Blockbuster chooses Blu-ray: is the war over?
By Evan Blass 
posted June 17th 2007 6:51PM
posted June 17th 2007 6:51PM
In a huge blow to Toshiba, Universal, and the rest of the HD DVD devotees, rental giant Blockbuster has decided to stock only Blu-ray discs in the vast majority of its nationwide locations, although HD DVD titles will continue to be offered online and in the 250 (out of 1,450) stores that have been testing both formats since last year. Blockbuster VP Matthew Smith revealed to the AP that the decision to go with Blu-ray -- which will reportedly be announced tomorrow -- stemmed from an overwhelming customer preference for those titles in the test markets, accounting for over 70% of all HD discs rented. Interestingly enough, it seems that content -- and not price -- was the deciding factor for consumers, with Blu-ray-only hits such as the Spiderman and Pirates of the Caribbean films apparently outmatching equivalent HD DVD exclusives. While it's still a little too soon to declare Blu-ray the outright winner, this Blockbuster decision only contributes to the momentum that Sony's darling has had of late -- momentum that at this point, might be too difficult for the other guys to counter.[Via AVS Forums, thanks Simple Panda]
This seems to be a forum of people (I assume!)that believe the only correct opinion is their own. I would like to make a lot of you upset. SONY SUCKS!!! Blue Ray may win cause "there's a sucker born every minute". In the middle of it all is still a company that has lousy quality and won't provide customer service. If that's what you want, you apparently are going to get it. All it proves is the intellectuals are a minority.
I own the Xbox 360 add on and I think its a shame alot of the movies are going to Blue Ray. I think HD is the better format and that extra space on Blue Ray discs aren't really needed. I want more of a selection. This week if you look up the top 10 in HD/Blue Ray new release sales for the week, HD format American Gangster sold the most copies at #1. Therefore, there still must be some HD format buyers out there.
I will now be officially canceling my Blockbuster account. I want choice and convenience, and limiting my choices looses my patronage.
wow, i cant believe you are crying over this. did anyone actually think HD-DVD had a chance? im no sony fanboy, but DVD had the PS2 which made DVD what it is, then HD-DVD comes out and tries to make a name KNOWING that PS3 was going to come out with a BD player already in it. even if PS3 was doing a lot worse (not saying its doing great) but even if it had only sold....2 million systems, thats still way more than HD-DVD has sold for players. this "war" was decided the moment sony decided to include BD players in the ps3. so stop crying about it and get used to it, BluRay is the winner and blockbuster is being smart by picking the winning team ahead of time to avoid losses in the future. go ahead and cancel your membership, if you cry about it that much, i wouldnt want you in my store anyway (used to work at BB) because whiny customers just annoy the hell out of the employees anyway.
I don't hear any crying but you Xero, whah whah, somebody wants to rent a movie in HD DVD when I think Blu-ray is better. :( I just want a choice, and I choose not to rent from Blockbuster anymore. What is it to you that I want to watch HD DVD anyway?
"I will now be officially canceling my Blockbuster account. I want choice and convenience, and limiting my choices looses my patronage."
(see above statement)
perhaps i should have worded it differently then. what i should have said is you are throwing a hissy fit over this. "I want HD! I dont like BluRay! If I cant rent one, then i wont rent any! Screw you for not offering me a doomed format because you want to save money in the long run due to your company being in dire straits financially!" thats the equivalent of what you have stated. BB is doing very badly financially. they were on the verge of bankruptcy not too long ago. any little thing they can do to save money they have to do. why would they stock up on something that is already showing signs of failure? if you honestly, and i mean 100% dont believe that HD-DVD is going to lose/has already lost this "war" then you are delusional. an example-HD-DVD was kicking the crap out of BluRay in Europe. THEN, ps3 launched and the very next month, BD is outselling HD every single week from launch til present by a margin of nearly 3 to 1 discs each time. that alone has shown BB, im sure, that the format to side with is clearly the one with the larger market share. they have to take a risk with it either way, so they are going with the safer choice.
You're still not getting it xero...it doesn't matter if I support HD DVD or Blu-ray. I'm saying that I want a CHOICE in my HD format. If that means renting from Netflix instead of Blockbuster, then that's what I'm going to do. No one is throwing a "hissy fit" or crying about it but you. I'm simply stating that I'm switching from Blockbuster because I want a choice in my HD format. Comprende? Do you own a huge amount of stock in Blockbuster or something, 'cause you're really making a big deal about me not renting from them anymore.
why yes, i own 51 percent of blockbuster. i actually made the call to support BD only. mwahahaha.
then i hope a third HD format comes out as well so Netflix can try to please everyone with that as well. i like seeing them go the extra mile. do they rent betamax and laserdisc too? cause if its about choosing formats on a personal level, i choose those. seriously...laserdisc...its the next big thing. im going to leave it at that.
