HD DVD vs Blu-ray: An end in sight? Nope not yet
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted March 16th 2007 8:27AM
posted March 16th 2007 8:27AM
We know there is nothing more fun than predicting a winner to the latest format war, but this is starting to get out of hand. We have come to expect this sort of thing from Sony and their friends, but now the New York Post is putting in their two cents and we're not sure what has changed recently that would make them pronounce that "retailers will pull the plug on HD DVD sometime next year". As much as we would like to see an end to the format war, that isn't going to happen until one of the two formats cease to release any movies. Although HD DVD hasn't released many movies this month, they started with quite a lead over Blu-ray and at this point we don't see Warner and especially not Universal, stopping anytime soon. To give you some perspective on this opinion, the writer also mentions that LG's universal player will be out some time this year.
Not hard at all to understand why the New York Post is coming out in favor of Blu-ray: They're owned by News Corp, which is the parent company of Fox, an exclusive Blu-ray supporter. Corporate synergy at its finest.
The LG player has been at CC for awhile already.
frankly, this format war is starting to get to me.. i have an xbox 360 hd-dvd player and i've picked up a few titles for some big releases.. but looking over the fence at some nice exclusive blu-ray titles, i'm starting to wonder who's really going to win.. i'd love to see casino royale in HD, but i ended up giving it a rent on dvd.. as much as i'd love to buy it, i don't have the hardware to buy the HD release.. and i don't want to put my dollars into a DVD release when there's a better one out there.. it's a bit unnerving at this point in the game.. but i'm definitely purchasing fewer movies now as a result
Wei, I totally understand what you're saying. I had the 360 HD-DVD player for a while myself... and I watched King Kong QUITE a few times. More often than not, I found myself wishing for many of the titles that Blu-Ray had. It was more than just a "Grass is Greener" kind of thing, there's just more to choose over there. Fortunately (or Unfortunately) the HD-DVD drive developed a weird skipping problem and was returned to the store.
I picked up a PS3 a little later on, and frankly it seems like the right choice as far as movies are concerned. There's just a ton of content right now, and it's content I actually want to watch rather than transfers of much older films that seem to be HD-DVD's lifeblood. Regardless of what the HD-DVD crew is saying, I don't know how much life the disc's got in it. Even if both formats are totally gone in 3 years due to some High Definition earthquake, I'll still have tons of movies that I like in a Blu-Ray collection... and that's what's important. I can enjoy that format now, and HD-DVD seems like a waiting game.
you're never going to see Casino Royale on HD DVD. i don't know what possesses you to hold out that optimism, but not in your life, buddy.
I too and am XBOX 360 HD DVD owner, and I feel exactly the same way as Wei (#2). I have a feeling that there also are (or will be) a number of Blu-ray owners that will also be looking over HD DVD's fence. As prices come down and more dual format machines become available, I think we are going to see a lot more people who just own both formats. It's funny to think, but my prediction is that Sony and Toshiba are each going to be at a disadvantage soon because I predict that the other manufacturers are going to sell hybrid machines, while Sony and Toshiba are stuck with their proprietary formats (i.e. "HD DVD only" or "Blu-ray only". Microsoft is going to be in a great position with their XBOX 360, since can adapt their add on drive with future revisions to whatever format(s) win(s) without hanging their installed base out to dry. In my case, thanks to the quality of my HD DVD drive, I got the bug to have more HD content available to me, so I picked up a new Blu-ray player for around $500. That's still a lot of cash, but it's worth it to me to be format neutral and enjoy all the movies that are out there.
@Dave:
That's interesting because Blu-ray is the only single reason I would consider getting a PS3 right now. But there is a very sore lack of gaming content for that console, and I doubt my wife would be amused if I brought one home. So for now, I'm trying to limit my HD-DVD purchases as much as possible and rent as much as I can until things smooth out. Maybe if Sony gets aggressive and does a price drop and releases some good, exclusive games, I might pick up a PS3. But it seems like exclusivity is a dying concept. Oh well. I guess that's the price we pay for being early adopters.
@Dave:
That's interesting because Blu-ray is the only single reason I would consider getting a PS3 right now. But there is a very sore lack of gaming content for that console, and I doubt my wife would be amused if I brought one home. So for now, I'm trying to limit my HD-DVD purchases as much as possible and rent as much as I can until things smooth out. Maybe if Sony gets aggressive and does a price drop and releases some good, exclusive games, I might pick up a PS3. But it seems like exclusivity is a dying concept. Oh well. I guess that's the price we pay for being early adopters.
