HD-DVD and Blu-Ray - your opinion?

[Alex89]

With all the recent news of Warner going Blu-Ray exclusive, the HD format war is going crazy with both sides chucking out sales numbers and statistics to confuse consumers and attempt to proclaim themselves as format winner.

Here's a brief summary of what each format is offering at the present time:

HD-DVD
- 45gb on tri-layer disc
- PiP (picture in picture)
- Cheaply produced discs - existing DVD factories can make and sell them cheaply.
- Internet connectivity - download new content
- Exclusive support from Universal, Paramount, Dreamworks.
- Official named successor to DVD by the world DVD Forum.
- Supported by Toshiba, Microsoft, Intel

Blu-Ray
- 50gb on dual-layer disc
- Recently added PiP (only certain players are able)
- Recently added internet connectivity (only second generation players are able)
- Exclusive support from Warner, Columbia, Disney, 20th Century Fox
- Supported by Sony, Dell, Apple, HP

And some current sales figures quoted from Toshiba:
- 1 million dedicated HD-DVD players sold.
- Attach rate (discs owned per player) rate 2:1 in favour of HD-DVD
- 400 HD-DVD movies now available in the US
- Transformers HD-DVD holds the record for fastest sale of an HD movie. Bourne Ultimatum HD-DVD outsold Spiderman 3 Blu-Ray on launch.
- 80% of HD disc drives in computers are HD-DVD

