It's Official! HD-DVD Tosses in the white flag!

HI DesertNM

That which you wrote is logical and makes for good advice. What you are not aware of is that 2.0 and I started an exchange on the subject of HD DVD vs Blu-Ray in another thread *OFFICIAL: HP HDX Owners Lounge* and I carried the inquiry over here because it became directly related. Indeed, 2.0 recommended the same thing you did.

Cheers!

 

All true. And I strongly advocate steering clear of HD DVD. However, if one is so inclined to get an HD DVD burner, I'd expect that given the circumstances surrounding its obsolescence, one would additionally back up to another form of media (such as a server) that which they are backing up to HD DVD media.

As ValmonNR says, I've gone on record against investing in HD DVD. The discussion that ValmonNR is referring to deals with HP's HDX which doesn't offer a blu-ray burner yet but offers an HD DVD burner. ValmonNR is mulling over the prudence of either waiting for HP to offer a bluray burner versus getting the unit with an HD DVD burner now. I don't know what his/her circumstances are but perhaps they are such that he/she can't wait too long to purchase the system. So I figured why not give an alternative scenario that might suit ValmonNR's current needs. Valmon did also express that desire to buy a server.

 

If you already have an HD DVD burner, I would buy a few rewritable discs to back up to. However, regarding both formats, I think it's more advantageous to get a USB 2.0 HD and back up to that on a daily basis and once in a while write to the DVD-Ram/ RW media.

it truly is ashame that the better format lost. The format was complete with live updates, online interactivity,etc. Blu will die a slow death. Go into BB and CC you see player after player being sold as "open box". heck, Samsung has a class action lawsuit against them because the player freezes, can't play discs, etc.

 

so now people with hd dvd drive are stuck! what can be done? can we switch drive or anything? or ask hp to replace it with a blu ray drive?
my notebook is still under warranty

 

Thats what I would do... call them. Most likely they may say they don't have the part number or any specific part # tied to your model. But that does not mean it would not work. I'm thinking that the dimensions for optical drives will be the same for many models. If parts does not know then try speaking with others in support and maybe a US based upper level tech if you can. No doubt there will be others wanting to do this. At this time, I am thinking the BD drive may be a bit expensive. Whats sad is they are still configuring with the HD DVD drive. I just got a brochure from HP with a bunch of amd powered laptops all with HD DVD options. Many of the stores are still selling them. There really should be some kind of recall on these drives. Its wrong that manufacturers are trying to unload the remaining drives on unsuspecting
customers.

 

I feel sorry for those who have HD drives. When I was deciding between the Asus W2W and the HP 8710W, one of the biggest selling points of the HP was that it came with a Blu-Ray drive while the Asus came with an HD.

Blue-Ray may not be finalized as some would like it, but it is still superior to HD and has a lot of potential especially with Java.

I hope all of you can get a replacement for your HD drives.

 

your lucky when i bought mine there was no option for blu ray cpl months later it was..i should of been more patient..ill give them a call monday to see what can be done ...

 

I concur with High DesertNM and recommend that you call them. The more people call making a case of unfair practice and requesting a swap to Blu-Ray the merrier. At the very least it will push them to speed up offering a Blu-Ray-R/RE. The best case scenario is that they will swap them.

 

Good advice High DesrtNM

 

Today March 8, 2008 HP and Hpshopping pulled away all its HD DVD and HD DVD-R from the HDX, the dv9000t, and the dv9000z. I have not checked its other laptops and desktops. But I am going to guess that it did the same across the board. We applaud Hpshopping for doing so for it is the right thing to do. Clearly, our efforts voicing our objections and pooling our actions together are paying off. Let us keep up the good and responsible work. If one can, my recommendation to everyone is not to purchase any system until the manufacturer of whichever system one is entertaining to purchase offers a Blu-Ray-R/RE optical drive. Manufacturers will all have to do it sooner or later. The power of the people can make them offer it sooner. But we have to be strong enough and wait forcing manufacturers into offering us the latest technology that is already out now. After all, if they continue to listen to our voices and implement what is righteous we would be helping them save lots of money avoiding defense costs on otherwise possible adverse actions and settlements.

There is nothing wrong with making billions of dollars. After all, this is what capitalism is all about. Also, everyone knows that technology advances very fast. There is, however, something fundamentally wrong when manufacturers team up developing new technologies then immediately adopting others only to make the ones they have just released on the market obsolete leaving millions of people beating the dust. What is worse is when manufacturers dump discontinued components without such warning accompanying items being dumped.

This is a period of special circumstance. Our actions or inactions will have a say in how quickly manufacturers will continue doing the right thing and offer us what has already been released. Conversely, we should applaud the manufacturers that do.

 

I got an email back from HP saying they wouldn't do an exchange program, that I couldn't buy a BR player for my 1 month old DV2700t, that it's not even possible, and that even though toshiba is no longer supporting the format they were. WTF?

 

If your still under 30 days send it back... just tell them the screen is grainy or whatever.

I wonder how much inventory HP has. I'm thinking HP is stuck with what they have. Its anybodies guess what they do now. On one hand, they may try to sell them off to unsuspecting customers. But over the 30 day trial period, those customers will probably be approached by friends or family telling them what the hell are they doing buying into HD DVD.... then after that they call HP for RMA to return system for refund... and then HP has to turn around and sell the whole machine refurbished. I figure the odds of somebody returning systems with HD DVD drives from this point forward are probably in the upper 80% range. This is probably why HP will soon eat whatever inventory they have. What they should do is just set those aside for replacement parts on existing systems. Or they may offer free upgrades to HD DVD just to clear them out. Because HD DVD is essentially worthless now. Maybe they could charge 50 dollars... just for the use of DVD+R etc.. and playing DVD's. But as a HD DVD drive I don't think anybody would pay 10 cents for that.. I sure wouldn't.

As for the BD not working on the HD DVD machines its hard to say. The HD optical drives have a ton of DRM BS on them and they are closely tied to GPU hardware. But as far as I know, many of the HD DVD systems use the 8400m nvidia and that is also used on BD drives so theoretically one would think it would work. There may be additional firmware that needs to be coded to make it work. Or HP may be in its big corporation mentality just say it won't work simply because that model is not set up in the system to do BD. Whatever HP does they better come to some kind of compromise or compensation of some sort or face some brutal dissatisfaction from customers swearing off HP forever. People don't forget either. In the whole format HD wars there were plenty of folks telling their stories about being burned with the Sony Beta max.

Its a tragedy where nobody wins.. except Sony. Retailers have lost out on over a year of sales in the HD market since most have not wanted to invest in it with two formats. HP loses, customers lose. And all this could have easily been avoided if these two greedy corporations could have negotiated a single standard. In many ways, customers will not benefit from this since BD is not even a finished standard yet and it will definitely cost more for us in hardware in the short term. Like I said, I hope your still in your first 30 days.. otherwise it could be ugly for you. All you can do is see if HP will give you a coupon or a free case... anything.