Warner Bros going Blu-Ray exclusive
Looks like HD format war is finally over, Warner Bros will back only Blu-ray. Sad news for all HD DVD supporters, it is time to throw away your HD DVD 
Time Warner’s Warner Bros. studio Friday said it would exclusively release high-definition DVDs in Sony Corp’s Blu-ray format, dealing a big blow to Toshiba Corp’s rival HD DVD technology. Warner Bros, Hollywood’s biggest seller of DVDs, representing about 18 to 20% of sales in the United States, was one of the few studios that backed both formats. All sides of the format war had agreed it was confusing to consumers and a stumbling block for a potential multibillion-dollar industry. Total DVD unit sales fell 4.5% in 2007, the first major year-over-year decline since the disc format debuted in 1997, according to Adams Media Research. Sales fell 4.8% to $15.7 billion.
“The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers,” Warner Bros Chairman and Chief Executive Barry Meyer said in a statement. News Corp’s 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney, and Lionsgate are among studios backing the Blu-ray format. Viacom’s Paramount studios and General Electric’s NBC Universal release movies in HD DVD format.Warner said it would continue releasing in the HD DVD format until the end of May, although those releases would follow the standard DVD and Blu-ray releases.
Source: usatoday
Comments(129)
its about time, i didnt really know which way to go. I had a idea it was going to be blue ray though because the ps3
Oh well… at least I have until May to get a Blu-ray drive.
I highly doubt the “format war” is over because way to much money is involved
Well, SONY has yet to win a format war since the BETAMAX vs VHS. I doubt this is over.
technology is moving at such a hi rate of speed, in a year or more we will all be having to upgrade again!! gotta love those Japanese!!!
“The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers,”
I’d like to know of one case in history where a monoply benefits the consumers…
Honestly everyone here bootlegs movies anyway. What difference does it matter to us if it is an HDDVD RiP or a BluRay RiP. You know what I mean?
I still dont get why people preferred HD-DVD in the first place. I mean Blu-Ray has 25GB single layer disc and 50GB double layer which for me means you can fit more HD content. Its like studios choosing to go with DVD5 instead of DVD9.
i cant wait till SONY put one of these out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd7NClJOUOI&feature=related
The reason why Blu-Ray wins with this, is because Warner has 70% of the movie industry market. With this deal, it puts them near 85% total, and makes a guaranteed win. The others will soon follow suit and drop HD-DVD.
@8
the whole thing is like a penis measuring contest!
i’ll wait until prices continue to drop for the ps3
I suppose they are gambling on BD+ protection holding out against Slysoft and others. If BD+ does stop or slow down ripping this is bad news for prompt release of HD rips. If Sony does win a format war and can impose their beloved DRM then on past form everybody will get well screwed.
HDDVD Already lost ages ago. lol. >.>
I travel alot around the world…. and trust me….. the only place that HD-DVD was sold the most was in USA.
All other parts of the world… HD-DVD was barely stocked by any of the larger entertainment businesses.
Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, all dont appear to primarily stock HDDVD.
In Hong Kong there is a few places that stock HDDVD but ….. only like 3 titles… where as they stock Bluray…
Ratio was like 3 Bluray to 1 HDDVD, dont be mistaken that the HDDVD are soooo good sellers that stores dont have any or stores dont have that much of a range.
That is not true, you ask them if they stock more titles they will say “we can order it but we usually dont have much stock”
In Australia… there is totally no HDDVD on shelves at popular places like Jb-hi-fi. To tell you the truth… i have yet to see 1 HD-DVD on shelf yet…. even though if you ask the store, they say they will order it if you want it.
Haha all the statistics that showed HD-DVD and Bluray at a stalemate for the past half a yr to 1 yr was all bias since it only showed sales within USA, not the rest of the world.
@erok713
Betamax vs vhs is another generation. They lost because of porn, but this internet generation doesn’t need things for that. Who “buys” porn in our current generation? Nobody, well of course there are some people(duh). This generation uses it mostly for media content(games, movies, downloadable content etc), and needs the space to give that content. Sony brought the blu ray on the market with the ps3 in the growing gamesindustry(our generation). And has done a excellent job by doing that.
A 200GB Blu-ray disc has been successfully created and tested on a modified Blu-ray drive. 3 companies have produced 100GB Blu-ray discs (quad layer) but only one of the manufacturers discs was able to be played on the current generation of Blu-ray players.
In terms of storage, HD DVD will always lose due to limitations of it’s laser.
In terms of movies, I don’t think I have watched a film in HD yet (on a HDTV, not a monitor). 2 came with my PS3 but they are still in their cellophane wrappers and I don’t have my Bravia yet.
Personally, I think that it’s inevitable that Blu-ray will win the format war. Many of the movie houses aren’t happy that region coding doesn’t exist on HD DVD and with the PS3, Blu-ray is here to stay. Rumors are that Paramount/Viacom’s deal with HD DVD exclusive releases are only for about 2 years anyway.
It’s also worth mentioning that films which are Blu-ray only in the US can be bought on HD DVD in Europe and other parts of the world and vice versa for US HD DVD exclusives.
The format war is hardly over.
Sure it’s a blow. But HD-DVD holds quite a few exclusives… Blueray is/was somewhat behind.
«I still dont get why people preferred HD-DVD in the first place.»
Player prices. And the playstation 3 major failure, also due to prices, didn’t help at all.
On the other hand, the only true card Sony still has to play is the DRM stuff and the myth that it is “impossible” to pirate. That’s probably why WB choose them, anyway.
«i have yet to see 1 HD-DVD on shelf yet….»
I think I have yet to see either a HD-DVD or a Blueray on shelf. Not that I look for them, but I’d notice either one, if they were at sight. Clearly, where I live (EU), DVDs are still, virtually 100% of the market.
i wish i could slap people in the face across the far reaches of the internets who call it “blueray” or “blue ray”.
Who is the company that benefits more from this? Sony?
the ps3 is not a failure Sony is looking at decade long lifespan for its system Microsoft possibly 4 to 5 maybe 6 years for the 360, I don’t own a ps3 I have Microsoft’s portable heater, the 360.
All in all I’m not all up on the format war but I have feeling Blue-ray will come out on top just because its a better technology if what you guys are saying is true, 200gb blue-ray then why bother buying bigger hard drives anymore, know what I mean, late’s.
In the battle of of VHS vs Betamax was decided by the porn industry. It all boiled down to one thing; the length of the tapes. VHS had a 2 hour play time vs the 1 hour for Betamax.
Porn adopted VHS to lower production costs. In its quest to go mainstream, the porn industry wanted to make feature films and needed longer tapes (2 hours vs 1 hour). VHS allowed people to watch porn in the privacy of their own home.
I knew that once I saw more and more articles about Porn flicks coming out on BluRay, it was pretty much a done deal for the HD/BluRay war.
Who cares????
I’m going to do what I always have done….
Go to Blockbuster and rent the movie. Keep a pc hooked up to my HDTV and go DVI -> HDMI and watch my movies that way.
