As I just read a post, or two above that Blue-Ray players will be able to play old DVD's plus Blue-Ray DVD I think there is a chance these will also be able to play HD-DVD with out much of a hassle. (probably soon after it's release)
This is it's biggest selling point to be able to play all three formats, and obviously the only to play the higher capacity Blue-Ray. Smart move on Apple's part originally at MWSF to announce their support of Blue-Ray, but joining the board will make Blue-Ray more attractive to onlookers. (no pun intended)
Now THAT is a lot more powerful statement than Apple joining the BR BoD due to the immense sales of PCs.
I plan on having both formats. Perhaps a PS3 for BD-ROM support and a HD-DVD player. I'm hoping there is nothing artificially limiting the possibility of a Universal player being made. That's the only win/win solution for us right now.
There's a pretty big list of Heavy Hitters behind Blu-Ray:
Its Board of Directors consists of Apple; Dell Inc.; Hewlett Packard Company; Hitachi, Ltd.; LG Electronics Inc.; Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; Panasonic (Matsushita Electric); Pioneer Corporation; Royal Philips Electronics; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Sharp Corporation; Sony Corporation; TDK Corporation; Thomson; Twentieth Century Fox; and Walt Disney Pictures and Television
Microsoft, ATI, and NVidia are also supporting Blu-Ray.
That's very powerful group.
I do wish they could have come out with a single standard. I guess it's like DVD-/+ all over again.
This is the key list so far.
Why? Without the mechanisms to run the DVDs (i.e., DVD players, burners, so on and so forth) that are all the major players listed above content producers don't hold shit in the way of power on this issue.
The same machines they use to encode these DVDs require computers with operating systems to do so.
Windows Longhorn won't see the light of day until 2007 and with all the fuckups regarding WinFS and major performance bottlenecks of Avalon it could be even later.
OS X 10.4.9 will be out before Longhorn and with it's native Blue-Ray Disk support, built-in I suspect a lot of content producers will be utilizing Apple's soon to be announced updated suite of HD tools.
All the major home DVD player makers are supporting Blue-Ray.
So let's see who will budge, eh? Care to wager the Producers don't have as deep of pockets? Afterall, the machine makers don't just make DVD players.
As was mentioned, Sony is huge into Movies, Television, Video Games and Music. Disney is more than just cartoons since it owns several other mainstream studios. The same goes for FOX.
Time Warner will cave first since it's stock hovering at almost $18/share hasn't done shit in 4 years and with their fiduciary responsibilities of serving its stock holders you bet either someone gets fired or makes the decision to join in with Blue-Ray.
With PS/3 coming out way ahead of XBox-2 Sony will only widen it's gap.
So far, MSFT (since I can verify this with the 10-Q) continues to lose hundreds of millions, per quarter, on the XBox. Having suffered over $2 Billion in losses on the XBox it will only widen when the PS/3 is released.
Gates will wish he had allowed the DOJ to break the company up into 3 or 4 separate corporations--the stock is so heavily saturated it's only providing dividends and absolutely no capital gains for the past 3 years. It won't improve either.
It's great if you are Bill Gates, but not if you want to make money on Capital Gains.
DELL is targeting $80 Billion/year future revenue sales. That means they must get more heavily into Consumer Electronics. They have lots of clout.
2007 is the transition year for HDTV across the U.S. Video Card Manufacturers will become important providers of chipsets in these systems pushing much higher resolution content. Nice to see they already back the standard with more options.
Is there any indication what the Adult film industry is backing? BIggest indicator will be there. I am not kidding.
Hmmmm "Blue Movies" on "Blu-Ray"?
I'd suppose many will choose the cheapest option which could be HD-DVD. Blu-Ray's "size" advantage may not be enough for the Adult Film industry to achieve appropriate market "penetration". Size does matter though and with proper duplication Blu-Ray may be able to get over the "hump" and achieve "climatic" sales.
Is there any indication what the Adult film industry is backing? BIggest indicator will be there. I am not kidding.
Funny. I think that's a bad indicator. It depends if they even bother to board it this early. Most people will continue to use a regular DVD player for years after, and if you recall adult film never fully made it to DVD right away anyway. It's only been like 2 years since they all new titles went to DVD. I think they will wait it out, and see what every body has before they jump on any bandwagon.
In the end, the same thing that happened with the whole DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM will happen again.
