Why side with HD-DVD?

[resonator]

Hey!

I've been registered here (and been reading) for years now, and I rarely ever comment, but I just can't get my head around the fact that so many guys around here including doom9 himself side with HD-DVD. I own a Toshiba notebook with a built-in HD drive and I own a few discs, but even I can see that it just doesn't matter what format wins as long as ONE DOES win. All the disadvantages for (let's call them) fair use people will be gone soon as far as I can tell, copy protection is already broken and region codes will most likely be a non-issue as soon as cheap chinese players hit the market. So what's the point? Both camps have companies on their side that are, to say the least, "unpleasant", like Sony or Microsoft.

This is a serious question, what's the point in supporting HD-DVD?

[Doom9]

Most of what I wrote back in August 07 (http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/no_choice.htm) still applies today.

And you are very much mistaken on the copy protection angle.. no recent Fox disc can be backed up in a meaningful way (the BD+ without AACS playback hole has long since been plugged and since a BD-R 50 costs at least as much as the original movie, even if you have an unplugged standalone it makes more sense to buy a second copy of the movie ).

[Inventive Software]

It has the better fair use agreements:

No region coding, which bastardised the DVD format and has made its way to Blu-Ray, and is probably the most influential reason behind most of the big studios jumping ship.

It's cheaper to mass-produce. Blu-Ray requires a whole different kind of machine to press discs, HD-DVD can be pressed on DVD pressers with a few adjustments.

Less copy-protection, it has just AACS, and even that's optional, which makes it more attractive to the independent studios. Blu-Ray has region-coding, and mandatory AACS, and BD+, which is a Virtual Machine that checks the playback device and decides whether it wants to let you watch your $30 HD movie that you've just purchased, that slows down the players to the point that it becomes less attractive to watch a movie in High Definition.

It's cheaper to include it in PCs and laptops. I've not seen any Blu-Ray laptops, they've all been HD-DVD. The vast majority of HD enabled laptops are HD-DVD.

Players and drives are cheaper to produce, therefore cheaper for the consumer. $99 for a 2nd-gen HD-DVD player? $149 for a 3rd-gen player? How about $299 for a 2nd-gen Blu-Ray player, and $199 for a 3rd-gen player? But these aren't fully profile-compatible and future-proof. No, for that you need the PS3, which is $399 for the basic job, and unlikely to come down in price because it's so expensive to produce. Plus, these HD players upscale your precious (not to mention, according to both sides of execs but especially the Blu-Ray camp, out-dated) DVD collection so your fancy HDTV can show these wonderful movies.

And you can ignore the capacity reason (HD-DVD dual-layers are 30 GB to Blu-Rays 50 GB dual-layer) that's touted by nearly all the Blu-Ray fanboys. HD-DVD have a 51 GB tri-layer disc in the manufacturing pipeline. The quality issue Blu-Ray fanboys go on about is non-existant because it's the software or hardware that you use to encode the movie, not the bandwidth. The quality of HD x264 encodes on this forum alone justify using that and contributing to its source code for the features it doesn't have that you need than spending $10000 on an encoder that takes twice as long and has a crap output on it.


That's the most obvious set of reasons, and somebody with more time than me can find the links to back them up.

In all honesty, it's cheaper to watch it at the cinema, which is a shame. :(

[Shakey_Jake33]

Less copy-protection, just AACS. Blu-Ray has region-coding, and BD+, which is a Virtual Machine that checks the playback device and decides whether it wants to let you watch your $30 HD movie that you've just purchased, that slows down the players to the point that it becomes less attractive to watch a movie in High Definition.
See, this is the only pro-HD-DVD arguement I've always had trouble agreeing with. It paints Toshiba as pro-consumer martyrs by not including BD+, but the reality is they're as anti-fair use as the rest of them, hence the inclusion of AACS. If HD-DVD had no copy protection at all, then I could agree, but the fact is they're still 100% about restricting copying, that's why AACS exists, and why they keep updating it.