So Xero, basically you are stating that it is your personal opinion that HD DVD and Laserdisc have the same amount of support, there for it would be fool hardy for Blockbuster to include HD DVD in their stores?
actually i dont mean they have the same support... i mean they will soon, meaning they will both have NO support. toshiba is the only one trying to kick the dead horse. even warner bro.'s jumped ship. universal is the only exclusive backer now, and i would wager that its due to some binding contract. you know whats even better though? Disney has a NON-exclusive contract with BluRay and they still refuse to release any movies on HD-DVD...they dont want to bother. the moral of the story is this- Laserdisc will soon be on the same level as HD-DVD because HD-DVD will fall from grace to the pits of the media moratorium. and dont reiterate your point, i know that you want a choice at a personal level, i get it, i will admit i misunderstood you the first time, but now im just letting you know my thoughts on Netflix's supporting both formats.
Well not only does your choice cost Blockbuster money, it costs you money. One format surviving benifets everyone. I dont know about you but I sure dont want to buy both a Bluray player and an HDDVD player just so I can watch 2 different movies. I also dont know why you expect Blockbuster to have to stock twice as many movies to support a format a miniority of people use. That would raise prices for everybody. Blockbuster isnt going to do that and neither is any other company after they figure out what sells best.
If Blockbuster wants to support Blu-ray exclusively, it's their right to do so, they are a business after all. On the other hand, their business is a rental service, and when they decide to not carry a format, those people will go some where else to get it. The way I see it, and obviously a lot of people feel the same way, that it is too soon to decide what format is going to eventually win...assuming there is only going to be one format come out on top. I'm not bashing Blockbuster or think they must be a bunch of retards, obviously they are doing something right to still be around. I'm just stating that if I was the CEO of Blockbuster, I wouldn't count out HD DVD just yet...unless Sony was paying me millions of dollars to do so, then I would have to reconsider :)
Xero get a clue! The all mighty dollar speaks. And no consumer can speak louder than with his money!
I do not have a regular membership with BlockBuster, but I do rent from them on a regular basis. Well untill now.
BlockBuster should NOT take sides, but support BOTH so that A MAJORITY of their customers will be able to have the HD Content they desire. By taking a side, they punish EVERYONE who purchased HD-DVD equipment.
Personally I have NO High Def DVD format equipment. I plan to stay out of the format war untill there is a standard.
LMFAO @ Jyspon and Xero!!!
As long as you're using online services, they stated they would stock HD-DVD online. They have limited space in their stores, and the amount of people looking for HD movies is already pretty small. You can't expect them to keep 3 different versions of every movie.
I have to agree with Xero though. HDDVD is dead, and has been for a very long time. It's been pretty obvious that Blu-Ray would win, even a year before any players were released.
Anyways 70% of there customers were renting Blu-Ray. That's a pretty large majority that will probably continue to grow. I could see maybe buying a HDDVD player for my 360 because it was cheap before. I would call anyone that's buying a HDDVD player now an idiot, you might as well give me the money.
Xero, I'm confused. You wrote "im no sony fanboy", which is funny because in your post at http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/22/ps3-price-cut-by-20-now-includes-hdmi-1-3/2, assuming you are the same Xero, you say you are a fanboy and claim that sony is genius. So which is it?
And how, exactly, will loosing your patronage affect Blockbuster?
"I loose my mighty patronage upon you, Blockbuster!"
Losing your patronage might affect them... but loosing it?
And don't call it a typo. It happens well the hell too often around here to call it a typo.
And that "well" was a typo. ;)
ohes noes!! i"ve incoored the wraithe of teh mitey spel checkar!!11! nooO000!!11!!
Maybe my understanding of Netflix is misunderstood... they are online only correct? Didn't the article state that Blockbuster was going to continue to offer HD DVD online in addition to Blu-ray? "HD DVD titles will continue to be offered online"
Not that I care either way. Just get one of them out of the way so I can buy a player at what ever the price is going to be. I don't want to worry about it not working next year because my format is dead :P
for those who would like the priviliege of calling me a double talking hypocrite, let it be known that i am not the same Xero from the other topic. this topic is the first ive ever posted on engadget before. :)
calling this a "war" is like saying "the French can put up a fight if they wanted to." Just not happening. ;) and as far as Blockbuster doing something "right" they are only around due to extreme budget cuts and marketing refocusing. they are still doing awful. i think their stock is 12dollars a share? bad juju. they are smart to pick a side. and as someone said earlier, there is no benefit to having both formats. let me clarify something, as a former manager at a BB. They dont just spend 25 dollars for an HD movie, or 20 for a dvd. they pay nearly triple the price OR pay a slightly higher price and profit share with the studio for the first couple of months. they cant just buy 20 HD-DVD's, rent them out a combined total of 100 times and be even. they would still owe some or they would have made a marginal amount off of them depending on rental fee. they needed to choose a side and they chose the popular one.
The writing has been on the wall long before this decision by Blockbuster!
http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp
its interesting how Xero, who isnt a fanboy, in his original post claimed that Sony is the reason for DVD taking off and becoming a success. DVD was gonna be a success with or without the PS2 including a crappy low-end DVD drive. It just helped persuade people to buy PS2s... lets not forget that MS's Xbox also had a DVD player in it too.. There are soo many things that are untrue about your version of the history of the way HD-DVD and Blu-ray came into conception that it simply shows you are running at the mouth with having no knowledge of the history. Stop talking about stuff you dont know and do some research.
