- LOCK - Format War - HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray - LOCK -

Status
Not open for further replies.
Amazon still gives you 10% off BR purchases, but you have to buy 3 or more for it to apply.

Actually, It's taking 10% off my Pirates of the Caribbean preorder, which is for two videos, so I dunno what the deal is. 10% off any BR purchase (applied at checkout)?
 
[quote name='dpatel']Well, WM has already been stocking BD and HD for a while, and I don't think they have been too much lower than other retailers. That may change when the cheaper players come, but so far, nothing indicates cheaper software.[/quote]
i dunno. it might vary by region. i bought batman begins there and it was 20 bucks. was 30 at cc, bb, & suncoast.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Amazon still gives you 10% off BR purchases, but you have to buy 3 or more for it to apply.

Actually, It's taking 10% off my Pirates of the Caribbean preorder, which is for two videos, so I dunno what the deal is. 10% off any BR purchase (applied at checkout)?[/QUOTE]

10% is nice, but after spending about 800.00 on a PS3, controller and 4 games, I need something even cheaper ;)

Thanks anyways though.
 
[quote name='seanr1221']I wish I could find some deals on BR movies so I could check them out...[/quote]

There's an HD DVD and BD deals thread in the DVD section.
There was a good sale recently from the Warners site, 30% off stuff.
I'd check that thread from time to time.
 
BD review, got a 5 out of 5 for picture quality with MPEG-2. Can't judge by codecs.

http://www.hometheaterspot.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/136984/

In law enforcement breathalyzers are used to corroborate an officer’s observations of a person suspected of impairment. The courts know that not everyone has the same tolerance for alcohol. So a breathalyzer test alone isn’t sufficient to convict. But it can be used to reinforce the subjective impressions an officer may make based on less accurate means like following a suspect for a short period and field sobriety tests. More reviewers need to take the same kind of balanced approach to reviewing, as this MPEG-2 encoding offers yet more concrete evidence of why you simply can’t judge video by the codec used – not even a little. You will not find a VC-1 or AVC encoding from a film based source, much cleaner or more detailed than this.
Click to expand...

Without the demands of maintaining higher levels of video noise, Sony could have pushed the bitrate lower. But, with 50GBs of storage they didn’t, instead opting to stick with their normal bit budget for MPEG-2, a variable average of roughly 25mbps, which equates to an image free of compression as well.
Click to expand...

Yum.
 
[quote name='propeller_head']what movie? link?[/quote]

Haha, crap, sorry, I thought I had it in there.
Post edited.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Amazon still gives you 10% off BR purchases, but you have to buy 3 or more for it to apply.

Actually, It's taking 10% off my Pirates of the Caribbean preorder, which is for two videos, so I dunno what the deal is. 10% off any BR purchase (applied at checkout)?[/QUOTE]

Do you have to use a coupon code? That is not working for me. I already pre-ordered them both at amazon, but will cancel and replace if I can get 10% off.
 
it seems to work automatically for me. Add them to your cart and checkout - it should show up on the invoice on the screen right before you click "place order" to complete. It's listed in "promos and discounts," or something similar.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']it seems to work automatically for me. Add them to your cart and checkout - it should show up on the invoice on the screen right before you click "place order" to complete. It's listed in "promos and discounts," or something similar.[/quote]

Last year you either bought 3 HD/BR movies together with the "HDDISC10" code, or bought an HD DVD or Blu-Ray player with a different code (that I can't remember), so now you get 10% off all (even single) HD DVD or Blu-Ray discs until the end of this year.

The promotion ended Dec 31st, 2006, so there's no way to get the 10% discount now unless you already have it.
 
[quote name='dallow']Haha, crap, sorry, I thought I had it in there.
Post edited.[/quote]

hmm, i have to say im a bit sceptical since the movie doesnt come out for another 4 days. and highdefdigest doesnt have a review on it yet.

that being said, as i said before, some movies look okay in mpeg-2; but all look better in vc-1.
 
