The idea that studios will have gone to the trouble of making HD transfers of movies and then NEVER releasing them on the higher-selling format is illogical bordering on fanboyism.
The idea that a speculative HD DVD release which only managed to sell a few hundred will be one of the first BD releases by a studio is illog...oh, you get my drift.
Blu-ray Disc pressing capacity is apparently very stretched at the moment, and will be for some time.
Studios are, as you point out, in the game of making money. Given the choice between pressing 1,000 extra copies of
Cloverfield and 1,000 copies of a re-release, back-catalogue title, which flopped big-time on HD DVD, and which do you think they'll go for?
Making a high def transfer is only part of the production process. Apparently it's the glass masters on HD DVDs/BDs which are one of the biggest cost factors.
I suspect that's why Paramount have announced immediately that they're re-releasing all the old Blu-ray Disc titles they once published (they already have the masters), but have been slower to announcetitles from their HD DVD-only period, despite some of those being their biggest sellers.
Not fanboyism - just common sense.
What you have to think about, how many "must have" movies are there on HD-DVD currently that you absolutely cannot wait for for a year or two? Let's be realistic, it's not that many. So what you're looking at is keeping a whole seperate player around for the sake of maybe a dozen movies. How long are you going to keep it there under your TV, gathering dust for the sake of those few movies? 3 years? 5 years?
Then of course in a year or so when they come out on BD then you'll just have to buy them again, unless of course you want to keep the HD-DVD player around for a few more years.
Waste of space, waste of an HDMI socket.
You've side-stepped the cost issue. You'll almost certainly be getting the HD DVDs for £10 a disc cheaper. Each.
If there are only a few which will take a year or two to arrive, then there must by definition be a load you think are coming out soon.
I have c.75 HD DVD. If I were to buy them from scratch (going back to the OP's predicament) and saved £10 each by buying them on HD DVD instead of BD, I'd be £750 better off.
That might not be a lot of money to some, but...
As for having to re-buy on BD. Why? Under my TV I have an A/V amp, a Sky HD box, a UK PS3, a UK HD-XE1, and a multi-region SD DVD player. They look fairly neat, and I see no need for selling the XE1 - particularly as it's a very fine SD DVD player indeed.
The XE1? A waste of an HDMI socket?
Any other XE1 owners care to comment on that one?
Steve W