Blu-ray vs. HD DVD

[ARX|Frag4U]

Originally Posted by Harbinger

You mean HD and Blu-ray? From my understanding it will but will not be able to use all the HD features. For that reason it did not earn the right to use the HD branded logo on the casing. HD and Blu-ray are very different in regards to hardware and it is not easy to make a machine that plays both.

I'm sure all HD and Blu-ray players will be backwards compatible with standard DVD and I would imagine upscale.

Well however hard you may think it is, LG just built one. It's call the Super Multi Player. One single laser with two lenses.

http://tech.msn.com/guides/CES/videobluerayhddvd.aspx

[Harbinger]

I didn't say it was impossible, just not easy. I know that it's been done already. If they just released it then it certainly isn't the first on the market. It's just that the technologies are not compatible, so pretty much you're putting two players in one.

I just checked your link, it's from the CES (happened a while ago in tech time) so it most likely is the same one. Plays Blu-ray and HD but without a lot of the HD extras or sanctioning.

[Harbinger]

Oh here is the first video review I saw for it and what I'm referring to.. Scroll down to episode 128. You don't want to know how many tech podcasts I subscribe to...

http://dl.tv/default.php?p=15

[Wildflower]

chemical Blue ray is not better than HD DVD. Maybe you need to do more research before making such incorrect statments.

Blue ray all it has going for it is higher capacity. When you compare quality of blue ray vs HD DVD the difference is nill. Blue ray disk if you have a small scratch it wont play. People are even saying a small speck of dust on the disk will keep a blue ray movie from playing. HD DVD takes a huge scratch before it wont play. Im not going any further into this debate as there is alot of incorrect info out there. However for the price Gaming Concoles are the way to go.

Here is price examples:

Blue ray stand alone $1000
HD DVD Stand alone $400
Xbox 360 HD DVD Drive $200
Xbox 360 $400
PS3 $600
Dual Format Player $1200

So you can get an xbox 360 with HD DVD player and a PS3 for basically the same price as a Blue ray stand alone player and you get to game with them as well. The only other thing blue ray has for it is more movie choices but thats soon to change. Right now you cant say one format is better than the other because each has its own "goods" about them However right now blue ray has more negatives than HD DVD does. One thing HD DVD has, which may have contributed to the fall of betamax, is the porno industry backing it.

Only time will tell if the fall of Blue ray may be because of the porno industry but for some reason I doubt it. If Sony can get all the bugs/issues fixed with Blue ray and get the price to where consumers might be willing to buy it then Blue ray might have a good chance of becoming a clear winner. However, like chem said, Sony has the issue of major distrust amoung the general populace.

*edit oh and MT some HD DVD's have one side is DVD and the other side is HD DVD which you can play the DVD side of the HD DVD in a normal DVD player just you cant play the HD DVD side in a normal DVD player. Blue ray doesnt and probably never will have this function. I myself think its stupid but it may be a way to get people to buy it thinking "someday ill own an HD DVD player" I dont know though.

*edit#2
Harb yes all HD DVD and Blue ray players play DVD's and they do upscale them to 1080i.

*edit #3
The other thing is if you have a computer with an HDCP compliant video card or you use vga to connect your monitor you dont need the xbox 360 to use the HD DVD drive because your computer will automatically detect it as a toshiba drive and will play HD DVD's on your computer as long as its HDCP compliant or you are using vga . Currently the only way to do that with Blue ray is to buy a Bluey ray player for your computer which are still somewhere around $800 last I checked.

[ChemicalWarrior]

Just so you know Blong, Blu-Ray uses a protective material (which HD DVD does not have) in order to protect the disk. Due to the nature of such media it is needed. Early disks did not include such a protective layer, this however has changed and Blu-Ray now includes said protective layer on all discs. I find it extremely doubtful HD DVDs are made with magic and therefore with stand amazing scratches (huge is not even a decent way to characterize a scratch) while Blu-Ray can't even have a dust particle fall on it. Ironically HD DVD does not require a protective coating, where as Blu-Ray does.

Here’s another sticking point that is a huge deal, corporate support:

Blu-Ray Exclusive:
Columbia Pictures (Owned by Sony)
MGM (Owned by Sony)
Disney
Lionsgate
20th Century Fox

Non-exclusive:
Paramount Pictures
Dreamworks
Warner Bros.
New Line Cinema

Exclusive to HD DVD
Universal Studios
Weinstein Company

I am willing to bet the list speaks for itself.

Then, let’s move on to quality. Which you said a difference does not exist, however that may be true right now it probably won’t always be that way. Due to the capacity advantage and the fact that Blu-Ray and HD DVD use the same codecs, Blu-Ray can release movies with a higher bit-rate and therefore higher quality. More advantages of the capacity and transfer speed advantages.

If we take a look at the sales with current data you will see that at this point Blu-Ray is starting to lead a small lead in both hardware and software. Since January of this year Blu-Ray software has been out selling HD DVD around a 2:1 ratio, since conception Blu-Ray has now took a small lead over HD DVD. Hardware sales wise, there are more Blu-Ray capable units than HD DVD, mainly because alone the PS3 combines to more than either stand alone HD DVD players plus add-on Xbox 360 players. Lets even set aside the consoles for a second. Around this time best data indicates that HD DVD has 52% of the stand alone market and Blu-Ray 48%, hardly a sizable margin. Then by including consoles back in we can clearly see that Blu-Ray has more compatible players on the market.

Finally, pricing. As of now Sony has recently announced a second generation Blu-Ray player that will release with an MSRP of $599. Equating into street prices and voila you have Blu-Ray and HD DVD stand alone players within $100 of each other. Since the current high definition market is nearly exclusive to high end buyers still (besides console owners) I seriously doubt $100 is enough to sway them one way or another.

Finally, I honestly doubt you can say with any truth or true facts that Blu-Ray is an inferior format. It is not, it is technologically superior and also corporately supported far more than HD DVD.

[Harbinger]

Good points Chem but at the end of he day it's still Sony Personally I'm looking forward to watching the betamax vs vhs war happening all over again. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the inferior product comes out on top.

[ChemicalWarrior]

Possibly, but I am doubtful. Sony has already put together a very sizable number of big corporations to get behind Blu-Ray. As I noted Blu-Ray sells have sky rocketed since oh about the launch of the PS3. HD DVD sales on the other hand have maintained a steady pace. Unless something major happens (like Toshiba or someone releasing an HD DVD player for $200 tomorrow, stand alone) then I am doubtful we'll see HD DVD win this.

[{OF}MillerTime]

lay people have heard and undersrtand what a DVD is, I think DVD in the name alone would sway many. maybe not techies...but the regular joe.

[ChemicalWarrior]

Maybe some years ago, but its very doubtful anymore to me. The fact that these types of devices are such large parts of our daily life and the fact that Sony has made the choice of including Blu-Ray into a very public product (Playstation 3) means that people will become quickly informed that at the very least Blu-Ray is a optical media for movies, games, data, etc.

[{OF}MillerTime]

what the heck is optical media? Is it like a DVD?