SONY Blu-Ray versus High Definition DVD: Next Generation Wars

[Welly Wu]

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=548253

This is just a snapshot of the direction in which industry leaders are positioning their entire corporations with regard to the next generation high resolution video format(s). Haven't these highly educated and highly paid / compensated corporate executives learned from recent history (i.e., Super Audio CD versus DVD-Audio)?

If you still want to enjoy music and films, then please consider my advice to you:

1. Optimize your reference system(s) around established formats:

A. Red Book Compact Disc
B. Digital Versatile Disc

With both formats, the catalog is wide and deep. The current technologies to exploit both established formats is out there, affordable, even low cost, and proven. You can choose to upsample or oversample 44.1kHz/16bit CDs to 176.4kHz/24bit and 480 interlaced to 480 progressive / 720 progressive or 1080 interlaced near high definition with Standard colorspace with today's technologies. Of course, a universal DVD player makes it convenient and if you research and choose carefully, you give up nearly nothing in terms of Red Book CD or DVD-Video performance plus you get bonuses such as HDCD, DVD-Audio, SA-CD, etc. decoding too.

In my opinion, after careful research, HD-DVD and SONY Blu-Ray technologies will not become unified in a high resolution video and audio source component at all. While DVD-Audio and SA-CD came together in universal DVD players today, my hunch and experience tells me that SONY Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will not ever come together at all because the rancor and divisive gap can not be resolved. So, consumers will literally have to pick one over the other while the catalog builds up for both very very different high resolution video formats.

More research into this controversy has yielded another important nugget of information: SONY Blu-Ray and HD-DVD can never be compromised upon to create a unified high resolution video format because Blu-Ray has a mere 0.1 nm thickness between the disc sheathed within a cartridge (yet another distinguisher to that of HD-DVD) and the laser while HD-DVD has a 0.6 nm thickness between the protective coating of the disc and the laser.

Sucks, no?

 

[Salt Peanuts]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Welly Wu Sucks, no?

Yep. I really was hoping that these new video formats will somehow work together and produce one standard format. It's going to be rather irritating trying to figure out which one to pick (and hope it won't fail) while this all get sorted out.

 

[bundee1]

Yeah that cartridge thing is a real turn off. I like the way I can handle my media.

 

[dj_mocok]

modern age beta vs vhs

 

[Salt Peanuts]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dj_mocok modern age beta vs vhs

Hahah. I was just thinking about that, too. My parents, years ago, bet on Beta and we know how that turned out. Annoyingly, to this day, Beta still looks better to me than VHS.

 

[gloco]

Heh, it does suck for us but we should also remember the PS3 will read Blu-Ray discs and if the Adult industry supports it, it'll definitely have a one-up over HD-DVD.

 

[Glassman]

Adult industry (nice term heh) will support whatever will be cheaper to produce, mainly in smaller quantities..

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glassman Adult industry (nice term heh) will support whatever will be cheaper to produce, mainly in smaller quantities..

and will choose whichever format has an audience ready to purchase software....if millions of PS3's are sold at launch, who will have the upper hand? Blu-Ray will.

 

[sonance]

With digital display devices, such as LCD TVs / monitors, plasma displays, DLP and LCD rear projection TVs and projectors, the next generation video playback portion of players is going to be less important than this version. Unlike CDs and audio, there is no DAC portion in the playback of HD video, it stays in the digital domain all the way to the display. Ideas like jitter don't come into play here.
Of course the audio portion is still going to be a mess, as now, digital audio will be carried over the same connector (potentially) as the video portion, with the HDMI spec. The HT Processor (or pre/pro as they are sometimes called) or receiver will be where the DAC happens. I wonder if there will be a new class of devices dedicated to just the audio decoding of the new audio formats of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, something like the equivalent of today's DACs. I also bet most next gen players will be DVD-Audio players, since they are advanced players with dvd capabilities and advanced audio capabilities, and SACD would be yet another format to support.
Currently, receivers and even pre/pro's are considered inferior in the audio domain, as I'm sure will be the case in the brave new world of HDMI. The good news is that there is much less chance to screw up the video portion of things.
As far as Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD, I too think that the Playstation 3 may end up being a major deciding factor in the consumer space. It's coming out early next year, just when HD players will be in their infancy. With DVI/HDMI output, the picture quality should be perfect (if you have a digital display.) It's also going to support DVD-Audio out of the box. You pass the audio portion to your receiver / pre/pro (hopefully.) It should be one of the cheaper solutions out there - I doubt many first generation HD players will target the sub- $300 space, although I could be wrong.
As the old chinese saying goes, looks like we are cursed to live in interesting times.

 

[Welly Wu]

Yeah, some of what you wrote is some of the stuff that I've found here and there in casual research into the HD-DVD and SONY Blu-Ray debate over the horizon, but the distinct possibility that picking one next generation video format over the other one is just but one price to pay. The other price to pay is the price of being a financial backer of the 1st generation HD-DVD or SONY Blu-Ray machine which are both expected to make their debut at no less than $1000++ USD for each machine. Another thing that you forgot to mention is that the SA-CD and DVD-Audio formats will get "recycled" into their respective albeit different next generation video formats. So, it is possible that the DVD-Audio versus SA-CD wars will be repackaged right into the specifications for the looming HD-DVD and SONY Blu-Ray wars without either Toshiba/Panasonic or SONY having to do any additional research and development or marketing to tout the superior audio capabilities stored on either high resolution video formats. One possible outcome is that there is yet another chance for high resolution and audiophile quality music to catch on fire with the general American and worldwide public, but there is also that looming format war that nobody wants...it could kill mass acceptance and adoption of both hi-rez audio/video for years.

 

[meat01]

I think the general public is happy with CDs and happy with DVDs so they will not upgrade to a new standard. The upgrade from tape to CD/DVD was easier and more justified, because of convience, durability and quality. To most people, DVD and CD is good enough and they will not upgrade, even if it is backwards compatible.

 

[viator122]

History has shown that the market won't support 2 equivalent formats at the same time - therefore there is no way I'm going anywhere near a next-generation optical disc until there becomes a single standard format.

 

[mulveling]

At this point I don't even care if they come to market with competing hidef video formats - that's better than what we have now, which is NOTHING other than crap SD. This isn't like the jump from CD to SACD/DVDA where I'd have to sit and seriously listen to figure out if I'm hearing a CD or SACD (if I even could tell a difference) - the move from SD to HD is a quantum leap and even the average joe into ghetto-blaster car audio should be able to easily discern the two on a good HD monitor. I can live without SACD/DVDA without crying too much, but knowing how much better all the stuff I watch would look in HD, and knowing that my TV would be able to resolve most of the extra detail - that kills me. I really think the demand will be there - there are a LOT more dudes with plasma/dlp/lcos/hd crt displays that there are obsessive audiophiles. Even if we start with two formats I think the market will pick a winner and HD will flourish.

I'll happily double-dip (triple, counting SD DVD - quadruple, counting SE releases

) for my favorite shows, the upgrade is easliy worth that much to me. So come to market with something, already!

 

[noir]

mh, for me, the choice is clear:

xbox360 for HD-DVD playback
PS3 for Bluray.

both of these should come rather cheap compared to "high-quality" counterparts, and as mentionned before, they can't go wrong quality-wise with their hdmi connectors.

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by meat01 I think the general public is happy with CDs and happy with DVDs so they will not upgrade to a new standard. The upgrade from tape to CD/DVD was easier and more justified, because of convience, durability and quality. To most people, DVD and CD is good enough and they will not upgrade, even if it is backwards compatible.

I think this will be the fate of Blu-Ray and HD DVD.