i agree. how can you go wrong with an hd dvd drive for 200 and the movies look great. they cant look any better and as far as i’m concerned the early bird gets the worm.

I’m hoping it is the winner as well! Pretty much I think it will win because Bluray is Sony’s baby and they have a way of killing cool technology like this.

Troy

So, is there any actual advantages in HD-DVD over Blu-Ray? Blu-Ray does have more space (I agree with #2 above, but I also think burning data could have an affect on that argument). I think any space argument is always sort of silly, since whatever amount of space we have will not be enough in 5 years anyway. So if we throw space out, what advantages does HD-DVD offer over Blu-Ray?

Hey Jerry!

Early on, I believe each format offered certain bells & whistles for authoring. But, because I haven’t kept up to date on this, I’m not sure if both support the same kind of features or if the features that were in the preliminary specs made it in the final ones.

Right now I don’t see any reason why either format is better technically. HD DVD Combo discs have both SD DVD and HD DVD on a single disc which is nice. I prefer HD DVD for the reasons I addressed in my above post. However, I’m still trying to figure out why Disney is supporting only BluRay and not both. But I guess you and I have a good idea ;)

Danny

At home I have chosen HD-DVD as well (for quality issues). At work (I am a partner of an interactive media engineering company) I have not made a choice - studios are still using both formats. I prefer to use HD-DVDs HDi programming framework (thank you Microsoft) over Blu-Rays BD-J (Java). Which was not what I expected being a Java programmer.

I also am irritated that Blu-Ray’s main selling point has been space. I just don’t see that being an advantage for the reasons already stated.

As for who will win - I don’t think HD-DVD will lose. Dual players will probably become the norm and allow both formats to survive.

My only annoyance with HD-DVD right now is that the Toshiba players are slow. This needs to improve and from what I have read Toshiba is addressing this issue in their latest players.

This article spoke volume for me. I don’t know if you have read it already but it represented to me the blu ray group cared to do things the right way.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/feature_visitwithsony.html

Michael,

That was a good read. It still doesn’t change my feeling towards BluRay.

Sony’s vision seems to be closer to Apple in that they want to control the whole experience. Microsoft, enables you to integrate devices that share a common protocol. This works for and against Microsoft. However, it fits nicely with my ultimate vision of having all devices communicate and control each other (uPnp, etc). The PS3 and Sony don’t share that… in the past Sony has only allowed Sony devices to work with one another. They are very locked down. I believe if HD DVD succeeds as a format we will have a better chance to see HD delivery of non-disc based material and better integration with Media Center and XBOX 360. I guess time will tell us…

Danny

Just finished reading Michael’s link. I don’t know, that sounds like a bunch of corporate sunshine to me.

“Another criticism of Blu-ray has been that it is also lagging behind HD DVD in terms of basic interactivity, such as the bookmark feature Warner has introduced on its HD DVD titles.

DE: We can do bookmarks and those kinds of interactive features with a Java-based disc. That’s not difficult to do. We have not actually found that there is a sizable consumer interest in the function, though. “

Wrong imo. First of all, it is difficult to program interactivity in their implementation of Java. Secondly, their specification does not require that players have an Internet port, so why did they choose Java? Thirdly, no interest in the function? That is not at all what I am hearing from consumers and fans of home theater.

Also, in terms of their choices for audio, I’m not hearing good things from the audio engineers that have to work in this format.

I think all my beefs with BD are coming from the authoring side. They’ve definitely improved on quality in hardware and content.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Microsoft has put their money on HD-DVD. Check out the various related links at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x/xbox360hddvdplayer/

There are three reviews of DVD’s that have been released in both HD and Blu-Ray format. The reviewer found both were excellent, but that the HD-DVD had an edge in the video quality.

Several of you above have cited “no technical reason” for making the choice between the two. I don’t purport to be an expert - just present what I’ve read, but one fundamental difference between the two are the codecs used. Blu-ray is using MPEG-4, suppoosedly an older technology than the VC-1 that HD-DVD uses. This difference was attributed to the better video quality of the HD-DVD reviews.

The whole thing ends up just being a pain for consumers who want the leading edge, but don’t know which side of the blade is sharpest. I have an older Denon Dolby Digital process that I still love, but it doesn’t do DTS. Now most processors can do both DTS and DD - but I made the early leap. Time to upgrade, I guess - and throw-away and otherwise perfectly good piece of equipment…. Probably not as upsetting as all those early LaserDisc adopters…..

I understand that Samsung has come out with a DVD player that will run both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. If both chips will be available to manufacturer’s, I’m okay with there being two competing technologies.

However, it is a bit depressing when one technology will win over the other based on marketing rather than performance (a la DTS versus DD).

I have both a PS3 and an Xbox 360 with the HD-DVD add on both running on my Samsung HD TV, I can safely say that HD-DVD FTW.
The Image quality is that much better

Blu-ray I think is to confusing for the average consumer, and I can imagine people buying a BR DVD and trying to play it in the much cheaper HD-DVD player.

I really don’t understand why these Sony fans would try and support a format that is being forced upon us by Sony when they have failed at so many formats just look at Minidisk, Betamax, UMD, there just a few of Sony’s failures, maybe because the PS3 is Sony’s biggest failure by far.

Anyone who owns a Xbox 360 and a HD TV should own the HD-DVD player full stop go out and buy one, and buy the Matrix box set and Batman begins and you will see the quality of it.

“Sony’s vision seems to be closer to Apple in that they want to control the whole experience. Microsoft, enables you to integrate devices that share a common protocol. This works for and against Microsoft. However, it fits nicely with my ultimate vision of having all devices communicate and control each other (uPnp, etc). The PS3 and Sony don’t share that…”

Actually this is DEAD wrong… All the devices you speak of use DLNA Certification over UPNP… That allows these devices to coexist and share data.

Guess who makes up the DLNA,Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Matsushita, Microsoft, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, AND Sony.

The PS3 and PSP can find any DLNA certified device on your wired or wireless network… This includes, Xbox360, media center, third party hardware devices, windows media player, dlna certified NAS devices.. etc…