HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war is good

[Kevin Shaw]

Ditto what Joshua said -- there's no indication that ALL of the important movie content will be delivered on blu-ray versus HD-DVD, so it sure looks like a battle between two well-backed formats. If a customer asks me what I recommend for delivery of my HD projects, and the cost of blank discs is 10X as much with blu-ray, I'd probably recommend the Toshiba solution for that reason alone. Or I'll just include a red-laser HD player as part of my HD packages, and circumvent the whole blue-laser DVD fiasco entirely. Let's say it takes at least 2-3 years or more for Sony to get blu-ray prices down to reasonable levels -- I can wait that out using solutions which are available today.

[Kyle Edwards]

2hr 30min of 1920x1080 MPG2 video = 20gigs

That is with only one audio track. I don't see HD-DVD using MPG2 much if it does become the standard. Personally I would rather see Blu-Ray because of the storage space. It is very much needed. Do you really think a 6 layer HD-DVD will be reliable? How about people wanting to burn their own HD-DVDs? It took years for the home market to see dual-layer DVD burners, would it be the same with HD-DVD?

Also using Java to program Blu-Ray is a plus.

I'm not a Sony fanboy, but they seem to have the upperhand in this case.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Kyle Edwards

2hr 30min of 1920x1080 MPG2 video = 20gigs

A two-layer Toshiba HD DVD will hold 30 GB of data, which is more than enough for two hours of full-quality HDV footage or almost eight hours of Windows Media HD. More importantly, a one-layer HD DVD will hold four hours of Windows Media HD or three hours plus a bunch of extras, on a disc which will reportedly cost no more to manufacture than current red-laser DVDs. So if I can fit everything from a long HD project on one disc which costs me maybe $1 to buy, what's my incentive to use blu-ray at $5-10 per disc?

As far as burners are concerned, if Toshiba's format is so much simpler in terms of the discs I would hope that also extends to the burners and players, so if those are also shipping at reasonable prices six months from now that's a big advantage over blu-ray

The main weakness I see for Toshiba is that they're going to get squeezed by the HD alternatives being delivered in new game machines next year, with Sony using blu-ray and Microsoft using Windows Media in the Xbox2. That does start to make Toshiba look like "odd man out," but if they have a practical product at the right price they might still make it work.

Me, I'll just stick to Windows Media HD on standard DVDs until we see what happens with the new disc formats.

[Kyle Edwards]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

A two-layer Toshiba HD DVD will hold 30 GB of data, which is more than enough for two hours of full-quality HDV footage or almost eight hours of Windows Media HD.

I think we'd see more 2 disc movies with HD-DVD over Blu-Ray. The cost factor is because it is new, as with everything else when it is new.

Me, I'll just stick to Windows Media HD on standard DVDs until we see what happens with the new disc formats.

I've recently discovered the I-O Data AVLP2 Network DVD Player and it is beyond awesome for this. I still have to do more tests with encoding Xvid and WMV9 at HD resolutions to familiarize myself to the level I am with MPG2.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Kyle Edwards

I think we'd see more 2 disc movies with HD-DVD over Blu-Ray. The cost factor is because it is new, as with everything else when it is new.

But Toshiba has already announced that they're ready to produce their HD DVDs in large volumes with nearly the same manufacturing cost of making a standard red-laser DVD, meaning they could sell the new discs at close to current disc prices. Everything I've ready about blu-ray suggests the discs will initially cost at least $5-10 each or potentially even more than that, which puts a big damper on the format as far as I'm concerned.

As you said, players like the Avel effectively solve this problem to some extent for the foreseeable future. But as I understand it there's no way to have a proper DVD menu for HD files with the Avel, so you lose a lot of the customer experience. That puts us back to just using widescreen SD DVDs for most purposes until this whole HD mess gets sorted out.

[Kyle Edwards]

Well the reason why those discs are so cheap right now is because the machines to make the DVDs can still be used and replaced with few parts. Where Blu-Ray needs a whole new line...if I am not mistaken.

For the time being, fast forwarding will have to replace menus on the AVLP. We did it for 20 years, we can do it for another 2. :)

[Ruslan Odintsov]

Originally Posted by Peter Moore

"The new players will output through analog component only 480p signal and no real HD"

You got a source for that, or are you speculating?

Here's just one of the links that I remember of:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds22406.html

But there were quite a few more sources that I can't dig out right now.

So if you have an HDTV without HDMI that supports encryption - you're screwed to watch everything from HD-DVD at 480p. Of course, I really hope that there will be some Chinese manufacturers that might include analog component Hi-Def output. If not, then this format is not for me, and I hope most of the people don't buy it either. The industry went just one step too far with this one, and I hope it backfires at them.

[Steve Crisdale]

Originally Posted by Ruslan Odintsov

Here's just one of the links that I remember of:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds22406.html

But there were quite a few more sources that I can't dig out right now.

So if you have an HDTV without HDMI that supports encryption - you're screwed to watch everything from HD-DVD at 480p. Of course, I really hope that there will be some Chinese manufacturers that might include analog component Hi-Def output. If not, then this format is not for me, and I hope most of the people don't buy it either. The industry went just one step too far with this one, and I hope it backfires at them.

I remember seeing a press release at Tom's Hardware site, from some Microsoft executive regarding HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I'm sure it mentioned that while the amount of data such high density disks is capable of handling the full HD-stream, the actual data-read rates are no better than we currently have with standard DVD and Microsoft wasn't actually prepared to support the proposed HD-DVD/Blu-Ray formats until that changed... which could be some time apparently.

Strangely, when I went back to Tom's Hardware site the next day to re-read the release... I couldn't find it! I'm sure it got pulled for being a bit negative, when there's so much positiveness about both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

Personally; I'm with Ruslan on this. Just another excercise in hype from the "spend your dough on the latest and geatest spin doctors".

Just wait until all those happy smilling people who've dished their cash out to the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray 'Pied-Piper' find out which path it is they've been led up!!

[Joshua Starnes]

Personally, I'll be going with the one that will allow me to view HD material through analog ports. I bought my big screen HDTV in 2001 before HDMI was being put on everything, and I'm not of a mind to get a new one just because there it is missing a port. I need that TV to last me 10 years (for what I paid for it) and that's what it's going to do.

So if Blu-Ray (which hasn't said one way or another yet) lets me use my component cables, that's what I'll get. Otherwise I'll be looking for some Chinese player that will let me I suppose.

Which is unfortunate, because the films I would be most likely to get in HD right away - the Matrix films, the Harry Potter films, the Lord of the Rings films - will initially be avaialble on HD-DVD only.

[Ash Greyson]

Let us not forget that Sony has announced the the PS3 will be Blueray... depending on how aggressive they get with their pricing, this would be a KILLER for HD-DVD. It is estimated that up to 70% of the PS2's bought in the first year were used primarily as DVD players.


ash =o)

[Kevin Dooley]

And from what I've seen, the PS3 and Xbox 2 (whatever it's called) are both going to be around the price of the PS2 and original Xbox when they came out... $300 ish... Any more than that and people just won't go for them...

[Peter Ferling]

Who cares?

First, I'm only looking at Blueray for storage purposes. Right now, it's looking more like a fat DVD disk, with enough room to archive many of my one-hour DV25 projects; video, support, edit files and all. That way, when it comes time to repurpose or rebuild a project, it's a simple copy, with no need to recapture the tapes.

Second, I am having great success with 720p windows media HD files on DVD disk, thankyou. Therefore, I see computers catching on as the primary playback platform, and more efficient compression being the ticket.



Pete