HD/Blu-Ray... Is blu-ray going to win?

User45701

Im not a fan of sony or the playstations so i never wanted blu-ray to win.
Also i hear the old war between VHS and ? (can never remember the name) anyway VHS won because they allowed porn on there VHS's.

Same this time HD will allow porn and blue-ray wont so i assumed that histroy would repeat itself and HD would win.

I hear now that blockbuster video have fully backed blu-ray, they will keep HD on the shelves but only order new filims in Blu-Ray.

Thats america but since Xtra Vision is owened by Blockbuster video does that mean that they will follow suit? i left a message for one of there directors on tuesday, no responce yet.

I hope they dont do that, i dont rent anymore i just buy DVD's there so cheap if you think that in your life you might watch a movie 2 or 3 times you can buy it dont rent it because as i said so cheap.

I wonder what charbusters will do? I hope they back HD because i am not a fan of this whole expensive ps3/blu-ray stuff

johnny_ultimate

Blu Ray does seem like the early victor. Walk into any retail / rental store about and check out the Blu Ray section -v- HD DVD. I personally think that the HD DVD collection is superior at the moment (although both formats have the bucketloads of rubbish that comes with any new format launch), but I do think Blu Ray will win in the longterm.

savemejebus

xtra-vision already rent Blu Ray discs as their only HD source afaik.

I think we really need to wait until ther are more reasonably priced players before we begin to see either format seriously compete with DVD. As it is, both Blu Ray and HD DVD are expensive to go for at the moment.

I really dont think that HD DVD has a future. They only have one studio that releases films exclusively on their format. Blockbusters support for blu ray is a major blow to them.
Xtravision have been exclusively supporting blu ray, but check any other shop, I regularly check all the shops here in Cork and the only shop I have seen HD DVD in is the Virgin megastore, where the stock is very small. Its very small because people are buyng blu ray over HD DVD.
Blu ray through a PS3 is not really that expensive- I just checked my argos catalogue and they have hd dvd PLAYER FOR €650, THE pS3 is €630. Blu ray movies are also a generally cheaper to buy than the HD DVD discs, while retaining the same quality.

User45701

whatever happened to that player that can play both Blu-Ray and HD?
id just get one of them and throw it in my pc then let all the other pople decide the war with the dvd players for TV's and consoles and all that other madd stuff

As far as I know those dual format players cost megabucks, so instead of gettinng one of those, I would save money and stick with DVD until this format war is over. But I'm backing blu ray myself.

philstar

have any of you people seen a HD or blu ray DVD??

anyway isn't regular DVD high defination enough??

Necronomicon

Something that worried me was something I read in a dvd magazine, that a lot of distributors were declaring alliegence to one format or the other, so you may not get any Fox movies on Blu-Ray or Universal movies on HD etc. Although I don't know if this is still the case, that was a while back.
Either way, I don't think there's enough on either yet to dish out the cash. Plus, after years of collecting dvds I dunno if I have the patience to start again

evad_lhorg

Blu ray isnt doing well but it is doing better for one reason... PS3.

copacetic

evad_lhorg wrote:

Blu ray isnt doing well but it is doing better for one reason... PS3.

isn't doing well compared to what exactly?
seems to be doing much better than HD-DVD, mostly because of the PS3 footprint in homes, but thats what wins these types of format wars in the end. The more players the more titles..

According to research group Digital Entertainment Group, there are 1.5 million Blu-ray players in the US. That's made up of 100,000 standalone players and 1.4 million PS3s. As for HD DVD, there are 150,000 Xbox 360 HD DVD players and 150,000 standalone players

ixoy

copacetic wrote:

isn't doing well compared to what exactly?

Traditional DVDs. Blu-Ray sales and HD-DVD barely make any impact on sales overall. It's still a small market.

