Blu-ray vs HDDVD

killik119

Quality Control.
Nov 3, 2007
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australia, melb
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Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I heard that toshiba stopped producing HDDVDs... is this true? If it is... BOOYAH! BLU-RAY WINS! OOOHHH RIGHT. Take that people who said that blu-ray would fail.
 
killik119 said:
Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I heard that toshiba stopped producing HDDVDs... is this true? If it is... BOOYAH! BLU-RAY WINS! OOOHHH RIGHT. Take that people who said that blu-ray would fail.
Yes it's true.

No more HDDVDs.
 
I don't see why anyone would have thought Blu-ray would fail. Its better than HD-DVD in everyway. Which is why i never bothered buying a HDDVD player or even a combo player.
 
People thought HD-DVD would win because:

- Much better/faster/bug-free API (HDi)
- Better standards on 1.0 players (Ethernet, seamless branching, etc.)
- Cheaper Players
- Same PQ [as BD]
- Cheaper licensing costs
- Cheaper duplication costs
- Less DRM (no region coding, etc.)
- Historical failure of Sony on every one of their proprietary media formats
- HD-D combo formats to bridge SD-to-HD
- Public brand recognition of "DVD"
- Initially a matching share of studio support

At the end of the day the extra storage of BD had little-to-no effect on the outcome (and certainly to date, hasn't affected *any* of the currently available titles). Most people with any perspective on the HDM market would say that BD came out on top due to:

- Large payoffs to studios for support
- The PS3 (which initially was a incorrect factor in the "total players" equation, though it swayed studios)
- DRM obsessed companies like Disney chose the more protected BD format
 
Damn, you knew alot about the formats O.O

But when I looked at the prices of the players, I would have sworn they were exactly the same. I would always see them for the same price.
 
I think Sony lucked out with this Format because of the fact it was not there baby alone like with Beta Max, and Mini Disk. They did alot of personal investment, and overall did alot more open sharing with other companys then they normally would for a new format.

Still its not like Blu-Ray is doing great. It seems to have won the Format war for HD disk, but has still sold less total Blu-Ray disk than even one of the Top selling DVD titles.
So the small sales added to the very large investment they have made hasn't even come close to make up for it yet. They are winning what still seems to be a loosing war.

With the onset of DVR popularity and more and more permanent downloadable content including alot of HD content for a fraction of the cost of physical media, I'm not sure they really will ever have much to celebrate winning when it seems to be a dying media source.

They might luck out and break even over the years but with broadband internet connection available to almost everyone these days, and the cost of downloaded content vs. physical media "see mp3's vs. CD" I don't see it being as big of an influence on the market as VHS or DVD has been. It might take the form of our new storage source for computers and transfering movies place to place. Still with the new 32 Gig SD cards and larger hitting the market soon and the fact CD's/DVD's have always had the downfall of durability and re-useability.
I don't think we are going to see it on the market for nearly as long as we have VHS/DVD because of convenience and physical size alone vs. a memory card, and the fact memory cards can be used for so much more than just movies or software, but for digital storage for everything we use today.

And it's not just my view many analyst believe the same thing and see the same trends when it comes to physical media sources.
 
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I would assume they have to be about equal price wise in order to be competitive when very few consumers know the differences like [DT] here. ;)
 
T3kNi9e said:
But when I looked at the prices of the players, I would have sworn they were exactly the same. I would always see them for the same price.

Yeah, at first, the same grade of player were priced about the same (HD-D vs. BD). Then as the PS3 started gathering steam and getting counted as a stand-alone player from the various media stat sources, Toshiba started dropping the price pretty quickly.

When the "war" was still very much up in the air, exclusives about even, HD players had about a $100-200 price advantage across the board.

Toward the end, they were cheap as sort of a last push to get market share.

Now of course they're *super* cheap - I know folks buying 2nd players as sort of a "backup" since they have pretty massive media investments in HD-D. Heck for $79 for an A3 with 5 freebies and 2 in the box plus 100's of good movies still available, if you +were+ heavily vested, why not, it's not like the discs are suddenly going to stop playing.


wezeles said:
With the onset of DVR popularity and more and more permanent downloadable content including alot of HD content for a fraction of the cost of physical media, I'm not sure they really will ever have much to celebrate winning when it seems to be a dying media source.

This is an interesting direction I think we will eventually reach. I don't believe the current bandwidth and local storage supports this model for HD (there's a big difference in a 75MB CD download and a 40GB movie download). If we're talking streaming, there's going to have to be MASSIVE infrastructure upgrades to support 10's of thousands of concurrent HD media sources!

The big question is how long - at the rate of HDM (Disc) based adoption, it'll be another 5-10 years before it hits critical mass and becomes "mainstream"!
 
Thats the thing though, was it a smart idea to come out with a new physical media format to match a new television format?

The sales are going to be limited to the saturation of the HDTV's in the market. At the current rate HDTV's will not have the majority of the market untill atleast 2015 and probably not "full" saturation untill 2025 or so, specially if SD and ED t.v's keep on selling at these rock bottom prices. :lol:
By that time who knows what format we will be using, be it in the direction of more downloadable content like we are seeing grow ever more popular "I personally download a few HD movies every month", or in the form of an even higher scale HD source like 2160p, using god knows what kind of physcial media be it memory cards, Disk, nano bots :lol:

Honestly I think the sales of DVD's and upconverting DVD players are going to trump the Blu-ray/HD DVD for atleast the next 10 years, and by then it will probably too late because we are getting into this awful trend with t.v's now that they are changing the same rate as technology "much like computers".
Before they were limited by set standards and really could only go the way of the commision and popular demand.

If the new ATSC doesn't start to regulate the flow of t.v. technology like the NTSC did in the past, it's going to be more of a headache for consumers and for the industry as it becomes "keep up with the Jones's" in terms of new technology.
No one is really going to make money or get any kind of real foot hold because in the end its a "no holds barred" you will just try to beat the next guy and invest in the next tech never really profiting off the one you just finnished.
 
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Blue Ray won for a few decisive factors.
1) It's cheaper to produce than HD DVD. (Despite this they charge more)
2) It holds more data.
3) The most important for big business. It's much harder to illegally copy.
4) It's far more durable than DVD, CD, HD DVD. You can take a knife to Blue Ray, scratch it up and it'll still run.
5) Before Sony launched the format, they made exclusive deals with major distributors like Warner Brothers.

What doomed HD DVD is was too similar to Blue Ray. They didn't realize big business wants to maintain that monopoly. This is actually a disadvantage. It means higher prices because there's no competition.
 
T3kNi9e said:
I don't see why anyone would have thought Blu-ray would fail. Its better than HD-DVD in everyway. Which is why i never bothered buying a HDDVD player or even a combo player.
Remember the days of VHS (Toshiba) V.S Betamax (Sony)?

Betamax was far superior but VHS still won the war.

That is what makes this Blu-Ray victory all the more sweet for Sony.
 
Who said blu-ray would phail? Look at it, just look at the name. The name blu-ray, that itself would sell millions of dollars worth of stuff. I mean if you compare it to HDDVD blu-ray is far, far superior
 
i for one dont want physical media to be phased out. i take pride in my dvd/blu-ray/game collections and dont want to have **** saved on a hard drive instead. eventually when blu-ray becomes cheaper dvd will be phased out and replaced by blu-ray, at least thats what i think but im no expert.
 
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