Bill Hunt's latest on the format war (September 12)

[radagast]

Originally Posted by tron3

I usually try to listen to everyone's opinion to help broaden my own concept of what is actually true. In general, the numbers don't lie, but people do.

I read that entire article by Bill Hunt and he has shown me more in that one article than I could learn in a month of sifting through the FUD mucking we see.

Warner is "sitting on the fence" with both legs dangling in the BD camp. The more Warner movies we buy, the more we can coax them to jump in. I have new found respect for Warner to not take the pay off and actually do business right for the sake of their image and customers.

I disagree on one minor detail. If Warner jumps the HD-DVD ship, the war will be technically over, but major casualties. For one thing, Paramount is still under an 18 month contract. Unless Toshiba yields and lets them buy out of the remainder contract, we still aren't going to see Transformers and other films for about another 18 months.

Warner going exclusive BD would be a major nuke on Toshiba which is already war torn. I'm sure Toshiba is still trying to get their attention. They may already see the writing on the wall. But for craps sake, don't commit finanical suicide and throw good money after bad.

You fight a good fight Toshiba. I commed you on making a product that not only yielded quality but built upon DVD technology to keep costs low. But even PC makers left behind ISA, EISA, VESA, and other bus technologies so progress can be made. Even PCI will be history in a few more years. Your hearts were in the right place, Toshiba, but the consumers are at your throats now. Don't wait for the second nuke to get dropped. Get out while you still have the finances to develop blu-ray and make HUGE profits in a world which is largely becoming blu.

By the beginining of next year, we will probably be seeing stories about Toshiba offering big bucks to Warner just to stay neutral. That is Toshiba's only chance.