Ode to HD-DVD

[Roofus]

Ode to HD-DVD, thy virtues shine bright,
A noble format, rival to Blu-ray's might.
Thy resolution, crisp as dawn's first ray,
Reveals the finest hues in rich display.

As Romeo's love, true and steadfast found,
So too, thy fidelity does abound.
Each pixel, sharp as Cupid's piercing dart,
Transcending mortal screens, thy peerless art.

Like Prospero's magic, thou dost enchant,
With seamless playback, not a single rant.
Thy storage vast, a kingdom to explore,
Where epics grand, their tales forever pour.

O, brave HD-DVD, thou art not flawed,
Yet cruel fate's hand against thee clawed.
Though Blu-ray won this battle, we'll not forget,
Thy virtues bright, in hearts forever set.

So let us raise our voice and sing thy praise,
In memory's embrace, through passing days.
Though fallen, thou art not lost, we see,
For in our love, thy spirit shall be free.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

LaserDisc, Betamax, HD-DVD
These are the failed formats I like to see

[Skynet]

I have so many HD DVDs in their original shrink wrap about 8 feet from where I'm sitting right now

[ian]

The stock was worthless, and he kept asking for toilet paper.

At one stage I ended up with the 360 HD DVD drive, I watched a total of ONE movie with it, and then got rid of it not long after that when ripping was annoying me.

[Roofus]

The stock was worthless, and he kept asking for toilet paper.

At one stage I ended up with the 360 HD DVD drive, I watched a total of ONE movie with it, and then got rid of it not long after that when ripping was annoying me.

Apparently the firmware on my first Blu-ray drive could be flashed to enable HD-DVD. This was back during the "golden age" of doing your own rips; I had access to HD-DVD discs, I could have gotten an HD-DVD drive essentially for free and I didn't even bother.

[Calavera]

Back when Blu-Ray still seemed pretty new to me which was around 2012 six years after it came out lol. I found a nice looking Blu-Ray player at Goodwill for either $10 or $20. That seemed like a great deal since Blu-Ray was still current. I ended up getting a few new Blu-Rays for really cheap. So I hooked the player up to check them out and found the damn thing wouldn't even function without the remote! If I'm remembering right when you put the disc in it would load up to the main menu but there was no way to click play. I tried the play button on the front along with the other buttons and nothing would work. I looked up a remote but it was more than I was wanting to pay. So for the past 10 years or so I've had a useless Blu-Ray player sitting in the pole barn among all the other stuff. That is my whole experience with Blu-ray.

As for HD-DVD I've never owned a movie or a player. The only time I even remember seeing HD-DVDs is at a random pawn shop many years ago. I did consider buying the HD-DVD drive for Xbox 360. I didn't have a 360 but the drives were dirt cheap and I thought I'd keep one incase they ended up being collectible in the future, but I ended up not getting one. I guess I should have since it looks like sealed ones are selling for around $90-$100 on Ebay.

Also I was never really interested in getting either drive in my computer. I don't even recall seeing HD DVD-R and RW but apparently they exist. As for Blu-ray the drives and blank discs were way too expensive. Currently a Blu-ray burner for PC is about $70. The cheapest blanks I found was 50 25GB discs for $20 which honestly isn't too bad but 25GB isn't really that much space for backing things up nowadays. I'd rather just buy a 256GB flash drive for $12 as I need them. To my surprise you can actually get a 1TB USB flash drive for $69. Sure they do have 50GB BD-R and even 100GB but those are way too expensive. The cheapest I've found them is 10 100GB discs for $60. At that point you're much better off buying 1TB USB drive for $69.

I've done it again typed out a long ass serious post to a Null topic What can I say I have no life.

[ian]

Well when one thinks of obscure technology, the first person we all look to for an opinion is you.

The fact HD DVD is now redundant, obscure, ancient and collectable and even YOU haven't touched it is truely a measure of how bad it turned out.

At this point I would take every movie and a player if it was literally free and someone delivered it to my door for free, but outside of that... Meh. $6 for a movie is too much.

[Calavera]

The fact HD DVD is now redundant, obscure, ancient and collectable and even YOU haven't touched it is truely a measure of how bad it turned out.

HD-DVD failed so bad even Calavera won't touch it!

There is just nothing interesting about most digital media. With Laserdisc you have the novelty of the big giant discs and their cases. VHS and Beta has the nostalgia factor. I still have a VCR hooked up out in my pole barn with a ton of tapes and I pop one in every now and again to play in the background while I'm messing around out there. Another plus for Laserdisc is that you can't just record your own. With VHS and Beta you can but it isn't super convenient. You have to do it in real time and have a source to copy from which will probably be widescreen nowadays so it won't look like an original tape on a CRT. With DVD and beyond I can just download the movie and burn it to a disc and get the same experience I would if I went out and bought it.

That is one thing I don't get about cassette collectors. I mean I have a ton of cassettes but I paid around $0.50 to $0.75 apiece for them. Some collectors will pay hundreds for "rare" tape. It is very easy to record whatever you want onto a cassette as long as you have a recorder. Just hook the line out from your Computer/Phone into the line-in on the tape recorder and there ya go. You can record all the songs from that "rare" cassette in the same order as the original and it will sound basically the same as the actual one.

That is actually something I've wondered about with expensive cassettes. Say you have a rare and expensive one but the audio has degraded over the years so now it sounds like crap. You could re-record all of the songs onto it to make it sound like new again and nobody would know the difference.