DO you think Universal will do a trade in program like WB?

[emilio1316]

I have quite a few Universal HD-DVD's that yeah could be played in my XBOX 360 Hd-DVD player, but I'd so prefer them on Blu. For instance and my number one want, Children of Men. Do you think Uni will ever do something like the Red2Blu program Warner Bros. does?

[Lord_Stewie]

Originally Posted by emilio1316

I have quite a few Universal HD-DVD's that yeah could be played in my XBOX 360 Hd-DVD player, but I'd so prefer them on Blu. For instance and my number one want, Children of Men. Do you think Uni will ever do something like the Red2Blu program Warner Bros. does?

I highly doubt it. I think it would a program as such requires lots of money, and they did lose a lot of it, during the format war.

[benricci]

Originally Posted by emilio1316

Do you think Uni will ever do something like the Red2Blu program Warner Bros. does?

No

[steve_dave]

What benricci said.

Universal has no incentive to offer such a discounted "upgrade" plan. While it would make a lot of people happy, they already proved that folks are willing to pay retail to replace their HD DVDs and in some cases, sacrifice extras for the Blu-ray Disc upgrades.

Warner, on the other hand, offered it as a way to get more HD DVD consumers to buy Warner BDs. In fact, it was more of a "cover-up" for the announcement that they would day & date DVDs & BDs but stagger HD DVD releases at most three weeks afterwards. Warner created a "snowball" effect that led to HD DVD's death: after their announcment, retailers started cutting back on HD DVD product. Thus effectively killing the format before Toshiba pulled the plug. I remember a lot of people on other message boards who were angry at Warner for doing this but lo and behold, after they announced the "upgrade" program...they were seen as good guys again.

[emilio1316]

Thank you for the history lesson and perspective steve-dave. I guess I'll just slowly start replacing my Uni hd-dvd's.

Originally Posted by steve_dave

What benricci said.

Universal has no incentive to offer such a discounted "upgrade" plan. While it would make a lot of people happy, they already proved that folks are willing to pay retail to replace their HD DVDs and in some cases, sacrifice extras for the Blu-ray Disc upgrades.

Warner, on the other hand, offered it as a way to get more HD DVD consumers to buy Warner BDs. In fact, it was more of a "cover-up" for the announcement that they would day & date DVDs & BDs but stagger HD DVD releases at most three weeks afterwards. Warner created a "snowball" effect that led to HD DVD's death: after their announcment, retailers started cutting back on HD DVD product. Thus effectively killing the format before Toshiba pulled the plug. I remember a lot of people on other message boards who were angry at Warner for doing this but lo and behold, after they announced the "upgrade" program...they were seen as good guys again.

[Jeff Kleist]

Warner, on the other hand, offered it as a way to get more HD DVD consumers to buy Warner BDs. In fact, it was more of a "cover-up" for the announcement that they would day & date DVDs & BDs but stagger HD DVD releases at most three weeks afterwards. Warner created a "snowball" effect that led to HD DVD's death: after their announcment, retailers started cutting back on HD DVD product. Thus effectively killing the format before Toshiba pulled the plug. I remember a lot of people on other message boards who were angry at Warner for doing this but lo and behold, after they announced the "upgrade" program...they were seen as good guys again.

That's not entirely accurate

They went BD exclusive, but not wanting to screw people out of already announced titles (many of which were finished anyway) combined with their contractual obligation to continue to release titles trough May. There was no snowball being created. They announced they were ending support and that was that

And contrary to popular legend, Toshiba was very well aware that WB was pulling the plug well in advance if they failed to meet sales targets during Christmas that would justify continued sucking of resources, both authoring and manufacturing/storage. Considering that most of the major retailers had already announced an HD DVD purge (Wal-Mart, BB and CC), and Blu-rays huge gains in the Christmas season. Of course, they may have thought that the usual answer for all of HD DVD's problems, a huge cash payoff might have changed things. The only thing that was a suprise to them was that they did it at CES and didn't wait till later

[steve_dave]

Interesting.

Thanks for the corrections on the format war history.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by steve_dave

What benricci said.

Universal has no incentive to offer such a discounted "upgrade" plan. While it would make a lot of people happy, they already proved that folks are willing to pay retail to replace their HD DVDs and in some cases, sacrifice extras for the Blu-ray Disc upgrades.

Warner, on the other hand, offered it as a way to get more HD DVD consumers to buy Warner BDs. In fact, it was more of a "cover-up" for the announcement that they would day & date DVDs & BDs but stagger HD DVD releases at most three weeks afterwards. Warner created a "snowball" effect that led to HD DVD's death: after their announcment, retailers started cutting back on HD DVD product. Thus effectively killing the format before Toshiba pulled the plug. I remember a lot of people on other message boards who were angry at Warner for doing this but lo and behold, after they announced the "upgrade" program...they were seen as good guys again.

