I've got the Planet Earth Blu-ray boxed set now. Looks great.

Okay *THAT* might possibly be worth a blu-ray player.

What's the US price?

I've generally seen it around $60-70, but it looks like its only $55 at Amazon currently. The Discovery Store just blew out their HD DVD versions for $30.

The BBC version is considered the better of the two. The difference is the BBC version is voiced by David Attenborough, vs. the Discovery Channel version was voiced by Sigourney Weaver, and is 5-6 minutes shorter per episode. Also BBC is 1080p vs. 1080i for the Discovery version.

I have it on HD DVD (same encode as the Blu-Ray) and the picture on this is fantastic! Very cool series!

Indeed. It was one of the few things I've bought while waiting for the format war to be decided. It also brings up a nice thing about the end of the war, the companies like the BBC who were producing releases on both formats can stop worrying about the lowest common denominator and produce some nice discs. Dual releases were usually encoded to fit the smaller HD DVD discs, and also usually stripped features to lower themselves to the Blu-Ray Profile 1.0 stuff.

That totally pushes me over the edge on that one. I hated her voiceover.

Okay, maybe "hated" is too strong a word.

Yeah when Paramount originally released on both formats a year ago they would use different encodes for each format. All of Warner Brothers (who does distribute BBC titles) titles to date use the same encode for both versions. WB did however do separate special features for both profile 1.0 and HD DVD.

I'm personally waiting for a good profile 2.0 player before adding BD to my collection.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft are now discontinuing the HD-DVD addon.

Xbox HD DVD drive dropped to A$49 today (maybe yesterday) in Australia. At one online website it was even possible to get one for A$38 delivered with a coupon. They all sold very quickly.

I even bought myself a Toshiba XE1 player since it's a great upscaler for SD DVDs (with it's Reon chip) and I didn't have a regular SD DVD player. I'd been sitting on the fence but since it was about the same price as an Oppo regular DVD player, I figured I couldn't really lose.

Perhaps this is Toshiba's new "marketing" tactic? I don't think so but it would be nice if they hadn't totally given up. I preferred HD-DVD just for it's region free... All other things being reasonably equal IMO

One of the theories as to why Toshiba gave up totally is that it was part of another deal where Sony sold most of their Cell/RSX fabs to Toshiba.

Except that the deal for the fab was in the works well before Warner's announcement and the downfall of HD-DVD, and Toshiba has been working with Sony and IBM on the Cell for a long time.

It's funny that so many people keep coming up with wild speculation on why the format died, when for a solid year, Blu-ray outsold HD-DVD discs worldwide. Toshiba also probably looked at the Japanese sales numbers, where both movies and recordable media was heavily in favor of Blu-ray for a long time. But nah, it couldn't be that simple, there has to be "foul play" somewhere! Warner's announcement was likely due to their own sales numbers, as they released movies on both formats at the same time. When they did announce, it was simply the momentum needed to swing it in favor of one over the other.

I did find this cool.

Ahh. I didn't read too much about it. Just heard that was one of the rumours.

It's pretty obvious why the format died -- "Blue Ray" is a *much* catchier (and easier to remember and say) name than "H-D-D-V-D" (has "committee" written all over it.. duh!).

Cheers

I had the exact opposite thought. Compare Beta vs VHS. DVD. CD. LP. MP3.

Honestly, I feel like an idiot saying "BluRay". I predict that in a year's time, people will be using a less trademark-y term for them.

As did I. Blu-Ray sounds ridiculous, and I assumed that the familiar association of HD + DVD would appeal to the average consumer.


I predict that they'll be calling it "HDDVD"

But Blu-Ray says exactly what it is (although they missed the 'e' off as an Americanism!)

Them thar new fangled moving picture discs?

Doubt it. Sony won't let that happen and besides, if you did start calling it "HD DVD" how are you going to differentiate it from the real HD DVD?

I reckon people will be calling them 'blueray', 'blurry' or, for old farts: 'new DVDs'...

I don't think it sounds ridiculous. Compared to say..... "Chicken McMuffin".
Never overestimate the intelligence of several million people.


I've noticed that normal plebs are quite happy to do the marketing department work by genericising brands:
* coke
* hoover
* google
* walkman (back then anyhow)
* jacuzzi
* frisbee
* jeep
* superglue
* ipod

Happily the brand owners hate this.

Apparently this backfired a bit, with people buying HD-DVD discs thinking their normal DVD player would play them. Every store I've see that carries HD-DVD or Blu-ray has big disclaimers above the area stating you must have a new HD-DVD or Blu-ray player to play the discs now, but most didn't when they first started appearing. What also likely didn't help the confusion was the mix of DVD/HD-DVD hybrids in with the normal HD-DVDs. So some would play on a DVD player, while others wouldn't.

I don't see the name changing anytime soon. The Blu-ray association has spent a ton of money on brand recognition and the associated branding on players, movies, and so on. Imagine trying to change the name of the XBox 360 now, or the iPhone. And both of those have been known about for less time then Blu-ray.

I'm not saying that the official name will change, just popular usage. I'm trying to imagine Mom (or really anyone) saying to me, "I'm going to the Blockbuster to rent a BluRay disc," the same way she might say, "I'm going to the Blockbuster to rent a DVD."

Maybe the change will just be in avoiding referring to them directly — "I'm going to the Blockbuster to rent a movie" — only using the term BluRay when distinguishing it from a different format. I wouldn't be surprised if people just kept calling them DVDs otherwise.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I believe that the term BluRay will not become part of commonplace parlance in the way that DVD has.

I could see people using the term "BD". Like Bitt's example: "I'm going to Blockbuster to rent a BD."

Of course even less consumers have heard the term BD in reference to a Blu-Ray Disc.

Don't you mean a Digital Versatile Disc ?

Until and unless BluRay players cost $50, DVD will continue to have the lion's share of the market, and I wouldn't expect much from Blockbuster. NetFlix, I presume, will get into it without any trouble.

In the end, I'm predicting that downloads will win, just like they did with audio, even though they're nowhere near the quality of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

Huh. I wonder what people actually say in this situation.

"I'm going to Blockbuster to rent a DVD"

or

"I'm going to Blockbuster to rent a movie"

...and back in time which of the following would you have said?

"I'm going to Blockbuster to rent a Betamax movie."

or

"I'm going to Blockbuster to rent a VHS movie."

or

"I'm going to Blockbuster to rent a movie."

I don't foresee any need to change the name (officially or "just on the street"), it's just the underlying technology.

Most people will be aware of the formats that they can play in their household so a "DVD/HD-DVD/BLURAY" disc is just a movie.

(imo!)

People still "go rent a video" don't they?

When they were new it was "Wanna come and watch a DVD?" - now it's "watch a film" or "watch a video"

Syllables?

Dee Vee Dee
Vid E O

I don't think it's syllables. DVD is rather unwieldly on the tongue, though.