blu ray vs hd dvd

Slinkie

Slinkie

Slinkie

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Hi Folks,

I have a drive in my media center that can play both hd dvd and blu ray. I was looking to pick up some bargain hd dvds but was wandering is there any difference in buying them on hd dvd vs blu ray apart from the price? Is there any difference in quality?

Thanks

Matt
 
Pretty much same quality but the hd-dvds are much much cheaper. I would get them just for the savings on cost alone!
 
for the most part the films on BD and HD-DVD both use the same codecs so picture quality will be pretty similar where good and bad quality films will only be down to the transfer and not the media.

HD-DVD's are an absolute bargin price and in many cases cheaper than DVD's lol, the only down side is that there wont be any new films out on HD-DVD. i think it will be all BD from now on
 
You have missed out on the major bargains and people selling off their collections, but you could still pickup a good 40 films off a ceratin website; a 3 lettered store with its dog and purple logo.

£3 a pop, plus still people selling other films not listed inteh avforums classifieds :D

If you have the drive then pickup the films cheap. I have over 80 now, and for the cost of 1 new blu-ray I have had 4-6 HD-dvds instead. Pretty much identical picture, and muchos HD enjoyment !!!
 
I must be being stupid today, but I can't find the link to the HD-DVDs any more on the dog and purple logo site. Is it buried in the blu-ray section?
 
Wish i hadn't seen this thread!

Bank account's £30 lighter but my bookshelve's gonna be 10x HDDVD's heavier in a few days!!! :cool:

gt
 
I just search for a specific film, then next to that film it has a link. For example transformer then you will see the £2.99 logo.
 
I just got Transformers HD DVD 2 disc SE for £3.99 and I was shocked that it was better than the Blu-Ray version. The colours are warmer and the saturation and contrast is higher. Which in itself adds more depth to the movie. And on top of that I watched it on my old HD E-1 which only goes as high as 1080i
 
thedoc46 said:
ummm what are you going to do with these movies once your HD-DVD player packs up?
Click to expand...

Buy another player :D

Will pick up a spare one if I find one at a great price, if not there will always be people looking for the majority of the less well known discs.
 
thedoc46 said:
ummm what are you going to do with these movies once your HD-DVD player packs up?
Click to expand...

When they cost next to nothing, does it really matter? I'm sure someone with a working player will buy them.

Besides, I think I'm covered... I have 3 drives :o.
 
jeffa123 said:
I just got Transformers HD DVD 2 disc SE for £3.99 and I was shocked that it was better than the Blu-Ray version. The colours are warmer and the saturation and contrast is higher. Which in itself adds more depth to the movie. And on top of that I watched it on my old HD E-1 which only goes as high as 1080i
Click to expand...

absolute **** - it is identical, its purely your imagination/placebo affect

I cant see the point in buying into hd-dvd anymore - if the drive dies you have a load of problems sourcing a new drive, and if you go with a media centre apart from the palava of sorting out windows and software updates you have to pay thru the nose for any decent surround sound movie packages

BR has a future, hd-dvd doesnt - just throwing good money after bad

I bought into hd-dvd when it was new to get the likes of Transformers and MI series in HD, but once it went the way of the dodo I refused to buy any more as its just a complete waste of money and time
 
Well I have bought 80 discs at about £3.20 average cost, and I like all of the films. Didn't go mad and buy every film like norbit purple rain etc. Now lets cost them up against blu rays:

80 HD-DVDS @ £3.20 = £256

80 Films on blu @ £10 = £800
80 Films on blu @ £13 = £1040

You can see that buy going Hd-dvd I have saved probably around £750 (goin buy average estimate of blu cost of £13), plus have dramaticaally increased the size of my HD collection, and have bought many films I never thought of buying which are excellent. My HD-dvd collection surpassed my 35 disc blu-ray collection within a week when I went on a binge from the purple dog store.

You will always be able to source a drive as there will always be people with small collections selling their players on. There are about 5 models of toshiba players out there, and plenty more from other brands. An entry level E1 for example goes for about £40-£50, but even if I had to buy 2 new players over the next 5 years (E.g. EP30/55 @ £100) I would still have made a massive saving on HD films.

I only buy blus I really want nowadays, spending £15 on a film is silly in this day and age :D
 
Am i missing something here?
I thought that BD was superior to HD-DVD when viewed in 1080p, no?
If so, then how are people saying that the HD version of a film is the same, if not better than the BD version?
Is this down to whatever medium they are viewing on?
A placebo effect?

I'm genuinley confused tbh. I was all ready to go down the BD route, so some answers would help me out here too.

Thanks
 
I can see both side of the argument, I have bought every film i wanted cheap on HD, but I am not going to buy anymore, in fact i am tempted to get a Sony BR player for £170 that comes with 3 films at the moment.

The problem is that because BR is now the mainstream media, the cost will remain high at around £20 at new release and at most drop to £10 after a few months. I have spent thousands and thousands on DVD like this and i am not making the same mistake again.
 
the only area BD is superior to HD-DVD is the ammount of physical space on the disk. I think HD-DVD's were around 20gb and BD's were around 50gb meaning the BD's can have higher bitrate audio/video. This doesnt mean that every BD is better than HD-DVD because its down to the studio as to what bitrate audio and video they decide to put on the disk. Though even if the BD film did have higher bitrate audio (i.e. lossless), do you have the amp/speakers to take advantage of it?

tbh you can't go wrong with either really if you want some high definition goodness :) but as a few have stated, if you went HD-DVD you are buying into a dead format (granted very cheap, but still dead).
 
-Ad-'s point is very good. I've made a massive saving on films and have only had to shell out £40 or so extra pounds to cover the cost of the HD add on drive for the XBOX.

Quality wise i'm hard pressed to even tell the difference (viewing on a Sony 40W4000 and listening through a Yamaha AX1/Wharfedale Pi40/Mission M5AS system).

For the saving it is a no brainer IMHO - especially while discs are still available and incredibly cheap.

Not only that but once volumes have dried up i'm sure i'd be able to sell the discs for 2x (or more) what i paid for them. That way i get the use out of them now for cheap and then make my money back with interest if i ever sell them on later.

I remember laserdiscs going much the same way.

gt
 
I don't think you will make money on them unless the same film never gets release on BR, you might get the £3 back but not twice as much.
 
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