Hey Nick,
Xero pretty much right on with his DVD rollout comments. DVD did get a big boost from PS2s. Very big. Further, the PS2 DVD was not crap. It was a reasonable entry level player for a lot of people (myself included). It was a very good deal at the time (although the GUI and remote was lacking). Go back and check DVD player prices and the number of players out in the public's hands when the PS2 came out. Then check the numbers 6 months, then 12 months later (before the Xbox hit the shelves, as the PS2 went to market in 11/00 and the Xbox hit the shelves in 11/01). I think you will see that Xero's version of history was right, as least in terms of the PS2 giving DVD a huge surge in market penetration.
why do you want a choice though? sure maybe you went out on a limb and bought an HD DVD player and thats why you would prefer that format, but really, would you want two different types of DVD type formats? isnt it so much simpler having one format? sucks to be an early adapter huh.
I know what you mean. They lost my business when they chose VHS over Betamax.
I have heard that Blockbuster not only will carry blue ray, but will totally do away with regular DVD's. That seems to be non-american, like a monopoly on the big business end ( sony ). If I'm misimformed pleases correct me, but I just spoke to a blockbuster employee.
So much for that rotting problem that many felt would end the reign of Blu-Ray.
"rotting" is a problem that re-occurs in most formats. It happened with LASERDISKS and it was even a worry in the early years of CD's (and later CDR's and CDRW's).
I was never worried about Blu Ray due to rotting. Most likely any consumer who had a rotted disk would be able to turn it in for a new copy without the problem - perhaps having been made with a refined manufacturing process.
BLU RAY won the format war from the beggining.
#1 Higher Storage Capacity
#2 support from most major companies (Sony, HP...)
#3 the official format of Playstation 3
Those three strikes alone DOOMED HDDVD.
The mere fact Microsoft didn't trust HDDVD enough to instal a drive in the 360 couple with the fact HDDVD players were inordinatly expensive were the final nails in HDDVD's coffin.
i agree with Big here. HD DVD never really had the upper hand here, and if you look at it, HD DVD has been out for a year longer than Bluray and already bluray is outselling HDDVD on titles (i could stand corrected, i didnt bother to check to make sure), and maybe it holds 60% of the stand alone players on the market, but thats also not counting the PS3.
Well, this sucks. Sony has used their monopolistic hold over media and content to effectively bury their competition. The only good thing that can be said of this, is that Blockbuster no longer holds the prominence in the rental industry that they once did. Still, I'm disappointed that they chose to narrow the field of their offering so early in this format "war."
Guys, this isn't bloody Microsoft vs Netscape, or even something smaller. Toshiba, Universal, et al are all grown up big boys who pull in just as much dough as Sony does. The better supported format always wins, nobody was crying foul when Phillips Betamax lost out to VHS eons ago so how exactly is this different?
This is how the market works. Toshiba, Universal, etc are not going to go bankrupt over this. Deal with it.
@pestwick:
that's Sony Betamax
I don't for one second think that this specifically will cause them to go bankrupt, no. You are blind if you think the "popularity" of BlueRay isn't manufactured. Consider what Sony has to gain and what they have to loose.
Sony is a complete vertical media monopoly. They own film studios, music studios, distribution channels, movie theaters, and with the PS3 a delivery vehicle. Sony gains absolutely nothing over the competition by releasing content on HD-DVD, but BRD potentially gives them a slice of the pie at every step along the way.
By withholding all their titles to BRD exclusives, they are pushing the format onto consumers, not because it is a better format, but because they receive the most dollars per unit and they can end up charging consumers more. How many standalone BRD players have been sold when you take all the PS3s out of consideration?
This course of action by blockbuster 6 months after BlueRay even became available sounds suspeciously like a backroom deal with Sony. Sony can afford some loss up front assuming they win the format war. The sooner Sony can lock out it's competition, the cheaper it will be for them. I do not believe for one moment that this is entirely driven by consumer preference; Sony is leveraging, and consumers will suffer.
I don't for one second think that this specifically will cause them to go bankrupt, no. You are blind if you think the "popularity" of BlueRay isn't manufactured. Consider what Sony has to gain and what they have to loose.
Sony is a complete vertical media monopoly. They own film studios, music studios, distribution channels, movie theaters, and with the PS3 a delivery vehicle. Sony gains absolutely nothing over the competition by releasing content on HD-DVD, but BRD potentially gives them a slice of the pie at every step along the way.
By withholding all their titles to BRD exclusives, they are pushing the format onto consumers, not because it is a better format, but because they receive the most dollars per unit and they can end up charging consumers more. How many standalone BRD players have been sold when you take all the PS3s out of consideration?
This course of action by blockbuster 6 months after BlueRay even became available sounds suspeciously like a backroom deal with Sony. Sony can afford some loss up front assuming they win the format war. The sooner Sony can lock out it's competition, the cheaper it will be for them. I do not believe for one moment that this is entirely driven by consumer preference; Sony is leveraging, and consumers will suffer.
Philips made Video2000, it was the "third" format. Double sided tapes, large capacity but rotten marketing.
