I kind of miss the format war....

[Jacob6875]

Ya it was huge fun having to wait to buy my favorite movie in HD because they decided to go the HD-DVD route instead of blu ray.

[Blu Titan]

One or two Blu-ray releases a week, new releases not available on Blu, FUD, and constant bickering between movie lovers...no there's nothing to miss.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Ricshoe

I see one of us is not understanding the issue here. The OP specifically referenced people promoting the DVD upconverting benefits of some HD-DVD players. Looking strictly at that aspect, then it is fanboyism to simply dismiss the claim. I'm in no way defending any aspect of HD-DVD or making a ridiculous statement such as upconverted DVD is "good enough". Blu-ray was and is the clear winner, however as DVD upconverters, the Toshiba players were excellent. That's the only point I'm trying to make.

sorry if you misinterpreted my response. I was not taking an issue if it was/is or was not/is not. This thread was about format war, I was just pointing out how ridiculous the claim was wrt the discussion at the time.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by krazeyeyez

Weren't hddvds 30 gigs? i do know they had the dual layer slated to come out before the February announcement of the final studio jumping ship and toshiba throwing in the towel. If they were 30 then they would have 60gig discs at this point so i would think that would be in your favor regarding that point.

The discussion had nothing to do with HD-DVD, I was pointing out to the discussion in that other thread where someone started with pirated movies at 10GB look and sound as good as BD. And it devolved from there into why 50GB is not needed. (I think you actually posted in it)

As for HD-DVD it was 15GB SL and 30GB DL the same way BD is 25GB SL and 50GB DL, now some people believed that there would eventually be 3L@45GB since Toshiba would use that BS sometimes to say "there is no difference between BD and HD-DVD" but that was just marketing for people, and obviously some people even went as far as believing they would see 4L@60GB. But that would be like people believing we will have mass produced movies on 3L and 4L BD or on BDXL.


As for how it panned out, you are a bit off, in the summer Toshiba (and you can google and find the records) paid Paramount/DreamWorks animation big$ to drop BD (Viacom owns both) for a year and it was announced just prior to CEDIA. In the end it did not change anything sales wise (BD had caught on too much and even though some fanboys thought when Iron man week would go to HD-DVD, BD sales where still better). At that point WB decided enough was enough HD-DVD had no chance and the format war was just hurting business so in Jan at CES (or just before) they said they are dropping HD-DVD but will continue releasing titles for 6 months (or something like that). A month or two after that Toshiba had an emergency meeting of the BOD and it decided to pull the plug on HD-DVD, and stop payments to Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks, so with that the three studios quit HD-DVD and went BD (while WB continued until the end of the period they mentioned in Jan). So technically either WB can be considered first to throw in the towel with Toshiba second or Toshiba first (since WB continued to support HD DVD for a few more months) but definitely not Toshiba last.

[krazeyeyez]

All i know is that toshiba "officially" threw in the towel on my birthday

Was treating myself to a new stereo and demoing subs to see if i wanted to ditch my def tech, and my sales guy up there filled me in on the news. Saved me some cash as an hddvd player was also on my list that day.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by krazeyeyez

Thanks, memory is not what it used to be lol, i remember the dual layer thing and the bd50's must not have been common yet as i remember thinking the dual layer hd dvd's would give them a slight edge storage wise. I am glad it ended when it did as my next stop after a subwoofer upgrade that morning of the news was going to be to grab a red player as to not have to wait for kong, transformers, or battlestar.

BD 50's did not show up until the end of 2006 (Oct or Nov can’t remember exactly when the first one came out). But it seamed like for ever since, at least for me, I was keeping track of the development since 2004 (BD and HD-DVD players and disks showed up in 2006) the funny thing was that
1) until BD-50 showed up they where "sci-fi and would never happen"
-1-a) and there is a big difference between 25GB and 30GB (DL HD-DVDs came out at the same time as SL)
2) for some time after BD 50 came out "they can only be made in small numbers in the lab"
-2-a) and "most movies on BD are still 25GB so that should be the number used and not 50GB"
3) and once they where more at some point it was " they call them BD-50 but BD-50 don't work and so the data is only in the middle and so can only have XX GB of data on them"


and then you add the flip side (the TL 45GB HD-DVD was "announced" before HD-DVD launched so you had)

1) yeah but "if you use 50 for BD then you need to use 45GB for HD DVD and those are very close" and they might have a 60GB disk so that is an advantage for HD-DVD

2) Once TL51 was "announced" it became "but we will soon have TL51 and that is 51GB vs 50GB so HD-DVD is better" even though by then 50GB BDs existed and there would be no way of actualy making 51GB HD-DVDs and you would still have the BW issue.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Septimus Prime

You might be remembering the mythical TL51, which was allegedly a triple-layer HD DVD with 51GB of ROM (17GB per layer). It never made it out of Toshiba's lab, though.

