Top 4 reasons HD30 is good (1 Viewer)

1. Movies are not getting longer. We have short attnention spans and if anything movies are getting shorter.

2. The studios have spent millions of dollars training us that multiple disc sets are better so just add more discs. It's possible that the cost to produce 2 HD discs is cheaper than the cost to produce 1 BD so just do 2 HD discs and maximize profit.

3. The authoring/codecs will get better so they will be able to squeeze more and more stuff onto a HD30 in the near term.

4. Long term, we need to integrate the purchase of discs with the internet. Ideally, in the future we will buy a disc that has just the movie on it. Then if we want added content we can go online to get it.

Sounds like this is directly from this interview. Interview with Amir Majidimehr

I found the interview interseting, but certainly slanted toward HD-DVD.

Hell no!

Ditto.

Now we know what Microsoft would really like to see HD DVD devolve to. Pay for a movie only disc and then pay some more for web-based content. All of which would probably be relatively lo-res because of bandwidth issues. People are saying SONY is bad?! They're saints compared to MicroSoft..

Top 4 reasons BD50 is good

1 - It has 20GB more!
2 - It has 20GB more!
3 - It has 20GB more!
4 - It has 20GB more!

Filled with MPEG2 files.

I liked the interview - pretty frank. Convince Fox and Disney that AACS is secure, and it should happen.

Perhaps. He is a MS representative. I interpret the term "we" as referring to MS when he uses it. With MicroSoft anything is possible. Microsoft would certainly be in the thick of things, attempting to monopolize as much of the download business as they could, if his vision of the future came to fruition.

Edit: To clarify. The "we" I'm referring to is the one in the first sentence of point 4. The others are referring to ordinary consumers.

I wish movies were getting shorter. I don't know the stats but I'd be willing to bet that there's been alot more two and a half to three movies from 1997 to 2006 versus 1987 to 1996. Even the average comedy and horror movie that traditionally ran 90 minutes now has to be two hours (whether it's 30 wasted extra minutes or not) so the audience can feel that they got their $12 worth.

Top reason HD30 is NOT good:

2 words: King Kong

No lossless audio.
Missing most extras from the DVD 2 disc version. Stands out like a sore thumb because all previous Universal HD DVD discs had the 2 disc limited contents.

Another 2 words: Superman Returns

Readily apparent banding artifacts (lower bitrate)
Extras originally announced as 1080p reduced to 480p/i on final product


Compare the sales of single disc vs 2 disc SEs and you'll see a huge disparity (KK, Harry Potter, Batman Returns, etc). Main reason is cost. Second reason is that the majority of the public doesn't care enough about extras to pay more for them. They also don't like getting up and changing discs to do it.

People's eyes light up when you ask them if they'd like an entire season of a TV show on one disc.

More discs = more $$$. Compare the price of The Office: Season One to Season Two. Sure, there's a lot more content, but there's also a lot more discs to author, produce, package and swap around.

I'm in complete agreement with PeterTHX, and I'll add one more...

With LCD panels in production that are fast approaching the 2k barrier, it's very possible that down the road we could seen resolutions even higher than 1080p.

While a more efficient codec is probably a must, HD-DVD clearly couldn't approach holding anything > 1080p. It's already 2/3 of maximum capacity or more with just 1080p, while the same file with the same codec is

I had no problems with kong or returns HD dvd.. looked fined to me.

Jacob

Oh BS...

The films you mention were released in dual-formats, where the major rental chains like Blockbuster carried ONLY the single-disc versions. You wanna know why the single-disc versions outsold the double-disc ones? There's your answer- Blockbuster ONLY bought the single-disc editions. I don't know a single person who complains about having a second disc containing the extras. I know you like to pretend that's the case, but it's not.

Vincent

That may be, but you'll find MANY who complain about paying EXTRA for them.

Plus, you think the cost of authoring a completely different title is free? The cost of making masters, stampers, and replicating them is mere dimes? This industry does NOT like spending the same money twice.

As a heavy renter, I do. My local store only rents disc 1 of 2-disc editions. If the bonus features are on the same disc as the main feature, I can watch them. If they are on a separate disc, I can't.

Over the last 25 years or so, among my family, friends and co-workers I've been known as a resource when it comes to HT-related issues. Based on my discussions about software with other people that are just casual movie watchers, they rarely watch any bonus material on dvds. For the most part, many of them have a hard enough time finding time in the day to just watch the film itself, nevertheless any bonus material. Now, that doesn't mean that a casual movie watcher wouldn't watch some bonus material of a favorite film of his like LOTR for instance, but such circumstances are more rare than common. Anyway, this segment of the market is called the mass market. Now, many of them probably like to have bonus material on their software, but whether they watch it or not is another matter. Also, for the most part, I don't think the inclusion of such material is what I really would call a deal breaker as to whether they buy the disc or not.

If these new formats remain a niche market than I think the inclusion of different versions of a film, multiple audio tracks and bonus material in a HD/BR disc release becomes more important because this smaller market of consumers are more hardcore for such things.




Crawdaddy

This is factually wrong. A double set SE sells better than a single disk SE. Check your marketing facts. Second fact, the cost of the production of the HD releases, at least on the HD-DVD side is all in the content. To add an additional disk, we are talking a few penny's, not dollars. Virtually a wash. If what you state were true, the studios will do their best when they sell stripped down versions of a film so they do not have to spend the money on the extras and can pass it on to the consumer. Guess Universal's King Kong release on HD had it right.

Directly to your points; whether it is placed on one disk or two, content costs are content costs (no difference if it is one disk or 5), packaging is packaging (The cost of a single of double keep case are, my guess, basically the same to produce), Authoring costs could be argued to be less on multiple disk since they do not have to mix codecs, and menung complexity should lessen. Not sure what you mean by swap around.

Then why not get rid of the discs altogether and get all content online? (hint, hint)

I really don't see this as a "need", much less as "ideal". In fact, it makes me ask the Question : Why would I want this? I'm here to tell you, I don't see any way in which this is desirable, either from my standpoint or from the movie companies'. If I'm going on the Internet to get "additional content" related to a film, why should I buy the studio's packaged stuff, when I could get fan-made stuff for free, or other "content" from other sources?

I'd rather have a self-sufficient videodisc. I hear the video-game companies have started packaging games which require the buyer to then buy "additional content" on-line, without which the game (for which they paid regular price) isn't much good. Why would anyone in the HT world want this? Besides, with "downloaded content" you tend to be pretty-much locked to a single machine, or under some other restrictions, and the time required to download the kind of special features which could reside on the unused space of a HD videodisc would be very long.