[quote name='propeller_head']hmm, i have to say im a bit sceptical since the movie doesnt come out for another 4 days. and highdefdigest doesnt have a review on it yet.

that being said, as i said before, some movies look okay in mpeg-2; but all look better in vc-1.[/QUOTE]

I've heard conflicting statements about the two formats. I have heard the statement that you said, and other people have said that they are both capable of the same picture quality, but mpeg2 just takes up more space.
 
MPEG-2 uses more space because of less compression.
VC-1 uses less space, but still looks awesome because it's good compression.

They are very comparable, and some look better than others.
Depends on how well the studios decide to take care of it.

I would say that MPEG-2 at peak performance will beat out VC-1 at peak performance simply because the image is less compressed.
Of course, you need a 50GB BD disc for such things, but 50GB production woes are now over as just about all new BD movies are 50GB. Not just the blockbusters.
 
[quote name='dpatel']I've heard conflicting statements about the two formats. I have heard the statement that you said, and other people have said that they are both capable of the same picture quality, but mpeg2 just takes up more space.[/quote]
well a lot has to do w/ how much grain the film has. newer films can use mpeg-2 a little better, and animated films can. that being said, like i said; you cant simply have more of the disc use it and say its equal because the speed at which the disc can be read is the limiting factor. not how much can be on the disc.

think of it like a funnel. you can have say 2 buckets. one w/ 4 quarts of regular detergent and one 3 quarts of concentrated detergent. they both go through the a funnel and are slowed. but the concentrated detergent will always produce more suds. that doesnt mean you cant wash some things w/ the diluted detergent, just that it wont work as well.
 
How fast can you read/write data on a Blu-ray disc?



According to the Blu-ray Disc specification, 1x speed is defined as 36Mbps. However, as BD-ROM movies will require a 54Mbps data transfer rate the minimum speed we're expecting to see is 2x (72Mbps). Blu-ray also has the potential for much higher speeds, as a result of the larger numerical aperture (NA) adopted by Blu-ray Disc. The large NA value effectively means that Blu-ray will require less recording power and lower disc rotation speed than DVD and HD-DVD to achieve the same data transfer rate. While the media itself limited the recording speed in the past, the only limiting factor for Blu-ray is the capacity of the hardware. If we assume a maximum disc rotation speed of 10,000 RPM, then 12x at the outer diameter should be possible (about 400Mbps). This is why the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) already has plans to raise the speed to 8x (288Mbps) or more in the future.
Click to expand...
The PS3 has a 2x BD drive right?
 
Both don't surprise me, although neither are more than unconfirmed rumors at this point (the star wars one isn't even a rumor)

Star Wars is Fox, and they are supporting Blu-ray, as far as I know.

And I knew Universal would go neutral at some point. Doesn't mean they doubt HD or anything, just means they want to capitalize on the other half of the market they have been missing out on.
 
star wars will come to BR thats for sure. but i dont see it coming this year, maybe not even next year. lucas has been historically wary of new formats. only way it wouldnt is if BR fails and i dont see that happenening. i see both formats surviving. but if one format does die it wont be BR, well unless they have outrageous prices on the computer burner front, and it doesnt look like its leaning that way.

i dont see universal going neutral this soon though, they might go neutral in 2k8 if HD DVD remains at at below 1/4 the install base. but theyve said on many occasions that the format war hasnt even begun, that the sales numbers were so small right now nothing could be drawn of it.

now theres 1 advantage to going neutral for them, they can sell movies at a higher price now since the format is new. the discs still only cost roughly $2 each to make so $30 for a HD disc has more profit to it than a $20 dvd even though the DVD only costs pennies to make.

but theres also the disadvantage of people supporting HD DVD buying universal movies to help the format deciding that they might buy from paramount & warner instead. and also the matter of the deal w/ MS; whove theyve been in bed w/ for many years w/ MSNBC.
 
To clarify, the Universal rumor isn't even a rumor either. It's from a german blog site that claims he heard someone from Pioneer (one of the chairs of the BDA) say that Universal would be releasing Blu-Ray at some point by 2008. If the quote is even accurate, it could quite easily be referring to Universal Music Group, which is different than Universal Pictures and already plans to release on Blu-Ray.

