DCAWD.com

WRXWagon2112 wrote:The only question left is ... should I get a dual-format drive and stock up on the cheap HD DVD movies that are on sale?

--Alan

Phibs wrote:I'm sticking to my Blu ray player aka PS3. Won't even buy the HD-DVD player for my 360, thank god someone won already.

Is there more to the end of the format war than meets the eye? In two words: of course.

Anyone who thinks that these things are always decided with over-the-counter capitalism possesses a touch more faith in the system than should perhaps be reasonably expected. These sorts of things are generally decided behind closed doors, with information that only begins to leak out once everything has been neatly wrapped up. Now that Toshiba has officially pulled support for the format for HD DVD, the conspiracy theories can begin.

One of the most notable aspects of this latest format war is the relatively short time in which the whole thing was decided. Both formats were introduced to the public in 2005, and by the second month of 2008, a victor had already been crowned. Compare this to the decade or so during which the VHS did battle with Betamax.

It should be pointed out, of course, that Betamax was a Sony creation. So was the MiniDisc, Memory Stick, UMD, ATRAC3--the company hasn't had the greatest track record when it comes to proprietary formats. That long history, coupled with the recent under performing of products like the Playstation 3, had perhaps put Sony in something of a do-or-die position when it came to hocking their next generation format.

When mapping the trajectory of the two formats, it's Warner's pull out at the beginning of the year that is largely considered to be the straw that broke HD-DVD's back. The studio announced that it would be going strictly Blu-Ray just ahead of CES, leaving Toshiba with a bit of egg on its face just ahead of its scheduled press conferences, which were ultimately cancelled, later that week.

Rumor has it, however, that Sony may have greased the wheels a bit with a $400 million payoff to the movie studio, helping Sony regain a bit of the glory that was lost decades ago when BetaMax was ultimately relegated to fodder for 80s inside jokes.

We spoke with a Warner spokesman on the subject of the rumor, who answered simply, and rather bluntly, "The world wide DVD business is about $42 billion--we have the largest market share--the idea that we would make a decision about a business that is so enormously important to us based on a one time pay out is just ludicrous."

Ultimately, Warner's pullout was the first in the proverbial hi-def domino effect, spurring similar decisions by Netflix, BestBuy, Wal-Mart, and, ultimately, Toshiba.

Was Toshiba's abandonment of the format simply a case of it having "no chance to win," as the company's president, Atsutoshi Nishida suggested, or was it perhaps another case of a backroom favor? Slashdot points out that Sony announced an agreement to sell Toshiba a chip facility for $835 million, just after Toshiba announced their all-important decision to abandon their beloved format.

There's no smoking gun here, sure, and HD DVD was most certainly on the way out before Toshiba officially pulled the plug, but perhaps its agreement with Sony helped lessen the format's death rattle, a scenario that seems especially likely given the fact that Toshiba coupled its eulogy for HD DVD with the announcement that it would be shifting its focus toward the opening of new factories.

WRXWagon2112 wrote:Also, the entire Planet Earth series on HD DVD is now $30 direct from Discovery Store. You must add to cart to see the discount. If you do not see it, clear your cookies and click on the link again.

--Alan

Sabre wrote:Wow, HD-DVD's death came pretty quick! I honestly didn't think we'd see a winner till 2009!

Mr Kleen wrote:I'm sure SONY will celebrate the end of the war with a price drop on Blu-ray players...

Blu-ray Drive Prices High...and Rising

We all saw this one coming, right? In the battle of the next-generation high-definition format, Toshiba's HD DVD's primary selling point was always its relative affordability. Now that HD DVD is out of the running, that whole free-market thing isn't doing much to drive down the price of Blu-ray players. The inevitable march toward disk ubiquity seems to mean that Sony can charge whatever it wants.

As a result, Blu-ray drives are now at the most expensive they've been all year, according to TG Daily. Where competition had driven Blu-ray player prices down to near $300, the site is now reporting $400 as the average price for a player. Prices are up across the board since February, when Sony was looking to deliver the death blow to Toshiba's format (already weakened by Warner's pre-CES pullout).

Matters are further complicated by the fact that Sony plans to release disks with advanced issues toward year's end. Good news, except that since there are no players on the market with Internet capabilities save for the PS3, users with older units will not be able to take advantage of the features fully --or get firmware upgrades for their devices.

It's almost enough to make you miss HD DVD.

