Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD- Page 7

[baddadnpa]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 6:10pm

I have both and Blu Ray is definitely the superior product. I am pleased that the war seems to be coming to an end with Blu Ray winning. Now lets start releasing some great titles!

[Icehouse Life]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 6:14pm

The real question becomes now, as the Digital Bits writers note, will the HD-DVD format be able to replenish their unit supply if the retailers let them after the original supply goes down?

[Craig]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 9:59am

Toshiba goes into panic mode: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080114/media_nm/toshiba_hddvd_dc;_ylt=AqHnz2aU3xPXwbWneoIunwkjtBAF

I understand their fight to keep their format alive - but if the death knell has rung, it's unfortunate for the consumers that will "buy into" this format because of all the offers, etc only to have the studios ultimatately pull out.

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 11:24am

Does anybody really want to buy a player that will only play HD discs from Universal and Paramount? As of May, no other studio in town will be releasing in the HD DVD format.

I guess if you loved ONLY Universal and Paramount movies... and didn't care at all about the rest... this would be a bargain.

[Icehouse Life]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 1:57pm

I would be OK for the moment if I bought a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player just to start things with for a next-gen player along with a PS3 until a Blu-Ray recorder/carousel hits the market.

For me, many of favorite movies as of now will fall under the Blu-ray format. Right now it seems that, with Warner going exclusively Blu after May, Toshiba is obivously putting all of the stops in their latest risky move is that the company and the few studios (Universal and Paramount) that support it will dig their heels and continue to stay defiant in the face of an inevitable Blu-Ray war win until it gets bigger bargaining leverage, and Sony and the rest of the BDA pays a huge amount of money to stop before the holiday season. It's cagey as well, but what do they have to lose at this point?
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205604607

[Craig]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 3:30pm

I don't think Sony ever thought they WOULDN'T have to woo Universal and Paramount back. I'm sure that was all in the plan and financially accounted for.

The negative "hype" against HD DVD this past month with MGM moving over and the chatter its caused (noted by the many returns of HD DVD to the stores) will wind up putting the final nail in the coffin for the format. There would have to be an insane influx of sales of the players to make a difference at this point. Paramount and Universal have very little to lose by switching over - if anything they have more to gain. It's only a matter of time and working out the actual deal.

Digging their heels in now will only wind up costing them in the long wrong in loss of sales. The other studios (which make up 70 percent of movies released) aren't going to change their minds "now."

Again - it's not a question of which format (I believe) - it's when.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 12:31am

*to the tune of GREEN ACRES*

"Bluuuuuuu-Ray is not the format for me
It's nooooooot as good as HD!"

[tazber]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 8:06am

continuing to the same tune:

then yooooou'll be left out in the cold
'cause HD has lost the war I'm told!

[Craig]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 10:12am

Watched Ratatouille last night on BD and it's definitely a "showcase" experience since it's all digital to begin with and the extras are phenomenal.

Also got a few others but haven't watched in their entirety - but the final sequence in CHICAGO in HD was amazing.

[Icehouse Life]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 6:35pm

More evidence HD-DVD is losing:

Neilsen VideoScan notes that all of the Top Ten selling next-gen DVDs this week are all of Blu-Ray releases.

Net HD-DVD sales for the past week account for 15% of high-def sales with The Kingdom selling 10% of its copies as many to the top Blu-Ray seller, 3:10 To Yuma.

Intesting prospect on the future of HD-DVD on The Economist: a possible computer data storage disc. But isn't that what Blu-Ray supposed to be too? Almost all of the computer companies, both IBM-PC and Apple Mac formats, aligned with Blu-Ray except for Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, and Microsoft.
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10498648

Meanwhile at the AVN Expo in Las Vegas, reports are emerging that the adult industry will ultimately side with Blu.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35630/98

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 6:39pm

Data storage?

HD DVDs have a maximum disc capacity of 30GB.

Blu-ray Discs can hold 50GB.

[Icehouse Life]

Posted: 1/17/08 at 7:17pm

Exactly!

[Craig]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 12:42pm

and the latest:

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/11874/hd-dvd-sales-tumble-after-warners-defection

The first HD DVD sales figures since Warner Brothers jumped ship to Blu-ray are starting to trickle in, and the news is bleak: both HD DVD disc and player sales have plummeted since Warners' surprise pre-CES announcement.

Engadget HD has the numbers from Nielsen VideoScan, which details disc sales for both Blu-ray and HD DVD. The latest word, for the week ending January 15: Blu-ray snagged a whopping 85 percent of disc sales, compared to just 15 percent for HD DVD, with no HD DVD titles at all in the top-10 list. Now, the numbers represent only one week's sales, and as Engadget HD points out, HD DVD didn't happen to have any big titles coming out that week; still, given that the historical Blu-ray/HD DVD split has been more like 60 to 40 percent, that's a sharp drop.

(more doom via that link above)

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/23/08 at 3:13pm

So when can we expect the price of Blu-Ray players to start coming down? Christmas maybe?

[Craig]

Posted: 1/28/08 at 10:09am

Gartner: HD DVD Price Cuts Only Prolong Agony

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080128/tc_pcworld/141869;_ylt=Anp.l8Z1qb6csWve1z887DojtBAF

[tazber]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 7:57am

This is exactly what I've been thinking since they first announced a new format years ago.
Personally, I'm all for a higher definition of video, but by and large standard dvd is good enough for most consumers.
I still maintain that the next major format shift will be downloading ala itunes.


