Only someone who's a bit of a tech geek who hasn't yet decided which format to purchase for HD video and is a World War II and Holocaust history buff could find this video as hilarious as I do. (Not to mention someone who, due to a confluence of craziness in professional and personal life, didn't have any time yesterday to do more substantive posts, as the output of brief and/or lighter weight fare today demonstrates.) I do have to admit that I struggled with whether the creators of this video must have had a visit from a certain undead Führer, who had taken a chomp out of their brains, but decided that tastelessness in the cause of humor is not necessarily a crime:
Or maybe it is. Anyway, everyone really knows that the true death knell for HD-DVD is the fact that the porn industry is dropping HD-DVD in favor of Blu-Ray.
(Hat tip to Stupid Evil Bastard.)
Meh, Apple's foray into selling HD movies online (announced yesterday) pronounces the death knell for *both* HD-DVD and Bluray. By the time those players are cheap enough for normal folks to buy them, we'll all be downloading our HD movies.
Remember laser-discs? Blu-ray and HD-DVD will be remembered as fondly as laser discs.
factician: Online video sales will not kill retail sales any time soon for a number of reasons and the improved DRM in both of the HD discs alone will drive the industry to adopt either one. Consumers will happily buy the players to complement their flatscreen HD TVs as the prices fall, which they quickly will, since these players aren't that much more complex than DVD-players.
Regarding Orac's original post:
I also though that the video was hilarious. I don't understand that much German, but it seemed to me that the 'translators' went to some trouble to match the subtitles to the actual speech.
I got into a geek fight on New Years eve over this. He swore on a stack of Linux printouts that the industry was going with HD-DVD. Now I feel even more vindicated for getting a PS3.
I feel the same way about my PS3, vlad.
I'm getting an error: "The video is no longer available."
...what movie is the video here taken from?
Coin: The title of the clip is a reference to the movie's English title, The Downfall.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/
I dunno...
Price of a reasonable Blu-Ray player: ~$450
Price of AppleTV: ~$230
Price of an average Blu-Ray disc: ~$30
Price of an HD download on iTunes: ~$15
Plus, iTunes is more convenient. You still think people are gonna rush out and get Blu-Rays? I don't think Blu-Ray will ever have anything near the market penetrance of DVD players. It'll never get past the laser disc ~2-3% mark.
I'm getting an error: "The video is no longer available."
Refresh/reload the page and try again.
Personally I am not sure there's any reason anyone has to win the HD video battle at all-- be it Blu-ray, HDDVD, AppleTV or XBox 360 downloads. Last I checked the HDTV penetration rates weren't all that great. I think at least for awhile the "winner" will continue to be DVD, because that's all you need for the TVs most people own.
For comparison, the most popular next-gen video game system right now is also the only currently available system that decided to just ignore HDTV altogether.
When you talk about who wins control of the HD movie distribution market, you're talking about who's won control of a niche. Maybe there's money in that niche, but I can't help but suspect not as much as there is in normal DVDs, at least not yet.
Blu-ray will take over, but only when Blu-ray players and disks drop down closer to the price of regular DVDs--which probably could happen at any time, once the industry finally accepts that for the average consumer, the quality bump is a minor one and certainly not worth a premium price.
I don't think iTunes/AppleTV is going to take over any time soon, although it is an important step forward for Apple. I suspect that the kind of people who would buy Apple TV will also have Blu-ray, if only as part of a PS3. Apple now offers HD online (as does Microsoft via the Xbox 360), which is crucial, but it presumably won't come with the disk's extras, which are a substantial selling point, and it will be a month late. So for recent releases, it competes with video on demand, but not really with disks as far as new releases are concerned. Apple will be best advised to build a big library of older titles, but that will probably take time if they're going to be in HD.
I'm getting an loading error too :(
"Price of an HD download on iTunes: ~$15"
Actually, they're only $3.99/$4.99 to rent on iTunes. I'm not sure if they're going to sell HD videos that way.
In blu-ray's favor: res higher than 720p, extras, etc.
iTunes/AppleTV would make a decent stopgap measure until bluray player prices come down.
I just wish Dr Who were available on the store.
I can't get the video either. I don't remember much about cowboys in the movie. Germans of Adolf Hitler's generation were enthralled with the American west and I believe Adolf H. did play cowboys-and-indians (not sure what that contributed to his master race theory.) So it's only logical that he should be a Cowboys football fan. :-/
Some useful info about HD players vs. download service:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=962