herbdrake wrote:I'm one of those who are waiting and waiting for a clear "winner." If it takes a year or more, that's okay. But the player is not the point -- it's one's disk library that is the biggest investment risk. If one guesses wrongly, it will be like a Beta user sitting on a worthless library of tapes that cost him multiple $K.
This won't be like VHS/Beta. You guys are going back too far. At best I will be like DVD+/-R. At worst it will be like SACD/DVD-A. Short of Toshiba (not just Universal) making a Blu-Ray player or Sony (and all of their studios) making a HD-DVD player I don't see a clear victor in this one.
HDTV's have only a 30% penetration. Most people think cable/satellite/OTA/SD DVD is enough. Hell, most people think DVD on a HDTV *is* HDTV. Moreover, most people don't have 1080i/1080P displays. It's the cheap 720P LCD (a few plasma) displays that people are buying! They don't have to worry about a bad upconversion, etc. since even the cheapest 720P upconverts 480p just fine. It still looks better than their 480i CRT.
This format war will be a marathon. CD will continue (or worse, be replaced by *gross* AAC/MP3). SD DVD will continue (or be replaced by online downloads--doubtful--computers are still too complicated--even Apple TV).
Yesterday I stopped by our local best buy and to my surprise they had twice as many HDDVD"s for sale as Blu Ray. I didn;t see a single blu ray player for sale there and only one blu ray player on demonstration.
They were selling the Toshiba HDDVD players.
Sony will have to do better than that to compete.
Shane wrote:Capacity is not just an advantage on the PC side. It also allows for more content on the disc, more bonus features (yes, those sell discs), better audio, etc.
So far this has not panned out for Blue-Ray. Often when movies are released on both Blue-Ray and HD-DVD the HD-DVD version has more bonus features. This is due to two problems. 1) The audio on Blue-Ray takes up more space. This is because multiple audio tracks are required due to optional audio codec requirements. 2) Most Blue-Ray disks are only 25GB to date. The 50GB disks are going to be much more expensive and therefore it is not clear whether people will choose to use them.
Also, you didn't talk about the cost of producing Blue-Ray vs HD-DVD disks. Blue-Ray disk duplication requires a whole new line and millions of dollars in investment. Most DVD lines that have been put in place in the last two years can support HD-DVD disk duplication with minimal upgrade costs.
From a technology point of view it remains to be seen how sucessful interactivity is going to work on Blue-Ray disks. It has the potential to be better, but I believe it will have a lot more problems then the interactivity with HD-DVD.
I don't believe anyone has mentioned the fact that many HD discs
are manufactured with one side being HD and the other side SD, for the same film title. Thus many HD discs can be played on any equipment. I can't recall seeing this feature among Blu-Ray titles. I am disappointed that Time-Warner has not seen fit to issue many classic films in either format, however. Titles in their library, such as "Wizard Of Oz", "Gone With The Wind", etc. have failed to appear and also don't seem to be on the horizon. Why the two camps continue to issue such dreck which I would not spend a cent on, baffles me. Less than 2% of all announced domestic titles hold any interest for me whatsoever! Look to Europe for older US films
such as "Serpico" or "Three Days Of The Condor"from the HD camp.
We all have our subject view of what's good and bad ( I happen to like a lot more of the HD over BR releases)...but I want to comment, whenever I can, that the HD Dual disc sound good, but they are senseless. The combo price (except for brand new releases) is more than you will pay for a regular HD DVD and separate SD DVD. I hear some people have trouble playing the disc as well. I (as a market perspective) want ONLY HD DVD, and I mostly will not pay the premium for a SD DVD that I will never play. (any SD DVD's I buy now are the $4.99 ones). I'd be curious if the Dual discs are helping the market at all.
Why do we need ANY disk at all? CD's are riding off into the sunset (well except at K-mart and Starbucks of course)- how long will it be until we're all downloading HD movies unto a digital storage device? With 500G drives selling at a little over 150 bucks and 1 terabyte at 400 bucks. Let's just get it over with now. It's long overdue to merge the PC with the entertainment system.
I've already got WAY to much plastic on my shelves as it is.,, And now we get to sort standard DVD's, Blu-Ray DVD's and HD DVD's. When will it ever end? A couple of years down the road and they'll all be in the high tech museum.
Early Adopter. Stand alone home theater. Panasonic TH-58PZ700U Plasma, Denon AVR 4306, SpeakerCraft MT3 L/RF, MT2 L/RR, AIM LCR6 center channel, flush mount wall speakers, JBL sub. DTV H20-100S DVR. Sony BDP-300S. Logitech Harmony 1000.
Why do we need the discs...well for CD audio, while not as pure as a vinyl LP, they are head and shoulders above the non-plastic format, MP3. Personally I can not listen to an MP3 on anything but ear buds. Anything else it just sounds bad. I mean horrible even on mediocre systems. Then there is only one medium for DVD-A and SACD.
For movies, so far, nothing delivers the quality and range of extras that the Discs can. Nothing else can give commentary, trailers, etc. not to mention, NO formats other than plastic have and for the reasonable future, can (or will) deliver anything but Basic Dolby Digital.
So...yeah, I'd love to lose the plastic, the toxins, the delivery, storage, landfill space...but I don't think I'm alone in not wanting to give up the full set of plastic features.
So, in a word, audio quality and breath of information (content).
And let's not forget that while it is easy for us internet-types to imagine a completely downloaded entertainment world, that is simply not practical for the vast majority of the world population.
If every DVD (and high-def DVD) rented or purchased was downloaded instead, I would venture a guess that the current internet infrastructure could not handle it. And how many people do you know that buy or rent music or movies that have no internet connection at all? What are they to do if DVDs and/or CDs are no longer produced?
Will it be here someday? Sure.
Will it be here in the next 5 years? Not likely.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to don my personal jet-pack for my evening commute (my flying car is in the shop)
- Shane
Publisher, HDTV Magazine Your Guide to High Definition Television
They said the same thing about records too and now you can only find them in used, recycled (ie Goodwill) or DJ specialty stores. Who would have thought that Wherehouse and Tower would be out of business? At the rate the technonlogy is moving we'll just have to wait and see who's right.
I agree with Steve about the CD audio quality we definitely need better or lossless compression algorithms - 20-24 bit depth would be a nice (super CD?!?)
You now they use a form of compression on phonograph records commonly called RIAA compensation. If the wasn't compressed it would throw the needle out of the groove. That's why you can't take your turntable and plug into an aux input - it has to be decompressed to sound right..
You don't have internet access - just bring your portable drive to the download store (or kiosk at the mall) Thats what all of the old folks are doing with their digital cameras now anyway.
Early Adopter. Stand alone home theater. Panasonic TH-58PZ700U Plasma, Denon AVR 4306, SpeakerCraft MT3 L/RF, MT2 L/RR, AIM LCR6 center channel, flush mount wall speakers, JBL sub. DTV H20-100S DVR. Sony BDP-300S. Logitech Harmony 1000.
I don't believe anyone has mentioned the fact that many HD discs
