Let's save Sony and Toshiba some money: vote for Blu-ray or HD-DVD

[Widowmaker]

With all the numerous threads around here, I'm surprised that nobody has thought of this yet (although I haven't been a in a while so maybe I missed a previous thread). Anyway, considering how much money Sony and Toshiba has sunk into developing the next-gen DVD format and how they both have to recoup that cost (especially Sony), I thought we should be generous and do a poll for free instead of them paying J.D. Power and Associates a few million to do it for them.

So what side do you all fall under? Right now, barring any Earth-shattering change, I'm in the HD-DVD camp and here is why:

-HD-DVD will be cheaper to produce in that existing DVD-9 manufacturing lines just need to be converted over to produce HD-DVD. BD, on the other hand, will require completely new manufacturing lines to be produced, which is a more expensive proposition that tweaking the existing lines. Guess who is going to get that additional cost to produce BD passed on to them.

-As it stands now, HD-DVD can hold 15GB of data while BD can hold 25GB. That's a bit of overkill, nobody needs a disc that can hold 25GB and even if an HD movie takes up all 15GB, it won't kill anyone to have a second disc of extras (like we do now).

-I've read reports that BD is much harder to make PC-compatible than HD-DVD is. If true, that's yet another reason to go with HD-DVD.

-One advantage that BD has over HD-DVD is that it can do 1080p while HD-DVD maxes out at 1080i. I've seen 1080p and it's really not that much noticeably better than 1080i. Also, there is no native 1080p being broadcast and there are currently no HDTVs that can fully resolve all of 1080p, not even Sony's top-of-the-line Qualia sets.

-On a more personal note, I am sick and tired of Sony trying to foist their proprietary formats onto us. Betamax, Minidisc, Memory Sticks, UMDs, heck their first Network Walkman players were ATRAC only, and the list goes on and on. I'd like to see Sony eat some crow (like they did with music CD) regarding their arrogant attempts to push their proprietary formats on the market.

[kexodusc]

Hmmm, I haven't seen 1080p yet, but I suspect it is a good step better than 1080i. I've spoken to some in the industry who will concede that the improvement of 1080p over 720p isn't as great as going from 480p to 720p. Diminishing returns and all. It's a nice-to-have, though, several years down the road people will probably wish they had it.
I'm not sure either have committed to 1080p yet. Maybe Sir Terrence knows.

HD-DVD has already announced they can deliver 45 GB of storage. This is sick. BluRay I'm sure will copy some of these techniques to get handy to 75 GB or more. For the life of these formats, I suspect this is just rediculous overkill.

Technically speaking, I'd be all for BluRay, but realistically I see a few pricing obstacles they'd have to overcome for them to win the value war. If it's much more expensive than DVD (even just a few dollars), it might not be enough to persuade people the less than 15% of people who actually own HD capable TV's to bother.

I really don't care who wins or why. It'd just be nice to see an emerging hi-def format without the format war.

[edtyct]

I had originally thought, based on hedging from Toshiba, that 1080p was in the offing for HD-DVD, at least down the road. Sir T turned heard otherwise, and I found out the same. HD DVD has no plans to become a 1080p format. Blu-Ray, however, is capable of 1080p now, though its first wave of players will not exceed 1080i.

I don't think that at this point the lack of 1080p capability is a deal breaker, at least not for the vast majority of people. For one thing, we still have very few displays capable of actually accepting a 1080p source. For another, the virtues of 1080p require a large display in a large area to show its full glory. Otherwise the pixels are too small for the eye to resolve. The problems that it solves on a big screen create other problems, or are absent, when applied in a tighter geography. Also, scaling the large profusion of SD still in existence to 1080p will not be always be rewarding; scaling to 720p or 1080i even garners plenty of complaints.

