So... a 1x read-only HD DVD drive vs. Pioneer's BDR-101A which reads and writes and is faster than 1x. Oh, and it's only just been shown in the past 2-3 weeks. Bravo!
Fair enough, you got me. They talk about mass production, but they don't put any timetable out for when they'll ramp up production. For a press release directly from Toshiba, it's sorely lacking in details you'd think they'd want to tell the whole world about.
An Ars Technica article written by someone who failed economics, and a press release touting HD DVD replication hardware by a Swedish firm. Not exactly what I was hoping for...
How is there aren't sites like blu-ray.com that have pictures of tons of HD DVD hardware and media? Why is this stuff so hard to come across? It's almost like... it doesn't exist.
Can you post some links to some stories showing HD DVD being available anywhere? Maybe some links to some HD DVD drives for PC's? How about news releases and stories from media manufacturers talking about mass production of blank HD DVD media? Maybe some discussion from major disc duplicators talking about how quickly they're ramping up for HD DVD?
So far every news story I've seen leaves HD DVD firmly in the realm of vaporware. OTOH, every story I see for Blu-ray seems to indicate that the technology is here, now, and just waiting to be released. (For the record, I can provide links for 3 of the 4 items above, and I can probably find the 4th if I looked hard enough...)
It's not the exact same manufacturing process, no, but I'd be surprised if a lot of the work wasn't the same in so far as retooling production lines was concerned. The point is two fold tho: it shows that they have the technology out there today, and it shows that they've done more work than the HD DVD group has. While it's fascinating that you have an image available (that, by itself, does nothing because you can't burn it yet), it's hardly some great feat to finalize on the on-disc format when your physical media isn't even available yet. It smacks of putting the cart before the horse.
FWIW, WRT CD-RW and SVCD, I'd consider CD-RW being available to be a good indicator that SVCD was due shortly (if that were an issue today and SVCD had some sort of competitor). I'd certainly consider it more impressive than being able to make BIN/CUE images that you couldn't burn or use in a non-existant set top player.
I would consider mass produced RW optical media a step above ROM media/movies... it's telling that you think this is somehow a negative mark against Blu-ray Disc.
And I'll say it again. Blu-ray Disc partners have had technology available for a year now at least, including optical drives for PC's (Pioneer BDR-101A anyone?), optical media in 1 (25GB) to 4 (100GB) layers, and set-top units. The only thing HD DVD has done is shown some tech demos at trade shows, everything else is on paper.
It amazes me that the HD DVD fanatics go to such lengths to defend a format that, quite honestly, doesn't seem to even exist except in theory.
So, in other words, it was a bullshit assertion. It may cost over $1 billion to convert every DVD mastering line into a BD line, but the individual cost per line is $1.7 million, within the amounts I theorized on. If you think each duplicator is going to pass on the cost of every duplicators combined costs in moving to BD, you're patently insane. Duplicators will only pass on their actual costs plus a comfortable (but likely low to remain competitive with other BD duplicators) margin for profit.
$1,700,000 USD at 100,000,000 BD's duplicated is $0.017 (1.7 pennies) per disc. Even assuming one duplicator transitions a hundred (100) lines (making it $170 million) that only makes it $1.70 per disc. That compares to $0.15 per disc to upgrade to an HD DVD line (at $150,000 per line x 100 lines / 100,000,000 HD DVD's duplicated). An increase of $1.55. I doubt many duplicators will be moving 100 lines, and those that do will probably get kickbacks from Sony/etc. to make the move less painful.
It's just plain non-sense to think that the cost of upgrading lines to BD is somehow tilting things in HD DVD's favor.
Really? Maybe you can explain the Blu-ray recorder Sony markets in Japan and the BD-R media they sell there... maybe this stuff just pops out of a pixies ass. *rolls eyes*
You're the first person to ever try to pin down the conversion cost to a specific price, let alone the first person to suggest it'd cost $1,000,000,000 USD. Otherwise, I call bullshit.
