A message for the format neutral members!!

[CJ P]

Sure, but what you're doing is saying that you don't care what everyone else gets either. What if I said I don't care about lossless PCM or any of the new surround formats for that matter. Hell, I have a friend that doesn't care about SURROUND period.

Regarding hypocrisy I think that's exactly what it is when you say "haha, look at HD-DVD they're so desperate they're giving away movies." Then when BD does it, you say, "Well, we're not desperate though." Oh come on, its a product promotion either way. I have no problem with BD giving away movies with a player purchase but guess what, I have no problem with HD-DVD doing it either.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by CJ P

Sure, but what you're doing is saying that you don't care what everyone else gets either. What if I said I don't care about lossless PCM or any of the new surround formats for that matter. Hell, I have a friend that doesn't care about SURROUND period.

Regarding hypocrisy I think that's exactly what it is when you say "haha, look at HD-DVD they're so desperate they're giving away movies." Then when BD does it, you say, "Well, we're not desperate though." Oh come on, its a product promotion either way. I have no problem with BD giving away movies with a player purchase but guess what, I have no problem with HD-DVD doing it either.

you're obviously not reading the posts...

there are more than enough posts that give good enough reason...

PiP is preventing some of my favorite movies to come out on blu-ray...and I don't care about it...

just because PiP is a weak HD DVD argument and they think it has merit, doesn't mean it does...

it's not like when we say we have Fox, Disney and Sony titles that are exclusive and will never see the light of day on HD DVD and then mention the fact that these 3 studios put out strong NEW....big word here...NEW releases..

you can not care about PCM and lossless audio etc...and that's fine, some people like good quality...others like bells and whistles...

hd-dvd camp: look...I can see PiP in my features

blu-ray camp: ........ok...I don't need to watch extras then I can watch new movies and not ones that came out 10 years ago and already own on DVD..

[CJ P]

That's fine but I'd RATHER wait vs. having two releases or something silly like that. It appears that one of us is going to get our way

You missed my point about PCM and surround. I do want those features but it would be dumb for me to complain about them any way because guess what, they're not developing BD for ME, they're developing it for a broad audience. Pushing for them to just screw the special features because you don't care is short sighted and a good way to limit BD's audience and slow its adoption.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by CJ P

That's fine but I'd RATHER wait vs. having two releases or something silly like that. It appears that one of us is going to get our way

yeah they will release Batman Begins by the end of the year and I don't care if it has PiP or not...

as long as I get it in BD, then I am fine..

[GTP]

Originally Posted by CJ P

Don't forget "special features" was one of the selling points that got DVD rolling. While you might not get sucked into them, a newbie might. Also, right now they're being underutilized. They're being thought of "inside the box" of DVD special features. Remember how amazing the "follow the white rabbit" feature on The Matrix was? It sold discs I'm sure which may have meant people buying their first player. What I see when I see people saying they don't care about these features is "I don't know what it can do, but I don't care". That seems like waste to me, something really cool could come out of it.

The PS2 got dvd really rolling...and not special features that the majority could care less about.
The reason people double dipped on a lot of movies has always been extended and/or unrated editions...with extras coming in a far distant second.

The majority don't care about extras and do not even use pip on their displays.
Its certain studios pushing extras along with MS trying to use the lack of it as a negative for BD.....and not something that is being asked for by the majority.
Case in point...the only BD extra my entire family has been interested in is an alternate ending on The Descent done via seamless branching, and the animated shorts on Ice Age out of 124 BD movies.

I don't care if extras are present on a disc for the few that actually value them as long as P/Q and HD A/Q are not limited because of it.

I do have a problem with Warner using this as a last minute excuse to not releasing many titles...and even more so for the ones that don't even have these features but yet are still missing on BD.

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by CJ P

You're trying to have it both ways then. We don't need special features, but if you're going to have REALLY cool special features, they'll need to be on Blu-Ray. I agree that this is like the free movies, its hypocrisy. We don't need that, lets make fun of HD-DVD, but when we do it, we'll be better at it. LOL

No, you miss the point. None of the existing features are cool or worthy of swaying your purchasing habits. In the future they may be, but it will have to be something well beyond what we are seeing to date. It is entirely different than the analogy to the movie giveaways.

[CJ P]

Yep, and to get those "cool" special feature, guess what we'll need, the same technology we're waiting on for PiP so that's why I'm content waiting. Plus like I've been saying, its not like we get a choice.

[The Don]

I'm content with waiting for Batman begins as we're already getting enough titles that are fresh as it is..

out of the current HD DVD titles available...I only like the Big Lebowski, batman Begins and Troy...so having them get those in contrast to what we get is more than fine...