If I feel like taking my time I will download a Blu Ray title which at 4.5GB will only take 2 hours.
The avg 720p Blu Ray DVD is under 10GB and usually around 5GB.
Makes more sense to download or rip and save on a HD and hook pc or even laptop to HDTV and watch that way.
I could caless who won b/c in the end they are STILL not getting my money. Some of ya’ll should be ashamed of yourselves for paying all that money for that crap when you can get it for free. For the price of 2 Blu ray movies you could have gotten a 500GB Hard drive.
The answer is simple – Blue-Ray sounds a whole lot better on the tongue than HD-DVD. That simple fact gives the nod to Blue-Ray.
Personally, I am disappointed but heck we’ve been in a loosing battle with lockdown of corporate content for some time now. The sooner we hand our last quarters over to the media giants, the soon we can scoot over to the bread line.
Also who cares how much info a Blu-ray dvd can hold?? They NEVER fill it up to capacity anyways!!
Thank goodness for DVDFab and Slysoft.
1st!
Holographic Versatile Disc… nuff said, prototypes are available in japan already and will become more widespread by then end of 2010. basic HVD hold 250 – 350 gigs. They are supposedly capable of holding up to 3.9 terabytes. The HVD FORUM (formerly the HVD Alliance) is a coalition of corporations purposed to provide an industry forum for testing and technical discussion of all aspects of HVD design and manufacturing. By cooperating, members of the Forum hope to expedite development and engender a market receptive to HVD technology.
As of February 2006, the HVD FORUM comprises these corporations:
* Alps Electric Corporation, Ltd.
* CMC Magnetics Corporation
* Dainippon Ink and Chemicals, Inc. (DIC)
* EMTEC International (subsidiary of the MPO Group)
* Fuji Photo Film Company, Ltd.
* Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc.
* LiteOn Technology Corporation
* Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Company, Ltd. (MKM)
* Nippon Kayaku Co., Ltd.
* Nippon Paint Company, Ltd.
* Optware Corporation
* Pulstec Industrial Company, Ltd.
* Shibaura Mechatronics Corporation
* Software Architects, Inc. (?)
* Suruga Seiki Company, Ltd.
* Targray Technology International, Inc.
* Teijin Chemicals, Ltd.
* Toagosei Company, Ltd.
* Tokiwa Optical Corporation
This is the next real format… unfortunately for all of us… yet if blu-ray wins for now… ok… no big deal… dvdfab can already rip it without any issues… actually rips it better than hddvd… go figure…
Why the PS3 sucks
1. No real “GOOD” games that aren’t already on other platforms. (possibly 1 or 2 but is it really worth $400 for the console and another $120 for maximum of 2 games and if you plan on playing multi-player its another $50)
2. Blu-ray – because if it won Sony would be able and probably would start to charge more for movies to make up for the lost profits and development costs that they desperately need. And to anyone who says “but Blu-ray has 25 GB single layer and 50GB dual layer, there is no need for that size disc because HD-DVD already can play at the same resolution without that much capacity. If you compare Harry Potter – Order of The Phoenix on Blu-ray and HD-DVD it is clear as day that HD-DVD can play the same resolution as Blu-ray but has way more features. <— There are plenty of examples of this next time your out compare the backs for features, resolutions, and audio of a movie that’s on HD-DVD and Blu-ray and then tell me which is better.
Apparently about 44% of Blu-ray movies use the 50GB, the other 56% being on the 25GB disc.
A 500GB HDD will cost you the best part of £60. Don’t forget how much DVD’s were when they first came out. I remember seeing a blank 2x DVD-R selling for £25. Prices will come down in a few years. Now you can pick up 50 discs @ 16x for about £12 for a reasonable quality brand.
Hell, my first VCR cost around £500 back in the day.
Yet another reason I believe the PS3 is not only worthless, but a burden on all people regardless of whether they harbor one or not…
HD-DVD is superior in an economic stand point, and the only reason it didnt BLOW Blu Ray away was solely because of Sony’s asinine (smart from their perspective, I guess…) choice to force people to buy an expensive Blu Ray player whenever they mindlessly bought a PS3. They covered up the high cost of both the player and the discs by masking it underneath a console that, when sold, actually puts the company at a loss. If it wasnt for the damed discs, Sony would go out of business…Rather funny, really, because buying a PS3 would actually be a smart choice when compared to buying the player alone. If only pirates bought them, Sony would go bankrupt…*hint hint* Point being, you may find a PS3 in my house in the future, but try fruitlessly to find any games for it nearby…
BTW somewhat off topic, one of my friends has a PS3 and I got to play around with it the other day. I found a feature where you could actually donate your unused CPU (waisted actually) to some university for data processing! I burst into laughter when I saw that! You paid for a massive processor to play games with! The only thing you need a massive processor like that for is stuff like video encoding…which you cant do with the PS3…Ok, enough ranting for me…
Well in a way it is nice to see Sony win one, with the slow sales of the PS3 (compared to projections)they were starting to get in a lot of trouble at home, and the banks had been getting leary.
The fact that with Warner and their library, taking the market it means NOW we get to actually see what players can sell for at their bottom line.
Storage wise, now that 500g sata drives are under $100, an HTPC also makes keeping thing ON the HD easy as well
CES HD DVD Event canceled due to Warner announcement
I just received an email from the HD DVD Promotion Group stating that the CES 2008 HD DVD press event has been canceled. The recent Blu-ray exclusive announcement from Warner is cited as the reason for the event being canceled. You can find the full text of the notice below.
Notice of CES Press Conference Cancellation by North American HD DVD Promotion Group
“Based on the timing of the Warner Home Video announcement today, we have decided to postpone our CES 2008 press conference scheduled for Sunday, January 6th at 8:30 p.m. in the Wynn Hotel. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
We are currently discussing the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluating next steps. We believe the consumer continues to benefit from HD DVD’s commitment to quality and affordability – a bar that is critical for the mainstream success of any format.
We’ll continue to keep you updated on new developments around HD DVD.”
HD DVD is in trouble
If there is one thing that everyone is agreeing on, it is that the HD DVD is in trouble due to the Warner announcement. This decision to cancel the HD DVD press event further proves that the defection of Warner Brothers studios from the HD DVD camp is a major blow.
I am very disappointed that they have canceled the event. I would have liked to see them try to explain this move or attempt to put some type of positive spin on it. I guess I will only be attending the Blu-ray CES event this year! Stay tuned to this site for CES 2008 coverage!
****************
That gotta hurt
As i said in a previous that wasn’t published for whatever reason , with this move Sony/Blu-Ray now has 70 % exclusivity on all Hollywood titles.The war ain;t over yet but it’s only a matter of time before HD-DVD bite the dust for good.
Blu-Ray is King !!!!!