No matter what Sony's reason for supporting Blu-Ray, who cares? It is the better format. Unless holding less data is suddenly a feature?
What's your excuse for all the other companies that support Blu-Ray?
The capacity ceiling is mostly a myth, especially as long as HD-DVD is around. And while having a larger capacity for a single layer/single side, it hardly stands to impact feature length films. The new codecs used in HD-DVD and BlueRay are so good, you can encode 3 hours within the storage requirements of HD-DVD. Here's another cool trick. So long as you encode using one of the common formats between BRD and HD-DVD, you only have to encode once, fitting the space requirements of HD-DVD. If a movie is recorded for BRD in MPEG2 the codec alone will waste the additional capacity inherent in BlueRay whereas HD-DVD encoded with VC-1 will greatly surpass the need for extra capacity. Meaning that that extra potential storage capacity is marketing hype more than anything else right now.
About the manufacturing process, HD-DVD is very close to DVD. the specs are similar so that anyone creating software for DVDs can start making software for HD-DVD with few surprises. The fabs that were creating DVD platters can now start punching HD-DVD discs. BlueRay is an entirely different beast. It uses a manufacturing technique rendering the existing infrastructure meaningless. Since HD-DVD was designed by a consortium, it has intellectual property jointly shared by that collective. BlueRay is there to line Sony's and to a lesser extent Matsushita's pockets.
A good analogy that a came up with, is to think about shovels. Imagine that HD-DVD is this really nice aluminum shovel that can lift at one time 30 lbs of gravel. To use it, it is like all the other shovels you've ever used, you put the pointy end on the ground, step on the back, and then use the lever arm to break the soil away and then lift and transfer the dirt somewhere else. BRD is like creating a titanium shovel that can lift 50 lbs, but instead of just steping on the shovel to use it, you have this ramming weight that you slide up and down using a system of levers and pullies that bites a chuck of earth. Once you have scooped the dirt that you want to move, it turns out you really can only lift about 25-35 lbs at a max anyway, so you start taking smaller loads. Now in both cases, you are shoveling rock, dirt, etc. The HD-DVD system is very familiar to anyone who knows how to use the 8 lbs steel shovel, the BlueRay shovel means that you have to reeducate yourself on how to use this foriegn system that only specially sanctioned BlueRay certification schools being offered by Sony can offer you.
For the same number of layers and sides, BRD has a higher capacity, but there are other non-publicized costs in that system that aren't being considered by most people. I'm sorry, but a "win" by BlueRay right now will only serve to hurt consumers because it gives Sony a complete top to bottom ownership of the entire media and marketing channel. The only thing left for Sony to do, is create a retail chain where you can buy Sony music and movies at a "discount" price for less than other stores. Everyone else stops carrying BRD and consumers by from Sony directly, meanwhile the production costs continue to drop and Sony keeps prices elevated.
Things are working for Sony just they way they want them to, and Sony stands to make money at every turn. I'm sorry, but allowing one company to have that much control in our entertainment industries is a scary proposition.
So what's the deal? I come out in opposition of this decision, explain clearly why I think this is bad for consumers, and everyone votes down my comments? If anyone can give me a valid reason why BlueRay is better than HD-DVD besides it's capacity advantage, be my guest. Marking my comments down because you like BlueRay and are unjustifiably swooning for it does not make my comments any less valid. If you think about this situation objectively, BRD winning this format war is going to negatively impact consumers. Unless I see some grossly invalid statement being made that needs correction, this will be my last comment on this topic.
You made a very well thought out analogy and argument Ryan. I agree with you whole heartedly.
Size advantage is important even if even HD-DVDs can easily hold a 3hr movie. However, having a higher capacity means that manufacturers can potentially squeeze in more content into the disc, be it extra bonus content, or even squeezing in entire seasons of TV shows into a single disc, or two. Also, because BDs can hold more data than HD, it is a better storage medium for computing, which is why BD burning drives are so much more common than HD burners. At least for computers, it looks almost certain that BDs will take over DVD drives. Now, I know many people who use their computers to watch movies on, so if BD becomes the standard movie format, we can just use a single drive on our computers for everything, but if HD becomes the standard, you'll need both drives, which is just downright irritating.
I join the call of all others who call for the format war to just end. Whether or not HD has a manufacturing advantage over BD is irrelevant to us consumers because irrespective of whichever format winning the war, the price of the disc will drop dramatically and become affordable to us all. The price advantage of HD is but temporary.
how is it monopolistic? Sony Pictures are hardly going to release films on a rival format that is opposing their OWN format. Also, Sony Electronics are hardly going to make a HD-DVD player. The same would be said if Studio X who is part of X electronics made a format called X-DVD-Ray. They're not going to support Y electronics' YRay-DVD
Sorry if I'm coming out with double posts, I'm using the Safari beta and it seem to be have occasional problems posting on Engadget.
I chose my words carefully, it is monopolistic, not a monopoly. It closely parallels
Microsoft's "monopoly," but the catch here is that Microsoft doesn't make the computers that run their OS, they only provide content. They provide a platform that is used on over 90% of the PCs for both business and home use, and that made them a target for litigation.
