Blu-Ray Disc or HD-DVD?

[Clint DeBoer]

Blu-Ray or HD-DVD? Which one do you think will win and why?

[Rob Babcock]

I'd really love to see Blu-Ray win out, but it's starting to look like HD-DVD. It sounds like they have more momentum and some key supporters.

Lets just hope that when rubber meets the road there's just ONE FORMAT.

[Khorn]

Looks like Blu-Ray has the edge. I hope that in this case the most technologically advanced system is adopted. HD is so far and away better than SD that I just can't wait for it to appear on DVD. I hope that we don't end up with a system hobbled by backward compatibility issues because SD dvd players have become a "commodity" of sorts specially in pricing. If we had to I think most of us could afford buying a High Definition only DVD player and keep our present ones for SD viewing if that's what it takes. I imagine though universal players will be readily available down the road a bit.

IMHO the main issue as to what system will prevail will be down to copy protection as that is the primary concern of the content providers. I would hope that "reasonably" priced High Definition DVD players (under $1000) will be available within a couple of years.

[Jamie]

Blu-Ray or HD-DVD? Which one do you think will win and why?

It has to be Blu-ray.
1. Theres more room on the disc.And its recordable.
2. Its using MPEG 2 and NOT mpeg(divx or xvid) cos they're rubbish
I have seen several sites saying mpeg4 is better than mpeg2
It may look good on a 19" PC monitor but on a 62" projector its
rubbish.
3. Its backed by the 7 of the main players in the market.
They even say its going to take longer to produce.
For a manufacturer to say its going to take longer bring to market
than lesser HD-DVD they must know their on to a winner.

[djoxygen]

The saddest thing about this whole HD situation, IMO, is that none of us will be able to compare apples to apples. Since the SW publishers appear to be lining up on one side or the other, we won't be able to watch "Return of the King" on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray side-by-side and pick which one is "best".

I like the idea of more space and less compression, but MPEG-4 can do a phenomenal job - much better than MPEG-2 if properly applied. Leaving out the resolution, even the best DVDs show some noise and posterization in places. We'll obviously get better resolution either way, but I'm not sure that color will be much improved with Blu-Ray, but the higher compression rate of HD-DVD probably won't help.

What might be the best is a Blu-Ray-sized hardware layer with MPEG-4 software, but we're not going to get that choice, are we.

[djoxygen]

What might be the best is a Blu-Ray-sized hardware layer with MPEG-4 software, but we're not going to get that choice, are we.

Mmmm... My hat sure is tasty!!

The current situation appears to be that MPEG2, MPEG4, and VC-1 are all being allowed on both HD-DVD and BD-ROM. While I believe that MPEG4 on BD-ROM is the optimal solution from the perspective of quality, having all 3 formats available on both platforms means (yay!) even more consumer confusion.

The practical effect of this is that hardware players of either flavor will be required to play back software encoded in any of the 3 compression schemes. Cool, except that now the marketing force of Microsoft (which owns VC-1) will almost certainly try to overwhelm the (lack of) marketing force of SMPTE (which "owns" MPEG) and try to establish VC-1 as the "standard" for high-definition video.

As one who works with video compression on a fairly regular basis, everything I've seen, read, and experienced with my own eyes points to MPEG4 being the superior codec. I hope that, at the very least, the studios and publishers will specify the coded on the packaging so I can avoid VC-1 movies.

[gottagame]

Alright, you all brought up valid points to guide your hi-def format choosing.

I just want to let you all know a few things. First, the difference in space between the two formats is about 45.7gb hd-dvd as opposed to ~51gb in blu-ray. That's not enough to sway the decision either way. You should also consider the fact that the protective layer on blu-ray is about .1 mm while hd-dvd is about .6 mm. This is really bad for gamers using the ps3 because many gamers dont take extra special care of their disks. Anyway, thats food for thought. I'm out.

[Jedi2016]

Blu-Ray.

1) More storage. The 45GB HD discs don't exist in production yet. And remember that while HD has three-layer discs in the lab, BD has eight-layer discs in their lab. The fact remains that a BD layer can hold more than half again what an HD layer can. 25GB/layer instead of HD's 15GB/layer.

2) Higher bitrate for video.. 54Mb/sec over HD's 36Mb/sec. That means higher quality. It'll work hand-in-hand with the higher capacity, to maintain a constant higher bitrate for movies.

3) More Hollywood support. Blu-Ray has pretty much everybody except Universal (for now, Universal will probably follow Paramount and WB and support both). HD-DVD has only three major studios, and two of those are also supporting BD.

4) The Playstation 3. People keep saying this isn't a big deal, but I look at it and I see millions of Blu-Ray players in people's homes practically by default. Like it or not, that's a HUGE advantage for BD. You know damn well that Sony's going to hype the hell out of it.. BD movies will have big stickers on them saying "Playable in PS3!!" so all those millions of households will know that they don't have to buy a separate player to watch them. Maybe it won't make a difference for people who aren't buying a PS3, but I am buying one. And I'd much rather get movies I can watch on a device that I already own, rather than spending another $500 or so on something else. Especially since I'm running out of connections on my reciever for digital audio.

gottagame - In addition to the storage thing I mentioned in point 1, you should remember that BD has a new type of protective layer than HD and DVD are using. Even though the surface is thinner, it will actually be more resistant to scratching than current DVDs are. And I, for one, take care of my games.

Oh, and don't forget the media... I seem to recall the latest report said something to the effect of "HD-DVD's Days are Numbered". The public reads those things, you know. While we may know more than the average consumer in regards to this sort of thing, they're still forming their own opinions based on what's in various newspapers and magazines.. and they're all saying the same thing.. that BD is superior to HD in every single category.

I honestly can't understand how anyone, especially on a forum like this one, could possibly support the lesser format.

[BMXTRIX]

BD will win for one reason:

PS3

Once you have a player in half of America's homes, then there is content just demanding to be made.

DVD took what - 5 years or something to reach a million homes?

When PS3 is released, it will, quite literally, take Blu-Ray Disc about ONE HOUR to be in a million homes.

The studios are seeing this already and are seeing the problems with HD-DVD and their failed pre-2006 launch. HD-DVD is setting themselves up to fail and even microsoft won't be able to save them.

[MACCA350]

Jedi2016 wrote:

1) More storage. The 45GB HD discs don't exist in production yet. And remember that while HD has three-layer discs in the lab, BD has eight-layer discs in their lab. The fact remains that a BD layer can hold more than half again what an HD layer can. 25GB/layer instead of HD's 15GB/layer.

Neither does Blue-Ray's 50gb. The've only been able to produce them in their lab

2) Higher bitrate for video.. 54Mb/sec over HD's 36Mb/sec. That means higher quality. It'll work hand-in-hand with the higher capacity, to maintain a constant higher bitrate for movies.

You think thats usefull for video? Consider this: with a 50GB disc running at 54MB/second you'll have 15 minutes of movie watching without sound And thats not the bitrate for video, those figures are for total data transfer speed (which will only ever be reached for things like data archiving in the computer enviroment and such)

With a 90min movie on 50GB the transfer rate will run 9.25MB/sec, and that includes audio and nothing else on the disc, far below either camps max transfer rates. So this point is useless.

Didn't they learn from the DVD-A v's SACD battle for supremacy Bring out two competing high quality formats, and NONE reign supreme, you just confuse the F..K out of the average joe so he buys neither!

cheers