Much like many others, I'm waiting on the fence. I'm too young to have seen the Betamax vs VHS wars (as are most here), but I'm not going to subscribe yet to an over-priced potentially-dying format. There is little in the way yet to recommend getting either format at the current price and it'll take a while yet before I imagine that changes.

grimm2005

yep, apparently universal recently reiterated their support for HD-DVD saying that they have no plans to go format neutral anytime soon

At the minute HD-DVD does have one major selling point that Blue Ray lacks. A lot of HD-DVDs are double sided with the normal DVD version of the film on one side and the HD version on the other.

monkeyfudge

Well I have both... through the 360 and the PS3.

If I saw a film available on both formats I'd have to go with Bluray... but that's purely because the 360 is so f*cking noisey that it greatly takes away from the viewing experience.

But in the grander scheme of things.. pretty much every film released on Bluray is utter, utter sh*te... who the f*ck is selecting the titles exactly?

I currently have 2 films on HD-DVD and 3 films on Bluray... The HD-DVD films are ones that I can see myself watching again many times (King Kong and Happy Feet) while I never want to see my Bluray films again as long as I live... (Open Season, Ultra Violet and Casino Royale)

philstar

monkeyfudge wrote:

Well I have both... through the 360 and the PS3.

If I saw a film available on both formats I'd have to go with Bluray... but that's purely because the 360 is so f*cking noisey that it greatly takes away from the viewing experience.

but whats the picture quality like??..........is it wow!!...much better than regular DVD??

Zapp Brannigan

It is alot better, quality wise.

I'd agree although BluRay has a bigger selection of films but most of em are crap.

Mossy Monk

philstar wrote:

anyway isn't regular DVD high defination enough??

Watch a HD movie on a big screen and compare it to a dvd. The difference is huge.

Just saw on IGN that blu ray players have outsold HD DVD 5 to 1. Largley thanks to the PS3. Blu ray discs also outsell HD DVD, and while I agree with the above posters that the current selection of blu ray title is pretty bad, I thnk that will change in the future. It is clearly the dominant format at the moment and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. How long before Universal does a turn around and starts to support blu ray?

monkeyfudge

Well I remember when DVD first came out... the selection was pretty damn poor too...

johnny_ultimate

HD TV is as yet an extremely young medium. As many have pointed out, sales compared to DVD are at this point tiny. Most people could not give a toss over picture quality, while others are happy with the DVD quality standard at the moment. Seems like the battle came a bit too early - DVD is still quite young, compared to the amount of time VHS spent in the limelight. It will be a year or two at least before either format starts making a major impact. (that said, I do still think Blu Ray will come out victorious, even though I had backed HD DVD earlier in procedures).

User45701

i rmember the first dvd's as well but what i dont understand is what you are all saying, whats this stuff about the ps3 because i think im getting my news from some insane places.

From what i know sony have lost the console war, the ps3 was a momuntial failure was it not? being destroyed by the Wii and X-box even being a year old still sold me copies at x-mass then the ps3,

i know 2 people in ireland who have bought and then got rid of ps3's.
some guy at sony announced a price cut (i assumed desperitly trying to recover) and the a few days later microsoft announced price cuts of the 360 to only 200, chances are there getting rid of the old 360's before the next x-box upgrade thingey comes out.

Anyway my point is i was under the impression that the ps3 was a joke and was suffering massive failures all around the world, i know there are those that buy and enjoy it but i honnestly didnt think it would last.

My prediction was for HD victory, then the ps3 to become even less popular because noone would make blu-ray dvd's and then it would fade into the mysts of history

copacetic

well ps3 isn't selling as well as other consoles as it is so expensive. however it is selling much better than any standalone player whether HD-DVD or Blueray. So player wise there are much more blueray players out there, this seems to be driving the title availability and the blockbuster attitude for instance. If the xbox had a built in hd-dvd when it came out things would probably be the other way around.

Once manufacturers see the way the market seems to be going they start looking at blueray for their systems, sony, dell and 3 or 4 other laptop manufacturers have all announced machines with blueray drives coming soon. It becomes a circular market with sales driving players and then feeding back around, once one format gets ahead its a long way back.

