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No Ceasefire in DVD Format Battle
haja writes "The BBC reports that the high definition DVD format war will continue until a winner is declared. There is no sign of the two camps working on a unified format. Some believe the industry at large is being damaged by the war due to consumer confusion. From the article: 'Backers of Blu-ray are bullish and are predicting victory. Blu-ray has more backing from film studios and more makers of the players, but HD-DVD has sold equally well in the first year of release. But the Blu-ray camp believes a library of exclusive titles and the power of PlayStation 3 - which has an in-built Blu-ray player - will see the format pull ahead in the next 12 months. Mike Dunn, president of worldwide home entertainment for 20th Century Fox, said: "I really believe the format war is in its final phase."'"
Consumers really don't care at this point.
Seagate announces Hard Drives will be at 300TB in a few years, what do we even need these formats for? DRM? yaaaaay!
MABASPLOOM!
All i want is them to release them in numbers so it'll be possible to buy any HD player, in the UK at least.
the high definition DVD format war will continue until a winner is declared
Couldn't get more Irish than that could you? Here's another pearl of wisdom:
Ah, to be sure it'll rain tomorrow unless it doesn't.
Summation 2
If only he'd said it was in the "final throes": then we'd have known he was worth taking seriously...
There, corrected that for you.
So how do you feel about the fact that the PS3 is, in fact, losing right now? They haven't even shipped that many units, yet they're just sitting on the shelves in many stores. Wiis continue to sell out as soon as they arrive.
Blu-Ray, from what I see, has a few problems (or HD-DVD several advantages).
1. Lots of people already have an Xbox 360, so the cost of the HD-DVD addon really doesn't seem so bad, compared to the $600 or $1000+ Blu-Ray players.
2. I can't think of many Blu-ray movies that I just can't live without. There are loads of HD-DVD movies I would love to own.
3. The Xbox 360 is a more capable media center device. Since the HD-DVD box is part of the 360, that creates a nice little package.
4. The name. "What the hell is a 'blue...ray'?" When you say HD-DVD they at the very least have a good idea that it's some type of movie disc.
I just can't see how Blu-ray hopes to make significant inroads into the HD movie market. Maybe this won't even matter. Maybe we'll all have fiber to the curb in 3 years and will stream HD content from Netflix or something.
-William Brendel
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Yes, as the AC said, the PS3 could easily lose.
More importantly, the PS3 could even win, and blu-ray could still lose. Since when has Sony ever been able to push a format? Heck, even with as popular as the PSP is, they still can't sell UMD media. Why would people pay twice as much for a medium when the existing one meets and exceeds most people's quality standards? (disclaimer: I like HD, but most people are not like me)
You need to seriously recalibrate your expectations when it comes to new, expensive media (especially media from Sony, which has categorically been able to screw up every format they've ever touched).
An HD TV set, with a PVR, and digital cable is serving me just fine. On Demand movies in HD 5.1 gets it done for me.
The only counter argument that nags in the back of my mind is that I borrowed the LOST first and second season DVDs from a friend, and truly enjoyed watching the series on DVD. No Commercials, and three episodes a night really move the plot along. I find it very difficult to stay interested in the show now that I am watching it on a weekly basis, when they happen to bless us with an episode. Too long between important events, and the hook is gone... So the DVDs of Complete seasons may be a better way to enjoy quality TV shows.
But, I suspect that it won't be long before the LOST series shows up on the On Demand service, just like the fine HBO content... and I can again enjoy three episodes in a sitting.
www.jmagar.com
-
For the vast majority standard DVD's are good enough. I dont know a single person who has gone out to buy either of the new formats. I have one friend with a ps3 and even he hasnt bothered to actually buy a blu-ray disk, he just doesnt care. I know one person who is planning to get one but he is the same idiot that talks about how all his muisc has to be obtained in shorten format and how all home media currently sucks. I think the believes he is impressing someone but most of us that know him just think he's an idiot.
One argument I hear is that more will adopt when the formats get cheaper, but even if players were $50 like cheap standard DVD's you still have to replace your library to take advantage of it. Maybe im in the minority but the difference isnt great enough to justify replacing a collection of around 700 movies.
With the consistently plumetting costs of storage I'm leaning towards the idea that both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray both flop as movie standards in favor of video on demand and other downloadable content.
no it doesn't.
They still have not solved the dual layer problem. So all Blu-Ray discs right now are single layer and LESS capacity than HD-DVD.
Until the solve the Dual layer manufacturing problems (hope to by the end of Q1) it's an inferior format to HD-DVD.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
One thing Blu-Ray might not be counting on is name recognition.
Right now, if the average Joe walks into an electronics store looking for high definition movie players he/she will see a wall of "Blu-Ray" and "HD-DVD". Most people will see the "HD" and think "yeah, that is what I want, Blu-Ray, what is that? No.. No.. I want high-definition".
Based on name alone HD has an advantage. Blu-Ray needs some serious marketing because if they rely on the sales person in the electronic store for supplying information they will be hosed!
Mike Dunn, president of worldwide home entertainment for 20th Century Fox, said: "I really believe the format war is in its final phase."'"
The insurgency in Iraq is "in the last throes," Vice President Dick Cheney says. (June 20, 2005)
Some people clearly can't see the forest through the trees.
I wonder what effect dual format players like this LG player will have? Seems to make the whole war less significant from the consumer's standpoint. I have a DVD +/- RW drive in my PC now, so it doesn't much matter to me which burnable media I buy.
Penny - plain text accounting
Serious question: how well does the PS3 play Blu-Ray movies?
I'm still waiting a while to get a good HDTV, much less a HD player (waiting to see how things play out a little more).
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
I think that it may actually be in Sony's best interest for BluRay to lose this format war. For the last decade Sony's content divisions have been essentially destroying their hardware division from the inside. People once regarded Sony as the default brand to buy when purchasing consumer electronics. Now, anyone who is remotely informed avoids their products like the plague. Sony's insistence on making their hardware and content divisions cooperate has insured that nearly every product they release is crippled right out of the gate with DRM and proprietary formats doomed to obscurity.
If BluRay succeeds, it will be seen by Sony as a success of this miserable business plan. At that point we can all expect Sony to tread even further down this dead end road. Should BluRay fail however, then maybe, just maybe, Sony will finally realize that their biggest enemy is themselves. Obviously, the failure of BluRay wouldn't necessarily mean that things will get better. If if should succeed though, we can almost be assured that they will get worse.
In about six months I'm going to visit a local porn shop to see which format they have the most titles in.
There's your winner!
As I won't be getting any HD equipment of any kind any time soon.
Not because I'm a Luddite, but for two very critical reasons:
1) It's too damned expensive and I don't have the money to blow on HD toys. Maybe the rest of the world makes over 100K a year and lives in an inexpensive area, but I don't. I have bills to pay, damnit, why the hell would I waste my money on an HD setup?
2) I have kids. Autisitc kids with a penchant for running up to the T.V. and giving the screen an open-palm slap just because they like the sound. How long do you think a $3000.00 LCD or Plasma is going to last under that kind of punishment? And if I can't expect the T.V. to last, why the heck would I shell out for the player if I can't view all that "HD goodness" on my old 480P NTSC tube T.V.?
The problem is that the hardware and media guys, in all thier excitement to re-energize the home entertainment market by forcing upgrades, have forgotten that a large percentage of the population either a) just doesn't give a damn, or b) are like me, and can't get an HD setup even if they want to. So really, WHO GIVES A SHIT about HD other than the videophiles with more money than brains? Let THEM buy into all the HD hype, and the rest of us will just wait until the dust settles and we can guy a 27" HD T.V. for the same price that we can buy a 27" regular T.V. today.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
I'm wondering if a movie can be compressed into Divx in full HD and fit on a standard DVD? If this could be done couldn't HD players be made much more cheaply? I just had to purchase a new dvd player. I almost bought a Phillips which supports Divx playback via USB hard drive. I do not know if an HD Divx file will be displayed in full HD though.
