Engadget HD Podcast 073 - 02.20.2008
by Trent Wolbe 
posted Feb 20th 2008 at 11:00AM
If you've had enough talk about HD DVD's decision to discontinue HD DVD, then you need to just move along, because this week we spend almost the entire show replaying the events from the past week that led up to yesterday's official announcement. Looking back it seems so obvious now how everything fell together, but that's why they say hindsight is 20/20. Looking forward we ponder all the new questions we have moving forward to, so if you thought we'd run out of things to talk about now that HD DVD is out, think again.Get the podcast
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Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh and Steve Kim
Producer: Trent Wolbe
00:33 - Comments from Engadget HD Podcast 072 - 02.14.2008
06:10 - Amazon takes 50% off 150 HD DVDs
06:58 - Warner's stance on restocking HD DVDs: only if demand necessitates
08:24 - Toshiba gearing up to drop HD DVD?
09:05 - HD DVD deathwatch: we're making it official
10:00 - Poll: Is your Wal-Mart scaling back its HD DVD player lineup?
10:36 - Wal-Mart to officially discontinue HD DVD sales by June
11:45 - HD DVD movies get sold cheap at DeepDiscount
13:09 - Toshiba pulling the plug on HD DVD already? - Yup it's over.
15:55 - Paramount's Transformers showing up in Blu-ray attire?
18:05 - Blu-ray discs reach 1.5 million sold, HDM still trails DVD's first two years
20:57 - J.D. Power finds Blu bandwagon already full of salespeople
22:28 - Toshiba shares surge ahead of HD DVD abandonment
23:05 - Toshiba claims "no decision" on HD DVD strategy as desertions continue
24:38 - Samsung expected to focus efforts on Blu-ray
25:32 - BDA sez Toshiba and Microsoft are "more than welcome" to go Blu
26:10 - Does everyone know the war is officially over but us?
27:28 - Official: HD DVD dead and buried, format war is over
30:01 - Toshiba: "no plans" to adopt Blu-ray
42:00 - T-minus one year till the US analog shutoff: are you ready?
47:05 - DVRs increase TV consumption, and Nielsen ought to know
LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)
LISTEN (OGG)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
zoran @ Feb 20th 2008 2:57PM
Great. No more "Are you Blu-Ray or Hd-Dvd or Bi?
Matt @ Feb 20th 2008 3:30PM
The 'Thumbs up to record' feature for Tivo is cool in principle, but the one time I used it, it recorded the SD version. I guess I need to delete the SD channels from my guide, but it should default to the HD version.
EP @ Feb 21st 2008 1:12PM
I have also stopped buying feature films altogether. Maybe it's because I'm just older now, but I see now how buying feature films is akin to flushing money down the drain because I never revisited them. It turns out, the only DVDs I ever come back to on a regular basis were Music & Concert DVDs.
So when I eventually purchase a HDM player, I'll be renting 98% of my discs and only purchasing Concert discs and perhaps 2-3 "must have showcase discs" that every true gadget nerd needs to show-off their system.
raskev @ Feb 20th 2008 10:57PM
Near the end of the show there was some confusion raised about the analog cutoff. You can see a listing of what your market is going to look like post-cutoff at AntennaWeb.org by filling in your postal code and submitting the form.
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Stations.aspx
In my market most channel numbers stay the same as seen on an ATSC tuner today. The channel ids for analog and digital stations mostly coincide here in Minneapolis (ex. sd 5 = hd 5.1, sd 11 = hd 11.1). An analog converter box is just a current ATSC tuner that down-converts the signal to 480i and sends it out via composite video or coax on analog channel 3.
Ben @ Feb 20th 2008 10:58PM
I understand that, but one of my channels is moving from UHF to VHF and my UHF only antenna pointed at the tower is going to be useless and I don't know what day it'll happen. I guess I could assume they'll wait to the last day.
Devron @ Feb 20th 2008 11:14PM
Predictions? This may be the wrong comment to make on this site, but I don't think beating HD-DVD will give the BDA the market share it believes it can get.
