Sorry folks… Format War to Continue

August 20th, 2007

I realize a lot of our readers may not care about this war, but as some games either come on these formats now (PS3) or may in future consoles, we’ll continue to cover it.

As I had suggested not very long ago, the High-Def format war is just getting started. Paramount and Dreamworks Animation have now announced that all of their movies will come exclusively to HD-DVD except for movies directed by Steven Spielberg, which will come to both formats.

Gizmodo has a good table listing all of the studios and who they’re supporting in the HD-disc war. Essentially, HD-DVD looks like it actually has more studio support right now if you count the porn and indie studios. But if you only count the major studios (including 2 studios that haven’t released a Blu-Ray in awhile), then both formats basically support the same number of studios.

There are some rumors floating around that some stand-alone HD-DVD players may hit the magical $200 price point this holiday as well. If true, this could be a significant factor in moving quite a few HD-DVD players. Time to dig your heels in as it doesn’t look like the war will be ending any time soon.

Posted in Etc, Jeff, Non-Gaming |



      

9 Responses to “Sorry folks… Format War to Continue”

  1. Dave Says:
    August 20th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    Talk about the tide changing. I hope this news emboldens the HDDVD guys to rally and push the advantage. Including MS.

    Not that I intend to use HD or BD. I’m a downloader myself.

    I just wanna watch the SDF cry themselves to sleep again.

  2. laesperanzapaz Says:
    August 20th, 2007 at 5:45 pm

    Dave: Lololololol…

    If you ask me, physical media is going nowhere. US doesn’t have anywhere near as great a broadband connection like most hardcore gamers, let alone the entire world. And there are distinct disadvantages to downloading, such as you can’t resell it for used, you don’t really own it as it has DRM, and once you lose or wreck your harddrive….woops.

    With taht in mind, I would like DVD9 to stretch on for 10 more years [unlikely, i know], and then we go on to HD DVD, because as a gamer, Toshiba owning the medium is better than Sony “proprietary whore like Apple” Corp. owning it.

  3. Geoff Says:
    August 20th, 2007 at 6:16 pm

    laesperanzapaz -

    Physical media are going nowhere? Aren’t you making a case for the reverse?

    I have to imagine that whoever plans to own the media in the future will cash in on it whenever they can, regardless of whether it’s Sony or someone else.

  4. Jeff Says:
    August 20th, 2007 at 6:18 pm

    I think laesperanzapaz was saying it as in “Physical media is here to stay… it’s going nowhere.”

    I must admit that I had a similar reaction the first time I read it though. =)

  5. Geoff Says:
    August 20th, 2007 at 8:34 pm

    Oh. “Not going anywhere” and “going nowhere” are very different =)

  6. used cisco Says:
    August 20th, 2007 at 11:29 pm

    Yeah, I was one who championed downloadable content until pretty recently. Let me tell you a story.

    So, I did a good friend a favor and video taped his wedding for him. I didn’t get him much of a wedding gift and I planned to make up for it by taping his wedding and doing a real band up job of editing all the footage on my computer, and authoring a really nice DVD with audio back drops, really nice transitions and all that. So I get all my clips organized, pick out the perfect songs and get to work. I get nearly done, at the point where I’m importing the audio for background, I had a great song picked for the end credit/outro. It happened to be a song I downloaded. The fucking program refused to use it. The DRM present in the song made it so I couldn’t use it in the wedding video. The song was perfect and because I had downloaded it, I never bought the CD. Man, was I pissed. Now I’ll have to go buy the CD just so I can use 30 seconds of the song in a home movie. How fucking lame is that. Sorry, I just spent about 4 hours editing video only to havd DRM spit in my face and I needed to vent a bit!

    Oh, on topic, Go HD-DVD Ra! Ra! Ra!

  7. Anonymous Says:
    August 21st, 2007 at 12:02 am

    cisco,

    LOL, sorry to hear that, mate. Where did you buy the song from? If it’s itunes, I believe you can pay 30 cents more for a DRM-free version.

    And from a perspective as a gamer, DVD is PERFECT. You don’t need Bluray. Just DVD + HDD.

    Of course, this doesn’t mean 360 is perfect either. For one, HDD is overprieced and proprietary….

  8. laesperanzapaz Says:
    August 21st, 2007 at 12:03 am

    GAWD WHAT THE COCKING SHIT IS WRONG WITH MY DICKFUCKING COMPUTERS

  9. laesperanzapaz Says:
    August 21st, 2007 at 12:06 am

    BTW, the above two are mine, just ignore me…..

    …….

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