I agree the lack of BD+ is a useful bonus (until BD+ is fully defeated), but Toshiba don't deserve the martyr credit they get for that.

[communist]

It's cheaper to include it in PCs and laptops. I've not seen any Blu-Ray laptops, they've all been HD-DVD. The vast majority of HD enabled laptops are HD-DVD.
Really? You havent at least seen or heard about Sony's Vaio line of notebooks from which some come with a BR drive?

IIRC cost point is also not relevant anymore as they (discs/players) are equivalently cheap to produce. Its just that Toshiba kept lowering prices to fight the BR-camp.

[Mug Funky]

i suppose it doesn't matter anymore, but my main reason for siding with HD-DVD was that it required a simple upgrade of existing DVD replicating machines to be able to press HD discs, whereas blu-ray required completely new machines.

what this means? HD-DVD gear could still press DVDs, and hence DVD releases would have better physical quality due to the tighter tolerances involved in HD-DVD.

i've seen enough replication faults to know that alone was a good reason to back HD-DVD.

that and porn :)

[Doom9]

You havent at least seen or heard about Sony's Vaio line of notebooks from which some come with a BR drive?Did you note that those need a special form factor due to the drive's size?

Only a few months ago, Blu-ray drives finally became available in the standard notebook form factor (e.g. something like this (http://cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=22404))

Needless to say that a special form factor means additional cost.

And Mug Funky brings up a good point from a point that is often ignored since users don't get to see it. If you follow the insider thread at AVS, you'll see that replication is a major problem for Blu-ray (yes, even today).. those prices that were published quite a while back actually include Sony's subsidies for the format, and even as late as last fall, failure rates were around 1 out of 3 for Blu-ray discs (I could be off with the percentages), and I think somebody mentioned that without subsidies a BD-50 disc currently costs $4 to replicate (compared to less than $2 for a HD DVD-30, which on top of that can be replicated with a 95%+ success rate and in less time).

At some point Sony's subsidies to major studios will run out (ever wondered why smaller studios sided mostly with HD DVD? They don't get any subsidies and have to pay the full price, plus with HD DVD they had the option to leave out AACS which can further bring down costs) - can anybody be certain that at that point studios won't suddenly face a significantly higher replication cost, which then translates into either a lower margin for them, or a high price for consumers?

So, in the end, wouldn't you like to have cheap players AND discs (especially the latter since you will spend a lot more on discs than on the player) ? I've been around when DVD was started, and did quite a bit of shopping at Amazon (initially, I had hardly any Region 2 DVDs and even today I have more Region 1 than Region 2 discs), and the massive discounts we saw during the past year were something new to me entirely (especially early in a format's lifetime).. when the competition goes, so goes the pressure for lower prices - and it's anybody's guess if studios really aim to replace DVDs within a few years or if they settle on high def as a value added product with a hefty markup.

And, BD-J, due to its complexity, means higher production cost as well.. sum this all up and ask yourself which format has the better chance of standing a good chance of replacing DVD within the next few years.

[Sharktooth]

AACS on HD-DVD was a sort or "requisite". The movie industry will never accept a non-protected format. AACS was the new toy and it had to be included in the format (but it's not mandatory in HD-DVDs)... otherwise, no support from "the jackals"...
however, at this point i only hope HD biz falls into misery and the movie industry (expecially Sony) will burn to the ground wasting their money on the HD failure...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

however, at this point i only hope HD biz falls into misery and the movie industry (expecially Sony) will burn to the ground wasting their money on the HD failure...

So that M$ will control the HD market with their planned Video on Demand service?
Not really a better solution for the customer.

Also I think HD cannot be stopped at this point. All those people want food for their monstrous HD screens ;)
No matter which consortium controls the HD market...

