# Blu-Ray or HD-DVD



## Atsumi

Which do you think will win the war?

My pick goes out to Blu-Ray.  They has more support from movie companies and the such.

What's your choice?


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## P11

Blu-Ray will probably be more successful, however they are vitually the same product....aside from their name and a couple performance differences. Also, I was checking out a Blu-Ray player at BestBuy and they take a LIFETIME to load a dvd, I'm not to sure about HD-DVD but I would like to wait until blu-ray reaches 4x or 8x speeds.


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## Geoff

Atsumi said:
			
		

> My pick goes out to Blu-Ray.  They has more support from movie companies and the such.


Are you sure?  Last I heard HD-DVD had the most support because it had more secure DRM and was also cheaper to produce, since they can use existing DVD equipment.

How much do Blu-Ray discs cost anyway?


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## Mattu

This is just like the Betamax and VHS war of the 1980's. We'll just have to see witch one's the last one standing in about 5 years.


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## Atsumi

[-0MEGA-] said:
			
		

> Are you sure?  Last I heard HD-DVD had the most support because it had more secure DRM and was also cheaper to produce, since they can use existing DVD equipment.
> 
> How much do Blu-Ray discs cost anyway?


A Blu-Ray disc costs about $23 from what I've seen (A whole lot cheaper than I imagined)

Also, (Taken from wikipedia.com)  "_HD DVD initially received more support than Blu-ray from film studios and distributors, but the two formats are now close in levels of industry support. However, HD-DVD has fewer exclusive content providers: only Universal Studios, among the majors. Blu-Ray is backed by 20th Century Fox, as well as the Sony subsidiaries Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony Pictures Entertainment."_


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## vonbismarck

P11 said:
			
		

> Blu-Ray will probably be more successful, however they are vitually the same product....aside from their name and a couple performance differences. Also, I was checking out a Blu-Ray player at BestBuy and they take a LIFETIME to load a dvd, I'm not to sure about HD-DVD but I would like to wait until blu-ray reaches 4x or 8x speeds.


I have not actually checked either one out but from what I have read in reviews, HD-DVD is even slower to load than Blu-Ray.

It is hard to compare prices for discs as I have only seen blank Blu-Ray ones.  When it comes to movies, they are both around the same price with Blu-Ray going for between $23-$30 and HD-DVD around the same (though one or so is almost $40).  The HD-DVD player is cheaper though although when the PS3 comes out it will be a cheap Blu-Ray player (but will probably still be considered an expensive game console).

Blu-Ray also has a larger storage capacity than HD-DVD which might help it.


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## SC7

HD-DVD is slightly cheaper per disc, plus cheaper to make, because old DVD equipment can be used with a little modification.  I think Blu-Ray will fail because it's just one company behind it.  People don't like one company (sony) trying to dominate, and they've failed before (Betamax, UMD).  To me, it just seems like sony won't be able to get themselves the edge.  Now, another thing, remember, the better product doesn't always win.  Xbox was better than PS2 and GCN technologically, it got 2nd in the US, and 3rd worldwide.  Betamax was superior to VHS, and it floped, same with laserdisc.  The market looks for the happy medium, such as if HD-DVD is somewhat close to Blu ray, and offers good enough performance, they'll be going after that every last penny in order to get that small cash saving (which does add up).


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## baballin328

i think both cost too much, and blu ray's price is ridiculus ($1000?!)


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## SC7

baballin328 said:
			
		

> i think both cost too much, and blu ray's price is ridiculus ($1000?!)


It'll come down in price when it's ready to hit the mass market, either that or Sony goes to big, and kills themselves again.


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## baballin328

SC7 said:
			
		

> It'll come down in price when it's ready to hit the mass market, either that or Sony goes to big, and kills themselves again.


lol 
but blu ray burning is impressive. it can burn 25GB of data in 45min.


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## Geoff

The Blu-Ray drives are crazy expensive, but i'm suprised at how cheap the Blu-Ray discs are.  I bet HD-DVD will win in the long run.


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## vonbismarck

SC7 said:
			
		

> HD-DVD is slightly cheaper per disc, plus cheaper to make, because old DVD equipment can be used with a little modification.  I think Blu-Ray will fail because it's just one company behind it.  People don't like one company (sony) trying to dominate, and they've failed before (Betamax, UMD).  To me, it just seems like sony won't be able to get themselves the edge.  Now, another thing, remember, the better product doesn't always win.  Xbox was better than PS2 and GCN technologically, it got 2nd in the US, and 3rd worldwide.  Betamax was superior to VHS, and it floped, same with laserdisc.  The market looks for the happy medium, such as if HD-DVD is somewhat close to Blu ray, and offers good enough performance, they'll be going after that every last penny in order to get that small cash saving (which does add up).


