Why side with HD-DVD?

[Doom9]

The insane amount of bias and editorializing without referring to the technical facts really turned me off.Then I suggest you get outta here before you get my boot up your ass. Any and all reasons I ever voiced against Blu-ray are facts and I'm mostly seeing technically invalid arguments by people with no clue in favor of Blu-ray. The sheer amount of incompetent people out there who thin they're qualified to make a statement makes your head spin.

Besides the technical side, I have firsthand experience with plenty of titles from both format to underline the technical argument that size and bandwith are very much secondary to other technical aspects in video processing (starting with the quality of the master, over preprocessing and parameters during encoding). A well done HD DVD can kick a badly done MPEG-2 BD-25 title off the earth, and there are many BD-50 AVC titles that make a considerable number of VC-1 HD-30 titles look like crap.

And as far as the recorder arguments go.. first of all that's not the point of discussion here, but I'll humor you anyway by repeating myself (which I hate): it is more expensive to buy a dual layer blank than buying the movie. With today's reliability of harddisks, and the prevalence of NAS devices, you're much better off storing data on harddisks than on disks. And both CD and DVD broke through completely independently of the recordable angle. And as I said.. relevance.. nobody brought up recorders here because HD DVD recording has largely been, and will remain after Toshiba calling it quits, a non issue. You cannot even take HD DVD seriously as a storage format for your own content..

P.S. I own more than 40 Blu-ray titles (more in the mail somewhere), a Blu-ray recorder (6x, dual layer capable), and a BD-ROM drive.

[laserfan]

Ahem, if I might change the subject for just a moment: at least LG/Goldstar has come-out as still supporting the HD DVD format. Big company.

I dunno Rectal why you include Doom9 in your "fanboy" rant--compared at least to AVS Forum it seems the membership here has a ROM higher maturity level, if not IQ, than elsewhere! :p

[Rectal Prolapse]

laserfan: the response to my post does speak for itself, doesn't it? :(

doom9: Keep in mind that tools like tsremux and tsmuxer are quite handy for remuxing your own versions of Blu-ray, broadcast, and even HD-DVD movies for use in BD-Rs. It's quite convenient actually. And the BD-Rs work in the majority of BD standalone players too. It's nice that you don't need something like Scenarist HDMV to do this (or the equivalent HD-DVD version, Scenarist ACA which is now no longer supported).

Unfortunately, I've read an account on the Slysoft forum that HD-DVD-Rs have major issues playing in the HD-DVD standalones. :( However, not many people are doing this so it isn't known how widespread the problem is.

[Rectal Prolapse]

That's correct but you must've missed the point about Blu-ray production being heavily subsidized.. even though we're nearing 2 years, failure rates and cost are still high - but Sony eats up that cost, for now.

That may have been true a year ago. It appears to be different now, if you wish to believe the CinRAM (that's the right name I hope?) press releases on blu-ray yields (>80% for BD50).

Are you referring to Blu-ray dual layers? I think it may have been mentioned that BD50s cost less than a $1.00 to produce, but I don't know when this happened. I read it in one of the insider threads on AVS. HD30s are a bit cheaper I think, maybe on the order of tens of cents.

My understanding is that millions of BD25s have been manufactured (PS3 games mostly), so it can't be too bad.

[Rectal Prolapse]

Hmm, seems I misremembered. Just shy of 80%, not >80%.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-02-2007/0004674217&EDATE=

50 million BD50s? That doesn't sound right - that's way too many considering actually demand!

[zeroprobe]

doom9 have a read of this lengthy article. You might realise HD-DVD is not really the "consumers" choice after all.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/02/21/lessons-from-the-death-of-hd-dvd/


You should buy yourself a PS3 if you have not already. You might like it :)

[Sharktooth]

the article is pretty much full of BS.
even the consoles graph and the "words" do not match...
you gotta read carefully before linking that crap.
the guy seems to be an anti-M$ guy (even more than me!) and the article is very biased.
he forgot to say tha $ony has even worse practices than M$ when it comes to "controlling" something (rootkits... anyone?). in this case the movie business... and i dont think a codec or a format could make M$ in the same position of $ony...
infact, for example, even when $ony loose the VHS vs Betamax war they continued to grow and assimilate the movie industry "market" ... a recent act was the MGM acquisition...
in other words, he's looking at the finger but not at the moon...

[communist]

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/02/21/lessons-from-the-death-of-hd-dvd/

What a load of rubbish..

Backers were fed talking points that insisted that HD-DVD discs were cheaper to create, that the Chinese would pump out ultra cheap players to support Microsoft, and that HD-DVD’s DRM was somehow easier to get around than Blu-Ray. This was all false.
On HD DVD you 'bypass' AACS and then what? Disc decrypted - thats all you need to do to get to the video/audio streams. No BD+ whatever (regardless of how good it actually is).
This wasn’t a simple physical format war like the old VHS and Betamax rivalry; also at stake were the future of video codecs and embedded interactivity development.
What?! Give me a break, AVC/MPEG2/VC-1 are mandatory on HD DVD AND Blu-Ray. In the end the studios/authoring house decides which codec to choose. Given the enormous space on either disc type even properly encoded MPEG2 would work (not the kind of stuff seen on first Blu-Ray discs).
WinCE helped to destroy Palm
Palm destroyed Palm not WinCE.

[2Bdecided]

And the BD-Rs work in the majority of BD standalone players too.Can I clarify something here. I think I've read that AACS is mandatory for BluRay. Therefore compliant players won't play authored content unless it's AACS protected. I assume "consumer" authoring apps won't have this (and so won't exist).

Doesn't this make BD-R a useless format for my HD camcorder footage? BD-9 apparently works, but extra capacity would be "nice"!

What's the real situation?

Cheers,
David.

[Doom9]

doom9 have a read of this lengthy article. You might realise HD-DVD is not really the "consumers" choice after all.Unfortunately the Blu camp is still in full FUD mode.. instead of finally becoming realistic or simply have a drink to celebrate their victory (and be quiet in the meantime).

How can anybody honestly claim that HD DVD was Microsoft's format when they really didn't go out of their way to push it?

The whole site seems to be dedicated to Microsoft hate - just look at the images and the articles they link to (Microsoft's Plot to kill Quicktime, PS3 and the Death of Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Why Microsoft’s Copy-Killing Has Reached a Dead End, The Xbox Success Myth,

As far as VC-1 adoption goes, the author obviously never heard about Microsoft's effort in the broadcasting area.. VC-1 /WMV9 based IPTV solutions have been around long before we saw high def media an they will be kept around. Millions of PCs have the codec to play VC-1 already installed.

The paragraph reality distortion is is really that, but just in the inverse way:

It had already failed to successfully use WinCE in any other embedded market, from smartphones to music players to handheld computers, and had similarly failed to establish Windows Media as a download format against the ISO’s AAC and H.264, widely popularized by Apple’s iTunes.Look at the number of CE based smartphones, look at the number of PlayForSure devices - sure there are more phones with Symbian and a ton of iPods (that mostly play MP3 files), but neither WindowsMobile nor WMA are anything but a force to be reckoned with. In the online music area, even AAC will be scaled back as DRM free MP3 stores finally gain traction. And unlike the movie industry, in the computing industry the pie is sliced into different pieces - even on the OS market Microsoft is not the only player but has to share the pie with Apple, and various *nix flavors.

This is also a big strike against VC-1; despite being written into the Blu-Ray standard along with the ISO’s H.264,Umm.. about 1/3rd of all Blu-ray discs uses VC-1. Next please...
most Blu-Ray developers are moving toward H.264source please? Has warner given any indication of moving from VC-1? Has Universal given any indication they'd use AVC in the future? If not, those ratios are likely to go up as the MPEG-2 ratio goes down when more VC-1 (Warner, Universal, Paramount?) and AVC (Sony, Disney, Fox, Paramount?) titles are being released.

which not only allows them to master HD discs, but also deliver mobile and downloadable versions using the same codec for playback on devices such as the PSP and iPod.It takes the same amount of effort to include a second version encoded in MPEG-2, VC-1 or AVC (roughly, some encoders might be easier to handle and in that area MPEG-2, having being around the longest, probably has an advantage, followed by VC-1, and AVC being the late comer is likely not to have the most userfriendly tools yet).

