Blu-Ray takes the lead
 

http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...gvisit=y&npu=y

Thank GOD. Now I hope HD-DVD has a nice swift painless death...

It is just the PS3 launch maybe. We will see and time will tell.

Why? The general consensus from movie buffs is that HD DVD looks better and it certainly is cheaper from a production and player standpoint.

It's not even the PS3 that has caused this. Thus far into 2007 we've seen a very lax release schedule for HD DVD.

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html

Note that there are no releases scheduled until March 27th. There were no releases last Tuesday. Jan/Feb/March has been a wasteland of releases for the most part.

Now I understand why this may be. It was late 2006 that word got out about the cracking of AACS (Content encryption) for HD DVD and next Blu-ray. The studios have been silent about this but the whispers are that until the piracy issues are quelled some releases will be delayed and Fox has done just that choosing to delay roughly 10-15 titles until a later date.

Universal, Warner and Paramount seem to be taking a cautious approach towards movie releases as well. Things pick up in April however so perhaps there's an end in sight.

Make no bones about it I'm an HD DVD supporter. When it comes to HD product if I can get the best price AND the best quality then I'm there.

LOL sorry to debate this, but HD DVD better? running the same codecs and bitrates, they should be identical.. the only differences being the output options and the D/A converter for component output.. if runnign direct HDMI they theoretically shoudl be identical..

in addition BD is teh only format which has the advantage of offering Dolby Digital TrueHD which will rearely be seen in HD DVD due to capacity..

this debate can go on and on and on.. but lets face it, the PS3 has an inherant user base of over 1million users worldwide.. within the year the fact of having a PS3 in a household automatically puts BD in front as manufacturers will up the ante for BD content to appease these users demands..

Yes, after Sony has sold 30 to 60 times more PS3's. PS2 gave DVD a major kick in the pants, this is why they "had" to have Blu-ray in the PS3. We, in the gaming industry, wondered why the release schedule for the PS3 was so far out, and when it came time to release, what was the hold ups, waiting for Blu-ray components. In the end of the day blu-ray component pricing might drop severely so they can maintain there PS3 gain, but the rumor mill is that an revised XBOX360 is coming out with HD-DVD. So, goign down kicking and screaming. I wonder if they will produce a dual format player that could be used in the xbox360.

If I remember correctly, aren't they using better compression on Bluray discs now than they did initially?

In the end, I just want something to win because I want HD quality now!!! =D

They tried Mpeg2, but noise and grain aren't conducive to compression, so I think I read that they now use compression similar to HD-DVD.

Blu-rays initial titles were 25GB using MPEG2. BDs initial launch titles did not look good The Fifth Element, Hitch, House of Flying Daggers and more all had artifacts. Robocop was removed from stores because it looked so bad. HD DVD launched with solid titles because VC-1 exceeded expectations.

thing to remember is that BOTH formats are capable of each others encoded formats.. be it VC-1 or MPG2

In addition, it wont be long before Dual layered BD's are used... especially when DD TrueHD is in use..

I really don't care which one wins anymore. I just want one format settled upon so player, recorder, and media prices will drop enough to bring the format to the mainstream.

couldnt have said it better myself..

As some of you have mentioned, the original titles were MPEG2 but I have looked in the back of some Blu-Ray titles and its only 18mbps of MPEG2. Some of later versions were still 18mbps but this time using H.264 that produced a much better picture. The newest titles are going upward of 40mbps of H.264. The other reason for Blu-Ray titles looking like crap back then was because of the defective Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-Ray player that produced a soft image. At least Samsung is coming out with a much, much better version the BD-P1200 with very good picture enhancements and HDMI 1.3 compliant.

With future consumer Blu-Ray camcorders coming from Panasonic, Sony and Hitachi, Blu-Ray will be doing very well if you ask me.

The rumor of the new XBOX-360 with a built in HD-DVD player is the only thing that can prolong this war much further. Knowing Microsoft, they do want Blu-Ray defeated so releasing such a system wouldn’t surprise me at all.

Source: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/index.html#cema
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques...1107/index.php (graphic on second page)

So at the moment for every 100 Blu-ray discs sold, only 48.73 HD-DVD discs are sold. Even since inception more Blu-ray discs have now been sold than HD-DVD discs.

Doesn't mean Blu-ray is the winner yet. Like others I hope one will win and wins soon.