logo Sign In

I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now — Page 2

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: lordjedi
Originally posted by: zombie84
Fox went Blu-Ray but since Fox is the distributer of Star Wars that means Star Wars is Blu Ray. But the way things have gone there won't be an HD format war by this time next year anyway so its ultimately irrelevant.


No, that doesn't mean anything. It means that if Blu-Ray does ultimately win out, Star Wars is Blu-Ray. According to McCallum, Star Wars is nothing until the format war ends.

I hope the war ends this Christmas as well. This will most likely be the Christmas that decides who will win. And if there is no clear winner, be ready for lots and lots of multi-format players to start coming out next year.


Well, that depends on when you define the war "over". If its the actual ceasing of production of HD-DVD products then it could be as late as early 2009. But in a practicaly sense it will be early 2008. Most stores don't even stock them anymore. Target doesn't, and Walmart is phasing out HD-DVD too IIRC. Blockbuster cancelled HD-DVD and now carries Blu Ray only. Hardware and software of Blu-Ray outsells its competitor by a 3-1 margin. All the studio's but one are behind Blu-Ray, while HD-DVD i believe only has one exclusive (and multiple studios that outright refuse to support it). Hardware price cuts have resulted in no third-party manufacturers. And Microsoft admitted that it wanted disk-based home video to die. Eek. And this is not only well before this holiday season but before many of the studios supporting Blu-Ray have begun releasing their gigantic classics catalog (The Searchers is the only one so far I believe)--when the software floodgates open this shopping season it will be Blu-Ray fever. So, in a practical sense, HD-DVD will be obsolete by the new year, but I would suspect that there will still be a faint trickle of releases up until the end of next year before the plug is officially pulled.

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: zombie84
Well, that depends on when you define the war "over". If its the actual ceasing of production of HD-DVD products then it could be as late as early 2009. But in a practicaly sense it will be early 2008. Most stores don't even stock them anymore. Target doesn't, and Walmart is phasing out HD-DVD too IIRC. Blockbuster cancelled HD-DVD and now carries Blu Ray only. Hardware and software of Blu-Ray outsells its competitor by a 3-1 margin. All the studio's but one are behind Blu-Ray, while HD-DVD i believe only has one exclusive (and multiple studios that outright refuse to support it). Hardware price cuts have resulted in no third-party manufacturers. And Microsoft admitted that it wanted disk-based home video to die. Eek. And this is not only well before this holiday season but before many of the studios supporting Blu-Ray have begun releasing their gigantic classics catalog (The Searchers is the only one so far I believe)--when the software floodgates open this shopping season it will be Blu-Ray fever. So, in a practical sense, HD-DVD will be obsolete by the new year, but I would suspect that there will still be a faint trickle of releases up until the end of next year before the plug is officially pulled.


I hope that's true. Neither format truly excites me, but if I'm going to be stuck with one, Blu-ray is technically better and I'd rather have that dominate. It may come with more copy-protection crap, but that will still be bypassed quickly (I'm sure) and homemade content will be nicer on Blu-ray.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: Tiptup
I hope that's true. Neither format truly excites me, but if I'm going to be stuck with one, Blu-ray is technically better and I'd rather have that dominate. It may come with more copy-protection crap, but that will still be bypassed quickly (I'm sure) and homemade content will be nicer on Blu-ray.


Meh. The only thing technically better about Blu-Ray is that it can hold more. Other than that, they both use the same video/audio encoding and everything else. And since it looks like (at least some) the players are backward compatible with existing DVD titles, I guess it doesn't much matter which format "wins". Still, there's a reason why neither format has really "taken off" the way they should and that's because of the competing formats. My gut tells me that until HD-DVD makes an announcement that they've really lost, your average consumer will continue to hold off. I personally have been telling people to hold off and wait for the format war to end. I can't, in good conscience, tell someone "oh just go get one of these" on the off chance that whatever one they decide to buy ends up being nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

The sooner an official announcement comes, the better.

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: lordjedi
Originally posted by: Tiptup
I hope that's true. Neither format truly excites me, but if I'm going to be stuck with one, Blu-ray is technically better and I'd rather have that dominate. It may come with more copy-protection crap, but that will still be bypassed quickly (I'm sure) and homemade content will be nicer on Blu-ray.


Meh. The only thing technically better about Blu-Ray is that it can hold more. Other than that, they both use the same video/audio encoding and everything else. And since it looks like (at least some) the players are backward compatible with existing DVD titles, I guess it doesn't much matter which format "wins". Still, there's a reason why neither format has really "taken off" the way they should and that's because of the competing formats. My gut tells me that until HD-DVD makes an announcement that they've really lost, your average consumer will continue to hold off. I personally have been telling people to hold off and wait for the format war to end. I can't, in good conscience, tell someone "oh just go get one of these" on the off chance that whatever one they decide to buy ends up being nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

The sooner an official announcement comes, the better.


See, I don't agree with this. Companies won't conceed defeat until the latest possible time because even though they have effectively lost the war, if they downsize and concentrate just on software they can probably sell disks for quite a while because by 2008 there will still be a decent base of HD-DVD player owners that want their investment to pay off and will still buy the small trickle of releases. Take a look at Beta--like HD-DVD it came out before VHS and initially held 100% of the format war. As soon as VHS came out VHS became more popular, and after a year or two of landslide victories had claimed roughly 75% of the market, much like Blu-Ray has done. As the mid-80's approached, the Beta market was only five or six percent. Beta was pretty much dead by 1984 but the plug was not pulled until the end of the decade really. But it would be stupid not to recommend to people by the early to mid-80's to go with VHS because it was the clear victor, and consumers were becoming more aware of it; Beta was unpopular. And thats the way its going now. Consumers are aware of whats going on--I mean they are the ones responsible for the landslide Blu-Ray sales! And while this is on early-adopters, the dissappearance of HD-DVD from stores pretty much would seal the deal to anyone looking into the matter--when you see Blu-Ray everywhere, and HD-DVD only in a few stores with this little tiny pathetic section its not like thats going to make you question your decision. Word on the street is basically "so this Blu-Ray is the new thing now, huh?"

Looking at the stats, there's really no way that HD-DVD can bounce back. One theory states that the format war was actually instigated by Microsoft for the very reason of creating confusion. It's not that they want Blu-Ray to die or HD-DVD to win, they are more interested in crippling the market so that people will resist HD disk content and move directly to digital downloads. A lot of industry insiders believed that the whole format war was a sort of investment scheme engineered by Microsoft in order to strengthen their own target marketplace. Their statements and flagrantly illogical business practices certainly suggest so.
Author
Time
Post link
I have read many editorials on the format war, and some believe both will be there years from now, just as X-Box battles against PS3 and Nintendo. The difference between the DVD vs Divx battle in 1998-99, was that Warner Brothers would not release ANY of their movies in the Divx format, and as they were the leader in starting DVD, they eventually crushed any chances of Divx even taking off.

But now, Warner Brothers and several other studios are releasing their movies in both formats, which tells me this could go on for a long time. Look at the Matrix Trilogy, it was released on HD-DVD a couple of months ago, and will hit Blue-Ray later this year, or vice versa I think?

I honestly don't see either side giving up as this could go on for years, and the only thing it does is keep people like me from upgrading into the format as I would love to buy a BlueRay or HD-DVD Player if there were only one format that existed. But I am staying out until the war is over.
Author
Time
Post link
I tend to tune out when there is more talk on the Blu-Ray / HD-DVD war on these boards. I see it as a money grab. Is there even a market (beyond a niche anyway) before they create one and tell you this is the next thing you need?

This coming from a relatively early adopter of dvd.

DVD was a no-brainer for movie buff like me.

Until I read this thread now, I wasn't aware there was a clear winner in the war when I guess 4-5 months ago it was all so undecided.

I'm still going to 'wait and see' for a long while yet. The first generation dvd releases were all pretty rubbish so I don't expect it to be any different for Blu-Ray. They need to get some titles out there that aren't just new releases. Titles I care about tend to be older films or "smaller" films and I'm betting they will need work and new transfers to bring them up to scratch to release in HD.

Besides I'll only get into the next format when they stop releasing this hideous standard packaging

http://www.racocatala.cat/lacrispeta/blu-ray.jpg

No different than I suppose Warner Brothers' initial DVD packaging.

A question for you tech savy guys: In regards to 1080p/i and standard dvd's what hardware does the upconverting, the latest HD players or the latest HD displays/tvs? Or both?

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: zombie84
Originally posted by: lordjedi
Originally posted by: Tiptup
I hope that's true. Neither format truly excites me, but if I'm going to be stuck with one, Blu-ray is technically better and I'd rather have that dominate. It may come with more copy-protection crap, but that will still be bypassed quickly (I'm sure) and homemade content will be nicer on Blu-ray.


Meh. The only thing technically better about Blu-Ray is that it can hold more. Other than that, they both use the same video/audio encoding and everything else. And since it looks like (at least some) the players are backward compatible with existing DVD titles, I guess it doesn't much matter which format "wins". Still, there's a reason why neither format has really "taken off" the way they should and that's because of the competing formats. My gut tells me that until HD-DVD makes an announcement that they've really lost, your average consumer will continue to hold off. I personally have been telling people to hold off and wait for the format war to end. I can't, in good conscience, tell someone "oh just go get one of these" on the off chance that whatever one they decide to buy ends up being nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

The sooner an official announcement comes, the better.


See, I don't agree with this. Companies won't conceed defeat until the latest possible time because even though they have effectively lost the war, if they downsize and concentrate just on software they can probably sell disks for quite a while because by 2008 there will still be a decent base of HD-DVD player owners that want their investment to pay off and will still buy the small trickle of releases. Take a look at Beta--like HD-DVD it came out before VHS and initially held 100% of the format war. As soon as VHS came out VHS became more popular, and after a year or two of landslide victories had claimed roughly 75% of the market, much like Blu-Ray has done. As the mid-80's approached, the Beta market was only five or six percent. Beta was pretty much dead by 1984 but the plug was not pulled until the end of the decade really. But it would be stupid not to recommend to people by the early to mid-80's to go with VHS because it was the clear victor, and consumers were becoming more aware of it; Beta was unpopular. And thats the way its going now. Consumers are aware of whats going on--I mean they are the ones responsible for the landslide Blu-Ray sales! And while this is on early-adopters, the dissappearance of HD-DVD from stores pretty much would seal the deal to anyone looking into the matter--when you see Blu-Ray everywhere, and HD-DVD only in a few stores with this little tiny pathetic section its not like thats going to make you question your decision. Word on the street is basically "so this Blu-Ray is the new thing now, huh?"

Looking at the stats, there's really no way that HD-DVD can bounce back. One theory states that the format war was actually instigated by Microsoft for the very reason of creating confusion. It's not that they want Blu-Ray to die or HD-DVD to win, they are more interested in crippling the market so that people will resist HD disk content and move directly to digital downloads. A lot of industry insiders believed that the whole format war was a sort of investment scheme engineered by Microsoft in order to strengthen their own target marketplace. Their statements and flagrantly illogical business practices certainly suggest so.


The problem is that there are several high profile movies coming to both (all 3?) formats. 300 just came out on DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray. As CO said, The Matrix Trilogy just came out on HD-DVD and is coming to Blu-Ray in another month or so. And Blade Runner is also coming to all three formats.

Those three movies aside, there are several reasons why Beta didn't catch on. First and foremost, Beta was a proprietary Sony format. Nobody but Sony made the tapes or the players. VHS was fully open. Anyone could make the tapes and anyone could make the players and all they had to do was pay a license fee. This essentially caused a flood of players/recorders and tape manufacturers to hit the market. The second reason is that Betamax tapes were too short (initially). VHS tapes were longer and by the time Betamax extended the length, VHS had already taken hold. The only thing Betamax had on VHS was quality. Betamax videos had far better quality than VHS tapes.

With all that known nobody wants to touch either hi-def format until there's a clear winner. If you choose the wrong side, you end up owning a useless piece of equipment. Everyone's comparing this to the VHS and Betamax format war because it's the best comparison there is.

The deal with Divx and DVD was only slightly similar. Since Divx players were just "enhanced" DVD players, there was really no fear of getting a DVD that wouldn't work in your player (though I understand that a few titles didn't quite work). What killed Divx though is that it was essentially a pay-per-view system and even if you made a disc "Gold", it was only "Gold" on your player. You couldn't take it to a friends house and expect it to work. Other than that, DVD and Divx were mostly compatible (same size, same laser, same everything else as far as I know), they really just had a different implementation.

I seriously doubt MS had anything to do with this format war. No, this is a case of Sony and Toshiba not wanting to work together to make a unified standard (though they did try at one point). MS picked HD-DVD for the simple reason that it was cheaper to manufacturer in the beginning. All the existing production lines just had to be modified slightly in order to go HD-DVD. Blu-Ray was completely new, so it required completely new production lines.

Blu-Ray will probably win out for one simple reason: PS3. Sony basically horded all the blue laser diodes for the release of the PS3 and then hit the market with the cheapest (at a huge loss) Blu-Ray player available. Funny thing is, they're struggling now in the console market. It seems XBox 360 and Wii have come out in front while Sony is in third place. They may have the best selling Blu-Ray player, but apparently people aren't buying the games, they're just playing Blu-Ray movies on them.