Instead I bought a Sony player which upconverts the signal first. It also conditions the signal so that virtually no pixelization can be seen on the TV. The picture on a 46" 720P set is astounding. Really, it looks close to an HD signal and I'm starting to think there isn't very much added value in the hi-def discs.
DRM is a major factor in my disinterest in buying HD-related products, from sets to players to disks. And it's not that I'm generally a scofflaw: I willing pay licensing fees for my music and movies. The reason I avoid DRM-infected products and content is that they don't let me fully exercise my fair-use freedoms (backup, time-shifting, etc.)
So I'm thrilled that the studios and hardware people are having a rough time of this. I doubt that they'll ever say, "DRM is preventing an resolution to the format wars", but at this point I pretty much just want DRM pushers to suffer.
The reason DVD was huge was not because it was so inherently great as a format. (in fact, it has a number of glaring flaws) It's because it was a huge leap forward over VHS in practically every area. Better picture, better sound, more compact on the shelf, longer run times between disc\tape changes, easy chapter seek, and all those glorious extras for people to play with. There were so many benefits that it was worth it to people to upgrade their libraries.
But what does HD/BR offer? Better picture, to roughly 10% or 15% of the public. And better sound to an even smaller percentage than that. And that's about it.
Why in the hell would people pay to re-buy their libraries AGAIN? Especially as it was just in the last couple years that the DVD collection became "complete"? There's just no reason at all. And that's leaving out how, in the grand scheme, increasingly few movies really benefit from high-def. There was little real improvement in your average romantic comedy from VHS to DVD. The shift from DVD to HD produces even less of use. Do you really want to get distracted counting the pores on Meg Ryan's nose?
Both formats were doomed, from the very outset, to be a specialty niche product, pretty much like Laserdisc. It amazes me that both camps were (apparently) totally blind to this and sunk millions and millions into them anyway. The BEST outcome would have been if the PS3 or 360 became big and people picked up a handful of compatable discs to play in it. (big name titles, like King Kong or such) They're not going to re-buy the library. Ever. Not until a new format offers as much of an improvement over DVD as DVD offered over VHS.
About the only way the studios might be able to force a format shift would be if they decided to just drop support for basic DVD and swallow the profit losses that would incur. (since it would destroy home video sales for a couple years) But even that might not do the trick. At that point, piracy would start looking like the viable alternative to all but the most steadfast consumer.
The studios have really painted themselves into a corner, and I'm curious how they're going to get out of it.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
They have fixed this almost 6 months ago, 50gb discs are here
l es
"On November 14, 2006, Fox released their first 50 GB dual-layer Blu-ray Disc title, Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut. Other titles, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Fantastic Four and the recent remake of The Omen will be released on the same day and will be using AVC encoding and DTS HD Lossless Master Audio. The first shipments of the PlayStation 3 in the United States included a Blu-ray Disc version of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.[2]"
From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu_ray#Released_tit
WulframII - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Game
Yes, when have they done that? You must be thinking of all those standards they were a part of that flopped, like 3.5" floppy disks and compact discs.
Or perhaps you mean minidisc? Not very popular here, but they were definitely around, and in the UK quite pervasive for awhile. They did "win" vs a little thing called DAT, if you recall.
MemorySticks? All over the place. Particularly in high end cameras and phones.
Oh yes, speaking of high-end. Betacam SP for broadcast, maybe? DigiBeta? All total failures, right?
UMDs flopped for movies, but it doesn't matter, that was just a bonus anyways. Its the PSP game format, now just as proprietary as any Gameboy/DS cart.
As for Blu-Ray, well, in this case we aren't even talking about Sony. There's a few other companies on the Blu-Ray board that have a vested interest in it succeeding - but they are pipsqueaks like Disney, Apple and Sun.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
It would be nice if it came down to which format was more technically excellent. Yeah, I know, it doesn't work like that. It's sad.
dinner: it's what's for beer
By that logic the N64 should have trounced the PS, and thus the NGC should have crounced the PS2, Xbox, and DC.
This time the price and the avaliablity are making people sit back, wait, and evaluate. The reason the PS2 is horribly popular is a few things, however the driving force once all the systems were up and running was the presence of exlusive titles.
