Blu-ray vs. HD DVD

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419Eater Admin Joined: 30 Sep 2003 Posts: 7469

I've been delaying buying one or the other player for nearly a year now, waiting to see how things play out and which format will eventually win the day. According to THIS ARTICLE Blu-ray appears to be on the verge of winning the Hi-Def war.

Does anyone here have players in either/both of these formats? I'm wondering what the real world opinion is of them.

I could of course get into trouble from her indoors and buy a dual format player, but they are very expensive here in the UK and I don't want to have a mixed format disc collection if I can help it!

Another link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7174591.stm

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:29 pm

You better watch out, Shiver! I don't think we are allowed to debate things like Blu-Ray and HD DVD!!! Very Happy

Lol, sorry. Just being sarcastic (and TRYING to be funny!). Very Happy

Anywho, I would not blow my money on either one, frankly. I'd just go buy a regular DVD player. Believe me, I have "experienced" a Blu-Ray DVD...and, frankly, it's nothing to write home about.

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:32 pm

It looks like the battle's going to go on for a while and it's expensive to get it wrong so I'd say go for a combi (although it may actually be cheaper to get 2 seperate units. Or just wait for a bit, the price will drop fairly quickly. The problem is that you've got different film studios backing different formats, XBOX360 with HD and PS3 with blu-ray etc. The best won't necesarily win.
I'm personally not going with either as I refuse to pay the prices for the discs.

edit: I'm with jedi, the slight quality improvement no way justifies the cost IMO.

Trophy Videos · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:42 pm

I agree with Rodus. It's like the old VHS vs Betamax war. The less technically superior format eventually won. Some people say HD DVD is superior technically to Blu-Ray, but it's too early in the game to see which format will eventually be the standard highdef. At about 250usd per drive, it is a bit expensive at this point, at least for me.

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:49 pm

I bought an upconverting DVD player to fill in the gaps watching my standard dvd collection. The upconverter part takes the 480i format and tweaks the video so it fills out your HD screen better than the HDTV's upconverting logic does.
You want to look for the DCDi logo on the panel - this indicates is uses a Faroudja chip- the best avaliable for smoothing out jagged edges on images that can occur during the upconvert process.
I bought a Denon 1730 for around $150, this and others like it are reviewd on Cnet.co.uk.

I am going to stick with it until the battle is decided.
(I backed 8-Track vs Cassette) Embarassed

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:08 pm

I too am holding off to see what happens. I have a 360 elite so can get an HD DVD player attachment for, I believe, $150US more but, it just hasn't proved worth it.

I may eventually get a PS3 so that would net me a Blu-Ray, but I haven't seen any most own games for it yet. So I guess I am really holding off because of gaming systems.

Elite Baiter Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 1702

Sony merged with NEC just so they could get both technologies - my advice really is wait and see some more, look at the amount of movies on which format - HD-DVD films theres more of them - but blu ray players more of them - and thats exactly what happened to betamax - lots of players - not a lot of content.

Blu-ray may well be winning the devices war - but its losing the content war - if i was going to make a rash gamble and it certainly would be a gamble id say HD will win the home video format but blu-ray the computer format - and the manu will be very happy with that if the video cant run on computers
it certainly wont stop piracy - id say go for the expensive dual format, i dont think the war will ever end till the next versions come out in a few more years -

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:29 am

Yes, this really reminds of the old video-tapes.
My first VCR was a Video 2000. That, in my opinion, was the greatest. You could turn around the tape and record again, just like a audio-tape. Also the quality was better than VHS...

But well, now it's HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray, and I'm not gonna buy anything before there's combo-players, and I haven't seen one yet (I also haven't checked for a while, but nobody needs to know about that...).

Anyway, I'm planning to turn an old computer into a replacement for my DVD-player.

In addition to the format-problem I also suffer because of that stupid region-code.
I have a lot of DVDs which I bought in Germany, region-code 2, and after I moved to HK I of course bought DVDs here, region-code 3. Thus I need a player that is either region-free, or that I can make region-free, because I really don't see the point of wasting money to buy all my old DVDs again...

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:37 am

rootuser wrote:

... I really don't see the point of wasting money to buy all my old DVDs again...

That's what I said about my LPs and video cassettes.

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:34 am

But my current problem is that I'd have to buy them again on the same type of media, just with a different region-code.
I also bought a lot of my movies again when I switched from VHS to DVD, but not all.
And anyway, as far as I know Blu-Ray- and HD-DVD-players can play DVDs, right? So it's not that big a problem as it was with VHS...

As said, with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD I'll still wait some time. I'm still quite happy with DVDs, although it's a bit annoying that I have turn "It" around in the middle of the film...

