Which do you perfer, HD DVD or Blu Ray?

[sazan fan]

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]

I have a blu ray player (ps3) but no blu ray movies.

[Epyon9283]

Originally Posted by kayos

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.

[Ewok]

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.

[Keitaro]

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.

[Ewok]

It'll be another VHS vs. Betamax - the superior technology will lose out to a inferior one.

[JanthraX^]

Originally Posted by Ewok

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.

[Sankari]

Originally Posted by Keitaro

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.

[killmoms]

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.

[Lambda]

There's not much point in downgrading from DVD. Now, if the community can fix these Defective Recorded Media on the other hand...

[panzerfan]

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.

[Lord Raiden]

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 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.

[panzerfan]

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]

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.

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]

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]

Originally Posted by kayos

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]

I have neither so till i get one or the other i'll stay anonymous to both.

[Ending]

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.

[Ewok]

Originally Posted by Lord Raiden

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?

Originally Posted by kayos

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?

[p3psi]

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.