Blu ray???

[Holly_Hobby]

No more HD? Do I need to replace my DVD player and my DVD's? Is HD going the way of the 8 track? Help!

[ananda]

1. Basically yes.

Blue Ray has won.

[Holly_Hobby]

2. Thanks. I thought so. :(

[meegbear]

3. After BetaMax, they deserve a win ...

I guess.

[Touchdown]

15. What? Compact Disc wasn't enough?

:shrug:

[WilliamPitt]

4. Had this discussion with a Best Buy employee friend of mine last night, actually.

He said Blu-Ray did win, but re-buy of all DVDs not necessary. The quality difference is not so great that you'd need to re-buy, and the old DVDs will always work on Blu-Ray players.

[Yael]

8. This I had not heard. Excellent.

[Holly_Hobby]

10. But Blu ray won't work on currently DVD player, correct? n/t

[WilliamPitt]

11. I don't think blu-ray will work on current DVD player

but DVDs will play on Blu-Ray player.

Get a Playstation 3 system, 40 gig. It does a bunch of stuff, including video-conferencing. It has wireless capacity, etc. About as costly as a regular Blu-ray player.

[Bolo Boffin]

5. If your DVD player plays the HD DVD format...

...and you still want to play the HD DVDs in your collection, then you should keep the DVD player you have. But in the future, you probably won't find any more HD DVDs.

If you have a normal DVD player, then you probably don't have any HD DVDs and you'll be fine for a while. Regular DVDs will still be released for some time.

But as someone has said, you may want to upgrade to a Blu-ray player, since it will play both regular DVDs and the hi-def Blu-ray format.

[Buzz Clik]

6. Gone..

Toshiba will no longer be manufacturing HD DVDs.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Thought those old standard DVDs were pretty clear didn't ya? Me too

Just wait.

Don

[OwnedByFerrets]

12. With a good upscaler in your dvd player....

you can get 1080i which is a pretty damn good SD picture. The difference in my 720P HD-DVD image (thats all my 2nd generation front projector will output) is pretty minimal. The biggest difference is in the audio. Listening to 1.5Mbps is pure heaven compared to 448K that is available on SD. And when 3.0Mbps becomes widely available, it will be even better. Of course, it helps to have the right audio equipment.

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. Toshiba tried to hijack the HD name all for for itself

That didn't work out so well, did it fellas?

[Touchdown]

16. Not quite the whole story.

DVD was Warner Bros. & Toshiba's invention. Everything that had a DVD logo on it paid royalties to these two companies. Sony, whose been living high off the hog for 25 years getting fat off of Compact Disc royalties, got used to it, and started to believe they were entitled to everybody else paying tribute to them.

Sony HATED the fact that they had to pay somebody else royalties to a format they didn't invent, since they think they should be the only one who comes up with new formats (witness the too little too late memory stick), and they paid their competitors for the rights to make DVDs and players/recorders begrudgingly.

So, when it came time to make a new high def disc format, Toshiba was well on their way to improving on DVD enough to carry high def flicks, Sony said "NO WAY THIS TIME!", and came up with their own technology (which they were probably working on for the decade DVD was on top), and decided to out market Toshiba on their format, so that all royalties can go to Sony, where it belongs forever, and eternally.

This whole fight was about royalties. Anybody who says it's about technology, or which format is better picture wise is blowing smoke or a fanboy. When you get up to that level of detail, only a true professionally calibrated monitor screen would be able to show a discernable difference between the two. That, and a videophile who knows what to look for.

[high density]

13. No more HD DVD

HD DVD is going the way of the Capacitance Electronic Disc and Betamax video tape. Your existing DVD player and DVDs will be just fine. Blu-Ray now is the HD video disc format of choice. If you don't have an HD TV set then don't even worry about Blu-Ray yet.

[kstewart33]

14. HD is dead but keep your player and DVDs.

The interesting question now is how the demise will affect Blu-Ray player prices. I haven't a clue. But eventually the prices will surely come down.

[Touchdown]

17. Universal just announced support for Blu-Ray

Shortly after Toshiba said they'd drop HD-DVD, Universal announced they'd discontinue making movies on HD-DVD, and re-issue them on Blu-Ray.

I read it on a site I just blew away, so no link. Sorry.:blush: