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I can't take it anymore, I've jumped to backing Blu-ray! (1 Viewer)

Bob Black

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To date, Sony has released 33 Blu-Ray movies, Fox 28, and Disney 24. Universal has already released a whopping 60 titles on HD-DVD, including most of their biggest hits from the last few years! They have also promised an additional 100 titles for 2007. How exactly does this demonstrate a lack of commitment to the format?
 

Jeff Adkins

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That's really the bottom line here. Between bandwidth and capacity, BD is capable of so much more than HD-DVD. Eventually, every studio will be using BD50 to its full potential as Buena Vista has been doing. We saw the same thing with DVD. Whereas now nearly every release takes advantage of the capacity of a DVD-9, back in 1998 this was not the case.
 

Dave Moritz

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There is a very week showing of actuall titles being released over the next few months with nothing showing up after that. And I mean titles with actual release dates atached to them. Universal says they are coming out with alot of titles but which ones are they? What days will the be released? I have my doubts because Universal says they will be releasing titles but still has not released any release dates for those titles.

Blu-ray is kicking there but and I am way more impressed with there titles being released. I know what titles are coming and when and I know all the details about audio format as well. WB which does HD-DVD also is doing Blu-ray and if there is very little reason to buy HD-DVD then Blu-ray titles get my cash. There are still a few HD-DVD titles that I will end up buying becuase there are no Blu-ray versions. And I have to admit I have a problem waiting for things sometimes. :laugh: I love my HD-DVD player but they underestimated Blu-ray and they feel asleep behind the wheel.

Universal could very well come out with all the release information in the next few days. But I am not going to hold my breath as its has been awhile and after they took down reference to HD-DVD on there web site. I do very much doubt there dedication to HD-DVD. IMHO they want to look like they are not cutting and running but I think they see the signs and are taking a bit of a step back to rethink there position. If Universal does start to back away from HD-DVD and they start offering Blu-ray as well. I would take that as a sign that HD-DVD is dying and as long as Blu-ray titles remain strong. And price of Blu-ray players drop like it looks like they will be by this summer. That could very well be the death nail for HD-DVD and the celibration for Sony and Blu-ray. If HD-DVD pulls out a suprise victory I have no problem go back to buying the discs. And at that point if HD-DVD wins the war I will look into upgrading my player as well.
 

Bob Black

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Although the next few weeks are barren for releases, Universal has 13 more titles confirmed between March 27 and May 22. They include Children Of Men, The Good Shepherd, The Game, The Jerk, The Nutty Professor, Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind, Alpha Dog, The Hitcher, 40-Year Old Virgin, The Hurricane, Skeleton Key, Smokey and the Bandit and Smokin' Aces. In that same time span, Fox has 4 releases for Blu-Ray, Disney offers 7, Lion's Gate has 1, and Sony has 7.

So again, why bash Universal for the limited slate of new HD-DVD announcements? If Warner, New Line & Paramount would show the same kind of support as Universal & Weinstein Pictures, there would be more titles than we could afford! Warner Brothers provided excellent support in 2006, but their releases have really slowed. That's what is hurting HD-DVD's announcement list more than anything else. They've had Harry Potter & The Matrix ready to go for months, yet won't release them!
 

Dave Moritz

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In the long run the number of titles is not impressive for HD-DVD and some of the titles are IMHO so what! I am just frustrated with Universal and I feel I have good reason to be as do others here.
 

Ryan Peddle

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This is exactly why I have not been a Sony supporter for a very long time. A lot of people like all their electronics to have Sony on it. I am the exact opposite. I have actually avoided Sony like the plague with the exception of their Discman line. But Sony has done a lot of things right since the new year.

And if anything, if HDDVD does lose the format war, at least they sped up the process of bringing the prices down. In fact, I hope HDDVD sticks around for a little longer, lowers their prices and forces Blu-ray to do the same. Think about it. In less than 1 year we will have Blu-ray players at less than half the price of the first gen version. It took longer for DVD to do this, and look at all the amazing technological advancements we are getting out of it.

Does anyone here think that, if HDDVD does lose and is buried, the prices of Blu-ray software will increase due to Sony and the royalties???
 

DaViD Boulet

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Uh, sure. Like I can still enjoy my laserdiscs when my laserdisc player is working properly (starting to give trouble).

This early in the game and with this degree of clarity on where the war is going, it makes sense to stop investing in a format that's on its way to becoming obsolete. Toshiba won't make HD DVD players forever. Pioneer abandoned its LD players within a few short years of DVD's success.

I'm not suggesting folks can't and shouldn't enjoy their HD DVD collection on their player that they own. But anyone with a bit of foresight should start to slow the HD DVD purchasing to gauge the winds of this war.

I remember so many videophiles ardently purchasing laserdiscs right in the face of DVD's infancy. I thought that was insane... they thought it was reasonable. Today, only the most dedicated of those enthusiasts still have functioning laserdisc players on which to watch that software collection. With HD DVD it would be much easier for someone to develop a universal decoder to keep the softare alive into the BD era, but there's no guarantee that universal players will continue to be produced, especially if the industry (manufacturers) conclude that the format war has moved in BD's favor very early on. It might always be possible to rip HD DVD files and re-author back to BD for player compatibility, but that would probably tresspass on some copyright grounds.
 

