Its Official, No Longer Dual Format.

[HomeTheatreFreak]

Well like the title says, Its official, I am no longer a dual format supporter and am now 100% behind the HD DVD format and I have to say that I feel pretty good about it. Ultimately it was a combination of things that finally made me decide to go down this route. What finally made me really pull the trigger was really the Blockbuster announcement combined with the fact that I just purchased a Hasselblad H3D Digital Camera Outfit and a few Arri HDMI lights and I really wanted like 20%-25% of the cost to come from selling some stuff and those 45 BD movies that I owned were one of the casualties.

I think its important to note that over the last few months I have been really swayed by the networking & VOD technology that is being created and have over that time drastically upgraded my computer and networking capabilities and really see the whole VOD model being one of the major systems that I support in the near future. I will still buy HD DVD's of course but since HD DVD doesnt have all of the major hollywood studios, the VOD model should fill in the gaps very nicely. I am betting that by this time next year there will be some great choices for VOD.

I also have to stress the importance of the blockbuster announcement and I think I explained alot of that pretty well in that thread I started last week. I absolutely hate when corportaions try and push you into buying something and what ultimately ends up happening in situations like that is the corporations end up pushing me away when they resort to such tactics and no matter what people say I still feel that Sony had a major hand in this deal and it was really the final straw for me and there have been quite a few straws broken since I started supporting BD at launch. To touch upon a few of them you had the initial BD launch which was a disgrace, the Samsung BD player fiasco which ultimately forced me to sell that piece of junk. That combined with alot of mediocre titles and I can sum up my experience with BD as a very frustrating expereince with very little pay off especially considering the amount of money spent in the process. Looking back its easy for me to say it wasnt worth it and it was no longer worth it to continue down that road.

One of the reasons I went with BD in the beginning was due to thier overwhelming superiority on paper and there is no denying that on paper BD is without a doubt the format that looks to be the superior format. However off of paper, its a totally different ballgame and over the last year we have learned quite a bit. We have learned that 50 Gigs sounds great especially compared to HD DVD's 30 Gigs, the truth is that the extra space just doesnt mean squat on the movie side of this war and even if it did they did nothing but waste such space on old and outdated codecs that used up any space advantage the format had to begin with. Then you have the Bit Rate argument and a year into this war there still is zero evidence that BD's larger bit rate capapcity can actually give you a noticable improvment in quality. Sure there have been a couple dual format titles released that seemed to be a bit sharper on the BDside but that could easily be because of the different codecs used or simply becuase of the settings used on such codecs. We have no idea why those images differ and to be honest the difference is so minute that its not even worth debating.

Then you have the actual studio support side to this war and this has honestly been one of the most frustrating for me personally. I was expecting great things from BD's exclusive studios after all this is a format war and Ifully expected BD's exclusive studios to come out swinging. Wow as I wrong. I didnt get a single animated title from Disney that was worth owning and all of the other titles they released I had literally no interest in. The two titles Disney did release on BD that I was really excited about, Pirates 1 & 2, well I bought them but it was 3 days after my son sold his PS3 and I never purchased another BD player thus I never did get to see them so you could say it was too little too late from Disney. As for Pixar, Nothing. As for Fox, they threw us a couple bones but none of the huge Fox titles I was hoping for ever made it to the format and Fox ended up being the single greatest dissapointment with the format with lousy titles and lousy quality. The few titles I did buy from Fox were simply well below the quality I expected. I could go on and on on the lack of quality titles from the exclusive BD studios but there is no point. I am not arguing anything here just simply stating my case for giving up on BD. You can either agree with it or disagree with it.

The final aspect ill touch on is the hardware side which was just another aspect to BD that was ultimately very frustrating for me. I like HQ AV equipment, no I love HQ AV equipment. Its something I have always been passionate about and the bottom line is BD never had a HQ stand alone player. The player side of BD has been just a mess since the beginning and an expensive mess at that. My only hope for a HQ stand alone player died with Pioneer as they totally screwed the pooch with thier first generation player, something that Ihad quite honestly never seen before from Pioneer. Even after that debacle they remain one of my most respected AV companies in existance and I would have purchased thier new player had I stayed in the game. I hated my Samsung and I hated the PS3 and thus I was never even close to being satisfied on the player side of Blu Ray.

So to sum this whole thing up, BD really has been one big frustration since the day it launched and while there were a few great titles released for the format that looked great, the bad far outweighed the good and I just lost all desire for supporting the format because of that fact. HD DVD on the other hand has been like an absolute blessing compared to my BD experience. I now have over 150 titles and have only had to return 1 movie due to technical problems with everything else performing flawlessly. The Xa2 is a fantastic player and the actually titles that were released on the format were far more to my individual liking that what came out on BD and that is obvious from the number of movies purchased on each format. I owned BD like 4 months longer than HD DVD yet I own 3 times as mant titles on HD DVD.

So there you have it. I am now 100% behind HD DVD and as I said before, I am feeling pretty damned good about it. By the way I am posting this in the HD DVD section and not the sytem wars section because this isnt about starting an argument or who is right and who is wrong. This was simply a thread stating why I have gone HD DVD exclusive. Nothing more nothing less.

[cloudy]

Wow, That's a long read. I'll read it later when I get to work.
But what I will say now is, Welcome to exclusivity!!!!!!

