Fellow Best Buy employees - stop the blue shirt member HD DVD propaganda!

[Maxell]

I'm urging fellow Best Buy employees in favor of Blu-Ray to login to blueshirtnation.com and stop the FUD.

Blueshirtnation.com is a website/forum for Best Buy employees. There is a dude claiming that the "Format war has ended, HD-DVD: It's Already Won"
http://www.blueshirtnation.com/node/3402


Here is what this employee stated:

HD-DVD:
Its Already Won

If you
are reading this you are probably a Best Buy employee. And if you
work in Home Theater or Computers, you've probably been asked the
question “Do you think Blu-Ray or HD DVD is going to win?” This
always poses a problem to us associates: we have to somehow explain
the tangled mess of Blu-Ray and HD DVD to our customers, and then ask
lifestyle questions to identify which player is better for them when
they want to buy it. And those questions do not always return the
best answers, after all it seems one day a company is releasing only
on Blu-Ray, the next day only on HD DVD, and then on both!

Well fellow BlueShirts, I have found our solution. Its time we endorse HD
DVD, and for no other reason that more studios are supporting it.
That is to say, all of them are. Now you may be thinking: “Hold up,
I thought 7 out of ten studios supported Blu-Ray?”

Welcome to the wonderful, tangled world of film distribution.

You see,
Blu-Ray studios have a dirty secret: in other parts of the world,
they release their movies on HD DVD. In a recent post on Home Theater
Forum, Microsoft's HD DVD head Ken Collins tried to dispel rumors
that Microsoft paid Paramount Pictures to leave the Blu-Ray Format in
favor of HD DVD. As evidence, he listed several websites in the UK
and other parts of the world where Paramount was releasing its high
def movies on HD DVD even before the switch. If Paramount was already
releasing movies on that format, there was no reason Paramount should
also release movies on Blu-Ray: it was just adding to the costs. And
HD DVD does not have a zone restriction built in: HD DVDs from Japan
or Europe will play in American HD DVD players. And the Blu-Ray
movies available on HD DVD? Almost the entire catalog, even the
original Blu-Ray releases! You can literally go to amazon.co.uk and
order the Prestige, a supposedly Blu-Ray only movie, on HD DVD.

We already know Blu-Rays biggest problem: its EXPENSIVE AS HECK to
produce. One study found that it cost $1.7 million per line to
make Blu-Ray discs. DVD is manufactured on 600 production lines
worldwide: thats $1.02 billion just to get the production
capacity for Blu-Ray we have for DVDs now. And
with the surging economies of former third world countries, you can
expect that we will only need more capacity. Also, each major DVD
manufacturing facility will require a minimum of two mastering units
at a cost of $2 million each: that could be up to another
$1.02 billion, and it would be more if production speed was to be
kept at high levels.


Plus, Blu-Ray disc is written in the BD-Java language. While this is
far more flexible than HD DVDs Hdi programming language, every single
detail needs its own line of code for BD-Java. Even experienced
programmers have trouble writing full programs in it without bugs,
and the number of programmers of this caliber is very, very small.
Hdi, while less flexible, can be written by most anyone with a 4 year
degree to my understanding.


So what does HD DVD have going for it? Why has Europe already
adopted it, and why did Paramount and Dreamworks jump ship? It's less
expense at nearly EVERY level: HD DVD is basically DVD-9, a format we
have been using for years, but with a denser pit layer. What does
that mean? Basically that we can use all the existing equipment for
DVDs to make HD DVDs. A DVD line needs a $150,000 investment to begin
making HD DVDs. A mastering system can be upgraded for $150,000. This
means its less than a tenth of the cost of Blu-Ray.


And there are only two production facilities for dual layer Blu-Ray
currently in the entire world: one in Japan, one in Terra Haute,
Indiana. That means that if manufacturers want to ship Blu-Ray to
Europe, where there are already HD DVD facilities, they'd have to
incur massive costs of changing regions and shipping large volumes of
discs. Its frankly easier and cheaper to use those local HD DVD
facilities in Europe. And since HD DVD is Region free, I can ship in
HD DVDs from Europe and they will play in American HD DVD players.
There are not costs associated with remastering HD DVDs therefor: as
long as the disc has an English soundtrack and/or subtitles, it will
play in America even if it came from foreign countries. And remember:
most all BD movies are on HD DVD in Europe.


