View Full Version : Which do you perfer, HD DVD or Blu Ray?
sazan fan
2007-01-21, 18:41
Quick follow up question if anyone knows. Apparently, the Blu Ray region codes consists of A/1, B/2, and C/3. A/1 includes both North America and Japan. Does that mean if I were to buy a Blu Ray player, it would be able to play both Region 1 and 2 DVD's. Which brings up another question, Blu Ray players can still play DVD's right? And finally, can anyone confirm that HD DVD's will contain no region codes and does that mean HD DVD players can play DVD's from every region?
Epyon9283
2007-01-21, 20:37
I have a blu ray player (ps3) but no blu ray movies.
Doesn't the ps3 comes with a blu ray movie "Talladega Nights." Blu Ray player can play dvds. Whether or not HD DVDs contain no region code, I'm not sure (doesn't own a HD DVD player). You probably could research it on Wikipedia. Then again someone's already found a way to rip HD DVDs, so you could make it region free if it does contain a region code.
Epyon9283
2007-01-21, 21:35
Doesn't the ps3 comes with a blu ray movie "Talladega Nights."
Only the launch units did. I got mine a couple weeks ago so it came with nothing.
The first question is hard to answer - if you buy a Bluray player, it could play Bluray discs from both Japan and America. If it can do both DVD Region 1 and 2 depends wholly on what the DVD part of the player is set to do.
Bluray and standard DVD's use different technology to read the discs BUT most players can read both - you need to check the labels to make sure it can.
Dunno about HD-DVD, I prefer Bluray and have for years.
I perfer HD-DVD. I have an Xbox 360 with the HD-DVD add on and the HD movies looks great. I've seen no difference with picture and sound quality between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD palying on the same setup and resolution. The HD-DVD standalone players are a lot cheaper then the Blu-Ray players currently. I also heard that the cost to manufacturer HD-DVD is cheaper then Blu-Ray. For the movie studios support I think they are about the same. HD-DVD might have more movies out because it came out before Blu-Ray so all in all I think the HD-DVD format will win this battle. I think more people will buy into HD-DVD because of its easy to remember recognizable name. If you go out an ask 10 people what Blu-Ray is most wouldn't know what the hell you were talking about. Now if you go out and ask those same 10 people what HD-DVD is. I think most of would know what it is or that it has something to do with the DVD format.
It'll be another VHS vs. Betamax - the superior technology will lose out to a inferior one.
JanthraX^
2007-01-22, 04:47
It'll be another VHS vs. Betamax - the superior technology will lose out to a inferior one.
That wasn't much of a fight in the UK, Only Fools and Horses anyone?
I havent had any contact with HD or Blu-Ray, except playing on a friends xbox360.
I think i will be waiting and then make a decision on which format to choose.
I hope it is a case of VHS vs Betamax, a clear winner with the loser being abandoned.
I perfer HD-DVD. I have an Xbox 360 with the HD-DVD add on and the HD movies looks great. I've seen no difference with picture and sound quality between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD palying on the same setup and resolution. The HD-DVD standalone players are a lot cheaper then the Blu-Ray players currently. I also heard that the cost to manufacturer HD-DVD is cheaper then Blu-Ray. For the movie studios support I think they are about the same. HD-DVD might have more movies out because it came out before Blu-Ray so all in all I think the HD-DVD format will win this battle. I think more people will buy into HD-DVD because of its easy to remember recognizable name. If you go out an ask 10 people what Blu-Ray is most wouldn't know what the hell you were talking about. Now if you go out and ask those same 10 people what HD-DVD is. I think most of would know what it is or that it has something to do with the DVD format.
Before you start claiming the victory to HD-DVD, you should take a look at the companies backing up Blu-ray. HD-DVD has alot of back up aswell but last I checked blu-ray had more bigger companies behind it.
EDIT: This doesn't mean much now but the battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD is hardly over and it will probably take years before clear winner is proclaimed.