Long live to King Blu-Ray !!!!!!!
people still spouting the “PS3 has no games” bullsht? lol
@TheFilmBuff
I think you will also find that most of the HD DVD releases are on the 30GB disc, not the 15GB. Common sense leads me to believe that the larger disc capacities are needed. From what I understand, 3 different codecs are used to encode Blu-ray movies (AVC, MPEG-2 and VC-1). Most HD DVD’s are encoded with VC-1 whilst Blu-ray predominantly use MPEG-2. This is why HD DVD tends to look better (as VC-1 is a better codec than MPEG-2) but I’m sure that as time moves on, the VC-1 codec will become used more frequently on Blu-ray titles.
You are also talking about a console which has been out just over a year. The first machines went on sale on 11/11/06, there are about 320 titles available which isn’t too bad and there are a sh!t load of exclusives coming out for it this year, like HAZE.
When you say the PS3 sucks, am I correct in assuming that you’re comparing it to a 360?
@Darth Arcon
You do realise that Folding@home has been around for about 2 years on PC’s? Just like Seti@home (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) and several other applications which use the idle PC CPU to crunch data. This is nothing new dude. It was also stated that in less than a year of the PS3 being out, the number of people who use this function had crunched more data than all PC users since the start of the project?
Here’s the story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7074547.stm
It is true that the PS3 currently lack AAA titles but with the Metal Gear Solid 4 , Final Fantasy XIII + Versus , Gran Turismo 5 , God Of War III , Tekken 6 , Killzone 2 , LA Noire , Star Wars : The Force Unleashed and japanese RPGs exclusives plus all the other big multiplatform titles like GTA IV , Resident Evil 5 , Silent Hill 5 ect coming out (some most liely in 09) the PS3 will get a major boost in 2008.The 360 may have the advantage for now but that’s because it was launched before the PS3.It’s just a matter of time before the PS3 gets on top with all the multi millions selling exclusives star franchises that i mentionned.
That and the fact that Blu-ray is winning the war will make the PS3 the console of choice in 2008 and beyond.Just wait and see.
Send the HD disks to Dafur
My bad. Folding@Home came out in 2000. It’s just over 7 years old. Seti@home came out in 1999. Loooooooooong before the PS3.
The PS3’s Cell Processor can also crack 8 character passwords faster than any PC available, doing it in hours rather than days. Just an interesting point.
No matters which format wins!!
they r made up of disc which r bound to be scratches due to rotation!!
& longer the time they play more probability of getting scratched!!
you guys missed this release that was pred 1.03.2008
He.Was.A.Quiet.Man.2007.DVDRip.XviD-VoMiT (with Elisha Cuthbert and my favorite actor William H. Macy)
@38
“The PS3’s Cell Processor can also crack 8 character passwords faster than any PC available, doing it in hours rather than days. Just an interesting point. ”
yes, and i am spiderman !!!
with compression nowadays i cant see why they wouldnt pick hd dvd. x264 is highly compressed format.
also look at xbox 360 games and ps3 games? who needs 25gb worth of data for a single game or movie when you have compression.
take oblivion ES very good game very long game. they compressed that to hd dvd. you can do alot with compression. also look at resident evil 4 on the GC. i bet you they compressed the hell out of that game without any quality loss. compression is the way to go in my opinion.
It’s interesting to see that blue-ray may finally win this war. I personally liked hd-dvd coz it’s easier to crack than blue ray
!!
I personally believe ps3 is like more future proof consoles than the rest of them.
@42
i would happily accept highly compressed 50 gigs of content over less gigs of compressed content =]– and im pretty sure we will get to the point where compression to that huge amount will make us go ‘wow, its so much smaller than before’
@Josh
HD DVD needs more than 15GB for movies as nearly all of them have been released on that size disc. If they could fit everything on the 15GB disc then they would. Just like a large number of DVD movies are on dual layer rather than single layer discs and are increasingly being released on the dual layer disc.
By that size I mean the 30Gb disc. Should have been clearer.
@Peter Parker (nice name)
Blu-ray predominantly use MPEG-2 <<< thats Old news (6-4 months ago i think) thay all use VC-1 codec now (even movies that was done in MPEG-2 are now in VC-1, i read that somewhere and it has somthing extra on the box to show its in VC1 )
@others
Blu-ray disks offer more space then HD-dvd
if you want to compare disks
dvd is 4.4gb/9gb (that Xbox games hitting that limit)
HD-dvd is 15gb (6gb more then DVD9) and dual layer is 30gb
Blu-ray Start at 25gb thats 18gb more then dvd and 10gb more then HD-dvd (half of the BD disks are single layer all HD-dvd movies are dual layer so thay cost more to make) then you got 50gb dual layer disk thats massive compered to DVD and HD-dvd and will basily will not limit what can be put onto these disks Data and Video
you can all trout and flame that HD-dvd can make 100gb disks yes but Blu-ray can make them bigger then that as well but No companly will make disks that do not Spec to the First gen standard and that is
CD 650MB (0.65gb)(some 800Mb as well)
DVD 4.4gb/9gb
HD 15gb/30gb
BD 25GB/50GB
as if thay made an special disk thay would not be able to play them on the Older drives (but thats like 5-6 years from now)
- rant mode on an side note –
1080i should be removed from the HD standed 720P is alot better then it
i Know as i have had the lucky me of playing with LCD screens and plasma screens in HD and interlased is not very good droping you box to 720p you get an better video quality (there is No 720i standed no box supports 720i only P {Alot of HD-dvd are 1080i players all Blu-ray players are 1080p/i both supported })
(if you got an sky box or in the UK Virgin Plus or maybe an cable line {other countries} i have not seen any box’s supports 1080p only 720p/1080i even if thay when smart and removed the i and p from the numbers as UK Virgin tv has)
Whats a blue ray? Whats a HD VD??? Why come I can’t find my movies on laser disk no more?? DVD what? .. I like my 8 tracks too!
@lee
Of the 3 created 100GB Blu-ray discs, 2 of them were not compatible with the current available Blu-ray players however, they can be made compatible via a firmware update. The 3rd manufacturer (can’t remember their names) made the quad layer disc using a different method to the other 2 which played on current hardware available in the shops.
Unfortunately I don’t have any stats regarding MPEG-2 to VC-1 releases. I think some films are encoded in AVC also.
The Blu-ray standard allows for multiple video codecs to be used on a single disc but I don’t know if any films have been released this way.
I think HD DVD was better in the way that it uses VC-1 and not MPEG-2.
I don’t understand why Blu-Ray is still persisting with MPEG-2 when it can use AVC or VC-1 for that matter.
But i think HD-DVD will soon be a thing of the past if warner does not change its desision in the future. If we take a closer look, the biggest production houses are now in the Blu-Ray stable and its only a matter of time until HD-DVD gives it up.
The only reason for me to support Blu-Ray is its higher data capacity and nothing else
an article about bluray taking a clear lead in the format war has got all the m$ fanboys out from under there now obsolete hd dvd addons lol
time to eat humble pie as you will have to buy a bluray add on lol
@27 the filmbuff
you are a complete idiot, Sony doesn’t charge you to play games online idiot, you must be thinking of your XBL, which charges 50 for gold, and if you want to make a clan pay $10 on top of that.
You fail at life
its free to play online on the PS3 (you do need to buy the game the disk it self or you mite be meaning you payed for the game via the PS3 DRM game shop if you allready own the game you Do not need to pay for it online
one thing i never do agane is buy Ps3 games online as it only works on the account it was payed for (does not work on Linked Sub accounts) get the disk
People that get excited over this stuff make me sick. Have fun with your 5 minute load times and DRM protection
i see in the future that blu-ray dvds will be getting the DRE treatment like its earlier cousins on the PS2…..
imho in the end pirates would decide that
. I mean if hd-dvd burner is gonna be cheapier 3times than bluray then ppl pick hd-dvd 
and the most important thing? The cost of media 
. Now 10pieces of DVD-R(5) costs about $5 (decent Q) it’s 45GB storage approximately 
. 2 piece of DVD9 costs about the same and you get 18GB of storage. In my life I bought 1 piece (!) of DVD9 and a few hundreds DVD5 so you know what I mean? It’s all about price/storage ratio. And it really doesn’t matter which format can store more data 
I could care less what they decide on doing. I download all of the films that I watch on the internet.
Piracy
4
Life
Blu-ray…correct me if I’m not informed right, but aren’t blu-ray discs twice the price of convential dvd’s, like $25-$35? Won’t this deter movie watchers to implore or visit and download from links on rlslogs
I’d rather buy Blu Ray than HD DVD any day, now its just time to wait for the prices to drop.
there are no HDDVD burners
im getting sick and tired of all this FUD being thrown around, everyone here who is posting negative comments about Blu-ray, is clearly a HDDVD supporter
and why was my last comment delete? it contained all the info to shut everyone up
@Peter Parker
You just proved my point for me, honestly. I didnt claim understanding of the subject other than it existing. Though it may have existed for PC’s, you claim that PS3’s have outdone the amount of data in the little time it has been out. That is sorta the point of what I said. The PS3 has this processor that rivals only multi processor servers and mainframes! What does it need that power for?! Playing games? I have a quad core 2.6 Ghz currently and, on average, I use less than a third of its power when playing video games. In short, you pay for this super processor to play video games, and then can actually donate most of its power to munch data (a task a powerful processor is more useful for)…In the end, they could have stuck an “ok” processor in, and instead, go for a super graphics system…maybe not pay so much attention to human detail and a little more attention to environment…
Funny how some ppl claim that porn industry has nothing to do with this…
http://www.rlslog.net/porn-industry-supports-blu-ray-format/
and what we can see now…
It’s still the same, except now it is HDDVD vs. BluRay, not BETAMAX vs. VHS.
Someone has learned his lesson about past history of media formats
I’m disapointed. I bought a HD-DVD player, not because I thought the format was better, but because its cheaper. The HD-A2 sale at walmart for US$98 and US$99 at bestbuy did it for me. Even before that, I was leaning (slightly) toward HDDVD cuz of the USB drive from the x360 (for use on a pc, I dont really care about console games, I use xbmc to play n64/snes games w/emulator, so obviously Im not much of a gamer). But even so, the only HDDVD’s I own (which I have yet to receive) are the 5 free ones that came with my $98 hd-a2; I joined netflix after buying the player and only rent HDDVDs…. I’ll wait on buying until there is a clear winner.
I’m definately disappointed in this decision tho, I wish WB remained format neutral until the market decides… I mean even today you can find HD-A2 for under US$200 online, but can’t find a single BD player for that price…
Yknow what would really make a winner for me? Whatever player can play H.264 in Matroska from DVD-r! Maybe I should write toshiba and tell them if they put that into their next player, they’ll win… Sure, I download most movies, but that doesnt mean I *NEVER* buy, for the movies I really like, I do buy them for my collection…
@58
dvds here cost $15 to $25 with tax for recent releases while only blu-ray dvds releases(no hd-dvd involved) cost bout $35 to $45 w/o tax. i mean why pay $35 or more just to watch a 90 minute or longer movie?
I will say it again and again…blu-ray is a disappointment, IMO…I watch a couple of movies and it doesn’t make me feel any special like when I switch from vhs to dvd….love my ps3 but I honestly think blu-ray is BS…I mean the infamous profile 1.1 that everyone’s been waiting for is just PIP? wtf!
another thing, anyone who say blu-ray is better than hddvd all because it holds more storage space…if this is your main reason for choosing/siding with blu-ray, I feel sorry for you (BRING IT ON).
-ps3 & Xbox360 both do HD gaming but xbox360 uses dvd9 while ps3 uses blu-ray. Even some games look better on 360 than ps3.
Siding with a company with have been known to shove their products down your throat (over and over) will just come back and bite you in the butt. It’s always good to have some competition. You think IE7 would exist without firefox? No way!!
@8
Like you’ll even read this, but Blu-Ray may have more compacity, but it is rarely used in dual-layer as of yet. HD-DVD almost always uses double-layer (30GB) which is more that most of the Blu-Rays (25GB single layer) and HDDVD has a better video format that would have more quality even if it were a dual-layer Blu-Ray
This war is far from over, I only know 3 people with PS3’s and they don’t use it for Blu-Ray anyway.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Blu-Ray is better than HD-DVD because it holds more space and because of that it supports uncompressed theater quality sound.
And the games on Blu-Ray will keep getting better and better while 360 is stuck with their measly 9gig DVD’s.
And Porn and Disney already are supoorting Blu-Ray so HD-DVD is pretty much done now…
And Blu-Ray also uses VC-1 as well as other codecs
Every Blu-Ray player is also a DVD player too, so you can watch all of your DVD’S upscaled in HIgh Definition on it.
Ive always been a fan of this site but never posted before, but whats been left out on these comments begs me to pipe in.. im not sure about the cost issue.. but what about the sd and hcsd cards, havnt we seen them double in size about every six months, if the industry insists on selling a physical copy of thier media, we will see 264 compressed movies on 16gb or more hcsd cards?
also.. ive read that if we (north america) do nothing to expand the current telecommunications infrastructure that the internet will run out of bandwidth in the next 5-7 years…
ive done no research into the cost or life time of a hcsd card but its structure alone has got to be less susceptible to physical damage…
so far as the bluray vs hddvd.. im on the fence.. i completely agree that the size advantage of blu-ray is awesome.. but not for hd movie content.. id be just as happy to see hddvd take the movie market as long as you could still get 100-200gb blurays and their burners to back up data and all the movies we see here..
in closing, let me apologize for any uneducated comments, the real future as i see it isn’t physical media but a expansion of telecommunications infrastructure, available bandwidth and reasonable costs for the downloads.
keep up the good work rlslog
we really could run out of bandwidth?
wow what would happen?
some systems haven’t been added to since DARPANET came online, the amount of information that is traveling over these antiquated systems is simply more then they were designed to carry.
I personally hate Blue-Ray (come hit me) because it’s been produced by Sony. Sony are known to have one of the most worthless and useless customer supports in the world and their products are often below standard and all you’re paying for is the name. Do some research and you will find that Sony and Apple are two of the most hated companies in the world and with good reason.
Many people bought a Sony DVD player or rewriter and found that the discs they burned or wanted to burn didn’t work in their devices. They then contacted Sony who told them that they were to use Sony made discs and those discs cost at least 5x more than other brands of the same, or even better, quality. I thought I was the only one untill I did some research on the internet and found that I was just one of many.
I don’t own a PS3 and I couldn’t care any less about how ‘poweful’ they are because their graphics chip is inferior compared to that of the XBox. I bought a PSP for the sole reason not to download games to make Sony make losses and laugh at them. I also couldn’t care any less about the XBox, I love my PC that is superior to both those devices in all ways apart from console games. I am not the type to sit and cry because my PC can’t play games it was never meant to play, I know some are and I hope they find a psychiatrist very soon who can prescribe them an overdose so we can get rid of this nonsense.
So in short I hate Sony because they are the worst company I have ever bought things from and it’s a mistake I will NEVER make again. I agree that Blue-Ray (where is my slap?) has its advantages but as long as it’s being pushed by Sony I will wait untill they no longer have the monopoly on it and then I’ll buy from a manufacturer OTHER than Sony. As for Sony’s financial problems: I hope they go bankrupt and the CEO has to comit suicide for having turned his company into the dirt it is now.
If this is a comparison between HDDVD and BD…
@64-65
So stay with DVD! You obviously arent interested in High Def content (whether HDDVD or BD) so you’re lucky, just stick with DVD until there’s a very clear winner and the price is the same as DVD.
@60
So does HD-DVD. As far as movies go, they’re pretty much the same, most everyone can agree to that. That doesnt mean that BD isnt better for data storage than HDDVD, if BD discs hold more then it’s obviously better for that purpose, but as far as HD movies go, it really doesn’t matter.
@70
Are there any HD-DVD players that dont play DVD? My HD-DVD plays DVD just fine… in fact it plays DVD-R copies better than retail DVDs (it’ll upscale DVD-R on component, but not real DVDs, it’ll only upscale those on HDMI).. dunno how that works for BD…
@72
Slower file transfers? Considering that, we wanna keep discs smaller! But for those of us downloading movies, that really dont matter, if you’ve downloaded HD rips, you’ve already seen that we can get GREAT quality that’ll fit on DVD5 (720p h.264 with DTS/AC3 audio), much much better quality than retail DVD9s!
I havent even tried DVD9 sized 1080 rips, but I’d expect they’re pretty comparable to the original HDDVD/BD retail release… I personally have a 1080i tv and think the 780p dvd5-sized rips look as good as retail hddvd, but this is not a professional opinion; but I do know (as stated earlier) they are noticeably better than retail DVD9…
thank god The Matrix CAN COME OUT
I prefer quality so my choise is hddvd
to tired to search to see how many hd-dvd players have gone on ebay in the past few hours lol
HD media is so overrated…
Either way I’ll just wait until the format war is over before buying anything.
Searles, I wouldn’t go boasting about your ilegal activities now that rlslog published your email address to the entire world!
(those who don’t know what I’m an about go read the mulab mutools comments!)
Im on the fence here, but being in the industry I have noticed that no one has mentioned Microsoft and their backing of HDDVD exclusively and the impact they will have in the outcome of all this, remember their market share (monopoly)and the other ‘giants ‘ of the industry that they have in their corner and all the developments and acquisitions that they are involved in..internet, gameing, software, movies etc, etc, also HDDVD is cheaper to manufacture and a lot of todays existing technology can be utilised in the players so they can cut the costs of their players dramatically and choke off Blueray…thats one ace up their sleeve, we also have to note that they have a 52Gb HDDVD playing on all their players with out a problem…
but being who they are they are rakeing it in with similar priceing to Blueray but knowing MS when they are threatened and push comes to shove they can undermine any competition and run them into the ground…..
so I’ll wait and see when the dust settles…….
When Blu-Ray wins, I’m getting a PS3. Just waiting for Paramount to switch sides…. OK Not really. I want the LotR Trilogy on Blue ray, before I consider getting PS3.
Sony just might do to Toshiba, what Nintendo did to them.
Well, i’m dissapointed – it was inevitable that one format would win over the other eventually, but with Warner announcing this, it may well have sealed HD DVD’s fate, which is annoying to say the least! I believed HD DVD to be the more user-friendly format, offering superior features, updatable web content and region-free movies. If Sony has won, it really is a blow to consumers – not just those who’ve bought a HD drive, but anyone investing in a player moving forwards, as they will be have no choice but to go with Sony’s Blue ray and the wonderful restrictions imposed on the format.
BTW, everyone is quick to mention Betamax, anyone remember Sony’s minidisc?!
It would be nice to think Microsoft would step in to ’save’ HD DVD, but in all honesty, do you reallt think Bill gives a toss?
BD vs HDDVD? I choose x264 rips.
This is a good thing though. 2 formats are incredibly inefficient and annoying as hell. So far, optical media has been successful because of backwards compatibility. Your DVDr can r/w dvd’s and r/w cd’s, mini dvd’s, mini cd’s, etc. The split threatened to break a successful model. Kudos warner bros. As for the dude way up top that asked whether a monopoly could ever be good, i say that this is not “that” kind of monopoly. You forget that any company can license BD and make BD players, kinda like how the chips for ATI and Nvidia are made by dozens of manufacturers besides the original makers.
this is stupid, cd’s were bad, then dvd’s meant you could lose even more data with a simple scratch, now why the fidduck would anyone want even more data on a disc? discs are shiite.
this film is going to rock in HD and with the alternative ending, WOOT
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z3yAbAo6dVg
@84
Exactly. Chips from nvidia and ATI. Like players and discs by HDDVD and BluRay. Now there’s gonna be BluRay only. See: There is the monopoly. It is going to be like there would be only nvidia. Without the ATI competition.
With your argument you shot yourself in the leg there, dude.
With BluRay only, there will not be any competition. High prices for the hardware and the discs are guaranteed. Great. Awesome. I am sooooo happy. What a win (for Sony, not for the customers).
Plus: Where is my other posting? Where has it gone? RLSLOG-team, what is going on?
I download all my movies off the net, could care less if movies are released in blue-ray or HDDVD, as long as the HD rips are the same it hardly matters to me.
@88
And that is the problem: BD+ has not been fully cracked yet. So if you are interested in HD-rips, then you should cross your fingers for HDDVD.
BD-J is also a problem: Even some 2nd generation BD-players have problems with this. Seems like a lot of BluRay is still in beta testing.
Nevertheless: Sony bought Warner for most likely a billion of bucks. Nice move. After killing HD DVD, it will pay off: A monopoly makes its own prizes. And even the BluRay-fans will have to pay for this win of “their” format.
