is not "But what if you are still interested in buying a HD DVD player?"
but why in the world would you buy one?

It would so funny if HD DVD could somehow ramp up production and turn out to be a comercial success because of the lower price point...

If someone picks up the excess thousands of HD DVD writers.

Then and only then is it worth it.

Because the drives could be modified back to use standard dvd disc's.

That would make roughly 30 GB available for back up of data (::cough:: ::cough:: movies) on a $1 DL dvd disk and 15 GB on the roughly 25 cent single layered disc.

As a reminder most of the blu ray movies are in mpeg-2 and vc-1 format. With disney and sony primarily using avc (a couple others as well).

avc can be converted to vc-1 or mpeg

This means that all one would need is a pc blu ray player (not advocating piracy just stating what one could do) last I checked they cost about 200. And the dual high def LG writer drive was around 389.

I would rather back up my collection on $1 disk before I would line up and spend 17 to 20 for blank blu ray media.

Divx went by way of underground in its demise and this may easily follow. If anyone is interested I'll keep you posted.

if you haven't purchased a blu-ray player yet, don't. And im not saying this because of profile 2.0 (does anybody actually watch PIP director comments? If you do proceed in getting a life). The prices for a standalone players are absurd. The only logical solution would be taking the plunge and purchasing a PS3 for $400 (which is reasonable for its feature set) or buying a blu ray optical drive for your computer that now cost under $200 (If you do this you better be COMPLETELY POSITIVE that your PC can handle hd movies, and your monitor and graphics card are HDCP compatible).

According to Tom's Guides:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/hd...6-15.html

"As with other Toshiba internal drives, this unit is currently available only to OEMs." (Referring specifically to the SD-H903A)

I can't see any mass-market equipment manufacturer picking these drives up in order to release them to a dying market. Best bet there is perhaps a Tiger Direct sort of clearance outlet.

I don't think it's going to happen in any matter that will significantly affect the market or even make news.

I agree with the earlier post. Why bother buying a Blu-Ray format player. Who really wants to watch movies with high resolution sound and video anyway? I mean its not like anyone out there has a HDTV. Who needs DVD for that matter? VHS movies look just find. On second thought...

Since HD-DVD players are basically Pentium4-M PCs with 1GB of RAM, why not buy a bunch of them and build a Linux HPC cluster?

It really doesn't matter what channel it is distributed under.

This is what I was trying to point out to you in the other post.

www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36089/113/

It's is never about winning a war. It's about having a market for it and making MONEY.

Okay I'll try it again this way, because you're stuck on movie studios. I'm talking about consumer use.

That's why I pointed out divx and you keep responding divx is old why are we talking about it.

We are talking about it because it too jumped onto the scene fast hard and died. Yet in 2008 there are still divx players on the market. There is divx compatibility being added to NEW TECHS.

Again, divx was release with movies on them. If you don't know the history of divx I beg of you to research it. This will help you understand how the underground of consumers has the ability to keep something alive.

And the bottom line to almost any company is this, if you can show them a customers with dollars waiting in hand to spend and a viable reason why something should be done and completely lay out how it could be done. Then you will have an investor willing to take a chance.

As I describe before, if had the kind of money to invest, back and push something. This would be it because the timing is still right. From a primarily PC drive standpoint. It's a financial slame dunk.

Again who gives a crap about the movie studios and what movies are released in it. They abandoned it like I said they would because they are financial whores. What you look at is viability, use and demand.

Before we hit on this discussion further please visit (and don't shun the information saying it's off topic because it's not, I will tie it all up and even put a little bo on the end)

www.divx.com
www.divxmovies.com/codec

As stated above divx hasn't had permission from the major studios to have movies produced in it in over 7 years. Yet players are still being created.

First HD DVD pc data drives don't need a movie to be released on it. Why because there is and has been a large market of people magically having NEW MOVIES in the divx format and playing it on divx player for quite some time.

So what am i saying this means. HD DVD writers now have no loyalty to be stifled as toshiba did to appease the movie studios.

So this market of people could technically instead of durning divx movies in red laser could be using blue lasered drives and storing 15 GB on a single layered dvd disc.

