[lmilhan]

Another interesting development in the Bluray vs HD-DVD war:

First Sub $200 HD-DVD player.


Discuss.

 

[Jigglybootch]

I still don't care about either format.

 

[Cheeser5]

The brand Venturer is an instant turn off. It looks like the Toshiba HD-A2 rebadged, doesn't look like anyone is manufacturing these things aside from Toshiba, or at the very least designing.

At least Blu-ray has alternate builds.

 

[marvin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheeser5 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The brand Venturer is an instant turn off. It looks like the Toshiba HD-A2 rebadged, doesn't look like anyone is manufacturing these things aside from Toshiba, or at the very least designing. At least Blu-ray has alternate builds.

Does it matter? The HD-A2 is an excellent player and about half the price of the cheapest Blu-Ray player...

Don't see this selling well though. The HD-A2 is only ~ $40 more and comes with anywhere from 5-8 free movies.

 

[Aevum]

i still think video downloads are going to basicly turn disk based players in to a niche market where only people who collect keep large collections,

services like appleTV, Microsoft marketplace and playstation network are going to bring HD video downloadings to anywhere with a decent bandwidth.

 

[Shizelbs]

That player should help the HD DVD side for sure.

I have both players, so for me the war is not really a concern.

I've saving up my pennies for the Denon BluRay player that is going to come out. Denon makes incredible DVD players, and I'm sure since they've waited so long to enter the HD battle, the first player will be outstanding as usual.

 

[Dustin B]

I'm still holding off on either until 1080p front projectors become a bit more affordable. The Optoma HD80 is awefully tempting though. I hope somebody wins by then and I really don't care who.

I do think it will be while before video downloads obsolete the a disk based system though. Especially with HD content. The infrastructure currently in place would self distruct if everyone who rents a DVD at the local video store started getting that content in HD on the net.

 

[LonerGenius]

I believe affordability of players will tilt the balance in the format war and therefore this is important product, if only for that reason.

 

[lmilhan]

For the record, I personally don't care which (if either) formats 'wins'. I would just like to see something settled, so I can adopt (with piece of mind that my investment is somewhat sound) some sort of a device and/or media that will playback movies in HD so I can start really taking advantage of my 60 inch Sony SXRD TV. The only thing that will settle this war is when the hardware costs between $150 and $200 and the HD movies costs around the same that a normal DVD movie costs. The day a 'Soccer Mom' or a 'Joe Sixpack' can walk into their local Walmart or Best Buy, and pick up an HD player of some sort and a couple of HD movies for $150ish bucks is the day the winner will likely be declared. Regardless of which format the general public ends up adopting, I absolutely will NOT be re-purchasing my entire movie collection all over again. I will be using some sort of a rental service such as Netflix.

With that said, I would be tickled if some sort of affordable "dark horse" technology or media swoops in and decapitates both of the Bluray and HD-DVD formats. For now, I am crossing my fingers that Netflix will be the ultimate winner, and eventually provide me with an entire library of HD movies that I can stream on demand to my TV. But as for actual hardware, the way things are currently going, there will likely not ever be a clear 'winner', and universal players may end up being the best option. At which point the Blueray and HD-DVD movie houses will (hopefully) start cutting each others throats by lowering prices on their movies in order to compete with each other. I can only hope...

 

[OogeleyBoogeley]

You can get both HD DVD and Blu-Ray through Netflix... That is how I get all of my HD DVD movies and TV shows... I finally get to watch Heroes in HD and not have to pay out the ears to buy the set.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aevum /img/forum/go_quote.gif i still think video downloads are going to basicly turn disk based players in to a niche market where only people who collect keep large collections, services like appleTV, Microsoft marketplace and playstation network are going to bring HD video downloadings to anywhere with a decent bandwidth.

Eventually, sure. But right now Bandwidth is the limiter. Not to mention storage. Even with aggressive compression HD content at 720p clocks in around 4-5GB for an average movie. Even for those on a broadband connection, that will take quite a bit of time to download.

If sub $200 BluRay players don't show up pronto, HD-DVD will eat BluRay for lunch this holiday season. But we're still talking a tiny lunch.

-Ed

 

[marvin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood /img/forum/go_quote.gif Eventually, sure. But right now Bandwidth is the limiter. Not to mention storage. Even with aggressive compression HD content at 720p clocks in around 4-5GB for an average movie. Even for those on a broadband connection, that will take quite a bit of time to download. If sub $200 BluRay players don't show up pronto, HD-DVD will eat BluRay for lunch this holiday season. But we're still talking a tiny lunch. -Ed

I've wondered why an EVD style solution hasn't taken off. Using modern compression techniques, high quality 720p movies can easily fit onto a DVD-9. That'd greatly reduce player costs (new chipset only instead of new everything) and stamping costs (can reuse all those DVD stamping plants).

$200 mark? Shoot, it'd be surprising if they ran more than $100 for a midrange unit.

 

[Aevum]

the problem isnt just the player,
you have normal TV, which is 480i or 480P, then you have HDTV which is either 720p or 1080i, then you have blueray and HD-DVD, that supposobly both were 1080p but some movies are 720p, some are 1080i and some are 1080p, and then the consoles, Xbox 360 which is 720p, ps3 which us 1080p but some games are 720p, the wii which is 480p, all the resolutions can not be devided by each other to recive a full number, so if you have a TV that has a higher resolution, you get lower quality due to interpolation and bad upsampling,

so, the thing is, how do you convince someone to buy a TV when his console does 720p, his HD movies are at 1080p is "fullHD", most TV transmisions and all the current movies he has are at are at 480p/i, and theres allready talk about 1440p ?

576i and 480i have been here with us since the 50´s, and now in less then 10 years, its gone from 480 to 720 to 1080 and next to 1440, a TV is a big investment for most people, they cant spend $1500 for a 1080p TV for their living room every 2 years, a TV is something thats expected to last around 7-10 years, as a product becomes more "disposable", its price has to drop in accord with its rate of replacement, and that has not happened with TV´s,

 

[plaidplatypus]

What bothers me is that with all the space available on these new disks PCM still hasn't become THE standard for movies and music. I'm glad to see many BDs do have it though.


Edit: of course CDs use PCM

 

[James63]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jigglybootch /img/forum/go_quote.gif I still don't care about either format.

THAN WHY POST!!