Blu-Ray or HD DVD?

[King Profile]

I shop Best Buy regularly. They are the biggest and most abundant and generally cheapest electronic retailer locally. I have a hard time finding HD DVD hardware in there though. I find the Blu-Ray players, drives, PS3 and Blu-Ray discs to be everywhere.

All the information that i've read is that Blu-Ray gives you a full 1080p resolution whereas HD DVD only gives you 720p.. I'm not that sure that its accurate but thats info i got from another retailer, Ultimate Electronics. They specialize in higher-end equipment (or at least whats supposed to be higher-en).

I know we had the thread about how the porn industry usually settles this kind of debate but i was wondering given the world has definitely changed since the days of Beta and VHS, and the price for Blu-Ray and HD DVD players are roughly the same, which would you go for?

Here are a few links i found just looking stuff up.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/19/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-state-of-the-s-union-s-division/

http://hometheater.about.com/od/blurayandhddvd/f/blurayhddvd2.htm

http://www.hddvd.org/hddvd/

And of course the good ol' trusty Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD

[Savant Profile]

Choices choices, as HD finally gets rolling along comes B-R ive seen the quality of B-R and its awsome, but so is HD, factor in price/availablity and HD is the clear winner.

The porn industry stated "HD is the way to Blo....er go

[cavalierlwt Profile]

Both formats do 1080p, the big thing is HD-DVD got out first by months, and is much cheaper-- I've seen HD-DVD players in the high $300s, BluRay seems to be in the high $900s right now. First one to crack $299 is going to win, and when it hits $199 you'll see mass acceptance of it, just like DVD. I'd say HDDVD has a much better chance of breaking the sub $299 price point over BluRay. On a weird side note, you can buy the Xbox360 external HD-DVD player for $199 and make it work with your computer using a mini USB 2.0 cable. Driver works and everything. You do need a pretty beefy computer, dual core and good videocard.

[SavageParrot Profile]

LoL don't get conned. Nothing wrong with regular dvd's. Unless you have a tv that's bigger than like 60 inches wide you aren't even going to be able to tell the difference. All you'll be doing is paying them a lot of money for the same old crap...

Maybe when they stop putting special features on discs to try to force you to buy hd it'll be worth it but seriously at the momment this is such a fucking con it's funny. Like I said the last time this was mentioned it's not like going from vhs to dvd where vhs deteriorates and dvd doesn't. This is just going from one format that won't deteriorate to another ostensibly identical format that simply holds a bit more info.

So they can get more stuff on one disc... Well big fucking deal. I liked the break to change disc in LOTR extended edition, it gave me an oportunity to make tea and slap myself round the face to alleviate boredom. I'm also perfectly happy to get of my arse to put in the special features disc when I've finished watching the main feature. Is it worth paying 500 dollars more to get a High def player that will have no affect on a tv the size of mine but may save me literaly tens of steps between my chair and the dvd player? Is it bollocks...

For 90 percent of people this upgrade is worthless. Save your money and enjoy the stupidly cheap second hand dvds that flood the market when over rich muppets buy Hddvd's for no reason other than to show off to their friends

[cavalierlwt Profile]

On a 37 inch LCD I can see a huge difference between HD content and DVD, even 720P is a huge step up. The only problem is there is a lot of 'HD' content that really isn't very good. In some cases they take low quality material and upconvert it to 720p or 1280i and pass it off as HD. Also, some directors, like Spielberg, have taken to using a grainly look with their movies, and this really looks likes crap. Sporting events look incredible in HD.
Seriously, put a good quality HD-DVD beside a DVD and you'll see the difference. It's like the difference between stuff you see on Youtube (320x240 pixels) and stuff you see on a DVD (720x480 pixels, NTSC)

[SavageParrot Profile]

Pftt. What you really have to ask yourself is whether or not you ever sat watching a dvd and thought 'wow this really lacks definition' and I while I can think of maybe 1 or 2 budget dvds I bought where that was the case (you know the sort, the uber cheap variaety) in the majority of cases the thought would never have crossed my mind and I bet it wouldn't have crossed most other peoples minds either.

It just seems to me like this is a case of the tail wagging the dog rather than the other way round. This isn't really borne out of demand, the demand is artifically generated and we're expected to play along like we really needed it and they are doing us a huge favour.

It's new coke...

