HD-DVD = Betamax

[orbital]

+

Looks like the current format war is over.

Blu-ray wins.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idCAN1451010520080215

Personally, I have no plans on getting one..

 

[Mad1]

I'll be sticking with good old' DVD's for a while yet. I personally don't need any better quality.

If this article does ring true, It'll be a shame because I dislike Sony.

 

[woodrow]

Thanks for the link. I have been holding off (aided by the fact that my current set is not 1080p) from buying either. But not knowing who was going to win the format war was not helping me get off the fence very quickly either.

I will have to look at blu-ray players....or maybe a playstation 3.

Thanks again!

 

[SCEMan]

I'd say at this stage there's no guarantee HD DVDs (Blu-ray or HD-DVD) will "survive" at all. If you have the money to invest fine, but with the stalled economy and subsequent reduced discretionary spending I'm not sure the average consumer will be willing to buy-in to it. Time will tell...

 

[Art Vandelay]

The real winner may be not be Blu-Ray or HD DVD. Movie downloads, or high capacity USB drives may be the winner.

"That's only half of it. Verizon's FiOS (fibre-optic service) can deliver raw data at speeds up to 50 megabits per second. That's twice the as much as needed to deliver the video quality of a Blu-ray or HD DVD disc. AT&T's U-verse isn't far behind."
http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/techview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10610923

The price on high capacity USB thumb drives drive is going down fast and the capacities are going way higher than Blu-Ray. Thumb drives are tougher and you can save stuff to them.

The video game business is bigger than the movies. It is also growing at a faster rate. Just imagine if the new X-men "DVD" came on a high capacity USB with the video game already on it. It could have a demo mode that lets you play a the first level, then you could pay to get it activated to play the full version. That beats a trip to the store for the customer.

Unlike Blu-Ray DVDs, USB thumb drives will work on your laptop, so you will not need to buy a regular DVD in addition to the Blu-Ray just to watch a movie on an airplane.

On the bright side, if you get a Blu-Ray player and it becomes obsolete you could always use it to make a Blu-Ray "Lightsaber".

 

[tiktok 22]

While the war may be over. The price is still to high. I have a 1080p upscaling DVD player that looks great on my plasma. Blu Ray might look better, but for the money, I will wait.

 

[binky]

I recently bought an HD TV, so I bought a Blu-ray player to go with it.

The Blu-ray picture looks great, but... A few days ago I rented a movie on my Apple TV. Matrix Revolutions in HD. Looked great. Took like 15 seconds to begin playing after I'd clicked the button to pay for it. The new era is here.

I've got some bronchitis thing today, so I'll probably rent another movie if I can find something decent. The list is currently pretty small & lame, but I'm sure it'll grow soon.

Like the other posters here I'm thinking that the format war may both be nearly obsolete anyway.

 

[raggie33]

you guys are some what corect but .i think people will always want to own a hardcopy such as a bluray disk with its extra stuff you receive kinda like people like there liner notes with cds. and it is a lot easier to and faster to download a cd full of music from itunes then a movie at itunes. id guess a movie at itunes in hd is at least 3 gigs im guessing.but if its hd im sure it will be bigger.plus we can watch the bluray movie with no Internet connection

 

[JimH]

Blu-ray wins HDTV war

I just heard on the news tonight that Blu-ray wins the HDTV DVD war. The major competitor, who produces HDTV DVD players (I forgot who it is) has pulled out of the race due to inability to make arrangements with major movie studios.

 

[Nitroz]

That stinks! I was hoping that this would drag out a little longer so that the competition would bring the price down some on the winner, in this case the more expensive blueray.

 

[Art Vandelay]

While the war may be over. The price is still to high. I have a 1080p upscaling DVD player that looks great on my plasma. Blu Ray might look better, but for the money, I will wait.

