Re: Universal dropping HD DVD exclusivity

Yea, I love that line from Back to the Future II.

I used to be one of those people who liked collecting movies. I've got them all lined up on my DVD rack. But over the years, I've become less interested in "clutter".

Sit back sometime and look around your house at all the things laying around, mostly collecting dust. It just gets in the way. I used to have half a dozen different electronics devices stacked up under my TV. Now I have ONE. It's kind of liberating.

At any rate, I think HD downloads are coming...it's just a matter of time. Having said that, it makes me wonder about Blu-rays future. That's one of the main reasons I won't be adopting it.

comic books came out with digital download and stan lee stated that it wouldnt work because people like to hold stuff in their hands. it's true and it works that way with dvd too. hd download will be successfull but it will never negate owning a physical object. people will always want that.

as far as this article goes, the topic is misleading. i still wish someone would step forward and make everyone drop their exclusives. never going to happen, but in an ideal world it's what i would like to see. too many consumers on both sides have spent money. no matter what side you picked, why would you want to see other people lose out on something they enjoyed. apple and microsoft. dvd-r and dvd+r. why can't both exist? in this case its because hollywood execs think they can make the decision for us. and so far they are proving they have that power. it's a crappy road to go down. unfortunatly it's getting closer to that point. no matter which one wins we all lose. prices dont need to stay competitive and the technology doesnt continuously need to improve. the only way the consumer could have won this battle is if all the studios dropped their exclusives and that time is over now. if they had made an agreement earlier on in this war, not to have exclusives, imagine how much more sales would have improved. so many people i know didnt get involved in either purchase because they were worried about whether or not their favorite movies would come out to their choice in HD.

instead of blu boys and hd fan boys bickering on message boards they should have worked together to put pressure out on the studios. oh well, now we all lose.

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How ironic it would be if Universal announced they would be going "download only". It's amazing to me that in this day and age, the next big format technology is a physical disk! How quaint.

I wish I could agree with you nhall72, but I don't. I'm the only one at work who has Verizon Fios and that's about the best chance of downloading BD/HD-DVD quality on-demand HD (only in select markets as of now) in a reasonable amount of time. How patient will you be downloading almost 30GB of info over your "quaint" dial-up/cable modems? If you reduce the filesize by giving me legacy DD/DTS, "No thank you!" I want my lossless audio with as little compressed video as possible!

eventually they'll be able to get all that too us....but not yet.

We also thought CDs would never die from online music downloads and while we still buy CDs, that market is being beaten prety badly by places like iTunes and the like. Eventually movies will be the same way.

Nhall72 said -

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"It's amazing to me that in this day and age, the next big format technology is a physical disk!"

Well, to quote a line from the first BACK TO THE FUTURE film - "Now don't con me Biff!" The audio/video quality (and SpEd extras) of a hi-def disc are many times superior to a possible "HD steaming/download", which "in this day and age" hasn't even been developed yet! Comparing streaming/download to Blu-ray or HD-DVD is like comparing a Kindergarten child to a University student.

Then there is the matter of simply re-loading a disc for playback, vs the effort involved in repeated acts of streaming/downloading. Also, the storage factors, and possible crashes or viruses, etc, etc. Also, the ease of jumping from various chapters on a disc, vs interactive streaming. I'll take the "physical disk" for sales and rentals over future availability of HD streaming/downloading.

And as prices of disks drop (sales) etc, well that's great for collecting.

-Love Hendrix! (The Loverboy)
~ DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray/KURO Plasma owner ~

I think if I were the director of Universal Studio, I would choose to shift to Blu-ray because:

- I can release all titles in Blu-ray format that were priorly HD DVD exclusive so I can earn money once again from them.
- If I choose Blu-ray, then it is quite sure Blu-ray will win and standing on the winning side is more safe. If I stick on HD DVD, there are too many unknown factors.
- Using Blu-ray, I can protect my intellectual property better by region coding, HDCP,...

It is all about business. I doubt whether they will stick on HD DVD because they think HD DVD is better. It is only about contract. I also doubt whether they would consider the consumers who have bought so many of their titles in HD DVD.

So I think they will never be losers but consumers.

Digital HD downloads will never work for most consumers because of the hard drive, or device that contained their complete movie collection was to completely crash, the consumer ends up S.O.L.! Unless they had some media storage device such as a DISK that can back up their purchases, or way to re-upload purchases with no charge, I just don’t see it out competing DVD, Blu Ray, or even HD DVD. Anyone who has ever had a computer that stored all their purchased music, than one day the computer completely crashed, thus no back up disc, knows that such places like itunes will not give the consumer back their money for their loss or re-upload purchases without having to buy the items again.

[Post edited by Kris on Jan 10, 2008]

Kris is right. Why would you risk losing all of your HD video by storing it on a hard drive? HD DVD or Blu-ray is the next best thing because of the superior amount of data storage on the single shiny disk which we rely on to keep our most precious back-ups. That is why I think Blu-ray is winning this war. Take a walk around you local computer store and see all of the nifty laptops with Blu-ray burners in them. Super storage, baby.
It really stinks, too. I really banked on HD DVD winning due to the better value and available features. Oh, well

Paramount and Universal are going to Blu-ray, HD DVD will finally admit defeat, Microsoft will adopt Blu-ray.

It's all just a matter of time ... a few days to a few months at max.

HD DVD dies more each day.

Blu-ray has won.

and the more it dies what? how do you feel today? want a cookie? lol. i admire our energy. you take this stuff to the heart. maybe you should join the army