HD DVD in action - mass adoptation has begun

[Nick Sheldon]

HA

It's people being desperate, I mean how can you justify a $400 VIDEO GAME console instead of a $99.00 HD-DVD player?

4x the money.

If people actually listened to him, then they need meds.

He's talking absolute ****.

He's highly delusional, and his real name is WALTER MITTY.

LOL @ how desperate his post is.

I will end this post (as I always do with posts concerning SONY ****):

DIE BLU-RAY DIE!!!!!!!!!!!

[ShawnDude]

So I guess you didn't hear the news that Paramount/Universal got a $150 000 000 payout to switch to HD DVD?

And you don't consider price cutting so much that manufacturers are taking a loss on each player sold to be an "immoral tactic"?

In fact, according to this http://www.cdrlabs.com/news/byte/5330 The HD DVD sale was illegal in 3 states .

Well I got my HD-A2C from my local OKLAHOMA Walmart for only $98. Not as illegal as claimed.

[Boz]

So I guess you didn't hear the news that Paramount/Universal got a $150 000 000 payout to switch to HD DVD?

And you don't consider price cutting so much that manufacturers are taking a loss on each player sold to be an "immoral tactic"?

In fact, according to this http://www.cdrlabs.com/news/byte/5330 The HD DVD sale was illegal in 3 states .

Again friend, you are getting to much conspiracy information. THe fact is, yes, most likely there was an incentive for Paramount and Dreamworks to join HD DVD (they were HD DVD exclusive in the beginning right?), but this is not a PAYOFF. In business there's much more invested then $150million.

I mean you keep closing your eyes on comments made by numerous Toshiba, Dreamworks and Paramount and Microsoft representatives on this subject and the reasons why they chose what they chose. True, incentives have a lot to do with it, but they just have much less hassle with HD DVD and it costs them less. Simple. Sure, Toshiba they gave them incentives, marketing promotions, just the same way BDA did with Disney, and is doing with most likely Fox, not to mention payoffs for endcaps to Target, paying them to increase number of Blu-Ray titles offered in stores over HD DVD and Blockbuster behind the scene money.

Again, none of which has any relevence to the actual format. It's business.

As far as price cutting. Do you own shares or any type of revenue streams of these CE companies that it affects you? I disprove companies lying and using immoral tactics against consumers (which I'm one) and don't give a rats ass about their business models.

I know that this past friday, the only one who WON was the consumer as they got hi-definition magic with free movies for pretty much the same price they would pay an upscaling dvd player. What's bad about that. It's only bad for Blu-Ray fanboys because they can't stand the thought that they might've chosen a worse format so they go and actually lie to other people in order to push their own agenda, despite the fact that they actually UNDERSTAND that HD DVD is absolute blast and that the $99 deal is ridiculously awesome for consumers.

You see, it's very noticable that you care more about if Toshiba is losing money or how this affect Sony, then looking at your own benefit as a consumer. If it was only you, I wouldn't care, but people with you logic, supporting the other camp who obviously is trying to do everything to rip the consumer, are coming to all these sorts of conclusions that have really no baring on the consumer.

Funny how you go about it really.

[giantpotato]

The reason why I prefer Blu-Ray is because in the long run, it is the better format. I don't really care about which studios are siding with who today because all of that can, and will change. I don't care if players are dirt cheap today, I'm looking to the future. In the end one of the formats hopefully will win, and prices will drop no matter what format wins.

Blu-Ray is better simply because is supports a higher capacity and higher bitrate. HD DVD and Blu-Ray both support exactly the same codecs, you can take video encoded for HD DVD and slap it on a Blu-Ray. The opposite can be said as well, except if the bitrate is higher than the HD DVD specs, or if the video size is greater than 30GB. The Extended Edition of each LOTR is almost 4 hours long. That simply will not fit on a HD DVD, with a high bitrate and multiple audio tracks, and you can forget about lossles audio. I'd also prefer TV Series to be on the least amount of discs as possible.

And just so I cover all bases, IF HD DVD ever releases their 51GB dvd, it still won't support higher bitrates. And IF that ever happens Blu-Ray will likely release their 100GB disc.

When burners become commonplace I want a single disc format. I don't want HD DVD for movies, and Blu-Ray for use with a PC. Why would I choose the format with less capacity?

In the end Blu-Ray players will have all the same features, if not more than HD DVD, so arguing about players out right now is moot.

IMO Blu-Ray is the better choice in the long run, even if HD DVD is cheaper for consumers now.

