Keep in mind that Toshiba will be launching laptop models with integrated HD-DVD drives in the near future...

Quantum-Tarantino said: My Bad, i was thinking the most common disk sizes, and not layers. Blu Ray disks are generally 25GB, and HD-DVD are Generally 30GB My mistake about the layer info

HD-DVD is normally 15Gb for single layer whereas Blu-Ray is 25Gb for single layer.  HD-DVD can be used in dual-layer as 30Gb, whereas Blu-Ray is 50Gb dual-layer.

HD-DVD 30Gb costs more to print etc than Blu-Ray 25Gb as well. 

The price of the average blu ray movie dropped another 20 cents this week....woo hoo! Also, Sony has/is putting out its BDP S300 at a retail price of $425 at Tech Depot, a retail version of Office Depot. Compare this with the next cheapest Samsung player at $800 or the $600 PS3.

So, Sony just won the format war.

 

Edit:  I have seen more substantial-looking reports of $499 being the going price.  Either way.....

MikeB said: @ Golvellius MS do not pretend to give consumers the choice between Blu-ray and HD DVD. Regarding Blu-Ray: "Microsoft VP Peter Moore was quoted at CES saying that Xbox 360 has the flexibility to adapt to consumers’ needs, allowing Microsoft to add features as consumers demand them." There is consumer demand for a Blu-Ray add-on, or better yet considering it's also Microsoft's technology being used a Blu-Ray drive offering full HD DVD backwards compatibility (currently planned HD DVD compatible Blu-Ray drives won't support additional HD DVD features other than movie playback, they use the same codecs).

Moore doesn't say he's giving consumers the choice between HD DVD and Blu-ray. He says that a Blu-ray add-on can be easily made should consumers demand it (which means "should HD DVD lose").

You say there is consumer demand for a Blu-ray add-on? Err... how do you think it would sell if MS released one right now? Would you buy one? I think the sales numbers of stand-alone BR players speak for themselves.

 

MikeB said: . Sony forces consumers to upgrade to Blu-ray even if they just want to play games and don't care about movies. IMO the Blu-Ray drive will be mainly beneficial to PS3 games. Nobody is pressuring people to buy Blu-Ray movies, that's an option (I'm very happy with) as the PS3 does feature movie playback support.

MikeB said: The official DVD successor is HD DVD, not Blu-ray. Not really, most companies which were part of the DVD consortium are part of the Blu-Ray consortium

Nevertheless the DVD Forum has voted HD DVD to be the high definition successor of the standard DVD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD#History

It would be curious to see both formats fail or see HD-DVD win out in North America and Blu-Ray win out everywhere else.

Gballzack said: It would be curious to see both formats fail or see HD-DVD win out in North America and Blu-Ray win out everywhere else.

How will that happen with Blu-ray outselling hddvd 2-1 ?

If your going to talk about general disc size the 50GB blu-ray is used more often now for movies.

Celb said: Gballzack said: It would be curious to see both formats fail or see HD-DVD win out in North America and Blu-Ray win out everywhere else. How will that happen with Blu-ray outselling hddvd 2-1 ?

If neither reach adequate market saturation and lose momentum they could both easily end up like mini-disc. Just because one is doing better than the other doesn't mean it's garanteed success. And if the public catches wind of the  even newer formats looming over the horizon less than ten years from now it will have a pretty deterimental affect on the eagerness of consumers to switch formats at this point in time.

As for North America, who knows, I hear HD-DVD players are outselling Blu-Ray players and I see an equal number of the two video libraries represented at any store I go to so its anyone's bet at this point.

@ Golvellius

No, I won't buy such a device since I already have a PS3, otherwise I would be interested yet saddened if the drive wasn't internal and used for games.

Blu-Ray players were really expensive before the PS3's release, some people waited for the cheaper PS3 to arrive. It happens to double as one of the best Blu-Ray movie players on the market.



Well launch games like Motorstorm, Resistance and Oblivion (the three games I bought) all use well beyond the storage capacity of DVDs. I don't have to read about what developers have to say, I can figure this one out myself.



The DVD Consortium as it was originally called included the following founding members:

* Hitachi, Ltd. Blu-Ray
* Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. Blu-Ray
* Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Blu-Ray
* Pioneer Electronic Corporation Blu-Ray
* Royal Philips Electronics N.V. Blu-Ray
* Sony Corporation Blu-Ray
* Thomson Blu-Ray
* Time Warner Inc. Supporting Both formats non-exclusively
* Toshiba Corporation HD DVD
* Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) Blu-Ray (Blu-Ray consortium, technology contributor, not member of the the board of directors)

Amongst the companies mentioned above Blu-Ray board members include companies like Apple, Dell, LG, Samsung, Sharp, TDK, Sun Microsystems, etc.

Gballzack said: Celb said: Gballzack said: It would be curious to see both formats fail or see HD-DVD win out in North America and Blu-Ray win out everywhere else. How will that happen with Blu-ray outselling hddvd 2-1 ? If neither reach adequate market saturation and lose momentum they could both easily end up like mini-disc. Just because one is doing better than the other doesn't mean it's garanteed success. And if the public catches wind of the even newer formats looming over the horizon less than ten years from now it will have a pretty deterimental affect on the eagerness of consumers to switch formats at this point in time. As for North America, who knows, I hear HD-DVD players are outselling Blu-Ray players and I see an equal number of the two video libraries represented at any store I go to so its anyone's bet at this point.

Newer formats looming, they all are nearly meaningless.  Not a single one has any industry support to affect the eagerness of consumers right now, or even in 5 years.  Hollywood wont support some start up format just for the hell of it.   You might want to look at the list of Blu-ray supporters, once the format war is over it really is preatty much a guaranteed success.

Its not who knows, no one will Support Hd-dvd if its dead in most markets and can only get %30 of USA.  Fact is Blu-ray is outselling Hd-dvd just get over it.