Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD

mike2h

how does you not liking sony transfer into a loss for consumers?
bty the only bad thing that could have come out of this was if the 2 formats continued to compete.

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mike2h

i agree nec. just like watching some shows in hd, all sorts of imperfections become readily apparent.
of course the other side of the coin is when its done right movies & programming are so much better - visually & sound wise. i really prefer not to watch progs on reg sat & cable feed anymore. the superbowl was a great example of what we have to look forward to as they get everything dialed in.

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interspaced

Any recent Pixar film looks stunning on blu-ray. The quality is most apparent in those titles.

Mr cairo

hmmmm seems that 360 add on player for Blu-Ray is way closer than we thought

Blu-ray Xbox 360 Planned By Microsoft - Smarthouse



apologies if this has been posted already

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Judas

yeah a number of movies that have made it to BR or HD have shown an incredible amount of artifacts..

usually lower budget ones though...... things like transformers have shown an utterly and absalutely incredible amount of quality all the way around..... where as some others look grainy, scratchy, and in some cases even extremely bad.

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CDsDontBurn

thanks for the link!

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Zardon

Well I am sure I don't need to explain that this is because the resolution of DVD is much lower and it hides imperfections with poor mastering or original transfers. If however you do get a top quality HD movie it really just transforms home cinema viewing.

MitchRapp

I really didn't care who won ... I just wanted one of the 2 to be as affordable as the DVD format (divx standalone players at less than 80 bucks, PC burners for 30 bucks and media for less than 50 cents)


still waiting for that day I guess...

Vikingod

Thought this was funny

Hi-Def Format War Over | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

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Lowfat

you know grain is added on many films for effect eh? Although I think it is a silly idea.

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mwalker52

Higher capacity, faster possible transfer rates, scratch resistant media. Glad the technically superior format won this time. Thank god their marketing geniuses didn't call it beta ray.

ivan300

I personally see no need for hd content. Sure its nice but i have no problem watching dvds or even xvid/divx rips on my 62"TV. I think downloadable content is the way to go. There is nothing better than wanting to watch a movie, going to a certain website and having a movie downloaded in 10 mins. I will take my xbmc/newsgroups over any hd content just because of the ease.

mike2h

superior pix & audio quality definetly isnt everybodys(or most for that matter) priority. or in their budget if it is.
i do wish peeps would stop acting like owning a dvd or bd is similar to downloading a compressed movie. there isnt a comparison. with the media you get to watch it as many times as you want. & get superior pix/sound quality. not saying it is bad, just saying that the overall movie 'experience' isnt as good.
very few people out there have streaming vid to their home theater/main tv. while i have no use whatsoever for watching tv/movies on my comp, i can understand situations were it is a viable alternative. i think streaming movies is just going to be that - an 'alternative' for the next few years.
streaming MAY become mainstream when LOTS more peeps have the bandwidth & the equipment to make use of it. true hd movie downloads as a viable alternative is many years away.

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aerospace

All I can say is I hope this does not make the Blu-Ray camp charge more for the movies and players due to the monopoly on the market.

mike2h

just the opposite, prices will go down faster. though still to slow for my liking

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Robert McClelland

HD DVD IS DEAD!!!!!!!! RIP sorry I have pointed that out!

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The_Neon_Cowboy

well blue ray holds about 25GB on a disk it can hold 50GB in the future
with DL.the Standard hddvd disk is 15 GB but most in use are dual layer
30GB Disks Both techs use a blue laser to store the data on the
disk in a smaller space

OK so from that stand point they look similar both could hold more
in the future. A single Blu-ray Disk holds more.But a DL HDDVD holds more.
Probably costs less...on on to the players....

Blue ray median price $399 and UP
HDDVD $99 and up Would of difference that would have say
almost every household could afford a HDDVD player for $50 then a
STD DEF decent player meaning they should of spread like wildfire.
But FEW people have need of or have HDDVD TV's. People in general
just aren't tech Savoy..

the movies about the same price. both with over 300 titles , both
with exclusive titles.... according to Nielsen VideoScan. Blu-ray
movies have outsold HD DVD by 62% to 38% . But I wonder how many
are for example the buy a PS3 get 15 free movies, Buy a HDDVD player
get 5 by mail. ETC ..... Sony get in early with the big high volume
retailers like best buy. Getting 2 to 3 times the floor space and
more movies carried??? = more sales its a given.

Though HDDVD had dual format disks allowing play in ANY standard DEF
on one side and HDDVD on the other. Even those with out players could
buy the movies now player later. Can't do that with blue ray. Can take
your HDDVD over to you kids room of friends hose and know it'll play
in a Standard DVD player too...

(HDDVDs downloadable content was a cool feature too)

PS3 helped blue ray quite a bit. But the console it self is still
outsold by well everything else.