[TruckWEB]

The reason why I prefer Blu-Ray is because in the long run, it is the better format. I don't care if players are dirt cheap today, I'm looking to the future. In the end one of the formats hopefully will win, and prices will drop no matter what format wins.

In the end Blu-Ray players will have all the same features, if not more than HD DVD, so arguing about players out right now is moot.

IMO Blu-Ray is the better choice in the long run, even if HD DVD is cheaper for consumers now.

You're logic is good only if you don't buy anything today and keep waiting for "the long run" to happen. But if you are the early adopter and buy today, you're buying something incomplete if you compare it to HD-DVD. You will need to wait for Profile 2.0 to have the same feature that HD-DVD has since day 1.

Blu-Ray have the higher disc capacity, true. But something else to think about, is a 100Gb Blu-Ray disc compatible with current player? The 51Gb HD-DVD disc is compatible with current player, so again, no problem.

As for the bitrate, from what I have experienced, movies in HD-DVD seems to look better than the same movie in Blu-Ray. Don't ask me why, but I find Blu-Ray movie to be grainy and less sharp.

So keep waiting, you're probably right, maybe Blu-Ray will win, but many early adopters will be burn in the process.

[giantpotato]

You're logic is good only if you don't buy anything today and keep waiting for "the long run" to happen. But if you are the early adopter and buy today, you're buying something incomplete if you compare it to HD-DVD. You will need to wait for Profile 2.0 to have the same feature that HD-DVD has since day 1.

Blu-Ray have the higher disc capacity, true. But something else to think about, is a 100Gb Blu-Ray disc compatible with current player? The 51Gb HD-DVD disc is compatible with current player, so again, no problem.

As for the bitrate, from what I have experienced, movies in HD-DVD seems to look better than the same movie in Blu-Ray. Don't ask me why, but I find Blu-Ray movie to be grainy and less sharp.

So keep waiting, you're probably right, maybe Blu-Ray will win, but many early adopters will be burn in the process.

Technically, I don't HAVE to wait since there are Blu-Ray players which currently support BD-Java, PiP, and Ethernet.

Yes, the 100GB disc will be compatible with current players with a firmware update.

Again, there's really no point in arguing about picture quality since both formats are capable of displaying the exact same video formats. You could take those HD DVD transfers, take the video and author it to a Blu-Ray.

The early adopters will only be burned if they care about special features, which many people do not care about. Also, the PS3 will most likely support many, if not all the advanced features of Blu-Ray.

[TruckWEB]

1) Technically, I don't HAVE to wait since there are Blu-Ray players which currently support BD-Java, PiP, and Ethernet.

2) Yes, the 100GB disc will be compatible with current players with a firmware update.

Again, there's really no point in arguing about picture quality since both formats are capable of displaying the exact same video formats. You could take those HD DVD transfers, take the video and author it to a Blu-Ray.

The early adopters will only be burned if they care about special features, which many people do not care about. Also, the PS3 will most likely support many, if not all the advanced features of Blu-Ray.

1) They do exist, but cost ALLOT more than current HD-DVD player. Why pay that much? But still, they are not Profile 2.0 since the spec is not out yet. So it's still unclear if they will comply. A firmware update will be required.

2) I did not see anything about this on the Web. Do you have a link to the 100Gb disc being compatible with current player? It's interesting...

The PS3 will MOST LIKELY, support Profile 1.2 or/and 2.0, but it's not sure. No guaranties was given by Sony.

I don't really care about extra feature, I almost never look at them. So I don't really care about HDi or BD-J. Still, I don't want to pay 5x more for the same thing.

[Boz]

The early adopters will only be burned if they care about special features, which many people do not care about.

Again, you see this the thing I have huge problems with. WHY should a consumer get burned AT ALL?

I mean, you are basically saying, you know, we don't often have flat tires on our cars, so it's ok if a new car comes with no spare tire? I'm drawing kind of a drastic comparison but it is exactly like that..

Bottom line is this.. there is nothing I can't watch and do on HD DVD that you can on Blu-Ray (not talking about studios) but there's OH SO much more that you simple don't have on Blu-Ray that I do have access on HD DVD. Simple.

And you are saying that it's ok for consumer to pay 3 times more in price for that and then needing to buy a new player that will actually SUPPORT "Bonus View" as they call, but in fact it's the feature that HD DVD has such as PiP, HDi advanced interactivity and a couple of other things EXCLUDING mandatory online access. For that, you will need to buy another player when Profile 2.0 comes out. That's absolutely ridiculous? And you just justify that how? By saying that Blu-Ray might have bigger storage and bitrate that we actually have no real use except for statistical whoring. No regular consumer can see differences between 25mbps bitrate on HD DVD and 40mbps bitrate on Blu-RAy for example. The proof is Nature's Journey which was encoded to the max on both formats. And it's not like Toshiba won't make bigger size HD DVDs. You are saying this as HD DVD will just stand still and Blu-Ray will grow by leaps and bounds. I mean come on. Can we be at least a bit objective here.

Also,

It is simply untrue that LOTR:Extended can't fit on HD DVD.. King Kong with IME and DD+ 1.5 sound fits just fine. King Kong was 3 hours and 13 minutes with DD+ 1.5 and had space left and it still is ABSOLUTE reference HD title. So I don't see this as a problem at all. Sure, they will supplement extra features and on the second disc but I don't see a problem with that. Same way with Transformers.

1) They do exist, but cost ALLOT more than current HD-DVD player. Why pay that much? But still, they are not Profile 2.0 since the spec is not out yet. So it's still unclear if they will comply. A firmware update will be required.

2) I did not see anything about this on the Web. Do you have a link to the 100Gb disc being compatible with current player? It's interesting...

The PS3 will MOST LIKELY, support Profile 1.2 or/and 2.0, but it's not sure. No guaranties was given by Sony.

I don't really care about extra feature, I almost never look at them. So I don't really care about HDi or BD-J. Still, I don't want to pay 5x more for the same thing.

PS3 might get a firmware update for Profile 1.1 but it will have more problems being Profile 2.0 due to lack of on-bard memory (hdd not counting) and some BD-Live features, this is why there's a rumor that PS3 40gb one might have been redone with the mainboard to be Profile 1.1/2.0 compatible and older ones won't. I don't know if it's true or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case considering BDA deadline for Profile 1.0 support that ended on Oct. 31st.

Edited November 6, 2007 by Boz

[ctebah]

HD-DVD needs better advertising. Wherever I turn i see sony and playstation 3 commercials. I mean I'm watching Champions League at the moment which is one of the most watched sports events in the world, if not events, and all I see are Sony Bravia and Playstation 3 boards. Not a single Toshiba or HD-dvd ones.

Pretty sad.

[giantpotato]

1) The proof is Nature's Journey which was encoded to the max on both formats. And it's not like Toshiba won't make bigger size HD DVDs. You are saying this as HD DVD will just stand still and Blu-Ray will grow by leaps and bounds. I mean come on. Can we be at least a bit objective here.

2) It is simply untrue that LOTR:Extended can't fit on HD DVD.. King Kong with IME and DD+ 1.5 sound fits just fine. King Kong was 3 hours and 13 minutes with DD+ 1.5 and had space left and it still is ABSOLUTE reference HD title. So I don't see this as a problem at all. Sure, they will supplement extra features and on the second disc but I don't see a problem with that. Same way with Transformers.

3)PS3 might get a firmware update for Profile 1.1 but it will have more problems being Profile 2.0 due to lack of on-bard memory (hdd not counting) and some BD-Live features, this is why there's a rumor that PS3 40gb one might have been redone with the mainboard to be Profile 1.1/2.0 compatible and older ones won't. I don't know if it's true or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case considering BDA deadline for Profile 1.0 support that ended on Oct. 31st.

1) I never said toshiba will not make bigger size discs. I clearly said Toshiba has a 51GB disc which is supposed to work in existing players. Blu-Ray has a 100GB disc which is supposed to work in existing players. These are working prototypes, there's no reason to think they will get any bigger, if they even mass produce 51GB and 100GB which I doubt they will.

2)I never said it can't fit on HD DVD. I said it can't fit on HD DVD with a high bitrate and multiple audio tracks. There is a big difference between 3:13 and 4:10 for the extended edition of LOTR Return of the king Extended edition. As you might have noticed King Kong has very little on the disk other than the movie. Do you really think they can cram an extra hour onto a HD DVD? The video is going to have to be at a very low bitrate for it to fit, and they won't be able to fit more than 1 audio track on it. Sure, it's possible, but quality will suffer.

3) this is just pure speculation on your part apart from the fact that Profile 1.0 ended Oct 31.

[Nick Sheldon]

and all I see are Sony Bravia and Playstation 3 boards.

Pretty sad.

Ai, desperate aren't they. :devil:

[Dazog]

So I guess you didn't hear the news that Paramount/Universal got a $150 000 000 payout to switch to HD DVD?