To be fair to Warner, they ARE a business and they're the biggest movie studio around. Once Disney defected to blu-ray and the sales figures for 2007 came in, I'm sure Warner realized it was time to get out. While what they did probably wasn't the fairest thing to Toshiba or HD DVD buyers, it was the right thing to do. I think their exchange program more than makes up for what they did, too.

[adh56]

I think they would have done it long ago.

[benricci]

Originally Posted by adh56

I think they would have done it long ago.

Agreed. The format war's been over for nearly 20 months......

[davcole]

I tend to think Universal may do it. I hope so, there's a couple of titles i'd trade up for on BD.

As for why they haven't done it yet, there a whole batch of "make up" titles that haven't been released on BD yet. It wouldn't make sense to establish such a program unless the titles that were available on HD DVD became available on BD.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by Wolverine1980

To be fair to Warner, they ARE a business and they're the biggest movie studio around. Once Disney defected to blu-ray and the sales figures for 2007 came in, I'm sure Warner realized it was time to get out. While what they did probably wasn't the fairest thing to Toshiba or HD DVD buyers, it was the right thing to do. I think their exchange program more than makes up for what they did, too.

Disney never defected... they were Blu from day one. They may have entertained going neutral, but I don't think they ever seriously consider dropping Blu. They were enamored with the BD50 that HD DVD had no answer for.

Paramount on the hand was Swenden and then picked a side when the checkbook opened.

As far as Universal doing a trade program, I doubt it. The war has been over so long and I suspect most have already started replacing their HD DVDs considering some of the Universal BDs can be found at reasonable prices. Quite frankly I am surprised Warner did it, I think they waited long enought that most people had already converted so they have maximized profits. Really the only people that Warner was trying to appease were the diehards who still couldn't get over the fact Warner dropped their format of choice.

[Ray_Rogers]

I also don't think Universal is gonna do a switcheroo program such as Warner Brothers. That and alot of the HDDVD's I own don't even have a Blu-ray counterpart yet. I'm still waiting for the Blu version of THE FRIGHTENERS since the HDDVD appeared to not have enough bitrate space for the movie since the 4 hour Signature Collection supplements took up alot of the disc. So the Blu-ray should be vastly superior even with a BD-50 and DTS Master Audio. I'll still keep the HDDVD only cause THE FRIGHTENERS is a favorite of mine.
Does anyone know if Uni would release THE GAME on Blu-ray with all the Criterion LD extras such as the UK Special Edition DVD did? Of course I own it on HDDVD and it'd be a massive pleasing switch if they did this.
I got KING KONG (2005) for free with the 360 HDDVD add-on player and the Blu-ray looks a worthy switching over to. Same for 12 Monkeys.

[Moefiz]

No, won't happen.They have lost enough backing HD-DVD during the war.

[Ray_Rogers]

Originally Posted by Moefiz

No, won't happen.They have lost enough backing HD-DVD during the war.

That too and they're being slow to release their HDDVD titles on to Blu-ray. It appears they're doing new encodes for the majority of titles and also including DTS Master Audio too. So if that's what is having their HDDVD catalog releases being slower to make it to Blu then that's beneficial the majority of the time.
The vast majority of Universal HDDVD's I've purchased online have been $2-$10 on average so I have no qualms about buying the Blu counterpart.

[OhDamaso]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

That's not entirely accurate

They went BD exclusive, but not wanting to screw people out of already announced titles (many of which were finished anyway) combined with their contractual obligation to continue to release titles trough May. There was no snowball being created. They announced they were ending support and that was that

And contrary to popular legend, Toshiba was very well aware that WB was pulling the plug well in advance if they failed to meet sales targets during Christmas that would justify continued sucking of resources, both authoring and manufacturing/storage. Considering that most of the major retailers had already announced an HD DVD purge (Wal-Mart, BB and CC), and Blu-rays huge gains in the Christmas season. Of course, they may have thought that the usual answer for all of HD DVD's problems, a huge cash payoff might have changed things. The only thing that was a suprise to them was that they did it at CES and didn't wait till later

I remember Best Buy and Wal-Mart dropping HD DVD only after the Warner announcement.

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by OhDamaso

I remember Best Buy and Wal-Mart dropping HD DVD only after the Warner announcement.

Over the few months before the Warner announcement, I can recall the BD section growing, while the HD-DVD section was shrinking.

If Universal has started such a program by now, it's not going to happen.