I don't think that any of the 3 systems will tank, however I don't think it is a forgone conclussion this time around.
1) PS3 Price and avaliablity is cutting into early adopters. The lack of major titles, and a number of companies saying they will nolonger be making PS exclusives. All of this might (can't say 100%) to a lack of games, or a lack of exclusive games.
2) The 360 already has a decent toehold in the USA (it is still tanking in Japan, however I honestly can't specuilate on the japanese market and how it will effect the systems as I am not familiar enough with it, from here on in, I am reffering to the USA). A number of PS2 owners have already picked up 360s because they want the next gen, but are not willing to wait for the PS3, or pay the price for it. This also gives the 360 a nice room for picking up exclusives (hey, look, our player base is 10X that of the PS3).
3) Wii. Who farken knows? I think that it will be decently common to see people havign a Wii as well as one of the other 2, plus those poeple that are straped for $$ will be either going for a Wii or a PS2.
I tihnk that in the USA the 360 will likely trounce the PS3, and the Wii either being a close second, or leading. In Japan, the PS3 will out do the 360, however I think that the Wii will easily outdo the PS3.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
As long as you have a television that can accept and (if necessary) do a good job of scaling a 1080i or 1080p signal, the PS3 is the best, and cheapest, Blu-Ray player currently on the market.
The only things to be aware are that the PS3 doesn't have an IR port, so you'll need to plan on using the wireless game controller to control Blu-Ray playback, or you'll need to spend $30 to get Sony's Bluetooth remote control, which doesn't come with the system.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
But looking at it another way, if you can get an ADSL connection, then you probably have somewhere between 2-8 MB/s bandwidth at the moment. (Sure, some people can get more than this from cable providers but they're still in a minority.) This means that it probably takes around an hour to download a movie in, say, DivX or Xvid format. In other words, you probably get 720x480 resolution in a file about 1GB size. (Yes, the sums are a very rough estimate.) A DVD will take 4-8 hours, a 30GB HD-DVD over a day. It's therefore safe to assume that, as things stand currently, Internet delivery will be in a compressed format, albeit a DRMed one. Therefore, is the assumption being made by the movie studios that everyone will be buying everything at least *twice*? That is, on disc for the big LCD at home and also downloaded for a PC or handheld player?
Sure, most of us replaced our vinyl LPs with CDs and our VHS tapes with DVDs - so, yes, we've already bought a lot of the stuff we have at least twice. But getting people to part with their money twice for the same thing at the same time is surely something completely new.
The point I'm trying to make is that it seems this is as much a battle between disk formats and Internet delivery (in the same way as CDs and MP3/AAC/etc are) as much as it is about Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD.
I'm actually beginning to wonder if the movie/media/hardware/OS companies are now involved in so many different battles on so many different fronts that they have all completely lost any sort of direction anyway.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
"But the Blu-ray camp believes a library of exclusive titles and the power of PlayStation 3 - which has an in-built Blu-ray player - will see the format pull ahead in the next 12 months."
I keep saying that there are no Free markets when it comes to "goods" protected by copyrights and / or patents.
This is a good example of people with monopolies in one area trying to leverage that to win in another market.
"exclusive titles" = copyright monopolies.
other market = media format / players.
Yes? No?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Not true, not even close to true.
Single layer capacity for a Blu-Ray Disc...IE, all currently produced Blu-Ray discs, movies, and PS3 games...is 25GB.
HD-DVD is only 15. Sure, Dual is 30, but they're not being produced very much either...and that is the absolute max for HD-DVD anyways.
More than 25GB is not needed at the moment for Blu-Ray, they know this so haven't done anything stupid to try to rush 50GB dual layer discs through manufacturing...there is basically zero demand at the moment. It does indeed work though and will be in mass production when needed.
FURTHER, Blu-Ray as I'm quite certain you well know is spec'd to handle up to 100GB. In the end, there will be over 3x as much space for data on Blu-Ray as there will be on HD-DVD.