The whole thing just makes no sense. Why would the head of the HD DVD promotion group defect this soon in the war, when total disc sales on both formats have yet to hit 2.5 million? And if they did, why would their first call be to a CE company they have no affiliation with?

Furthermore, Universal has an executive whose sole job is HD DVD, and another executive who's a big HD DVD supporter has just been promoted to the head of all digital media. Pretty stupid moves for a company who's switching teams. And to boot, the president of Universal has just come out and said the announcement is "completely false".
 
[quote name='propeller_head']lucas has been historically wary of new formats.[/QUOTE]

Is that why the original trilogy was released on videodisc and laserdisc?
 
[quote name='geko29']The whole thing just makes no sense. Why would the head of the HD DVD promotion group defect this soon in the war, when total disc sales on both formats have yet to hit 2.5 million? And if they did, why would their first call be to a CE company they have no affiliation with?
[/QUOTE]

Probably the same reason why a lot of BD supporters are now thinking about giong neutral. Blu-ray, currently, has a lot going for it, yet people are still willing to go neutral. I doubt this is because they fear for blu-ray's future. All they see is another half of untapped market share that they can bank on while the format is still alive. However, with enough studios doing this, they are essentially keeping both formats alive, which means this war won't be ending any time soon.
 
[quote name='geko29']And to boot, the president of Universal has just come out and said the announcement is "completely false".[/QUOTE]

Doing otherwise would've been a breach of contract on Universal's part. I agree this seems like another baseless rumor, but I also can see this happening sometime in the future.
 
He could have done like Disney or Fox and used the much weaker "We have no plans to start releasing movies on Blu-Ray".
 
[quote name='geko29']He could have done like Disney or Fox and used the much weaker "We have no plans to start releasing movies on Blu-Ray".[/QUOTE]

That's a completely different situation. Fox and Disney are already supporters of Blu-ray. They are not overstepping any boundaries by saying that. I'm not sure what would happen if Universal were to at least hint at going neutral, but I am sure it would not be a wise choice.

I'm not saying that the rumor is true. I personally think it is just BS, but I also think that they will go neutral at some point (no idea when). Neither format seems to be going anywhere, and the bigger each format gets, the more tempting they are for studios.
 
[quote name='H.Cornerstone']Wait, Fox still owns the original three Star wars, but Lucas owns the three new ones?[/quote]Lucasfilm owns all the Star Wars films. Fox is the distributer.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Is that why the original trilogy was released on videodisc and laserdisc?[/quote]
thats not what i said. i said wary. which means not completely trusting or certain about something or someone. they usually wait a while before releasing on new formats. that doesnt mean they dont release on them. just that they take their merry old time.
 
I don't know if this was mentioned in the 24 pages of this thread, but I heard on the news last week that the porn industry has sided with Blu-Ray, which is apparently a big deal. It was apparently huge in helping VHS defeat Beta. They had analysts on discussing its importance and everything, I was pretty impressed that news stations have so little of actual importance to discuss.
 
news in the US is pathetic. its more of a distraction from whats going on around the world than informing.

and originally, yes porn was backing BR but then BR wanted nothing to do w/ them so they switched to HD DVD then they moved some back to BR when other disc producers agreed.

i think it will have little to zero effect on the format though. the movie studios and price of the players will. back when VHS & BM were around nobody had the internet. and well, why that matters goes w/o saying lol.
 
Yeah, porn doesn't matter anymore.

It did before because it was the only way people get could video porno in their homes.

We've since invented the internet to get video porn into our homes, for free.
 
[quote name='dpatel']That's a completely different situation. Fox and Disney are already supporters of Blu-ray. They are not overstepping any boundaries by saying that. I'm not sure what would happen if Universal were to at least hint at going neutral, but I am sure it would not be a wise choice.[/quote]

And Universal is already a supporter of HD DVD. My point was, both Fox and Disney have said "we have no current plans to support HD DVD". Universal could have followed suit with a similarly weak response. Instead they chose to flat-out deny it as completely fallacious, which is a MUCH stronger choice of words than either Disney or Fox have employed. Point being, Disney and Fox have left the door open, while Universal slammed it shut and locked it.
 
