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Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD
Michael S writes
sent in a good story which sumarizes the current status of the
battle between Blu-Ray & HD-DVD. There still isn't really a clear victor... or is there? I for one can't wait for this crap to get settled out so we can just enjoy having huge discs.
i honestly cant see either side giving ground. its going to be vcr vs betamax, or dvd-r vs dvd+r all over again.
corporations rarely care about " whats best " , rather " what will make them the most money ".
One side giving up for the common good, loses them money and so they wont do it.
Can't we all be along? It's much more profitable that way.
DVD burners took so long to catch on because of all the + - RAM type confusion. The whole industry needs a single strong standards to keeping everything working. Joe Sixpack doesn't burn DVDs right now because of this silliness.
To quote the American public, "ooh! Shiny!"
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
So it's probably this, but on the other hand it's most likely something else? My faith in anything the article might say was lost.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
"But the main problem remains the poor security. DeCSS and DivX came as major surprises."
All I can say is, what were they thinking?
Edgar Allen Poe got it right in 1863. In _The Gold-Bug_, the narrator says: "Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve."
The movie industry can look forward to many more such "surprises."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I wouldn't underestimate the influence of the PS3 on the format wars. The fact Sony is (obviously) using their own Blu-Ray format for their next generation console could mean an early victory for their format.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Think I'm gonna wait for my BluRay HD-DVD+-RW CDRW drive
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
It's just sad, really.
The degree to which you enjoy having "truly huge discs" will depend on which standard gets adopted. The formats aren't equivalent and have substantial differences in price and excellence. This is nothing like the DVD+/DVD- R/RW wars; the formats are too dissimilar.
The preference of one format over the other could have ramifications similar to those of Betamax/VHS. Personally, I'm not excited bout HD-DVD's 2.5 hour limit on high-def video. Blu-ray has a 4.5 hour limit? Now we're talking. Even LOTR:ROTK will fit on that.
I'm sick of standards that just *barely* satisfy the need for new formats. HD-DVD is an evolutionary upgrade of DVDs to allow a majority of films to fit in high-def. Blu-ray is a revolutionary change which may cost more initially, but provides much more headroom and has plans for even larger disc capacity. It also will provide an immediate benefit for long films or extensive data storage over HD-DVD.
I can't wait for this crap to get settled...in favor of Blu-ray. I'm sure not going to be excited about it when I am sticking in the second HD-DVD for a > 2.5 hour hdef film because "HD-DVD" sounds more like "DVD" than "Blu-ray". So, world, take your time if you must; just choose the right format it the end.
Bottom line: if you have to do a major upgrade of media and players, do it right! Don't upgrade the minimum amount required, but plan for the future.
I'll be almost as happy if dual-format drives take over like DVD+/-, but it would still probably mean most movies came out on HD-DVD.
-Dan
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Funny.. Seriously though I'd be happy if some of this new space went to more redundancy if it meant the discs would be more reliable than DVD/CD media is. I'd sacrifice some space for better chances to read it later. If part of whatever standard wins allowed for the data to be stored twice on the media, readers could check the other track if one was damaged.
Well, considering that Sony, Apple & the Porn Industry are all behind Blu-Ray, I'd say we have a pretty good idea of who is going to win this one...
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Come on, let's not get bogged down by simplistic logic. My point wasn't that it was because Sony was behind the format, it's that it is the format of the Playstation 3. The products you mentioned were not nearly as successful as the Playstation 2. It's fully expected by many that Sony will probably get a huge share of the console market in the next generation of consoles also. By extention, these people will automatically own Blu-Ray disc players. It's an immediate and huge market penetration.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Am I the only one infuriated by the shitty writing in this article? I love lines like:
"The future of DVD is still unclear, but what is certain is that a replacement is already needed and looked upon."
"Although at the beginning of the decade, the DVD seemed like a major discovery, it shortly proved itself unable to solve some of the most important problems that lead to its very creation."
"In brief, the movies offered on such a support...."
"The big award for the winning format has so many zeros as even the companies used to astronomic figures would get dizzy with the taste of unlimited success."
It's off just enough to annoy, and as you get through a few paragraphs, the annoyance builds and builds until you want to forcibly lead the author back to a book on English usage. I feel like I'm reading the back of a Japanese shampoo bottle.
"Mr Sparkle is very disrespectful to dirt"
I'll tell you which one they will adopt.
the one that is the cheapest or has no royalties required.
If one of them want's to insure their standard will be chosen, make it the cheapest to use and royalty free.
unheard of in corperate world, and borderline heresy, but truth.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Are you being sarcastic? The pr0n industry has been at the forefront (no pun inteneded) of home video tech since the VCR. As much as this counrty tries to present itself as Puritanical downhome homebodies; money talks & bs walks. The guy that sits across from me at work, & a good friend (they both used to work for the clearinghouse companies) have told me that the #1 state for pr0n video on demand rentals is good ole puritanical Utah. Basically, pr0n users will lead the way, & the asses, literally will follow.* So the choice of format by the pr0n industry is very important to both camps. *My apologies to Mr. Brown & EnVogue.
in a tiiiiiiiny living space!
But seriously, with the specs that Blu-Ray has for the physical aspects of the disc this format would force drive makers to reinstitute the disc-caddy system to keep your fragile Blu-Ray discs from getting scratched or otherwise hosed up by the environment. Just imagie what hell it is going to be to rent Blu-Ray's if there are no caddys!
No matter how much error correction you put in at the block layer on a disc of this level of info density stuff like a ball-point pen or medium to fair sized scratches are going to present a HUGE problem for maintaining media readability and reliability! Not to mention old tricks like polishing scratches out with Turtle Wax just aren't going to work when the protective layer of the Blu-Ray disc is 1/6th as thick as a DVDs!
Plus, why does everyone here think that Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is a wanted thing?
I already own a sizeable collection of movies in DVD format and some older ones in Laserdisc format. I'm not about to buy the same movie again in Blu-Ray just because its higher resolution. Especially since I don't own a HDTV set and I still fail to see the compelling reason to shell out the extra cash for a set. HDTV still costs too much and is still too confusing for the average consumer not to mention you can hardly get dick-all worth watching on it unless your in a major metropoloitan area or have a cable provider that has dedicated a significant amount of their coax bandwidth to delviering premium HDTV channels.
For starters the fact that people think there is this huge pent up demand for 1080i res movies is flat out ricockulous! Hello people, didn't anyone here see that VOOM just went tits up? You want to know how many subscribers they had?
46,000!
If you assume the VOOM subscribes are the same customers with sufficent money and HDTV equipment at home to want HDTV res movies on some format then I think its safe to say what format will win is moot at this point because there is hardly a sustainable market for this format for the movie industry at the current rate of HDTV adoption.
Sure it would be nice to have a higher capacity format but I for one am sick and tired of formats that get mired up in Hollywood dick-swinging.
Why can't the computer industry come up with their own format for optical data storage that is intended for JUST data and as such wont get hijacked by a bunch of egotistical profit grubbing movie studios who will just want to fsck with it to make it "Secure" for their precious movies.
I don't mind what gets chosen.
But if I want to watch the Japanese or French version of the movie, that's darned well what I want to watch, with German subtitling if that's what I like.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --