Yesterday, I went into the local Best Buy and saw the new HD-DVD and Blu-ray players on display. On the HD-DVD side, I saw the Toshiba HD-A1. On the Blu-ray side, I saw the Samsung P1000. These both produce phenomenal results! I've been dying to move up to hi-def DVD — just being able to play movies at true 1080i (I don't have a 1080p TV) and upscale my current DVD's (in standard def) would be awesome. Part of me wants to wait for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player…but it's so difficult when you walk into Best Buy and see these two units! Anyway…today, I get to work and notice Major Nelson had a podcast Show #183 The one about HD-DVD. I learned a LOT about the two. I highly recommend this podcast. I also didn't realize how strongly people feel for one or the other…check out the comments to Robert Scoble's post about "Grassroots picking HD-DVD over BlueRay?"
Here's my thoughts: Both are awesome! I tend to lean toward HD-DVD just because I hate Sony's attempt to rule the world with Blu-ray…but realistically they're both great! Right now, I think HD-DVD is a better solution. My understanding is that HD-DVD is currently releasing 30GB media, whereas Blu-ray is releasing 25GB (capable of much more). For movies, HD-DVD is also using VC-1, whereas Blu-ray is (currently) using old MPEG-2. What's this mean? Not only is HD-DVD using a much more efficient codec, but it also currently has more storage available…therefore the movies produced are capable of better quality pictures. But — this will change — both Blu-ray and HD-DVD support VC-1. Both are great — and it'll only be a matter of time before we have players that play CD/DVD/BD/HD-DVD for less than $1000.
Technorati Tags: blu-ray, hd-dvd, hd-a1, p1000, 1080p, 1080i, vc-1, mpeg-2, hi-def, bd, dvd, xbox 360
IMO there’s no absolutely compelling reason to change from DVD to the new formats for video, unlike the transition from VHS to DVD or cassette / vinyl to CD. Most consumers have a comprehensive ( and expensive! ) DVD collection already, and even the jump to HDTV gives a huge improvement.
See the fate of SACD, DVD-Audio…
I think the capacity is a little too high for most consumers ( who can’t afford ridiculous prices ) and the disc still can’t back up a full hard drive.
I think it will be a while before they catch on, and by the time they do they may even be out-of-date.
Greetings from a fellow Toaster Pusher
I disagree. The jump from standard definition to high definition is enormous! Not only that, but the new players will continue to play the “comprehensive DVD collection” that they already have — AND upscale them to fit widescreen HDTV televisions. See, my current problem is that with DVD’s, I hate having to try to make it fit my TV, by stretching it to Full and still having letterbox on either the side or top/bottom. With the upscaling, it still loses some quality by stretching, but it stretches it to fit correctly. Maybe I’m just picky.
And, on capacity — it’s really not that big. I heard on that podcast that most films are filmed at much higher detail and end up taking almost 1 TERABYTE of space. They still have to compress it and lose 95% of the detail to fit on a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc. Imagine the loss to standard DVD. In due time — the Blu-ray is rumored to have the capability of a quad-layer with 25GB each, that’s a total of 100GB!
I think they’ll catch on much quicker than you think…I’m most certainly on the Hi-Def bandwagon, and I know I’m not the only one. I DO think that $500+ is ridiculous, but that’ll come down too. I remember when CD-ROM drives were expensive and CD-R drives were $1000+.