Best option for format war

[platty2890]

Having been an early adopter of DVD i got my fingers burnt not with the player but with the software.High prices,lack of extras,flippers,poor mastering, non anamorphic, only dolby digital and then a lot of 2.0 stuff. I decided to see how things developed especially with TWO formats and most of the forementioned items has cropped again on both formats.If i was swayed to buy into the hidef market i would ONLY rent my discs until the dust settled and save my money and buy the version of the film in the best picture and the best sound thats what its all about and also ONE format. Anyone with the same idea as me?

[richard plumb]

if it helps, a lot of the DVD pain isn't present with hidef. Quality of both audio and video is excellent, and no flippers! (hated those things). So don't let immaturity of technology stop you there.

The format thing is perhaps relevant, but its being done to death in here.

[platty2890]

Dont get me wrong the pic is brilliant on both formats but where's for example king kong extended version in 7.1 Dolby TrueHD

[Sonic67]

So you have several times the resolution and lossless audio but you still want more?

[platty2890]

What about fifth element on bluray already remastered

[Evil Engineer]

Originally Posted by platty2890

Dont get me wrong the pic is brilliant on both formats but where's for example king kong extended version in 7.1 Dolby TrueHD

You'll have to wait for Universal to go dual format for that one.

There ain't enough space on a single HD DVD disc.

I'm not quite sure what the attraction of an extended version would be, though. I thought the cinema release was at least a hour longer than it needed to be.

[platty2890]

Does that mean the LOTR extended versions wont be on HDDVD

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by platty2890

Does that mean the LOTR extended versions wont be on HDDVD

No Evil is pulling your leg.

HD DVD has already demonstrated that, by using efficient codecs such as VC1, space isn't the concern that the BD fan club would have you believe. The fact that King Kong is, what 3hrs+, and still has space left on the disc for a lossless soundtrack rather demonstrates that.

LOTR will be making it's way to HD DVD (and BluRay) soonish - New Line have announced they will support both formats. No timeline has been announced but I would expect, for commerical reasons, the first releases (on both formats) will be the theatrical cuts. They'll want more money out of you at a later date for the extended editions!

[SeedyR]

Originally Posted by platty2890

Having been an early adopter of DVD i got my fingers burnt not with the player but with the software.High prices,lack of extras,flippers,poor mastering, non anamorphic, only dolby digital and then a lot of 2.0 stuff. I decided to see how things developed especially with TWO formats and most of the forementioned items has cropped again on both formats.If i was swayed to buy into the hidef market i would ONLY rent my discs until the dust settled and save my money and buy the version of the film in the best picture and the best sound thats what its all about and also ONE format. Anyone with the same idea as me?

I was in a similar position to you a few months back. I had a high def LCD, and wanted to watch films in HD. Not knowing what format to go with, and being a bit of a gamer, I got a HD DVD add on for my 360, and got a PS3 mostly for blu-ray playback, but also the odd exclusive game that wouldn't be appearing on the 360.

So now I happily have both formats, and this helps my high def film viewing no end. The one thing that still bugs me, is region encoding on blu-ray, so there are still a number of films that I can't see

I too didn't want to build up a large collection of films for one of the formats to then die. So I've been renting from lovefilm and using the trading forums on here. That way I get to see the films I want, but equally not spend a fortune or get stuck with a format that eventually discontinues. However my attitude recently to that, is so what? I'll still have hot fuzz on HD DVD or 300 on blu-ray, I can still watch it in HD anytime I want. Yes, one of them, if not both will end prematurely, but just because blu-ray or hd dvd wins, doesn't mean my discs suddenly become unplayable overnight.

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by platty2890

What about fifth element on bluray already remastered

Sony released some truely dreadful BluRays upon release - they used MPEG2 compression and artifacts were easily visible. Thankfully the consistently superior quality of HD DVD forced them to raise their game and The Fifth Element BluRay is one of the better high def releases I have seen. Quality wise both formats are much of a muchness now.

However things are still at an early stage at present. Lossless soundtracks are starting to appear on many releases - but they should be the defacto standard IMHO. There are long term questions over which is going to be better: PCM or next gen codecs from Dolby/DTS. Extended editions/directors cuts are also largely absent. And extras on the new formats (if you bothered) are normally fairly weak.

All in all though the new formats offer the very best quality for watching movies. I don't think you'll regret adopting whichever format you choose. Of course many of us on here are dual owners - life is just so much more quieter.

[SeedyR]

Originally Posted by Rasczak

Of course many of us on here are dual owners - life is just so much more quieter.

You can say that again! Far too many arguments causing threads to be closed, or on the verge of being closed.

Dual format definitely the way to go at the moment, however if I was to pick one, I'd go with blu-ray. Oh no, have I just started an argument?

[crobo]

Much depends on your system and preferences. For me, the increased audio quality is perhaps even more impressive than the increase in video quality with HD material. Then, the hardware becomes a serious issue. Unless you have an HDMI 1.3-enabled receiver only the very top of the range BD players (£700 to £1000?) can provide lossless audio because the £300-£500 players (and PS3) don't have analogue 5.1 connections. Whereas the Toshiba XE1, and the earlier A1 and XA1 imports do.

If you don't have analogue 5.1 connections, I am informed that the Toshiba E1 converts DD+/TrueHD to 1.5 Mbps DTS whereas the BD players only convert to Dolby dig core (640 kbps I believe). If this is true (and someone please correct me if I am wrong) only a small percentage of people can actually hear high bitrate audio on BD at the moment. If, like me, you are using a separate processor/power amp combo, you are essentially obliged to go the HD-DVD route since only the new, very expensive AV processors have HDMI 1.3. Of course, this will change when BD players have better connectivity and/or come down in price but the new Sony BDP-300 does not have analogue 5.1 which is, to me, disappointing.

As I said above, someone please correct me if any of this is wrong because I can scarcely believe some of these points myself. I would like to consider buying a BD machine but can not contemplate it with my setup if this is actually the situation at present.

[Sonic67]

Originally Posted by Rasczak

No Evil is pulling your leg.
HD DVD has already demonstrated that, by using efficient codecs such as VC1, space isn't the concern that the BD fan club would have you believe. The fact that King Kong is, what 3hrs+, and still has space left on the disc for a lossless soundtrack rather demonstrates that.

And how about that for many people King Kong is also a 'reference' disk.

[peterweg]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

And how about that for many people King Kong is also a 'reference' disk.

A reference for HD-DVD only, how could it be anything else?

[Evil Engineer]

Originally Posted by Rasczak

No Evil is pulling your leg.

Or was I?

Originally Posted by Rasczak

HD DVD has already demonstrated that, by using efficient codecs such as VC1, space isn't the concern that the BD fan club would have you believe. The fact that King Kong is, what 3hrs+, and still has space left on the disc for a lossless soundtrack rather demonstrates that.

The US release of King Kong was pretty much packed to the rafters with that 3hr+ film and, as a matter of fact, they didn't have enough space for a lossless soundtrack. It's DD+ not TrueHD.

Things were trimmed down even further on the European release to accomodate multiple languages. So perhaps space is an issue, after all.

It's probably fair enough to say that a 4hr version of King Kong or the extended LOTR films will need to be split over two discs on HD DVD in order to do justice to both the picture and sound. Where as that extra 20GB on Blu-ray at least gives them a fighting chance of getting it on one disc.

Not exactly the end of the world, I know. But there it is.