If Apple had a larger OS market share, over 50%, their bottom to top ownership of hardware to software would be a spiting image of Sony. Even if you happen to like Apple and Apple products, having one company control that entire vertical market is scary as there is no check.
Then look at the Apple iPod. I know that many folks on Engadget wet themselves at the thought of a next generation iPod, but what real innovation has taken place? Many of the features iPod/iTunes offer was already available elsewhere and cheaper. You buy a song as an .AAC, and you are limited to how and where you can listen to it. The EMI deal changes things slightly, but Apple has created a network snowball. You listen to songs distributed by Apple, via iTunes, for exclusive use on an Apple player. Apple has the market share, so they set the standard fare for everything.
It would be near imposible for me to prove that Apple is price fixing, but at the volume that they move, I find it amazing that they sell their iPods for as much as they do. Competitors sell DAPs for less, but because of market conditions, they are unable to gain market share. This is what monopoly laws are in place to guard against. Personally I'm for a free market to work things out on it's own, but I can see why we take some companies to court over such tactics. There isn't a necessity to own an iPod, so you can't really brand them as a monopoly in this case, as I can simply refuse to buy into i*.
BRD places Sony in a similar position... perhaps even more precariously. At least with DAPs, there is a market for folks who refuse to give into iPod. Microsoft did many of us a disservice by relaunching their marketplace as Zune only and by abandoning support for PlayForSure and third party supporters, but from a marketing strategy and perspective, I understand that move. If third parties are never really given the chance to sell HD-DVD because popular content is being withheld for BRD, it isn't any different than Apple getting exclusives for artists on iTMS/iPod. As consumers, we can only express our dissatisfaction with our dollars. I challenge anyone to go a day without dealing with Sony somehow, someway.
It's business. If I were Sony, I'd be doing the same thing. That doesn't mean I have to like it; that doesn't mean I have to support it. It is monopolistic and this move by BlockBuster creates a juggernaut for Sony that will stiffle competition, hurting consumers. I'm chosing to express my dissatisfaction by buying HD-DVD. When that avenue is gone I'm either going to give up on pressed HD content and move online exclusively, give up on pressed HD content altogether, or cave in and build a BRD movie collection. In the meantime I'm going to support what I perceive to be the better product for now and in the future.
In this case, having competition is actually bad for consumers because it causes confusion and greater inconvenience if everybody needs both a BD and HD player. Why didn't anyone cry foul that there isn't any real choice when it comes to DVDs? Do we care? No. It may sound bad for Sony to be 'monopolistic', but this is totally different from your example of ITMS and iPod, where having different choices makes sense.
But go ahead and get all your HDs you want, because there's no way HDs will win BDs, not when most of the studios support BD. So you better make sure that you take good care of your HD players too.
Ryan asked to know the advantage of blu ray over HD-DvD, aside from it's extra 60% storage per layer. Well, here's some things not everybody knows (but should by now). Sorry if it's already been said, i didn't read all 5 pages of comments, so I apologise if some of it has already been said
1. Higher bitrate of audio and video(56 mbits/second vs 36 mbits/second or something awfully close to that). Basically, it means that less compression has to be used on transfers, and Picture and audio quality can be better. Now, to all those people who say "I compared the two, and HDDvD looks better", you have to understand that to do a comparison, you should use the exact same movie. Unfortunately, Any dual format movie out at the moment has to be able to fit on a 30gb hddvd, so on a BD50, 20 gigs is wasted. That 20 gigs COULD be used to encode the movie in a higher bitrate, but dual studios aren't doing it just yet. POTC in encoded in the (now superior to VC-1) mp4 AVC (h264) format, and PQ cannot be replicated on HDDvD because the video bitrate is too high. Even the extra space on the HD51 cannot save HDDvD from this problem.
2. Blu-Ray's are virtually scratch proof. (on HD this feature is optional, but nobody has utilised it at the moment afaik) The "hard coating" on BD's makes them pretty much invincible. I always hated dvd skipping, and personally LOVE this feature.
3. Extra space goes beyond the 50 vs 30 gig issue. New tech sees HD51 and BD100 hitting the shelves soon, and this makes the divide evn bigger.
Troy: directors cut sees a 3.3 mb/s transfer rate in some scenes to be able to fit on a silly hddvd. And that is VERY noticable on a large 1080p display. The sooner Blu-ray wins, the sooner we can all enjoy stuff in the best picture and sound quality available.
Mind you, i wouldn't mind seeing the war continue at least another 6 months longer as it means competition is driving technology forward and prices down at an INCREDIBLE rate. Peace guys.
Ok, well when Sony finally comes to their senses and releases POTC on HD-DVD we'll get that comparison you're talking about. Frankly I don't see why you are making a point about it since h.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 are supported by both formats, but I can point to several different articles that conclude that VC-1 is a better codec dispite your claims.
