The Format War

[Fran]

This is the tv I have!!! Its one of the highest rated LCD's on the market. Cnet called "best LCD of its class" I love it! Its great for gaming and movies! You can even put it on a wall! Lastly, these baby's last 10-15 years!!!
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sams...45931/catOid/-12867/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

I have a 30" Samsung SlimFit HDTV. I ****ing LOVE it.

The TruSurroundXT is so awesome, isn't it?

 

[Kritish]

I'm not buying until I know who's going to win, it would be like buying a beta max just in time for it to lose.

 

[L.A.]

I have a 30" Samsung SlimFit HDTV. I ****ing LOVE it.

The TruSurroundXT is so awesome, isn't it?

I was originally going to get that tv but it just wouldnt fit in my apartment, so I got the Flat screen instead. About the sound, I turn off the volume on my tv because I use this!!! Best system for under 300 bucks!!!
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Onky...48410/catOid/-12954/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

 

[imdaly]

If Casino Royal can do this much, what does HD-DVD have to counter these Blu ray movies in 2007?

1. Spiderman 3
2. Pirates of the Caribbean 3
3. Fantastic Four 2
4. Ratatouille
5. Die Hard 4
6. Simpsons The Movie

None of those movies have been confirmed for any sighting on Blu-ray at all. Should I start guessing what movies will be released on HD DVD this year? I'd much rather wait until we know what's actually coming out for certain.

These-

1. 300
2. TMNT
3. Harry Potter
4. Transformers
5. Shrek 3
6. The Golden Compass

- are all format neutral and will probably sell better on Blu Ray given the larger amount of players on the market.

Again, none of these titles (what the hell is "Golden Compass"??) have had any official word of being released. And knowing WB, there's a good chance that many of those will be HD DVD only until Blu-ray gets it's BD-J features working correctly. This is the same reason why "Batman Begins" and "V for Vendetta", among others, are only out on HD DVD right now, even though it's by a neutral studio.

"TMNT" could very well be HD DVD only, seeing as how there are two studios involved in its creation: WB and Weinstein, which is HD DVD only. It depends on who's got the video distribution rights.

And it's funny you mention "Harry Potter", as I've enjoyed my HD DVD of "Harry Potter 4" for the past few months. Gotta love region-free HD DVD!

HD-DVD has like

1. Bourne Ultimatum
2. Evan Almighty
3. American Gangster
4. Smokin Aces
5. Alpha Dog
6. Knocked Up

for 2007.

Bourne will be a good movie to be sure, but I'm not too sure about the others for HD-DVD.

If the leaked list of Universal releases (that has so far been completely accurate), is anything to go by, we have the following as being some titles to look forward to from one of our exclusive stuidios:

June - Breach, Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar, Sneakers, Born on the 4th of July, Scent of a Women, Daylight, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Meet Joe Black, Mallrats, Being John Malkovich, Mystery Men, American Me, The Watcher, Bulletproof

July - Billy Madison, The War, The Wedding Date, Dante's Peak, Cat in the Hat, Dead Silence, The Bourne Identity, The Nutty Professor 2, In Good Company, Streets of Fire, Hot Fuzz, Sea of Love, Darkman, Shaun of the Dead, Deliver Us from Eva

August - Heroes: Season One

September - The Last Starfighter, Legend, Battlestar Galactica: Season One, For the Love of the Game, Knocked Up, Evening, The Getaway: Unrated, Patch Adams, Cat People

Now I don't know about you, but I'm definitely looking forward to the likes of "Heroes: Season 1", "Hot Fuzz", "Shaun of the Dead", "The Bourne Identity", "Billy Madison", "Breach", "Bruce Almighty", "Liar Liar", "Monty Python's Meaning of Life", "Mallrats", "Battlestar Galactica: Season 1", and "Legend". Sure they're not all brand new movies, but they're great movies that will be GREAT to see in High-Def.

And if we see "The Matrix" or the "Harry Potter" series' come out on HD DVD before Blu-ray, that'll be a nice boost, too.

 

[Fran]

HD-DVD is region free?