Dual layered dvd disk can hole 30 GB of any kind of data in VC-1, MPEG-2, divx, divx hd, music, pictures, personal video recording collection etc

ANY DATA JUST AS WE DO TODAY WITH STANDARD DVD'S

Can you see how this is viable?

Blu ray will need to keep the movie studios happy.

One of the ways they have been doing it is having blank media costing 17 to 20 (more in some places).

This makes what I described above not cost beneficial. So if that group of people are looking at using backup to blu ray fpr 17 bucks a pop minimum or storing the exact same data on 25 cent SL or $1 DL disc.

You tell me whats the no brainer?

Remember it's basically the same dvd drive with a bule laser.

So, If I presented you with a drive costing $60 to 100 for data backup and the ability to use existing media.

Any ony starring at a collection of more than 10 dvd's with movies etc on the is NOT going to choose 17 to 20 a pop media.

I hope this helps you understand because as those divx sites show. There is and has been a strong underground market. This market is in fact so large that major new players make sure to add divx compatibility.

But wasn't divx added as part of the playstation and xbox play backs?

Hmmmmmmm?

This is where HD DVD players come in. Because no one cares where or how their personal back up is being played from. They care only that they are able to play it.

Technically, divx could be added as a playback codec. So anyone with a hd dvd pc writer could write divx, mpeg2, vc1 etc using the blue laser as apposed to red laser (I say it this way to try to help you relize that ALL YOU ARE DOING IS WRITING DATA the drive format doesn't matter).

So in combination a cheap blue lasered data drive with a very cheap blue laser playback player in someones home for their own personal use is viable.

It poses real cost saving that blu ray wont match for quite some time.

Now if blu ray write media was to come down a $1 or less. Along with players dropping in price. Then and only then will this point I'm making become moot. The price would have to drop to a "what's the point price".

First of all, stop your HD dvd dream,it's over, it's not coming back.
yes, they are selling at 89$ and is going to sell out remaining stock to those that needes a regular DVD player, but the merchants and makers are selling at a lost...so they won't make or stock up some more to sell to you.
plus when they stop making in mass, price for making them no longer drops...
who want a money lossing business?
As for who need BD? well, for example, the millions of people that is going to buy a HD TV eventually, since they will stop selling/firesell all standard
defination TV after 2009...
Eventually your tube TV will die and you will need a new TV... price for HD TV is droping like crazy.
for 700$ I can get a 37 inch.
when you got a new TV...you won't mind spending extra 200$ to get a HD player...and there is only one in the market like it or not.
it's a dvd player fokes, you don't link it to become a computer... even with a CPU, it's laking all the rest of the component as a computer.
Why buy HD? because it look nicer.
the rest of the feature is just nice to have, most people don't care.

1. The Divx codec has no relation to the circuit city format. DivX is dead.

2. Blu-ray writable media will be dropping quickly in price. $1.00 per disk is coming soon.

3. Manufacturing of blank HD DVD writable media is shutting down. You will be able to get disks for quite some time, however the price will go up substantially.

The only reason HD DVD prices were lower than Blu-ray is that Toshiba was selling each player for $200 less than cost. They were discounting PC drives below cost as well.

Long term, Blu-ray has two significant price advantages over HD DVD. One is that Blu-ray can be manufactured for less than HD. The second is that no one is or will make HD DVD again.

Yo???

If you are referring to me, please let me know.

Because I have no HD DVD dream.

I laid out in plain english how it could be viable.

If you see something that I stated that doesn't make sense please point it out.

Yo - "but the merchants and makers are selling at a lost"

Really at $89, 119, etc it's a loss?

Because I see regular dvd players sold every day $29 to $79. Are they talking a loss or do you think money is being made?

Please post the cost the manufacturer paid to produce a standard dvd player with the basic diference being a blue laser instead of a red laser.

Do you know how much mass purchased blue laser replacements cost for standard dvd players?

Hmmm so the major merchants can return unused products? Are they are not stuck with taking a loss? If you know this then please post the contract between walmart and toshiba for example. Please, highlight the part that pretty much lays out walmart is stuck with these player drives and will lose money.

I'm under the impression (which is how they have $99 dollar sales) that the manufacturer only charges them for product sold. And when they fire sell something it's not because the merchant is hit with a loss. It's because the manufacterer would rather them dump the inventory than attemt to truck shipments back to them.

