Blu-ray vs. HD DVD (2007)

Dammit, I wanted to start this thread, but you jumped the gun.

Weak. Both or you.

Blu-Ray all the way, HD is so ney!

The assumption that Apple prefers Blu-ray over HD DVD is laughable.

Neither format will be standard items in 2007 is my guess.

What is laughable is that we're not in 2007 and you guys wanted to start a thread early to pimp yourselves.

Interestingly enough, DVD Studio Pro supports HD-DVD but not Blu-Ray. I think that Apple, once they offer one as BTO, will offer both.

BTW, why did we start another thread? We have one, that is about the same thing as this one is going to be about. So why split the effort? Now I need to check two threads, and post in both, rather than have one focused thread. If it is because of the "date" on the other thread, I propose locking this thread, and removing the date from the title of the other. I think one focused thread makes more sense than two identical subjected threads.

You can't guarantee me anything. Nothing points to Apple favoring Blu-ray over HD DVD. HP is also on the Board of Directors and they haven't shipped one blu-ray item.

I'm tired of having to school you rookies. Guess I'll have to do it again in 2007

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_i...009/Index.html

Board of Directors
Apple- Neutral. HD DVD in DVD Studio Pro 4 and have stated they support both
Dell- Sells a Blu-ray laptop
HP- Sells HD DVD desktops and Laptops
Hitachi- Blu-ray..no products yet
LG- states they are Blu-ray but have gone back and forth with Combos and HD DVD.
Mitsubishi Electric- Blu-ray ...no products
Panasonic- Blu-ray producsts shipping
Pioneer- Blu-ray products shipping
Philips- Blu-ray products shipping
Samsung- Blu-ray products shipping
Sharp- Blu-ray
Sony- Blu-ray- products shipping
Sun Microsystems- Blu-ray
TDK- Blu-ray ...favors hyping vapor
Thomson- RCA division sells HD DVD. No Blu-ray products shipping
Twentieth Century Fox- Blu-ray products shipping
Walt Disney- Blu-ray products shipping
Warner Bros. Neutral

Clearly you can see that being a member of the Blu-ray Disc Board of Directors does NOT mean you will not support HD DVD nor does it even mean you favor Blu-ray.

As for Apple clearly they will support both formats. They state so in a Press Release a month after announcing that they've joined the BD BoD. So clearly they wanted to set things straight. Apple makes authoring tools for video professionals. There is no current winner in the HD sweepstakes thus Apple will support both platforms until there is a clear winner and even then they will likely still keep support for both for some time. There is absolutely no reason Apple would align exclusively with Blu-ray. Nada. They want to sell tools to the whole market

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/17hd.html


How freakin clear can they make it? I really don't understand how someone could be so freakin' blind that they ignore all evidence that exists because it doesn't meet their own ideals of how things should go.

Apple is as neutral as they come.

Isn't all of this going to be a moot issue now that hybrid players are right around the corner and hybrid player/burners are sure to come out in '07

Are there any HD-DVD internal burners on the market today? I can't seem to find any. There must be some as I can see HD-DVD media (at about 3X the price point per GB versus Blu-Ray media (but please correct me if I'm totally offbase)).

SL 16X DVD-R media at $0.05/GB versus SL 2X Blu-Ray media at $0.50/GB (i. e. 10X the price point)?

18X DVD burner at ~$30 versus 2X Blu-Ray burner at ~$700 (i. e. 20X the price point).

Any yes, I know each type of drive R/W at different speeds, so do your conversions!

SL media will be the price point to shoot for as DVD-R (or DVD+R) SL has shown, so it's 15GB HD-DVD versus 25GB Blu-Ray.

Will either gain significant marketshare this year? Above a few percentage points? If I had to take a SWAG today, I'd say NO!

I await the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD (2008 ) thread, followed by the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD (2009) thread, followed by the ...., perhaps by the 2014 thread we will know, seeing as it took DVD 8 years to get to it's current position (and that's with no format war and no other compelling low cost reasonably high capacity storage solution (which is what SL DVD-R/DVD+R burners/media offers today), which didn't exist when DVD burners first came out).

If you can see where I'm coming from, perhaps whomever wins the HD burner war in 2007 wins the HD format war? IMHO, right now Blu-Ray seems to be in a good position to win the 2007 HD burner war.

What will happen to the other (HD-DVD) format assuming if Apple choose one (Blu-Ray)?

Studios favouring who?

this topic interesting it is out of my scope to understand everything going on now ...