Out of idle curiousity, are you on any of the HD DVD backers payroll?
That's not really true, of course. Blu-ray was the first to announce a dual layer format at 50 GB, then the HD DVD camp came out with a paper launch of their 30 GH dual layer format.
Sony so far is the only company to actually deliver, everything about HD DVD is largely theoritical or still baking in the labs. Sony has product in Japan, today, that Joe Japanese consumer can buy.
Everything I've read about Blu-ray Disc says that when the players arrive stateside that they'll support at a minimum dual layer media out of the box (even if dual layer discs aren't (widely) available, they'll be forward-compatible, meaning the spec will be frozen).
Nevermind the whole matter of HD DVD needing two layers to get to a capacity just slightly larger than what Blu-ray Disc can do with one layer... it's just silly.
I'd wager that they were hoping Sony would realize the advantages of allowing limited copying (since Sony is itself also a producer of hardware that might utilize such technology). But that's where the "pulling teeth" comes in I imagine, since the studios are very much against any kind of copying (especially after the whole DeCSS deal made it easy for even my grandmother to copy DVD's).
In any event, it'll be an interesting next-six-months as both sides hopefully come to an agreement on a unified format.
HP cares because the current content protection schemes for Blu-ray Disc wouldn't allow them to create, for example, video servers for the home theatre (systems where one could insert a disc, let some HP software rip it to the hard disc to be played in a home video network of sorts). HD DVD would allow it because HD DVD has that marked down as mandatory. This is the only area where I (as a consumer, personally) find fault with Blu-ray, otherwise I'm 100% behind Blu-ray over HD DVD.
Blu-Ray, for all it's "industry support" is going to cost 10x more to implement for the industry than HD-DVD to retool all the DVD production lines in the world to make the new format.
Gosh, I love hearing the HD DVD PR being re-spewed everytime this gets discussed. Let's do some math:
Let's say that it costs $1,000,000 USD more to get production going for Blu-ray Disc as opposed to HD DVD. Now, let's say this production line is going to be pressing, oh, say, at least 100,000,000 (that's one hundred million) discs during it's lifetime. That makes the cost increase that gets passed on to consumers a big fat whopping $0.01. Yeah, you read that right. A fucking PENNY. That's what the HD DVD crowd would have you believe is such a big deal. Oh, now you say it costs $5,000,000 USD more to get Blu-ray production going? Good then. Now it's a NICKEL.
The whole "it costs more, wahhh!" argument is a total non-starter for anyone with even an iota of intelligence.
HD-DVD works, it's cheap to produce, there really IS no major advantage to the higher capacity of Blu-Ray that any consumer would notice, and the crazy content protection devices have no fair-use workarounds on Blu-Ray to compare to HD-DVD's right to "at least one managed copy".
Hi, I'm a consumer, and I'd notice the difference in quality of the content between a 50 GB Blu-ray Disc and a 30 GB HD DVD. See, while digital video compression has come a long ways since MPEG2, there's still this matter of it being lossy. While you might not notice video artifacting, I usually do, and it really annoys me. I'll happily adopt Sony's format if it'll give me less video artifacting and higher quality audio. Thanks.
Oh, and then there's the matter of which media I'd like to have on my PC. See, I have a HUGE porn collection, and it takes multiple DVD-5's to store it all. With Blu-ray Disc I can store all that porn on fewer discs (which will also have better error detection/correction tech and a harder coating to resist damage: most not lose my porn!).
DVD only works as a 480p video format (that is, standard definition). Those nice shiny HDTV's we're all going to buy (or have already bought)? Our DVD's will look like complete shite on them (yes, even the anamorphic DVD's won't look that great if you compare it to a true 720p/1080i signal, or heaven forbid, some future 1080p signal).
Why don't we let the economics of the industry take care of this?
Because cellular carriers have blown it when it comes to consumers and it's time for the government to intervene and put a stop to the madness?