[Sharktooth]

M$ is far away from controlling the HD market.
However VoD is the key. It's cheap (with ADSL2+ HD is accessible to everyone) and it (re)uses the already available tech.
with an internet connection you can make worldwide telephone calls (VoIP), watch and record movies/TV/cable and sat channels (even in HD) on your PC or using an appropriate ethernet decoder (like the FastWeb Videostation) and obviously surf the web...

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hmm...

I dare say it wont be long before we could conceivably see cost effective 30-50GB "solid-state" read-only memory cards. Thus making any high-def "spinning disc" format redundant :eek:

[laserfan]

...even I can see that it just doesn't matter what format wins as long as ONE DOES win.But resonator I would take the opposing view: that having more than one "standard" is GOOD. That the Competition that results is good for consumers, good for the marketplace. Can you even imagine how expensive BD players and discs would be if HD DVD had not existed? And they're STILL crap from a performance/updates POV--what incentive would they have to fix the problems if HD DVD weren't around?

People seem to want one standard, but there are "multiple standards" for everything (think about plumbing pipe for example, there must be 5 or 6 different standards to choose from) why not HD DVD? Yeah I know, the studios only want to publish in one format. That's why I've thought combo discs were the ultimate winner--both SD and HD DVD in the same package.

One wonders if the studios attracted to BD are doing so because they think BD will win in the copy-protection area. If that's the case I think that'll be proven to be a wild-goose-chase.

Does anyone have any predictions as to when BD junk will finally work reliably BTW? :o

[foxyshadis]

Well, we may as well discuss the merits of Betamax over VHS. The fat lady's sung, all that's left is to try to find some hole in the specs that allows non-AACS Bluray discs, for budget and home users, and of course wait for a full leak and break of BD+ (involving running the entire virtual machine - slow as hell, probably).

Maybe HD-DVD will find a niche as a SVCD-style compatible format, so that we can keep using it in bluray players if we want, but there likely won't be many more commercial releases in it, nor will the 51GB format likely ever surface.

[Schrade]

No region coding, which bastardised the DVD format and has made its way to Blu-Ray, and is probably the most influential reason behind most of the big studios jumping ship.

Is that actually specified in the spec? As in you cannot use region coding? Because from what I remember reading over at AVSForum, the insiders said that region coding IS there, they just haven't required its use yet. And emphasis was put on yet.

Anyhow, lots of Blu-Ray movies don't have region coding. You can see what movies do and don't have region coding here:

http://bluray.liesinc.net/

Even some Sony releases are region free ;)

Players and drives are cheaper to produce, therefore cheaper for the consumer. $99 for a 2nd-gen HD-DVD player? $149 for a 3rd-gen player? How about $299 for a 2nd-gen Blu-Ray player, and $199 for a 3rd-gen player? But these aren't fully profile-compatible and future-proof. No, for that you need the PS3, which is $399 for the basic job, and unlikely to come down in price because it's so expensive to produce. Plus, these HD players upscale your precious (not to mention, according to both sides of execs but especially the Blu-Ray camp, out-dated) DVD collection so your fancy HDTV can show these wonderful movies.
They're cheaper to produce AT THIS MOMENT. Things will get cheaper. They always do. DVD never had a problem getting cheaper when it was the only format around. All technology gets cheaper and cheaper. It's inevitable. Hell, Blu-Ray and HD DVD movies already have been selling for less than what original DVD movies were.

The PS3 price is coming down as well. It's a gaming console. All gaming consoles come down in price as quickly as they can. The less the price of a gaming console the more the market will buy it. The PS3 will be having more price drops in the coming years. It's inevitable as well. To say it won't is just foolish.

Also, the PS3 is arguably one of the better DVD upscalers out there. It's definitely better than the Xbox 360's scaling. Hey, it's also a media center - imagine that! You can store your encoded movies on the hard drive that comes standard with every PS3 and it's just a standard SATA laptop drive that you can upgrade whenever you want. And if you don't want to upgrade it you can just use external USB hard drives. The PS3 is pretty nice for us video encoding folks.

