HD-DVD.....dead?

[DTro]

Just watched a report on G4 saying that HD-DVD is all but dead. Walmart is currently clearancing out all remaining HD-DVD players and by June will only carry Blu-Ray.

I didn't see this one coming and I'm glad I haven't made the plunge yet.

[DTro]

I think at this point, we as consumers are better off waiting for Digital Distribution, heck with the discs

[LMITOUT]

The past month or so has been hard on HD-DVD with Warner Bro's studio announcing their focus on Blu Ray as well as Best Buy putting their stake in Blu Ray. I think it was just a matter of time, and finally there is some direction in this mess so everyone can get off the fence and start developing more hardware and equipment for this format without sticking their neck out too far waiting for Beta-Max all over again.

[Coach Dog]

Blu ray is going to be the way to go. I would think by next Christmas they will be about $200 or less.

[pulsar_nx]

With options like iTV and others the clock is ticking on blue-ray as well.

The Consumer electronics show already crowned digital downloads as the winner over the hd/blue-ray battle.

[zamboni]

One thing that hurt HD-DVD is when Sony decided to give Blue Ray the nod for their internal DVD player for the PS3.

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

Yep,

I got to agree with Dtro on this one. It does look like HD is the new betamax! But I also have to agree with the others as well, my IT guys at work are telling me if you can hold out for about a year or two you won't even see a disc anymore. Everything will be done on line thru the computer. Blu-Ray can enjoy the next few years but I got to think you will see their $700 units on the shelves of Wal-Mart for $149 in a few years!

Anybody out there interested in my Jimi Hendrix 8 track tapes in Quadrophonic Sound?

Windy

[monticello coach]

Why mess with disks! usb/flash drives are the way to go. portable tv's, new tv's and even cars have them, music, photo's canall be carried or rented

[LMITOUT]

It's officially dead now with Toshiba pulling the plug on the life support.

[Whoaru99]

Dunno what technology is out there, but considering that BD discs come in two flavors, 25Gb and 50Gb, movie downloads take a LONG time even at 5Mbps or 10Mbps connection.

Long time as in all day (8 hours) or longer...

50Gb on a 10Mbps connection is somewhere around 17 hours of download if everything goes well.

I'd agree that BD players probably will come down in price just because most electronics eventually do. However, now that there isn't competition, I'd think the prices would tend to stay higher for longer time, not get cheaper faster.

[Spork]

Yeah, I honestly don't see digital downloads becoming a winner over media discs anytime soon... it's just not convenient enough nor would I want to wait a day or two for one movie to download. Even more so, once you do download it, you're going to need some place to store it. With Bluray using as much as 50GB a disc, that isn't going to leave you with a whole lot of space, even if your media device is sporting a 1 terabyte drive (1000GBs)... that'll give you the space for 20 movies and then it's full. Heck, my DVD collection is around 150+ and now that I have a Bluray player via my PS3, I'm sure I'll start collecting my movies on Bluray now.

It's way easier for me to grab a disc from the shelf to watch than wait for it to download and then come back to watch it the following day.

[DTro]

I think it will be streaming, and not a full download. I mean you can already do it on your PC. Pull up a movie and start watching. No reason you can't do the same thing with a TV. In fact, I've hooked my computer up to the TV and watched on demand movies from the web.