IMO blueray is well on it's way to winning out based on the current market snapshot in the US, but who is to say what will happen next.

mickoneill30

Even if all that were true and the PS3 did fail (I don't think that'll happen), Blu-Ray will get a critical mass soon and it won't matter if it's on PS3 or a stand alone player.
If your video shop is only selling / renting Blu-Ray then that's what the public will buy. And it's getting that way (Blockbuster US announced during the week that their stores will only be stocking Blu-Ray, big stores in Australia (JB Hifi for example) are only stocking Blu-Ray). I think Universal is the only company that exclusively brings out movies on HD-DVD. They can't do that forever.

Edit: This was replying to User45701. copacetic replied before me.

dulpit

I'm gonna have to repeat others, BluRay is winning because of the PS3... I don't know 1 person who either owns or would consider buying a HD-DVD player or a blu-ray dvd player. Neither do i know people who would ocnsider buying the add-on for the 360 so as to play hd-dvds...

However, i do know quite a few people who have ps3's or are saving to get 1... If you own a ps3 you're naturally gonna buy at least 1 blu-ray dvd... There is no way that hd-dvd is gonna be able to fight back until the price of players drops by a considerable margin...

Thing is though, will the format war be won before the players get affordable? if not, then blu-ra ftw... otherwise, i dunno, your guess is as good as mine...

User45701

ok but what about histroy, i dont remember betamax/vhs war either but i do know what happened.

Betamax Would not allow porn
Blu-Ray will not allow pron

VHS - allowed porn
HD - allows

Porn is regarded as the deciding factor in the last war and im sure it will be again.

monkeyfudge

I don't think it was a matter of Betamax not allowing porn, it was just VHS was the format that the porn industry decided upon using.

When we got our first video player in our house, it could have gone either way... we luckily went with VHS. But all the early video rental stores stocked both formats.. and then the Betamax sections slowly disappeared over the years.

koneko

Too early to tell, in my house HD-DVD is winning because (I agree with monkeyfudge on this) a lot of titles available on Blu-Ray are awful or just don't appeal to me. I have 2 Blu-Rays at the moment, and one of those is the free Casino Royale disc (complete garbage, never watching that again).

Dodge

Just for the record the highest selling Video console this christmas was the PS2. PS3 have sold well enough, and looks like eventually taking over the mantel of top console.

As for the pron thing, it won't have nearly as big effect on this debate as the vast vast majority of people get it through the internet now.

I won't be buying anything for a few years.

copacetic

User45701 wrote:

ok but what about histroy, i dont remember betamax/vhs war either but i do know what happened.

Betamax Would not allow porn
Blu-Ray will not allow pron

VHS - allowed porn
HD - allows

Porn is regarded as the deciding factor in the last war and im sure it will be again.

i'm not sure 'porn' was the deciding factor and even if it was, the reason for the use for that genre was home recording. Betamax tapes were only one hour long which crippled it's use by home and semi pro users which led to vhs becoming the preferred choice. This of course got the circular market going in vhs' favour.

When blueray burners are available, people can put whatever they want on to discs porn or not, so I don't see that winning the battle either way

projectmayhem

User45701 wrote:

ok but what about histroy, i dont remember betamax/vhs war either but i do know what happened.

Betamax Would not allow porn
Blu-Ray will not allow pron

VHS - allowed porn
HD - allows

Porn is regarded as the deciding factor in the last war and im sure it will be again.

but then porn was mass distributed on VHS, and right now i would imagine the majority of porn is viewed via digital distribution. it doesn't have anywhere near the same impact on the market as it used to. i'd say most porn dvd's are burned from PC's, rather then bought legitimately.

as for the titles on blu-ray being crap... sony is doing with blu-ray what it did with PS2. just sign off on every pile of ass out there so you've a bigger section dedicated to the format in stores. any good titles will be bought up anyway, but then you'll have the cheaper films to buy alongside that. it also means come christmas hmv et al can do a "2 for €20" type of deal because the rubbish films will go down to dirt cheap prices.

monkeyfudge

Who wants HD porn anyway?

