HD DVD: Fiction vs. Facts

[J_UNTITLED]

Someone on another message board has just argued why he/she is in favor of HD-DVD and here are their key reasons...

1) BR Hardware is inherently more expensive.
2) BR Media is inherently more expensive.
3) BR recordable drives and blank media are inherently more expensive.
4) BR is region-coded, while HD-DVD is not.
5) BR has more anti-consumer features than HD-DVD.
6) BR is more delicate and prone to unreadable scratches than HD-DVD.
7) HD-DVD allows DVD/HD-DVD hybrid disks, while BR does not.
8) Sony controls the proprietary BR format and is well-known for enforcing high prices on technologies they control.

Someone help me counter these as I know a lot of them are incorrect.

[Intamin]

2)-go price match any movie at amazon and see the Blu is almost always cheaper than red. 300 for instance, every time I saw it it was 25 for blu and 30 for red.
3)-hd-dvd doesn't even have this option
5)By anti-consumer does he/she actually mean anti-pirate?
6)Bull. Take a key to your disk and give it some scratches, still plays fine. Blu has a layer of protection against this stuff.
7)How many of those hybrid's actually work? Why would I want a dvd when I'm buying the hi-def form and having to pay for a dvd?

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by Intamin

2)-go price match any movie at amazon and see the Blu is almost always cheaper than red. 300 for instance, every time I saw it it was 25 for blu and 30 for red.
3)-hd-dvd doesn't even have this option
5)By anti-consumer does he/she actually mean anti-pirate?
6)Bull. Take a key to your disk and give it some scratches, still plays fine. Blu has a layer of protection against this stuff.
7)How many of those hybrid's actually work? Why would I want a dvd when I'm buying the hi-def form and having to pay for a dvd?

#7 is funny...aren't all of the HD-DVD zealots ranting about how much they hate these?

[Leopold BUTTERS]

BD are cheaper than HD DVD because of the DVD/HD DVD Combo also does not force us to buy last gen technology, which is what HD DVD is based off of anyways.

[owa]

4) While a lot of people don't like region coding, there are a couple of upcoming movies, from a format neutral studio, that we're getting on blu-ray first b/c it has it and HD DVD doesn't. It's (i.e. use of region coding) also mostly on day and date releases so it's not an absolute and varies by studio.

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by owa

4) While a lot of people don't like region coding, there are a couple of upcoming movies, from a format neutral studio, that we're getting on blu-ray first b/c it has it and HD DVD doesn't.

Thank you New Line!

[stockstar1138]

1. Yes, BD hardware is more expensive, this is because the BDA is not massively subsizing the format like Toshiba. They aren't because of two reasons. 1. They don't need to, because BD hardware sells on its own, unlike HD DVD which has lagged considerably in sales. 2. Toshiba can easily subsize hardware with out pissing other HD DVD hardware makers off for undercutting their prices, cause guess what, nobody else makes hd dvd players.

2. Wrong, just go to eproductwars.com, last graph is price, hd dvd is usually higher, this is because of combo discs.
3. Recordable Drives are hardly in existance for hd dvd and are incredibly slow. The price difference for a burner is not that much from what ive heard.
4. New release BDs are region coded, old titles are not, this has caused much more content to be released on blu-ray vs. hd dvd. Take New LIne for instance you guys get their titles months after us, because we have region coding, region coding doesn't sound so bad anymore, does it?
cont.

[onumb]

6. BD have protective coating on them making them more scratch resistant than HD DVD. I suppose maybe reading a disc with scratches may be more difficult for Blu-ray(not sure), but good luck putting a scratch on your disc in the first place.

[Blu-Style]

(2) BR Media is inherently more expensive.

Not true!

I don´t know why they always say HDDVD software is cheaper...

(4) BR is region-coded, while HD-DVD is not

Another reason why the movie companies won´t allow Hddvd as the next-gen Medium

[Leopold BUTTERS]

Also forgot to mention that buying a BD player instead of a HD DVD player saved me a couple hundred bucks, because when HD DVD is dead, i will have that money still

[stockstar1138]

5. Antin-consumer? like its not easy to pirate so its anti-consumer?! you really don't need to make a backup copy, because the high strength protective layer on every blu-ray will resist scratches. guy on youtube.com takes a pizza cutter to a disc and it still works.

