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

!¡ V ¡! said:
This news is getting "long-in-the-tooth."

By the time HD-DVD or Blu-Ray even begin to sell the same amount or more compared to DVDs.......HVD will be released. Fare more capacity ~1TB.
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I remember the Laserdisc guys saying the same thing about DVD when it was launched... "Why bother, it's not even high def?". At launch in 1997, only a few studios supported the format (Paramount and Fox waited until 99 or later IIRC) and back catalog titles were thin. Very few retail stores carried them. Laserdisc had a much richer catalog of titles. And people like you were shouting about how much VHS product was moved.

Meanwhile DVD's been the most successful format EVER and we're here 10 years later discussing its successor. And the fact is that both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD had better launches (in terms of catalog, studio support, and retail shelf space) than DVD did.

So **** about HVD, maybe they'll agree on a spec in 2010 and we'll see players in 2014. Of course by then we'll be moving to 4K (3840 x 2160 resolution) and 1080p will seem so passe.
 
Yep, the vast majority of the 15% of TV viewers watching over-the-air are a low-income demographic (excepting some HD hobbyists erecting antenna farms that would make a Ham jealous)

With the cheapest converter boxes running $50-$70 retail, Grandpa Bud or Great-aunt Edna will be using the government's $40 coupon.

So they're only spending an average of $20 out of pocket to move to digital TV.

MacNut said:
People might not want to pay 2 grand for a nice HDTV they would rather pay the 200 for the converter.

VCD was still a step up from VHS, and that was way before DVD.
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Schmoe0013 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3)

FYI. Blu-Ray does not have a storage advantage over HD DVD. a dual layer blu-ray holds 50gigs. A triple layer HD DVD can as well.

Granted, there is no one producing them yet, but the standard IS set.
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And they aren't even sure if existing players would be able to read 3 layers, so FAIL. If they have to rev the hardware it's a moot point. Further, if Blu-Ray follows suit with a 3 layer disc HD-DVD loses again.

With what's capable and shipping today, Blu-Ray stores more.
 
jrlcopy said:
Whateva... I prefer HD-DVD, I think it was a more perfected format, new compression technology, and perfect 1.0 profile. Bluray has 3 profiles, discs play on some of them, and uses mpeg2.
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They're both 90% the same.

They both can use MPEG-2, H.264, VC1, and for sound DD, DD Plus, DD True HD, DTS Master, et al. Early Blu-Ray releases lazily used sloppy MPEG-2 transfers, that's where your misconception lies. These two are Siamese twins.

The differences are physical format of the disc, an extra layer of encryption on Blu-Ray, and different technology for the interactive menus.

jrlcopy said:
However, I like how you can buy a combo hd-dvd, one side dvd and other side hddvd, honestly I can't see why they aren't promoting the **** out of this. "Buy your movies on HD DVD, watch them in your current player, then when you are ready to upgrade you DONT HAVE TO REBUY THE DAMN DVD"
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It was a good try but here's why I think it's failed.

- They get lumped in with the normal DVDs only they're more expensive than a DVD-only release. Most DVD owners are ignorant of the HD-DVD side.
- Don't underestimate the lack of a silkscreened label on one side. Dual sided DVDs fell out of favor for the same reason. People like to see the artwork.

I do like it, because I am now ONLY buying HD discs (I have a HTPC with combo drive so I can play either). But if I want to put it on my iPod, etc., obviously it's easier to rip the normal DVD. And I'm not going to buy two copies of the movie and keep the normal DVD just for iPod rips, handbrake, etc.
 
HD-DVD is dead. Both of the formats will not exist alongside each other with multi-fangled players. It's gonna be Blu-Ray.

Lets shed a tear for the multi-national conglomerates who chose HD-DVD. /sarcasm
 
Counter said:
HD-DVD is dead. Both of the formats will not exist alongside each other with multi-fangled players. It's gonna be Blu-Ray.

Lets shed a tear for the multi-national conglomerates who chose HD-DVD. /sarcasm
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Yup. Especially MS, whose flushed tons of money to bribe studios to use HD.
Great news =p for all the XBox people who bought the HD disk adapter.

Good to see people not MS lemmings anymore.
 
Yawn ...

This all reads like the plot of the latest Hollywood blockbuster ... boring. I don't see how a drama, comedy, documentary, suspense movies, y'know movies where the story matters more than the CG or even animated films benefit from all this extra definition. Eveytime I hear about HD and see a demo, it's Pirates of the Caribbean (good enough, sure) or Die Hard 4 (terrible) that I see. Don't get me wrong, these HD movies do look nice, but I don't go to movies to look at nice pictures, if I want that I can look at a Victoria's Secret catalog.

I already don't go to the theater because of the exorbitant prices for a ticket, and if they abandon DVD so they can start charging more for HD, then I'll stop buying or renting movies. I'll just wait for some cracker (not hacker, there's a difference) to break the DRM and provide the ripped movies for free in "the scene" where it will eventually trickle down to me.