Do we really need to see 1080 pixels worth of Ron Jeremy's ass?

projectmayhem

monkeyfudge wrote:

Do we really need to see 1080 pixels worth of Ron Jeremy's ass?

anyone who says "yes" should start a thread in PI immediately

flogen

There's no doubt that BluRay has the upper hand but its reliance on the PS3 means its dominance should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The fact is that the 300,000 HD-DVD player owners have the devices by choice - they went out specifically to get one. 1.5 million of the BluRay player owners really just have one by default.

Of course, if someone bought a PS3 for games and later decides to see what this whole HD movie experience is all about, there's little probability of them not getting a BluRay disc - the alternative is to buy a whole new machine and the film, which would require some abysmal BluRay catalogue choice to occour.

That said, unit sales are what should be looked at - not hardware because that's being completely skewed by the PS3 (Many PS3 owners might not pay any heed to movie formats, and may not make a move until everythings decided anyway). BluRay (I think) is winning there too, but it's a close afair.

(and on the point about PCs, the likes of Dell and Apple are in the BluRay corner - but only premium machines will bother with those drives for the time being and they won't have an effect on the format's success for a long time. Even early adoptors for PC will probably be investing in a storage medium rather than a home entertainment device).

I will say that, on browsing HMV's "next gen" offerings I spotted a BluRay movie (MI3 I think) for over €50. That was the highest price there, in fairness, but it's a sickening amount to pay for a film. The highest price HD-DVD was around the €30.

I'm sitting on the fence, personally, but if I were to chose I'd have a hard time going for BluRay over HD-DVD on economics alone - the price of players just as imbalanced (ignoring PS3 and the 360 add-on). But frankly even if a winner was decided tomorrow I wouldn't be rushing out to invest - I'm happy to wait until the prices reach more digestable levels.

copacetic

flogen wrote:

The fact is that the 300,000 HD-DVD player owners have the devices by choice - they went out specifically to get one. 1.5 million of the BluRay player owners really just have one by default.

well that may not be entirely true, people who wanted a blue ray player by choice would likely buy a PS3 rather than a stand alone as it is better value and has the gaming option. Who is to say that 300,000 ps3 buyers didn't but it mainly for the blue ray capability?

Dodge

But what if people buy the PS£ specifically to get the cheap(er) Blu Ray player.

To dismiss the amount of PS3 units sold is folly

philstar

johnny_ultimate wrote:

Seems like the battle came a bit too early - DVD is still quite young, compared to the amount of time VHS spent in the limelight.

yes thats a good point, we're just getting used to dvd and now the TV industry are pushing this HD stuff on us.

well there's no way i'm forking out hundreds on HD TV as well as a HD player

flogen

copacetic wrote:

well that may not be entirely true, people who wanted a blue ray player by choice would likely buy a PS3 rather than a stand alone as it is better value and has the gaming option. Who is to say that 300,000 ps3 buyers didn't but it mainly for the blue ray capability?

That's a fair point - I should word what I said differently to say "1.5 million of the BluRay player owners may just have one by default, not overt intention."

It's true that if you're going for a BluRay player you'd be mad to rule out a PS3 as it's cheaper than most with additional functionality.

@Dodge - I'm not dismissing PS3 ownership, I'm just saying hardware sales can't be used to show anything given the way the market has gone - software take up will be the critical factor.

Jello

The Blu-ray selection is indeed ****e.
Since the release of the PS3 though, Blu-ray sales have overtook HD DVD in Europe, following the same trend as North America.

I'm pretty neutral in this format war, though I wish one or the other would hurry up and win!

Dont be at yourself

That's a fair point - I should word what I said differently to say "1.5 million of the BluRay player owners may just have one by default, not overt intention."

You'd have to look at the attach ratio for the PS3 and games/movies, but I know when they released the PS2 (which was the first affordable DVD player), there were more hardware than software sales, suggesting many people bought it exclusively as a DVD player!