Nonetheless, a format that ostensibly has a cutoff point that the state of the art has already exceeded would not seem to merit complete allegiance. If forced to choose, I'd go with Blu-Ray for all of the putative reasons already touted. I also believe that having more storage capacity may well help Blu-Ray to stay active and attractive, perhaps guiding future R&D.

Ed

[kexodusc]

Just an afterthough: I've read some analysts predictions that neither format will succeed, as the market is still enjoying DVD's enough to wait long enough for that Holographic VD, with 20 times the capacity and 30 times the transfer rate of BluRay, to emerge in 2 or 3 years.

At least that might provide a decisive enough technological advantage to the average consumer.
By then, HDTV's should be more common.

[Widowmaker]

Just an afterthough: I've read some analysts predictions that neither format will succeed, as the market is still enjoying DVD's enough to wait long enough for that Holographic VD, with 20 times the capacity and 30 times the transfer rate of BluRay, to emerge in 2 or 3 years.

At least that might provide a decisive enough technological advantage to the average consumer.
By then, HDTV's should be more common.

I doubt that both BD and HD-DVD will fail, people aren't patient, they want instant gratification (especially AV enthusiasts). So it's just a matter of time before one or the other succeeds, although there are still many viable recordable DVD formats out there.

BTW, I sincerely hope that Holographic VD changes their name before they roll out. ;)

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I doubt that both BD and HD-DVD will fail, people aren't patient, they want instant gratification (especially AV enthusiasts). So it's just a matter of time before one or the other succeeds, although there are still many viable recordable DVD formats out there.

BTW, I sincerely hope that Holographic VD changes their name before they roll out. ;)

I think you are wrong here. On every A/V website on the net you read more negative new about early adopters not buying into these formats. They are especially nervous about the amount of control over the content that both formats have. Another big worry is the ability of both Toshiba and Sony to render your player useless, and the fact that a phone line will probably be necessary for both of them. As a early adopter, they both leave me cold.

If one does emerge a victor, I think I want BluRay to win.


HD-DVD has already announced they can deliver 45 GB of storage. This is sick. BluRay I'm sure will copy some of these techniques to get handy to 75 GB or more. For the life of these formats, I suspect this is just rediculous overkill

BluRay now has the ability to store 200GB of information on four layers.


Technically speaking, I'd be all for BluRay, but realistically I see a few pricing obstacles they'd have to overcome for them to win the value war.

They have now found that HD-DVD cost advantage is no advantage at all. BluRay's pricing structor will be on par with HD-DVD.

[kexodusc]

They have now found that HD-DVD cost advantage is no advantage at all. BluRay's pricing structor will be on par with HD-DVD.
If this is the case, it's great news for BluRay and for the consumers, but I will need more evidence to believe it, I'm afraid. The few analyst reports I've read that mention this product still refer to the massive capital investment required as a distinct disadvantage compared to the very small conversion costs for the HD camp. Long term it can be recovered IF they do emerge as the new format standard, but the longer a format war goes, the more pressure they'd feel and the more reluctance to dive in head first.

To keep a competitive pricing structure, they'd either have to reduce margins substantially, or have some miraculous production cost saving measures that have not yet been disseminated publicly. If you have such information, I'd love to know :D

Another note I read in a few reports: These so called camps, full of big corporate support on both sides, aren't exactly as big and loyal as I've been lead to believe. Most of the name backing behind both sides aren't exclusive affiliations, meaning abandonning either is quite easy for most parties. For the most Hollywood studios, it's simple as just doing it with no additional costs or legal hurdles. So the name support both camps have isn't really worth much. The exception being a few who own or share in the development.
Given the recent news of HDDVD scaling back releases, and BluRays release date delays, I think both sides are probably losing support from within.

[topspeed]

I'm for BluRay, but not for any of the techie reasons all of you brainiacs evince.

I want a PS3, which will have BluRay.

Winner!

