Format war over. Checkmate HD-DVD

[rkr1958]

I don't see what HD or Blu-Ray DVDs have to offer me over current DVDs especially given that I'm looking to "upgrade" to 720p and an upscaling DVD player.

The difference between HD and SD: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic336933.html#1753484

Upscale all you want, it's still SD.

Darn good SD, especially compared to VHS. I bought my first VCR in 1987. We didn't get our first DVD player until 2002. Given our investment in DVDs (and a lot of rebuys of VHS movies) and the quality we're getting now it's going to be a while before we upgrade to HD and rebuy movies again.

[rhegedus]

But what about new movie purchases?

[ejai]

Darn good SD, especially compared to VHS. I bought my first VCR in 1987. We didn't get our first DVD player until 2002. Given our investment in DVDs (and a lot of rebuys of VHS movies) and the quality we're getting now it's going to be a while before we upgrade to HD and rebuy movies again.

I don't see a need in buying HD movies that you have already purchased in DVD format. I was one of those shoppers that purchased the Toshiba HD-DVD player and the upscaling of my DVD collection was outstanding. I must admit the Toshiba A3 did an excellent job of upscaling much better than any other DVD player that I own.

As for the issue of cost several of my friends purchased the HD-DVD player mostly due to it's lower price. My friends were not interested in any technical information they only acknowledged the price.

Cost will be an extremely valid denominator in terms of what people are interested in when it comes to purchasing HD technology, IMO.

[lordsmurf]

do you acknowledge that the potential of Blu-Ray is still upwards of 200 GB

Absolutely not. Until it's available, this is referred to as "vaporware".
Nobody cares what something "could do".

[verchad]

I know HD DVD was more popular in one informal survey at Amazon.com

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic341087.html

I just get tired of tech moving so fast. I would just like an upconverting player that will do both Blu & HD. Also, for now, mark me as one who is not planning on rebuying all the stuff I have on "regular" dvd, I did a lot of that from vhs to dvd, but that was partially be cause of the promise of dvd's lasting "forever" compared to vhs and you can cram a lot more dvds on the same shelf as vhs tapes.

[ejai]

I know HD DVD was more popular in one informal survey at Amazon.com

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic341087.html

I just get tired of tech moving so fast. I would just like an upconverting player that will do both Blu & HD. Also, for now, mark me as one who is not planning on rebuying all the stuff I have on "regular" dvd, I did a lot of that from vhs to dvd, but that was partially be cause of the promise of dvd's lasting "forever" compared to vhs and you can cram a lot more dvds on the same shelf as vhs tapes.

I totally agree, I had to do the same thing.

[Leoslocks]

But what about new movie purchases?

I bought the Toshiba A2 because I was shopping for an upconverting DVD player. It makes the standard DVD look real good. Good enough to consider buying just regular DVDs..... until I get in the store and see the DVD new releases costing $20 and HD disks @ $25-30. Looking at the two racks of competing formats(@ Best Buys), I see lots of BlueRay titles. There are an equal amount of HD titles but fewer boxes on the shelves. There are several titles that I would have bought in HD but were only available in BlueRay (Cars, Ratatouli).
I bought a sale DVD(Bagger Vance @ $3.99) but would have paid $25 for Cars. My entire HD collection consist of The 300 and Transformers. Yet I am going to buy HD titles. There is not much in HD that I really want and don't have on DVD.

I will no longer pay $20 for a regular DVD!

[robertazimmerman]

If HD DVD has "won", why is it that BD discs are outselling HD DVD ones by a 2:1 ratio?

Believe me, I'd love to Sony get their butts kicked royally and lose this "war" in a big way, but it ain't gonna happen. It will either be a stalemate/unified format or Sony will win.

Roberta

[maek]

do you acknowledge that the potential of Blu-Ray is still upwards of 200 GB

Absolutely not. Until it's available, this is referred to as "vaporware".
Nobody cares what something "could do".

Very well.

[lordsmurf]

If HD DVD has "won", why is it that BD discs are outselling HD DVD ones by a 2:1 ratio?
Believe me, I'd love to Sony get their butts kicked royally and lose this "war" in a big way, but it ain't gonna happen. It will either be a stalemate/unified format or Sony will win.
Roberta

Outselling? According to whose figures? That's the problem.

[rhegedus]

If HD DVD has "won", why is it that BD discs are outselling HD DVD ones by a 2:1 ratio?
Believe me, I'd love to Sony get their butts kicked royally and lose this "war" in a big way, but it ain't gonna happen. It will either be a stalemate/unified format or Sony will win.
Roberta

Outselling? According to whose figures? That's the problem.

Any figures to suggest HD is outselling BD?



<----prods hornet's nest---->

[pchan]

Let's hope ..

1. $200 combo player....
2. Plenty of BD and HD-DVD media to burn
3. Combo .. BD and HD-DVD burners...