To answer see you auntie's question, typically the DVD player does the upconverting, though I understand there are TVs that do it too.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
Author
Time
Post link
"To answer see you auntie's question, typically the DVD player does the upconverting, though I understand there are TVs that do it too."

Every fixed-pixel* display "upconverts". How else would they be able to fit 720x480** standard definition to their 1366x768*** native resolution? The question is, which device does it better? I find it odd to assume that every DVD player does it better than any display device, especially when DVD hardware often costs less than $100 and displays cost more than $1000.

* Fixed-pixel display as in LCDs, Plasmas, and DLPs
** Replace with your favorite standard such as 720x576 for PAL etc
*** Replace with your favorite display's pixel count such as 1920x1080 for "FullHD"

edit: Old-school CRT displays directly scan whatever they get if it's within their scan range****, in which case an "upconverting" DVD player would be useful for eliminating visible scan lines or flicker. Remember that upconverting doesn't magically add any additional detail. Real HD will always look more detailed.

*** Most CRT televisions only accept 480-line or 576-line input at 60 or 50 Herz interlaced respectively, in which case an upconverting DVD player wouldn't be of any use. CRT TVs that have component input often accept 1080-line input at 60 Hz interlaced or 480-line input at 60 Hz progressive, in which case an upconverting DVD player would improve the image a little. Computer CRT monitors accept nearly anything. My 10-year old monitor works great on 1080-line input at 60 Hz progressive (so-called "1080p"). In fact, it accepts up to 1536 lines at 60 Hz progressive (my video card can't generate more lines than that). Too bad monitors are tiny.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: lordjedi Betamax videos had far better quality than VHS tapes.
LINK

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: lordjedi
Meh. The only thing technically better about Blu-Ray is that it can hold more.


That's not technically true. There are a number of other small bonuses that the Blu-ray format has. Most notable is how Blu-ray has potentially faster read/write limits (and that's obviously important for homemade content).

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: Mielr
Originally posted by: lordjedi Betamax videos had far better quality than VHS tapes.
LINK


From that article:

"But rather than demanding better pictures for today's TV sets, consumers have shown more interest in LP (Long Play) modes that reduce the picture quality to provide longer recording times."

So in essence, nobody cared that Betamax looked better (and lasted longer if I'm not mistaken). They wanted the longer recording times (just like I mentioned previously) at the expense of quality. And who could blame them. Most people didn't have huge televisions or hi-def (didn't exist at the time in the home market). VHS looked "good enough" so there was no reason to go Betamax. That and a lot of people would record over and over again. As long as they could see most of the picture, nobody cared if it had any visible distortions. Hell, I remember making copies and not knowing why the screen went dim and bright and I didn't care about that either (years later I found out it was Macrovision protection).

I remember trying to rent a movie during the "war". Yeah, the video stores had plenty of Betamax movies, but all the VHS rentals were sold out. Hmm, I wonder if that's because everyone else, at the time, had VHS or if they had Betamax. Something tells me they all had VHS.

While parts of that article are a little more accurate, he doesn't actually refute any "myths". Yep, Betamax was shorter and never caught up with VHS. Yep, they tried to license it, but pretty much failed. And of course the players were cheaper after they lost the war. Everyone had players that were useless so they were trying to get rid of them. That's simple economics (supply and demand) and has nothing to do with actual hardware costs.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: totsugeki
"To answer see you auntie's question, typically the DVD player does the upconverting, though I understand there are TVs that do it too."

Every fixed-pixel* display "upconverts". How else would they be able to fit 720x480** standard definition to their 1366x768*** native resolution?


By stretching the picture? Which is why a DVD looks like garbage on a 50"+ TV. I don't notice it on mine because my TV is across the room. My cousin notices it on his 65" HDTV because he's much closer to his TV than I am to mine.

So no, it's not being "upconverting" if it's just stretching the picture. It's upconverting it if it's resizing it and then sampling all the pixels to make the image look smoother. Real upconverting players and TVs look halfway decent. The ones that simply stretch the picture look bad.

F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: lordjedi
From that article:

"But rather than demanding better pictures for today's TV sets, consumers have shown more interest in LP (Long Play) modes that reduce the picture quality to provide longer recording times."

