The war is over?

I hope so.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7250068.stm

Shame. The better format is about to lose.

The consumer has chosen,

OR,

The consumer had blue-ray forced down its throat with the PS3.

Or, the consumer doesn't care about who's better, as long as eventually one wins so that he can finally choose a long-staying format to buy films on.

HD DVD is better? I thought blu-ray is a technically better format?

Pretty much, yes.

I still buy normal DVD's and don't even have a HD telly.

As long as they war amongst themselves and I can keep buying cheap DVD's from HMV, Play and Ebay then I'm not fussed who wins. :)

Blu Ray does appear to have a higher capacity that HD DVD, and the transfer rate looks pretty much the same. Why is it not the better format?
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_hddvd_comparison

I'm with Amon though, although I have got a high def tele, my DVD player (via HDMI) upscales to 720p and it looks brilliant. Freeview equally looks brilliant using the built in freeview decoder and upscaling. So I'm in no rush for HD content to be honest.

Maybe if I had a dirty big tele I would want it, but I only have a 32" tele, it sits neatly in the corner of the room and to be honest, it looks great!

Spot on, actually. Bravo.

@Big (and now Rob too), it's a personal preference, although if you go with technical specs Blu-ray seems to outbalance HDDVD. I personally did not prefer Blu-ray.

Personally, on my Regza TV (apparently 37" but measures 42. Go figure.) I can't tell the difference between Blu-ray and standard DVD. My telly just has a fantastic upscaler (to 1080p) :-D

Playing ps2 games on the ps2 on our telly looked way better than using the Ps3's upscaler, with most ps2 games looking Hi-Def thanks to the upscaling. Test Drive Unlimited looked pretty darn sweet for instance!

...OK, Rob, you replied during me writing this ;-)

The problem with modern inventions is that they are truly good. I think most ppl are satisfied with DVD, why would they need to move on to the next thing? It's the perfect endless lightbulb, or the car that never breaks down. Same with software. Why would the typical Joe Average move on to the latest version of Word when his current version works perfect for him?

The only thing the industry can do is to make sure that older stuff eventually can't be used anymore.
- (in case of software) prevent usage of older tools in newer OS'es, which come usually pre-installed on new computers/notebooks.
- (in case of movies) make sure that major players (such as movie publishers) don't support older formats anymore. Then again, with so many movies being sold on DVD, and DVD being so standard, can they just afford to NOT support DVD (which is usually enough quality for most ppl) ?

Added to that, I wonder how many ppl are satisfied with B3d for their typical games and choose not to move to BMax.. :P

I'm not satisfied with DVD (it can be compressed looking sometimes, especially on stills). I won't be satisfied until lossy compressions are no longer used (so mp3s become wavs and DVD becomes AVI).

I haven't bought any HD stuff though.

But how can you personally prefer HD-DVD if Blu-ray is better? Surely there's some disadvantage that made you decide against Blu-ray?

Anyway, I agree that DVD is plenty quality for most people (including myself), but that doesn't mean Blu-ray won't offer other advantages. With 25GB of storage, you could store at least 3-6 times the DVD-quality video content you could with a DVD.

It absolutely does not matter, because this time Bill Gates will be right and this is going to be the last physical medium.

People will (legally) download movies in HD quality instead of purchasing discs. Both HD DVD and BluRay were already obsolete on the day they were designed.

Blu Ray or whatever will eventually catch on much like DVD did. DVD had to fight against the tide of VHS Tapes and now very few people actually sells pre-recorded VHS tapes.

So I'm sure Blu Ray or what finally takes the seat of DVD-2 will eventually get there, but it's going to be a long time before pre-recorded DVD's are no longer manufactured.

More of a bad experience.

I had no sound on some of the films we (briefly) owned, but I had sound if I used a standard analogue stereo phono cable.

Yet in all other areas HDMI worked fine and I had sound.

So, do users need to have HDMI *and* the analogue cable inserted to get sound?

What, "if there's no sound, switch your audio source." where this depended on the film?

My telly suppported several digital audio formats, for ease I chose PCM, since everythin is *supposed* to support it, but nope, no sound with these Blu-ray films.


I would hope these problems would be ironed out in firmware updates and or re-releases of "faulty" disks, but what kind of impression is it?

The war between HD-DVD and Bluray was kind of over since the PS3 hit the ground and Sony lowered the price. Warner's announcement only shortened it up and gave a clear signal. Even the video store around the corner is now offering BluRay movies beside of DVDs here.