And from Sony:
- 66% of HD movie sales are Blu-Ray
- All PS3s have a Blu-Ray drive, pushing sales considerably.
- Majority of movie studios making Blu-Ray discs.
- Blu-Ray is now the "format winner" since Warner has joined.

~~~

So what's your opinion?

I personally have a preference for HD-DVD due to ALL HD-DVD players being able to support all HD-DVD features, instead of the current confusion as only the newest Blu-Ray players will support the new Blu-Ray features such as internet connectivity and PiP. Also, it's a lot cheaper. =) My main preference is due to HD-DVD being region-free, which is important to me since I live in Australia where we get DVDs sometimes 4 months after they're available in the US, so HD-DVDs can be shipped here straight away instead of waiting for the factories to make the Australian discs.

[JSG]

ummm
http://gizmodo.com/341983/hd-dvd-really-dead-now-paramount-following-warner-to-blu+ray+only-party

[davo-man]

Ever since the whole war began I thought it would go BluRay's way. I mean really, they had a better marketting campaign, and I know that sounds stupid, but people are going to go for the product with a better marketing campaign, I mean look at iPods. Yes I know it may divide a lot of more technologically minded ppl, but everyone has to admit that they have the mest marketing campaign and from that has made it cool to get an iPod, showing that the better the marketing, the more chance of success. Back to the topic at hand, I have seen many advertisments for BluRay, that make it look modern, cool and awesome and have seen absolutely no ads for HD-DVD. I just think ppl are going to go for the better publicised one, which I think is what is going to happen particularly after WB and (possibly) Paramount going only BluRay

So in summary, BluRay all the way (that should so be it catchphrase hehe)

[Ty]

Well, TBH i really don't see much difference :p im indifferent towards the situation - I'll just go with the flow ^_^

/Ty

[Paul_UK]

I'll wait until one or the other becomes established. It seems that there will be a standards war with just about any new technology, and that's been the case for many years (VHS vs Betamax, Cassette vs 8-Track Cartridge, Sky vs BSB....).

Price will probably be the deciding factor. Normally the cheapest wins, regardless of quality.

If I had to choose now I would go for HD-DVD for the completely absurd reason that often it's the technology with the name beginning with B that loses!

[Alex89]

Uh, official comment from paramount is that they're still HD-DVD only, JSG.

It's still only "possible" that they could switch, but so far have said they're definitely still sticking with HD-DVD.

My predictions for the format war is: Blu-Ray takes a huge lead, but for the length of the HD movie generation's cycle both continue to be manufactured and sold. Similar to the last console war - PS2 outsold xbox 6-1, but xbox was never really "dead". Both just continued with their own supporters.

Dual-format players will probably be very popular in the next few years.

[Ilayis]

Idk,I was walking around looking for a movie the other day.Ran across one that I wanted and checked the price.$30.00!!!It was an HD-DVD,found the regular DVD for $13.00.Sorry I'm not paying that kind of money for one DVD,whether it's better quality and picture or not.Idk,maybe it's cause I only have money to make it by.Maybe if I had a ton of money to throw around,I probably wouldn't care.IDK

[Alex89]

Over here HD-DVDs are the same price as new-release DVDs ($30 AUD), but Blu-Ray movies are $40-$50 AUD! =O I'm tempted to get the 360 add-on HD-DVD player, because you can plug it into any Vista computer via USB (official drivers are available), and my laptop screen is 1920 x 1200 resolution, so it can show the full 1080p HD...

Very very tempted...

[Jerr]

PS3.... lol


and 10 HD/Blu-ray movies.

[Alex89]

It makes you wonder whether HD-DVD would be in the lead if it had been in the 360 from the start, because having Blu_Ray in the PS3s has helped it considersably.

I bet Toshiba is cursing Microsoft for not doing it. =P

[Kenko]

I'm going to wait till the whole thing is sorted out. We got a new high def TV and we have an up converting DVD player. I don't find the improvement gained in going HD or Blu-ray over a quality DVD worth the cost.

Plus something that drives me up the wall with DVDs is all the PUO (prohibited user operations) eg: not being able to fast forward through anoying messages and in some cases mandatory previews! To make a DVD that I bought usable I have to copy it to a DVD-R stripped of the PUOs.

I assume when you pay for the privilege of Blu-ray or HD-DVD you are still forced to watch stuff you don't want to. And last I checked Blu-ray or HD-DVD recorders weren't inexpensive and blanks weren't $0.33 or less each.

[Alex89]

i don't think u can buy BR or HD-DVD recorders at all yet. None available for TVs and I haven't seen a single one that can burn in a PC yet....

[Jerr]

There are br burners for the pc. have been for quite some time. (At least a year.)

Thank you, AlienWare!

I don't have a high def tv but I can see a difference from my blueray/hd dvds and my non.

[dictionary]

I'm pretty sure bue ray will win...

Because they have secured deals with more film companys.... and thinking back to the ye old'e days of beta and vcr... vcr had more videos and ended up being sucsesfull...

[Alex89]

Interestingly, Paramount have "officially announced" that they will be making "no announcements" at CES, and that they have no intention of leaving HD-DVD. Don't you love announcements about a lack of announcements? =P

I'm certain both formats will hold on until the end of their generation, despite larger sales in Blu-Ray. Most likely dual-format players will be popular, or even if in the end ALL studios move to Blu-Ray, HD-DVDs will still be produced by the studios currently supporting HD-DVD as well.

So far the sales stand at 500,000 standalone Blu-Ray players, and 1 million HD-DVD players (360 add-on included, since its sole purpose is for HD-DVD playback). That's a pretty significant figure for Toshiba, Universal and Paramount / Dreamworks to just drop. HD-DVD players are still outselling dedicated Blu-Ray players 2:1, and prices of players are low enough now for Mr Joe Public to buy a dedicated Blu-Ray player instead of a PS3 solely for movies. This basically translates to more sales from movie enthusiasts for HD-DVD, but a lot lower still than PS3 gamers who buy a few Blu-Ray movies on the side as a bonus. It seems the format war won't be decided by people genuinely interested in pushing the format they prefer, but by the people who just have the capability to play HD movies as a bonus with their purchase of a games machine.