So if you are holding 20 units at 20 of your stores it's not cost beneficial for you to gather those units up and pay shipping cost to bring them back to me.

So I would ask you to dump it at price X.

That is my understanding of big chain setups on major products. But if you know differently please enlighten me.

Thanks

1. An HD DVD player is not just a standard DVD player with a blue light laser. Tracking is much more precise, as is the focus, and the bandwidth the electronics need to convey (This is just a sample. you could fill up any number of books with the things that needed to be upgraded for HD DVD).

2. It is not Walmart that has been selling below cost. It has been Toshiba. Toshiba has been dumping HD DVD players at $200 or more below the cost of manufacturing to the retailers just so they could get market share.

Toshiba is currently dumping HD DVD to retailers for near zero cost. It is better to sell at a loss for $5.00 than to pay to have the equipment recycled or dumped in a landfill.

Just to make my self clear, Walmart is making a profit on every HD DVD player they sell. Toshiba has taken a loss on every unit sold to date.

Ralf The Dog thanks for the help...

I guess I incorrectly read past information. My understanding was that Divx players (created as pay-per-view rental system) played a single layered divx disc's with the movies stored in a mpeg 4 V3 codec by microsoft (Just as VC-1 is a spin off version of WM9).

And unlike today codecs back then weren't named and openly called for example VC-1 or AVC, etc.

And that this codec on the divx disc was cracked around 1998 and named the DivX ;-) to poke fun at where it originated. They later tweaked/fine tuned the codec. Allowing this to have a life of its own.

Project Mayo was an open-source project started to replace DivX ;-) 3.x with a legal, developed from scratch version of the codec, OpenDivX.

And now we have divX players and other hardware with divX compatibility. My point in pointing this out is that some studios okayed this and warner and others were against it. And in essence an underground market took something and kept it in existence.

Please take the time to post the "real" information behind this. I would appreciate the real how, why, where and when surrounding divx. I'd be very interested to know 'THE REAL HISTORY', because I have been thinking the names was similar for a reason. And I'd hate to relay bad information.

...in a year from now, give or take.

I just don't see this huge market developing for HD-DVD burning when there won't be any inventory to be had. No retailer will be carrying inventory of a dead format. Especially when all the competition between vendors is now going to focus on Blu-Ray.

If I go to Fry's or Best Buy or wherever, and I'm looking for a high-capacity (read: HD) burner. I'm going to walk out with a Blu-Ray drive. Done deal.

Demand follows supply follows demand. The industry has given up on HD-DVD because the demand (measured in disc sales) wasn't there. Now, within a year, supply will dry up. Finally, finally there won't be anyone who cares about HD-DVD anymore left because 1) there weren't that many to start with, and 2) there won't be any remaining supply for the even fewer out there that still want one for some reason, all things considered.

Granted, that's all my opinion of how it's going to shape out. But I'd be willing to put money on it.

Ralf The Dog - "2. Blu-ray writable media will be dropping quickly in price. $1.00 per disk is coming soon."

This is great news, were is your source for this drastic price drop?

And please explain why it cost consumers 17 to 20 today. And the movie studios pay in cents to get their. If there is not price fixing going on then I'd be very interested to know why the price of a disc costing cents is being sold at over a 500% markup.

I did a price check and found 50 bundle at around 11.00 per disk for the 25 GB. The 50 GB not available and cost must higher.

I doubt if it hits less that a dollar soon because DL DVD disk are barely that. Most are slightly more than $1.

Ralf The Dog - "3. Manufacturing of blank HD DVD writable media is shutting down."

This media is slightly modified regular dvd disk. A change suggested by the dvd consortium/forum.

Technically, regular disk could be used.

It's like the diference between audio cd's purchased with your music. And the cheap best buy data cd's that consumers purchase.

Ralf The Dog - "The only reason HD DVD prices were lower than Blu-ray is that Toshiba was selling each player for $200 less than cost."

Ummmm no, they were cheap for the reasons that I stated above. They use the same disc structure and are basically dvd players with a blue laser instead of red laser.