Argue all you want about which is better or which will win...but from a technical standpoint alone, Blu-Ray wins, hands down. It's just silly to try to argue otherwise because it's just not true. Of course that means just about nothing in terms of which will win out as was proven definitively with VHS vs BETA. Less useful but cheaper will likely win out in the long run.
No Comment.
I'm trying to think of something I care about less than the "HD Wars". ...I'll have to get back to you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Television shows are OK to watch in Hi-Def. I watch Smallville and (god, I hate to admit it) Enterprise on HD-Net every Monday night but I wouldn't buy either series in DVD format. That means you can forget about me spending extra money for it in either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, or Total Movie.
As for movies; movies STINK lately. This is where they could grab me, but they have failed miserably!
I have a Hi-Def, surround sound set up at home and I like nothing better than to sit on my comfortable couch with a two-liter Dr. Pepper and a bag of microwave popcorn and watch a good movie. I can pause the show when my wife and I want to argue about some plot point, or even return to a previous point in the show to show her just how wrong she is. :)
Just give me SOMETHING to watch!
Last year I wanted to see Mission: Impossible and Superman Returns, but having been burned in years past I procrastinated and missed them in the theaters. I rented then on DVD. Boy was I happy I had not wasted time and money trying to see these shows in an expensive theatre setting. And I'll clue you in on something that came to mind while I have been watching movies lately: Hi-Definition does NOT make the shows any better.
In summary, it doesn't matter which format "wins" if there is nothing to watch.
There was a good article in the December 10, 2006 New York Times by Richard Siklos entitled "The Hat Trick That Didn't Happen" in which it suggests that interest in Hi-Definition formats is actually declining among the population.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
It took 5 years to reach a point where everyone had a DVD player in their house. The lifespan of VHS was ~20 years. So DVD gets itself fully established in every home and just 1 year on there's 2 new formats both trying to beat each other down for marketshare. Most consumers are expecting to get another 14 years of life from DVD (and most were told by the sales guys that it would be "The format that's gonna last a lifetime").
The only way they will get people to stop buying regular DVD's now is to stop making them, and I can see great things happening then. Consumers having become enlightened with the ways of Centralized Media Storage and Network Media Clients, coupled with faster and fatser internet and larger storage capabilities will just move directly to 100% illegal downloading. This will of course cause the colapse of hollywood and see all major movie stars pan-handling in the streets of downtown LA.
If I had to pick a format, I would make it HDDVD. Remember Sony's history with proprietary audio and video formats? Betamax, Minidisc, Hi-MD, ATRAC3, UMD. You can almost taste the failure.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
Considering it takes so long for anything to exit SONY and not be DOA, well I wonder if it means:
Selling Only Not Yet.
Sucks, Only Now Yours.
Stops On New Years(or 's)
Slow Ornery Nitwit, Yup.
True a lot of things took off (minidisk) in some markets, but were so constrained to geographic
regions it was almost a Pyrric (SP?) victory.
There's never really been a "Walkman" since the walkman that (coff) walked away from the competition.
Rootkits and exploding batteries aside, friends with Sony stuff are finding hidden gotchas with alarming
frequency. Home movies and burned disks that won't play and ask me if I know why.
My response so far is "It's a Sony, sorry".
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Hence, if I ever make the switch, I will use HD-DVD. I don't like the sounds of Blu-Ray. Sounds like some weapon a super villain would use - in thise case, Sony.
For the last decade Sony's content divisions have been essentially destroying their hardware division from the inside. People once regarded Sony as the default brand to buy when purchasing consumer electronics. Now, anyone who is remotely informed avoids their products like the plague. Sony's insistence on making their hardware and content divisions cooperate has insured that nearly every product they release is crippled right out of the gate with DRM and proprietary formats doomed to obscurity.
What I don't understand is how an orginization the size of Sony behaves like a psychotic genious?
Yes, Sony is on my shitlist as well, mostly due to their usability, DRM and other psychosis ridden behaviors, but from a technical POV their proprietary stuff is actually technically sound, but they simply don't seem to want people to use it.
SDDS is at least as good as DTS for multi-channel sound. Both are better than DD. But Sony doesn't seem to want people to be able to use it, so who cares?
