Friend convincing me to go HD-DVD

[stuntman mike]

Hi guys first post... and it shouldn't be a thread but I figured what the heck?

Okay, the story is like this. I have a friend that's deadset on getting me to buy a HD-DVD player. He says everything from sound quality, bitrates, picture quality, to video format, is superior to blu-ray. I asked him "why does BD cost more? obviously it has better hardware." he then said "it's a complete ripoff. HD-DVD does everything better for half the price."

Price is not a issue (at this point) I have a nice budget that I'm willing to spend and I want to make sure I'm getting the best money can buy. He never gives me reasons why HD-DVD is better, he just claims it is. Now before this turns into a huge format war, I'd just like to say I'm interested in both formats equally but I've only gotten one side of the story. That's where you guys come in... =)!

[BStecke]

There are a ton of threads about this already . . .

Long story short, friends don't let friends buy HD DVD. He's wrong on every count. Capacity, bandwidth, studio support is all greater on Blu-ray. Anything more than that, a quick search will yield wonders.

[Bluray_ne1]

You came to the right place, my friend. Welcome to Blu-Ray.com. There's lots of great info here. My advice would be to search the forum section. I'm sure many of our users will throw in their two cents to help as well. There is more than enough truth here to show you why Blu is better.

[Storm]

Long story short, friends don't let friends buy HD DVD.

Take that as gospel.
BTW, welcome to the boards and get a real friend.

[kaliraver]

This quote should be directed at your friend from our good ol' buddy DobyBlue:

Cut the crap - Warner have said no such thing. Their #1 title is "300" on Blu-ray and it's cracked 250,000 copies - the HD DVD version is not even close. Dan Silverberg attributed the strong sales of "300" to Blu-ray playback in the PlayStation 3 and he's the Vice President of HD Media Development for Warner. So either you're lying, or he is.

Someone seems to be a little misinformed, Blu-ray is taking off everywhere.

Software sales are what the studios look at to see who's winning and where the sales are they will go - the hardware will follow the software.

Blu-ray disc sales vs. HD DVD sales
USA - 2:1
Europe - 3:1
Australia - 5.6:1
Japan 9:1

The only place in the world where HD DVD has any legs at all is in North America, where it has not won a single week's sales all entire year. That's right, Blu-ray has beated HD DVD every week of the year in software sales.

Hardware numbers:

North America
HD DVD - 750,000 (Standalones + 360 add-ons)
Blu-ray - 2,700,000 (Standalones + PlayStation 3)

Say bye-bye to HD DVD - by January 2009 the better format will prevail. More bandwidth, more capacity, more studio support, more big name director support (Bay, Spielberg), more CE support.

The only reason HD DVD standalone prices are so low is because Toshiba is desperate - unfortunately 500,000 standalones amounts to squat, because HD DVD is still losing every week. Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in America - Blu-ray won the week with 72.6% of the disc units moved, HD DVD had only 27.4% - despite selling 90,000 cheap players two weeks before. I guess a lot of people were upgrading their 360 add-on units, because they're handicapped in the audio front being limited to DVD-quality audio.

Toshiba has priced out all other manufacturers from HD DVD standalone hardware. No-one else will make one! There's no money in it.

Blu-ray is going to win this war and anyone that tries to convince you differently has an agenda and quite possibly works for Microsoft. There is no future for high definition media as long as there are two formats around.

People have been lied to by the HD DVD camp so much - that Blu-ray would never have 50GB discs (65.07% of releases in 2007 have been on 50GB discs) that Blu-ray would only ever use MPEG-2 (76.53% of releases in 2007 have either been AVC/MPEG-4 or VC-1) and I think you should be tired of being lied to. I am. I went Blu in November 2006 and I have not looked back since. It is far more consistent for audio and has a much more promising future than HD DUD.

Hopefully you don't fall for the FUD that your friend is telling you and from the sounds of it your friend probably already has an HD-DVD player. Maybe he is trying to make himself feel better by you joining him. I hope you make the right choice and choose Blu.

[damandan05]

Why would a friend give false information... the only features that hd-dvd are better extra features interaction (until January when profile 1.1 movies, and more players are released), and a cheaper price which are for players that do not support full hd 1080p picture. If you hang around here you will see the light, and it's blu.

