For all those considering the cheap HD-DVD deals, here's food for thought, on this very website!

Here

Not a surprise, apart from 3 all mine are imported from the US thanks to being region free. In terms of the "war" the EU market is pretty much irrelevant just as the Japanese market is dead to MS yet the 360 sold pretty well

The amusing thing is that it's in gaming news

Yep the format war will be won and lost in the US as it's ultimately the Hollywood Studios that will decide which system to back and it's only US sales that they take any heed of.

And next week there will be another post saying HD-DVD is leading the way in Botswana and Kathmandu

Oh well i'll just keep doing what I'm doing

Importing HD DVD's for vastly less than UK shops sell them for.

£25+ for a disk. Sod that

£12.99 delivered from online sites. Yes please

Bluray hasn't delivered the goods yet for me. No titles interest me. Plus i won't buy any of the current players as they will be out of date soon (Profile 1.1 / 2)

Three sales to two and those two to the one guy who could afford a PS3

heheheheehe

Hopefully I may get a friend on mine in the US to send me a $99 USD HD-DVD then I may join you. Do you have any problems with playing your discs through your setup ?

None at all. All HD DVD's are region free. They playback on any player anywhere in the world.

The only problem i might foresee for you is that you might need a stepdown converter to run it off the mains and being a US player it will ony playback US region 1 dvd's (no mulitregion dvd playback only hddvd's)

I know I'm not the only person thats getting one of the cheap new Toshibas for christmas - and I cant be the only person that is willing to spend £199 to dip his toe in rather than £450 for a bluray player? (if I was going to spend that much, I'd build a media center PC so I could just swap between HD DVD and BluRay, or have both).

Recon you'll have to wait a few months before deciding a winner in the "war".

i heard that in usa they got this player which plays blu ray and hd dvds i dont know how much of it is true.

Yes there are a couple of dual format players around but the early ones were low on functionality (not even allowed to carry the HD DVD logo) and were expensive.
Second gen hardware is now appearing which is fully HD DVD compliant and plays any Blu-ray movie however Profile 1.1 (Blu-ray interactive) support is like in dedicated players very scarce.

The Samsung BD-UP5000 is getting some good words on various forums and has a decent price when compared to standalone Blu-ray players. LG have a second gen dual player as well.

£289 for a blu ray player... http://www.play.com/Electronics/Elec...r/Product.html


And of course, Playstation 3 is only £299 now, so Blu Ray isn't the expensive option that some would have you believe!




Dave

Shame it's not Profile 1.1 but as a budget player it's more than a match for the cheaper HD DVD players. It's a shame really that Blu-ray it still tagged with the high price label but that is the drawback with multipule manufacturers who can't play fast and loose with subsidies to gain market share like SONY and Toshiba can do.

No one should ever say a PS3 is "only £299". £300 for a 40GB PS3 is ridiculous. The 40GB PS3 is on sale in japan for 40,000 yen, thats £150 ~ !

Wal Mart have been selling some Toshiba HD-DVD players for $99 (£45) in the US, they cost £180 here in the UK.

Typical Japanese companies, robbing us blind.

-Chris

I like how HD DVD fanboys avoid the fact that even in the US market, the so called HD-DVD stronghold, BD is winning!

The worldwides figures are just overwhelming.

lmao at people geting excited over a cd format....the world must be so boring right now

An Optical Disc format!

Yes Blu-ray sells more discs overall that is clear cut as you can get but that isn't the deciding factor or we simply wouldn't be having discussions right now
I own HD DVD ( as you know and I suspect you are too polite to call me a fanboy ) but I've never sugar coated the market in the US but if you have an open mind you realise it isn't as cut and dried as who sells the most discs.

The profit per disc (studio RRP, duplication costs, raw media etc) and the number of discs sold per player is making the overall sales far less of an issue some would want you to believe coupled with the cheaper HD DVD hardware which will bring HD more to mainstream acceptance than the PS3 has been capable of and Blu-ray standalones no hope of doing.

Blu-ray had to kill off HD DVD within the first year before prices started to tumble, the only weapon they had was content exclusivity and they failed.
Thankfully for everyone this has forced the Blu-ray camp to start reducing prices and try to bring the Blu-ray spec upto HD spec in terms of basic interactivity and net connectivity and I have no doubts that without direct competition from HD DVD the Blu-ray offerings would not be as cheap or advanced as they are now.

All this fuss over disks. Just when they start to get cheaper another format will come along and make it obsolete.

My guess would be flash memory in a pvr which can be updated via PC or over the air and your downloads through PC.

Why clutter the bottom of tv when you could be able to download through PC and just transfer to some flash memory display device?

This would reduce problems with disk formats and different players as it would be like mp3 players are now only for your tv.

Yeah there is always something else but right now the net is not practical and solid state not an option so the best we have is optical media which works exceptionally well.

Given the BT's 21CN won't be nationwide for 5+ years and well I can't even guess the timeframe for a 30gig+ mem card (not to mention all the DRM crap that throws a spanner into everything these days) then the timeframe is perfectly suitable for the rise of a HD optical format with DVD maintaining it's dominant position at the same time.

If you have the means then denying yourself now in the hopes of something better is just not the way to go.
Buy a subsidised PS3 and watch Blu-ray, let SONY worry about the subsidy that they hoped to reclaim from games sales or buy a HD DVD and make hay region free wise, neither format is going away anytime soon

Mass-production of discs also slashes down prices. Off of which BD has an advantage in movies and games. Also player prices for both sides drop.

Despite HD-DVD players slashed down to $99, HD-DVD camp paying for exclusive content from Paramount, BD is still winning. Yes, HD-DVD is hanging on, but I am not quite convinced of its future in 2-3 years time.

Indeed it does and in the real world (the one forum members don't tend to inhabit ) the prices for each media is pretty much identical making the behind the scenes issues irrelevant to the consumer, just good points for discussion
It is all a marketing war something that even I'll admit SONY are excellent at, the BOGOF tie in with Amazon when Transformers and Shrek3 were released on HD DVD was genius in keeping the weekly sales in BD's favour


I can't argue, there are more Blu-ray capable players out there and more BD disks produced yet what I believed this time last year (when I chose HD DVD) and what I believe now hasn't changed.

I still think HD DVD is a natural successor to DVD and has a basic hardware spec that is excellent and lends itself to cheaper players and cheaper media.
SONY desperate to find a niche for it's failed Blu-ray recording in Japan lumbered the PS3 with over the top storage (racking the price up by a couple of hundred dollars per unit) and then wholesale buying of movie studios which gave them the only real way to defeat their DVD forum sanctioned rival by using exclusive content and excessive DRM.


SONY have failed to secure a high profit margin HD format (how Pio and Denon etc react is their business) and that is fantastic news for everyone.
HD DVD is still alive and that is great news even for Blu-ray owners and potential HD buyers, without the competition Blu-ray would not be where it is today, would it even have launched yet is a question in in itself.

So back to the basic issue of any HD media thread, it always end up here anyway, which to buy.

Price, studio support, media availability etc etc all play their part and which ever you choose it's just a movie format not a football club so if people choose the other it's not a bad thing or they are fools

Courtesy of the Digital Bits

Perhaps one day every single HD media retailers sales figures will be included, it may still come up with the same result but at least will mean that question marks over selected stores only becomes a non-issue

No question it's the PS3 that is floating the Blu-ray boat.