A few AVS members got together and decided to show their support for HD DVD by organizing to all purchase movies from Amazon on the same day: April 15th.
More specifically, many planned to buy Planet Earth on HD DVD. They were successful and as a result now HD DVD is on top according to the Amazon sales rank and at one point, the
Planet Earth HD DVD was ranked #4, which is even higher than Casino Royal achieved. While this is certainly an interesting result, it just goes to show how easily the Amazon sales ranks can be manipulated. If you missed out on showing your support for your favorite format, you can join in by buying as many titles as you can afford from Amazon for the rest of April, or you can join the next group buy when the
Matrix trilogy comes out on May 22nd. In the meantime, we will wait for
the next Neilson/Videoscan ranking to assess their success.
Read - 15th April buy HD DVD day: Tally update
Read - April 15th has come and gone...what's next?
posted April 17th 2007 12:30PM
What I always suggest to people is to come and take a look at both of formats at my home on the same 50" Pioneer Elite. You see, you should do the same, you need to take a look at both formats and then make a decision.
Sony has dirty tactics with marketing, they not only pay retail chains like Best Buy to show BD players on better displays, but they actually pay them to push HD-DVD stuff somewhere at the back of the store on some Vizio display that's 720p. Fortunately this is changing as they can't really spend that much money anymore, so stores like Ultimate Electronics and a few others have HD-DVD all over the place now, on big screens, expensive plasmas and LCDs and promo videos and movies look MIND BLOWING.
So inspite of that, you need to look at both on similar displays and really experience both.
Personally there's absolutely no brainer that every person that looked at both on my top of the line display, $15k sound system said HD-DVD all the way. The reason is simple. It's half the price, EXACTLY same quality, the bookmarking features, the interactivity, PiP etc etc blow them away every time. And the kicker is, when I show them HD-DVD Combo feature and put the same disk in the regular DVD player they are completely swayed.
I don't really understand people supporting Blu-Ray, I really don't. BDA hasn't even come out with solid specification for Christ Sake. Most features and functionality is not ironed out. I understand people saying higher capacity might play the role, but for movies it's really not important. It won't give you better picture, you can fit 2 movies if you wanted to on even 30gb and HD-DVD is also capable on expanding, it's not like Blu-Ray can go to 200gb and HD-DVD will stay at 30gb. The capacity can really play a role in archiving and if 1440p standard becomes a reality, but that's not going to happen in a while and even that a 50gb disk will just do fine.
The overall superiority in size for Blu-Ray is just paper spec and flash. By the time you, as a consumer, can see the benefit of that increased size, Blu-Ray would've been gone. In a few years we will see HD movies and services replace media as we see it today anyways. It's not ready now, but in 5 years, yes it will be. So it's completely apsurd to go "long run" idea. We are a much more progressive society now and what happened in the past just doesn't work. This is the danger of Sony. Once they get a format, they stick to it and will do everything to prevent anything else to interfere and bite into their standards. We have so many alternatives that actually work, we have HD content being already served over broadband, can you even imagine where we will be in 5 years.
Go with a great format, now, today, cheaper without sacrificing quality, better features. Think with you heads for Christ sake. HD-DVD gives us quality hi-def now, for cheap, enjoy it. I strongly support a regular person with not so big salary being able to watch hi-def movies too. They can't buy $600-$1000 Blu-ray player. I'm pretty sure that most Blu-Ray trolls don't even have Blu-Ray but just talk out of their ass to support something that doesn't make sense.
Much ado about nothing.
If you have this much time to speculate, rationlize, judge, forecast, and premeditate on which format will sell more (or is superior) get a job and buy players for both.
Nothing said here will sway the outcome. Crack up how fanatical people get trying to justify their format.
:P
Son, I make over $200k a year, own both Blu-Ray and HD DVD players and unlike you, don't talk out of my ass.
I'm just waiting for 3 things:
1) A clear winner in the HD-disk war,
2) A full burner in that same format (Blu or HD DVD+/-RW, that is,)
3) A cheap enough setside unit that has a built-in surround sound system.
See, unlike Nfinity above, I only make $25k/year...
Eh? Notice the 'when' comment.
Games, typically RPGs and other assorted lengthy games, will most likely require a lot more space than 1 DVD9 can provide for HD video and the works. All the games on the PC are approaching the DVD9 limit too. Take a look at CC3. HD video and repetitive battle content and it takes up pretty much all the DVD9. Think of a lengthier game with more varied content. Sooner or later, it'll break the 8.5GB limit. The reason why a lot of content based games such as MMORPGs don't require a huge disc is because they download most of their content from the net due to an ever-changing world. A standalone game will need it all on disc.
And it's been nearly two months since my comment... you troller...