[jermwhl]

Welcome to the forums. I too was considering both sides last year before I invested in BD. BD, In my opinion is better. It has a larger storage capacity. 50GB at the current time, but later can go to 100 and 200 GB with a software update.
HD-DVD only has 30GB and requires a new player for their new 50GB disc.<-- probably won't ever happen.
BD has more hardware support and also has more studio support. I will try to pull up links for these after i'm done typing.
Picture Quality is 1080p on both. Can't really argue this much.
Audio Quality is generally better on BD, some movies have the same audio though. BD has the capacity to be much better audio quality wise. Most BD's have multiple HD audio tracks included on one disc, where HD-DVD only has room for one (at the most).
This thread WILL turn into a big deal, keep reading, i'm sure alot of people will chime in!!!

Studio support thread: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...studio+support
Blu-ray players: https://www.blu-ray.com/players/
I would post an equivalent to HD-DVD, but Toshiba is the only one who makes them besides 360's "add-on"

[teunis]

Welcome.

There are way too many "facts" as to why Blu-ray is better then HD-DVD for one post. So, a search is a good idea, but also know that Blu-ray has a future and will be around for a very long time. HD-DVD has already maxed out it's capacity. Even if the 51Gb discs work, Blu-ray can go as high as 200Gbs.

Oh, and have a look at sales numbers. 2 to 1 in US and Canada. 3 to 1 in Europe. 9 to 1 in Japan.... etc, etc, etc.

Don't forget you can only get Fox, Disney and Sony titles on Blu.

[ground chuck]

studio support alone should convince you that blu is better.

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by stuntman mike

HD-DVD does everything better for half the price.

Wrong, HD DVD is not cheaper, it's just being sold at a lower price. Toshiba own the patents and stand to make the profits in the long term, so they are prepared to sell players at a loss right now in a desperate bid to not get completely crushed by Blu-ray. Why do you think Toshiba are the only people selling HD DVD players? Because they cannot be profitably sold at those prices, so no other company will make them. You cannot build a long term business model on selling stuff at a loss, do you think Toshiba are happy to carry on losing money for ever more?

Stick with Blu-ray, the format with a viable long term business plan, where you can buy a player from any one of several well known brands, sold at a competitive price for what you are getting. Plus you're getting the better format in terms of picture quality, audio quality, studio and retailer support. Blu-ray is the format that is consistently being chosen by consumers as their preferred format, outselling HD DVD all year.

[ESUNintel]

I work retail and I had a couple yesterday, who's son convinced to buy an HD-DVD player (...so I'm thinking, what a cruel son they have); but after comparing both players side by side, and after going over the specs and showing them evidence online for what I was saying, and giving them a Blu-ray brochure (Toshiba is to cheap to provide us with brochures), they decided Blu-ray was right for them.

Anyways, point of this story, Blu-ray is the way to go, why settle for an inferior format like HD-DVD? If you REALLY want to experience the best HD quality you must go Blu.

[kaliraver]

Studio support for Blu-Ray:

* Disney
* Fox/MGM Studios
* Sony
* Lionsgate
* Anchorbay
* WB/Newline Cinema (which releases the BD versions of their movies early on BD comared to HD-DUD).

Studio support for HD-DVD:

* Universal Studios
* Paramount/Dreamworks
* WB/Newline Cinema
* Weinstein Company (Which hasn't release a single HD-DVD in over 4 months and is M.I.A for HD-DVD)

Blu-Ray bandwidth vs. HD-DVD's:
54 Mbit/sec vs. 36.55 Mbit/sec

Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD in capacity:
50GB vs. 30GB

Lossless audio on 2/3 of Blu-Ray movies compared to only about 1/4 for HD-DVD.

Huge CE support for Blu-ray:

* Samsung
* Sony
* Panasonic
* Pioneer
* Denon
* LG

HD-DVD CE support:

* Toshiba
* Venturer (That's it and even that is a rebadged Toshiba HD-DVD player).

Overall these are some of the reasons why Blu-Ray is better than HD-DUD. Don't believe the Fud from your ex-friend

[jshigashi]

I own both a blu-ray player (PS3) and an HDDVD player (Toshiba A2). I can say with great certainty that in my circumstance I like my PS3's performance way better than the A2.

Fast loading. Honestly if I have to turn on my HD/DVD player and put a new movie in... it's probably a two minute process. Not a deal breaker, but it is annoying.

My PS3's sound when it comes to HD movies is better, uncompressed PCM / HD audio tracks or not. The A2 seems to muffle sound and I have to turn my home theater way up and it doesn't sounds as good / crisp.