So what about Blu-Rays vaulted superiority as a format? That may be
more hype than anything: Blu-Ray has zone restrictions, needs complex
programming for simple instructions, and is costlier. And what about
its storage capacity superiority? It is true that Blu-Ray can store
more than HD DVD, and therefor could take us farther along in the
future. Well, that was true anyway.


Recently a company in Israel developed a process which it claims can
be used to make a standard DVD store 1 terabyte of information.
Compare this with HD-DVD's 30 gigabytes, and Blu-Ray's 50 gigabytes.
This process is still experimental and no where near ready to go to
production, but it means one thing. Remember how I said HD DVD is
basically DVD-9 with a denser pit layer? That means that this new
process could be applied to HD DVDs (theoretically). So if this
terabyte DVD is real, HD DVDs could one day store well beyond 14
terabytes of information on a single layer disc! A dual layer Blu-Ray
disc is limited to 50 right now, and 100 once a quad-layer Blu-Ray
disc is put into production.


Heck, the only reason we are not speaking as if the terabyte DVD
will not replace HD DVD is because of urgency: people want HD movies
and they want them now. And if this technology can be applied to HD
DVD anyway, that means normal HD DVD players should run this new
disc. Also, standard DVD players do not have HDMI output, which is
becoming necessary with the implementation of HDCP protocols (HDCP is
a new technology Microsoft develop to prevent people from making
illegal copies of Hi-Def movies, an important white paper on HDCP in
Windows Vista and other devices can be found at:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut00...sta_cost.html).


So with HD DVD now ruling the potential future of storage capacity,
which is really the only reason we had to develop new DVD technology,
and with its costs being lower, and with the ability of any American
to go to their local China town and find imported Blu-Ray releases on
HD DVD, and with HD DVD players are expected to drop below $200 this
coming Christmas shopping season, Blu-Ray is dying. Already if you
have an Xbox 360 you can get a sub $200 HD DVD player that will do
1080p (the 360 can do 1080p if its either an Elite or has had a
software update via Xbox live, and the new 360 premium units with
HDMI support 1080p as well). And here at UCM, I've met people who
have already bought imported HD DVD movies that in America were only
released on Blu-Ray. Plus, there seems to be no legalese making it
illegal to just import HD DVDs into America if those movies were
released on Blu-Ray here. So, if anyone wants some seed money to
start a website selling imported HD DVDs, just remember who gave you
the tip....


Spread the word BlueShirts: HD DVD is winning. Sony's strategy for
Blu-Ray success hinges on its ability to force America and Japan to
accept it as the HD format, once that happens they can begin
distributing it elsewhere. But to do that they need exclusive studio
support, and stuff like Blockbuster going Blu-Ray only (which I never
believed happened without some money changing hands). To bad more
people get their movies from Netflix huh? And even IF Sony managed to
get more Blue-Ray players out there and more Blu-Ray disc
distributers, remember, HD DVD players from any country will play HD
DVDs from any country.


Which means one thing: Toshiba and Microsoft have had no internal
grumbling about shutting down HD DVD. They'd stop making it only if
people stopped buying it. Europe, Latin America, Africa, and some
Asian countries have already adopted HD DVD in a nearly exclusive
manner. So Toshiba and Microsoft have no reason to shut down HD DVD.
China even developed its own content-protection heavy version:
CH-DVD. China has 1.2 billion people. Nuff said.


And remember: due to the complex world of distribution rights,
nearly all (if not all) Blu-Ray discs are available on HD DVD, HD DVD
has been almost universally adopted in Europe, and HD DVD has the
potential to own the future of storage capacity.


Now I am not an HD DVD fanboy. Around 768 anyone will tell you I've
told people to hold off on HD players and get an upconvert player
instead. But with all but the perception of Blu-Ray being superior
being against it, Blu-Ray is losing. And what really sells these
players? We do: people come to BestBuy to learn about these things.
And now you know. HD DVD is better for BestBuy too: its lower costs
equal better margins in the long run. (note:
this is not an official endorsement of HDDVD by BestBuy Incorporated.
All statements made here are solely the opinion of the writer and not
the official policies of BestBuy Incorporated. Please don't sue me)