blue ray/hd

[rhaeckl]

what's your guys take on which way to go on buying a new DVD player, Blue-ray or HD?

thanks,

 

[j_garcia]

Maybe you could peruse through the many threads that are already active on the subject? Anywhere you go and ask this one, there will be a huge debate, but the fact is both look pretty much identical and feature wise they are more or less similar as well, with a slight advantage going to Blu-ray IMHO (which is why I chose BD for my first player).

Blu-ray, not Blue

 

[agarwalro]

I have yet to take the plunge as there is no clear winner. Since I will need to buy a 1080p display to take full advantage of the HD formats and a receiver that decodes the HD audio, its easy for me to stay out of the game for now.

I will get a PJ when I eventually upgrade. IMHO, it is in large sizes of images that the upgrade to 1080p will be justifiable.

 

[Exit]

You should look at the poll and thread discussion under "Are You Buying an HD-DVD This Christmas?" at Audioholics while it is still posted.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

what's your guys take on which way to go on buying a new DVD player, Blue-ray or HD?

thanks,

I think you should make a list of all the movies you would like to own or watch. Then see which format (s) those movies are in. If most of those movies are on blu-ray, then buy blu-ray & vice-versa.

For me, most of the movies I like are on blu-ray, so if I were to pick just one format, I would pick blu-ray.

The only movies I must have that are EXCLUSIVELY on HD DVD right now include Batman Begins, Matrix Trilogy, Bourne Trilogy (upcoming), and the upcoming Transformers.

 

[mtrycrafts]

what's your guys take on which way to go on buying a new DVD player, Blue-ray or HD?

thanks,

Buy a combi player during the christmas buying frenzy

 

[j_garcia]

Batman Begins is "scheduled" for BD release, though no date is given...so that isn't a guarantee that it will come out. I can live without The Matrix Trilogy and the Bourne trilogy.

A combo player isn't a bad idea if the price is right, but you can actually pick up one of each for the price of most of the current combo players.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Buy a combi player during the christmas buying frenzy

Get the 2nd Generation Combi player (LG or Samsung) for $1,000.
Or the 2nd Gen Toshiba HD DVD for $238 & 2nd Gen Sony BLU-RAY for $438 = $676.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Batman Begins is "scheduled" for BD release, though no date is given...so that isn't a guarantee that it will come out. I can live without The Matrix Trilogy and the Bourne trilogy.

A combo player isn't a bad idea if the price is right, but you can actually pick up one of each for the price of most of the current combo players.

I just saw Underworld & Underworld Evolution (AGAIN) on BD yesterday. The sound (& picture) is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. As I was watching, I thought to myself, "Thank God for Uncompressed LPCM & Blu-ray!"

 

[dobyblue]

Batman Begins is "scheduled" for BD release, though no date is given...so that isn't a guarantee that it will come out. I can live without The Matrix Trilogy and the Bourne trilogy.

A combo player isn't a bad idea if the price is right, but you can actually pick up one of each for the price of most of the current combo players.

I have a friend at Warner who mentioned that they were going to put Batman Begins out this Christmas, but with all the other biggies coming out from them (Oceans 11-13, Harry Potter 1-5, etc.) over the 4th quarter that it would be better timing to wait until next June to coincide with the release of The Dark Knight.

Matrix will be out once profile 1.1 players come out.

For me the decision was based on audio - I saw Blu-ray discs coming out with lossless audio and sometimes 24/48 as well.

To this day that has not changed - there are over three times as many titles on Blu-ray with lossless audio than HD DVD.

Current sales data

Japan Blu-ray 95:5
Europe - Blu-ray 80:20
USA - Blu-ray 66:34

If you haven't bought yet, wait until CES 2008 and see how the 4th Quarter figures play out, but I would not be surprised if Blu-ray dominates USA in Q4 the way it has everywhere else.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

For me the decision was based on audio - I saw Blu-ray discs coming out with lossless audio and sometimes 24/48 as well.

