What's your deal, murch? Why is HD DVD such a big deal to you?
I ask because there isn't really anyone I've met besides you who is so fond of HD-DVD. Most folks with any degree of interest in the debate are either casual observers or Blu-ray supporters, which is perhaps nobler, since the Blu-ray technology is a little more capable.
And please don't tell me about some rationale involving Chinese disk manufacturers. The media cost and other associated cost differences won't get passed on to the end consumer, regardless of the format. As has happened in the past, marketeers at the agencies will collectively raise the HD market price, and consumers get screwed either way.
I think it's also still fair to say that "it's not even game-point for HD-DVD." Following the tennis analogy, HD-DVD certainly hasn't won a break-point yet. $499 is still too expensive, and puts it in the relatively small enthusiast market. It's certainly not enough to make the picture groups all of the sudden embrace HD-DVD.
I will let you enjoy your couple of hours basking in artificial HD-DVD light, but I think you are jumping the gun a bit too soon.
We'll know tomorrow, but if the hard time Sony has been giving the XBox concerning it's 1080i resolution is any indicator, I fully expect news about the PS3 and its capability of outputting 1080P resolution. Maybe even its price, but I won't count on this one.
Also, I expect more news displaying the durability of Blu-Ray discs as compared to HD-DVD.
Moreover, you know as well as I that the old cliche of "content is king" will be in full effect tomorrow, and considering that Blu-Ray has the majority of studios backing their format, who is going to buy a Toshiba player that only has a fraction of the movies available? Moreover, you underestimate the raw market penetration the Blu-Ray will have considering that the majority of consumer electronic companies back Blu-Ray. Moreover, consumers who see a $499 Toshiba player with a fraction of the movies, and the PS3 at what is expected to be $399/$499 price point along with the plethora of other Blu-Ray disc players and movies on the shelf from the 150+ companies, I guarantee people will choose the PS3 because they get more for their money--a High Definition movie player that plays more movies and a gaming console--and they'll see that Blu-Ray has more of a presence. Even if the consumer is not a "gamer" more consumers than not will reach for the PS3 because it offers more or they'll reach for another Blu-Ray player because their will be varieties of Blu-Ray players with of course, you guessed it the sole Toshiba player.
Again, economies of scale will win this war, and let's just say the majority are pro Blu-Ray which will also benefit the consumer by driving the price down. Initial pricing doesn't guarantee victory. I'm quite suprised you're getting so excited without seeing what all the other companies other than Toshiba have up their sleeve. We'll just see...
What's your deal, murch? Why is HD DVD such a big deal to you?
It's not really. I'll own both platforms likely and hope that I can sell off the one that looks like it's going to die.
I think HD DVD and Blu Ray have both made their respective products better. Now there is one last area to see reach parity and that's price. I've said all along that HD DVD will have a price advantage and as of today that advantage is pretty strong. I expect this to diminish once the PS3 ships however.
I guess I just looked at things from the perspective of what I want in a movie distribution format and I saw Blu Ray as selling more more sizzle than steak. I'm all for large capacity but within certain contexts.
I think the cheaper format will win seeing as how the quality should be the same.
That is 60 Blu-Ray releases to 10 HD-DVD releases with Disney, Warner, Universal, and others still yet to announce. Just something to think about when you walk into a Best Buy, Circuit City, or Wal-Mart. The walls will be covered with Blu-Ray movie selections.
Did you happen to notice in the press release you posted that the Toshiba HD-DVD player only does 1080i, not 1080p? Uh-Oh.
Have you seen the Blu-Ray players from Samsung and Pioneer? They are built like tanks and they do 1080p. These flagship models are always expensive. I'm sure they will drop those prices before their actual release thanks to Toshiba's pricing. See, Toshiba is good for something after all. Don't forget that almost every major manufacturer out there is going to have Blu-Ray players. You don't think they will all be priced the same do you?
I wonder, would it matter that the Toshiba HD-DVD player is $500 when the Playstation 3 will cost as much and do more?
At least your true colors are showing now. You claimed over and over to be platform agnostic but from today's posts we all see through your pretense.
Yes all those title will go really well with that stack of Blu Ray players at $1000 and up.
I've said all along that Blu Ray is too expensive and today the rubber met the road.
My next prediction is that cheap will trump all else including studio support. You are hanging precariously on a PR of movie titles with no pricing.
The reality..and it's a harsh one is that the PS3 wrecks the advantage of having multiple vendors. The PS3 isn't shipping for months but backorders for HD DVD are going on right now at Amazon, Best Buy, Crutchfield.
Blu Ray doesn't look as strong. CES 2006 definitely belongs to HD DVD.
Yes all those title will go really well with that stack of Blu Ray players at $1000 and up.
Blu Ray doesn't look as strong. CES 2006 definitely belongs to HD DVD.
I don't see how CES belongs to HD-DVD when only Toshiba and RCA are making players while everyone else is making Blu-Ray players. Also, only 10 titles so far for HD-DVD and 60 for Blu-Ray. Never mind the fact we have only seen a few announcements prior to the actual show.
The titles announced for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray suck, probably because the studios don't want to release any "big" movies until they see the encryption works as promised in the real world.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, the studio with the most at stake in its Blu-ray Disc format, is being the most aggressive with plans to introduce the upcoming theatrical release Underworld Evolution day-and-date with the DVD in late spring/early summer. The studio will have 20 Sony and MGM titles including XXX and Robocop ready to go even earlier, when players are expected to be released as early as March.
Sony also will release four catalog titles each month beginning this summer, every new theatrical release day-and-date on DVD and Blu-ray Disc and the first high-def version of a TV series to be announced so far from a major studio, Stargate: Atlantis.
Yes! Now come on Universal and give us Battlestar Galactica!
Additionally, Sony is going out on a limb and committing to the debut of two titles--Bridge on the River Kwai and Black Hawk Down--using the 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, which has been running behind development time from the standard 25GB single-layer disc.
The studio also is announcing plans Wednesday for summer titles featuring advanced interactive gaming using the BD Java software, which has sparked some dissension from Hewlett-Packard within the Blu-ray Disc camp. SPHE president Ben Feingold said the process is too far along now to turn back and not use BD Java.
As for the 50GB dual-layer disc, Feingold said both movies have long running times as well as hours of bonus features that the studio has produced but been unable to release on DVD because they take up too much space.
Sony also will take advantage of the enormous additional capacity to use uncompressed audio on some of its Blu-ray Disc titles, including two Sony/MGM titles in the first wave--The Fifth Element and The Last Waltz. Sony execs say that even movie theaters do not offer uncompressed digital audio.
Ah, I see the extra capacity of Blu-Ray is already coming in handy. Nice.
(e1618978, this is what you're getting at as well, no?)
Yes - if they offer 720p or 1080i on component without copy protection that will broaden the market interest.
Quote:
Originally posted by hmurchison
backorders for HD DVD are going on right now at Amazon, Best Buy, Crutchfield.
link?
Quote:
Originally posted by 1984
Ah, I see the extra capacity of Blu-Ray is already coming in handy. Nice.
HDTV is about 8.5 GB/hour for 1080p, so single layer HD-DVD disks are a little on the small size - but maybe we won't see single layer disks around for long.
HDTV is about 8.5 GB/hour for 1080p, so single layer HD-DVD disks are a little on the small size - but maybe we won't see single layer disks around for long.
8.5GB an hour using which codec and at what bitrate? Everything I have ever read is that VC-1 and H.264 hit their "sweet spot" at 12Mbps (anything more gives diminishing returns). At 12Mbps that is roughly 5.4GB per hour. I wish I had the links, but 8.5GB/hour seems a little high (aprox a 20Mbps bitrate).