Manufacturers will just start making players capable of playing both formats when it becomes affordable and the format will become irrelevant.
Something I caught from the MacObserver article on this was this interesting tidbit:
Quote:
One way of bringing both groups together would be a technological solution. Japanese company JVC unveiled at CES a non-recordable hybrid disc featuring an integration of HD DVD/Blue-ray formats that could prove to be the answer. The new DVD has three layers, dual DVD-layers topped by a 25GB high-definition Blue-ray layer for a total of 33.5GB capacity. JVC said it is working on a four-layer disc providing two Blue-ray layers and two DVD layers for a total of 58.5GB of storage capacity.
Yeah, it was just a demo, but I agree that this points to a future more like DVD +/- rather than VHS versus Betamax. If Apple goes with technology like this in the future it won't matter either way if one format "wins" over the other.
Is there any indication what the Adult film industry is backing? BIggest indicator will be there. I am not kidding.
Big studios want Blu-Ray and small studios are tending to prefer HD-DVD but it's purely a cost issue there. As an aside the porn industry is one of the more eager areas to adopt HD.
You can actually just google the topic and find some stuff on it.
My take on it: We will see a development similar to the DVD+/-R(W) issue and in the home DVD-player area. Sooner or later devices will support all available standards as that is what the consumer wants - insert a disc and don't care about the format.
The fact that Apple joined the BluRay-forum raises an important question concerning future Apple hardware/software developments:
- Content is to be kept copy protected all the way from the drive to the display. This commands for HDCP compliant graphics cards and displays.
- They also need to implement provisions into the OS.
Apple needs to ship HDCP-compliant display as soon as possible as customers would be upset if they waited until the last minute. Do the HD-capable CinemaDisplays allready support it?
Will the next gen players support HD video on regular old DVDs? From a technical perspective this is perfectly possible (the new HD/AVC video has about the same datarate as the old SD/MPEG-2).
I think this is a very important question for Apple since all their video software already supports HD (hell, even iMovie does, I don't think there is any alternative that beats Apple on this one.) If the new BR players would also play DVD's with HD content burnt with your Mac, that would save Apple months (years) from fully entering the HD market.
Of course Hollywood doesn't want this for obvious reasons. (People would start ripping DVDs to CDs in AVC )
Will the next gen players support HD video on regular old DVDs? From a technical perspective this is perfectly possible (the new HD/AVC video has about the same datarate as the old SD/MPEG-2).
I think this is a very important question for Apple since all their video software already supports HD (hell, even iMovie does, I don't think there is any alternative that beats Apple on this one.) If the new BR players would also play DVD's with HD content burnt with your Mac, that would save Apple months (years) from fully entering the HD market.
Of course Hollywood doesn't want this for obvious reasons. (People would start ripping DVDs to CDs in AVC )
Data rate is the same, but how much data is in a single HD frame vs. a below 480 frame? You'll only get 1 frame per 4 (approx)
That last of what you said hardly matters because it's not the fact that the movies are HD or not. You've been able to rip movies from day one anyway. Giving them the HD moniker wont matter.
By law your able to backup your DVD's in the US, and that is why there is no way for hollywood, or anyone to prohibit it. They know the lawsuits will come flowing in, and they have never won on this issue AFAIK.
If Apple prohibited it they could, and would be sued too.
Funny. I think that's a bad indicator. It depends if they even bother to board it this early. Most people will continue to use a regular DVD player for years after, and if you recall adult film never fully made it to DVD right away anyway. It's only been like 2 years since they all new titles went to DVD. I think they will wait it out, and see what every body has before they jump on any bandwagon.
I think the porn industry will jump on any technology that offers a big jump in errr... higher definition as soon as they possibly can. They did with VHS and I am pretty sure with DVD (I think it was porn that drove a lot of the early adoption of DVD actually). DVD offered much more capacity, much higher quality and the addition of multiple angles and perfect freeze frame was also important. It will be the same with the two formats of HD.
If they're both blue laser products, and then we're really only talking about the difference between 20 and 30GB or 30 and 40GB, I don't see major quality differences being the deciding factor.
There was a scheme to put HD resolutions (highly compressed) onto regular old red laser DVDs, that's what I had referred to before, and I could definitely see huge problems with artifacting there, but not if it's just a few GB between friends. It's more likely that observers are "seeing" what they're "reading" on the spec sheet.
