HD Format War: AVS Forum closes HD-DVD and Blu-ray sections
By Danny Mendez
The AV Science Forum, a popular site dedicated to helping members get the most out of their audio and visual equipment, recently closed its Blu-ray and HD-DVD sections due to the constant, ridiculous arguments that spark up between fanboys of both camps.
Yesterday, the forum administrators posted a letter in all Blu-ray and HD-DVD sections detailing the reasons for the shutdown. Apparently, fanboys of both sides repeatedly accuse the site of favoring one format or the other and continually post false information. Some have even threatened AVS Forum and its members in various ways.
One member writes, "You removed my post. I support HD DVD and you all back Blu-ray so you censor my posts!!! Your a #$#@$#@!!!!"
While another accuses AVS Forum of exactly the opposite, "You and your site is nothing more than a shill for HD DVD, I will seek legal action for my post removals and the truth will come out."
In managing a site, it’s common for fanboy arguments to pop up especially when dealing with some type of "war", be it format war, console war, etc. Just take a look at our sister site, GAMER.BLORGE, which is often accused of supporting Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony depending on the article. It’s a bit extreme for a site to partially shut down because of such arguments, but, in this case, perhaps it was necessary.
With that in mind, we all like to support our favorite gadget companies, but lets be respectful when posting on the various forums, blogs, and other sites around the net. There’s really no need to hate on your fellow tech lovers for liking something different, and, you may not know this, but calling someone an idiot for disagreeing with you just backfires. If you want to support your idea, bring some credible information to the table, otherwise, don’t pollute the ‘net with pointless hate.
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on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 12:03 am
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Read more entries by Danny Mendez.
Stumble It!
November 8th, 2007
I HATE ELECTRONICS! AGHHHHHHHH!
November 8th, 2007
RAAWWWRR YOUR FORMAT SUCKS B*ALLS
No seriously dudes, I often wonder why fanboys are so ridiculously stupid. It’s not even like they’re paid; in which case it would be excusable. However………
November 8th, 2007
Actually, you get these “fanbois” because they’ve already chosen sides, and they’ve invested some $$ into their “passion”. Noone want to see their money go down the drain…if their “side” doesn’t win, so they feel like they need to “plug” it.
It really is a bit dissappointing when you want Transformers or Spiderman 3 for your visual entertainment…but the stupid studios have even taken sides.
Ofcourse, from what I understand, most BD “exclusives” aren’t really exclusives. You can purchase them in HD-DVD format from amazon.de or amazon.co.uk…which just confuses the matter all that much more.
November 8th, 2007
Not that I disagree with the above statement, but merely to prevent the fanboys from invading this, I’d point out that the opposite is true for some movies as well. It just is that the studios are idiots? Out of curiosity, since we don’t seem to be fanboy’s here, how do we think the war will turn out? I’ll start off by noting I have no money sunk in either format.
Let’s first take a look at Blu-ray. Well, its bigger, which is sort of an advantage, but then again, not really.
HD-DVD, on the other hand, has a very nice price point, which makes me think it will win.
Actually both sides don’t seem to realize that most DVD watchers could care less about extras, with some random director gloating about how much of a genius he is. The only things I sometimes like are deleted scenes, which are sometimes funny with good movies that could have been utterly ruined forever if those had not been cut; I must thank someone in the cutting department:D.
However, I digress, and back to the point, most people could care less about extras; they just want their movie. Now, I can notice the difference pretty quick between DVD vs. HD, but some I know can’t very well. This leads to less consumer care when compared to DVD vs. VHS, in which the quality difference was phenomenal, and thanks to DVD being digital with a checksum, its quality did not degrade over time, which was one of the many horrors of VHS.
This time around, there’s nothing truly spectacular to this; in fact, it barely deserves a name change. Had it not been for this war, I think that we’d just have newer DVD’s that were in HD; or even just four layer DVD’s(could any of you bozo’s over at Sony or Toshiba just do that, and not make us upgrade for a change:D).
Now, I predict HD-DVD will win, but it will be a bitter victory, as both formats combined will not do nearly as well as DVD did. I remember my first DVD player, and everyone jumped 5 feet off the floor in the excitement that we’d never have to see the darned visual and audio stutters and corruptions that VHS made us so used to. What’s the incentive this time? Extras that I usually chop off when I rip the movie to my media center? It’s just a little quality, which is nice, I grant, but…why so expensive, I ask? It’s not like a 3D monitor, or some sort of neato experience like that, so what?
That is the reason no-one cares really. Bear in mind, also, that this is about as far as it goes. Beyond HD, the eye cannot see the problem (barring humongous screen sizes) unless you stick your nose in the screen, in which case you’ve got other issues to deal with instead of watching movies. I’d love to see 3D media, or something, but that’s as far as it goes, once that is done. After that, what then? That’s why DVD has done so well, it delivered much more than a single generational advance normally would have.
I think that the reason these formats are being pushed is because the studios are praying that consumers will switch to the new formats, which have costlier discs, so that they can get a more comfy profit margin off each disc. Try again, I say. Once internet connections reach good speeds, like oh, 100 Mbps, movies will be downloaded, methinks, and Microsoft has a better idea than the others, which is basically download and keep, not download and then poof, its gone. I think that investing more than 150 dollars into this little war is a bad idea.
November 8th, 2007
Holy sh*t! I didn’t realize I’d typed so much. I guess I don’t like movie studios:D
November 9th, 2007
It amazes me why people get all hot and bothered about a product or format standard… it’s not worth the stress.
In this particular case arguing for & against the next movie format is made even more ridiculous by the fact that HD-DVD is so clearly superior by all accounts.
Now lock this thread case closed.
November 9th, 2007
Hey RK. The “winner” will be the company that creates a blu-ray/HD-dvd combo. I don’t think there is going to *really* be an HD format winner.
But, if I had to choose, I’d say HD-DVD will win.
You’re wrong in one respect…you can buy blu-ray that were supposedly “exclusive” on HD-DVD. This really isn’t the other way around.
Let me explain…it’s the region coding. If I buy UNDERWORLD in the GERMAN format, it plays in my HD-DVD player. (yes, I can quickly turn the “english” on, so I don’t have to listen to German).
You can’t do this in Blu-ray. If I purchase a Blu-ray disc from another country…it WON’T WORK.
Blu-ray strick DRMs, DSSs…(etc – encryption methods) are going to bring this format down.
But, you will NOT have a winner. PS3 (with it’s built in Blu-ray) will NEVER go away…so they will always have a Blu-ray install base.
HD-DVD may have a bigger install base in a year or two to come simply because of it’s price.
Again…the winner will be the COMPANY that develops the combo player for under $200 first.
IMO