it's really over! HD-DVD sayonara!
 

With Wal-mart taking side, I think HD-DVD is officially dead.

http://www.walmartfacts.com/articles/5673.aspx

Perhaps but there is a very large portion of the world outside of North America that is - most thankfully - free of the Sam Walton empire.

There's also this.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...op_HD_DVD/1468

Yeah, but the US is AFAIK the only market in which HD-DVD had a foothold. In Europe Blu-Ray has been dominant all the time. In The Netherlands I can't even find a HD-DVD player at "Media Markt" (Best Buy equivalent) We don't have something like wall-mart, but all the big chains don't have HD, or Blu-Ray.

That's huge, since they are the manufacturers of most of the affordable HD-DVD players on the market.

Could this be the opposite of Betamax and VHS?

I believe that Wal-Mart is the largest seller of DVDs on the planet. They typically sell on low price. That they chose BD despite the higher price of the players speaks strongly.

I've often scratched my head about this hd-dvd and blu-ray saga.
Being in the UK, I've walked into many big chain retail stores and looked through many printed shop catalogues. What do I see? A bombardment of 'HD Ready' televisions in 720p and more recently 1080p flavours. One shop literally had a quarter of its entire floorspace covered in them. Which is great, plenty of choice and competition and prices are becoming somewhat reasonable.
Sorted. Now, I want to watch some high-def 'Lost'! My eyes scan the broad horizon of DVD players. One of these has got to play blu-ray...hd-dvd?...not on your nelly. It's like they're taboo!
Perhaps I'm short-sighted, perhaps there was one hiding in the corner or maybe I should have asked the sales guy. But you would think they would be pushing these things with all their might. I should be seeing dancing girls dressed in neon bikinis letting off fireworks around blu-ray and hdtv setups all playing beautifully crisp images from '300' or 'Harry Potter', instead of a limp line of fantastic piano black machines dribbling daytime blurry sd television!
More recently I did see a hd-dvd player being sold together with a cheap and nasty hdtv in a supermarket at the end of the ailse. Personally, it smacked of 'bargain bin' or 'let's lose this unshifting stock quickly'.
Aha, we have the PS3, but this is really in it's own field and due to it's technological nature, the price cannot begin to approach what a mass-market standalone machine needs to be. It got blu-ray off the blocks but it can't carry it.
Crazy. The industry (this always works when your not sure exactly who your talking about) has made a rather large cockerel head skywards and we're just sitting pretty waiting until it comes down again.

That's very interesting. I did not know that. And somehow it doesn't surprise me - you know, the US market being at odds with the rest of the world!

The bottom line is that Hollywood will cater to the US market, and that drives everything else. The Indian movie market is huge, but they will follow, not lead, Hollywood into the HD domain.

BD has now won
* The studio war
* The player war (more manufactures)
* The console war (BD standard is PS3; optional HD DVD in Xbox360)
* The retail war
* The rental war

We should start a pool for the date when HD DVD's end is announced.

Why start a Pool- it's dead in the water now!

I'd say it's pretty much ready to call now too - that Wal-Mart notice turns all heads. Well, now almost ready to start purchasing High-Def content!

Wal-Mart to officially discontinue HD DVD sales by June
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/15/w...sales-by-june/

Best Buy's pushing Blu-ray to the front
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/11/b...-to-the-front/

Netflix picks Blu-ray, good luck renting an HD DVD soon
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/11/n...n-hd-dvd-soon/

Gartner: Blu-ray to win in 2008, HD DVD price cuts are "useless resistance"
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/28/g...s-are-useless/

Blu-ray players grab 93 percent of market after Warner went Blu
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/22/b...rner-went-blu/

Study shows that Blu-ray sales are killin' in Japan
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/21/s...llin-in-japan/

Universal HD DVD exclusivity contract has expired, sits non-renewed
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/10/u...sits-non-rene/

Universal and Paramount are both going Blu
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/09/s...oth-going-blu/

Paramount: "Current plan is to support the HD DVD format."
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/p...-format-curre/

The fat lady is singing.

Its a pity if any of this is true. Because Blu-ray sucks (for the consumer). HD-DVD had everything (accept a few extra gigs and burners lol) that we wanted.


PS. I have always had a preference for Blu-ray but only because of its slightly larger capacities so that when afordable media comes 30 vs 50 makes a difference a few years down teh track at the rate storage requirements increase.

pity we cant have what we want. Blu-ray region free. :P

So, it's over. Let's do an aftermath summary. Why Blu-ray won the war?

I would say the key was PS3.

Sing it with me:

"na na naaa na...."

It was covered by many news programs today in Japan that Toshiba is considering to fold HD DVD business...

It will be official soon.

Done and confirmed:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/16/t...d-dvd-already/

I'm going to keep my eye open for the fire sales. I sure wouldn't mind picking up an HD-DVD player for under 50 bucks.

No, it snowballed after the Warner announcement, then Netflix. Studio support was the factor.

Toshiba to give up on HD DVD, end format war: source
 

My own rambling thoughts....

HD-DVD or Blu-ray - it doesn't matter. Japanese high tech industry wins again.

Toshiba stock could easily as well go up as down if the market heaves a sigh of relief that the long-flogged horse is finally in the knacker's yard

Stock movements won't come into play on Monday in the US due to the national holiday.

Market preferences outside the US still dominate global commerce.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/techno...37974620080216

Unconfirmed sources at Toshiba that they will pull the plug next week.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray oversight in Japan is the same company and everyone (including Toshiba and Sony) are signed up for both standards. Pity my Toshiba A-3 was cheaper, loads faster, has Ethernet and upscales better than my Sony S300. In Blu-Ray speak it's profile 2.0 today and cost me a $100 less. Oh well.

I know that Blu-Ray theoretically has region coding, but as I look through my pile of movies I notice that they are (with one exception) coded for all regions.

So if the studios aren't actually using it does the region coding really matter? Although, I suppose none of it matters if the talk of Tosh pulling the plug is true.

I think the real loser is corporate video.

We've been producing HD content for many clients. It's been easy to encode the HD video...into HDDVD spec...and burn it on a DVD. As you know regular DVD media (be it -R or +R) is cheap. As long as your video was under the 18 minute range...this process was easy and you could play the HDDVD you created on any of the HDDVD boxes.

For tradeshows for clients...this was a no-brainer. Cheap Toshiba $200 HDDVD player...and make a loopable HDDVD out of DVD Studio...and voila...playable HDDVD for clients at a very affordable price.

We also have a client who we produce HD content for...and then provide 135 HDDVD discs for them to play in retail outlets. So what if blu ray won...right now...this is a cost-effective way to distribute HD content. Oh..did I mention that once we create the master...we use our STANDARD DVD duplicator to make the copies...at less than .40 per copy ?

So..with all the blu ray hub-bub....I started looking into getting into blu-ray production.

An EXTERNAL blu ray drive from Lacie runs around 700.00 . Duplication ? Well not so easy. A 2 disc blu ray duplicator runs around 4k. So...if I want to get into any kind of blu ray production...I would have to make copies by the "onsies - twosies" method. Oh...and blu ray disc prices....$36 a PIECE. And a blu ray player right now is $400-500.

So for now...HD DVD is NOT dead in my world. We'll buy a bunch of HDDVD's to keep on hand for shows and over the next 2 years or so...this will still be a viable delivery method until blu ray prices come down...as they eventually will.

Just like HDDVD that you can put on standard DVD disks, Blu-ray can also
be put on the standard DVD disk.... and they play fine, in a Blu-ray player.

So its realy down to the cost of the player....

many folks are just using the Sony Playstation...

Ray..

Have you done this? I was informed that blu-ray would NOT let you burn content...unless it was a blu-ray burner.

About a year ago...(when we started doing this...) Folks had said that the blu-ray spec did not allow for burning onto DVD media.

For a bridal show demo, I used Vegas8b to render a HDV MPG file and then took NERO 8 Ultra with the BluRay & HD-DVD Plugin and made a BluRay h.264 DVD at 1080 resolution... I was able to get 27 minutes on a single layer DVD-R and tested an hour on a DVD+R Dual Layer... at 17 Mbps bitrate (you can actually fit more on the discs!) This was tested on my Samsung BD-P1400 player and 2 other Sony BRD Players.

Here are the basics how to do it:

Using a PC and Nero:
1- Open Nero Vision
2- Select "Make BluRay Disc"
3- Add video files and select the M2T file rendered from NLE. MAKE SURE its about 29 minutes or less for DVD-R SL!
- add chapters here too if desired.
4- At the bottom, click "More" then "Video Options"
5- Click on Blu-Ray Video tab in that new window.
6- Video Format: Choose MPG4 then click on "Configure Encoder" and choose HIGH.
7- Quality Settings: Custom
Sample Format: Automatic
Bitrate: 17000 kbits
Resolution: 1440x1080 (You can choose 1920x1080, but on my processor, it takes longer to scale this... the player does the correct aspect on the 1440x1080.)
Encoding Mode: 1 Pass
Audio Format: Automatic
8- When you get to the menu screen, just select not to use a menu if you want straight play or create your own menu.
9- Go through the rest of the process. And finally choose burn or whatever... just create the folders to a hard drive and burn later!
10- When encoding finishes... open Nero Burning Rom and choose DVD (UDF)... click on the UDF tab and choose Manual settings, then physical partition, then choose UDF format 2.5 then choose Label and type in a name for the BluRay disc such as Bridal Show.
11- Click NEW
12- Navigate the right pane and locate the folders "Certificate" and "BDMV". Drag BOTH folders to the left pane... this is the BluRay disc you'll be burning.
13- Insert blank DVD-R and BURN AWAY!

