Blockbuster goes Blu-ray, HD DVD=beta?,

The Associated Press reported the Chinese HD-DVD confirmation on fall release at $199 in several newspapers last week. Its not very far away.

The Majority of Blu Ray players unfortunately dont come with the technical specifications needed to utilize many of Hi Def DVD capabilities. I am not aware that any have ethernet connectivity, needed for the interactive feature aspects. Also, as the format has itself changed, early Blu Ray player buyers are already obsolete.

The actual title sales are about even worldwide, and that total is less than 1% of total DVD sales. All HD-DVD has to do is continue to exist, and as the total volume percentage of Hi Def DVDs increases relative to standard plus Hi Def SAles, all studios will have to release in both formats or lose a lot of money, as more and more people purchase 1080P displays and want Hi Def DVDs.

AS far as the codec used by the chinese players, it certainly isnt inferior; it was codesigned with Toshiba to handle certain copyright issues frankly and will play HD-DVDs perfectly, by report.

Blu Ray and Sony are facing problems with the European Commission due to "marketing technique" issues and European studios arent supporting Blu Ray at this time for the most part.

Current Blu Ray losses are mounting although obviously Sony and Co have a lot of resources. Eventually non-sustainable and the production costs and needed memory and processing capabilities are so high on the Blu Ray Side that in the end, its just not a competitive format, only being propped up by a lot of Sony Marketing and false advertising. And a lot of dollars!!

"Its interesting to note that neither Target or Costco now have an hd dvd player for sale online but both have BD players."

You might want to double check availablity at Costco on-line.

Untill the general public cares about either of these formats the arguements are mute, as of now it doesnt look like people really care about taking on another format.
Now if there are cheap players and movie clubs gave away a player with a purchase contract...say 10 in 3 years or whatever then maybe something would fly.

Newbie 13, a few days after Target announced that the Sony s-300 Blu-ray player was the only stand alone that would be sold in their store this Holiday season, and for a week straight neither had them available online.

Maybe they were waiting on the new model players.

Rysa, so there is still nothing official, just more of the same rumour started on AVS being re-hashed by the A/P this time.

Blu-ray players from Funai and Gowell are officially coming though.

I see you telling members that the PS3 is not being bought as a BD player but how do you explain that hd dvd was ahead in sales in Europe until this spring when after 1 week of PS3 sales, Blu-ray software was responsible for 87% of all HD software sales?

Also, how do you explain that ever since the PS3 was readily availble on U.S. store shelves in January, that Blu-ray has out sold hd dvd at least 2-1 and up to 3-1 every single week in the nielson ratings?

Even when there were new hd dvd releases and no new Blu-ray releases, it remained 2-1 that week.

Anyone interested in finding fact from fiction can look at the Nielsen ratings for this entire year and keep looking because those numbers are going to be getting worse by the week for hd dvd, all the way through the Holidays.

The Associated Press confirmed the Chinese HD-DVD player release at 199.99 for this fall; that's where all of the codec info came from as well.

Without an ethernet connection currrent Blu Ray players are going to be obsolete. The Toshiba players allow for online updating of software ( which is very cool) as well as use for online interactive features in the future. The HD-DVD players of course upscale standard DVDs wonderfully as well.

The memory requirements and processing power needed to make Blu Rays less efficient software writing means either a very expensive player or some lessor performance characteristics as far as speed of loading as well as interactive features.

I don't disagree that the "format war" won't go on for awhile for sure; and I don't know if either format will truely win as well.

I would stay away from Blu Ray players for now though- they will improve in a way that will make current ones obsolete very quickly. As has already happened.