The Decision: Blu-Ray or HD-DVD

[Mr. Furious]

Alright sports fans, you know I've been batting this around for the past year. I didn't want to get burned on any format that I didn't think had the logevity to invest in. I was ready to go Blu-Ray just about 2 weeks ago. That changed.

Tomorrow, WalMart is selling the $99 player and $15 movies. At that price, the investment is low enough that if it totally barfs, I'm not out that much. Plus, I've made the decision to buy combo discs. If HD-DVD doesn't fly, I still can watch my movies in SD. So no matter what, I don't have a total loss of my investment.

Tomorrow, I'm pulling the trigger on HD-DVD and I guess I'm no longer format neutral.

[Ruined]

If you don't get one of the HD-A2s, you can always line up for one of those $169 HD-A3 players at Sears on black friday. Or go for one of the $179 Best Buy HD-A2s with a reward zone coupon to bring it down even more.

But I think you made a good choice. HD DVD is the best value for the money and now has proven they can compete pricewise on a mass-market level.

[jbat31]

Originally Posted by Mr. Furious

Alright sports fans, you know I've been batting this around for the past year. I didn't want to get burned on any format that I didn't think had the logevity to invest in. I was ready to go Blu-Ray just about 2 weeks ago. That changed.

Tomorrow, WalMart is selling the $99 player and $15 movies. At that price, the investment is low enough that if it totally barfs, I'm not out that much. Plus, I've made the decision to buy combo discs. If HD-DVD doesn't fly, I still can watch my movies in SD. So no matter what, I don't have a total loss of my investment.

Tomorrow, I'm pulling the trigger on HD-DVD and I guess I'm no longer format neutral.

Check for availability. I thought about doing the same tomorrow, but I hae checked every walmart in my area and none have any

[Mr. Furious]

It was just advertised on TV (my wife called to inform me). So I'm guessing they're shipping units in specifically for the ad. Nothing will likely be "available" until tomorrow at 8:00am.

[esc]

everyone knows what side I am on. (I'll give you a hint... they come in little red packages and they aren't roofies).

The A2 series and the higher end A3's are totally affordable, AND are some of the best upconverting DVD players around.

The picture on HD DVD is stellar and to be absolutely honest, any time I have seen any Blu Ray disc, it must be on a TV that is totally not calibrated because I have not been impressed by the few BD movies that I have watched. (Fantastic4, Resident Evil2, Underworld, plus many movies playing in home theater stores and box stores).

When I made my decision I also looked at the companies that were behind each product.

Blu is
Sony: known for flat out lying to their customers and spinning numbers and press releases in their favor
Disney : what can I say?
Fox : refused to do anamorphic transfers in their early DVDs, and the head of Fox, Tom Rothman is a douche to the maximum degree
Disney and Fox were also two of the biggest supporters of Divx back in 1997.
MGM: I cant really say too much bad about them

HD is
Universal, Paramount, Dreamworks, Weinstein with Warner and New Line releasing in both Blu and HD.

I'm sure that I could think of something that I don't like about these companies, but off the top of my head, I just can't (other than New Line and the whole Peter Jackson thing). It really came down to choosing the least of 2 evils. Spielberg (who is a great guy) owns part of Dreamworks and has a great working relationship with both Universal and Paramount. I'd trust Steve more that a lot of hollywood people.

Take a look at the companies and see who you want to trust with the future of your home entertainment.

oh, and I am also considering doing the free HD DVD offer again that I tried to do a while ago for a new HD player owner

[ganthc]

Spielberg (who is a great guy) owns part of Dreamworks and has a great working relationship with both Universal and Paramount. I'd trust Steve more that a lot of hollywood people.

Well considering that Spielberg has shown a very blu lean, does that mean everyone else should follow his lead?

[videoworx]

Originally Posted by Esc

Disney and Fox were also two of the biggest supporters of Divx back in 1997.

Some might argue that DVD didn't become a popular (as in, mass adoption) format until both Fox and Disney jumped on board.

