The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Wars (maybe) over!
 

A 'hybrid' disk being compatible with both Blu-Ray players and HD-DVD players is being made by Time Warner, while LG is making a 'hybrid' player that can read both formats.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5565

The whole movie industry is going crazy with this format war. Some do HD-DVD, some Blue-Ray, many of them do both.

YAY!

I hated Sony and Toshiba for being so arrogant and not working with eachother to make ONE FORMAT.

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I just read about this on the BBC in connection with the Consumer Electronics Show, which starts today: "...LG is to announce a DVD player which can play both formats."
That’s when I noticed ThreeDee’s thread.

It’s about time! And I’m glad I’ve been holding off on investing in an HD home entertainment system.

By the way, in terms of HD, I want a pixel resolution (per inch, mind you!) equivalent to my that of my laptop. The HD TVs that I have seen are not impressive. Not yet...

Perhaps an HD projector, coupled with Apple’s coming iTV, is the solution?

A quote from Martin Lynch, editor of Gizmodo:

"After all, why spend £1,300 on a skinny TV with a 42in screen when the same money will get you a glorious 15ft image? One of the best looking products this year was the InFocus IN76 Play Big HD projector..."

The only problem is, what if both formats fail?

Well, elsewhere I have expressed the notion that HD really isn’t high definition enough. If you can see the pixels from 4-6 feet away, which I can, then I seriously question the appropriateness of this term.

Or am I way off base here?

What I would love to have is an HD projector, with the producer guaranteeing that they will provide reasonably priced "resolution chips". In other words, the projected pixel resolution on the film canvas would keep pace with the changing technology – and whatever player I should choose to plug into it.

Wouldn’t it be great if iTV doubled as a DVD player that took all formats? Ah, I guess that’s a different animal altogether...

You are way off base. I still can't imagine what demo you have seen that would leave you unimpressed with HD.

I've now watched HD and Blu-ray side by side with satellite HD and SD. There's certainly no comparison between SD and the others. All the HD formats are excellent and in my opinion, equal to each other.

The projectors are nice, but to get a real HD projector costs around $8k or more. I just checked out LCD and Plasma HD sets, and was surprised at how cheap they have become, while still looking stunning.

Here's another thought... HD's copy protection has now been cracked. I say that gives it an edge in consumer acceptance and sales.

My thought is this: Whoever gives up DRM, wins the war.

Blow number two has been delivered against Sony, who apparently has not learned their lesson from Betamax: They have once again banned porn from their format. Whatever your view on porn, it is undisputed that porn production on VHS was a huge part of it winning that war. Sony would not license Betamax for any adult content.

And yet I see movies being delivered in Blu Ray and PSP formats, still.

I wonder why movie companies are taking sides in this war. They'll end up losing tons of money over it.

I encourage the consumers to just boycott all these formats. Seriously. In this war, everyone loses.

Now wait, this means that I could burn either a PS3 game, or an XB360 game on one disk. No need to specific disk types anymore. (I'm a huge gamer)

My invention still pwns that. It's to make a disk that can be fed all information by a computer wirelessly. Like one of those tapes with the audio jack wire you can put in a car with a tape player for a DVD on the road, except for a disk that can be any format wanted. Too bad it wont ever be made.

Anyways, back to the the HD-DVD Blu-ray compatible disk thing. That's almost like solving the need for a Universal File System! Which is still at desperate need of a solution.

Apologies if this is too off topic but I'm just wondering if the hd disk formats are more susceptible to scratches corrupting the data?

Probably, the new players use a 'smaller' blue-ish laser to read the data. Because red lasers were 'bigger', the data had to be spaced out more.

Now that the data is 'packed' into the disk more, a scratch would ruin more data.

It blows my mind that Sony is making the same mistake AGAIN. Betamax was the superior technology when it came out. And again, regardless of your view on porn, the fact remains that it is a gigantic multi-billion dollar industry. About 11,000 titles per year according to Wikipedia.

What Sony doesn't understand is that just because HD-DVD now has a hold on the lucrative industry, it does not mean that the name HD-DVD will become synonymous with the porn industry. To risk such a huge investment on such a small issue is not financially sound of them.

Although it is kinda nice to see a big company taking what I assume is a moral position despite the financial risk. But I'm not a shareholder...

You can bet your bottom dollar that it's not a moral position, but rather a financial one (don't want to be boycotted by powerful conservative/religious groups - especially in US)

Re: Being more susceptible to scratches, I initially agreed with you ThreeDee, as more data is in a smaller space therefore a scratch the same size will obscure more data. But I wonder whether a shorter wavelength might be less prone to refraction off an uneven surface? Don't the blue lasers penetrate deeper through substrates? We need a physicist here, stat!

On a side note related to scratching: I don't understand why DVD players weren't built to handle scratches better...rather than lock up completely on bad scratches, why can't they just keep moving on until it reads a bit that's not scratched?

And one that drives video into the home, specifically.

Those nuts have been proven to be tiny in number. Lots of noise but no power. And Sony has now said they do welcome "all film makers" to use Blu-Ray, but the adult industry responded by saying it was too late. At the AVN convention last week, they announced nearly unanimous support for HD-DVD.

I've been following this format war and have a few good points that I do not think anyone has pointed out yet.

1) Linux has already been loaded on a PS3 and Blu Ray has already been cracked. Blu ray movies can be copied to the PS3 hard drive.

2) The adult industry has already selected HD-DVD as their standard format for their next gen DVD releases.....some may remember this had a factor with beta max versus VHS. Since prono is some of the most commonly bought DVDs.

3) HD-DVD has just scaled its capacity up to 51gigs of space on a dual layer disc, meaning it has just surpassed blu-ray by 1 gig capacity.

4) If you use a blu ray burner/rom drive in your computer, you have to have a special monitor, or an adapter to display it.

5) Comparing media costs, blu ray seems to be a bit more expensive

6) Having watched most of the HD formats side by side on high end TVs @ nebraska furniture mart, I can say in all honesty, I really could not tell any difference.

No, in picture quality you'd definitely not see a difference. This is purely a media war, with zero consumer benefit. In Beta vs. VHS there was the higher quality of Beta against the cheaper/more open VHS, and we know what consumers chose. At least there was a choice. This one is a zero-sum game, all about who gets to control the licensing.

I was actually (kind of) hoping Blu Ray would win simply because of the name. I know how superficial that sounds, but the winner of this war is clearly going to become a very common word in our language. Think about how much you say DVD. I would much rather say the simple, smooth "Blu Ray" than the choppy, slow "HD DVD."

Is it just me, or have others out there thought of this?

I hope blu ray fails. mainly beacuse I think sony electronics have sucked big time the past few years. They used to be a brand that meant something, now they are just trying to strive off their brand name.

I also do not like the ridiculous compatibility problems blu ray offers and their cost of media and hardware. HD-DVD is cheaper, can hold just as much data, if not more now, and is more compatible with what is currently out there. Also, HDDVD media will be chaper to buy.

I agree. There was a time when Sony's electronics were first class and they led the pack with things like the Walkman. I have a Sony receiver that's been plugging away for 20 years. I also have a Sony VCR that crapped out after only a few - past the guarantee, of course.

I think they lost it when they got into music - they became an entertainment company and lost sight of what they did best. In this day an age of rapid convergence of technologies to interoperable standards, I can't imagine why they thought that their wavelength-shifted DVD substitute was going to grab the market, particularly given the trend in "conventional" device prices.

I won't mention their copy protection scheme for music...