Blockbuster only to stock blu-ray?

[EvilNed]

I'm a big HD DVD supporter, mostly because I know Sony are a bunch of assholes that put out half-assed products these days, while overpricing them to the extreme. Their trick to gain popularity for both Blu-Ray and PS3 by combining them into a superpriced POS backfired and now they've most billions on it. I'm going to way a few years before I make my choice, however. DVD look fine to me so far.

[Danny]

same here you can fit a movie on a dvd, and i dont want to see the zits on jhonny depps nose when hes looking for a peanut in pirates 3 high def doesnt mean crap to me, the grainier the better, though some like the matrix would be cool it would ruin some movies by really, really showing there age.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Is the compressed format the blu rays use the major con for you, or is it something more? How does the image quality stack up? The major con for me is the compressed audio and picture. As I said Blu-Ray uses compressed Dolby Digital (768kbps) the same Compressed DD used on standard DVD's. The video encoding is Mpeg2 same compression used for Standard DVD's, albeit not as compressed but still it isn't the lossless VC-1 codec being used by HD-DVD. In order to get uncompressed audio on Blu-ray you have to buy the most expensive player that has the Dolby Digital Plus Option. DD+ is 1.5-3.0mbps of uncompressed digital audio, this is a standard option on HD-DVD players that cost $249.99. Also the HD-DVD system also has DTS-HD which is HD digital audio, an option not yet available on Blu-ray. Blu-Rays claim to fame is the 50gb storage capacity of the DVD's but those 50gb discs are not working on first gen players. Even if it worked who wants to watch a compressed video stream. The HD-DVD started at 15gb, then went to 30gb and is about to unleash the 45gb disc. Lets also not forget the HD-DVD can be manufactured on the current equipment used to produce regular DVD's with minor changes to the set-up that takes 20 minutes at the factory. Blu-ray required brand new equipment to be produced in order to make the discs. Although more studios jumped on the Blu-ray wagon they jumped on in the early stages when Blu-ray promised the world, but didn't deliver. Universal Pictures, originally on the Blu-Ray wagon jumped over to HD-DVD when they realized the cost was better. Paramount and Warner Brothers releases films in both formats, but it seems the Matrix collection was HD-DVD exclusive.

[EvilNed]

I hope more companies jump over to the HD DVD wagon soon. Frankly, I can't see any benefits with Blu-Ray. It and HD-DVD are very much alike for the average consumer, except that HD-DVD looks a bit better and BluRay can hold a bit more. But you know what they say...

[darth los]

same here you can fit a movie on a dvd, and i dont want to see the zits on jhonny depps nose when hes looking for a peanut in pirates 3 high def doesnt mean crap to me, the grainier the better, though some like the matrix would be cool it would ruin some movies by really, really showing there age. I think there's more of an upside for blu ray with video games simply because, although they might not need that much space today, you can't deny that games are needing more and more space all the time. 50g is indeed a ridiculous amount of space. But i might be needed in the fiture. Back in the days of the atari and original NES it was unfathomable that games would routinely need gigs of space, so who knows? I think it's a safe bet that movies will never need that much room.

[capncnut]

Here's a little something I found. The competition between Sony developed Blu-Ray and HD-DVD widens. The public didn't respond to the new technology with the speed some had predicted, but it seems that Blu-Ray already stands out as the clear leader. The format has already shifted 1 million units in less than a year, and in the first quarter of 2007, Blu-Ray discs accounted for over 70% of all HD movie sales. Indeed, the gulf seems to be growing even more, which only adds to the hefty price tag.

[Danny]

I hope more companies jump over to the HD DVD wagon soon. Frankly, I can't see any benefits with Blu-Ray. It and HD-DVD are very much alike for the average consumer, except that HD-DVD looks a bit better and BluRay can hold a bit more. But you know what they say... ned , *wipes tear from eye*, thats ****ing epic and or hilarious *high five*

[darth los]

What that article fails to mention is that most of the sony backed blu ray discs that are being shipped are games for the ps3. You can really make statistics say pretty much anything you want them to.

[Danny]

"80% of people think hellsing is bad-ass" see, anything.

[darth los]

"80% of people think hellsing is bad-ass" see, anything. 4 out of 5 dentists agree.

[Eyebiter]

Toshiba is releasing a series of laptops with HD-DVD drives this fall for back to school. The drives will be read only at first, but should encourage people to adopt this format.

[darth los]

That's a smart move in order to try and get the format out there to more poeple, something sony has already done with the ps3.