Blue Ray closer to victory?

Except that Blu-Ray was developed by a group, not just Sony.

 

I don't understand why Blu-Ray is doing better than HD-DVD. HD-DVD is much cheaper (the players, at least) and it's actually higher quality, from what I understand. What advantage does Blu-Ray have aside from studio deals?

 

the GameGear was better than the GB in many respects too, it's all a matter of market perception and support.

 

My thoughts exactly. I will not accept this digital download bullshit for movies or full games. I want an actual object that contains the game or movie.

 

to own an item is a legal fiction, get over it.

as long as you have in your possession the piece of hardware where the data is stored the medium doesnt matter, be it an HDD where the item is stored, or a disk that is pressed or burnt, - data is still physically stored somewhere.

Although I m an "old" gamer, I can safely say its "old wine new bottles", nothing more.

 

same goes for music imo.

 

Blu Ray just sounds cooler than HD-DVD. I never see any HD-DVD ads either, it's all Blu Ray all the time.

 

Those really cheap HD-DVD players are sort of limited since they output a max of 1080i or 720p video, they aren't able to do 1080p. Whether that's important to someone is a different story, and considering the majority of HDTV's I see sold are only capable of displaying those two resolutions anyways... it probably isn't.

 

Indeed. Blu-Ray was invented by a coalition, but I speak of Sony generally because they are the ones who are the major backers for it. Toshiba being the major backer for HD-DVD. But again, technically, for HD-DVD the format was invented by the DVD-Forum as a successor to the already popular DVD format (Also released by them).

Personally, I see Blu-Ray as being another “DVD+R” format. Something that was invented solely for patent/license revenue, yet offers nothing compelling for the consumer compared to what already exists. In the case of “DVD+R”, I could say it was even worse than what already came out, since DVD+Rs were so out of spec (an afterthought really to DVD), that manufactures had to go out of their way to make players work with it. For DVD-R, which was actually sanctioned by the DVD forum, the technology naturally works for most compliant DVD players. It’s funny about DVD+R compatibility, because in order for some players to work with it, they require you to change the format bit to dual layer, in order to trick the drive to focus on the different media of DVD+R. Why did I just purchase your DVD+R format? Why am I going to this trouble to get this new disk to work when we already have a more compatible format?

Anyway, I apologize for the rant I’m just not getting the reason why companies always need to force new things down when there is no need for it. I guess its somewhat the same feeling I have about forcing PS3 users to use blu-ray, since Sony doesn’t want that format to flop.

 

Blu-Ray is better quality, but more expensive. Know the reason? More market penetration thanks to the PS3. That means that more movies have been sold. It's that simple. That is why Sony have taken such a hit this generation. It's a calculated risk.

There was talk that Toshiba were going to ditch HD-DVD, but a mysterious HD-DVD supporter convinced them (no idea how) to continue.

The limitations (region coding, DRM, etc) are pushed on formats by movie studios. There is no one bad guy here, it's all about lining pockets with consumer's money and there should be no surprise. If people didn't buy that stuff, they wouldn't do it.

 

But you're equating quality with market penetration, which is simply not the case. When I say quality I'm referring to visual and aural quality. From what I understand, only HD-DVD supports uncompressed video while Blu Ray video is always compressed (H.264, I believe). Of course, some HD-DVD's are compressed, but some uncompressed video is better than none.

Also, FirestarterCL, you're wrong about the cheaper HD-DVD players being 720p/1080i only. Toshiba makes one for $200 that will do 1080p. That's half the price of the cheapest Blu Ray player (the PS3).

My reason for bringing this up is that it seems an awful lot like what happened with Laserdisc and VHS. Laserdisc was clearly the superior format and it was proven to be marketable (in the Japanese market), but because of poor marketing in the US it failed.

 

The HD spec requires players to support more codecs and features than the BD spec. HD also has no region coding, and it's name makes sense, even to n00bs. I'd much rather see HD win.

 

It works out cheaper per GB and I'd much rather have Blu-Ray as a storage medium in my PC. The hard coated layer, cheaper price per GB, larger storage etc are all better than HD-DVD.

Also the porn industry has dropped HD-DVD support in favour of Blu-Ray (but I don't think it'll have the same VHS effect as most people use the net and get porn for free. Also who wants to see all the imperfections on porn stars?).

http://kotaku.com/343079/porn-studio-aims-to-please-ps3-owners

 

Seriously? The space (and data transfer) requirement of uncompressed HD video would be nothing short of astronomical! Is it actually used?

 

All HDDVDs are compressed. Both can use uncompressed sound or something though

 

If Sony wasn't backing Blu-Ray would everyone still hate it?

 

Yes, because I'd still need a DVD player and a bloody Blue Ray player instead of a HD-DVD player that would run all my older DVDs. Yeah, I know a DVD player is cheap but it's space that bothers me, not price.

Yakumo

 

get a PS3 then

 

No I'm not, it's just the construction of my sentence - it could have been clearer. Blu-Ray is higher bit-rate than HD-DVD, meaning audio and video has the potential for higher quality when the formats mature. In fact, some Blu-Ray discs already provide this. BD also has a larger maximum capacity which means more potential storage for extras or for higher quality encoding for long movies.

In terms of lossless encoding, HD-DVD enforces this feature on all players while Blu-Ray has this as optional for the first two specifications, I think that changes in Blu-Ray 2.0. However, you'll almost never see lossless encoding because it takes up so much storage space. With lossy encoding, almost all of the Blu-Ray limits are higher than HD-DVD. Also the extra capacity of BD means higher encoding rates are more likely.

Laserdisc failed for other reasons too. It was far too big and it suffered from disc rot. It was also expensive compared to VHS. This last problem exists today, which could prevent HD discs from really becoming mass consumer products.

Also Toshiba are taking a big hit on those low priced players. It is a last ditch effort to turn the tide and I don't think it will work out now that HD-DVD is losing the support of studios. If Microsoft had put a HD-DVD in the XB360, it probably would have won the war, but the PS3 is the trojan horse. That is the only reason one format is ahead of the other, the average consumer doesn't give a crap about small specification differences. They just want the HD-Def image for their new TV.

I think almost all Blu-Ray players let you play DVDs.

 

What? And waste even more space :110: I'm going to get a 360 at one point when they finally make a model that won't crap out after a year.

Really? that's good news then. I remember reading that they wouldn't. Problem is will the DVd region code be easy to crack? I have loads of PAL and US DVDs

Yakumo