You know both the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats may fail.

[DarthRaevyn]

Even thought both boast more storage space than DVD's and have a lot of support from major companies both formats may still fail. The failure may be due to the reasons being that neither format currently is not necessary for movies, video-games, or music. I suspect within 3-5 years we will slowly be seeing the necessity for larger storage spaces. However that's 3-5 years and in 5 years new next-gen consoles will be released. The benefits of these formats would be useful for the next next generation.

That and I'm pretty happy with DVD's. The transition from VHS to DVD was quite necessary and in fact was a major leap.

1. DVD's did not require rewinding
2. Picture quality was extremely superior to VHS
3. Cheaper
4. Held much more space
5. Conveniently small and easy to store.

The only reason I see to get either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray is more storage space. However with the recent development of hard-drives and newer formats both HD-DVD and BR's future look bleak. Hard-drives with some few terabytes are hitting the market around 2007-2008.

In terms of gaming the most advanced and gigantic game out right now such as World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Half-Life 2 only reach a maximum of 5GB. As of right now there aren't any games that require that much space. Maybe in the next 5 years which is when HD-DVD and BR should have been pushed. It's too early.

[thunderhawk]

Not if they put more HD content on the market. And they will.
Within the coming years, the HD market will explode. Look for yourself.

And yes, DVD did have more advantages over VHS then BD will over DVD... It was smaller, the picture quality was better and they didn't require rewinding.
BD now, offers better picture quality and more space. BUT BD offers HD and DVD doesn't.

However...

Despite DVD's better quality, VHS is still widely used in home recording of television programs, due to the large installed base and the lower cost of VHS recorders. The commercial success of DVD recording and re-writing has been hindered by a number of factors including:-

* A reputation for being temperamental and occasionally unreliable.
* Shorter recording time: 2 hours on a single-layer disc (up to 4 or 6 hours with higher compression) versus 3 (NTSC) or 5 (PAL/SECAM) hours (up to 15 hours using PAL EP) on a VHS tape. Dual layer recorders and media have not yet become commonplace.
* Buyers are wary of another format war amongst the five formats (-R, +R, -RW, +RW, -RAM).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS

I really hope the above 3 factors won't go up for Blu-ray Disc...

[DarthRaevyn]

Yeah the HD era is coming, but isn't here yet. Most homes still have a standard television. Very few people actually understand HD and its various resolutions. I feel bad for the consumer because the average joe will go into Best Buy and ask the employees for the "best" HDTV there. The moron employee will try and sell them the most expensive HDTV there is which may not be the best.

The VHS some 25 years out on the market. The DVD came out 10 years ago. People have hundreds of DVD's and players. Are they ready to shell out in the beginning a thousand dollars plus hundreds more to replace their DVD collection and DVD player? Is the quality/storages space that much of a change to warrant a purchase?

In 5 years when HDTV's become insanely popular and it becomes widespread in the United States is when we will need a new format. 5 years from now when the next-generation of consoles come out.

[thunderhawk]

Good question.

It'll probably continue. It happened in history, why not in future?

[Sony_Blue-Ray]

The format needs to come out. The early adopters are what set the pace of new formats. If BD gets embraced by the early adopters you will see prices slowely fall making it more affordable in years to come. And with this type of storage capability it opens up new posibility's in terms of depth of game. Giving game developers this type of space today to work with will only bring huge changes tomorow in the way games look, feal and play.

Bring it on Blue-Ray Im ready!

[marzetta7]

Originally Posted by DarthRaevyn

Yeah the HD era is coming, but isn't here yet. Most homes still have a standard television. Very few people actually understand HD and its various resolutions. I feel bad for the consumer because the average joe will go into Best Buy and ask the employees for the "best" HDTV there. The moron employee will try and sell them the most expensive HDTV there is which may not be the best.

The VHS some 25 years out on the market. The DVD came out 10 years ago. People have hundreds of DVD's and players. Are they ready to shell out in the beginning a thousand dollars plus hundreds more to replace their DVD collection and DVD player? Is the quality/storages space that much of a change to warrant a purchase?

In 5 years when HDTV's become insanely popular and it becomes widespread in the United States is when we will need a new format. 5 years from now when the next-generation of consoles come out.

Oh, it is indeed here. And it will be in full marketing hype come June. Any delay in early HD adoption will be more cause for the Blu-ray format to be the victor in this format war with HD DVD. I say this because, regardless, if standalone HD DVD and Blu-ray players sell slowly, the PS3 with a built-in Blu-ray drive will sell fast most assuredly, making Blu-ray the de facto standard by Blu-ray drive placement into homes alone (6 million by March 2007).

