HD DVD vs Blu-ray: Little interest in either?
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted May 18th 2007 11:14AM
posted May 18th 2007 11:14AM
While Blu-ray and/or HD DVD might be the biggest news here an Engadget HD, the same can't be said for the world of home automation and high-end home theater installers. CE Pro has an interesting article about the reasons why this is the case, but were not sure if we buy it. We have talked with a few high end home theater installers in our area and there seems to be two reasons why those who are willing spend 100k on a home theater are not interested. The main reason is because these high end shops, don't always carry the same brands as the big box stores -- for business reasons -- and these brands like Denon, Marantz, and Onkyo don't make players (yet) for either format. Lets face it, many of these people have more money than sense and they buy what the shop is selling. Why would a shop sell a brand they normally don't carry? The other reason is that many of these high-end customers want movie jukebox systems like those from Kaleidescape and as we all know, neither format has yet to deliver on the manage copy promise. Either way, it seems like a pretty big waste to watch upconverted DVDs on a 100k home theater, when you could be enjoying true 1080p with master quality audio.
It is actually pretty easy to get Toshiba or Samsung in the custom channel through distributors such as AVAD. The big issues are simply already having large DVD collections and wanted a DVD server approach.
Personally I use both - something to watch the Simpsons collection on and something for all of that 1080p goodness.
These are obviously the guys that Pioneer Elite's $1200 Blu-ray player is aimed at.
Not really. I don't know many audiophiles that would touch something made by Pioneer period.
It is interesting that companies like Arcam, Meridan, Theta, Lexicon and such do not have a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player out yet. But with the format war and the long wait for HDMI 1.3 to be implemented properly I can see why they haven't.
I'm just waiting until there's some clear winner in this format war. I can't start buying a $700 player $30 discs only to have the format I choose disappear.
"I'm just waiting until there's some clear winner in this format war. I can't start buying a $700 player $30 discs only to have the format I choose disappear."
So, buy a $250 HD DVD player and rent from Netflix. If you guess wrong, you buy a (then) cheap Blu-ray player and you're out almost nothing. You could do it the other way, but you bet an extra $500.
John just said it... I don't understand why it's so confusing... they need to hammer out a single format somehow. At this rate, though, I'll be a new generation will be out and trump them both before they ever settle on one. I'm certainly not wasting perfectly good cash on a player and handful of discs when the format might disappear tomorrow.
I *applaud* those who have 'more money than sense' at not picking a side. Maybe if enough people ignore both sides, it'll encourage them to work it into a single format.
Er, *I'll bet...
Like many, I will not apologize for trying to get others to do what I do, vote with my wallet. And my vote is "nobody gets my money until there is one and only one HD optical disc format on the market and only one format movies are released in."
There can be a large variation in the "quality" displayed by virtue of how the film was originally shot and how it was transferred. There sure as hell have been some movies that I have seen in HD broadcasts that clearly by virtue of the directors choice for their "artistic vision" look almost identical in SD and HD versions.
AND assuming a single format, it has to be reasonably priced compared to SD DVD movies.
Why bother with disks at all? I don't think it'll be that long before I can download HD content via PC or from the cable/satellite provider. We already download songs and low-res TV shows regularly so why not HD movies? Hard drives keep getting bigger and cheaper so it's not like we'll run out of disk space.
No doubt one day we will download HD movies, but it will be a long time before we will have access to the same bit-rates as we get with either format.
Even with a 30Mbps connection it would still take a very long time to download a 50GB movie, not to mention having enough hard drive space to store more than a few movies.
I would own a High Defintion DVD player if there was one format. The format war is so foolish on many levels.
It's really funny that people think that audiophiles are the ones who spend 100k on a system. That may be 5% of large custom projects.."audiophile equipment." Most large projects consist of distributed av to multiple lcds and plasmas with in wall or in ceiling speakers. It adds up pretty quickly. And plenty of these installations would have pioneer products included in them.
Interesting comments in CEPro on how Blu-ray and HD are faring in the custom installer channel that support this post -- http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/18982.html
1. I agree that the format war is causing confusion and leaving many people feeling like it is smart to wait and see which format 'wins'.
