madskillz said: Played_Out said: LordTheNightKnight said: It would not lead to all our movies being on it. It took mainstream success for that to happen to DVD, not getting rid of the DIVX format (which is not the same as the DivX codec). DIVX? Ha ha ha. I had forgotten about that one! DVD didn't get rid of DIVX, it wasn't a competing format, it was just a ridiculous failed attempt at providing an alternative to video rental. A bad idea from the start. @madskillz The interactivity features of Java are actually a lot better than HDi. The reason you don't see them in early Blu-Ray is that they were not included as standard in the BD 1.0 profile. I wouldn't worry to much about the region coding issue either. DVD is region encoded, but I sure don't know anyone with a player that's not region free. Personally, I won't be getting on the HD format train for a while as I only have an SD TV, but it was pretty obvious from the get-go that BD was the superior format, and market dominance was assured by Sony crowbarring it into the market via PS3. Interesting post. I hope you are correct about region coding - I hate being limited with my options ... I have well over 200 DVDs and just 10 HD DVDs (plus 5 that I still need to pick) and I got in because it was a great deal, even if the format died. I was giving the PS3 and 15 BR movies from Wally World serious thought too. As far as the TVs go, I have a 480i SD TV and a 22" LCD, plus a 1080i projector and all of the HD DVD movies look sweet. When the HD DVD format goes belly up, I will just stick to watching HD on my DiSH HD DVR. I will admit, I have the Star Wars Trilogy on my DVR in HD ... it's really sweet.

 Also, Blu-Ray region coding is optional for all movies over one year old, and most Warner, Sony, Disney, and Lionsgate titles are region free because of this.  Fox seems to be the only stickler for Region Coding so far, but I hear most of their European releases are region free as well.

Region Coding is only required within the first year, to protect studios' international interests.  For example, New Line released Hairspray in the US on both DVD and Blu-Ray over a month ago, yet the HD DVD version is still MIA.  This is beacuse Hairspray is still being shown in theaters in Europe, and a region free release would infringe upon that.  What would you rather have, region free releases or new releases earlier with region coding?  And remember, the region coding will probably only be in place for the first year.  I'm sure many could go either way, but personally I'd choose the latter.

Summaro400ex said: Better question. instead of why don't we want HD DVD to go away, why do you want it to go away so bad? I have a HD DVD player, big surprise i wont want it to go away since i invested in one. How does HD DVD going away positively affect anyone except sony stock holders? Truth is you wouldn't have those 5 free blu ray movies if it weren't for HD DVD

 those 5 bluray are to help show owner how much better bluray looks then dvd. and the BDA would still lower the prce because they want more people to buy. them like the way dvd lowered in price. we want one player because we dont want to have dual formate be the standard because that means everyone would have to buy a dual player and that mean the prices will go up to get a highdef player.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=13677&start=0#end

This pretty much explains why.

redisrad said: but lets say the dual player become the standard. well that means both sides of the formate war will have to buy a new player to play all the movies. also they will cost more then both hd player standalones. also there would be less shelf space because both formates would have to share. so it would just make more since to go blu because bluray has like 10 time more players out there. and would make more since to make the 10% of hd dvd owner mad, 90% of bluray owners mad or 100% of them mad because dual is the standard.

It's the prospect of rebuying media that sucks. DVD players I've had a bunch, but I've never repurchased a single DVD, of which I own many dozens. I may rebuy less than a handful of those in HD (those where I really do give a damn about picture quality), and I'm holding on buying exactly one DVD, cause I'd like to have it in HD.

I don't like to repurchase stuff I (supposedly) own, so I've come to appreciate the tradition brought forth by 12 cm disc media, where support for new formats has always been added to players, and never dropped. To me, and most people I know at least, backwards compatibility is even more important in music and movies than in games. Apart from gifts, I only buy stuff for its replay value: otherwise I'll just rent. Playing this stuff down the road is essencial, otherwise video-on-demand rentals would do just fine.

@op because years from now when there's only 1 format(presumably) I'd rather that format be controlled by a company other then Sony. This of course, has nothing to do with Nintendo vs Sony or any of that jibberish, it's simply that Sony has a history for overcharging for hardware and if they have a monopoly over the high def formats, we'll continue to overpay......simple as that imo.

