Originally posted by UkWizard:

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Well done sony you have won the war thanx to the ps3 having blu-ray built in, a massive strategy that has killed hd-dvd. You may have won the disc format war but as long as microsoft are about, you will have trouble winning a console war again. Sony don't have much power compared to microsoft. What we need to kill sony is for nintendo and microsoft to join forces and the final touches would be sega coming back to join.

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Yeah then the Nintendo Wii 2 can get the "red ring of death" failure too :-)

BD+ will not effect real piracy at all. i noticed along time ago that "they" usually have a dvd rip on bt sites weeks before anyone here(afterdawn) has even got a copy of the movie to try and rip. case in point, saw4.i watched it on my pc almost a month before anyone posted a question on "how to rip" here at ad. "they" are definitly not using slysoft or fentango thats for sure. the pro's will cut through BD+, like a hot knife through butter. the only people that are going to be hurt by BD+ is the average consumer. the blu-ray camp needs to drop BD+ and the high prices if they want to be around in the future. if not, then this is what i see in my future----alot of downloading.

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Originally posted by UkWizard:

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Well done sony you have won the war thanx to the ps3 having blu-ray built in, a massive strategy that has killed hd-dvd. You may have won the disc format war but as long as microsoft are about, you will have trouble winning a console war again. Sony don't have much power compared to microsoft. What we need to kill sony is for nintendo and microsoft to join forces and the final touches would be sega coming back to join.

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Yeah then the Nintendo Wii 2 can get the "red ring of death" failure too :-)

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The day nintendo bring out a machine with real graphics and proper hd will be the day when sega comes back. To be honest I think the wii will be the last nintendo console. What's the point in buying a wii if all they bring out is mario or zelda.

From what i can tell BD+ should be fully cracked by the boys at Slysoft by the time it hits the market in full force lol

I'm glad to see that the stupid war is over.
It's nice to see that the corporations and such have decided on a format, but I'm very angry that all the consumers are still not in agreement.

For those of you saying that the people that support and want blu-ray are less intelligent, you are complete idiots. We know the facts already, or will quickly discover them. It's not like we're going to stay in the dark about all the negatives for centuries to come. But worse things have happened and we have overcome them. Piracy will never stop and even then the need to back things up will never stop either. We should be focusing on the media at hand, BD+. But if we are too torn over the stupid bull**** nothing will ever come out of it. People will work day and night to crack it. But no one will even care if there isn't support.

And for those turning it into a console war, you are idiots as well. It isn't a SONY VS MICROSOFT sort of thing. Just get over it.

It's just a stupid argument altogether. It's the end. The book of time has closed. We need to get on with it.

EDIT:

There's probably many points that I left out. I don't want a loyal to the crown HDDVD user picking out pieces of my post like "The book of time has closed" and saying "No it hasnt blablabla this is why". I may or may not know that, but it will eventually find its way into my noggin. I really don't want it quoted at all, but I guess if you agree, then that's okay. But I really don't want somebody just jumping up and pointing out the flaws in my post. I know I didn't do a good job like hughjars up there, addressing everybody and their failures or whatever they didn't see, but whatever. The format war is over. Get on with your life.

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At the end of the day it is sony vs microsoft and always will be until sony crashes out

hughjars, i share your POV and totally agree with you, there's no point repeating what you have expressed so elocuently, truly is a shame that Toshiba may abandon HD-DVD. It would be interesting if Toshiba decides to go all the way into upscaling DVD players, if right now their HD-DVD players upscale SD-DVD to HD with excelent results, imagine if they perfect such technology in future SD-DVD players, no doubt would be a hell of a twist in this story, from which Toshiba can emerge victorious easily, since it would be very atractive for the vast mayority of consumers, that are content with SD-DVD, and not interested not willing to invest in a Blu-Ray player, that haven't planned yet to purchase a LCD/Plasma TV, neither wish to replace the titles on their movie colections.

