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

i came across this comparison between dvd, hd-dvd, and blu-ray earlier today.

http://slashdot.org/~squiggleslash/journal/191226

one you realize that hd-dvd and blu-ray use the exact same video codec and both support lossless audio, it really comes down to an issue of DRM and (fair) use.

i have to say that i fully agree with the author. hd-dvd does appear to be the lesser of the two evils. at a minimum, blu-ray continues the region coding ridiculousness and raises the bar with ludicrous DRM and access issues.

i'm somewhat sad to see blu-ray making the headway that it has.
 
Kind of sucks how buggy the blu-ray disks are. I hope they get that fixed soon. I have had zero trouble with the HD-DVD disks only with 3 of my blu-ray titles.
 
coffey7 said:
Kind of sucks how buggy the blu-ray disks are. I hope they get that fixed soon. I have had zero trouble with the HD-DVD disks only with 3 of my blu-ray titles.
Click to expand...

I own over 50 blu-rays with no issues... sucks for you ;)
 
coffey7 said:
Kind of sucks how buggy the blu-ray disks are. I hope they get that fixed soon. I have had zero trouble with the HD-DVD disks only with 3 of my blu-ray titles.
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I've had some subtitle issues with some of my 19 HD DVD titles and zero issues with my 140 Blu-ray titles.

Here is a list of my 131 Blu-ray products containing 140 titles:
http://www.dvdspot.com/list.php?member=aristotles&video=bluray
Here is a list of my 80 region free Blu-ray products I own:
http://www.dvdspot.com/list.php?member=aristotles&regions[]=0&video=bluray
 
aristotle said:
*Sigh*
The Xbox 360 has a small HD it is proprietary while the Ps3 HD is upgradable with standard SATA drives.

There are a number of games out and coming out for the Ps3.

Downloading HD movies in 720p resolution requires hours even with broadband.

Besides being a good console with highly reliable hardware, it is also a media extender that you can connect to your computer network wirelessly or via ethernet allowing you to stream video, music and photos from your computer.

The added bonus is that it is an excellent Upscaling DVD player and blu-ray player.

If you are so inclined, you can also dual boot a linux distro on it fully supported by Sony to use it as an extra computer.
Click to expand...

Hey genius, my Xbox 360 steams music, movies, and photos from the Macs around my house using Connect 360 just fine, thanks. Plus the last HD movies I dloaded took less than an hour. Plus, it upscales DVDs just fine too. Plus, guess what!, you can load Linux on an Xbox as well. Frankly, that's a yawntastic fact for me, since I think you can load Linux on everything, including my toaster.

The fact remains, the PS3 is a lame gaming machine compared to the 360.
 
shazammy said:
Hey genius, my Xbox 360 steams music, movies, and photos from the Macs around my house using Connect 360 just fine, thanks. Plus the last HD movies I dloaded took less than an hour. Plus, it upscales DVDs just fine too. Plus, guess what!, you can load Linux on an Xbox as well. Frankly, that's a yawntastic fact for me, since I think you can load Linux on everything, including my toaster.

The fact remains, the PS3 is a lame gaming machine compared to the 360.
Click to expand...
Good for you. Were you rushed through toilet training by any chance?

Why do you feel so threatened that you felt the need to attack me personally out of the blue with the "Hey genius" comment? Get some perspective dude.
 
thederby said:
have to say that i fully agree with the author. hd-dvd does appear to be the lesser of the two evils. at a minimum, blu-ray continues the region coding ridiculousness and raises the bar with ludicrous DRM and access issues.
Click to expand...

As it has been said in this thread, region coding is at the discretion of the movie company. If HD-DVD won, there would be region coding by some developers. I think the difference here is that Blu-Ray has made a standard for region coding, meaning that developers can only discriminate titles into three regions.
Likewise with DRM, sadly it will happen and continue to punish only those who legally purchase things no matter which format 'wins'.
 
slffl said:
BTW storage capacity is a non-issue.
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Proponents of HD-DVD keep spewing this like its meaningful.

If storage capacity were a non issue, then we'd be happy with DVD, wouldn't we?

Fact of the matter is, the only way to compare the quality of the formats is to compare two of the exact same titles on both formats. Unfortunately, the studios that are neutral and have released titles on both Blu and HD-DVD have saved themselves money by creating just ONE transfer for both formats.

Because HD-DVD has a significantly lower capacity than Blu, these studios have had to compress the transfer to suit the lower capacity of HD-DVD. Thats just the fact of how its been.

Once this dust settles and everyone is creating transfers that are designed just for Blu, they will be able to use this previously unused space and back off on the compression.

Will we see a marked improvement in picture quality? One would think so, but who knows for sure? Nonetheless, this notion that the difference in storage capacity is irrelevant is laughable at best.
 
Personally, I'm an HD-DVD fan. I really wanted HD-DVD to win it. It's a much more open format.

But this is the writing on the wall in bright neon. If Warner went HD-DVD only, there would be hope. Since they went Blu, it's effectively over. Blu-ray has won.

I do own a PS3, and I'm now moving my support to Blu-ray. Fortunately I was smart and limited my investment in either. My HD-DVD player is the cheap Xbox 360 one (hey, it's still a good USB DVD drive) and I only bought Batman on HD-DVD. Everything else was Netflixed. My Blu-ray investment was limited to Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End and the 5 free movies with the PS3 offer. So if either went, the loss was minimal.

Now I can get Blu-rays with a little more confidence, at least.
 
Your facts are wrong.

New Line isn't exclusive blu-ray. I am an HDDVD tester and just saw couple new check discs today. Please re-research your facts.

Thanks.
 
