Ah, Blink... I must say, after a good fight, you're a good sport. I was wondering how you would take it if Blu-ray ever got to this point. I'm impressed.

Well we'll see what happens. In the end, the HDM world is more important to me than either one of the formats. I'm going to have to get to work and figure out some sort of workflow for converting about 150 home burned HD DVD's over to blu ray :(

But what really bothers me...... and I may be completely off base... but we KNEW pretty much what we were getting with HD DVD. Sony however has left us in the dark with Blu Ray. I know that they are more interested in pleasing the studios than they are in making people like us happy (people burning disks), and there has been a lot of murky water surrounding bdmv/bdav burning......combine that with the fact that Sony has not yet laid out any minimum standard, and you get a mix that allows Sony to play in any direction they want to go for guys like us.

I hope I am wrong here.....but in the end we may actually be getting a lot less than what we expected..... and bargained for.

Surely there's no huge rush to convert your HD DVD collection is there? Or did your HD DVD player stop working simply because Best Buy doesn't sell them anymore?

I still listen to vinyl, cassettes, and (gasp) even 1/4" reel-to-reel tapes often. I haven't bought a player for any of them in nearly 20 years. And if you want to know a really deep dark shameful secret .... i've even been known to watch a VHS tape from time to time.

Surely there's no huge rush to convert your HD DVD collection is there?

Do it now... do it later... but it will have to get done. The problem is that around here, we pop out hi def disks like there is no tomorrow. I'm now backed up 12 projects since the WB decision.... sort of in a holding pattern until I was sure which way this was going to go.

Yes, HD-DVD burned to red laser discs was always part of the HD-DVD spec, but Toshiba announced, but never released, a full-up HD-DVD burner. There have been at least half-a-dozen BluRay burners available for quite a while, some that will burn up to 50GB BluRay discs.

I do primarily long-form projects and they simply would never fit on a red laser disc. I have a Panasonic 5582 BluRay burner, which will burn 50GB discs, and just recently authored up a 4-hour HD project which has played on every BluRay player on which I have tried.

As far as your 150 HD-DVD discs, I'm sure you can pick up another HD-DVD player real cheap soon. I maintain a lot of obsolete machines to play formats which have long since died, I have over 250 Betamax tapes and I have five Betamax machine with which to play them. I even have a 1" Type-C machine to play back my collection of 1" tapes. I have two 3/4" machines and two 1/2" EIAJ reel-to-reel machines from the 70s, one color and one black and white. Thank God I don't have a collection of 2" Quad tapes!

John

Surely there's no huge rush to convert your HD DVD collection is there? Or did your HD DVD player stop working simply because Best Buy doesn't sell them anymore?

I still listen to vinyl, cassettes, and (gasp) even 1/4" reel-to-reel tapes often. I haven't bought a player for any of them in nearly 20 years. And if you want to know a really deep dark shameful secret .... i've even been known to watch a VHS tape from time to time.
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You mean you watch the movie instead of the equipment Kelly? What kind of Geek are you anyway?

I have a confession to make.

I tape shows on VHS...................... watch them and.........and...................Oh I can't say it............and.................and...................OK..........I'll confess......................................................tape over them.

I know, I know........................my loss.

John