Blu-ray vs. HD DVD (2007) - Page 2

What I think doesn't matter as clearly they support both.

I know, you just stated they were a pipe dream for 2006.


I've never claimed I had "clue as to what the true cost of them is." Frankly, I can care less. When I speak of cost, I speak of the cost to the consumer, and for some reason you are stuck on the cost to the manufacturer. You claimed earlier in the year that due to the extra cost to the manufacturers for BD discs, that would correlate to more expensive Blu-ray discs. That's all I'm referring to here, that this is not the case as Blu-ray discs have the same or lower cost to the consumer.


Indeed, but it is in the works for both. Earlier in the year, you were being your FUDtastic self claiming it wouln't be a feature on Blu-ray. Again, eventhough the jury is correctly still out, it will be a feature eventually.


Jury's out according to you. IMO, you've been waiting for that jury for over a year now. You'll have some other years to add I'm afraid. Keep wishing.


Or market awareness and lack of HD DVD support? You decide.


Behind? According to whom? Amazon? Bwahahahahahaa! You maka me laugh. With roughly 1 million consoles sold, and Blu-ray penetration beating HD DVD penetration almost 10 to 1, I'd say shock and awe is just beginning with the fiscal 4th quarter for most BDA companies ending on March 31st BTW. Also, we still need to learn how well standalone players from the likes of Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, and Sony have sold. I understand that the Sony standalone sells out in most places upon being shipped. Sounds like another Sony product...the PS3. So, Blu-ray behind?...I think the jury is definitely still out on that one.

HD DVD didn't have to pack their technology into a console forcing people to buy it to get to their numbers.

I think you'll find the attachrate of BD movies to PS3 ..abysmal.

The PS3 is being outsold worldwide by the Wii. There's nothing to fear here.

What does PS3 being outsold by the Wii have to do with anything? The Wii is less than half the price, does it shock anyone that it is outselling the PS3?

The Xbox 360 is also outselling the PS3. The point is the PS3 sales are already beginning to level out so I don't really expect for there to be a huge influx of hungry movie fans.

What's going to give Blu-ray a boost is some better titles coming from exclusive studios.

No I give Blu-ray props for getting so many titles out. They have a studio advantage but studios are pretty slow to support new formats sometimes.

I decided to give up on waiting for a clear winner and just bought myself a Toshiba HD-A2 and a couple of HD DVD movies to try it out with it.

I'm quite impressed so far, and it seems to do a good job with playback of standard DVD over HDMI as well. I'm eager for my new Yamaha RX-V2700 receiver to show up so I can do my HDMI switching through my receiver instead of through my TV.

I really have no clue how the format war is going to turn out, but my gut feeling is that HD DVD's early lead in disc sales and players (not counting PS3s) is going to convince more movie studios to give up Blu-Ray exclusivity -- except, of course, Sony Pictures. I also like HD DVD's greater inherent durability -- being able to shrug off small scratches rather than relying on a special protective coating, which, if breached, means definite loss of data.

If nothing else, I'm hoping HD DVD's foothold is strong enough to help encourage the production of universal HD players -- I expect to replace the HD-A2 someday anyway, I just don't want to have to replace my disc library, whatever size it may have grown to. I'd have happily plunked down twice as much money for a good universal HD player if one had been available.

I was just offered a job, so I might be jumping in the race sooner than I had expected. But the question is with what?

I have a 56" 1080i RPTV from JVC (3 and a half years old or so). We have an xbox 360. I am planning on this point going HD-DVD. Should I go with the 360 addon, or the dedicated A2? I don't mind spending a bit more for a dedicated unit (plus I think there is a free movie offer with the A2, if I remember reading that here correctly). I think I am leaning towards the dedicated unit, as the 360 isn't mine (it's a roommates), and he is moving out in 6 months. But if I got a 360 addon now, I could buy a dedicated unit in 6 months and move the 360 addon to my computer. Maybe there will be a universal player at that point, or at least things will be a bit more clear on this format war.

Any suggestions? Or better yet, any reviews between the two? I am wondering if the PQ for the xbox addon is good. And does it do 1080i, or only 720p (not a huge deal, as my TV would upconvert the 720p signal to 1080i).

Also, I am surprised no one had posted this yet:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/27/a...kuphddvd-tool/

A note however, AACS wasn't really cracked. The author wrote a decrypting tool, but you need the disk "keys" (supposedly PowerDVD stores them in memory, and they can be obtained this way). The author is to be releasing a newer version after the new year that will be better still. And supposedly keys are leaking out onto the internet, you just need to populate your "key file".