[Derb]

At $99 bucks, you'll have secured your dvd collection cause the A2 is better than any standalone DVD player for upconversion.

[Mr. Furious]

Originally Posted by videoworx

Some might argue that DVD didn't become a popular (as in, mass adoption) format until both Fox and Disney jumped on board.

With all due respect, by the time Fox and Disney jumped on, DIVX's death was a forgone conclusion.

[Dogg]

Must be a big push. Best Buy has it for $99. My local store is sold out.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....D1158323325814

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Dogg

Must be a big push. Best Buy has it for $99. My local store is sold out.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....D1158323325814

Wow this is insane. I expected Toshiba to go all out Q4, but even I didn't expect to see it across the board like this.

[videoworx]

Originally Posted by Mr. Furious

With all due respect, by the time Fox and Disney jumped on, DIVX's death was a forgone conclusion.

My point was that without Fox and Disney, DVD would not have become as succesful in such a short amount of time.

[Taxi]

Originally Posted by videoworx

My point was that without Fox and Disney, DVD would not have become as succesful in such a short amount of time.

And I think Mr. Furious' point is that try as they might, Fox and Disney could not make divx a success. Open DVD had became one without them on board. They only jumped off the sinking divx ship when the writing was on the wall.

[videoworx]

I didn't infer that DVD was a dud without those two distributors, or that Divx was anything but awful. It just seems that once Fox and Disney started releasing DVDs, the format became mainstream - fairly quickly. Prior to that, DVD was still a niche product, much like HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are now.

[MooglePorn]

I own more BD than HD DVD but that's simply because I find BD to be more reliable and sturdy from a tech standpoint, like Derb. Maybe a better HD DVD player would change my mind on that, I don't know, but in my experience BD has faster load times, less glitches and larger disc space for more HD features and less disc swapping.

I don't choose based on which companies are evil corporations, in my opinion all the corporations in this war have been bastards at one time or another, I choose on the better technology, and in my opinion that's BD. People like Ruined who make their decisions based on which companies they like, that root for cheaper to win over better, confuse me. Don't we want the best technology for the next 10 years of our movie watching? Makes sense to me.

Oh well.

[1138]

Originally Posted by MooglePorn

People like Ruined who make their decisions based on which companies they like, that root for cheaper to win over better, confuse me. Don't we want the best technology for the next 10 years of our movie watching? Makes sense to me.

Oh well.

Wow. I'm not sure if you've ever really read a post by ruined on the matter then. I'll readily admit, he's rabid about which side he's chosen. But to be perfectly fair, he's always given his reasonings why, technology wise, he prefers HD-DVD. Maybe you don't agree with him on that, sure. But he's been pretty clear on why he chooses HD-DVD from the start.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by MooglePorn

I own more BD than HD DVD but that's simply because I find BD to be more reliable and sturdy from a tech standpoint, like Derb. Maybe a better HD DVD player would change my mind on that, I don't know, but in my experience BD has faster load times, less glitches and larger disc space for more HD features and less disc swapping.

I don't choose based on which companies are evil corporations, in my opinion all the corporations in this war have been bastards at one time or another, I choose on the better technology, and in my opinion that's BD. People like Ruined who make their decisions based on which companies they like, that root for cheaper to win over better, confuse me. Don't we want the best technology for the next 10 years of our movie watching? Makes sense to me.

Oh well.

Explain how essentially the exact same product (minus some features) for double (now approaching triple) the price is "better technology". Faster load times is humorous. Maybe its fast on the PS3, which is essentially a computer, but on actual standalones loading a BD-java disc is slower than booting an HD-A1, and you have to wait EVERY TIME you load the disc, not just the player's first boot. Then throw in BD+ and you have discs with loadtimes over 2mins on BD. Disc space has proved to mean jack - now that we've seen there is little to no video quality improvement, we are moving on to the disc swapping for HD extras argument? Who cares, we've been doing it for 10 years with DVD special editions - I think you are starting to reach. Heck, research has even show consumers prefer and will pay more for 2-disc special editions over a standard special edition.

P.S. I just bought a $2599 Sony TV, and HD DVD > BD IMO (see sig for reasons). So much for your companies argument.

[Derb]

meh.

I've been glitch free with HD DVD sinse 2.2 firmware though I have checked out previous discs which were not working properly & its software related so they still glitch. A scratch on a HD DVD is a nightmare compared to BD. Heck my Twilight Zone BD has freakin HOLE puncture marks on the label side straight through to the data side. You can clearly see 4 distinguished brown dots on the disc surface & it played fine on the PS3. Now I don't know what could be worse than that. That pretty much shot down my theory of BDs data layer being too close to the disc surface & would most likely be a foreseeable problem with the format.

307 now watched on the PS3. 0 problemo.
240 watched on HD players & 15-20 glitch discs.

HD DVD consumer friendlier?

My ass.

[Ruined]

Derb there are no glitchy HD DVDs now. If you are still getting glitches you have defective discs or player. Your experiences don't match up to any of the other HD DVD owners here, which is why dugpa and I say you are cursed.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Derb there are no glitchy HD DVDs now. If you are still getting glitches you have defective discs or player. Your experiences don't match up to any of the other HD DVD owners here, which is why dugpa and I say you are cursed.

Interesting because when Mr. Hunt was having problems with his HD-A1's, mine was working flawlessly. Same goes for a lot of folks complaining that their discs were not working at all. I guess Josh Z is full of it too & he can be discredited as well.

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by 1138

Wow. I'm not sure if you've ever really read a post by ruined on the matter then. I'll readily admit, he's rabid about which side he's chosen. But to be perfectly fair, he's always given his reasonings why, technology wise, he prefers HD-DVD. Maybe you don't agree with him on that, sure. But he's been pretty clear on why he chooses HD-DVD from the start.

He finds reasons to justify it, sure.

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Explain how essentially the exact same product (minus some features) for double (now approaching triple) the price is "better technology".

BD discs are more expensive? News to me. My Departed and 300 discs were actually a lot cheaper than their HD DVD counterparts... Oh wait, you're talking about players! I thought we were talking about the formats as a whole... So then you're comparing the Toshiba cheap-o player to the PS3? I would say the PS3 kicks its ass in all kinds of ways, be it true 1080p support or just all around better reliability.

Faster load times is humorous. Maybe its fast on the PS3, which is essentially a computer, but on actual standalones loading a BD-java disc is slower than booting an HD-A1, and you have to wait EVERY TIME you load the disc, not just the player's first boot. Then throw in BD+ and you have discs with loadtimes over 2mins on BD.

Well I can't speak of non-PS3 BD players, but yeah, load times on my PS3 are super fast and load time on my HD DVD add-on suck balls. Since I doubt you have a BD player you probably don't really know which players compare to which in the loading department. I actually have experience and that's where my opinion comes from.

And I'm pretty sure it was BD-J causing those long load times, not BD+, and didn't firmware updates fix that on the few select players that suffered from the problem? If we're going to look at pre-firmware problems on a select few players-type-issues I can pull some equal HD DVD issues out of my hat.

Disc space has proved to mean jack - now that we've seen there is little to no video quality improvement, we are moving on to the disc swapping for HD extras argument? Who cares, we've been doing it for 10 years with DVD special editions - I think you are starting to reach.

Some people notice the higher bitrate... even if that's an illusion, who cares? Why is a higher bitrate not better? And yes, more space and less disc swapping is a benefit... why would you say otherwise? Why do you fight to prove benefits are unimportant? I like benefits.

Heck, research has even show consumers prefer and will pay more for 2-disc special editions over a standard special edition.

Hahaha...

P.S. I just bought a $2599 Sony TV, and HD DVD > BD IMO (see sig for reasons). So much for your companies argument.

Honestly Ruined, if you think anything... ANYTHING... could stop me from thinking of you as biased toward certain companies, you're dellusional. I've spent way too much time reading your posts to care what brand your TV is, you've made your motivations and bias clear.