How is only one company (Sony) behind Blu-Ray?  What do you mean exactly by that?


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## Atsumi

vonbismarck said:
			
		

> How is only one company (Sony) behind Blu-Ray?  What do you mean exactly by that?


Sony makes Blu-Ray.  Toshiba makes HD-DVD.


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## vonbismarck

Atsumi said:
			
		

> Sony makes Blu-Ray.  Toshiba makes HD-DVD.


I still don't follow.  Please forgive my slowness.  Samsung also makes Blu-Ray as do other companies I believe.  And if Toshiba is the only one who makes HD-DVD then that would negate the one argument about Blu-Ray being made by only one company as the same would be true for HD-DVD.


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## Geoff

vonbismarck said:
			
		

> I still don't follow.  Please forgive my slowness.  Samsung also makes Blu-Ray as do other companies I believe.  And if Toshiba is the only one who makes HD-DVD then that would negate the one argument about Blu-Ray being made by only one company as the same would be true for HD-DVD.


Sony created it, but other companies produce the hardware as well.


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## vonbismarck

[-0MEGA-] said:
			
		

> Sony created it, but other companies produce the hardware as well.


I see.  Is this supposed to be a bad thing though?  I believe with betamax, Sony was the only one making the units which helped bring about its downfall.  But here there are other companies making Blu-Ray too.

I still ask though if it matters anyway if HD-DVD is also only one company (at least for that argument anyway).


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## BigBrains57

when PS3 comes out it will be a more even market out there, the 360 doesnt even have a hddvd player in it as of now


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## Bunty

You can use any of them. Because, if you want to play them on your PC, they won't be very expensive. You can easily play HD-DVD on your DVD-ROM because it uses MPEG 2 compression. I don't know Bly-ray discs what use!


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## Atsumi

BigBrains57 said:
			
		

> when PS3 comes out it will be a more even market out there, the 360 doesnt even have a hddvd player in it as of now


360 gets an external HD-DVD player.


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## SC7

^^ But they won't use that for games, because original customers (like me) would be pissed as hell if we had to go about buying a new extention to play games.  As for Sony being a bad thing, it looks more like this, Sony has a mass name behind it, and is really in total control of what's going on with it.  It's going in PS3, and people may get bad "vibes" so to speak, coming from Sony.  Many companies are behind both products, just one invented each.  Sorry for the confusion, plus, with idiot consumers, a lot may just by HD-DVD, because they'll think, oh, It's dvd, AND ITS HD!!      Anyway @bunty, you cannot play a DVD in your DVD-ROM drive, they took the picture of wikipedia, but it is a much smaller finer lens, and it is also in blue color, making drive speeds different two, so the whole drive needs to be revamped.


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## bball4life

Well when you see commercials on tv for movies coming out on dvd, some of the time they say and soon available on blu-ray.  Only time will tell but since the ps3 is using blu ray it sure seems like it will exist for the time being, while there isn't quite as much hype over hd-dvd


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## SC7

bball4life said:
			
		

> Well when you see commercials on tv for movies coming out on dvd, some of the time they say and soon available on blu-ray.  Only time will tell but since the ps3 is using blu ray it sure seems like it will exist for the time being, while there isn't quite as much hype over hd-dvd


UMD didn't take off when it was part of PSP, all of the movie companies are abandoning support for UMD.


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## vonbismarck

SC7 said:
			
		

> UMD didn't take off when it was part of PSP, all of the movie companies are abandoning support for UMD.


I don't think there was ever really that big of a support for UMD though (besides from Sony).  I could be wrong though as my memory is not very good.  From what I have seen though, there is a lot of support for Blu-Ray.


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## bball4life

SC7 said:
			
		

> UMD didn't take off when it was part of PSP, all of the movie companies are abandoning support for UMD.


I am just saying that right now there is more support for blu-ray at least what companies are showing publicly.  Its giving blu-ray the upper hand, but I am not saying that means it is going to win.  But it has my vote.


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## SC7

vonbismarck said:
			
		

> I don't think there was ever really that big of a support for UMD though (besides from Sony).  I could be wrong though as my memory is not very good.  From what I have seen though, there is a lot of support for Blu-Ray.


And just as much for HD-DVD, so this could get rather interesting.  Bball, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, to me, it seems HD-DVD is winning there, as it has some old slightly over 100 more backings, perhaps this has changed...


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## bball4life

SC7 said:
			
		

> And just as much for HD-DVD, so this could get rather interesting.  Bball, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, to me, it seems HD-DVD is winning there, as it has some old slightly over 100 more backings, perhaps this has changed...


