Taking Sides - HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?

No real benefits over dvd, other than quality which is never a great reason for people to upgrade who wants to upgrade all there dvds/player/tv when DVD is perfectly acceptable to most people.

DRM built in, probably be cracked but will be annoying

Split format ala VHS/Betamax

Rise of iTunes/legal digital downloads/Bitorrent/IPTV/Video on demand etc

I see it as being a little more popular than SACD and DVDA.

High quality textures/audio maybe on PS3 but that Xbox360 went DVD is a good indicator that DVD is good enough to stopgap before consoles start using online distribution ala Valves Steam.

Blu-ray
Pro: Higher capacity per layer, great industry support both in hardware and software, 1080p capable players available
Con: Production problems means potential hardware shortages, EXPENSIVE (twice the price of HD DVD), compatibility with old-school media OPTIONAL

My personal take is that consumer fatigue will cause most consumers to stay away from BOTH of these formats in the short term, especially as a lot of people are still in the process of converting their old VHS to old-school DVD. If these things really catch on, it probably won't be until late 2007 or early 2008 at the soonest.

Ricoh apparently has new technology that makes it possible to do both formats without costing a zillion dollars. That may make the difference for consumers who are waffling because half their favourite movies are available on HD DVD while the other half are on Blu-ray.

Also the DRM requirement for HDMI/HDCP compatible input on screens is big one, alot of HD screens out there are not HDCP compliant. If the publishers decide to require it.

The new Toshiba players will NOT do 1080p even if you have the screens. The Blu-ray player from Samsung WILL do 1080p if you have a screen capable of that resolution. So if you're looking for a player that will handle the 1080p screen you're getting down the road, HD DVD isn't it.

Ha ha - I said this in the last meeting we had to discuss how we were going to lead the world in HD-DVD and Blu-ray content. Cue much murmuring and, "No, no, this HAS to succeed."

tell that to Apple & MSFT, both are about 2 years out or less.
Also, digital cable does what.

jalr'mai is correctamundo.

wimax will be able to stream hdtv, for instance. and for less than the ridiculous early adopter investments these optical formats are going to be asking for the next year and a half, trying to recover losses. It almost makes me feel sorry for the companies that sunk the R+D, but hi, writing on wall, greedy fuckers.

my box at home can stream movies on demand really well altho not HD.

I think it's all balls and I'm so glad my long-term job security has been gambled on this.

I'm currently using an upconvert DVD player with an HDTV and the picture quality is amazing and the DVD player and DVDs are dirt cheap. I can't imagine that an HD DVD or blu-ray is going to add that much more to my viewing experience and it's going to cost a lot more.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/04/why-low-def-is-the-new-hd/

Supposed to be a big announcement next month at the CES by Bill Gates which will finally decide which format will succeed in the long term. Either that HD DVD is dead or more likely that HD DVD drives will be fitted as standard to Xbox 360s.

Tracer plz to summarise that ridiculously long article into handy take-home soundbite.

"In summary, Apple wins again (probably)"

As with audio, punters don't give a crap about quality and would rather watch harry potter on youtube than on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

More or less

* sub-SD mobile video has taken off in a huge way; HD is useless on a phone
* DVDs upscaled on HD television sets look fantastic already

thx!

by the way, when i was in new york earlier this year i watched Letterman on a friend's girlfriend's gigantic HD television, and yyyeeeeeuccchhhh

* DVDs upscaled on HD television sets look fantastic already

this is more OTM than I ever imagined. The final nail for me was when I saw Assassin's Creed played on a 60" giganto-plasma that was capable of 1080p - I was all "holy shit this is amazing, is this full 1080p?" and dude is like "no this is actually just upscaled from the component signal"

There's one particular HD title I worked on recently - it has sold 37 copies worldwide. 37. I can think of a couple of others which can't have even reached that figure.

What does Tay Zonday look like in HD

El Tomboto - that Assassin's Creed still would have been 720p being upscaled - which is fair a lot different than upscaling a progressive scan dvd, I'd imagine. You're just start with a much higher res image which can have a lot more detail, etc...

Anyhow, a good 1080p transfer is going to have a lot more detail and a lot cleaner look on a good 1080p HDTV, than a 480p dvd being upscaled to 1080p. But I would agree that the average consumer couldn't give a shit (or at least not enough to drop a couple of thousand and to bother setting up all that stuff to work right).

Yeah, the comments in the article comparing HD disc formats to SACD and DVD-Audio seem OTM to me in that regard

Sorry, I can't type in English today :(

The one thing I've seen in HD that was really wow - 1080i NFL broadcasts on a big plasma

this thread does remind me I need to e-mail my landlady and ask when they're getting the roof dish upgraded

the truth is HD DOES look a lot better but upscaled DVDs still look GREAT so ya.

it also depends on the dvd and how it's encoded too. ppl forget about that whole thing.

