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General discussion

What's your take on the next-generation DVD format wars?

Mar 7, 2006 7:37AM PST

What's your take on the next-generation DVD format wars?

Blu-ray all the way (tell us why)
HD-DVD, that's for me! (tell us why)
Too early to tell; I'm waiting it out (tell us why)
Not interested (why not?)
What the heck are you talking about?

Discussion is locked

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Neither will catch on for years, so Blu-Ray
Mar 7, 2006 1:15PM PST

I have a great hi-def TV and I can see that hi-def broadcasts look better than my DVDs, but I'm not going to upgrade to blue laser discs until the content is widely available and close to as cheap as DVDs and the players are cheap also. That's going to take years (>5?), and by then I think that the blu-ray's technology advantage will count more than HD-DVDs faster time-to-market and lower cost.

Tony

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Sony will not allow itself to lose this one.
Mar 7, 2006 1:54PM PST

After the Betamax failure, Sony has a lot at stake. This time Sony owns so many media rights, they can easily ensure distribution of their media on their own format and rule the roost. This is a powerful argument for a, sadly, complicated and expensive (to the consumer) system. Now we need some clever people to come up with the universal reader-writer-HD-blue- wave-ray-DVD. Better still, would be something solid state like a 40GB SD card. It will happen, so I advise all to save your money for the near future developments.

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Next generation DVD
Mar 7, 2006 2:26PM PST

My choice will depend on
(a) compatibility with current DVD (i.e., Will you be able to play your current DVD's on the machine?
(b) If no whether I will be able to effectively transfer my inventory to the new format.
Makes no sense to jeopardize the current investment in videos if it can be avoided.

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HD dvd
Mar 7, 2006 2:31PM PST

I have read that the HD dvd will NOT have componant output so My tv will not work with any of them, so I have decided to just NEVER buy in to any of them...........let the greedy SOBs keep their new HD DVD.

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sony - betamax intellevision vs atari
Mar 7, 2006 2:35PM PST

Remembering the above two wars dates me: but if the past is future, I would bet on HDTV With VCRs and early video games the superior but more costly technology lost out to the less costly and poorer one because mass drives the market. Program suppliers went for numbers of customers. I'd bet that will happen again. Henry Ford was pretty smart

Dave Boyer

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Blu ray!!
Mar 7, 2006 2:36PM PST

You can fit more data into the same physical format.

Check out this link for instance!!

http://www.bell-labs.com/org/physicalsciences/projects/hdhds/6.html

I love technology and we should all do more for the companies who want to bring this next gen of data storage to our tables and work benches!!

If you cant see the benefit, you are as old as the AT style towers!!

Jump on, it's going to get good!!

EZPC5872@gmail.com

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Wait it out - it's beta vs. vhs all over again!!
Mar 7, 2006 2:40PM PST

In the tape wars, beta lost out, even though the video was visually superior. Reason - consumers wanted to be able to record a full length movie (2 hrs) in HQ, but could not. VHS won out.
At that time, those machines were expensive! Chose wrong and you were out some real cash. Same thing here. These machines are not your standard $40 dvd unit.
I suspect the public will decide once again by their ability to record (depends on what the manufactuers will cut loose with, along with quality. The customer will sacrifice a little on each side, but in the end, whoever puts the best package of quality and recording along with driving down the disc costs will win. Wait . . . and that might mean a couple of years.

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Both will fail!
Mar 7, 2006 2:50PM PST

I think the industry has totally blown the move to HDTV DVD. What with the format war and the issue of not being able to use either with older HDTV's (with only component inputs). Early adopters are getting screwed! Greed and egos got in the way of a potential gold mine for the industry!

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HD DVD for me
Mar 7, 2006 3:27PM PST

1.Sony will lost the war again ,similar to obsolete betamax,minidisc,Sony mavicas, Sony clie PDAs,Sony UMD and Sony memory stick to SD card.
2.Sony will produce HD DVD machines in 5 years time
3.In life better technology not always win ,it is the mass volume market,affordability and universal compatibility are the keys.
4.That reflected in Sony Lost ALL the wars including this one

min

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It all Depends......
Mar 7, 2006 4:23PM PST

The success of the Blu-Ray will mostly depend on whether Sony's Playstation 3 will be as great of a successor to it's predecessors. If the PS3 is successfull, the Blu-Ray will share the profits by "Hitch-Hiking" along with the PS3 to make it's way up the ladder. In the end, this all comes down to the public's acception of the PS3. I am also sceptical about the prce of the players, hearing that they are close to $1,000. If this is right, I don't have a clue why anybody will pay that much for an extra 10 GB of disc space. Now if the Blu-Ray discs were industructible, then that would be a different story.

