What was the appeal of HD DVD?

[ronboster]

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"What was the appeal of Reel to Reel"?

[LeeFanatic007]

I waited the format war out but one of the things that finally got me buying Blu-rays was the fact that the PS3 could play them so you were getting a two-for-1 kind of deal. Play games and the Blu-ray player aspect was more or less a free bonus.

[meremortal]

Looking back, the format wars just happened at the right time when I was really interested in the high-def concept. The novelty of little details like seeing individual strands of grass seemed like such a a big deal back then. I was really eager at the time to upgrade dvds to an hd format. In the earlier days, people were really enamored with the formats and might buy movies just because they had nice pq at the time. And the online community was small but very rabid at the time. There was constant speculation and an overly competitive atmosphere where sides would argue like it's two rival teams. The PS3 alone was a major factor since so many people were going to buy it anyway and the lack of support from companies like Disney and Sony were too much to overcome even if hd dvd add-on players were under $100.

[khalbrae]

Honestly the only real appeal of HD-DVD for me still is:

- Much higher bitrate and cleaner picture than streaming. Most releases use the same transfer as the blu-ray version and have the same great PQ.

- Red cases, I like to take those and use them for horror films. I often consolidate HD-DVDs and standard DVDs into a Blu-ray or 4K release also to make my own ultimate boxes. Many of the discs have artwork on them befitting a 4K boutique release (Last Starfighter, Blazing Saddles, etc for example). Got a 4K Blazing Saddles with the reflective HD-DVD cover, but the 4K case and sleeve, the 4K cover is under the HD-DVD one, I just like having 2 different artworks)

- Most case sleeves have foiling and/or are a thicker paper, which looks really nice actually. So sometimes I will use the HD-DVD cover on a blu-ray release because of the look being different or nicer in that situation.

I also really want the movies that are trapped on HD-DVD only for physical HD release.

[fighthefutureofhd]

Originally Posted by Musashi

That's just it though: it was a perceived notion but far from the facts. If anything the opposite was partially true: Blu-ray had many shareholders, 2 of whom had even bigger %age stakes than Sony (Pioneer and Panasonic) in blu-ray. This was reflected in that there were BD players from Samsung, Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, LG, Denon, and a whole bunch more, while HD-DVD players were produced by Toshiba and....Toshiba.

Actually, Sony had and still has a much bigger stake than many realize. All you have to do is look at porn to see that. The VHS and DVD formats were littered with porn. It was everywhere. Blu-ray came out and so did the porn. But then something happened. The well of Blu-ray porn discs started drying up. Companies like Titan Media (or even Jet Set Men to a smaller degree) who were producing dozens of titles suddenly stopped. And that was just the gay titles. Soon the straight titles started drying up as well.

Flash forward to today and there are NO Blu-ray porn discs. What's even more disconcerting is that there has never been ONE single adult movie on 4K UHD-BD. That's strange, as every format has had some adult movie titles. The reason there are no more titles on Blu-ray and none at all on 4K UHD-BD goes back to Sony. Sony has been actively trying to wipe out porn from Blu-ray and has stopped porn on 4K UHD-BD altogether. Sony doesn't want porn associated with those formats. To do so, they have strong armed the manufacturing plants from replicating adult content onto Blu-ray or 4K UHD-BD discs. If they did so, they would lose Sony's business.

At least that's what I gathered when I did a search a while back for adult content on 4K UHD-BD. I can't seem to find any of that now, but I know I saw it. I check on the status of adult content on 4K UHD-BD from time to time in case I missed some announcement or something. It's a big part of the reason as to why me and one of my best friends wanted to start our own company. To give people something they want and cannot find. I truly believe it's something that a number of people would like to have and one could make a killing doing so.

I've watched enough 4K adult movies to know that. The picture quality blows everything out of the water. All of the content I've gotten were from sites where you can purchase 4k adult movies as downloaded files. The problem is a lot of these files don't want to play back on 4K player. I have no problem with them on my laptop. This is rather frustrating and as such I end up watching DVDs mostly. Which is what me and my friend hope to end.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

you are right in that Sony is not the biggest contributor to the patent pool, that being said and that Sony=BD was pushed to try and discredit the format. That being said...

[Show spoiler]
1)Toshiba was not the only company with HD DVD patents. Most of the patents were shared (i.e. same company on both sides for the same stuff) since a lot of the specs where the same. The big difference was the BD moved to 0.1mm data layer while HD-DVD stayed at 0.6 and that was Toshibas biggest contribution to DVD and HD-DVD and they did not want to lose out on it.

2) Sony owned the Beta format, JVC the VHS format it did not stop many other manufacturers from making players. You don't need to be part of the patent pool to get a license to build players

3) Toshiba was not the only manufacturer of HD DVD players and there were also some combo players that could play both formats[

You bring up some very valid points. As I mentioned above though, Sony was the main company behind Blu-ray and 4K UHD-BD. They are the reason that a lot of content and companies have been excluded from being on Blu-ray or 4K UHD-BD. Take adult content, for example. Today, pretty much all new adult movies being released on Blu-ray are duplicated and not replicated. Sony doesn't want any replicating being done for adult titles made or distributed through adults. So, it has to be duplicated. This is the a big part of our business model for our fledgling studio. By duplicating everything, we can do most of it in house and therefore cut costs.

Which means we don't have to charge a lot on our movies in order to make a profit. None of this means that we are skimping on things to get what we want on disc. Not at all. It will be as close to a replicated disc as possible. If not better in some ways. I've been working with media discs and a lot of what that entails, home side wise, for the better part of 24 years now. I have a good bit of knowledge on the subject. It won't get me any degrees or anything, but it will hold up.

Originally Posted by BiggusDickus

Actually, you reminded me, i bought the XXX film Pirates on DVD and it came with an HD-DVD disc! Had nothing to play that on tho ...

Originally Posted by sfmarine

Guilty of that as well! That film was all the rage back then.

Remember when this site had a section/thread devoted to new xxx Blu-ray releases? That was where I found out about a good portion of the movies that came out. The thread was closed, but it is still around. I would link to it, but banhammer wouldn't like it.

Originally Posted by sfmarine

HD-DVD never appealed to me even though it was cheaper. The ps3 was my first BD player and at the time Universal, WB, and Paramount were HD exclusive. HD also had porn but BD had Disney and Fox.

You can still buy a number of HD-DVD porn titles. They're mostly from the used market but they're out there.

Originally Posted by i95

porn has no say in anything, it has no value. It's a blip, the top sites are 100% free. Non of the higher end replicators will print it, sonopress, sony, technicolor, optical, discmakers.

That's a big ball of shit if I ever saw one. Way too much to unpack, but I will hit highlights.

1. Adult content was paramount in forging a path for home media and that entails.
2. Adult movies were and still are a big business.
3. Porn is in some ways bigger than Hollywood. Their movies don't cost millions and they CAN make thier money back.
4. Adult content has always been on the forefront of technology.
5. Adult content has been instrumental in helping so many people's lives. Especially gay content.

As to your comment about replication, who gives a flying fig. Replication isn't not necessary or the be all end all. I know a number of bands that put out albums on duplicated discs. It's all the same quality as ones that are replicated. You don't need replication. it's just a prettier version of duplication but it won't get you there any better.

[khalbrae]

Originally Posted by Musashi

That's just it though: it was a perceived notion but far from the facts. If anything the opposite was partially true: Blu-ray had many shareholders, 2 of whom had even bigger %age stakes than Sony (Pioneer and Panasonic) in blu-ray. This was reflected in that there were BD players from Samsung, Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, LG, Denon, and a whole bunch more, while HD-DVD players were produced by Toshiba and....Toshiba.

Funny thing, Microsoft was a stakeholder in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Which is why VC-1 was used on both.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by fighthefutureofhd

Porn

it is not the 70's 80's any more when none-live adult content was only available on magazines (static images) or VHS (moving images).