Blu Ray single sided disc can hold up to 25gig while HD DVD single sided disc can hold up to 15gig. I'm not sure which one has the better video quality but I know that TDK just confirmed that they tested a Blu Ray disc that can hold up to 200gig now.
killmoms
2007-01-22, 10:14
Eh, the real winners of this stupid format war will be manufacturers that make players that can play both formats. They're already starting to come out, and that's what I'll get. Then it won't matter which format a movie hits the streets on.
Besides, both formats use the same codecs (though it seems most Blu-Ray discs are being mastered with MPEG-2 at the moment, which is ridiculous), so there's really no quality benefit to one or the other, assuming the disc producers encode well. I'd prefer to see more H.264 discs than VC-1 though, just because.
There's not much point in downgrading from DVD. Now, if the community can fix these Defective Recorded Media on the other hand...
panzerfan
2007-01-22, 12:51
Well, to combat the Blu-ray, a triple layered HD-DVD was made, with slightly larger capacity but the same kind of feat was repeated on Blu-ray as well. I find that Blu-ray and HD-DVD will not claim the crown in the end, and instead, I would put my money over storage, mostly solid state drives instead. Those things can last more than a million read cycles and and very fast in comparision, and that the capacity per capita is getting more and more attractive comparing to the fairly low physical costs of Blu-ray and HD-DVD. I personally favor Blu-ray in this war, but I seriously think that future doesn't bode well for whoever that wins.
LG has released a combination player, but the price actually exceeds the combined price of having both players. There is a Total disc that would accomodate both, although it has been speculated that it will only add to the confusion.
Imagine if there was a manufacturer that developed a gaming platform that could play PS3/PS2/PS1/XBOX360/XBOX/Wii/GAMECUBE games. I would drop as near as $2000(about the same price as a new labtop) on it. I think that would end the consoles war. Although it has nothing to do with the HD DVD and Blu Ray battle, I just like the concept of the combination player.
Lord Raiden
2007-01-22, 16:24
Well, I'm one who prefers HD-DVD for two primary reasons.
1. It's *NOT* a Sony supported format. I refuse to have anything to do with a company that thinks that packing viruses and rootkits onto cd's as a form of DRM is an acceptible business practice.
2. HD-DVD, while smaller, is the more stable format. Blu-ray is just too picky about too many things to be considered a viable format. Plus it's supported by less stuff and is more expensive.
In total honesty though, neither Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is even needed at this time. It's just overkill and a thinly veiled attempt by big media to ONCE AGAIN sell you yet ANOTHER media format. They got you with VHS, then DVD and now HD-DVD/Blu-ray?? Uh, no thanks. I don't like repurchasing my stuff just because someone got a feather up their butt and created a new way to fleece you for more money.
Besides, flash memory is the direction everything is going now anyways. HD-DVD and Blu-ray will ultimately fail as flash takes over for movie distribution as well as IPTV and other stuff. The age of the movie on compact disc is pretty much over. Sony has even seen this and is already moving in that direction. If you want to read more about this, just click here (http://www.raiden.net/?cat=2&aid=124) and read about my editorial discussing this move to flash media by Sony. (no it's not a spam link. it's a legitimate editorial)
I for one would highly support a move to flash media as the next movie media format so long as the media companies didn't force a brand new flash format on us and definately so long as they didn't load it full of DRM. But given that DRM is dying, that may be less likely to happen.
In total honesty though, neither Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is even needed at this time. It's just overkill and a thinly veiled attempt by big media to ONCE AGAIN sell you yet ANOTHER media format. They got you with VHS, then DVD and now HD-DVD/Blu-ray?? Uh, no thanks. I don't like repurchasing my stuff just because someone got a feather up their butt and created a new way to fleece you for more money.
But the PS3 games are on Blue Laser Media. Those type of formats are there to expand the space of storing things. With more storage the capabilities increases. I could understand you like your flash memory, but flash memory do collapse. I have an external HD but I prefer to back up my vitals on burnable discs. So with Blu Ray or HD DVD I could drop at least 5 to 6 DVD+R files and burn it for safe keeping. The disc cannot crash like HD or Flash HD.