We have the liberty to backup to whichever we choose....

[SatStorm]

The aggressive Sony marketing try to put "official" words & statements in the mouth of those willing to follow them. Nobody denies that. If those are true or not, is very questionable. Toshiba is less on this that Sony, but it has it share.

For example, Sony reveals in the world the sales of PS3, but those numbers are not the actual number of the consoles that end up to the consumers: is the number of the produced PS3 at the factories...
Sony says about the big BD sales of the last year, but on those sales are also included the gifted BD discs when you buy a BD player.
There are some examples from Toshiba too, etc, etc, etc.

Overall, it is almost "acceptable" in a 2 parties commercial "war", lies in the form of statements, considerations, number sales & predictions, to became very common. Sony is very good on this and also remains the biggest source of statements, figures, etc. The only problem is that only the half population of the world is stupid to believe them. But among the half population of the non stupid ones, only few between them have the time to think about it. Those are the so called enthusiasts. There are also those fanboys: they need to be a part of team, whatever this is a football/basket team, a technology brand or a political party. The fanboys is a problem, because the "Teams" can use them. And Sony knows pretty well of how to handle the fanclub...

Now: A German once wrote, that if you want to tell a lie, tell a big one. People accept big lies easier. A Russian one, said once "Keep telling them a lie for a long time, and soon or later that thing became true". A third person, an American, once told: "Pay them: They won't turn against you that way".
Those 3 things happens all the time in this format "war" from both camps the last 2 years. I believe non of them myself.

The only things I see and believe regarding HDDVD & BD are the follows:

1 - People overall don't interest for them (worldwide)

2 - People buy cheap HD DVD players for their upscaling abilities (In N. America)

3 - People with HD DVD players, burn HD DVDs with HD material on simply DVD-Rs.

4 - The 1/3 owners of PS3 buy BD movies systematic, the 1/3 occasionally (that means that they may rent BD movies) and the 1/3 don't use PS3 for movies, only games.

5 - Those with HD material captured (ripped) from HD DVB channels, don't use optical discs to store them: They use Hard Discs (mostly on external frames).

This is the reality regarding BD and HD DVD today. IMO, the Analysts of this situation that search for numbers, figures, statements, official sources, etc, are missleaded from the porpoise of understanding the situation: They don't see what happens around them, they live in a virtual world with cooked numbers...

If this forum is something to analyze, then what I see, are the few questions about how to burn HD on DVD-Rs and playback them on HD DVD players. That in my eyes, make the HD DVD adopters more active with their equipment.
On the other hand, we have the BD fanboys, screaming about the superiority of BD. But they don't do something with their BD drivers. Maybe a BD Movie back up, or something. The rest things they do, are PS3 related, not BD PS3 related.
Maybe I'm wrong with this, but this is what I see and feel from the forum.

As a European Video fan, I have a few reasons to support HD DVD: No region, I can use the format with regular DVD-Rs, somehow cheaper BD players.
As a PC user, HD DVD is too "small" for my needs. BD is also small, but not that small. Both HD DVD and BD are useless and expensive from that point: I prefer external HDs. With a cost of 4 BD, I have a 320GB hard drive, or even more.

Anyway, this conversation may continue for ever, because of the human need of discussion. But let distant this from our needs: IMO, both HD DVD/ BD are just OK for our movie needs, but terrible for our Data needs. For our PCs, we need something different.

[maek]

I wish I could plug my external hard drive directly into my TV (as he fiddles with his USB cable and the HDMI input).

[Rich86]

I wish I could plug my external hard drive directly into my TV (as he fiddles with his USB cable and the HDMI input).

I'm currently running an external 500gb sata drive on my tv system via the high def cable dvr box esata connection. It works just fine. But you will fill it up pretty fast also if you decide to keep high def programming on it permanently.

[maek]

Really? That's cool! I retract my sarcastic remark then. How does it actually play through?

[ejai]

My DVD Player has a USB input and I am able to play Movies on my HDTV and they look and play just fine. I have a 500GB external drive that I have loaded with Divx and DVD movies.

I'm hoping more DVD and HD-DVD players adopt the USB input in the near future.

[Rich86]

Really? That's cool! I retract my sarcastic remark then. How does it actually play through?

It behaves as an extension of the 160gb drive that is in the dvr unit itself. It will record a chosen program to whichever drive has the most room available on it. When playing back, the dvr unit interacts with the user as if it has a 660gb drive (ie. you don't know or care which drive it is playing from - except for watching a flashing light, if you are so motivated). eSata is a pretty fast connection - so it records and plays with no problems. I'm not suggesting you can dub a high def dvd to this box, but it works great for anything coming off the cable to be archived for later viewing. The programs are stored in their full high def video/dolby digital audio format.

My cable dvr unit also has usb2 and firewire connections on it, but I haven't tried using them for anything . . yet . . .