While Blu-Ray isn't everything that we open source and restriction-free standards advocates want, it certainly isn't as bad as many people paint it.

We all think Sony's meddling with DRM is a bad thing. Hopefully they'll grow up and get over it. They already had to get over it with music. Maybe video will be next to come.

[Sharktooth]

bull$hit. we all know it's not regional coding the real problem.
Sony's proprietary crap is becoming a new standard and Sony is one of the majors in the movie industry...
Can you spot the connection? They're trying to lock the consumer down to their interests...

[laserfan]

Well, we may as well discuss the merits of Betamax over VHS. The fat lady's sung...What opera are you listening to? It's still all rumor and conjecture that Toshiba itself is throwing-in the towel, but they haven't (just) yet.

Maybe they're waiting 'til Bill Gates gets-in to his office to discuss it with him first... :p

[Schrade]

bull$hit. we all know it's not regional coding the real problem.
Yes but as you can see, people point to it as a problem when it really isn't as big of a problem as many seem to think.

Sony's proprietary crap is becoming a new standard and Sony is one of the majors in the movie industry...
Can you spot the connection? They're trying to lock the consumer down to their interests...
Was Sony the full designer and manufacturer of the Blu-Ray standard and its specs?

[Sharktooth]

99% sony, 1% the rest of BDA...

[Schrade]

99% sony, 1% the rest of BDA...
Can you point me to where you got this info from? I want to read about what companies were involved from the beginning in the whole process.

[Doom9]

Hey, it's also a media center - imagine that! You can store your encoded movies on the hard drive that comes standard with every PS3 and it's just a standard SATA laptop drive that you can upgrade whenever you want.My $179 Popcorn Hour whoops the floor with anything that has a Sony or Microsoft logo on it ;) That should come as no surprise, since neither company is known for making products that customers demand but rather trying to force them onto something they can make a lot of money off. If you're in the market for a high def streaming device, there's no gaming console that will ever fit the bill.
Looking at how these devices (as well as the PSP) have evolved over time in terms of allowing people to do more (the hardware power is there.. it's only a matter of exposing it), shows only contempt for alternative use. How long did it take again until these consoles played DivX and XviD? I've had an elta player which handled both formats years ago. Just imagine what you could do with an Xbox 360 or a PS3 if MS/Sony fully exposed their hardware and wouldn't try at each turn to throw wrenches into the wheels of third party developers.

Was Sony the full designer and manufacturer of the Blu-Ray standard and its specs?Some people at AVS claim that Panasonic was the main driver behind the physical specs - that has me a bit wondering though since I recall that it was Sony that presented the 25GB optical disc for data storage back in 1999. Either way it would be nice to see how patents and royalties are really distributed and who gets how much per disc/player sold.

Looking at how many players are out there, the percentage that has a Sony logo on it is staggering though so it shouldn't come as a surprise that Blu-ray is closely associated with Sony. If you look at the playing field 1.5 years into the launch of DVD, the playing field was a lot more leveled.

[foxyshadis]

What opera are you listening to? It's still all rumor and conjecture that Toshiba itself is throwing-in the towel, but they haven't (just) yet.

Maybe they're waiting 'til Bill Gates gets-in to his office to discuss it with him first... :p

The sales collapse following the warner defection, and the recent shift of major retailers & netflix to bluray exclusivity. It'll take weeks or months to filter out all of the HD-DVD titles, but if they don't order more, the format is finished commercially.

[CRUSHPROOFBOX]

In essence, Bluray is just a storage medium, you can still put an hd-dvd on it using either spec. If Toshiba had a brain they would have used Bluray media and come out with a firmware upgradeable player that could play both specs. The HD-DVD spec is eaiser to work with (I've already made backups with my own menus) and standardized before players were released.

[laserfan]

The sales collapse following the warner defection, and the recent shift of major retailers & netflix to bluray exclusivity. It'll take weeks or months to filter out all of the HD-DVD titles, but if they don't order more, the format is finished commercially.You said: "the fat lady has sung" which if English is not your first language means "it's formally over". It's not, Toshiba has not (yet) conceded despite what the rumour-mongerers continue to blather...

[foxyshadis]

You said: "the fat lady has sung" which if English is not your first language means "it's formally over". It's not, Toshiba has not (yet) conceded despite what the rumour-mongerers continue to blather...

Well, if HD-DVD pulls out of this, I'll put a few on a Dodgers pennant this year.

[Shakey_Jake33]

In fairness, I don't think it's unfair to say that believing HD-DVD still has a future is denial more than anything else, regardless of the fact that Toshiba has yet to go official.

Do duplication failure rates and the like really matter to us, the consumer? Good point made about DVD duplication quality being improved thanks to the tighter HD-DVD duplication stuff, but past that, I'm not sure I see the importance to the consumer. Certainly from what I've seen, HD-DVD's have been a similar price to Blu-Ray, and not far off what DVD's cost in the early days (~£20 approx?).

A single format makes things simpler, but I do think we should remember that if it were not for HD-DVD being perceived as the higher quality format at the beginning, we would not have seen the shift from BD25 Mpeg2's to BD50 AVC's so quickly.

Whatever the case, it's pretty clear where the future lies right now, hopefully stuff like BD+ will become as trivial as CSS one day, region coding also, and we can continue as normal.

[Sharktooth]

25gigz or even 15gigz are more than enough for HD movies. just use advanced codecs like h.264 for video instead of the old-ass MPEG-2 like sony did... it's already in the standard.

[Mug Funky]

@ Shakey_Jake33:

my point was more that if HD-DVD took off, regular DVDs would be better quality. this does make a subtle difference to the consumer - less need to return defective discs. personally i'm not bothering with HD for a long time yet - too expensive, not enough return for the money. all you see is 2% more edges and a buttload more grain. very rarely anything that makes it worth paying through the nose for.

[Hard Core Rikki]

as storage mediums, either of these formats seem handy enough to have.
you'd have thought the less anticonsumer format would survive at least through people's preference.
it mightve lost hollywood, but it sure remains as attractive as before, for the general mass (though people would be expected to use "the industry's choice", at least if dualformat drives are out of the picture, in respect to which hd-dvd continued presence as a file storage medium could be compromised even further)

[Shinigami-Sama]

I am a huge fan of HD
however
I do agree with mug, its not worth it yet, I'll stick with HDTV and not HD movies, they are still way unfriendly and pricey
they really need to get their priorities straight...

[Shakey_Jake33]

25gigz or even 15gigz are more than enough for HD movies. just use advanced codecs like h.264 for video instead of the old-ass MPEG-2 like sony did... it's already in the standard.
Well, my point was that it forced Sony et al to up the ante and put some effort it, which probably would not have happened if HD-DVD hadn't lead the way for quality early on.

Over time, I have come to agree with Mug also. I have both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Players and got swept up with all the hype, but have bought less and less as the novelty began to wear off. If I buy anything new, it'll be in HD, but I've gone past the phase where I want anything and everything - that's just what the execs want after all.

[resonator]

What an interesting discussion this is.

I think I am a very postively thinking person, so I don't think that BD+ will be a problem for long. I know it'll be a lot of work to crack it and it may take some time, but as long as there is some barrier to break, some riddle to crack, someone out there will always try to do it, it's just human nature I guess. See pretty much all major scientific discoveries to see what I mean.

