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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 4063421" data-attributes="member: 7883">Has it been pointless?  As I understand it, several HDDVD movies have added content online, that they're accessing through the port.....surveys, updated info, and in some cases, the ability to share a movie through linked players, or something like that.  It's experimental, and supposedly has been well-received.  So you might think it's useless, but *is* it?Personally, the internet connectivity is something I haven't benefited from.  My router is on the top floor, and my player is in the family room in my basement.....because it requires a cable, I haven't hooked it up online.  I'm not going to turn around to buy a wireless connector for it.  Now, if they had wireless internet capability built in, *that* would have been cool.Blade Runner is *one* example of a major, cult-favourite type movie.  Take a look at the list of Blu-Ray and HDDVD discs out there, and how many of them have addiitonal features that the regular DVDs don't.  I've read a tonne of reviews on <a href="http://www.highdefdigest.com" target="_blank">www.highdefdigest.com</a> and there are actually very, very few.  It costs money to produce those extra features.  That has to be paid for.  Yet they're trying to get the movies down in price, because people don't buy them at $40.  I and several others that I know buy our discs through Amazon.com, have them shipped to the U.S., then drive across the border, pick them up, and bring them back home, because even with crossing at customs etc. it's still better than the ridiculous prices they charge for them in Canada.Was it a complete flop?  I haven't seen that.  It's very useful.  I can buy a disc once, have one HDDVD player, and still play the movie anywhere in the house.  With a Blu-Ray, well, I need a player for my bedroom, one for my living room, and one for my family room....so that's $1200 worth of players.  Plenty of people are in the same boat.  Or, you can buy one disc that plays in both machines.With Blu-Ray being the standard, I know very few people willing to buy multiple machines......so we're back to being forced, as consumers, to choose whether to buy a Blue-Ray disc (let's say $30) that plays on one machine, or an SDVD (let's say $20) that plays on 3+ machines in the same household.To many consumers, that's still a problem.  In fact, the ability to have dual-format discs was a big reason *why* many people I know bought HDDVD players.  Because for lots of people, getting a disc they can only play on one machine is a significantly inferior investment to one that they can use in all the rooms in the house, up at the cottage, in the player in the car, on their laptop, etc.Even early on DVDs weren't that expensive.  *More* expensive than they are now, sure.....but I still find plenty of SDVD's that they charge $30 for.But you're right, over time, the costs will come down.  Hopefully more than I think they will.  Sony has a tendency to charge a lot for things we can get better and cheaper from other companies.  Blu-Ray is not *just* Sony....but they are the leader, and that gives me some cause for concern.  Hopefully I'm wrong about it. I agree....and most tech sites agree the PS3 is the most future proof Blu-Ray player, which is why they're saying to *only* buy the PS3 for Blu-Ray players, as you're taking your chances with the others.How many people bought $500-1000 players, and are going to be willing to get rid of them after a year, just to be able to play discs that came out after they bought their player?  You use the HDMI and DVI example, as well as upscaling, but those are not core features.  My understanding is that we're talking about "older" players not being able to play profile 2.0 discs....or at least get full features out of them.When you bought your DVD player, and then new players came out with HDMI, it wasn't a matter of your DVD player not being able to play newer DVDs.  With Blu-Ray players, my understanding is that they can't play them.  At least that's what sites like CNET seem to say, which is why they say to stick with the PS3.What I don't understand is......if the PS3 is updateable because it has an internet connection, and other players are not because they don't have an internet connection, can't they be updated other ways?  With HDDVD players, you had the choice of either using the ethernet port to update your firmware, or downloading the firmware update to your computer, burning it to a DVD, sticking the DVD into the player and playing it, which would also update the firmware.  Can't you do that with an older Blu-Ray player?  Or are they not designed to work that way?What I read was that their player was an older spec, it has troubles with newer discs, and Samsung had promised to fix this with firmware, but have never produced firmware that actually fixed the problem, and that was the reason for the lawsuit.  I don't remember if I read that on CNET or EndGadget or somewhere else.Are you saying that is incorrect?Numbers based on marketing, correct?  Sony ran a much better marketing campaign.  And their timing of punting HDDVD with the Warner announcement was impeccable.  Neither of those factors are technological superiority.The PS3 was a definite advantage, and I think that in the long term, Microsoft's rush to get a next gen player on the market first will hurt them.  It got them to the 10 million mark first, but they're taking PR blows right now, and that will only increase, because the PS3 is at this point priced at the same level, but also plays high def movies, whereas the XBox needs an addition.  Many people who use their gaming system for gaming, and a DVD player for watching movies won't care.  But among gamers, yeah, it looks like a mistake now, because the PS3 is catching up fast.  Still doesn't have much software I like (in terms of exclusives), but oh well <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Banshee</blockquote>

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