"Economics of industry" is great and all, but we've all seen what happens when companies are allowed to run along on their own (see: CD's still costing > $12-15 when they were supposed to be half that if not lower; landline phone service that costs more now than it did twenty years ago, while the cost of maintaining and installing physical lines has come way down, etc). The consumer only factors in as much as a cow does to a dairy farmer...
Most states use an all-or-nothing system (ex: in a 2 candidate race, if a candidate gets 50.1% of the vote in a state with 12 electoral votes, that candidate gets all 12 electoral votes). Some use a system where electoral votes are distributed based upon the percentage of the vote each candidate gets (ex: in a 2 candidate race, if a candidate gets 50.1% of the vote in a state with 12 electoral votes, the candidate with 50.1% of the vote gets 6 votes, and the other candidate gets 6 votes).
Ideally more states would be percentage based, but sadly most are the all-or-nothing variety. In any event, this does give a larger voice to smaller states (Rhode Island, etc). So it serves a practical purpose, it just sucks overall..
Don't worry, there's nothing the European Union or the United Nations can do to "take" control away from the United States. It's all a lot of chest beating with no force behind it whatsoever. OOoh, ahhhh, they'll make their own DNS system. Who'll join it? Answer: nobody. ISP's, unless forced by each government attempting this "takeover", will be very unlikely to switch to something that'll be likely to break many common domain names. And even if they should point unresolved domain names at the US DNS servers, how likely is it that these foreign ISP's will want to switch to something that may or may not work, or may break at any moment. And if, somehow, they do force ISP's to change DNS servers, it's only a matter of time before end users realize how to switch back to the US DNS servers that'll work just like they remembered.
The only thing this announcement demonstrates is the total lack of technical knowledge of the representatives of the offending nations.
Actually, in the United States anyways, convicted felons lose their right to vote (even after they're released-- while on parole they can't vote either IIRC).
I'm not saying the UN should be that way, but it might be something to consider. I really wonder sometimes why a nation ran by a dictator has a voice when, ultimately, their representative is speaking for the dictator, not the people of that nation...
What kills me is, how can they just "create" a bill like this and get it sent off to a collections agency? I mean, can I go to a collections agency and claim all my neighbors owe me $1,000 without actually proving it? You'd think they'd need a judgement from a court first. (And you'd think there'd be a law against fabricating "debt" against people, especially where the situation is disputed).
I mean, if it's that easy, I'm going to go get collection action started against a few hundred people and make some quick cash. Who needs a job.
I'd be willing to guess it's just single layer media in Japan, but it's been out there for a year. I really doubt there's any major roadblocks for dual layer media. Now the eight (8) layer media TDK/Sony talked about a few months back that holds 200 GB? That **is** a ways off, and may not even be 100% compatible with 1st generation players (and certainly not 1st gen recorders).
That's for Lord of the Ring: Return of the King Extended Edition. It won't fit on HD-DVD without sacrificing video quality. It will fit on BluRay at the optimum bitrate, but you won't get the extras (at least, not all of them) on the same disc. For single layer discs you'll get a better presentation on BluRay than HD-DVD (that's the difference between 25 GB and 15 GB).
Look... "HD-DVDs have been around for several years now".. BluRay has been around as long or longer than HD-DVD, so I don't know where you got your information, but it's wrong. With regard to DVD's being big enough except "ultra-high definition plus surround sound 2+ hour movies", that's hogwash. You need only look at a movie like Pearl Harbor, which was split across two discs because it wouldn't fit on one. Same for Gone With The Wind. And those are regular 'ol standard definition movies. Long? Yes. But that's the problem with DVD. As an HDTV solution, DVD is stillborn.
As far as movies on BluRay or HD-DVD. Again, you simply don't understand authoring then. NTSC DVD movies are 720x480 = 345,600 pixels. NTSC HDTV movies are 1920x1080 = 2,073,600. See the difference? What's more, at those high resolutions you'll want a higher then normal bitrate for the video to keep the quality up. Heck, for my money, I'd rather have a movie that had too much bitrate (BluRay) than too little (HD-DVD).
