Miscronstrued Total HD thread

[Quorthon]

I'll leave this up just so it's referenced, but thanks to "New Year Brainfarting" I managed to get goofed on the dates. I was thinking CES 2008 and this story references CES 2007. I would've gotten less confused if the 2008 CES wasn't happening now! Blast!


Here's the link: www.gameinformer.com/NR/exeres/AF7E7D5E-51D8-499B-B541-B914EDA6664F.htm


And here's the text (so you don't actually have to link I guess):

From GameInformer Online:

Warner Bros. To Debut Total HD Disc At CES 2007
by Billy Berghammer

POSTED: 1/4/2007 2:13 PM
fraid to get caught in the middle of the HD DVD/Blu-ray debacle? The format war may come to a halt due to a new disc format developed by Warner Bros. that can play both films and television shows in either HD DVD or Blu-ray players. According to the New York Times, the new format is dubbed the Total HD disc and Warner Bros. will debut the new disc at next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Warner Bros. Chairman and Chief Executive Barry M. Meyer said that the company decided to create this new format once they realized that the two battling formats weren't going to go the way of the Betamax.

"The next best thing is to recognize that there will be two formats and to make that not a negative for the consumer," Meyer said. "We felt that the most significant constituency for us to satisfy was the consumer first, and the retailer second. The retailer wants to sell hardware and doesn't want to be forced into stocking two formats for everything. This is ideal for them."

We'll have reports from the Consumer Electronics Show all next week.




So there you go! A new HD format playable in both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD! Which means that, essentially, Blu-Ray's and HD-DVD's days are numbered!

I'm sure it won't be much of a problem for many Hollywood studios (Warner Bros will obviously have an easy time) to see the potential of jumping ship from HD-DVD to Blu-Ray. As is, the format war has turned these two once-hyped formats into the new Laserdiscs. Neither is really taking off: For as many stories as there are about success of one format, there are just as many for the other format. They aren't taking off like VHS or DVD's did. Neither has the potential to ever replace regular DVD's because of the format war (and the current high cost comes into this as well). Neither format is really dying, but then, neither is succeeding either.



Apparently, and it's not in this article, a player has been announced as well for Warner Bros little disk that could (and most likely will). I don't know yet if the player will handle all three formats (and of course, regular DVD's and CD's), or just this new one developed by Warner Bros.

Since I didn't yet blow money on an HD-DVD player, Blu-Ray player, or the PS3, this is good tidings for me. I'm pretty sure that prices will drop drastically when Total HD is released and the only people who likely won't be happy about it will, of course, be the early adopters of one or both formats, and the creators of the other two formats.

[Heineken Skywalker]

I'm still just buying regular dvds, but you didn't offer that as a choice.
As someone who has collected movies on vhs, dvds and yes, even laserdiscs, you can understand my being pee-shy about adopting yet another format to collect my beloved movies on. This unified format player sounds ideal, but I'll wait until the smoke clears to decide then if I'm going to start buying movies on something other than regular dvds.

[Termination]

The Total HD was a Warner idea which was suppose to include both a HD DVD & BD on the same disc. Problem was they never could work out the bugs & sinse than Warner has decided to exclusively support Blu-Ray only beginning this June. New Line Cinema is following suit as well. Also the Paramount deal between Toshiba & them is near void if another mega player ditched the HD DVD format. So chances of them supporting Blu-Ray only this year look good.

The Warner news a few days ago was huge. 40% of everything you watch is from them including their subsidiary companies.

[Quorthon]

Perhaps Warner has finally worked out the kinks in the Total HD format. At least that's the impression now.

Heineken--yeah, I forgot regular DVD's, which I'm still buying as well. I'm not going to adopt any HD until I both get an HD TV and there is a unified format.


NEW NOTE: This is a big embarrassment for me, as I only just noticed the date as 2007, not the 2008 CES (D'Oh!), and did a little more looking. I remember seeing this stuff from last year, now. I guess, nevermind.

We all need our blunders now and then.

My credibility! Oh! My credibility!!!

[Termination]

In theory it was a good idea to have both HD formats together but even if they did it, studio's other than Warner would have to be involved. Universal wouldn't do it. (HD DVD) Sony wouldn't do it (Blu-Ray) because they were stubborn & wanted their format to win....

...It seriously looks like Blu-Ray is gonna win this thing.

The only major hollywood studios supporting HD DVD now are actually trying to get out of their contract with them sinse Warner, New Line & HBO have all announced exclusive support for Blu-Ray.

Once Paramount & Universal make the switch to Blu-Ray, you'll have your unified HD format.

[Quorthon]

Yeah, and all our money goes to one hyper-greedy company. At least HD-DVD was built by companies working together.


I know a lot of people just love Sony, but I can't stand the company. Aside from my original Playstation, I only own one thing made by those bastards--crappy speakers for something like a discman.


I guess somebody has to win the HD war at some point. But with Microsoft and Universal's money still clamouring behind HD-DVD, it may still be a little while. Although, there are reports surfacing that MS "may" switch to Blu-Ray for future endeavours if HD-DVD fails.

If Blu-Ray does take off, it'll be the first really successful media format for Sony since Beta and UMDs both failed to procure mass consumer support. But I don't think any HD will replace regular DVD for, at least, a few more years since, like I said before, a lot of people have only just (within the past couple years) gotten used to DVD's--most consumers aren't going to be ready to jump to another format so soon, even if there is only one dominant choice. Laserdiscs certainly didn't catch on. The HD fad is doing better than laserdiscs, but no where near as well as VHS or DVD.

[/charade]

[Termination]

quorthon said:

But I don't think any HD will replace regular DVD for, at least, a few more years since, like I said before, a lot of people have only just (within the past couple years) gotten used to DVD's--most consumers aren't going to be ready to jump to another format so soon, even if there is only one dominant choice. Laserdiscs certainly didn't catch on. The HD fad is doing better than laserdiscs, but no where near as well as VHS or DVD.

[/charade]

No worries there. DVD will be around for a long time. If Blu-Ray was the only HD format, I still think its Laserdisc comparison is true cause A) people like DVD
B) people don't have HDTV
C) 2 formats doesn't help incentive for EA's

I've played the HD game for almost 2 years now on both sides. Both have their hits & misses. Some discs look outstanding while some look like upconverted BS. If you have been listening to a 5.1 Dolby/dts set-up, I have found the audio to kick all sorts of ass over SD DVD. Anywhoo, I'm still gonna support Blu-Ray but I doubt I'll buy anymore HD DVD titles. This may be their last year.

[Quorthon]

Upconverting is the name of the game. Giving consumer what they want without actually giving them what they think they're getting. I've read that, even though the PS3 supports 1080i, that only something like 3-6 of the games actually do. Some of the games that claim to merely "upconvert" from a lower resolution. The same is true of the Xbox360 which, for all their touting of 1080i compatibility, all it really is is a lower resolution cleanly spread to match 1080i.

I hope this growth stops, though. No more new, higher resolutions every other year. They should just work on perfecting what's out there now. There are a lot of HD/digital/plasma/LCD TV's I've seen that make me wince when I realize that my ancient analog 27" Sharp looks better. Not all of course, but there is some real crap out there. I think all the minor improvements and adjustments every year or so make it hard to adopt HD for a lot of people.

Buying TV's and movies is a lot more complicated than it used to be.

I'd like to add to your list, there:
D) A lot of people don't understand or really see the advantage of HD. Consumers are simple people. The products these days, are not simple.