Poll: If you had one choice, which format would you pick?

The best thing is that I can now rent blue ray movies from blockbustor and hollywood vidio Also A little birdy told me that h.d. players are going to sell for less than $200 this winter fine iall just plop the h.d. player on top of my pricy $1000 blue ray player stewee

I would not have a decision to make. BD is technically better (so was BETA), but Toshiba is pushing cheap HD players. It will all come down to sales. Once either format has the majority of players in the consumer's hands (and not just game consules), that format will become the standard. Low price is a very good incentive. If some Asian maker starts to dump $100 players on the market, that is what we will all be viewing.

Still waiting.

It's not affiliated with Sony.

I have not trusted Sony for a long time. They are either really good or really bad (or really out of touch with consumer needs, e.g. Beta). To be fair, I have a set of Sony DJ headphones that are the finest I have ever owned in their price range. But between my "high end" reel to reel tape player, my very expensive Beta, and several items with oddball batteries or memory sticks, I have become very wary. The root kit thing pretty much cemented my position. I have only had a few Toshiba products (PCs, radios, etc.), but they have always been rock solid and performed well. Plus, I like the idea of their format being basically an upgrade of the current (proven) standard, since I believe that this whole HD war will be moot in a couple of years when the next quantum leap in storage/bandwidth comes about.

See my post #88. After the root kit thing, I boycott anything Sony has had a hand in.

NO LONGER GIVE A CARE!!!


river.

I'D CHOOSE THE BEST FORMAT AFTER THIS DISGRACE ENDS!!!

yah i hate sony. they cheap you out. hd dvd way better.

You know what did Beta in? Porn. The porn industry adopted VHS because it was cheaper, and Sony wouldn't sell to them. Hmmm.... I don't know if y'all know this, but the porn industry makes more money than our basic theater movie industry. If they make more money, they must be spending more money. They will decide, not Fox, or Paramount, or Dreamworks... No, It will be Vivid. And guess what? I read that porn is going HD DVD!

The story about porn driving the video industry is widespread and meets the criteria of an Urban Legend (meaning that even if it isn't true, it ought to be, and it makes a great story). First of all, the idea that porn makes more money than the mainstream movie industry is patently absurd. How many billion dollar porn movies have there been?

And in answer to the VHS/Beta assertion, there were a lot of porn movies on Beta, so it seems that Sony WOULD sell (or more accurately LICENSE) to them.

I would request that you post a link to the references where you read that porn was "going HD DVD". I follow this issue closely and have heard no such thing in any of the trade publications or even the internet (blogs do not count, unless they are Toshiba or Sony executives by name)

You can find this information on this very website, CNET. Sony and Disney forbid their production plants to replicate anything for the porn industry (just type "PORN HD DVD" in your search bar (don't worry, it's not as hard as it seems)), and you will find plenty of resources on it (oh, and it's actually in writing). I don't have time to copy and paste this crap, and I don't get my information off of blogs and forums. PS the porn industry is a $12 BILLION dollar industry (also, just do a search on this site, and you will find this information) in the US. Yes, there was ONE "mainstream" movie that made over a billion (GROSS), and it was called Titanic. It hasn't happened since. Ask yourself why the "mainstream" movie industry is suffering. Ask yourself why the volume of films produced has decreased significantly over the past 6 years. Ask yourself why that isn't the case in the porn industry. Then ask yourself why you would throw out words like "urban legend" when you are completely wrong.

You know what? I have a website for you! Oh my god! I totally win! Go here: http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/index2006.php

That shows you the total revenue brought in by your "mainstream movie industry" last year... letsee... $9.2 billion. Good numbers! Buuuuuut, porn brought in $12 billion. You know what that spells? Doom for Bluray.

who the hell buys porn, your talking about the 80s, this is 2007, porno is the internet now, it will definitely not have the same impact

after so many statements that they would not ever support porn on the new format guess what i found ?
Blu-ray's comparisons with Betamax have proven unfounded, at least in the case of pornography. Because Sony is not only allowing pornography on Blu-ray, but they have begun offering resources and technical support to Japan's adult film industry.

The pornography industry in Japan is complicated, including restrictions on manufacturing pornographic discs that are outside of Sony's control. To get around this, Sony has sold a Taiwanese company the necessary equipment to copy thousands of DVDs at once in collaboration with Japanese studios.

Plus, during Japan's recent Adult Treasure Expo 2007, adult filmmakers said Sony had begun offering technical support?which was later confirmed by Sony PR, which stated that Sony would offer support to any filmmaker working on the format, no matter the industry they were part of.
hmmm maybe sony has blinked , well losing so many films in mainstream must have hurt so now they are getting realistic.

There have been a few movies released in Bluray, but the process was difficult (and Sony and Disney fought tooth and nail to make sure it didnt happen). Make things more expensive and more difficult (both things are found with Bluray, not HD DVD), and it's going to push them away from the porn industry, a very powerful industry.

Just because some of you download, that doesn't mean everybody does. Adult bookstores are still quite popular in the US.

Thanks,

Holla!

The first reference stated:

Porn Influence Overinflated
But not everyone believes the format war will be determined by the porn industry. Steve Duplessie, founder of research firm Enterprise Strategy Group, in Milford, Mass., said the porn industry's influence over the fate of VHS and the upcoming high-def DVD formats is overstated. Duplessie said VHS ultimately won over Betamax because Betamax was a proprietary format owned by Sony, while VHS was more open.

Seems to support my assertion. But what this really means is that there are many pundits out there that have varying theories. I guess the proof will be in the outcome and not in the rantings of adolescents who cherry-pick their references.