Although the minidisc may of had its issues, ATRAC, especially ATRAC3 is a good lossy encoder. But who cares? My car stereo has a licensed Sony technology where I can record onto a Sony memory stick via ATRAC3 compression. Its been a while since I read the manual, but all I remember was that the rules and regulations for even testing the recording capabilities of the deck just made it not worth the investment in a memory stick or my time to even test it.
SACD. Technically the best audio format one can get in their home. Sony doesn't want you to use it though. I had a SACD capable DVD/CD player and a Sony digital receiver. So, to play audio CDs or DVDs I can just put the disk into the player and use the digital out and the receiver will properly decode the signal and enjoy! Well, to enjoy a SACD from a Sony player on a Sony receiver I have to hook up 6 analog cables and hit a special button on the receiver to select the analog cables over the digital ones to play a SACD. Keep in mind that this is a multi-disk player, so when the player switches to or from a SACD disk everything is different although it is coming from the same player. WTF? So, I erroniously bought a SACD at the same time that I bought the SACD player, and haven't even listened to it all the way though. Try explaining to your wife, friend, babysitter, or whever, that the silver disk that looks just like every other CD or DVD but its "better" has to be played a special way from the same player and receiver even though they are all made by the same people.
WTF?
It simply does not matter how technologically good or even sufficient something is. If it can't be used or at least used the same way as everything else it simply won't be used. SDDS, ATRAC, SACD are basically worthless technology simply because Sony doesn't want people to use the stuff. The most sucessful is SDDS because they allow some movie theaters/producers to use the format, but Sony simply does not want to play nice with the rest of the 5 billion people on this planet.
You walk into a shop and buy the new movie Splatter, Blood and Gore XIV. You come home and open the package that contains the official Splatter, Blood and Gore XIV t-shirt, the official Splatter, Blood and Gore XIV puking-bag, a poster, a mini-magazine and something horrible to put on your car. There might be some sort of disk or something in the box, but you give that to the kids.
But inside the box there is a code that you either type directly into Google or in your device connected to your TV. That will download and install the movie on your harddisk. But if you want to see the movie on the train, you simply download it to the USB-stick and watch it on your 14" pocket-size screen. Who would carry around a huge disk?
For Splatter, Blood and Gore XV, they are planing to sell the Official Splatter, Blood and Gore XV drink in bars and you will get your favorite gore scene played on the glass while drinking it. Like 99% of the music bands today, selling disks is just not something the movie-company gets any big money from.
Seriously!
I'm a "technodork!" with a fairly decent amount of disposable income and frankly, I couldn't give a hoot about these 2 formats.
We all got burnt on DVD's for the PC, yes they might be cheap now but the fact of the matter is the DVD format had +R / -R AND RAM!
It's a disaster, sure it's fixed now and yes prices are finally good but they took longer than they should have, (Dual layer blanks are still overpriced - quite likely due to that screwup)
We might have had low cost DVD players, burners and blanks faster than we got them - and while it's good now I'm sure some of us have been either burnt, confused or stuck due to that format war, let alone this one where the stakes seem much higher, last round it was only the writable discs which were a mess, at least the ROMs themselves seemed to follow a consistent standard!
Standards are meant to be there to make things easier for EVERYONE! The consumer, the supplier, etc - if HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can't get their shit together, I'll be damned if I'm joining a camp only to possibly be burnt, plus ultimately it's a damned waste of resources.
Here's 2 small pieces of information which may or may not be correct which are even FURTHER dilating things and screwing @#%t up for us. (note: I'm not 100% on these but I have heard them 'around' on the web)
Blu-Ray are having problems getting the second damn layer working properly.
HD-DVD is looking at getting 17gb on the discs per layer and moving to 3 layer (51gb)
Now these two, if true are just mind bogglingly retarded! Not only do we have enough trouble with the fact there's not one single standard, they now may be changing / modifying their own standards to fix or add those features,.. can you say WTF?
I can rant all day, I've done it before on these formats - I'm a bitter little man and ranting is my thing but let me get to something productive for a change.