Furthermore, consumers will not need to shell out hundreds more to replace their DVD collection as Blu-ray drives are backward compatible, and in most instances will upconvert the resolution of standard DVDs to 1080P/1080i. Also, considering that the Digital Television Transition Act of 2005 will spell the end of analog for those older TV sets by 2008...

http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/446

I think a lot of consumers will decide to just buy a new TV than run out and buy a digital converter box, especially since by 2008 HDTVs (LCDs or Plasmas) ought to be a whole lot cheaper.

I'd also like to add that, in terms of Blu-ray, not only will you be getting more storage space, and better picture quality, but you'll also be getting better durability than current DVDs and better interactive features.

Also, in 5 years, when the next gaming consoles come out, I bet you'll see better hardware of course, but you'll also see a faster Blu-ray drive as that is the beauty of the Blu-ray format, it is a format with future technology kept in mind. It is progressive.

[hmurchison]

I'd also like to add that, in terms of Blu-ray, not only will you be getting more storage space, and better picture quality,

I concur with the statement about more storage but how do we quantify the better picture quality statement? Isn't that a factor of the CODEC and encoding process? With both platforms standardized on MPEG2, VC-1 and AVC/h.264 I don't see where a qualitative platform improvement is really all that likely.

[zombie]

It remains to be seen if the studios supporting Blu-ray will use it's extra capacity to it's full potential. With Blu-ray there's no excuse for mediocre transfers of any movie.

[marzetta7]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I concur with the statement about more storage but how do we quantify the better picture quality statement? Isn't that a factor of the CODEC and encoding process? With both platforms standardized on MPEG2, VC-1 and AVC/h.264 I don't see where a qualitative platform improvement is really all that likely.

Well considering that output of current HD DVD players are only 1080i, I think it goes without saying when Blu-ray players will be outputting 1080P.

[EISDEN]

Originally Posted by DarthRaevyn

Even thought both boast more storage space than DVD's and have a lot of support from major companies both formats may still fail. The failure may be due to the reasons being that neither format currently is not necessary for movies, video-games, or music. I suspect within 3-5 years we will slowly be seeing the necessity for larger storage spaces. However that's 3-5 years and in 5 years new next-gen consoles will be released. The benefits of these formats would be useful for the next next generation.

That and I'm pretty happy with DVD's. The transition from VHS to DVD was quite necessary and in fact was a major leap.

1. DVD's did not require rewinding
2. Picture quality was extremely superior to VHS
3. Cheaper
4. Held much more space
5. Conveniently small and easy to store.

The only reason I see to get either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray is more storage space. However with the recent development of hard-drives and newer formats both HD-DVD and BR's future look bleak. Hard-drives with some few terabytes are hitting the market around 2007-2008.

In terms of gaming the most advanced and gigantic game out right now such as World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Half-Life 2 only reach a maximum of 5GB. As of right now there aren't any games that require that much space. Maybe in the next 5 years which is when HD-DVD and BR should have been pushed. It's too early.

no

[coby]

regarding the VHS to DVD (im happy with DVD article)

have you seriously compared true HD with DVD quality.

DVD quality looks like VHS when you compare it to true HD on a good plasma.

It dead set looks like you peerin through a window. DVDs are not even close to HD. wht they do have is a non ghosted, clear picture with added benefits that go with a digital and non tape format. skip chapters etc.

when looking at games you putting the cart before the horse in that what is the point o making a game of 25gb if you need 5 dvds to hold the data on.

With larger capaitys more detail such as 3d rendering etc will be able to be employed.

the future is HD, and once you have seen it compared t a normal DVD youll buy a blue ray player and the Movie content.

[theknub]

coby,
i agree on the whole with you. the problem is that most people really don't know the difference until you compare side by side. in which case, you have to have a BR player to compare. for me, it is like watching hbo and then flipping it to hbohd. yeah, the hbohd signal isn't the best, but it is light years better than standard hbo. that is the comparison i like to make when comparing dvd to some high def dvd format. the only exception is that the end product of a high def dvd format is even more dramatic than my comparison.

[Chris]

That is one of the biggest things that it has going for it will resist finger prints and scrathes more than the current DVD player. I think this could be the biggest thing sense VCR's changed into DVD players.