 

[Zenien]

In europe a lot of Blu Ray titles are actually distributed by HD-DVD backers. So at a premium you can import (what are some Blu Ray Exclusive titles here) HD-DVD titles from that region.

Imdaly: I put a lot of effort into the post I did before that one. Reply to it. =|

 

[Fran]

"Golden Compass" is a book I believe. A big-budget movie coming out this Christmas, stars Daniel Craig I believe.

 

[L.A.]

In europe a lot of Blu Ray titles are actually distributed by HD-DVD backers. So at a premium you can import (what are some Blu Ray Exclusive titles here) HD-DVD titles from that region.

Imdaly: I put a lot of effort into the post I did before that one. Reply to it. =|

Yea thats true. You cant get T2 on BR but you can get it in French HD-dvd

 

[imdaly]

Seeing as HD-DVD and Blu Ray have near identical production costs per disc, the cost of a 200 gig Blu Ray would be the same as a 120 Gig HD-DVD.

I don't recall saying that a 120G HD DVD would be cheap. It'd be insanely expensive, too. My point is that, sure these discs may get up to that size, but who's going to be able to afford them?? Hell, dual-layered DVDs are still expensive as hell to purchase!

As we've seen, only having 1 movie isn't a problem either format, but Blu Ray seems to have the number and starpower advantage.

...in your opinion.

That being said, they don't have anything in March that comes close to Casino Royal, and as these players go deeper into the mass market, it's the titles like Casino Royal, Pirates, and Spider-Man that will have a bigger impact then Children of Men.

I agree. Thankfully for us, HD DVD isn't stopping the release of more movies after "Children of Men" is out.

HD-DVD reaching 200 dollars sooner

Will that really mean anything with Blu Ray Players going down to 300 dollars though. People aren't going to buy a 200 dollar HD-DVD player en mass when there's a 300 dollar Blu Ray player that has the bigger blockbuster titles and the most diverse industry support. There are more titles that joe average will want to buy on the Blu Ray side then there is on HD-DVD.

Good luck finding any Blu-ray players at $300 any time this year. I know Sony says that this'll happen, but really...who can believe anything they say any more?

The Market

Retailers don't want two formats and if Blu Ray is the one that's leading, then Blu Ray is the one they'll go with. I think HD-DVDs best month will be in April but may will be Pirates and Rocky land. More and more we're seeing retailers choosing Blu Ray or putting on Blu Ray promotional deals. You can argue but what about if they do the same for HD-DVD, but that's only if retailers are interested in promoting HD-DVD at this point, it's a chicken or the Egg situation.

I obviously am very much into this whole "war" and since I work at Circuit City, I get a very interesting view on how things are going. In the beginning CC was full-speed-ahead for Blu-ray and literally hiding HD DVD from consumers as much as possible by barely carrying any titles and shoving them in with regular DVDs, having absolutely no ads for them anywhere, and not even carrying any of the players. Meanwhile, Blu-ray had a large demo, a special cart for the Blu-ray discs which was covered in signage, and having advertisements all over the store and in each week's ads.

Then in December things started to shift. Little by little, Blu-ray support has dipped, and HD DVD support has surged. HD DVD has its own section now, 2 demoes to counteract the 2 Blu-ray demoes, advertisements in the weekly ads every other week or so, and even a special cart of the best-selling HD DVD discs to go next to the demoes. Also, the amount of titles we've started carrying have surged from about 20ish to nearly 70 now. Meanwhile, many of the new releases on Blu-ray aren't even being carried in my store yet.

Blu-ray still definitely has the advantage of support by my store, but week-by-week, it is becoming obvious that CC is noticing the money that is to be made by supporting HD DVD.

Now to address the critisism of BR deals artificially inflating numbers, just remember that Toshiba throws in 3 free HD-DVDs when you purchase a player.

Actually, Toshiba's offer is currently 5 free HD DVDs when you purchase a player. But notice the difference in the way HD DVD and Blu-ray's freebies are being handled:

When you buy a Toshiba HD DVD player, you fill out a rebate slip where you circle the titles you choose to get for free. Then you send them in to them and a few weeks down the road they mail them to you. These titles will not show up as "sales" as they are never purchased.