8.5GB an hour using which codec and at what bitrate? Everything I have ever read is that VC-1 and H.264 hit their "sweet spot" at 12Mbps (anything more gives diminishing returns). At 12Mbps that is roughly 5.4GB per hour. I wish I had the links, but 8.5GB/hour seems a little high (aprox a 20Mbps bitrate).
If he's talking broadcast then he has to use up to 19.4Mbps as the data rate.
If he's talking broadcast then he has to use up to 19.4Mbps as the data rate.
And broadcast is MPEG2...So anything going onto HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will be using the more efficient AVC or VC-1, correct? Which means same quality in lower bitrates. Yes, I know they could use MPEG2, but why waste the space?
[edit] On a side note, can you convert from HDMI to DVI? My HD set has DVI on it, and I am wondering if such a conversion is possible.
As much as hmurchison is gloating, if HD-DVD fails, he'll have real egg on his face. This could very well shape up as a rehash of the laserdisc vs. Selectavision battle. All through that war, RCA played the quixotic outsider while MCA got more companies onboard to manufacture laserdisc players and discs. RCA kept harping about their price advantage, that their players were half the price of laserdisc players and CED discs sold for about $30 while laserdiscs of the era went for $40 or more. In the end, it didn't matter since laserdisc had the superior technology and industry support. Selectavision lasted three years. Laserdisc roughly 20 before being supplanted by DVDs.
And broadcast is MPEG2...So anything going onto HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will be using the more efficient AVC or VC-1, correct? Which means same quality in lower bitrates. Yes, I know they could use MPEG2, but why waste the space?
[edit] On a side note, can you convert from HDMI to DVI? My HD set has DVI on it, and I am wondering if such a conversion is possible.
I was talking about MPEG2 - I guess that HD-DVD will use MPEG4 and Blu-ray is going to use MPEG2.
According to the fellow "1984" on the other thread:
"MPEG2 is more mature in terms of encoding than MPEG4. More people are familiar with MPEG2 and the tools to work with it. The encoding process for MPEG4 is very time consuming and it takes a great deal of care to do it right adding to the production time. Since it is more complex it also takes a lot of computing power to decode. Even with a hardware decoding I saw artifacts in high-speed scenes on HD-DVD when there were none with Blu-Ray though the demos were of different material. It just couldn't keep up. The HD-DVD prototype also shut down repeatedly due to overheating. This was a while ago so I'm sure they have made progress but it shows what a pain in the ass MPEG4 can be to deal with. Don't get me wrong, I think it's the future but at the moment it's not necessarilly the best choice."
and regarding the new MPEG4 channels on DirecTV:
"I saw lots of digital artifacts on the MPEG4 channels. Don't know if it was the H20 or the transmission. The MPEG2 channels looked great though. They'll get it sorted out but MPEG4 will be a bumpier road, that's for sure."
I was talking about MPEG2 - I guess that HD-DVD will use MPEG4 and Blu-ray is going to use MPEG2.
Both formats will use all 3 codecs (AVC, VC-1, and MPEG2), its up to the content producer which codec they will use. I have watched some of the HD trailers on Apple's website (encode with H.264/AVC), and there are no artifacts. They look amazing.
Comments
I ask because there isn't really anyone I've met besides you who is so fond of HD-DVD. Most folks with any degree of interest in the debate are either casual observers or Blu-ray supporters, which is perhaps nobler, since the Blu-ray technology is a little more capable.
And please don't tell me about some rationale involving Chinese disk manufacturers. The media cost and other associated cost differences won't get passed on to the end consumer, regardless of the format. As has happened in the past, marketeers at the agencies will collectively raise the HD market price, and consumers get screwed either way.
I think it's also still fair to say that "it's not even game-point for HD-DVD." Following the tennis analogy, HD-DVD certainly hasn't won a break-point yet. $499 is still too expensive, and puts it in the relatively small enthusiast market. It's certainly not enough to make the picture groups all of the sudden embrace HD-DVD.
