Blu Ray / HD DVD Discussion Thread

[DarthPrime]

The Toshiba HD-DVD player thats up for preorder at a lot of sites will upconvert a standard DVD. Its similar as to how a current conversion HD player works. It want be HD-DVD quality, but it will look a little better than normal.

The HD-DVD player has two lasers. One for HD-DVDs and one for regular DVDs and CDs. Blu-Ray is also backwards compatible with DVDs, although I'm not sure as to how it works. Does Blu-Ray players also use two lasers, or is it something else?

I'm also getting mixed news about if you can use these formats on a standard TV. I've heard that they only work on a HDTV, but then I've heard that they will work without a HDTV but you want get the HD resolutions from them. Has anyone heard anything about the possibility of these working on standard TVs?

[Pluto Region1]

Most of us have spent well over 2000 + dollars on our DVDs. Then the player (any price so $100 give or take when you purchased it)

Blu-Ray player $4,000
Disks - Over $40.00

Just think..it all adds up.
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That is ridiculous! They're not going to sell many players at $4K a piece! And collecting at $40 a pop? That is not gonna happen (at least not in this house!)

[Hogi Bear]

The HD-DVD player has two lasers. One for HD-DVDs and one for regular DVDs and CDs. Blu-Ray is also backwards compatible with DVDs, although I'm not sure as to how it works. Does Blu-Ray players also use two lasers, or is it something else?

I'm also getting mixed news about if you can use these formats on a standard TV. I've heard that they only work on a HDTV, but then I've heard that they will work without a HDTV but you want get the HD resolutions from them. Has anyone heard anything about the possibility of these working on standard TVs?

I think they can down convert the resolution, so that they can be played on a normal TV and I think Playstation 3 will also be able to do it.

Sony has developed a lens that can use all three lasers, so they may come with one lens and that. Just check out www.blu-ray.com (fan site) or www.blu-raydisc.com (offical site) for blu-ray info.

[2099net]

I think they can down convert the resolution, so that they can be played on a normal TV and I think Playstation 3 will also be able to do it.

But I think downconversion can lead to artifacts (just like some downconverted anomorphic images can have "stepping" artifacts on some players when viewed downconvered on a 4:3 tv). So you could actually get a worse picture on a standard TV from a HD disc than from a 'normal' disc.

[Hogi Bear]

Yeah, well down converting will always knock quality out, because it has to reduce the number of pixels. But most people are probably not going to watch HD video on a standard CRT, although it's good to know they can if they want to (if the players can do it though).

[jamminjake245]

The $4,000 for the blu-ray was for the 'recorder'. Sorry, just wanted to make my case sound stronger. lol

Actually, I have an HDTV, but DVDs look fine on them. I have the Titanic SE and it looks like it is in high defination. I didn't need to buy a whole new player for that and it still looks pretty good.

Also I probably will be purchasing Blu-ray disks before I actually get the player. I don't want another Snow White senerio.

[Class316]

What “Snow White scenario” are you referring to?

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are quite a significant leap from DVD. Maybe not as huge as VHS to DVD or even LD to DVD, but pretty big.

However, the biggest obstacle (besides price) will be a format war. For this reason DVDs won’t be obsolete any time soon. I for one refuse to shell out hundreds of dollars when there’s a format war, period.

[Pyoko]

What “Snow White scenario” are you referring to?

Probably that he didn't buy Snow White because he had no DVD player, and when he did get a player the discs were no longer available. That's what happened to me at least.

[Isidour]

I suggest to wait, because even when the Blu-ray is considered now the winner of this war we don`t know how will the public and the market will react to this new format war.

For what we know it could be like the war Beta-Vhs or even that another technology producer could take advantage of the economy of the public and make a dual format player, what would make his sales sky-high because the public would choose this instead of just one format.

[Class316]

I wouldn't call Blu-ray a winner at this point. MS supports hd-dvd.

Dual players will likely work better. For instance my DVD burner burns both DVD-R and DVD+R. That pretty much deemed the war irrelevant, though neither one became as big as CDR.

But it’s a lot different with something like Blu-ray and hd-dvd.

Who knows, they may end up like SACD and DVD-A.

[dvdjunkie]

I think that what we are seeing is another "war" between HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-Ray. It's just like VHS versus Beta, or VHS versus DVD, or for those of us who are old enough to remember, 8-track versus cassette tapes.

There will be only one winner, and it depends on the public's acceptance of which one that will succeed.

From what I have read they are both basically the same, Sony using a blue laser instead of red, and if you read a lot of different sites about these two 'new' products, you will see that they are both in their infancy and are going to cost a lot of money to get started.