When you get your free/discounted Blu-rays, you are sending in the rebates in order to get a check sent back to you, thus giving you back some or all of the money you spent on the Blu-ray when you bought it at the store. Notice that with THIS way, every disc that is rebated was at one point purchased, and thus counted as a "sale". This is why it is said that Blu-ray's numbers are being artificially inflated.

The backers

Any defections at this point are unlikely because no one wants to extend the war. You aren't going to see the CE community switch for obvious reasons, the content providers will follow to the tune of which is selling more and blu ray has shown they're giving content providers higher sales and higher sales when compared to the providers that are format neutral and also selling their titles on HD-DVD.

Beyond that there are bigger reasons like security measures that will be harder to crack obviously.

Going format Neutral would be a terrible move for the market and I doubt the content providers that are currently aligned to Blu Ray are going to defect or even think about unheavalling the market anymore when it's Blu Ray that has the rosier long term future here. As PS3s continue to sell an undetermined amount of those are being used as Blu Ray players by enthusiasts. You aren't going to bet against the house, as it were.

Is this why Samsung is currently working on a dual-format player, when they're supposed to be Blu-ray exclusive? And what about that HD DVD-equiped laptop that they've recently announced?

Or how about HP, who until recently was Blu-ray exclusive? In December, they announced that they, too, will begin supporting HD DVD.

PS3 owners are just playing Blu Ray movies because there aren't any games to play

First it was: The PS3 won't have any real impact

The PS3 obviously has hand an impact.

Then it was: PS3 owners are just curious, the numbers after the second week go back down to their regular levels

Blu Ray numbers not only didn't decline, they continued to climb

Then it was: PS3 owners are just buying Blu Ray movies because there aren't any games out for them to buy.

I think that this arguement has a few holes in it that need to be addressed:

I think it's safe to say that even the heaviest of PS3-critisizers underestimated the lack of noteworthy PS3 titles for the period so far. Not to mention, that nobody forsaw the sheer lack of HD DVDs being released for Feb/March. Blu-ray is holding on right now because of "Casino Royale" and the fact that HD DVD has taken a nice big breath recently.

As far as the now good games situation is concerned:

1) There are plenty of good games already available on the PS3 for users to buy.

12 out of the 17 PS3 games released and reviewed on Gamerankings has a rating of above 75%

There are currently 22 PS3 games released and reviewed on there, and 16 are at 75% or above. Of those 16, 4 are exclusive to PS3. Of the 6 that are below 75%, 5 are exclusive to PS3.

2) The PS3 userbase IS buying games and the PS3 has a relatively healthy games attach rate.

Believe it or not it have an attach rate similar to the Nintendo Wii which is considered by the media and public conciousness to have a good attach rate.



http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13105

So it's obvious that people are buying games for their PS3's and there are already good games available to buy. I mean there aren't really that many heavy hitters coming in the near future for the PS3 anyway, there are a lot of solid releases in the rsame quality as we've seen thus far. Oblivion I guess might be another top teir reelase?

So recently the PS3's attatch rate has lowered as the Wii's has raised? Okay then.

And "Oblivion" should be a top-teir release. It sure was for the XBOX360 when it came out a year ago.

It doesn't matter that HD-DVD isn't dead, it only matters that it's losing

Because the retailers and content providers want 1 format. The content providers who are format neutral really just want to make an extra buck until a winner is decided there needs to be winner and the industry will force the one with the edge to be the winner sooner rather then later because for the good of the industry there needs to be 1 winner. If I had to bet I'd bet Blu Ray. If the best HD-DVD can do in April is not lose to Blu Ray by a 2 to 1 ratio, then there's no hope for the format longer term because that's still not beating their competitor.

