That was brilliant... I brought it up on my TV and my wife and I shared the warm glow.

I seem to recall some rules of flame wars, and one of them being:

The first side to compare the other to Nazis looses.

Ah well... lose the argument, win the market eh?

It appears that the early adopters of BluRay have got themselves a boat anchor. In the rush to get the format to market the specification was left incomplete and it appears that even players bought recently cannot be upgraded. In fact the only players that were mentioned as upgradeable were the ones in the PS3 (which figures).

(Source -- BBC.)

By now it must be obvious that BluRay is primarily driven by marketing, not technology or customer needs. That doesn't mean that its not going to be a winner, just that we shouldn't be rejoicing in screwing our customer base. Its the same sort of mindset that continues to push Vista at consumers even though everyone and their dog knows its a lemon. In the rareified world of marketing it doesn't matter if the stuff works, so long as you've got the power to ram the stuff down the consumer's throat (and get them to pay for it) that's all that matters.

The movie was good, though.

is that one of those sponsored pieces of art?

i can't tell. is it really by a user?

what film is the footage from?

its damn funny though!!!

movie is called Downfall http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/

You've obviously never seen "The Two Ronnies"...

Which idiot insisted on a comment and a title? Unnecessary.

Sorry Martin, but you are totally wrong. Existing Blu Ray players will continue to play new content for as long as the format exists whether they are profile 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1 or whatever. You could buy a blu ray disk 10 years hence and it would play in your 1.0 player. You might not get certain extra features but the movie content, menus and everything else will work just fine.

Blu Ray does have more advanced profiles in the works that extra functionality such as network connectivity and local storage space, but nothing that affects playback. These functions are likely to be used mostly so the likes of Warner / Disney etc. to produce a few internet enabled minigames and online stores on their disks. Hardly killer features.

Anyway if you absolutely must have those things, then the PS3 is very affordable, will get profile 2.0 (BD-Live) in time and does a lot more than just play blu ray disks.

"You've obviously never seen "The Two Ronnies""

HD-DVD - "It's goodnight from me ..."

BluRay - "... and it's goodnight from him!"

What did Martin say that was incorrect? He did not say that existing players were useless, or that they would be unable to play the movies.

I'm just more surprised to find sheep trying to defend Blu-Ray on this. Why on earth would otherwise sensible people be trying to defend a more expensive product that offered less functionality and no future proofing?

Or put another way, what would you as a BR fanboy be saying right now if it was the HD-DVD camp that were screwing their early adopters in this way?

I'm still looking at the product labels in the shops to figure out if I'm really looking at hi-def or not. So are most other people I know.

When they produce something which stops me in my tracks and makes me go "Wow!" and I might care about this.

Four or five megapixels ought to do it.

Until then...

"Blu-Ray is the superior format, despite the issues with the movie standard built on top of it."

Especially if you like being charged more for something 9 months later due to region locking preventing you importing and when you do get the movie find it's got BD+ on it which prevents it even working in some players.

Yeah, it's just a brilliant format, I can't wait for it to become mainstream.

The reason Bluray has all the studios is simple, it's the format best designed for raping consumer rights whilst simultaneously screwing them from a monetary perspective. HD DVDs biggest fault wasn't screwing the consumer enough it would seem.

OK, so you Martin didn't actually say anything about old BR players being unable to play discs?

No, existing BR standalones are just un-upgradeable and people who have them will be unable to access the premium features on future discs.

Why oh why does BR inspire such rabid fanboyism for a format that is region locked, more expensive, does less and screws its early adopters so eagerly

Maybe you missed the bit where he said "despite the issues with the movie standard built on top of it".

All your whines are regarding movies, whereas BluRay is the better format, for size and availability of storage. Sure you can buy a HD-DVDr now but unless you buy a new computer, you can't get a burner. Whereas you can get a BluRay burner now, for less than £200, with 50 GB DL discs going for less than £30. HD-DVD does 15 GB, with a 30 GB DL disc.

Given the way writable DVDs came down in price to less than 10p each it won't take that long for BD-R media to become cost effective.

So import your PS3 from the US or Japan along with your movies, if that's where you want to get the discs from. It's cheaper than a UK one, and most UK disc releases are multi-region anyway.

Re: the LG multi-format drive, I've heard so many tales of woe from people trying to get the software to work reliably without blocking digital audio, blocking digital video, stuttering despite specs being well above the minimum, or just plain refusing to run at all, that there's no way I'd spend the money to go the PC route.

[Excised by Reg moderator.]

1) Yes, the disks are about the same price in the UK.

Of course with HD-DVD it is a much safer bet to import as they are all region-free. I have a number of import disks that came at much lower than UK prices.

But look at the cost of players. HD-DVD has always been much cheaper here, and it seems that Toshiba is determined to keep things that way. Thats the whole point of this article isn't it - if the cost isn't much more than a decent DVD player, why not pay the slight bit extra to get access to proper HD?

2) I have a standalone and a 360 add-on. Haven't come across any disks that don't play yet.

e.g. Children of Men plays fine on both, although I've read reports of problems.

But at least I know that any player I have will play all features of all disks.

But if we are talking about problem disks, why don't we mention Blu-Ray rot? Aha, thats why not. Because you are physically incapable of acknowledging that there may be any issues with Blu-Ray.

3) Region coding has not been implemented for HD-DVD. It is that simple. You can bitch and moan about what might have happened all you like, I like to stick to the facts.

And yes, I'm aware of the fact that BR disks are currently outselling HD-DVDs. Similarly, I am aware that HD-DVD standalones are selling much better than BR standalones. Mind, that is hardly surprising due to the planned obsolescence of so many of those BR standalones.

The thing I like about Format Wars is that they always end up proving what any sensible person already knows about war. "The only winning move is not to play" (Wargames!).

I'm staying well out of it until DVD itself starts to fade away. Whichever format wins the price will come down and when it's as cheap as DVDs, i'll buy.

Here is another thought. It's always possible that people will simply loose interest in HD stuff, of course. Once the people who just HAVE to have the latest thing have done their money the market, will the average person want to buy a whole new player to play the new disks, new TV to make the most of the HD player, new cables to make the most of the new TV, new Satellite box to get the new programs, new subscription to get he content for the box etc etc? we're headed into a recession at the moment (oh, yes we are!) - will people really buy a whole new AV suite at such a time?? especially when DVD is, frankly, pretty good and most people seem to have quite a bit of trouble telling the difference between a DVD and HD stuff.

I know the "techies" here can quote figures proving they're better, but subjectively the masses may yet judge HD to be a waste of their increasingly rarified money.

Both BD and HD-DVD are dead in the water already. One physical format too many when the internet is already demonstrating that it is the preferred means of obtaining your high resolution films (either illegally or legally). It's just a shame that the studios have to shoot themselves in the foot in this respect by imposing the most ridiculous limitations on buying or renting legal content, the worst of which is that you have to live in the US.

In terms of backup, Flash drives and hard disks are superior to both already.

What's up here? Why no news?

New Medium Enterprises, Inc. (NME)

http://www.truehighdefinition.com

Wanting to purchase..

roger