a lot of people are buying them primarily as Blu Ray players.

Was this the same week that 90,000 HD DVD players were sold in a couple of days, none of which can be used as gaming machines? If so I think HD DVD won that round, unless 90% of the PS3s were bought for playing BDs.

[davebert]

Sony should keep the celebration short. It's only a matter of time before both Nintendo and Microsoft respond price wise as the Christmas buying season heats up.

While the Digital Bits took a bite out of Toshiba for presumably selling their HD players below cost, it amazes me that no one is criticizing Sony for taking huge losses on the PS3 in their quest for BluRay success.

Nintendo ain't going anywhere with the Wii's price--they've whipped consumer demand into such a frenzy that the console's mere availability to purchase is taken as good news. The Xbox has also just released their Arcade pack at a reduced price two weeks ago, so I'll be interested to see how that price point affects this month's sales charts. In either case, all systems are currently in final positions for the coming holiday war.

And taking a loss on game consoles has been the order of the day since the last console generation. You sell the consoles at varying degrees of loss and then recoup the money on software sales. As technology prices drop, you can then pass the savings on to the consumer with price cuts. The new generation has redefined the game by taking increasingly larger losses. The one exception being the Wii, which has turned profit on hardware for Nintendo from day one. If they ever feel even remotely threatened, they can cut the price without hesitation.

This is why Nintendo prints money.

But back to the war! I've just ordered The Shining on BR thru the DVD Planet sale, and I'm excited about seeing how the Kubricks turned out for myself.

[patrick]

I hadn't read about the sales figures for HD-DVD players - I assume part of that was a spike due to the $99 sales, has anyone put forth an estimate of what holiday sales are going to look like?

And on the Wii, I'm always kind of shocked that Nintendo has been able to keep demand so strong, especially since it seems like everyone I know who owns one barely plays it.

[Antoine Doinel]

The Wii is lasting because it's penetrating every single market that the the PS3 and XBox 360 are missing - namely older gamers and specialty markets. Every week there is a news story or article about how nursing homes and health facilities are buying Wiis by the boatload. Also families looking for a system with more kid friendly options are buying them as well.

[exte]

Wrong, wrong place to ask, but is Super Mario Galaxy as good as everyone seems to be raving about? I could care less about the Wii and gaming systems in general, but Mario 64 holds a special place in my heart, and if this thing matches it or beats it, maybe it's worth getting... Anyone?

[Rsdio]

I haven't played it myself, but I also post on a few videogame forums and they're all going mental for it. It looks like it's currently the highest ranked game ever on Metacritic, I'd trust that much more were it not for the hugely disappointing Bioshock that the press completely raved about recently. I don't really have the time for a Wii in my life but this is sorely tempting me. Luckily you can't get a Wii here at the moment without paying massively over the odds, so that's putting the decision off for me.

[broadwayrock]

Wrong, wrong place to ask, but is Super Mario Galaxy as good as everyone seems to be raving about? I could care less about the Wii and gaming systems in general, but Mario 64 holds a special place in my heart, and if this thing matches it or beats it, maybe it's worth getting... Anyone?

I absolutely love it. Ive not been much of a fan of the 3D Marios (Mario 64 and Sunshine) but Galaxy has grinning like a cheshire cat when i play. There is so much variety in the levels and even traditional 2D ones.

Best of all unlike the recent New Super Mario Bros, this game has some very challenging platforming moments.

[davebert]

Everyone loves it (including myself), and we've all been chatting about it in this videogames thread.

Any word yet on those Die Hard Blu-rays? I wouldn't touch the new movie with some kind of poking device, but I am seriously considering upgrading to a hi-def version of at least the original.

[denti alligator]

Is the new one that bad? I haven't seen 3 either, but the first two are great fun (the first one even better than great fun). I'm tempted by the Blu-ray set,but it's so damn expensive. Even with the Deepdiscount/DVD Planet 20% off.

[davebert]

It's the idea of a PG-13 Die Hard tackling the Internet that has me concerned.

And speaking of the Die Hard box's price, players are only half the battle here. Seeing titles at $29.99 even at big box stores and online discount retailers is still too high to justify impulse replacements of stuff I already own (and makes me think much harder about new-from-theaters titles as well). I understand that the SRP has to stay high while a hi-def disc is expected to only sell thousands as opposed to millions, but I don't see the market exploding until you have the same $15-19.99 standard for almost all titles.

[patrick]

Live Free or Die Hard is surprisingly good, I think it's a lot better than Die Hard With A Vengeance. The Live Free or Die Hard DVD has an unrated version as well.

[cdnchris]

Well, it looks like I'm going HD-DVD, though I'm not too concerned if it loses. I needed a new DVD player and was looking at up-converting players to hold me over until the format war ended (if ever) but then found that deal at Amazon for the A3. My wife bought it for me for Christmas (so I have to wait unfortunately.) But I was impressed by the deal. Apparently it was $199 and you get the two discs in the box (Bourne and 300--at least I technically get to see 300 for nothing now) and then 3 more DVDs from Amazon and then 5 through that mail-in offer. When we checked out, though, it actually came to $180 (have no idea why it was $19 less.) So I'm sort of excited (and will pick up the Kubricks and Blade Runner.) I'll of course feel the slight sting when/if HD DVD loses, but I'm still quite happy. I take into account what those HD-DVDs cost, at worst, I basically got a free up-converting DVD player.

[damon.borg]

Just an interesting observation I made. This year Amazon.com is having a great Black Friday Holiday Sale where customers can vote for the hottest item in several different categories. The winning item will get a significant price cut. In the Go High-Def round, HD-DVD came out on top.

Toshiba HD-35A 1080p ----> 41% of votes
TiVo HD Digital Video Recorder ----> 36% of votes
Samsung BD-P1400 1080p -----> 23% of votes.

Go HD-DVD! HD-35A price cut to $149!!!!!!!!!!! Man I hope I get randomly picked to purchase.

[Arn777]

I'm also thinking of going HD-DVD. I'm thinking of getting the level entry Toshiba HD-EP30, which retails at £200. Is that a good idea?