So we should only pay attention to the sales when Blu-ray is winning? What about the first 7-8 months when HD DVD was dominating Blu-ray? You have to realize that while, yes, at the moment Blu-ray is leading, that the market is still so insanely small, and still in its infancy, that it'd be ridiculous to try to make any claims about EITHER side winning based on what's happened in the past two month. It's such a small sample of what's going to be a much larger "war" between the two formats. Anything can happen at this point. Both sides have so much they can do to help ensure their victory, that I wouldn't be suprised if the tables turn 4 or 5 more times before an eventual "winner" is ever declared.

 

[imdaly]

HD-DVD is region free?

Sure is! There are many movies out there that, while in the US are available (or eventually will be) on Blu-ray only, are available (or will be) on HD DVD.

Some notable titles include:
Basic Instinct
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Brothers Grimm
Elephant Man
Enemy At the Gates
Equillibrium
Finding Neverland
The Gift
The Island
The Machinist
Oldboy
Out of Time
The Pianist
The Prestige
The entire Rambo Series
Reign of Fire
Serpico
Terminator 2
Total Recall
xXx


And they're really not that much more expensive than what you'd pay for them on Blu-ray. For example "The Prestige" on Blu-ray here will cost you $34.99. On HD DVD you can import it for $35.12.

Also, with every HD DVD player having a certain amount of built-in memory, the player can remember which language setting you prefer to use, so once you pop in your Japanese "Equillibrium" HD DVD and set it to "English", it'll remember that from then on, and you won't have to change it ever again.

Imdaly: I put a lot of effort into the post I did before that one. Reply to it. =|

Yeah, I was doing so. Took a long time to read and reply to.

 

[Zenien]

I don't recall saying that a 120G HD DVD would be cheap. It'd be insanely expensive, too. My point is that, sure these discs may get up to that size, but who's going to be able to afford them?? Hell, dual-layered DVDs are still expensive as hell to purchase!

You infered that the 200 gig Blu Ray disc would be 'so expensive' while neglecting to mention that a 120 gig HD-DVD disc would be equally expensive.

As a nit pic, we've seen 200 gig Blu Ray discs, so the theory that they can hold up to 200 gigs is proven as fact.

Not sure about the 120 HD-DVD, in all honesty.

...in your opinion.

My opinion is firmly grounded in probable reality. Let's take a look at the 2006 movie market based on both market share and gross.

Spoiler

Spoiler

And now by Revenue

Spoiler

Blu Ray Exclusive​

Studio/Marketshare/Gross Revenue (in millions)

Beuna Vista/Disney 16.98 $1399.1
Sony 16.34 $1346.5
20th Century Fox 14.36 $1183.1
Paramount 8.97 $739.6
Lionsgate 3.98 $327.9

Marketshare based on Revenue

Total Market Share Percent: 76.63%

Format Neutral​

Studio/Marketshare/Gross Revenue (in millions)

Warner Brothers[/b] 11.12 $916

Marketshare based on Revenue

Total Market Share Percent: 11.12%

HD-DVD Exclusive​

Studio/Marketshare/Gross Revenue (In millions)

Universal 9.31 $$767.1

Marketshare based on Revenue

Total Market Share Percent: 9.31%

]

Now here's the upcoming releases for 2007

Spoiler

http://www.darkhorizons.com/releasedates.php

Does Universal have a release in 2007 on par with Spider-Man, Pirates 1 and 2? Pirates 3? Does it have the movies to compete with the day to date releases of Sony? Fox? Disney?

Good luck finding any Blu-ray players at $300 any time this year. I know Sony says that this'll happen, but really...who can believe anything they say any more?

Instead of attempting to dodge the the point altogether you can humor me and accept the line of reasoning. They've been spot on so far with keeping to their price plan with Blu Ray. So I don't see why we should dismiss the fact that they've said they will have 300 dollar players on the market.

I obviously am very much into this whole "war" and since I work at Circuit City, I get a very interesting view on how things are going. In the beginning CC was full-speed-ahead for Blu-ray and literally hiding HD DVD from consumers as much as possible by barely carrying any titles and shoving them in with regular DVDs, having absolutely no ads for them anywhere, and not even carrying any of the players. Meanwhile, Blu-ray had a large demo, a special cart for the Blu-ray discs which was covered in signage, and having advertisements all over the store and in each week's ads.

