http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/ Engadget HD Comments for Two years of battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray: a retrospective http://www.engadgethd.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadgethd.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 11:57AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
Nothing quite like a flame war to drive hits up.]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:04PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
and If I didn't say it, someone else would, and we are all thinking about it!]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:06PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 12:45PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
As I said, you didn't need to read the article, and you don't seem to be the senior editor of the site. Calm down.]]>Feb 20th 2008 2:54PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 2:56PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 3:49PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 6:38PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 12:00PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 3:05PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
Can't wait for those HD-DVD movie sales to really heat up!]]>Feb 20th 2008 5:04PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
That's like saying a Corvette is a bargain over a Murcielago.

$600 for a disk player is insane.]]>Feb 20th 2008 5:36PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
The studios played a game with us before on the standard DVDs

The initial "crap edition"
The "crap edition with deleted scenes or uncut version" released 6 months later
The "ultimate edition with DTS" or better transfer quality - another 6 months after that
The "utlimate directors cut" with better quality and the uncut scenes released another 6 months after that.

Again I have no issue with buying many of my DVDs again in BR - but only when they release the BR edition with DTS MA or Dolby HD recordings, 1080p quality transfers and the deleted scenes - ideally they would have the theatrical release and the uncut or directors version on the same disc - wouldn't take up much more space if they just used the programming on the DVD to switch between both versions instead of trying to put both full length on the disc - can be done with the programming on the initial menu - which version you select.

Frankly I don't care much about the extras - like what the keygrip was thinking when they were shooting a scene or what that the director was sick on a day of shooting - I just want the best quality video and audio with a choice of cut or uncut.]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:05PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 12:09PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
on the other hand, you could call them BRD's or Blu-rays, but BRD sounds like a bowel movement and Blu-rays sound like an animal that killed Steve Irwin (RIP). I personally don't like things that kill the Crocodile Hunter; it's un-American.

CH-DVD ftw!]]>Feb 20th 2008 2:15PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
Release the "crap edition" for 18.99
Release the "ultimate director's cut" with DTS-MA or DD HD, 1080p, theatrical and uncut edition for $23.99 and see if BR sales increase. I think people willing to pay for BR tend to be people with large TV's and a home theatre system. These are the people who are more likely to notice a difference in BR over standard DVD - likewise they are more likely to notice better sound, better video and want both the theatrical and directors cut.]]>Feb 20th 2008 2:50PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:07PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/While in the short term Blu manufacturers discounted some players to compete with HD DVD, ultimately it is volume that is going to drive prices down. Higher volumes make it cheaper to make the players, whereas the discounting we saw was a strategy to gain long term market share, with minimal profit on each sale, which is eventually unsustainable. This war has significantly delayed widespread adoption of hi def players - a lot of people were scared of being betamaxed. I think most of us are aware of how miniscule hi-def sales remain compared to DVD.
Blu ray manufacturers will compete with each other. This is why we saw DVD player prices tumble despite being an unopposed format.]]>Feb 21st 2008 5:48PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
I think you need to check your facts. The BDA demanded that Toshiba drop everything from their standard and join. Just some left over sour grapes from Sony-Philips MMCD loosing to SDD (now known as DVD)
]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:08PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
Did the BDA basically tell Toshiba they'd have to drop their proposals and go with the group? Yes. But that was not unreasonable, let alone 'sour grapes', given the context.

When Toshiba blinked at the last minute and approached the BDA the reports were that they offered to avert the war and join - but only if the BDA would use HDi instead of BD-J and make changes to the physical disc structure (very likely to use more of Toshiba's DVD patents). At that point the physical BD specs were done and the interactivity issue had been put to rest well before. The BDA was rightfully unwilling to undo years of cooperation and hard-won compromises just to make Toshiba happy. Remember, Toshiba basically wrote the HD DVD spec themselves. The BD spec was very much a group effort, and in order to change it would've meant going through the process of hammering out agreements amongst the members on issues they'd just spent years working to finalize.

Toshiba was approached *many* times over the years to join the BDA. They were greedy and insisted on going their own way. Despite everyone except NEC and Sanyo (and what the hell did Sanyo contribute in the end anyway?) siding with Blu-ray, Toshiba kept insisting they could build better spec. If they hadn't waited until the absolute last minute, when it was too late, to join the BDA then they could've influenced the spec.

Toshiba locked themselves out, plain and simple. They insisted on doing their own thing while everyone else pitched in and hammered out a compromise. Then Toshiba comes back and deigns to join the group - if the group does a few (major) things their way? That's arrogant and unreasonable.

Toshiba burned themselves. They could've joined the BDA, influenced the spec, got more of their IP used, and earned more licensing from Blu-ray. Instead they got greedy and decided to bet all-or-nothing - and lost. Unfortunately, in the process of burning themselves they burned a lot of consumers and distracted the entire market.

