I realize my name is pretty common, but I've never seen anyone else post under just "Brian" before. Obviously I need to change to something more unique, as I don't want to get confused with this gibberish.

The release after the link plainly states that 2,100 HDTV owners were surveyed. Not 2,100 Blu-ray owners. The survey actually states that 28% of the HDTV owners already had a Blu-ray player. So clearly they did not just survey people who "already bought in to Blu-ray". And still, by an overwhelming majority, all of the people surveyed preferred Blu-ray. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. People like to be able to hold on to their stuff. They don't want a file that can magically disappear. How long have digital music files been in the mainstream now? 10 years? Funny, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and many other retailers still have huge rack space dedicated to CD's. For god's sake, FYE is still in business selling CD's at a huge markup! If digital downloading and streaming has yet to kill the disc based music market, why the heck should we believe that it's going to kill video anytime soon?

Multi,

Don't worry about my state of mind. I'm quite relaxed. I've presented the facts to you, over and over again. Now your story has twisted again. It's unfortunate that you can't delete your own posts, so no one would know that you had it wrong. You thought you were slamming BD for going back down to what in your opinion was a rather bleak $12 million per week. Now you see that $12 million actually shows rather significant growth in just the last few months, so you decide to slam the results from prior to September. So tell me, where exactly do you think sales should be to show that BD is successful? Should they have been at $100 million per week since the format was released? Every new technology starts at nothing and goes up, which you don't seem to understand. It appears that the rate of growth of BD sales is actually pretty healthy. I can think of MANY industries that wish they were seeing 25% revenue growth (which you called "minute") over the last 6 months, especially in this economy. Your arguing only shows that you know nothing about business in general, and especially the HD media business. You take whatever statistic is in front of your face and twist it to make it look like your opinion is the correct position (btw, that's what "bolstering your own opinion" means. Ever heard of a dictionary?), despite any other previous data to the contrary. I'm sure you'll find a way to spin the inevitable revenue growth over the last 8 weeks of the year as well.

I'm not disappointed that you didn't resort to name calling. You did it on the Wilco thread, so anyone who wants to see that you do it can go back and read it. I am disappointed that any facts that you're presented with come with the response "relax, and don't take it so seriously". That's a nice attempt to make me look off balance and argumentative. I'm quite fine. The only one off balance here is you. Perhaps you should stop posting under different aliases and ranking up your own posts to "highly ranked" (yes, I still think you're "anti-fanboy", and yes, I know there are ways to rank up your own posts), and then maybe you won't look so ridiculous.

So, like on that Wilco thread, I'm done arguing with you again. You've been presented with facts, and you still choose to ignore them. Just like last time, the rest of your responses will be ignored.

No Multi, sales have not been at $12 million all year. Feel free to click on the Nielson VideoScan tag and read all of the postings back to May. I did, just to see how off base you were. Here, I'll save you the trouble (in millions):

4/27/2008 - 9.20
5/4/2008 - 7.08
5/11/2008 - 6.56
5/18/2008 - 7.99
5/25/2008 - 12.38
6/1/2008 - 10.05
6/8/2008 - 10.02
6/15/2008 - 12.73
6/22/2008 - 8.48
6/29/2008 - 8.88
7/6/2008 - 7.86
7/13/2008 - 8.42
7/20/2008 - 7.61
7/27/2008 - 8.00
8/3/2008 - 9.42
8/10/2008 - 6.89
8/17/2008 - 6.19
8/24/2008 - 7.07
8/31/2008 - 9.12
9/7/2008 - 10.60
9/14/2008 - 9.18
9/21/2008 - 8.87
9/28/2008 - 10.92
10/5/2008 - 26.84
10/12/2008 - 14.37
10/19/2008 - 17.94
10/26/2008 - 17.71
11/2/2008 - 12.22

As you can see, being above $10 million each week is a recent development, but it's been a fairly consistent stat in the last month and a half. I can accept the fact that it's a small sliver of the overall home entertainment pie. Can you at least accept that the format does seem to be growing? I don't accuse you of being biased because you don't support the format. I accuse you of being biased because you ignore all reality in your efforts to show that BD is failing and because you start calling names anytime anyone refutes you.

I guess I'll respond to your other post too (yes, I believe you are "anti-fanboy; are you schizophrenic in real life too, or just on message boards?). BD is not my beloved format. I own about 25 discs. I haven't purchased one since July (though I did want to get Iron Man, I haven't had a chance yet). I do rent them from NetFlix. What may be surprising to you is that I understand BD's shortcomings, and I definitely feel like they need to be fixed before BD can go mainstream. Hardware prices were too high, but that's starting to be corrected. Disc prices are definitely too high, and that needs to be addressed. I only defend BD because I tire of people who spread false information in an effort to bolster their own opinions.

Multi,

How can you have the gall to call yourself "even-minded"? You jump all over any statistic that you think makes BD look bad, whether it really does or not. Then you proceed to dump on anyone who disagrees with you, calling them "fanboys" or "blu-bots" or some other clever name you've come up with. Then you'll argue that they twisted your words or were "making up stories". I'm not sure what to call you, but anti-fanboy seems to be about the most accurate.