As far as costs are concerned, well, I don't think prices will ultimatly be higher for consumers as some suggested, initially maybe but not in the long run. I think it'll be exactly the same as it was with DVDs to be honest. Anyway, the reason why I said that I think it's important for ONE format to win is that with the advent of movie rentals on iTunes we're on the verge of the age of online distribution, so if you (like me) actually DON'T wanna spend your money on a (DRM-infested) non-physical media you'll have to have one format. I buy CDs and don't download from any online retailers, I buy DVDs and will, for now, not "rent" from iTunes, I want my physical media that'll last me for at least 10-15 years, you know what I mean?

Again, really interesting topic. And refreshingly flame-free. ;)

[Doom9]

Do duplication failure rates and the like really matter to us, the consumer? Good point made about DVD duplication quality being improved thanks to the tighter HD-DVD duplication stuff, but past that, I'm not sure I see the importance to the consumer. Certainly from what I've seen, HD-DVD's have been a similar price to Blu-Ray, and not far off what DVD's cost in the early days (~£20 approx?).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. Take away those subsidies and studios either face lower margins making production less interesting for them, or the consumer has to pay the difference - making high def purchases less interesting for him/her.

all you see is 2% more edges and a buttload more grain.I think I see more than 2% more edges, but true on the grain - especially when the Blu-ray camp turns off the preprocessing filter in AVC. Even critically acclaimed titles are often very grainy during dark shots - I wonder when directors wake up and stop ruining movies by adding grain (just goes to show that even though they claim they know everything - Michael Bay are you listening? - they don't really understand the effect directoral choices have on the output for your home entertainment system).

[Shinigami-Sama]

(just goes to show that even though they claim they know everything - Michael Bay are you listening? - they don't really understand the effect directoral choices have on the output for your home entertainment system).

they never will; they still remember 'the good old days' when everyone used to go the movies at least every two months...

and even now some blu-ray discs appear to have out of range motion vectors in their AVC(coreAVC thread), so even after 2 years they still can't get it right

[communist]

Its official:
Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_02/pr1903.htm

[microchip8]

on CNN too

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer manufacture HD DVDs, effectively ending the long-running battle with the rival Blu-ray for a dominant high-definition format.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/02/19/toshiba.hdd/index.html

[SeeMoreDigital]

Bummer!

[laserfan]

Bummer!Yes, it's one thing to consider the millions & millions spent on the technology, but more still when you look at the human capital/energy put-in to the product itself, and the marketing of it.

Having witnessed the birth (and death) of laserdisc, and also the initial growing pains of SD DVD (remember all the "artifacts!" discussions), I've been only impressed by the quality of HD DVD packaging and product (video/audio).

Looks like it's now relegated to a Hobbyist medium--some folks are gonna make their own HD DVDs for a long time I think.

Glad I bought an XA2 though--one of the best upconverting players ever.

[laserfan]

Another thing that boggles the mind: how can Toshiba be so stupid as to simply bail-out on HD DVD when such a monstrous investment has been made? I mean, there is an installed base of players and XBox add-ons, and some not-insignificant number of movies in distribution and in-process.

What they SHOULD HAVE done, rather than turn-tail & run, is to negotiate the turnover of mfr rights to someone else that might think the base is worth pursuing. Someone said somewhere that JVC won the VHS-Beta "war" but never achieved market dominance or even became a very large company for it.

Just surprised here that Toshiba hasn't done anything like peddle the business to another company that might welcome/revel in a market the size of HD DVD.

[shevegen]

So what's the point? Both camps have companies on their side that are, to say the least, "unpleasant", like Sony or Microsoft.

This is a serious question, what's the point in supporting HD-DVD?

I agree insofar that my question would be - why side with either camp at all?

I am living without either camp, and happily everso. I think customers are fooled and should stop accepting anything what the big companies offer in the public relation section. If companies like Sony and others can go away with a rootkit easily then why should they believe what they say? And even more importantly, why buy something (if you yourself are not 100% sure that you need it anyway).

Its ok to spend money on things, it is just the question spending your money where, and I myself answered this question long ago after realizing that DVDs suck due to various reasons, not the least being that my DVDs here basically die rather quickly.