Obviously a lot of the Blu-Ray format sales are through the PS3, giving Blu-Ray the edge in sales, but I don't think Toshiba and Microsoft will just drop HD-DVD they've spent billions on.

Sales of HD movies are still at 2:1 Blu-Ray's favour, but it's not a significant enough gap for HD-DVD to just give up. If it was 10:1, it would make sense.

If only Toshiba would do some advertising and smart marketing. I see Sony's Blu-Ray ads in every cinema now, but no real advertising for HD-DVD. This leaves the public with the impression that there is no competitor for Blu-Ray at all. Toshiba just needs to get its act together and be aggressive, so consumers know there IS a choice.

[step49x]

I don't think I will be buying either until the format war is over. Besides, all my laptop can play right now are DVD's, so I think I'll just be sticking with those, for a while.

[SlickyPants]

I have an HD-DVD player. I bought the Xbox 360 drive last year because I had a 360 and it was relatively inexpensive in comparison to standalone players at the time. One of these days I'll probably pick up a dual-format player when the price drops because I'd like to have both formats.

My biggest complaint about the two formats is that there isn't enough selection. It's getting better but I'd still like to see more.

I don't particularly think any format will "win" necessarily but I think Blu-Ray will probably be a little more successful because they have a stronger marketing campaign as mentioned earlier. I have seen only one advertisement for HD-DVD.

[George]

You didn't put in your first post that HD-DVD is 15GB single layer, 30GB dual layer and according to wikipedia it's 51GB for a triple layer.

Personally I'm hoping BD wins seeing as they have the higher capacity. And especially since BD-ROM is 10GB more than HD-DVD.
>_>; I just wish the war would end already and the players/disks go down in price so I can put my HD monitor to good use lol.

I'm not sold on the 1/2x write speeds though..

[George]

And I forgot to mention that the triple layer HD-DVD basically has an extra 2GB of extra storage on each layer, and as thus it isn't certain if it will work on all existing HD-DVD players.
=/ And the tri-layer disk hasn't actually been MADE yet, it's a proposal which was recently approved.

[Jerr]

I'm pretty sure bue ray will win...

Because they have secured deals with more film companys.... and thinking back to the ye old'e days of beta and vcr... vcr had more videos and ended up being sucsesfull...

VCR won because it could hold two hours of film and most movies fell within the two hour period and beta could not. I believe they only held about an hour because the tape within was so big ALTHOUGH that did mean better video/sound quality... it didn't hold a movie so it wasn't worth poo!

[Rette]

I'm pretty sure bue ray will win...

Because they have secured deals with more film companys.... and thinking back to the ye old'e days of beta and vcr... vcr had more videos and ended up being sucsesfull...

VCR won because it could hold two hours of film and most movies fell within the two hour period and beta could not. I believe they only held about an hour because the tape within was so big ALTHOUGH that did mean better video/sound quality... it didn't hold a movie so it wasn't worth poo!

Although, beta continued to be used by professionals. My dad works in TV, and every so often our car would end up with a basket full of beta tapes.

[Paul_UK]

Consumer betamax tapes in the UK could hold up to 3 hours 15 minutes, so plenty for a movie and about the same as the most popular E180 (3 hours) VHS tape. My parents had a betamax machine quite early and rented loads of films, as well as recording loads more off TV.

Betamax quality was better but not dramatically so. The picture was a bit sharper and the colour alignment a bit better. Most people connected the video recorder to the TV via the aerial socket back then (this was well before most TVs had SCART or RCA inputs) which was not the best for quality and made the betamax improvement less noticeable.

The main thing that killed betamax was that only a few manufacturers supported it (mainly Sony and Sanyo) whereas VHS was supported by a few more brands and, crucially, the budget brands. Once Amstrad (a real cheap-and-nasty brand at that time) chose VHS and started selling machines for under £100 the outcome was set. The film studios soon stopped supplying movies on betamax, and it quietly died.

[Alex89]

For the tri-layer HD-DVD discs, Toshiba have said that ALL HD-DVD players currently available are able to play them. They gave them the capacity to scale between layers from the beginning, without a limit on dual-layer because they were predicting somewhere down the track tri-layer might become popular. And yes, they've recently started production (the movies using them just haven't been shipped yet).

And yet, even with more layers they're still cheaper to produce than BD.

SlickyPants - how's the 360 HD-DVD drive run when you watch them on your PC?

[SlickyPants]

I haven't yet connected it to my PC. I guess there is no harm in doing so though. My monitors maximum resolution is 1280x960 at the moment and it's interlaced. I'm in the market for a new monitor though. Maybe once I get some credit card bills payed off I'll dig myself a new hole of debt and purchase a spiffy new monitor. :p

Even if I do get the slick new display I'm not sure if my PC will be able to handle 1080p video. It's a few years old now. I had no problem playing one of apples hi-def h.264 demo videos though so I might be able to. The only problem was that I was only able to see the top left corner of the video because the resolution was too damn big.

Edit P.S. I'm running Windows XP Pro.

[Alex89]

New drivers for the HD-DVD drive for WinXP are out.

I'm running Vista on my laptop. My laptop's resolution is 1920 x 1200 though, which should be awesome for 1080p (1920 x 1080). =)

I think my laptop with be powerful enough. The most popular program for watching HD-DVDs on PC is Cyberlink, so I checked their recommended system requirements for watching HD-DVDs and BD and it's well within what they reckon.

My laptop specs are 2ghz Core Duo, 2gb DDR2 ram, 512mb nVidia 7900GTX.

I bet as they get more common, better optimization of HD disc playback on PCs will make them run faster on less-powerful computers.

The Toshiba and HP laptops with HD-DVD drives aren't very powerful but must be able to run them well to have the drive built-in.

