Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD @ CES

now that i dont agree with. there's really no need to be releasing mpeg 2 discs now.

the region thing is an issue, or something to be aware of. i dont recall wanting a bluray that was region locked though...
 
Is was clear Blu-Ray would win sheerly down to capacity. Why lose a potential 20Gb (Dual Layer) using HD-DVD instead?? Thats a backwards step imo and HD-DVD doesnt offer any further advantages that could justify this, apart from a potential Triple Layer which offers 1gb more than Blu-ray Dual! & is probably just in v.early pre-production stages! HDi is basically HTML code as well which seriously lacks interactive content!
 
stop it wwwebber, you know full well that nokkon was refering to the content available on hd-dvd over bluray, not some technical advantages (not that it has any). and if you didnt know that, you should.

keep the fanboy comments out of the thread, we were having a good discussion.
 
james.miller said:
now that i dont agree with. there's really no need to be releasing mpeg 2 discs now.
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There's also a BD25 MPEG 2 disc :rolleyes:

james.miller said:
the region thing is an issue, or something to be aware of. i dont recall wanting a bluray that was region locked though...
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I'm a big Kevin Smith fan, Jay and Silent Bob strike back is only out in America by the look of things.

Also I'd have had Superbad before christmas without region restrictions, I'll have it on the 21st now instead.
 
yeah i suppose. i generally dont buy films like that on hd, unless they are a remarkable improvement on the sd versions, like the big lebowski, layer cake as a quick example. the sd versions of both were, while being fantastic films, absolutely appalling picture-wise. both of them in hd are totally transformed . id quite happily pay a few quid for a dvd and save my readies for the films that deserve to be hd.
 
crunchman said:
Heres a write up by High def digest for you Jumpurs.



http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/849/heroess1.html



Only thing I can think of is that it's region free. Other than that I love Blu-ray.

Except when Fox continues to release MPEG 2 discs:
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=66681

How retarded. :/
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They sound quite good, is that something that can't be done using BDJ though?

I think HD-DVD should have had all discs as combo discs from the off. i thought they where at first and i thought it would be a major selling point. I was dissapointed to find out only some had it, and usually at a premium.

The region coding is a PITA but tbh i have found very few BD's that are region coded. I have a US PS3 and don't really worry about buying a BD here.
 
james.miller said:
i paid about £230 for a toshiba sd-210e which back then was considered a 'budget' player. these days what we get for our money is an absolutely bargain!
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I love my ps3 (not withstanding the 100+ BR's ive got :)) but I still thik its just a little too high for mass adoption just yet - here in the UK at least.

I am not disagreeing that its value for money - but people still have to be able to afford it in the first place

I am very surprised any company is still planning on releasing mpeg encoded films - especially such a favourite as ID4 (everyone seems to be after a copy) - whoever made that decision needs to be shot imo!!!

Layercake is a fabulous film and one of the first BR's I bought (and yes its much more worth it over the dvd)
 
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Fox announced at the very start their releases would be a mix of both forms of encoding. I dont quite understand this myself. Fox like Disney is usually a company that likes to also protect its content to its own regions/release dates though i cant say if this has been the case with the majority of BD releases thus far not being region free or region locked.

Back in the hay days of video rentals, Fox was one of the companys along with Disney that did rental/retail dates on the same launch. Unlike many companies that released movies/videos for rental market several months before it went to retail. Wholesalers could have been charging video rental clubs upto £30-£40 per title back in those days. I recall a past friend paying that for Leathal Weapon (Warner) who did do the rental releases prior to retail availability. It goes to show that even back then different studios took different attitudes.

I dont care if its MPEG2 as long as its well done, though 5TH Element is a fine example of a shoddy MPEG2 compared to the Blu Ray SE. Blu Ray menus and extras in general ive felt have been rather disapointing, but then again the first DVDs were really plain and simple too. I suppose it comes down to costs and how small the actuall market is at the moment. So with larger installed base will mean studios will put more into their releases.

Ive no doubts that within the year we will start seeing releases on BD that offer extras the DVDs dont have. Therefore creating incentives and if anything a reason to justify their higher retail prices. Retailers like any of the big name stores do have to wise up and drop their high margins charging as much as £30 approx for some films. This is just greed on their behalf and nothing to do with the actual formats trade costs for them to buy in.
 
