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Topic: Anyone consuming HD or Blu-ray?

Bruce Hansen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 847
From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-19-2008 06:12 PM

It only costs pennies to make the disc. I don't think that 50 Gigs of memory will ever be anywhere that cheep.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-19-2008 06:55 PM

HD VMD hardly deserves any mention at all. It's like "HD-DVD Part 2," but without critical things like real support from movie studios and willingness of retailers to stock the product. HD VMD has no technical superiority over Blu-ray Disc in any category. American retailers have spoke their mind: they're stocking Blu-ray as the only high definition choice.

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Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-19-2008 07:11 PM

It's all about whats after Blu-ray now.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-19-2008 08:35 PM

Oh hell, Blu-Ray has at least 5 good years ahead of it, maybe more. Sony et al will make PLENTY of money off it.

Toshiba on the other hand loses bigtime. Including lost future revenues, it's said to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

So, if I'm in the market for Blu-Ray, what is the player of choice now? (excluding the PS3)

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-19-2008 09:47 PM

IMHO, the best of current "standalone" Blu-ray players is the Panasonic DMP-BD30. It's a true BD Profile 1.1 compliant player (which means it can do certain interactive things and run picture in picture video commentaries). What's really better about it is it boots up much faster and loads discs much faster than most other standalone players. It has the latest HDMI 1.3a outputs and supports 7.1 channel output of LPCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

The downside is the Panasonic DMP-BD30 is not cheap. At $499, it costs just as much as a 80GB PS3.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-19-2008 09:51 PM

quote: Bruce Hansen
It only costs pennies to make the disc.

Yes, if you don't count all the money that goes into producing the material that's on the disk. Not to mention all the expenses it picks up along the journey from manufacturer to retailer.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 02-19-2008 10:05 PM

Mike,
He was responding to the question about thinking that blu-ray will be replaced by flash memory or solid-state drives. The costs you're bringing up will exist regardless of the medium.

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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008

posted 02-19-2008 10:44 PM

I just received an email from Val Morgan Advertising asking us to pull our Toshiba ads immediately because "the ad’s content refers to a product that Toshiba will no longer be producing". What could that be about, I wonder?

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 02-20-2008 12:24 AM

The pullout article below...

quote:
The two-year war between HD DVD and Blu-ray officially ended Tuesday morning as Toshiba waved the white flag and declared it would stop producing HD DVD products.

The company, which began sales of HD DVD in March 2006 with the HD-A1 player, "decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence," said chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida. The Blu-ray format is now the definitive winner in the war and stands unopposed as the optical media replacement for DVD.

Toshiba's news release goes into a bit more detail: "Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand."

Three movie studios currently support HD DVD--Universal, Paramount, and DreamWorks Animation--but we expect them to follow suit and announce support of Blu-ray sooner rather than later.

With Blu-ray support announced by industry heavyweights Netflix, Wal-mart and Best Buy, speculation ran rampant before the weekend that Toshiba would end the war, and the company deserves credit for pulling out as soon as it did. The two incompatible formats have led to plenty of confusion among prospective buyers of next-generation hardware and software, although some have opined that the war was a good thing--at least it led to price drops.

We've been advising readers against the purchase of HD DVD players since the announcement by Warner Brothers in January that it would exclusively support Blu-ray. That doesn't mean we're telling everyone to rush out and buy a Blu-ray player now; we still believe that most home theater fans would be better served to wait for prices on players to fall. Of course, with the exit of Blu-ray's major competition, those prices may fall later rather than sooner.

-Monte

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 02-20-2008 02:29 AM

I wonder how good the Toshiba Blew-Ray players will be.

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Mike Schindler
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1039
From: Oak Park, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 02-20-2008 09:23 AM

Right now, Toshiba says they have no plans for Blu-ray.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-20-2008 09:36 AM

Gosh Mark, aren't you happy you spent that money on that cheap HD-DVD player now? [Razz]

(Sorry, it had to be done. [Big Grin]

)

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-20-2008 10:27 AM

quote: Mike Schindler
Right now, Toshiba says they have no plans for Blu-ray.

Yeah. Sony once said that about VHS machines.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-20-2008 11:52 AM

Agreed. Toshiba may not have any current plans to manufacture Blu-ray Disc machines. But they will eventually.

Competition is going to heat up between the growing number of vendors selling Blu-ray Disc players. That will drive down prices. It may take at least another 2 or 3 years, but Blu-ray Disc players will eventually be selling for $100 or less. Once they reach those price levels retail stores won't stock ordinary DVD players anymore. Toshiba would then be forced to market a BD product if they want to sell any movie disc players at all.

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Larry Myers
Master Film Handler

Posts: 371
From: Herndon, VA, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 02-20-2008 01:18 PM

I just talked to the Best Buy manager at the Herndon Store today. He says NO he will not take my Toshiba A3 back because I am over the 30 day return policy by 5 days. That YES he will back the 5 Free HD DVD's if they are not delivered in the stated 3 month time frame.

He said the store will NOT be receiving any more HD DVD items. The store will NOT be returning any in stock HD DVD items. Everything in house will be mark down for a quick sale within the next 2 weeks.

I notice that a good up convert DVD player sells for about $100. Since I have only $150 in my A3, if I get my 5 free movies, I believe everything will work out. Well that's the 2 hour old story for today.

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