Since getting HD a couple years back it's really the only thing I watch. If there's a movie I really want to see it's only theater or HD for me - anything else is kind of unacceptable. I don't think I'm the average consumer, but it's a big deal for me - I'm actually less precious about music and whether it's on a serious hi-fi etc.

...though I care about music more.

I am considering a PS3 for Gran Turismo and Blu-Ray, but I'm still not sure. I figure $$$ upfront for the first kind of player and something $ later if blu-ray loses.

Another problem with HD-DVD & Blu-Ray is that there still aren't really many very good movies out on either format. And of course, in most cases, what is on there is a lot more expensive than the standard DVD versions. Lots of people didn't switch from VHS to DVD until the prices on DVDs got more than competitive too. For instance, the 28 Days Later DVD is $9.99 US on Amazon right now, while the Blu-Ray disc is $27.95 - and this is a movie that supposedly looks no different in either format. Why would somebody in their right mind buy the blu-ray disc even if they had a player?

Would somebody in their right mind buy that movie in the first place...?

would somebody in their right mind buy a movie?

HD-DVD ftw.

we're still not even close to streaming Blu-Ray quality, are we? when you stream "HD" from Netflix or whatever, i assume you're not transferring anywhere near the ~40 gigs of a typical BD.

xpost

Yeah, still a way off. tbf, HD video compression has come on a long way since the BR standards were set, but the thing that HD streaming cannot manage (currently at least) is uncompressed audio. Even my (UK) cable tv providers HD channels are still "only" Dolby Digital audio. I got a new AV receiver a while back which can handle DTS-HD Master Audio etc and this brings almost as much joy as HD video for me.

pixar films in blu ray are something to behold

^^^

Showing my wife Finding Nemo on Blu-Ray was how I convinced her we needed the PS3.

I just read that on the Bluray of The Apartment you can see the face powder and eyeliner on Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray. Exceeding the technological limits of the ers in which the work was produced has its drawbacks.

(ie, I don't want a Bluray player)

Back in the day you'd never have seen that detail on the big screen, what with all the cigarette smoke in the theatre, everyone blurry eyed through being stoked up on whisky and gin since breakfast.

Misread this as "Showing my wife Finding Nemo on Blu-Ray was how I conceived her" etc etc

I think the (kinda jarring at first) details one picks up on like makeup, wrinkles, obviousness of studio sets vs. location shots in a sequence, etc. become less distracting the more you watch. Also, if the film is just plain engaging these things do fade into the b-ground. Some of my SD DVD's upres'd thru my new blu setup look great as well, esp. Criterion stuff (later Melville, b+w Renoir).

However all the stuff I burned from 700 mb avi's originating off some c. 1983 vHS - many of my favorite films like hard to find Rivette/Tourneur/etc. - looks like blobby shit.

anyone seen any good Blu Rays lately?

Do you mean films that are good in themselves, or stuff that shows off the blu medium as well? If the latter then Hugo looks fabulous, as do Melancholia and the Tron set with old and new; Tron Legacy in particular is stunning. Don't know if you're multi-region equipped for blu, but the Criterion BBS Story boxset is *fantastic* and seeing stuff like Head and Easy Rider in glorious grain-heavy HD, with uncompressed audio is a total treat too.

Peeping Tom looks amazing on Blu-ray. Along with Alien, that's the one that has really stood out for me.

Road Warrior bluray is pretty a+

The Star Trek reboot looks amazing on blu-ray.

otm

Yeah, Alien is one I saw recently that was most O_O. Beautiful.

Some recent purchases that look great: "Mysteries Of Lisbon", "Ronin", "Kuroneko", "Seven Samurai", "Excalibur".

There is a simply AMAZING slapfight going on at Jeff Wells's "Hollywood Elsewhere" over the upcoming Criterion Rosemary's Baby blu-ray disc and the proper aspect ratio for the film: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2012/07/criterion_cleav.php (It's being mostly propagated by Glenn Kenny.)

(Note: Wells has not called anyone "fat" yet, but "fascist" has been busted out nearly a dozen times.)

Yeah that whole thing is v entertaining!

I'm purple-faced with rage. I've got stomach acid. I'm spitting saliva on the rug.

lol jesus

Who cares? It's not 48 fps so it'll suck.

I liked when Wells got in a tizzy over the Anatomy of A Murder edition and how someone at Criterion dug up a photo taken from the audience perspective at the film's original premiere that proved they were using the correct A.R. and uploaded it to Facebook.

Wells admits he was misinformed, talks about steak, harasses a widow

Oddly enough, the actual ratio was 1:1

all the reality shows out there and THIS isn't televised

priorities

haha, was Wells called a fascist by Polanski?

