How about a big thank you to HD DVD.

[IvanDrago]

Wait, before you ban me, hear me out.

I'm glad our side won the war, but I am also glad that Toshiba introduced HD DVD to begin with.

Why?

Competition. There is no greater thing in the world for the average consumer than multi billion dollar corporations slugging it out. If there was no competition, the corporation would dictate to the consumer on what he is getting.

If it weren't for HD DVD, there would be Blu Ray in the PS3. If it weren't for HD DVD we would still be paying $500+ for a player and $30+ for a disc. If it weren't for HD DVD, we wouldn't have gotten 5 movies in the mail for free. If it weren't for HD DVD, the MPEG-2 movie quality we got on the early releases might have become the Blu Ray standard. If it weren't for HD DVD, we wouldn't have had BOGOs.

HD DVD lasted JUST long enough to keep the BDA honest and bowed out just in time to keep J6P from completely dismissing HDM. Granted, Blu Ray prices would have come down eventually, but with no pressure put on the BDA, why should they have come down so quickly?

Thanks HD DVD for the healthy competition. You putting your best foot forward forced our Blu Boys to put their best foot forward in order to beat you.

We, the consumers, are the real winners,

[CheapChildren]

Yeah I think everyone can agree competition is a good thing in a lot of ways. But for too long with something like the HD war it can be very bad. Good thing it's ended.

[zombieking]

No way. Good riddance hd-dvd. If the format never existed we would have had Universal and Paramount all along. I still payed $500+ for my player, and a lot of early adopters payed more. For those that were red and tried to back a sinking ship, too bad. Should have done some research first. Again this proves cheaper isn't always better and you get what you pay for.

[Cobalt]

How about thanks for dragging it out for longer than it should have. Thanks for screwing over unsuspecting people that honestly did not know better. Better yet, how about a refund!

Lol.

Always been blu - just thought I would throw those out there

[w_tanoto]

the competition was good..... until last year. but anyway, it's like only 12 minutes left in the format war

[scragham]

feh. i have the money to pay much higher prices than i have.

i'd rather have had transformers, bourne, hot fuzz, matrix, star wars, LOTR, indy on BD to begin with.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by IvanDrago

Competition.

If chivalry was still being practiced, sure. But this war wasn't DIVX vs DVD where the internet was still not widely used. This war caused a lot of angry ugly fighting between people, and the spread of lies by the HD DVD camp to mislead the public.

Because of this casualty, I'd say, "No thank you."

If it weren't for HD DVD, there would be Blu Ray in the PS3.

Sony was never going to consider DVD as the optical format for the PS3. They most certainly not considering HD DVD either. So it wasn't competition that caused them to use BD. They were just forward-thinking.

If it weren't for HD DVD we would still be paying $500+ for a player and $30+ for a disc.

We're still paying more for the discs because DVD is still around. As for players, well that is true although I never considered anything but the PS3.

If it weren't for HD DVD, we wouldn't have gotten 5 movies in the mail for free.

Not really either. When DVD launched, Warner was giving a few discs for free with players sold.

If it weren't for HD DVD, the MPEG-2 movie quality we got on the early releases might have become the Blu Ray standard.

Not really. MPEG-2 in itself is not a faulty codec. The reason it was used in the early discs was because it is fast and the compression issues are known. If HD DVD wasn't launched, I think studios would have explored their encoding options a lot better.

If it weren't for HD DVD, we wouldn't have had BOGOs.

See above. If HD DVD didn't launch, BD would have to battle DVD, which is a much bigger monster. I would think the BOGO would still be considered by the studios.

Lastly a lot of the blame must be put on Microsoft. Enough said.


fuad

[radagast]

Originally Posted by IvanDrago

Wait, before you ban me, hear me out.

I'm glad our side won the war, but I am also glad that Toshiba introduced HD DVD to begin with.

Why?

Competition. There is no greater thing in the world for the average consumer than multi billion dollar corporations slugging it out. We, the consumers, are the real winners,

I disagree completely. Healthy competition occurs between companies, not formats. Healthy competition will NOW occur between companies producing Blu-ray players, recorders and discs.

This miserable format war only served to limit movies available in each format. You think that Batman Begins NOT being available on BD is a good thing? NO!!!

And now we have consumers who have spent a lot of money on players and discs for a failed format. No. I will not thank hd-dvd for ANYTHING.

[IvanDrago]

The BDA has gone on record stating that HD DVD forced them to market one year before they were ready. If it weren't for HD DVD, the first Blu Ray players would not have trickled out until last year at the earliest and the movies selection, naturally, would be much more sparse and there would be a large amount of competition to improve. HD DVD did a good thing for BluRay, they made them bring their A game.

[Downhere]

Originally Posted by IvanDrago

Wait, before you ban me, hear me out.

I'm glad our side won the war, but I am also glad that Toshiba introduced HD DVD to begin with.

Why?

Competition. There is no greater thing in the world for the average consumer than multi billion dollar corporations slugging it out. If there was no competition, the corporation would dictate to the consumer on what he is getting.