Originally posted by BrunoBruin
For those of you who can deciper such things, is it clear whether either format will output high-def over component?
Doesn't HD require HDCP?
Originally posted by JLL
Doesn't HD require HDCP?
Only if they choose to implement it. Or rather, if the movie studios force them to choose to implement it.
I will let you enjoy your couple of hours basking in artificial HD-DVD light, but I think you are jumping the gun a bit too soon.
We'll know tomorrow, but if the hard time Sony has been giving the XBox concerning it's 1080i resolution is any indicator, I fully expect news about the PS3 and its capability of outputting 1080P resolution. Maybe even its price, but I won't count on this one.
Also, I expect more news displaying the durability of Blu-Ray discs as compared to HD-DVD.
Moreover, you know as well as I that the old cliche of "content is king" will be in full effect tomorrow, and considering that Blu-Ray has the majority of studios backing their format, who is going to buy a Toshiba player that only has a fraction of the movies available? Moreover, you underestimate the raw market penetration the Blu-Ray will have considering that the majority of consumer electronic companies back Blu-Ray. Moreover, consumers who see a $499 Toshiba player with a fraction of the movies, and the PS3 at what is expected to be $399/$499 price point along with the plethora of other Blu-Ray disc players and movies on the shelf from the 150+ companies, I guarantee people will choose the PS3 because they get more for their money--a High Definition movie player that plays more movies and a gaming console--and they'll see that Blu-Ray has more of a presence. Even if the consumer is not a "gamer" more consumers than not will reach for the PS3 because it offers more or they'll reach for another Blu-Ray player because their will be varieties of Blu-Ray players with of course, you guessed it the sole Toshiba player.
Again, economies of scale will win this war, and let's just say the majority are pro Blu-Ray which will also benefit the consumer by driving the price down. Initial pricing doesn't guarantee victory. I'm quite suprised you're getting so excited without seeing what all the other companies other than Toshiba have up their sleeve. We'll just see...
What's your deal, murch? Why is HD DVD such a big deal to you?
It's not really. I'll own both platforms likely and hope that I can sell off the one that looks like it's going to die.
I think HD DVD and Blu Ray have both made their respective products better. Now there is one last area to see reach parity and that's price. I've said all along that HD DVD will have a price advantage and as of today that advantage is pretty strong. I expect this to diminish once the PS3 ships however.
I guess I just looked at things from the perspective of what I want in a movie distribution format and I saw Blu Ray as selling more more sizzle than steak. I'm all for large capacity but within certain contexts.
I think the cheaper format will win seeing as how the quality should be the same.
(Paramount)(10)
Aeon Flux
Four Brothers
Manchurian Candidate
Mission Impossible
Mission Impossible 2
Mission Impossible 3
Sahara
Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow
Sleepy Hollow
The Italian Job
Tomb Raider
U2: Rattle and Hum
We Were Soldiers
(Fox)(20)
Behind Enemy Lines
Fantastic Four
Ice Age
Kiss Of The Dragon
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
+15 More
(Lionsgate)(10)
Dune
Lord of War
Rambo: First Blood
Reservoir Dogs
Saw
See No Evil
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The Devil's Rejects
The Punisher
Total Recall
(Sony)(20)
A Knight's Tale
Black Hawk Down
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Desperado
For a Few Dollars More
Hitch
House of Flying Daggers
Kung Fu Hustle
Legends of the Fall
Resident Evil Apocalypse
Robocop
Sense and Sensibility
Species
Stealth
SWAT
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Fifth Element
The Guns of Navarone
The Last Waltz
XXX
Now for HD-DVD Movie Releases:
(Paramount)(10)
Aeon Flux
Four Brothers
Manchurian Candidate
Mission Impossible
Mission Impossible 2
Mission Impossible 3
Sahara
Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow
Sleepy Hollow
The Italian Job
Tomb Raider
U2: Rattle and Hum
We Were Soldiers
That is 60 Blu-Ray releases to 10 HD-DVD releases with Disney, Warner, Universal, and others still yet to announce. Just something to think about when you walk into a Best Buy, Circuit City, or Wal-Mart. The walls will be covered with Blu-Ray movie selections.
