There is a difference between what Warner's move will mean to HD-DVD and what it will mean to mainstream consumers. Since NPD has shown just 11% of HDTV owners care about HD films, regardless of format, anoyone who says this will push blu-ray to sell much better is kidding themselves.

I want HD to go mainstream, even if it doesn't overtake DVD. I would like to see some films in HD, but so far blu-ray and HD-DVD are just DVD with a few gimmicks.

The point of this thread is what this move should encourage, in order to push HD to mainstream. So let's pretend we are in charge of one company or studio, and what we would do to push Hd development.

For me, if I was in charge of Toshiba, I would have HD-DVD not give up mainly for the sake of competition. If you look at the VHS vs Betamax, you would see that sales still grew for VHS, even with Beta around. What also grew was the tech. Beta kept coming up with ways to increase the length and quality of its tapes, and VHS kept up.

So if nothing else, HD-DVD should stick around for a while just to keep blu-ray from turning complacent. That's why I would have HD-DVD drop the MSRP of its movies. Sure it would stink of desperation, but mainstream HDTV owners wouldn't care, anymore than they cared that Nintendo rushed the DS, and then did a quick redesign.  Thus it would likely push sales. Now if it does, that would encourage blu-ray to follow suit, especially since the greater film library would mean more sales.

Secondly, since both formats are programmable, unlike DVD, I would have the best programmers I can get exploring what new features are possible, even if some require firmware updates (blu-rays have the space to just include them on the disc, even without internet connections). Blu-ray is already doing this with PiP, so HD-DVD can come up with a new thing, and blu-ray can add that, or vice versa. In the end, both formats would have some spectacular stuff, that DVD can't even try.

Space would be another factor. Now both sides push their disc capacities, but competition would just drive it faster. HD-DVD has the 51GB discs, and due to this move from Warner, I would make sure to get them out faster, which would in turn mean blu-ray would work on their triple and quadruple layer discs even harder.

Plus I would have all HD-DVD supporting studios get releases out much faster, even if it means more money. This would of course mean more blu-ray releases.

Now once HD movies hit mainstream sales, I mean 25% of the market, I would see what to do to end this. Assuming this happens to blu-ray and not HD-DVD, I would quietly phase out the format. If it happens to both, I would hammer out a truce. 

I'd be all for less expensive HD movies. That may be the only way they can really get the mainstream to adopt the technology if they have the equipment for it. Right now I wouldn't buy a BR movie unless I had money to burn or giftcards to waste and nothing else that I needed right now. (which is why I did splurge on a couple of movies tonight).

If they can get the price point to the $15-20 range on all of the movies, they will sell like gangbusters. And they can keep regular DVD's at their current pricing for new releases (which is usually in the $15-20 range) and either way the movie companies will make their money. And in some cases, they may make even more money by offering a way to pick up HD movies for the same cost as a regular DVD.

i can't see myself buying into this HD mumbo jumbo any time soon.
seems useless to me.

Overall good arguement.

 I want to point out a few issues with your arguement. Since you bolded points. I bolded and underlined what I'm pointing out. 

1. It will push Blu-ray. Why? because there are tons of people holding off buying into the high-def movie formats till the war is over. If more and more people buy Blu-ray payers then before because the war is over that means it pushed the format. 

2. That is the point. There is a reason why HD-DVD has DVD in it's name. Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD are both advanced forms of DVD that are able to take DVD features to High Def levels and offer new features when thought of. Right now movie studios are creating more advanced menu systems for each movie, new game, pip, etc are all greatly enhanced. 

3. Even without HD-DVD for competition prices will drop and actually drop faster due to customer damand helping lower production costs. Its just like DVD players. When they were first released they were geez.. 2 grand? for what we would consider now was the low-end $30 DVD player.And the DVDs geez. I remember walking into Walmart the first time they had put in a DVD shelf space. The movies were like $50 each, which was more expensive then the $25 - $30 Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies. Prices will go down especially for the low-end players but there will always be the extreme high-end models that cost $700 - $150. Just look at high-end DVD players. 

Lol, why do you keep making stupid threads and attempting to convince others that hd-dvd is still somehow "relevant", when in reality is has been everything BUT... If you want mainstream adoption of Blu-Ray then put down your hd-dvd stick and let it go.

With no disrespect towards yourself "lordthenightknight" ..you seem to be very angry over Warners decision to embrace the leading superior customer product of choice, Blu-ray Disc.

I know you're angry over hd-dvd and the final inevitable nail in its tiny little coffin, but that's no reason to continuesly attempt to make everyone think hd-dvd somehow still has a glimmer of hope...because it doesn't.

I don't know what your motives are, but you need to just accept the fact that Bluray is the final Winner.

R.I.P HD-DVD: We hardly knew yee'...or your lackluster library of non existent content lol. : )

That prove infamous a troll even further. The tone of this thread is clearly supporting blu-ray, and he is lying about it.

Excellent points, and I agree wholeheartedly.  However, I take issue with some of your information concerning HD DVD:

HD DVD's HDi isn't really all that programmable. It was designed more for ease of use than flexibility. It's basically a toolset designed by MS to allow studios to use certain feature with some creativity for interactivity on HD DVDs. BD-Java, however, is... well, it's java. It's a programming language, and studios can use to create whatever the hell they want on a Blu-Ray disc.

Look at it this way, HDi is like a map editor in any RTS game. You can do some pretty cool stuff with it, and it's real easy to use, but everything is predefined, and you are ultimately limited by what is available in the editor. BD-J, in comparison, is a complete language. Instead of having the editor already right there in front of you, you use the language to create your own game/editor. Sure, at first things will take much longer to do than with HDi, as you have to create everything from scratch, but you can choose to go in any direction you want, make any editor you want, and once your editor has been created, you can reuse that editor for every release after that, and continue to change it as you see fit. At first BD-J is much harder to work with, but the possibilities are much more open than HDi.

Also, Amir, the MS insider from AVS/HDD, said that the TL51 discs were created merely to say, "we can do that, if we need to," and will most likely never be used. Check out these statements from a thread on HDD (post 1, post 2):

BTW, it just occurred to me about what material to release. Since sports and nature documentaries get the most HD ratings, more of those should be released. Planet Earth has some of the best legs in either format, so it shows there is a market for these in HD.

 Anything that is visually appealing, really.  The Lord of the Rings?  Star Wars? Hell yes.  Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail?  Um...what's the point?