awmurray

kvrdave

I need a serious answer from a BR fan, which I assume you are. I don't honestly care much who wins, I just want a good product. But trying to look at this objectively, I come up with more pluses for the HD-DVD, but obviously you don't. I would simply like to see what your reasoning is to the things that I see that you see differently.

1) Picture Quality - In theory these will be exactly the same in terms of what the discs themselves can handle. In reality, ever BR review I have seen is pretty harsh on BR because of various problems. Is it your stance that BR is the way to go because this will eventually get figured out and they will then be equal again, so it isn't really an advantage?

2) Space - The BR holds 25gb and the HD-DVD holds 15gb on a single layer. But from my perspective, the HD-DVD has already shown that it can pump out dula layer for 30 GB easily, and so far it does not appear that Sony is able to do anything but single layer discs. Additionally, HD-DVD uses a much more efficient coding, while Sony uses mpeg-2. As a result, Sony can't get long movies on any discs currently. Is it your position that BR is superior just because of the raw numbers of storage, and that eventually Sony will begin to use better coding, and be able to eventually get a dual layer disc out?

3) Support - Obviously Sony has better studio support at this time, but unfortunately, neither has all support, which is what I would want in my movie watching. Would it be correct that you see this as very important now, and also isn't something you see any change on in the future, like you would expect improvement in the future on the other areas?

4) PS3 - I know that originally people thought the idea of a huge number of BR players in the houses of gamers would be a big thing, but then we see that the editor of the Official Playstation Magazine isn't going to buy one because of the price, and she doesn't care about movies on her game machine. My own thought is that HD isn't the revolutionary leap that DVD was, and it simply won't be as big of a factor. Most things I read seem to concur with that more recently as well. Am I right in assuming you still believe that the PS3 will be a major driving force in the format war?


Okay, hopefully those came across in the friendly tone in which they were meant, and I would welcome anyone who is a decided BR supporter to give me their thoughts, as I am trying to understand. I would really enjoy a response to those.

pinata242

For some reason, this image comes more to mind for me.

RockStrongo

FYI...BD is not coming up....its already been released.

candyrocket786

Actually.... I think it's just trying to stay alive at this point.

The Bus

I'm not a BR fan, but I try not to be overly biased.

There is no advantage in video and audio quality except when space is compromised or when an older, less efficient encoder is used. As it happens, this is what is happening to BD right now. It seems to be an extremely steep, albeit temporary, hurdle.

With HD-DVD delivering great quality + lots of audio tracks + extras on current 30GB HD-DVDs, I would say very long movies will be split to two discs. Universal just announced Spartacus, which is 190-200 minutes long. Let's see how that movie is handled.

BR-50, with proper video and audio encoding, will let us have movies like The Godfather, Titanic, and Lord of the Rings: EE without having to switch discs. Or more episodes per disc. In addition, the extra 20GB of space would mean more extras on the same disc compared to a 30GB HD-DVD.

But... HD-DVD can theoretically do 45GB, making the difference pretty negligible. At the same time, BR can theoretically do 100GB+. The reality is, currently only 30GB DL HD-DVDs and 25GB SL BRDs are out. I would expect a 50GB BRD to appear before a 45GB HD-DVD does. Sony knows full well than not delivering a 50GB BRD will mean they are dead in the water. At some point, BD-50 yields will be up and we will begin to see them. It is up to the studios to use VC-1 or other encoders, which raises an interesting aside.*

Sony doesn't just have a few studios on its side, it has some of the biggest and most important ones. Besides Sony/Columbia, there's Fox/MGM and arguably one of he bigger ones, Disney/Buena Vista. Universal is also big, but people have spent $25B in the past decade (theatrically) on BRD studio movies. Universal, meanwhile, only got a comparatively measly $6B.

BR is not going away. Even if your installed base doesn't watch as many movies, they are going to have millions and millions of players out by the end of this year (no later than January or February). HD-DVD will not reach that by the end of 2006.