[cavalierlwt Profile]

Pftt. What you really have to ask yourself is whether or not you ever sat watching a dvd and thought 'wow this really lacks definition' and I while I can think of maybe 1 or 2 budget dvds I bought where that was the case (you know the sort, the uber cheap variaety) in the majority of cases the thought would never have crossed my mind and I bet it wouldn't have crossed most other peoples minds either.

It just seems to me like this is a case of the tail wagging the dog rather than the other way round. This isn't really borne out of demand, the demand is artifically generated and we're expected to play along like we really needed it and they are doing us a huge favour.

It's new coke...

It's true, it's not needed. But they said the same thing about color when it first came to television, and even sound when it first came to movies. Watch a good sporting event in HD, and you'll be sold--assuming you like sports. The other thing to realize is you have PAL format and we have NTSC--you have 576 lines of resolution to our 480--so it's a bigger difference to us even at the 720p mode. Also the switch to 16x9 aspect ratio is great for movies as well as sporting events. Right now there isn't enough HD content to really make switching over a priority,but once there is more HD, I would say it's well worth it. I hate watching SD stuff now.

[Darknut Profile]

Supposedly Blu-Ray is out-selling HD-DVD despite HD-DVD's advantages.

[cavalierlwt Profile]

Right now the numbers of players is overwhelmingly tied to sales of PS3 or the XBox360 HD-DVD add-on. People aren't buying standalone HD-DVD or BluRay players in large numbers. So, at the moment, probably the number on HD player of any sort is the PS3, by I think a 5:1 ratio, in spite of the PS3's less than impressive debut.

BluRay also made a very nice push to get out more BluRay titles in January. It's all meaningless though until the average Joe buys a standalone player for his home. When those start moving off the shelf, it will be decided, as basic standalone players will dwarf the number of people using their game consoles for HD viewing. My money is on HD-DVD but anything can happen.

I still think everyone involved should have their head checked. They should have just come to an agreement on one standard. Think about it, there's a 100% chance that one side is going to lose and lose BIG. All or nothing.

[SavageParrot Profile]

Watching a sporting event on hd has bugger all to do with this though. That's about how high def they broadcast tv in. I'm not gonna buy dvds of old sporting events so that's not exactly an advantage

You are right though NTSC does suck

Also they are not dumb running against each other. In fact I think they planned it. If there wasn't the rivalry do you really think either of them would be shipping any numbers at all? Without this hype and drama they'd probably make it into a few stockbrokers apartments and then sink to re-emerge in 5 years time when they may actually be necessary

The sheer amount of hype generated by the supposed face off is gonna make them both a fair chunk of money anyway. That plus the fact that I bet both companies have both invested in significant numbers of shares in the other format and have developed or are developing a range of machines to run both formats and not just their own.

[cavalierlwt Profile]

I couldn't disagree more. If they had cooperated there would be only one standard, which means people wouldn't be so skittish about choosing a format. Nobody wants to own the next betamax and be up the river in two years. Each side invested billions in the format, one of them is going to lose billions. There is NO, I repeat NO NO NO happy or favorable hype surrounding the fact that there are two formats. It sucks for consumers and creates hesitancy to adopt new technology. The problem with these corps is that they (especially M$) tend to stick with a mindset: For me to live, you must die.
No cooperation, no sanity. Thank god the computer industry occasionally gets together and agrees on some standards--USB, Firewire,SATA, PCI-E ect.

[Tchinnychin Profile]

I'll just get HD-TV for now and sit back and watch the VHS, Betamax wars. Sorry HD,Blu-Ray wars. The winner gets my money. Since I got an LCD TV the DVD quality has greatly increased but everyone upgrades eventually. I may not be a good authority on this though because I still have more cassettes than CD's.

[-HaVoC- Profile]

I have an upconvert dvd player running through HDMI to a 720p set. I see a massive difference. However, Im gonna also wait for the two specs to battle it out.

[cavalierlwt Profile]

Yeah, I'm waiting too. It will suck if we're talking about 2-3 years though. If I upgrade my HTPC in the near future I might just buy the Xbox360 HD-DVD addon in the meantime. I figure I can't go too wrong for $199
It bothers me now when I buy DVDs, especially boxed sets, that I'm going to be re-buying them in just 2-3 years.

[SavageParrot Profile]

Out of interest both these machines will play regular dvd's right?