Building support for HD-DVD into Windows Vista did almost nothing to shore up support for the format, and tying it to the Xbox 360 similarly did little to push things toward the outcome Microsoft wanted.umm.. last time I checked you still needed PowerDVD or Co to play any high def disc format in Vista, and the Xbox 360 add-on worked just as well on PCs.

The death of HD-DVD is another lethal wound for Microsoft’s dying empire.I'm sure next time around he'll tell us when Microsoft is going to die. I mean, come on

That whole site seems to be a glorious "Microsoft is Evil, Sony is good" incarnation. There's a fitting analogy to picture this, but I'm afraid it would require at least an NC-17 rating for this site to spell it out.

Did you just post that to get a raise out of FUD hating folks or do you seriously believe what's in the article? If it's the latter, you might better want to be very quiet about spreading that kind of crap as my boot still has plenty of kicking left in it.

@edit: wait, the site is also pro Apple against Microsoft? Talk about hate..

[Rectal Prolapse]

Can I clarify something here. I think I've read that AACS is mandatory for BluRay. Therefore compliant players won't play authored content unless it's AACS protected. I assume "consumer" authoring apps won't have this (and so won't exist).

That's odd - everyone I know who has burnt BD-Rs has no trouble playing content on their standalones and PS3s.

AACS is ONLY mandatory for BD-ROMs (ie. pressed media). NOT BD-Rs.

How can anybody honestly claim that HD DVD was Microsoft's format when they really didn't go out of their way to push it?

As far as I know, Microsoft has been there since before HD-DVD pushing their WMV9 codec (now called VC1) on AVS. I know - I was there when Microsoft employees were first convincing people to get on board with WMV9 with their WMV9 DVDs of such titles like Coral Reef Adventure, Amazon, etc.

Later, again on AVS (targeting the enthusiast home theater crowd), amirm, benwagonneer (who used to frequent doom9 I believe), etc. are evangelizing the VC1 codec as well as HDi and of course HD-DVD itself. How do you think the Insider's thread was born? It BEGAN with Microsoft employee insiders.

Microsoft has been pushing HD-DVD and the codecs HEAVILY. All you need to do is look at the 4 large Insiders threads. Count the posts made by amirm (the Microsoft VP) - they vastly outnumber the posts by all other insiders combined.

Please, I beg you, just look at them. Any reasonable person who looks in there should find it obvious that Microsoft DID try to push the format. It will only take a few moments of your time.

IMHO, Microsoft has done a very good job pushing the format. In fact, I was convinced for quite a while (a year or so) that HD-DVD was the way to go from a programming perspective (full disclosure: I despise Java! I'm a C++ junkie all the way! :) ).

Saying Microsoft didn't push the format is plain wrong IMHO - and is easily verified by looking in the threads I've mentioned. You can also see posts by the aforementioned Microsoft employees in many many other threads - just do a search for posts by amirm. Should be easy to do - easily verifiable!

If anything, what Microsoft did to push the format is a text-book example of HOW to push an agenda. They targeted well (programmers and HT geeks), allowed the audience to feel part of the Microsoft/HD-DVD team, forwarded concerns of the audience to related third parties (ie. report problems to the XBOX group, Toshiba). Very well executed - it forced the BDA to do similar things - the Fifth Element Remaster probably would never have happened if it weren't for Microsoft's splendid example of audience collaboration.

