DVD Hi-Def format war near end, Blu-ray wins?

[udaman]

Warner drops HD-DVD, goes Blu-ray only in 5 months.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/01/04/warner.blu.ray.exclusive/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HighDefShare_2008-06-01.svg

 

[ddrueding]

Sony? Winning a format war? Looks like I picked the wrong one a few months ago. USB Blueray drives are still not cheap...

 

[Chewy509]

BR is certainly ahead in Australia, last figures I heard was 9:1 in BR's favour in sales of both Players (stand-alone) and media.

While there is nothing technically wrong with either format (discounting DRM and the silly region encoding in BR), it's unfortunately the content that will sell either system...

And Paramount just released ST:TOS on HD-DVD!

 

[timwhit]

I hate format wars. Look what it did to memory card formats. Now, if you want to have means to read any kind of memory card you need to have something like a 9-in-1 reader.

I still think I would only buy a dual format player if I was going to blow the money. Something like the LG GGC-H20L. Though, it's still way too expensive, maybe when they drop under $100.

 

[ddrueding]

I got the XBox360 HD-DVD ROM when HD-DVD was first being cracked. I'll get a BR ROM when those are cracked. I like HiDef, I hate DRM. When I can get one without the other I'll buy in. I do appreciate the improved quality on new releases, though releasing older films on "HighDef" is a joke.

 

[udaman]

I got the XBox360 HD-DVD ROM when HD-DVD was first being cracked. I'll get a BR ROM when those are cracked. I like HiDef, I hate DRM. When I can get one without the other I'll buy in. I do appreciate the improved quality on new releases, though releasing older films on "HighDef" is a joke.

Where did you get that idea from? 'Lawrence of Arabia' was captured at a resolution that exceeds the resolution of current BR or HD-DVD, ie 2k. All depends on the quality of the master used to do the conversion, and more importantly the expense and expertise used in doing the conversion to digital formats. You have seen the analog film to digital intermediary of lots of movies, then back to film...all transparent to you, it's how movies have been made for quite some time now. The standard DVD conversion of 'The Last Emperor' as well as many classics on film has been botched in the conversion. The old SD VHS 'The Last Emperor' was supposed to be much better than the DVD convert.

Financial Times today, speculates that with Warner dropping HD-DVD, Paramount will follow suit (though they don't really have any info from sources at Paramount that I can see from the article), all but concluding the end of the format wars.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc409afa-bd75-11dc-b7e6-0000779fd2ac.html?


Will be interesting to see if Laser TV's make it into production this year, and if they will displace other display technologies. While American and worldwide TV viewers are becoming bigger and bigger couch potatoes, large flat screen HDTV's are going on a skinny diet, Panasonic is showing a prototype plasma at CES less than an inch thick (25mm in metric ).

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/01/08/mitsubishi.laser.tv.at.ces/

 

[Mercutio]

BluRay has been cracked for ages, ddrueding. Where the hell have you been?
Current builds of AnyDVD even handle the extra-super-duper BD+ content protection without a problem.

So, OK, I've used both, and I have to say, I do not like BluRay. The Sony player I tried took a lot longer to boot up (90 seconds vs about 10 for the HD DVD players I've used). The menu system is slower, and if you skip off your main title to watch an in-title extra, BluRay can't put you back to the movie; it dumps you back to the main menu instead. Nice. No, wait, not nice. The other thing. Retarded. Yes, that's it.

 

[ddrueding]

Udaman, I suppose I've just seen the wrong ones then. Those I've seen had virtually 0 difference between the DVD and HD-DVD version.

Merc, I haven't been looking in some time to be honest. I suppose I'll look again when more than 2-3 movies I want in HD aren't available in HD-DVD.

 

[Mercutio]

All the stuff that made me want an HD player is still HDDVD only. I bought Serenity in HD before I bought a player.

 

[jtr1962]

Any difference between any of the HD formats versus standard DVD playing in a player with a 1080 line upconverter? My brother borrowed The Day After Tomorrow. In all honestly on my mom's 1080p 42" TV it looked pretty close to HD, and that's on a player without upconversion. It is on a dual-layer disk though.

Speaking of that, why haven't the prices of dual layer blanks come down much? They've been around now for a while, yet decent quality dual-layer blanks still run around $2. Decent quality single layer blanks can be had for maybe $0.40. I'm guessing Blu-ray prices will remain in the stratosphere for quite some time also.

 

[MaxBurn]

I am so annoyed with the whole hidef war I might be skipping upgrading for a long time. I was planning on a new TV and player but I'm going to stick with my regular old 50"HD WS rear projection TV and up-converting DVD player. Someone really really screwed up in not planning that out, why didn't they learn anything from DIVIX and BETA.

I was really rooting for HDDVD, I think the movies released were generally higher quality even though the disk was potentially smaller.

 

[Mercutio]

Any difference between any of the HD formats versus standard DVD playing in a player with a 1080 line upconverter?

Night and day. Upsampled 480p has blocky regions no matter what you do, even with a Faroudja video processor or the ATI/nVidia GPU based cleanup drivers. Real, live 1080p looks like, well, 1080p. No blocks, no strange staticky artifacts. It's crisp and perfect.

Speaking of that, why haven't the prices of dual layer blanks come down much? They've been around now for a while, yet decent quality dual-layer blanks still run around $2. Decent quality single layer blanks can be had for maybe $0.40. I'm guessing Blu-ray prices will remain in the stratosphere for quite some time also.

Several reasons.
1. Low demand. Most people don't even know you can buy them.
2. Poor compatibility. For Video DVDs that were "shrunk" onto 8.5GB disks, there is no software that can manage to put the layer break in the same place as the original disc, resulting in a disc that might not play properly. For that matter, a lot of set top players that support single layer +R discs don't support +R DLs.
3. Poor compatibility (2). For computer data, I was never able to make one that was bootable, and even some DVD burners were kind of hit or miss reading them all the way through without errors.
4. Price fixing. I suspect that media manufacturers and/or electronics companies were offered some kind of incentives by media conglomerates to keep those discs somewhat difficult to obtain. If the discs had become common in the way that regular blanks did, problems 1 -3 probably would've sorted themselves out in short order.

Anyway, the latest word is that Sony expects to release two revisions of the BluRay spec this year. HDDVD has a builtin system to receive firmware updates and therefore new disc specifications. BluRay has no such system, meaning that many thousands (millions?) of set top players won't be able to read updated discs.

If the industry does indeed go BluRay, it made a truly awful choice.

 

[Pradeep]

Anyway, the latest word is that Sony expects to release two revisions of the BluRay spec this year. HDDVD has a builtin system to receive firmware updates and therefore new disc specifications. BluRay has no such system, meaning that many thousands (millions?) of set top players won't be able to read updated discs.

If the industry does indeed go BluRay, it made a truly awful choice.

Bluray has three profiles, they have to do with PIP functionality and in the ultimate version, 2.0, an internet connection. All bluray discs will playback in all bluray players with total quality audio/video, it's just that instead of getting PIP with 1.1, with 1.0 you can watch the PIP as a single stream. The most popular bluray player, the PS3, was recently upgraded to 1.1 via firmware upgrade, and it will be upgradeable to 2.0 when a disc that can use it comes out. With network connection think crap like purchasing film merchandise.

Blu-ray is a consortium of companies, that's why you can buy blu-ray players from Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung, LG, and numerous other CE companies. With HD DVD, you can have Toshiba, and um, Toshiba. It never had a chance, especially with the overwhelming studio support. Without Disney HD DVD had no chance against families.

All bluray players are capable of firmware updates via CD (you can download and burn it yourself or the player manufacturer will send you one free of charge). Just what the HD DVD owners that didn't have broadband in their house did to upgrade their players.

Blu-ray is the obvious and only choice for recordable media. Already up to 4x speeds (144mbit/sec-18MB/sec) on single and dual layer media. 50/25GB vs 30/15GB is a big difference for computing applications. And the protective coating means it's pretty hard to screw up the media.

HD DVD has barely released 2x burn speeds, and no sign of rewritable media at all. It's basically a non event except for high end Toshiba laptops.

 

[Mercutio]

Bluray has three profiles, they have to do with PIP functionality and in the ultimate version, 2.0, an internet connection. All bluray discs will playback in all bluray players with total quality audio/video, it's just that instead of getting PIP with 1.1, with 1.0 you can watch the PIP as a single stream.

... or you could go with HDDVD, and have it done properly in the first place. I very strongly suspect that a lot of current BluRay owners aren't going to have the technical know-how to update their players and that a lot of discs are not going to work properly in those older players.

I also suspect that S*ny is going to try another moronic copy protection scheme. That's the only reason I can think of that content producers might have to jump ship.

HD DVD has barely released 2x burn speeds, and no sign of rewritable media at all. It's basically a non event except for high end Toshiba laptops.

I don't even care about burning HD discs. It's not an issue right now. I want a decent home theater experience, and I don't feel that BluRay offers that. The library of titles is crummy. The players operate slowly. The PIP system for extras is half-assed at best

 

[Pradeep]

I'm guessing that a PS3 is not an option for you? It's a fantastic blu-ray player. Any copy protection that will allow me to hook up my PSP to my PS3 and download a portable copy of a blu-ray movie is fine by me, it offers me more value than DVD at present. *feature shown at CES, not implemented as of yet*

I guess I would have to disagree with the library, personally I see far more I want to watch and own on BR than HD DVD. The fact that BR has had multiple BOGO offers on Amazon that allowed collectors to purchase decent blu-rays for sometimes less than $10 overall has certainly been welcomed by me.

 

[Pradeep]

Any difference between any of the HD formats versus standard DVD playing in a player with a 1080 line upconverter? My brother borrowed The Day After Tomorrow. In all honestly on my mom's 1080p 42" TV it looked pretty close to HD, and that's on a player without upconversion. It is on a dual-layer disk though.

Upconversion is all fine and dandy but you can't beat the resolution of bluray. 40mbit/sec+ peaks just for the video, 6.9mbit/sec for audio, with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

 

[Fushigi]

Please clarify acronyms you use if they aren't obvious or common knowledge. PIP in "television language" has meant Picture-In-Picture for the past couple of decades. As that's a function of the viewing device and not the media or player I have to assume PIP means something else in "Blu-ray language". What does it mean for Blu-ray?

Pradeep, if you think manufacturers will be good about updating firmware and shipping free update CDs, I'd advise you to look at the PC peripheral manufacturers to see what kind of track record you can expect. Landfills are littered with technology that still works but simply needed a firmware or driver update to be compatible with some new OS, application, newer media (blank CDR/DVDR), etc. Manufacturers derive no revenue from providing free upgrades (reputation risk aside). They do get revenue by making people upgrade to a newer device.

FWIW right now I have no stake or vested interest in the HD v. BD war. I'm content with standard-def TV at the moment and don't plan on upgrading for at least 8-12 months (Heard about this projector at CES and want to read reviews). I am hoping that by then a single format will dominate so I don't have to partake in the format war. Personally, I'm no fan anything that puts money in the pockets of Rootkit, er, Sony, but will buy into BD if that's the only reasonable option.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm guessing that a PS3 is not an option for you?

I hate console games. I hate S*ny and I have no interest in having a noisy box shaped as oddly as a PS3 in the stack with my silent home theater stuff.

I guess I would have to disagree with the library, personally I see far more I want to watch and own on BR than HD DVD.

Serenity is on HDDVD. So is the first season of Heroes. So is Battlestar Galactica. All of those are things that I will re-watch multiple times. Blu Ray has, um, um, um... I'm looking and I'm not seeing anything that I feel is particularly enhanced by being offered in High definition. Close Encounters. Wow.

 

[Pradeep]

The 40GB PS3 is almost silent *makes some audible noise when folding* It's curved shape certainly doesn't lend to stacking on top of it. I have mine vertical.

Battlestar Galactica apparently looks like total ass on HD DVD (perhaps a poor compression job). Artifacts galore. Heroes and Serenity would be nice on blu-ray, I'm sure they will come with time.

Personally the family has been enjoying the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Cars, Ratatouille, Meet the Robinsons, Simpsons movie, Open Season, Die Hard 4, Blackhawk Down, Tears of the Sun, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Casino Royale, Fifth Element, Bridge to Terabithia, Harry Potter 1-5 (also available on hd dvd).

Via NetFlix rental we've watched Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Shooter, War, Superbad, Resident Evil: Extinction, The Pursuit of Happyness.

If you want TV shows then you can get Prison Break Season 1 and Lost Season 3 on bluray. Along with Weeds season 1 and 2 and the Tudors (Euro import right now), Smallville Season 6, Sopranos Season 6 (also on hd dvd but HBO will be switching to blu-ray only along with New Line and Warner).

Has anyone been watching the Terminator Sarah Conner chronicles on Fox? It's got the chick from Serenity as a major character.

 

[Pradeep]

Please clarify acronyms you use if they aren't obvious or common knowledge. PIP in "television language" has meant Picture-In-Picture for the past couple of decades. As that's a function of the viewing device and not the media or player I have to assume PIP means something else in "Blu-ray language". What does it mean for Blu-ray?

Pradeep, if you think manufacturers will be good about updating firmware and shipping free update CDs, I'd advise you to look at the PC peripheral manufacturers to see what kind of track record you can expect. Landfills are littered with technology that still works but simply needed a firmware or driver update to be compatible with some new OS, application, newer media (blank CDR/DVDR), etc. Manufacturers derive no revenue from providing free upgrades (reputation risk aside). They do get revenue by making people upgrade to a newer device.

PIP in the case of blu-ray means that you can be watching the main feature "full screen" and have an overlayed window with another video/audio stream with director commentary/extras.

Certainly no need to get a bluray player now if you have an SDTV, by the time you upgrade to an HDTV it's likely that a 2.0 profile BR player (giving internet connectivity and 1GB of persistent storage) will be at the $200-$300 dollar mark. It's still early adopter market right now.

The thing with HD DVD and blu-ray is that due to the dynamic DRM structure it is necessary to upgrade firmware or you risk not having the latest releases playback as all. You will get a message saying to upgrade your firmware. This happened most recently en masse with the Toshiba A2 players that were on firesale for $99 bucks a few months back. Many were built in late 06 and that firmware revision was incapable of playing newer releases.

Worst case the consumer takes his player back to where he bought it and they can upgrade it for him. Any manufacturer that stops firmware support is going to get a kick in the nuts because people will a) launch a class action because that's how CE companies seem to be prodded into action, and b) there's plenty of manufacturer choice so people will buy other brands.

 

[Pradeep]

BluRay has been cracked for ages, ddrueding. Where the hell have you been?
Current builds of AnyDVD even handle the extra-super-duper BD+ content protection without a problem.

From what I understand AnyDVD will allow you to playback your "ripped" BD+ disc only when used with one specific version of PowerDVD Ultra, due to a flaw in PowerDVD.

If you burn your rip onto a BD-R and try playing it back on a player, it will fail, because BD+ is still there. As far as the studios are concerned BD+ is still intact.

 

[ddrueding]

I don't want to burn a copy, I just want to play the main film at full resolution from my hard drive. If I can remove the DRM, I'll certainly do so.

That is that I would consider a crack.

 

[Mercutio]

The 40GB PS3 is almost silent *makes some audible noise when folding* It's curved shape certainly doesn't lend to stacking on top of it. I have mine vertical.

The 40GB PS3 also dropped support for SACD, which is one of the few decent things that Sony has done in the last 15 years or so. I've only had limited encounters with PS3 hardware otherwise, but in my experience, it's loud. Just as bad as an Xbox. Hell, compared to the other stuff in my living room, my Wii is loud. I can hear that fucking thing from my kitchen if there's a disc in it... and it doesn't even have a fan.

Battlestar Galactica apparently looks like total ass on HD DVD (perhaps a poor compression job). Artifacts galore.

It's not perfect, but in other places, it's glorious. I'd be interested in seeing what the differences between the HDDVD set and the broadcast (available on HDbits, if I ever got a membership there D: ) are.

Heroes and Serenity would be nice on blu-ray, I'm sure they will come with time.

Or, the industry can give up on an already flawed and broken format.

Personally the family has been enjoying the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Cars, Ratatouille...

Cartoons generally aren't going to be improved by being presented in HD. The rest of the stuff on your list are a whole bunch of movies I'd never bother to watch twice. That might be a judgment call, but it's nonetheless valid. There's only a certain number of titles I'd be willing to buy in a different format, after purchasing the DVDs. BluRay is sadly lacking in that department.

 

[Pradeep]

From what I understand you can rip the entire movie to disk, and play it back, if using PowerDVD 3104, 3319 or 3319a. This is due to a bug in PowerDVD that allowed BD+ titles to playback even if they didn't have AACS protection (which AnyDVD can remove). Later versions of PowerDVD have fixed this loophole, and also have removed the "playback movie from disk" option.

 

[Pradeep]

The 40GB PS3 also dropped support for SACD, which is one of the few decent things that Sony has done in the last 15 years or so. I've only had limited encounters with PS3 hardware otherwise, but in my experience, it's loud. Just as bad as an Xbox. Hell, compared to the other stuff in my living room, my Wii is loud. I can hear that fucking thing from my kitchen if there's a disc in it... and it doesn't even have a fan.

The 360 is *much* louder than any PS3. It's bad enough with the cooling fans blowing straight into the EMI shrouding, but once that DVD drive hits 12x it's like a vacuum cleaner. The only small relief is when it dies with RROD and has to be shipped back to MS for replacement. Or were you talking about the original xbox? That also made quite a racket IIRC.

Standalone players are of course the quietest.

 

[ddrueding]

Standalone players are of course the quietest.

Actually, not having any moving parts at all in the same room is the quietest. Another advantage of cracking.

 

[Mercutio]

The 360 is *much* louder than any PS3.

They're all loud. I'm not going to give credit to any of the next generation consoles; if I can put together a PC that can achieve tolerable levels of silence with four fans inside it and none of them can even buy an optical drive mechanism that is drowned out when I'm standing 30 feet away next to my refrigerator, I'm going to go ahead and say they've all done a poor job of designing their hardware.

 

[P5-133XL]

Has anyone been watching the Terminator Sarah Conner chronicles on Fox? It's got the chick from Serenity as a major character.

I think, Stargate Altlantis's Doctor (The female one) was the engineer in Serenity.

 

[Fushigi]

The chick and the engineer from Serenity/Firefly. I haven't watched Stargate Atlantis (or SG1 for that matter) but have watched the first episode of Terminator: SCC.

 

[P5-133XL]

The chick and the engineer from Serenity/Firefly. I haven't watched Stargate Atlantis (or SG1 for that matter) but have watched the first episode of Terminator: SCC.

Don't bother, they have both gone way downhill ever since McGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) left the SG1 and was replaced by Farscape (ugh) characters.

 

[Handruin]

Hell, compared to the other stuff in my living room, my Wii is loud. I can hear that fucking thing from my kitchen if there's a disc in it... and it doesn't even have a fan.

...

Not that it really matters, but the Wii does have a small fan in the back of it. I notice it too in my rather silent living room, especially when a disc is in the drive when powered on. It's a small fan which is why it's probably so loud.

 

[LunarMist]

Are either of these any good for data storage? It seems like the DVD±RW is long in the tooth.

 

[ddrueding]

BlueRay is the only one with burning capabilities IIRC.

 

[Pradeep]

Are either of these any good for data storage? It seems like the DVD±RW is long in the tooth.

http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=309&page=Performance

Basically you are looking at 45 minutes to burn a dual layer (BD50) disc at 4x.

This drive also supports 6x burn speeds for single layer (BD25) which can be burnt in a tad under 22 minutes.

 

[Handruin]

Here is a rumor about Sony paying out Warner to go BR.

 

[ddrueding]

Everyone's been paying out everyone to use everything. Is would/should be a scandal but it seems everyone is guilty and no one is making a big deal out of it.

 

[Mercutio]

Microsoft supposedly paid Paramount about $200M to go HDDVD, but they have some kind of escape clause in their deal.

 

[Pradeep]

Yes apparently Paramount has a clause that lets them switch to BR in the event that Warner switched over. Universal is not bound by any contract and could also switch. They have plenty of inventory of both hardware and software in the pipeline, I'm sure there's a good few months yet.

In the end the millions being spent now pale in comparison to the billions to be made if and when blu-ray takes over the positon now held by DVD. The studios, Warner in particular were seeing people hesitating to buy dvds when whilst the format war was undecided, by switching and bringing an end to the debate, consumers can now make an investment in blu-ray without worrying that they will be stuck with a doorstop. That's not to say existing hd dvd hardware will fail to work, but once you can no longer purchase any new content it becomes a collectors genre. Laserdisc had a much longer time in the market and they dropped out quite quickly once DVD took hold. Tho ironically LD audio quality has only recently been exceeded by hd dvd and blu-ray. Multichannel lossless audio is magnificent to the ears.

 

[Fushigi]

I still have & use a Pioneer DVL-91 dual LD-DVD player. LD has had more life than any consumer video format except VHS, running from the late 70s through around 2000 or so. Too bad it never got the popularity it deserved.

 

[timwhit]

I still have & use a Pioneer DVL-91 dual LD-DVD player. LD has had more life than any consumer video format except VHS, running from the late 70s through around 2000 or so. Too bad it never got the popularity it deserved.

LD was too big and expensive.