Besides, flash memory is the direction everything is going now anyways. HD-DVD and Blu-ray will ultimately fail as flash takes over for movie distribution as well as IPTV and other stuff. The age of the movie on compact disc is pretty much over.
I would have to object on this issue as well. Whether or not flash will take over the tech industry I'm not sure but I know most people will prefer to back up their media on hard discs. Even the photographers I know prefer to back their photos on discs instead of a drive. Everyone knows over a period of time a drive will fail and there goes everything that's not backed up on disc.
panzerfan
2007-01-22, 16:58
A gaming platform that can do all that... you're asking for an emulator on a computer that won't exist for some time... even with the 65 nanometer chips that Intel has just developed, it won't have the processing muscle to emulate that, not by any stretch of imagination. For now, consoles are sadly... locked in to their respective formats.
ImClueless
2007-01-22, 17:14
The porn industry supports and is supported by HD-DVD. Sony refuses to issue licenses to the porn industry to put porno on Blu-Ray...I think the outcome has already been decided. :heh:
Edit: Caught up on news just now and apparently Sony changed it mind and there will be Blu-Ray porn in HD. Ok outcome less certain now.
Terrestrial Dream
2007-01-22, 18:16
none of them, dvd is still fine. There is no point of switching the format yet. Future of buying movie will downloading movies of internet or on demand on cable.
Lord Raiden
2007-01-22, 18:38
But the PS3 games are on Blue Laser Media. Those type of formats are there to expand the space of storing things. With more storage the capabilities increases.
Well, there's a falicy with that. There were several new games released recently that supposidly took up something like 17 megs. Once the disk was extracted and the "filler" files were removed, the total space taken up by all legitimate game files was a meager 4.7 gigs. Certainly nowhere near enough usage to warrent Blu-ray over DVD since DVD can hold 7gigs. There's also several other games just exactly like that which have been proven to easily use less than a standard DVD. So Blu-ray is just overkill. Don't believe me? Research it on Digg and several other sites. There's multiple cases where this has been proven over and over again.
I could understand you like your flash memory, but flash memory do collapse.
Collapse?? Explain this. If you're talking about failure rates, yes, flash memory fails, but only after something like 100 million *writes*, not reads. Flash memory has a nearly infinite amount of reads and a minimum shelf life of 50 years. Again, easily provable with a quick google dive.
I have an external HD but I prefer to back up my vitals on burnable discs. So with Blu Ray or HD DVD I could drop at least 5 to 6 DVD+R files and burn it for safe keeping. The disc cannot crash like HD or Flash HD. Sorry to say, but compact disks are far more succeptible to "crashing" as you claim than hard drives are. And flash even less so. The media companies don't like to tell you this, but DVD's, cd's and HD disks of all kinds that can be burned only have an expected shelf life of 2-5 years. Pressed disks only have a 10 year expected shelf life, possibly 20 if you took REALLY good care of them. Again, easily provable by a google search.
I would have to object on this issue as well. Whether or not flash will take over the tech industry I'm not sure but I know most people will prefer to back up their media on hard discs. Even the photographers I know prefer to back their photos on discs instead of a drive. Everyone knows over a period of time a drive will fail and there goes everything that's not backed up on disc.Yes, I'll agree that it's better to backup on something other than the hard drive if you plan to store something for the long term, but you have to check the stability of the disks every couple of months and after 2 years you need to back them up again to a new disk or print them out into negatives. Flash memory on the other hand can be written to now, and assuming that the format doesn't die out, they can be read again 50 years from now with no risk of loss. Compact disks of any variety can't claim that.
I work in the tech industry and have to deal with this stuff on a daily basis, so I've already done a lot of my homework on this stuff, so I speak from experience. Really, if a digital photographer wants to keep his photos for a LONG time, he's going to eventually need to backup everything to flash. Actually, no. I think it should go this way.
Regular access: Hard Drive with cd secondary backup.
