Blu-ray vs. HD DVD (2008) - Page 5

FkuC me! now he's going to crap all over optical formats as a whole

FYI this isn't the BD Vs HD-DVD Vs Persistent storage, so go back to your nine disc Alien set and spread it out

The Wii phenomenon is unbelievable. Two Christmases gone, and still the must-have gadget.

I know someone who followed a Toys 'R Us truck around the city to find a Wii this Christmas. When the Balance Board and Mario Kart hit the streets, another wave of hide and seek shopping will ensue.

Is there any word on when the DVD-enabled Wii will arrive in '08? Not that it's a big deal, but I'm sure it will sell well as an all-in-one device for college dorms and children's bedrooms.

Frank what exactly does any of that have to do with HD formats?

The Wii has had an absolutely huge impact on the HD wars. By beating Sony into the ground and taking millions of households around the world away from the PS3, it may have altered the outcome of what would have been a much easier Blu-Ray/PS3 victory.

Pfft.. So your saying the Wii coupled with a DVD player is important to the HD discussion in here? I think you've mistaken this as a PS3 thread, and are just trying to misdirect the fact your posting is out of context in this thread. No big deal, but a mere Oops.. would suffice.

It was not my intent to derail the thread, I just figured the gamers in this thread might know.

I do think, however, that a Wii coupled with an upscaling DVD player might knock a few hundred thousand families out of the HD market. (By adding to the 'DVD is good enough' folks)

That could have implications for both formats, as in killing them.

Wouldn't most people just buy an upscaling DVD player if they wanted upscaled DVD's rather than a Wii? #1 it's cheaper. I paid $60 for mine. (sony)

Hm... I thought wii already had DVD drive and possible software download/upgrade may turn it into a dvd player? There's wii online shopping network and you can even purchase games and download directly.


This is so true. The PS3 was supposed to be the thunder for Blu-Ray, but the high price really killed it as game console but was/is still a great Blu-Ray player. When just looking at the US gaming market alone the units sold between Wii vs. PS3 is.... 8.2 Million vs. 3.4 Million as of 22nd of Dec. report.

What's interesting is that Wii only plays games right now. It doesn't even play SD-DVD..... LOL.

My bad.

Oops.. Sorry that was last year.

I spoke to one of my customer service friends at Best Buy yesterday. She said that they have had numerous HD DVDs returned because people buy them thinking they will get HD video in a standard DVD player. It's not Best Buy's policy to accept opened media for returns, but it has been a real problem, so they are allowing to swap the discs for BDs or standard DVDs. HD DVD was a poor NAME choice for a media format.

Consumers aren't smart, for the most part. At Blockbuster they bring up a blu-ray copy of a movie and I read off the name and format (just in case) and they ask what blu-ray is and if it will work in their dvd player. A lot of people still have no clue at all. I am surprised how many people ask if it will play in a standard player.

Bladerunner was a Christmas gift and given Amazon's timely shipping problems, the person buying the gift decided to go local even if it meant a higher price in order to be sure it was under the tree for Christmas.

Amazon orders are hit and miss on the shipping/delivery. I'm lucky compared to most, because most of my free shipping from amazon takes about 4 to 5 days at most. Most of my media orders usually ship from about 40 miles away from where I live and the actual delivery time is about 3 working days once shipped. I had received Blade Runner on the 24th, but I've yet to see the whole movie through. Twice I had tried watching it in the bedroom and did not make it through the film.

You're a lucky man getting such a fine HDM as a gift. Most of our family and friends exchange gifts for the kids, grand parents, and wives only and I usually end up giving than receiving. Actually, I did get something this year I guess. I used the $100 gift card on Wii accessories.

Did you just write that?

You didn't believe any of us earlier when we said that extras didn't matter, but now you make one of your famous turns.


No, but people speaking swahili might and it saves Warner money since they can have all localizations of HP on the same disc and manufacture them all at once.

And yet Sony's movies use the same DRM as HD DVD movies (AACS).

If you mean bad sound then why don't you just say so?

But bad sound is not the reason why many HD DVD and BD movies only have 448k or 640k DD (or DD+ in HD DVD land) tracks - space is.

And why compress a bad master to make it even worse? (in your analogy try recompressing your mp3 into a new mp3).

You're not arguing that bad looking movies (intentionally or not) should only be released in SD, so why make a difference regarding sound?

Sound and picture should be as close to the master as possible now that we have a format to release it on.

Except that AACS is required for Blu-Ray and optional for HD DVD. And Blu-Ray further allows for BD+, which is even more DRM. You can't argue this one, Blu-Ray has more DRM than HD DVD, and it will be more difficult to backup, or rip to media servers than HD DVD.

The inserts from Circuit City and Best Buy in today's paper had a buy 3 get 2 free offer. CC's offer looked to feature 14 titles while BB's was a little unclear, it showed 7 or 8 titles but the text seemed to imply that all HD-DVDs were eligible.

So far I haven't been too impressed with the BD BOGO offers as the lists have been too restrictive. I can find one that I'd be interested in but not a second title.

We we're talking about Sony Pictures specifically and they don't use BD+.

But managed copy is part of both specs btw.

And here I thought we were discussing Blu-Ray vs HD DVD. What is the purpose of picking one studio out of the lot when Frank was talking about the format as a whole. Plus, BD+ just became available recently (last few months). I would expect to see more and more Blu-Ray films to use it as time goes on.