If it weren't for HD DVD, there would be Blu Ray in the PS3. If it weren't for HD DVD we would still be paying $500+ for a player and $30+ for a disc. If it weren't for HD DVD, we wouldn't have gotten 5 movies in the mail for free. If it weren't for HD DVD, the MPEG-2 movie quality we got on the early releases might have become the Blu Ray standard. If it weren't for HD DVD, we wouldn't have had BOGOs.

HD DVD lasted JUST long enough to keep the BDA honest and bowed out just in time to keep J6P from completely dismissing HDM. Granted, Blu Ray prices would have come down eventually, but with no pressure put on the BDA, why should they have come down so quickly?

Thanks HD DVD for the healthy competition. You putting your best foot forward forced our Blu Boys to put their best foot forward in order to beat you.

We, the consumers, are the real winners,

Great post, although many here will not give props to HD DVD and will say that Blu-ray is what it is today with or without HD DVD competing against it.

[tron3]

I have to agree on this war being a nessesary evil. Without it, BD might have received a mediocre response without competition. While the competion with HD DVD illicited this same mediocroty, their demise has created a title wave of excitement and anticipation.

During the war, most people wanted to wait it out before switching from DVD. Without the war, most people might not have cared. People want to be on winning sides.

[EvolutionCherry]

Competition has always been good for business. Everything from coke vs pepsi, to VHS vs Betamax, to WWF(today known as WWE) vs WCW vs ECW, to now Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD. It makes both sides bring it.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by IvanDrago

The BDA has gone on record stating that HD DVD forced them to market one year before they were ready. If it weren't for HD DVD, the first Blu Ray players would not have trickled out until last year at the earliest and the movies selection, naturally, would be much more sparse and there would be a large amount of competition to improve. HD DVD did a good thing for BluRay, they made them bring their A game.

Yes, they were forced to bring Blu-ray out earlier than they should have. That's why we have incompatibility problems with Profile 1.1 and 2.0. We should THANK hd-dvd for creating more problems for Blu-ray??? Strange logic, pal.

[JTK]

The only "good" that came out of this nonsense was, yes, prices as a whole came down faster than they would have otherwise.

Even at that, it came at the expense of Toshiba themselves, especially once MS pulled the money plug on them right around November or so when the Warner rumors began in earnest.

The situation was artificial and unreal, so I'm being generous even with this.

That's the ONLY positive I can see that came out of this needless mess and again, I'm really reaching and trying to be charitable here.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by EvolutionCherry

Competition has always been good for business. Everything from coke vs pepsi, to VHS vs Betamax, to WWF(today known as WWE) vs WCW vs ECW, to now Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD. It makes both sides bring it.

There is healthy competition and un-healthy. The format war was unhealthy. Another place where Bill Hunt is right on the money.

Healthy competition will NOW occur with different companies bringing out cheaper and cheaper Blu-ray players. If those who have been sitting it out because of the format war step in now and buy, THAT will drive prices down for both players AND discs. Review the history of DVD players and discs in regards to price.

[MrXpress]

I'll say thank you to HD DVD, despite having a now-useless HD DVD player and HD DVD discs, for giving me an opportunity to participate in a format war. As much as the format war brought out the worst in people (here, AVS, and HDD were downright intolerable at times from the amount of bickering and child-like behavior that was going on), I've gotta say it was pretty exciting to listen to the BDA and HD DVD PRG take shots at each other, or keeping up with the latest news on EngadgetHD or The Bits (I probably caused the Bits a lot of server strain from my constant refreshing, especially around the time of the P/DW announcement and recently after WB's announcement), or refreshing the latest HMM issue to see when the VideoScan numbers would be out.

The coming months and years will be fantastic from a practical standpoint when speaking about high-def media, because we'll be getting better discs at better prices on better hardware... but I've gotta say, as much as it pissed me off at times, I'll miss the 'format war' aspect of it a little bit.

[york weir]

Originally Posted by radagast

Yes, they were forced to bring Blu-ray out earlier than they should have. That's why we have incompatibility problems with Profile 1.1 and 2.0. We should THANK hd-dvd for creating more problems for Blu-ray??? Strange logic, pal.

HD DVD didn't make the decision for BDA to release early, the BDA did. All blame should be given to them for that.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by york weir

HD DVD didn't make the decision for BDA to release early, the BDA did. All blame should be given to them for that.

No, but market forces were created by Toshiba. Read the history of this war and you will see that development started on Blu-ray FIRST. But Toshiba had to spoil the party. Instead of joining Sony and Philips, they had to try to capture the royalties all for themselves like they did for DVD. So yes, I blame greedy Toshiba for forcing Sony's hand before they wanted to bring Blu-ray out. If it wasn't for the greed of Toshiba, we would be much farther down the road in acceptance of a new Hi-def media to replace DVDs.

[Anthony P]

I disagree completely. Healthy competition occurs between companies, not formats. Healthy competition will NOW occur between companies producing Blu-ray players, recorders and discs.

This miserable format war only served to limit movies available in each format. You think that Batman Begins NOT being available on BD is a good thing? NO!!!

And now we have consumers who have spent a lot of money on players and discs for a failed format. No. I will not thank hd-dvd for ANYTHING.

agree 100%

[TheRealBob]

Originally Posted by IvanDrago

Wait, before you ban me, hear me out.

OK, we heard you out.

Now, mods, please ban him. Thanks.