[rkr1958]

HD DVD vs. Blu-ray ad nauseum

The battle between the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats is the battle that simply doesn’t want to end. Many, however, think that this Christmas season could be critical, a Gettysburg-style confrontation that won’t by itself knock either format permanently out of the race, but could start a “rolling downhill” effect that could lead inexorably to the triumph of one or the other.

The HD DVD forum is crowing about current generation HD DVD players that are available for under $200.00. That, historically, is the magic price point which is supposed to push a format over the top, as $200.00 is low enough to be a relatively painless expense. On the back of that low price, the forum announced that they have sold 750,000 standalone players and are well on their way to 1 million, which, again, is one of those magic numbers that is supposed to create a groundswell of support for the format (1 million customers is hard to ignore, as betanews explains). The fact that the HD DVD “attach rate” (which represents the number of movies purchased per player) is 4 versus a rather paltry 0.6 for Blu-ray should have a nice multiplier effect, accelerating sales at a faster rate than Blu-ray with every player sold.

Acceleration is key, because however many ways you slice it, in terms of number of players in consumer hands, Blu-ray takes the lead on account of the inclusion of a Blu-ray player in the PS3. Irrespective of that console’s third place status as a game console (which likely explains the low attach rate, as most don’t buy a PS3 for the Blu-ray player), enough have been sold to make a difference given the low numbers of HD discs sold. Sony recently announced that Blu-ray was outselling HD DVD by a 3-to-1 margin in Europe, which is a reversal of previous trends. That shift, of course, is entirely due to the fact that the PS3 was released recently in Europe.

The PS3 accounts for over 95% of all Blu-ray playback devices, which means Blu-ray’s fortunes are tightly linked with the success of the PS3 as a game console. That was more of a problem before Sony’s price cut, but things are now looking better for the console. Though it might not be enough to enable Sony to make up for lost ground with its PlayStation franchise, it might make a difference in the “sickly” market for HD disc content. As betanews pointed out, a large fraction of the total number of sales of BOTH HD disc formats is dwarfed in a few hours by standard DVD sales for a hot title like Transformers.

When will it end? Partisans of both sides are fighting it out in technology talkback forums across the Internet, but the reality is that its very hard to get consumers very excited about HD disc formats. My father can be considered a technology afficianado. He bought his first VCR, a bulky creature with old-fashioned tape-cassette-style push buttons, for $1200.00 in 1978 (he chose, lucky for him, VHS). He bought a satellite dish in 1982 or 1983, one of those big “speak to martians” monstrosities that, back then, received everything for free, as content companies didn’t encrypt their content yet. At one point, he owned three different DVRs (the better to experiment, I guess), and he also owns an HD TV.

He isn’t too keen about running out to buy an HD DVD player (Blu-ray or otherwise). Part of the problem is the size of his DVD library, which at last count, was above 1600 titles. Another is the quality of the upscaling in modern DVD players. We compared an HD broadcast signal for a sporting event (which was 720i, I believe) to one of his DVDs played back through his high-end standard DVD player, and I would be hard pressed to point out the quality differences.

Granted, this wasn’t pushing the HD envelope. Modern HD TVs support 1080p, and HD discs top out at that resolution as well. From what I’ve read, however, you need a quite large HD screen to see the difference between 720p and 1080p, certainly well above the 37″ screen my father has in his living room (which is a perfect size for his viewing area, as larger would start to feel like sitting on the front row of a movie theater).

In other words, it’s a hard sell to convince people to buy the new HD disc format, because in most cases, the quality different is hard to perceive…even if you have an HD TV (which most don’t). Granted, that’s where marketing hype comes in, riding the waves of consumer ignorance to create profit from a product for which many would be hard pressed to see a need (where would profits be without imperfect information), but that can only go so far, and consumers DO have huge standard DVD libraries.

That’s why I found it interesting that the HD DVD release of Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix will include a new “community screening” feature that enables multiple households to watch a movie simultaneously. One household will serve as the controller, and all the other players will synchronize with it. This takes advantage of the fact that HD DVD players REQUIRE Ethernet ports, something that is not the case with Blu-ray players.

That feature might seem unnecessary to some, but it represent a move in the right direction from a competitive standpoint. If you want consumers to embrace the HD disc experience, you need to give them something more than what they can get from standard definition. As I’ve noted, the marginal improvement in resolution isn’t sufficient by itself, as demonstrated by a format battle that still rages long after many experts estimated it would be resolved.

Instead, take advantage of the features that your format offers over predecessors, and harp on that in ad campaigns. The history of software sales shows that “doing more” is usually a good selling point. That principle applies equally to video playback hardware.

source blog

[edDV]

Could it be that the Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD format war was manufactured to generate 5 years of free news play?

[maek]

Ooops...maybe Toshiba is throwing in the towel???

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/17/news/companies/toshiba.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes