A simple choice...

[fugu]

Hello,

That's my first post here and I hope I'll be able to express myself in english...

So, here is the story why I have choosen HD DVD.
I was looking a while for an HD player but the selection here in Germany is not very big. We have three HD DVD and a handfull of Blu Ray players. The most affordable Blu Ray player ist the Samsung BD P1000 (we don't have the 1200 or the Sony S300). But still, affordable means in this case around 500 euro (690 dollar).
The choice of dics on both sides is very poor at the moment. Furthermore the dics are priced around 35-40 dollars. And here comes my second problem with Blu Ray, the region coding. Everytime I woud import a Blu Ray disc from the USA, I would have to hope that it would run on my European machine.
It didn't took me a long time to figure out, that the best choice for me would be a HD DVD player. So now I have an Toshiba HD-E1 (similar to the Toshiba HD-A2 in the US) and I'm very happy with it. Because I can import HD DVDs from all around the world I have a much wider range to choose from and still, the movies a cheaper than on amazon.de or in local stores for example.

Lately I read a lot of bad news for HD DVD here in this forum but I still hope, that the HD DVD has a future. I was already thinking about buying an US Samsung BD P1200 on eBay but this would cost me nearly 700 dollar (includes shipping and tax). I would really like to have Volver, Curse of the Golden Flower, Devil's Rejects and the Anchor Bay movies is HD but not at this price.

In conclusion I would say that HD DVD is the better choice for European (or even in general) movie lovers.

[timbobarry]

Welcome, congrats on the A2. I've been enjoying mine. A lot of us love that HD DVD has no region coding also. I've imported a couple titles myself and you'll find many others here in HD DVD software section who are big into importing. Welcome again .

[Blurry]

Yep, lack of Region coding is just one of the features that make HD DVD more consumer friendly (primarly because HD DVD was pretty much spec'ed out before they released it on the market).

I don't think you need to worry about HD DVD's future, though it will likely coexist with Blu-ray, there are many advantages to it which will continue to make it a viable alternative.

[Archangel]

Welcome and grats on your A2...I just ordered one as well so I'm excited for when it comes in.

Oh...and you express yourself in english better than half the people I know

[fugu]

Thanks for the kind welcome.

In future I'll try to support the forum with news of new HD DVD releases here in Germany.
Tomorrow I'm leaving for a vacation to(?) Sweden. Let's see which kind of disc they prefer...