I've been listening to different tech outlets (Diggnation, TWiT Network, Revision3, etc.) and without being a snob, it's amazing how often they just spew out wrong info about Blu (as compared to other formats.) That said, I have to think if this is the opinion in the so-called tech community, then what could possibly be going through the heads of all of those people running low def cable streams over composite cables on their Plasma and calling it high def?
I'm an early adopter myself, but having eavesdropped on many conversation over the past few months at Best Buy, I just don't think people will see the difference enough like videophiles do to buy Blu at the rate that we bought DVD. People just aren't buying movies like we did in the mid-late 90s anymore. There are too many other options (Netflix, Torrents, iTunes). Plus, I think people are doing what I did - looking at a wall full of movies and realizing that you may have watched each one no more than three times and wondering what 15.99 * two or three hundred could have looked like in your wallet. Blu will probably never see the numbers that DVD saw.
This may sound like a dumb prediction, but I think that as Apple brings down the price of the iPhone and releases perhaps a "Mini" version, more folks may consider the digital versions of these films. (But they've gotta do something about that 24-hour limit and the price has to get down.)
Last thing - I own about 18 Blu-ray discs. In almost every case, I feel like I'm paying more and getting less. Yes, the HD format is great, but usually when I'm buying a film, I anticipate listening to director's commentary and checking out extras. Very often I've seen day-and-date high def releases come out without the extras that the standard def format has.
David S @ Feb 21st 2008 4:02AM
Great Points.
David S @ Feb 21st 2008 4:15AM
Steve, here's something I wouldn't mind EngadgetHD looking into- Doesn't it seems like for TrueHD and DTS-HD there really aren't a lot of receivers to choose from? Why is there such a slow rate of adopting the newish audio codecs in Home Audio receivers?
GenKhan2 @ Feb 21st 2008 11:41AM
My first "HD" Experience
I received my used 20GB PS3 in the mail yesterday. In the process of checking out my new toy I decided to compare a Blu-Ray disk (Talladega Nights) with some of the DVDs in my collection. I was utterly floored by Blu-Ray's lack of improvement over an upscaled DVD on my 56" screen. So much for the format war. DVD had it in the bag a long time ago.
Is Talladega Nights a poorly mastered Blu-Ray or are my eyes broken?
GenKhan2
dennis.p @ Feb 24th 2008 2:49PM
Hi again guys, great podcast as always.
Predictions/Comments.
I hope that in the coming months Paramount and Universal will get going on the BD realeases. one thing i've been wondering about is that previous warner and paramount as dual format studioes made one codec to put on both formats, with the limited capacity and bitrate from HDDVD dictating the limit. Will warnes and paramounts film be better quality now (I'm only talking picture) that they can use more space on BD, or will the extra space be used for a better codec - heres for lossless DTS-HD MA :).
BTW Ben, do you have a Onkyo 605 yourself? is so how is it with the new audio codecs? I only have a ordinary reciever at home, and a ps3 as a BD player, but i'm eyeing that one due to price.
I just whish Sony once and for all would clearify if their console will be able to output dts hd bitstream or not. i mean come on it's just a "no" or "yes but it's gonna take time", that'll hold of people for quite a while. But because there's NO official comment on this I'm still confused as to if i should buy a second BD player when a 2.0 Live player hits the market with complete nextgen audio support.
Well i guess we will know more in the coming months.
And boy did the warner switch accelerate BD rental and sale here i Denmark, theres BD ads everywere and our local Blockbuster has a fast growing section of rental movies, - Gotta love HD :D
Great works guys keep it up!!
BigPana @ Feb 23rd 2008 1:48PM
I predict Toshiba will come out with a Blu-Ray player just as soon as they finish gorging themselves with tubs of ice cream and get out of those sweat pants.
Zodiac @ Feb 26th 2008 4:14PM
oh, i just noticed I posted with the other profile. :P