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Thats a good point actually - and it MAY help the HD revolution Im not sure

For a while now the delay between the cinema and retail release of feature films has been shrinking - and now I think its down to two or three months for most (I believe Stardust was under two months - admittedly this was Hd-dvd and so this is probably accelerated somewhat being region free release) - and sometimes with a really successful film, the studio wont want to shorten the lifespan of the cinema by releasing on dvd/hd media too soon and so this might grow to 4-6 months but usually no more than this

When dvd was first out, you would be lucky to get a new release within a year or two (thats just from memory if someone would like to correct me fair play :))

Most retail stores are still charging £12 - £17 for a brand new dvd release (especially chart dvd's), more and more hd media are hitting the £20 mark or there abouts - if BR "group" can get a lot of prime releases just below this I think that will help their cause no end
 
Kronologic said:
iirc the 5th element masters got lost/damaged so they had to use an interior copy to reproduce this at HD. So some of the crap got "Enhanced"
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I know the film wasnt great, but to loose the masters, lol.

However knowing FOX they are one of the main culprits for re-releasing films with additional stuff, THX blah blah blah. Chances are we will see a lot of FOX stuff released several times.
They also take a long time for their releases. Independence Day is an example here and it not even going to be the SE the DVD was, that sucks but i cant help feel limited sales market is their main reason for being a bit lazy or is that cost effective regards their content.
 
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Kronologic said:
iirc the 5th element masters got lost/damaged so they had to use an interior copy to reproduce this at HD. So some of the crap got "Enhanced"
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i dont know how true that story is, because they managed to re-release it and the 2nd release was vastly better. from what i understand the remastered bluray release uses the same master as the superbit dvd release.

http://www.mbmg.de/hd-discs/thefifthelement_bd-vs-bdremastered/01.html

although something to note, the master that was used (or somewhere along the line) is only 720p, so still wasnt as good as it could have been,
 
james.miller said:
i dont know how true that story is, because they managed to re-release it and the 2nd release was vastly better. from what i understand the remastered bluray release uses the same master as the superbit dvd release.

http://www.mbmg.de/hd-discs/thefifthelement_bd-vs-bdremastered/01.html

although something to note, the master that was used (or somewhere along the line) is only 720p, so still wasnt as good as it could have been,
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Yep that's the story I heard (its all coming back to me now). 720p is stupidly low. The real masters are supposed have a completely OTT resolution, because obviously 1080p resolution would look a bit crap in a cinema.
 
Kronologic said:
Yep that's the story I heard (its all coming back to me now). 720p is stupidly low. The real masters are supposed have a completely OTT resolution, because obviously 1080p resolution would look a bit crap in a cinema.
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I think it is 4096 x 2160 ish. (It's 4096 square but widescreen etc).


rp2000
 
Kronologic said:
Yep that's the story I heard (its all coming back to me now). 720p is stupidly low. The real masters are supposed have a completely OTT resolution, because obviously 1080p resolution would look a bit crap in a cinema.
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yep, bit silly of them, but somewhere along the line thats what happened. some peopel over at avsforums checked it out and its easy to do it yourself. take a screen capture @ 1080p, resize it to 720p and then back to 1080p. compare that resized screen to the original. if there's little or no loss in definition, that means the film isnt really 1080p

linky http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10983410#post10983410
 
wwwebber said:
Because it is a big war - there's a lot at stake for both sides. Oh - and why am I not surprised that you prefer HD DVD :rolleyes:
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:rolleyes:
I don't even have a HD-DVD player, I do however have a Blu-Ray player because it came with my PS3. I prefer the releases on HD-DVD such as Heroes, Serenity and Transformers.
I prefer the movies available on HD-DVD over those on Blu-Ray. There's nothing in the technology, just choice of what's on it.
 
JUMPURS said:
I can't get on there just now, but was wondering from a users perspective. Kainz (who i have a lot of time for, even if he is a fanboy :p) said it swayed his decision, i am just wondering why?
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How am I a fanboy? /me slaps! :D Because I'm stating that I prefer one format over another? I seriously love how cry babyish people get over this whole pathetic debacle, not just here but on any forum. The moment a format looks done and over with, everyone jumps on the bandwagon forgetting that people have been predicting that HD-DVD wouldn't even last a month, then two months and so forth.

Whoever asked about Heroes earlier - check their website because the DVD vs HD-DVD comparisons are huge. If you want more - check out the Blade Runner 5 disc set with every single cut. I can buy my films from anywhere and save a lot and lastly all the classics I want are on HD-DVD.
 
woooo every single cut of blade runner. im sorry but come on, lol

Kainz said:
I can buy my films from anywhere and save a lot and lastly all the classics I want are on HD-DVD.
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so can i. and having both a hd-dvd and bluray player, i dont need to compromise, and dont exaggerate the region coding 'issue'.
 
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