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Big Releases Heat Up High-Def Format War
An anonymous reader writes "Choosing sides in the high-def format war becomes that much harder today, as two powerhouse movie franchises hit store shelves on opposing formats. Exclusive to Blu-ray are the first two 'Pirates of the Caribbean' flicks, while exclusive to HD DVD are two different configurations of the 'Matrix' Trilogy. So which format wins this battle? According to High-Def Digest, this one's a draw. The article has capsule reviews of the four releases ('The Ultimate Matrix Collection' & 'The Complete Matrix Trilogy' on HD DVD, and 'POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl' & 'POTC: Dead Man's Chest' on Blu-ray) with links to excruciatingly in-depth reviews. In the end the site says both sets of releases boast benchmark video and audio, but a preponderance of standard-def supplements prevent all of the above from being the perfect high-def package."
Last year I compared my DVD versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bladerunner, and a couple of other movies to the HiDef versions on HDNet Movies. While the HD versions did have more detail and brighter colors it wasn't enough to convince me to buy a PS3. It still isn't enough.
The big problem I see with HD formats is...
there's nothing there that I don't already have!
Yes, the visuals are better, but the sound is the exact same from what I can tell. Understand that I had to watch the movies on HDNet and then the DVD later, or first, to make my comparisons. I only have one large screen HD TV with surround sound.
As many here at Slashdot have already noted; DVDs are just as compact as HD disks, allow for menus and quick chapter selection, and have had their anti-consumer Digital Restrictions Management CRIPPLED! >8^D
WTF do I need HD disks for?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know someone is going to say that we don't have to watch the commercials on HD disks now. Just wait, sucker, until they become common place. After that you'll be dropping your shorts and grabbing your ankles again.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
The Matrix collection is exclusive to HD-DVD only for the time being, it will be released on Blu-ray eventually. If you know it's coming to Blu-ray is there a reason to get all bunched up over which format to go with? And how many of us are still waiting for this whole nonsense to end?
One thing is certain; we lose.
When you have finished this cup of coffee your adventure will begin again.
VHS to DVD was a huge step. You no longer have to rewind, quality is a LOT better, assuming no scratches no signal degradation, multiple audio tracks, deleted scenes, smaller form factor, digital, just a ton of reason.
DVD to BR/HDDVD? What's really the big difference, that justifies spending $500-600/player and a lot more per movie?
Who actually buys porn on disc anymore? That's what the internet is for.
I read the internet for the articles.
I agree. If they wanted to make DVD better and support HD, they could have kept the exact same cheap disk and simply switch to h.264/AVC; 9gb would have been ample for 3 hours of 1080p content. There is no need for 50GB discs...
While it wouldn't have been backwards compatible with existing DVD players, every new player after the introduction would simply have support for the codec too. That and an HDMI output would make good players only slightly more expensive, not over a thousand.
Blu-ray wastes it expensive space by most movies using sledge-hammer high-mbit MPEG2 anyway. At least most HDDVD use MPEG4. (M$ codec)