That may well be possible, but the fact is laserdiscs were a unique format with certain discs and features that were never ported, so they had their place. Now that we see the war between HD and Blu Ray coming to an end, there's only one solution and HD DVDs will be a waste, they'll be redundant, so why bother with them. There are only going to be so many titles, and nothing unique. Why waste the money now on a player or Discs? All the titles that were only on HD DVD will be on Blu Ray and the players will be expensive DVD upconverters, that's it!
Well, I certainly agree with the sentiment here. I think it'd be far better to use that money to buy a player for the format that won - and discs in the format that will survive. Come to think of it, it's pretty hilarious that some people sat on the wall when the whole war was going on, saying they wouldn't/couldn't choose, and then once the war was won - they are thinking of investing in the LOSING format. (I'm seeing this debate all over the net). :lol: Some people just can't resist what is seen as a "bargain". But basically it's a red herring, imo. All HD-DVD titles will make it to Blu-Ray. The reason the players are cheap is because they're defunct, redundant, a dead end. Cheaper then BR at the moment, yes, but the reason is plain as day - it's going away and fast. I say if you can't afford a BR setup right now, save the money you'd spend on HD-DVD for that - don't bother with the obsolete. Resist buying based on prices caused only because everyone wants to offload a dead-end product. Go Blu-Ray, and invest your money in that. Anything else is a waste, imo.
^ Well, if you do the math it could work out well enough. If you buy a HD-DVD player for $50, and then buy ten titles at $5 each then you're paying $10 total for full HD movies. Not a bad deal. It's not as cheap as the cheapest DVDs but then they're not as "cheap" as the cheapest DVDs either. I've been tempted because you can write HD content on DVD-R's and play'em, but since I can just run HD movies off of my media server through my PS3 there's little practical point in burning a DVD-R.
I fully understand the money argument. But I also understand the "why is this so cheap" argument. It's cheap because it's obsolete - I can resist the perceived bargain and can (and will) happily put the money into BR, the winning format that will be around as a viable option for years. It's cheap because it's being dumped onto the market, it's that simple. I'm not so desparate for hi-def content that I'm willing to blow $50 (and let's face it, it'll be more) for what - being first to have The Thing on hi-def rather than simply wait for the BR version? Not for me, I'm afraid. $50 is $50... I'd rather spend it on SD titles I've been wanting to be honest, anything other than buying into a dead format. I mean, I could buy all my clothes at yard sales too.
Heck almost all of my blu-ray discs cost only 10.00 with no tax or shipping from amazon.com - if you watch for the right sale you can get great prices on blu-ray which surprised me-I got all the following blu-rays for 10.00: underworld evolution the fifth element (remastered version) hellboy house of flying daggers curse of the golden flower corpse bride goodfellas million dollar baby That is 80 bucks for 8 new movies with no tax or shipping costs folks- not to mention I am seeing more and more used blurays out there at trade in shops, video game shops, online and at pawn shops
If the Xbox360 add-on goes for $50 I might pick it up to have a portable USB DVD/CD-ROM drive, since it can be software hacked to work on any PC. The HD-DVD element of it would just be gravy, especially if it includes King Kong. http://xboxfamily.com/xf/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1440&Itemid=1 I'll have to think about it, not sure how useful an external DVD-ROM drive would be for me.
Blu-Ray is so awesome, I think anyone who buys HD-DVD now is fucking nuts, to put it kindly. What's next dumping CD-ROM drive for a floppy drive? Dumping 1080 HDTVs for b&W tube sets? Downgrading to Windows 3.11??
I agree that the software is out there cheap enough if you know where to look. Today I got a package in the mail containing BDs of: Hostel Identity A Few Good Men Cruel Intentions 50 First Dates Each one was new and cost me 11.99 apiece from a site called jr.com. I then took my old DVD versions of three of the above titles to a local music store and got $4 credit for each. So basically I got 5 BD's for $50. Not a bad deal at all.
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3304908&sku=T24-9148 For those of you who want an HD-DVD player, CompUSA has one for $89 with 7 free movies. That is a great deal! Like I've said, I'm not buying into it myself, but a lot of you still have interest in getting these deals and this seems to be a very good one. It is like paying around $13 for each film and then getting the player for free. On top of that, the movies they offer are really good! The Thing and Pitch Black are among the titles.
I got a snd player on ebay... great price for top of the line a35..now I can bitstream the audio and will put my a1 way as a backup.. there's nothing worng with the 60 or so hd-discs I have... I've got aound 30 blus...
Is CompUSA still in business? Didn't the chain fold a couple of months ago? (They were liquidating the one in Wichita earlier this year/late last year.)
This seems to be an offer being done by a multitude of online retailers since someone posted the same deal through Tiger Direct.