Video Asylum

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, Home Theater systems and more.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

No doubt Warner screwed a bunch of customers.

Posted by oscar on January 8, 2008 at 06:07:33:
Customers who were "early adopter" whether or not they knew it. Warner is making a show of continuing support until May but I expect HD DVD sales to drop off precipitously. Still, these same customers will still be able to play the discs they did buy for years to come until the hardware breaks.

Warners made a business decision based on what was going on in the market. It wasn't a secret Warner was taking a really hard look at hardware/software sales with a very real possibility they would select one format or another (We had some hints they were leaning Blu-ray's way, even in early December).

I'm guessing when they took a hard look at the December sales numbers with a surge in BD Standalone sales, they made the bid to end this format war once and for all. This move caught me by surprise because I thought they would wait a couple of months before deciding to do anything. But then again, I was surprised BD standalone 2007 YTD sales actually caught up with HD DVD. This statistic might have been the one to compel Warner to finally commit to Blu-ray.

It didn't help HD DVD that there was essentially only one (1) major CE manufacturer facing off against Sony/Samsung/Panasonic/Pioneer/Sharp. This and other Blu-ray industry support also may have played a role in the Warner decision.

HD media sales are still dismal compared to DVD. Warner may have noted this and realized market confusion/"betamax syndrome" fears kept a lot of people away from HD media adoption. Making a bid to eliminate one format (HD DVD) may (or may not) pay off in the long term as folks can now adopt Blu-ray without worrying about an HD format war and a reasonable expectation the format will be around a long time.