you know what scares me about this whole thing.........Is that although th HD and Bluray format BATTLE maybe over. I don't believe the format war is over. I think with the way technology is going, I don't think it'll be to long before we see movies being transfered over the internet in mass quantities.(other than file sharing of course)
Anouther thing that really discourages me about the battle being over is now there isn't high def. compition anymore. While Blu and HD were fighting all studios still had to make regular DVDs, if they wanted to sell and get their movies out. Whos to say now that a studio or individual won't come out and say "ok we are only making this in Blu-ray format. Which will force people to upgrade. Ya ya It'll be a long time till that happens. But wasn't this format war supposed to last longer also??
Also I believe one of the reasons Bluray won is because I'm sure it got alot of backing from people like the mf'n MPAA. Why.........to me it seems that Bluray has been harder to crack. Now I know the people at slysoft are working on this I'm sure.(gotta love them) But still, with as much money as the damn MPAA has, and as much as they want to stop pirates, whos to say they didn't push the studios along with bluray pushing them.
And for those that don't think that the studios got kickbacks from blu-ray, I honestly hate to say it, yall are gullible. I'm in sales, I get treated to all types of crap that gets written off in different ways. I get treated to 4 star dinners at least once a week to talk about "new products" a vendor is distrubuting. So far been on 3 cruises, that conviently had a schoolings hours I needed for a lisence I hold. Hell next week I'm going to hawaii for a "seminar" I get tickets to sporting events for "talks" And I don't drop a dime for any of those. Oh and the field I work in is not medical, law, or mass retail. It's Landscape/irrigation. Yes lowly back breaking manual labor, well, at least for my guys.
Now if I get all that crap in my field just think about what happens behind closed doors of those multi-billion dollar companies.

Ok went a little longer than I thought.
Just my thoughts
LD

Originally posted by DVDBack23:

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From what i can tell BD+ should be fully cracked by the boys at Slysoft by the time it hits the market in full force lol

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- I know that is the hope but - and it's a huge question-mark over this - what happens when they repeatedly revamp/switch the BD+ coding
(as it has been specifically designed to do)?

AACS was broken at a fundamental level (after only the 2nd change) so that each revision to it meant little in the end.

I really doubt BD+ is going to be so easy.

But I do hope you're right.......I'm just not so impressed by the lengthy delays between the claims that a break was coming and anything tangible.

The bottom line remains, BD+ has not been broken.
Anyone saying that it has right now is either badly misinformed or just lying.

Originally posted by hughjars:

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I know that is the hope but - and it's a huge question-mark over this - what happens when they repeatedly revamp/switch the BD+ coding
(as it has been specifically designed to do)?

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Simple. Slysoft will do what they do best and release an update just as they do with DVD's.

Originally posted by hughjars:

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I really doubt BD+ is going to be so easy.

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Why would you doubt a company (Slysoft) that has not yet failed to provide? It's not like they have a track record of not delivering.

Originally posted by hughjars:

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The bottom line remains, BD+ has not been broken.
Anyone saying that it has right now is either badly misinformed or just lying.

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Again, I guess Slysoft don't know what they are talking about but you do?

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6.1.9.6 2007 11 07

* New (Blu-ray): AnyDVD ripper copies BD+ titles
* New (Blu-ray): Removed "BD+ not supported" warning, as all available BD+ titles can be copied with AnyDVD ripper, or can be watched on HTPC without HDCP using PowerDVD 3104 and AnyDVD. Reports indicate, that burned BD+ titles work on PS3 and standalone players as well.
* Note to Twentieth Century Fox: As you can see, BD+ didn't offer you any advanced security, it just annoyed some of your customers with older players. So could you please cut this crap and start publishing your titles on HD DVD? There are thousands of people willing to give you money.
* Note to people considering to invest in HD media: Please buy HD DVD instead of Blu-ray. HD DVD is much more consumer friendly (e.g., no region coding, AACS not mandatory). Don't give your money to people, who throw your fair-use rights out of the window.
* New (HD DVD & Blu-ray): Support for more MKBv4 titles
* Some minor fixes and improvements
* Updated languages

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Taken right from AnyDVD's forum

Why do people continue to give excuses and misinformation, when the real information is FREELY available at your nearest search engine....google. Let alone right here on Afterdawn!