So in essence, nobody cared that Betamax looked better (and lasted longer if I'm not mistaken). They wanted the longer recording times (just like I mentioned previously) at the expense of quality. And who could blame them. Most people didn't have huge televisions or hi-def (didn't exist at the time in the home market). VHS looked "good enough" so there was no reason to go Betamax. That and a lot of people would record over and over again. As long as they could see most of the picture, nobody cared if it had any visible distortions. Hell, I remember making copies and not knowing why the screen went dim and bright and I didn't care about that either (years later I found out it was Macrovision protection).


I agree, most people that I knew in the 1970's had a TV set that was 19" or smaller (heck- I don't remember having a color TV in our house 'till the mid-70s).

I'm just saying that I think the difference between Beta and VHS is greatly exaggerated by most people, and I can understand how someone would be willing to give up 10 lines of resolution to not have to split a movie up onto 2 videotapes.

From Wikipedia:
"Betamax offered a slightly higher horizontal resolution (250 lines vs. 240 lines in PAL & NTSC), lower video noise, and less luma-chroma crosstalk than VHS, and was marketed as providing pictures superior to VHS's, however the introduction of B-II speed (2-hour mode) to compete with VHS's 2-hour Standard Play mode, reduced Betamax's horizontal resolution to 240 lines. The extension of VHS to VHS HQ produced 250 lines, so that overall a Betamax/VHS user could expect virtually identical luminance resolution, and almost identical chrominance resolution (53 vs 50 lines), wherein the actual picture performance depended on other factors, including the condition and quality of the videotape, and the specific video recorder machine model."

If I understand that correctly, at its highest quality (1-hour mode) Betamax only offered 10 more lines of horizontal resolution than VHS, with slightly less video noise and luma-chroma crosstalk. In the 2-hour mode (which is what you would need to tape a movie) Beta and VHS were about equal.

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: lordjedi
Originally posted by: totsugeki
"To answer see you auntie's question, typically the DVD player does the upconverting, though I understand there are TVs that do it too."

Every fixed-pixel* display "upconverts". How else would they be able to fit 720x480** standard definition to their 1366x768*** native resolution?


By stretching the picture? Which is why a DVD looks like garbage on a 50"+ TV. I don't notice it on mine because my TV is across the room. My cousin notices it on his 65" HDTV because he's much closer to his TV than I am to mine.

So no, it's not being "upconverting" if it's just stretching the picture. It's upconverting it if it's resizing it and then sampling all the pixels to make the image look smoother. Real upconverting players and TVs look halfway decent. The ones that simply stretch the picture look bad.


"Stretching" and "upconverting" are the same thing. They both mean resampling (interpolating) the image to a different pixel count. There are countless image resampling methods. Some are crap, some are awesome, but like I said, why assume that every DVD player has a better resampling ("upconverting") implementation than any display? Even if your television does a crappy job at it, it's still "upconverting". If it looks like scheisse, it's probably using a "nearest neighbor" method, which makes the image look pixelated. For examples of more advanced "upconverting" algorithms, see http://www.general-cathexis.com/interpolation.html
Author
Time
Post link
I think the issue will be that HD-DVD is not a noticeable difference from DVD for most consumers (not home theatre buffs). You need a BIG widescreen TV to see a difference, and considering that many DVD's still look darned good on those displays, I don't think most people will like rebuying movies they already have in a digital format.

It's definitely not the jump that videotape to DVD was.
Author
Time
Post link
DVD's have sorta been ruined for me ever since I found out about how NTSC transfers run a 24 frame per second movie at 23.976 frames per second. Yes, I know it's next to nothing, but now that I know it's there it'll bother me.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: Davis
I think the issue will be that HD-DVD is not a noticeable difference from DVD for most consumers (not home theatre buffs). You need a BIG widescreen TV to see a difference, and considering that many DVD's still look darned good on those displays, I don't think most people will like rebuying movies they already have in a digital format.

It's definitely not the jump that videotape to DVD was.


Good point. But, still, larger displays are becoming less expensive. Eventually I might be able to afford one myself.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: Fang Zei
DVD's have sorta been ruined for me ever since I found out about how NTSC transfers run a 24 frame per second movie at 23.976 frames per second. Yes, I know it's next to nothing, but now that I know it's there it'll bother me.


Please tell me you're kidding.... I just did the math out of curiosity, & that means that an 2 hr movie on NTSC DVD plays at 0.1% faster than it "should"..... Thats one TENTH of one percent.... I can't imagine what you must think of PAL, with it's 4% speedup... (or, a speedup that is forty times that of NTSC, which is stilll unnoticable by many people...)
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: Fang Zei
DVD's have sorta been ruined for me ever since I found out about how NTSC transfers run a 24 frame per second movie at 23.976 frames per second. Yes, I know it's next to nothing, but now that I know it's there it'll bother me.


