The "everyday man in the street", if he's heard of the format war at all, is staying away in droves, for fear of buying into the new Betamax. There are plenty of people also who would normally be early adopters who have been waiting to see which format will win.

Now that the matter is settled, those who are interested can more safely buy into Blu Ray. The remaining question is now "Will Blu Ray eventually supplant DVD itself by going mainstream?". Just as it would have been if Blu Ray had always been the only HD disk format. That's the remaining risk.

Oh, it will. DVD-RAM is a niche format too, but almost all DVD-RW drives your buy for PC's will do DVD-RAM as well now!

If it won't cost any extra (or very little extra) to be able to read HD-DVD disks, it'll be included.

What makes you think there'll be any dual format players being made in 5 years time? Making machines for a dwindling number of users who bought into the wrong format isn't going to make anyone any money. I think a fair comparison is when DVD replaced laserdisk. Dual LD and DVD players were made for a little while, but now they're history.

Dual format players were a viable proposition only when both formats were still around with roughly equal disk sales. Studio support is now too far in favour of Blu Ray for HD-DVD to be sustainable. Disk sales have been in Blu Ray's favour for over a year, and the last 3 week's results (since WB) show a large further drop in HD-DVD disk sales. HD-DVD's last gasp is the selling off of players at firesale prices as "good upscalers".

HD-DVD is dead. Let it RIP.

Certainly not the norm but perhaps a sector of the market and depending upon how Paramount and Universal see out 2008. We already have dual format players on the market or due for release and single unit bare drives for HD DVD and Blu-ray playback (some with DVD writing or Blu-ray writing) which will drive down the price of dual players.


I can not see a dual format player from SONY or Denon/Pioneer but a few of the others BDA members beyond LG and Sammy probably IF the Plextor drive or similar is adopted. Yes manufacturers are free to ignore HD DVD playback to save a few pounds on the RRP but than again you can't really dismiss the existing HD DVD userbase so perhaps there is a viable market for more integrated and cheaper dual players throughout 2008 and into 2009.

Note this is speculation, I wouldn't claim this is anything but my thoughts in the same way I wouldn't say a format is dead while players and still being sold and movies released and announced

HD DVD is not dead!

you should invest in the next generation dvd format and i got my hd dvd toshiba ep30 with 7 movies for 189 from amazon

problem with current blu ray players it that they wont play future discs right.

Sony say that the ps3 is the best blu player to buy.
so if all the other players cannot be updated then we are being forced to buy a ps3 from $ony I dont want 1

hddvd is here to stay!

Your living in a dream world even if its true that its cheap people wont buy it because the movies they want wont be on it, your in denial

When the likes of Woolworths announce they wont be selling HD-DVD's instore from March, you know that its like buying into Batamax all over again.

You can make an HD-DVD player £1 for all I care, Blu Ray have won the format wars.

http://www.hdtvuk.tv/2008/01/woolworths_to_d.html

http://www.electricpig.tv/news/top-s...h-throes.thtml

woolworths is not a major place to buy hddvd i never seen a hddvd or blu ray movie in my local woolworths!

If you remember that is started just like it did in the 80's for sony

Most people's first vcr was a beta max then they all started buying VHS players
This is what it is going to be like for hddvd most people will buy a blu ray player but when ther realise it wont play certain discs right they will realise they made the wrong move trusting sony again!

most of it formats fail so why trust them??

Betamax
Minidisc
UMD
Memory stick pro/duo
Psp
and blu ray will be next

blu ray whats the point buying incomplete hardware??

As soon as people realise thats it wont play future disc right and jump aboard the hddvd wagon there will be a demand for more movies on HD which means companies will be leaving blu if you ask me the sooner the better

Warner Brothers is to release high definition films only in Sony's Blu-ray format, in a blow to rivals in the long-running format war.

Warner was the only major studio still releasing films both in the competing Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.

Walt Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony Pictures are the other studios that only release in Blu-ray format.

People that think HDDVD will beat Blu Ray have some serious problems.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7174591.stm

I don't think anyone seriously believes that Blu-ray will fail and stop being manufactured and supported but that's a far cry from saying that while two major studios (three if you count Warner for now) and Toshiba are making players that the HD DVD format is dead.



I understand why some posters are not even making allowances for the continued existence of HD DVD on the market place but they make statements as if they were solid facts and not opinions

HD DVD is not dead but is certainly not thriving either and a new HD consumer would probably be better of considering Blu-ray even with the Profile issues or prices which leads to a games console being the best all round player

No, it's not the same to compare DVD with Laserdisk.

The fairer comparison is DVD-RAM and DVD+-R.