My guess is the studios are not going to be idiots and at some point (when they see a stalemate) will release movies in both formats. That is, if they are smart. If they are stupid, everyone (the studios / consumers) loses.

The internet breeds negativity against companies. People hate Apple, or Sony, or Microsoft, or whomever. Yet, if you look at wide polls on brands, these companies usually come near the top in terms of consumer respect. It would take a collosal failure, a perfect storm of bad circumstances, for the PS3 to not be a driving factor. I don't think the capture rate of PS3 owners and BR movies is going to be very high. Anywhere from 50% to 80% of owners won't have HD capability in the next year. I don't seem them spending $60-80 on three movies (that they may already have) when they could buy another game instead.

But that's not what matters. This is after the fact. Sony has been giving out leaflets to studios saying, "There's 100 million PS2s in homes around the world. If you support Blu-Ray, there will be 100 million PS3s (BR players) in homes around the world by 200X." Studio says, "OK, that makes sense." Remember, studios know nothing about games. This is a big (but not the main) factor that is driving BR support.

My aside will come later...

kvrdave

I will await the aside.

Josh Z

Choo choo, baby.

digitalfreaknyc

ha. and it's blue too

Josh Z

It bothers me that people are trying to lay all of Blu-ray's problems at the feet of the Samsung player, as if the software were perfectly fine and just needs a better machine to play on. That is far from the case.

Blitz6Speed

Before i begin. I am supporting blu-ray. I may seem like a fanboy, but i am actually hoping the superior format thrives. If it were HD-DVD with 50-gig dual layer discs and a PS3 on the way with the drive included, id be in the HD-DVD camp. I care not who runs the show, as long as the show goes forward. I am more concerned with movies down the line done right at extremely high bitrates taking up 50 gigs of space for quality that is unmatched. That is why im in favor of Blu-Ray. Now, to the replies.

The reason HD-DVD has more plus's is simply due to Blu-Ray's light roll out. Sony needed to steal some thunder from HD-DVD, so they put out what they had. The true launch comes with the Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic and other players are released. By then, we'll see properly done discs and players with all the goodies. That is the true launch. What we have now is just something to say "it exists, hold true and wait for the big guns".

The plus's HD-DVD has are price (PS3 combats that and wins), # of movies (it was out for a while before BD's lite launch, wait till the end of the year) and Picture quality (HD-DVD releases are nearing 28+ Gigs per film and the spec is limited to dual layer discs, how can they improve from here? Blu-Ray Warner releases look 90% of what the HD-DVD movies do, and use inferior codecs and less space. Take a pick at which one has room for improvement and which is nearly peaked.)


That is exactly why i back Blu-Ray, its just a matter of time before the releases look more and more amazing. They can use anything HD-DVD can codec wise and be able to go to a MUCH higher bitrate limit on the discs. This is going to be a HUGE issue with long movies. CJPlay, a Compressionist doing HD Movies, stated that the entire HD-DVD spec would have to change to add in Triple layer discs, and that it is needed badly if HD-DVD wants to compete.

Blu-Ray is an entirely new disc format from the ground up, HD-DVD is an extension of normal DVD. I'd be SHOCKED if they hadnt gotten dual layer HD-DVD's perfected by now, its old technology just to tide you over. Blu-Ray is all new and of course, it takes time to perfect a new format. It took a long time to get Dual Layer on DVD 100% perfect, so im not sure what people are expecting with BD50. It will come, it will perform, you just have to not settle for a lesser format just because its slightly better right now. Also, you can purchase a Dual Layer 50-gig Blank Blu-Ray disc right now, today. They exist.

Here is how i see it. 90% of studios are releasing on Blu-Ray. J6P walks in and buys a new HDTV. He wants his top 3 flicks in HD at the same time. He looks and he can get all 3 on Blu-Ray or 1 in HD-DVD and 2 Blu-Ray. Do you honestly think he is going to buy 2 players just to buy the same movie in a different format because he heard on the internet that its 10% cleaner? When 90% of the movies are on one format, you stick to that format. Dont look at it in terms of now, all the movies other then Universal titles will be on both formats and you will have a MUCH MUCH bigger choice on the blu-ray side. To purchase a player just for Universal flicks would be comedic to me, but thats anyones perogative.

