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HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray Battle Over? Warner Switches to Blu-Ray

Not good news

So lets say you buy a Blu-Ray film for the kids. $25? maybe more? I've seen them here in the UK sell for that figure in pounds sterling

Anyway, this movie is a Disney movie for the kids - is it going to last long with their grubby little fingers covered in chocolate, saliva and perhaps other bits & pieces?

A home backup of this movie would be great, with HD-DVD this isn't a problem. Can you do the same with Blu-Ray?

The quality is the same. 1080p at roughly the same bit rates with differing codecs.

I'm still rooting for HD-DVD AND Blu-Ray.
 
The game is over. Blu-ray wins because:

- It has superior technology. Better quality (bitrate, etc), more capacity, more room to grow.

- More studios with it.

- More disks and players sold.

- More consumers choose it.

The amazing thing is HD-DVD did not die two years ago!
 
Again, I don't follow this all that closely, and probably won't until one finally wins, but doesn't BD come with a that "gotta call home" DRM scheme? I seem to remember that being what turned me against the format in the first place...

I also remember hearing that no one has used it yet, but I file that under the "latent feature" fear I described above...

mixel said:
But as something I want to backup/burn stuff to, and in terms of available hardware (including the PS3) I'm all for BD. :)
Click to expand...
Slightly higher data density, I guess, but I gave up on archiving to optical discs a long time ago-- they just aren't reliable enough.
 
That does sound scary, I'd not heard of the phone home thing, but early BD players weren't net ready anyway. I don't mind their being support for things if they aren't used much and if they work right..

Slightly higher data density, I guess, but I gave up on archiving to optical discs a long time ago-- they just aren't reliable enough.
Click to expand...
I've had 3 Hard Disks (IBM and Seagate) die on me (not through misuse, just.. bad luck) and haven't lost any data from scratched CDs/DVDs.. So it's reliable enough for me. I do a full constant Time Machine system backup to HD, but for archival or secondary work disks seem more practical.

I could burn 50 GB of eyeTV recordings to one BD (DivX or h.264) and it should play in my PS3.. (not mission critical data, but i'd rather not fill up my main drives with it) - I don't know how many other people are in a similar position, but it's a big boon for my set up.. :)
 
And since when does superior technology wins a standard battle? ;)

There are a lot of examples when superiour technology loses.

--j

Marx55 said:
The game is over. Blu-ray wins because:

- It has superior technology. Better quality (bitrate, etc), more capacity, more room to grow.
Click to expand...
 
Analog Kid said:
Slightly higher data density, I guess, but I gave up on archiving to optical discs a long time ago-- they just aren't reliable enough.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what do you back up to?

I´m happy that BD is getting ahead. For once the better format seems to win.

One format will hopefully makes films cheaper as they won´t have to produce disks for 2 different formats
 
Universal Also?

O.K. I was on wired.com and saw an add for Blu ray.
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/bluray_site.htm
I clicked the ad and chose the United States version of the site (its that or Japanese) and what did I see???

On the home page on the lower right where it says Blu Ray supporters, they show one-by-one logos of the companies supporting Blu Ray.
As you sit through and watch, Universals logo shows up as well as the text Universal Music Group.

Interesting, I think, to see support from Universal (in any form) seeing that they are supposedly backing another format.

I have not seen any press announcements, but who knows what CES holds.
As my above post pointed out, it appears New Line is now also going to go Blu Ray exclusive.
So the chart on the news story may need to be updated to reflect this. ;)

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/new...overed_By_Blu-ray_Announcement_(UPDATED)/1328

Peace

dAlen
 
FireArse said:
So lets say you buy a Blu-Ray film for the kids. $25? maybe more? I've seen them here in the UK sell for that figure in pounds sterling

Anyway, this movie is a Disney movie for the kids - is it going to last long with their grubby little fingers covered in chocolate, saliva and perhaps other bits & pieces?

A home backup of this movie would be great, with HD-DVD this isn't a problem. Can you do the same with Blu-Ray?

The quality is the same. 1080p at roughly the same bit rates with differing codecs.

I'm still rooting for HD-DVD AND Blu-Ray.
Click to expand...
I have been able to backup (and decrypt) some of my BluRay disks before, I had a BluRay drive on my PC, but didn't have the right version of PowerDVD at the time to play them.

The only problem is if the disk uses BD+, but even then, there are ways around it.
 
mhm

a bit more accurate now:

warner_300-2.png


;)
 
noservice2001 said:
what if all the reds were together instead of spread out?
Click to expand...

It would be nearly 1/3 but closer to 1/4, and this is an approximation. Nevertheless, there is significantly more support for Blu-Ray so we might be close to marketing breakthrough here.

This situation means that:

1) HD-DVD drives will come significantly down in price. Their only chance.
2) Blu-Ray will answer to the competition, but not that much.
3) As soon as HD-DVD camp goes desperate, Blu-Ray will begin selling discount titles.
4) People will realise that Blu-Ray is the way to go.
5) Movie rentals go Blu-Ray, which means that:
==> HD-DVD dies.
 
I work as a dvd author, and as that, I can comment this news as an expert. HD DVD is mostly a normal dvd on steroids. HD DVD often use the same codec (MPEG2) as normal dvds, but at a much higher bitrate - therefore the better picture. Also HD DVD is much cheaper for dvd factories to upgrade their facility to. HD DVD is just as easy to author as normal dvds.

Blu-ray is in many ways more advanced, holds more content, and is way more complicated to author than HD DVD. It is also very expensive for dvd factories to upgrade their facility to in order to be able to replicate Blu-Ray discs.

The quality in picture and sound on the two formats are exactly the same. If two titles has been released with different quality in picture and sound, that is mostly caused by the dvd author and the encoding process used, as well as the HD CAM SR master used. It has nothing to do with one format being better than the other.

If you ask me, I don't give a rats ass which format survive. I would just like to see one single format soon, so that people can relax, buy a player and start to grow their hd dvd collection. As of now this is way to confusing, and I don't want to buy something that may be obsolete a few years from now. Also I believe that SD dvds are in their prime, with one prestine looking relase coming out after the other. Hd dvs are infants with all the diseases following.

Well okay, if one format should survive that would be Blu-ray. Seems much more future proof, and it would be nice to see Sony win this battle as opposed to the Betamax VHS battle in the 1980's where the best quality format lost.
 
syklee26 said:
i know PS3's bluray supports 1080p. I read somewhere that PS3 downscales 720p to 480p or something like that. I was going to get PS3 until I read that.
Click to expand...

For clarification, if you own a 720p TV set you're safe for games, right? The only issue is with the old sets that do: [1080i, 480p, 480i]?
I'm close to buying a PS3 but my TV does 720p max.

EDIT: But it's different with movies, which can't even do 720p?
 
trevelyn said:
good enough for jazz and blues:

warner_300.png


Pretty big slice of the pie.
Click to expand...

It's about a quarter now...with Warner and New Line, HD DVD and the format war had a real chance at continuing for a while (I really thought dual-format players were going to simply end the war that way).

I was an HD DVD supporter until mid last year, when I stopped buying. I also started to care less about perfect quality and more about how I watch stuff, which is almost solely on Apple devices now (iPhone, Apple TV and Computer). It just became annoying, and after the Paramount switch, I decided not to get involved anymore. I really was only supporting HD DVD because Apple had stated they were supporting both and because of Sony's track record in format wars and my hatred for that company (Which is stupid really because it wasn't just Sony, not to mention that I do not like Microsoft that much either).

I actually am glad because Blu-Ray is better in most categories in the long-run, however, HD DVD does have no region coding and allows for people to burn HD DVD's out of regular SD discs which was very cool since the cost of both HD discs and burners are far too much right now.

Apple will only add to the Blu-Ray victory now...although I would rather Apple just do the HD downloads with iTunes and make my life better because I really could care less for optical media. The 720p on the Apple TV is amazing. There really isn't any sort of amazing difference between that and the HD discs unless you start analyzing every pixel. When you are just sitting back and watching, it is not that different (Apple does need to add 5.1 surround sound support).
 
mixel said:
I've had 3 Hard Disks (IBM and Seagate) die on me (not through misuse, just.. bad luck) and haven't lost any data from scratched CDs/DVDs.. So it's reliable enough for me. I do a full constant Time Machine system backup to HD, but for archival or secondary work disks seem more practical.

I could burn 50 GB of eyeTV recordings to one BD (DivX or h.264) and it should play in my PS3.. (not mission critical data, but i'd rather not fill up my main drives with it) - I don't know how many other people are in a similar position, but it's a big boon for my set up.. :)
Click to expand...
yoak said:
Out of curiosity, what do you back up to?

I´m happy that BD is getting ahead. For once the better format seems to win.

One format will hopefully makes films cheaper as they won´t have to produce disks for 2 different formats
Click to expand...
I back up and archive to hard drives. I have a secondary RAID for Time Machine, and a few older FW enclosures for specific archives (images, etc). The key is that I know when the backup fails, because they're spun up and tested by the OS. They aren't completely immune to bit rot, but will be better when I get a periodic checksum running.

The problem with backing up and archiving to optical and throwing it in a drawer is two fold: you don't know when they've gone bad so you can't replace the backup before the primary fails, and the copy time is prohibitively long which discourages frequent test-and-copies.

I've done a little digging around to see what all the superiority is of BD, and the only benefit I see is about 50% more storage-- which is nice for data but kind of meaningless for movies. The tradeoff is more varied and complicated DRM schemes, and higher cost to manufacture. Can someone briefly outline what makes BD such a superior format?