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2012/07/letter_to_polan.php

Recommendations for a long-lasting, low-end BR player?

Still not decided on this

How low-end, Morbs? A $100 Sony BR player should last pretty much forever.

Yeah, that LG I ref'd upthread (purchased early 2010) is still going strong. If you go too no-brand and cheap it'll probably have a lousy UI and disc mechanism (= noisy). $100 will get you a fast, reliable player that's nice to use.

Seriously guys, do I go with BR or HD-DVD? I wanna know

I got a Samsung for around $80....

And so you can all have a laugh, it never occurred to me that this wouldn't work with my hardy tube TV. So now I need to get a flatscreen, and fuck this world.

Or perhaps there is a way to do it, at least with some models.

My wife and I have an older flatscreen we might be getting rid of, but it doesn't have an internal tuner - you have to have a cable/satellite hookup to watch TV, you just can't get over-the-air channels. But it's great for BRs and DVDs.(It's 720p resolution.) If you can hang tight I'll see for sure if she's OK with getting rid of it, if you want it. I'd rather give it to someone that can use it than just throw it away.

I watch Blu-Rays, via my PS3, on a non-HD, non-flatscreen TV - this is in the UK, obv.

I recently asked a local dealer about multi-region bluray players, and was told that because of the online link/upgrades on bluray discs, multiregion bluray players can only play non-home-region dvds, not blurays - can this be true? there are def region 1 only blus that I wld to watch/own at some point.

There *are* true multiregion blu-ray players, mostly from the company Oppo, but they're expensive (still several hundred quid at least).

There's very few that support changing the blu-ray region via the remote control (unlike dvd, which lots will do), but I recently upgraded my no-brand multiregion unit to a Toshiba BDX3200. This is an "old" model and I had to get it from eBay, but with a firmware tweak it will play any region of dvd AND br disc.

The online link/upgrades thing is not a red-herring though as I can imagine that if the player downloaded and installed new firmware it might lose the multi-region functionality. Simple solution is that I don't have it connected to the internet.

Thanks Bill, v. helpful

thx PD, but I think this will be resolved shortly one way or another. Also, I have to watch something and write about it by Sunday.

"Pristine images," feh.

one CAN buy a converter from HD for a tube TV, but that's $70-75, so kinda pointless.

The idea of watching a BR on a tube tv is very strange.

yeah, i wish i could turn back time and never commit to one.

what have you against televisions that were made in this century?

found mention of this on the criterion boards --

http://www.searsoutlet.com/Blu-ray-Player-SR212S/d/product_details.jsp?md=ct_md&pid=105725&mode=buyUsedOnly

all-region blu-ray player for $50; found one at my nearby sears. havent set it up yet & tried the code, etc but assuming all goes smoothly there'll be a whole new world of movies to acquire and aggregate in stacks and put off watching!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/1/5670786/sony-earnings-adjustment-impairment-charges

I'm getting leery about buying blu-rays because i know i'll have to upgrade everything again when the 4k/8k TVs become a thing.

Kinda of a random question here but: recently got a basic Samsung SE-506 ODD for my MacMini, partially because I just needed a new one, but also because it handles Blu-Ray. Now I know Mac and Blu-Ray aren't always happy with each other but I figured what the heck, especially since I am between TVs for the present. Anyway, the drive works perfectly with CDs and DVDs just fine, so clearly the Mac recognizes it -- I'm running El Capitan as well FWIW. However, it's not recognizing any Blu-Rays, and I did download a trial version of this as a test:

http://www.macblurayplayer.com/features.htm

As you can see from this:

http://www.macblurayplayer.com/how-to-play-bluray-on-mac-os-x-10-11-el-capitan.htm

The program is supposed to recognize a disc via step 3b, for instance, and recognizes a DVD as mentioned. But again, no BD disc appears either in the program menu or on the desktop. So is it simply best to assume that while SE-506 handles other discs just fine, it's just not recognizing Blu Rays at all and is simply defective? Answers on a postcard etc (and thanks in advance!).

Can't believe it's been 10 years since this format war. Difference between DVD and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD was so minor compared to VHS vs. DVD. HDTV's and players/Xboxes/Playstations were super expensive so until very recently, I'd never had a decent sized HDTV and a Blu-Ray player. Sorta going nuts with the compulsive buying. Fuck Barnes & Noble and their amazing 50% off Criterion sale.

My Panasonic bluray player started getting jittery when playing discs after just three weeks. Does it need an update? Surely a bluray player shouldn't need updates just to play discs?

I don't know the specifics, but I believe part of the blu-ray system runs on Java, and I remember instances where players had to be firmware updated to play certain discs (Avatar, among others)

but the issue you're describing sounds more like perhaps a faulty unit that should be returned for repair/switch?