With BluRay, disc authors can fit everything on one disc. They can put on all the commentaries they want, all the documentaries, and it won't span 2 or 3 or (God forbid) 4 discs. And as a per-layer capacity comparison goes, BluRay wins that hands down. It takes HD-DVD two layers (30 GB) to get just 5 GB over what BluRay can do in a single layer (25 GB). And Sony has tech demos of eight (8) layer BluRay discs that can hold 200 GB. I know, I know, "but what will they do with all that space?".. who cares! At least it's there so it can be used.
Picking a limiting media (HD-DVD) just makes no sense to me. Why would you want to limit content creators? Why would you want to force content creators to sacrifice quality (bitrate) just to fit everything on a single HD-DVD? It's silly.
Now if you wanna actually discuss how much space a movie can take, I can provide you some real numbers for real movies. I promise you tho, the capacity you get from BluRay really will go to good use. It's not a simple matter of movies just taking half a disc and the rest going to waste.
Microsoft is trying to act like BluRay hasn't existed for the last year or so in Japan (where devices are already available that utilize cartridge media). Microsoft is hoping beyond hope that nobody has heard of Pioneer's BDR-101A BluRay burner for PC's (which works with a BluRay capable edition of Nero Burning ROM that's been known about for at least 9 months).
Meanwhile in the HD-DVD camp, they've yet to show any hardware or software support (do not confuse this with what amounts to a paper launch: just because they say X is supporting them or Y will have support in version Z doesn't mean crap until they deliver. BluRay, OTOH, has been delivering). It'd be great if Microsoft would actually put up or shut up on this...
It just looks really stupid to be saying "oh yeah, well their media doesn't even exist!".
BR tech has been in Japan for over a year (in cartridge form). My understanding is that the only difference between the tech we'll see next year and the cartridge tech in Japan today is that they solved the problem with the media being sensetive to scratches/soiling. AFAIK there is no shipping HD-DVD solution, cartridge or not.
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So... a 1x read-only HD DVD drive vs. Pioneer's BDR-101A which reads and writes and is faster than 1x. Oh, and it's only just been shown in the past 2-3 weeks. Bravo!
Fair enough, you got me. They talk about mass production, but they don't put any timetable out for when they'll ramp up production. For a press release directly from Toshiba, it's sorely lacking in details you'd think they'd want to tell the whole world about.
An Ars Technica article written by someone who failed economics, and a press release touting HD DVD replication hardware by a Swedish firm. Not exactly what I was hoping for...
How is there aren't sites like blu-ray.com that have pictures of tons of HD DVD hardware and media? Why is this stuff so hard to come across? It's almost like... it doesn't exist.
Can you post some links to some stories showing HD DVD being available anywhere? Maybe some links to some HD DVD drives for PC's? How about news releases and stories from media manufacturers talking about mass production of blank HD DVD media? Maybe some discussion from major disc duplicators talking about how quickly they're ramping up for HD DVD?
So far every news story I've seen leaves HD DVD firmly in the realm of vaporware. OTOH, every story I see for Blu-ray seems to indicate that the technology is here, now, and just waiting to be released. (For the record, I can provide links for 3 of the 4 items above, and I can probably find the 4th if I looked hard enough...)
It's not the exact same manufacturing process, no, but I'd be surprised if a lot of the work wasn't the same in so far as retooling production lines was concerned. The point is two fold tho: it shows that they have the technology out there today, and it shows that they've done more work than the HD DVD group has. While it's fascinating that you have an image available (that, by itself, does nothing because you can't burn it yet), it's hardly some great feat to finalize on the on-disc format when your physical media isn't even available yet. It smacks of putting the cart before the horse.
FWIW, WRT CD-RW and SVCD, I'd consider CD-RW being available to be a good indicator that SVCD was due shortly (if that were an issue today and SVCD had some sort of competitor). I'd certainly consider it more impressive than being able to make BIN/CUE images that you couldn't burn or use in a non-existant set top player.