[Lord_Stewie]

i was a format neutral for one reason, i thought that they both give me a hi def movie. now i am the kind of a person who loves his movies. i don't like watching movies at the theatres anymore, because i am fed up of "having snobby little bastards being inconsiderate, talking, playing with their phones, little babies crying, yada, yada, yada" you get the picture. so i thought to myself i could provide myself with the ultimate experiance at home without being bothered. now hddvd is good, but not as good as bluray. one of the reasons i chose bluray to be the format i want is because i am sick of having a combo disc format. heck i don't want to get up and flip the disc if i want to see extras. so far combo formats means DVD ON ONE SIDE AND HDDVD ON THE OTHER SIDE. there will be a day when a movie comes out on combo format not because the other is dvd, but because there wasn't enough memory on one side, to add more special features. the memory capacity in Blu ray is my solution, and what i am looking for...

[PaulDubya]

Please tell me this isnt another forum with folks stuck on PIP?
I said it once ill say it again PIP is like your apendix, its there but u can live without it!

[Chad Varnadore]

I fell in love with HD DVD when it first came out too. But since then, I've come to understand and appreciate all the things BD has going for it that HD DVD doesn't. While java isn't showing it yet, BD as a technology is superior in every single way, even down to the little things like scratch resistence But it's up to the studios to take advantage of its superiority.

Sony and Disney are really the only studios making the most of it, IMO. Lionsgate has been inconsistent in their support of lossless audio. And several of their titles have tried to do too much for the available space, like HD DVD does. Paramount doesn't support lossless audio at all. Fox has for no apparent reason been governing their video bitrates to the bare minimum needed instead of going the extra mile. And while commendable in their consistent support of lossless, the fact that they're using a codec that nobody can take advantage of has been of questionable good sense.

Warner, is governing their BD by what HD DVD can do and has been very inconsistent with lossless audio support too. I also think Warner may be lightly filtering their masters as standard practice. But I have nothing to base that on other than a couple of their films that looked considerably softer in high def than they did theatrically And VC-1 supposedly doesn't give the compressionist any control over detail. That and that most of Warners discs have looked slightly soft and flatter, compared to a lot of what Sony and Disney have been doing.

But lately, what I've really come to appreciate about BD over HD, aside from the obvious things, is the formats reliability. I will not put an HD DVD disc in for guests, simply because there a strong liklihood of playback problems either from the start or worse, halfway through the movie, the disc or player quits on you and they can't finish the film. Lip sync issues have been particularly annoying lately as well. Since I review the occasional title on HD DVD, I bought a new XA2 hoping that it being Toshiba's top of the line replacement for their previous top of the line XA1 would alleviate the playback problems I was having from their first gen unit. I figured I'd also sell the XA1 to help offset the cost. But so far the XA2 has been even more buggy forcing me to keep both just to ensure I can actually play any discs I review. I've watched or reviewed nearly every BD that's come out so far and the only playback problem I've had was about a 5 second pause in the middle of Primeval.

[Chad Varnadore]

I don't know about anybody else. But I watch extras once, at best. The movie I'll watch over and over again. That's whay I'm buying, not some gimmicky feature. And that's what needs to be prioritized over everything else. If it's between including an extra or two or lossless sound, the decision should be a no brainer. We don't go to the theater or invite people over to watch special features. It's all about the movie. Extras should be a distant second in priority.

Of course if your idea of HT is a computer monitor or your TVs built-in speakers, your priorities will probably be different. Fortunately, with 50GB discs studios should be able to satisfy everyone with most releases. But there will be some that will still demand multi-disc sets. Especially if they start doing more extras in HD.

PIP isn't ready, because BDs PIP implementation is capable of more than HD DVD's is. And based on the few HD DVDs I've looked at that had it, it needs to do more to interest me.

[CJ P]

I want PiP because apparently its important enough for studios to withold titles.

[Chad Varnadore]

Good point. Warner seems willing to go ahead without PIP. The titles like Batman Begins that have been withheld might be out of their control, at least politically. Maybe the creative staff want it to be included.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by CJ P

I want PiP because apparently its important enough for studios to withold titles.

I have seen it in action....(PiP on HD DVD)..and I could care less if it was added as I never check the extra's on anything unless it's an extended movie and that's an "extra"

I make my own decision...and if people got together and e-mailed them about it....I bet they'd at least listen...

[thebluemax]

Originally Posted by CJ P

I want PiP because apparently its important enough for studios to withold titles.

Good point, however, I have no interest in HDi and will probably never use it just like I rarely look at extras.

I initially had a hd-dvd player, but when I saw that most Studios were backing BD, I went BLU-RAY and sold my hd-dvd stuff. I refuse to support both formats for several reasons.