And its java, and appears to run under OS X. If I had a HD-DVD drive, and some keys I'd give it a whirl.

Xbox add on.

The only thing you give up is the TrueHD support which isn't on every disc and upscaling DVDs. I was thinking the same thing since the add on is easy to get working on a computer you're still not out anything and 6 months from now there are likely to be a few more options for you hardware wise.

Sounds good. I just have a (good) stereo setup (2.1), so surround isn't a big deal for me.

Until Dec 31st you can get the xbox drive for $40 off with the coupon attached to this post

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post9299931

Who here has actually bought into one HD format or the other? My vague feeling from occasionally skimming the older 2006 thread is that there are more Blu-Ray cheerleaders than HD DVD cheerleaders, but also more HD DVD buyers than Blu-Ray buyers.

I'll be getting a PS3, but I'm not really concerned with what the particular winning format will be.

I'm interested in Blu-Ray because I think it's a better format, but it's not SO MUCH better a format that I'd be, you know, hurt if HD-DVD won.

I'm still holding out for downloaded media to get to HD quality in a few years. I'm probably gonna skip out this generation of players.

I'm guilty of cheerleading. I'm really thinking about running to a couple of CC and seeing if I can grab the Xbox HD DVD for $160 this weekend. I'll have to see. I've got 15 movies waiting for the hardware.

Shetline ..excellent choice on the RX-V2700. Yamaha and Onkyo are my favorites for AV Receivers are you going to get the YDS-10 iPod Dock?

I've already got a Roku SoundBridge I use to stream my music collection, so no real need to hook an iPod up to my receiver.

There's no way I'd want to wait that long -- I don't think downloading is going to be a major means of HD movie distribution any time really soon.

I can, however, easily believe that HD DVD and Blu-Ray are the last hurrah for physical media -- not to say it won't be a significant hurrah. I think we've got a good 10-15 years to go before (1) there's a network infrastructure good enough to distribute one or more random-access 25-30 mbps data streams to a large number of households simultaneously, and before (2) most people are convinced that owning your own copy of a movie isn't an important or desirable thing. Network-based distribution without physical media will probably be could enough to satisfy a subset of users before that 10-15 years passes, but I still think it'll take that long to substantially replace physical media.

You just said you're getting a PS3. You're already "in" by then. Netlix will be your buddy if you want to rent movies. Both platforms will eventually be hybrid devices meaning you'll have the physical carrier but they will be network enabled to download new content.

I had the same question as I had the feeling that many of the most enthusiastic posters were all talk and hadn't put their money where their mouth was. So I started this thread:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=69759

One of things that appalls me is the less than thrilling list of titles available. No matter how good it looks and sounds, a bad movie is still going to be bad.

That's true for a long time for any new format. Not having a format war would sure help some, but even then, it would take a while for things to get going. You can always figure that behind the scenes, especially when it comes to the hottest titles, someone somewhere is angling for a sweeter deal and making all sorts of demands in order to agree to allow said titles to be released on a new format.

Why would you want to watch HD movies on a computer monitor? The real benefit of HD is on larger screens. There is a reason for dedicated units, so people can hook them up to their large TVs and projectors. I guess, if you plan on hooking up your computer to your TV, but then you need to wait for Apple to also include an HDCP complaint video card...

Well... I use 37" LCD as a computer monitor/HDTV in my bedroom. So, I can definitely enjoy having HD-DVD play back on my computer monitor.

I almost never watch movies (though they'll obviously be Blu-Ray or DVD if I do for the time being).

I'm definately holding out for buying any movies though until this thing gets sorted.

Hey, if that works for you, all the more power to you, but that's not going to be very satisfying for many people. First of all, it's harder to make a movie into a family or social experience when you're viewing a relatively small monitor from such a close distance, and second, even if your monitor's picture fills the same (or greater) visual angle in your field of vision, for most people there's an extra sense of drama to seeing something at a greater distance filling a large portion of their viewing field.

I know I'm not giving up my 70" HDTV (full 1920x1080 res, of course) any time soon in favor of a computer monitor.