HD-DVD failed for many reasons - lack of promotion is NOT one of them! (Although to be fair, Microsoft didn't try as hard to get the Home Theater Forum members on-board - they concentrated mainly on AVS)

Microsoft, unfortunately, could not make any inroads into the broadcasting area - as far as I know, no broadcaster is willing to consider it (I believe the lack of true 1080i is the issue). It's a technical issue with the VC1 codec - I believe drmpeg is the one to ask to confirm this, as he works in this area. I could be wrong - I don't want to bother him as he is quite busy.

[Rectal Prolapse]

BTW, I think that roughlydrafted.com article is written by a pro-Apple guy. EDIT: Oh you mentioned that doom9! I find it amusing. But hey, if pro-HD-DVD people can bash Blu-ray and vice-versa, why not? :)

It is amusing - and some of his points were correct (the Microsoft promotion portion is spot on IMHO - although laid out too heavy for my taste hehe).

I've been on AVS for several years - so I've seen the Microsoft promotion since the beginning. Kudos to Microsoft for working hard to get people onboard the HD-DVD bandwagon - it certainly humbled the BDA.

[Rectal Prolapse]

Broadcast insider explains why VC-1 was rejected for the broadcasting space:

As for why VC-1 was not chosen for broadcast, the main technical reason is poor support of interlace. Everyone knew that interlace was added to VC-1 at the last minute (to get it though the SMPTE standardization process), whereas interlace is an integral part of the H.264 standard. Another concern was available room for encoder tweaking in the future. H.264 has many more avenues to pursue than VC-1, and some have even said that VC-1 encoder tweaking may have already peaked (while H.264 is expected to be good for 10 years, just like MPEG-2).

Then there are the political reasons. Aside from the obvious issue of just staying away from anything Microsoft, there was also the issue of future versions of WMV9 (WMV10,11,12......) competing against VC-1.

[Doom9]

Well, I know people who have VC-1 based IPTV at home and while quality isn't that great, the service works mostly fine.

And I would not confuse online activity in a single online forum with the kind of commitment we've seen from Sony & Co.
Having its hands in iHD and VC-1 Microsoft has an obvious interest in HD DVD but it is not tied to the format as VC-1 has other uses, and so has iHD. Releasing the Xbox360 with a HD DVD drive instead of the add-on and swallowing the cost of the extra price, paying off studios to go exclusive, getting studios to release combos a DVD price and scrap the DVD SKU - that would've been commitment. Sure it cost a pretty penny, but Sony is still bleeding through the nose and the investment is in the billions.

I'm also missing the regular press releases toting this and that milestone. The BDA had a very visible PR arm that easily outdid the HD DVD PG, and I'd expect quite a bit more from Microsoft if they were really at the helm.. (see the PR campaigns when a new Windows launches).

And, Sony Playstation fanboy and Apple fanboy = a lot of hate for Microsoft.

[Rectal Prolapse]

Can you explain IPTV w/VC-1? Sounds neat - is it the same as XBOX Live's Online movie service? Are cable companies offering it or is it a restricted market kind of thing (like, only in Seattle, or something similar?).

Releasing the Xbox360 with a HD DVD drive instead of the add-on and swallowing the cost of the extra price, paying off studios to go exclusive, getting studios to release combos a DVD price and scrap the DVD SKU - that would've been commitment.

There was a rumor that Microsoft was going to unveil an HD-DVD-equipped XBOX 360 - but they canned it at the last minute after the Warner announcement. I guess Microsoft WAS committed but backed out.

[Rectal Prolapse]

Oh I forgot to mention - Microsoft had around 10 or 20 minutes devoted to HD-DVD in their CES 2008 presentation. All that was cut at the last minute - I read that it was going to be a very big promotion of HD-DVD.

The timing of the Warner announcement was a big blow.

