Paramount and Dreamworks Back HD DVD

Currently not being in possession of either, I really shouldn’t mind. But logically, looking at the specs on the two, Blu-Ray looks like a better format.

And as of today, the section devoted to Blu-Ray increased, while the HD section decreased at Target.

Meh. It’s all propaganda. While Blu-Ray may have a marginally better capacity this isn’t even like Beta vs. VHS. The differences in quality have more to do with codecs used and such than a 10% increase in data size, not to mention the fact that most Blu-Ray discs don’t even come close to using the amount of data available to them.

i don’t see either format being a huge success. online and on demand HD will come within reach soon.

i think any serious movie buff should look into owning both though.

I’m a bit of a pack rat. I like to keep things I like and buy. Not into paying for online and on demand stuff unless I can keep it indefinately, which is often not the case.

I’m just waiting for whatever comes out next. Remember the digital audio format wars of the early-to-mid 90s? Remember what was supposed to kill the CD? MiniDiscs and DCCs (digital compact cassettes)? Whatever happened to those? Sure MDs are still being used but no in the way people thought. DCCs? Last time I saw ons of those was in 1994 at Tower Records on Newbury Street with a commercially released Mariah Carey DCC. Both were inferior to CD quality audio. Crazy.

The main problem I think is in the minds of most consumers, the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats are too similar. The only thing that separates them is their blue and red packaging. Most people don’t have the set ups at home to take proper advantage of either, let alone tell the difference between the two.

That kind of is the only thing that seperates them and I think that’s the problem. It’s all about the titles and what player people have. Blu-Ray happens to have the great advantage of having a lot of people out there with PS3s who already have a player.

I’m not sure the comparison to next generation audio is really just. When it comes to audio a CD really does the trick for most people. People listen to CDs in their car or on a discman and the bit of extra quality they’ll get from something better is negligeable. While people often have fancy sound systems at home for their home theatres those are often used for movies and not for listening to music.

I think the fact that MP3s, an inferior quality format to CDs, were so successfull shows how little minor differences in audio quality matter to some people.

Video on the other hand is something that people love to have look better and more and more are equiped to do so.

The digital audio comparison was mainly to show that, in my opinion, that I think both these formats will have short life spans. Or at least short lifespans for how much noise is being made about them.

I don’t think they will ever replace SD DVDs but that being said I don’t see both going away. They don’t need to overtake DVD to have their own niche market. There’s a demand for this kind of technology for sure. I think it will grow to more than what it is now and stabalise. Hopefully the prices will go down somewhat in the process.

Right, in the same way MDs never went away. Niche markets are fine. Apple has a niche market and look how well they are doing. I just don’t think that either one of these formats will become the defacto industry standard because they are so similar.

Certainly if one would just die it would help the other. Don’t see that happening any time soon though. Oh well.

I think the main advantage both of these have versus older attempts at improved/ alternate formats is the backwards compatibility with regular DVDs. And I will admit that the fact that I’ve seen HD DVDs that have a regular DVD compatibility in the same package makes it a bit more enticing. It serves as a means of investing for the future with a purchase that you can use immediately, but it will have that added benefit on that day when you finally get around to getting a HD Drive/player.
And I’m with Adam regarding digital content in that I want to physically possess any purchases I make.

My issue with the “HD DVD combo discs” is that they’re pretty much all 10 to 15$ more expensive than the average HD DVD. So as someone with an HD DVD player I hate having to pay that much more for a format I won’t need to play and I’m not really sure many people out there are too hot to pay essentially double the price of a DVD to future proof it.

I’m in the group that doesn’t trust digital ownership either. I can buy a whole season of TV shows from XBLM, but I won’t. Why? Because what happens when the next Xbox comes out? Or if I cancel my XBL subscription? There’s something to be said for tangible ownership…and that’s why I don’t see digital downloads killing hard media ownership anytime soon. At least not without a way to offload it onto permanent storage medium.

Combo discs have a bit of advantage, and that’s that I can watch it on either the HD DVD player, or watch it on the PC, or on the standard player. But honestly, the only way I want to watch a movie like 300 is in HD.

And as for the format war, only one thing is going to settle it – Wal*Mart. Whichever format they choose to support will win. And if there’s any truth to the old rumor that they’re going to have a sub $200 HD DVD drive for the holidays this year, well, that’s going to be a huge blow to Blu-Ray.