I’m an utter novice in this area. Will I still be able to play my Netflix movies on my old DVD player? It’s not high-definition, just a run-of-the-mill DVD player plugged into big TV set.
Far as I know, Netflix isn’t touching their standard DVD library at all.
The interactive and online features for a start. The fact that it actually had real picture in picture and the ability for all of its players to have firmawre updates without being part of a game console I didn’t want to buy kinda boosted it for me. The price factor was another.
Sure Blu ray has bigger storage space… it isn’t being utilized (yet) so that never factored in it for me.
Sony rushed out the product to match Toshiba and had to fix its many glitches along the way. If (Not when as there is no need now) they upgrade to 2.0 guess which player purchased in the first few years of teh format war is the only one to be able to do so… yep the PS3.
It’s a shame. I could have been happy with two formats going on a while longer. Oh well. Like I said the writing was on the wall when Warner (The best of the film companies to utilize the extra features and realize the potention of the format) went exclusive.
HD DVD was a completed specification from the day it was first introduced to the public, whereas Blu Ray was an incomplete spec upon its release, which is why the whole “Profile” business is an issue. Where HD DVD had the ability from the get-go to do web-enabled content, picture-in-picture, network firmware updates, and a richer user experience, Blu-Ray adopters will have to replace their players with a Profile 2.0 player for the same functionality. Outside of the PS3, the players do not have the ability to be updated through firmware, so you must buy an entirely new player. Profile 2.0 players are expected to hit the market in mid-to-late 2008.
Audio and Video Quality-wise, HD DVD and Blu Ray are on par with each other, with a slight (and some say negligible) advantage to Blu-Ray for its higher peak bandwidth rates.
Originally Posted by kingpengvin
While HD DVD was not necessarily better technologically, I believe it stood a better chance for widespread mass adoption than Blu-Ray does… and it is very irritating that we consumers had no say in the matter. But meh… this stuff happens all the time. Business is Business.
For what it’s worth, www.avsforum.com is a good resource for non-biased discussions of this type. Stay away from sites like Blu-Ray.com where the main contributors are PS3 owning teenage zealots, and the “moderators” delete any posts which may be considered “subversive to the Blu-Ray cause”.
Well I did it, I bought an A30 last night. It came with two movies, Bourne Identity and 300. I did it mainly because I didn’t want to kill my PAL converting DVD player and because I didn’t have an upconverting DVD player. I haven’t had a chance to watch but a few minutes of it so I really can’t say what it looks like. Even if I don’t pick up but a couple of more movies at least I have a good DVD player now.
I’ve watched Serenity and Transformers on mine. Serenity, I have to admit, wasn’t noticeably better quality than standard DVD, but in Transformers the detail was marked. The robots went from a jumble of organic-looking parts to detailed, coherent images. The fight scenes were gorgeous.
FWIW, I have a 32" screen, and like others have said it’s probably more noticeable the larger the screen you have.
Probably, but at this stage, it looks like Microsoft was smart in hedging their bets and having the HD-DVD drive as an add-on. Keeping it outside the box kept the price of the console low, which helped them sell more Xboxen. And now, since the war’s been lost, they can develop a Blu-Ray player add-on and still be current, instead of being “the console with a drive made of dead technology.”
I’ve got a 37" Sharp and most things look good on it. I did notice when I put in my Young Indiana Jones TV show the black side bars stood out a bit more. I also watched on of the extra features on the Bourne movie and the side bars were blacker then the top bars. I’ve already put a bunch of movies in my Netflix queue, but I’ve heard they will stop renting them soon. You would think they would keep renting them since they already have the movies.
I’m also trying to figure out which movies to get to take advantage of the five free movies they are giving away. I kind of hope the Harry Potter set goes on deep sale too.
This
Computerworld article mentions that HD-DVD holds 15GB, whereas Blu-Ray holds 25GB. Also:
Good enough for me. I just found a “new, opened box” 60GB PS3 on eBay for $349. For about the cost of a Blu-Ray player, I can play MP3s, watch XVid and Divx videos, view photos off memory cards, and surf the web from my couch. Should be fun. Plus I see some Blu-Ray movies are down to $13 on Amazon now. Not many good movies, but still, the trend is there.
Ugh. One thing I cannot stand about this board is the overly pretentious way people do pluralization. Fora in particular drives me up a wall, but virii and penii are also annoying. Is there something wrong with forums, viruses, and penises?
But Xboxen has to be a new low in pretentious pluralization. Would you really write that you were packing up your stuff in boxen?
Oh, they will. They’ll keep renting out their current stock as long as the discs are still playable, but as the discs leave circulation through loss and wear and tear, they won’t be buying replacements, nor will they buy new titles.
And then there are the people who complain about presumably-in-jest alterate spellings/pluralizations on the intarweb. 
I would only talk about packing my stuff up in boxen if I was planning to move the boxen using oxen. 
heh. Actually, the origin of “boxen” is probably the very opposite of pretension. Listen to this standup bit by Brian Regan, where he talks about being the stupid kid in school. The part about plurals, which leads to “boxen”, starts at about 1:35. That’s where I got it from. I guess I thought more people would recognize it.
“MOOSEN!”
“Brian, how do you make a word a plural?”
“You better be a plural!”
It looks like John Dvorak agrees with you about the spoiler part, but he doesn’t go much into the motive.