They were two incompatible formats, but using the same size physical media. Therefore it was inevitable that while DVD+-R is now the most common format, almost all DVD Writer drives now made will write DVD-RAM too.

As HD-DVD and Blu-ray use the same size disc, and same core technology for reading the disc, there will be no reason for newer blu-ray devices not to support reading and decoding of HD-DVD discs.

There will be a price difference between using a dedicated Blu-ray drive as opposed to a combo drive (different laser pickups) but if the far east suppliers see a profit (perhaps initially for the PC market) for combo drives then that price difference may be small enough for a manufacturer to exploit a dual format niche market.


I still think the first Blu-ray player capable player Toshiba release will be dual format

Well, for under £200 you can already get a PC Blu-ray rewriter with HD-DVD read capabilities, so it won't be long before stand-alone decks contain them too!

Dual format players are already available.

The most popular one at the moment is the Samsung and its reported that it will be discontinued in May.

With so few HD DVD titles in the pipeline and so few punters out there with them at the moment there's no hope or need for dual format players

I would recommend not buying HD DVD discs because the format is clearly dying with no hope of survival.

We saw aggresive pricing in the very early days of Laserdisc but its clearly not to give the format a boost its to offload product that is going to be less and less attractive to buyers as the weeks go buy.

Why would I say the same about cd and dvd.

There is so much product on or coming on dvd that wont even benefit from an HD release that BD is not going to kill that market and as far as I know cd does not even have opposition at the moment.

With HD DVD titles virtually drying up by May its an obvious waste to buy fresh product(unless its very cheap) when its clear that they will all be on BD within a year or two.

You sound like an unfortunate HD DVD buyer who is trying to convince themselves the format has any kind of future.

It would not matter if players were given away free with the Radio Times-after May product to play on them will dwindle due to lack of studio support so its too late for the public to do anything about it - and that would be even if the general public had even heard of the format let alone bought it

Forget dual format players.

The 2 on the market are overpriced and the Samsung one is to be discontinued in May.

There wont be any more

I see BD existing alongside DVD as a premium product for those into quality.

HD is fine for movies but apart from recent shows there is very little tv that will benefit from a BD release so there's actually a huge amount of material thats simply not worth releasing on BD.

I forsee BD and DVD releases alongside each other rather like the current 1 disc and 2 disc versions

Do you mean the UP5000 which had it's replacement the UP5500 announced at CES this year?


So easy to dismiss nearly a million players sold not counting the aftermath of January be it players sold (not scrapped) and the so called "firesale" or the exclusive support of two major studios and the existing catalogue and upcoming.

Still why say anything positive about a dead product

But DVDRAM was pushed as a format by Panasonic for years into the recordable dvd format wars and their recorders still offer it.

HD DVD has effectively been killed off before it even got started.

The mass market are a long way from buying into either HD format and by the time they are HD DVD will be a long forgotten memory so there wont actually be a need for dual format support

Your player is now £70 cheaper on Amazon but the format is still dead.

Future BD discs may offer features that players bought now wont be able to access but you wont have problems playing the movie at all , thats why the PS3 is the most sensible albeit not desirable player to buy. Where do you get your misinformation?

Only Paramount and Universal will now be releasing HD DVD but that is likely to change soon and even if it didnt the volume of titles exclusive to BD means that HD DVD has finally lost the war.

I had a player and I wanted it to win too but you have to pay attention when the bleeding obvious is staring you in the face

It'll be interesting to see how much the Blu-ray/HD DVD & DVD writer will cost, surely less than the Blu-ray writer/HD DVD combo which again makes dual format a cheaper option.



It's not a question of Blu-ray becoming dominant which I think is pretty much a given in practical terms but if HD DVD is big enough to be a viable niche product even now for a mainstream CE manufacturer to have at least one dual player on the books.

You must be too young to remember.

Most people's first VCR was VHS because the format dominated the hardware rental sector and thats why Beta died out.

Fat lot of good it would have been switching to VHS if you had a pile of Beta tapes in the corner

Come on Jarrak ,you are a knowledgeable person who normally has their finger on the pulse.

While HD DVD is not dead NOW by virtue of players and discs still being on sale you have to admit that its future is certain - and that is obsolescence this year

Rubbish.

DVD RAM and DVD+-R are not in the same league because whichever you bought the software for them (movies) was compatible to watch .

The comparison with DVD/LD is spot on because like those two HDDVD and BD are totally incompatible with each other.

You choose HD DVD and there are many movies you cant watch.

If you had stuck with LD you could not watch DVD.

If you chose RAM you could still watch dvd movies in the same way as you could if you chose DVD+ or DVD-

I happen to own one of those. One PC drive does not mean dual format players will become the norm. There aren't enough HD-DVD players to make it worthwhile for replacement market.