[Doom9]

Can you explain IPTV w/VC-1?It's actually a Telco that offers the service over their DSL network, as they try to make inroads into the TV market. They are thus in competition with the cable companies who use analog and DVB-C (but at least the largest cable company here added streaming video as well.. I do not know which technology they use though). At least another two Telco also offers Microsoft based TV streams to their own customers for free, but those require a PC as well (and isn't really made for long time fullscreen watching - unlike the first service I mentioned where you get a dedicated settop box, and they use about 5mbit for a single channel).

here was a rumor that Microsoft was going to unveil an HD-DVD-equipped XBOX 360 Those are just that.. rumors. Microsoft sold millions of devices since HD DVD came to market and they've shown to change the SKUs considerably over time.. so adding an HD DVD drive in Summer 06 would have been possible if Microsoft was truly serious about using the Trojan horse approach which worked quite well for Sony.

[Sharktooth]

actually M$ gained from the failure of HD-DVD...
now they will sell BD units to Xbox360 customers... even those which already bought the HD-DVD unit...

[Rectal Prolapse]

Thanks for the explanation, doom9.

[andru123]

I just wonder: who is going to buy the blu rays now or in the coming year - two?
I mean yeah, ok, the features would be nice to see, but is it really worth 400$ + 30-50$ per disk? (Note that it's in euros in EU). I'd rather have a new PC with a shiney proc. :rolleyes: Or am i that poor?

[Rectal Prolapse]

Everything seems more expensive in the EU. :(

Blu-rays are still cheap in North America - easily under $30 US, and for the older titles they are in the $20s. It's on par with the prices of DVDs within the first 2 years of DVD production. If you factor in inflation - Blu-rays and HD-DVDs are DIRT CHEAP even compared to DVD back in those days! Amazing!

Strangely, in the retail stores here, the Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs were priced almost exactly the same. Why weren't HD-DVD discs priced lower, if they are supposed to be cheaper to make? :(

[Shinigami-Sama]

Strangely, in the retail stores here, the Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs were priced almost exactly the same. Why weren't HD-DVD discs priced lower, if they are supposed to be cheaper to make? :(

you missed the part of Sony's Subsidies didn't you?

also I have yet to see any around my parts of Canada as well

[Rectal Prolapse]

Well, as far as I know both sides did subsidies - I read that Star Trek Season 1 was subsidized by Toshiba (at least the mastering costs). But hey, who cares, as long as the consumer can see the benefits?

[Doom9]

The strong dollar versus strong Euro doesn't help the comparison though, but discs are definitely way too expensive around here. I hope Regionfree will become a must now since at this point it really makes no sense to shop for discs anywhere but the US unless you like dubbed crap (and you hardly get any dubbed stuff in lossless anyway).
If you want to go blu for cheap, get the $110 LiteOn Blu-ray reader (it also only reads CD s and DVDs) and buy the discs at Amazon & Co.

[Rectal Prolapse]

Oh, there's a new LiteOn BD reader? Damn. I'll have to look out for that.

Anyways - yeah - I know quite a few people living in the EU that are importing Blu-ray discs from the United States. It's crazy how expensive electronics and media are over there.

[RealGreatIdea]

I can't really see why anyone would knock Blu-ray...it is def. better than any of its alternatives!

[Sharktooth]

IMHO blu-ray is going to die unless the equipments and the discs become cheaper.
also there's still the fact you cant backup your discs...

[Shinigami-Sama]

I can't really see why anyone would knock Blu-ray...it is def. better than any of its alternatives!

lol wut?
have you been paying attention at all to whats been going on?

[Rectal Prolapse]

I have to admit - the PQ of the Buena Vista and Sony BD releases are really damn good. And the audio quality is amazing too.

Differences in quality on either side are, from what I can see and hear, down to how much effort the studios want to put in.

[Doom9]

You certainly mean those early Sony 25GB MPEG-2 discs ;)

[Rectal Prolapse]

Don't forget those recent Universal HD-DVD releases that got low scores on hidefdigest. :)

(Like I said - studio effort...) ;)

[Undead Sega]

HD DVD is just the best :D

[Sharktooth]

... WAS just the best :(

[Undead Sega]

and IS still the best.

[Guest]

The thread has degenerated to useless chat. In lieu of strikes, let's just close it.