I own both players and though I agree with some of the comments I wish that sucjh things as combo players need to go away. If I wanted to play an inferior version of the movie i would not have a high def player in the first place. I agree that some titles remain exclusive to HD DVD at the moment I doubt it will remain that way. I will buy Bourne on HD most likely but every time i go to I think should I not just wait. I do not care about HDI or Java extras so there is decider there. I would now only use HD for films with exclusivity and abything on both formats I buy Blu. I would not give up on HD if I owned a player but i would think long and hard before
buying a HD DVD machine if I had not already. The fact that Spielberg will not release on HD and such monster titles as LOTR will apparently be Blu exclusives make this choice much more difficult than when I bought my HD DVD player.

I too own both players.  I bought a HD-DVD player first.  However, one reason I bought a Blu-Ray player is because I am on my third HD-DVD player.  My experience is the players keep breaking and stop reading HD DVD discs.  What good is a format player that won’t read a format?  Also, the Toshiba customer service has been spotty on all three “repairs”.  My current player has been with them for 4 weeks now.  I call daily for an update, but only am told that a tech as been assigned to it.

But I will continue to buy HD DVD players if I have to.  Some movies (as mentioned above) only on HD DVD are a must have for me.

I bougth an A3 last December because of price an the upconverting feature and I am very happy with it. I am not a not what you would consider the “key demographic” of HD players. I am 30 years old and almost never buy a MOVIE in DVD. Why? Because in my early 20 a spent thousands of dollars in DVD’s, thousand’s of dollars in hardcover books and thousand of dollars in comic books. What does that left me with? Clutter. I have no space for anything and because there was always a new dvd to watch, a new book or comic book to read I never re-read or re-watch anything.

What I do still buy from time to time are TV seasons on DVD and they are scarce and pricey on any HD format. I stick to SD versions upconverted in the toshiba A3. Why buy the toshiba instead of a regular upconverting DVD player? The free movies. But instead of picking my “favorite movies” from the free choices I picked movies I had never seen. Why? Because If it was a movie I already had seem I would probably never even open the package. (Like was the case of Bourne Identity which came with the player)

The only problem I have had with the A3 is that some combo format disc would freeze. I watch Miami Vice Combo Disc with no problem but We are Marshall froze. I did a firmware upgrade and it did not help. Amazon replace it an the replacement disc worked just fine. The funny thing is that while my father was visiting me he started watching Miami Vice himself (hey look at that a movie was played twice in my house!! But I did not saw it twice, it was my dad)  Anyway, the point is that while my father was watching it it froze, something that did not happen before the firmware upgrade. The only other movie I have in HD Combo Format is Bourne Ultimatum an it also freezes.

That has been my personal experience with HD DVD players. I’ll keep buying SD TV season and upconverting and I may buy the occasional movie in HD if I have not seen it before and really REALLY want to see it as long as it is not a Combo Format Disc (I just do not want to risk it).

Electronic House,

I used to have some respect for you rmag, but this really shows a lack of forethought. HD DVD is on its last legs and nearly everyone now knows that it’s just a matter of time before Universal and Paramount titles will be on blu-ray. No one in their right mind thinks their HD DVD exclusivity is meaningful from here on out.

Why are you telling people to toss their money at a dead format?

Great unbiased reporting. Im duel format but i only buy HD DVD and rent blu-ray. Why, becasue HD DVD is the only format that is ready to replace SD DVD. Blu-ray, even if it won, is not even close for mass consumer acceptance.

@Vince

Head on out to blu-ray.com then, im sure the drones will welcome you with open arms. Did you even read the article? Its based on a consumer survey where more people chose HD DVD. Now go play with you PS3 allready.

Great article.  I heard a scoop that next week you’re going to recommend gamers buying a Sega Genesis.  I hear you can pick one of those up pretty cheaply as well.

I used to subscribe to your magazine and I was thinking about re-subscribing, but after this biased article, forget it.

@Vince

Did you READ the whole article or was your post just an involuntary reaction to anything positive being said about HD DVD?

Even if Paramount, Universal & the independent studios go Blu, you’ll still have to wait for them to re-issue the HD DVD titles on Blu-Ray. What the author is pointing out is that HD DVD players are cheap enough that buying them gives you the ability to enjoy those titles NOW.