Pretty much. An affordable Universal player would pretty much become the standard for audio and videophiles. I'd love to see a BD/HDDVD/SACD/DVDA player. That would be the King of my source units and I'd pay a pretty penny for a solid unit.

CES 2007 is going to be nice.

The HD DVD group will be announcing plans for 2007 on January 7th whilst the BDA will be announcing on January 8th.

I just wish they'd leapfrog these idiotic formats in favor of the long-promised holographic card storage... y'know, for the kids.

November is a little soon to expect everyone flock to NEC's univ. chip when it went on sale in late October. Since that time Broadcom has also announced a universal chipset and Ricoh has announced a laser that will adjust to whatever format it reads.

As for just around the corner, Samsung says their universal player will ship in early 2007 and Nec, Toshiba, and Sony have already announced plans to manufacture universal players as well.

I'm not saying we're going to wake up tomorrow and universal players will be on sale at Walmart for $39, but I think this Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD bickering is somewhat pointless when the universal players WILL be out in the mainstream market before a clear format winner is even close to being decided on.

Apple already had enough information to add rudimentary HD DVD support to DVD SP4. They don't have to join every group out there to utilize the product. Fact is DVD Player 4.6.x supports the MPEG2 15GB HD DVD profile that SP4 creates. You can try and take this down an illogical bunny trail all you want but the burden of proof is YOURS to prove that somehow Apple favors Blu-ray over HD DVD. To date they've shipped NO products that contain BDA technology whether it be hardware of software.

NEC isn't the player in Universal LSI it's Broadcom with the BCM7440. They've already had design wins according to Tom McMahon from the company. The only impression i'm getting is that your knowledge of what's going on is as clunky as the RCA HD DVD boxes.

HD-DVD looks like a stronger product when it comes to the home theater space, if only because the VC-1 (WMV3) codec they use to encode the movies is far superior to MPEG2, which Blu-Ray is currently stuck on. Get with it, BD.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/top.cfm?db=dvd

12/27 1:42 PST

Blu-ray has 3 titles in the Top 20 of Amazon's top sellers list. The remaining 17 are all of course HD DVD titles. Supposedly there's a million Playstation 3 worldwide. So ask yourself...why does Blu-ray continue to get stomped?

If Disney was onboard this battle would be over.

Blu-Ray gets stomped because it is too expensive.

I guess I'll play devil's advocate!

#1 on that list is #179 in total DVD sales ranking, #5 on that list is #504 in total DVD sales ranking (meaning that ~500 DVD's out sold the top 5 HD DVD's). So I'd SWAG that HD DVD's have captured about <0.01% of total DVD sales (since the top selling DVD's probably out sold the top HD DVD's by probably 10:1 to 100:1 (or more) margin(s))!

Most PS3's were most probably opened on Christmas Day, and will initially be used for predominately gamez, I'd expect that most people initially bought games to play on their PS3, we won't know for a few weeks at best, what cross over effect the PS3 has on Blu-Ray HD purchases.

probably

Microsoft can't make enough of the HD DVD add ons for the Xbox 360. There are plenty of Xbox 360s going out the door as well. Folks let's just call this what is is....a Blu-ray shellacking.


Jules whiffs on HD Blu Movies


Sure enough beginning of this year we saw

http://www.avn.com/index.php?Primary...tent_ID=254658


Ooops ...look at today.

HD DVD Pirates

Island Fever 4

Island Fever 3

Teen America Mission 3

So let's see that's Wicked Pictures and Digital Playground with movies set to ship. Vivid is the only company that is still clinging to the Blu-ray hype.

I made two points, neither of which you addressed! Something that's approximately equal to ZERO doesn't settle anything, something that's in people's hands for like literally two days doesn't settle anything. I don't have a horse in this race, and I don't really care one way or the other, all that I will say is that I'm not investing my $ in either HD ROM movie format at this time, probably not even this year, probably not ever. I've seen enough 720p and 1080i HD to basically say SO WHAT! IMHO it's (from DVD to HD) not like the jump in picture quality that occured in going from VHS to DVD by a long shot. I mostly watch movies for the story not for the scenery. Animations, now that may be a different story, but again I'll wait until the dust settles. I'll mostly be interested in a burner, when the price comes down a bit, and right now Blu-Ray appears to be winning on that front (available burners, blank media unit price per GB, and SL capacity).






I have copies of both in 720p, they've both been out for several months now, so unless these are 1080i or 1080p, been there done that! BTW both play just fine on a Quad G5 (I have a copy of Flip4Mac (WMV Studio Pro HD), can't remember, but I think they are wmv VC-1 files), using a DVI to HDMI cable into a HD TV, and VLC, Quicktime/Flip4Mac, or DVD Player all seem to work with HD content (to varying degrees, it's very rare that I can't open a HD file on my mac).

