Blu-ray won!

[RabidDog]

Sorry Guys I think I did it. Once Toshiba read my previous post they knew the game was up. They called an emergency meeting and pulled the Plug on Hd-dvd. I have advised them to eat large crow and pile into the market for both players and more specifically recorders.
HAng on a sec ! Is that elvis flogging chips??

[AlecWest]

Well, so far, the "I don't care" votes have the plurality. In fact, at this point, if you add in the "Yes! But I don't care" votes, that's 51% - a majority.

Two years ago, my ex got laid off from her high-def production-line job at Matsushita because no one was buying high-def TVs. Unsold sets were being returned en-masse and the plant just shut down permanently. And two weeks ago, my son, who used to be an assistant manager at a Suncoast video store (until he got a better job at Wafer-Tech) told me that Suncoast was "sunsetting" its entire high-def DVD line (not just HDDVD but BluRay as well) because no one was buying them. And last October, my local Blockbuster store cleared out a full 20% of the store space (just bare carpet) to make way for high-def DVD offerings. As of 3 days ago when I last visited the store, the bare carpeted space remains bare.

In my local area, the 18 HD channels offered by my cable company are the same 18 HD channels offered 2 years ago ... and their Verizon fiber-optic competitor has two less channels than that.

Add to that the current downturn in our economy and fears of inflation (or worse) and, frankly, I don't see much of a future for high-def "anything" in the foreseeable future (including BluRay). But who knows. Maybe Joe & Suzy Consumer are waiting for their big "economic stimulus" checks to come in May to take the plunge.

Of course, this is just MY neck of the woods. Some of you may live in rarified areas of the world where everyone can afford HD and where HD offerings at stores (and on cable/sat/etc.) are plentiful.

Still, there is some good news. As of 8 days ago, Netflix made the decision to only carry BluRay high-def DVDs:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-bz.netfllix12feb12,0,119719.story

Two years ago, they only had 256 high-def titles. But now, they have a whopping 400 titles ... out of 90,000. I guess you could call that progress.

Politically Incorrect P.S. --- I think the economic stimulus plan is all wrong. Instead of giving the money to taxpayers, they should give the money to "street people." That way, a week before the checks come out, taxpayers could buy stock in companies that manufacture and sell fortified wine products (grin). Their stocks would go up, the taxpayers would get more money in dividends than a stimulus check would provide, buying high-def products with the money -- and after downing $300-600 worth of fortified wine, the people drinking it "wouldn't care." :P

Regards,
J. Alec West

[dadrab]

Gawd...

The emotion eminating from some posters in this discussion could rival a soap opera.

Not everything is about the "here and now." BD is still under development and Sony has a stretch to go before I'll spend my dollars on their format. Hell, I'm just happy to be able to burn pretty much whatever I want to a SD DVD (major thanks to the pioneers on this site). I worked pretty damn hard to get there (not really very smart, you know) and I'm so NOT looking forward to the learning curve of putting anything on Blu-Ray. It sounds like a pain in the ass and the older I get, the more weary I grow of pains in my ass.

Those who bought a PS3s and play BD movies on it get a bonus. I'm happy for you in that regard.

For those BD fanboys/girls/children who feel the need to blast HD DVD in the process...well, you're one of the pains I'm tired of.

And, since I've just shown you an example; "your" is the possessive pronoun form of "you." It is not the correct or even acceptable contraction for "you are." That is written "you're."

...remember the 4th grade...make your teacher proud...

If you're going to post to a public forum, the least you can do is...aww, what the Hell...

If English isn't your native language, I give you a pass.

[SingSing]

Wii... I mean weee..

[SingSing]

I don't care... 35% [ 203 ] from Total Votes : 571

Because most of we bought neither. Long live DVD!

[ron spencer]

both formats are doomed.....this will end up like DVD-A...gotta spider sense on this....wacky

[BogieV]

Why most of the people here are so concerned for having 100 bucks player deciding the near future of HD?
I mean it's narrow minded and very local how you think.

In Japan there is almost NO PLAYERS on the shelves! Nobody buys players - people buy recorders!
The price of HD-DVD recorder was about 100000 yen (1000USD) and Blue Ray is some 50% more expensive but people searching for new player do actually buy recorder.

In the moment standard DVD recorders with digital High Vision TV tuners outsell the HD recorders by large margin but I expect that till the end of this year it will be 50-50 situation.

In the same time there are even countries members of EU where the VHS is still main rental media. US is not the world you know (no personal offense here).

[Conquest10]

Read my article again. I like how you ask "What movies can possibly use this space?" To the fact that I said they are developing 100GB and 200GB discs. I might ask, why did you not highlight the very next sentence? Its has the answer your looking for. I look at the technology of both discs from not only what they can deliver in means of video format storage, but also data storage, which can be uncompressed video etc. Actually there is a big difference in 30.24MBs compared to BD 48MBs. Unless of course your the novice who just rips and burns. But if you truly make something from scratch this could add possibly three more uncompressed audio tracks, or a second camera angle. But of course you know what you were doing by putting the 29.4MBs vs the 40MBs video overhead instead of the total overhead. Of course that would not make to much of a difference. But even that shows BD superiority with an additional 8MB of overhead even if the video is at the max 40MBs that BD allows. And for your final question, I answered that in my first post with the required Dolby TrueHD requirements for HD DVD

Wow, you must have a college degree. You wrote an awful lot there but didn't really say anything beyond that little jab at me by calling me a novice.

If you were to read my posts you would already know that I have always said that Blu-Ray makes more sense as a computer drive and that HD-DVD would have been the HD video format for watching movies. Blu-Ray has the more space but you still have not given any facts to say why that is better for movies. Sure, you bring up the camera angles. That's also part of the DVD specs but name me ONE DVD movie that uses different camera angles. Its good to bring these up but nobody uses them. HD-DVD has shown that 29.4 is good enough for HD video. I have no seen a movie that has blocked up yet.

Three or more uncompressed audio tracks? That is just wasteful and reeks of desperation at trying to fill up the space on the disc. Wow, I just can't wait to listen to those director's commentary in uncompressed audio!!

Your dislike of the requirement of Dolby TrueHD is not MANY ways why HD-DVD sucks compared to Blu-Ray.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The larger disc format has the head room to accommodate new advances in cinematography. Both formats look dead in comparison to holographic storage.

[JohnnyMalaria]

BD is still under development and Sony has a stretch to go before I'll spend my dollars on their format.

And, since I've just shown you an example; "your" is the possessive pronoun form of "you." It is not the correct or even acceptable contraction for "you are." That is written "you're."

Careful when pronouncing the correct use of English.

Either

"BD is still under development and Sony has a stretch to go before I'll spend my dollars on its format."

or

"BD is still under development and Sony have a stretch to go before I'll spend my dollars on their format."

but not

"BD is still under development and Sony has a stretch to go before I'll spend my dollars on their format."

[dadrab]

Point taken. ...

...debatable, but worthy of the conversation.

At least I used the correct "their."

[Marvingj]

No one wins in the long run. Sony will charge us like hell now.

[Nitemare]

Marvingj wrote:

No one wins in the long run. Sony will charge us like hell now.

Assuming that we're a decent cross-reference of the purchasing public, I think we can all still insist on keeping DVDs. Look at the votes. The majority of us don't care about hi-def and many of us don't plan to buy equipment for it either.

dadrab wrote:

I'm so NOT looking forward to the learning curve of putting anything on Blu-Ray. It sounds like a pain in the ass<snip>

I suspect that a LOT of us feel this way... especially since we know that some "next generation" stuff will be coming down the line in just a few years.

For myself... I could only afford my little mini-DV camcorder... it records at 720x480... pretty handy, huh? For a common laborer like me, switching to hi-def ANYTHING makes no sense at all. It would require the purchase of thousands of dollars in equipment to shoot lousy home movies?

No thanks.

[Midzuki]

TJK1911 wrote:

Hey, it's just a light and a motor,

ron spencer wrote:

both formats are doomed.....this will end up like DVD-A...

I wish you were right.

[TheFamilyMan]

Yes! But I don't care who won.

I read this to mean "as long as there is a winner, I'm happy" (which I am).

IMHO HD is still a novelty for most. The only people I know with HD sets and players are very well off and very much into the "most toys" lifestyle. Most people buy a TV and expect it to last 7+ years, thus maybe in 5 or 6 years HD will be the norm. Eventually another super resolution format/media will emerge to rekindle these discussions all over again. Remember when VHS movies were $80 to $100 and one spent $400+ (1980s prices) on a VCR, and DVDs were $30+ and one spent $300+ on a player? Give it time, eventually we'll all have $15 BR movies and $50 BR players. Don't worry, be happy !

[crjackson]

Point taken. ...

...debatable, but worthy of the conversation.

At least I used the correct "their."

