HD War is over. Disney wins
 

If I see it once I laugh it off

Twice, I figure they are just talking to each other

Three times I figure it's wishful thinking

But I keep seeing this same argument over and over. All the major studios (Universal included) are now going to start publishing in Blu-Ray. Only some will make HD-DVD. Do the math.

Game set match.

Checkmate.

Touchdown!

Upon this news, J & I have gotten a blu-ray player that we were able to get retroactively discounted from his TV purchase a couple of weeks ago...

Whee!!

Sony wins a format war for once.

Disney, Paramount, Universal, whatever. The real signal that Blu-ray is the winner...porn.

Yahtzee!

I'm really surprised. The general public knowledge of electronics being what it is I figured that HD-DVD would win out simply by the HD-DVD to HD-TV association. I know a few folks (like my parents and a couple siblings) who think that BluRay is some totally foreign technology and don't understand it, but it looks as though they'll have to learn.

Interesting turn of events.

I think it is amusing that many new devises have food or color associations. Bluetooth, Blackberry, BlueRay.........

Porn in bluray should only be shown to medical students for diagnostic purposes. Every ingrown hair, every pimple, every fold of... .. well... some things are not meant to be blown up that large and in that much detail.

I'm sure the stars love all of those close-ups in hi deff! Every little imperfection for all to see. Good thing they can digitally enhance things away if they want to.

In POTC 3 I could see every little pore in Jhonny Depps nose! It was rather gross, really.

Not to mention how obvious it will be that those 10” beauties aren’t real.

Ironic, since - just as with Betamax vs. VHS - the inferior high def format looks to have won.

I've never heard anyone claim that one was actually inferior to the other, just that they're different formats. How is it inferior?

OUCH!

I don't care WHO won. I'm not spending $400+ on a BlueRay player.

I bet the HD DVD players will come down in price

It's a good thing then that they're down to $250 now. ;)

Next time you're over I'll demo Ratatouille in Bluray for you and you can tell me whatcha think :)

I just found out Ratatouille was digitally transferred direct to DVD, making for one helluva picture. Animation has always benefited most by picture clarity improvements, so I can only imagine how frelling cool the Blu Ray image looks. Yowza.

Cars was one of the first Blu Ray's where I really noticed a difference over the DVD version. The gold flecks in Lightning's paint job really pop. Other movies, like the Potter's, show less of a difference.

Well, there is no blue food ya know.

You know, I thought the same things as Jazz & NA when it came to the naming. To me, it seemed like the natural progression, mentally, would be HD TV and HD DVD. In the end, we were just waiting for something more definitive - plus we also had that sweet deal on our new Blu-Ray player ~$100.

Ratatouille is basically *the* standard for Blu-ray at the moment. I saw it first on an upscaled DVD (which looked good), and then later purchased it on Blu-ray for 1080p viewing. My first reaction was oh... my....god. Honestly, I don't think it looked that good in theatres, unless you were seeing a digital projection. It's like another layer of gauze has been removed from the camera. "Sharp" doesn't even begin to describe how amazing it looks (and that goes for many of the films on the "Pixar Shorts" discs as well). I haven't seen Cars yet on Blu-ray, but the film "Mater and the Ghostlight" is on the Pixar Shorts DVD... and yeah, the fact that you can see each individual fleck of glitter on Lightning McQueen's paint job is jaw-dropping.

FYI:

Amazon.com is having a great sale on just about all Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies.

I'd expect this to be the last sale of this type for quite some time if HD does in fact go down the tubes.

At CES, the HD DVD booth folks were dragging their feet, not even smiling much.

Just one row over, the people at Blu-Ray were practically throwing a party.

Looks like I will have to upgrade to an HD camera in the next year, as well as the capability to burn to BluRay. Oy. I'm not looking forward to those expenses.

Although, I can officially write off any player as a business expense and movies as "research". :D

Including the sort of movies referenced by Mr Delight? :evil:

Technically, if I start shooting or editing those films, then yes. ;)

Well, I can't afford an HD display (especially not at my minimum size requirements ... yes, Gemini Cricket, I am a size queen) ... so I don't expect to care about High Def DVD's anytime soon.

wow, a commercial just aired plugging HD-DVD and Shrek 3.

The reasons behind me not going over to HD format are $$ and really I have most ofthe DVD's I want - now if "Hollywood" would create better films, I might change my mind.

^^ There's no need to re-buy DVDs in High Def. Just, from here on out, if you're GONNA purchase something, then Bluray it.

Nope, that's like saying I should never have bought any CDs of albums I had on LP, or never purchased DVDs of movies I already owned on VHS.

My favorite stuff is always going to be in the older, less impressive format. That doesn't sit well with me.


(Nor does buying everything again in the newest, flashiest format ... which is what the business model counts on.)