And regular 30 FPS is really just 29.97! And 60i is really 59.98! OMG!

Actually, Fang, those decimal numbers don't really mean anything. They are just pull-down issues from video fields. Its complicated but 23.98 is effectively 24 frames running by your eye per second.

As for HD-DVD, although there are many releases that have both formats, at the end of the day Blu-Ray has the support of seven out of eight of the big studios, and it's titles outsell HD-DVD by something like a 3-1 margin which is growing at an astronomical rate--that's 75% of the market and growing; so although the Matrix box set is available in both formats thats decieving--based on those stats, that would be a comparable 250,000 sales of the HD-DVD version of the film versus 750,000 sales of the Blu-Ray version of the film. To top it off a number of retailers, notably Blockbuster Video, the largest rental chain, have stopped carrying HD-DVD. The only thing HD-DVD really has going for it is that its players are cheap--but in fact its players are so cheap because Toshiba was so desperate that every time someone buys one they lose money--they are below cost! And because of this no third-party manufacturer can produce any. The only thing keeping HD-DVD afloat is that Microsoft, with its bottomless pit of money, keeps pumping funds into the format to cover the enormous losses it is taking. The goal was flood the market with players at a great fiscal loss in the hopes that it would reciprocate in software sales, but the software sales are doing terrible, and even the player sales are not very good. There's just so many factors that don't just indicate that Blu-Ray might win, but are actually showing that not only is it already winning but that the gap will continue to widen with the astounding speed that it has been since its release. Digitalbits posted a reall good editorial on the matter a month or two ago that really cuts to the heart of the issue but even this is a bit out of date now since Target and Blockbuster have stopped carrying HD-DVD and Blu Ray sales have increased even more.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: zombie84
Originally posted by: Fang Zei
DVD's have sorta been ruined for me ever since I found out about how NTSC transfers run a 24 frame per second movie at 23.976 frames per second. Yes, I know it's next to nothing, but now that I know it's there it'll bother me.


And regular 30 FPS is really just 29.97! And 60i is really 59.98! OMG!

Actually, Fang, those decimal numbers don't really mean anything. They are just pull-down issues from video fields. Its complicated but 23.98 is effectively 24 frames running by your eye per second.

As for HD-DVD, although there are many releases that have both formats, at the end of the day Blu-Ray has the support of seven out of eight of the big studios, and it's titles outsell HD-DVD by something like a 3-1 margin which is growing at an astronomical rate--that's 75% of the market and growing; so although the Matrix box set is available in both formats thats decieving--based on those stats, that would be a comparable 250,000 sales of the HD-DVD version of the film versus 750,000 sales of the Blu-Ray version of the film. To top it off a number of retailers, notably Blockbuster Video, the largest rental chain, have stopped carrying HD-DVD. The only thing HD-DVD really has going for it is that its players are cheap--but in fact its players are so cheap because Toshiba was so desperate that every time someone buys one they lose money--they are below cost! And because of this no third-party manufacturer can produce any. The only thing keeping HD-DVD afloat is that Microsoft, with its bottomless pit of money, keeps pumping funds into the format to cover the enormous losses it is taking. The goal was flood the market with players at a great fiscal loss in the hopes that it would reciprocate in software sales, but the software sales are doing terrible, and even the player sales are not very good. There's just so many factors that don't just indicate that Blu-Ray might win, but are actually showing that not only is it already winning but that the gap will continue to widen with the astounding speed that it has been since its release. Digitalbits posted a reall good editorial on the matter a month or two ago that really cuts to the heart of the issue but even this is a bit out of date now since Target and Blockbuster have stopped carrying HD-DVD and Blu Ray sales have increased even more.


This site http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom080507/index.php would disagree with you. Since inception, the market has been at a steady 60:40 Blu-Ray to HD-DVD. Some weeks the numbers go up, others they go down, so it's been pretty balanced. 40% may not sound like much, but even if only 100,000 players have been sold between the two, that gives HD-DVD 40,000 players. The market is far from decided.

What other retailers, besides Blockbuster, have stopped selling HD-DVD? Blockbuster is the only one I know of. Target is scheduled to have an endcap of Blu-Ray players for the Christmas season, but Walmart is going to have an exclusive HD-DVD display.

Both Microsoft and Sony essentially dumped cheap players, at a loss, on the market. Or do you really think that a PS3 only cost $600 to produce when every other BD player at the time was pushing $1000? Everyone with a PS3 and everyone with an XBox 360 with the HD-DVD add on is watching movies on their respective formats.