There's no need in disposing vinyls. Record-players are still made, and this probably won't stop as long as there are DJs.

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:51 am

Yes, you can play regular DVDs on the new players.

I'm not only waiting for a winner, but for prices to come down so I can get a burner for my pc. I've got 3 little ones, who like to put scratches on the nice shiny objects (no matter how high I put them Very Happy

). Until I can back them up like I can do to any dvd, forget it, dvd looks fine to me.

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:18 am

Looks like Blu-ray may win this one!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/07/high.definition

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 8:03 am

Jedi_Night wrote:

Believe me, I have "experienced" a Blu-Ray DVD...and, frankly, it's nothing to write home about.

I own an HD-DVD player, and can only say "WTF"?!!

No offence, but the picture (and sound!) quality on these Hi-Def discs is incredible. Admittedly, there are some good transfers and bad ones, and I'm guessing you got to see one of the bad ones, but films like Transformers, or even older films like Tremors look amazing. Anything shot on film can be transferred to HD, and nine times out of ten will look better than ever.

It'd be a shame if HD-DVD lost out, as I prefer its menu layout (you can actually access the menu while still watching the film, unlike SD or blu-ray which takes you out of the film into a separate menu screen), but ultimately I plan to go format-neutral anyway. Edit: Oh yeah, and no region coding on HD-DVD also puts it ahead of the game in my opinion.

shiver wrote:

I could of course get into trouble from her indoors and buy a dual format player, but they are very expensive here in the UK and I don't want to have a mixed format disc collection if I can help it!

THIS may help you in the dual format department, I'm guessing you've got a fast PC lying around the house. Wink

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:40 pm

The more I look into it, the more people I see saying don't bother. Neither technology is groundbreaking and there will be something new in the not too distant future that will do to DVD what DVD did to VHS. Buy an upscaling player but thats about as far as you really need to go (until 2010 when you can get a blu-ray/HD combi for a tenner at Lidl)

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:03 pm

I don't think Toshiba are just going to roll over on this, they spent pots of money developing their HD DVD format.
And we all know by now that whichever system wins out will only be around for 5-10 years max, before something new comes along, and we're off and running again. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:20 pm

rootuser wrote:

In addition to the format-problem I also suffer because of that stupid region-code.
I have a lot of DVDs which I bought in Germany, region-code 2, and after I moved to HK I of course bought DVDs here, region-code 3. Thus I need a player that is either region-free, or that I can make region-free...

Most players can be made region free or can change region now. Just google your dvd player. For some players it is very simple, mine for instance all you do is open the player, type 9999, and then the region you want, 0 for region-free. Some involve a bit more, but most can be made region-free.

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:25 pm

^^ But first there's gotta be one more extended version of Star Wars first for each format before we can move on to the next format!

@Ook: To find out how to make mine region-free I had to open it (physically with a screw-driver) to find out what chips are used. These I could find on a site about that stuff to find the proper code.
Problem is that this isn't permanent, sometimes my player forgets that setting and I have to do it again... Rolling Eyes

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:42 pm

I was just reading the local paper about this. They said studios are now 5 to 2 for Blu-Ray but to wait as they are changing the Blu-Ray content that current players will not have the technology for. I am going for an upconverter for now.

Elite Baiter Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 1702

Betamax was better quality than vhs, HD is better quality than blu-ray

Quote:

By 1980, JVC's VHS format controlled 70% of the North American market. The large economy of scale allowed VHS units to be introduced to the European market at a far lower cost than the more-rare Betamax units. In the UK, Betamax held a 25% market share in 1981, but by 1986 it was down to 7.5% and continued to decline further. By 1984, forty companies utilized the VHS format in comparison with Beta's twelve. Sony finally conceded defeat in 1988 when it too began producing VHS recorders.

In Japan, Betamax had more success and eventually evolved into Enhanced Definition Betamax with 500+ lines resolution (DVD quality), but eventually both Betamax and VHS were supplanted by laser-based technology. The last Sony Betamax was produced in 2002.

Toshiba and microsoft will now fight back drop prices as did jvc and see blu ray a second betamax lol.

It wont die the death everyone predicts because 2 massive corps have a multibillion dollar industry at stake.

If microsoft suddenly do the microsoft strategy and sell the hd-dvd players at �99.99 a loss for them then sales would rocket forcing the big boys to change to the hd-dvd format - and from memory thats the sort of dirty tricks microsoft made its first 2 or 3 billion quid with lol. Xbox is sold at a loss, microsoft are probably thinking "we already have a dvd player in hd that ships at 99, if we add some toshiba looks, do a deal for some cheap parts we can sell at a loss for 2 or 3 years eliminating the competition, backed by our own personal fortune aha that sounds good

Like the one they already sell for 99 lol