Just read this wonderful comment on Doom9.org (everybody who wants to learn about AVC1, XviD, and DivX knows this site!):
“Will high definition content become more than a tiny blimp on the radar or will Sony’s unwillingness to settle for a format others have developed keep customers on the sidelines (with $799 for a dual format player, we’re a long way off from a price most consumers would feel comfortable with, and PC drives are a far cry from the price of a pure DVD burner as well)? And fully understanding that I will catch flack for saying this – here’s my suggestion to everybody considering high def media in 2008: Do NOT buy Blu-ray. Forget about the 20GB smokescreen (if you think size is all that matters head over to my forums and discuss with the experts that more space doesn’t necessarily translate into better quality (or read a codec comparison of mine) and how quality depends on a lot more than raw bitrate and how codecs max out at a certain bitrate) and focus on your rights: especially in this early phase, being able to get content from other countries can come in quite handy – and even more when studios decide to align them into one of two camps. There are plenty of so-called exclusive titles that are available in the other format if you just know where to look – and unlike Blu-ray, HD DVD is guaranteed to be region free (and unlike we had it back with DVDs, regionfree Blu-ray standalone players are nowhere to be found – @update: the first players have since been sighted but for now the selection is limited and the price is beyond reasonable). And besides keeping region codes, Blu-ray enters a whole new era of copy protection: Unless SlySoft gives us another reason to drink champagne tonight, the rumored BD+ crack has yet to surface – so, at this point it is uncertain whether you’ll ever be able to back up those recent Fox titles (and there’s no stopping Sony, Disney and Warner adding BD+ to their titles as well). Even SlySoft – the only ones who can get the last 3 months worth of high definition content decrypted, strongly encourage you to go for HD DVD instead – if anyone has an idea about breaking copy protection it should be them.
While an older PowerDVD release and some standalone players can play an AACS less BD+ titles, creating such a backup will set you back more than buying the original disc, plus both Cyberlink (PowerDVD) and Sony (Playstation3) seem to have already plugged the BD+ workaround and it would be unreasonable not to expect that future firmware upgrades wouldn’t take care of that for other manufacturers – plus there is no way to turn any BD+ titles into any other formats (the Return of the Silver Surfer Blu-ray rip comes from the German Blu-ray disc which has no BD+ – it may not even have AACS (at least my HD DVD copy from the same distributor has no AACS)). And just to top this off, to make use of the Blu-ray Profile 1.1 titles that will be released in 2008, you will need the latest PowerDVD which no longer plays HD content from your harddisk and no longer plays BD+ content altogether.
Buying into any format that could reliably prevent you from ever making a backup copy goes against everything this site has ever stood for – so if you care at all for what you can do with movies you pay good money for, you should stay away from Blu-ray just as any music buyer should stay away from DRM infected online music. And just so that it is said again: Blu-ray champion Sony has single-handedly killed RipIt4Me, is behind ArCCoS, has infected millions of PCs with a rootkit and has been peddling proprietary formats over standards for decades (MiniDisc, ATRAC, MemoryStick and UMD are just a few examples leading up to Blu-ray).”
Sony IS NOT your friend, p2p-fans. It has stopped the production of plenty of tools that we all kindly remember, e. g. RipIt4Me. So editors of an p2p-site (like rslog) cannot be taken seriously cheering the win of Sony and BluRay.
Either they are bought or do not know what they are getting wet panties for. 
I read somewhere that the switch comes with incentives worth 500-600 million Dollars. The switch didn’t have anything to do with ’superiority’ unless we’re discussing the superiority of Sony’s worthlessness as a bad company.
Oscar69, Sony isn’t anybodies friend, the least of all their customers and fanboys who love to get taken up the arse by them.
I can’t believe this. For the consumer HD-DVD is the best format. With the tripple layer it has 51GB, so size isn’t an issue.
Quality they are the same, even Blu-ray camp says this.
Because of copy protection and region encoding, you will end up paying MORE for your movies and spend a lot of time getting frustrated because of crappy menues and such.
this s**t is sick big time like i cant belive this these multinational corporations are trying to screw us all over like this again fair enough aye dvds were a great idea (smaller to store, better video quality, just all in all nicer) but ive watched an hd-dvd and a blu-ray in thier respective players on one of the fatest best tv’s money can buy and i must say there is no point at all in the slightest the quality looks the exact same man its stupid you need a magnifying glass to even begin to tell the difference and on the subject of storage blu-ray is great storage-wise but to me only for games i dont see the point in an hour an 40 minute movie being on a 60gb disc nevermind a 100gb disc stupid pointless moneymaking rip-off scam, by the biggest con-artists in this oppressive society. F**K EM!!!
i think ill stick to xvids,more
in my price range
good news, ps3 rules…
lol@94 haha
i doubt the format war is over…but its a nail in the hddvd coffin
Hahaha , so many pissed off 360 fanboys in this thread , it makes me laught.Not to mention that the disinformation is off the charts.
360 graphics chip better than the PS3 ? LOL they are about equal.
HD-DVD being more “consummer friendly” than Blu-Ray ? What kind of argument is that ? It makes absolutely no sense and it’s only an attempt to grasp at straw
PS3 having a powerful processor and giving most of it’s power to folder/Seti@ home ? LOL again a bunch of misinformed propaganda.The whole folder@home thing is OPTIONNAL so you don’t need to do it if you don’t want to.
HD-DVD quality being better than Blu-Ray ?? Blu-Ray only using the MPEG-2 codec ?? Once again this is BS and as if you look on Blu-Ray.com you will see that most of the latest releases use AVC-1.Not to mention that the sound on BR is uncompressed compared to HD-DVD so therefore BR is superior overall.
So , get your facts straight people before spewing random BS around.In the end you will look less like a fool
It looks like the tables have turned!!!
With Microsoft soon to anounce a new xbox sku, don’t be surprised if they ditch toshiba and have a bd drive in the new xbox.
And for the record I actually like the 360’s games as much as PS3 games. The biggest shame is the hd format war was in danger of spoiling this gen of consoles. Obviously the wii has done better because….
A)Its really really inexpensive in comparison to PS3 and Xbox360
B)They didnt commit to a new disc format (neither did MS tho really)
I was anxious when i bought my PS3 that including Bluray might backfire for sony, yet infact it was the best choice they could of made. Its a real trojan horse strategy, people who buy PS3 just for gaming have now got a HD movie player as well as a media centre.
Toshiba really should of pushed to have a HD DVD drive in the 360.
As far as the warner annoucement goes, sony dint pay them off (if you dont beleive then do your homework ffs)
Because of PS3 warner bluray are selling better than the HD DVD equivalent.
I just feel sorry for people who supported HD DVD and bought loads of movies in that format. Personally I have been waiting for this mess to come to an end.
Paramount must be pissed that they not long ago signed an 18 month exclusive contract, someone is going to get the chop!
Every ps3 fanboy seems to praise his console solely on the cell capacity to crunch numbers, but they seem to forget a good cpu means crap if it is not paired with an equally powerful graphics processor. As everyone knows, the RSX chip (ps3´s gpu) is a geforce 6 class chip which will be 3 generations behind to the soon to be released geforce 9 tech.
As every PC gamer knows, pair a top of the line quad core Core2Duo with a geforce 6 video card and your current games like Bioshock, COD4 or Gears of War will run like crap. if they can be run at all. Change that videocard with a current geforce 8800 GT and you games will look like they took super vitamins, not only will they look a lot better, they will run a lot faster with a few years in them to spare.
