ZenLunatic Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Ok here is the current format war. They both seem very close in quality and price. It seems to me either can win out and alot will have to do with marketing and not the specs of the technology since they are both viable hi-def formats. I think there needs to be a winner of this format war and it will be pretty much decided by the end of this year or soon afterwards. With all the sales of HD tvs and all these new HD channels popping up, HD is starting to become very affortable and what everyone wants now. It is natural now for this format war to really get its big fight soon. This holiday season should be a the big match. It is just stupid to have 2 formats, one will win. I think I will wait till there is a clear winner before upgrading to a HD player. Cmon big corps, make your push, settle this war. Regular DVDs are be so old school. Anybody know more details on this? Who seems to have the edge? Any opinions? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GtrPlyr Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 I talked to a few people who know about such things the other day and they seemed to think that HD-DVD was the clear winner. Only time will tell I suppose. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
a.miller Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Blu-Ray, like betamax, uses (I think) some proprietary technology that makes it far more expensive to use than HD-DVD. Additionally, Sony said that no porn could use Blu-Ray, which is apparently where A LOT of DVD sales come from. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ZenLunatic Posted October 3, 2007 Author Share Posted October 3, 2007 I have noticed that the Bluray players are higher priced than the HD-DVD players. But also noticed a bigger Bluray DVD section at my local Best Buy though, a little bit back. Things may have changed, I dunno. How can Sony control content of everything release in bluray format? Format should be free to any company. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
a.miller Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 How can Sony control content of everything release in bluray format? Format should be free to any company.It's Sony's technology and they own the rights to it, so they can (not) do with it whatever they please. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ZenLunatic Posted October 4, 2007 Author Share Posted October 4, 2007 It's Sony's technology and they own the rights to it, so they can (not) do with it whatever they please. If thats the case, I cant see a format that limits itself succeeding. Especially with porn business being so big, you have to allow it. No question. It could be the deciding factor in this war. Sony is stupid to put limits on the format. It's suicide. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
OOO Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 Sony backpedaled on the porn issue, and its no longer true that porn won't be allowed on it. They realized that would be shooting themselves in the foot. Blu-ray is technically far superior to HD-DVD, holding about 25GB to HD-DVD's 15GB (per layer), so for things like media storage, Blu-ray has clear advantage. However, both formats can be multilayered so it may not be a big deal. Visually both formats seem to produce very similar qualities. HD-DVD is cheaper to make, so companies like Wal-mart quickly got on board with that side of things. It did look as though that was winning early on. However, the reason Blu-ray is selling more players and discs right now is the PS3. For a whole year, the cheapest Blu-ray player you could find on the market was the PS3, because Sony subsidized the price. And hey, you get a gaming system to boot, so why not? Sony also gave away some blu-ray discs with each PS3 to spur the market, so that has made a difference. I know they started selling PS3's with Casino Royale (A Blu-ray only title) in Europe, and that is by far the best selling High Def format DVD. I personally would bet on Blu-ray right now, but I too would wait for things to settle down in the format war before I try anything. (Plus I still think DVD's look great, so.....) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
isadorah Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 HD-DVD. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Blue and Green Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 Bluray>HD-DVD Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Duck-Billed Catechist Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 What the world really needs is a new media to watch movies on. Heaven knows how many times I've said that to myself. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
a.miller Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 What the world really needs is a new media to watch movies on. Heaven knows how many times I've said that to myself.High-definition streaming would be awesome. I got an up-converting DVD player, which will scale a normal DVD to the resolution of HD-DVD. That was a good buy. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Duck-Billed Catechist Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 Well, I was kind of joking. I think the whole thing is silly. I have heard that those up-converted DVDs are indistinguishable from the next generation players. I doubt that either format will ever really get over. The reason DVDs were adopted over VHS wasn't simply because they looked better. The major breakthrough was that they were so much more convenient. They're more durable, no rewinding required, easy to skip scenes, etc. The possibility of extra features was cool, too, although most bonus features are only interesting to a select portion of hardcore fans of a given flick. I'm not sure that the possibility of extra camera angles and increased quality is really enough to get the mainstream to convert. It would be cool to put, say, an entire season of a series on one disc, but that wouldn't be that enticing unless the cost was less than current box sets. I dunno. Maybe quality by itself does have enough appeal for the HDTV crowd. You are right that it seems that the really revolutionary media would involve streaming over the internet, but do that in high quality we'd have to sort out the telecom issues we have in this country. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ZenLunatic Posted October 4, 2007 Author Share Posted October 4, 2007 I dunno. Maybe quality by itself does have enough appeal for the HDTV crowd. You are right that it seems that the really revolutionary media would involve streaming over the internet, but do that in high quality we'd have to sort out the telecom issues we have in this country. Of course we can see the future with its internet HD streams and memory cards, but for now its Blu-ray and HD-DVD. I do think the picture and storage quality will make people change, just the price needs to come down and it will. Why do you think people are buying HD televisions with up to 1080p and getting HD channels if they dont want to max out visual quality. Unlike audio, most people seem to really care about video quality. Once higher resolution players get the right price, people will buy them up like crazy. Its all backwards compatible so no need to replace old DVDs, just continue new ones with HD quality. I predict this holiday season will tell alot. Also the storage benefits for computers is worth the upgrade. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TCP Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 Apparently the reason why VHS won over Betamax was cause the porno industry went with VHS. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ZenLunatic Posted October 4, 2007 Author Share Posted October 4, 2007 Apparently the reason why VHS won over Betamax was cause the porno industry went with VHS. Well then I hope Sony learned from their mistakes and doesnt repeat it cause I think Betamax was from Sony. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Duck-Billed Catechist Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 Well, maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that most people buy HDTV to watch sports in high quality. Neither format helps them with that. If there's no noticeable visual difference between those formats and up-converting DVD players then people concerned with image quality might just buy the latter. The thing is--how long have we been hearing about this particular format war? Seems like it's been a long time. For the price to really come down the players have to be mass-produced. For the players to be mass-produced they need a lot more customers. To have more customers there needs to be a compelling reason to buy it at the moderately high price. Also, one of the formats has to be knocked out. The success of one of the formats is not an inevitability. It's kind of a chicken or the egg thing. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ZenLunatic Posted October 4, 2007 Author Share Posted October 4, 2007 Well, maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that most people buy HDTV to watch sports in high quality. Neither format helps them with that. If there's no noticeable visual difference between those formats and up-converting DVD players then people concerned with image quality might just buy the latter. The thing is--how long have we been hearing about this particular format war? Seems like it's been a long time. For the price to really come down the players have to be mass-produced. For the players to be mass-produced they need a lot more customers. To have more customers there needs to be a compelling reason to buy it at the moderately high price. Also, one of the formats has to be knocked out. The success of one of the formats is not an inevitability. It's kind of a chicken or the egg thing. I dont know about that up-converting being unnoticeable. I cant see that being true. I see there being a noticable difference. I really feel strongly that one of the formats will take over and people will buy the Hi-Def stuff. Not only do people want sports but want Movies and anything else watchable. Why else would people be wanting all channels to be HI-DEF? The price will come down cause like all technology, price comes down and this will cause people to buy causing more mass production and so on. Look at LCD and Plasmas a few years ago till now, huge diff in price. With advancement in technology comes lower price. The price is getting pretty good even now. You dont have to take my word for it, just see it happen as time passes. Its an inevitability. I said the same things when DVDs first came out and people were skeptical of it taking off. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
OOO Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 Same thing you said for laserdiscs, right? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ZenLunatic Posted October 4, 2007 Author Share Posted October 4, 2007 Same thing you said for laserdiscs, right? Ha! I was actually too young to be into technology when those came out. I did buy one long after its extinction because I thought it was cool, then I got sick of those gigantic discs and sold it all. I am a big fan of Hi-def audio and would love to see somthing happen with that but dont have too much confidence in it as of now. I do feel it will happen and its a matter of time but may take a long time for that one. The quality of Hi-def audio is comparable to vinyls, so nice, I wish more artist would consider this option, but not enough consumer interest. The hi-def video on the other hand is upon us now. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
farva Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 Well, maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that most people buy HDTV to watch sports in high quality. Neither format helps them with that. I thought the same thing ... then recently I tried to watch a regular DVD of Aranofsky's The Fountain on our new TV - it was absolutely unwatchable. I'm not talking about being a picky videophile type person, it was hard to watch. It was so noticeably blocky and off-colored that I only made it through five minutes. We switched to watching Half Nelson and it wasn't nearly as bad, but The Fountain is clearly one film that will benefit from a HD release. Myself, I'm not guessing either way. I can wait until a clear winner emerges. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bjorn_skurj Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 Well, maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that most people buy HDTV to watch sports porn in high quality. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DAngerer09 Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 Being a PS3 owner, I'm rooting for Blu-Ray. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ZenLunatic Posted October 5, 2007 Author Share Posted October 5, 2007 Here is a side by side comparison on the difference HiDef makes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Duck-Billed Catechist Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 Which is which? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
a.miller Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 Which is which?The one on the left is HD-DVD and the one on the right is Blu-Ray Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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