Fox news report backs this guys post, assuming Fox news is reliable, of course. Even recounts the Sony story of not pandering to porn. See
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,245638,00.html

Look up jenna haze blu-ray.

Also... not an easy sell. They had to jump through hoops to go there, and the production was still more expensive than on HD DVD...

At the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Vegas porn reps were going with Blu-Ray same with Japanese Porn!!! Maybe it will be you silver bullet and not Blu-Rays!! These are good links not fringe news outlet Washington Post and Mac World which is the same as PC World.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/05/02/pornhd/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028619

Regarding the earlier comment about the "porn" industry killing Beta, I don't think that's quite correct.

As far as I can remember it is because of Sony's refusal to licence out the technology. JVC (I beleive the inventor of VHS) certainly saw that move as Sony's biggest error.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

please please read anything on the specs of hd-dvd vs blu ray hd-dvd uses new tech. & blu ray use 7year old hardware please don't talk if u don't know what u guys r saying thanks in advance for not doing this anymore

BD is not technically better. They both use a blue laser, but with different pitches. I chose HD-DVD because of price mainly, but also I thought it had a better picture. I was lucky enough to get a Toshiba HD-A2 for $238 when it first came out. Not a problem ever with my unit. It will even do HD over Component. Toshiba automaticlly sends me disks with firmware upgrades. I love the quality of the picture and sound. My wife even thinks the picture is clearer than BD. Actually the sound on most HD-DVD's is better because it has certain mandatory requirements, whereas BD is optional. Plus HD-DVD has a upgrade path via ethernet. BD is pretty much what you get, unless you get the Play Station, which can be upgraded. Actually because of the codecs, most dual layer HD-DVD's are less than 1 hour difference than dual layer BD. Before the end of the year I will end up buying a new receiver that will be able to do most of the Dolby-HD sound. Onkyo has a model that is reasonable. When you see the numbers (HD-DVD 30g) vs. (BD 50g) dual layer one would think almost twice as much per disk. Actually BD dual layer DVD's with Mpeg2 hold less than HD-DVD's dual layer. Plus most people that I talk to with BD, their disks skip during a movie and start at the beginning again. That is because the pitch of the laser is smaller and every little smudge or scratch is going to cause problems. This is what I was told by Engineers that use blue lasers. The one thing that bothers me though is that certain movies I would like are only BD. If the all studios would release in both formats then there would be a single format decided by the consumer. I believe that would then be HD-DVD, because of price, picture, sound and upgrade potential. Remember Sony caused all the mess with CD & DVD -/+R trying to force upon the consumer their format so you would have to fill their pocketbooks only.

There is no noticable difference in quality, except for the fact that the extras from HD DVDs won't play in my LG Super Blu player. No lie. I have never had a movie skip back to the begining or skip at all for that matter. So I don't know who you're freinds are that have these problems but maybe they should learn the benefit of cleaning the smudges off of the disk before putting it in a player. Are they half ********?!? Unless you have a Dobly digital 7.1 those mandatory HD DVD audio codecs are useless, most BDs have "High Def" audio. (Dolby 7.1 isn't very practical for the average household because it is sooo expensive) What is practical is the super hard outer coating that protects BDs from scratches and fingerprints(hard coating was developed by NASA.) BD players also connect for upgrades via an eithernet connection there sparky. Did you know that the only reason Paramount and DreamWorks made the move is because Microsoft threw $100 million at them. Blu-Ray is killing HD DVD in sales 2-1 so microsoft buys back in with $100 million. Good Luck Microsoft, by the way, I have had the same exact problem with companies trying to force products on me... but it was Microsoft with Vista. You know in many ways Windows Vista is just like Windows Millenium Edition on crack.
Microsoft is still good though don't get me wrong they make good stuff once in a while.

with my Blu ray player, it skipped the movie back to the beginning, until one day it screwed up the player and did not work again. I blamed NETFLIX for that, and since my player did not have more than a week I took it back to Best Buy(where I bough it) and they replaced it without questions. Now, it works perfectly fine.

Blu-Ray has better storage capacities for single and double layer discs and just has better qualifications. I just hope prices come down because that's what this is all going to come down to.

there r hd-dvd that hold just as much storage space & also try reading cnet on which one uses new tech. & which one use 7 year old tech its blu ray they r to cheap to use new tech. so always do your homework b4 u say something thanks & have a great day

Are you saying HD-DVD has the same capacity as Blu-Ray? If so you're WRONG and you should try doing a little research before posting. HD-DVD may be a viable technology for now but what about in 5 years? The need for more data storage is only going to go up as color and video resolutions increase. You can by a $200 HD-DVD player now but plan on having to replace it with a new player in 3 to 5 years.
http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/19/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-state-of-the-s-union-s-division/

Well most people replace their players every 3-5 years anyway so it doesn't really matter if they buy a HD DVD player now.

FACT: Blu-ray has a special coating on the outer surface that is harder to scratch and fingerprint resistant (and when you do grub them up with your greasy fingers it is ok to wipe them of with any old t-shirt, beleive me I know.) FACT:Blu-ray is not exclusively Sony. HD-DVD has an excellent system, an excellent name, and expensive endorsments but that is all it has. They are already making bluray burners and although they cost $1000 now so did DVD burners at one point.(or close to that) 50GigaByte BDR-discs only cost $2.25 to produce, yet they have to sell them for about $25 right now, that price is sure to drop very quikly when major computer companies start pushing BDR drives.
I don't think we will see the end of this soon though. Sony has not really spent any money advertising... yet. The will be dropping 100 Million Dollars when the Super Bowl rolls around.
I did my homework... lots of it.