Blu-Ray v HD-DVD

[cHodAX]

Not strictly console related but...


I was kind of shocked to read this afternoon that Walmart are going to be selling standalone Toshiba HD-DVD players on special offer for $100, that bloody translates to a £50 price so here is hoping they repeat the offer here in the UK! Now of course that is a special offer price but Toshiba have commited to offering sub $200 RRP players before the end of the year, that is an incredible price drop from the $600 prices we started at in January. I honestly didn't think we would see these kind of mainstream prices for at least another year but HD-DVD could gain some serious traction this Christmas at these prices.

The good thing as a consumer is that Blu-Ray will have to respond in kind by slashing their prices, so which ever side of the fence you are sat on this is all looking like great news. Anyway, have a read of the news article for yourselves...


DailyTech - HD DVD Player to Break $100 Mark on Friday

 

[soze]

They did this a few weeks back in was in the large stores and limited to 12 units per store. If you got one you were lucky. I tried to buy one for £100.

What i think HD DVD have just anouced is good. A Tosh player for $700 can write HD video (2hr) to standard DVDs will save you a nice chunk of change if you write allot. But up untill Transformers Blu Ray was still out selling HD DVD 2-1.

Toshiba DVR dumps HD to HD DVD | Reg Hardware
Blu-ray outsells HD DVD 2:1 in US | Reg Hardware

 

[Raven]

Still waiting for one that plays both at a reasonable price, can let the content decide then

 

[Talivar]

In my personal opinion HD films have better pic quality than blue-ray but because of the ps3 more ppl have a blue-ray player so that contributes to sales figures a lot.

 

[ST^]

In my personal opinion HD films have better pic quality than blue-ray but because of the ps3 more ppl have a blue-ray player so that contributes to sales figures a lot.

lol

 

[Ch3tan]

That is actually the funniest thing I have read all year. Well done Talivar.

 

[cHodAX]

lol

What? Technically on early Blu-Ray releases he is 100% correct. Early Blu-Ray releases all used MPEG endcoding which took up more space and gave a significantly poorer picture. Things only started to change this summer with the move to the AVC and VC-1 codecs but there are still Blu-Ray movies being encoded using MPEG because it is a cheaper and faster way to encode the media. On HD-DVD this isn't an issue, from the begining HD-DVD were encoded at 1080p with the AVC and VC-1 codecs producing much clearer video, literally 98% of all HD-DVD discs have been encoded using this much higher quality encoding. Blu-Ray cannot even claim 50% of releases using these codecs and although that will change quickly in the next few months there are still Blu-Ray releases being done with crappy MPEG encoding to save on costs.

So in that regard and in his experiences he may well have been correct.


However, a film encoded for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD using either of AVC and VC-1 codecs should look pretty much identical to the naked eye. Eventually all releases will be encoded using either AVC and VC-1 at which time all of this becomes mute.

 

[soze]

but because of the ps3 more ppl have a blue-ray player so that contributes to sales figures a lot.

Nothing to do with the exclusive titles? HDVD through the 360 is just as cheap as blu ray but blu ray has a bigger list of exclusive studios.

 

[Yaka]

there are good points and bad points to both formats.
best thing to do in this on going "war" is to keep yer wallet in your pocket.



what we all need is a HD download service, pay for movie leech it to hdd and store/watch/brag or wtf else needs doing. this would make both hd dvd an blu ray pointless.

as always is lurk in the murky waters of warez then you are preety much sorted

 

[Raven]

I agree, with the price of storage falling all the time its the only way....well it would be if we had a real internet service.

 

[Stimpy]

I dunno I'm not to keen on dl 50gb files myself

 

[Opt1]

Nothing to do with the exclusive titles? HDVD through the 360 is just as cheap as blu ray but blu ray has a bigger list of exclusive studios.

I think there's probably quite a lot of PS3 owners who are part of the Blu-Ray sales figures for players, but don't actually go out and buy lots of movies for it.

The big list of exclusive studios is a big factor long-term..

Either way I'm not bothered. I'll sit this out and if one wins, I'll buy a standalone player when they're cheaper, and if two-format players emerge, I'll go for one of them.

 

[Talivar]

I have a ps3 for blue-ray and a stand alone HD dvd player so im not some bias HD fanboy. I have a good collection of films on both formats and i still say in general HD pic quality is better. Maybe the ps3 isnt best to use tho to see how good blue-ray pic could be.

 

[nath]

I dunno I'm not to keen on dl 50gb files myself

Decent HD rips are about 4-12gb, you'd be nuts to download an unencoded hidef vid

 

[DaGaffer]

Just bought a PS3 at the weekend and watched my first BluRay movie (300). My Bravia is 1080p, and I have to say I wasn't exactly blown away. Better, yes, definitely, but £25 versus a tenner for a DVD better? Not so much.

 

[Stimpy]

Just bought a PS3 at the weekend and watched my first BluRay movie (300). My Bravia is 1080p, and I have to say I wasn't exactly blown away. Better, yes, definitely, but £25 versus a tenner for a DVD better? Not so much.

300 is not a very good advert for HD tbh because of the way the film was originally shot it doesn't look all that brilliant in HD, I'd suggest picking up a copy of The Fifth Element for a true taster

 

[ST^]

Yeah, 300 is deliberately grainy.

 

[cHodAX]

Annoyingly grainy.