Then again ...
janstett said:
I remember the Laserdisc guys saying the same thing about DVD when it was launched... "Why bother, it's not even high def?". At launch in 1997, only a few studios supported the format (Paramount and Fox waited until 99 or later IIRC) and back catalog titles were thin. Very few retail stores carried them. Laserdisc had a much richer catalog of titles. And people like you were shouting about how much VHS product was moved.

Meanwhile DVD's been the most successful format EVER and we're here 10 years later discussing its successor. And the fact is that both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD had better launches (in terms of catalog, studio support, and retail shelf space) than DVD did.

So **** about HVD, maybe they'll agree on a spec in 2010 and we'll see players in 2014. Of course by then we'll be moving to 4K (3840 x 2160 resolution) and 1080p will seem so passe.
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And what I hate about this post is he is probably right.

I wonder if Lucas will "re-imagine" the Star Wars films for their HD release.
 
Great... :(

I guess my xBox 360 HD-DVD player from Christmas '06 and collection of HD-DVD's are going to be useless... Well, unless of course, I pay for an overpriced dual-format player -- which my guess will only go up in price once HD-DVD loses for good. And then not long after THAT, there won't even BE dual players... Frickin' great... :mad:

Might as well call it HD-8track...
 
Finally! This has made me very happy. I have been a huge supporter for Bluray. Not just because I have a PS3, but because it truly is a better format. Give it a year or 2 and paramount will come crawling back.

I was never worried about going with Bluray. I already had a PS3 and all new movie purchases of mine are on Bluray. If HD DVD was going to take over, I would still have a PS3 for gaming and I could use that for watching the Bluray movies. Obviously, I would have needed to get an HD DVD player. Good thing I shouldn't need to shell out the cash in the long run for it.

Over christmas shopping, I was in a store watching people (not stalking, I was making a purchase as well :D ). For every 4 people I watched purchase a Bluray, 1 person would pickup an HD DVD and put it back down. Now, this isn't very scientific, I was only paying attention for 15 - 20 minutes as I was narrowing down my selection.
 
ShnikeJSB said:
Great... :(

I guess my xBox 360 HD-DVD player from Christmas '06 and collection of HD-DVD's are going to be useless... Well, unless of course, I pay for an overpriced dual-format player -- which my guess will only go up in price once HD-DVD loses for good. And then not long after THAT, there won't even BE dual players... Frickin' great... :mad:

Might as well call it HD-8track...
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haha that's the price you pay for buying in to it early knowing it was in the middle of a format war.
 
KindredMAC said:
And back on the REAL topic: BD just always made more sense than HD-DVD from the beginning. Why would you pigeon hole yourself into a format that had LESS capacity than your competition????? BDs and DL-BDs can hold so much more info than the HD-DVD's that it makes it a clear cut winner in my book.
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Why = because HD-DVDs could be easily made with minor modifications to current manufacturing process while Blu-Ray required expensive retooling to produce. At one point HD-DVD folks were considering using standard dual layer DVDs (DVD-9) with VC1/AVC.
 
Too bad Blu Ray uses mostly craptastic MPEG2 encoding on most of their movies. If you want to get down to what's better "right now" it's going to be HD-DVD for 95%+ usage of VC1 encoding for their movies. Blu Ray has a "few" VC1 encoded movies and they should be on the same level of quality as your average HD DVD.

Whoever wins the format war, as long as they keep using VC1 and keep it standard, i'm fine with either one. If Blu Ray continues to use old technology (mpeg2) i'll be very disappointed.
 
Romanesq said:
Hey, I resemble that remark!
Anyway, I bought HD-DVD the previous summer. I've watched all the hype and format war and misinformation since. HD-DVD offers lots of features, easier production (people talk about triple layer BR but they do not talk about its production problems) and really the coolest thing is that I've been able to upgrade my Toshiba player's OS via the internet.
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Ha ha, that reminds me of how I bricked my player doing a firmware update. I bought the RCA HDV5000 (rebrand of the 1st gen Tosh) on eBay for something like $250, it's basically a Pentium 4 computer, takes a minute or two to turn on. I turned it on and popped in a movie to make sure the player worked. Started the download of the firmware with the disc still in. Which bricks the player, nothing the end user can do to recover it. It has to go to their labs and get updated via JTAG. Toshiba acknowledged the problem and agreed to fix the bricked players, I got RCA to agree to do the same after I showed them press releases of Toshiba's screw up. I had to send it back and they lost it. I had to file a claim with UPS. So my wonderful HD-DVD player gave me about 5 minutes of enjoyment before getting lost in Texas.

2 months later I got my insurance check from UPS and bought the same player, again, on eBay but this time $50 cheaper.

Then something like 9 months later, I got a letter from RCA stating I needed to send them a check for something like $80 to fix the player. I sent them a furious nastygram because (1) they lost my player for 9 months, and (2) now they're telling me I need to pay for THEIR FIRMWARE SCREWUP that they promised to fix for free? I told them to send the broken player back so I could disassemble it and take the HD-DVD drive out and put it in my PC. They sent me a new player. So now I have two for a cost of around $200 and lots of aggravation.

