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Blu-ray players to be obsolete by 2007

Buyer beware!

That article is just scaremongering from the HD-DVD camp, the issue at hand just means that some older Blu-Ray players won't be able to do the picture-in-picture stuff that's mentioned above in this thread. You'll still be able to play old and new movies with no problem.

Person wrote:Blu-ray players to be obsolete by 2007

Buyer beware!

You ARE AWARE that the article is from June 22 and by now has been covered on most major forums and PROVEN to be nothing but a piece of FUD...RIGHT??

First of all, Profile 1.1 has absolutely nothing to do with Java, BD-Java, or any other Java application. Second, Profile 1.1 is not even remotely related to feature-performance.

Either way to sum it all up for those who read this thread: current crop of BR players will not be obsolete. Plain and simple!!

Pro-B

Has anyone seen the French HD-DVD releases of either The Elephant Man or Arizona Dream?

denti alligator wrote:Has anyone seen the French HD-DVD releases of either The Elephant Man or Arizona Dream?

The Elephant Man

Review 1, Review 2, Review 3, Review 4

Arizona Dream

Could only find one

A 4.0 DTS track? I had no idea that DTS did less than 5.1 mixes. Terrific film, though. Very strange that there isn't a R1. The UK R2 is very good, though. $13 from Sendit.

Xbox 360 Hi-Def bundle is a pretty sweet way of getting into the format war...

...on the losing side.

I notice Studio Canal has started releasing some HD-DVDs. Any chance that Studio Canal and Criterion will team up?

From what I've read, Studio Canal's HDDVDs have been pretty consistantly disappointing. Pity, because they have been releasing some fine titles (who would have expected 'Ran' as one of first HD-DVDs?)
The criticism seems to be excess edge-enhancement, and also a variety of wierd little glitches (the problems on Mulholland Drive were discussed earlier.)

...on the losing side

Any player that won't allow you to download hacks, cracks, etc. is ultimately going to be the losing side. (This is something that trues of both formats, although Bluray seems to have made the most blunders already. (It really says some bad things about Sony when freaking MICROSOFT seems like the lesser of two evils.))

On a related note, I was thinking earlier it's probably time to set up a few HD threads (there's a number of interesting topics to be discussed, and this thread is getting awfully big.)

Assuming there's no objection, I'm going to set up a "High Definition" thread. The idea being, this "HD vs Bluray" thread can be exclusively for debating the relative merits of the formats, pointing out format-specific problems, advantages and PR blunders, etc. etc. and the new "High Definition" thread can be exclusively for the more general HD discussions (ie. the technological advantages and limitations of High Definition, new High Definition (HD or Bluray) titles in the works, etc. etc. with some kind of rule against format-war bickering (which certainly has it's place, and that place is here in the HD vs Bluray thread)

TedW wrote:Latest wrinkle

Paramount goes HD DVD only? This is disappointing for BD owners (especially those like me who were really looking forward to the Zodiac special edition next year), and really incomprehensible. Still, a blow to BD any way you look at it.

I can only figure that Paramount is in it for the money (and wildly speculate that Universal is about to go format-neutral if the HD DVD promotional group is willing to throw around $150M).

Yeah, it looked like this thing was just about sewn up... until today. If it was just a matter of buying studios off, why didn't the BDA do that a long time ago?

Oh, fuck OFF.

Of course, Paramount could always license their entire pre-1990 catalogue to Criterion and they could release Blu-Ray editions of classic Paramount titles!

Did you just tell me to fuck off?

TedW wrote:Yeah, it looked like this thing was just about sewn up... until today. If it was just a matter of buying studios off, why didn't the BDA do that a long time ago?

They are/were probably doing that with Fox.

Well, yeah. And Disney, too, perhaps... but why not buy them all off?

man, I would be so excited to see a turn in this war. not too many on this board have invested in bu-ray as far as I've read, so it would make for the most amicable discussions here if HD-DVD were to win.

Unfortunately, this doesn't guarantee a win. In my view, it merely prolongs the conflict. BR has had a sales edge for awhile, hardware prices are now more in line with what consumers want, more content than the other side. Whatever you think of the format, it appeared to be beating HD-DVD. But this does throw a monkey wrench in the works.

Somebody just added another year to your Criterion HD wait.

This is only muddling the waters, which is exactly what Microsoft wants.

TedW wrote:Unfortunately, this doesn't guarantee a win. In my view, it merely prolongs the conflict. BR has had a sales edge for awhile, hardware prices are now more in line with what consumers want, more content than the other side. Whatever you think of the format, it appeared to be beating HD-DVD. But this does throw a monkey wrench in the works.

It's definitely a coup for HD (biggest advantage is it gets good press similar to the BD/Blockbuster deal), but I still see it as a finger in the dike. Paramount has had a good year w/ Transformers, Dreamgirls, and Shrek, but the studio's been sucking wind for the past 5 years (so much so that Paramount bought Dreamworks just to get some films in the pipeline), so there aren't a whole lot of recent hits that come with this deal, which at this point are the big sellers. Are two big titles worth $150M? We'll see.

Nevertheless, well played HD DVD, well played. At this rate, you could win the format war with another $750 million.

Somebody just added another year to your Criterion HD wait.

Yep, which is the most depressing thing about it.

Winners:

• *HD DVD -- Much-needed good press, nobody can say anymore that they only have one exclusive studio
  *HD DVD Owners
  *Paramount -- much-needed cash infusion
  *Microsoft -- Now much less likely that either disc format will catch on, paving the way for digital downloads.

Neutral

• *Blu-ray owners -- Lose Paramount, but will probably get some good titles announced as "retailiation" from other BD backers.

Losers

• *The BDA
  *Format neutrals and others potential waiting to get in until the format war shakes out. It just got an extra 6 months or so.

Christ, will somebody please stop Bill Gates... that digital downloads thing is a terrible idea. Inevitable, perhaps, but a terrible idea nonetheless.

jedgeco wrote:Neutral

*Blu-ray owners -- Lose Paramount, but will probably get some good titles announced as "retailiation" from other BD backers.

Fox gets back in the game.

TedW wrote:that digital downloads thing is a terrible idea. Inevitable, perhaps, but a terrible idea nonetheless.

I've yet to be convinced that there will enough bandwidth/server space in the foreseeable future to support a deep-catalog downloading/VOD service that would be comparable to the quality and selection we've grown accustomed to with DVD (and will enjory on an HD disc format).

jedgeco wrote:I've yet to be convinced that there will enough bandwidth/server space in the foreseeable future to support a deep-catalog downloading/VOD service that would be comparable to the quality and selection we've grown accustomed to with DVD (and will enjory on an HD disc format).

Now please point Bill Gates to this thread.

This war was never going to be over soon anyway. But I was hoping for a "Criterion goes Blu" announcement sometime this year.

Luke M wrote:This war was never going to be over soon anyway. But I was hoping for a "Criterion goes Blu" announcement sometime this year.

That's the BDA retaliatory move -- give $100M to Criterion to go BD exclusive with day and date BDs of all Q4 and subsequent titles, thereby ensuring that 500,000 film geeks order BDP300s and PS3s in about 4 hours.

(Hey, a guy can dream, right?)