I was pretty sure Blu-Ray was going to win, but I was up in the air about whether to buy a player or a PS3. The PS3 just became the better choice for me after the 2.10 update added the DivX/XviD compatibility. Not to mention the wireless connectivity, internal hard drive, and it plays games.
This was effectively what Sony were playing for with the PS3 in the first place - sure its a great console (when properly developed for) but Sony’s focus was always firmly on ensuring that this time round it won the format war - and if that meant pimping out the PlayStation brand to do it, then so be it.
However you cut it, the PS3 gave Sony a huge Blu-ray player installed base, and - through Blu-Ray give-aways with new consoles - a healthy number of people who owned at least one Blu-Ray title. If nothing else, it gave them the ability to wave some very impressive statistics around when needed. Fair play to 'em - they identified their goal (winning this format war) and went all out to do it - even though it undoubtedly cost them a lot in terms of the system’s uptake and reputation as a console.
The question is, of course, whether this format war was worth winning. Personally i don’t believe it was, and i suspect Microsoft thinks the same.
Looking at the approach Microsoft have taken to HD-DVD i’ve strongly suspected for a long time that their goal all along was to use it as a spoiler campaign - the longer HD-DVD existed, the longer Sony were focused on the format war and not on the battle for the download market - something that Microsoft clearly regard as their non-gaming target for the Xbox 360.
If HD-DVD emerged as the format of choice, wonderful, but if it didn’t then the fact that it was always an external add-on allowed for an easy walk-away and the time and money spent on HD-DVD wasn’t wasted because it kept Sony away from what Microsoft regard as the bigger prize.
I suspect Microsoft’s goal was always to keep Sony focussed on this format war, whilst gambling that it has accurately guessed on the winner of the next one (and that the next one will arrive far quicker than Sony expect).
I also suspect that Microsoft (and others) believe that the “re-buy” level on Blu-Ray isn’t going to be huge - i.e. that Joe Average isn’t going to be in quite so much of a hurry to buy Blu-Ray versions of his whole film collection as he was during the VHS to DVD switch. The payback for doing so (in terms of video and sound quality) just isn’t that high, unless you have some serious kit in your house already.
With no massive incentive to upgrade, it could be a very long time before Blu-Ray sales really kick off in the mainstream - especially as publishers will continue to churn out regular DVD versions of new titles for some time to come. If that’s the case, then it leaves Blu-Ray more reliant on support from bleeding-edge tech adopters staying true than is normal, and unfortunately that’s by no means guaranteed with downloads and other delivery mediums starting to really kick off. After all, what made them Blu-Ray adopters in the first place was that they’re always among the first to move onto the next generation of technology.
The last two paragraphs would have been just as true if it were HD-DVD that had won out, obviously, except that from Microsoft’s perspective the HD-DVD market would have been a welcome bonus, not a must-have.
Not necessarily - don’t know what compression they’re using but the Xbox 360 HD movie downloads clock in at about 4-5 gigs a piece i think.
The US is the largest gaming market in the world, with Japan second and the UK in third (and a not-too-distand third i believe). Couldn’t find any nice pretty graphs comparing the three on a quick google.
So basically Japan isn’t quite the “must-have” it used to be for consoles these days. Plus (again from memory) Japan leans quite significantly towards the handheld market with regards to sales now and Nintendo has that market all but sown up.
This just isn’t possible. A DVD9 after compression is about 4.5GB in most cases. There’s absolutely no way any 2-hour feature film in HD can be compressed to the same.
shrugs
I may be wrong - not being in personal possession of a HD TV i haven’t made personal use of the Video Marketplace yet (although i’ve seen it in action and used it on other people’s machines).
I’m working from memory of the press-releases that hit my inbox and, as this is a messageboard thread rather than an actual article, I’m making the most out of the rare opportunity to be lazy and not look stuff up (hence the “I think” part of my statement). 
DVD compression is MPEG-2. I believe a lot of the downloadable HD movies are compressed with some form of H.264/mp4, which compresses a lot more efficiently than MPEG-2. Plus, the XBOX Live and iTunes HD movies are 720p, not 1080i/p, which helps. So, yeah, its possible.
I wouldn’t chalk the death of LD up to a lack of early adopters. Laserdisc lasted a little over 20 years-- a rather long time in CE. It was the high-end video format for the 80s and 90s, but unfortunately during a time when consumers didn’t give a damn for high-end (justifiably-- a good widescreen NTSC monitor with line doubler in the mid 90s ran $5000 to $10000, a good player was $500+, and the audio system really screamed for special AC3 and/or DTS decoders at a time that they weren’t too common or cheap). DVD did pretty much kill LD; the early-adopters for DVD were mostly the high-end types who had supported LD, and the LD market moved nearly en masse into DVD in the span of a few weeks. It was a rather sharp market change that took a few companies by surprise. (Everyone knew it would happen, just not that quick!)
