Blu-Ray meeting next week. Fox titles and "key partner" announcement

[hmurchison]

Rebuttal time.

Originally Posted by ethan

The industry disagreed and started a mass exodus to the BluRay camp because of the stubborness of the DVD forum. Then Toshiba changed their specs at the last minute, supporting inferior capacity and bitrate, but same disc production.

Blu-Ray was never submitted to the DVD Forum for approval. It's a bit like complaining about government policy when you don't vote.

Originally Posted by ethan

The BDA created a specification. They are superior in every point.

Not only is Blu-Ray "not" superior in every point but the players have features "missing "that I deem important. A $500 A1 offers more functionality that benefits the movie lover over the Samsung player at twice the price. HD DVD is using iHD on disc already. There hasn't been one Blu-Ray disc shipped with BD-Java interactivity. Considering the 30 something discs shipped thus far on BD and the lack of quality of many your "superior" comment must pertain to specs only because the end result is certainly not cutting muster.

I read the rest of your post and it was so vague on actual content I grew bored. BTW it is "lose" as in "Lose your shirt "rather than "Loose"

Feel free to buy your BD player and enjoy it. I myself will own a BD player but that doesn't mean I have to fail to realize the benefits of both players. BD is superior in specs but this superiority won't necessarily translate into a better picture and better sound.

It's standard engineering. You don't add piece to a design unless it adds a tangible advantage to the product. The optics of Blu-Ray are impressive but in my opinion it goes a little too far. I don't need 50GB if

A) 30GB gives me a 4hr runtime with lossless audio and high quality video

B) The 50GB is prohibitively expensive.

Many people seem to have a problem fully understanding the specs involved. It's not easy and one tends to look at the larger number and assume that is better. I'm not suprised that Blu-Ray doesn't look as good as HD DVD because when Sony said they were going to deliver on MPEG2 I knew that the they were in trouble after the initial results with VC-1 exceeded just about everyones expectations. MPEG2 is a known quantity and without DL BD-ROM the space crunch was on. Thus we have irrefutable proof that specs alone cannot and will not denote superiority. When VC-1 ships for Blu-Ray it will look every bit as good as the comparable HD DVD disc. It will not look better it will not look worse.

After peeling back the layers of each platform I think both have a right to exist. Let the market decide which platform they want. Blu-Ray may win by the refusal of some studios to make discs for both and I think this would be a hollow victory. These same studios are the ones asking that consumers respect their content and not pirate are looking a wee bit selfish by having thousands of potential paying customers looking for their movies and steadily refusing to support them.

I think the format war has definitely been beneficial. Without Toshiba delivering on their promises we would have never known how high the bar could be set. Blu-Ray has yet to reach that level but they should. I'm excited about owning both platforms because I'm a movie lover but common sense tells me that Toshiba hit upon the right mix of features that the market needed.

One replicator offers replication of both HD DVD and Blu-Ray. The Dual Layer HD DVD disc is a paltry $.06 more than the smaller Single Layer BD-ROM. I think that highlights why HD DVD has a fighting chance of success. Factor in a more simple lens assembly that supports CD/DVD/HD DVD in one laser assembly and you get another cost savings.

Both formats have a lot to offer. It'll be fun to watch which format resonates with the consumer most.