Format war fanboys shut down AVS Forum

Anyone who's ever visited AVS Forum--probably the largest online forum for audio/visual discussion--knows that people can get carried away. And anyone who has dared to venture in the HD DVD and Blu-ray forum is well aware of rampant fanboy flame wars--the kind that used to be reserved for game consoles.

Well apparently a couple of the AV geeks have gone too far, which has led to AVS Forum moderators to completely shut down the HD DVD and Blu-ray forums until the end of the week. And in case you think it's an overreaction, check out this quote from the letter they posted to AVS members:

We have seen members attacking other members not only in debate, which is the right way, but with physical threats that have involved police and possible legal action.

Wow. The format war has gotten pretty ugly between Blu-ray and HD DVD, but this is the first instance of physical threats that we're aware of. We're also sure it's no coincidence this shutdown has occurred directly following the $99 HD DVD player sale at Wal-Mart and Best Buy--which is just like pouring gasoline on the already raging flame wars.

Since AVS Forum is always an interesting place to see exactly what's brewing in the rumor mill, let's hope cooler heads prevail so everyone can get back to discussing the new high-def disc formats.

[racevw14]

AVS is out of control

AVS forums are just out of control!<br />I just pretty much bailed on them &#38; went to AVREVforum.com.<br />It's much calmer there at least for now.<br /><br />What AVS forum needs to do is setup 3 different areas, one each for Blu-Ray HD-DVD &#38; format neutral &#38; require each user to pick 1 &#38; be restricted to posting in that area only.<br />That would keep the fanboy trolls out of the other areas.

[Sapper19]

restrict the forums?????

Restricting people to a particular forum is a good idea until you really look at it. Here's the problem. There are four types of high def people: people with blu-ray, people with hd dvd, people with both, people with neither. The purpose of the forums is for people to get information. <br /><br />The people who own both formats could benefit from getting information on both formats. The people with neither format could benefit from information on both formats. And come to think of it, the people with only one format could benefit from information on the other format. Who knows, they might be interested in purchasing the other format as well. <br /><br />Imagine in cnet.com told it's users that they had to choose between looking at reviews of either plasma or lcd tv's. They the users could not look at both. Or that they had to choose a particular brand when looking at digital cameras reviews. How long before people start going elsewhere?

[thisislovell]

Re: AVS Forums are out of control

In theory, that could work. In practice, it won't, because trolls will create new names, register themselves in the opposite camp, and still start flame wars on the other forum.

[darkcobra]

It's bigger than that . . .

It's a shame what's happening over there but similar flame wars are errupting in many similar forums all over the place. Even in photography forums. In the early days of the Internet there was a respectful tolerance for the shared opinions of others. Now, pretty much all of these forums are filled with problem kids whose parents were too cheap to hire a baby sitter and plopped the kids down in front of a computer instead as a baby sitter. Now there semi-adults and out of control with their computers. It's sad but look for these things to only get worse.

[Trinity66]

Bluboys threatened Mods at AVS!

Look at how many times they state that they are not HD DVD biased in the article, four or five times. Seemed kind of fishy when I fist read it, and after hearing some interesting information about some members of Blu-Ray.com(the absolute most disgraceful group of humans on the face of the Earth), it appears that a lot of BR.com members actually threatened physical harm to the mods for all the Pro-HD DVD posts that have been made recently.<br /><br />That Wal-Mart sale really scared the entire Blu-Ray community because they know Sony will not allow a Blu-Ray model to be sold for less than $399 as it cuts in to the lacking PS3 sales. Think I'm making this up? Both Fox and Disney recently held press conferences to do nothing other than attack Toshiba for the promotion.<br /><br />Over 90k HD DVD units were sold over the weekend thanks to the $98 pricing, and that beats even the most popular Blu-Ray standalone model, which is embarassing Sony to no end, and upsetting the kids over at Blu-Ray.com.<br /><br />To make matters worse, the server that Bill "the Sony Shill" Hunt hosts his horribly biased "Digital Bits" website on got hacked. The Blu-Ray.com kids thought it was an attack from HD DVD fans and the chaos just ensued.<br /><br />Bottom line is, AVS mods are scared of the Blu-Ray.com kids, Blu-Ray.com kids are scared of the awesome sales HD DVD saw this last weekend and Toshiba and HD DVD owners are sitting back having a good laugh about everything.

[RRosal]

And this post does what exactly?

Trinity66:<br /><br />Your post does nothing more than point even more fingers and play blame games. This is one of the primary reasons I've stopped frequenting most forums in general, too many hotheads and not enough civil discussion and exchange of opinions. Here's something for the HD-DVD and Blu-ray fans to do: Go outside to a nice park and take a look around and chill out, doesn't get any more high def than that :)

[HiDefBob]

What are these people thinking?

I could not believe what I was reading when I first read this story. What are these people thinking? The answer is they were not thinking! This is just plain dumb and totally senseless! These people need a serious reality check. <br /><br />People are dieing in wars, floods and famine. The planet is facing serious consequences from global warming and these morons are theatening each other over an HD format. Grow up!

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[barrington thompson]

Blu-ray versus HD DVD

It sounds like Blu-ray supporters has not only lost it, but the war also!<br /><br />If Blu-ray supporters enjoy being ripped off - only shows how dumb they are. <br /><br />HD DVD use to have superior; picture, sound, and features, for DVD films and probably still does. HD DVD players have also been cheaper than the inflated prices of Blu-ray recorders.<br /><br />It appears that Toshiba has the RD-A301 (recordable HD DVD, HDD (hard disk drive) and recording using red laser onto DVD, but reording is only 2hours and 30mins for HD quality. What has Blu-ray got - hype?

[barrington thompson]

HD DVD is probably winning based on object facts

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