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DVD Wars
Mar 7, 2006 5:02PM PST

I too went through the confusing times of VHS v BetaMax. What made it worse was that the the inferior product won. BetaMax tapes had a smaller format and the quality of play-back was better. We have suffered decades of poor quality recorded films because of that war I can only hope they get it right this time.

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Blue-Ray
Mar 7, 2006 5:39PM PST

Most recording programs are already putting out updates for the blue-ray technology. Thus that tells me that even though it might cost more, you will better satisfied with its direct results when it comes to recording movies and music.

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HD DVD vs BLU-RAY
Mar 7, 2006 6:20PM PST

The way I see it this move is firmly rooted in the anti-piracy drive and digital rights management with little to offer the consumer in the short term.

Sony has recently burn't its fingers around DRM issues and it seems the new format will be entrenching this type of evil with lots of spare space for DRM software utilities and elaborate protection schemes. And you can be sure the recording speeds will be throttled severely to discourage copying and "back-ups".

DVD movie rental shops will likely be slow to adopt the new formats as all their clients own DVD players and at introduction price premiums the dual layer DVD will surely be around for the foreseeable future.

For the home consumer it will only be viable for data back-up when the media price for blank discs of the new format work out at less per GB of data to be stored.

Strangely enough, the 3.5 inch floppy diskettes are still selling well ... strange when you consider one CDR or RW holds about 500 times the data at a quarter of the cost of a single 1.44 and a DVD+-R or RW holds over 2000 times the data at less than half the cost of a blank 1.44

Go figure ... there just is no logic at the end of the day.

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HD will be the Standard, for the simplest reasons.
Mar 7, 2006 7:48PM PST

First and foremost importantly I beleive HDDVD will be the standard as everyone has the new TV standard as HDTV so naturally people will think HDDVD players will be the perfect companion for their TV's.

Thanks to Sony's PS2 DVD integrated smoothly into peoples homes. But i have to admit the DVD drive on the PS2 is probably the worst quality on I've every seen!(Xbox version was far superior).

Secondly i doubt having a BlueRay drive in the PS3 will be enough to force BlueRay to be the standard.
I doubt that Sony will even ship the first models of the PS3 with BlueRay drives due to the fact that they will cost Sony approx $300 per drive!

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Blur Ray will win win out
Mar 7, 2006 7:50PM PST

I predict Blu Ray will win out for the simple reason that Sony will support it in the Playstation 3.

The dominance of the Playstation brand will mean millions of homes will have Blu Ray.

The only way this might be avoided is if the PS3 bombs. But plainly, such an outcome is highly unlikely.

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BLueRay...But what about the huge costs?
Mar 7, 2006 8:02PM PST

I'm not sure if Sony PS3 will do what the PS2 done for the DVD.
First lets look at why the PS2 impact was possible for DVD...because before that we had VHS! and the launch of the DVD was a united attempt, everyone backed it and there was no competition.
This time round (with BlueRay) the drives cost allot, Sony is expected to pay approx $300 per drive for the launch models. And even after that producing BlueRay disc's cost more than HD-DVD disc's.
Finally only the entertainment industry and half of the Hollywood studios are backing BlueRay whereas the IT world (Tosh, MS etc) are backing its competition, HD-DVD.
So i would think the PS3 wont make a huge impact for BlueRay due to the fact that the BlueRay drives will cost more plus the BlueRay dvd films will cost more.
For the extra cost your getting more storage...however we will probably not need that much room anyway.
HD-DVD is perfectly capable to present 720i films at a cheaper price than B-Ray and i for one, aint willing to pay extra for something i will never use/realise i have.

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Blu-Ray will NOT go away...
Mar 7, 2006 8:12PM PST

As a few other messages have indicated, Blu-Ray will not go away if simply due to PS3. People already seem to forget that one of the reasons DVD exploded so quickly was that every new PS2 console allowed you to watch DVD movies. PS3 can and likely will have the same effect for Blu-Ray...

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What the heck ru talking about or who cares.....
Mar 7, 2006 8:31PM PST

Can't even keep up anymore with tech stuff. Have tivo and DVD recorder, and VCR. Saving stuff, never get a chance to watch recodings yet keep recording and storing recordings. Is this crazy or what.


Call me overwhelmed.

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I am waiting for HVD 1024GB
Mar 7, 2006 8:44PM PST

Blu-ray and HD-DVD both are just a small step above current DVD, while HVD Holographic video disk using buu-ray indexing will hold the contents of the Blu-ray disk And the HD-DVD disk together and still have room for the complete works of the Gutenberg Press (exageration? well maybe a little but not much)

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waiting it out
Mar 7, 2006 9:22PM PST

I was too was burned in the Beta-HS wars and ended up throwing out a LOT of Beta tapes, with some 'purchased' movies. I still say Beta was better, but what do I know, right!
So I will wait it out for the final test results to come in.