And you don't consider price cutting so much that manufacturers are taking a loss on each player sold to be an "immoral tactic"?

In fact, according to this http://www.cdrlabs.com/news/byte/5330 The HD DVD sale was illegal in 3 states .

Illegal in 3 states because of a law to protect lower priced goods, not Electronics.

Read the law before you start quoting a CD/DVD burning website as your source of news.

Just sad.

[Boz]

2)I never said it can't fit on HD DVD. I said it can't fit on HD DVD with a high bitrate and multiple audio tracks. There is a big difference between 3:13 and 4:10 for the extended edition of LOTR Return of the king Extended edition.

Again, Ben Waggoner a Microsoft compressionist who actually participated on the encoding for LOTR for EE as well say that they had no real problems fitting the extended version in VC1 with great bitrate + 7.1 TrueHD sound.

When asked about it:

Ben, when you guys tested the LOTR on one disc was the audio TrueHD 7.1? Also was it 16, 20, or 24bit?

He says they did it with 7.1 channel 20-bit 48 KHz

He also confirmed as this issue has been discussed to death on AVS Forum:

Is it possible to fit 250 minutes of HD material like LOTR ROTK with a TrueHD track onto a 30 gig HD DVD?

Yep, we discussed this at length a couple of months ago.

We could do the full 1080p24 feature with great-looking VC-1, a TrueHD lossless track, and all the commentary from the 2-disc DVD special edition, on the single side of a single disc.

If the extras were in HD, they'd need to be on a second disc.__________________

HD DVD and VC-1 Insider with Microsoft

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.ph...;postcount=3089

If you wish to debate the HD DVD size you can feel free to do it here as a lot of reputable people are discussing as well.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=771949

The whole high bitrate argument has been pushed by Sony and noone else. You don't need 40mbps bitrate to have a great picture. There are 5-star rating in PQ of HD DVD movies with 15mbps VC-1 encoding. So even if they do it at 20mbps VC1 it's going to look absolutely fabulous.

[Jme621]

So I guess you didn't hear the news that Paramount/Universal got a $150 000 000 payout to switch to HD DVD?

And you don't consider price cutting so much that manufacturers are taking a loss on each player sold to be an "immoral tactic"?

In fact, according to this http://www.cdrlabs.com/news/byte/5330 The HD DVD sale was illegal in 3 states .

Also, this price is not valid in Wisconsin, Oklahoma or Utah as it is illegal to sell items for less than cost in these states. According to the manager at my local Walmart, those that live in these states will be able to pick the player up for about $198.

doesnt say the sale was illegeal, just illegeal to sell for less than cost in those states. read before you post a source

edit: didnt see the other post saying same thing. oh well maybe he wont miss it this way.

[giantpotato]

Lets try some math.

30GB = 30 000 MB = 30 000 * 8 Mb = 240 000 Mb

4:10 = 250 minutes = 250 * 60seconds = 15 000s

Bitrate = Size/Length = 240 000/15 000 = 16Mbps

That is the Total bitrate for the video on the disc. You didn't post the bitrate for 20-bit 48KHz, so lets take the best case scenario and say 16-bit/48KHz sound at 1.9MBps.

That leaves 14Mbps for the video.

Now, This is the best possible case, assuming there is ONLY a single audio track encoded at the lowest eight-channel precision. And assuming there is absolutely NOTHING else on the disc, not even a menu, or anything else at all. Not a single other audio track. And this is completely ignoring any overhead which uses up space. There's no way it's going to look "absolutely fabulous" at 20mbps unless they split it to two discs.

[Huleboeren]

....

If you pay attention you would see that in fact HD DVD Group had VERY LITTLE press releases or comments during this war and in almost every case they have shown valid numbers, unlike BDA who has been flexing, bending, misreporting numbers and information (like suddenly market share is counted based on revenues instead of actual unit sales) etc etc.

...

Yeah, keeping your mouth shut is always easy

[ctebah]

I thought the whole number of Transformers hddvd's sold was in some sort of a doubt, prove me wrong, i don't got any proof but I just thought i read it somewhere.

Ai, desperate aren't they. :devil:

desparate because they're advertising? desparate so they're advertising?

which ever way you look at it, a company isn't DESPARATE for advertising their product.

[giantpotato]

The $99 players made up most of the 90,000 units sold, a source said.

Within three days, Toshiba corralled nearly as many sales as the best-selling stand-alone Blu-ray Disc player has sold since its launch. Sony?s dominant Blu-ray set-top, the $499 BDP-S300, has shipped about 100,000 since it bowed this summer.

