Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
Actually having a full 1080p HD setup, I can say that there are times where it makes a huge difference, and times where you don't even notice. There's probably a pretty even balance between the two, depending on the movie. More character-based movies, you won't care at all. Like special effects? You'd be stupid not to get a HD player.
In the US all TV broadcasts next year will be digital HD mandatory by law. All DVD's will look like old tech by that time. Upconverting DVD's works to a point but I dont know if you can say it replaces true HD media. For allot of stuff DVD will be fine since the old source material is standard definition anyway. SD will become the next black and white.
One thing I truly hate about HD-DVD:
[i]"The Look and Sound of Perfect"[/i]
Who came up with that line? I feel as if I become less intelligent every time I read it.
ShadowDancerWhen I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie."London, UK
Ok, so seeing alien ships blow up in minute detail [i]would[/i] be very nice, but I've managed to do without it so far quite nicely. Until it becomes 'affordable' I'll make do, and as I'll be working for the NHS after I finish being a student, 'affordable' will likely not be for a long time heh!
Just image the whole B5 series in HD on blu with lossless uncompressed audio. You would be floating in the music.
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
[QUOTE=Sanfam;169105]One thing I truly hate about HD-DVD:
[i]"The Look and Sound of Perfect"[/i]
Who came up with that line? I feel as if I become less intelligent every time I read it.[/QUOTE]
Blu-ray has "Beyond High Definition," which is factually false... Why did both of them felt the need to splash marketing marketing phrases of their own all over the front of movie cases?
[Quote]Blu-ray has "Beyond High Definition," which is factually false... Why did both of them felt the need to splash marketing marketing phrases of their own all over the front of movie cases?[/Quote]
With all due respect to marketing people, all marketing people I've met are morons. They believe they are clever and creative. About 1% of them actually are. I had to do a layout for a 8'x4' graphic for a funeral company. I had a nice respectful graphic containing roughly 9 total images. When the marketing people were done looking over my shoulder, there were over 45 images all blended together. It looked like someone vomited color. To marketing people more crap=creative.
I personally bought an HD-DVD player, and i plan on buying a Blu-Ray as well, I went HD-DVD first, for the price, plain and simple, i'll not waste a lot of money buying discs, i got about a dozen free discs when i bought it, and anything else in HD i want i'll rent from Netflix.
I saw in an article today, some of Sony's other cutting edge products that seemed like a good idea at the time, but never really made a huge splash past the early adopters.
"We're not exactly looking at new turf here. Sony has doled out countless formats, all of which were technologically superior and impressive on a specification sheet. However, the company has had a pathetic success rate with these formats. I'm talking about Betamax, which was actually better than VHS; the Digital Audio Tape and Minidisc were both the first to explore the field of recordable digital audio but both failed, and Sony's Hi8 video camcorder tape format also sunk."
[QUOTE=Falcon1;169109]I don't like the cases BluRay discs come in.[/QUOTE]
which, I believe, are the same cases HDDVD discs come in (only slightly less red. :p), though I agree. I really don't care much for those discs. I like the Amaray cases the vast majority of DVDs have come in for the past decade (though the more recent mini-cases make for an even better solution. I really dislike that HDDVD and Bluray covers [b]both[/b] have huge amounts of space wasted to annoying swirly thingies that state how much better they are than the other. I hate marred box art.
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
No need to believe. They [i]are[/i] the same cases, just made with a different colour of plastic and a different embossed logo. I, too, dislike them. They're flimsy and have an annoying number of latches.
From that article:
[quote]The Playstation 2 was considered one of the big pushes for DVD players, but today I'm sure very few people use their PS2 as their main DVD player.[/quote]
That's a rather irrelevant statement. Who cares what people use their PS2 for today? What matters is that it was a big driving factor behind early DVD adoption. The same goes for the PS3 and the blu-ray. No doubt in 5 years, hardly anyone will use their PS3 to play blu-ray discs, but that means nothing to the present.
The article seems to be meaningless fluff. It mentions things past, but none of them are relevant to the present. The Nintendo reference has no significance to the format war whatsoever. The formats are out and working towards some sort of established base and we're long past the point where a new Jesusformat could come along and grab up a willing audience. Each one of their examples seems to be some new technology stealing up a following from an incumbent. Sure, aliens could invade and mandate the use of HD-DVD, but the probability of that happening is not terribly high. I also don't see how the PS3-factor could suddenly "fizzle out." Probably of that has to be even less than the alien invasion.
I'd like to keep HD-DVD, but my biggest reason for that is the existence of hybrid media. If Blu-ray can get its proposed hybrid format to the market I'll be fine either way. I like backward compatibility.
Well I don't particularly like the HD cases either but I prefer red over blue. I do hope they stop these rubbish cases soon. They just look ghastly on the shelf.
ShadowDancerWhen I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie."London, UK
I prefer blue personally, but case colour isnt going to tempt me either way :p
I think this is the part where Microsoft asks themselves why they thought it would not be a good idea to sell the 360 standard with an HDDVD player, rather than as an add-on.