Did you happen to notice in the press release you posted that the Toshiba HD-DVD player only does 1080i, not 1080p? Uh-Oh.
Have you seen the Blu-Ray players from Samsung and Pioneer? They are built like tanks and they do 1080p. These flagship models are always expensive. I'm sure they will drop those prices before their actual release thanks to Toshiba's pricing. See, Toshiba is good for something after all. Don't forget that almost every major manufacturer out there is going to have Blu-Ray players. You don't think they will all be priced the same do you?
I wonder, would it matter that the Toshiba HD-DVD player is $500 when the Playstation 3 will cost as much and do more?
At least your true colors are showing now. You claimed over and over to be platform agnostic but from today's posts we all see through your pretense.
I've said all along that Blu Ray is too expensive and today the rubber met the road.
My next prediction is that cheap will trump all else including studio support. You are hanging precariously on a PR of movie titles with no pricing.
The reality..and it's a harsh one is that the PS3 wrecks the advantage of having multiple vendors. The PS3 isn't shipping for months but backorders for HD DVD are going on right now at Amazon, Best Buy, Crutchfield.
Blu Ray doesn't look as strong. CES 2006 definitely belongs to HD DVD.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Yes all those title will go really well with that stack of Blu Ray players at $1000 and up.
Blu Ray doesn't look as strong. CES 2006 definitely belongs to HD DVD.
I don't see how CES belongs to HD-DVD when only Toshiba and RCA are making players while everyone else is making Blu-Ray players. Also, only 10 titles so far for HD-DVD and 60 for Blu-Ray. Never mind the fact we have only seen a few announcements prior to the actual show.
The titles announced for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray suck, probably because the studios don't want to release any "big" movies until they see the encryption works as promised in the real world.
Sony also will release four catalog titles each month beginning this summer, every new theatrical release day-and-date on DVD and Blu-ray Disc and the first high-def version of a TV series to be announced so far from a major studio, Stargate: Atlantis.
Yes! Now come on Universal and give us Battlestar Galactica!
Additionally, Sony is going out on a limb and committing to the debut of two titles--Bridge on the River Kwai and Black Hawk Down--using the 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, which has been running behind development time from the standard 25GB single-layer disc.
The studio also is announcing plans Wednesday for summer titles featuring advanced interactive gaming using the BD Java software, which has sparked some dissension from Hewlett-Packard within the Blu-ray Disc camp. SPHE president Ben Feingold said the process is too far along now to turn back and not use BD Java.
As for the 50GB dual-layer disc, Feingold said both movies have long running times as well as hours of bonus features that the studio has produced but been unable to release on DVD because they take up too much space.
Sony also will take advantage of the enormous additional capacity to use uncompressed audio on some of its Blu-ray Disc titles, including two Sony/MGM titles in the first wave--The Fifth Element and The Last Waltz. Sony execs say that even movie theaters do not offer uncompressed digital audio.
Ah, I see the extra capacity of Blu-Ray is already coming in handy. Nice.
Originally posted by BrunoBruin
(e1618978, this is what you're getting at as well, no?)
Yes - if they offer 720p or 1080i on component without copy protection that will broaden the market interest.
Originally posted by hmurchison
backorders for HD DVD are going on right now at Amazon, Best Buy, Crutchfield.
link?
Originally posted by 1984
Ah, I see the extra capacity of Blu-Ray is already coming in handy. Nice.
HDTV is about 8.5 GB/hour for 1080p, so single layer HD-DVD disks are a little on the small size - but maybe we won't see single layer disks around for long.
Originally posted by e1618978
HDTV is about 8.5 GB/hour for 1080p, so single layer HD-DVD disks are a little on the small size - but maybe we won't see single layer disks around for long.