Where as blu ray uses a different disc structure. Hence then cant offer combo disks as hd dvd said they would do with all high def media. That was sold to the dvd forum.

Ofcourse the movie studios killed that with not wanting a break for the consumer and instead pricing them higher and not offering overall.

they are financial whores, which is why piracy will rise drastically it's us vs them now.

They want you to buy the movie again when they know your copy has a limited use before where and tear kill it even in basic use.

Ralf The Dog - "1. An HD DVD player is not just a standard DVD player with a blue light laser."

First of all I said it is "basically" the same as a regular dvd player. Key word there is basically, meaning not a huge difference.

Ralf The Dog - "Tracking is much more precise, as is the focus, and the bandwidth the electronics need to convey"

Hunh???? the tracking is in the laser and its positioning. The bandwidth is THE ROTATION SPEED THAT ALL DRIVE ARE SET ON. The denser the data, the more read during the same rotation.

Ralf The Dog - "(This is just a sample. you could fill up any number of books with the things that needed to be upgraded for HD DVD)."

Books and books... really?

*** The similarities having no manufacturing cost:

1) Drive rotation speed mechanism with a 10,000 RPM safe upper limit. this is to match the tolerance (10,200rpm - 10,800rpm) for the polycarbonate disc structure. (Companies are pushing to the SD limit to 22X writers). The rotational play and recording speed is set in firmware.

2) Numerical aperture alteration 0.6 mm HD Vs. .65 mm SD (0.85 mm BD) set in firmware

3) Modulation technique called ETM (Eight to Twelve) inspired from CD and DVD methods set in firmware. (17PP for BD)

4) Pit length of 204nm HD, 120 nm SD (110 nm CD) set in firmware

5) Pit width 130 nm Blu Ray, 400 nm HD-DVD, dvd, 1320 nm DVD, 2110 nm CD set in firmware

6) Track pitch/length 320 nm BD, 400 nm HD, 740 nm SD, 1600 nm CD set in firmware

7) Recording layer 0.6 for HD & SD (I. E. same disc structure) (0.1 mm BD which allows a higher recording density and )

8) HD reused the SD standard and all the data containers (frames, sectors, ECC blocks) and error correction algorithms (orthogonal PI/PO corrections). Set in firmware

(Blu-ray uses a new error correction strategy, also based on Reed-Solomon codes, called LDC (Long Distance Code) and BIS (Burst Indication Subcode))

9) writes optical bits - '0' & '1'


*** Thing not similar causing a cost diference

1) Laser 405nm BD & HD (same laser called blue but technically blue/purple), 650 nm SD, 780 nm CD


Okay so now the floor is all yours Ralph the Dog and please start with explaining the limitations of the communication link. What is the max capacity of the communication link of a DVD player and what is it for HD?

Because retrieving dvd data at 5.5X surpasses 54Mbps. That is 5.5 * 10.55 Mbit/s = 58 Mbit/s. In fact at the 22X speed the new DVD drive move raw data at roughly 232 Mbit/s.

But since you said you could writs books and books, please point the limitation of the communication link as well as the other information that I missed.

Thanks

On the manufacturing cost side #2 would be the display chip select.

You need a chip capable of delivering 1080P.

You need to get a clue. Blu-Ray will also die an early death. I estimate within the next 2 years. Blu-Ray is a poor format, and too expensive. It will remain so high in price that it will never become mainstream, and other methods of HD delivery will over come it so quick that production on players for that format will soon stop.

This whole war was stupid. Sony should be shot, not that they didn't shoot themselves in the foot already. Even the head of the PS3 has already quit. It's over for Sony, but since they own 1/2 the movies and music sold in the US and Europe, they'll drag us on for a long long time.

Buy Sony or any of it's labels and you'll only extend the suffering for all consumers, including yourself.

"HD-DVD will become the undenied choice within the next 12 months. Bank on it." -Narg (from http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35116/97/ )

Bank on it, eh? Now you're saying BD will never be mainstream, all these other technologies will eclipse it before becoming a success, and people who buy sony are guilty of causing enduring "suffering." (your suffering perhaps, not ours).

Lol. If that's not the epitome of sour grapes, I don't know what is. That crow must taste pretty bad to want to force it on everyone who chose the winning format.

