Blue Ray or HD-DVD (An introduction)

[Bullseye]

Hello people, Glad to be part of this fine forum. Apart from the headace of having to possibly upgrade my large collection of DVD's i am still undecided on which format to adopt. I'm leaning towards Blue Ray as I have always been a fan of Pioneer DVD players and it appears that they have chose BR as their route.

We here in Ireland will only start receiving BR and HD players towards the end of the year and the majority of LCD's and Plasmas are not at the standard 1080i or 1080p yet.

Apart from my love of Pioneer players what else does BR have going that HD-DVD doesn't.

Also a little annoyed that Sony has treated the EU like second class citizens in the delay on the SP3.

Anyway. Nice to be here.
Cheers
Robert.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Apart from my love of Pioneer players what else does BR have going that HD-DVD doesn't.

90 percent studio support vs. HD-DVD's 40 percent.

HD-DVD has Universal studios as its lone exclusive studio. Universal puts out some pretty popular films, so you may want to check into that and see how you feel about it.

Beyond that, pretty much everything else is going to be coming out on both formats, for the most part.

Blu-Ray has some big time exclusive studios in their back pocket like Fox and the entire Disney conglomerate. Think about that. That means Buena Vista and everything else under that huge umbrella. We're not just talking Mickey Mouse cartoons here.



Longer term potential with the BD technology vs. HD-DVDs.

The real short answer is: HD-DVD is built off the existing DVD architecture while Blu-Ray is something completely new from the ground up.

Both formats can evolve to a certain point, but HD-DVD will hit a brick wall long before Blu-Ray ever does.

Blu-Ray is the kind of technology that can easily be current 10 years from now. I'm not so sure HD-DVD can be.



BD had some early picture quality issues with certain discs that are well on the way to being eliminated.


Blu-Ray has hardware support and choices whereas HD-DVD simply has Toshiba or nothing, at present.

So basically, you have a slowly but surely ascending giant backed by 90 percent studio support and hardware choices from most of the leading CE companies by year's end.

That's what Blu-Ray gets you.

Also a little annoyed that Sony has treated the EU like second class citizens in the delay on the SP3.

The PS3, yes.

However, isn't it pretty typical (albeit stupid) for the EU to usually come in late when these consoles launch? I feel like that's been going on for as long as I can remember: You all always get the games and the hardware later than everyone else.

Anyway. Nice to be here.
Cheers
Robert.

Have fun!


EDIT: https://www.blu-ray.com/

^^ Cheap plug here, but seriously: That's our main page here and it's awesome. Loaded with lots of information. I guarantee you just about any question you have is probably answered and covered way better than what I did here.

[Bullseye]

Thanks for the quick reply JTK. I like your logic on the Blue Ray technology and I also like the fact that some of the better manufacturers have thrown their hat in with BR.

Will there be an upgrade from Mpeg2?
And is it true that some of the BR manuf's may actually produce neautral players in 2007?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Will there be an upgrade from Mpeg2?

Already starting to see some VC-1 discs being talked about and circulated. Still hearing talk about some MPEG4/AVC down the road. There's some folks around here that know a lot more on this than I currently do.

It's not all going to be confined to MPEG2 by a longshot. What MPEG2 is coming out is already being improved upon considerably.

If you can get at least D-VHS MPEG2 quality you're soaring!

And is it true that some of the BR manuf's may actually produce neautral players in 2007?

I doubt it.

The neutrals are waiting for the format war to end outright. At least that's what they say out in the open.

[marzetta7]

Welcome to the forum Bullseye.

To add upon what JTK has already mentioned, is that Blu-ray buys you more storage--25 GB per layer as compared to HD DVD's 15 GB per layer.

Moreover, it gives you better durability, in my opinion, as Blu-ray discs employ a Durabis2 special protective coating (or some sort of Durabis2 coating equivalent). It is said (by TDK) that Durabis2 is 100 times more scratch resistant than regular DVDs, and well, considering that HD DVDs simply employ the same protective measures as DVD, well, Blu-ray looks to be more durable (disclaimer: we have yet to see definitive results of durability from the two--Blu-ray and HD DVD--though).

But aside from that, yeah, Blu-ray's 90% studio support, and the majority of support from the CE (Pioneer, Panasonic, Sharp, LG, Sony, Samsung, TDK, Philips etc.) and IT (Apple, Dell, HP, Acer, LiteOn, etc.) industries doesn't hurt.

I think you made the right choice!

[BTBuck1]

another studio exclusive not mentioned in JTK's post was SOny pictures group, so if you like movies from Sony pictures, Columbia, tristar or MGM then you'll only see those on BD (unless they are tied in with universal) IE, columbia/Universals "The Rundown"

Key movies from the sony pictures group to look for:

-Spiderman 1,2 & 3

-Bad Boys 1 & 2

-The professional (leon)

-Underwolrd 1& 2

-Black hawk Down

And many many more....

I currently own HDDVD and plan on purchase of Blu Ray, you can see by my sig that I have been buying up blu discs in anticipation of the Sony Blu Ray player.

I enjoy HDDVD, but The player is glitchy (though not terrible) but occassionally will give you PC type hiccups being that it's basically a hometheatre computer.

I would reccomend if you have to make only one choice go with Blu Ray,
If you can get both and are a gamer..go the game system route with the HDDVD add on for xbox360 & the Ps3 and use them until prices plummet or a clear victor pulls ahead.

[georgir]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Also a little annoyed that Sony has treated the EU like second class citizens in the delay on the SP3.

StayPatient3?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by georgir

StayPatient3?

Yup.

[thunderhawk]

That's one of the downsides of living in the EU that is... Always getting things later.
I do wonder why. It's not that we don't have the money to purchase... Although, generally, I believe most people here are more conservative when in somes to purchasing new technologies.

But still...

[Bullseye]

Hi guys thanks for the warm welcome. From what i have read BR is certainly the way to go but hopefully the delays caused by Sony don't let this great tech advancment pass it by. Remember Beta and VHS war. They had the better player Beta yet it still lost. I hope this will not be a repeat.

[theknub]

bullseye welcome.

just a quick comment. beta was a sony only technology much like hd-dvd is toshiba only (for comparison purposes obviously). the BDA may be spearheaded by sony, but is a much larger entity made of almost all of the CE companies and studios. to compare the beta war to this is like comparing hitler and world peace. it just doesn't work.