Lots of details here
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=815296
What sucks is "SONY" Vegas does not support DVD burning for Blu-Ray.

What about final cut/mac options, I've been burning hd-dvd compatible's on regular dvd-r's can you do this for blu ray too?

My friend's article asks the big question to us fence sitters: will we buy a Blu-ray player now?

http://screenrant.com/archives/so-ar...blur-1385.html

Also, Harry from Ain't It Cool News makes a good point: we need more content, esp. classic movies:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35643

heath

We leave Sony in control?
 

Hey Heath,

Will I get a Blue-Ray player? Well, my answer is no and I think it will be the same for many others. I'll use my Toshiba HD-DVD player for what I need and just sit and wait. All I want to do is burn some short content to DVD+-R for personal and business use. I have zero desire for the Blue-Ray player. I have no regrets for buying my HD-DVD player as it was dirt cheap, just over $200 with 10 movies.

The sad part is that they, Sony and Toshiba, could have compromised and hit the market hard. Now I think the format will be very short lived, VERY short lived. The war itself and the debate over the future of the both of them will hurt.

And somehow, I think Sony will try to put restrictions on DVD's etc. that will drive folks away. Their full control will cause them to try and do things to the market that will cause problems. They do have a certain reputation for that kind of action. Anyone want to write some fake movie reviews!? :)

See ya----Mike

P.S.: Heath, I need to email you so look for it.

Mike

I feel bad for HD DVD owners, Mike, so I know how you feel. But I don't think Sony will put restrictions on BD (Blu-ray Disc). I have a VUDU (www.vudu.com, a movies-over-IP device) which is great, but eventually I'll get a Playstation 3, which runs BDs and DVDs better than the Playstation 2 and XBOX ever did.

I think Blu-ray will be around for a while, then much of the tech will go towards perfecting movies-over-IP.

I'll look for your email, my friend.

heath

Now, or ever? I'll start with now - no, not yet: price point has to be lower while being a full-featured spec'd profile. Will I ever get one? Just answered that.. it'll probably be some sale I didn't see coming that hits the right buttons and price.

Also, Apple's descision to support Blu-Ray with software (the missing DVD Studio Pro 5) will certaintly heavily influence my descision to buy.

I've not bought a SD DVD in 3 years, wishing to wait for a higher resolution format. I've not stopped renting, so I've been fine.

Not to mention the lack of a BD burner built into the Mac Pro by Apple.

heath

Absolutely right. Well, now that BD looks to be the standard, Apple can announce at NAB.. oh, whoops.. never mind ;)

But seriously, yes. I think existing Mac Pro owners like myself would be fine with purchasing a BD burner to extend their investment, but, due to no software.. ugh. This is one of those times Apple could do the 'right' thing and at least announce it's plans in regards to creative content professional Blu-Ray support (at this point I could care less about watching hollywood BD movies on my Mac Pro).

Absolutely correct.

The Nero/AVCHD solution for Blu-ray is not as good as what we had with HD DVD for several reasons:

1.) AVCHD on DVD5/9 red laser media will not play on the PS3 if authored with menus.

2.) Re-encoding mpeg2 to AVCHD is slow and adversely affects picture quality.

3.) There is a trick for putting mpeg2 inside an AVCHD container to avoid the loss of quality from re-encoding. It plays as AVCHD on the Sony PS3 and BDP-S300 but not the newer BDP-S500, and not the Panasonic BD-30.

4.) You can author a DVD5/9 red laser disk with Blu-ray legacy BDAV format, but no menus, no chapter stops, and only 2 channel, not 5.1 audio.

5.) Even the 25gb BD-R/RE does not play on every Blu-ray player.

Conclusion: Blu-ray authoring is still beta. The main issue is undependable compatibility among players, media and authoring formats.

Tom,

Thank you for the technical "enlightenment' ! I was beginning to feel like a "schmuck"...thinking I was missing the capability of BluRay authoring.

HDDVD has been working FLAWLESSLY for us for delivering HD content in a cost effective and good quality means.

Like I said...for us...it's not going anywhere for a few years...until Blu Ray becomes easier to author and prices of media and the players will come down.

The Investor End
 

Investors cheer as Toshiba nears HD DVD surrender

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080218/bs_nm/dvd_dc_1

In DVD wars, winner on Main St is Blu-ray

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080217/...vd_bluray_dc_1

P