Ps3 GPU was already obsolete the moment it came out, games will not improve, they will not get worse but the difference will become noticeable as time passes. Where are the hyper realistic graphics sony promised? only on their minds.
The ps3 is already obsolete. R.I.P.
Blu-ray winning means nothing, i rather buy a stand alone compact dedicated SATA blu-ray player/burner for my PC than the huge ass ps3 meat griller.
Oh boy, so many pissed-off BluRay/PS3-fans Talking about “facts” without presenting any…
I guess Sony is targeting mainly them.
Willing to pay any prize to their Sony-Gods. 
Again: COMPETITION IS GOOD! It’s what makes everything MOVE & EVOLVE!
So having BluRay AND HDDVD is a good thing. Having only one of them is BAD. It is the way into a monopoly. And this means high prizes (due to a lack of competition)!
You do not actually need a degree in economics to understand this. Right?
And talking about “facts”: Who of you experts knows the bitrate at which AVC1 is maxed out? Where an even higher bitrate (which would require a 100 GB BluRay e. g.) just does not result in a better picture?
Do the maths. Read. And you will find out: More space is very often NOT needed. So one of the far too often presented “facts” that more space on BluRay means better picture quality is totally wrong. Plus: Very often there is still space on the BluRay-Discs…
Why would they not use it for a higher bitrate if this would result in a better picture quality? BECAUSE THE QUALITY WOULD BE THE SAME!!!
Again: Do not be noisy, do not write trash like “HD-DVD ownz” or “BluRay ftw”. Start making sense.
Sometimes size does not matter.
Blue-Ray sucks and so does Sony. Download for FREE! That’s hopw I show my support
Blu-Ray has uncompressed sound so BR>>>>HDDVD
And before you try it the HD-DVD players cant play the duallayer discs so they’re stuck where they are at lol
Again , time to set things straight because the amount of misinformation is mind boggling.
@99 Pooboy : Since when exactly is the RSX = a Geforce 6 ?? The RSX is based on the Geforce 7 architecture (7800 GTX more precisely) and not the NV45 so i don’t know where you got your info from but you are completely wrong.The 360 has an ATI chipset of the 1800 generation (which the Geforce 7 was slightly superior to).Man…….
@101 Oscar69 : Yeah right and people said the same thing about never needing more space with 700mb CDs and then the 4.7 gig DVDd and after that the dual layer DVDd ect ect ect……So you may think that the extra space on the Blu-Ray is useless but history shows that the space will be needed and very useful at some point.You are just grasping at straws like the rest of the 360ers/HD-DVDers.
@101 Oscar69 : Yeah right and people said the same thing about never needing more space with 700mb CDs and then the 4.7 gig DVDd and after that the dual layer DVDd ect ect ect……So you may think that the extra space on the Blu-Ray is useless but history shows that the space will be needed and very useful at some point.You are just grasping at straws like the rest of the 360ers/HD-DVDers.
Well, man with the interesting nick which clearly shows how biased you are
: Why are you here then?
Plus: CDs were never meant to be used for containings films. You are wrong there. Next: Duallayer absolutely needed for “good picture quality”. Yeah, sure. That is why they are using it completely for the movie. And why duallayer dvds are always 99 % full with data. Oooops… No, they are not. Wrong again, dude. Plenty of space left on most duallayer dvds. And keep in mind: usually there is much more than just the movie on the dvd. And still: place left.
So – you are wrong. Facts are against you.
@Pooboy
The only thing which lets the PS3 down when comparing it to the best gaming PC available to buy now is the GPU which is equivalent to an Nvidia 7900GT/GTX. It’s a 550MHz GPU with 24 parallax pixel pipelines based on the G71. Go read about it if you don’t believe me.
The 360’s R500 is close to the Radeon X1800, maybe the model down is closer to it’s spec.
The GeForce 8 (8800GTX and GTS) were launched 3 days before the PS3 was launched in Japan.
If Sony and Nvidia were to wait until the G80 specification had been completed, the PS3 would have been launched a few months ago. Then you would say that it’s hardware is out of date because the G92 specification is currently available whilst GeForce 9 cards are coming out in February/March. The console had to be released at some point. How would your PC play (optimized) games if it had an 8800GT and a 7/8 core CPU running at 3.2GHz per core?
@Darth Arcon
Ok, so why did you buy a Core2Quad and not a Core2Duo which are capable of reaching higher clock speeds (stock as well as overclocked on some models like the E6850)? I would assume that you bought a C2Q because you believe that you are trying to future proof your PC.
Applications are being made which will benefit from the presence of additional cores. This is what Sony (with the help of Toshiba and IBM) have done with the PS3.
The 360 itself has a triple core cpu. Should M$ have settled for a dual core instead? The Cell Broadband Engine is an 8 core CPU (7 cores are operational) with each core running at 3.2GHz.
Are you suggesting that Sony is wrong for trying to future proof the PS3 by putting the best hardware available it that time in it’s console?
@viranth and netdude
Yes HD DVD has a triple layer 51GB disc however there are no plans for it to be used for movies at this point in time. In terms of providing the greatest capacity, the largest HD DVD disc to be made is 170GB. The current HD DVD reader and writer technology doesn’t support additional layers (that would be a 10 layer HD DVD disc @ 17GB per layer). Blu-ray has reached 250GB. Apart from a possible need of a firmware update, I don’t know if there are any other limits to the reading capabilities of Blu-ray technology.
Maybe I should add: I own neither a HDDVD- nor a BluRay-player. And I do not intend to buy one. HD content on discs will not be “the next big thing” after DVD. The future will (unfortunately) be downloadable contents. Which might lead to pay-per-view.
@Blu-Ray is King
In terms of uncompressed audio, HD DVD movies are required to use 2 types of lossless codecs (Linear PCM and Dolby TrueHD) whilst Blu-ray movies are only required to use 1 (Linear PCM). So your statement isn’t necessarily true, ALTHOUGH the larger size of the Blu-ray format does allow more audio codecs and languages to be included on each disc.
I only have 2 Blu-ray films. The 1st has two English audio options (5.1 – in the mandatory Dolby Digital @ 640kbps and DTS @ 1.5Mbps and 5.1 Linear PCM). The other has 8 5.1 audio options with English being the only 5.1 Linear PCM.
In fact, I remember lots of people complained about the bad performance of the Radeon X1800. The Radeon X1900 blew the X1800 out of the water. The X1800 was a bad card, much like the GeForce 5 range.
@107 Oscar69 : Your problem is that you only take movies into consideration in your argument when in fact Blu-Ray has a use for games and applications as well and therefore the extra space will come in handy at some point just like it did with every media in history so far.From CDs to DVDs to Dual Layer DVD to Blu-Ray/HD-DVD ect all because movies , games and apps are becoming bigger with each generation.It won’t be any different with Blu-Ray and you are only kidding yourself and ignoring history if you think otherwise.