Longer term storage of 2-5 years. CD or DVD.
Very long term storage. Flash. Hands down.
Aoie_Emesai
2007-01-22, 18:54
I have neither so till i get one or the other i'll stay anonymous to both.
Don't care which one wins, in the end, as long as the copy-protections are cracked and the prices come down. Then it's all about whichever is cheaper and faster.
Well, I'm one who prefers HD-DVD for two primary reasons.
1. It's *NOT* a Sony supported format. I refuse to have anything to do with a company that thinks that packing viruses and rootkits onto cd's as a form of DRM is an acceptible business practice.
2. HD-DVD, while smaller, is the more stable format. Blu-ray is just too picky about too many things to be considered a viable format. Plus it's supported by less stuff and is more expensive.
1. Thats a weak point - Sony as a company is huge, with many departments that are practically indivual companies within their own right (Sony Music #%&!ed that one up, not the area that makes Bluray, or PS3s, or Walkman, etc). And we are talking about a format, a technology. Who makes it should not be a way of judging its merit.
2. No details?
Blu Ray single sided disc can hold up to 25gig while HD DVD single sided disc can hold up to 15gig. I'm not sure which one has the better video quality but I know that TDK just confirmed that they tested a Blu Ray disc that can hold up to 200gig now.
You mean layers ;)
Bluray will last much longer than HDDVD because of the blue laser technology. The entire point of creating a new format was to escape the limits of the current red laser DVD technology, and going with HDDVD means we are just taking half a step forward.
What we want is a cheap medium, with high storage, that is stable, small, light, transportable and able to be used many, many times. First it was VHS, next DVD. It makes sense that HDDVD or BluRay succeed DVD, and after that its more than likely that transfers straight off the internet will destroy brick-and-mortar video rental stores.
Flash will not succeed at this because it is too slow, too expense.
Solid stage memory will not succeed in this because of the same reasons.
And its something that we need. HighDef TV's are becoming more and more popular, and the pure size of a HighDef movie is more than a 9gb DVD can hold, and thats not counting the HD features, outtakes, making of, etc.
I have the Lord of the Rings Extended boxset - the movies are spread over TWO DISKS! And thats just standard quality - if they were HD then it would be 3, maybe 4 DVDs just for ONE MOVIE. On a dual layer BluRay this isn't an issue, its all one one disk.
See the point now?
Can someone please explain how the wavelength thingy works with blu-ray vs. dvd laser and why it's better?
This is the year 2007, where are the hologram movie disks that get directly uploaded into your cerberal cortex. On second thought, I bet people would die from massive brain hemorrhages from movies like gigli and gliter.
SlugZilla
2007-01-22, 21:08
I'll take the cheaper format any day(which is HD-DVD). I think the difference will be clear in a few years when they become affordable for consumers, the price will be the biggest draw. HD-DVD does use the blue laser technology too.
killmoms
2007-01-22, 22:22
I love the people who think DVD is good enough. I can only assume that people who say this do not, in fact, have eyes.
Can someone please explain how the wavelength thingy works with blu-ray vs. dvd laser and why it's better?
This is the year 2007, where are the hologram movie disks that get directly uploaded into your cerberal cortex. On second thought, I bet people would die from massive brain hemorrhages from movies like gigli and gliter.
My bad, thw wavelength is the same. The aperature is different, so the laser can "focus" better and put more data in a smaller area meaning Bluray has more storage than HDDVD. Also the speed is higher on Bluray (54Mbps vs 36.55Mbps). Not to mention that Bluray has deals with more studios for content ((Warner, Paramount, Fox, Disney, Sony, MGM and Lionsgate will release their films on Bluray, Warner, Paramount and Universal on HDDVD) as well as more companies supporting and making Bluray players and recorders, such as Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Pioneer, Sharp, JVC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, TDK, Thomson, LG, Apple, HP and Dell.
Those are some big hitters supporting blu ray.
killmoms
2007-01-23, 10:01
Pressed disks only have a 10 year expected shelf life, possibly 20 if you took REALLY good care of them. Again, easily provable by a google search.
I call bullshit on this. Assuming you don't store them extraordinarily hot or cold environments (or environments that change between those extremes regularly), pressed optical media has a shelf life MUCH longer than 20 years. Or, I suppose you mean if you "don't treat them like shit." "REALLY good care" suggests gloves and a clean room. If you just hold a CD by the edges and center and put it back in its jewel case like you ought and don't throw it around like a complete piece of shit (or slide it against other things, etc.) a pressed CD will last much longer than 20 years. It certainly won't just degrade by sitting in its jewel case for that long.
Right now Blu Ray Burners are tad expensive so I prefer HD DVD . Once the prices drop I am going for Blu Ray till then I dont mind waiting did the same thing for dvd burner too ..
Potatochobit
2007-01-23, 22:36
the xbox HD DVD add on is a joke. you can just buy a stand alone player, its not like it will be used for anything else really.
but as for the topic, i still use regular DVDs untill anime companies stop being cheap and put more than 3 or 4 episodes on 1 DVD. when they release blu ray with 8 episodes on 1 disc, then i will change format. its not like their is a quality improvement in anime right now, its pretty much the same on DVD or bluray. look at the Air box set for example, disappointing? i think so.
I call bullshit on this. Assuming you don't store them extraordinarily hot or cold environments (or environments that change between those extremes regularly), pressed optical media has a shelf life MUCH longer than 20 years. Or, I suppose you mean if you "don't treat them like shit." "REALLY good care" suggests gloves and a clean room. If you just hold a CD by the edges and center and put it back in its jewel case like you ought and don't throw it around like a complete piece of shit (or slide it against other things, etc.) a pressed CD will last much longer than 20 years. It certainly won't just degrade by sitting in its jewel case for that long.
I still have old Mega-CD and Neo-Geo CD games laying around and all of them play perfectly. :) I've backed them up *just in case* and play the back-ups when possible (saves wear on the media and my old hardware).
The problem with these newer formats is the layers. One scratch will cost you far more data these days then it did back when all we had were CDs.
I'm not saying your stuff will last forever, or even a life time... But if you take care of it 20, 30, maybe 40 years is not out of the question. Hell could be longer then that, we'll just have to wait and see.
I love the people who think DVD is good enough. I can only assume that people who say this do not, in fact, have eyes.
A lot of us still don't own HDTVs. So buying anything released on a next-gen format is not really much use to us unless we're building a collection for when we upgrade.
Saber Cherry
2007-01-24, 03:51
Lord Raiden's post was full of misinformation and nonsense.
Optical disk life expectancy - 20-100 years, according to NIST, and 100+ years according to manufacturers.
http://www.gcn.com/print/23_5/25166-1.html?topic=news
The primary decay mechanism in pressed disks is aluminum decay caused by high humidity and damaged disks. So, undamaged disks in non-tropical areas should have the higher life-expectancy. As for burnt disks... don't use RW's for archiving. Burn-once versions have at least the same expectancy as pressed disks. So - from where did you pull your claimed '2-5 years'? I have never even heard of an optical disk failing from age.
However... let's enter the real world for a second. 100 DVDRs = 470GB = $26 last time I bought them... but say $40-$50 typically, for $0.10/GB. Flash memory, at Newegg: Around $10/GB, or 100x as expensive. Is there any real question about which people will use for archiving large amounts of data? Or for profit-oriented companies, which they will use for distribution of bulk data? Raiden, your claims and ideas are laughable.
Flash is typically rated at 100,000 - 1,000,000 write/erase cycles, not 100,000,000. And as for shelf life... it was difficult, but I found it! Flash, when rated, is generally rated for a 10-year data retention span.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=331306
P.S. About the 10 years number, it seems contradicted in other places, so don't rely on it. Perhaps Flash will typically last much longer, but manufacturers don't seem to claim that, whereas they do with disks.
panzerfan
2007-01-24, 04:12
Saber, flash can last from 1 million programming cycles to a couple millions.