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Originally posted by esrever:

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This makes me very angry. I had such high hopes for HD-DVD...now how am I going to use my HD-DVD player when they stop making movies for it. God I hate corporations...

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i feel you pain but why did you have high hope for HD DVD, i mean blue is a faster and bigger dvd in it self. And it own by sony and sony market the ps3 together because of blue ray i mean put that together and it 2 against one compare with tosihba.

LOL imagine if some movie company backed up HDDVD at the last moment .

You cant be mad at corporations for hd dvd since it was still to early to know if hd dvd would last or fail. It could have been vice versa so i chose just to wait until the results and polls were in and it seems that BLU RAY has won the election. Well i guess in a matter or time Microsoft will probably cancel the production of the HD DVD drives and possible make a Blu ray add on since the format decision is now made.

Originally posted by error5:

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When Toshiba does make an announcement I expect Paramount and Universal to reveal their BluRay plans within one to two weeks.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the announcement may come "early this week."

Probably as important, Universal, Paramount and Warner will be "immediately released from their committments."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12032161...p_us_whats_news

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If Toshiba withdraws from the HD DVD business, Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and General Electric Co.'s Universal Pictures, both of which support the format exclusively, would be immediately released from their commitments, one of the people familiar with the situation said. Warner Bros., which is obligated to sell HD DVD movies through May under its contract, would also be freed from those terms. All three studios couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

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For HD DVD owners:

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said Toshiba will likely continue to provide customer support for HD DVD players that it has sold, but it had no compensation plans in mind for consumers who have already purchased them.

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Originally posted by UkWizard:

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...What we need to kill sony is for nintendo and microsoft to join forces and the final touches would be sega coming back to join.

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Yeah then the Nintendo Wii 2 can get the "red ring of death" failure too :-)

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The day nintendo bring out a machine with real graphics and proper hd will be the day when sega comes back. To be honest I think the wii will be the last nintendo console. What's the point in buying a wii if all they bring out is mario or zelda.

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obviously nintendo has enough graphics and hd for the average consumer, even if it's just 480p. someone else posted that the new sonic was crap, but they probably played the supposedly awful "next-gen" game. sonic and the secret rings for wii was very different and very fun. with third-pary titles like no more heroes, wii seems to have plenty real "gamers' games." i don't think it's nintendo's last console; on the contrary, i think nintendo have used the wii to pull themselves out of the hole they've dug over the past 10 or so years.


more on topic, all i can say is score one for the mpaa.

According to Japanese financial and business publication Nikkei (and reported by engadget) the final announcement from Toshiba will be made tomorrow by the head honcho himself, Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/18/tos...rrow-stop-sale/

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Despite Red's inability to make any real public statement, Japanese publication Nikkei has it that Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida will be announcing the final discontinuation of HD DVD tomorrow, as well as halted sales of hardware and media by March (as in days from now). Apparently Toshiba will pull its units from retail shelves, but has no intention to give burned early adopters any refunds (no kidding?); it sounds like the ceasefire will include the bare PC drives as well, so those hoping to keep using HD DVD as a personal data storage medium probably won't have much luck. Apparently the announcement will come alongside Toshiba's plans to build new semiconductor fabs, which we're sure they'll try to spin as an advancement that far overshadows the hill of beans (read: hundreds of millions) they've lost in the format war.

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Those wanting to get backup players should buy their units soon.

This is truly sad. The winner was not decided by the consumer but by Sony's bank account. The format that the people want is the format that lost. This seriously marks a blow to consumerism and it's strugle with conglomerates like Sony.

80% of all BD players out there are ps3s, so what does this tell you? Only 20% actually went out and bought a BD player because they supported BD. Whereas all HDDVD units are standalone players except for a tiny portion of the xbox addon. SO why didn't the product that the consumers wanted win the war?