[WalterK]

You can only stay out of the Blu-Ray camp for so long :)
They will now force feed the format to us, claim dvd is dead and you need a blu-ray player to either upconvert , or rebuy your whole movie library in hidef format.
Its a shame Hd-Dvd was the better product for consumers as all the previously listed reasons gave.
But Sony bribed and bullied their way to the top this time around, i am not saying the Toshiba coalition was blameless either they did the same but Sony had more money :)
Plus as a non windows user some Hd-dvd commercial discs could be played back on a non windows OS with a little tweaking.
Not so with Blu-Ray discs.
Going to be a long while before thats possible.

[Die*wrek*show]

I think it's funny how people allow themselves to be put in these tiny boxes, then act surprised when they can't get out.

You can only stay out of the Blu-Ray camp for so long

If I want something, and I give you two options that are both going to get me what I want then it's a win-win situation for me and a lose-lose situation for you if I can get you to believe you must choose one of the two.

du·al·ism /ˈduəˌlɪzəm, ˈdyu-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[doo-uh-liz-uhm, dyoo-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. the state of being dual or consisting of two parts; division into two.


Life is about choices, the choices you make define you and affect your future in a big way. While it's true that, as society progresses, some things are more or less forced upon us, you can still decide for yourself what is the best choice to make for any situation.

Until current situation with blue-ray changes, you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming because there is no way I would invest in a player for it at current prices. Let alone re-buy all my movies that already play just fine, and and that I have a backup copy for in case it gets too old and stops playing. I have friends with massive dvd collections that could keep them entertained for life in the case of any "entertainment famine" which could one day manifest.

and if this is true-

and even as late as last fall, failure rates were around 1 out of 3 for Blu-ray discs

where do i sign up to ride that failboat? http://forum.doom9.org/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[WalterK]

What i meant was eventually you WILL be getting into the Blu-Ray camp whether its one year or five years from now. :)
With only one format now (Blu-Ray) its inevitable that you will use it.
Whether the next pc you purchase comes with a Blu-Ray drive or you eventually get a player, its now just a question of when, not whether or not you will.

[andru123]

Any chance that HD-DVD will still pick up in the future?

I mean, look at betamax. It was Sony's, and it was winning at first. But its was expensive. And in the mean time cheap VHS sneaked in, little by little, and eventually took over the customers.

Tbh, VHS won the consumers, not studios.

And what i see now is kind of artificial, fake "victory" of Blu-ray. Especially considering what Doom9 said about subsidies and production costs (wikipedia says different :confused:). I was very surprised by Toshiba's decision.
I mean, who gives a ... about WalMart and what was it, a NetFlix? I dont. :) I never even met them :D

Tbh, i hope now China or EU or Russia picks it up and rolls it out.

[Doom9]

I mean, look at betamax. It was Sony's, and it was winning at first. But its was expensive. And in the mean time cheap VHS sneaked in, little by little, and eventually took over the customers.But that's something else entirely - VHS wasn't pulled off the market and came back at a later time, and VHS didn't just have one hardware manufacturer (or did they at the time?).

And there's lots of people with a glued on blu visor who cannot even acknowledge that their format has any flaws (and keep in mind everybody can edit Wikipedia). But feel free to browse through the insider threads at AVS (and there's a late one just now (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=996975)) that also touches upon the subject of yields.

HD DVD making a comeback is as likely as the RIAA or MPAA pushing fair use legislation, or Sony actually working together with the rest of the industry for a common standard instead of trying to peddle their own "standard".

[Inventive Software]

I have to say, those who think HD-DVD is dead because Toshiba stopped making hardware and discs are completely wrong. Blu-Ray hasn't won anything, and can only call itself the "winner" if EVERYBODY stops making HD-DVD discs and releasing movies to HD-DVD. The fact all the major studios are sided with the Blu faction means nothing to the independent studios and home movie enthusiasts.