I would consider mass produced RW optical media a step above ROM media/movies... it's telling that you think this is somehow a negative mark against Blu-ray Disc.
And I'll say it again. Blu-ray Disc partners have had technology available for a year now at least, including optical drives for PC's (Pioneer BDR-101A anyone?), optical media in 1 (25GB) to 4 (100GB) layers, and set-top units. The only thing HD DVD has done is shown some tech demos at trade shows, everything else is on paper.
It amazes me that the HD DVD fanatics go to such lengths to defend a format that, quite honestly, doesn't seem to even exist except in theory.
So, in other words, it was a bullshit assertion. It may cost over $1 billion to convert every DVD mastering line into a BD line, but the individual cost per line is $1.7 million, within the amounts I theorized on. If you think each duplicator is going to pass on the cost of every duplicators combined costs in moving to BD, you're patently insane. Duplicators will only pass on their actual costs plus a comfortable (but likely low to remain competitive with other BD duplicators) margin for profit.
$1,700,000 USD at 100,000,000 BD's duplicated is $0.017 (1.7 pennies) per disc. Even assuming one duplicator transitions a hundred (100) lines (making it $170 million) that only makes it $1.70 per disc. That compares to $0.15 per disc to upgrade to an HD DVD line (at $150,000 per line x 100 lines / 100,000,000 HD DVD's duplicated). An increase of $1.55. I doubt many duplicators will be moving 100 lines, and those that do will probably get kickbacks from Sony/etc. to make the move less painful.
It's just plain non-sense to think that the cost of upgrading lines to BD is somehow tilting things in HD DVD's favor.
Really? Maybe you can explain the Blu-ray recorder Sony markets in Japan and the BD-R media they sell there... maybe this stuff just pops out of a pixies ass. *rolls eyes*
Sources? S-O-U-R-C-E-S?
You're the first person to ever try to pin down the conversion cost to a specific price, let alone the first person to suggest it'd cost $1,000,000,000 USD. Otherwise, I call bullshit.
Out of idle curiousity, are you on any of the HD DVD backers payroll?
That's not really true, of course. Blu-ray was the first to announce a dual layer format at 50 GB, then the HD DVD camp came out with a paper launch of their 30 GH dual layer format.
Sony so far is the only company to actually deliver, everything about HD DVD is largely theoritical or still baking in the labs. Sony has product in Japan, today, that Joe Japanese consumer can buy.
Everything I've read about Blu-ray Disc says that when the players arrive stateside that they'll support at a minimum dual layer media out of the box (even if dual layer discs aren't (widely) available, they'll be forward-compatible, meaning the spec will be frozen).
Nevermind the whole matter of HD DVD needing two layers to get to a capacity just slightly larger than what Blu-ray Disc can do with one layer... it's just silly.
I'd wager that they were hoping Sony would realize the advantages of allowing limited copying (since Sony is itself also a producer of hardware that might utilize such technology). But that's where the "pulling teeth" comes in I imagine, since the studios are very much against any kind of copying (especially after the whole DeCSS deal made it easy for even my grandmother to copy DVD's).
In any event, it'll be an interesting next-six-months as both sides hopefully come to an agreement on a unified format.
HP cares because the current content protection schemes for Blu-ray Disc wouldn't allow them to create, for example, video servers for the home theatre (systems where one could insert a disc, let some HP software rip it to the hard disc to be played in a home video network of sorts). HD DVD would allow it because HD DVD has that marked down as mandatory. This is the only area where I (as a consumer, personally) find fault with Blu-ray, otherwise I'm 100% behind Blu-ray over HD DVD.
Gosh, I love hearing the HD DVD PR being re-spewed everytime this gets discussed. Let's do some math:
Let's say that it costs $1,000,000 USD more to get production going for Blu-ray Disc as opposed to HD DVD. Now, let's say this production line is going to be pressing, oh, say, at least 100,000,000 (that's one hundred million) discs during it's lifetime. That makes the cost increase that gets passed on to consumers a big fat whopping $0.01. Yeah, you read that right. A fucking PENNY. That's what the HD DVD crowd would have you believe is such a big deal. Oh, now you say it costs $5,000,000 USD more to get Blu-ray production going? Good then. Now it's a NICKEL.