I was responding to this quote from you:

[quote name='geko29']He could have done like Disney or Fox and used the much weaker "We have no plans to start releasing movies on Blu-Ray".[/QUOTE]

After re-reading it, I'm sure you meant HD-DVD instead of blu-ray, but, at the time, I didn't even notice that, and responded as if it were supposed to be Blu-ray there (which doesn't make sense now that I think about it). So just forget my response. I wasn't thinking when I read your quote.

Anyway, yea, I guess flat out stating they won't support it is a much stronger statement. I would take that as they won't go neutral any time soon, but I can't see them staying exclusive forever. As much as it pains me to say it, I think one by one, all studios (both BD and HD) will slowly go neutral. They will do this because they realize there is another whole half they could be capitalizing on while this 'war' is still waging, but for each one that does this, the longer they are dragging out the war.
 
On a lighter note: I just got my Planet Earth movie from Amazon a few days ago, and it is fucking incredible. I can't describe how beautiful it is. Definitely worth the purchase, and I'm not really one for documentaries or animals.
 
Speedy confirmed the HD-A2 will be $299.99 next week at Best Buy. Looks like a possible price drop, but if true, we have officially reached the sub $300 range.

Panasonic also announced a 'new' Blu-Ray player today. Its pretty much the old one, repackaged, with 5 free movies (Both Pirates, Crash, Fantastic Four, and Transporter) for $599.99. Not a bad price, but I would never buy a Pansonic one. Had it been Samsung...I would have considered. Sony's new machine is due out in a few weeks for $600 as well.
 
I guess format wars aren't all that bad. These prices are plummeting like crazy. I have no idea how long it took DVD to reach these prices, but I seriously doubt it was within a year of release.
 
[quote name='dpatel']I guess format wars aren't all that bad. These prices are plummeting like crazy. I have no idea how long it took DVD to reach these prices, but I seriously doubt it was within a year of release.[/QUOTE]

It was a few years. I actually watched DVDs on my E-Machine computer because it had a DVD drive in it. All I really had were the early South Park releases and a handfull of titles since many stores just did not carry them. I eventually picked up a 3 Disc DVD changer for $300 refurbished in....2000. Still have it to this day. Nice machine, too bad it is Composite only. I refuse to get rid of it though.
 
[quote name='geko29']And Universal is already a supporter of HD DVD. My point was, both Fox and Disney have said "we have no current plans to support HD DVD". Universal could have followed suit with a similarly weak response. Instead they chose to flat-out deny it as completely fallacious, which is a MUCH stronger choice of words than either Disney or Fox have employed. Point being, Disney and Fox have left the door open, while Universal slammed it shut and locked it.[/quote]

If I remember correctly though, I think Disney owns one of the few blu-ray pressing plants, so I highly doubt that they would go neutral.
 
[quote name='H.Cornerstone']If I remember correctly though, I think Disney owns one of the few blu-ray pressing plants, so I highly doubt that they would go neutral.[/QUOTE]

...and Sony is a member of the DVD Forum which has formally placed their support behind HD-DVD as the high definition successor to DVD.

These goofy little quirks can be found all over the place, especially when it comes to next gen video formats.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']...and Sony is a member of the DVD Forum which has formally placed their support behind HD-DVD as the high definition successor to DVD.

These goofy little quirks can be found all over the place, especially when it comes to next gen video formats.[/quote]

True, but sony no longer gets royalties from it like Toshiba does.
 
That's a pretty cheap BD drive for the PC.

I'd never get a read only drive this day in age though.
I did get one for DVD years back like Gizmogic so I could watch DVDs.
Players were expensive..
 
I think it took 3-4 years for DVD prices to come down, and it took until late last year for DVD players to become the majority over VHS (kinda crazy when you think about it).

Prices on the players are coming down, but prices on the discs...not so much.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
bread's done
Back
Top