PS3 will sell regardless. Snoop dogg was on the radio saying how he cant wait to get his PS3 to play Madden on it. It has brand recognition that has sold 100's of millions of consoles for sony. I know a lot of the hardcore gaming community is on the edge with the ps3, but the following groups are ready to dive in:

Sony brand loyalists
People wanting cheap BR players
Tech nerds who want all new hardware
Console nerds who must own every system out
Your Snoop Dogg-esqe madden lover who never bought into the xbox and wants a ps3 to go with his ps2.

And of course, gamers themselves. Theres no other system out there you can get the next big Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, God Of War and more on. You think those wont matter? So even considering the PS3 to become a failure is flawed thinking. Lets be realistic about it. We've got a lot of nerds on message boards who bought xbox 360s (i own one too!) and dont want to shell out for a PS3 (or cant afford one, like our buddy josh hinkle) and will endlessly talk smack about it. Thats nice and all, but the market is there, and the PS3 penetration will happen. Dont think any other way.

Also, i know a lot of people who once have gone to HD movies or gaming, have a hard time going back to SD movies and gaming. I can hardly watch DVDs anymore, im spoiled by Satellite HD flicks. I also love my Xbox 360 and its high def gaming. It may not seem like a huge jump, but beleive me, once your eyes are acustom to it, its hard not to want it all the time.

With all that being said, i still watch SD satellite TV because most of the channels i watch arent availabler in high def, i play SF2 on my xbox 360 (not high def), and i still manage to get a few hours of Super Mario World here and there. I know what i like, and if its available in a better format, im there. I just dont settle for things because an opportunity is there. I look at the big picture.

Many will call me biased, but i beleive in what i say. Ive always been a supporter for the technologically advanced side, and will continue to support it. And there ya go. Now im off to play Samurai Shodown 2 on my 92" Projection setup!

Adam Tyner

...but if it's universally considered to be a joke, how much thunder are they really stealing?

Just because something takes up nearly all of the space on a disc doesn't mean it has to. There's a 30 gig sandbox, so as long as the material fits, that's all that matters at present. There isn't a desperate crunch to say "hey, we have 30 gigs, but let's squander time we could've spent on another movie by cramming it down to 17 gigs!"

If you're running errands on your lunch break, and you have an hour to kill, do you tear off at top speed through Office Max if you have plenty of time to spare? No.

1) VC-1 is still in its early stages, and the encoding tools are considerably more efficient now compared to where they were when launch titles like The Last Samurai were first encoded.

2) Some of the best looking HD DVD titles have been on the single-layer combo discs which have half the capacity of the 30 gig discs.

3) Extras are still being encoded using MPEG-2, which gobbles up a lot of space. Again, as long as it all fits and there's no hit in quality, who cares?

Coral

What does a console with a built-in HD drive have to do with a format being superior in quality?

candyrocket786

Lite Launch... Ultra-Soft Launch.... Test Run Launch....


A Launch is a Launch!!!!!!

pinata242

Perceived value and assumed penetration.

digitalfreaknyc

"Percieved" and "assumed."

Excellent. Very accurate.

I think we could add "attempt" to those two.

Jay G.

Well, it depends on what you think "universally" means. In various forums around the net filled with those in the know, Blu-Ray's showing has been terrible so far. However, whether or not the average consumer, even the average high-end consumer, knows that is another matter.

For example, I was in Best Buy this past weekend looking at their setups for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Both were hooked up to 1080p TVs via HDMI cables. Now, the Samsung looked like crap compared to the Toshiba. However, while looking, a sales rep came up. I casually asked which format he'd recommend and he said unequivocally Blu-Ray, saying he had one himself and loved it. I didn't push him on the matter, since I was ready to leave, but it shows that the preference for HD-DVD isn't universal.