There was only one of few logical way this would end.
1) HDDVD winning due to price point
2) both formats surviving, dual players
3) behind closed doors deals

Sony took door #3

The only irritating thing though is the blu-ray won. As if there
was a fair fight and one won. There was for a time. Before the
warner deal that killed the format. They under their own name
and others are the parents of the majority of the movie studios.
70% of films are theirs!Also their fellow studio "Fox" exclusive
"deal" with Blu-ray.

What I wanted to see is who would win the market and consumers
deciding deal. Not dubious deals behind closed doors.. to shut
out their competitor.

I mean it be like tuning in and you watching two boxers fight it
out. Then the ones manager comes in with a wad of cash Hands
it out to get favor. Then walks over and shoots the other fighter
in the back of the head. Then calling saying other fighter won
anything? would be ludicrous yet for blue ray its a "win". Cut
throat but "fair" is rarely observed in the business world.

You know who losses in the end? Me, you anyone who want high
def a format war is a good thing! Competition! there now is none.
So not as much pressure for new features, lower prices, better units.
exteme movie deals...

All this throwing money thown around to get a "win" has to come
from some where. Useally it consumers pocket books in the long run.

thats my take, be gentile

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mike2h

you think the hd-dvd camp wasnt making deals in the background? do even a little research & you might get a clue.
in this case a drawn out format war is not in the consumers best interst on any level. period.
the bd consortium won because it was much larger than the hd-dvd concsrtium. there is a reason why all those companies went with bd over hd dvd.
not counting the silly(imo) internet extras the only thing hd dvd had over bd was price. that was narrowing, slowly but surely. would have been pretty close to parity by end of year as the hd dvd camp was a brick wall for now as far as price drops go.
neon, the consumers did speak, or hd dvd would still be around.
& pls stop going on about movie giveaways inflating the stats. wether they actually count or not is irrelevent as both camps were doing it hot & heavy. if hd dvd wouldnt have been going down the tubes i would have got a deck a month ago just to get the 10 free movies.
your median pricing is of kilter to. might want t ocheck as to wich units have been purchased in both camos the last couple of months. the difference isnt nearly as big as you are trying to suggest.
bottom line, according to the consumer demand, their favorite format one. i for one am very glad all the sillyness is over.

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BWX

Actually the encoding process and bit-rate make a lot bigger difference in the image quality of HD content than the media type that it is being played on (HD DVD, BD, or from my HD).. So it doesn't really matter which disc type won the "format war". I guess the one with the most capacity is good for bit-rates though. In theory BD can hold more data, but my internet connection or hard drive can be upgraded for more data faster than any optical disc format. In the end HD movies on demand via your cable company or ISP will win anyway.

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mike2h

true hd movies via intenet beating out a physical format is many years away. if it even happens.
& your statement about 'media type' is silly. media type determines the amount of available hd material therefore the quality of the content. while what u say about bit rate & encoding is perfectly true, if you start out with crap, u get crap.

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Mousey

I don't think i worded it right. I watched a few minutes of a HD-DVD on my mate's TV which yeah, is 52" (might have been 50" not sure) plasma lol.
And frankly, the quality difference was minute.
I'll stick with standard definition ta v.much

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mike2h

np there mousey, seen it myself. a lot of so called hd tvs have poor pix quality. imo, plasma tend to be some of the poorest, especially considering the price.
then u have the issue of all players not being built equal either., but that plays a much smaller part.
another prob u get - & this is very common on most tvs- is poor/no proper image tuning. normally this isnt as noticable, but like other areas of hd viewing, hd will bring out most faults.
almost 2 yrs ago i purchaesd a mits 62' dlp. as i always do, i did a lot of hands on/reading research. i had a $3200 budget & this was the best bang for the buck i could get. it had great pix quality, especially compared to other dlp sets & especially lcd(never been a fan, but if i was to go lcd it would prolly be an aquos). so im in hd heaven. cept my tv keeps having various tech probs...
after 3-4 months of dealing with mits support(painful), having my tv tore donw & rebuilt multiple times(very painful), i said enough, & asked for a new tv.
mits was not happy, but said ok. now my model wasnt available as it was out of production & mits stopped making 62" tvs. so they gave me a brand new 65".. the best part was that thy had upgraded their hardware & i got a larger tv with- most importantly- better image quality.
the point being, if a manafcturer can have a noticable diff in pix quality from one model year to the next, how much difference do you think there is between various brands & more importantly, sets that are use cheaper electronics(not saying your freinds set is a cheaply made plasma cause i dont know).
i have seen many tvs that, imo, should never be termed hd. just because a tv can show 1080p/i res doesnt mean it is giving you a good hd image.
it may never be important to you mousey(like most peeps i imagine), but if it is someting you are intersted in, go to some high end stores & check out some good hd setups.

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dipstick

Dude you're nuts! There is no way you can honestly sit there and tell me there is no difference. Either the TV, the HD source, or your eyes are hurting bad (no offense). And no, you don't need a 52" to appreciate HD. Even on a 20" the difference is night and day that even my 60+ year old mother notices and loves. Just the interlacing alone on sdtv's -which is now as noticeable to me as those old prison uniforms- makes me want to rip my eyes out lol

The_Neon_Cowboy

HDDVD on my 42 projection looks a bit better but my 37" LCD it looks
unreal-awesome. Depends a lot on weather hes hooked up with HDMI
cables. Quality of the TV etc...Also with some movies it more noticeable
then others. The 300 in STD def looks about the same in HDDVD it there
but I can't tell. But say the new harry potter movie I saw a huge difference.

They both have exclusive movies as I said those kinds of deals? Yea,
As to get a clue right back at you. Deals you don’t see with hd-dvd.
Seriously show me the major studios that signed with HDVD ONLY.
Show me they studio that is only releasing their content on HDDVD (that
would now would be announcing going out of business?). How About one
retailer that carries ONLY HDDVD in their hi def selections? You can’t on
both counts. When kmart got a high def section in it was 20 Blue ray
movies and about 3 HD DVD. The local best buy? Well let see 10 feet of
HDDVD mostly the newer titles only then 25-30 feet of Blu-Ray. Newer titles,
older titles, a almost full selection. Where as To get those movies in HDVD
you could order them online I guess but what on the shelves is what matters!
Same things elsewhere. Then you have places like blockbuster rentals and
stores that only carry blu-ray. All these are blu-ray made “deals” .

They won because they got 85% of the movies to be blu-ray only. Has nothing to do with
consortiums etc… This killed HD-DVD very fast. With the DUAL format devices out there basically
nether format would have EVER died. Nor more than + or – DVDs that one ever really won.

The consumers spoke? Unless the consumers are the movie studios and sony or the mega
coperations who’s selections favored blue ray all that fell to $$$ deals. Thats not the
consumer.

The consumer bought what was made widely available Via Deals with the retail outlets .
If all of a sudden the only thing available was Macs, and mac software and no pcs. You
could rest assured Macs would sell through the roof. Better or no what’s available, what
has the larger section? Available on the shelf sells.

example. #1 battery sold Duracell. With a equal selection. Energizer made a deal with Kmart,
they provide fixtures, work on the layout etc. Basically making it 2/3 energizer 1/3 Duracell.
#1 seller is now? Energizer diehard #2 seller energizer #3 seller Duracell. I can order Duracell
and its hard to get. Energizer, I never need to order and usually have too much of it. Came
down to what was made more widely available to the customer.

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BWX

He probably had the settings all messed up, or didn't even have it set to the correct resolution or something. The difference between regular definition (SD) and true high quality HD content is night and day, especially on a nicely set up high quality HDTV set.



You mean years past? I'm not going to spell it out... but you can download anything.
Also bitrate and encoding ARE everything, so unless the media type is "maxed out" volume-wise in gigabytes, media type doesn't matter really. My hard drive is a "media type", so is my cable box- which is capable of delivering 1080i already. It will surely be possible for new models to spit out 1080P, and have 2 Terabytes of storage. My argument is that the media type doesn't really matter in the end unless it's volume or capacity is the limiting factor.

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Matth

One had to lose, and like a tug of war team, the moment HD lost a significant supporter, it was anly going one way.

Time will tell if this time "betamax won", since in the VCR arema, the superior system lost out. As far as I can see, there was little more to choose between Blu-ray and HD-DVD than between +R and -R.

Some links:
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | The demise of HD-DVD

BBC - great intro!

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mike2h

duh, just becuase it is available on the internet, doesnt mean its viable or a good alternative or anywere mear being even a 'niche' product or that is even a 'good thing', common sense will tell most peeps that... either you were implying that im dense & not aware of what is common knowledge, or you have your blinders on. i have never said/implied that downloading isnt available, if u dont want to be civil pls say so.
so your saying that downloading 10 giga byte movies is a viable alternative for everybody or even quite a few peeps? lmao. bitrate & encoding isnt everything. its a lot, but the source material is at least as important.
while i believe downloading none hd movies is viable now for a few peeps - most people dont have the equipment, know how, etc to use it- hd download as a real world alternative is years away.
unless you are doing a 'watch one time' deal with a movie, i dont see the point. the price for unlimted viewing is pretty much the same as buying a new release dvd - wich can be had for $14 -$17 usually. & you have a more durable media, & in most cases better pix & sound quality
like i have said before, i can see reg def movies being good for a few peeps, & eventually becoming more mainstream down the road, tivo& amazon r pushing this so its becomming much easier to get movies on your main tv(though quality is still an issue). hd movie download is a whole other ballgame.