Today porn is everywhere on the internet for free. No one has cared to really buy porn on physical media for a very long time.

As to your comment about replication, who gives a flying fig. Replication isn't not necessary or the be all end all. I know a number of bands that put out albums on duplicated discs. It's all the same quality as ones that are replicated. You don't need replication. it's just a prettier version of duplication but it won't get you there any better.

duplication is good for a small garage band where the guy in the band buys a spindle with 100 blanks and then then burns a hanndfull a day (if that many) it is not a great a idea for a studio that needs to prep thousands of copies of each film. It is much more expensive and much more time consuming to duplicate vs replication.

[fighthefutureofhd]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

it is not the 70's 80's any more when none-live adult content was only available on magazines (static images) or VHS (moving images).

Today porn is everywhere on the internet for free. No one has cared to really buy porn on physical media for a very long time.

I don't buy that one bit. Not in the least. If you make it they will buy it. So to speak. Back around the beginning of July Falcon Studios announced they were shutting down their site to make way for a new one. They also announced a sale in that same breath. A lot of their DVDs would be out of print and this was the last time to get to them. Once they're gone, they're gone. Two to Three hours after the sale was announced it was total pandemonium on their old site. One minute a DVD was in your cart, the next it was sold out. Before you could even buy it. It was like trying to get tickets to a Taylor Swift concert the day they go on sale.

I've never seen anything like it. Falcon has always had sales and I never saw anything like this before. Those sales were also heavily discounted. I couldn't believe what was happening. So, I do not believe that no one cares to buy porn on physical media. Nor do I believe it has been that way for a very long time. If they did they wouldn't continue putting movies out on physical media. Plus, there is another reason. Picture quality relative to the TV. If you have a real nice TV setup then why would you want to watch crappy content on a laptop or your phone.

Use me, as an example. I have a 100" 4K TV. Now why would I want to watch content like porn on a crappy phone/laptop screen? I also have a 7.1 surround system with a 7 speaker in ceiling speaker setup. I'm going to want good sound, too. I know the counter argument to this is that nobody cares about picture/sound quality when watching this stuff. Why? People who have an excellent A/V setup want to have the best picture and sound quality to go with this A/V setup they paid lots of money on. They do not like to stream movies, for the most part. Most of them want to have movies on physical media.

Why wouldn't they also want their adult content in the best possible format. I cannot believe that with an excellent A/V setup people just turn that off and go watch porn on their phone. That seems really weird. I know that there is a market out there for porn on physical media. A huge market, too. You just got to tap into it. The only reason a lot of people even watch porn for free on the internet is because that's an option. If it wasn't an option then we wouldn't be having this discussion. Don't give that option and they will buy it. It's the guiding principle behind the studio me and my friend are starting.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

duplication is good for a small garage band where the guy in the band buys a spindle with 100 blanks and then then burns a hanndfull a day (if that many) it is not a great a idea for a studio that needs to prep thousands of copies of each film. It is much more expensive and much more time consuming to duplicate vs replication.

I'm not talking about a small garage band. I'm talking about relatively well known artists with music released in record stores that duplicate. One such artist is the innocence mission. They've been duplicating for a while now I believe. They're stuff is sold in stores and online. Most of the albums are distributed through Bella Union as well. It's working out just fine for them.

It's not that much more expensive and time consuming to duplicate vs. replication. In fact, it is often cheaper to duplicate. I've been looking at releasing some of my music on CD. The cost to replicate is for more expensive than it is to duplicate. Also, we're not talking about big studios here. Not like Sony or Warner Brothers, for example. We're talking smaller, more independent studios. The studio me and my friend are trying to get off the ground are going the duplication route.

One of the big reasons is that I have most of the materials I would need to duplicate. The other items I would need wouldn't cost that much. So, in the end, duplicating would make us more profit vs. overhead in the long run. We don't plan on doing small runs either. Not smallish anyway. We're looking at the whole thing through a collector's lens with limited edition, numbered runs. Really well done stuff. I get why bigger studios and artists use replication, but for more indie based artists/studios duplication makes more sense.