Also, this early release of Blu-Ray reminds/alerts consumers that it exists, even if most aren't going to be puchasing either format soon. It also can cause slight apprehension on a potential early HD-DVD adoptor, since there's a chance the format they choose will not be the winner.

You do realize that help's Blu-Ray's side as well, since even if double-layer never appears, Blu-Ray could have discs looking as good or better than single-layer HD-DVDs simply by changing codecs.

The question is, will it all fit? With very long films or movies with plenty of HD extras, Blu-Ray will have the space advantage when double-layer becomes feasible on that format. Whether or not the advantage will be significant, or if it will mean that HD-DVD will be able to fit 99.998% of all movies on one disc while Blu-Ray could fit 99.999%, remains to be seen.

wewantflair

The funny thing about the PS3 that just about no one talks about is something called attachment rate, which is vital to just about all retail businesses. Attachment rate is what got so many studios to back UMD, and its decline led those studios to run screaming from UMD a year later. Basically, how many BD movies will be sold with each PS3? Obviously, attachment rates for standalone players will be high. A quick look at polls on avsforum indicates something like a 20-25:1 attachment rate of HD DVD's to players sold.

With regards to the PSP, the attachment rate for UMD's was artificially high at launch, since the launch titles pretty much sucked. I fell into this boat; I wanted SOMETHING to play on my shiny new PSP, so I picked up a couple of movies since the games weren't all that good (sans Lumines, which is the best game ever ). In order for the PS3 to be an effective installed base for Blu Ray, it must have a sustained attachment rate, and not drop off after people start buying expensive games. By contrast, the HD DVD add-on for the X-box 360 has a guaranteed high attachment rate, since everyone who buys it obviously wants to purchase HD DVD's. The PS3 does not have this luxury, as there is a guaranteed X% of its user base that has no significant interest in high definition movies.

Either way, it is simply bad logic to assume that the PS3 will spike BD movie sales in the long term. The brand recognition BD gets from the PS3 will assuredly be a good thing, but will this translate into software sales?

kvrdave

That makes sense. I tend to be a person that goes based on the "here and now" because I tend to get promises of the next great thing, just to end up with the Virtual Boy from Nintendo.
I don't know that I can agree on that, but I see your reasoning. I don't expect the PS3 to be a very good BR player. Nor should that be it's focus, so I think it just won't be very satisfying, but it is a great plus for Sony if they have a lot of them out there. The size that HD-DVD is pushing doesn't concern me, personally. I don't really like extras, and I tend to think they can use an even superior codec if need be, but they probably won't work on one until they really need it. I agree that BR has room for improvement, but let's face it....they need the improvement immediately, and aren't doing it. The PQ is truly awful (comparatively, of course) for twice the price. Again, I can't get excited about what it could become, because these releases are already out, and they are inferior products in those regards.


Doesn't Sony not like the VC-1 codec for a specific protection reason? (I may be off, but that is what I thought) That makes me think they will need to come up with a totally new codec, won't they? I can't imagine the damage that would be done PR wise to have HD-DVD say, "Sony finally started using the software that HD-DVD has always used, and which has made it more successful," or something similar.

If they have the blanks, why can't they put the movie information on them? I do agree that they will eventually be fine with dual layer, I am just not convinced that more room is necessary given the advancements in codecs. That seems more important to me than raw space, which seems to be "old thinking" if that makes sense. Though there is probably a wonderful balance somewhere.

I'm not convinced that J6P will do anything, nor anything predictable. I am starting to think that we are just waiting for the winner of the Laser Disc consolation prize to emerge.

Anyway, thanks for the post. I think I enjoy watching how it will unfold more than anything about the products sometimes.

Adam Tyner

Oh, absolutely. We're the only ones who care and the only ones likely to care for a long, long time.