[Woochifer]

I'm not even sure this is the right time for such a poll given that neither format has been officially introduced yet. We have no idea what the final specs are, and the mandatory DD+ and DTS-HD sound formats that will go into both HD-DVD and Blu-ray haven't even been demoed yet. And no one that I know of has reported on any side by side comparisons between the two formats. All we got right now are technical specs regarding the disc capacity, and a few details about the compression and copy protection schemes.

And right now, those rumored copy protection approaches are exactly what threaten to undo both formats before they even launch. Unlike the DVD, which gave everybody improved picture quality over VHS and brought multichannel audio and interactive bonus features to the masses, HD-DVD and Blu-ray will only benefit consumers who've already bought HDTVs -- a group that at the moment remains a small minority. Yet, even with such a limited group of consumers, both camps are likely going with copy protection schemes that will downsample the resolution for analog HDTV outputs. Given that close to half of the existing HDTVs out there lack digital video inputs, for those consumers HD-DVD and Blu-ray represent no improvement over progressive DVD.

Even accepting that HD-DVD and Blu-ray can still succeed with only half of the HDTV households as potential buyers, there also yet another ingenius copy protection "feature" to consider -- the potential need for a phone line/internet connection to validate the authenticity of the discs and the ability of this connection to render both the disc and the player unplayable. And even if consumers are willing to accept that kind of big brother privacy intrusion, who among us even has a phone line or internet connection anywhere near our entertainment centers? These factors alone will already pare down the number of potential buyers considerably.

THEN we get to the format war itself! And on that front, no matter which side you're on, you lose, because with the major studios split right down the middle, your player will only be able to play half of the HD disc releases. All of the technical or cost superiority of one format over another won't matter a bit if half the titles you want aren't available. Topspeed might be right though on Blu-ray -- the PS3/Blu-ray tie-in might be enough to gain Blu-ray the upper hand ... even if hardly anyone buys Blu-ray discs

[kexodusc]

Just curious, guys, from someone who has both a PS2 and an Xbox, which of these gaming consoles is more popular? Which of the next generation consoles appears to be better?
It seems the current incarnations occupy the same amount of space in any store I'm in.
I got one for christmas and one for my birthday about a month apart. Haven't really thought to do any comparisons between the two, though for no reason other than Halo/Halo2 I've kind of drifted more towards xbox.

Is the PS3/BluRay or Xbox/HDDVD connection enough to make a difference? Most reports I've seen suggest sales for those won't take off until long after HD-DVD gets incorporated into Xbox...might be moot there.

A safe approach might be to buy a PS3, and then an HD-DVD player? Hedging your bet.

[HAVIC]

I believe that the first gen xbox 360 will not have an hd-dvd player in it, you will have to wait until the 2nd gen model. Not sure if MS will release the 2nd gen when ps3 release their player with blu-ray in it. This could hurt initial xbox 360 sales for those who want the hddvd in it or piss of those who buy 1st gen and then find out they don't have hd-dvd. I currently have an xbox because of the hd capabilities. I'm not sure which way I will go for the new consoles, it was a no brainer between the xbox and ps2 because the xbox was so much better. I am leaning towards the blu-ray format which would make my legacy games useless if I go with ps3. I will wait at least a year before I get one, but feel that the gaming consoles can define the hd format standard. remember the ps2 put 60 million plus dvd players into peoples homes before most owned a standalone dvd player.

[L.J.]

If this new technology does reach my home its gonna be through a gaming system. And since I already plan on getting a Ps3 than Bluray it is. As far as the little Bluray/HD-DVD war goes, I really dont care. A unified format would be nice, but I'm concerned about software. When I go to BB and see no one looking through the SACD section, which is only 1 tiny section, I wonder if this Bluray/HD-DVD thing gonna end up the same way. I'm not putting a dollar into this until I see a lot of titles. Although listening to SACD's is nice. I get the same amount of pleasure from listening to my regular old cd collection. I wonder if alot of people are gonna feel the same way about the Bluray/HD-DVD thing. I cant see the average person, who probably is just getting into the HT game, getting excited about these new formats, when a DVD player is selling for about $40 at Walmart. It seems like all this is going to take a very long time to happen. And if it does ever catch on, I'll be waiting. Until then, I'm gonna just kick back and enjoy the nice little HT setup I got going.