This is true, but who knows what it means. For all we know it could mean iPod sized 320x240 backups allowed. I want full 1080p or 720p rips for my home media server. Plus this "feature" could go the way of many of the promised DVD features we never saw. I am not holding my breath.

I prefer this myself.I hate clutter and not having to worry about boxes everywhere appeals to me. If cds were downloadable in lossless I would never buy another hard copy again. With my Nano and Tomahawk portable amp and my laptop as my musical sources I only use the cd once to rip it. They just sit in there cases the rest of the time.


I have most of my movies ripped to an external hard drive. I drag them in my laptop when I want to watch them as I travel.


The thing I'm most excited about in upconversion is not dvd conversion (although it's great when you have your old movies) but the streaming type like Apple TV or my Xbox360. Just last night I streamed an avi version of the first Aliens vs Predator movie to my plasma tv using Connect 360 on my macbook. I was shocked at how good my Xbox360 made it look. HD steaming would be fantastic.


Upconversion is a big reason why people don't see the need to gamble and pick a side in this unresolved format war. A regular dvd can look pretty damn good with very cheap equipment.

I don't see what the fuss is all about. I thought these formats were completely cracked a long time ago.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-ente...ked-236213.php

I can't find the specific article now, but it was from a maker of a movie Chronos where on HD DVD he was able to produce the disk with no AACS, but on Blu-Ray he was required to include AACS. Here is a link toa forum post mentioning in: http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?...9&postcount=82


Re-reading Franks post, he does mention Sony, but I think he was refering to the more general Blu-Ray as a whole. We need him to respond back if he meant only Sony locking down their content, or Blu-Ray backers as a whole.


I am sure they will be identical on both platforms, but what is it that it will be? I am sure it will be something locked down, only playable on certain devices. Maybe even a limited number of times before you have to resync your disk to prove ownership? Who knows, but I can guarantee it wont be nice and simple to get the content where I want it.


Ripping != pirating (that is, unless you work for the RIAA/MPAA) Let me guess, you've never ripped a CD into MP3s in iTunes? You don't have an iPod (or other MP3 player) filled with music?

I don't want to rip to share (aka pirate), I want to rip so I have control over the quality of the content on my device. So I can rip to my home media server, or my iPhone, or my iPod, or my tablet, or whatever future device comes out that I haven't thought of yet. HD DVD allows me to do this currently. Blu-Ray does as well, but not on all titles. As time marches on, Blu-Ray has BD+ and RomMark coming down the pipe to help further lock down content. HD DVD has nothing else to lock us down with. I am for freedom, and HD DVD while not totally free, is the most free.

"Sony will do their best to lock up their content"


Fact is that Fox is still the only studio expressing their interest in BD+

I really don't think it's going to be a problem. They cracked the two formats about 4 days after they were out last time. I don't see it as a BIG ISSUE.

Hear Hear

Given that SonyBMG is the only real holdout still advocating locking up audio content, I fully expect Sony Pictures to take a second look at BD+ the next time some study says that more consumers are ripping movies. Sony still hasn't learned its lesson in how to treat paying customers.


Yes, I'm aware that BD+ is being promoted by Fox. I think the extra DRM sabotages the entire platform. I'm not entirely sure that companies won't follow Fox down this path later if BR wins.


The issue is that after this tedious HDM war, media companies must learn that formats with complicated DRM schemes will die in favour of more open ones. Otherwise, this whole battle has been a wasted opportunity.

From engadget:
As I've said before, I don't think Joe Consumer's buying in to HDM until he's in need of a new DVD player, walks into the store, and all they sell are HDM players that also happen to upconvert regular DVDs. Just like HDTVs, it's not catching on until it's the only thing you can buy.

Another week another loss for HD-DVD. According to the AVS forum Blu took another win for the week of the 23rd.

Nielsen contest results for 12/28/2007

Correct Nielsen/VideoScan ratio : 61:39


Same ratio as the week before. And apparently this brings us to 52 weeks of Blu trouncing HD-DVD.

Maybe next week HD-DVD will win? According to the HD-DVD camp wasn't there supposed to be a mad rush after Christmas for HD-DVD movies? You know due to all those tens of hundreds of HD-DVD players sold during the Walmart / Best Buy fire sales...

What are you, Marzetta7's second account? As I say to him, this is not a presidential election; nobody goes home empty-handed, and the loser having a 39% of the sales means nobody is getting "trounced". The ratio of sales for both formats are roughly the same as they were last February; this "war" has gone nowhere.

Those are US #s. Japan has like 97% Blu-Ray Europe is also far more favored for Blu Ray than the US. Believe it. HD-DVD is getting trounced across the globe. The US has the highest percentage of HD-DVD, and it's minimal compared to Blu Ray.

Which hardly matters for the purposes of North American adoption. Europe and Asia have often had differing hardware formats, and many tech companies prefer it that way.

And even with HD-DVD's so-called "minimal" hardware adoption rate compared to Blu-Ray players, HD-DVD is still walking away with almost 40% of HDM sales.

That is simply amazing.

I care as much about what Europe and Japan are watching as I do about VCDs and the PAL format.

It really doesn't look that way so far.