Until I found that site, which was linked from blu-ray.com, I thought HD-DVD was surely dead. Now, I'm not so sure. Depending on what happens this Christmas, they both might be around for a long time to come.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: lordjedi


This site http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom080507/index.php would disagree with you. Since inception, the market has been at a steady 60:40 Blu-Ray to HD-DVD. Some weeks the numbers go up, others they go down, so it's been pretty balanced. 40% may not sound like much, but even if only 100,000 players have been sold between the two, that gives HD-DVD 40,000 players. The market is far from decided.

What other retailers, besides Blockbuster, have stopped selling HD-DVD? Blockbuster is the only one I know of. Target is scheduled to have an endcap of Blu-Ray players for the Christmas season, but Walmart is going to have an exclusive HD-DVD display.

Both Microsoft and Sony essentially dumped cheap players, at a loss, on the market. Or do you really think that a PS3 only cost $600 to produce when every other BD player at the time was pushing $1000? Everyone with a PS3 and everyone with an XBox 360 with the HD-DVD add on is watching movies on their respective formats.

Until I found that site, which was linked from blu-ray.com, I thought HD-DVD was surely dead. Now, I'm not so sure. Depending on what happens this Christmas, they both might be around for a long time to come.



Well, 60-40 is not totally accurate. True, a "total disks sold since the format's debut" is actually 60-40 in favor of Blu Ray--but thats because HD-DVD was around for months before Blu Ray, giving it not only a big head start but a head start with zero competition, so it racked up a big number of sales stats. A truer indicator of trends is the weekly and monthly stats. Browsing through the Nielsen Videoscan sales numbers for the month of July you get a much wider gap: week one 66-34 in favour of Blu Ray, week two 61-29, week three 74-26, week four 66-34. The "sales since inception" numbers are decieving because HD-DVD was the sole HD format long before Blu Ray showed up. The stats for this year are actually 67-34, which shows how things have averaged out once Blu Ray showed up, and the weekly/monthly numbers are usually slanted more towards a 70-30 margin, with 75% figures not being uncommon for Blu Ray. If you look at the trend it was 60-40 in favor of HD-DVD when Blu Ray first came out, 50-50 last christmas, then 60-40 in favor of Blu Ray in the spring and now since the summer its edging towards a 70-30 gap. It just keeps growing.

And although its true that Sony is probably taking some losses in its PS3, thats really nothing at all compared to HD-DVD. Number one, a PS3 costs about $600, while the XBOX with add on is about $500 altogether, but then its more costly for Microsoft to manufacture two seperate pieces of equipment, so its more costly to begin with and a solid $100 bucks less (and I think more now). So those losses are greater, right off the bat, but thats not the primary issue. The primary issue is that Toshiba's players are $300 right now--thats an enormous loss, about half the selling price of Blu-Ray players. Although Sony is going for some loss with the PS3, Microsoft has encurred bigger losses with its XBOX and even more significantly Toshiba is suffering huge losses, so much greater that to compare it to Sony is pretty inapt. And even though Sony may be taking a bit of a sting in the hopes of it paying off later (which it seems to have as many Blu Ray buyers are PS3 owners), but Sony is not the sole manufacturer of Blu Ray--if they lose out, which they aren't, then it doesn't matter because there is a half dozen other manufacturers like Pioneer. HD-DVD on the other hand, aside from the XBOX, does not have third-party manufacturers--Toshiba is at such great losses that no other partner could compete. How could anyone else hope to make $300 players? It would bankrupt the company. Toshiba can do it because they are in partnership with Mircrosoft and thats all thats keeping them from being ruined. But the players sales are still doing terrible; thats why they cut the price in half, but even this can't save it because at the end of the day paying an extra $300 is not important for a long range investment in a great new format, and thats why people shell out a couple bucks more for Blu Ray.
The HD-DVD Promotional Group initially hoped to sell 2.5 million units by the end of the year--but sales were so bad they cut prices in half and then hoped to make half that initial number; now they've revised that, hoping not to break 1.8 million units but to cross the 1 million barrier, which it looks like they may not even accomplish! I would say thats pretty embarassing. So the hardware sales are proportional to the abysmal software sales.