IMHO I think both will end up being around for a long time. BR will be the distro format of major studios and HD DVD the format of choice for independents. Cheap dual format players will make that a reality.

Dead is HD DVD. :(

Great article! There is nothing wrong with supporting both formats HD DVD supports seem more open to the idea than Blu-ray supporters even though it costs them much less to have both.

Your reasons for going out and buying a HD DVD player don’t make sense.

Hardware bargans. What a stupid reason to buy obsolete equipment. You can also probably get a great deal on a 8-track and betamax players these days.

Exclusivity: there are only a few titles that aren’t available in Blu-ray and the ones that aren’t, like transformers will be.

This magazine has gone downhill. The editor needs to be more selective.

Dual personality: why buy obsolete equipment? Its a waste of money. blu-ray players will also play standard DVDs.

HD DVD is much more consumer friendly and backwards compatible.  The post above about “bias” so what.  No bias, other than maybe the writer is optomistic about HD DVD staying around and it still has support.  Another boost is the Xbox 360 drive. 

Im biased too, I hope HD DVD wins.  But either way not that big of deal.

I love all the fanboys who think that Blu-ray is the #### and that its some how superior because its a “cool” new technology? Newsflash, HD DVD is the same you idiots, but for less cost and complete specs!

This article makes sense and has valid points. BD can keep doing what they do and eventually dry up their funds. I was planning to buy a PS3, but of course Sony can’t decide which PS3 version should exist? I would have purchased a Sammy Blu-ray player to match my Sammy 4071, but I’ll wait till atleast profile 2.0 and a nice price tag of $199.99.

Thanks Sony for creating this mess!

You make a good point that HD DVD machines are so cheap that, given space and ease of hook-up, owning one on a whim is a possiblity.  Then you go on to state that Blu Ray is also of limited long term utility because of movie downloding.  Wow, that’s a stretch.  The move between DVD’s and downloads will be a halting one at best since dwonloading requires a high level of infrastructure to be convenient and it fails to fulfill the desire of people for ownership.

I wonder what Sony has done, how much it has cost Sony to win this format war, if, indeed, it has won.

Surely the talk of video downloads killing rentals/sales (Apple TV anyone?) is just so much hot air!

Where in the world (apart from Korea and Japan) are intrernet speeds fast enough to make a transaction worthwhile, plus download film quality is not true HD (HD films are about 20Gb) and you’d need to write it to a disc anyway to keep it.

Given the above, why would anyone want to use video download and how can it affect the longevity of BR?

I heard a scoop that next week you’re going to recommend gamers buying a Sega Genesis.

Ha! I can just hear the new soundbyte: “HD DVD: The Dreamcast of a new generation.”

I have a stack ‘o laserdisks and a big fat laserdisk player taking up space. I need dual-format players to drop in price and know they’ll be around for a while before I spend money on HD DVD media.

I can see buying an HD DVD player at these firesale prices in order to rent HD DVD movies from Netflix, though…

When are the HD-Dead supporters going to admit that they threw their money away investing in a inferior format? You let your blind hatred of Sony cloud your judgment. Now you’re in complete denial that this war is OVER. Universal and Paramount are dying to get out of their profit limiting contracts with HD-Dead. There will be no new players or discs for HD-Dead by Christmas. Ho, Ho, Ho Sony haters!

That’s a good article and I agree with it,I will continue to enjoy HD DVD’s for years to come.
When Sony et al releases a 2.0 player for <$200USD I will buy it.

Ho ho ho - so the war is over? So much for your crystal ball. Does eggs, hatch, counting, betamax ring a bell?

“When are the HD-Dead supporters going to admit that they threw their money away investing in a inferior format? You let your blind hatred of Sony cloud your judgment. Now you’re in complete denial that this war is OVER. Universal and Paramount are dying to get out of their profit limiting contracts with HD-Dead. There will be no new players or discs for HD-Dead by Christmas. Ho, Ho, Ho Sony haters!”

So, why are you such a fanboy of Blu? What has Toshiba done to you? DId they touch you on your private parts? Just because you may want a Toshiba player or movies from the HD DVD exclusive studios is no reason for you to act like a ######. You must like spending extra money on the same type of format, but think you are cool because you are buying a higher priced equipment?

Tell your parents that you need your undies changed.