Blu-ray and HD-DVD another battlefront

johnson

johnson

johnson

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With the announcement of the nasty hd-dvd addon for the 360 and the inferior storage space. I can almost be 90% sure the way the format war is going to go. Any other opinions?
 
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swoosh over my head, which way do you think its going

imo hd dvd will win, the xbox addition is a big coup

and simply because it has DVD in with HD (which the consumer is now aware of) imo this will allow the standard consumer to actually relate to the thing, ask a random what blueray is and they will be like wtf?

i realise i talk ******* :p
 
well id take the 10% any day :p

They have managed to increase the HD-DVD storage to almost as much as blu-ray now! so tbh its not inferior storage space at all. Plus its cheaper, already out now with players and some movies and seems to be selling quite well! Given the fact ps3 wont be around for what another 5 months it has one hell of a lead....
 
HD may have less storage in theory than BD, but both have plenty of space for what they will be used for (films and games - most games are still under 9gb), and blu-ray will (if memory serves) be much more expensive to replicate than HD DVD (something to do with having to get in entirely new replication equipment for Blu-ray, but being able to use existing DVD replication equipment with some minor updatesfor HD-DVD)

It's also worth baring in mind that apparently PS3 games will be on DVD for the near future, in which case the blu-ray drive is not really going to be used (but push the price of the console up).
MS's idea of using an external HD DVD drive means that the base unit can be made cheaply, and when the drives die you don't have to replace the whole unit ;) (handy if you actually use the machine a lot, as with the PS2 etc the optical drive would usually be the first thing to go wrong).


Personally I wouldn't bet on blu-ray, as HD-DVD has as much support (if not more), is out now, and is gaining support from distributors who were previously blu-ray only.
 
Unconditional said:
The thing is, BR will do well simply because it has the Sony/Playstation brand name attached to it.
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Don't bet on it, it's the content providers who will actually have the most impact on it's success, and they will go where the consumers are.
At the moment the consumers are going for HD-DVD because it's available, and by the looks of it it's going to be cheaper than Blu-Ray for a while.
 
ps3 is expected to sell for $400 - $500

your getting an extremely cheap starting player for bluray there, without bolting on any addons......All depends on your preference of games though.

Either way Sony and Microsoft are shooting themselves in the foot just to get their hardware out to us the consumer. I hope they both do well as in the end its great news for us.

Competition brings out the best in companies :)
 
I honestly doubt either of the formats will really take off for a good couple of years still, especially in the UK and Europe, as HDTV is not widespread compared to the US. DVD is still an excellent, and relatively new, standard at the moment for films, and a lot of the general public, especially those that may not be able to afford new DVD players all the time, are not going to want to spend shedloads of cash on a new player for either of these technologies. As to actually take advantage of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, you're going to have to buy yourself a compatible HDTV. That's a good few hundred pounds, especially in the first year or two, players will be expensive for what you get.

What I see most people waiting for is players that will support both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, and maybe even for one of the formats to either win or lose, and become the dominant standard. What I fear is going to happen is that we're going to have a 50% split of studios bringing out their films on one format, and not the other, which will ultimately confuse the general public, and without universal players, it's going to be useless.

For example, those people that are going to use their PS3 as the sole DVD player. What happens when half the DVDs you want to buy come out on the HD-DVD standard, as that studio doesn't want to support Blu-Ray? You're either going to have to buy the DVD version, losing quality, and defeating the object of Blu-Ray, or getting another player that'll play HD-DVD.
 
DaveyD said:
For example, those people that are going to use their PS3 as the sole DVD player. What happens when half the DVDs you want to buy come out on the HD-DVD standard, as that studio doesn't want to support Blu-Ray? You're either going to have to buy the DVD version, losing quality, and defeating the object of Blu-Ray, or getting another player that'll play HD-DVD.
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That is where I think MS have done pretty well, by making the internal drive on their system the current standard they have saved a lot of money on it, but by allowing for an external higher capacity drive to be connected they have kept their options open.

If in 3-4 years time HD-DVD has failed then MS can easily release a blu-ray drive, if however in 3-4 years time blu-ray has failed as a movie format then the PS3 ends up with either no capacity to play the sucessfull format, or having to support both formats.
 
You can also say look at the UMD format... now that was popular :p Though that failed for many other reasons and is no indicator of the Blu-Ray format failing, more of a lessen learned.
 
Ohh and don't forget that most of the big studios are supporting BD. While about 3 (the last figure that I remember reading) were still supporting HD exclusively.

I checked recently and lets say your averige movie, as an example shrek2, which is about 1.5hours long, is over 11GB big in 1080 res. So theoreticaly HD-DVD does have enough space for a movie and a few extras.

In regards to max storage, BD still wins that battle ;) http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/28/tdk_200gb_blu-ray_disc/

And Werewolf, while what you say is logical and true, loosing this round of the HD-movie format, is not a possability Sony is even considering I think ;) and while you say that M$ saved money on the console by putting in a bog standard dvd drive into it, we consumers still get the rough end of the stick of having to buy an add-on drive for our consoles to watch a new "next gen" movie format.

Besides all that, do you honestly 100% ever see yourself buying an addon dongle like next gen disc drive? With M$'s proven lack of hiring decent designers for their products too ;\? Well unless Apple helps out :p
 
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Chiribo said:
Ohh and don't forget that most of the big studios are supporting BD. While about 3 (the last figure that I remember reading) were still supporting HD exclusively.
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Im pretty sure i read some where that because of the higher then expected sales of HD-DVD's that people where jumping ships and not just staying exclusive to blu-ray.
 
da_mic_1530 said:
wonder what it will llook like, slot alongside or underneath alla megacd style?
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It'll likely be just a drive, that'll go on top cnnecting to the USB at the back. It'll probably look pretty out of place with the rest of the system, but I'm sure they'll do something reasonably tasteful.
 
DaveyD said:
It'll likely be just a drive, that'll go on top cnnecting to the USB at the back. It'll probably look pretty out of place with the rest of the system, but I'm sure they'll do something reasonably tasteful.
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Nah i cant see that, that will screw up the wireless adaptors, will need to go on front
 
JUMPURS said:
Nah i cant see that, that will screw up the wireless adaptors, will need to go on front
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True. For some reason I had in my head the wireless adapter had a daisy chain ability, adding a USB port in the back of that. I was wrong. That's a silly move by MS really, unless, they implement the Daisy chain thing on the HD-DVD player.
 
yeah thats what i was wondering, but they honestly keep the cable very tight, so i dont know.
I guess we will find out at the press conference tomorrow, but tbh it will look terrible through the front, they should have put 2 connections in front and 2 in the back
 
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