More improtant to the success of either format will be openness, timing, and content. Who gets the most studios on board early, and has affordable players out early, and doesn't antagonize consumers with undue protection schemes, that's the winner...
Apple needs to ship HDCP-compliant display as soon as possible as customers would be upset if they waited until the last minute. Do the HD-capable CinemaDisplays allready support it?
Nope. But I think the industry is going to move to HDMI for computer connections. Silicon Image just announced HDMI for computers with HDCP. I expect that in a year we'll see the migration begin from DVI to HDMI.
Quote:
There was a scheme to put HD resolutions (highly compressed) onto regular old red laser DVDs, that's what I had referred to before, and I could definitely see huge problems with artifacting there,
AVC at 10Mbps can do HD on red laser. It won't be as good looking as your HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc but it's definitely doable and not only that but you'll have damn near 2hrs worth of recording on a 8.5GB disc. I'm pretty stoked about AVC.
The more I research things the more I realize that Sony,while giving us great new optical tech, has screwed the consumer again with their self interests.
Hands down the best article you'll read about the two formats. Unbiased and informative.
www.hddvdprg.com check the technology of the HD-DVD format and then ask yourself why such an elegant bridge from SD DVD to HD-DVD is being talked about like it's some bastard inferior format.
The market always decides and usually goes with the cheaper option. HD-DVD will be cheaper and smaller initially. That's where I'd place my money.
If we get both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats, as so many believe will happen, there is good reason to believe HD-DVD is eventually doomed. The major advantage cited for HD-DVD is cost. However, much of that cost is investment in Blu-Ray manufacturing equipment, which disc producers will have bought no matter which formats wins out eventually. This cost will likely be passed on to consumers of both formats. Business people will want to pay off that new equipment regardless of which format wins.
So, we are left with just the incremental cost difference of producing discs. The cost for extra seconds of production time and coating Blu-Ray discs are likely to be a few pennies. When we consider the advantages of Blu-Ray, even a nickel or dime difference seems small. The cdfreaks.com article points out several Blu-Ray benefits, including much higher data storage, greater transfer rate and durability.
As a last point, I'd like to challenge a statement in the cdfreaks article, which says that DVDs and Blu-Ray discs cannot be made on the same production equipment. Later in the article a hybrid disc for Blu-Ray is mentioned. This hybrid is a double layer DVD (red laser) with a Blu-Ray layer on the surface. The question one must ask is, what happen if we leave off the step that puts on the Blu-Ray layer? Obviously, we then have a double layer DVD! So it seems that this is an area that has not been explored very much yet. Blu-Ray is new technology, and we can expect future engineering advances and cost reductions.
The whole concept of low cost of manufacturing is a weak argument for the HD_DVD. Mass production will drive down the production cost of any media. Are we going to argue that the cost of these disks are going to be more than VHS tapes? For example, we pay 15$ for a movie DVD while the DVD costs 50cents. I don't think any movie company will blink an eyelid before jacking up the price of a movie BD to 17$ if the cost of manufacture is 2$ for the blank disc.
My vote goes for Blue Ray. More storage capacity is necessary for the multimedia content of the future.
If we get both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats, as so many believe will happen, there is good reason to believe HD-DVD is eventually doomed. The major advantage cited for HD-DVD is cost. However, much of that cost is investment in Blu-Ray manufacturing equipment, which disc producers will have bought no matter which formats wins out eventually. This cost will likely be passed on to consumers of both formats. Business people will want to pay off that new equipment regardless of which format wins
I think you are totally incorrect for these reasons.
The cost savings of HD-DVD aren't just in manufacturing equipment but the fact that a production line can crank out HD-DVDs faster than Blu-Ray. They measure production by how many discs can be stamped per second. If Blu-Ray discs take a second longer to be stamped and the TDK coating applied then in a 24 hour cycle they've fallen far behind.
Next you have HD-DVD that shares the same disc structure as DVD. Thus they have a single-lens assembly that has diodes for both red and blue lasers because the numerical apertures are similiar. For those that haven't read the CD Freaks article. HD-DVD has a .6mm data layer and .6mm protection layer just like DVD. That's why you don't need caddies or special coatings. Blu-Ray has a .1mm protection layer and 1.1 data layer. So at this point it's not just the initial expenditure for production equipment that is slowing Blu-Ray down. They need to prove that speed can be brough up to par with DVD and even HD-DVD production.
