Quoting tas314:

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Toshiba cuts prices in the US.

The recommended prices for its entry level HD-A3 has dropped to $150, the HD-A30 (1080p) to $200, and the HD-A35 to $300.

Is that clearance pricing?

Quoting pplchamp:

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Stargate Atlantis Season 1 on Blu?

Amazon has added a listing with "Click here to be notified by e-mail when this title is available"

From EngadgetHD's blog:

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We know, a fair chunk of you are wondering why Stargate Atlantis: Season 1 turning up on Amazon in Blu-ray form is a big deal. Here's the skinny: the aforementioned program is a Sci-Fi original, and Sci-Fi just so happens to be owned by NBC Universal. Got all that? Now, let's flash back to just days ago -- Universal's HD DVD exclusivity contract expired and we heard through the grapevine that it was planning on following Warner (owned by Time Warner, which also owns Engadget's parent companies) to the Blu side of life. If you still haven't pieced this all together, this listing is just another crumb of mounting evidence that Universal could indeed be ditching HD DVD in the not-too-distant future, but until we hear anything official, we suppose we'll just have to pretend there's no rustling going on in the background.

Endgadget has some bad info. Yes Stargate Atlantis is a Sci- Fi TV show, but it is owned, Like Stargate SG-1, by Sony and MGM which are Blu-ray studios. This is not any indication of Universal switching, bad reporting all around.

Sounds ridiculous to me!!!  The combo HD-DVD/DVD is/was a bad idea from the very beginng!!!  People don't want to spend a couple dollars more to get their movies, they want them cheaper, period!!!

Quoting Calidain:

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Sounds ridiculous to me!!!  The combo HD-DVD/DVD is/was a bad idea from the very beginng!!!

Unless both HD formats die and DVD lives on...

Not really.  At this point, HDM will be lucky to make it to the point laserdisc was at.  DVD is pretty well entrenched and easily "good enough" for the mass market.  This isn't a difference between VHS and DVD, which was obvious.  It's a modest increase in quality that is unrecognizable to most people.  HDM might manage to get a niche, or it might just wither away like DVD-Audio and SACD.

Quoting gardibolt:

Quote:
Not really.  At this point, HDM will be lucky to make it to the point laserdisc was at.  DVD is pretty well entrenched and easily "good enough" for the mass market.  This isn't a difference between VHS and DVD, which was obvious.  It's a modest increase in quality that is unrecognizable to most people.  HDM might manage to get a niche, or it might just wither away like DVD-Audio and SACD.

I agree to a point. Laserdisc was only ever promoted in USA and Japan. HDM is promoted world wide, and the Home Cinema crowd is a lot larger today than it was during the times of LD, so I don't think it'll wither away. But I do agree that DVD is good enough for the mass market.

I also agree to a point. It is good enough for the masses for now. But as everything turns toward HD, people will want their movies to match that more and more. It won't happen overnight. And let us not forget that it will be forced on us by the CEs and content providers whether we want it or not, the same way ATSC is replacing NTSC.

In 10 years, you won't be able to find a DVD-only DVD player. You'll only be able to find an HD-capable media player that can also play DVDs.

You can't play a VHS tape in a plain old DVD player.

However, you can play CDs in a DVD player.
You can play CDs and DVDs in a Blu-ray or HD DVD player.

And those are just the mainstream formats. As we all know, these things can handle more and deader formats than just these.

The key to all this is that they are all 12cm shiny discs that use the same basic technological principle...reflect a laser off the disc to read the pits (or burns, in the case of writeable discs). Sure, it might require multiple lasers at varying wavelengths, but it's still the same basic principle.