However, the Blu-ray format still retains the largest overall installation base, due largely to the millions of PlayStation 3 hardware sold.

Source: http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6498141.html?nid=3511

If "mass adoptation"(sic) has begun for HD DVD, it looks like it began a while ago for Blu-Ray thanks to the PS3.

[HawkMan]

It's ot mass adoption if the majority of the users ownign yoru player don't know it plays BluRay movies and an even bigger percentage don't use it as one even when they do know.

Meanwhile people buy a HD-DVD player for a single reason only, to play HD-DVD movies.

[giantpotato]

It's ot mass adoption if the majority of the users ownign yoru player don't know it plays BluRay movies and an even bigger percentage don't use it as one even when they do know.

Meanwhile people buy a HD-DVD player for a single reason only, to play HD-DVD movies.

How sure are you of that? I'm pretty sure there are people who will use it as an upscaling DVD player, because at $99 that's a pretty decent price for an upscaling DVD player.

And this is just a personal theory of mine, but I'm pretty sure there are some consumers who just don't understand what HD DVD actually means. The name can be confusing to non tech-savvy people. It could be interpreted as a [HD DVD] [Player] or a [HD] [DVD Player]. My brother-in law asked me if his XBOX came with a HD DVD player. I assumed he knew what he was talking about. I said "no, you have to buy an add-on", I then explained that it does upscale regular DVD to High-Definition resolution using an algorithm and his response was "so it does come with a HD DVD player". I then went on to explain what the difference is. Don't don't assume most consumers are as educated about this subject as most tech-savvy people.

[Hupp]

considering the combined formats make up only about 5% of all dvd sales, all this bickering is pointless. Hd-dvd FTW ;)

[Boz]

Well all things aside, a brand spanking new Walmart Supercenter opened up today like 10 min walk from my house and I went to check it out..

Well you can imagine my surprise when the new store didn't carry Blu-Ray at all. No players, no software. Oh, there was Rattootouie as some package but that was the only thing and it was next to DVDs of the same cartoon.. it was like a disney section of dvds.

It seems that Walmart is phasing out Blu-Ray from stores. Btw, HD DVD movies were at $18.96

[TruckWEB]

It seems that Walmart is phasing out Blu-Ray from stores. Btw, HD DVD movies were at $18.96

Yes, because ONE (new) Walmart store not having Blu-Ray player and movies means that ALL stores are phasing out BR....

It's what I would call over generalisation....

[sundayx Veteran]

This is a post I made in another format debate, works pretty much wherever it is needed.

1. The naming contridiction is ambiguous. No matter what these 2 format is named, people will understand it as what it could do. The simple answer is High Definition Media per se.

2. HD-DVD won't be at this price level if it was not for competition. Nor would advertising and funding be at such a level if it was not for competition. Whether which format is doing in terms of awareness strategies, it is getting people to be more aware of their products to become competitive.

3. If people could dish out thousands of dollars for a HD system, they would not hesitate to dish out an additional amount to complete the system by any HD media source. The player is an integral part of the HD experience. Consoles and standalone media players are what users demand, not a symbol of winners or losers.

4. Whether either format can do in terms of capacity and codecs, these are just basis of arguments for fanboys and technical users that argue only by numbers. The HD experience itself would not differ in terms of immersive experience with either media.

5. Sony is not BR, and Microsoft is not HD-DVD. Some people are still getting misinformed and it is agonizing to misunderstand this specific point.

6. The cost of production will not have affect on adaptation. Whether the BR camp is costing more to product per unit, or HD-DVD is getting more profits per unit, the camps will continue their marketing of their products and continue to pursue market share. Studios adjust accordingly to market share and sales performance, above cost of production.

7. Neither camp will lose or win. The winners are the users. Eventually companies will realize this continuing and stalemate state of competition and adapt to both formats.

Just my 2 grand.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...#entry588977789

[TDQuiksilver]

Huh... with as many Wal-Mart stores as there are in this world I can't imagine ever thinking because one didn't carry a certain item that all of them would be "phasing out" the same product. Then again, all that is pictured is a small kiosk display... nothing more? Huh...

By that theory I could assume: Wal-Mart stores here are still carrying the Blu-ray media. They must be going exclusive to Blu-ray soon. Eh... eh?

The funny thing is one week in the weekend ads these megastores are promotiong one medium heavily and then the very next week it's the other.

sundayx... good post! (Y)