Netflix dropped HD DVD for Blu Ray a couple of weeks ago, they are huge over here in the US with over 90,000 dvd titles for rent with blu ray ahd HD DVD at no extra cost.

I agree with Grey Alien, I'm looking forward to the day when uncompressed video is the norm. HD, or better, 4K. And 8K or 16K for cinemas (16K would about equal the number of rods and cones in the human eye!) And HDR, with a higher bit-depth, 32 bits per channel would be nice. On a solid state card. And it would be good if all displays had exactly the same colour profile, so that a video looked the same (on default settings) regardless of what it's played on. Also, stereoscopic - and I've noticed that some IMAX 3D films would benefit from running at 48pfs.

Not that I think about it a lot or, you know, make excel spreadsheets in my spare time showing what filesize you'd need for this or anything. (just over a petabyte for a 2 hour film...)

Actually, DVD was the fastest growing format in the world, even faster than CD. It had many advantages, unlike Bluray. Bluray is failing in comparison to DVD.
Also, Bluray is backed by Sony, which is one reason to not like it.

They say it's Sony's revenge for when the superior Betamax lost again the inferior VHS tapes.

> Also, Bluray is backed by Sony, which is
> one reason to not like it.

That's a completely stupid reason not to like something.

i dislike sony's sort of hipocrasy

we dont own any movie studios or record lables and games consoles are not for us

here buy our tape recorder
tape you LP so you can listen to it in the car
you cant play an LP in the car now can you
and why should you buy the cassette when you have the LP?

now sony own alot of pies
and STILL make drives and blank media yet complain when someone uses a CDR to copy an album off a mate

if they sacked off the idea of blank media and recordable device manufacturing and left that to others id be happier

I myself only rip cd's in my collection but their are a few that have that anti rip software that never get played im working on the LP in the car analogy
i dont want to have to lug a discman and some CD's with me as well as me bloody mp3 player

but on the HD DVD / Blu Ray front
joe blogs hasnt lost out
only the gadget freaks and technophiles who 'backed the wrong horse' loose out financially for player and movies bought

HD DVD camp will manufacture bluray movies and players with little to no extra fuss (the same as if blu ray lost)

HDTV isnt that big over here yet and im still happy with DVD's and they are a heck of a lot cheaper to buy

when it was DVD/VHS they used to be more expencive because it was 'better' yet it costs less and is quicker to produce one stamped DVD than to dupe a 2 hour VHS
so by rights as the HD's are both physically the same size and stamped just like CD's were in the olden days they had better bloody well bring the price down toot sweet

...

and will someone tell eureka that metropolis should not be £20 bloody quid not when i can get 3 of last years blockbusters for the same ammount

Exactly. No one has a reasonable complaint against Toshiba here if they do indeed call time on it, because anyone who bought into such a new technology did so with the full knowledge that there was broadly a fifty-fifty chance of picking the wrong pony.

Then buy all the new/recent stuff next year when they're half-priced!

I don't really care. As many people have said, DVD's looked great, until they brought out HD tellies. Upscaling a DVD on the cheaper HD tellies, makes it look horrible. Thus the need for HD DVD's or Blu Ray.

A movie is a movie. I've had terrible dvd copies of some films i bought because they were transfered from VHM. Like really old films. It doesn't bother me at all, and i don't see why it should. If your busy looking at the compression artifacts, it can't be a very good film, now can it :op

I disagree, it more to do with the signal you pass it. If you go through Scart it'll look bad, agreed, however, spend £50 on a DVD player with HDMI output and you'll pass the tele an upscaled picture that looks great.

Well, i'm using a HD cable, the one with the 5 leads. Never thought of sticking it through a HDMI DVD player :o)

Sorry... £40
http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=TOSH-SD370

However, I have the
http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SAMS-DVDHD870
Because it matches my tele and I can use the same remote!

In a way. You can still download HD Dvds over the xbox live marketplace.


Yes.

I for one always assumed that the "NEW and innovative" dvd format that is slightly superior over HD dvds would lose in the end. Just like the UMD Disks that Sony invested so much in for the PSP.
Maybe its moreSo hoped than assumed. It would be funny.

I think we're getting confused between HD resolution and HD-DVD. The movies on xbox live are HD resolution, probably stored in WMV format, that's why they're only 4 or 5 gigs each, a HD-DVD image would be about 15-20 gigs.

Hmm, maybe. I was reading Official Xbox Magazine yesterday and thought they said HD Dvd, but i could very well be wrong.
The person wrote in asking why a blue ray exclusive was on live market with hd - Something-.
Ill re read it, i think your right though, as the file size would be very large.

upscaled 480p can look ok... but nowhere eve CLOSE to a good 1080p picture. If you think so you are blind. :)

Good!

Now i can think about actually buying one. PS3 is looking much more attractive now (in the usefullness sense that is, as it still looks like a waffle iron)

Not one has disputed that. The general consensus is that DVD res is 'fine' and 'good enough', not one person has said they can't tell the difference.

-> http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-expected-to-announce-death-of-hd-dvd-tomorrow-stop-sale/

That's component - almost but not quite as good as HDMI, which is a single lead slightly resembling a USB lead.

Hey, while I'm here, I'm actually in the market for a new big telly. Can anyone recommend me a good one - or maybe tell me what 'must have' technologies I should look for? I'm looking at 42", 1080P... It's so hard looking at them in the shops objectively.

Its official - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7252172.stm

Andy_mc is correct - HD-DVD format is nothing at all to do with high definition TVs.

Good. I didn't really mind too much which format won. Only being able to get certain movies on a certain format is rediculous and the industry couldn't sustain that for too long. At least this war didn't take ~10 years, like the VHS vs. Betmax one did. :)

I'm on the look out for a replacement player for my ageing DVD player which only has RGB SCART output that looks way too bright on my new LCD telly - I have to turn the brightness and contrast way down. :/

As I need a replacement, I figured it may be worth going with an HD player, but only when we have a single standard format, so this is good news.

Er, this is prolly a dumb question: can blu-ray players also play standard DVD discs?

@mrtricks: Have a look here. I found it useful. Ended up getting a Panasonic and am very pleased with it. Got mine online from this place at ~£150 cheaper than the same one in Comet. ;)

I got this one a few weeks back and I'm really impressed with the picture quality. It has 3HDMI sockets, plus a whole host of other ports too.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000O12E6S

Yeah - to narrow things down, the 3 best seem to be Panasonic, Samsung and Sony. Although, there is some variation in quality between individual models, so do your research.

> Er, this is prolly a dumb question: can blu-ray players also play standard DVD discs?


Yes. Although I'm not sure if that is a requirement, or if they just do so far...

k, that sounds promising. I don't really want to re-buy my entire collection of 'classics' on blu-ray, if I can help it. Thanks.

Brilliant, thanks for the links... One thing: what practical difference is there between plasma and lcd?

you can kiss the screen if it's LCD, with plasma you'll burn your lips off! :-P

Best advice I ever heard.

No, it's an irrational reason, but otherwise perfectly sound. I've bought way to many Sony products that can charitably be described as poor quality, and uncharitably be described as worthless trash to trust Sony with any amount of money what so ever.

This is not counting their idea that silently installing a rootkit on a PC is considered "a good idea" and "an effective way to prevent piracy", or their strong arming lik-sang into bankruptcy (although on the plus side, my lik-sang keyhanger is probably worth a bit on eBay).

LCD vs Plasma, this is an ok comparison.

http://www.flattvpeople.com/tutorials/lcd-vs-plasma.asp

My basic hangup with Plasma is that although it can process the 1080P signal it then downscales that to 1024x768. With LCD you have (depending on the model you choose) ~6M sub pixels making up full 1920x1080 pixel picture so when you watch something in HD you have a real 1:1 mapping. While some people say that you can't tell the difference with a good plasma display I feel that:

a) You can tell the difference
b) If I'm buying something for 1920x1080 I want it to display in that res.

I have a 40" LCD, the Samsung LE40M87BDX which is IMHO one of the best (if not the best) on the market right now.

Darkheart

The real question now is if I will ever need an HD-DVD player. Netflix's on-demand service is what I use to get most of my movies these days. Other sites are starting to spring up as well.

I think there will be a place for physical media for some time to come. For all those people saying "But I can buy a 1 TERABYTE HARD DRIVE, who needs Blu Ray!", yes you can but you can only store 40 films (which you paid for) on the whole thing. Even then you need two disks to store them with any kind of security. To contrast this I have at least 200 DVD's on my shelves.

Bandwidth is also important, not everywhere has hugely fast internet connections capable of the dealing with digital downloads particularly in areas with low population densitys it may NEVER be viable to provide this service. Meanwhile everyone can use a disk regardless of their location.

Single discs are also extremely portable, when I travel on business I like to take a couple of DVD disks with me for some of those boring hotel evenings. It's very easy to slip a couple of DVDs (backups of course, so it doesn't matter if they do get damaged) in my bag it would be quite difficult to transfer 2 HD movies to my laptop and unwieldy to carry the Hard disk storage.

Disks also have the advantage of being a physical product, something that can sell off the shelf which makes them more attractive to retailers and this should also help drive prices down. They are going to have to compete with downloadable HD movies at £3-5 a go.

I think people will continue to use both for some time unless Sony really do screw customers over with their DRM, High Prices and other issues to make their format a failure. It's possible but unlikely, I think they will focus now on getting Blu Ray to ramp by producing cheap players and pushing cheaper disks so blu ray will have a place, at least for some time.

Darkheart

i get long comic boxes from forbidden planet they hold about 100 normal sized dvd boxes
ive got atleast 6 full boxes in storage

god bless the £5 DVD

I totally agree with this, I like physical media, like my CD collection (which is extensive) I like thumbing through CDs or when you have friends round trying to find that track on a CD somewhere and ending up at the end of the evening with a pile of CDs that has almost kept the history of the evening. It's the same (to a lesser extent) with DVDs.

When I go round someone's house I love looking at their DVD or CD collections, it tells you something about the person.

Maybe I'm just a hippy?

Did you notice all in all the quality of media is getting worse. Yes they have a higher resolution. But in the same time tv stations send things using a crappy mpeg2 encoder with ugly artefacts during fade in and out of a scene (encoder fails to detect change of brightness), that can also be seen when many paparazzis are making photos with a flashlight. So if you want to record something from telly, the quality is reduced. First this may have been a bug, but now it became a feature to prevent people from recording movies, instead of buying them (at least i see this here in europe) - and yet they are working on movies that can be watched only one time, or for a certain time only.

They could do much better technology for the same costs, but they want us customers to buy it not only one time.

Yeah, I sold off my HD-A3 player to a neighbour of mine, and he's using that as an upconversion DVD player. Just did that about a week or two ago, and I invested the money combined with mine, and got a 40GB PS3, which I upgraded to 160GB, so that way I can use it to beam TV recordings from my PC (makeshift Tivo box), as well as Blu movies, and some games (whenever really good ones start to show up). I just bought that HD DVD player right on New Year's Day, and all of the sudden WB had to make that announcement the weekend after that made me feel VERY nervous about that decision. Grrr...

they make hidef pr0n ?!?

Indeed they do, in fact the pr0n studios where one of the first to embrace HD-DVD as Sony doesn't allow harcore pr0n on Blu-Ray. Some people thought this might act as a reason why HD-DVD would win (it is believed to have helped VHS in the US).

Personally I've never subscribed much to the theory that pr0n has that much effect, particularly outside the US, I've never bought a pr0n movie and can't see myself ever doing so and I think that most people that are the same. I suppose it must be more normal in countries where hardcore pornography is legal and available on TV 24/7.

I think Sony's moral stance will probably crumble against the vast amount of money the p0rn studios can offer. It might make the world a slightly better place if they hold out although these days the internet must be worth far more than disc sales.

Darkheart

well i for one am sticking with DVD till its no longer a viable option and will only get a hidef player if this one borks on me and it has guarantied legacy playback

i refuse outright to rebuy ALL my movies again (and ive got close to a thousand in storage if my boxes are full) as ive only just seen in the shops two films ive been looking for since my betamax days (convoy and driver)

i saw convoy in hmv bout 5 years ago but the bastards wanted £15 for it ... i settled on £7 (same as driver)
and the cash grabbing sods at eureka finaly saw sence and put metropolis in a fritz lang box set for £40 instead of it being £20 by itself :)

afaik all my betamax only films have been DVD'd
enter the dragon (full uncut (well not the extended as in the dvd but what was available at the time) (pan and scan) not defanged by the bbfc (who werent about then) and the bbc) but im sure my childhood memories had a longer nunchuck scene

Empire strikes back (lost count on how many VHS versions we got in the end)

Convoy

Driver

Wild bunch (me and my dad saw the late 90's directors cut in the cinema ... but we had to travel from oldham (outside manchester) to stockport (ditto) to see it
and some tw@ of a uni pleb said in the back
"im only watching this cos its been banned"
banned?
the bbc showed it every 3 years after taking out most of the movie leaving you with an unexplainable story line where people just dont end up in the next scene)

butch casidy and the sun dance kid

oh i tell a lie
their is one beta max not yet got on DVD
and i dont think it will

!!! THE SOUND OF MUSIC !!!
mums choice

edit:
and the first muppet movie

as you can see not many betamax tapes (we rented alot) but our vhs collection is huge (stored in bananna boxes) ive been making a list of films ive tracked down on DVD and if my brother whos custodian of them dont want the tapes he can charity shop them
if i aint got the dvd the tapes going no where