You just learned the economic concept called "economies of scale".
The whole "it costs more, wahhh!" argument is a total non-starter for anyone with even an iota of intelligence.
Hi, I'm a consumer, and I'd notice the difference in quality of the content between a 50 GB Blu-ray Disc and a 30 GB HD DVD. See, while digital video compression has come a long ways since MPEG2, there's still this matter of it being lossy. While you might not notice video artifacting, I usually do, and it really annoys me. I'll happily adopt Sony's format if it'll give me less video artifacting and higher quality audio. Thanks.
Oh, and then there's the matter of which media I'd like to have on my PC. See, I have a HUGE porn collection, and it takes multiple DVD-5's to store it all. With Blu-ray Disc I can store all that porn on fewer discs (which will also have better error detection/correction tech and a harder coating to resist damage: most not lose my porn!).
DVD only works as a 480p video format (that is, standard definition). Those nice shiny HDTV's we're all going to buy (or have already bought)? Our DVD's will look like complete shite on them (yes, even the anamorphic DVD's won't look that great if you compare it to a true 720p/1080i signal, or heaven forbid, some future 1080p signal).
So, yeah, it's broke, it needs to be fixed.
Because cellular carriers have blown it when it comes to consumers and it's time for the government to intervene and put a stop to the madness?
"Economics of industry" is great and all, but we've all seen what happens when companies are allowed to run along on their own (see: CD's still costing > $12-15 when they were supposed to be half that if not lower; landline phone service that costs more now than it did twenty years ago, while the cost of maintaining and installing physical lines has come way down, etc). The consumer only factors in as much as a cow does to a dairy farmer...
Most states use an all-or-nothing system (ex: in a 2 candidate race, if a candidate gets 50.1% of the vote in a state with 12 electoral votes, that candidate gets all 12 electoral votes). Some use a system where electoral votes are distributed based upon the percentage of the vote each candidate gets (ex: in a 2 candidate race, if a candidate gets 50.1% of the vote in a state with 12 electoral votes, the candidate with 50.1% of the vote gets 6 votes, and the other candidate gets 6 votes).
Ideally more states would be percentage based, but sadly most are the all-or-nothing variety. In any event, this does give a larger voice to smaller states (Rhode Island, etc). So it serves a practical purpose, it just sucks overall..
Don't worry, there's nothing the European Union or the United Nations can do to "take" control away from the United States. It's all a lot of chest beating with no force behind it whatsoever. OOoh, ahhhh, they'll make their own DNS system. Who'll join it? Answer: nobody. ISP's, unless forced by each government attempting this "takeover", will be very unlikely to switch to something that'll be likely to break many common domain names. And even if they should point unresolved domain names at the US DNS servers, how likely is it that these foreign ISP's will want to switch to something that may or may not work, or may break at any moment. And if, somehow, they do force ISP's to change DNS servers, it's only a matter of time before end users realize how to switch back to the US DNS servers that'll work just like they remembered.
The only thing this announcement demonstrates is the total lack of technical knowledge of the representatives of the offending nations.
Actually, in the United States anyways, convicted felons lose their right to vote (even after they're released-- while on parole they can't vote either IIRC).
I'm not saying the UN should be that way, but it might be something to consider. I really wonder sometimes why a nation ran by a dictator has a voice when, ultimately, their representative is speaking for the dictator, not the people of that nation...
What kills me is, how can they just "create" a bill like this and get it sent off to a collections agency? I mean, can I go to a collections agency and claim all my neighbors owe me $1,000 without actually proving it? You'd think they'd need a judgement from a court first. (And you'd think there'd be a law against fabricating "debt" against people, especially where the situation is disputed).
I mean, if it's that easy, I'm going to go get collection action started against a few hundred people and make some quick cash. Who needs a job.
