The Official HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray Thread

HD-DVD or Blu-ray... which one? Who will win the format war? Can both succeed? Why and what are your thoughts?

It seems as though several threads get side tracked into an HD-DVD vs Blu-ray discussion... and rightly so for several of them because the thread has to do with one or the other making a move in some way or another. But, I think it would be interesting to have an official dedicated thread to learn the opinions of those who favor HD-DVD, Blu-ray or both formats.

Personally, I have chosen to start out with HD-DVD simply because the players are less expensive and they have had more titles that appeal to me thus far. However, I am on the look out for a Blu-ray player as soon as the prices get reasonable enough and/or I may consider a dual format player. I have actually purchased Blu-ray titles.

As far as which one I favor... at this point, it's HD-DVD, but that could change.

I really hate to make a call on who will win... I don't really know.


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Sonnie



Cedar Creek Cinema

The Behemoth

I honestly feel this recent move by Paramount and Dream Works Animation is just the beginning.

In Europe HD DVD is bigger than Bluray, so I think they are looking at the big picture and not just the US market.

I'm not so sure that the PS3 should be removed from the total list of BD players though. From the people I talk to, it seems like 50% get it for a game console and the other 50% as a Bluray player. So to be fair, just talk half of whatever the PS3 sales are and add that to the total number of BD players.

Still, I think Bluray is now in a game of catch up. Even if they have a sale and slash their prices by 50% for a Black Friday sale, they still may not be lower than what the A2 is going for right now, and definitely won't be able to beat any Black Friday specials that are bound to be out. Plus we all know Sony won't be cutting price by 50%. So this is definitely a tough one for Sony at this point in time.

Add in people are waiting for 2.0 and it gives HD DVD even more time to pull ahead.

If one or two more studios make the move to HD DVD exclusive, and after the Thanksgiving weekend sales, this really could be over in six to eight months. BD players and movies will of course still be available, but if it unfolds like this we'll see few new releases and just remaining inventory will be left for purchase.

This is just something I heard so take this part totally with a grain of salt, but I heard Block Buster might be reconsidering their Bluray only rental plans and end up carrying both now that more studios are moving over. If that is true (again just hearsay at this point) that would also be a big change in the tides.

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"Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Albert Einstein

"If all else fails, spin the cat."- Grzboken

Sonnie,

Can you make a public poll?

Not that we have to identify posters like on that "other" forum.

I voted HD DVD for the win (in 3 years or so). Complex optical pickup and replication are long term cost problems for BD, IMHO.

Using a game player as a Trojan horse won't win it anymore. BD will survive for PS3 game media usage though.

Bob

I have both Bob, so no need to hide under the chair

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"Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Albert Einstein

"If all else fails, spin the cat."- Grzboken

Fascinating topic

I am not a Microsoft fanboy! However I admit I have some bias against Sony since Beta, SACD and now Blu-ray.

I really think it’s obvious HD DVD was ready first. HD DVD had a lot of early advantages in price and picture quality. But that’s really leveled out lately.

I now have a blu-ray player and I must admit it’s awesome! I have done side by side comparisons of HD DVD and BD and I can see no difference. But when using BD lossless 5.1 soundtrack, I can certainly hear a difference.

There are some serious problems with Blu-ray right now, I honestly think seems pushed into production before it was ready. But honestly, I don’t care which format “wins”, I just want the most movies I can get in HD.

That’s why I’m going to buy this Samsung combo player when it’s available. BD-UP5000

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/officiall...ter-282313.php

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Wayde

I think this battle is actually holding back the progression of Hi Def especially in Non US countries, the consumer who remembers the VHS v Beta is seeing no clear winner and waiting. New consumers are going to be won by marketing, good deals, ie PS3 and Xbox being the underpin to cheap format players before buying a dedicated player.

The major issue in waiting is that it will drag on for a long time, the players being big and powerful can afford to drag it out, lose money just to get market penetration.

The consumer to some degree is being fooled into thinking one is better than the other just by how much storage space it can handle. The reality is the larger of the 2, Blueray is sticking to mpeg2 as a compression. Where as HD-DVD is using VC1 or Mpeg4 compression. The result of these compression types is that VC1 and Mpeg4 is that the need only half the space as mepeg2.

Does that make it better? You bet!
Because HD-DVD storage is greater than half of Blurray the HD-DVD only has to be 1% less compressed to have less compression artifacts. Since the difference is far greater that there is a clear viewable difference in quality.