There is product already scheduled to be released from the major studios in March on HD-DVD and all of that product can be played on your current DVD player. That is the plus side. If you have a HD-TV but not a HD-DVD player or one of the new up-convert to HD players, you will not be left behind. You can buy the product and then as the prices come down on the HD-DVD players (which they will) you can purchase one and already have product in hand. Another plus is you don't have to have a HD-TV to watch HD-DVD, you just won't be able to enjoy the full effect of HD until you do.

Since it looks like they aren't going to be offering any 'extra' special features on the blu-ray and only using a portion of the disc, their selling point is their recorder which will allow you to store a ton of stuff on it. When you purchase the movies offered, barely have the disc properties will be used.

For my money, HD-DVD will be the way to go. Just like VHS was over Beta.

[Luke]

dvdjunkie, you should probably do your research. They are not basically the same (Blu-Ray offers a much higher disc capacity, for one thing) and Blu-Ray most definitely will be using special features, including types that DVD technology couldn't have allowed.

At this point, I don't know how anyone can think HD-DVD will come out the winner. The only advantages it seems to have at this point are A) a name closer to DVD and B) a slightly earlier launch date. But I'm skeptical that either format is going to break through being anything but a niche product early on. For many people, DVD's quality is "good enough", so even though the high definition formats will offer clearly superior technology, I don't see them being adopted anywhere nearly as quickly as DVD, which was evidently surpassing two video formats/markets at once (the niche - laserdisc and the mainsteam - VHS). What percentage of the U.S. population even has high definition televisions?

[Pyoko]

What percentage of the U.S. population even has high definition televisions?

I can't remember where I read it, but I think it was somewhere around 12-15%. Subtract from that all the people who have no interest (or even knowledge) of the new formats and only have HDTVs because they needed a new TV set, and you realize how big the market for HD DVD/BD really is right now.

[Isidour]

so,considering that not all have a HD tv, this war could be pass unnoticd for almost everybody(except for those who have the enough money to spare) and this end up like the Laser Disc?

[semicharmedguy26]

Yes the storage capacity of DVD-HD and BR are significant, HD being about 30 gig and blu-ray at about 50 gigs. Reason that DVDHD are cheaper and coming out sooner is that dvd manufacturers do not have to buy completely new hardware to manufacture new dvdHD's rather they just have to make certain upgrades to existing machines. this causes the production costs to be lower than that of BR atleast in the early years. BR would require that plants need to buy completely new production lines which is why discs would be expensive. so that would explain the high costs of discs, again at least initially. One other thing to consider for the upgrading, which is more on the industry end rather than consumer is DRM, yes those 3 evil letters more evil than anything else in the world. They're gonna yap at you about how DVDHD/BR will be true Hi-def and blah blah blah but its ALL ABOUT DRM. "supposedly" with these new discs, the movie industry will be able to put better DRM on the disc than the pathetic existing drm on our current dvd's.

I personally am hopeing dvd-hd will get the go over BR, reason being that i am biased against sony. Sony has always been known to keep all their crap proprietary, good example Sony Memory stick and ATRACC3 (you audiophiles know what im talking about). With sony in charge of the media that movies will be distributed on, sony is going to have a field day with the prices they will charge, and anybody who's had experience with sony knows sony isn't user friendly or wallet friendly. I can understand using BR for pure data storage like use for a computer, however for movie distribution i do not see any movie needing to use the entire 50GB to store video file, audio tracks and extras.

[Isidour]

well, is know that the first to hit hit twice, and the price it`s going to be what determine the winner.

Well,the price certanly will be what make the difference, and not alays the best is what wins this wars IMO,so maybe the HD-DVD is not as lost as we think

We`ll have to wait to know the winner

[MickeyMousePal]

Their won't be a winner because DVD will be king!!!!

[dvdjunkie]

I wouldn't know a gig from a gag............what I am saying is that what I have read, Blu-Ray will have all sorts of capacity, but the studios won't be using it. You will be paying for a lot of unused space on a disc. Plus I, not being a techno-geek, could care less about five movies on a disc, or whatever, you only watch one movie at a time any way.

I still think that the true winner when it comes down to the regular consumer will be HD-DVD. Blue-Ray will be around like Beta was for a while and will fade into the distance. It won't go away because of the all the techo-people that think they have something special.

I am satisfied with what DVD has to offer and am not looking to spend any more cash on something new that I don't understand.

[Tarzan.]

What disney DVD's were released on high definition?

[Isidour]

will be released to be perfectly clear