SuperDave said: @op because years from now when there's only 1 format(presumably) I'd rather that format be controlled by a company other then Sony. This of course, has nothing to do with Nintendo vs Sony or any of that jibberish, it's simply that Sony has a history for overcharging for hardware and if they have a monopoly over the high def formats, we'll continue to overpay......simple as that imo.

 Where do people get the idea that Blu-Ray is controlled by Sony?  The BDA consists of over 170 companies, and Panasonic holds more patents in Blu-Ray tech than Sony.  This is hardly Sony's format.

KruzeS said: It's the prospect of rebuying media that sucks. DVD players I've had a bunch, but I've never repurchased a single DVD, of which I own many dozens. I may rebuy less than a handful of those in HD (those where I really do give a damn about picture quality), and I'm holding on buying exactly one DVD, cause I'd like to have it in HD. I don't like to repurchase stuff I (supposedly) own, so I've come to appreciate the tradition brought forth by 12 cm disc media, where support for new formats has always been added to players, and never dropped. To me, and most people I know at least, backwards compatibility is even more important in music and movies than in games. Apart from gifts, I only buy stuff for its replay value: otherwise I'll just rent. Playing this stuff down the road is essencial, otherwise video-on-demand rentals would do just fine.

 

KruzeS, this is FUD and just propaganda against any and all HD formats.  All Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players will play your existing DVD's.  You don't HAVE to rebuy all those movies.   If you so choose to rebuy a movie you already own on DVD that is your perogative and not necessary.   It's not like Sony or Toshiba would be twisting your arm and telling you that you have to rebuy every single movie you own on DVD and then burn your existing library.   I'm sure the movie companies would love it if you did that, but you don't have to do that. 

 When movie prices come down in price (just like DVD's were expensive when they first came out) you can then focus on buying any new movies you wish to own on Blu Ray instead of DVD.  However, if you would prefer to buy the DVD version, you still can do so and the player will up-convert from 480p for you.   Just because you have a Blu-Ray or HD DVD player doesn't mean that you can only have those formats and nothing else on it. 

Of course you had to rebuy your VHS library on DVD if you really liked the movie as VHS movies would degrade in quality over time, where with DVD and other Disc formats won't degrade like that since they do not use a magnetic tape to record the movie.

The jump from DVD to Blu Ray isn't as steep or expensive in the long run like it was from VHS to DVD because you can still play your existing DVD's in the new players.  Your library is not "obsolete" and you don't have to fear about not being able to watch them again unless you buy some old player on eBay or have Hank the repair guy fix your old DVD player.  

 

Troll_Monster said: Snesboy said: bbsin said: Snesboy said: The real question is: Why the hell do people care about Blu-ray? DVD is the best digital medium. When something goes digital, it doesn't get better. High Definition doesn't make the picture quality better. It formats the image to fit your TV. In English, it takes full screen, throws it out the window, and takes 16:9 ratio and formats that ratio to fit your TV screen while removing the black bars that you would have on a 4:3 ratio TV. 720p,1080i,1080p > 480p People are going to go fucking blind staring at 70-inch TV's.   Un less your some idiot watching the TV with your face on the screen then no you won't go blind, infact the larger the TV the further you can be from the TV it's self and still see the improvemtns that 1080p resolution has over 480p. In any case why are so against Hi def?

 He's a Nintedo Fanboy, he's not going to admit the benefits of HD technology until Nintendo wants him to. Based on his posts, he doesn't even seem to realize what "high definition" is to begin with.

makingmusic476 said: SuperDave said: @op because years from now when there's only 1 format(presumably) I'd rather that format be controlled by a company other then Sony. This of course, has nothing to do with Nintendo vs Sony or any of that jibberish, it's simply that Sony has a history for overcharging for hardware and if they have a monopoly over the high def formats, we'll continue to overpay......simple as that imo. Where do people get the idea that Blu-Ray is controlled by Sony? The BDA consists of over 170 companies, and Panasonic holds more patents in Blu-Ray tech than Sony. This is hardly Sony's format.

Where do people get the idea Microsoft controls HD-DVD? 

Snesboy said: The real question is: Why the hell do people care about Blu-ray? DVD is the best digital medium. When something goes digital, it doesn't get better. High Definition doesn't make the picture quality better. It formats the image to fit your TV. In English, it takes full screen, throws it out the window, and takes 16:9 ratio and formats that ratio to fit your TV screen while removing the black bars that you would have on a 4:3 ratio TV.

  Actually, that's incorrect.  High Definition is ALL about the picture quality.  1080p is 1,080 pixels vertically while SD (480p) is 480 pixels vertically.  I forget the exact horizontal resolution of SD, but HD is 1920.  I believe the difference there is about 300% or more. The increased storage space of HD media is actually a byproduct of the need for more space in order to store the video information at such increased resolution.  It's like you taking a picture with a 1 megapixel camera, and then the same picture with an 8 megapixel camera.  The 1megapixel image will be WAY smaller than the 8. In any case, I see a lot of people bashing BD just because of Sony.  Of course there's plenty of people who have been bashing HD-DVD because Microsoft is part of the HD-DVD group.  Big deal! As far as Sony goes though, I see people posting about how Sony's come up with other formats in the past that haven't become mainstream so this is bad in their favor.  How's that?  Doesn't innovation and trying new things count?  Of course with any company the goal of invented technology is to make money, money for THAT company, but still how are new formats and technologies a negative?  The market still has to decide.  UMD was a good idea that could have been REALLY cool if it hadn't had some significant limitations.  Mini-DVD STILL IS a cool thing, especially for camcorders.  Oh well, I guess it depends on your point of view. For the record, HD-DVD WAS the more mature technology.  It offered PIP and some other features that blu-ray just got with their 1.1 spec, and it offered them from the start. (well, with firmware upgrades to the players).  The point is, the both of these technologies were and are still in their infancy.  There's a lot of growth left.  And yes, without this competition there's no way you would have seen these HD movies lower than $30 right now (actually, about $23 now seems to be the normal price) and you wouldn't have seen cheaper players this soon either.  Anyone remember how long it took DVD players to get down to $3-400?  I know it was longer than a year!  Competition helped.  The unfortunate part of this is that now the competition is over.  So progress in pricing will be slower, at least until and if the technology reaches mass adoption. In any case there's no need to gloat about BD's win or cry over HD-DVD's loss.  You ask why people care about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?  It's because in most cases those people bought one or the other of the players.  Can't you imagine that it hurts a bit to spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of hardware and plenty on movies and then find that your choice has "lost?"  Think you'd be afraid you wasted your money?  The other reason a lot of HD-DVD supporters are bitter is that they are tech minded people and again, HD-DVD WAS more mature for at least most of it's competitive life span.  So those people feel the superior tech lost and feel that this isn't right, isn't fair. Unfortunately, the market isn't fair.  Advertising and all kinds of factors can spin things so that even inferior products do well.  I'm not saying that BD is sadly inferior either.  I personally liked the technology due to the small storage advantage and the scratch protection.  I like the idea that my movies won't be as prone to getting made useless if I drop them or they wear down over time, as my DVD's have been.  Still, I also have an HD-DVD player.  I'm not going to be getting rid of it right away or anything either.  I'm sure I'll get a good bit of use out of it before there's no sense in keeping it anymore.  I figure that time is AT LEAST a year or so away though.  And until I have the movies I have on HD-DVD available on BD, there's no sense in getting rid of it anyway (I like the Bourne movies! :) ). Anyway, I hope people will quit gloating at the HD-DVD supporters.  it's not cool.  These are just the fortunes of being an early adopter.  It could have easily gone the other way, with the HD-DVD supporters poking at the BD guys then. Just chill out and enjoy the ride and lets see where this takes us.  After all, it's only technology and entertainment.  Much like with video game systems, computers and the like; they're not worth getting emotionally invested in and all riled up about.  They're just things.  Things that PEOPLE use.  Debate all you want, just try to be mature and don't gloat all over people if you happen to "win" or make a point, or those people happen to have made a different choice than you.  Geez, with all the animosity you see in forums like these about technology, computers, video games and other purchase and entertainment decisions, it's easy to see how REAL important matters in the world like race, religion and government cause wars and so much bloodshed, isn't it?