I find it funny that people trivialize the cost difference as being a few pennies. I once read an article where a company was negotion a production deal that hung on the last "half penny" when you ship millions of discs you don't want to pay an extra few pennies unless there is no other option. That's your margin you're giving up.
Snoopy you stated "when we consider the advantages of Blu-Ray, even a nickel or dime difference seems small"
This is where Blu-Ray fans miss the boat. Both formats meet the movie studios desires to have HD content on a single disc that supports 132 minutes of video. This means that %95 of feature length films will fit on both formats. So my question is. "What about Blu-Ray is worth paying more money for?" and I state this from within the context of movie distribution. If I can produce my movie using the same codec and use one disc on both platforms. What's my impetus for choosing the more expensive Blu-Ray?
The DL DVD/Blu-Ray discs are technology demonstrations. It gets the geek in us all riled up but such a disc is likely to be even more time consuming read costly. The problem here is that these companies are showing us a bunch of cool things but where the rubber meets the road is cost. Studios have to finance these technologies and cost is a paramount issue. Blu-Ray is designed to be a very flashy format with built in Java and Internet access. Unlockable content etc. The question that seperates the wheat from the shaft is. "Will people pay for these extra features?"
Quote:
The whole concept of low cost of manufacturing is a weak argument for the HD_DVD. Mass production will drive down the production cost of any media.
Ok Talksense let's say you're going to have a movie or yours produced. You want 10 million copies made for distribution. Your choices are HD-DVD or Blu-Ray but there's a 2 penny difference between the two formats.
10 million dollars * .02 is $200k. Do you "really" want to give that up. That's your margin your talking about. That's someones salary for a year. We cannot talk about manufacturing costs lowering over time for Blu-Ray without proportionally giving the same advantage to HD-DVD. There's nothing inherent in the HD-DVD format that locks it in place.
"Just pass the cost on to consumers" is the mantra that people use. Right...so people are shopping at Target and Walmart because the are predisposed to paying "more" money? Or is it less?
HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray is lunchpail vs Glitz and Glam. It's Beige PC vs Aluminum Macs. Neither format is going to win this war unless we go out 10 years or so. Blu-Ray will entrench itself within the computer industry but I honestly do not think the extra value add features of Blu-Ray are going to survive against HD-DVD systems that should remain cheaper at the hardware and software level.
Blu-Ray's extra storage is nice but that only comes into play when you're recording your own data BD-ROM is going to have only what the studio wants to put on it.
Comments
This is it's biggest selling point to be able to play all three formats, and obviously the only to play the higher capacity Blue-Ray. Smart move on Apple's part originally at MWSF to announce their support of Blue-Ray, but joining the board will make Blue-Ray more attractive to onlookers. (no pun intended)
Originally posted by hmurchison
Microsoft has thrown its initial weight behind HD-DVD. If the XBox2 comes out it's likely to utilize HD-DVD now.
Longhorn to support HD-DVD
Now THAT is a lot more powerful statement than Apple joining the BR BoD due to the immense sales of PCs.
I plan on having both formats. Perhaps a PS3 for BD-ROM support and a HD-DVD player. I'm hoping there is nothing artificially limiting the possibility of a Universal player being made. That's the only win/win solution for us right now.
Neither format may join the XBOX 360
I think Microsoft is messing up there. If a PS3 is affordable and support Blu-Ray movies then hmurchison is buying a PS3.
I can understand MS wanting to keep things under cost though.
Originally posted by CodeWarrior
There's a pretty big list of Heavy Hitters behind Blu-Ray:
Its Board of Directors consists of Apple; Dell Inc.; Hewlett Packard Company; Hitachi, Ltd.; LG Electronics Inc.; Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; Panasonic (Matsushita Electric); Pioneer Corporation; Royal Philips Electronics; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Sharp Corporation; Sony Corporation; TDK Corporation; Thomson; Twentieth Century Fox; and Walt Disney Pictures and Television
Microsoft, ATI, and NVidia are also supporting Blu-Ray.
That's very powerful group.
I do wish they could have come out with a single standard. I guess it's like DVD-/+ all over again.
This is the key list so far.
Why? Without the mechanisms to run the DVDs (i.e., DVD players, burners, so on and so forth) that are all the major players listed above content producers don't hold shit in the way of power on this issue.
The same machines they use to encode these DVDs require computers with operating systems to do so.