I am not sure it ever existed in the lab in the first place. But the funnies part about it was that before HD-DVD even launched Toshiba had said that a TL45 should be possible and it never materialized I really don't get how the HD-DVD fanboys where certain they would have a TL51 which like you said also changed the capacity per layer when it was impossible for them to get a TL45 even though they where talking about it for years.

[Post Prod]

the format war is alive in well in the minds of a lot of people who post here.


Overall competition made blu-ray better, faster, that can not be denied.


It also can't be denied that anyone who has an emotional attachment to any "format", is a fascinating phenomenon. .

To see people still to this day, so worked up about it, is hilarious insanity.

Oh the internet. The best thing to happen to mental instability since crack and basic cable.

[linkgx1]

I had no idea it was a good converter. I need to go and buy an HD-DVD playa.

[linkgx1]

Lettuce be reality here. Nothing compares to.....VHS.

[Blu-ray Fanatic]

Since HD DUD is extinct, and there's some competition with dvd, is there gonna be one winner standing at the end? My answer: Since a lot of people still buy and rent dvd, I think there's gonna be a truce between the two surviving formats.

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

One or two Blu-ray releases a week, new releases not available on Blu, FUD, and constant bickering between movie lovers...no there's nothing to miss.

Oh come on. You don't miss the daily troll incursions? You guys were really on your toes.

[Troy73]

It's healthy to look back at where we were in relation to where we are now. I don't miss the format war as it seemed to bring out the worst in everyone engaged in it. It seems from reading these posts that some of us are still very hurt by the outcome. I personally feel if HD DVD won it would have ushered in the death of physical media. That's where they really wanted to go with it. Looking back on it, I'm very pleased Blu-ray won.

[Post Prod]

If HD-DVD had won, communism would have taken control of the world.

the format war might be dead.

But hyperbole and irrational brand lust is alive and well.

[molson3530]

The format war was interesting due to all of the forum trolling that went on. I also remember the HD DVD supporters saying after their format died that DVD upconversion is good enough and that they were going to digital downloads. I couldn't believe how attached these people were to this technology. I was always thinking: "Is it such a big deal to buy a BD player so you can enjoy some movies?"

[Canada]

I'm surprised this thread hasn't been shut down.

[Ruben Rybnik]

The best thing that came out of the format war was the lowering of prices on hardware much quicker than if there was just one. That helps all of us now.

[bryangl]

I have come up against an issue that could bbe classed as "format war". I am in a discussion on Amazon UK where it is being insisted that there are two types of Blu-ray: BR50 for 50 Hz (i.e. prviously PAL countries) and BD60 for 60 Hz i.e., countrries that were NTSC. I maintain that the only difference is if there are extras in DVD format, and that the different frequencies were dealt with be the electronics in players and/or TVs, to decode to the appropriate frame rate/field rate combination. Can anyone help on this please.? I recognize BR50 as referring to the 50 Gb disc used, and have never seen any reference to BD60, although I have seen reference to PAL or NTSC DVD extras.I am in Australia.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by bryangl

I have come up against an issue that could bbe classed as "format war". I am in a discussion on Amazon UK where it is being insisted that there are two types of Blu-ray: BR50 for 50 Hz (i.e. prviously PAL countries) and BD60 for 60 Hz i.e., countrries that were NTSC. I maintain that the only difference is if there are extras in DVD format, and that the different frequencies were dealt with be the electronics in players and/or TVs, to decode to the appropriate frame rate/field rate combination. Can anyone help on this please.? I recognize BR50 as referring to the 50 Gb disc used, and have never seen any reference to BD60, although I have seen reference to PAL or NTSC DVD extras.I am in Australia.

There's no such thing as BR50 or BD60. The BD format does support different frame rates but that's different from the BD25 and BD50 terminology.

The resolution and frames rates supported for the primary video streams can be found in Figure 3-3 of this spec:

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/Do...ions-18780.pdf

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by molson3530

The format war was interesting due to all of the forum trolling that went on. I also remember the HD DVD supporters saying after their format died that DVD upconversion is good enough and that they were going to digital downloads. I couldn't believe how attached these people were to this technology. I was always thinking: "Is it such a big deal to buy a BD player so you can enjoy some movies?"

Remember Toshiba's Superupconversion technology, more affectionately known as SUC(K)? That was their last gasp before accepting reality and building their own Blu- ray players