Quoting twojayz:

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Anyone see that WB and FOX were reportedly paid close to a combined 1 BILLION bucks? Good to see the consumer has chosen...

Consumers were never going to decide this format war. Hardware providers, content providers and retailers were going to make that decision for us.

There's an interesting article on the Digital Bits by Jeff Kleist last week that explains why retailers preferred to sell Blu-ray players....profit margin. Apparently, they could make more money and store less inventory by selling 1 Blu-ray player, as it would take 3-5 HD DVD player sales to make the same profit.

And at my Brst Buy, they had 1-1/3 rows of Blu-ray Discs vs. 2/3 row of HD DVD discs, likely to help support the sales of those higher profit Blu-ray players.

As for PS3s, there are some people who bought it only for the Blu-ray player and will never putt a game in the machine. It's still the best-featured Blu-ray player on the market (mainly because of ease of firmaware upgrades to a networked gaming console).

Quoting Mark Harrison:

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Quoting Patsa:

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It's kind of ironic that the gamers decided the outcome of the format war. I know the PS3 is a good movie player, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for in a dedicated home theater setup.

Same here.  And yes it seems to give you the most bang for your buck.  One thing I an NOT going to do is pick up a cheap profile 1.0 player, then replace it with a profile 1.1 player and a profile 2.0 player.  The nice thing about the PS3 is it seems like it should eventually be able to be upgrade to a 2.0 player.  So I can either wait for 2.0 players or just get a PS3.  And with 2 small kids, that's certainly not a horrible thing to have another game machine.

And with that post you have reached 1000 Congrats! Just think... 5000 more and you might catch Skip 

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Quoting lyonsden5:
And with that post you have reached 1000 Congrats! Just think... 5000 more and you might catch Skip 

Congrats 

What about a heretical suggestion:
let's hide the stars and number of posts for public viewing. Only the user should see his rating and number of posts. This might improve open-minded discussions without the need to start posting and star collecting competitions. The real reputation of users cannot be reduced to a star or number of posts IMHO! 

Quoting Dr. Killpatient:

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You're just saying that 'cause you don't have two stars.           

Well, due to my conservativeness my other 3 stars are hidden behind my avatar     

Quoting nolesrule:

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Consumers were never going to decide this format war. Hardware providers, content providers and retailers were going to make that decision for us.

There's an interesting article on the Digital Bits by Jeff Kleist last week that explains why retailers preferred to sell Blu-ray players....profit margin. Apparently, they could make more money and store less inventory by selling 1 Blu-ray player, as it would take 3-5 HD DVD player sales to make the same profit.

Link to the column mentioned for those that did not read it since it is posted at The Bits. I know some avoid Bill's site like the plague. Click Here.

Quoting northbloke:

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To be honest, I don't think consumer confusion over formats (as Warner say) is the main reason HD formats aren't doing well.
I think it's more to do with indifference over the new formats. The average user isn't that interested in upgrading from DVD to the new formats because they don't believe the improvement is worth the investment.
In the short term I can see blu-ray sales increasing as some of those who went for HD-DVD re-invsting in the different format but I can't see loads of new users buying in just yet. Some, yes - but not the figures I believe the studios are expecting.
What do you guys think?

I agree!!!  I think the consumer is basically wanting these things to completely replace DVD, ie. they need to match DVD's affordability as well!!!  Pricing on Hardware as well as the Hi-Def movies themselves need to be comparable to what they spend on DVD in order for them to make the jump!!! 

Here in the US, the government is planning to pass out $40 credit to help households transition from over-air analog signal to digital over-air signal, which to me clearly means that lots of people don't quickly buy into technology.  DVD was so quickly adapted by the masses because it became cheap, cheaper than VHS, in an incredibly short period of time.  And while the upgrade from VHS was huge, it wasn't extremely too tech heavy, meaning it wasn't difficult to learn and install into anyone's home theater set-up.

Compare that to Hi-Def, which immediately confuses consumers with 2 formats.  Throw in the HDTV factor and then compound that with ridiculous prices for HDMI cables (with confusing 1.0 to 1.3 standards) and the average consumer will just say... heck I will wait to it can be bought cheaply and in a nice box like all these cheap pre-package Home-Theater-In-A-Box electronics that litter retail stores across the world!!!

Those coupons you mention are apples to oranges.

The Digital to Analog converters will cost $69 at Radio Shack. Take $40 off and it's $30 and change after taxes,

Apples to oranges.

Quoting pplchamp:

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Those coupons you mention are apples to oranges.

The Digital to Analog converters will cost $69 at Radio Shack. Take $40 off and it's $30 and change after taxes,

Apples to oranges.

I wasn't talking about the amount of money, just the simple fact that the government here even needs to do this at all.