2. High Prices are causing many people to wait (definitely in the broader market - high end CI (customer installation) is not as price sensitive)
3. Bulletproof - Custom Installers have little incentive (and lots of disincentive) to go with cutting edge and unproven equipment. Once an install is completed, return trips for troubleshooting / fixing problems comes out of CI profit. For example - there are many CI who insist on Component Video (over HDMI) due to the problems of the latter.
4. Preferred brands - others have mentioned this - if part of your business is selling equipment and your preferred vendors don't carry HD-DVD or Blu-Ray then it's a big deal to bring in a new line. The other reason to use preferred brands is for consistency in use / custom remote control programming. There are too many wildcards (e.g. no discrete inputs) in using unfamiliar brands.
How about explaining why certain types of discs won't play in your machine or why the movie the customer wants isn't available in the format they have or why it takes a minute to load a disc or why there is a message on their screen saying something about HDCP.
4. SACD & DVD-Audio proved that higherer quality formats don't necessarily get accepted by the public
"many of these people have more money than sense and they buy what the shop is selling"
You're thinking of Bose buyers.
The format war plays a big role in this. These people will end up buying dual players which aren't yet out in significant numbers and aren't really quite up to snuff yet.
One thing i'd add... is the BR/HDDVD content worth buying? I know I don't want a copy of talladega nights and I cant think of any movie that would compel me to spend a few hundred bucks on equipment to see it in HD.
BTW, the idea of a single format disc (blu-ray on one side and HD DVD on the other) would seem to satisfy many concerns. You may have to replace the player, but the disc investment wins either way. And can I see the hands of those who never replaced their first DVD player? Hmm... not many of us.
Note that a dual PLAYER doesn't protect a losing choice of disc the same way. It dies and the discs are worthless.
I have an HD-DVD and it does a really excellant job with DVDs but as far as HD-DVDs its a disaster. 2 out of 5 won't play and the ones that do are rarely better than DVD. When they are better however they are great. The only reason I bought it is because I needed a new DVD player and said "give it a try". But I do not buy HD-DVDs at this point and won't until the produces start producing quality. Most transfers are garbage.
"Most transfers are garbage"
You either have something setup wrong or your eyes are bad, because most HD DVDs (and I would assume, BD) look AMAZING. It's a rare movie that doesn't look great (Fifth Element for BD, Army of Darkness for HD DVD come to mind).
I also know I've read a lot of people talking about not being able to play the movies -- but I bet most of that is firmware of the player that isn't up to date. I've had my player since last summer and have had one lipsync problem, which fixed itself when I paused/unpaused the movie.
This shows how idiotic most people are and the "follow the crowd" mentality.
ANY smart person can deduct if something is good regardless if it is expensive or not, and these morons clearly do not.
As for been able to watch an existing DVD collection, the HD DVD players do an Oustanding upconverting of the regular DVDs noted by most of the technical reviews!
So this is just ignorance..what else is new!
Kaleidescape: jeeez...some people have more money than sense. >$5000 for something that be accomplished with a media center PC or even a $439 M-5100SH Tvixbox. And at least the Tvixbox has HDMI.
I laugh whenever I hear that someone has a Kaleidescape server. Waste-o-money.
I think the cheapest "entry-level" Kaleidescape system is about 10K. The others are the price of a nice car. Agree that some have more money than brains though.
I bought a Blu-ray drive for my computer and rented three BD titles: The Prestige; March of the Penguins; and Eragon. The Prestige and Eragon looked very really impressive (no grainy image at all) at 1080p (my Dell 24" monitor supports up to 1920x1200). March of the Penguins, however, was very really grainy (perhaps the transfer was done to 720p specs rather than 1080p); on the other hand, its bundled Bugs Bunny cartoon feature was diamond-clear (no graininess, even thru analog VGA at full 1920x1200 resolution) and looked more 1080p than 720p. I guess they did a better job transferring the Wabbit from its celluloid master than transferring the poor marching emperors from their French master. And all my thankees to SlyS0ƒt for letting me play Eragon thru my Dell's non-HDCP DVI-D input without any loss of quality at all.