Given that "As of September 2007, 50% of Blu-ray Discs are encoded in MPEG-2 while AVC is used on 27.48% discs and VC-1 at 22.52%." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc) From that same article, MPEG-2 on Blu-ray and VC-1 or h.264 on HD-DVD are effectively the same playback times. According to the HD-DVD wikipedia article, "Virtually every HD DVD released uses an advanced codec (VC-1 or H.264) for video compression, reducing the required space for equivalent quality video." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD) The capacity advantage for BR is slight in the current market. "As of September 2007 40% of Blu-ray titles use the 50 GB disc and 60% use the 25 GB disc[68] while almost all HD DVD movies are in the 30 GB dual layer format." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc) Couple that with the independent studies that conclude that VC-1 is better than MPEG-2 and h.264, and you'd be hard pressed to "prove" that BR has a better picture quality.
From what I can tell from current statistics, BR may have an advantage in the audio department, but only for the Dolby Digital profile, supporting 640 kb/s vs. HD-DVD's 504 kb/s. In all other manditory audio profiles, HD-DVD is the clear winner. "With HD DVD support for the new Dolby Digital Plus audio codec is mandatory at 3.0 Mbit/s, but for Blu-ray players it is optional at 1.7 Mbit/s.[9] Furthermore HD DVD players must be able to decode the new lossless audio codec Dolby True HD, but this is optional for Blu-ray players." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD)
Now, because you brought it up, you're right, BR supports as higher maximum bit rate for audio and video, 48.0 Mbit/s Mb/s vs. 30.24 Mb/s. Add it up though. At comparable video bit rates, MPEG-2 at 20 Mb/s is about the same as VC-1 at 13 Mb/s. With the most expensive audio bitrate that I could find for Dolby TrueHD at 18 Mb/s, HD-DVD is using its full capacity at peak bitrates and BR hasn't even come near it's limit. So the question is really why should I care what is the max bitrate? Maybe LPCM has a higher bitrate that can make use of BR's additional capacity, but it seems prety meaningless to me considering that you are still getting 24-bit/96 kHz on 8 channels. In typical encoding scenarios, bitrate will never be a limiting factor.
The capacity divide is a myth for most feature length films. Before the season started, I rewatched "Heroes" on HD-DVD (awesome btw, and even better than the original broadcast which suffered from some artifacting (ATSC broadcasts are MPEG-2. The ATSC chosen scheme, 8VSB, limits the transmission bit rate to 19.38Mb/s. This constraint offers no other alternative but bit-rate reduction and compression to accommodate all the ATSC formats.)) Each HD-DVD usually held 3-4 episodes (at 44 minutes each) and usually one or more of the episodes per disc would have a secondary PIP video stream. Something that is manditory to be supported on HD-DVD but only optional for BR Profile 1.1, which isn't even supported by player or software yet. In fact, the interactivity features of BR are sorely lacking with Blu-ray Disc Java having just been formalized and internet access an optional component. The HD-DVD interactivity layer has been available for well over a year now, and support for web access is manditory. In this way, BR is more similar to DVD whereby many "features" could not be accessed by your DVD player; the DVD-ROM features had to be viewed on a PC and were usually for XP or Mac making them platform specific and worthless unless you agreed to install 3rd party players or ran another OS. BR looks like its extra content is going to go this way, whereas HD-DVD extra content can be played by any player.
Blu-ray has the "scratch-proof" coating. Why do people keep touting this as a feature of BR when it is a patch to fix a defect in the CD/BR design. DVDs were manufactured differently specifically to correct this issue. "Blu-ray Discs contain their data relatively close to the surface (less than 0.1 mm) which combined with the smaller spot size presents a problem when the surface is scratched as data would be destroyed. To overcome this, TDK, Sony, and Panasonic each have developed a proprietary scratch resistant surface coating ... HD DVD uses traditional material and has the same scratch and surface characteristics of a regular DVD. The data is at the same depth (0.6 mm) as DVD as to minimize damage from scratching. Furthermore similar to DVD the construction of the HD DVD disc allows for a second side of either HD DVD or DVD." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_high_definition_optical_disc_formats)
In a perfect world, we'd have BR capacities with typical HD-DVD encoding and inteactivity. The only reason BR might when the format war, is because the most successful studio the past couple of years, with respect to market share, owns the format and is making its films available only for that format. To demonstrate how lopsided it is, look at this chart I made, taken from data available from BoxOfficeMojo.com: http://img460.imageshack.us/my.php?image=moviestudiomarketshareyr2.png. The bright green line is Sony, raking in 20% of the market as of July when this chart was made. Last year they were also the market leader. HD-DVD exclusive Universal was less than 10% for both respective years. In fact, until Paramount defected to being an HD-DVD exclusive, HD-DVD should have had dismal sales by comparison. You might even say that Blu-ray has been a complete failure to have the margin over HD-DVD that it has today. For every HD-DVD disc sold, BR has sold two. Having exclusive titles for nearly 50% the market for BR, compared with only 10% exclusive titles exhibited by HD-DVD, BR sales are actually embarassing. The value of the content is greater for HD-DVD and that same sentiment is echoed in the profit made by each studio: http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/WindowsLiveWriter/boxoffice.png from the aricle on www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/06/bear-stearns-ta.html. As I read this, Sony has a great market share because they produce more films than other studios, but they aren't the highest grossing films. Universal is producing fewer films, but they also produce films that people see high value in repeat viewing. By pure numbers, BR has higher sales figures right now, but I believe I've outlined how HD-DVD is a better format overall, and it seems obvious to me that the only reason BR has any traction at the moment is from the Sony exclusives. If Sony was somehow found to be using their "monopoly" to drive this format war, and forced to cease produciton of BR discs or begin distributing on HD-DVD as well, the market forces would establish HD-DVD as the better format. I don't believe supply and demand truly showcase the better technology. What you have here is Sony, come hell or high water, doing everything they can to prevent a BetaMax repeat. Consumers are going to pay the price too if Sony wins this battle just as the paid the price when Sony lost to VHS.