Last time around Sony did the right thing by joining DVD - largely a Toshiba effort. This time around Toshiba failed to do the right thing - and got spanked for it.

It isn't like the BDA locked Toshiba out until the last minute - Toshiba shunned all invites until the last minute. It is just not reasonable to expect an entire industry to junk years of work because one company was too arrogant and/or greedy to work with them despite repeated invitations to do so.]]>Feb 21st 2008 12:24AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.tivolovers.com/2005/05/10/well-i-have-to-say-it-congratulations-to-toshiba-nec-and-sanyo/

Of course, the next day the high was crushed: http://www.tivolovers.com/2005/05/10/toshiba-slams-blu-ray-hd-dvd-convergence-claims/]]>Feb 21st 2008 12:34AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 12:12PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 2:19PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
@zamm: you're absolutely right. I just saw somewhere that an HD DVD player that includes an HDMI cable, 300 and The Bourne Identity is $79 at Costco. That's an amazing deal even if you only use it as an upconverting DVD player in the future.]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:17PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
I concede the format war may have accelerated the timetable, but let's not go overboard. The format war sucked, pure and simple.]]>Feb 20th 2008 1:01PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 12:21PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
I think it's important to remember how things went down and I'm sure there are a few that came in towards the end and don't exactly remember what happened. I know I wrote half the stories myself and until I started researching, I didn't realize how much of it I had forgotten.]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:24PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 12:25PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 1:02PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Not sure about the HD-A2 but a PS3 will do all these things. No special hacks or mods necessary. PS3 was designed to run another OS and even has an option in the system menu to help with the install and create a partition for you (take that M$). Yellow Dog is the officially recommended distribution (since Cell is basically a power PC) but I've seen people run Ubuntu on there with little hassle.

PS3 also supports Bluetooth, comes with wifi and has an array of media card slots. ]]>Feb 20th 2008 2:18PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/

and have some respect for the SOLDIERS WHO DIED IN WWII .]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:31PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 4:54PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
If anything, at least we know where Engadget alliances and the alliances of it's authors belong right? I think that this war was great to root out all of the corrupted and anti-consumer media outlets, of course, Engadget being one of them.]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:35PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
Early adopters know they are taking a risk on early hardware, especially in a format war. If they don't, they have no business being early adopters!

]]>Feb 20th 2008 1:08PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
Profile 2 isn't going to leave folks in the dust except for some extra add on features. Movies will still play so stop your lies already. Your credibility is non-existent after all the crap you've posted since day one.

Don't you have another funeral after-party to attend?]]>Feb 20th 2008 1:17PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
You hate BD, Nfinity. Right, we get it!
Go find a way to accept that it beat HD DVD and come back when you're over it. ]]>Feb 20th 2008 2:20PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
His posts have never been anything than total BS so just loose these idiot from the forums. Hi's posts are just a total waste of space.]]>Feb 20th 2008 1:44PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
I first was a Nintendo fanboy back in the 80's when I was a young lad with the NES, hated sega. then in the mid 90's Sony made the Playstation and the N64 didn't seem as good. Later the PS2 helped bring your precious DVD to the forefront. and yes now the PS3 will DOMINATE soon begin to dominate regular DVD sales in the next 12-18 month and oh yeah your beloved Xbox360 is all but dead in the same period of time.

as far as your saying that BR is "incomplete" I guess you're saying this because of profile 1.1 and 2.0 and everything going forward. There is this crazy thing call "firmware," I believe they have that on computers that run operating systems made by the Microsoft Corporation. As far as I know this can be updated since I have done it on my third generation Playstation, so I guess it is better to have technology that is constantly getting better, no? is 1080p not better resolution than 1080i? that's always confused me, "i" comes before "p" in the alphabet so "i" is better right? because HDDVD was better than BR and 1080i is all that HDDVD had... I'm still confused...]]>Feb 20th 2008 2:15PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 2:18PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 3:02PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/


will the final exam be open book or can i have a cheat sheet?]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:47PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 12:48PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
I'm somewhat angry with Toshiba. What am I going to do with my HD DVD movies now? If they really wanted to get on my good side, they'd offer me a $15 Visa gift card for each HD DVD I own so I can purchase them on Blu-ray (once they're released).]]>Feb 20th 2008 12:48PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 1:10PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
HD DVD has no reinforcements... unless you consider LG's combo player a slight reinforcement]]>Feb 20th 2008 1:18PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
It seems more likely every day that the rumor of Microsoft wanting the downloading of movies to be the victor is every so true.]]>Feb 20th 2008 1:28PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/
It's probably good that Blu-ray won. I don't think Sony would have admitted defeat with so many PS3's in the wild. At least now we can move forward. ]]>Feb 20th 2008 1:32PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 1:33PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 1:34PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/20/two-years-of-battle-between-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-a-retrospective/Feb 20th 2008 1:25PM