Nobody wins when there's a format war.
I picked up a PS3 for gaming and Blu-ray and figured I'd get a HD-DVD standalone player when they came down to $200 or so - IF I needed to.
At this point it's not even looking like I will need to...
Honestly does it matter who will win?
Look at it from my perspective. I am a current Xbox 360/HD DvD drive owner. Yay HD DvD and all that, whatever. In any case I love my HD DvD movies, and there are some real gems out there for it. Especially once Children of Men releases. Just as there are some real gems on the Blu Ray side.
Does this mean I am afraid that HD DvD will lose? No, why would I be? Its not like once the format loses all the hardware and HD DvDs I have purchased will cease to work or play movies in HD. Same goes with Blu Ray movies. These movies will work for years upon years to come.
Not to mention that by the time one or the other format loses the price for their respective hardware will drop. So bottom line is that its only a bad investment if you don't particularly care about watching movies in HD. In any other case you should pick your desired format by which exclusives you'd rather see. Personally Children of Men decided for me, as well as the cheap 360 add-on.
Despite being an HD DvD supporter (in terms of what I am buying) I honestly do not care if Blu Ray wins, or even if HD DvD wins. Its all going to be a drop in the bucket once one or the other format rises to the top. And to be perfectly honest I kinda wish it would come sooner rather than later as right now the war is seriously hampering HD in general.
Both formats are going to be exactly like Laser-Disk. Very few sales compared to DVD. I have quite a few affluent friends - NONE have a HD or BD player ... or care about getting one. It' s too easy to DVR HD programming off Digital cable.
Laserdisc? No way.
LD failed for a variety of reasons that are not comparable to BD/HD-DVD at all.
LD wasn't recordable. BD/HD-DVD are or will be soon.
LD had low-capacity, most movies you had to flip the disc over in the middle. Some longer movies came on 2 or 3 discs!
The picture quality improvements were minor vs VHS, about 2x sharper at best - not true with BD/HD-DVD, the picture is 6x sharper.
LD was huge....
Most of all, there just were not that many movies released on the format. Today movie studios are committed to massive releases of both new movies and back-catalog titles on HD/BD.
One day Bluray, HD-DVD, & DVD disks will look huge.
I really don't care who wins and neither should anyone else. Now that DRM is cracked for both sides, does it really matter? Just rip the movie to disk and burn it back to whatever format you want once there is a "winner" (whatever that means). Or, better yet, just watch it from your computer and don't buy any new disc hardware/media.
At this point, I like HD-DVD because it has the cheapest upstart cost for playback hardware on a PC/MAC (ie., approx $175 for the XBox drive). When BR hardware breaks the $200 barrier, I'll likely buy that too. Until then, I'm fine with HD-DVDs and upscaled DVDs.
New versions of BD use VC1.
It makes more sense for movies to be on HD DVD because there just as cheap to make as regular DVD's using the existing manufacturing plants..With blu ray they have to build more manufacturing plants to produce them therefore making them more expensive..Now blu ray should be used for gaming because of all the space it has that would make alot more sense..And another thing is that blu ray uses the java program for menu navigation that means every movie company has to pay sun microsystems for use of there program..
Why are you posting the same comment again? Read the comment posted to you above. If the cost is such a big deal, then why do so many BR exclusive and neutral studios produce it? In neutral studios, why is the BR version cheaper? Do you understand the cost in time, incompatibility, standards approval and production issues involved in Toshiba's 51Gb effort in an attempt to keep up? Sony's production alone of 50Gb discs exceeded production estimates as of last November. Your personal feelings are not in sync with the reality of the industries involved, video or otherwise.
Josh: The BR exclusive and neutral studios understood the cost before the plans for deployment and the cost to the end-consumer today doesn't make it an issue. For example, Warner's "Departed" is $27.95 as a combo HD/DVD, while the BR is only $23.95. The BR version has well outsold the other.
The larger storage capacity is not only good for gaming, it's better on the PC and Video recorder side as well.
Royalties? Both HDI (iHD) and VC-1 technologies used in HD DVD, go straight to Microsoft's and Bill Gates' pocket! Royalties is the name of the game.
The bottom line is that choosing Blu-ray basically means waiting on Universal to go neutral, and you can get their content another way for the time being.
