Blu-Ray Vs. HD DVD - The Polite Debate..

Prices are going to make a big difference in the success of the two formats i think. Personally i dont see the need yet for either format as dvd5 and dvd9 can hold an awesome amount of data as it is. Obviously though the world evolves and everything in turn must be upgraded and improved upon. Ultimately i think blu-ray will prevail as i think this will have more support than hd-dvd even though the price of it will be much more.

 

I dont have a hi-def tv, so i (like millions of other people) dont see the need for a new type of media. as long as the next gen players (both blu and hd) make it compatabile with dvds ill be happy when i buy one for 100 bucks 10 years from now.

 

Yeah good point. Hopefully we wont have to wait that long for the prices to reduce.

 

While much is being made of the storage difference between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, there is also the higher data rate available with Blu-Ray. I am a homebrew HDTV viewer, having created my first system out of a hand-me-down comaq computer and MyHDTV card. I now have an ATI All-In-Wonder based system as well as a cable HDV-PVR. My preferred means of viewing is with my NEC 135LC projector on an 8-foot wide screen. All of this is to say I am in a position to evaluate the potential advantages of either system.

First the bad news for HDTV fan boys like myself. Most people can barely see the difference between DVD and HDTV at least on sets with less than a 4-foot diagonal. In many ways HDTV is overkill and a system that is robust and slightly higher in quality than DVD would probably have served the public better. Despite promises about the quality and robustness of HDTV signals it just drops out too often and too annoyingly in cases where an analog system would just have experienced some temporary degradation of quality but still been viewable or a least listenable until the interference passed.

My point -- probably 80 to 90 percent of people even if they had a high end system like mine would be unable to tell the difference between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, thus is HD really is cheaper it might catch on.

Of course one reason (other than price) that VHS beat Beta was the time of recording with a standard tape -- 6 hours versus 4 and 1/2, should prices be similar -- advantage Blu-Ray.

It is often the case that fast moving imagery or moving fog or flashing lights, will require too many pixels to be changed for the 19mbit stream that is standard OTA HDTV or Cable HDTV to keep up -- when this happens mpeg artifacts will wash across the screen. With the better codecs both systems employ, both should be able to keep this situation to a minimum, but Blu-Ray more so (Blu-ray:40mbps HD-DVD:36.5mbps OTA:25mbs). Even more promising in my opinion is that Blu-Ray will have more than enough headroom (more storage wise than bandwidth wise) to do true 1080p at 60fps. My point? Far less motion blur. A well shot HDTV action sequence would probably appear better on a high-end HDTV system than even the best of theaters with 24fps. Theoretically 35mm film should have about 10 mega-pixels, in actuality most films probably do well to do 3-4 mega-pixels after processing, and less than the 2 mega pixels of HDTV in crappy cineplexes (my system looks better on most HDTV content than the local theater). Pixels aside, as mentioned before many people can't really see the difference between 1 mega-pixel (720p) and 2 mega-pixel (1080i or p). But they probably can discern the much more fluid motion of 60fps, which is why FOX chose 720p at 60fps for its standard, which while less than ideal for movies, should be superior for sports.

If Blu-Ray hyped a true 1080p at 60fps enhanced reality experience similar to the 60fps of IMAX and released dozens of IMAX movies from the available IMAX library quickly they just might capture the early adopter audience needed to survive.

In the longer run things look even better for Blu-Ray, not so much for over the counter sale of movies, but for as a storage medium for downloadable HDTV content. Future systems may have 4-8 layers making for as much as 200gig per side.

I'm personally pulling for Blu-Ray and plan on buying as soon as a player/recorder can be dropped into my current setup at about a $500 price point. This isn't really too much to ask as my computer and video board can do all the heavy lifting on decoding and creating a picture from the bit stream. Standalone players will probably be introduced at $2000.

Ahhh, but there is a dark side to both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray -- their content protection measures will require a special HDMI connector to be viewable wtih your HDTV monitor or else be auto down converted to 480p -- truly unacceptable with a system like mine. Thousands (millions?) of early adopter HDTV viewers or people using computer monitors for HDTV viewing may be screwed (HDMI only widely available the last six months or so). Fortunately I know that HDMI to RGB or component adapters are available. Component video can be captured and re-encoded which is why the movie studios want to plug this hole. But given there are reasonably easy work around available to the tech savvy, I don't see what they are doing other than ticking off their potential buyers and giving a motivation for people who might not have been tempted to pirate in the past to pirate in the future.

Well this has certainly become the long rambling reply. As you can see I am watching these developments closely.

 

What about HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc)? Supposedly that can store 1 Terabyte of data. Is that related to Blue Ray and HD-DVD or is it something different?

Also, I agree with most of what dumbswede said especially the stuff about noticing the difference in Quality. I wonder if it will be like the difference in picture quality of Digital cameras. I noticed that 1.2 MP shots are much, much better than 5 MP shots due to the excess of information on the 5 MP. High Def is probably made for (displays best at) 120" screens and larger.

Also, it seems like everyone is so concerned with Copyright Protection, that everything is going to cost a fortune.

I am not worried about it anyways. Most of the movies that come out are crap anyways and High Def is not going to make a difference with older movies except maybe for sound, though DVD would also improve this.

So far I am disapponted with High Def. All it is to me is high Contrast with unnaturally vibrant colors. There is also too much video noise even on a high end Pioneer Elite or Bang & Olufson display. I would imagine the same would be true for next gen DVD. I will hang on to current DVD as long as I can. I would imagine that it will never become fully obsolete as most movies will still be made for DVD.

 

Technology in this world today, boy how things changes.

 

Blue-Ray vs HD-DVD is identical to the Beta vs VHS wars. The winning format will not necessarly be the highest quality, most storage or best format. History shows us that. Beta picture quality was and is clearly superior to VHS but only Sony pushed this format while 11 other maufacturers went with VHS so it lost out.

(However every Broadcast TV station, News outfit, and Independent photog on location in the world, used only BETACAM video cameras to record everything that you ever saw on TV because of PICTURE QUALITY!)

I would expect the same could happen with the Blue-Ray vs HD-DVD wars of today. BOB

 

Everyone: Regarding resolution (720p vs 1080i/p).

Until only recently, only the best 9" CRT based projectors (Accurate Inaging 9, Reference 9X, Sony G90, Ampro 4300, Runco 1100,) could even resolve all 2,100,000 pixels in a 1080p HDTV image.

My Sony G90 (and dumpswede's NEC 135LC) for example will both do 2500 x 2000 or 5,000,000 pixels which is over 2000 lines of horizontal resolution or double HDTV resolution.

Now you have the JVC D-ILA (LCOS) and Sony SXRD (LCOS) front projectors and the Sony 006 rear projector for $10,000 that will do full 1080P!

It is likely that very few, if anyone, in this forum has seen a directly connected 1080p source on a properly calibrated 1080P projector (CRT, D-ILA, SXRD), shooting on a Stewart StudioTek 130 or Eq. screen, in a darkened room.

Therefore most people have no frame of reference as to what 1080p even looks like! Once you have seen it, you will never want to go back...PERIOD (Also 1080p wipes out the 720p vs 1080i debate)

Run, dont walk, to an independent audio/video store and ask for a properly set-up demo of 1080 HDTV. Then you will know!

By the way, Nice projector dumbswede. BOB

 

Its called HDCP

HDCP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP

Both DVI (DVI-HDCP) and HDMI (HDMI-HDCP) are HDCP compatible.

HD-DVD/Blue-Ray Faq:
http://www.bitburners.com/High_Definition_DVD_FAQ/

Ced

 

Has anyone but me noticed that any new format Sony supports seems to go down the drain. First there was beta, as bob mentioned. How many people have an old Minidisc player lying around, that you barely used. UMDs are only surviving bevause of the PSP games, but I think that movies will stop being made on UMDs. So, how will blu-ray fair??

 

Well, to me a major issue on acceptance of either standard will be consumer experience. Most of us on afterdawn.com are advanced computer users and as a result tend to interact more than a little with movies and media via those computers. Since HD-DVD is allowing a form of access where by movies can be stored on a network server and distributed through the house it is very attractive. Where as Blu-Ray is seriously limited in this regard as use of the movie is limited to the disk period. Now we all know that ways and means will be developed for us to backup our legally owned disks. However the complexity and versatility of those extractions may make HD-DVD a more viable format for us tech people. It may also have an effect on the first adopter crowd since many of them have expensive home entertainment setups that run off of a video server.

 

i have to put in my 2centz, i dont like the idea of either being introduced, i think it is a pile of bullsh*t that they are f*cking with what works already...

if either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD hits the fan, none of what we got, will be useful anymore, everything will change...
sure as they are slowly but surely introduced, they will make the DVD disc as a form of video transportation obsolete...

i wish they would just leave things the way they are...

 

dude, you know what i mean...

we all knew that gaming was only going to improve, but right now, DVD is at the peak quality for digital media, i do not see how it can be improved...

PS: Lethal_B would you mind either, resizing your sig, or reducing its file size because for people like me with dial-up it can take a fair while to load... Thank you...

 

DVD isn't doing to become obsolete anytime soon. If anything the amature movie making crowd will find it easier to burn HD content to DVD via Divx or AVC than BD or HD-DVD discs. Plus DVD will become cheap and be the most adventageous optical storage medium. I don't think any of this stuff makes since to people anyway.

1) Most people don't have any HD television.

2) The people that do have HD tvs normally don't have it connected to a digital source to maximize video quality.

Ced

 

Yes, Y do you ask?