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A Statistical Comparison of HD DVD & Blu-Ray Reviews
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo today posted a statistical comparison of over 300 HD DVD and Blu-ray reviews published at High-Def Digest since the start of the high-def format wars last Spring. Their findings? Overall video quality between the two formats is nearly identical, however Blu-ray titles were slightly, but definitely superior in audio playback, while HD DVD titles had far superior standard def features and moderately superior high-def features."
Agreed, bittorrent is fine when I miss a TV show or am not sure if a movie will be good, but it's not going to be replacing an actual DVD for me. And as I am a sucker and have both an Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on and a PS3, i'll be sticking to movies in 1920x1080 on my HDTV via HDMI ;-)
Not to say there aren't HD rips out there, but most are usually at lower res than the original BR/HDDVD and if not are redicuosly huge and you still need a way to get it to your TV (yes, I know you can hook your PC to a TV but that just seems like way too much effort and im damn lazy.)
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Actually I was looking at a few titles (just the box) I did not get a player for myself yet.
And I was surprised to see that HD-DVD does not list DTS audio, but something else.
Someone may want to enlighten me on this.
I watch everything on DTS and I am satisfied with the sound on DVD, whenevere it is something else I am unhappy by default.
Can it be the cause of the difference ?
I'm reasonably doubtful that the PS3 can actually make a format successful on its own ... As was demonstrated with the PSP (which, at this point in its life, sold better than the PS3) is that people buy gaming systems to play videogames and movie-playback is a secondary feature. What I am trying to say is that someone who buys a stand alone HD-DVD player or Blu-Ray player is far more likely to buy movies, and will probably buy far more movies, than someone who buys a PS3.
Personally, I am holding off buying a HD-DVD player until christmas because I believe they will be far more reliable and much cheaper. I do not worry about supporting the wrong format because I suspect that in 2009 most HD players will support both formats.
I've seen both on display at Best Buy. I don't see any differences between them. Add in the fact that virtually no one wants to get involved in another VHS/Betamax battle - assuming they even HAVE the prerequisite HDTV in the first place!
The PS3 is totally immaterial to this "war" not just for the reasons above, but that anyone who IS interested in buying a blu-ray player isn't going to consider a game console - a toy - for the job.
Finally, with multi-format players this close to being a commercial reality, I predict this whole HD video thing will go the way of the burnable DVD - two identical standards that are incompatible, and continue to cause confusion in consumers. Someone should have played the role of diplomat and just gotten this thing over with rather than making us, the consumers,choose fo
August 8, 2005
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The fact is that gamers bought a handful of UMD movies after they bought their PSP because of the novelty
Personally, I don't expect either format to die but (at this point in time) I think it is premature to say that the PS3 will lead to the success of the Blu-Ray format.
This is true, but I think that if somebody cares enough to drop $1000 on a high-def player they're going to at least take a cursory glance at what the technology is which would usually result in them becoming aware of blu-ray if they weren't before. I mean, even if $1,000 is nothing to you, if you go into best buy and tell the clerk you want an HD-DVD player he'll likely point out the blu-ray players as well.
Ummm... I diagree. Those early adopters of HDTVs often bought them without tuners, and without HD support from the cable company.
Always bet on stupid. Even the clerks are stupid, you say an HD DVD player, odds are you'll get HD-DVD.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Any differences that actually do exist are more likely attributable to the player or the mastering software than the disc it came from.
As more and more people get multiple devices, the push-back against DRM will increase, and move from the small population of early adopter tech-savvy consumers, to the larger population "normal" consumers- once they find that they can't move their legally bought content between their devices they will tell their friends not to buy it. My prediction is that the format with the most easily "cracked" DRM will also be the most popular format & will win.
d -viewing-distance-to-screen-size/
Also, having just been through the deep-dive purchasing decision process for a new plasma TV, it was interesting to see that at a normal viewing distance, on a 50" display, HD or good progressive scan DVD produced a similar picture quality to my eyes (HD picture was subjectively about 5% better... this is comapred to 576p upscaled by the TV to 768 lines).
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/12/09/1080p-charte
Summary- at more than 10 foot viewing distance with a 50" plasma screen there is no benefit to more than 576 lines (us PAL types are in luck here). About 13 foot for NTSC 480P. So for 42" HD is probably a waste of time everywhere. For 50" it is more useful in NTSC territory as long as you sit fairly close up, and marginal for PAL territory.
Also, I saw one HD feed split into similar sets from the same manufacturer, one set was 1080 line the other 768 line. At normal viewing distances no noticable difference.
I guess you haven't seen the 720p or 1080p x264 (H.264/AVC - same codec that many of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray movies are using) rips on private bittorrent trackers or Usenet. A standard two hour movie will fit on a DVD5 at 720p with 6 channel AC3 audio and a bitrate of 4.5-6 mbit/sec. While this wouldn't look great using xvid, H.264/AVC High profile can create great quality. x264 using Sharktooth's HQ-Slowest profile is very impressive. A 2 hour movie can fit on a DVD9 at 1080p at 7-8 mbit/sec, again with very good quality.
Hell, I've seen some 2 CD sized x264 rips from 1080p sources that blow DVD out of the water. Forget about the MPEG-4 ASP codecs like Xvid and Divx. Now that we have H.264/AVC, we can achieve excellent results at 720p and 1080p down to DVD5/9 sizes.