Well, I own a PS3. I got it for the main reason that it is a Blu-ray player, and in all my research I found that blu-ray is the only format that plays 1080p. That is not inportant to most people, but I have a big 61" tv. I can easily tell the differance between resolutions and since I bought a 1080p TV for alot of cash, I want a next gen format to play on the best resolution. I know x-box 360 can not clame the same, I own one of thoughs too. But lets face it, I am sure that HD-DVD's and Blu-rays as well as DVD's all look the same on a smaller HD TV. I am pretty sure it only matters on bigger TV's, I may be wrong but I doubt it.
@Weez_Dawg:
As it turns out, you are wrong about the ability of the XBox HD-DVD to provide 1080P:
Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are stored on disc in 1080p format. It is true that some initial hardware in the HD-DVD line only supported 1080i resolutions. However, rummors that HD-DVD is permanently limited to 1080i are pure fiction. Second generation playback devices such as the Toshiba HD-XA2 support 1080p.
However, since DRM is cracked, this is really a mute point with the XBox 360 HD-DVD player. The raw unencrypted files will play back from your hard drive just fine digitally at 1080P via a DVI/HDMI output since that is the way they are stored on the HD-DVD. You could also send an analog 1080p signal out of your computer with component cables. However, not very many HDTV's will accept 1080P through a component input.
1080P is the same resolution as 1080I, 1920 x 1080.
@Keith
Not true: 1080p=1080i
1080p differs from 1080i in that the entire 1920 x 1080 raster (all of the 1080 lines side to side) is sampled & / or displayed at one time. All HD-DVD’s released to date are encoded at 1080p / 24fps; Blu-ray and HD-DVD are no more defined by their respective players than the DVD format was. Another complicating factor: there are different flavors of 1080p, distinguished by their frame rates. How many frames of video per second are going to be transmitted?
24 fps (frames per second) matches the rate at which movies are shot. Hence, most HD DVD and Blu-ray discs are encoded at 1080p/24.
I recommend anyone who is confused on this point to read the following:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_14_1/feature-article-1080p-3-2007-part-1.html
The link you gave me agrees 1080p and 1080i are both 1920 x 1080 resolution. When a 1080p source material is sent as 1080i to a progressive display, the odd and even lines are recombined before being displayed into the exactly the same image as the source. The only difference would be if the recorded material was shot interlaced which film and newer cameras do not do.
The Xbox 360 can Display a 1080P output if you connect using a VGA connection for HD-DVD's If it had HDMI, it would have been able to do a 1080P output using that also. It can do 1080P using a Component for Games. It's the DRM. You can get around the DRM by riping the HD-DVD disc to your PC and then using the 360's Media Center and stream the HD-DVD movie from your PC to 360 in 1080P I believe. I only have a 1080i HDTV so I can't see for myself. Really, 1080i looks great, if you have a 1080P HDTV, that 1080i input is being displayed in 1080P on your HDTV anyway, so really it's just the SAME THING! Falling for the marketing B.S.
I am a professional THX Certified Home Theater Technician and for my customers the question is NOT "who will win" but rather which is best NOW. We only install home theater systms using front projection...100"+ screens people, not little 52" TVs from Best Buy...and let me say, pixels matter! My customers want to watch HD movies NOW...not "lets wait and see who wins the format war". Without a doubt, HD-DVD has three very significant advantages over Blu-Ray.
1) Cost: My customers don't play video games but are very active movies watchers. They simply want the finest picture and sound at the best price. With an output of 1080i (or 1080p with the HD-XA2 model) and a price tag of 399.00, the Toshiba HD-A2 combined with an affordable HD projector fits the bill every time AND is easily controlled with third party remotes. (A key factor for installers)
2) Up-conversion: from standard definition is so good that replacement of their DVD collection is almost unnecessary except for the few movies they just gotta see in true high definition. They often comment to me that the picture is so good with regular DVDs they see things they've never seen before. It makes the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD debate over when you consider the poor peformance of Blu-Ray players to date, the cost of Blu-Ray, the less than "OK" up-conversion" and the NOW factor. RIGHT NOW I have over 50 happy customers who have been using their HD-DVD players for months and love'em.
3) I've installed 12 Blu-Ray players and over 50 HD-DVD players. MY TAKE?...So what if a movie is only available in the Blu-Ray format, the just get it in standard def and let the HD-DVD player up-convert it almost as good as the $900.00 Blu-Ray player would play it anyway!
I have alot of satisfied customers with HD-DVD players in their theaters. The only customers with BOTH an HD-DVD and a Blu-Ray player are the ones who insisted on a Blu-Ray first!
Checkout our web site...bluestonecinema.com