Additionally, as I pointed out, many retailers aren't stocking HD-DVD anymore. Target isn't, BJ's Wholesale Club isn't and Blockbuster won't carry them, which is huge. And as this happens, the HD-DVD sales figures will continue to plummet and more stores will stick with Blu Ray only. As for Walmart, they carry HD-DVD and had an HD-DVD display earlier this summer but they carry Blu Ray too, and actually it looked to me that they had more Blu Ray titles in stock, and certainly much more players available (fitting since there are so many different models, whereas HD-DVD only has what Toshiba makes--which is another huge strain on an already KO'd company).

Don't be fooled, HD-DVD lost this format war a number of months ago. When the Blu-Ray exclusive Close Encounters delux edition comes out this christmas along with Blu Ray versions of the Matrix trilogy, Spiderman Trilogy and Blade Runner Final Cut, you will see these 70-30 figures spike up closer to 80-20.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: zombie84
Additionally, as I pointed out, many retailers aren't stocking HD-DVD anymore. Target isn't, BJ's Wholesale Club isn't and Blockbuster won't carry them, which is huge. And as this happens, the HD-DVD sales figures will continue to plummet and more stores will stick with Blu Ray only. As for Walmart, they carry HD-DVD and had an HD-DVD display earlier this summer but they carry Blu Ray too, and actually it looked to me that they had more Blu Ray titles in stock, and certainly much more players available (fitting since there are so many different models, whereas HD-DVD only has what Toshiba makes--which is another huge strain on an already KO'd company).

Since when is Target not stocking HD-DVD? I saw 300 on HD-DVD there this past week. Additionally, while they plan to have an exclusive Blu-Ray endcap for Christmas, they'll still be selling the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on.

Despite being the best selling BD player, the PS3 is still way behind in the console wars, coming in at number 3 currently. Even with their huge sales spike a couple weeks ago, they're still way behind.

Originally posted by: zombie84
Don't be fooled, HD-DVD lost this format war a number of months ago. When the Blu-Ray exclusive Close Encounters delux edition comes out this christmas along with Blu Ray versions of the Matrix trilogy, Spiderman Trilogy and Blade Runner Final Cut, you will see these 70-30 figures spike up closer to 80-20.


Maybe, but only two of those will be exclusive to BD. Close Encounters and Spiderman. The other two are either already out on HD-DVD or will be as well as BD.

I've said before that I don't care who wins either way. I want either one format or one player that can play both. I'm betting we get a single player solution this season that causes a surge in both formats. Right now, most people are still leary of either format, despite whatever sales figures there are. The sooner that either one format wins (unlikely) or one player emerges that can do both (much more likely) at a reasonable price, the better.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
Author
Time
Post link
somehow i'm not all that affraid for sony's ps3 since they have exclusive rights to final fantasy XIII and metal gear guns of the patriots, as well as about another hundred or so games on the way according to gamepro magazine.

ps3 will pick up steam next year, and even more so the year after that.

i could care less about nintendos rehash kidddie crap regardless how inventive the gameplay on the wii is, it will take the release of the first true wii zelda, metroid or mario galaxy to make me eat my words and those have all been deleyed and pushed back.

While i quite enjoy twilight princess that was developed originally for the gamecube so i think of it as a carryover.

the xbox 360 is either neck and neck with the wii or way out in front depending on who is reporting the sales figures.

The 360 has hundreds of games many of them excellent and some truly great one coming out like Halo 3, Fable 2, blue dragon from the creator of final fantasy and designed by dragonball creator and artist.

GTA 4 is no longer a exclusive title to either ps3 or 360, neither is the force unleashed. one thing i wanted to buy a 360 and is not even in development is kotor 3.

if 20th century fox is able to get lucas to release star wars exclusively to blu ray then HD-DVD will be crushed. But HD-DVD has heroes right now as exlusive HD, as well as trek tos cgi though the srp on the first box set of that is 219.12 or some absurd price for 10 discs.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

Author
Time
Post link
Blu-Ray will eventually win the format war. It's enevitable. However, I see the war being drawn out considerably longer that most people would think. There's just been too much money (BILLIONS of dollars) invested in HD-DVD for it to go away quietly. Toshiba may become more and more desperate, but they'll try to sqeeze every drop out of the market before they'll fold on the format.
40,000 million notches away
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: zombie84
And regular 30 FPS is really just 29.97! And 60i is really 59.98! OMG!

Actually, Fang, those decimal numbers don't really mean anything. They are just pull-down issues from video fields. Its complicated but 23.98 is effectively 24 frames running by your eye per second.


This is why I started a thread about it in the tech section. Let me ask it a different way,

If I were to start playing the NTSC transfer and the HD transfer of the same movie at the same time, would there be a delay by the time I got towards the end?