My Thoughts on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

[MMtech]

1. Two Formats. I hate this whole two format that does the same thing ordeal. The Film Companies should have just gone with one format. Either we're going to have both formats forever (meaning until a newer format replaces it) or one will just go away. Either way, people are going to be unhappy. When/if one does lose, then a lot of people who bought the players / the discs will have wasted their money... but if both stay then we'll get this garbage of formats getting exclusives and/or better versions. An example would be the HD-DVD of Phantom of the Opera, which has true HD surround sound compared to my Blu-Ray version, which does not. It seems like I'm having to turn the volume way way up to hear dialogue, only to have my eardrums blown out when music starts. It's not like that for the DVD version I have.

2. Exclusives. I can understand exclusives and/or better versions for games, but not for movies. If you want to play all of the games that you want to play, then you have to buy multiple consoles. It shouldn't be the same for movies at all. I shouldn't have to buy both an HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Player. Buying both is out of the question for everyone who earns a normal, or even above average wage.

3. Bad Transfers? It seems rather stupid that a lot of blu-ray / HD-DVD transfers have been absolute garbage. I've read multiple reviews where a lot of issues about High Definition transfers seem to be:

Audio is no better than DVD version.
Video is no better than DVD version.
Shaky Frames (meaning the picture wobbles, or shakes in certain parts of the film)
A complete lack of Special Features (something I enjoyed very much about DVDs over VHS)

Now, those issues are just for some of the High Definition transfers, but some is still unacceptable. If they can't transfer all movies properly, then why bother? I shouldn't have to read online reviews to see if they botched up the transfer or not. I do wish they would sort this whole mess out though. Aren't these people doing the transfers supposed to be professional? They sound like amateurs. I am a fan of High Definition, but not a fan of wasting my money.

4. Video Quality. As for the quality of the good transfers... they're okay. Nothing too amazing. Believe it or not, blu-ray discs are still extremely compressed in terms of video. I don't believe it will ever be technically possible to get uncompressed video. It would take multiple Gigabytes per second to get uncompressed video. I've also noticed that most of the scenes seem to look great, while a lot of them still look like they do on DVD. This is of course ridiculous. They need to make the entire film look high def, not just a good majority of it.

5. Sony. I am glad that Sony is pushing Blu-Ray. Since Sony is such a huge film company, movies like Casino Royale and Spider-Man 3 will only be on DVD and Blu-Ray, and not HD-DVD. I know that I said that I'm against exclusives, but if it's used as a means to end this silly 2 High Def Format garbage, then I'm all for it. With Sony having exclusives on Blu-Ray, it won't be long before HD-DVD is elminated, and then Exclusives won't exist anymore since there will only be one high def format. Again, I do feel for the people who have purchased HD-DVD Players and Discs, but they should have realized that Sony is a huge film company, and that since they were supporting Blu-Ray that all of their films would not be available on HD-DVD.

6. Disney. Disney is stupid. The sooner this war ends the better, but you have to look at the simple fact that Disney is moronic. I'll explain further, of course. Disney is agreeing to release their stupid films on Blu-Ray only if Adult Entertainment is not released on Blu-Ray as well.... retarded, right? Yes.

Believe it or not, Adult Entertainment was actually the biggest reason that VHS won over Beta Max. AE was exclusive on VHS, and people are horny so VHS won and Beta Max became obsolete. Same thing is now happening here. Because of Disney, it looks that AE will be exclusive on HD-DVD.

Disney just needs to forget this whole deal. Obviously they need to look at the fact that they released their movies on VHS and DVD, and that AE is also on VHS and DVD. No one in their right minds makes the assumption that Disney must condone AE if they're releasing movies on the same format. There should only be one format, so they need to realize that the prudes will realize that there's no choice but to release their movies on the same format on which AE is released. Not that it would matter, because it's a very stupid connection to make between the two.

HD-DVD would be obsolete far quicker if it weren't for Disney.

7. Ultimately, I'm a bit cautious about Blu-Ray. It seems to me like I will be wasting my money by starting a Blu-Ray Collection, only to have a newer format come out too soon. I'm hoping that it will at least be a decade before a newer format is released, but with talk of 100 and 200 GB discs in the works already...