[Woochifer]

Just curious, guys, from someone who has both a PS2 and an Xbox, which of these gaming consoles is more popular? Which of the next generation consoles appears to be better?
It seems the current incarnations occupy the same amount of space in any store I'm in.
I got one for christmas and one for my birthday about a month apart. Haven't really thought to do any comparisons between the two, though for no reason other than Halo/Halo2 I've kind of drifted more towards xbox.

The PS2 has an overwhelming market share advantage over the Xbox in terms of installed user base. The ongoing sales for the consoles are closer, but the PS2 had a big head start over the Xbox, which was introduced after more than 10 million PS2 consoles had already been sold. The consensus view is that Xbox has some technical advantages over the PS2, but the PS2 has far more games out there and more top selling franchise exclusives.

The Xbox 360 has gotten a huge push to try and negate any early advantage for the PS3. It promises true HD resolution and some new features, but the disc media itself will still be DVD. The Xbox product managers seem confident that if they can get to 10 million consoles before the PS3 does, then their platform will dominate. But, IMO they've overlooking the backwards compatibility of the PS3 to the full PS2 and PSX game libraries. Xbox got trounced in the market early on despite having superior specs because the PS2 had access to a far larger game library, not just the PS2 games but the original Playstation games as well. In typical Micro$oft fashion, they're putting out the Xbox 360 in two versions -- a stripped down version and a full featured version with the hard drive, network connectivity, and remote. This is puzzling because I always thought that one advantage of the Xbox was the internal hard drive, and now it's no longer a standard feature.


Is the PS3/BluRay or Xbox/HDDVD connection enough to make a difference? Most reports I've seen suggest sales for those won't take off until long after HD-DVD gets incorporated into Xbox...might be moot there.

A safe approach might be to buy a PS3, and then an HD-DVD player? Hedging your bet.

The PS3 will use Blu-ray media, which can obviously hold a lot more data, and from what I've read, the PS3 also has packs more processing power than the Xbox 360. The HD-DVD drive for Xbox 360 won't happen until later, and even then, who knows if Xbox 360 games can be distributed on HD-DVD media without requiring millions of early adoptors to retrofit their Xbox 360 consoles with new drives.

I'm not sure if Blu-ray will make a difference with PS3 sales, but it might work in reverse by inviting PS3 users to try out the Blu-ray disc features.

[paul_pci]

If this new technology does reach my home its gonna be through a gaming system. And since I already plan on getting a Ps3 than Bluray it is. As far as the little Bluray/HD-DVD war goes, I really dont care. A unified format would be nice, but I'm concerned about software. When I go to BB and see no one looking through the SACD section, which is only 1 tiny section, I wonder if this Bluray/HD-DVD thing gonna end up the same way. I'm not putting a dollar into this until I see a lot of titles. Although listening to SACD's is nice. I get the same amount of pleasure from listening to my regular old cd collection. I wonder if alot of people are gonna feel the same way about the Bluray/HD-DVD thing. I cant see the average person, who probably is just getting into the HT game, getting excited about these new formats, when a DVD player is selling for about $40 at Walmart. It seems like all this is going to take a very long time to happen. And if it does ever catch on, I'll be waiting. Until then, I'm gonna just kick back and enjoy the nice little HT setup I got going.

I think that SACD and High Def. DVDs are not analogous for the following reason. It's about consumption behavior. There is already a significant portion of the consumers who are accustomed to sitting still for two hours watching a movie and being emcompassed within a surround sound field. On the other hand, the majority of consumer listening to music through CDs are not sedentary, or even often within the center of the sound field, dedicating their attention to the music.