[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefemeister I don't understand why anyone with a larger HDTV wouldn't be excited about the high-def discs. They're not perfect right now (not utilizing the proper codecs etc) and there's too much uncertaintity to jump right on it. But I don't see the price as being too high even right out of the gate. If you have a multi-thousand dollar TV and are spending over $100/mo on HD cable services, what's $500 for a HD player? Problem is, not enough people have HD in their homes yet, and this will confuse the market. But I'd rather have them make the switch from DVD sooner as opposed to later, so I don't have yet more DVDs become obsolete when the technology does finally become stable. In the meantime, I have no problem continuing to buy regular old DVDs.

The same could be said about people spending more than $100 on headphones and high resolution audio, but people are spending their money on iPods and lossy audio downloads off of iTunes. (I'm not talking about Head-Fiers in general)

I'm not saying that Blu-Ray or HD-DVD are going to inferior to DVD in Picture Quality, and that people with High Definition TV's are not going to appreciate the better quality. All the hardcore TV users will.

But we will soon see if the mass consumers really care about quality at all.

It wasn't the the superior picture quality of DVD that won out, it was the convenience of not having to rewind, smaller form factor, and durability of the medium that made it an overwhelming success. The picture quality was icing on the cake.

-Ed

 

[jpburton5150]

I honestly couldn't care less about which format wins the high-def video wars, if they don't immediate flop anyways.

BUT, seeing Sony's loaded with 50GB BlueRay-Rs at Computex made me drool. The concept that I could back up every personal file and program I have on my laptop in one swoop is just, well, really hott. No ginourmous backup drives with cables all over the place, no tape decks. Just a sleek normal cd-sized disk. Mmmmm.

 

[jpburton5150]

double post... the database went wack as I was submitting

 

[Born2bwire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood Reread my previous post. I mentioned AVS Forum not the teamxbox site. Read up here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=148 Then perhaps you might sound like you know what you are talking about without accusing me of being an XBox fanboy. Oh, and maybe seeing some Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies in person might help too.

I've been quite impressed with the HD-DVD's that I have seen at 720P. While upsampled DVD's can look good, you still get the compression artifacts, particularly the blockiness in subtle greyscales like darkness or fog. The detail that you can get with some of the HD-DVD is pretty good too at the higher resolutions. Stonework seems to show this the best since you can get a great sense of the texture of the rocks. I don't really care about which horse to back in regards to HD-DVD or Blue-ray. They both can provide the same quality video with Blue-ray having the larger storage capacity. And from what I have heard, Blue-ray was supposed to have found a solution for the scratch problem of their discs. So from a consumer point of view, I don't care which one wins though I have to give the slight nod to Sony for the higher capacity.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpburton5150 I honestly couldn't care less about which format wins the high-def video wars, if they don't immediate flop anyways. BUT, seeing Sony's loaded with 50GB BlueRay-Rs at Computex made me drool. The concept that I could back up every personal file and program I have on my laptop in one swoop is just, well, really hott. No ginourmous backup drives with cables all over the place, no tape decks. Just a sleek normal cd-sized disk. Mmmmm.

I wouldn't worry about blu-rays size capability, theres been for months new announcements about somebody / some company creating a disc with more and more capacity.

 

[jpburton5150]

True, Jag, but theoretical storage capacities have always been larger than anything ever brought to market by factors of ten (and a lot more).

It takes a lot of resources to launch a media format (as Blue-Ray is sucking Sony, a ginourmous multinational, dry). Blue-Ray has got the storage size advantage (50GB vs 30GB). It's expensive as hell ($50 per disc), but with a quick Google search I can't find the HD-DVD equivalent.

And on a second though, at $50 per disc, I would never take the thing out of it's jewel case. I don't remember the initial prices of CD-Rs, but I'd guess the prices now are easily much under a tenth of what they used to be. If that trend applies to Blue-Ray (or HD-DVD), so that disks where around five bucks a piece, I might actually consider using them.

No one outside of the tech world is going to understand all these format wars, so they might as well market them towards the people who do.

 

[Gabe Logan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood Then perhaps you might sound like you know what you are talking about without accusing me of being an XBox fanboy.

Based on alot of your past post it aint hard to come to that conclution.

Anyways i guess you forgot to post the link the the AVS forums where the Terminator movie looks awesome but i can see why you left that out.I just hope you don't think that's the way all Blu Ray movies will look like from now on.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe Logan Based on alot of your past post it aint hard to come to that conclution. Anyways i guess you forgot to post the link the the AVS forums where the Terminator movie looks awesome but i can see why you left that out.I just hope you don't think that's the way all Blu Ray movies will look like from now on.