The PS3 is by no means a failure. I hate it when people say that. Its only been out for a few months. I is way too early to write it off.
The blu ray selection at the moment is crap but its getting better. I got Rescue Me series 3 on blu ray in the post today-fantastic.
Porn will make an appearance on blu ray starting later this summer for anone who cares.
There will probably be a price cut on the PS3 later this year and sony are cutting the prices of their standalone players to attract more buyers. I dont mean to sound like such a fanboy here-I'm not but it looks to me like blu ray is the winner in this format war unless the HD DVD crowd pull a miracle out of their collective ass.

constitutionus

TBH as a person whos not pushed either way besides the PS3 thing ive seen nothing about blu ray at all. all im seeing in the shops is HD ready TVs so public conscious wise i reckon the HDs got an edge in just that people know about it. the only ones that have a clue about blu ray own PS3s and they dont seem to be shifting to my eyes. certainly not to any degree like their PS2 cousins

fact is as a console its just too damn expensive for not a hell of alot better graphics and far more expensive games . i mean 70 quid FFS i can get a prostitute for that from what i hear off you guys its a good deal for the blu ray player but thats not what i'd buy the ****ing thing for so if i could get the thing cheaper id want the fecking thing out and i reckon im not alone in that.

plus as someone else has posted im just getting used to DVD now having bought alot of old films from the eighties just this week. why in christs name would i want to spend a fortune replacing them again.

this whole HD/Blu ray thing smells like a ripp off to me and i'll be honest it looks uncomfortably sharp. somethings are meant to look a little off (ron jeramys ass for instance )

but if i had to choose i'd give HD the edge because as mentioned people want it as opposed to getting it by happenstance.

constitutionus

constitutionus wrote:

TBH as a person whos not pushed either way besides the PS3 thing ive seen nothing about blu ray at all. all im seeing in the shops is HD ready TVs so public conscious wise i reckon the HDs got an edge in just that people know about it. the only ones that have a clue about blu ray own PS3s and they dont seem to be shifting to my eyes. certainly not to any degree like their PS2 cousins

fact is as a console its just too damn expensive for not a hell of alot better graphics and far more expensive games . i mean 70 quid FFS i can get a prostitute for that from what i hear off you guys its a good deal for the blu ray player but thats not what i'd buy the ****ing thing for so if i could get the thing cheaper id want the fecking thing out and i reckon im not alone in that.

plus as someone else has posted im just getting used to DVD now having bought alot of old films from the eighties just this week. why in christs name would i want to spend a fortune replacing them again.

this whole HD/Blu ray thing smells like a ripp off to me and i'll be honest it looks uncomfortably sharp. somethings are meant to look a little off (ron jeramys ass for instance )

but if i had to choose i'd give HD the edge because as mentioned people want it as opposed to getting it by happenstance.

You dont have to buy your DVD's again, blu ray and HD DVD are backwards compatible and will upgrade your DVD picture quality. Its definately not a rip off. The people who have blu ray by "happenstance" are buying more blu ray discs than HD DVD's so I think that arguement is nonsense. 70% of HD rentals in the US are blu ray, that tells me that people want blu ray.

CyberGhost

Deleted User wrote:

You dont have to buy your DVD's again, blu ray and HD DVD are backwards compatible and will upgrade your DVD picture quality. Its definately not a rip off. The people who have blu ray by "happenstance" are buying more blu ray discs than HD DVD's so I think that arguement is nonsense. 70% of HD rentals in the US are blu ray, that tells me that people want blu ray.

Will that upscale look the same as the re-released version of the same movie?


btw, from a storage point of view(and that's the only thing I care about tbh) I really hope Blu Ray wins.

25gigs to back up my stuff, sweet!

The quality of the upscale will vary from dvd to dvd. It wont be as good as a recently mastered blu ray or hd dvd but there is a noticeable improvement in picture quality. Most blu rays are on 50 gb discs, with 100gb discs coming soon. That is a LOT of storage.

flogen

constitutionus wrote:

TBH as a person whos not pushed either way besides the PS3 thing ive seen nothing about blu ray at all. all im seeing in the shops is HD ready TVs so public conscious wise i reckon the HDs got an edge in just that people know about it. the only ones that have a clue about blu ray own PS3s and they dont seem to be shifting to my eyes. certainly not to any degree like their PS2 cousins

There was the argument at the start that HD-DVD would have the upper hand because its name contained DVD, which would make people assume it was the natural progression from what they had, and HD, which people would connect with their new, fancy TVs.

Of course, that ignores the fact that early adopters (who are critical in format wars) wouldn't be so ignorant.

As for storage, yeah, 100gb is a lot but disc-based media is such a pain for file storage IMO. When you consider the fact that iPods are as big as 80gb now, and portable flash storage is getting bigger and cheaper by the day, I think they're a much more sensible route for portable storage and backing up.

monkeyfudge

HD-DVD is actually a bit of a tongue twister to try and say out loud though.

I remember I had an awful time trying to track down the HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 when it first came out... not only is it hard to say, but I was also met with blank looks of shop assistants who had never heard of it.

User45701

Deleted User wrote:

You dont have to buy your DVD's again, blu ray and HD DVD are backwards compatible and will upgrade your DVD picture quality. Its definately not a rip off. The people who have blu ray by "happenstance" are buying more blu ray discs than HD DVD's so I think that arguement is nonsense. 70% of HD rentals in the US are blu ray, that tells me that people want blu ray.

That tells me that anyone who bought a ps3 decided to see what all the fuss was about and rented blu ray to see the quality, most would rent 2, one action movie and something with allot of backround detail like lost or something , BTW LOST will be HD and not Blu-Ray or so i head.

I read over what you all said and i had a chat with a very nice person from x-tra vision H/O.

Aparently even tho extra vision is owned by blockbuster he says that blockbusters decision to only rent blu-ray has not effected them yet.

Anyway, ive decided to back HD. I dont like the blu-ray marketing strategy and i feel that they are more likley to abuse there position and charge a unsatasfactory large amount should they be victories.

User45701

User45701 wrote:

Anyway, ive decided to back HD. I dont like the blu-ray marketing strategy and i feel that they are more likley to abuse there position and charge a unsatasfactory large amount should they be victories.

Standalone blu ray players are very expensive, but I find that blu ray's are cheaper than hd dvd.

"That tells me that anyone who bought a ps3 decided to see what all the fuss was about and rented blu ray to see the quality, most would rent 2, one action movie and something with allot of backround detail like lost or something , BTW LOST will be HD and not Blu-Ray or so i head."

Still more people buying/renting blu ray. Lost on hd dvd isn't going to change that. I doubt that blockbuster took the decision to support blu ray lightly.

I_was_banned

1080i vs 1080p
1 major studio supporting it v the other 7 supporting blu ray

Only Microsoft is backing it, though has mentioned it can go blu ray vs a large corporation that most people recognise

crap sounding name vs easy word


You can pick up an internal Blu ray drive for pc for £130 sterling. The RW are still expensive at £300 though.

I think its tipping in Blu rays favor. The 1080p is the deciding factor for me:cool:

There are still a good few companies supporting the hd dvd like Toshiba and Intel. But that doesn't matter because they dont release anything on the format. Apple are supporting blu ray, never mind that all movie studio bar one are in the blu ray camp. The price of blu ray players will come down steadily as time goes on. More good releases will keep blu ray on top. Microsoft will probably release a blu ray add on for the xbox and universal will start to release on blu ray- fingers crossed.

MooseJam

The difference in quality is pretty minimal, not even the jump from vhs to dvd I reckon, to spend 2,000 on a new TV and blu/hd player is crazy unless you're mega rich, I'll wait till there is a winner and a stand - alone player costs less than 100 euro, that could be a while