[half-sane]

Originally Posted by cloudy

Wow, That's a long read. I'll read it later when I get to work.
But what I will say now is, Welcome to exclusivity!!!!!!

my thoughts exactly !

welcome 100% to the goood side!

[cardpetree]

I read it. I need a nap now. Anyway, just curious, why did you hate the PS3? I don't own one, but was thinking of getting one just because it's the cheapest BD player if you count the gaming side.

[HomeTheatreFreak]

Originally Posted by cardpetree

I read it. I need a nap now. Anyway, just curious, why did you hate the PS3? I don't own one, but was thinking of getting one just because it's the cheapest BD player if you count the gaming side.

Why I hated the PS3? First its round and plastic and looks like a videogame machine. Nothing wrong with that ifyour in the market for a videogame system but for someone that loves HQ AV equipment its a serious probelm and one I never got over. Another thing I absolutely hated was spending an extra 30 bucks for a remote that sucked big time. I have a Harmony 1000 universal remote but I had problem after problem with it working properly with the PS3 and it was a problm that i never got to the bottom of. I contacted Both Sony and Logitch and neither of them could figure it out as it worked flawlessly with everything else I owned. It forced me to purhase the PS3 remote and that thing is garbage.

Bottom line is the PS3 is a videogame machine, not a HQ piece of audiovideo equipment and that is the kind of equipment I buy. The PS3 is great for alot of people that own it but its not for people that are used to high end gear.

[vibes]

Originally Posted by HomeTheatreFreak

Why I hated the PS3? First its round and plastic and looks like a videogame machine. Nothing wrong with that ifyour in the market for a videogame system but for someone that loves HQ AV equipment its a serious probelm and one I never got over. Another thing I absolutely hated was spending an extra 30 bucks for a remote that sucked big time. I have a Harmony 1000 universal remote but I had problem after problem with it working properly with the PS3 and it was a problm that i never got to the bottom of. I contacted Both Sony and Logitch and neither of them could figure it out as it worked flawlessly with everything else I owned. It forced me to purhase the PS3 remote and that thing is garbage.

Bottom line is the PS3 is a videogame machine, not a HQ piece of audiovideo equipment and that is the kind of equipment I buy. The PS3 is great for alot of people that own it but its not for people that are used to high end gear.

The PS3 requires Bluetooth for remote functions. If I remember correctly, no Harmony remote currently has Bluetooth. If no one at Logitech or Sony knew this, then it's a pretty telling (and scary) sign of how good their customer service is.

[Philnerd]

Originally Posted by HomeTheatreFreak

I am now 100% behind HD DVD and as I said before, I am feeling pretty damned good about it.

As well you should; great prices, solid players, awesome movies, cool features.

[HomeTheatreFreak]

Originally Posted by Philnerd

As well you should; great prices, solid players, awesome movies, cool features.

Yep thats putting it bluntly for sure. I cant stress enough the difference in titles that were released for both formats. For me and my family, HD DVD's selection of films was far far better than BD's and again the number of filme we purchased made that utterly clear. Again I adopted BD at launch and didnt adopt HD DVD until the 2nd week of October of 2006. As of last week Ihad 150 HD DVD's and only 45 BD's so I literally purchased 3 times as many films in like 1/2 of the time.

I understand that this topic is purely subjective in nature and everyone will have different feelings on this subject but for me and my family there was simply no question about it that HD DVD was simply releasing far better films.

[cardpetree]

WOW!!

I was just checking out your HTR 2400 receiver. That is a serious piece of A/V hardware there bud. I was wondering though, there are no HDMI inputs on that thing. So how does that work with the video equipment your using? Which by the way is a very impressive list.

[HomeTheatreFreak]

Originally Posted by cardpetree

WOW!!

I was just checking out your HTR 2400 receiver. That is a serious piece of A/V hardware there bud. I was wondering though, there are no HDMI inputs on that thing. So how does that work with the video equipment your using? Which by the way is a very impressive list.

Yeah ADA has some fantastic equipment and the best part is its made in the USA! As for the HDMI issue I use the ADA Cinema Reference Mach III Controller and the HDMI Cube from ADA.

http://www.ada.net/products/ht/hdmi_cube.php

Cool thing is you can use 2 of these together to create a 5 HDMI iput switcher.

[Office Ed]

I'm wondering if age is a factor. I'm 40 and i prefer the HD DVD catalogue, lots of classics, and films that made an impression on me when i was younger.
Maybe Blu ray appeals to a younger demographic, nothing wrong with that, in fact it could be a plus as both formats can find their own market.

[MasterBlaster]

Yes I think it's obvious Age is an enormous factor, and the Planet Earth unit sales point heavily to this.

Plus you can see the general attitude towards the format war in general to the BD people here, is that HD DVD must die completely, they treat the format war like a video game itself, like a monster to be slayed. HD DVD fans on the other hand overwhelmingly tend to be content with BD's existence and never do I see posts calling for its destruction.

[mrkiller]

good to hear that

[Vriess]

Yeah the more the studios and the big companies try to push me to BR the deeper I dig. I don't like having the format I use chosen by studio big wigs because I am the one who uses it.

[Brad1963]

Even though I have both formats, HD DVD is still my format of choice. I barely pay any attention to BLU RAY and have not purchased a BD title in a month.