I was just over at Amazon and I saw the 1080p upscaling bestseller is $59 and plays all these formats:

CD, CD-R/CD-RW, Video CD/SVCD, DVD, DivX, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, DVD-Video Compression formats - MPEG1, MPEG2, DivX 3.11, DivX 4.x, DivX 5.x, DivX 6.0, DivX Ultra Playback Media - CD, MP3-CD, MP3-DVD, CD-R/RW, WMA-CD & Audio CD Compression format - Dolby Digital, MP3, PCM & WMA MP3 bit rates - 32 - 320 kbps Playback Media - DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD-R/RW, Picture CD, Kodak Picture CD Picture compression format - JPEG, TIFF

Plus it has USB, so if you have a USB equipped media card or USB thumb drive, you can upload right from your digital camera or camcorder. You don't even have to burn to a CD or DVD first.

We have a winner.

 

[Nitroz]

This is what I want to get next.
http://www.iodata.com/usa/products/products.php?cat=HNP&sc=AVEL&pId=AVLP2/DVDLA

 

[LuxLuthor]

I was just over at Amazon and I saw the 1080p upscaling bestseller is $59 and plays all these formats:

CD, CD-R/CD-RW, Video CD/SVCD, DVD, DivX, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, DVD-Video Compression formats - MPEG1, MPEG2, DivX 3.11, DivX 4.x, DivX 5.x, DivX 6.0, DivX Ultra Playback Media - CD, MP3-CD, MP3-DVD, CD-R/RW, WMA-CD & Audio CD Compression format - Dolby Digital, MP3, PCM & WMA MP3 bit rates - 32 - 320 kbps Playback Media - DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD-R/RW, Picture CD, Kodak Picture CD Picture compression format - JPEG, TIFF

Plus it has USB, so if you have a USB equipped media card or USB thumb drive, you can upload right from your digital camera or camcorder. You don't even have to burn to a CD or DVD first.

We have a winner.

Smart man. This makes so much more sense than wasting $$$ on BR and discs....with new technology/downloading on its heels. I wonder which of these would be best to try.....I'm always leery of the cheapest model.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Well, it's finally over. Toshiba officially pulled the plug today.

One side benefit of Toshiba's defeat will be an eventual proliferation of lower-priced blue laser diodes as they go into full-scale mass production.

 

[Arkayne]

That's a shame. Time to sell my HD-DVD player on Craiglist while I still can. Fortunately, I bought it for $89 during Walmarts black friday sale. They are going for 100-120 on CL so I have time to get my money back.

 

[js]

Arkayne,

Why sell it? Keep it in case you ever need to play an HD-DVD. And I imagine that you'll soon be able to get those at a discount, right? No sense in selling your hardware! You never get what it's really worth, in my opinion.

 

[nanoWatt]

This war was over much faster than the VHS/BetaMax competition. Except Betamax went on the professional market for broadcasters. Things are definately accelerating. It was over in like what, 2 years? VHS/Beta went on longer than that.

 

[IsaacHayes]

I'd much rather have HD win but oh well.

Upscaling DVD players do help old DVD's look good on high def TV's. (but if you ask me the TV should have the video processing built in to make low def and standard def look good, for dvd's and std def cable, etc)

But if you have a 1080p TV you will notice a difference watching true 1080p content (that is recorded in the 1080p format, and not just upscaled).

 

[Daekar]

Did you see the note at the end of the article saying that Toshiba and Sandisk are going in together to produce solid-state electronic memory? They said investing 16 billion USD... that's a serious business move. I wonder if they plan to produce on such a volume that prices on SD cards and such decrease to the point that they can put movies on those and sell them instead of disks? That would fantastic.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Did you see the note at the end of the article saying that Toshiba and Sandisk are going in together to produce solid-state electronic memory? They said investing 16 billion USD... that's a serious business move. I wonder if they plan to produce on such a volume that prices on SD cards and such decrease to the point that they can put movies on those and sell them instead of disks? That would fantastic.

That's close to what Bill Gates predicted about 3 years ago but nobody paid much attention at the time.
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/01/14/flash-will-kill-blu-ray-and-hd-dvd