Blockbuster to favor Blu-ray HD discs over DVD format

[pixelthis]

Blu-ray caters to collectors, hddvd caters to renters, simple as that.
And PSP3 is actually canabalizing player sales in blu-ray, most will buy a psp just
because they are cheaper than a player( but the new 600 player will change this)
I hope blu wins, because its the more advanced format, and if we must have a hd disc, lets go with the more advanced.
AND heres another thing, with all of this great sound how about some concert discs?
Or music video collections?
Or decent classics that arent computer generated "blockbusters"
Anyway great toshiba lost, I hate em, everything I had tosh either broke, malfunctioned
or underperformed or was poorly designed

[nightflier]

Blu-ray caters to collectors, hddvd caters to renters, simple as that.[/QUOTE]

How do you figure that?

I hope blu wins, because its the more advanced format, and if we must have a hd disc, lets go with the more advanced.

Well, not if they continue to downsample the sound (according to Wooch). I've also read that HD-DVD has an edge on sound quality.

...AND heres another thing, with all of this great sound how about some concert discs? Or music video collections?

I think here again, HD-DVD has greater potential because of the Universal alliance and their desperation to compete. Sony has a good catalog too, but I think (and this is just speculation) that they will also be late to the party with music and concert disks.

Anyway great toshiba lost, I hate em, everything I had tosh either broke, malfunctioned or underperformed or was poorly designed

Whoa, there. I've had the opposite experience. I think this is ultimately a matter of product lines and models (probably affected by a specific part supplier), rather than systemic in a company.

I think the best resolution is not a defeat of one side or the other, but rather some kind of truce. Consumers would fare much better if the formats worked things out. What if Universal or Microsoft refused to throw in the towel and doggedly refused to offer Blu-Ray solutions, for example? This would ultimately hurt the consumers more than anyone else.

[musicman1999]

I don't think there can be a truce.I think that at somepoint Universal will decide to start putting out films in both formats and then it will be over.If all films are available in one format then there is no need for the other format.

bill

[Woochifer]

Blu-ray caters to collectors, hddvd caters to renters, simple as that.

Not at all true. Blu-ray's releases comprise more recent box office hits, and those tend to have much greater appeal to renters than the library releases that typify more of HD-DVD's output. If HD-DVD "caters to renters," then why would Blockbuster support a format that "caters to collectors"? And why would the 70% market share for Blockbuster's Blu-ray rentals be nearly identical to the 67% market share that Blu-ray sales have claimed so far this year?

Well, not if they continue to downsample the sound (according to Wooch). I've also read that HD-DVD has an edge on sound quality.

Can't really generalize since the choice in the lossless sound format is a title-by-title choice (if the title even includes a lossless track in the first place). Can't compare the Warner titles because a lot of their early Blu-ray titles did not include lossless tracks, while the HD-DVD equivalents did.

The Blu-ray titles from Fox and Disney thus far have primarily used a 48/24 PCM resolution, which is identical to the resolution used with most HD-DVD lossless tracks (using either TrueHD or DTS-HD). Only those few HD-DVD titles that use Dolby TrueHD at 96/24 resolution can claim higher resolution. So far, Sony has stuck with 48/16 resolution. Thus far, more Blu-ray titles have gone with uncompressed PCM because the format's larger disc capacity allows for it and most Blu-ray players don't yet decode TrueHD or DTS-HD.

The latest firmware updates though with most Blu-ray players now allow for a TrueHD or DTS-HD signal to get transcoded to PCM, which theoretically at least, maintains the full resolution of the original signal. The only reason really to go with TrueHD or DTS-HD is to save on disc space and/or accommodate a higher resolution than the disc space would otherwise allow with an uncompressed PCM track.

I think here again, HD-DVD has greater potential because of the Universal alliance and their desperation to compete. Sony has a good catalog too, but I think (and this is just speculation) that they will also be late to the party with music and concert disks.

Strange as it may seem, Universal's music division is actually a member of the Blu-ray Association. I haven't checked on whether they have actually released any titles, but this seems like a rather bizarre corporate disconnect within Universal. I saw the Universal Music Group logo pop up while watching a Blu-ray demo reel, and I had to double-check this because it otherwise made no sense when I saw it.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=51

[PeruvianSkies]

...I remember when they used this same display for Beta.

[pixelthis]

...I remember when they used this same display for Beta.

FUNNY you should say that , because for all of its tech superiority Beta lost out because it could only record one and a half hours, capacity in other words.
AND the extra capacity is what makes Blu-ray the "winner" of this format war, according to those who know.
Seems like at least Sony has learned from its mistakes

[drseid]

Blu-ray caters to collectors, hddvd caters to renters, simple as that.
And PSP3 is actually canabalizing player sales in blu-ray, most will buy a psp just
because they are cheaper than a player( but the new 600 player will change this)
I hope blu wins, because its the more advanced format, and if we must have a hd disc, lets go with the more advanced.

Oh, I don't know about this at all....

HD DVD has *a lot* more of the older classic movies that should appeal to collectors like myself. Casablanca, for one... I have found so far Blu-ray has focused on many of the present day action oriented films that are of very little interest to me and many other collectors (not to imply that collectors all collect as I do). I do think that while to me, at least, the quality of the Blu-ray releases is nowhere *near* as good as HD DVD, Wooch's point about new releases driving rentals, etc. is well taken and would indeed explain Blockbuster's recent move to major Blu-ray support. You could say that HD DVD is appealing to collectors, but Blu-ray is looking at the new release blockbuster rental market, and that is where a lot of the money is to be made.

I prefer the HD DVD strategy as a classic film collector, but I think the Blu-ray new release "blockbusters" strategy is working pretty well.

---Dave