[wakeride74]

With the Christmas shopping season in full swing I'm curious what plans you and your friends/family have (if any) to buy products for either format and what opinions are of where this is headed.

I'm somewhat format neutral as I own both a Toshiba HDA2 and a Pany BD10A but I slightly prefer the PQ of the BD movies over my HD movies. They just seem to pop a bit more. Chalk it up to a 1080i player vs. a 1080p player, the quality of the player, disc or whatever but that is what I've noticed based on my small collection of both formats.

Both have some big titles out for this season - BD with Live Free or Die Hard and the other Die Hard movies as well as POTC - HD has the Bourne movie which was about the best thing out all summer IMO. Both formats are releasing all the Potter movies so that's a wash. Players are coming way down but HD still has the edge there. It seems like the biggest obstacle they both face right now is these damn confusing ads for $30-$50 "hd players" that are just SD-DVD upconverters and seem to be confusing the hell out of the average consumer. Talk about muddying the waters!

I don't really care which format wins I'm just about the movies. I will say that the times I've been in Best Buy and Hollywood Video there are more people buying and renting BD's than the HD by far. It also seems that a lot more A/V manufactures are jumping into the BD pool. On the flip side of that I hear a lot of people asking what BD is and if it's HDM. Seems like a lot of consumer confusion and it may result in a win for HD given the cheaper cost of players and literal/simplistic format title. Then again if BD locked down Warner or dropped some bombshells like Star Wars 1-6, LOTR, Indy and some of the better Disney flicks such as Aladdin, Lion King, Monsters Inc, Toy Story, etc. it could spell doom for HD. I think I’ll just watch and enjoy the movies

 

[appophylite]

Seeing as I own neither drive in any form on any device, I'm content right now to just sit back and see which, if either, wins this war. Personally, I'd prefer Blu-Ray, but its still anyone's battle as neither has a massive lead over the other. This mostly because the majority of the movies advertised for HD and Blu-Ray are the newer films and its usually a shooting contest in the form of "We have this movie!!"....."Well, guess what? We have this one!!". I definitely have to agree with you on the count that the Format which is able to corral a lot of the big former franchises (Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Aliens, Die Hard, Disney Animation, etc) will (and should) easily win.

 

[GlendaleViper]

I'm with you guys on the shouting match analogy, but there's been one MASSIVE development in the BR camp - the PS3 price drop to under $400. I'm very interested in seeing where things go in light of this relative bargain.

I still don't have a 1080p set, so I'm in no big rush, but if Sony can continue scooping up major movie houses, my bet is now officially in the Blue-Ray camp.

 

[ken36]

I'm very proud to say that for once, I'm on the sidelines. I'm the guy who stayed up all night, in line, to buy a Betamax. I kept buying them right up to the end. Anyway, the quality of standard DVDs has gotten much better as my eyes seem to be getting worse lately.

 

[virometal]

Six months ago, I would of bet a steak dinner on an outcome favoring BD after the holidays.

Then Paramount switched, then HD-DVD continued to drastically slash their hardware prices, and neither format has reached a million dedicated players in the U.S....

I smell stalemate. Even executives from both camps have recently hinted at the possibility.

 

[bhd812]

If there are more hd-dvd players priced at $100.00 with free movies in the future I believe that will be the winner.

Blue Ray has the ps3 going for it but lot's of people don't want a gaming station, might not like Sony, or want to spend $400 for a player compared to the $100 hd-dvd out there.

the studios and rental places might look like they have much of an impact now but the consumer always will always tell the studios and rental places what to go with. those two are just betting on this and that but neither can over power the consumer and these two may sway a consumer a bit but still can not sway as much as price of the players themselves.

the price of the player will make it the winner, so far we had the Toshiba from Walmart at $100.00 and a few others alike. if this keeps going HD-Dvd will win cause it will get the players in peoples hands faster and more wide spread then any blue Ray player would be able to.

the one key point that got dvd players main stream was the place of the players themselves went down. I remember seeing dvd players at $39.00 when i bought my first dvd..

speaking of which if anyone knows of another $100.00 deal on the hd players let me know. i want to snag one at that price asap!

 

[HiGHFLYiN9]

I'm one of the many here that haven't bothered selecting a format, mostly because there is very little anime to be had on either. Even if it were, the media is still priced where the cost exceeds the utility imo. Were I forced to choose, Blueray seems like the more attractive option right now assuming you're after 1080p. The cheaper Toshiba ($200) only goes up to 1080i, so you have to step up to the $300 or $400 player to get that. I feel like at that point, one might as well be buying a PS3.

Any updates to the format war by the end of the year? Probably not a big difference. The PS3s lower price point will help it push further ahead, but the HDDVDs probably won't be too far behind due to the discounted price of the players during the doorbuster sales. It might be years before this "war" is over.