Just a question, but 100 backings from who?  I personally have not heard much about hd-dvd, not saying that there isn't hype about it, but I have heard a lot more about blu-ray than hd-dvd.  It will be interesting, but to be honest it will probably have a lot to do with how popular the ps3 is and the price comparison between the hd-dvd and blu-ray, the cheaper will most likely win, as long as quality is close.


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## SC7

Well, not exactly sure of all of them, (there was a comparison, can't find it), but HDDVD has Microsoft and Intel.


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## Atsumi

SC7 said:
			
		

> ^^ But they won't use that for games, because original customers (like me) would be pissed as hell if we had to go about buying a new extention to play games.  As for Sony being a bad thing, it looks more like this, Sony has a mass name behind it, and is really in total control of what's going on with it.  It's going in PS3, and people may get bad "vibes" so to speak, coming from Sony.  Many companies are behind both products, just one invented each.  Sorry for the confusion, plus, with idiot consumers, a lot may just by HD-DVD, because they'll think, oh, It's dvd, AND ITS HD!!      Anyway @bunty, you cannot play a DVD in your DVD-ROM drive, they took the picture of wikipedia, but it is a much smaller finer lens, and it is also in blue color, making drive speeds different two, so the whole drive needs to be revamped.


I'd be very mad too.  I waiting in line at midnight to get mine the day it comes out.  I might buy the external player for DVDs though.  Depends on whether I have money for a PS3 or not.


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## vonbismarck

bball4life said:
			
		

> Just a question, but 100 backings from who?  I personally have not heard much about hd-dvd, not saying that there isn't hype about it, but I have heard a lot more about blu-ray than hd-dvd.  It will be interesting, but to be honest it will probably have a lot to do with how popular the ps3 is and the price comparison between the hd-dvd and blu-ray, the cheaper will most likely win, as long as quality is close.


Here is a list of the companies supporting HD-DVD:  Member List - HD DVD Promotion Group

and here is a list of those for Blu-Ray:  Supporting Companies

There may be other companies for either side, this is just what I have found.


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## bball4life

vonbismarck said:
			
		

> Here is a list of the companies supporting HD-DVD:  Member List - HD DVD Promotion Group
> 
> and here is a list of those for Blu-Ray:  Supporting Companies
> 
> There may be other companies for either side, this is just what I have found.


Nice post Thanks


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## vonbismarck

bball4life said:
			
		

> Nice post Thanks


I try to help, though how often that is, is anyones guess.


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## bball4life

vonbismarck said:
			
		

> I try to help, though how often that is, is anyones guess.


every little bit helps


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## Impr3ssiv3

just the other day i was at CONS a electronic store in texas and in the back room they were about to have a briefing or public meeting thingy(cant remember the name) and it was on the Blu-Ray player which would cost $2000


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## vonbismarck

Impr3ssiv3 said:
			
		

> just the other day i was at CONS a electronic store in texas and in the back room they were about to have a briefing or public meeting thingy(cant remember the name) and it was on the Blu-Ray player which would cost $2000


Do you know what brand?  The only one I can think of sells for ~$1,000.


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## SC7

$1000 is the lowest base price, better ones can cost more.


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## vonbismarck

SC7 said:
			
		

> $1000 is the lowest base price, better ones can cost more.


What kind of units sell for more?  Around me, there are two different units, a Sony and a Samsung and they are both $999.


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## diroga

which ever format offers the most porn will win. sex sells


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## bigsaucybob

diroga said:
			
		

> which ever format offers the most porn will win. sex sells



I dont think the porn market of each format will sway who wins.


HD DVD will be more affordable and has gotten the jump start. 

Blu-Ray has a higher capacity on their discs and has more backing from major movie companies and other consumer electronic producers.


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## SC7

diroga said:
			
		

> which ever format offers the most porn will win. sex sells


That's all internet based these days...


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## Impr3ssiv3

vonbismarck said:
			
		

> Do you know what brand?  The only one I can think of sells for ~$1,000.




oh yeah it prob was $1000


just couldnt quite remember


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## bball4life

You know, with all the backins that hd-dvd and blu-ray both have, it could end up being that they both survive, just in different areas.  Blu-ray does have the capacity advantage which would be very useful when it comes to using media for storage and for things like video games (ps3  for example) since you can fit so much more on them, while hd-dvd is much easier to use since you can for the most part just modify current media.  You never know they could offer movies and stuff on both formats at least for a while since they race is really pretty close right now.  But then again who really knows, it just seems taht both sides have kind of dug themselves in enough that is will be really hard to oust either one of them.  My prediction would be if they both made it thought that video games will be more on blu-ray for its capacity, the only problem is having like ms and nintendo using their competitors technology, while hd-dvd would be more for moveis, since it is cheaper and easier to upgrade too.


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