bob269

Nice to see the big corporates are forcing you in to buying expensive UK releases 3 months later than the US, as opposed to cheap early Region 1 imports. Sit back, say nothing and pay more

messiah

At least you can get Transformers & King Kong mate - thats one up on me at least...

I think Leopard has support for both BR & HD DVD, but if announcing that Mac's will go blu - well I can't help thinking that part of it is Steve Jobs giving Bill Gates the finger. Seeing as Mac's are supposed to be the media / design industries weapon of choice, I'm suprised it took this long for them to make a decision, Dell have already gone blu so if Apple also go that way then the rest of the computer industry can't be far behind.

Too early to say, but Window's could well suffer from this format war in the long run, after the disasterous Vista, people are leaving MS to go Mac / Ubuntu etc..

bob269

Isn't there a thread in this forum saying how crap the latest MAC OSX is ?, Anyways, are you saying they would be supplied with bluray drives as standard? as you can currently already get hd/bluray + combi replacement drives

messiah

I think's going to be a case of selecting a BR drive when speccing up an Apple system - I'm pretty sure you'd be a be able to buy an aftermarket drive already but you can't specify one when buying a new system, no-one wants to buy a new computer and buy a replacement part for it immediately - if you have the option of putting one in a Mac Pro then surely iMac's & Mini's wouldn't be far behind.

Have also heard complaints about OS X, there's a patch imminent by all accounts - but even so, its had nowhere near the amount of bad press that Vista has received.

Iain Young

Probably because nowhere near the same number of people have installed it

messiah

True, maybe why you don't hear many complaints about PS3 failure's - oh wait hang on...

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Yeah, bundling a load of free movies can only be a bad thing

Sony BDPS300 (Blu-ray player - With 6 Blu-ray discs FREE!)

messiah

Well, you know what they say, fight fire with fire...

rik1471

Your argument has just gone full circle.

messiah

yup!

I still wouldn't buy a HD DVD drive though.

messiah

Rumours this morning in the Financial Times that Paramount may be reversing their HD DVD exclusivity decision - details vague at most but apparently they are considering the use of a get out clause to allow them to go BR exclusive.

Reading between the lines, using a get out clause implies that going HD DVD exclusive wasn't their own decision as there must have been a contract with someone else - MS or possibly Toshiba.

Maybe Michael Bays rantings held some truth...

kernel

Post here Paramount poised to drop HD DVD | Reg Hardware

Includes rumour that Bill was to announce the Ultimate Xbox 360 with a built-in HD DVD player only to cancel it at the last minute following the move by Warner

PeteBrant

Let see what happens. Presumably Paramount would have to pay back the $150 Million that the HD-DVD camp paid them to go exclusive.

But it looks like its Job done for BluRay. At least we will have some certainty

corradoboy

I think the AV fanboys buy US BluRay players which are region A, B & C, so no region worries.

The only real gripes people have with OS X 10.5 Leopard is with Time Machine, and many who moan usually find out it's due to the way they have configured it. Apart from some minor concerns over Stacks, it's business as usual, as in, it works, well, stable and fast.

messiah

Expectations that Apple will be incorporating BR in Macs will be announced at Macworld next week.

According to the Financial Times, Paramounts get out clause was related to whatever Warner decided upon, since they were the only studio offering both flavours of HD.

Warner's head honcho was interviewed at CES and was asked if the studio has been paid off a la Paramount and his response was "I wish..." stating that any pay off compated to the revenue from BR was a drop in the ocean...

PeteBrant

Warner have said that their decision was based on Warner BR discs outselling HD-DVD by 3:1. As a whole, BR discs are outselling HD-DVD by 2:1.

messiah

The dust isnt likely to settle on this one just yet.

Its now being claimed that after Warner's decision and the subsequent pulling of all HD DVD interviews / press conference at CES that MS also pulled out of unveiling the rumoured 360 Ultimate - although I'm still sceptical that it even existed in the first place.

PeteBrant

I think thats just typical internet rumourings - I don't beleive for one second that MS developed such a console, especially after repeatedly telling people they weren't going to do it.

It's just journalists (read: Idiots) trying to add fuel to a fire that isn't there.

messiah

Agree - I think a lot of blog sites are mischeif making - its too soon after the Elite for a 6th (?) SKU to appear and MS have missed the HD boat - if they'd included the HD DVD drive in the 360 like they said they were going to do from day one then this format would be the one dominating the marketplace.

Fair play to Sony for staying with Blu-ray even after the criticism they got for the PS3's price tag.

bob269

MS's support for HD is only half arsed, if they'd have included the HD drive with the console and upped the price would they have sold 17mil units, they have the download movie service to fall back on so i guess if the format fails it's not as bad as the loss for somebody like Toshiba for instance.

Pity both formats won't work side by side as it would fuel a nice price war, as it happens if 1 format wins, then they will hike the price and there will be nothing you can do about it.

PeteBrant

I think there was too much money ploughed into BluRay for it to fail - Not just by Sony, but by the whole consortium. HD-DVD by comparison never had the same amount of backing from the off.

Whether this will impact PS3 sales remains to be seen. I don't think it will have too much of an effect. Those that bought PS3 as a cheap BluRay Ray player will have already done so. PS3 is no longer the cheapest BluRay player that one can buy.

MS have been proven right to not have gone down the HD-DVD route (although had they stuck a HD-DVD playe rin from the start would HD-DVD been a bigger success?) and lets face it, they were never going to stick BluRay tech in the 360 - Although be very interesting to see if they release a BluRay Player - Its far to say that MS's dream of mass scale digital distribution is a few years off yet.

PeteBrant

That doesnt happen with standard formats - e.g. DVD/CD/Cassette eg - As the market grows the price comes down. Economies of scale dictate the price.

bob269

DVDs have been over priced for years even tho they can produce multi language discs for a fraction of the price of a single language video tape, yes prices drop as time goes by but once this format war is over the companies will immediately want to recoup the countless millions they've invested in securing/backing the winning/failing format.

As for Paramount....

bob269

I think it's coming along nicely in America, they've signed some big show's including the likes of Lost etc, i'm not sure on costs of HD Cable in America so don't know how viable their tv downloads are compared to a subscription to cable, i guess downloading per episode gives you more choice than a cable channel which shows 90% crap/repeats.

PeteBrant

But that cost won't pass to the consumer, prices certainly won't rise. They will remain static (for software) whilst we are in the early adopter phase (which we are). Hardware prices have already fallen by 50-80% Software will fall accordingly - People are used to paying £10-£15 for a DVD - and thats what the price point for BluRay will be eventually.

Always charge whatpeople are willing to pay, not what they would like to pay.

It's miniscule compared to DVD sales though, and that's where the transfer will be in the short to medium term - From DVD to BluRay Discs - Not to downloads. Christ, even music downloads are still a minority (The ratio of CD purchases to downloads is around 70/30) so we are years away from video download being anywhere near mainstream.

messiah

Apple have just upped the specs of their Mac Pro's - no sign of BR.

Although, the announement was part of an Intel presentation for the Penryn chips - but as the Mac's are now available on the store I would have thought it unlikely that they'd revised again anytime soon.

Dracoro

Regardless of "wins" the format war, it will take a LONG time to establish a foothold in the market (esp while they are expensive).

DVD was a large leap up from VHS, mainly in the usability stakes (no rewinding tapes, no deterioration over many uses, skip chapters at flick of the button) and a large increase in pic quality.

HiDef discs don't really offer anymore to most of the public than DVD (which most people are happy with) apart from an increase in picture quality (which you need a big TV to really benefit).

Unless it gets cheap, both will fail.

chrisowe

I agree, especially if HMV and Virgin carry on selling discs for £25.

kbsub

Over here (Canada ) You can buy a 40 gig PS3 for $399 )about £200) and Blu-Ray discs for $25 or less , Personally I cant see Blu Ray failing , Far more choice of films than the HD counterpart and too many "big names" behind it for it to fail.

Looie

HiDef discs don't really offer anymore to most of the public than DVD (which most people are happy with) apart from an increase in picture quality (which you need a big TV to really benefit)

Have to agree - I don't have any intention of changing from my standard DVD machine - I am quite happy with that quality, and fancy screen displays mean fancy prices to me - and there is no way I am going to waste money on something that I doubt I would ever use....... Whilst I applaud the manfacturers in striving for better and better quality, unless it drops to the existing DVD prices - both machines and the discs - they won't be getting any of my money.......... Sorry.....!