I was impressed with the video quality of the HD-DVD's even though they are just in 1080i (A2 doesn't do 1080p). It wasn't noticeably different than my blu-rays in 1080p.


Honestly though, if money isn't an issue... you should buy a PS3. If you have any sort of home theater system, the PS3 has great multi-mdeia capabilities and is the superior performing player.

And it appears that the format war is in blu-rays favor. I woudl think Disney alone should seal that deal.

[finalfantasy]

Women will find you have money and class if you do...

There is nothing sexier on the market than PS3...

[statikcat]

HD-DVD isn't bad but Blu-ray is obviously better if you look at hard data and facts.. and not just a friend saying "hd-dvd has higher bitrates".

A big advantage is that Blu-ray supports higher bitrates.

HD-DVD releases are going to be "VC-1" codec. Blu-ray supports VC-1 as well as AVC. So cross platform releases such as Harry Potter typically use VC-1 for both formats.. since both support it. A cross platform movie will look the same on both systems assuming the same tv is used and the HD-DVD player is 1080p (not all are..)

Meanwhile Blu-ray exclusives typically use AVC which HD-DVD does not support. AVC allows higher bitrates and better overall encoding. I have Blu-rays that have VC-1 and others with AVC. Overall the AVC reaches higher bit-rates consistantly which my player can display. The AVC encoding is simply a better video format.

To put it simple.. Blu-ray supports HD-DVD's inferior video format AND it's own superior format.

[BLU_BOY02]

-Blu-ray has more studio support = More movies and better exclusives
-Blu-ray has outsold HD DVD ALL YEAR LONG. and i mean ALL YEAR LONG.
-HD DVD doesn't even exist outside of the U.S.
-Blu-ray has twice the storage room.
-Toshiba is a piece of crap, and so is Micro$oft

DO BLUE, ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT

[stuntman mike]

Thanks for all the replies people. Exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Sorry for my laziness, I will definitely make good use of the search engine next time

Oh and by any chance will we see Bourne Supremacy on Blu? My friend owns Smokin' Aces on HD... take that as you will.

[statikcat]

Yes Blu-ray overall has better exclusives. Fox, Sony, and Disney/Pixar on Blu-ray have a lot better exclusives than Paramount and Universal on HD-DVD. Paramount has jack shit except a few titles.

Also, more movies are being released by Blu-ray exclusive studios than HD-DVD. Simply more movies.. and lots more coming!

[Paden]

Originally Posted by stuntman mike

I have a friend that's deadset on getting me to buy a HD-DVD player.

My mom used to say "If Johnny jumped off a cliff would you follow him?"

Your friend may be intelligent about some things. This isn't one of those things. He's wrong on EVERY count.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Blu.

[Niels81nrw]

Originally Posted by stuntman mike

Hi guys first post... and it shouldn't be a thread but I figured what the heck?

Okay, the story is like this. I have a friend that's deadset on getting me to buy a HD-DVD player. He says everything from sound quality, bitrates, picture quality, to video format, is superior to blu-ray. I asked him "why does BD cost more? obviously it has better hardware." he then said "it's a complete ripoff. HD-DVD does everything better for half the price."

Price is not a issue (at this point) I have a nice budget that I'm willing to spend and I want to make sure I'm getting the best money can buy. He never gives me reasons why HD-DVD is better, he just claims it is. Now before this turns into a huge format war, I'd just like to say I'm interested in both formats equally but I've only gotten one side of the story. That's where you guys come in... =)!

Hi Mike,

I'm new to this forum as well ... I'm also member at the forum.hd-dvd.com (my nick there is nrenken).
I own a HD-DVD Player since several month (1st one was HD-A2, current ist HD-A30 from Toshiba) and a PS3 since two days. My wife already bought the first and third movie of Pirates of the Caribbean on Blu-Ray and we watched POC3 yesterday. It's an awesome movie Was I impressed of the movie- and sound quality of POC3? Yes, but not more than as I was from for example Transformers (HD-DVD).

My honest opinion is (please Blu-Ray lovers, don't kill me)... Is there is a movie (like from WB) that I can get on Blu-Ray and on HD-DVD I will choose HD-DVD.
Why do I prefer HD-DVD?? It's region code free and some of them are Combo HD-DVD/DVDs. So I can still watch them on any other DVD Player. But if the movies are just on one format (BD or HD-DVD) than I will buy the format the movie is released on.

Both formats have great sound- and picture quality. And it's more a matter of what type of movies you are watching than what type of technology to prefer. Because you won't either see or hear any difference.