Windows Longhorn won't see the light of day until 2007 and with all the fuckups regarding WinFS and major performance bottlenecks of Avalon it could be even later.
OS X 10.4.9 will be out before Longhorn and with it's native Blue-Ray Disk support, built-in I suspect a lot of content producers will be utilizing Apple's soon to be announced updated suite of HD tools.
All the major home DVD player makers are supporting Blue-Ray.
So let's see who will budge, eh? Care to wager the Producers don't have as deep of pockets? Afterall, the machine makers don't just make DVD players.
As was mentioned, Sony is huge into Movies, Television, Video Games and Music. Disney is more than just cartoons since it owns several other mainstream studios. The same goes for FOX.
Time Warner will cave first since it's stock hovering at almost $18/share hasn't done shit in 4 years and with their fiduciary responsibilities of serving its stock holders you bet either someone gets fired or makes the decision to join in with Blue-Ray.
With PS/3 coming out way ahead of XBox-2 Sony will only widen it's gap.
So far, MSFT (since I can verify this with the 10-Q) continues to lose hundreds of millions, per quarter, on the XBox. Having suffered over $2 Billion in losses on the XBox it will only widen when the PS/3 is released.
Gates will wish he had allowed the DOJ to break the company up into 3 or 4 separate corporations--the stock is so heavily saturated it's only providing dividends and absolutely no capital gains for the past 3 years. It won't improve either.
Last 5 year ride:
http://money.excite.com/jsp/ct/bigch...FT&chartdate=7
It's great if you are Bill Gates, but not if you want to make money on Capital Gains.
DELL is targeting $80 Billion/year future revenue sales. That means they must get more heavily into Consumer Electronics. They have lots of clout.
2007 is the transition year for HDTV across the U.S. Video Card Manufacturers will become important providers of chipsets in these systems pushing much higher resolution content. Nice to see they already back the standard with more options.
Originally posted by blue2kdave
Is there any indication what the Adult film industry is backing? BIggest indicator will be there. I am not kidding.
Hmmmm "Blue Movies" on "Blu-Ray"?
I'd suppose many will choose the cheapest option which could be HD-DVD. Blu-Ray's "size" advantage may not be enough for the Adult Film industry to achieve appropriate market "penetration". Size does matter though and with proper duplication Blu-Ray may be able to get over the "hump" and achieve "climatic" sales.
Originally posted by blue2kdave
Is there any indication what the Adult film industry is backing? BIggest indicator will be there. I am not kidding.
Funny. I think that's a bad indicator. It depends if they even bother to board it this early. Most people will continue to use a regular DVD player for years after, and if you recall adult film never fully made it to DVD right away anyway. It's only been like 2 years since they all new titles went to DVD. I think they will wait it out, and see what every body has before they jump on any bandwagon.
Originally posted by monkeyastronaut
In the end, the same thing that happened with the whole DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM will happen again.
Manufacturers will just start making players capable of playing both formats when it becomes affordable and the format will become irrelevant.
Something I caught from the MacObserver article on this was this interesting tidbit:
One way of bringing both groups together would be a technological solution. Japanese company JVC unveiled at CES a non-recordable hybrid disc featuring an integration of HD DVD/Blue-ray formats that could prove to be the answer. The new DVD has three layers, dual DVD-layers topped by a 25GB high-definition Blue-ray layer for a total of 33.5GB capacity. JVC said it is working on a four-layer disc providing two Blue-ray layers and two DVD layers for a total of 58.5GB of storage capacity.
Yeah, it was just a demo, but I agree that this points to a future more like DVD +/- rather than VHS versus Betamax. If Apple goes with technology like this in the future it won't matter either way if one format "wins" over the other.
Originally posted by blue2kdave
Is there any indication what the Adult film industry is backing? BIggest indicator will be there. I am not kidding.
Big studios want Blu-Ray and small studios are tending to prefer HD-DVD but it's purely a cost issue there. As an aside the porn industry is one of the more eager areas to adopt HD.
You can actually just google the topic and find some stuff on it.
The fact that Apple joined the BluRay-forum raises an important question concerning future Apple hardware/software developments:
- Content is to be kept copy protected all the way from the drive to the display. This commands for HDCP compliant graphics cards and displays.
- They also need to implement provisions into the OS.
Apple needs to ship HDCP-compliant display as soon as possible as customers would be upset if they waited until the last minute. Do the HD-capable CinemaDisplays allready support it?