Personal visual problems like nearsightedness or farsightedness aside, sharpness will be a function of the visual angle of each pixel, regardless of viewing distance. Seated about 12' from my 70" display, each pixel on my TV is just a little below one arc minute (one sixtieth of one degree), with one arc minute generally being recognized as the limit of human visual acuity -- in other words, my TV, viewed comfortably from my sofa, is pretty much just as sharp as it possibly can be.

Your claim is not inherently true. It may or may not be true depending on specific distance, screen size, and resolution numbers thrown into the mix. Remember that ideally you want individual pixels to disappear -- if you can make out crisply defined individual pixels, that might create a certain illusion of sharpness, but that's not really a positive effect for picture quality.

OK, I've read through at least three of your HD-DVD cheerleading, Blu-Ray bashing posts. First, your post about not neccessarily shipping Blu-Ray products just because a company is on the board is off base. Look at your list...almost all of them do so.

Next: Any sales figures you could find for the PS3 would be totally invalid right now due stocking and distributing issues (they're not making enough). We have to wait for about a year to really see what's going on. So, your assertion of sales "leveling" is bogus.

Third: Playstation TWO positively obliterated the Xbox's sales numbers. Try 111 million to date versus 24 million to date. That means a much larger installed user base.

Fourth: In one month, Sony has sold 400,000 playstations compared the Xbox 360's 6 million in 15 months. And, Sony did it with extremely limited supply.

Fifth: Anecdotal evidence. Have you ever seen a console as popular as the PS3...with people lining up for days and prices on ebay that hit $5-10K at one point. Not since the Atari 2600 has their been such insanity. Sure, you can get them now for $50 over retail, but you still can't find one in a store. They can't make enough of them to meet demand, and that's with a price 35% higher than the xbox 360.

All of that said, no one knows who will "win" the format war. I would say Blu-Ray has a better chance, if not solely because of the PS3. They have a bigger consortium and the power of Sony Pictures behind them too.

As far as that goes, the Wii is blowing them all away. So...yes, I've seen a console as popular as the PS3.

People who own PS2s are not guaranteed purchasers for the PS3. The PS2 offered DVD, which was a technology that showed immediate advantages even on older televisions. Blu-Ray is only advantageous if you've got a large HDTV to view it on, which means that the vast majority of consumers won't care.

Keep in mind that the PS2 also launched at half the price of the PS3, $299.

There's nothing guaranteed about Blu-Ray at this point. HD-DVD is simply at a better market position, with more affordable hardware and equivilant picture quality.

edit: spelling and corrections.

Well... I'm not sure how closely you've been following the gaming console market, but Wii has been kicking PS3's butt since day one and the demand has gone up even higher. People have to wake up and smell the coffee, because PS3 isn't PS2. A simple reason is that PS2 wasn't selling at $499/$599 tag, and it doesn't matter what HiDef dvd format PS3 can play..... Basically, PS3 is too expensive as a gaming console, but a cheap BD player. What demographics of consumers can this product be matched to? Only those enthusiasts.... and they are numbered and so is PS3 sales.

That's the hype of Sony marketing. The Playstation 2 was a killer product. I'll admit that it make the Xbox look like the rookie product it was. However Microsoft has made much more improvements IMO opinion from this generation than Sony has thus far. Of course they had a headstart so I'm willing to give the PS3 time.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=158897930&play=1#


Wii - 1.8million
PS3 - 750k
360 - 2million

NPD numbers. Not wholly accurate but close enough to see a trend. The Wii and Xbox 360 are taking advantage of the fact that they aren't trying to stuff a Cell proc and Blue laser into a box.

I just spoke with a friend that bough a 42" LCD and Xbox 360 for Xmas. She said that she wants to order and Xbox HD DVD add on because its so cheap.


Actually i've seen bunches of reports stating that people are walking into stores and finding PS3 available. The demand is no longer there for ebay which means Sony has pretty much saturated the "gotta have it" maket. The PS3 is going to be important to the battle but this is a war that cannot be won and will not be won. Universal players will rule the day in a couple of years. What HD DVD fans are fighting for now is getting some studio support parity for the players that are delivered that won't be Universal.

Here we go again, what originally started as a video thread has strayed over into the relative merits of gaming machines. Somehow, the Wii has wandered in even though you can't watch HD movies on it.