I think settling on one format will drive down the cost of players because all of us fence-sitters will finally buy in, but I don't think it will impact the cost of content. There are many player manufacturers, but only one distributer of a given movie. If anything it might bounce up a bit-- there will always be a premium over DVD, but now there won't be a fight for marketshare.
 
JFreak said:
This situation means that:

1) HD-DVD drives will come significantly down in price. Their only chance.
2) Blu-Ray will answer to the competition, but not that much.
3) As soon as HD-DVD camp goes desperate, Blu-Ray will begin selling discount titles.
4) People will realise that Blu-Ray is the way to go.
5) Movie rentals go Blu-Ray, which means that:
==> HD-DVD dies.
Click to expand...

#1 is already happening. There were massive $300 off sales on the A3 player on both Black Friday and Boxing Day. You could get an A3 plus 5 free movies for $99!!!!! I would have gotten one actually but I wasn't willing to get in line at 5 am for the privilege of participating in a 6 am stampede. I mean... for $99 and 5 free movies... who cares which format wins?! It would not have been a big loss.

In any case... I'm glad Blu-ray appears to be winning... but what I would really prefer would be HD Downloads + Apple TV. The only problem with Apple TV of course is that it will never support WMV files... so if you ever want something that it not available from the iTunes store... you're pretty much eff'd. That's a different kind of format war. Just can't win eh?
 
Much Ado said:
For clarification, if you own a 720p TV set you're safe for games, right? The only issue is with the old sets that do: [1080i, 480p, 480i]?
I'm close to buying a PS3 but my TV does 720p max.

EDIT: But it's different with movies, which can't even do 720p?
Click to expand...

The PS3 can do Blu-Ray at 720p, it was only the old firmware that couldn't.
 
ocifersven said:
Actually, having many friends in the porn industry, I can personally tell you that my buddies at Vivid Entertainment have chosen both formats, which was interesting to say the least. For a while, Sony wouldn't allow adult titles to be published under Blu-Ray for moral reasons. However, Sony gave in an allowed them to pay up a hefty licensing fee just to publish on a Blu-Ray disc. This is the best part... Vivid cannot do any of their own in house encoding for Blu-Ray. They have to send the final product over to Germany to get it done, as part of the agreement.

While, with HD-DVD, they didn't have to pay the royalty fees. Nor do they have to send anything anywhere to get encoded. Actually, their HD-DVD production is all done in house. So it's cheaper in the long run for Vivid, and for consumers.

Even on that note of the porn industry choosing the next format... you're forgetting the missing contender. Online distribution, my friend. And porn has already chosen it. Who wants to watch HD porn anyway, and see the pimples & razor burn in a ridiculously amazing video quality? Not me... count me out!

Blu-Ray has the cooler name. I'll give it that. "HD-DVD" sounds old and dated. We've heard the term "DVD" thrown around for more than a decade now. It's not as appealing to hear the acronym "HD-DVD" because of that. And the Blu-Ray camp advertises that it can hold up to 50GB (25GB per layer). But what makes that interesting is that the Blu-Ray format is having a hard time accessing that second layer, meaning that there realistically only utilizing 25GB. HD-DVD is having no problems using both of their layers, giving them 30GB total (15GB per layer).

Even better yet, both formats are using the same codec (h.264) with nearly the same compression... which means... similar file sizes in the end!!! So what does it matter that Blu-Ray advertises more space? It's not utilized. It's wasted, unless you're storing data on burned Blu-Ray media.

What I really want to get at is that we don't want Sony to win. We know how expensive Sony is to license anything, based upon past examples. Mini-Disc lost. Beta lost. It was expensive for anyone to license. And you know what happens to expensive media? The price gets passed onto the consumer - that's what. And guess what else Sony is involved in? Oh yeah... they're also a movie studio with competition, such as Warner, Universal, New Line, Disney, etc. It's like Apple endorsing and backing WMV. It's stupid, if you ask me. If Blu-Ray wins, you're going to pay more later, as prices WILL MOST DEFINITELY go up.

So guess how much Sony will charge studios to use Blu-Ray if they win the format war? I'll let you use your wildest imagination...

And, for the record, I work in production. When I chose to go HD at the house, I did my homework testing equipment. HD-DVD looked a hair bit better than Blu-Ray, IMHO. It may have had to do with the converters. But I saw better coloring, and smoother pans in HD-DVD. So, yes, I'm on the HD-DVD camp. It's makes better sense economically, and in quality.

That's my rant.
Click to expand...

Dude...Blu-Ray...it's a consortium!!!

Blu-Ray is Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Dell, HP, Sun, Mitsubishi, LG, Samsung, TDK, Hitachi (170 members at this date).
 
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