6. Wrong! look above at #5 all blu-rays use a much stronger protective layer than hd dvds, its next to impossible to scratch them, unlike hd dvd.

7. Its not like BDA said you guys can't make hybrids, nobody wants to, because they don't increase sales and it costs extra money for both the manufacture and consumer, on top of the fact that they don't work a lot of the time.
8. Each movie studio and manufacture sets their prices differently. Sony has no say in how much every blu-ray disc or player can be sold for. Panasonic holds more blu-ray patents than sony does fyi. so if anybody could it would be panaswonic.

[Elandyll]

1) BR Hardware is inherently more expensive.
Model per model, the BR one is also of better quality, and better technology.
compare a 1080p model with a 1080p, and you'll see the difference in price is actually quite small.

2) BR Media is inherently more expensive.
Wrong. it has been show that a BD25<TL33<BD50. It goes along with storage (data density) and quantity replicated, for which BR has an edge.

3) BR recordable drives and blank media are inherently more expensive.
There is no option atm for HD DVD. Which is probably a boon for studios due to the lack of protection of the HD DVD format. Eventually, because it was first, The BR will be (and is already) the choice format for data backup and storag.

4) BR is region-coded, while HD-DVD is not.
Which studios want, to protect their subsidiaries and distributors in foreign markets. This is a choice the Studio/distrib. makes, not the format. The format merely offers the capacity to do so.

5) BR has more anti-consumer features than HD-DVD.
HD DVD has a concerning lack of security for movie studios.
A legitimate buyer has nothing to fear from BR, while studios have everything to fear from pirates on HD DVD.

6) BR is more delicate and prone to unreadable scratches than HD-DVD.
Wrong. BR actually has a extremely effective anti scratch layer that the HD DVD lacks.

7) HD-DVD allows DVD/HD-DVD hybrid disks, while BR does not.
Who cares about having a DVDhybrid when you pay a HD price?
BR can playback DVDs all day long anyway if that's what you want.

8) Sony controls the proprietary BR format and is well-known for enforcing high prices on technologies they control.
Sony is one member of a consortium including Matsushita (Panasonic and JVC), Philips, Samsung... which offers thus a lot more choice than the Marx Brothers of HD DVD (Toshiba and M$). The perspectivev of hardware sales of HD DVD are so dauting that -NO- other major electronics company has produced any player but Toshiba, its creator.

[dobyblue]

JVC had a working BD/DVD hybrid BD25/DVD9 disc (single-sided) at IFA 2005 in Berlin.

The studios have not asked for it. If they wanted it, it would be done.

[CptGreedle]

Originally Posted by J_UNTITLED

Someone on another message board has just argued why he/she is in favor of HD-DVD and here are their key reasons...





Someone help me counter these as I know a lot of them are incorrect.

1) BD hardware is inherently less cheap (as in quality not price). Toshiba actually is loosing money on the HD-DVD drives cause they cost about as much as a BD costs to make. They are just more desperate to sell them. Plus if you compare new players o the same features and quality (ie 1080p), you will find the difference is closer to $50.
2) To make? Who cares, not the studios cause it is almost the same amount. To buy? Take a look at this: http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/ and tell me what is cheaper. HD-DVD is more expensive cause they are killing themselves with HD-DVD/DVD combos.
3) Can you point a link to show me HD-DVD burning stuff? Not to mention, 30GB vs 50GB.... and soon 100 GB....
4) Sure BD is region coded, in some cases... take a look at this: http://blu-raystats.com/ 76.09% region free. Plus consumers gain little by region free... companies like FOX and DISNEY love region free cause they can control the sales better, such as having a film like Ratatouille in theaters in Europe, but still able to release the BD in USA without worrying about UK getting it. HD-DVD has no control and it only adds to piracy cause of this.
5) Anti-consumer? WTF is that suppose to mean? If you mean anti-piracy, sure it does, like regions for studios, BD+ against piracy, and BDwatermark also against piracy (none of which HD-DVD has), but it also have things like a scratch and fingerprint resistant surface, more space, more bandwidth, optional internet (so if you don't have internet you have no worries), more companies for competition, etc.
6) Bull. They are more resistant to scratched cause HD-DVD uses the same protective surface as DVD. BD has a thin layer of the same surface, but also has a thicker layer of a new protective surface that is more resistant to scratches and fingerprints. Show them this:

It is called the Hard Coating. It really does work and the only problems they had called "disc rot" were very limited and due to a manufacturing error, not a disc problem. Less than 100 discs were affected.
7) Some HD-DVD and DVD players have trouble reading HD-DVD/DVD combo discs. On the other hand, all BD players still do play DVDs. Plus adding that combo part to it makes it more expensive.
8) Actually the BDA controls that, not Sony. On the other hand, Microsoft controls the proprietary HDi and can change/add things to it at any time, while BD-j is java based and is a universal language. Toshiba is the only maker of HD-DVD drives so they control all the HD-DVD drive prices. No competition. No other manufacturers want to join in a race where the cheapest players are already $99, a product already loosing money for Toshiba. Besides, Sony does not have control over the prices set by other companies, and they want to win the war too.

[CptGreedle]

Can you give us a link as well?

[lch]

1) if compare 1080p bd and hd-dvd hardware, bd is cheaper
2) who cares ? as long as the retail cost is cheaper.
3) as if hd-dvd has a recordable option. comparing the amount of bytes, bd is more cost effective
4) not all disc are region coded, studio can choose if they want to turn them on
5) which bd disc have fail to play in bd player ?
6) try giving scratch to bd and hd-dvd, see who last it out.
7) take a look at japan bd, some of them are hybrid with bd and dvd on the same side (no flipping).
8) panasonic own more of bd than sony

[J_UNTITLED]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Can you give us a link as well?

http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/...&postcount=155

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by Elandyll

1) BR Hardware is inherently more expensive.
Model per model, the BR one is also of better quality, and better technology.
compare a 1080p model with a 1080p, and you'll see the difference is actually quite small.

2) BR Media is inherently more expensive.
Wrong. it has been show that a BD25<TL33<BD50. It goes along with storage (data density) and quantity replicated, for which BR has an edge.

3) BR recordable drives and blank media are inherently more expensive.
There is no option atm for HD DVD. Which is probably a boon for studios due to the lack of protection of the HD DVD format. Eventually, because it was first, The BR will be (and is already) the choice format for data backup and storag.

4) BR is region-coded, while HD-DVD is not.
Which studios want, to protect their subsidiaries and distributors in foreign markets. This is a choice the Studio/distrib. makes, not the format. The format merely offers the capacity to do so.

5) BR has more anti-consumer features than HD-DVD.
HD DVD has a concerning lack of security for movie studios.
A legitimate buyer has nothing to fear from BR, while studios have everything to fear from pirates on HD DVD.

6) BR is more delicate and prone to unreadable scratches than HD-DVD.
Wrong. BR actually has a extremely effective anti scratch layer that the HD DVD lacks.

7) HD-DVD allows DVD/HD-DVD hybrid disks, while BR does not.
Who cares about having a DVDhybrid when you pay a HD price?
BR can playback DVDs all day long anyway if that's what you want.

8) Sony controls the proprietary BR format and is well-known for enforcing high prices on technologies they control.
Sony is one member of a consortium including Matsushita (Panasonic and JVC, Philips, Samsung...) which offers thus a lot more choice than the Marx Brothers of HD DVD (Toshiba and M$). The perspectivev of hardware sales of HD DVD are so dauting that -NO- other major electronics company has produced any player but Toshiba, its creator.

Well done, and thank you for pointing out #1, which is the single biggest piece of misinformation out there. However someone on the BD side should just get over it and put out a very cheap 720p/1080i piece of junk.

[Terjyn]

7) HD-DVD allows DVD/HD-DVD hybrid disks, while BR does not.

Blu-Ray just recently figured out how to put the DVD copy on the same side as the Blu-Ray copy, so you don't even need to flip to get access to DVD.

If this ever takes off, yet another selling point for HD will be gone.

Having said that, combined #2 with #7 is hilarious.

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by J_UNTITLED

http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/...&postcount=155

What a tool...