DON'T BUY THIS SHIT - don't buy a dual format drive, don't buy a dual format disc, don't buy a single format drive or disc!
DON'T DO IT.
FUCK them! - DVD was a perfectly good picture for ALL of us only 18 months ago, on a damn nice TV with a nice player and good cabling, there's nothing wrong with it and there's substantially less copy protection screwing us.
I for one am going to sit back and wait - until they can offer me a cheap, simple solution which isn't going to burn my wallet,..... and frankly considering how much of a ballsup it is so far, I have serious suspicions that we're not going to see a single, cheap simple solution for many years to come.
I dread to imagine trying to purchase blanks of these in 12 months "Yeah I need a HD-DVD 1.0 spec 15gb per layer but dual layer blank please" - what the heck!"
Save yourselves the hassle and the cost and let this stuff fizzle out and heck while you're at it - stop submitting stories about it too, it's just frustrating to read about, let them both wave their dopey flags at each other all day long while I'm sitting at home enjoying regular DVD's, high def is simply not ready yet.
People like having a physical object to hold, to use, to show off in display cases - whatever.
When people buy a DVD they aren't buying a movie--they are putting down $20 or whatever to buy a cheap, over-packaged plastic disc worth a few cents plus a license granting them permission to private, non-commercial exhibition. The only true reason for physical distribution media under such a business model, in the media industry, is that it is the best, most established practical technology right now for distribution. The technological requirement for physical media has unfortunately given the impression to consumers that they "own a movie" (or even a "copy of a movie") when no regular individual has EVER really "owned" a movie (or music, or whatever)--the best you can hope for is a "perpetual rental agreement".
I think that electronic distribution not only has the potential to make things much more convenient for the consumer, it is also a more true representation of what you are REALLY getting when you purchase media content--the essential product is not (and never has been) a physical thing but rather the right to enjoy (loot at, listen to, etc) multimedia content. The fact that there is no discrete physical item involved in distribution is merely further optimisation (from film to magnetic tape to optical disc to on-line electronic).
and for the foreseeable future, people will continue to prefer to purchase things which have some physical component, rather than one that is entirely computer based.
I think most people would LOVE to free up all that shelf space in ther display cases for other, more attractive keepsakes (I know very few examples of videos being "shown off", unless it is, say, the star wars geek who has a rare original Betamax release of the "Star Wars" trilogy still in shrink-wrap or something like that). People, aside from those rare exceptions like the aforementioned one, actually buy DVDs to *watch the movie*. Furthermore, people buy non-tangible things all the time, especially in the form of services and utilities: I buy electricity to light my house, I buy internet connectivity, I purchase securities with my online broker and so on, and in none of those cases am I expecting some fixed, physical object in return (though as the case with media, there is generally some transitory physical manifestation associated with the use of these non-tangible items). Consumers aren't so unsophisticated that they cannot at least recognise that not everything you have to pay for is tangible in nature.
It looks to me like the lifespan of physical media formats is undergoing geometric decay: 8mm and 16mm Film were the chief consumer distribution formats (mostly in schools but in a few homes too) for, lets say, four decades (1940s to 1970s). Videotape (U-Matic, then Beta and VHS) became widespread in the 1970s and started giving way to DVD in the 1990s--four decades. Standard-definition digital optical media (DVDs) arrived en-force in the late 1990s and are poised to fade in the late 2000s--one decade. It stands to reason that high-definition digital optical media (BD and HD-DVD) could have a five-year lifespan. Beyond that the whole idea of physical media could be obsolete.
Yes, I know my time frames are perhaps too approximate (small-gauge film existed many years before the 1940s, videotape existed earlier and is still sold today, and so on) but I'm talking about the era of a technology's rise and prominence in the consumer market. Movies will be sold on little plastic discs for a long time to come, but I can't see it being the contemporary distribution method in the 2020s.
My chief concern is that as technology advances distribution becomes more efficient and less costly, however the big, old media distributors are still big and old and inefficient, and are fighting tooth and nail to maintain and even inflate the prices they make consumers pay for their content, using a combination of legislation (DMCA) and what I call "false innovation"