[George]

For the tri-layer HD-DVD discs, Toshiba have said that ALL HD-DVD players currently available are able to play them. They gave them the capacity to scale between layers from the beginning, without a limit on dual-layer because they were predicting somewhere down the track tri-layer might become popular. And yes, they've recently started production (the movies using them just haven't been shipped yet).

And yet, even with more layers they're still cheaper to produce than BD.

SlickyPants - how's the 360 HD-DVD drive run when you watch them on your PC?

Sure HD-DVD is cheaper to produce, but BD is catching up fast in the price sector.
Either way, I'm waiting until the mess is over. For now I have HD TV and that's all that matters to me.

New drivers for the HD-DVD drive for WinXP are out.

I'm running Vista on my laptop. My laptop's resolution is 1920 x 1200 though, which should be awesome for 1080p (1920 x 1080). =)

I think my laptop with be powerful enough. The most popular program for watching HD-DVDs on PC is Cyberlink, so I checked their recommended system requirements for watching HD-DVDs and BD and it's well within what they reckon.

My laptop specs are 2ghz Core Duo, 2gb DDR2 ram, 512mb nVidia 7900GTX.

I bet as they get more common, better optimization of HD disc playback on PCs will make them run faster on less-powerful computers.

The Toshiba and HP laptops with HD-DVD drives aren't very powerful but must be able to run them well to have the drive built-in.

Lol your graphic card is fine to watch HD content. I've got an AMD X2 6000+ 3GHz, 4GB DDR2 800 and a 256MB 8600GT and I can watch full HD television fine. And considering that you've actually got more graphics processing power then I have.. :lol:



And talking about the monitor thing, I run at 1680x1050 and the noticability (is that even a word? lol) of the downscaling (to even 1024 pixels) isn't noticeable at all.
I hate how there's so many different resolutions for HD. >_>; WHY couldn't they just use 1080p instead of the other resolutions?

xP 4320p is coming though.. But seeing as the movies take up terabytes of storage it might be a little while yet.

[SlickyPants]

If anyone decides to hold off on buying a TV because they are waiting for Ultra Hi-Def 4320p, they might want to rethink that decision. The technology is still in the prototype stage. There are predictions that this won't be available to consumers until around 2025.

Besides, who needs that much resolution? It get's to the point where in order to see that much detail you will need a movie theatre sized screen to watch your movies on. That or sit an inch away from your screen.

[Alex89]

4320p?! O_O

Wow. And how many tens of thousands would that put you back, lol. There's also the thing that most movies made before 2000 would have even been shot in a resolution that high.

But still...mmmmmmmm.......pixels.....

=P

[SlickyPants]

The thing is that most movies before 2000 and still many movies today are still shot on film and thus they have no "resolution." It all depends on the quality of the film stock they've used and how well they've stored the film. I'm sure a lot of movies have been scanned at high resolutions just for the sake of archival although there are probably a lot of movies that will be lost to the ages, or at the very least whatever resolution they were scanned at digitally.

[Alex89]

Yeah, I was thinking of digital transfers instead of full film scanning. You generally get slightly blurry edges on scanned films when you watch them in HD.

What I don't get is why most HDTVs below 40 inches (I think that's about the threshold) are only 720p / 1080i, whereas my laptop has a 17" screen with full 1080p. It wouldn't be hard at all to make smaller HDTVs 1080p too, because not everyone wants a massive TV, but everyone does want 1080p.

[George]

Yeah, I was thinking of digital transfers instead of full film scanning. You generally get slightly blurry edges on scanned films when you watch them in HD.

What I don't get is why most HDTVs below 40 inches (I think that's about the threshold) are only 720p / 1080i, whereas my laptop has a 17" screen with full 1080p. It wouldn't be hard at all to make smaller HDTVs 1080p too, because not everyone wants a massive TV, but everyone does want 1080p.

The reason why smaller TVs don't generally have 1080p is because of the price thing.
With ultra-high definition only one TV is on the market for it and it costs a lot.

It isn't the size of the screen that accounts for the definition. It's the pixel density. Like my old laptop had a 15.4" monitor that was 1680x1050. The thing is that most TVs under 40" are in the 'budget' category.. Mainly since people who want to get a good 1080p TV would want to go higher.

Meh.. OLED screens can do full HD yet they're only 7-11".. And there's a 30" one around the corner.

[CorporalPie]

I honestly like HD-DVD more but I don't think they can beat Blu Ray now. If anything I see this turning into a long stalemate between the two where niether do as well as DVD did before them. I also think that with these two tearing the market apart that digital downloads will keep gaining gound and surpass both of them. I mean look at how well iTunes and the XBL marketplace are doing with video downloads, and with netflix going digital download with set top boxes it seems to me that digitally downloadable content is going to come out of this the winner, not HD or Blu Ray.

[Alex89]

The only thing is, for the average less tech-literate consumer market (which is huge), they've prefer a physical disc the just put in the player purely for simplicity. My mum still has trouble even using a computer mouse, and controlling a DVD player. Having to select movies to download and stuff like that would be beyond her.

Universal has confirmed they're staying exclusive to HD-DVD and drawing up a new exclusivity contract (because theirs expires soon).

Dual-format players (once they get affordable) will probably rule the market in a few years.

[George]

I honestly don't get why anyone would like HD-DVD better apart from the price factor. With Blu-Ray you get a better movie selection and more space. =/ A LOT more space.

[Alex89]

More space? New tri-layer HD-DVD discs are 51gb. Currently only dual-layer Blu-Ray discs are made at 50gb. Really there's no difference other than disc-price and region-encoding on BD (HD-DVD is region free! =D).

Oh yeah, and ALL HD-DVD players support PiP and internet connectivity, while only the newest BD players and discs have internet (which is a low blow for early adopters with players that don't support it).