I have a good number of movies on DVD that I'm just fine leaving in that format.

Then there are those that I gotta have in HD: 2001, Terminator-2, Star Wars, PoTC (just the first one), etc...

Those I will probably buy in every new format for many years to come...

Though I have DVDs in the hundreds, I am quickly coming to view them the same way I do most books. I buy it, I read it, I get rid of it knowing that if I ever need it again it won't be that hard to reacquire it (whether by repurchase, rental, download, etc.).

I just looked over my movie watching log for the last year. I own approximately 350 DVDs. In the last 15 months I have watched a DVD I own (as opposed to a Netflix rental) four times.

The odds of me needing to watch Buckaroo Banzai without waiting a couple days for it to get here from Netflix (or, if it is available, minutes while waiting for it to download) are essentially nil. And if it is that important I can probably walk across the street to Best Buy and just buy it. But it is still taking up space in my house.

I'm all for the future of "leased access." I don't care if I physically own anything, I just want to know I always have relatively easy access.

Count me in as a sucker consumer. I just ordered my ps3 (blu-ray player), and I bought the Kubrick movies for the fourth time (laserdisc, fullscreen dvd, widescreen "remastered" dvd...). And I don't regret it. Not a bit.

I wish I could be more like Alex but I have too much stuff that I fear I'd never find again if I gave them up, that they might never make it to the next platform

This may expose my supreme dorkiness, but we just watched Jurassic Park for the first time in many months, perhaps even a year or two, and I couldn't help but imagine it in HD on a big, wide screen. Almost gave me a woody. Now I'm totally wanting an HD set.

I imagine the effects in JP will not be served particularly well by HD.

Really? I know they're a few years old now, but I would think that they were still rendered in high enough resolution that they'd see an improvement bumping up to an HD set from a traditional TV. I can't imagine that I'm seeing their maximum resolution now, anyway.

I'm just hoping for with the increase data that can be packed on each disc, that my favorite TV shows can be put out in more compact forms.

Imagine, a single Blu-Ray disc containing an entire season worth of Simpsons or Family Guy? You could an entire series in what fits in a season's worth of box sets these days. :D

That's another thing I've been wondering about too. With HD or BluRay discs holding so much more data you would think that'd be a preferable option. A whole season on one disc would be great. As it is, one whole shelf in our living room is solely 24. Trimming that down would be great.

It appears the war will be officially over tomorrow.

I guess this will also mean then end of those 1/2 price Blu-Ray disk sales on Amazon.

Okay, now that it's over, which Blue-Ray DVD Player should I get? :cool:

PS3

I think the big reason Blue-ray will win is that I have heard that the Blue lazer can handle more information. HD DVD in the red lazer is currently maxed out. I don't know if this has any impact on the information stored on the disc, but I thought I'd mention it, and because of this I have been on the Blue-ray side for some time.

Besides the fact that Bluray cases are smaller physically (plus 4-disc sets like Planet Earth fit into one regular sized Bluray case -- of 4 bluray discs), I don't think they're going to have an entire season of DVD-quality video one one disc.

The point of Bluray is the high definition, which takes up more room on the disc. So things like "24" will take up the same amount of discs, but will look much better on your HDTV.

Of course, if you buy a Bluray burner for your computer and you create a menu and copy your "24" DVDs onto it.. well, that's a different story. Then yeah, I'm sure you could get it all on one disc without much quality loss :)

How about All region Blure-Rays?

The main thing is that you want to be sure your player fully supports Blu-ray v2.0. (Which the ps3 does).

For the same price as the PS3 you can get a stand alone player that fits better on a shelf and makes less noise and typically has a better remote but won't play games. Your choice.

Since I'm not a gamer, I'll likely go with a stand alone player.

Blue-Ray v2.0, check!

I was pretty stoked to get our player as a part of a combo that we were able to rig up three + weeks after we'd bought our HDTV. It ended up being only $99 rather than the $400+ we'd spend on it by itself. We needed the new TV (other one was failing), so the timing just happened to work out for us.

Well I'm nowhere near getting a blu-ray, since it will be years (if ever) till I get an HD display.

I won't be settling for less than a 70", so it's going to be awhile till I can afford one. My viewing habits have shrunk to hardly ever ... so I am fine with my cathode ray tube and DVD set up ... maybe till the day I die for all I care.

And it is now official.

