Blu-ray, in General

[cdnchris]

The A3 is an excellent machine and I don't think anybody should feel too bad about getting it. Plus we should be happy for the eventual (or at least I HOPE eventual)

FIRE... SALE


on all HD-DVD software.

[Cinephrenic]

So companies like Universal and Paramount will have to sign-on to releasing Blu-ray now, or will they continue a dead market for HD-DVD?

[Antoine Doinel]

So companies like Universal and Paramount will have to sign-on to releasing Blu-ray now, or will they continue a dead market for HD-DVD?

Both There Will Be Blood and Sweeney Todd will be released in HD-DVD in April. So either they are fulfilling their contractual obligations or flogging a dead horse (or both).

[MichaelB]

So companies like Universal and Paramount will have to sign-on to releasing Blu-ray now, or will they continue a dead market for HD-DVD?

I would imagine that their contracts contain escape clauses should HD-DVD bite the dust as a viable format - I can't believe they wouldn't have negotiated something like this given that they had the upper hand over Toshiba anyway as content providers.

And Universal has just confirmed its Blu-Ray backing.

[Donald Brown]

Universal talks about going Blu:

At least one of the two studios exclusive to HD DVD is already gearing up to join the other team.

"While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray," said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

"The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for hi-def’s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate."

[davebert]

Indeed, the only way I could conceive getting a HD-DVD player in these sales would be one of those top-model upscalers, and then retiring my mid-level Oppo region-free player.

It's a shame that Paramount is dragging their heels on this, since Sweeney and ...Blood are two mainstream releases that I looked forward to having in hi-def (but on Blu). I can wait for Paramount to re-issue these. Having seen them so recently in theaters, I used to frequently get bitten on new releases anyway, as a variety of still-sealed DVDs on my shelf might attest.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I also find it interesting, if coincidental as we don't know each other that the sole three Sydney posters in this forum - Darth, rufustfirefly and myself all bought Tosh players and favored the HD DVD format last year. I think all three of us were (and still are) most bugged by DRM and Region coding issues. But the other two can speak for themselves.

I bought into HD DVD the year before last, and chose that format mainly because of the absence of region coding, and partially because there were more titles I was interested in on the HD side. Last year I saw the writing on the wall and bought a PS3 to play local BDs, and though I've bought half a dozen titles I've yet to watch one - I've watched a few MPEG1 and MP4 files with it though.

[Darth Lavender]

While there's a number of smaller reasons I chose HDDVD, by far the biggest is just that it was the only computer drive available at the time.

I figured the best piece of future-proofing was to buy a decent computer, and get the X-Box add-on. Could easily add Bluray in a year or two and end up with a dual-format player.
Currently, in Australia, the only Bluray drive available is the $999 LG, which can't even play the movie discs (can't handle all that DRM) It's solely sold as a burner/backup solution.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Currently, in Australia, the only Bluray drive available is the $999 LG, which can't even play the movie discs (can't handle all that DRM) It's solely sold as a burner/backup solution.

Darth, there's a Pioneer drive that plays BD movies available for under $300.

[Darth Lavender]

Nice.

I won't have the money for big purchases for a while (just made a $200 order from Amazon UK, and set aside some cash for HDDVD firesales.) But I might get that later this year.

[s.j. bagley]

apologies for any redundancy my question might cause...
but i'm still in the market for an all region upconverting player(and was planning on going with the oppo), after seeing it mentioned above that the toshiba a3 is hackable to be such a beast... just how would one go about doing that?
(give me vacuum tubes and i can build anything... but this new fangled software technology is all greek to me.)

[Darth Lavender]

I'm not too knowledgeable about hacking standalone players (one of the many reasons I prefer HTPC) But, in the case of the High Definition players, I assume there's some kind of hacked firmware update you can download (in which case, it would be just as easy as installing the regular firm-ware updates)

You might try a website called Doom9, very knowledgable about hacking, ripping, etc.

On a *totally* unrelated note, I just got started finally watching "In The Mood for Love"

[Donald Brown]

Oppo is developing a Blu-ray player.

Paramount is in:

All six major Hollywood studios are now in the Blu-ray Disc camp, a day after Toshiba has pulled the plug on HD DVD and Blu-ray became effectively the only next-gen game in town.

Paramount Home Entertainment quietly came onboard via a statement sent exclusively to The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday: "We are pleased that the industry is moving to a single high-definition format, as we believe it is in the best interest of the consumer," the statement reads. "As we look to (begin) releasing our titles on Blu-ray, we will monitor consumer adoption and determine our release plans accordingly."

