Taking Sides - HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?

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?

no way, movies are expensive! they cost tens of millions of dollars!

The de laurentiis family bought Dune as a gift for all of us

They're both basically doomed, unless Warner takes a side soon, and then the other side would be immediately dead.

I don't care about Warner. I do care about Criterion. I just want them to start putting out HD movies - damn it. I don't care which format - I will buy either player I need at that point, which will hopefully come soon (but I doubt it).

Warner chooses Blu-Ray. HD-DVD is pretty much dead.

ya that's somethin.

And Toshiba cancelled (or at least postpones) their CES press conference? God, this is really bad for HD-DVD. I really wish I hadn't stupidly bought a player a couple months ago when they were doing their warehouse-is-on-fire sales. At least I've only bought a couple discs beyond the freebies.

if you got one for cheap you will probably be able to scoop up tons of good movies when the format dies. i mean, even if you didn't get one for cheap. the point is, you'll probably get your money's worth.

and some studios are still HD-DVD only, so it's not going to be obsolete for a while

Suppose HD-DVD dies. And a Blu-ray costs just as much as the DVD equivalent. Will there still be a reason for consumers to go Blu-ray?

Unless computers start making all their built-in optical disc drives Blu-ray *and* DVD compatible, and/or offer cheap portable Blu-ray readers/burners, Blu-ray is going to have to eat money for a long time.

...

I mean I still see many kids on buses use CD walkmans. It's not as if iPods have really "won" yet either, ya know?

^^^Wut

they're saying apple might start putting blu-ray in macs as early as this season.

Suppose HD-DVD dies. And a Blu-ray costs just as much as the DVD equivalent. Will there still be a reason for consumers to go Blu-ray?

Blu-Ray is HD. Regular DVDs are not.

Yeah, I was thinking of pawning off my HD-DVD player, but that was just crazy talk off the initial shock of the announcement. I'd only do it if I was a gamer and wanted a PS3 anyway, which I sort of don't.

i'm glad we could talk you down.

Haha

I do have to say this will probably curb any future HD-DVD buying for now.

lol @ warner brothers rescuing the playstation 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=friS4OOcdgQ

^^^ lol

Even I have to admire the bloodshed today with both Best Buy and Netflix effectively telling HD-DVD to fuck itself.

I'm glad this all seems to be coming to an end, hopefully people will start flocking to Blu-Ray and the prices will eventually drop to my affordable range.

I'm actually a little surprised that the clearly (or so I'm told by film geeks and tech-heads) superior format actually one this battle. I still remember my parents' dismay at the Betamax fiasco.

Blu-Ray is not the clearly superior format.

so they're still going to be regionally coded? Fuck THEM

Fuck them ALL

fuck it anyway -- dvd is fine as is. regional coding is a big pain in the arse, about half of my dvds are from outside of my region, and i have a six sense-type feeling that blu-rays will be harder to hack than my venerable five-year-old samsung.

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?