"Blu-ray has the "scratch-proof" coating. Why do people keep touting this as a feature of BR when it is a patch to fix a defect in the CD/BR design?"
Because DVD's were still very easily scratched (try renting an older and very popular dvd an you'll see what i mean - yuck), and supposedly (and in my short experience with them) the hard coating, while needed to protect an extremely fragile disc, is superior in it's scratch proof quality.
"BR supports as higher maximum bit rate for audio and video, 48.0 Mbit/s Mb/s vs. 30.24 Mb/s. Add it up though. At comparable video bit rates, MPEG-2 at 20 Mb/s is about the same as VC-1 at 13 Mb/s."
I see your point here, but the fact that the transfer people are using mpeg2 (which is stupid) at all is not a fault of the BDA or of the blu-ray format. It is a fault of the people who made the decision to encode it that way, and only proves that those people are idiots, not that HD-DVD is superior. The higher bitrate stuff just means that BD is more future-proof.
VC-1 and .h264 are going to be better at some 30Mb/s than at 20Mb/s aren't they?
Anyway, watch Troy extended on either format and you'll want a higher bitrate in many sections. HD51 can do it, but it came out too late and afaik doesn't work in all hddvd players yet.
"In a perfect world, we'd have BR capacities with typical HD-DVD encoding and inteactivity."
"Something that is manditory to be supported on HD-DVD but only optional for BR Profile 1.1, which isn't even supported by player or software yet. In fact, the interactivity features of BR are sorely lacking with Blu-ray Disc Java having just been formalized and internet access an optional component. "
I guess this just comes down to personal preference. Think about 5 years from now, when profile 2.0 is fully up and running. Ask yourself: Do i want to watch a 3 hour movie in the highest bitrate possible on my 1080p 140" projector in full 7.1 sound bliss? Or do I want to accept a lesser bitrate of both video and sound because 5 years ago the movies on the better format didn't come with a PiP of the director endlessly droning on about how the movie was made?
I guess what I'm trying to say about the Durabis coating, and I haven't been clear on this point, is that with BR, it is there to hide a defect not as a format feature as it is lauded for. There is no reason it couldn't be applied to HD-DVD discs expect for the fact that TDK created it, TDK pattented it, and because BDA is absorbing the additional costs to build up the impression that BD is a superior format, it is presemtly applied only to Blu-ray discs. "It should be noted that the Durabis coating is not required for Blu-ray or any other optical disc, and both Sony and Panasonic have their own independent hard coating technologies that are primarily in use on Blu-ray pre-recorded discs." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durabis) It isn't a spec'd feature, it just happens to be on most (all?) BR discs because otherwise you'd see nothing but article after article of how someone's BRD sustained yet another BSoD (bit-layer scratch of death).
Firstly, these scratches in the surface of a DVD or HD-DVD have not damaged the data, only obscured it. They are surface level only and could effectively be removed without causing further trauma to the data on the disc. Pick up a CD/BRD and look at its construction and then pick up a DVD/HD-DVD and look at its construction. On a CD/BRD the data is practically painted on one side of the disc whereas with the DVD technologies it is sandwhiched between two polycarbon sheets. The shiny metalic substrate is what you care about protecting, not the plastic.
Secondly, the enamal coatings are only about a year old, and therefore no long term studies have evaluated its effectiveness over time. Does the coating become brittle and chip away over time? Does the coating become cloudy and oxidize over time? After more than 10 years, there really aren't any unknowns for DVD and by extension HD-DVD, and likewise we already know the kinds of failures that we can see for CD and by extension BRD. Also because this protectant isn't part of the spec and is just a bandaid, different BRD manufactures have developed their own formulas, and so you have to worry that one or more of these coatings will fail in some unknown and spectacular way, and perhapd it will be only a particular manufacturer. Because different manufacturers have different formulas, the recipe for failure is going to be different from disc to disc.
Lastly, "[a] TDK spokesman says the present protective layer represents 'the first generation' of the coating and that the company has been refining the technology to better suit Blu-ray discs. Although it might seem possible to adapt the polymer to other uses in LCD, CRT, and plasma screens." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durabis) Of course if the polymer coating can be used on something other than BRD, it could just as easily be used on HD-DVD. The reason it hasn't been applied yet is two fold. TDK makes Blu-ray discs, not HD-DVDs, and that the long-term effect of such treatments remains to be seen. If this stuff is really the cat's pajamas, then why aren't we seeing it applied to EVERY optical disc system. It isn't THE reason to adopt BRD over HD-DVD.