He he he... this is too funny...


For yall southpaws: "BD aint done cook'n yet, an' I anit aspendn my chickenscratch till itsadone cook'n"

[zoobie]

I'm forced to agree with TheFamilyMan
most of us here are trying to do this on a shoestring
then there are those where money is no object, already have 2-3 HDTV's, and a couple of Blu-ray players
it's getting too complicated for me since I've spread myself thin
I know a little bit about everything but am an expert at nothing
so I guess I'll concentrate on shooting more stuff while this whole mess is sorted out
I'm supposed to put out 20 minutes of HD on a DVD played on Blu-ray this year...now seems highly improbable unless I use Vegas Pro I suppose...then run down to Circuit City to test like racer-x
it would probably be better for me to put things on hold for 6 months while more development and methodologies surface

[ron spencer]

I heard sony BR blanks will be made of diamonds...I cannot afford this.

can anyone confirm?

[lordhutt]

They say beer will make me dumb.
It are go good with pizza.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Call me a conformist, but standard DVD is "HD" enough for me. I'm as happy as I can be with it, my el-cheapo dvd player (Well, not-sho-cheap-actually but you get the point), my surround system and my movies that never get out of the case more than once because I backup all of them "just in case". They will last forever... as this format will.

I have no interest in either format, except when the 200GB blank DVD's or whatever they are called will be available mainstream and I will be able to backup my entire life in just one disc. (Just like when the first blank CD-R appeared).

Totally unrelated PS:
@crjackson: You look like my mother in law.... are you related?

[rayden54]

I didn't vote.

I wanted HD-DVD to win just because of Heroes. There aren't any titles in Blu-ray that I want right now, but I don't really feel like buying a dead format (unless it's really cheap).

Too bad, I really wanted the picture in picture commentaries.

[SingSing]

I wanted HD-DVD to win just because of Heroes. There aren't any titles in Blu-ray that I want right now, but I don't really feel like buying a dead format (unless it's really cheap).

It is really cheap. The player is going at $100.00 with 5 free movies. People buy it as an up-converting DVD player, after they burried HD-DVD.

[Midzuki]

rayden54 wrote:

I wanted HD-DVD to win just because of Heroes

Bad reason --- and a bad taste as well.

[waheed]

I wanted both to co-exist just because I purchased a PC drive that can play both.

[bendixG15]

Its unfortunate that the free market was not allowed to select their choice.

Blu-Ray was shoved down the throats of consumers by big business.

Question now is ...will the consumer swallow it or barf it up ???

[rhegedus]

Blu-Ray was shoved down the throats of consumers by big business.

How so? No one was made to buy anything against their will.

[FulciLives]

Blu-Ray was shoved down the throats of consumers by big business.

How so? No one was made to buy anything against their will.

rhegedus has been lambasted before for having "an agenda" and this particular post by him smacks of it.

It is clear what bendixG15 is saying. At least to me.

The emergence of Blu-Ray as the winner of the format war (HD-DVD vs Blue-Ray) is clearly due to studio manipulation as opposed to consumer preference.

The facts?

Although there were movie titles that were available for both there were also exclusives available for one or the other but due to studio choice (not consumer choice) the Blu-Ray format had way more exclusive content than HD-DVD did and that was simply due to more studio support for Blu-Ray than HD-DVD.

Had all or at least most titles been equally available for both systems THEN and ONLY THEN could you say that the consumer had a clear choice. That clearly ... CLEARLY ... was not the case.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[MOVIEGEEK]

No one was made to buy anything against their will.

That should be the BDA motto,they can use that statement when people try to play 2.0 discs in first generation BD players.

[yoda313]

No one was made to buy anything against their will.

That should be the BDA motto,they can use that statement when people try to play 2.0 discs in first generation BD players.

This 2.0 stuff.... does that still affect bd-rom players for pc's? I bought my liteon rom player just a couple months ago. Will that be upgradeable through firmware?

[waheed]

No one was made to buy anything against their will.

That should be the BDA motto,they can use that statement when people try to play 2.0 discs in first generation BD players.

This 2.0 stuff.... does that still affect bd-rom players for pc's? I bought my liteon rom player just a couple months ago. Will that be upgradeable through firmware?

In my opinion, PC drives should be fine. The control for Blu Ray on PC tends to be more software based than hardware based. Ive also bought a combo LG Blu Ray/HD DVD Drive.

I guess its just a matter of updating to the latest firmware and updating your player software.