Then in December things started to shift. Little by little, Blu-ray support has dipped, and HD DVD support has surged. HD DVD has its own section now, 2 demoes to counteract the 2 Blu-ray demoes, advertisements in the weekly ads every other week or so, and even a special cart of the best-selling HD DVD discs to go next to the demoes. Also, the amount of titles we've started carrying have surged from about 20ish to nearly 70 now. Meanwhile, many of the new releases on Blu-ray aren't even being carried in my store yet.

Blu-ray still definitely has the advantage of support by my store, but week-by-week, it is becoming obvious that CC is noticing the money that is to be made by supporting HD DVD.

Anecdotal evidence of 1 store that is a very small part of the market.

Actually, Toshiba's offer is currently 5 free HD DVDs when you purchase a player. But notice the difference in the way HD DVD and Blu-ray's freebies are being handled:

When you buy a Toshiba HD DVD player, you fill out a rebate slip where you circle the titles you choose to get for free. Then you send them in to them and a few weeks down the road they mail them to you. These titles will not show up as "sales" as they are never purchased.

When you get your free/discounted Blu-rays, you are sending in the rebates in order to get a check sent back to you, thus giving you back some or all of the money you spent on the Blu-ray when you bought it at the store. Notice that with THIS way, every disc that is rebated was at one point purchased, and thus counted as a "sale". This is why it is said that Blu-ray's numbers are being artificially inflated.

The reason Blu Ray is getting special offers right now is because retailers are interested in promoting it because it's winning and has the momentum behind it. Chicken or the Egg.

And one could even argue that throwing in 5 free HD-DVD movies is artificially inflated HD-DVD player sales, then.

Is this why Samsung is currently working on a dual-format player, when they're supposed to be Blu-ray exclusive? And what about that HD DVD-equiped laptop that they've recently announced?

Samsung has plans for it, it's not a confirmed release product. Most companies prototype and research different technology players if the market changes. This would be no different. Besides these are the CE producers, not the Content providers who are in a different situation.

Even if every CE producer went dual format players and it went down to discs alone, Blu Ray would be coming out on top just by looking at the movies planned for release in 2007.

Or how about HP, who until recently was Blu-ray exclusive? In December, they announced that they, too, will begin supporting HD DVD.

They went format neutral a long time ago because of iHD, I'm not sure how next gen gen drives going in laptops is an object of relivence.

I think it's safe to say that even the heaviest of PS3-critisizers underestimated the lack of noteworthy PS3 titles for the period so far.

If only this line of logic hadn't been debunked already.

Not to mention, that nobody forsaw the sheer lack of HD DVDs being released for Feb/March. Blu-ray is holding on right now because of "Casino Royale" and the fact that HD DVD has taken a nice big breath recently.

You ability to dilude yourself is commendable. If by "Hold its own" you mean Outsell HD-DVD 2 to 1 have its players sell neck and neck despite being hundreds of dollars more expensive. Even when HD-DVD got the same releases in the week Blu Ray still outsold it by the same margin as the week before, and April is the opening it has before it runs into Pirates and Rocky in March. If you think HD-DVD is going to surpass Blu Ray in the coming months especially with Blu Ray getting more releases and titles with mass appeal that HD-DVD won't have, I don't agree.

There are currently 22 PS3 games released and reviewed on there, and 16 are at 75% or above. Of those 16, 4 are exclusive to PS3. Of the 6 that are below 75%, 5 are exclusive to PS3.

Which leads into my next point.

2) The PS3 userbase IS buying games and the PS3 has a relatively healthy games attach rate.

Me: Believe it or not it have an attach rate similar to the Nintendo Wii which is considered by the media and public conciousness to have a good attach rate.



http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13105

Me: So it's obvious that people are buying games for their PS3's and there are already good games available to buy. I mean there aren't really that many heavy hitters coming in the near future for the PS3 anyway, there are a lot of solid releases in the rsame quality as we've seen thus far. Oblivion I guess might be another top teir reelase?

So recently the PS3's attatch rate has lowered as the Wii's has raised? Okay then.

Which is a good attach rate no matter how you attempt to spin it. Disproving the logic that the PS3 doesn't have good games and that they aren't selling to PS3 owners. I've gone into the how and why of potentail Blu Ray adopters when purchasing the PS3 it would be nice to see you address those points.

And "Oblivion" should be a top-teir release. It sure was for the XBOX360 when it came out a year ago.

So following your logic which has been debunked, this is a good thing for the Blu Ray format no?

So we should only pay attention to the sales when Blu-ray is winning? What about the first 7-8 months when HD DVD was dominating Blu-ray?

When HD-DVD was dominating Blu Ray there were still peices that had yet to be put on the board. I've already said that there are still some things to play out; now though we have all the pieces assembled aside from price drops. Which will be fairly self evident, not like the effect the PS3 would have as a Blu Ray player on the market.

You have to realize that while, yes, at the moment Blu-ray is leading, that the market is still so insanely small, and still in its infancy, that it'd be ridiculous to try to make any claims about EITHER side winning based on what's happened in the past two month.

It's not rediculous to say that Blu Ray is winning now because it is, similarly HD-DVD was winning during those 7-8 months prior, but now all the pieces are on the board. The Blu Ray side was missing it's queen, so to speak, before the PS3 was released, and it wasn't using all its pawns (quality of videos compared to HD-DVD in the early days was poor, that's no longer an issue.

It's such a small sample of what's going to be a much larger "war" between the two formats. Anything can happen at this point. Both sides have so much they can do to help ensure their victory, that I wouldn't be suprised if the tables turn 4 or 5 more times before an eventual "winner" is ever declared.

I'm not really going to argue with this, but the momentum and situation says probably Blu Ray.

 

[Spider-X]

i don't usually do this but imdaly...you just got OWNED...biggy time

 

[Fading]

It's not rediculous to say that Blu Ray is winning now because it is, similarly HD-DVD was winning during those 7-8 months prior, but now all the pieces are on the board. The Blu Ray side was missing it's queen, so to speak, before the PS3 was released, and it wasn't using all its pawns (quality of videos compared to HD-DVD in the early days was poor, that's no longer an issue.

I agree that this is a very well done post, but wanted to toss something in on top of this. The 7-8 month lead that gets brought up for HD-DVD was partly during a time period where BR hadn't even been released.? HD-DVD was released in what, April? While BR was released months later. HD-DVD had a headstart, it wasn't winning at that point since it had no competition. Heck that even works against HD because HD had steam rolling into November and December. It had been out longer, it had time to build a base, it had the people who had bought one before BR came out. When Christmas came BR was still relatively new, while HD had been out for a little bit. While most people had to buy the $1000 BR player they didn't have much for the movies, many early HD adopters had had their players for months so their loved ones just needed to buy them movies for Christmas.

If anything that headstart should have helped HD far more than it did. For them to have a few months headstart, and to get overtaken in just a few more months by a younger product isn't good. HD may be having a bit of a dry season, and I can understand that, and its not the end of HD even if it is currently being outsold 2 to 1. However it's not just being outsold on a weekly basis, BR has actually caught up and surpassed HD's sales since it first came out. Meaning BR has in a shorter time span sold more than the competing format did with a headstart. If this keeps up then more movie rental stores may phase out HD movies if they aren't selling or being rented, and aren't recieving a steady supply for their displays.

As for the region free HD's your talking about, I agree that it's a good thing if you understand that or know where to get them. However not everyone who has an HD-DVD player does. Many only buy what they can find in a local Wal-mart or Best Buy, others may buy online, but only at the popular sites they've heard of like Amazon or another more famous site. It's a small percentage of total owners who probably even know about region free HD-DVD's, let alone where to get them.

I will say though I can understand Universal not switching. Even with lower sales total, Universal is the only exclusive. If an HD-DVD owner wants a movie you can't get on BR then they have to go to Universal's line-up.

 

[RedIsNotBlue]

Yeah Zenien your a hell of a debater. Your winning me over for Blu-Ray the more you talk about it.