Sony bought everyone. Don't even try to argue, don't even try to defend this with 'official statements'- Sony paid Warner to move over. despite what they say, Sony saw that Warner was the key and they knew if they had Warner it would cause a landslide effect. So Sony paid in a large lump sum in cash to Warner and Warner went BD only.

They Netflix, then blockbuster. Then Wal-Mart, which obviously is the most important outlet, i'm pretty sure SOny paid them too. If Wal-Mart went HDDVD only, then the war would have gone the other way.

It's very said BD won.

Originally posted by BurningAs:

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This is truly sad. The winner was not decided by the consumer but by Sony's bank account. The format that the people want is the format that lost. This seriously marks a blow to consumerism and it's strugle with conglomerates like Sony.

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you mean the format you wanted ? I certainly didn't want HD-DVD . I fail to find any logic or evidence in your argument.where is your evidence that HD-DVD is what the majority of people wanted ? did you do a world wide straw poll ? if the consumer public wanted HD-DVD then why the hell didn't they buy more HD-DVD discs ? there were just as many HD-DVD discs for sale as blu ray yet they were still outbought by Blu Ray on every continent on the planet, by 9:1 in japan by 7:1 in Europe and by 7:4 in the USA - end of story.

hughjars......

face it man its over. theres nothing left for hd-dvd to do besides sell of remiaing stock.

Peace, and sorry all you hd-dvd fans, i know this sucks for you nut its over.

Originally posted by BurningAs:

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The winner was not decided by the consumer but by Sony's bank account. The format that the people want is the format that lost.

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Actually the "consumer" that you're referring to that bought HD DVD players is a small population of early adaptors and AV enthusiasts.

The "regular consumer" or "J6P" doesn't have the slightest idea of what HD DVD or BluRay is. The regular consumer consisting of a large proportion of the population is content with his SD TV and his regular DVD player and VCR. To say that the regular consumer was interested or even aware of the format war is inaccurate.

Plus some of these HD DVD owners also bought BluRay players and dual-format players - like myself.

So the correct statement would be "The format war winner was not decided by the small population of AV enthusisasts that own high-def players."

One million or so HD DVD owners is a tiny drop in the big bucket of consumer electronics.

Originally posted by Oner:

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Simple. Slysoft will do what they do best and release an update just as they do with DVD's.

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- Well as I said earlier, I hope you're right about that.

We'll see.

Originally posted by Oner:

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Why would you doubt a company (Slysoft) that has not yet failed to provide? It's not like they have a track record of not delivering.

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- I guess it's because BD+ is an entirely different animal to what we have seen to date.

Originally posted by Oner:

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Again,I guess Slysoft don't know what they are talking about[/url] but you do?

6.1.9.6 2007 11 07

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- I know that a movie can be put on a HDD and played from there (but only if you have the original in your machine) but that's only 'ripping' in a manner of speaking
(and therefore not what most of us would consider a rip I'd dare say).

I have yet to see anyone say BD+'s completely defeated and you can then take those files & share them.

I have seen BD+ movies taken from 'HDMI capture' (at a cost in quality) but not seen BD+ defeated in the way AACS was with HD DVD to enable sharing.

It's over folks.

Here's the official press release from Toshiba:

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_02/pr1903.htm

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Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

19 February, 2008

Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba's commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

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We will keep you updated on any word from Microsoft, Paramount, or Universal as to this latest word from Toshiba but for now it seems that all that can be said is R.I.P HD DVD.

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What a sad day mark the 17 Feb as end of the format war. The question that still lies is that after Toshiba leaves HD DVD behind will they eventually go to Blu-ray?

Dead topic dude.

Yea, along with all the other ones he's dug up from the dead!

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Originally posted by goodswipe:

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Yea, along with all the other ones he's dug up from the dead!

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i know guys that these are dead topics what can i say i am behind in my article reading. My time at afterdawn is not what it used to be so thats whi like to read every article even if that means its gonna take me awhile.