No further details were given.

[davebert]

Good news for Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood... Now I can breathe easier. They use the same codecs these days for both formats, right? So it shouldn't be a long wait to author the HD-DVD releases onto Blu, it's more a matter of pressing the discs?

[Donald Brown]

Yes, the same codecs are used. It should be a simple matter to prepare a BD edition.

[Antoine Doinel]

From IMDB:

Studios To Continue Feeding Dead Format

Both Warner Bros. and Universal Home Video said Wednesday that for the immediate future, they will continue to release product in the HD DVD format, despite Toshiba's earlier announcement that it will discontinue manufacturing HD DVD players. Warner reiterated that it will continue to release titles in both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats through the end of May. Universal said that it plans to release Fletch in the HD DVD version on March 11. It has not yet indicated when it will begin releasing new and catalog titles in Blu-ray. Paramount indicated that it will continue to turn out HD DVD titles through March but did not indicate when it will phase in Blu-ray releases. When it reportedly received $150 million from the HD DVD camp last year to adopt that format exclusively, Paramount shelved its remaining Blu-ray stock. It was not immediately clear whether those disks were destroyed or whether they can now be dusted off and distributed.

[Hai2u]

After the Toshiba SD region free hacks were let out of the bag last year by an AUstralian agent for all the OZ and Euro model players it's also been discovered that several US machines - notably the XA1, the A2 and (I think ) the A3 are clones of the Euro XE1, E1 and E10 and are also PAL capable and moddable. There are several threads up about the hows and how tos on AVS forum.

Do you have a link to where they talk about how to make the players region free, on the avs forum?

[Cinesimilitude]

my local superstore had a "save double the GST!" sale on. I've gone blu.

[dx23]

For those of you interested in picking up a player, Costco has the HD-D3 for $80. It includes the Bourne Identity and 300 and a 6ft HDMI cable.

[cdnchris]

Quick question about the Blu-Ray profiles, since I can't really find a decent answer:

To my understanding 1.1 is basically enhanced features, like PIP (which I thought was sort of cool on HD DVD, even if I never really used them) and 2.0's big one is the internet connectivity (which I never used on HD DVD.) Is there anything else really big about 2.0? I really don't want to buy a gaming system to watch movies and am debating on whether I wait for the 2.0 players to come out, hopefully making the 1.1 players cheaper then picking up one of those.

[Donald Brown]

Is there anything else really big about 2.0?

No. If you don't care about gimmicky web-based features, 1.1 is all you need. If you don't care about gimmicky PiP features, 1.0 is all you need.

[Darth Lavender]

The thing about the profiles is that both HDDVD and Bluray require firm-ware updates to support newer discs (with newer DRM)

My understanding is that currently, users with 1.0 and 1.1 are expected to download the update through a computer and burn it CD every time.

There's also the question of support. There's been an issue with Samsung stopping support of it's earlier players (resulting in a class action lawsuit) and I think that had something to do with the profiles.

Personally, I strongly, strongly recommend getting a HTPC, which shouldn't have any profile issues (and is somewhat easier to mod re: region coding, etc.)

[Morbii]

I may be completely wrong about this, but I don't think there's a BD player out there that can update firmware, aside from the PS3. Also, I'm pretty sure you don't actually have to update your firmware at all if you're using HD-DVD (probably BD also), but I imagine if your firmware was old enough your experience may be lacking in some areas.

Currently, the PS3 is one of the best players; and it's the only one that can decode Uncompressed PCM.

The newer Panasonics might be worth looking at, though (BD30, for example)

[cdnchris]

No. If you don't care about gimmicky web-based features, 1.1 is all you need. If you don't care about gimmicky PiP features, 1.0 is all you need.

Thanks. I never bothered networking my A3 and the internet features looked to be a waste so I'm not concerned with that (and I just burned firmware updates to a CD,) but while the PiP stuff was gimmicky I did play around with those on a few discs so to have the option would be nice. 1.1 sounds good.

[Morbii]

cdnchris, if you're not interested in the PS3, you might want to take a look at the Panasonic BD30. I believe it was the first Profile 1.1 player and it's probably one of the few that might be worth buying at this point.

Also, for those not familiar with HD players, they can take a very long time to start up and load discs because of the new tech. The later gen model you get probably the faster it will be. Finally, I've heard "horror" stories about discs like Pirates of the Carribean taking rediculous amounts of time to load on early profile players (because it ignores the java or something).