Which is More Consumer Friendly: HD DVD or Blu-ray?

[GuyOwen]

I had already bought a Toshiba A35 during Christmas. I do plan to buy a Blu-Ray player, but I am put off a little by the higher player pricing -- and a little mystified that many perceive the best Blu-Ray bargain as the PS3. Not because I disagree -- from my own research, there are valid reasons for this: Start-up speed is the one that appeals to me the most (who wants to wait up to 3 minutes to have their movie load??). Ease of updates by the Internet (and wireless, at that) make the PS3 very appealing. Less appealing, to me: I have no time nor interest in gaming. But having said that, the PS3 seems to be one of the real bargains for a Blu-Ray player when you consider you can save $100 right now at Sony's website by using their card, with Free Shipping, too.

Anyway, back to why I liked this article.
1) I'm really tired of being blasted for even considering HD-DVD as part of my arsenal. Golly, fellas -- I just want to watch a high-def movie. I don't care whether it's HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. I'm just as likely to buy a Blu-Ray player -- but then the HD-DVD guys will want to smack me? I just don't get it.
2) Is this a War between the Manufacturers and the Studios -- or merely between the End-Users? I think it's mostly between the End-Users.
3) I never knew HD-DVD was Region-free -- so I learned a few things.
4) I never knew the true definitions of what decisions Target and Blockbuster had made -- assuming I can believe the claims in this article. I'm not sure I care. If I have an HD-DVD albatross in a year, I might. But could it also be a Blu-Ray albatross if I buy any player other than the PS3? Who really knows? No one.
5) I think both formats will be around for quite awhile. In fact, I think Toshiba knows one thing -- if they can get an inexpensive unit in everyone's hands faster than Sony can make them buy a Blu-Ray unit, they gain a lot of momentum. I don't see the average Joe dumping his HD-DVD library unless HD-DVD units cease production completely.
6) As a Consumer (and not an Anythingphile) I am worried, however, that a lot of the movies I want to watch -- not buy -- will be available only on one format. Hence, I'll hedge my bets by buying the PS3, in all likelihood.
7) If Netflix were to suddenly stop offering one format, I would probably dump that opposing player because I do not buy discs, as a rule.
I agree with Shane. I don't understand the argument that Toshiba is subsidizing the players should make any difference to me. I just want a unit that works well, loads quickly, and at a reasonable price. I hear everyone saying that Sony is losing money on every PS3 they build -- so what's the point? Supposedly, this is why they won't build a Movie-centric player with their Cell Processor that provides such great loading times.

What really surprises me about all of this (besides the arguing that goes on) is why the Consumer accepts the following...
a) Horrible load times.
b) Players coming out that do not match in performance their Manufacturer's hype during pre-release -- the Samsung 5000 is a perfect example.
c) No one can get HDMI figured out? The specs seem to be iron-clad. The implementation sucks.
d) You can't easily Stop and Restart a disc on some Players? Excuse me? Say what?!
e) In many cases you can't even Pause without having to Restart the entire movie? Are we out of our minds for buying into this? Gosh dang it, where's the "Potty-Break Chip"?!

Without wishing to offend anyone, this article reiterated my gut feelings during all my research -- which is why I bought HD-DVD.. for now:
HD-DVD has their act mostly together. And many units are inexpensive. If those stores are truly supporting only one format, why are they selling both player types?
Like Shane, I could not recommend a Blu-Ray player to anyone at this point -- except the PS3 (for the reasons I've cited).
And I sure as heck could not recommend any of the Dual Players at their current price levels -- not to mention their operational issues.

My best recommendation, however, might be to plan on buying both. HD-DVD now. Blu-Ray later on. If you can't ever afford both -- then wait. But when I've recommended the PS3 the immediate answer I get is: "My kids already own an XBox 360. Are you nuts?"

[hharris4earthlink]

As everyone has probably heard now, Warner Brothers has announced a Blu-ray only policy. This makes it very unlikely that HD DVD will become a viable standard. This is actually good news because, as I mentioned before, Blu-ray has the most future-proof technology. And the last thing we need is multiple standards for different applications.

Henry

[ronatkinson]

I can burn HD DVD to -R discs versus the BD platform is inaccessible. That makes HD DVD more consumer-friendly. Big duh!

[hharris4earthlink]

Remember that it's the nature of technology that ALL recording standards will eventually become obsolete. It's just a matter of timing. There are a lot of HD DVD players out there, a market that can't ignored as Universal recently confirmed with their announcement of planned new HD DVD titles.

Henry

[DavidEC]

""Christopher Cookson is no longer with the Warner Bros. Entertainment Group of Companies. For Warner matters, please contact Darcy Axxxxx at (818) 977-4016 or [email protected]. For all other matters, Chris can be reached at (310) 244-1395 or [email protected].""


'Sony' did not have to buy/pay off Warner Bro's studio to get them to go "Blu" they only had to pay off a single executive!!

[hharris4earthlink]

Below is a link to the 2006 testimony Mr. Cookson gave to the US Senate in which he makes the argument that technologies should win on merit, and it's in the consumer's interest that it do so. Irrespective of what technologies we're talking about, I think we can all agree that's a valid argument.

Henry

http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.c ... it_id=5457

[free2speak]

This is what I call consumer friendly.

http://www.hddvd.com/go.php/toshiba-int ... ext-phase/

[hharris4earthlink]

Yup, those HD DVD player prices are low enough to consider buying one for the short term. As for me, I just bought a PS3 so I don't need one. I also feel confident that the Blu-ray standard will be around for a while given it has lots of room to expand in the future.

Henry

[miller]

I think I'll wait until later this year before dropping any money on a Blu-ray player. XstreamHD has a lot of potential, and it should launch in October. Their combination of DTS HD Master Audio and 100Mbit/s will put any Blu-ray title to shame. I just hope the Blu-ray studios don't submarine them like they did HD DVD to protect their packaged media investment.

If it's not viable by the time Christmas rolls around, I'll probably plunk down some money on a PS3. Perhaps there will actually be some interesting games out for it by then.

- Miller

[RobinHood]

I really think either camp really cares about the average consumer, my friends dont know the diefference between the formats let alone know that a Blu ray disc wont play in thier standard dvd player. They have said they didnt know what blu ray was but they knew what a HD dvd was.

As far as Sony goes they can kiss my ass. I dont have any love loss for them since they installed a rootkit on my computer and it not only burned my cd writer but also burned my sony dvd player. As far as a PS 3 being the best player for blu ray that really is messed up. I wont have one hooked up to my DLP no how no way. If you have kids you know they can and will spend hours playing a video game. There are only a couple of people that I know that have a 5.1 or 7.1 sound system to even get the best sound from it. I know burn in is a thing of the past for most big screens now but I didnt set up my home theater system to play games on.

I done a lot of research on what to buy and what not to buy, it all comes down to this what is easier to use and I'll take HD any day. I dont need my wife coming up and bitching at me because it wont work, I got enough of it when I had the blu ray player. So one day when my wife was yelling at me because of load times and then it wouldnt play at all, I unhooked and threw the damm thing out the door and into the street.

Most consumers wont take the time to read the manual they just hook it up and watch the movie they put in, like many computer users they dont care how it works or what it can do as long as it works. So whatever player that is easier to use is going to win out no matter what Sony does or tries to do. I remember the beta / vhs wars and you see how that all played out.

The only ones who are going to win are the manufacturing companies. We as the consumer are going to lose no matter how this played out in the end