Sorry if this has already been covered somewhere in the past 20 pages.. Does the PS3 support output at 1080i for those of us that dont have 1080p TV's? If it does I'll have to start saving up for one.
 
WildPalms said:
When taken in context i.e. when comparing to Blu-ray. It is meaningful when the difference is 10% (5GB).
Click to expand...

Dual layer HD-DVD: 30Gb
Dual-Layer Blu-Ray: 50Gb

Where are you getting this 5Gb figure from? Blu-Ray offers substantially more room (and room to grow) than HD-DVD, at 66.67% more space per layer.

MacFan78 said:
Sorry if this has already been covered somewhere in the past 20 pages.. Does the PS3 support output at 1080i for those of us that dont have 1080p TV's? If it does I'll have to start saving up for one.
Click to expand...

Yes it does, it supports every resolution of TV.
 
If someone could get Weistien and Focus Features to go over to Blu-ray exclusive or even to go dual format, Maybe just maybe Universal will start to bring out a few Blu-ray discs like E.T. or the other Steven Spielberg titles like Jurassic Park and Shindler's list.

I think it's possible the format war could be over by the time we're welcoming in 2009.
 
shazammy said:
Hey genius, my Xbox 360 steams music, movies, and photos from the Macs around my house using Connect 360 just fine, thanks. Plus the last HD movies I dloaded took less than an hour. Plus, it upscales DVDs just fine too. Plus, guess what!, you can load Linux on an Xbox as well. Frankly, that's a yawntastic fact for me, since I think you can load Linux on everything, including my toaster.

The fact remains, the PS3 is a lame gaming machine compared to the 360.
Click to expand...

Not true at all. In fact recently I've been having more fun with my PS3 than my 360. Eye of Judgement and SingStar are fantastic.

The PS3 has better, more reliable hardware. It has a nicer UI. It has free online play and a better online store (with much superior downloadable games). It has built in WiFi. It has bluetooth. It has standard drives that you can replace and standard memory card readers. All USB peripherals work with it. It has mouse and keyboard support. You can OFFICIALLY put LINUX on it. Most importantly it plays the next standard in HD movies, Blu-Ray.

There are many ways the PS3 is better than the 360. As an overall media-centre it's MILES better than the 360. The 360 does have better games at the moment, but there doesn't seem to be anything amazing coming to 360 next year (so far) while the PS3 has quite a few good games on the horizon.

I own both btw (see sig) so I know what I'm talking about.
 
Blu ray is soo much nicer than hd dvd.. i wish all of the studios would just switch to soley blue ray.. it would make sense.. because if i wanted to watch a universal or a paramount film i got to go out and spend another 300 dollars on a hd dvd player when i already have a blu ray player.. it is redicolous:apple::apple:
 
MacNut said:
.Honestly I tried not to, so much crap being thrown.
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So you're "participating in this conversation" without reading it while the rest of us are. Certainly explains why it looks like you've sufferred a blow to the head in most of your posts.

Now, if you aren't READING what people are saying, why should we reply to anything you say?
 
coolant113 said:
if i wanted to watch a universal or a paramount film i got to go out and spend another 300 dollars on a hd dvd player when i already have a blu ray player.. it is redicolous
Click to expand...

You are aware that's pretty much the whole point of the entire argument about format wars?
 
dextertangocci said:
To me it seems so last century to have to walk to your player, put in a disk, walk back and mess with remotes, not to mention the trouble of actually obtaining a disk, just to watch a movie... To me iTunes and the Apple tv is the way to go:) I don't care if it's not HD right now or the choice is not that huge right now. It will get there, just like with the music.
Click to expand...

See, I'm just as digital as you. I've been doing media streaming in my home since 2000. I have almost 1 TB of media, 50,000 mp3s and 20,000 photos.

But I don't buy a single thing off of iTunes. If I buy a song I still buy the CD. Why? (1) I have a "hardcopy" master that won't be a problem with hard disk failures, etc. (2) I can reuse it no matter what codecs (MP3, AAC) come and go without generational loss. (3) It's a source for lossless encoding which is now feasible. Sorry, but even high bitrate AAC from iTunes isn't as good as lossless. But you already stated you don't care about quality.

As for movies. Right now, for iTunes, you have to BUY a movie for what, $14.99? Why on Earth would anybody do that when it's almost the same cost as a DVD, a hardcopy of higher quality that you can take anywhere to watch on a stand-alone player? Same logic applies here -- you get a hardcopy in high quality as a "master" to make your own rips. And AppleTV doesn't allow for SPDIF passthrough (5.1 surround sound) and I'm sorry, I stopped living with 2 channel matrixed surround when I gave up watching movies on VHS. I need discrete surround in my movies. And, as I stated, I do care about quality, so the lack of HD content on Apple TV kills it. I use my Apple TV to play my lossless music and do photo slideshows. And I do download some HD podcasts.

Trying to keep my 1TB media collection alive is going to require vigilence and frequent backups. But at least if it fails I have my CDs and DVDs to fall back on. Good luck if you spend thousands of dollars on iTunes downloads and you experience a failure without backup.
 
HDDVDTester said:
New Line isn't exclusive blu-ray. I am an HDDVD tester and just saw couple new check discs today. Please re-research your facts.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Please re-research yours, New Line just made the announcement - Just like Warner did (not hard to grasp, considering TimeWarner owns them..), yes, there are currently titles on both formats, but not after May 31st.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117978461.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1

Warner's move leaves only Paramount and Universal squarely in the HD DVD camp. Sony, Fox, Disney and Lionsgate all back Blu-ray. Warner sister company New Line confirmed it will shift allegiance to Blu-ray only as well.
Click to expand...
 
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