To this day that has not changed - there are over three times as many titles on Blu-ray with lossless audio than HD DVD.

Yeah, I agree. Most of my HD DVD titles are DD Plus. Most of my BD titles are LPCM.
The one exception is Superman Returns. On HDDVD, it is TrueHD.
However, on BD, it is PLAIN Dolby Digital!!!

 

[BMXTRIX]

The format war now has shaped up a bit since it began a couple of years back, yet many of the key issues remain the same.

1. Audio & Video quality is almost identical between formats. Blu-ray has more space and higher bandwidth, so it can technically look/sound a bit better, but this has resulted in VERY minor advantages in actual review scores. For all intents and purposes the movies themselves look/sound identical.

2. HD DVD is competing on price, price, and price. They have done an excellent job with this! But, this may have also cost them a great deal of CE manufacturer support. Right now, there is no other stand alone HD DVD only player on the market that isn't made by Toshiba. For anyone that talks about the 'monopoly' company in HD, think very long and hard about whether it comes from the Blu-ray side, or the HD DVD side.

3. Extras - Right now, HD DVD offers more next generation versatility with extra features. It is POSSIBLE for Blu-ray to deliver some of this, but the required Blu-ray Jave tools are simply not in place to make this easy for studios to do yet. At some point, it will be just a few mouse clicks to add a ton of Java functionality to Blu-ray titles and even more can be accomplished, but right now? HD DVD has the advantage.

4. Blu-ray has, and still does, have the support of far more of the CE industry. If Sony isn't your ticket, then Sharp, Philips, Samsung, Pioneer, and Panasonic all have players out there. Want more? Denon is coming along!

5. If Sony is your ticket, then the PS3 is astounding. Unlike the PS2 was with DVDs, the PS3 is delivering in spades for quality, performance, and reliability. It includes DVD upconverting that has been tested to rival that of some of the best DVD players on the market, and has a failure rate that matches world CE standards (about 3%). So, for the money, you get something that plays discs back, is fast, has great performance, and is likely to meet the standards requirement for Blu-ray 2.0. A very smart decision, especially if you like the occassional video game!

6. Studio support: Knock it about any way you like, but the majority of major studio support still holds an edge for Blu-ray. It has shrunk since the Paramount move (?$?$), but it still is solidly in favor of Blu-ray at this time.

Key words: At this time

If you are hesitant about the formats and value your money then it is going to be a judgement call into this holiday season. HD DVD will deliver the HD-A2 for just over $200.00. Blu-ray will deliver players for a bit over $400.00 and there are rumors of a $399 PS3 in time for the holidays.

I'm not at all sure that this holiday season is going to solve anything relating to a format war, and only some actions by some studios and the continued decline in pricing by CE manufacturers into 2008 is likely to give us some more direction. I think WB is likely to remain neutral for a bit, but Disney, Fox, and Universal could change their format preferences (to neutral or exclusve for the other side) at some point next year.

 

[agarwalro]

yet many of the key issues remain the same

Damn good arguments in favor of Blu-Ray. Thx.

Now can someone counter point for HD-DVD.

 

[dobyblue]

Yeah, I agree. Most of my HD DVD titles are DD Plus. Most of my BD titles are LPCM.
The one exception is Superman Returns. On HDDVD, it is TrueHD.
However, on BD, it is PLAIN Dolby Digital!!!

Not on my copy it isn't.



My Superman Returns has PCM and TrueHD. This is the version that will roll out to stores when current copies of the 640 Kbps Dolby Digital Blu-ray version run out. (You know, 640 Kbps Dolby Digital that somehow becomes Dolby Digital PLus on HD DVD even though it's the exact same 640 Kbps track on all Warner releases)

 

[dobyblue]

1. Audio & Video quality is almost identical between formats. Blu-ray has more space and higher bandwidth, so it can technically look/sound a bit better, but this has resulted in VERY minor advantages in actual review scores. For all intents and purposes the movies themselves look/sound identical.