People Happy With DVD, Not Likely To Switch to Hi-Def, Says Study

Relatively few consumers are planning to make the transition from DVDs to high-definition HD DVD or Blu-ray, according to a survey by NPD Group. The researchers said that among owners of HDTV sets, seven out of 10 say they see no need to purchase high-definition players, maintaining that they are satisfied with the quality of their current players. "one of the main challenges for the next-generation" format, NPD Group senior entertainment industry analyst Russ Crupnick told Bloomberg News, "is you have a product out there that is pretty darn good in consumers' eyes."


http://imdb.com/news/sb/2008-02-06/

[StageManager2]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 8:32am

"seven out of 10 say they see no need to purchase high-definition players, maintaining that they are satisfied with the quality of their current players."

I'm one of those magnificent seven. Then again, I'm technically challenged (and blissfully ignorant), so what do I know?

[Craig]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 9:36am

I like to own physical media. But that's just me. I also wonder if/when movies are able to be downloaded if they will have all the bonus features which is something I usually like more (if I've already seen the movie)

That being said - a caveat I've read over and over so far is that many of what's being called HD streaming right now is not actual Hi-Def and very similar to DVD bitrates/resolution. It still looks good.. but it's not the same (and noticably too) as true HD.

Bandwidth for downloading the content just isn't high enough YET. And my guess would be that it won't be (and heavily adopted) for at least a few years.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 10:15am

I have a question about upconverting (upconversion?). If the player upconverts regular dvds to 1080p quality, does that mean it's unnecessary to replace any regular titles you have with the Blu-Ray version? Will the difference between an actual Blu-Ray title and the upconverted regular version be minimal?

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 11:02am

Here's the simple answer (and there's a much more technically complicated answer too): Depending on the compression of the regular DVD, an upconversion of the picture can look very good. Does it look as good as 1080p? No. Does it look "good enough?" For most people, probably the answer is yes.

The more complicated answer: Regular NTSC DVD is 720x480 in size, with "D1" shaped pixels (non-square). When a film is released for regular NTSC television viewing it goes through a process called telecine. It takes hi-resolution film information, and shrinks it down to the 720x480 non-square pixel size, but it also adjusts the frame rate from 24 frames per second (film) to 29.97 frames per second (television). It's a process called 3:2 pulldown. In order to make the math work from 24 to (basically) 30 frames per second, some of the visual information has to be "spread out smoothly" across multiple frames. In short, you end up with 3 frames of solid (progressive) information, and 2 frames of "spread out" (interlaced) information. It's a 3 to 2 ratio.

Hi def TVs are neither NTSC nor PAL. They are able to play square pixel information at 24 frames per second. No need for interlacing, or 3:2 pulldown. So when you play a regular DVD, there are two things that happen to it on your HD monitor:

1) The pixels are either "stretched" from 720x480 (standard def) to 1920x1080 (full HD), which looks really bad, or they are upconverted to the bigger size, which means the information is mathematically increased to the larger screen size. The monitor reads it as a true HD picture, rather than trying to stretch the information. The result is a more "intelligent" resizing, and it looks much better. Is is true hi-def? No. It's resized hi-def. Not the same thing. The picture will not suddenly gain extra information that wasn't in the original video.

2) The 3:2 pulldown needed for NTSC regular TV playback is removed "on the fly." While the regular DVD plays on your hi-def TV, the signal is converted back to 24 frames per second (or if you want to be exact: 23.976 frames per second). This is known as a "progressive" signal. All solid frames, no interlacing. Lots of DVD players have this built in now.

But you really need both things to happen to make your regular DVDs look good. Upconversion (mathematical resizing), and progressive playback (removal of the 3:2 pulldown interlaced frames).

So, again... the short answer: your regular DVDs can look pretty good on a hi def monitor.

Is it "as good as" a real 1080p image? No. Can you tell the difference. Yes, but that varies, based on how good the regular DVD looked to begin with.

Sometimes the difference is very noticeable, and it's worth getting an HD disc. Other times, it's not as noticeable, and you may be quite happy with the disc you already have.

[Craig]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 11:04am

It's doesn't really convert regular dvds to 1080p quality (although I guess in a manner it does) - the upconverting players just translates the data for hi-def as opposed to older players that don't "re-calculate". I think that's the best way to put it. As with a digital photo - the resolution is the resolution.

So to answer your question (as I have just experienced this having bought a PS3) watching movies ON blu-ray are quite a different experience and noticably sharper, etc.

It also will depend on screen size, quality of your HD set, etc.

For many, an upconverter is quite fine. I have one of those and the videos look great - but it's definitely not the same as true HD.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 11:27am

Thanks guys!

[cubanpab]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 11:46am

upconverters dont "upconvert" the DVD's to true HD quality. isnt it more like 720p?

[cubanpab]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 12:01pm

awesome explanations best & craig.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/7/08 at 1:47pm

Okay, I just started salivating---reading this about Warner Bros.' plans to release all these great classic films on Blu-ray!

http://www.digitalbits.com/#mytwocents