Thursday, January 10, 2008

Hectic

The title pretty much describes how the week has gone. The end result - no blogging or visiting of blogs. But, things should be slow from here on out for a couple of weeks. The hectic time did bring me a new client though so that is nice. Our Directv is back too. It wasn't going to be fixed until next week, but I called a different company to do it and they were able to come yesterday; almost a week sooner. It was killing me because I need to have it on. Even when there isn't really anything on, I still need it on for the noise. I hate silence. Jess and I kept ourselves entertained by playing video games and watching movies.

It has been an exciting week for me on the technology front. This past weekend, Warner Bros studios dumped their support for HD DVD. That is great news for a guy like me who supports Bluray. What am I talking about? Basically, just like their are Hi-Def TVs, there are now Hi-Def DVDs. Unfortunately, there are two different kinds of Hi-Def discs like there was VHS and Beta. Bluray is the brain child of Sony while HD DVD is the product of Toshiba. What is the problem with 2 formats? The seven major movie studios have basically chosen sides of who they are supporting and are only releasing their movies on the the one format. For instance, I would love to own a Hi Def version of Transformers, but it is a Paramount movie and they are HD DVD exclusive and I am a Bluray guy.

As of last week, 4 studios were Bluray exclusive and 2 were HD DVD exclusive with Warner Bros being the only company that supports both. Well, last Friday, Warner Bros announced they were going Bluray exclusive, giving them 5 of the 7 major studios. Why couldn't they do both. Well, DVD sales were down almost 4% last year. One of the main reasons - people are confused about this whole DVD/HD DVD/Bluray thing. People are holding off on buying because they know a new format is coming and are holding off buying anything until a clear winner emerges. Yeah, the current economy hurts too, but this a factor. Warner, and I, believe that the sooner one format clearly is declared a winner and the other format is dead, the sooner people will start buying again. They went with the company on top. So now, Bluray has Warner, Fox, MGM, Sony, and Disney. HD DVD has Universal and Paramount. There are a few other companies on both sides, but these are the heavy hitters and most important to the war. I think it is only a matter of months before the holdouts switch too. Trust me, if you don't own or haven't seen a Bluray movie in stunning 1080p, you are missing out. It is beautiful! So support Bluray and choose wisely......Harrison has his eye on you!!!!

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12 comments:

PurpleOceanMoon said...

Wow, thanks for clearing that up Man. I was totally confused. I know that you can play the bluray on the PS3, but that was it. Thanks

Unknown said...

That is so crazy. I just a conversation about this topic with BF. Small world, eh?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the hi-definition definitions. Welcome back by the way. Good to see things leveling off a bit.

Churlita said...

I know. I've been holding out buying any of that stuff 'til it gets sorted out. I so don't want to buy whichever one becomes beta.

Tara said...

He does give out an effective evil-eye, doesn't he?

Jose said...

I work for a company that deals with technology. Call us the Circuit City/Best Buys for the schools and government. For a guy that works in a place with all these new technology I am about 10 years behind. I only bought my first DVD player ever about three years ago. Granted it holds 300 DVD's and is totally cool but other than that, I am trully that far behind.

AlienCG said...

I still get pissed off when it comes to the technology competition. It's looking like HD/DVD is the new Betamax. I'm just going to hold off until the dust clears.

Mom said...

Uh -I think that was just way too much knowledge for me. I'm glad I have my Blue Ray and my HD TV, however. Good buy on your dad's part. I love that picture of Harrison!

By the way - thanks for coming over today! It will be nice having a dishwasher again!

Miss Sassy Pants said...

Manuel and I have LOADS of fun with that picture of Harrison Ford. We'll watch him pop up and go back down and giggle the whole time. Then we REALLY spice it up and make him say stuff when he pops up. For example, "Hey Jess I have a question. Oh, sorry, didn't know you were busy. I'll come back later." Or "What's for dinner? Cool, sounds good." Give it a try; silly, but I guarantee you'll laugh - we do.

npanth said...

I started falling behind in home theatre tech a few years ago. I have a great system from circa 2000. 5.1 Klipsch speakers, but an old analog Yamaha receiver. 30" HDtv. I went out and bought it all because everyone was telling me that I was way behind the HD revolution. Turns out, I was a few years early. Thanks for the breakdown, I feel almost caught up again ;) It's nice to see Sony get the upper hand after Beta, but you know how they love to get all proprietary on their customers. I hope BluRay is more of an open standard.

laura b. said...

I don't have much of a dvd collection, so hadn't given any of that much thought, so thanks for the little tutorital. It definitely seems like it would be a good idea to wait to make a commitment to one form or the other.

Anonymous said...

You are still a teacher at heart. :-) I really hadn't realized there were to new types of HD systems until you told me at Christmas. I'm also still a little fuzzy on the HD TV stuff. I'll wait awhile before we buy a new system.