@Peter Parker
Blu-Ray also has Dolby true HD so you are misinformed or you dont have latest firmware updated…
PC games are now on sale with multiple dual layer DVD’s because 8.5GB is not big enough. BlackSite Area 51 (around 11.2GB) and John Woo Presents Stranglehold (12.5GB) are two examples.
@John
Dolby TrueHD isn’t mandatory on Blu-ray. It is on HD DVD.
@117
Are you sure? I just rented Danny the Dog on HD-DVD and it didn’t have TrueHD, so if its “mandatory” someone messed up there. I’ve rented other movies that do have TureHD, and it’s not the default, I have to manually select it… so now I’ve gotten in the habit of always checking…
@enigma
Unleashed (Danny The Dog) should have Dolby TrueHD although it doesn’t have to be default.
The current mandatory audio codecs for HD DVD are:
Dolby Digital @ 504kbps – lossy
DTS @ 1.5Mbps – lossy
Dolby Digital Plus @ 3.0Mbps – lossy
Linear PCM – lossless
Dolby TrueHD – lossless
The mandatory Blu-ray audio codecs are:
Dolby Digital @ 640kbps – lossy
DTS @ 1.5Mbps – lossy
Linear PCM – lossless
Everything else is optional according to the current HD DVD specification.
Blu-ray also supports higher bitrates in the all of the lossy audio codecs apart from Dolby Digital Plus, which supprts 1.7Mbps comnpared to 3.0Mbps on HD DVD.
Whilst DVD had Region 0 allowing for world wide use, some Blu-ray films are encoded with Regions 1-3. I don’t know how many of them are done this way but there are a few.
I’m not bothered who wins, I find both formats pointless, its just a last ditch attempt to make people buy media in physical formats, we are not too far away from having all of our media delivered through the internet, cd sales are declining year on year, once high speed internet becomes the norm, who is going to pay to buy a movie from a store? The only purpose blu-ray or hd-dvd will serve is just to back up data, and even then there will be better ways to do that.
I’m not bothered who wins, I find both formats pointless, its just a last ditch attempt to make people buy media in physical formats, we are not too far away from having all of our media delivered through the internet, cd sales are declining year on year, once high speed internet becomes the norm, who is going to pay to buy a movie from a store? The only purpose blu-ray or hd-dvd will serve is just to back up data, and even then there will be better ways to do that.
im glad blu ray is moving fowards.
there are alot of ps3 haters out there, who dismiss the bluray drive and @ darth acron, why the hell are you mocking folding@home, if you even had a brain cell youd realise its a good idea.
dell only sell bluray drives,no hddvd (here in uk anyway)
i bought my ps3 for two reasons really, blu-ray and gt5.
ive still gotta wait for gt5, but the quality of a movie is awesome, i like the fact that i dont have to buy some stupid external drive and faf around to watch hd, i also like that i can watch hd/dvd without having to pay for a remote, i also like playing all my games online for free, with no subscription.
all in all, once youve bought hd dvd and xbox live the ps3 is a much much sounder investment.
i might be the only one but im very happy with my ps3 and glad i didnt get a 360 as i almost did on many occasions.
About time, I hope microsoft DIE!
F00k Blue-Ray and HD. I’m old school. I back my DVDs up on 4300 floppy disks. lol
@enigma
More news on the mandatory codecs:
(Obviously) the players must support all mandatory codecs but each disc must contain one or more of them (for video and audio).
This would be why Unleashed didn’t have Dolby True HD.
I stopped reading after awhile but wanted to make these points:
I support Blue-Ray over HD-DVD because I imagine that in 2 or 3 years, recordable discs will be cheap enough to use for semi-permanent data storage like many people do with DVD-R’s and before that CD-R’s. Blue-Ray has much more capacity. Do you want to burn 1 Blue-Ray or 2+ HD-DVD’s to store the same information? Using hard drives for storage may be cheaper but hard drives fail much more than burned discs. You can easily lose a 500GB or 1TB drive full of information with no warning. In fact, you should expect it to happen at some point, it’s so likely. Everything I’ve ever burned to CD-R or DVD-R is still accessible as far as I’ve checked.
My friend supports HD-DVD because he had an XBox and now an XBox 360. Basically a low level fan boy mentality which I see mirrored here by a few people. A poster above basically said it doesn’t matter what the capacity is because movies fit on both formats. This is very short sighted thinking.
Director/Producer Michael Bay believes that Microsoft has only supported HD-DVD to create confusion and to block Sony from success with Blue-Ray. Microsoft’s goal is really to get you hooked on downloadable content through their XBox Live. This does make a lot of sense to me. You can tell they have put a lot of thought into XBox Live which is actually very usable for a console based system. I would’ve liked to support Sony over the more traditionally invasive Microsoft by upgrading my PS2 to a PS3, but I went for the XBox 360 because of the extremely better online gaming experience. Sony has made the mistake of letting the each individual game company provide their own online experience for their games and it’s been much more miss than hit. I assume they are changing this, but haven’t looked into it due to a lack of games for the PS3 (a situation which has recently improved). I won’t be buying the HD-DVD player that connects to the 360 – If I really wanted one, I’d just get a stand alone player that won’t be useless if my 360 dies for a few dollars more. I recently read on a 360 fan site that Microsoft is planning on adding internal HD-DVD playability to future 360’s which should be an interesting twist.
People keep throwing around the word monopoly but if that is the case wasnt the dvd a monopoly as well? Sony might have created/started Blu-ray disc but they arent going to be the only ones in control of it so there is NO monopoly.
They wont be and arent already the only ones making blu-ray players or blu-ray movies.
I don’t understand why people would rather Blu-Ray win than HD-DVD. With Blu-Ray people like us would have to wait longer for HD rips, we would be stuck with Region coding, Blu-Ray also doesn’t have mandatory DTS HD, and in a couple of years your probably going to have to buy a new Blu-Ray player due to larger capacity discs. Add to that, these 200GB discs would only be useful for storage but Hard Drives read quicker and by the time 200GB Blu-Rays are out 2TB Hard Drives will be the norm and if companies released fims that took up 200GB then we would all need new HDTV’s, the resolution would be 9600×5400 or something stupid, if they released games that actually took up 200GB there would be a new game every 10 years!!
Could we please stop saying “It looks like the format war is over”, I can’t count the number of times this has been said in the last year and a half. The war is never over, both sides have billions of investing dollars. Just because 1 says they’re going 1 way, doesn’t mean they can’t change their mind later. It happens all the time. It was “over” when porn changed. Then it was over again when porn changed again, then it was over when I blew my nose.
Also “throw your HD-DVD” away. Yeah, thats smart, because there aren’t hundreds of movies in HD-DVD to watch. Not to mention there are plenty more distributors of HD-DVD than just WB.
The best news of this topic would be no news, as there isn’t a bit of news that can come out that will make a bit of difference to us. The “war” will go on forever.
Having HD-DVD is excellent, the prices for these HD-DVDs are super cheap. Imagine if only Blu-Ray won? My god, I don’t think Sony can extract much more money from my ass than they already have, imagine Sony with no competition… HD-DVDs are nice and cheap.