Only now my solution is a Home Theater PC with a combo drive, so I can play either format, it doesn't matter.

Romanesq said:
HD-DVD sure has looked great on a 106" screen via the JVC RS-1.

Oh well.
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They both look the same; that's the real shame, they're identical twins with very little differences. The video quality, ceteris paribus, is the same.
 
Diversion said:
Too bad Blu Ray uses mostly craptastic MPEG2 encoding on most of their movies.
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I'd say that's untrue. I have about 20 Blu-Ray movies and the vast majority of them use AVC. In fact the only recent release I noticed using MPEG-2 is the Simpsons Movie. They've even gone back and re-released some of the old MPEG-2 releases in AVC (notably Fifth Element).

Further, I'd say Blu-Ray is also thrashing HD-DVD on the high quality audio front. A lot of releases in the last month or so are using uncompressed 5.1 PCM or one of the lossless formats (Dolby True HD or DTS Master), whereas many of my HD-DVDs don't offer anything better than DD Plus.

I have both formats, just telling you like it is.
 
When Apple pushes weird standards people turn a blind eye.. When Apple uses DRM people are (largely) prepared to turn a blind eye.. Apple's bullish closedness and "we know best" image is largely accepted as okay for the consumer.

When Sony does it OMG SONY EAT BABIES!!

I can understand the anti-MS vibe, and I'm as happy to see one of their pet formats failing, but propriety formats can be perfectly fine for the consumer too. I don't see Sony as an enemy of Apple? Why is Sony more likely to abuse DRM than anyone else? it's not like they control everything to do with the format.. (It's not like UMD or Memory Stick won the HD format war, heh..) And they can still get in trouble if they cross the line.

Sony now is not Sony in the past. I don't see doom and gloomy scenarios at all here.. It'll just be like DVD was.. But in HD.. And with blue boxes. Surely MS would be just as likely to get all DRMish with HD-DVD anyway?
 
Football1maniac said:
After literally a year, I can look over to my PS3 and say to it, "See? Microsoft and its XBOX 360 is scum after all!" After that, I went and searched through the 'ol Playstation 2 drawer and found the AV Output cable, and hooked it up to my Bose Surround Sound. Now I'm set to watch movies on my Samsung HDTV 1080p w/ DLP in it and my PS3 hooked up to it for a couple of years now!:D:apple:
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Please tell me you aren't doing what you literally said -- because if so you're watching via COMPOSITE cables? Please tell me you're going through component and SPDIF. Otherwise you're watching everything downscaled to 480i and stereo. I won't comment on the Blose.
 
/dev/toaster said:
Over christmas shopping, I was in a store watching people (not stalking, I was making a purchase as well :D ). For every 4 people I watched purchase a Bluray, 1 person would pickup an HD DVD and put it back down. Now, this isn't very scientific, I was only paying attention for 15 - 20 minutes as I was narrowing down my selection.
Click to expand...
I'm the head of an electronics department at one of the largest retailers in the US and that's what I've been seeing the entire year. Blu-Ray moves while HD-DVD is a waste of store space and subsequently, money.

On a side note: A lot of people don't even know the PS3 can play Blu-Ray until I tell them ... and then some don't believe me!
 
mixel said:
I can understand the anti-MS vibe, and I'm as happy to see one of their pet formats failing, but propriety formats can be perfectly fine for the consumer too. I don't see Sony as an enemy of Apple? Why is Sony more likely to abuse DRM than anyone else? it's not like they control everything to do with the format..
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If people would like to hear, I can tell you all about Sony's draconian DRM on their MiniDisc players (and forced ATRAC compression) as they tried to fight off the MP3 explosion. Before Mp3 players I was very heavily into the geek factor and imported MD players form Japan (I have about 10). Around the time the Diamond RIO took off Sony realized you had to get music from your computer onto the MD player. You had to rip your CDs into the Sony Jukebox software (in Sony's proprietary ATRAC format, of course), and to copy them to your MD player you were essentially "checking them out" -- the song would live on your MD player and couldn't be played again on your computer unless you checked it back in. Their way of making sure only one copy of the song exists at a time.

BLECH! Want me to continue?

And to say Sony is not in control of the Blu-Ray format is naive to be polite.
 
MacNut said:
Aren't both HD formats still losing to standard DVD's. The majority of people don't even have an HDTV so they don't care about either format. Until HD takes hold across the country this is still really a moot point about who wins.
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You sound like the VHS guys when DVD was launched in 1997. Been shopping for VHS tapes lately?

New formats NEVER instantaneously take over for the old one. It's a curve. One goes up, the other goes down. Each has a life cycle and they overlap. After some time one is king and one is gone. And DVD sales have been declining for two years -- well, because everybody has players already and they're less excited about getting movies because they've been there and done that.

BTW analog TV broadcasting is getting shut off completely in 2009. And have you been shopping for TVs in the last 3 years and seen anything other than HDTVs? Would you like to go shopping and find a standard def TV over 13" today, it would be an interesting exercise.

Moot? Wanna reconsider?
 
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