Quick pr0n reviews of above: Vivid Sukz!

DVD will outsell both formats for a few years. You cannot argue with the low pricing and high value of today's DVDs. What we AV enthusiasts are keen on is the replacement and initially it looked like Blu-ray would be that format but clearly they were really ready at a hardware or software level. Blu-ray was conceived as a recording medium. I look for HD DVD to close that gap next year.

Kolchak

Well as a movie lover I tend to want to just side with the easiest way to get all movies. Buy two players but then I feel conflicted because I don't like Disney/Fox/Sony forcing my hand. So I'm going to avoid Blu-ray for 2007 and we'll see what 2008 offers...perhaps a Universal player if Blu-ray hasn't folded by then.

Diehard???


Disney bought Pixar and not the other way around. I'm sure Jobs has pull but there's no reason for him to promote HD DVD over Blu-ray. They can sell more software supporting both. The HD DVD Promotions group is great for advertising but all the technical info that a company needs comes from the DVD Forum.

I welcome Sony pushing the pricing trend on recordable discs. Those discs are loaded with margin and any downward pressure is welcome.

Hahahah. You beat me to it Kolchak! I was the one who started the 2005 thread and then the 2006 thread. Nothing wrong with you starting the new year (2007) thread off with the correct bang--that Apple is going Blu.

January's MacWorld Expo will be interesting indeed! I give you props for starting early!

I expect to rack up more victories in 2007.


1 Lionsgate Films will be the first BD Exlusive studio to go neutral.
2.Disney will have HD DVD movies in stores prior to Xmas 2007
3. HD DVD will pick up at least two new hardware vendores at CES 2007
4. Blu-ray will catch HD DVD sales on Amazon by May 2007 at that point they will be very close and remain
that way.
5. HD DVD will make further inroads into the computing sector with recorders and half height players.

Time to end this war!

New Mac Pro = $5000usd

Drive bay 1 HD-DVD DRIVE
DRIVE BAY 2 BLU-RAY DRIVE

Problem Solved.

Oh wait, now people will just aruge about why apple made HD-DVD on top, instead of Blu-Ray

I expect ol Murch to rack up more falsehoods in 2007. For 2006, we had...

No 50 GB discs ("a pipe dream")
Blu-ray discs more expensive (not true as disc are the same cost and at times lower than HD DVD)
No Mandatory Managed Copy on Blu-ray
Studios Defecting (both hollywood and adult)
CE Companies Defecting (LG and Samsung)

I expect HD DVD to fold by the end of 2007 (mid 2008 at the latest) as Toshiba doen't have the resources to continue to take on the entire industry that supports Blu-ray. Expect Blu-ray sales to surpass HD DVD by March, with available titles to surpass HD DVD at this same time frame. 2007, will be dominated by Blu-ray, for sure.

I certainly didn't say that BD50 discs were not "ever" coming. I did not think they'd have them in quantity for 2006. They've outdone my expectations there.

Blu-ray "is" more expensive when you move to BD50. There are currently no places that I know of that will replicate BD50 for you. Thus you, Marzetta7, have not a clue as to what the true cost of them is. We know the HD30 is only a few pennies more than SL BD25. I dont' have my hopes up that we'll see affordable BD50 production for mere mortals until well into 2007.

Neither format has MMC right now ...jury's still out.

Studio defections, if they happen, will come next year I've been clear on that. Jury's out.

LG and Samsung both announced plans to work on Universal players only to recant. Coincidence or pressure? You decide.


Here's what YOU told us.

"The 4th brings the shock and awe"

Well 4th qtr is almost bye bye...the PS3 has been delivered and Blu-ray is still behind. I'd say you have more road to go to improve your accuracy than I do.

Like DVDs though HD DVD can be repaired. Blu-ray cannot.

Which is a moot point if they don't scratch in the first place.

Have you ever used any of those disc repair kits, though? They're terrible. I had an old PlayStation game that had two scratches and would play past a certain boss. I used a repair kit, and it left thousands of scratches all over the disc. It made things worse. I ended up having to torrent the disc and burn it (good thing I modded my PS1 back in high school).

Blu-ray is "scratch resistant" but not "scratch proof" . I remember reading a thread from a guy who owned a place that routinely fixed discs. Usually console games as the discs are $60 for new titles. Clearly he's a bit biased but he did make a good point that if you do manage to penetrate the protective film on a BD disc it's toast.