I always love the smell of greed in the morning!
Yup, and the eight layer discs have a capacity of 200 GB. I guess TDK had demo'd it earlier this year at a tradeshow or something.
Sorry, I don't buy into the "history always repeats itself" argument. Sony won't make the same mistake twice, I'm certain.
I'd be willing to guess it's just single layer media in Japan, but it's been out there for a year. I really doubt there's any major roadblocks for dual layer media. Now the eight (8) layer media TDK/Sony talked about a few months back that holds 200 GB? That **is** a ways off, and may not even be 100% compatible with 1st generation players (and certainly not 1st gen recorders).
Actually, what the heck, here's another Slashdot posting from a few months ago where I run the numbers:
0 76530
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155929&cid=13
That's for Lord of the Ring: Return of the King Extended Edition. It won't fit on HD-DVD without sacrificing video quality. It will fit on BluRay at the optimum bitrate, but you won't get the extras (at least, not all of them) on the same disc. For single layer discs you'll get a better presentation on BluRay than HD-DVD (that's the difference between 25 GB and 15 GB).
Look... "HD-DVDs have been around for several years now".. BluRay has been around as long or longer than HD-DVD, so I don't know where you got your information, but it's wrong. With regard to DVD's being big enough except "ultra-high definition plus surround sound 2+ hour movies", that's hogwash. You need only look at a movie like Pearl Harbor, which was split across two discs because it wouldn't fit on one. Same for Gone With The Wind. And those are regular 'ol standard definition movies. Long? Yes. But that's the problem with DVD. As an HDTV solution, DVD is stillborn.
As far as movies on BluRay or HD-DVD. Again, you simply don't understand authoring then. NTSC DVD movies are 720x480 = 345,600 pixels. NTSC HDTV movies are 1920x1080 = 2,073,600. See the difference? What's more, at those high resolutions you'll want a higher then normal bitrate for the video to keep the quality up. Heck, for my money, I'd rather have a movie that had too much bitrate (BluRay) than too little (HD-DVD).
With BluRay, disc authors can fit everything on one disc. They can put on all the commentaries they want, all the documentaries, and it won't span 2 or 3 or (God forbid) 4 discs. And as a per-layer capacity comparison goes, BluRay wins that hands down. It takes HD-DVD two layers (30 GB) to get just 5 GB over what BluRay can do in a single layer (25 GB). And Sony has tech demos of eight (8) layer BluRay discs that can hold 200 GB. I know, I know, "but what will they do with all that space?".. who cares! At least it's there so it can be used.
Picking a limiting media (HD-DVD) just makes no sense to me. Why would you want to limit content creators? Why would you want to force content creators to sacrifice quality (bitrate) just to fit everything on a single HD-DVD? It's silly.
Now if you wanna actually discuss how much space a movie can take, I can provide you some real numbers for real movies. I promise you tho, the capacity you get from BluRay really will go to good use. It's not a simple matter of movies just taking half a disc and the rest going to waste.
LOL! Exactly!
Microsoft is trying to act like BluRay hasn't existed for the last year or so in Japan (where devices are already available that utilize cartridge media). Microsoft is hoping beyond hope that nobody has heard of Pioneer's BDR-101A BluRay burner for PC's (which works with a BluRay capable edition of Nero Burning ROM that's been known about for at least 9 months).
Meanwhile in the HD-DVD camp, they've yet to show any hardware or software support (do not confuse this with what amounts to a paper launch: just because they say X is supporting them or Y will have support in version Z doesn't mean crap until they deliver. BluRay, OTOH, has been delivering). It'd be great if Microsoft would actually put up or shut up on this...
It just looks really stupid to be saying "oh yeah, well their media doesn't even exist!".
BR tech has been in Japan for over a year (in cartridge form). My understanding is that the only difference between the tech we'll see next year and the cartridge tech in Japan today is that they solved the problem with the media being sensetive to scratches/soiling. AFAIK there is no shipping HD-DVD solution, cartridge or not.