Sure. I wasn't touting that as an advantage HD DVD holds so much as that I don't think HD DVD's comparatively limited capacity will pose any more of an issue for high-definition movies than DVD has for standard definition movies. If every once in a blue moon I have to put in a second disc or flip something over, I don't mind, but I don't expect that to be the norm.

RockStrongo

Yeah, well, Snoop can afford it....most other people cannot.

You just plain cant get around the pricetag. Period.

With energy costs being so high, gas so high and so on....I really dont see people saying, hey, its Sony...its a Playstation...so hell, I dont care if its $600!!

Maybe Sony will have koolaid displays outside all the major electronics stores. Blu-berry kool aid.

The Bus

No, the reason HD-DVD has more benefits is because it is currently the superior format. You can say that in the future Blu-Ray might be better, but don't dismiss it as a "light launch"... the word you're looking for is a bad launch. Now, I have no doubt that Sony/BRD will go into a bigger marketing push later on, but you're making the assumption that only BR is doing this and not HD-DVD.



Sony, if anything, gave more thunder by not waiting until "properly done" discs and players were ready. If your product sucks, wait to release it. Don't rush it out. If anything, BR has left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.



Again, valid only if you don't believe the HD-DVD camp will also be pulling out "the big guns".



An HD-DVD player is $450-$499. A PS3 is $499 to $599. How does it "win"?



HD-DVD released 27 movies before the launch of PS3. Right now, you can (pre-)order up to 63 HD-DVD movies and up to 32 Blu-Ray movies [?]. Retailers should have 24 BR movies and 43 HD-DVD movies. Since most of the HD-DVD studios also do Blu-Ray, there should be a lot more HD-DVD only movies in both formats. Right now Blu-Ray's "more titles" advantage is non-existent, and it would be hard to argue that it's there even discounting HD-DVD's early start.



"[Blu-Ray] can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD." - High Def Digest on Training Day

"That said, once again the Blu-ray disc is a bit darker. Though not as obvious as on 'Training Day,' whites look only ever-so-slightly brighter on the HD DVD, while black levels appear rock solid on both. Detail -- especially shadow delineation -- also gets a minor boost (and I mean minor) on the HD DVD." - High Def Digest on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

(Note, in this case this was a 15GB HD-DVD disc vs. a 25GB BR disc.)

"The HD DVD just looked more consistently cleaner and clearer. Again, none of these drawbacks are monumental, but the discerning eyes of this early adopter left me rather disappointed with the Blu-ray." - High Def Digest on Rumor Has It...

(Note, in this case it was also a 15GB HD-DVD disc vs. a 25GB BR disc.)



Here I agree with you. The releases can only look better, and here's hoping that BR-50 and real codecs (for audio and video) are used soon. I'm simply not buying a movie until both happen.



I'm not "settling" for a lesser format. If anything, I'd say you are settling for a lesser format because you are expecting great improvements in the future.



I'm going to "fix" your next quote to play Devil's Advocate. HD-DVD will never, ever, ever truly "win" without real support from Buena Vista. Anyway, here goes...



Again, more "fixing" to drive home a point...

I agree, the PS3 is going to sell. But it is a game console. And people will buy BR discs for it. But it's a game console first (see your red comments). It's not a movie player (see your blue comments).



Just an FYI, the Xbox was more advanced than the PS2. Something doesn't add up.

Qui Gon Jim

Someone should tell him there is no PS3 Madden this year. Brand name loyalty will only stretch so far, and as Sony's bubble is bursting, they are seeing this phenomenon firsthand.

The hardcore early buyers are almost unilaterally shunning BD. These are the people who get the ball rolling.

I'd also like to point out that, again, just about every single point Blutz brings up is comparing the now of HD-DVD with the potential of BD. That is the only thing Sony's rabid fanboys have left to hold on to.

I say all this as someone who is not backing either format but following with interest.

digitalfreaknyc

It amazes me that people still humor Blitz.

Mr. Cinema

*yawn*

I sense deja-vu...that appears to be the same ol' shit that was mentioned before the BD L-A-U-N-C-H.