HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray
Posted November 9th, 2007 @ 10:08am by Erik J. Barzeski
Recently - and I'm rather ticked I missed out on it - both Wal-Mart and Best Buy offered a Toshiba (the HD-A2 I believe) HD-DVD player for $99. It came with a few free movies, too.
I'd have bought one to replace my one-year-old upconverting DVD player. After all, the Toshiba did up-converting, had HDMI and optical output, and could play HD-DVD discs.
I've read recently that, though Blu-Ray enjoys about a 2:1 lead in discs (they have four major studios signed up, while HD-DVD has two), not counting PS3s, HD-DVD has a lead in the number of players on the market - largely due to the 90,000 or so sold over two days a week ago at the $99 price.
The cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market still costs about $499, and the cheapest HD-DVD player about $199 to $249. All that in mind, I ask the following question(s):
P.S. I believe a lot of people are simply sitting back and waiting, kind of like me, to see which format "wins" before we begin buying things. But at $99, I'd have done it just to get the occasional NetFlix movie in HD-DVD format.
Donate Life
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 10:19am #
HD DVD had discs from 3 major studios - Universal, Paramount and Warner.
Blu-Ray had discs from Sony, Fox, Disney and Warner.
Paramount used to produce discs on both formats, but switched to HD DVD exclusive this fall.
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 10:27am #
[quote comment="44252"]HD DVD had discs from 3 major studios - Universal, Paramount and Warner. Blu-Ray had discs from Sony, Fox, Disney and Warner.[/quote]
Yes, that may be true. I had recalled this:
You have Warner in both.
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 10:57am #
I went over Friday morning, but they were already sold out. I don't currently have an upconverting player so I would have bought one for that, as well as the occasional HD-DVD from Netflix.
At full price, I may wait it out a little longer. I want to upgrade to TiVo HD, but the whole SDV nonsense makes me wonder whether that is a wise purchase right now. Not being able to pause live HD shows is terrible though…
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 11:03am #
[quote comment="44254"]I went over Friday morning, but they were already sold out.[/quote]
I'm fortunate to live in Erie, PA… Fortunate in the sense that sometimes people aren't too keen on technology and I probably would have had a better chance of walking out with one even at noon or in the early afternoon. 🙂
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 11:15am #
How about a "don't really care -- just sitting back and watching the outcome" option? 😉
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 4:06pm #
Jim: I have a Series 3 Tivo, and it's great. I've heard about some problems with Tivo HD, but the recent software updates have apparently made it nearly the same as the Series 3. (But it still has a few problems, such as slower network transfer rates.) SDV is a problem now with some cable providers.. but the cable industry is apparently developing an external box (which would connect to your cable and to the Tivo's USB port) to deal with it.
Back to the topic of this post:
I own a PS3, so naturally I'm leaning towards Blu-Ray, simply because I don't want to have to buy a separate HD-DVD player. But I don't plan to buy any Blu-ray discs anytime soon.. I think it will be a long time (2-3 years) before we know who will win. I don't know whether either will ever actually win.. I imagine we'll see hybrid players in a few years. (Current license agreements may prohibit it, but they'll be desperate for sales in a few years, and probably eventually allow it.)
I barely buy any DVDs anyway (I only have around three movies, and just 3 TV shows: Dead Like Me, Twin Peaks, and Doctor Who) so I don't see any need to buy any HD discs yet.
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 4:42pm #
I'm with Robin. I was looking for the "who cares" option.
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 11:47pm #
Count my "who cares?" vote, too.
Posted 10 Nov 2007 at 5:30am #
I don't really care much about the disc formats, either. I'm hoping that a whole other means of distribution becomes the norm before too long. All of my discs just get ripped to H.264 and then shelved, anyway. Sure HD is nice but not having to deal with any discs makes compression worth it to me. No one else is ever able to tell, anyway.
I've got a Drobo to hold my massive collection, and a few AppleTVs for easy access. There's not a single DVD player in my apartment, except for the Macs.