"VC-1 and .h264 are going to be better at some 30Mb/s than at 20Mb/s aren't they?" In short, no.
About a month ago, I started transcoding movies for my Zune and found an excellent article/forum post where someone did PQ comparisons at different bitrates. As might be expected, as the bitrates increased, picture quality increased as well. There was a point of diminishing returns though right around 13 Mb/s for both h.264 and VC-1. In other words, the picture quaility showed significant improvement as you raised the number of bits used to describe a scene, but at some point doubling the number of bits had insignificant and imperceptable improvements in PQ when compared to the source video. We aren't talking about piting h.264 against VC-1 in this case, we are talking about comparing it to the original film source. Having a higher bitrate ceiling will only benefit MPEG-2 transfers where the compression rate is highly bound by bitrate, but generally this will be regarded as wasted effort. If you want the better PQ, forego MPEG-2 and select VC-1 or h.264 instead. At HD bitrates neither are substantially superior to the other, I've seen comarisons go either way. Both codecs, in the hands of an expert compressionist, look great. At lower bitrates VC-1 requires less computational effort to decode and h.264 has slightly better PQ. This translates to battery life vs. image quality for portable devices and has no bearing on the HD-DVD vs. BRD debate.
I can't comment on Troy as I haven't seen the result, but it sounds like it is a bad transfer and encoding. The reality is that the bitrates for the advanced codecs on HD-DVD and BRD aren't going to be much different in 5 years than they are today. Significantly increased bitrate won't result in a significantly higher PQ as current bitrates are nearly indistinguishable from the source media, and therefore has no added value.
As a hobbist, I spend tremendous amounts of my spare time dealing with encoding. BRD offers no intrensic value over HD-DVD that I can see. The battle of BRD vs. HD-DVD is not a battle of quality vs. quality insomuchas it is a battle of business vs. business and marketing vs. marketing. The parallels you can draw in this debate are hauntingly similar to iPod vs. the world. Dispite its near 90% market share, iPods are not the best PMP available. I won't be so bold as to suggest which one is the best, but for the fact that everyone has their own reasons why one device is better than another, it is safe to say that if consumers knew enough about the marketplace they would find a player they prefered that wasn't Apple branded. Unlike the vanilla flavored iPod, Blu-ray is not significantly different from HD-DVD in most respects. Where Blu-ray does set itself apart is in current market share, and potential market share. Look at this graph: http://test.roughlydrafted.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/rd-techq307-entries-2007-8-27-blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-in-next-generation-game-consoles-2-files-shapeimage-1.jpg from the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles article on RoughlyDrafted Magazine. (www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/27/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-in-next-generation-game-consoles/) While I disagree with some of Daniel's conclusions, this graph strongly highlights just how poorly BRD is doing given is prominance. This is a fight about how much vertical market Sony can capture while cementing itself as the reigning king of the next (and perhaps last) mainstream physical medium. It is an artificial market with sales strength sustained through sheer brute force alone and not on technological merit.
The fact that HD-DVD isn't controled from top to bottom by Sony is a plus. The fact that HD-DVD is already a cracked DRM format means that I can transcode my HD Serenity down to the 320x240 resolution of my Zune. BD+ is not indefeatable in itself, but that is an additional cost point to be considered if I want to be able to transcode my media into another form factor and right now is prohibitively restrictive. That most HD-DVD movies use an advanced codec means that I'm already enjoying a better PQ than the typical BD transfer. The fact that the interactivity layer is finalized for HD-DVD and has already been used on titles for over a year is worth the weight of those extra bits. The fact that manufacturing design for HD-DVD discs follows Toshiba/NEC DVD design protecting the content of the disc in layers of polycarbonate is much more satisfying than the Sony/Philips CD design of coating the surface of a polycarbonate disc with an untested, ultra thin enamel. BRD is resurecting a format that was designed in the late 60's to early 70's, mostly to resurect royalties associated with that design. The greater capacity of Blu-ray isn't a factor as any movie that isn't a Ken Burns documentry should fit in the current capacities without sacrificing PQ, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and Amadeus perhaps not withstanding. At 176 minutes, Grand Prix shows what is possible. Sony has everything to gain by getting rid of HD-DVD. No other company has as much to gain by defeating BRD. As a result, Sony is pouring everything into marketing, promotion, and saturation. You aren't getting a technologically better format with BRD, just one with more hype and more to lose by its staunchest supporters. With that comes for to lose for the consumers. Once you eliminate content from the equation, the Blu-ray is better than HD-DVD mantra, doesn't stand on two legs.
wonder what they will do about the rot?
I don't see this so much as another nail in HD-DVDs coffin as I do Blockbuster's, simply because of the this infectious 'rotting' problem. I have found HD-DVD discs performance far more reliable than Blu-ray, mostly because of this rot. BB was already having a hard time keeping up with the growth of Netflix. This is just one more reason that Blockbuster will continue to lose business. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that offering HD-DVDs only would do BB much better, but I do think that they made this kind of decision way too soon. Hard to blame them though with the slowing profits because of Netflix.