It could have delayed it, but if HD-DVD had got the foothold through the xbox first I have no doubt things would be much different now. They didn't even have to include it on release. Just standardize it for the later generations, while the originals could use add-on drives as they do. The install base through the millions of x-box's sold would have easily guaranteed its survival and dominance. At the very worse it would easily have worked as the dedicated format for x-box games. I really haven't been following the sales trends but it seems to me that blu-ray players have typically been more expensive and really not that great selling. The PS3 is what tipped the balance in its favor. All that was needed was that initial large install base.
This whole thing leads me to a question. What or how does the licensing work for these formats and is it even a factor in end prices? Do studios pay Sony or Toshiba for using the standard? I'm sure hardware and media manufacturers need to pay royalties and licensing fees.
It's a shame, because #1, until Profile 2.0 comes out, HD-DVD is still the better format, #2, Have you ever seen a CHEAP Sony product? #3 I hope my Blu-Ray doesn't burst into flames like other Sony products, #4, there s no #4
On another note, anyon want to buy a fairly new Toshiba HD-A30?
Companies other than Sony make BluRay players. And, Toshiba probably will within a few months, so hold off and buy one from them if you like their hardware. Profile 2.0 just adds ethernet connection and 1gb onboard storage. Shouldn't be too hard for Toshiba to implement.
Comments
[i]"The Look and Sound of Perfect"[/i]
Who came up with that line? I feel as if I become less intelligent every time I read it.
[i]"The Look and Sound of Perfect"[/i]
Who came up with that line? I feel as if I become less intelligent every time I read it.[/QUOTE]
Blu-ray has "Beyond High Definition," which is factually false... Why did both of them felt the need to splash marketing marketing phrases of their own all over the front of movie cases?
With all due respect to marketing people, all marketing people I've met are morons. They believe they are clever and creative. About 1% of them actually are. I had to do a layout for a 8'x4' graphic for a funeral company. I had a nice respectful graphic containing roughly 9 total images. When the marketing people were done looking over my shoulder, there were over 45 images all blended together. It looked like someone vomited color. To marketing people more crap=creative.
It's a much cooler sounding name, fanboys LOVE a cool sounding name!
I saw in an article today, some of Sony's other cutting edge products that seemed like a good idea at the time, but never really made a huge splash past the early adopters.
[url]http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/17/don_t_say_goodbye_to_hd_dvd_yet/[/url]
"We're not exactly looking at new turf here. Sony has doled out countless formats, all of which were technologically superior and impressive on a specification sheet. However, the company has had a pathetic success rate with these formats. I'm talking about Betamax, which was actually better than VHS; the Digital Audio Tape and Minidisc were both the first to explore the field of recordable digital audio but both failed, and Sony's Hi8 video camcorder tape format also sunk."
which, I believe, are the same cases HDDVD discs come in (only slightly less red. :p), though I agree. I really don't care much for those discs. I like the Amaray cases the vast majority of DVDs have come in for the past decade (though the more recent mini-cases make for an even better solution. I really dislike that HDDVD and Bluray covers [b]both[/b] have huge amounts of space wasted to annoying swirly thingies that state how much better they are than the other. I hate marred box art.
From that article:
[quote]The Playstation 2 was considered one of the big pushes for DVD players, but today I'm sure very few people use their PS2 as their main DVD player.[/quote]
That's a rather irrelevant statement. Who cares what people use their PS2 for today? What matters is that it was a big driving factor behind early DVD adoption. The same goes for the PS3 and the blu-ray. No doubt in 5 years, hardly anyone will use their PS3 to play blu-ray discs, but that means nothing to the present.
I'd like to keep HD-DVD, but my biggest reason for that is the existence of hybrid media. If Blu-ray can get its proposed hybrid format to the market I'll be fine either way. I like backward compatibility.
[url]http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/en/news-15518-The+HD-DVD+is+Dead+%21+Officially+Official+%21+Report+the+Japanese+TV+NHK+%21.html[/url]
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080218/bs_nm/dvd_dc;_ylt=Au8rLtBLrOZGshCj3OVnjkus0NUE[/url]
2) Could you imagine if they did and HD-DVD died anyway?
Other than that, I agree with you.
This whole thing leads me to a question. What or how does the licensing work for these formats and is it even a factor in end prices? Do studios pay Sony or Toshiba for using the standard? I'm sure hardware and media manufacturers need to pay royalties and licensing fees.
[url]http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/ir/en/news/20080219_03.htm[/url]
And Micro$hit will continue getting licensing fees regardless which one is used because thay have patent (and everything else) to VC-1.
On another note, anyon want to buy a fairly new Toshiba HD-A30?
[url]http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/19/paramount-and-universal-to-publish-films-on-blu-ray/[/url]
I guess they understood that continuing publishing on HD DVD would benefit them least of everyone.