I am not going to deny that optical media at this time is cheaper, but when it comes to storage, there's also space concerns, performance factors. The rapid pace of developments of solid state drives using flash as of late, the future of optical disc storage is in doubt.
The largest flash drives today can reach 150Gigabytes, although the cost to having this unit is... a grand at least. It won't be taking over anytime soon of course, but SSD is becoming the way that systems will be heading. Flash are beginning to be used as another kind of cache in systems to alleviate the bottleneck, and their use as portable storage makes further development very much an expected turn of event. I wouldn't be surprised that within a year, SSD will become performance machines' standard part... with mainstream adoption happening soon after.
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Blu-Ray. I mean, come on. Who doesn't love 50GB worth of raw space? HD-DVD single layer only has 30GB. I mean, I would pay big bucks for a disc that holds 10GB more than my laptops entire HardDisk space!
Hentai Guy
2007-02-07, 02:28
If I had to choose? I don't know I've never had an HDTV so the point is fairly moot to me...besides, personally I think the CD type of technology is flawed. I don't like media that's so easily damaged. Yeah, it's cheap to produce, but that's all it really has going for it...
whitewater_81
2007-02-07, 03:15
hmmmmmm.......i have an xbox 360....and an HD-DVD add on......soooo...
i'll go with HD-DVD!:D
killmoms
2007-02-07, 08:58
In the end there are exclusive titles to each format, so the best bet is to have the ability to play both. I'll have HD-DVD playback via my 360 soon, but I'd imagine I'll get a stand-alone combo player once there's one that supports HDMI 1.3 and all the necessary audio codecs for each disk. Maybe that LG one, if it gets good reviews.
I don't like Blu Ray's regions.
Japan and America share their region but Europe got a different one? Bleh, that sucks.
Either way, I hope there will be a definite "winner" among the two formats. Two coexisting standards just create problems.
Much as I hate more restrictions, now that the basic encryption for both has been sidestepped, the extra security features of Blu-Ray will make it more attractive to studios. HD-DVD may die pretty quickly. We'll see.
In either case, AIR will be on Blu-Ray.
iamtetsuo
2007-02-07, 16:11
Well so far there's no anime on HD-DVD (yet), only on Blu-Ray. So my vote is placed on Blu-Ray.
I just watched my first Blu-Ray movie (on my PS3) last night and I can definatly say the quality is amazing. Anyone who says that there's "no reason" for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD should go compare either format to a regular DVD on an HDTV.
To the people who say that "physical media is going the way of the dinosaur" sorry but you're wrong. 1. The majority of the US still doesn't have broadband. 2. The majority of the US still has only a basic understanding of how to use computers. 3. Full 1080p media files are huge, and full 7.1 audio adds even more. Even those of us who do have broadband will have to wait a long time before the files are downloaded. Most people would prefer to just go out and buy a hardcopy since it's faster. 4. Storage. Most people who buy a movie want to watch at least twice, but keeping huge video files on hard drives will be a pain, even with the cost of hard drives as low as it is now.
I've watched Blu-Ray movies, true there's a difference between that and regular dvds but it's not that big of a deal. It's like "wow, now I could see the dryness of their skin." I'm not a movie freak so it doesn't matter. Regular dvds works for me. Cheap and affordable.
HD and Blu-Ray are both overrated. But I still like the concept of bigger capacity on Blu-Ray. So I'll go for Blu-Ray... again.
SeijiSensei
2007-02-08, 08:28
But the PS3 games are on Blue Laser Media. Those type of formats are there to expand the space of storing things.
I was quite impressed with the amount of content SquareEnix stuffed into the single DVD for Final Fantasy XII -- huge maps, cut scenes, and amazing graphics for a PS/2. I'd been used to RPGs coming on two DVDs these days (e.g., Shadow Hearts 2/3) so I was a bit surprised when I opened the box for FF XII. Once I started playing the game my surprise turned to awe.
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