Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?

[LowercaseE]

It's a sad day. An incomplete, more expensive, more restrictive technology will be the next format. Well, at least I have my HD DVD player and I'll be able to pick up discs for next to nothing. I hope consumers are happy.

[sarek2k]

i haven't read all these post on this WAR i've typed my thoughts on osuk, however i'd like to know if anyone here has either format,hddvd or blueray to argue a defense for?

in my honest opinion even today the Playstation 2 was never considerd a true dvd player more something it did as an extra! is the ps3 the same or better as a blueray player? i don't know i don't have one. in 3 years time when a blueray player is less than 50 quid will the ps3's player be so important just like ps2 was.

this time round to me it seems most ppl have backed off this war from either camp be it blueray or hd-dvd! it's not like DVD ain't serving us more than well enough you could understand the need to go from vhs to dvd,is a big difference but dvd to hd-dvd/blueray is not quite so obvious, I mean a good dvd looks just great, the only flaw is scratched disc etc where as vhs was lo-res etc compared to dvd not to mention tape chew up's etc. with VHS was a need to upgrade with dvd there isn't the same urgency.

The only reason i could think of to ditch DVD is HD but even then you have upscalling dvd players! i reckon most of us will dodge the whole question untill it's non avoidable, affordable and worth it! The last thing i want to see is the bad bad old days when vhs thrashed betamax/phillips etc and we where left paying a minimum of 9.99 for a film a bad monopoly at the time rarely did you get any new movie under that price.

[Teho]

in my honest opinion even today the Playstation 2 was never considerd a true dvd player more something it did as an extra! is the ps3 the same or better as a blueray player?

Yes. The PS3 is still considered the best blu-ray player on the market. And not just because there hasn't been a good standalone player released yet, it is a pretty good player. It costs less than an equally good standalone player, and is also upgradeable through online firmware updates so it follows the latest standards. Not all standalone players can do that.

As for DVD being good enough, it is for now. Until you get yourself an HDTV. Unless you have some form of upscaling going on when watching your DVDs, then you'll start seeing its flaws. Compression artifacts, obvious pixellization due to low resolution and such. Incidentally, the PS3 also has DVD upscaling features, so your DVDs will look pretty good on an HDTV if playing them on that.

I've watched a good deal of movies on blu-ray now, and personally I don't regret having upgraded to it. DVDs don't really come close to the image detail and sharpness, even when upscaled. Also you get uncompressed audio on just about all releases if you have the stereo equipment for it.

[AlexJ]

Is the jump from DVD-BluRay as big as the one from VHS-DVD? No, it isn't because the biggest gain with the former was the loss of tape degredation etc. However on a HDTV there is a noticable difference between the two. It looks sharper and more detailed whereas a standard DVD player looks a bit blocky in places. The blockyness is overcome when upscaling but the detail isn't added in.

Does Blu-Ray winning the format war mean that prices will now spiral without HDDVD to keep it competitive? No, not in my opinion. DVD is going to be a much tougher rival so prices will have to stay competitive in order to compete. Having all studios using the format means more films being released in the format and more discs being sold should drive down the cost of producing a disc and prices should start to fall.

[Teho]

Blu-ray being the only format won't mean anything for prices any more than DVD being the only format did. I really don't know why people keep saying that it will.

[LowercaseE]

I just want to point out that there is a very noticeable difference between a DVD and HD DVD in terms of picture quality, sharpness, and detail. I was originally of the line of thinking that it wasn't that big a deal, but when I first saw a 1080p 24fps film on a true HD TV, my tune changed. All the upscaling in the world isn't going to change the fact that a DVD is encoded at 480p. It does help a little, but there is still a major difference in the 2 resolutions.

[v85rawdeal]

Of course there would need to be that vast difference in quality, otherwise why would companies push their new product on that basis... Although, to be fair, I feel that the only ones who can be blamed for HD-DVD failing is the companies that didn't push HD-DVD properly... ie. NO advertising whatsoever and a rather lame partnership with M$ who we all knew would be in it for themselves.

At least Blu-Ray got advertising, I think that Toshiba gave up on HD-DVD very early on so they could put more support into their BD players...