Forgive me if I choose to ignore your predictions. However, your track record thus far is pretty bad (not to mention just plain angry). We'd all be broke if we banked on your past analysis.

"The Divx codec has no relation to the circuit city format. DivX is dead."

i agree it has no relation but perhaps you should look at this:

http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=DivX

Page 1 of 50 (21564 items) 2 3 4 5

Your query returned more than 5000 results by estimate. You can narrow down by adding more search terms, or filter by category below.

hm.. yeah!

sure looks dead to me!

-anon

You have not seen the rally of support for HD DVD that occured after Warner dumped them did you? HD DVD was held in very high regard by a LOT of people. It was a format of choice for the more technically astute and those who knew what rubbish Sony was up to. The Blu-Ray format is geared for higher profit for Sony, as it creates a need for consumers to re-purchase movies as the discs die early deaths due to poor physical design. And requires they buy new players as old players are made obsolete by this changing format (already becoming reality!!!)

What I did not predict, and said nothing about was the studio buy-out by Sony. To hold me accountable for this is not your best excuse. Without the "payola" Warner would have not made the move they did, and HD DVD would have been selling more than Blu-Ray by now. But that's all water under the bridge. So your gloating gives you no credence, does it?

Did you miss the article here on Sony's over $400,000 payout to the studios? Now, how do you feel that you've been bought out, used, and will now be abused by Sony? Did you not see the charts above showing that Blu-Ray players have gone UP in price? They will stay elevated for much longer now.

Blu-Ray is a bad media. For all our sakes we can only pray that it dies soon, and is replaced by a better choice. Many predict that choice will be downloaded media. I'm not going that far, but something will have to replace this poor format that Sony has lied to the studios and the consumers about. If you've been around long enough, you know about the life expectancy of CD-R and DVD-R/RW media right? Blu-Ray recordable media will be 1/2 or worse of that life expectancy. You can bank on that. I fear for anyone who thinks they can trust their data to this poor format. Expect articles on this problem soon.

Go ahead, stick your head in the sand. You'll have many friends there. Many friends who were used and will be abused by Sony's spin machine.

"you could fill up any number of books with the things that needed to be upgraded for HD DVD"

I'm still waiting, I named 9 things costing NO money and two things that would cost money.

And I'm waiting on snippets of the books and books of things that need to be upgraded.

I'm waiting on your bandwidth explanation as a 16X (168.8 Mbits) drive is the standard in most dvd players.

"It [HD-DVD] was a format of choice for the more technically astute" - Narg

read - It [HD-DVD] was a format of choice for the more financially challenged.

Yes, people have conjectured about the Sony to Warner 400~500 million despite being denied by everyone involved.

Nevermind the fact that all these rumors were sourced by ONE article by Don Lindich who is as biased towards HD-DVD as it gets (and admittedly so).

http://www.tvpredictions.com/journalists012108.htm

Gizmodo furthered the rumor and gave it wings, and team Red has been crying foul since (though they didn't seem to mind when it was Paramount getting the payout).

Your FUD has been torn shreds all over TGDaily.
example:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36202/122/

Please don't start your banner arguments with rumors you can't back up.

Your predictions are still wrong. Your fact checking is non-existent. You're credibility is just as bad, and we know better.

You can't even admit you were wrong on your past predictions. So please... come up with something better. We need the entertainment.

Poooooffffff Ralf The Dog is gone...

Buddy, In case you missed it. You was suppose to post information to contradict what I laid out about divx and DivX.

And how divx players used a single layered very cheap divx disc with just the movie in the MPEG 4 V3 codec. And that codec was later cracked and it was called divX to poke fun at microsoft.

And you was also supposed to print experts or links that go far beyond into those books and books of things.

"you could fill up any number of books with the things that needed to be upgraded for HD DVD"

I'm still waiting, I named 9 things costing NO money and 2 things that would cost money.

I'm waiting on snippets of the books and books of things that need to be upgraded.

I'm waiting on your bandwidth explanation as a 16X (168.8 Mbits) drive is the standard in most dvd players.

For what it's worth I did enjoy the somewhat positive exchange while it lasted. No name calling just good clean fun. Well that is until you disappeared... :-(