--or get firmware upgrades for their devices.

complacent wrote: pants, we're SONY!

SlySoft, a developer of DVD cloning software, claims to have completely cracked the BD+ DRM protocol guarding Blu-ray discs.

BD+ is a small virtual machine environment included on Blu-ray discs; HD DVDs lacked the feature. Last year, SlySoft said it had hacked the BD+ environment to allow encoded movies to be ripped to a hard drive and viewed using a specific version of its CloneDVD software.

Now, SlySoft is claiming that version 6.4.0.0 of its AnyDVD HD program has completely broken the BD+ copy protection, allowing transcoding of the video into an unprotected form. About a year ago, SlySoft cracked HD DVD.

"Admittedly, we are not really so fast with this because actually we had intended to publish this release already in December as promised," Peer van Heuen, head of High-Definition technologies at SlySoft , said in a statement. "However, it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the outcome of the "format war" between HD DVD and Blu-ray.

"On top of that, we first wanted to see our assumptions confirmed about the in the meantime released BD+ titles regarding the BD+ Virtual Machine," van Heuen added. "We are rather proud to have brought back to earth the highly-praised and previously 'unbreakable' BD+. However, we must also admit that the Blu-ray titles released up to now have not fully exploited the possibilities of BD+. Future releases will undoubtedly have a modified and more polished BD+ protection, but we are well prepared for this and await the coming developments rather relaxed."

Theoretically, the BD+ code can be replaced if a player manufacturer discovers that the player has been hacked. However, it wasn't clear at press time whether the AnyDVD HD release would either prevent the modified BD+ code from being overwritten, or whether an updated release would be be necessary, as van Heuen seemed to imply.

c|net wrote:While most Blu-ray players can be updated to address bug fixes and disc incompatibilities, the PS3 is alone among current players with its ability to be upgraded to the Profile 2.0 standard. (That's why it remains the most highly recommended Blu-ray player on CNET--even for prospective users who aren't gamers.) The only other 2.0 players that have been announced are the Panasonic DMP-BD50 (due in April) and the Sony BDP-S550 (coming this autumn), both of which are expected to cost at least $100 more than the entry-level PS3.

"The US International Trade Commission said it will launch an investigation into possible patent infringements involving Sony's Blu-ray players and other technologies using laser and light-emitting diodes, such as Motorola's Razr phone and Hitachi camcorders. The investigation was prompted by a complaint filed in February by a Columbia University professor emerita who says she invented a method of using gallium nitride-based semiconductor material for producing wide band-gap semiconductors for LEDs and laser diodes in the blue/ultraviolet end of the light spectrum. Her complaint asks the ITC to block imports of LED and laser diode technology from Asia and Europe. The total market for all types of gallium nitride devices has been forecast at $7.2 billion for 2009 alone."

Engadget wrote:Sure, sure, the format war is over, but we never expected HD DVD to just disappear overnight, and it looks like the combination of deeply-discounted hardware, cheap media, and a weak economy are keeping Red alive even as Toshiba pretends no one really wants true HD anyway. Players are going for as little as $60 with movies available for $10, and retailers like Buy.com say that "sales are still very strong." Of course, eventually all this stock has to run out, so we doubt this'll be a long-lasting phenomenon, but hey -- stranger things have happened.

WRXWagon2112 wrote:HD DVD Just Won't Die...

Linky

Engadget wrote:Sure, sure, the format war is over, but we never expected HD DVD to just disappear overnight, and it looks like the combination of deeply-discounted hardware, cheap media, and a weak economy are keeping Red alive even as Toshiba pretends no one really wants true HD anyway. Players are going for as little as $60 with movies available for $10, and retailers like Buy.com say that "sales are still very strong." Of course, eventually all this stock has to run out, so we doubt this'll be a long-lasting phenomenon, but hey -- stranger things have happened.

--Alan

WRXWagon2112 wrote:Amazon.com's running a special right now - HD DVDs for $9.99. I just picked up The Road Warrior. Gotta love it!

--Alan

WRXWagon2112 wrote:Amazon.com's running a special right now - HD DVDs for $9.99. I just picked up The Road Warrior. Gotta love it!

--Alan

sirwilliam wrote:SONY BDP-S300 for $199 shipped at CC

Just FYI, if you want a stand alone w/o gaming abilities. There is also the new BDP-S350 model that you can find online for $250.