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BWX

Yeah that is what I am saying though, downloading and watching a movie one time, or 30 times- even if it is a 60 GB file.. will be better than having to mess around with disc players and hard media. Basically an HD on demand service form your ISP (cable TV or internet or both, or fiber, or satellite, whatever).. I am talking about legally, with contractual rights for private viewing, not pirated. For instance I have 660GB of 1080i format storage (or any other besides 1080p for now) connected to my DVR. Why not just pay the cable company to watch a movie at the same bit-rate and codec that a Blu disk has? The infrastructure is being built already. It could also be done over the regular internet.. I guess if you want to "own" your movie on a disc that's fine, but I would rather just have a right to watch it whenever I wanted and not bother with the media, or if I wanted a hard copy, just burn my own or but it on a future 50GB SD card. With the equipment I, and many others have now I can record TWO 1080i streams and watch a recorded 1080i content at the exact same time on the same hard drive that is in my PC.


Also, just to be clear, the type of media really has no bearing on the image quality, it may be a limiting factor, but I could download (theoretically) a higher than BD bit rate movie with less "artifacting" that was twice the size in GB that wouldn't even fit on any optical disc, but that would barely fill my 3 TB hard drive. I'm not talking about today, I am talking about the near future. Maybe 1080P will be the low grade HD and 1440P will be the new standard in HD TV's.

You see where I am going with this and why this "format war" isn't really as important as some people think because of many different factors?


EDIT- it looked like you added a "duh", and some other comments while I was replying.. Oh well, this was a reply to your original post.

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BWX

perfect example


Blu-ray, HD-DVD & HD Broadcasts(H.264 & MPEG-2) Screenshots*BIG FILES* - Page 49 - AVS Forum

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mike2h

your missing the big picture. you can & are willing t odownload moster gig files. 99% of people cant & dont want to - for all sorts of reasons. y it will be a long time before hd downloading becomes fairly common let alone mainstream. its called reality.
what is tuff about putting a disc in a player? much faster than ordering & waiting for download. lol.
i jus tchkd amazon unbox, costs $14 to buy permanent rts to movie. idi u know they compress these movies & in a lot of cases it is only stereo not surround? i went through some forums. pix quality isnt always up to snuff either.
the format war is impostant becuase all your hd 'theories' are just that. not sure what world you are living in but most people outh there have very slow internet service that is not suitable for wha tyou want. let alone the hardware to make it happen. most peeps dont own any for of dvr, & a nice chunk of those that do dont know how to use it, let alone have a dedicated media comp hooked up t ot their main/any tv. i have a large expensive surround setup in my living room & small 32" tv with surround in my bedroom,. while both have tivo & i do have wireless, nothing is interfaced with any of my comps. just dont have the need.
& that is what is going to slow your adoption way down - need. average joe dont want it doesnt need it.
the point of the media war u really missed, & still dont get(&this is directly related t oyour adoption of other ways of viewing hd), is that the format war was slowing adoption. until hd hardware becomes mainstream, your scenario doesnt have a prayer. wic his why it is many years away.
while i know their are quite a few people out there like you who are into downloading reg def movies(still a vsery small minority), & i believe it will continue to expand, imo, optical media is still the best bet, it is permanent(so far), pic & audio is as good as it gets for a given sourc, once u have it you can start watching it within a couple of mins instead going to the trouble of ordering then waiting for download to start, & you dont have to deal with setting up accounts, hardware/software/communication glitches. i read a lot about that too.
at some point in time i will probably download some movies, but i just dont see the point rt now. it is new tech, has issues across the board, & personally i think netflix is a more viable/cheaper alternative if you are just into having a movie list & only want t osee them once. they have 'on demand' setup to but it is comp only & i was underwhelmed by quality. still doable tho.
bty, if you own the disk, you CAN WATCH IT WHENEVER YOU WANT THATS PART OF THE THE POINT.
also, wha texactly is it yopu have that is 1080I? is it tru hd, or upconverted? does it have pcm audio? dtd, dd? a lot of the movies that are down loadable are just coming in 2 channel, were u even aware of that? one of the ways they cut down size. you can figure out what the other ways are. not saying everybody is doing it, but it is common.
bottom line, downloading movies is upcoming, the tech & hardware is still in its infancy, it will be a couple of years before it comes close to being accepted & viable as an alternative to buyin/renting your movie on an optical disk. true hd download is years further out, & im not sure how viable it really is. i have no idea what your concept of near future is, but if it doesnt mean at least 5yrs, its unrealistic. & again, becuase you dont really seem to interpret things sometimes, im not saying it will be years before there is tru hd download is more common, im just saying that it wont be common/viable/available for 90% of the population.
bty you do know the next vers of hd will be film res - 2000+

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