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Burned by Betamax
May 22, 2006 12:42AM PDT

I got burned as well, and you are right Sony was the better quality format, just not good enough so the average consumer could tell the difference. Higher capacity VHS won out. Many have pointed to Blueray's higher capacity as the main reason it will prevail. During the VHS Beta war people could actually copy content, imagine that. I don't think that?s what they have in mind this time. If 1080I and 1080P look the same on your HDTV the more affordable format has the advantage.

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HD-DVD/Blu-ray - not interested
Mar 7, 2006 9:27PM PST

Hey, if you already have a good DVD player (progressive scan) and a good TV (DLP), why get caught up in the frenzy. My system is as close to HD as you can get without spending big bucks trying to stay on the cutting edge. Guess what, you will never be state-of-the-art with your home theatre system. Marketing geru's have a knack for timely releases to keep you electronics obsolete. Build yourself a good system and don't worry about keeping pace with the those money grubbing suits and their planned obsolence of your system.

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It's all in the name!
Mar 7, 2006 9:31PM PST

My personal feeling is that I would be more likely to buy something called an HD-dvd, because I have an HD tv, and that product has the letters H and D in it. As for bluray that just sound silly and weird.

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It's not about superior technology
Mar 7, 2006 9:38PM PST

I'm not sure which format will take over the market. Clearly, Blu-ray is the superior format, but if you remember back to Betamax that was probably also the superior format.

Betamax fell and fell hard because Sony kept it as a proprietary format. This is not unlike PCs eclipsing the computer market with Windows 3.1 at a time when Apple had a more advanced OS.

If Blu-ray is too expensive, has limited equipment, and Sony keeps the technology to itself other companies will jump to HD-DVD and this will be the new standard. If, on the other hand, Sony allows others to license the technology in a way that is not overly expensive, Blu-ray will take the lead.

We are all interesed in new and more advanced technology. But if the differences are not so vast and price is an issue, cheaper will trump cool-tech every time. If Blu-ray remains too expensive and proprietary, it may well be used by high-end users, people in the tech world, and businesses. However, the average consumer (e.g. the computer users, gamers, movie buying population) will go for the bottom line every time.

I'll watch and wait for now...

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Do we really need another format?
Mar 7, 2006 9:53PM PST

I personally have no intention in buying either. I'm perfectly happy with the quality and performance of DVD. And after building an extensive movie library I see no need to replace over 400 DVD?s. 1 last point, no matter how high the resolution is the resolution of the eyes have a fixed limitation, and I?ve seen hdtv next to standard TV?s and from more than 10 feet I cant tell any difference. As is often the case the hype doesn?t live up to reality.

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HD-DVD all the way!
Mar 7, 2006 10:32PM PST

Sony was the one that made the Beta-Max. VHS proved to be cheaper and versitile. Sony is at it again. HD-DVD will win out because Sony is in it for the money while Toshiba and others are in it to win the long race. The only fly in the ointment is that Sony owns all those movies and studios.

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Content is king!
Mar 7, 2006 10:38PM PST

I believe both technologies are capable, but the content available on each format will ultimately decide a winner. Blu-ray has the edge here as Sony has a massive library including MGM that it will not be releasing on HD-DVD. Most of the studios supporting HD-DVD have also announced support for Blu-ray. Add to this the fact that the PS3 will come with a Blu-ray drive and Blu-ray seems to have a clear edge regardless of HD-DVD's initial cost advantage (this advantage should nearly disappear as Blu-ray get its footing and economies of scale).

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The next competing format(s) for video require too much!
Mar 7, 2006 10:48PM PST

The Blue-ray versus HD-DVD competing formats for video require too much expediture of money, as far as I'm concerned. From what I read the players will require electronics that have HDMI inputs.
I'm sorry but I'm not willing to scrap my present plasma tv or my front projection home theater equipment because they won't connect to the new age video player(s).
Further, it would appear that any content you want to view would have to be purchased since you won't be able to record any over the air HDTV or satellite content thanks to HDMI broadcast flag and the HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)of the disc.
True, the promised 1080 format would be nice but with all the inherent restrictions I'll stick with the 480 format and my existing electronics!

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New Format
Mar 7, 2006 11:55PM PST

I'm going to wait and see what the market place
does with the new equipment. They will decide
what the market does and needs. They will in a
sense establish the de-facto standard and become
the common place application. Then I'll look at
my ongoing requirements and decide if it fits my
needs or could even create a new level of storage
unheard of before. Before that happens, I'll need
to see another generation of processors that can
handle and utilize that kind of potential.

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Falling in their WRAP.
Mar 8, 2006 12:51AM PST

Well, everyone is exited to find out how this Formats WAR is going to be, wel what I think is the only loosers will be us, expending a bunch of money for the players, and the TV that your are going to watch, and the amount of money to BUY a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc, and remember the bunch of DRM and rootkits that will come IN, well if that what you want, tha's what you will get. Thanks