Bite, you did get one thing half right when you mentioned only [video] enthusiasts are buying the PS3 as a BD player. The correct statement is only video enthusiasts are buying HD-DVD/Blue-Ray players. The average consumer sure isn't. This bodes ill for both formats for the forseeable future-- there's going to be a lot of red ink on companies' balance sheets.

this guy is off by so much its not even funny.

did you just wake up recently? who cares what the ps2 did because if you mess up this console's generation bad enough people aren't going to hop on board. no gaming machine has been number 1 three generations in a row to let you know since you're so keen on history repeating.

the xbox was microsofts first attempt at producing a machine, you shouldn't' forget that. this gen is isn't like last time, publishers didn't really know what to expect from microsoft, leaving the xbox lacking games but this time almost every one has hopped on board (GTA, virtue fighter 5) just to name two huge titles that were once exlcusive to the Playstation brand.


Fourth: the xbox360 sold a lot more during its launch. if the ps3 continues to have manufacturing issues they may sell a lot less next year than the 360 did. remember the 360 launched in europe, japan, and the U.S all at the same time, sony hasn't even launched the ps3 in europe yet!

The reason to bring in the gaming console to the discussion is because many have been fantasizing PS3 as a trojan horse in the Hi-Def dvd hardware market as it was supposedly to be sold by gazillions to homes and all of the sudden turn every gamers into a HiDef movie enthusiasts. I was just making the point that PS3 is no where near being anything trojan at this points since it's not even winning the gaming console war and will not turn every gamers into a Hi-Def movie enthousiast at any means.

And you're right about Hi-Def format popularity only in the enthusiast community at this time, however, the potential of reaching the key price point to lure in consumers is more feasible with HD-DVD than BD. You can find standalone DVD players as low as $399, and will get even cheaper in the $299 within next 6 months. Anyway, alot of red inks from companies balance sheets will mostly come from BD hardware supporters since Sony is taking away everything from the standalone BD player market. I guess the PS3 is trojan horse to itself. Eitherway, HD-DVD has won the Hi-Def format war in 2006, even with the great trojan horse from Sony.

Well stated. As you can see from the post above mine, some people here think the format war is all but over, but in reality, it has just begun.

Just to add to your sound logic, not only does the BDA have the bigge consortium, but also have the EXCLUSIVE power of Fox, Disney, MGM, and Lionsgate. Blu-ray definitely has a better chance in the studio side, the CE side, and the IT side. In summation, the industry in NOT on HD DVD's side.

Can anyone tell me why Blu Ray players are so much more expensive than HD DVD players? Is the basic mechanism more expensive because, perhaps, it's trickier to focus on data so near the disc surface? Are optics for HD DVD closer to standard DVD optics, and perhaps the overall price there benefits more from existing lower-priced tech? (Just wild guessing on my part -- please take that into account in your replies.)

That's just it, Blu-ray players are NOT so much more expensive, as cost of both HD DVD and Blu-ray players are the SAME--$499.

If you think the BD players are unfairly priced and higher, then buying BD movies would shock you once more. In average, BD movie titles cost more than the average HD-DVD movies. Of course, if you're buying a combo HD-DVD(which I hate supporting), which has DVD layer plus the HD-DVD layer on the flip side, would cost about the same as the BD movie prices, but most HD-DVD (dual layer) movies are cheaper.

Anyway, if you're comparing the street price of any of the Hi-Def players, then some of the online shops do offer $399 and lower prices which also includes 3 free HD-DVD's from toshiba promo.

BTW, here's a interesting read in PQ comparison of PS3 vs. xbox360 HD-DVD add on vs. SD-DVD. The reviewer gives the crown to xbox360 add on even it's only using analog vs. HDMI for PS3.

http://www.gamescentral.com/blogs/te...vd-vs-dvd.aspx

Are you referring to the Samsung BD-P1000? I hadn't see a Blu-Ray player as cheap as that until just now. I wonder if Samsung makes money on their player at this price, is losing a little (like I heard Toshiba does on the A2), or losing more money?

I'm still of the opinion based on the spread of prices I've seen up until now that the basic Blu-Ray mechanism probably costs more to produce, and if that's true, I'm wondering why that might be so.

As marzetta7 just pointed out, there is now the $499 Samsung option. Even then, I never said I thought BD was unfairly priced higher -- I was wondering if for technical reasons it costs more to make the basic BD playback mechanism. BD movies cost more for technical reasons -- more changes need to be made to adapt a disc pressing plant to make BD than for HD DVD, and BD requires a special spin-coat process to protect its otherwise dangerously fragile construction.