kwaad

i see what oyur saying about the downloading being slow etc..

However the matter of the fact is that most european and asian countries have at least 24mbit connections and relatively cheap.

England for example unlmited 24mbit is about $50US with some ISP. In japan you can get 100mbit connections for around the same price.

So your point is valid to some degree of it being a hassell to download such huge files.

Lol, if it wasn't for Sony, we wouldn't even have the discussion of HD-DVD vs Blue Ray, because Sony invented the CD-format and was therefore the birthplace for all formats derived from the CD, namely the CD-ROM, DVD, Blue Ray and, yes, even the HD-DVD.

It's also rather funny to see that this discussion is losely based on what Xbox360 en PS3 fanboys have to say. Looking at the numbers (which aren't that dandy for either Blue Ray or HD-DVD) I would say that DVD is still king and that, in a couple of years when HD is settled in, the new prince in the video-kingdom will be the Holodisc or HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc), which will have a single layer capacity of over 300 GB. It's being developed by Hitachi / Maxwell as we speak.

I'm just glad to have my 320 GB recorder underneath my tv with HD Cable Access and will just sit this one out.. :P

@ Frituurman

Good point, Sony and Philips engineered the hugely successfull Compact Disc (CD) and was meant to replace the LP records and with regard to Sony's MiniDisc, Philips and Sony rather meant to replace Philips' music cassettes, instead the Compact Disc seems to have virtually replaced both.

Surely the Compact Disc format has been a huge success and likewise were Sony's introduction of 3.5 inch diskettes.

BTW, IMO UMD hasn't failed at all. AFAIK UMD disc production is still increasing. Looks like an excellent storage media for the PSP, don't get me wrong I like the cartridges for our Nintendo DSes as well, but for the types of games available for the PSP tend to require much more storage, UMD seems more suitable to me.

I find it's funny people are calling Blu-Ray to be solely Sony's format though, there's a huge consortium behind this format.

Agreed! I don't think people realize that HD-DVD is only backed by MS, NEC, Toshiba and Intel, while Blu-Ray (thanks for correcting my spelling!) is backed by Philips, Matsushita, Sony, Samsung, LG, Thomson, Pioneer, Hitachi, Sharp, Mitsubitshi, Apple, Dell and Hewlett Packard, amongst others... :P

MikeB:

by umd failing i ment they don't seem to be producing many movies on them any more. Not the games themself.

From Wikipedia:

"Laserdisc technology, using a transparent disc, was invented by David Paul Gregg in 1958 (and patented in 1961 and 1969). By 1969 Philips had developed a videodisc in reflective mode, which has great advantages over the transparent mode. MCA and Philips decided to join their efforts. They first publicly demonstrated the videodisc in 1972. LD was first available on the market, in Atlanta, on December 15, 1978, two years after the VHS VCR and four years before the CD, which is based on laserdisc technology"

As you can see the technology for the CD was mainly produced by Philips and Sony's involvement was mainly to make CDs popular. Laser Disc also represents a technology that was much higher quality than its competition because its competition was far more convienient.

I don't think UMD was ever intended to replace the DVD, the discs have far less capacity (good enough for a PSP screen, which is large and offers a high resolution compared to the Nintendo DS, but is small and offers a low resolution in comparison to a laptop). Blu-Ray is intended to be the successor to the DVD, not UMD. IMO it was smart for Sony to get the movie industry at large to support the PSP, I am sure mass production has helped to reduce production costs for their games. New PSP movies like Casino Royale are still being released for the PSP.

I have to give credit to you, HappySqurriel, you are thorough. You are right. The Laserdisc as you call it (official name was Laser Vision Disc or DiscoVision) was invented by MCA and Philips. It failed enormously because of difference commercially as well as technically (different sizes, etc.). Luckily, a couple of engineers of Philips Audio (Boonstra and Van Alem) saved the ALP or Audio Long Play-technology.

At the start of the 1980's, it was a joint action of Sony and Philips, namely Dr. Toshi Doi (Sony) and Dr. K. Immink (Philips), that the standard format for the CD was developed. However, it was Sony who introduced the first CD-players and CD's, because of their technological supremacy. That supremacy was a bit foul play though, because Philips was ahead at first, but Sony insisted that CD's could contain 74 minutes of music, while Philips had everything set for 68 minutes. Those 6 extra minutes meant that CD's would have to get bigger (about 0,25 inches) and Philips just wasn't equiped for that, yet.

But the first to bring out the CD 'n so on, was Sony, therefore the founder of all the digital discs we now know!

Ok guys AGAIN

Digital Content Delivery != The internet

Sure the internet will have SOME content Delivery, but what we are talking about as the competition to Disk based media, is SOLID STATE media with massive storage.

Imagine your next "Movie Player" were an Internet Capable, 1TB solid State Storage Device, with a Front Loading Slot, to insert Solid State "SD" Type cards with Capacitys of 64GB, in order to transfer HD Content, bought on these Solid State memory Devices, with a built in DVD disk reader, to move your 9GB DVD movie collection to the Solid State Drive.

Disk Based media is the Past, whether it be Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, SAHD-Blu-DVD or any other format out there.

A Digital Content Delivery service, with built in Memory, and the ability to store anywhere from 20 BR Disks, / 220 DVD films, Expandable to 10TB (200 BR Disks, 2200 DVD) Is what will replace DVD.

When you can enjoy your ENTIRE movie collection, from the couch, WITHOUT getting up to swap Disks, with the ability to Download new content in the background, OR to purchase it from the store on Solid State memory cards, is the future.

THAT is a leap that makes enjoying your data easier, much like the jump from VHS to DVD.

Blu-Ray/HD-DVD is an incremental jump, and history will remember it as a Blip on the Radar, much like Laserdisk

IMO Microsoft misleads consumers, Microsoft before the PS3 launch claimed HD DVDs are future proof and claimed it can store more data as one of its key benefit:

Microsoft:

"This is an opportunity for consumers to buy discs at launch that future proof their collections — in other words, helping assure customers that the discs they buy will remain viewable in the future."

"Superior capacity. HD DVD-ROM discs will offer dual-layer 30GB discs at launch, compared with BD-ROM discs, which will be limited to 25GB."

Of course we know Blu-Ray provides more storage per layer, so why wouldn't this be a key benefit for Blu-Ray instead? Now that HD DVD is on the losing end of the "war" they change their tune towards the internet.