Will the next gen players support HD video on regular old DVDs? From a technical perspective this is perfectly possible (the new HD/AVC video has about the same datarate as the old SD/MPEG-2).
I think this is a very important question for Apple since all their video software already supports HD (hell, even iMovie does, I don't think there is any alternative that beats Apple on this one.) If the new BR players would also play DVD's with HD content burnt with your Mac, that would save Apple months (years) from fully entering the HD market.
Of course Hollywood doesn't want this for obvious reasons. (People would start ripping DVDs to CDs in AVC
Originally posted by vroem
For me, the big unanswered question is:
Will the next gen players support HD video on regular old DVDs? From a technical perspective this is perfectly possible (the new HD/AVC video has about the same datarate as the old SD/MPEG-2).
I think this is a very important question for Apple since all their video software already supports HD (hell, even iMovie does, I don't think there is any alternative that beats Apple on this one.) If the new BR players would also play DVD's with HD content burnt with your Mac, that would save Apple months (years) from fully entering the HD market.
Of course Hollywood doesn't want this for obvious reasons. (People would start ripping DVDs to CDs in AVC
Data rate is the same, but how much data is in a single HD frame vs. a below 480 frame? You'll only get 1 frame per 4 (approx)
That last of what you said hardly matters because it's not the fact that the movies are HD or not. You've been able to rip movies from day one anyway. Giving them the HD moniker wont matter.
By law your able to backup your DVD's in the US, and that is why there is no way for hollywood, or anyone to prohibit it. They know the lawsuits will come flowing in, and they have never won on this issue AFAIK.
If Apple prohibited it they could, and would be sued too.
Originally posted by onlooker
Funny. I think that's a bad indicator. It depends if they even bother to board it this early. Most people will continue to use a regular DVD player for years after, and if you recall adult film never fully made it to DVD right away anyway. It's only been like 2 years since they all new titles went to DVD. I think they will wait it out, and see what every body has before they jump on any bandwagon.
I think the porn industry will jump on any technology that offers a big jump in errr... higher definition as soon as they possibly can. They did with VHS and I am pretty sure with DVD (I think it was porn that drove a lot of the early adoption of DVD actually). DVD offered much more capacity, much higher quality and the addition of multiple angles and perfect freeze frame was also important. It will be the same with the two formats of HD.
Never underestimate the power of Jenna...
There was a scheme to put HD resolutions (highly compressed) onto regular old red laser DVDs, that's what I had referred to before, and I could definitely see huge problems with artifacting there, but not if it's just a few GB between friends. It's more likely that observers are "seeing" what they're "reading" on the spec sheet.
More improtant to the success of either format will be openness, timing, and content. Who gets the most studios on board early, and has affordable players out early, and doesn't antagonize consumers with undue protection schemes, that's the winner...
Apple needs to ship HDCP-compliant display as soon as possible as customers would be upset if they waited until the last minute. Do the HD-capable CinemaDisplays allready support it?
Nope. But I think the industry is going to move to HDMI for computer connections. Silicon Image just announced HDMI for computers with HDCP. I expect that in a year we'll see the migration begin from DVI to HDMI.
There was a scheme to put HD resolutions (highly compressed) onto regular old red laser DVDs, that's what I had referred to before, and I could definitely see huge problems with artifacting there,
AVC at 10Mbps can do HD on red laser. It won't be as good looking as your HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc but it's definitely doable and not only that but you'll have damn near 2hrs worth of recording on a 8.5GB disc. I'm pretty stoked about AVC.
The more I research things the more I realize that Sony,while giving us great new optical tech, has screwed the consumer again with their self interests.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/186/4
Hands down the best article you'll read about the two formats. Unbiased and informative.
www.hddvdprg.com check the technology of the HD-DVD format and then ask yourself why such an elegant bridge from SD DVD to HD-DVD is being talked about like it's some bastard inferior format.
The market always decides and usually goes with the cheaper option. HD-DVD will be cheaper and smaller initially. That's where I'd place my money.
So, we are left with just the incremental cost difference of producing discs. The cost for extra seconds of production time and coating Blu-Ray discs are likely to be a few pennies. When we consider the advantages of Blu-Ray, even a nickel or dime difference seems small. The cdfreaks.com article points out several Blu-Ray benefits, including much higher data storage, greater transfer rate and durability.