Now, on to the facts. We started seeing sales dollars totals on these VideoScan postings around the end of April. $12.2 million is the 7th highest total since that time, so it's not much to sneeze at. I think any "even-minded" person would agree that this wasn't a great week for releases, so still having over $12 million is pretty impressive. The previous four weeks before this one are the top 4 revenue weeks so far. Also since then, the average weekly sales for BD have gone from a little over $8 million to close to $10.5 million. That's over 25% in weekly revenue growth in the last 6 months. I can't think of an industry that would be unhappy with those results, so perhaps your expectations are a little high. It's easy to say that BD is bumping along when you just compare this week to last week over and over again. You may want to look at the bigger picture.

Commence flaming now.

Boo EngdgetHD! I sent this in as well, with a much more entertaining link. If you live in the Chicago area and are using an OTA signal, Bozo the Clown will be greeting you on channel 9, WGN, to tell you that you need to get ready for DTV. That's WAY better than a boring fullscreen graphic. I may hook up the old rabbit ears just to check it out. Here's the link:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1274153,bozo-digital-tv-111208.article

Does anyone else think the picture above isn't that bad? I'm looking at it and considering that it's a slightly out of focus photograph of an SDTV screen, I can still read the words relatively well. Seems like a mountain being made out of a mole hill.

Alright Multi, since you brought up sheep it's safe to say your completely blathering now. You have provided absolutely nothing to this conversation other than name calling, opinions and unsubstantiated "facts". Yes, the band thinks the original material may not be of enough quality for a Blu-ray transfer. No, you're not sure if they really know anything about what it takes to be a quality Blu-ray transfer. You've convinced yourself that the band is above the MASSES of people who don't know that you can get an HD picture from film. (I don't know why you keep ignoring the fact that the band knows the film was shot in 16mm, but does NOT know that you can get an HD picture from 16mm film, but it's probably because it contradicts your notion that the guys in the band are A/V experts). You have absolutely no idea what the transfer is like and yet you've already judged it as poor. The only one dodging here is you, and I can understand why...you just don't know, but you want it to be bad news for Blu-ray.

I don't think I've ever watched a bit rate meter in my life, so that's another one of your know-it-all theories that's blown to crap. Unless you have something substantial to talk about, I will ignore all your further responses.

Multi,

I'm not going to continue down your road of name calling. I think everyone who reads these posts can see who the troll is.

As you can see from the blog posting that RainDog so kindly copied from Wilco's website, the band is NOT against Blu-ray and finds it to be a valid enhancement. So, that sliver of hope that you had found a high profile indictment of BD is gone. Yes, the band does not believe that this particular film is worthy of Blu-ray treatment because of it being shot on 16mm in black and white. As I've already posted, 16mm is capable of 1080p resolution, so the band is unaware that the video CAN be enhanced from the prior DVD version. As for the audio, they only state that they are unaware of whether it's been remastered. Not exactly concrete proof that it has not been. I'm not aware of the specs for this film being published yet, so arguing with me about that is pointless. We just don't know.

As you can see, the band has already backed off their previous stance significantly. By the middle of November they may be pushing the BD.

My question to you is this: why are you against choice in the marketplace? If I feel the disc is worth the money, why should I not be able to make that choice? That's what free-markets are all about. If BD is not good enough, it will be cast aside. You'd rather make that decision for everyone based on your own opinion that it's not good enough. And you grasp onto any negative comment as proof that your view is valid, no matter how uninformed and ignorant that negative comment may be.

@ Brian (smart one):

I think you may have wanted to respond to "Nate" about his criticism of the band. I'm a huge fan of Wilco and I happen to live in their namesake of Will County, IL. They're awesome.

I don't think I like your screen name though. I don't think anyone would consider me as not a "smart one". Well, except for Multi, but his opinion is meaningless anyway.

@ Multi-format-mayhem

The only troll here is you. You've been continually trolling here for weeks thumbing your nose at anything Blu-ray related. You're only purpose is to get arguments started and you use false or inadequate information to do so. You are the very definition of a troll.

On what authority do you have it that the band knows the technical specs of the audio and video sources? You don't. For all you know, the band just plugs in their instruments and plays. They have technical people to work all of that out for them. As for "cost structures", I'm sure they have business managers as well. Stop arguing points you cannot prove.

As for the source, the band itself said that it was shot on 16mm film, which is quite capable of 1080P resolution. See this link:

http://cinematechnic.com/super_16mm/resolution_of_super_16mm.html

This seems to prove the point that the band may NOT know it all. My point is, I don't need the band to watch my money for me. I'll decide how to spend it.

As for you, this is an EPIC FAIL. Stop trolling and add something constructive.

@ Multi-format-mayhem:

Jeez you're kidding, right? I've seen some bitter former HD-DVD fanboy comments, but yours is a doozy. Well done.

You have absolutely no idea what the bands knowledge and experience is with Blu-Ray, so why are you passing it off as if you do? Just becuase the band made the music that was going to end up on the disc does NOT mean they are BD experts. It sounds as if the band is more upset that they were not told until late in the game that the BD version was being released and this is their way of protesting.

Anyway, the band is no more qualified to tell anyone what the value of the BD is than you or any other message poster on an HD internet forum. That decision is ENTIRELY up to the consumer. Unfortunately, the band has forced their opinion on the rest of the world. It's unfortunate, because I'm a fan of the band and probably would have picked this one up.