Hi-def battle ends as Toshiba quits HD DVD

I meant to respond to this earlier and forgot (although it is a bit of a moot point):

HD DVD
Disc capacity
15GB (single layer)
30GB (dual layer)
51GB (prototype triple layer)

Video capacity (per dual-layer disc)
SD: approximately 13 hours
HD: 5.1 or 3.3 hours, depending on encoding method



Blu-ray
Disc capacity
25GB (single layer)
50GB (dual layer)
100GB (prototype quad layer)

Video capacity (per dual-layer disc)
SD: approximately 23 hours
HD: 8.5 or 5.6 hours, depending on encoding method

Whatever. Technical specs were never going to decide this. It happens that the winner has the better specs on paper, but in the end, it was entirely a war won from a business standpoint. Sony made it more worthwhile for the studios to sign on, end of story.

A lesson that Sony probably remembers well from the VHS vs. Betamax war.

Yep, and just like that one ... the majority of criitcal reports that I read (and I read many of them) gave a slight picture quality edge to HDTV.


But, in light of the Betamax fiasco, I'm kinda glad it won this format war with its lower quality product.


imo, this is not going to revolutionalize home video in the ways that VHS and DVD did.

I'm honestly surprised that either "won". With the trend today to be to just support everything (go look at how many different connection standards a new TV supports), I wouldn't have been surprised to see both of them linger on for quite a while. At least until delivery methods more like AppleTV/Vudu/Amazon UnBox* caught on and made physical media obsolete.


* Note, I'm not saying any of those are DVD killers as they are now. But it won't be long before internet delivery of content becomes the norm. Unless, of course, net neutrality dies, making such delivery prohibitively expensive.

To be fair, the only revolutionary product of the two listed was VHS, which in and of itself was just something that followed the path Betamax blazed, since VHS actually changed, or disrupted, a previous behavior - namely going to the movies. DVD was a mere innovation, as is Blu-Ray/HDDVD, though perhaps less-so than the DVD was... Aside from quality and size, there are no radical differences with the technology.

I'm a big fan of innovation. :)

Well, I'd say that DVD was revolutionary in that it facilitated the crossing over of the PC into the world of entertainment centers. It's a media that worked in both worlds and eventually melded them into each other.

I suppose, but I still consider it an innovation, since it wasn't entirely disruptive to a previous behavior, at least not in the way that VHS was. DVDs only facilitated the crossover as much as the Internet, mp3s, and other varying technologies did. So, it was part and party to the whole she-bang, but not the ultimate cause of it.

Thanks Kevy! That is interesting!

I agree, and I'm very surprised (and relived) that it is over. I'll be going HD soon!

Actually, since DVD did not (for most) allow you to record your own stuff, one can say it was a tenth the innovation that VHS was. VHS was the TIVO and DVD of its day, combined in one.

Ahh yes... TiVo.

Loves me the whole recording things.

We bought the HD TiVo with my Christmas bonus and over the weekend we ordered the capacity add-on with our tax refund. 85 hours of high-def TiVo capacity - yee haw!

Mine's full already.

Well, for me DVD was much more of a revolution than VHS. In my 12 years of owning my own VCR I only ever recorded a TV show and actually watched it twice. I never owned a movie on VHS.

But something about DVD clicked with me. I was a very early adopter and had an ownership mentality.

TIVO still holds minimal interest to me because I have no interest in timeshifting the shows I watch (if I miss them, I miss them, someday maybe I'll watch on DVD). My computer had built in DVR capability (HD even) but after some initial curiosity I didn't even bother to plug cable into it after we moved so that sits unused (and now I could even plug the computer into my TV and watch it all on the big screen).

So, for me the home entertainment revolution really was DVD.

:eek:

Tonight I dubbed my Buffy the Musical from VHS to DVD. It's the only show from the series I'm interested in and I don't want to buy the whole season 6 to get it. Someone gave me the soundtrack so I got the bug to do it.

I started taping music on a real-to-real tape player in the early 70's, I had 8 track tapes, I dubed my vinyl onto casette tapes, rented VHS back in the late 80's when the required a $100 check as a deposit, have recorded 1000s of hours of VHS tape, hundreds of DVDs, was the first person to own a CD player in my family and have made dozens of CDs, I'm in the process of tranfering my home movies from 8mm to DVD, and now I record shows on my HD DVR (and still call it tapeing-old habits you know). I use my media technology to the max.

Times, they are a changin!

For some reason I have a giant box-o-VHS-porn (from my days working in a gay shoppe in San Diego) and I haven't owned a VCR in about 4 years. RStar, wanna do some dubbing? :P

Woo hoo!!!


Oh. Errr ummm never mind.

Thanks for thinking of me!

But, I think I'll pass. :D

Hmmmm, I still have a working VHS player .....:rolleyes:

Why does this not surprise me?

That just sounds dirty... hehe ;)

We bought a TV yesterday.

In HD.

Oscaaarsssss, drrrooooool. :D

Susan has the DVDs of the entire series. If it weren't for copy protection, I would dub it off of DVD for you (so you could have a cleaner copy).

Haha, I keep seeing dubbing as a dirty word.

/giggle