 

[hippie_hunter]

I own, as of today, 20 HD DVDs with the 3 more pre-ordered so far off of Amazon.

HD DVD is here to stay.

Just so you know, if HD-DVD loses, I am going to laugh.

 

[Fran]

It's not stupid to build a collection, hippie.

Because it's not like HD-DVD will ruin Xbox 360 systems if it fails, you can still watch them on it

But yeah, you stupid hunter of hippies!

 

[hippie_hunter]

Again, none of these titles (what the hell is "Golden Compass"??) have had any official word of being released. And knowing WB, there's a good chance that many of those will be HD DVD only until Blu-ray gets it's BD-J features working correctly. This is the same reason why "Batman Begins" and "V for Vendetta", among others, are only out on HD DVD right now, even though it's by a neutral studio.

And it's funny you mention "Harry Potter", as I've enjoyed my HD DVD of "Harry Potter 4" for the past few months. Gotta love region-free HD DVD!
And if we see "The Matrix" or the "Harry Potter" series' come out on HD DVD before Blu-ray, that'll be a nice boost, too.

I wouldn't count on Warner Bros delivering movies on HD-DVD before blu-ray anymore. If you take a look at their recent and upcoming releases on blu-ray and HD-DVD, you will see that they are releasing them at exactly the same time or around a week or two apart:

A Christmas Story
A Scanner Darkly
the Ant Bully
Beerfest
Bullitt
the Departed
the Dirty Dozen
Dog Day Afternoon
the Fountain
the Getaway
Good Night, Good Luck
Happy Feet
House of Wax
Lady in the Water
the Lake House
Lethal Weapon 2
March of the Penguins
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Scooby Doo
Space Cowboys
Superman the Movie
Superman II
Superman Returns
Under Seige
the Wicker Man

And they have been putting titles that have been HD-DVD only onto the blu-ray format to bring the amount of Warner HD-DVD titles and Warner blu-ray titles to an even amount:

16 Blocks
ATL
Blazing Saddles
Enter the Dragon
Firewall
the Fugitive
Full Metal Jacket
Goodfellas
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Lethal Weapon
Million Dollar Baby
the Last Samurai
Phantom of the Opera
Rumor Has It
the Searchers
Swordfish
Syriana
Training Day
Unforgiven

And to add to that, Warner Bros has plans to put most of the remaining HD-DVD only titles such as Batman Begins on the blu-ray format. Warner is going to be as neutral as possible in this issue.

 

[Fran]

Warner is making that dual-format disc, so yeah...

 

[hippie_hunter]

It's not stupid to build a collection, hippie.

Because it's not like HD-DVD will ruin Xbox 360 systems if it fails, you can still watch them on it

But yeah, you stupid hunter of hippies!

Of course it isn't going to ruin the Xbox 360 because Microsoft played it safe unlike Sony and didn't gamble on a winner by making the HD-DVD drive mandatory, but as an optional add-on.

But he's bought so many HD-DVDs and he still is buying them adding more to his collection, it's all going to be for nothing if they decide blu-ray over HD-DVD.

 

[Fran]

But imdaly can own a piece of history!

 

[hippie_hunter]

But imdaly can own a piece of history!

Sorta how like my dad's old recruiting station owns a betamax

 

[Fran]

I have an HD-DVD player, but I only have 5 HD-DVDs, and am planning on getting 300 for it.

 

[hippie_hunter]

I have an HD-DVD player, but I only have 5 HD-DVDs, and am planning on getting 300 for it.

But at least you haven't put in such a heavy investment in it like imdaily has. I can understand getting one and hoping that it will win out. But putting such an investment into it and actually thinking that it will win is just absurd.

 

[Avalanche]

I have an HD-DVD player, but I only have 5 HD-DVDs, and am planning on getting 300 for it.

Lol. How random. I plan on getting 298.6769528888888 HD-DVDs. t:

 

[Spider-X]

Lol. How random. I plan on getting 298.6769528888888 HD-DVDs. t:

i believe he means the movie 300...not 300 dvds...silly Avalanche man