And it also may be similar to the situation with putting a 'DVD Video' logo on your packaging. In order to do so, there are physical and financial hoops to jump through. Many smaller corporate producers ignore this detail and just whack a logo on there, and I guess quite a lot of Sell-thru video productions might do the same when they're not on the shelves of K-Mart.

But if caught, you're caught.

I'd prefer it if Sony would do what the MPEG folks do, just state that for titles of less than 10,000 units, or produced on BR recordables, licensing and DRM does not apply. Then we know where we stand.

Almost Very Cheap
 

Toshiba HD DVD Player is now $79.99 at Costco. Free HDMI cable and two HD DVD movies are included in the box.

P.

Its not a problem for someone burning discs at home. But it has been confirmed by independent studios that they must cough up the $2,500 AACS base fee plus the per disc fees when volume publishing their releases. I think R&B Studio's "Chronos" and "Nature's Journey" comes to mind, where the HD DVDs were printed without AACS to save money but AACS was included on the BDs due to being mandatory.

I suspect it just got a bit more difficult to compete with Hollywood as a small independent publisher. I also suspect the Hollywood folks are perfectly happy with that ;)

Maybe my conspiracy theory isn't too far off. I just wonder what the climate will be like in 20 years.

*looks into silicon ball

It'll be the same -chaotic, still unpredictable, and look a lot like decades past

Will you transition from DVD to BD sooner or later?
 

Looking back, I stuck with VHS too long. Too many of my movies are on tape. The money I saved by buying a player late is now long forgotten, but my collection lives on.

I now plan to buy a BD player sooner, rather than later. Sure, DVDs aren't as bulky and noisy as VHS tape, but as screen sizes grow, BD quality will become more and more apparent. My only misgiving is that BDs are currently overpriced vs. DVDs.

So, did you already transition to BD? Will you transition soon? Will you wait? Do you not plan to get a BD player at all?

First bride request pushes me over.

It really depends upon the type of work you do.

Some clients are happy you show up at all!

Others have the means to afford whatever you suggest.

I am stumped right now and might start with the 20 min HD on DVD-5 for now for some of my work, when I upgrade a camera.

I don't think anyone would accept HD DVD anymore.

Can you burn BD on a DVD-5 and it play for 20 minutes?

I know where you're coming from, but can I kind of spin this a bit:

VHS won over Betamax, but the Betamax format returned as Betacam.

Blu-ray won over HD-DVD, but perhaps HD-DVD returns as the industry standard for corporate/industrial HD, which then becomes as ingrained as Beta SP/DigiBeta for the next decade.

Frankly, I don't think that will happen as Hard Disk/H.264 networked solutions will win over BR disks.

But I don't see BR as a Corporate Video medium either.

No... you can burn at least 27 minutes of h.264 @ 17Mbps BD onto DVD-5. I did manage to get 30 minutes on one the other day.

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?...2&postcount=11

Best Buy Pulls Remaining HD DVD Stock Off Shelves

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11279

The last remnants are washing out to sea folks....

currently you can buy a 8 gig USB key for less than $50.
small, light, fast , reusable....
few DVD player have the usb socket, but the day they all have, this will be the end of the disc (red or blue)

I'm still trolling craigslist looking for deals.

Last night I picked up 8 HD DVD movies for $70. Half of which I had not seen. Today things are different. Just because a format dies doesn't mean you are going to see all use for the hardware/software cease.

Frankly I had my doubts that either format was going to see anything more than a fraction of the popularity of DVD. Consumers are tired of optical discs that their kids scratch up or discs that get flaky in some players.

Digital downloads will be the next big thing for many. Me ..I don't care as long as my price/performance ideals are met.