Blu-ray or HD-DVD - what do you prefer

[ianh64]

I am just curious. Blu-ray and HD-DVD seem to have their followers and I am just curious to why people have chosen to take sides especially as most of us will not even have seen anything in the flesh so most of our thought are based on hearsay and reading the odd spec.

On paper, for me, I guess I like the sound of HD-DVD better. Blu-ray seem to have pushed the boat technology wise for little reason other then to win the numbers/features game. ie I see little reason for a 50GB disc when they will only be using a fraction of the size. HD-DVD seems to have gone the logical next step over DVD and at present I feel that the slightly more conservative route will initially pay dividends in reliability and time to market. To be honest, 25GB or 50GB on a disc makes me feel slightly uneasy unless it is 100% reliable and I feel that HD-DVD have a better/quicker chance of achieving this than the blu-ray have have at present.

Either way, I won't be participating until the size of the units come down to a more reasonable size and you can probably record your own content on to them - ie from a HD Camcorder.

Anyway, let us all know why you prefer one camp or another or neither.

[AML]

Blu Ray sounds better to me because it will support 1080p from day one, and they will likely have a larger library of movies all at 1080p.

Also, the fact that the P$3 will have a Blu Ray drive leads me to beleive that the format will take off partly thanks to that fact.

Another good point is the larger storage capacity. Single layer 25gb Vs single layer 15gb HD DVD.

It has its bad points too. Like being owned by Sony...
And using a different manufacturing process from HD DVD and DVD which may lead to higher costs.

The only other thing that bothers me just now is that initially Blu Ray came in a caddy.
But since TDK developed that coating it now uses, they have gotten rid of the caddy.

However, are the disks really strong enough for normal folk to throw about as we do?
If the disks arent solid enough im sure there will be a lot of claims from custmers saying that the disk fell appart and such.

[ns1col]

I'll go with whatever technology will give me 1080I over component without ICT.

[a_friend]

BR if you look at the movie houses there are more with BR,


ps Sony is the largest Movie company after buying MGM so no 007 on HD-dvd,

[AML]

Originally Posted by ns1col

I'll go with whatever technology will give me 1080I over component without ICT.

Why only 1080i?

Unfortunately I doubt neither of these formats will give you a hi def pic (720p or higher) through component. (for movies anyway)
They both use encryption in one form or another.

The PC on the other hand may be different. As well as some other formats being worked on by the chinese.

As well as hackers .
Im sure eventually we will be able to copy hi def movies from Blu Ray and HD DVD to our PCs and watch them without encryption.

[ns1col]

Originally Posted by AML

Why only 1080i?

Because thats all my JVC crt will take.

[rooster-x]

I think HD-DVD has a better chance as it is cheaper to manufacture the disks and the initial players are being priced cheaper than Blu-Ray. Still I won't be buying one until the discs are readily available in the shops, this has been the main reason from shying away from DVD-A and the super CD thingy, will this be same for HD DVD?

I still think that the greatest competitor for the two formats will be the humble DVD and unless the HD-DVD / BD-ROM discs are priced the same as current DVD's and are easy to get hold of I think its going to take at least 3 years for this technology to become mainstream.

Cheers

Rooster-X

[ianh64]

Oh yes, I forgot about my DVD-A collection. Thats another reason for supporting the HD-DVD camp as I have a number of DVD-A discs - I been enjoying lossless 96/24 multi channel digital audio for the last 3 years via MLP.

[shaithis]

I am still of the opinion that both these formats will end up as the new Laserdisc...i.e. VERY niche.

Still, I will go with one and I thought it was HD-DVD, although after seeing the specs and info regarding the Toshiba player, I am now not so sure of what I am going to do.....it sounds like a very limited HTPC (Celeron CPU, Linux, boot-up times etc)

I really want to resist a format that is owned by 1 company, rather then a consortium but if no-one releases a 'proper' HD-DVD player before the BlueRay players debut then my hand may be forced......this does assume that the BlueRay players won't be limited HTPCs as well though.

Its a real crap situation for adopters right now

[Mr.D]

Both formats are 1080p ( for the majority of releases). I don't expect to see any difference in quality between the two .

I expect blu-ray players to be expensive relative to hd-dvd .

I expect the discs to be similar in price with maybe blu-ray a little more expensive (25quid for hd-dvd , 30quid for blu-ray maybe)

I expect blu-ray discs to be filled with useless fluff.
I expect hd-dvd to be more resilient than blu-ray.
I expect hd-dvd to be region free although the players might only handle 50Hz or 60Hz rather than both ( although the necessity for backwards compatability with dvd makes this slightly less likely

I expect studios and manufacturers to create product for either camp that takes the market share regardless of what paper-thin exclusivity deals they have signed.
DVD/DIVX anyone?

I half expect blu-ray to never make it to market due to manufacturing difficulties.

I half expect the PS3 to come out without a blu-ray drive.

I expect hidef download services to take a huge chunk out of any physical disk market in the next 3 years.

[welwynnick]

HD-DVD is a PITA to type, so I hope BD (Blu-ray Disc) wins!

Nick

[pinkprobegt]

The quality of what you see should be the same on either format so in that respect I'm not bothered which wins so long as we get hi-def discs.

Blu-Ray wins it for me on being more future proof with the capacity thing. It means potentially higher bit rates and lossless surround is easier to fit on without compromise. But to be honest, it all depends really.

Most movie studios are now stating they won't be using the ICT flag, with only Warner having produced discs using it (was on HCC's site). Maybe they actually had a flash of common sense and realised that most of the US HD owning public don't have TVs with HDMI/DVI. It's not like your average user will be able to pirate hi-def stuff by using the component outs anyways.

Personally I voted Blu-Ray just because it seems more future-proof to me but I'm not really bothered so long as we have a format at the end of the day.

I was an earlier adopter with DVD but it didn't really have a competitor other than that stupid divx throw-away movie thing in the US which is why it suceeded.

[EddThompson]

hi def download, now that would be great, now, how do we convince bt to let me download more that 40 gig a month

ill probably end up with an hd-dvd player at $500 and blu ray with the ps3, wait as long as possible, then buy a combined unit which is bound to appear, or what ever survives.

With the projector, i cant wait to get some hd material to feed it.

edd

[Mr.D]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

HD-DVD is a PITA to type, so I hope BD (Blu-ray Disc) wins!

Nick

That makes it sound like something you wash your ass in .

[Timbo21]

Technolgy seems to be speeding forward exponentially in the areas of computers & av products. I get the feeling that by the time HD-DVD/Blu-ray becomes mainstream, say for example in 3 years time, it will seem outdated. You've got Hitachi's holographic disc, & of course the whole streaming thing from pc's can only increase, especially when you think Microsoft will no doubt be championing this method. When it comes down to it the large studios will put their products out on whatever format appeals to the public, as long as they have sufficient copy protection.

Because of the continuous acceleration of technology I wouldn't be at all surprised if HD-DVD/Blu-ray ends up on the scrap heap in a few years time. I hope I'm wrong, since it really gets too much how quickly various models etc. get replaced & updated.

T.