Looks like the HD DVD and Blu-Ray battle is over

[Troy]

We've had some discussions here about HD TVs so I figured I'd throw this one out there. Toshiba, the developer of HD DVD, threw in the towel which leaves Blu-Ray as the standard format for high definition content (discs). I purchased an upconverting DVD player a few months ago because I thought it would be a while before a winner emerged. It was only $100 so I'm not out nearly as much as anyone who spent several hundred on an HD DVD player and more for a bunch of movies. My new computer has a Blu-Ray player already so that's kind of cool (for me).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_toshiba

Troy

[Old Moparz]

That explains why I just saw a sale flier with a Toshiba HD DVD player for just over $150. 

I was reading in the Sound & Vision mag I get, that a few major movie studios were going into contract with Sony & Blu Ray to release movies exclusivley on Blu Ray. That kind of kills any HD DVD sales from the start.

[Troy]

The article mentions decision by Warner Brothers Studios to use Blu-Ray exclusively as the final blow. There was a lot of speculation at that time about whether HD DVD could survive. I guess not.

Troy

[defiance]

As a note, I paid $99 for my hd-dvd player, and got 5 free hd-dvd's with it - so I'm still happy

Cheap hd-dvds for a few months!

Now gotta get a ps3...

[bull]

That was quick. I was expecting a huge knock-down drag-out over this one. So basically now this means any type of HDTV will work so long as you have a BluRay player hooked to it, right? And I assume this also spells a quickly-nearing end for all regular DVDs, no?

[defiance]

I think this probably just 'opens the gate' so to speak.  So we should see nearly everything being produced on blu-ray probably by end of year (unlike now; a lot of movies are still dvd-exclusive), and now that there's no 'war', consumers will start adopting and prices will start dropping.  DVD's won't even slow down until blu-ray adoption gets really high, IMO.

Think back to how long people kept buying VHS.  I'd expect everything to continue to be produced on DVD for at least another few years.

[BrianShaughnessy]

There's still vcr tapes in some stores       I'm glad I didn't go back out and repurchase everything I own...   I'm sure the record companies loved all the CD purchases over the years.

Frequent format changes only benefit the movie distributors.   Just wait for Disney commercials to come out hawking all those old cartoons again... NOW ON BLU RAY!!!!   Limited edition.  Get yours now!  Don't disappoint the kids!

As long as my old dvd stuff will play in a blu ray box when I get around to it I'll just watch the hype from the sidelines.

[Old Moparz]

There's still vcr tapes in some stores       I'm glad I didn't go back out and repurchase everything I own...   I'm sure the record companies loved all the CD purchases over the years.

Frequent format changes only benefit the movie distributors.   Just wait for Disney commercials to come out hawking all those old cartoons again... NOW ON BLU RAY!!!!   Limited edition.  Get yours now!  Don't disappoint the kids!

As long as my old dvd stuff will play in a blu ray box when I get around to it I'll just watch the hype from the sidelines.

I'm not buying any Blu Ray either, especially limited edition, cartoon rodent stuff. I know the image quality is nicer since I saw it in the store, but the difference to me doesn't justify buying more crap I don't bother with much anyway.

I still have a couple of unopened VHS tapes that were given to me of movies that I never watched. 

[69_500]

I think there are a few main reason that the Blu-Ray won the battle over the HD DVD. I think the main one is the quality, and the amount of memory space on a Blu-Ray disc versus a HD DVD. 50 gigs of inforation on a Blu-Ray, vs 15 on a HD DVD. The resolution that is capable of being output on the Blu-Ray is a true 1080i as well.

Man now all I need is a Blu-Ray duplicator. Just kidding the Blu-Ray burners are still incredibly expensive.

[Troy]

Here's a look at it from a different perspective:
Blu-ray victory means royalties, royalties, royalties
Forget about customer satisfaction or superiority of image quality. The real issue in the war between Blu-ray and HD DVD was about royalties.

With the competition gone, the Blu-ray consortium now has the opportunity to persuade PC makers and consumer electronics makers to adopt Blu-ray drives as their optical drives of choice. It will also get studios and disc makers to deliver Blu-ray discs to consumers. And every time one of those drives or discs leaves a factory, the Blu-ray Disc Association will get a royalty.
...
The same went for CDs. Philips got about 1.8 cents per CD disc while Sony got about 1.2 cents per disc, according to analysts estimates. When some of the patents expired in 2001, Philips said its royalty revenue would drop by about $42 million. Collecting royalties is a great business.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9874317-7.html?tag=nefd.lede

Troy

[defiance]

I think there are a few main reason that the Blu-Ray won the battle over the HD DVD. I think the main one is the quality, and the amount of memory space on a Blu-Ray disc versus a HD DVD. 50 gigs of inforation on a Blu-Ray, vs 15 on a HD DVD. The resolution that is capable of being output on the Blu-Ray is a true 1080i as well.

Man now all I need is a Blu-Ray duplicator. Just kidding the Blu-Ray burners are still incredibly expensive.

Actually, 50 to 30 if you're comparing double layer, and hd-dvd had a triple-layer option (45) available as well - but it was never used because it wasn't *necessary* - Double layerd blu-ray OR hd-dvd is plenty for a movie.  In fact, a lot of blu-ray movies were recorded on 25-gig because they simply didn't need the second layer.  No HD-DVD movies thus far had to have any additional compression to video stream.  The visual and audio quality of blu-ray vs. hd-dvd is a non-issue, they're both the same.  Resolution of both, btw, can be up to 1080P.

Nothing having anything to do with the formats themselves won this war - the only important factor was the backroom deals with studios.  Not that I'm raking sony over the coals there, both sides tried to do it, sony just did it better this time.

Also, Newegg has some blu-ray burners in the $200 range - which will only come down now that the format war is done

[dodgecharger-fan]

Good point about the storage capacity vs actual content....

Think of all the crap that was loaded on to regular DVDs just to fill up the space. Think of how much more youre' going to get with the new format. 

"this is a video of Johnny Depp buying a latte right after he shot the scene where...."

"This is the same video with audio commentary from the star himself..."



But, yeah, I'm going to get a player and start buying Blu-Ray whenever I buy a movie.

[Todd Wilson]

I still have a couple of unopened VHS tapes that were given to me of movies that I never watched. 

Wanna buy a Beta collection? I have the worlds biggest Beta tape collection! Make you a good deal! HAHA!


Todd

[Mike DC]

I was kinda hoping HD-DVD would win just because Blu-Ray sounds like such a dumbass name for the new format. 

[Khyron]

only benefit the movie distributors.   Just wait for Disney commercials to come out hawking all those old cartoons again... NOW ON BLU RAY!!!!   Limited edition.  Get yours now!  Don't disappoint the kids!

until the quality is good enough to see through Cinderellas dress I'll stick to DVDs

[Charger_Fan]

I think this probably just 'opens the gate' so to speak.  So we should see nearly everything being produced on blu-ray probably by end of year (unlike now; a lot of movies are still dvd-exclusive), and now that there's no 'war', consumers will start adopting and prices will start dropping.  DVD's won't even slow down until blu-ray adoption gets really high, IMO.

Think back to how long people kept buying VHS.  I'd expect everything to continue to be produced on DVD for at least another few years.

I don't know about that...I'm betting that once BluRay gets cranking full steam, standard DVD production will drop like a hot potato. The whole thing's rediculous, IMO.   Standard DVD's give a nice clear picture, the whole BluRay thing is just another way to cash in again on the same old crap...and also to more easily collect royalties, like Troy's article stated.

[Troy]

I think this probably just 'opens the gate' so to speak.  So we should see nearly everything being produced on blu-ray probably by end of year (unlike now; a lot of movies are still dvd-exclusive), and now that there's no 'war', consumers will start adopting and prices will start dropping.  DVD's won't even slow down until blu-ray adoption gets really high, IMO.

Think back to how long people kept buying VHS.  I'd expect everything to continue to be produced on DVD for at least another few years.

I don't know about that...I'm betting that once BluRay gets cranking full steam, standard DVD production will drop like a hot potato. The whole thing's rediculous, IMO.   Standard DVD's give a nice clear picture, the whole BluRay thing is just another way to cash in again on the same old crap...and also to more easily collect royalties, like Troy's article stated.

I don't quite agree. With the need/desire for larger and larger screens the content must keep up. When you compare a standard DVD to BluRay on a 60" screen it's not hard to see the difference. Watching a VHS tape on the same screen is torture. It's not just video either - the newer formats support much better sound quality as well. I think VHS only had 2 channel stereo but now everyone wants 7.1 surround (or better) while watching movies. I think DVDs will stick around for a while. Everyone predicted the demise od CDs when DVD came out but that didn't happen. Perhaps it's because CD audio is just fine and there was no need to store more information than a 1 hour album. The licensing may have been another deterrent. Data storage is a different matter so the DVD made more sense for most people once the prices dropped. I'm wondering if DVD doesn't become the new audio media of choice...

Troy

[Old Moparz]

DVD's will also stay around because they're round in shape. Anything round has a much better life expectency than things with weird shapes, like 8-Track tapes. Remember those weird indentations they had on the sides? People just didn't like holding them, & they weren't symmetrical & very unpleasing to the eye.

They still make record albums which are round, thus proving my point.

[Troy]

DVD's will also stay around because they're round in shape. Anything round has a much better life expectency than things with weird shapes, like 8-Track tapes. Remember those weird indentations they had on the sides? People just didn't like holding them, & they weren't symmetrical & very unpleasing to the eye.

They still make record albums which are round, thus proving my point.

Your logic is astounding!

Troy

[Charger_Fan]

I think this probably just 'opens the gate' so to speak.  So we should see nearly everything being produced on blu-ray probably by end of year (unlike now; a lot of movies are still dvd-exclusive), and now that there's no 'war', consumers will start adopting and prices will start dropping.  DVD's won't even slow down until blu-ray adoption gets really high, IMO.

Think back to how long people kept buying VHS.  I'd expect everything to continue to be produced on DVD for at least another few years.

I don't know about that...I'm betting that once BluRay gets cranking full steam, standard DVD production will drop like a hot potato. The whole thing's rediculous, IMO.   Standard DVD's give a nice clear picture, the whole BluRay thing is just another way to cash in again on the same old crap...and also to more easily collect royalties, like Troy's article stated.

I don't quite agree. With the need/desire for larger and larger screens the content must keep up. When you compare a standard DVD to BluRay on a 60" screen it's not hard to see the difference. Watching a VHS tape on the same screen is torture. It's not just video either - the newer formats support much better sound quality as well. I think VHS only had 2 channel stereo but now everyone wants 7.1 surround (or better) while watching movies. I think DVDs will stick around for a while. Everyone predicted the demise od CDs when DVD came out but that didn't happen. Perhaps it's because CD audio is just fine and there was no need to store more information than a 1 hour album. The licensing may have been another deterrent. Data storage is a different matter so the DVD made more sense for most people once the prices dropped. I'm wondering if DVD doesn't become the new audio media of choice...

Troy

I hadn't thought of the difference in picture quality for huge TV screens. Mine is 52" if I recall & it's plenty big enough for me, and has a good picture quality. I've never had the burning urge to get a massive TV. I suppose that once again, I must be getting old & set in my ways.
Come to think of it, my kids did buy me a record player for Christmas...so yep, I'm set in my ways. Definitely no big need for the latest techno-gizmos here & the price tag that goes with them.

Moparz, you're a mess!