The better compression actually can have rollon effects right along the video chain and DTV broadcasts. Better bandwidth usage all round, which is the quality limter in the real world.

Who will win though?
The main issue here is that the average consumer is confused, those consumers don't frequent these websites like this one but head to the retail store looking for the best deal. Won over by price and marketing, which doesn't really equate to quality.

Once upon a time the consumer had 2 inputs to make a TV go, power and RF.

Now we have, RF, composite, svideo, RGB, DVI, component, HDMI 1.1 1.2 1.3, then have 2 or 3 of these and you can 7 or more different connects with multibles, add terms 720p, 1080i , 1080p, widescreen, 16:9 1.78:1, 2.35:1, plasma, LCD, Lcos, projectors...and the list goes on.

When I talk to people at work over coffee breaks about all this and quiery them on their knowledge they list portions of all of the above with relationships that are completely wrong....why? Marketing hype, sales pitch call it what you like.

These people who are confused are the ones that you could call brighter than the average spark too, being Professors of their respective fields.

For me there is 1 clear leader, it just that it has nothing to do with the medium that it is packaged on.

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Light changes what it is doing depending if we are looking or not. Considering we only see this as a reflection of the past....what is it really doing now?

Yes... I can make this public... probably a good idea. However, the proper etiquette is to strip the poll and ask for a re-vote. Therefore, if you have voted, your vote has been stripped and you will need to vote again if you don't mind your vote being public.

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Sonnie



Cedar Creek Cinema

The Behemoth

Just as a reminder, the Blu Ray format was developed by the "Blu Ray Disc Association". The current Board of Directors consists of:

• Apple Computer, Inc.
• Dell Inc.
• Hewlett Packard Company
• Hitachi, Ltd.
• LG Electronics Inc.
• Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
• Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Pioneer Corporation
• Royal Philips Electronics
• Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Sharp Corporation
• Sony Corporation
• Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• TDK Corporation
• Thomson Multimedia
• Twentieth Century Fox
• Walt Disney Pictures

Although Sony is probably the biggest player, I think, to a large extent, they've learned from their past mistakes and that's why most of the players tried to build a consensus before they rolled out the format. Toshiba, at least to me, has been going the maverick route championing their HD format.

I think Blu Ray will eventually win the war, but with the current stand-alone player price advantage HD holds, it'll be close. The other caveat is when the PS3 has the gaming library that the xbox 360 has it'll be huge for Blu Ray -- I know many folks who have bought the PS3 mostly for its Blu-Ray movie playing ability. When the library of games gets up to what it is for the xbox, I think there will be a lot more PS3's being sold with a huge base of blu ray players ready to be used.

JCD

I think Sony led the way with that association and didn't Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC and Memory Tech develop the HD DVD Promotion Group? Sony led the way for Blu-ray while Toshiba led the way for HD-DVD?

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Sonnie



Cedar Creek Cinema

The Behemoth

Blu-ray will win. Or, rather I should say, Blu-ray can NOT lose. Sony alone can keep this format alive because they have to. The PS3 uses Blu-ray media for gaming, so BD-ROM's are going to be mass produced for many years, and this will drive media costs down for them and anyone else going Blu. Also, Sony owns a major studio, so even if all other studios turned against Blu-ray, Sony would still have an outlet. That is worst case scenario for Blu-ray, but what has happened is that Sony has gathered up a huge lineup of consumer electronic manufacturers, and pulled big time exclusive studio support from Disney/Buena Vista and FOX. Warner is neutral and can be pulled to one side or the other with "incentives", but as it stands now, Blu-ray is in a position to not be able to lose. Blu-ray continues to outsell HD DVD by a big margin, and that's with expensive players that are incomplete. Just imagine what will happen when the hardware gets finalized and price drops below $250 in 2008???

I've been doing some thinking about all of this. Since I am format neutral it's a certainty that I will end up with a format that is no longer supported. In a way, I didn't take a 50/50 gamble, I made sure I have the format to lose!

Seriously though, here is what I decided and plan on doing. I am going to pick up another HD DVD player, probably on black Friday and I'll shelve it. If Bluray was down in price I would do the same, maybe after Christmas prices will be down a bit, but I think it will be awhile before they break the $200 barrier.