[communist]

I have to say, those who think HD-DVD is dead because Toshiba stopped making hardware and discs are completely wrong. Blu-Ray hasn't won anything, and can only call itself the "winner" if EVERYBODY stops making HD-DVD discs and releasing movies to HD-DVD. The fact all the major studios are sided with the Blu faction means nothing to the independent studios and home movie enthusiasts.
I dont get it. Why should company X say "Hey lets go with HD DVD, sure Toshiba is discontinuing it but we should still be able to sell it nicely..".
As for the indie studios - the masses dont care about them.
Home movie enthusiasts - a minority.

He's dead Jim..

[Hard Core Rikki]

This whole different formats issue just divided the market in 2 over arguments not benefiting the movie enthusiast (licencing fees, lockin measures, studios' benediction, etc... if these had it their way back in the VHS era, sure bee VCR's with recording capabilities wouldve been a sure goner).

heck, bigger storage space doesn't suddenly make bluray sexy, but Toshiba itself dropping support for hd-dvd is a sure message that the format seems to be in the early phases of euthanasia ;P
No wonder people would be expected to keep flocking to Bluray, PS3 in particular, as a futureproof BD player (bd-live)... :mad:

[andru123]

I will not be flocking. For the 2 days after announcement prices for HD-DVDs media fallen and prices of Blu-Rays went up. That means that my plans to buy a HD player postponed by probably 2 years or so it seems. Maybe even more. BluRay's are inherently expensive, i am not going to pay back for Sony's subsidies :) If somebody else will, it's his money :)
You right, consumers dont care much for independent studies. But they care even less for the big ones.
Just for the record i never had any format preference. It's just a media to me. I would buy a combi player and enjoyed them both.

[laserfan]

I have to say, those who think HD-DVD is dead because Toshiba stopped making hardware and discs are completely wrong.Not sure how you can say this with such confidence, though it ''tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd." ;)

I think I said earlier that I can't fathom how Toshiba could just "cut and run" from HD DVD. They should shop player designs and/or mfr rights to another company that might pick it up.

Certainly there is not the large market anymore for the clear Number 2 ("losing") format, but that doesn't mean some company(s) couldn't make a nice business out what's left (including for example low budget independent film makers).

[Rectal Prolapse]

I've been backing Blu-ray for quite a long time - only now do I think it is safe to say I support Blu-ray.

The major reason why I despise HD-DVD (aside from the technical superiority of the Blu-ray specifications) are the constant HD-DVD fanboy FUD arguments that keep getting repeated on virtually every forum I frequent (AVSForum, Doom9, ArsTechnica, slysoft, etc.). The insane amount of bias and editorializing without referring to the technical facts really turned me off.

I love doom9, AVS, etc, but to even talk about the technical merits of one against the other would be drowned by personal attacks (I'm just talking in general here). And then you would see ridiculous arguments about how space and bandwidth aren't important, and really, we should all just accept 720p x264 re-encodes that fit on a DVD-R for a 3 hour movie is the best quality in the world. Ugh - it's like watching a movie fan argue that Gone With the Wind looks fine on VHS tape!

And: Why is it that nobody understands that blu-ray burners (of high quality I may add - just go look at cdrlabs.com for the reviews on BD burners compared to the very poor quality HD-DVD burners out there) have been around since the beginning of the format and are widely available. The media has been of good quality as well. It is a complete joke that HD-DVD-R media has been available since the beginning, but no desktop burners can be had ANYWHERE! Ugh!

People, PLEASE, if you're gonna argue, at least apply some amount of critical thinking? Ok?

Sorry about the rant. I had to get it off my chest. The persecution of people that want the best possible PQ and AQ must stop.

On that note, I will quote the sig from above:

"Don't believe everything you read. In fact, don't believe ANYTHING you read! Do the research; think for yourself..."

PLEASE don't take anything the Microsoft engineers say as fact. USE your brain!