8.5GB an hour using which codec and at what bitrate? Everything I have ever read is that VC-1 and H.264 hit their "sweet spot" at 12Mbps (anything more gives diminishing returns). At 12Mbps that is roughly 5.4GB per hour. I wish I had the links, but 8.5GB/hour seems a little high (aprox a 20Mbps bitrate).
Originally posted by kupan787
8.5GB an hour using which codec and at what bitrate? Everything I have ever read is that VC-1 and H.264 hit their "sweet spot" at 12Mbps (anything more gives diminishing returns). At 12Mbps that is roughly 5.4GB per hour. I wish I had the links, but 8.5GB/hour seems a little high (aprox a 20Mbps bitrate).
If he's talking broadcast then he has to use up to 19.4Mbps as the data rate.
link
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...onics&v=glance
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-zqdNP3o...wzp*5MjiDnZK-v
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....cat80500050007
Universal added 24 HD DVD titles and I think Warner added more. I'm thinking we have about 100 Blu Ray titles announced in total and 60-70 for HD DVD.
Microsoft has announced a future HD DVD Xbox add on. No pricing given. Toshiba should be showing a HD DVD drive in a Qosmio laptop.
The Battle Begins.
Originally posted by hmurchison
If he's talking broadcast then he has to use up to 19.4Mbps as the data rate.
And broadcast is MPEG2...So anything going onto HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will be using the more efficient AVC or VC-1, correct? Which means same quality in lower bitrates. Yes, I know they could use MPEG2, but why waste the space?
[edit] On a side note, can you convert from HDMI to DVI? My HD set has DVI on it, and I am wondering if such a conversion is possible.
Originally posted by 1984
These flagship models are always expensive. I'm sure they will drop those prices before their actual release thanks to Toshiba's pricing.
I don't think so. Pioneer's model is from their Elite series where a regular DVD player costs $1,000.
Expect to see lower end models though. Philips demoed a consumer BD model, but they didn't reveal the pricing AFAIK.
Originally posted by kupan787
And broadcast is MPEG2...So anything going onto HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will be using the more efficient AVC or VC-1, correct? Which means same quality in lower bitrates. Yes, I know they could use MPEG2, but why waste the space?
[edit] On a side note, can you convert from HDMI to DVI? My HD set has DVI on it, and I am wondering if such a conversion is possible.
I was talking about MPEG2 - I guess that HD-DVD will use MPEG4 and Blu-ray is going to use MPEG2.
According to the fellow "1984" on the other thread:
"MPEG2 is more mature in terms of encoding than MPEG4. More people are familiar with MPEG2 and the tools to work with it. The encoding process for MPEG4 is very time consuming and it takes a great deal of care to do it right adding to the production time. Since it is more complex it also takes a lot of computing power to decode. Even with a hardware decoding I saw artifacts in high-speed scenes on HD-DVD when there were none with Blu-Ray though the demos were of different material. It just couldn't keep up. The HD-DVD prototype also shut down repeatedly due to overheating. This was a while ago so I'm sure they have made progress but it shows what a pain in the ass MPEG4 can be to deal with. Don't get me wrong, I think it's the future but at the moment it's not necessarilly the best choice."
and regarding the new MPEG4 channels on DirecTV:
"I saw lots of digital artifacts on the MPEG4 channels. Don't know if it was the H20 or the transmission. The MPEG2 channels looked great though. They'll get it sorted out but MPEG4 will be a bumpier road, that's for sure."
Originally posted by e1618978
I was talking about MPEG2 - I guess that HD-DVD will use MPEG4 and Blu-ray is going to use MPEG2.
Both formats will use all 3 codecs (AVC, VC-1, and MPEG2), its up to the content producer which codec they will use. I have watched some of the HD trailers on Apple's website (encode with H.264/AVC), and there are no artifacts. They look amazing.