As a last point, I'd like to challenge a statement in the cdfreaks article, which says that DVDs and Blu-Ray discs cannot be made on the same production equipment. Later in the article a hybrid disc for Blu-Ray is mentioned. This hybrid is a double layer DVD (red laser) with a Blu-Ray layer on the surface. The question one must ask is, what happen if we leave off the step that puts on the Blu-Ray layer? Obviously, we then have a double layer DVD! So it seems that this is an area that has not been explored very much yet. Blu-Ray is new technology, and we can expect future engineering advances and cost reductions.
Edit: corrected spelling
My vote goes for Blue Ray. More storage capacity is necessary for the multimedia content of the future.
If we get both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats, as so many believe will happen, there is good reason to believe HD-DVD is eventually doomed. The major advantage cited for HD-DVD is cost. However, much of that cost is investment in Blu-Ray manufacturing equipment, which disc producers will have bought no matter which formats wins out eventually. This cost will likely be passed on to consumers of both formats. Business people will want to pay off that new equipment regardless of which format wins
I think you are totally incorrect for these reasons.
The cost savings of HD-DVD aren't just in manufacturing equipment but the fact that a production line can crank out HD-DVDs faster than Blu-Ray. They measure production by how many discs can be stamped per second. If Blu-Ray discs take a second longer to be stamped and the TDK coating applied then in a 24 hour cycle they've fallen far behind.
Next you have HD-DVD that shares the same disc structure as DVD. Thus they have a single-lens assembly that has diodes for both red and blue lasers because the numerical apertures are similiar. For those that haven't read the CD Freaks article. HD-DVD has a .6mm data layer and .6mm protection layer just like DVD. That's why you don't need caddies or special coatings. Blu-Ray has a .1mm protection layer and 1.1 data layer. So at this point it's not just the initial expenditure for production equipment that is slowing Blu-Ray down. They need to prove that speed can be brough up to par with DVD and even HD-DVD production.
I find it funny that people trivialize the cost difference as being a few pennies. I once read an article where a company was negotion a production deal that hung on the last "half penny" when you ship millions of discs you don't want to pay an extra few pennies unless there is no other option. That's your margin you're giving up.
Snoopy you stated "when we consider the advantages of Blu-Ray, even a nickel or dime difference seems small"
This is where Blu-Ray fans miss the boat. Both formats meet the movie studios desires to have HD content on a single disc that supports 132 minutes of video. This means that %95 of feature length films will fit on both formats. So my question is. "What about Blu-Ray is worth paying more money for?" and I state this from within the context of movie distribution. If I can produce my movie using the same codec and use one disc on both platforms. What's my impetus for choosing the more expensive Blu-Ray?
The DL DVD/Blu-Ray discs are technology demonstrations. It gets the geek in us all riled up but such a disc is likely to be even more time consuming read costly. The problem here is that these companies are showing us a bunch of cool things but where the rubber meets the road is cost. Studios have to finance these technologies and cost is a paramount issue. Blu-Ray is designed to be a very flashy format with built in Java and Internet access. Unlockable content etc. The question that seperates the wheat from the shaft is. "Will people pay for these extra features?"
The whole concept of low cost of manufacturing is a weak argument for the HD_DVD. Mass production will drive down the production cost of any media.
Ok Talksense let's say you're going to have a movie or yours produced. You want 10 million copies made for distribution. Your choices are HD-DVD or Blu-Ray but there's a 2 penny difference between the two formats.
10 million dollars * .02 is $200k. Do you "really" want to give that up. That's your margin your talking about. That's someones salary for a year. We cannot talk about manufacturing costs lowering over time for Blu-Ray without proportionally giving the same advantage to HD-DVD. There's nothing inherent in the HD-DVD format that locks it in place.
"Just pass the cost on to consumers" is the mantra that people use. Right...so people are shopping at Target and Walmart because the are predisposed to paying "more" money? Or is it less?
HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray is lunchpail vs Glitz and Glam. It's Beige PC vs Aluminum Macs. Neither format is going to win this war unless we go out 10 years or so. Blu-Ray will entrench itself within the computer industry but I honestly do not think the extra value add features of Blu-Ray are going to survive against HD-DVD systems that should remain cheaper at the hardware and software level.
Blu-Ray's extra storage is nice but that only comes into play when you're recording your own data BD-ROM is going to have only what the studio wants to put on it.