Sure it is. I can download a 30-minute HD episode of “Torchwood” and it runs less than 400MB.
MPEG2 is a horrendously inefficient compression algorithm. And, if I remember right, a huge portion of that space usage is actually for the audio, not the video.
-Joe
Is any one else thinking about buying an HD-DVD player now? I’m thinking about doing it since they will be so cheap. Hell Amazon has one for $130 right now. I could use a new DVD player and to have it up convert would be nice, and if I can find a few good cheap HD-DVD movies all the better. Normally I wouldn’t really think about it, but I’m also thinking about getting a PS3 in a few months maybe so the HD-DVD really would just be a DVD player.
That’s interesting. I didn’t know LD lasted that long. I only had one friend who was into it. This cop friend of mine who was into scifi and I remember him showing off his huge scifi movie Laser Disc collection to me and me thinking “that’s cool. I guess.” Seems like I went to bed, woke up and the world had gone DVD. I always wished I’d stayed in touch with the guy so I could tease him about his huge LD collection. Of course, he also had an impressive gun collection, so I wouldn’t tease him too much. 
Now I’m thinking about Nintendo and the Gamecube. It used a mini-dvd which pretty much only the GC used. Nintendo didn’t care if the technology was ever used for anything else. In fact, it may have benefited them that no one else used it. Made it harder to make illegal copies.
I wonder if Blu-ray could end up being mainly a PS3 disc, as opposed to the de-facto disc everyone uses. Could we see Blu-ray fade away around the time PS3’s start fading away?
Not true. The vast majority of DVDs use AC3 audio, which has bitrates comparable to MP3.
The LD market crash was great for a few enthusiasts-- buying discs for the cost of shipping, or getting them free from stores for buying other LDs or DVDs. It may have been a great time for your friend! (I enjoyed it, too, getting flicks for 20 cents a pop, while waiting for DVD players to fall within my budget.) It was pretty obvious when the market was dead, though-- new releases on LD continued to occur as long as 500 prepaid preorders would roll in from the few remaining retailers, so when a remastered Indiana Jones Trilogy got cancelled for lack of interest in 2000, it was obvious the market was gone. If you can’t get 500 movie fans to pony up for Indiana Jones… (It hung on in Japan through 2001, so I’ve got some interesting imported anachronisms like Star Wars Ep. 1, Fight Club, and X-Men on LD.)
Man, I get the feeling I’m gonna be the cranky LD guy on SDMB. Anyway.
If Sony doesn’t hold Blu-Ray to its original release specs, it should last a while. There’s been a need for a new high-end format since HD monitors became commonly available, and there’s still a desire to “own” discs as opposed to paying for downloads for a lot of people. If the format can evolve to keep up with new technology (like how Beta, VHS, and LD all embraced new playing times, stereo formats, etc., even though it made new releases incompatible with old hardware), it will be able to hold its own for a while.
You’ve actually convinced me to buy an HD DVD player. My upconvert DVD player went bust this last week and I’ve been trying to decide if I should get another upconverter or take the plunge on an HD player. I was initially passing over the HD DVD players because HD DVD will be phasing out, but Blu-Ray’s much too expensive. But since it’ll play normal DVDs just fine, and there’s enough already out in HD DVD I’d like to watch, I think I’ll pick up the cheapie Toshiba version today.
Have an HD DVD player and am still reeling from Warners little slap in the face. Once they turned I knew the format was pretty much in perril. After all you an’t really get much enjoyment with only 20% of the movies. Now I own a few titles and my old discs look great on it. I love my player and have never regretted the choice. Had I bought the Blu (GOD why drop the E it looks so friggin stupid)ray at the time I’d have ppaid much more and it wouldn’t play half the disks when they upgraded the Blu rays.
It annoys me no end that the consumer had no say and back room dealings and rumour mongering killed a better (And finished) technology. I will not buy Blu ray. I did not choose it in the first place for very valid reasons and those have not changed.
Standard Definition and the dwindling supply of hopefully on sale cheap HD DVDs will suffice for me.
In what ways is HD-DVD better and more “finished”?
While I’m more or less pleased with my new HD DVD player (2 free movies in the box + 5 free movies with a mail-in rebate = win), I have to say that that is one of the more stunningly silly taglines I’ve seen for any product.
Sorry, haven’t checked the thread for a while. I find it ironic because the PS3 is a gaming console. It would be like if people bought PS2s just to play DVDs on them. I’ve been waiting for the PS3 to come out for years, only to find out that most of the games on it are also available for the cheaper 360. If it didn’t have Blu-Ray capabilities, I question whether it would still be on the market.
My WAG is that the format battle would have lasted longer if the 360 had included an HD player instead of having it be an add on.