Why buy HDDVD? They are dead, blue ray wins
Yeah, Blu-Ray won, and we lost. At least for the time being and probably for the next several months if not a year or more.
I was not on either side of the issue. I just enjoy movies and HD including the HD audio.
Have 2 HD-DVD players and a PS3 for playing B-R disks.
Would really like to get another B-R player and have been looking at them for several weeks now.
Want a B-R player for less than MSRP? Not possible at this time. There are no sale prices for them. They don't have to. They're the only game in town for HD now.
Want a B-R player that is spec 2.0 - not, none exist. So the one you buy at full list price now is old news probably before the end of the year.
Want a B-R player that is spec 1.1 - Panasonic has one - it's your only choice. Unless you can afford $2000 for a B-R player, then there are a couple more options.
Want a B-R player that can internally decode both Dolby HD 5.1 and DTS HD/MA 5.1 and send that signal to your A/V receiver - sorry, have to spend $2000 to get one of these. And no point posting back here if you haven't done your research with model #'s that list themselves as being capable of both these audio formats. According to the spec, as long as they can decode these, they can say they are compliant. However, to be compliant they only have to send it out in 2 channels, which is what they do. And the manufacturers of these models have said there will be no firmware updates to enable 5.1 pass-thru on them. Now, I ask you, just why in the world would anyone with a high end setup, want their HD audio reduced to only 2 channels?
Want a B-R player that can at least pass both of these audio codecs to be decoded by your A/V receiver? There is again, but a single player for under $2000.
Once you buy that B-R player that can pass thru those audio codecs to your A/V receiver, you'll need to now get a new receiver that can decode them. Sony had one, and I managed to pick up one of them for the bedroom. It's been discontinued. The only game left for less than another $2000 is Onkyo.
Yeah, the format with the most storage space on it's disks won out. Now what are they doing about it? Why isn't there spec finalized as HD-DVD was from the get-go? Why is it still not finalized? When will it be finalized? When will the consumer be able to purchase a B-R player that will be able to take advantage of all the features the spec is suppose to offer?