 

[ecclesand]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlendaleViper /img/forum/go_quote.gif I still don't have a 1080p set, so I'm in no big rush, but if Sony can continue scooping up major movie houses, my bet is now officially in the Blue-Ray camp.

I'm in the same position...my set is 1080i and I have no immediate plans to get a 1080p set. I'm just not interested in either format right now. When I do become interested, my deciding factors will be the cost of the player and the number of titles on each format. Most of the movies we watch on DVD are from our local library...haven't rented a movie in ages. They are in no hurry to adopt either format.

 

[archosman]

That's only half of the reason Billy...

The other issue is cost...

Where I used to work we have a DVD authoring station. I personally prefer BluRay but there are a few considerations... i.e. start-up costs.

HD-DVD does not require a lot of new equipment to do it properly and you can easily utilize what you've got. The machinery is pretty much the same.

BluRay requires new gear... which gets expensive real quick. To do a BluRay we would have to ship the product on a hard drive... no dvd masters. Which now means you have your entire project on a hard drive bouncing around FedEx or postal service. The burnable dvd BluRay media initially was somewhat flaky and had a ton of interchange (compatabilty) problems.

Also minimum order for BluRay reproduction is 5000 units. That's a lot to ask for someone doing a small order. Also a lot of product sitting around unsold. Case in point...

I stumbled across the director of a documentary on YouTube and asked him if Trinity & Beyond would be coming out on HD... preferably BR. He said due to costs most likely HD-DVD. His HD transfer was to a D-5 master as 1920x1080 24 progressive. From that, a Full size, uncompressed 10-bit Quicktime movie was made. Actually broken into 5 pieces totaling 880 GB. He's currently dustbusting it one more time. I would love to have this on BR... but it's not something like Star Wars so the smaller independent productions will take longer.

 

[LonerGenius]

I am planning to buy a dual-format player early next year and therefore don't care what happens. I want the technology soon and it's unlikely that a clear winner will emerge in the near future.

 

[wakeride74]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LonerGenius /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am planning to buy a dual-format player early next year and therefore don't care what happens. I want the technology soon and it's unlikely that a clear winner will emerge in the near future.

That was my plan until I found out that Denon joined the BD camp and announced a BD player for 2008. I was hoping they'd go dual-format.

As far as the cost of the players go Toshiba still has the advantage but they are replacing the HDA2 with the HDA3 which will be about $225. The Sony BDP-S300 can be had for $350 and offers a better option to the folks that don't want a gaming console.

There's also the issue of choice... let's face it when someone goes in to look at HD/BD players if they see 2 from Toshiba for HD and 8-10 for BD from a variety of manufactures they may conclude that more manufatures are backing BD so it would be a better choice. Then again they could conclude "why pay $150 more if both are high-def?"

One thing I think HD needs to do is stop with these SD/HD dual sided discs... especially when they are released on both formats. Why pay $35 for a HD movie when I can get the same on on BD for $25?

 

[vo328]

I'm going to wait until mid-year 2008 to make any decisions on which way to swing in terms of high def DVD. I bought my tv recently (Pioneer KURO 1080p) and am ready for whatever seems to the right choice summer '08. Why summer '08? Just a flag in the ground... that's all.

As a previous poster noted, even the execs are publicly stating that there is indeed a stalemate in the marketplace at this juncture. I have absolutely no idea how this will play out.

 

[YamiTenshi]

If I run into some cheap players (~$100) I might pick it up just to see what all the hype is about. As for really, truly, madly, deeply devoting all my resources to a full-out home entertainment set up, that probably won't happen until Christmas 2008 at the earliest.

Oh yeah, and to answer the actual question, HD-DVD v. BluRay, I have no stake in either. I would prefer the one with the better quality (which seems like BluRay right now) to win. I wasn't around when the Betamax v. VHS war was going on, but it does upset me that people went with quantity over quality.

I guess to some extent that's also what happened with ATRAC v. MP3. Or maybe it's just Sony.

 

[Zanth]

I'm still using a 7 year old CRT tv so I don't care much, but owning a PS3...I can say that I won't be looking at HD DVD unless I bring for a dual format player.

In the end though, at this point in my life, I'm not buying many movies, mainly TV shows that are not shot in HD format (90's sitcoms for instance). Also, my father-in-law is DVD obsessed and owns 7000+ DVDs which my wife and I inherit (or over half anyway). So DVD is the preferred format for me now.

That all said, if LOTR, Matrix and Star Wars ONLY come out on BR and then other folks start to go that way...I won't bother with a multiformat player, I'll just keep the PS3 going for now.

But really, so long as we use optical discs, multiformat players will be released and that will always be the best bet for consumers. My money is on the assumption that this will be the last round of formats until solid state devices are released and we just purchase media pcs to store or stream to.

 

[Teraflame]

I honestly can't believe that people are still debating this. Blu-ray is obviously going to win.