I didn't forget anything, I posted the main link for the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD forum on AVS Forum, nice try, buddy.

I'm sure you have some Sony vs. Nintendo vs. XBox beef with me for some reason, but I'll bet you're like a lot of people that just regurgitate other people's opinions and reviews online. I call it as I see it, personally.

Come back when you have some personal experience to share.

 

[Gabe Logan]

I have nothing against you personally...just tired of all the negativity that come from so many because of their loyal or most favority brand.It's kind of funny and sad at the same time but go ahead and be my guest.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe Logan I have nothing against you personally...just tired of all the negativity that come from so many because of their loyal or most favority brand.It's kind of funny and sad at the same time but go ahead and be my guest.

Seriously, go to the AVS Forum, actually READ the threads there in both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray forums.

Then go actually watch a few Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies.

Then come back when you can sound like you halfway know What you are talking about.

I'm tired of trolls like you that become instant experts by just copying and pasting from reviews they read online.

-Ed

 

[ken36]

Doomed to fail.

 

[Gabe Logan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood Seriously, go to the AVS Forum, actually READ the threads there in both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray forums. Then go actually watch a few Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies. Then come back when you can sound like you halfway know What you are talking about. I'm tired of trolls like you that become instant experts by just copying and pasting from reviews they read online. -Ed

Keep being the fanboy you are but i'll leve this topic as i don't want to be dragged down and beaten by expereince.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe Logan Keep being the fanboy you are but i'll leve this topic as i don't want to be dragged down and beaten by expereince.

I am anything but a fanboy.

I buy what I like, and I can be pretty obsessive researching before I do so. If something is not right, or I like something else better, I will jump ship, and not live in denial. You could call it a disease, a.k.a. "Upgradeitis".

If it keeps me happy and I like it, I'll keep it.

FWIW, I was pro-Blu-Ray until I saw and heard of the mess at the last CES in January. MPEG2, and single layer only for the launch, good move, Sony. The best codec they had was called VC-1. And it looked noticeably better than MPEG2 streams, I had the chance to see the same demo looped with the different codecs, and both VC-1 and MPEG4 had little to no artifacting hiccups. Very impressive. I got to see a demo with a VC-1 stream on a prototype PS3 box, and it look great as well.

Sony will surely fix the initial issues, but by then it may be too late.

The reason why I and many others draw the Betamax=Blu-Ray comparison is because like Betamax, Blu-Ray is potentially a superior format to it's competitor when it comes to image quality. But we all know what happened to Betamax. The Mass consumer care more about price and convenience than quality.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for an HD format we can all buy in the store. I am an HDTV early adopter and have been for a few years, but unfortunately the mass consumers (not us) have proven time and again that they care more about convenience than quality.

There is a real chance that both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will fail if Apple, Netflix, and the like manage to get a downloadable movie format standardized.

I really hope I'm wrong.

-Ed

 

[RnB180]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe Logan Based on alot of your past post it aint hard to come to that conclution. Anyways i guess you forgot to post the link the the AVS forums where the Terminator movie looks awesome but i can see why you left that out.I just hope you don't think that's the way all Blu Ray movies will look like from now on.

terminator on blu ray is not awesome. Its actually quite an ugly looking movie. Very ugly. People says its the best transfer available, but than it still does not mean its a good lookiing film. I think the hype started because people were so desperate to get anything that was worthwhile on the format, and since terminator was the least offensive of the bunch and $11 price tag, people were really happy. But no serious individual that actually sees the film will attest to it being awesome in an regard. the best blu ray movie out right now still is lacking to any of hd dvds offering by a fairly large gap IMO.

this has to do more with the encoding practices and the fact that blu ray dual layers are actually not possible to manufacture on a larger scale currently and unreliable as heck. so what you are seeing shipping out right now on blu ray are 25 gig single layer discs using mpeg 2 format, as opposed to hd dvds dual layer 30 gig mpeg 4 vc1, with the possibility of 45 gig triple layer discs.

considering blu ray is using pcm surround, expect far less space, (a few gigs less than hd dvd) that can be used for video. Currently as it stands blu ray discs are poor for hd content compared to the hd dvds currently superior offerings.

even long time blu ray fans over at avs admit that current blu ray movies are underwhelming and not the same fidelity with hd dvd material currently. Sammys blu ray lauch has long been considered a whimper and a major flop thus far over at avs. No one is really ballsy enough to back sammys player and justify the price tag for its poor performance at avs, aside from possibly 2 percent of the posters there. Most blu ray fans are having their fingers crossed and hoping for a better launch with sonys player in october.

but as it stands, its fairly the general concensus in all the professional reviews online, that hd dvd currently stomps blu ray.