Sooner or later one of these formats is going to have the bottom fall out of it. Currently Amazon shows 405 titles for HD DVD and 450 for Bluray. That's a lot of titles for each format. Both will be around for some time (Amazon still has VHS listed, I honestly can't remember the last time I watched a VHS tape and I haven't had a VHS player integrated with my system for a couple years now, but they are actually still around).

Eventually one of the two will be having some clearance sales that's for sure! A movie listing of around 400 plus movies... that's a lot to pick from and the losing format sure isn't going to be garnering full retail that's for sure. (eBay has laser discs, tons of them for $5) It's kinda nuts talking about snatching up a defunct format this early in the game, but one of the two is bound to go belly up, and like I said, I have a 100% chance of having a format that doesn't make it!

As crazy as this sounds, I see merit in both formats. Picture Quality (for properly mastered discs) is far superior than the average SDVD and unlike Laser Disc, these don't take up a warehouse of space to store. So as long as a person has a working player, there is eventually going to be some good deals to be had. Of course if the player breaks... hence snatching up a spare when prices finally come down to where that is realistic.

I think even after we see one format officially 'lose' it will still be around for quite awhile. Like I mentioned, VHS is still hanging around believe it or not and that format was snuffed by DVD years ago.

Right now though it is nice being about to go back and forth and watch what I want no matter what format it's on.

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"Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Albert Einstein

"If all else fails, spin the cat."- Grzboken

Overall HD DVD hardware sales were up 37% from Q1 to Q2 2007.

Overall Blu-ray hardware sales saw a 27% decline from Q1 to Q2.

Granted Blu-ray has 1.5 million players out, while HD-DVD only has 300,000, BUT... 93% of those Blu-ray players are PS3. That leaves 105,000 dedicated Blu-ray players in the market. I wonder how many of the PS3 owners are using it as a Blu-ray player?

There are 11.6 million XBox 360 consoles sold worldwide as of Q2 2007. Just think if they included the HD-DVD player like the PS3 includes the Blu-ray player... HD-DVD could then distort their sales numbers as well.

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Sonnie



Cedar Creek Cinema

The Behemoth

Couple things I definitely can say I learned in life is never say never. The other is never say an absolute.

MrPorterhouse you make some good points, but as I keep mentioning, the tide keeps shifting back and forth. When BD finally meets their own specification standards, yes that will be a great thing as well as fully functional players at reasonable prices. Also they still have to take advantage of the larger storage capacity and do it in an efficient manner that's not just bloat. I really do like both formats, but Sony still has a lot of promises to deliver on.

By the time BD players hit the $250 mark, HD DVD will be under $150. That's a catch up game that seriously could hurt Bluray. Even if they iron out all the problems and it ends up being a superior format, my brother reminded me this wouldn't be the first time that a superior format lost.

The winner of this has to get players in major stores like Walmart and Target and for prices that people casually throw one in the cart without worrying about skipping a car payment. Movie titles also have to come down to the $20 mark for new releases. Like I have said, I am format neutral but I still buy SDVDs probably at a ratio of 10:1 as compared to either High Def format, and I buy HD DVD probably 3:1 as compared to Bluray. This has more to do with my viewing preferences and I understand others will be the opposite of me. Still, the recent news is pretty big.

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"Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Albert Einstein

"If all else fails, spin the cat."- Grzboken

I absolutely agree with everything you say.

We are not even in the mainstream adoption ballpark yet, so there is plenty of time for tides to shift and deals to be done to turn things either way. However, those deals have to make business sense. With the lopsided consumer electronics support, strong studio support, retail and rental backing, Blu-ray has a strangle hold on the marketing and distribution of their format. This is extremely tough to overcome for HD DVD. This is why HD DVD with a more complete hardware spec and cheaper hardware, still has been getting outsold this year in disc sales(Blu-ray about 65% to 35% for HD DVD for 2007). That's a huge deficit and it means people have bought into Blu-ray as a format that delivers content they want, in spite of hardware that they might not want. Well the BD hardware that people want(cheap and full featured) is coming and once it does, where in the war will we be? If its still early in the war, then HD DVD is in big trouble. If HD DVD has penetrated the market significantly, then there may be 2 formats indefinitely.

I'm almost ready to give in to the fact there could be two formats indefinitely, or that they will both last until the next format arrives. As strong as both are going after their share of the market, I just don't see one or the other giving in. Too many folks have too much to lose on both sides. I guess this is one reason why I'm eager to see a dual format player worth owning and at a reasonable price.

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Sonnie



Cedar Creek Cinema

The Behemoth