Greg.K

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Back to SD DVD, downloads, or rentals.

DVD prices didn't stay high (as many feared early on), and there was no format war, and even fewer choices back then.
 

Brent M

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I've had my A1 since November and I've bought about 20 HD-DVDs since then. Up to now I've been very happy with the purchase(especially since the A1 does such a good job with SD-DVDs). However, the announcements of titles like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Rock, Crimson Tide, Casino Royale, Independence Day, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Predator, etc. on Blu-Ray pretty much seal the deal that I'll be picking up a BD player sometime this year. I may just get a PS3 and be done with it as it least I'll feel like I'm getting a little something "extra"(the ability to play next generation console games) and the price isn't too outrageous.

The thing that sucks is I said I'd never support either side as long as the format war continued on and now I'll probably be backing both sides by the end of this year. Damn, where did my willpower go? :D
 

Chris Gerhard

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Personally, I think Toshiba and the HD DVD sofware providers have done a much better job than I expected. I thought Blu-ray would score a first round knockout and be done with it. Right now it is too close to call and both could survive. I own Blu-ray and have an HD DVD player on the way. It has turned out better than I dreamed.

Chris
 

Dave H

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I was in the same boat. In fact, last October I bought a Denon 2930CI as a way to get through the format war for the next year or two, but I still ended up buying a PS3 for Blu-ray! In fact, I had even bought an HD-A2, but had to return it due to severe audio droputs. At that point, I just decided to back Blu-ray - especially considering its momentum.

In addition, while the Toshiba hardware can produce a great image - as good as anything else, I'm just not big on the hardware architecture they're using. They may be saving costs by using it, however, it's too slow, buggy, and glitchy for my tastes (I also had an HD-A1 for a brief time). My PS3 is far more smoother, faster, and has a more "refined" feel to it by comparison.
 

John Berggren

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Honestly I'm not clear on how HD-DVD has garnered so much emotional support on the forum. I would have thought that the various sites HTF included would want an end to the format war, since DVD only did so well due to a lack of format war.
Between supporting studios, capacity, and capability, I don't understand why we all don't just throw in with Blu Ray.
With the financial muscle behind this forum (it's participants specifically) such support would make for a very short "war".
 

Austan

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It's easy to SONY bash....
check out a tech forum and you will see how many targets are on MS and Intel vs Linux and AMD.
 

Brent M

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Well, to be fair, Sony deserves every single ounce of the bashing they've received for their practices over the past few years. They used to be THE consumer electronics company with the best products on the market and an unblemished reputation, but they've fallen mightily since then. That never played into my decision to support HD-DVD, but I can see why many people would choose not to support Sony.
 

Bob Black

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Price & manufacturing costs favor HD-DVD. Number of titles is practically a wash - in fact, quality of films currently favors HD-DVD, in my opinion. Capacity currently favors Blu-Ray (although Toshiba did promise a 51 GB disc in 2007), though this capacity has proven to offer no benefit whatsoever in quality. Capability has favored HD-DVD all along, with mandatory ethernet capability for firmware fixes and future content downloads, InHD interactive features still missing from Blu-Ray, and bookmarking features not offered on Blu-Ray.

So where's the great advantage of Blu-Ray that dictates we should all switch to that format? Because they will release the new Bond, Cars, & Pirates Of the Caribbean? No thanks! I don't subscribe to caving into political pressure to watch movies. Let the formats win this war on merit instead of anti-trust tactics.
 

DaViD Boulet

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The advantages of BD are what they've always been:

50GB of storage.
1.5 x the bandwidth of HD DVD

Look at Disney's Chicago BD. It uses AVC video compression that at times peaks above 40 mbps! Not only do you get 24/48 lossless audio, but you get lossless 2.0 for Spanish and 640 kbps Dolby (ala Dolby Plus on HD DVD) for the other languages, including an additional 5.1 English track.

Adding that all up, even had they used lossless packing for the PCM audio, this disc has used a higher bit-rate than HD DVD could have provided. To author the same title on HD DVD, even with lossless packing, compromises would have to have been made. And Chicago is just the tip of the Iceberg. I don't want the disc producers for my LOTR or Ben-Hur SE to have to figure out what compromises they'll make to the presentation to fit into the available bitstream for an HD DVD.

You know all those Dolby TrueHD tracks on Warner's HD DVD's? So far they're all 16-bit (24-bit encoding requires a much higher bit-rate). Whereas on BD, even in PCM form, 24-bit resolution audio is almost the norm.

Most audio/videophiles want their picture and sound to be all that it can be. The quality of BD isn't Sony. It's whatever a studio wants it to be given its potential. 5 years from now the brief delay for BD-J will be a memory, but the 24-bit lossless audio on your favorite titles will be there to be enjoyed.
 

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