This is the only thing I'd disagree with - although it's not the fault of the formats themselves, the Blu-ray discs do get a noticeably higher score on sound when you look at all the reviews.

Here's a comparison of over 1,000 reviews of both formats from 5 of the main review sites:

HDD 257HD/270BD, HTS 231HD/239BD, HTF 98HD/97BD, UD 150HD/133BD, Talk 288HD/298BD
09.28.07

[B]HD DVD	 PQ 	 SQ 	 TOTAL [/B]		[B]Blu-ray	 PQ 	 SQ 	 TOTAL [/B]
HighDef	 3.89 	 3.62 	 3.75 		HighDef	 3.97 	 3.83 	 3.90 
HTSpot	 3.94 	 3.86 	 3.90 		HTSpot	 4.07 	 4.27 	 4.17 
DVDTalk	 3.64 	 3.49 	 3.56 		DVDTalk	 3.67 	 3.72 	 3.70 
HTForum	 3.90 	 3.68 	 3.79 		HTForum	 4.28 	 4.07 	 4.18 
UpDisc	 3.98 	 3.80 	 3.89 		UpDisc	 4.03 	 4.12 	 4.07 
[B]Totals	 3.84 	 3.67 	 3.76 [/B]		[B]Totals	 3.94	 3.96 	 3.95 [/B]

 

[BMXTRIX]

Doby, we are talking about a .1 point difference on image qualty, a bit more on audio, but both are still excellent. You know I'm on your side as I am on HDD and Blu-ray.com

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

My Superman Returns has PCM and TrueHD. This is the version that will roll out to stores when current copies of the 640 Kbps Dolby Digital Blu-ray version run out. (You know, 640 Kbps Dolby Digital that somehow becomes Dolby Digital PLus on HD DVD even though it's the exact same 640 Kbps track on all Warner releases)

Holy cow, Batman!

That's just not fair!!!

Oh, well, I guess the TrueHD version on HD HDDVD will suffice.

Is it just me, or do all the sound formats sound extremely similar?

I tried to compare the DD & True HD on Superman Returns HDDVD & also compared them to the DD on the Superman Returns Blu-ray. I have the Toshiba HD-XA1 with the firmware 3.2 (latest update w/ TrueHD 5.1). I looked at two scenes: the opening scene where Krypton blows up and the shuttle/airplane in mid-air scene. I kept on flipping back and forth between TrueHD & regular DD. They sounded identical to each other and sounded identical to the DD on blu-ray.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

...the Blu-ray discs do get a noticeably higher score on sound when you look at all the reviews.

Here's a comparison of over 1,000 reviews of both formats from 5 of the main review site...

The problem is that none of them are double-blinded comparisons.

To be honest, I also think that blu-ray sounds better than HDDVD. In fact, I think plain DD on blu-ray sounds better than TrueHD on HDDVD.

But I don't have much ground to stand on because my comparisons are not double-blinded. They are very subjective.

The mention of UNCOMPRESSED AUDIO LPCM makes me automatically think that it will sound better than both TrueHD & DTS-MA. Totally biased. Very subjective.

I also did a little comparison with the movie "300" on blu-ray, comparing LPCM, TrueHD, & DD. I honestly cannot tell the difference among the three sound formats. But I will always choose the Uncompressed Audio LPCM when watching the movie! I'm thinking LPCM has to sound the best.

 

[Mike1234]

It's a CONSPIRACY...

"They" want us to buy BOTH!!!

 

[mtrycrafts]

Get the 2nd Generation Combi player (LG or Samsung) for $1,000.
Or the 2nd Gen Toshiba HD DVD for $238 & 2nd Gen Sony BLU-RAY for $438 = $676.

I think that a good 2nd gen Tosh is more expensive. Then, you have two components instead of 1 and another HDMI to contend with. Then, you need a modern receiver with multiple HDMI inputs.