**Official HTF HD Formats Ind./Retailer/Studio Support Thread-*SEE POST 3176, p. 106* (1 Viewer)

[Nick Graham]

I loved HD-DVD, and I loved Blu-Ray. However, I knew (despite some fantasy world assessments that they could co-exist) that one of them would be going the way of the dodo. They were both great products, but one was going to have to move on, and that one just happened to be Blu as opposed to HD. This whole thing about HD downloads beating out HDM is just scorched earth sour grapes from folks who made the fatal mistake of letting themselves get attached to one format over the other.

 

[Jari K]

I´m a bit confused. So "HD doesn´t have a chance" or "Blu-ray doesn´t have a chance" or "HD DVD would´ve had the chance"?

 

[Jari K]

You have a point there.. We´ll probably hear many other similar stories from some people in the upcoming weeks/months.. But like I have said earlier, dogs bark but the caravan moves on.

 

[Edwin-S]

How long did it take DVD players and software to reach the price points that you mention? You make it sound like DVD was at those price points almost immediately. It took a long time for DVD to come down to the pricing levels you are mentioning. It didn't happen overnight, and it won't happen overnight for HD media.

Furthermore, those prices for DVD must be a US thing. Prices for DVD software in B&M stores in Canada is a lot more than 10 bucks. Prices average from 18 to 25 dollars. HD media ranges from 25 to 40. I'm not sure about online prices in Canada, but I am pretty sure that prices are still far higher than 10 bucks for a DVD.

Comparing prices for a mature, saturated market to prices for a market that is still in its infancy doesn't seem reasonable.

[edit] Took out the Hunt reference as it is not in the quote. My mistake. Sorry.
[edit] Whoops. It was in the quote. Either way it is out. People were directed to stop talking about him.

 

[Jari K]

"HD" IS always better, if both HD and SD DVD comes from the same, identical master. 1080p takes care of that.

Nothing still hasn´t changed from the SD DVD-days; Different releases might have some differences and the debates that which version is "better" or most "accurate" will continue with the HD-releases also. Not all the HD-releases are "great" - and certainly not all the SD DVD-releases are "great".

You seem to have taken an unoffical "spokesman of the SD DVD"-label on yourself in the HD-section of this forum, but I don´t think that anyone here is trying to say that "SD DVD is bad" or something like that. We just love HD here (for many reasons). It´s quite obvious that most of us prefer HD over SD DVD (if that certain film is released on HD in the 1st place).

 

[Zack Gibbs]

The Transformers HD-DVD has 5 gigs of empty space, far more than needed for a TrueHD track. Why waste that space at all, why not increase the bitrate for the movie even more? Because they don't have the bandwidth to accommodate it.

Batman is not Transformers. It is drenched in shadow and has a very muted color pallet. Transformers is a brightly lit, super colorful eye-full of detail picture end to end.

I agree with you about lowering Transformers bitrate, they probably could have without a noticeable hit in quality. With all the pressure on the Transformers HD-DVD, I suspect they chose to play it safe and that's why they dropped lossless audio.

 

[DavidJ]

I've had this same thought during the last couple of months. I bet the target audience would be pretty limited. On the other hand, from what I know or suspect about some of the what went down in this "war" it should be just as entertaining as some of the other books about back room business dealings.

 

[Maxpower1987]

I think you make a very good point, I would put it that Blu-ray gives the studio more scope to put a more 'complete' version of a movie out on home video than DVD does.

Blu-ray gives the opportunity to use multiple PCM audio tracks (you can't get better than the master itself...), seamless branching for DC and EEs along with 1080p picture.

Unfortunately in the days of shiny Discovery Channel HD and HD sports, people are very anti-grain and some studios actually seem to play up to this and filter grain from titles to give movies a shiny HD look, that is a very big crime IMO...

 

[Douglas Monce]

I have both formats. The only one that you listed that remotely interests me is Bonnie & Clyde. No Country for Old Men will be a rental to see if I want to buy it.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

My cable company, Cox, has announced that with in 3 years all of their customers who don't have a digital or HDTV will require some kind of converter box.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

Well that is someone's opinion. As someone who does DVD encoding every day, I can tell you that everything is a compromise. They could have brought the bit rate of the video down to accommodate lossless audio. It might not have effected the image quality at all. But if the lossy audio was every bit as good as the lossless, then there is no reason to make that choice.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

In some people's opinion a single format is a best case scenario.

Doug

 

[Bill Hunt]

A single high-def format is the only way for high-def discs to end up successful. The idea that two competing media formats offering exactly the same thing can coexist is this day and age - and be widely adopted by a majority of consumers, not a niche market - is misguided. People want the clarity of a single format. You can have two different game platforms, different media devices, but when it comes to something as basic as a media format, the only way you're going to get the mass market to adopt is a single unified standard. People just don't want to have to worry about which disc goes in which player.

 

[Carlo_M]

I'd love to see someone make a coherent and logical post about how two competing formats that have incomplete studio support and offer a product that is technologically close to each other can succeed in today's marketplace.

One unified format, with complete studio support, is the only way to succeed. This is regardless of whether it would have been BD or HD-DVD.

The fantasy that two competing formats with incomplete support is just that: fantasy. And another fantasy is to say that both formats with complete support, as it is not cost-feasible for all studios to release product on both formats. Too much development and production dollars for not enough sales dollars.

CD did not have a rival. Neither did VHS (LD was niche, Beta too). DVD didn't either. There is no historical precedent in the A/V world for the argument that both HD-DVD and BD could exist.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Possibly, but a single over priced format surely won't lead to mass adoption.
The format war has clearly lead to a quicker reduction in prices that wouldn't have happened with out the competition, not to mention making early substandard releases painfully obvious and unacceptable.

Doug

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Even at a higher price-point BD outsold DVD in stand-alone hardware throughout the entire holiday season.

BD prices will continue to drop as manufacturers are able to reduce costs through volume to ensure profitability as prices fall, just like with DVD. Toshiba's pricing model of driving down costs initially before volume was able to sustain proper profit margins wasn't a sustainable long-term model, and the lack of non-Toshiba hardware partners should be proof enough of the practicality of that statement.

BD prices will fall with time and volume just like DVD. So let's move on.

Doug, can you please stop recyling old arguments that are now moot and properly addressed?

 

[Douglas Monce]

I think calling Beta a niche, particularly in the first 8 or 9 years of video tape is debatable.

But I'm not saying that one format wasn't inevitable. I'm just saying that the format war has for the most part been a very good thing for the consumer.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

David I don't know if I'm recycling arguments, or you are recycling old inaccurate platitudes.

Doug

 

[Carlo_M]

Which is it? Has the format war dropped prices or is BD overpriced? You're trying to argue both sides, which is the reality?

And while one format may not lead to mass adoption, dual competing yet incompletely supported formats would all but guarantee there would not be mass adoption. History is bearing this out as we speak.

Certainly in my eyes the format war did serve a purpose: it lit a fire under both camps' backsides. While that may have been beneficial in the short-run especially for early adopters (which is the majority of the HDM owners), it is not a model which would lead to mass adoption.

A single, unified, fully supported HD model is the only one that makes sense.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Its both. The format war caused prices to drop, and blu-ray is still over priced.

Doug