Official PS3 and Blu-ray Thread

[Crazy Phat]

Samsung has really given Blu-Ray a bad name. :(

[tome]

First impression lasts forever
Both new products are out now.
Both are glammed up as much as possible.
IF news spreads to the general public "not including the peeps who read deep into tech information" about how hd-dvd is "currently" better than blue-ray.
HD-DVD will come out ontop..

The only reason why I say this..and of course its only an opnion is simply the general public who wants a better movie expereince at home only want what will look good and not cost alot..

If they see both, and they do not notice a difference between the 2..or only notice a slight difference..I am sure the cheapest will sell more.
look at lcd vs plasma..lcd is practically selling 2:1..so much Sony is droping production on plasma.

Sure I think bd may be the best format in the future..but how long from now is the future?...will the public wait for the future when the competion has something now that looks & has been reviewed better?
How long will it take for the bd disks move to another format that will compete better and really bring the major wow..this is what hi-def should look like?

Right now I think it can be spun that bd disks offer a large space but lack the quality compared to its competion.

[Alis of Algol]

guys havent you read anything, the companies putting out the movies have chosen to put out br discs on inferor codecs as well as samsung rushed to market and has a chip defect as well.

each company can encode their movies how they want, if the bit rate is off its not the format's fault its the studios.

also not every br disc PQ has been inferior to hd-dvd several movies have been well received to be much better quality.

PLUS my GOD!!!! ITS NOT EVEN a few months after launch and you are calling winner

NOTHING WILL BE DECIDED FOR AT LEAST A FEW YEARS THERE ARE FAR TO FEW HOMES WITH HDTVS!!!!!!!!

[tome]

I agree...it will take awile before we see anything major between the 2..look at the current next gen console games..nothing to what will be out in a few years.

[loki22]

If anything, Blu-ray movies will probably use H.264 (AVC) in the future. AFAIK that's even better than VC-1.

The first batch probably used MPEG2 to save time and money. DVD's are also encoded in MPEG2 so maybe it was just a more straightforward process.

Actually, I think that VC-1 provides better PQ than H.264 at their respective max quality bit rates. More of the original content is lost with use of H.264. The benefit, of course, is more compression. It's a trade- off. If you have the storage capacity and the bandwith, use MPEG2 -- it provides superior PQ and it's cheaper. If you are more limited in storage space and/or bandwith, use VC-1 -- it's next in PQ and has a higher compressio ratio than MPEG2. If you're even more limited in storage space and/or bandwith, use H.264 -- superior compression ratio but third in terms of PQ.

However, from what I understand, all three codecs look great at their respective max quality bit rates. I doubt that the average viewer would/could tell the difference between them. Most people don't watch a movie with the intent to evaluate its PQ, let alone to do side-by-side comparisons of the same content encoded with different codecs. If MPEG2 is used at its max quality bit rate on BD50, it can provide better PQ than VC-1 and H.264, but I doubt that anyone but videophiles, media, and fanboy would care. That's one of the least of BD's benefits.


tome wrote:


First impression lasts forever
Both new products are out now.
Both are glammed up as much as possible.
IF news spreads to the general public "not including the peeps who read deep into tech information" about how hd-dvd is "currently" better than blue-ray.
HD-DVD will come out ontop..

It wil be quite a while before the general public gets a first impression of either format. A lot can and will change before then. And first impressions may not change, but subsequent opinions certainly can.

[renegadevikingPS3]

The PS3 comes with Bluray having 2 hrs on SL-BD or 4 hrs on DL-BD in MPEG2. HD-DVD has 100% MS VC1 films and 80% of good films are released under HD-DVD. You can not tell the difference between 1080p and 1080i picture wise on a 720p HDTV.

So even though HD-DVD is the clear winner in the immediate future, I am buying both players. The end. It's how I eventually solve my consoles wars problems.

I read how gamers want hollywood to use VC1 on Blu-ray, but hollywood will not listen to PS3forums. What's cheaper? MPEG2 on DL-BD or VC1 on SL-BD? If it's a draw money wise...I'd be laughing so hard!

[Darkfalz]

If MPEG2 is used at its max quality bit rate on BD50, it can provide better PQ than VC-1 and H.264...

That's innaccurate. The maximum bit rate supported by Blu-Ray is 40mbps. This is the maximum at a hardware level. VC-1 compressed at 28mbps is higher quality than mpeg2 compressed at 40mbps.

Therefore, it's impossible for mpeg2 to yeild better quality than VC-1 on a BD50, or anything else.

VC-1 is superior in terms of quality, and compression ratio. It's rated consistently as the #1 codec for all intents and purposes.

[soremekun]

At what bitrate does MPEG2 reach it's max video quality?

[Darkfalz]

At what bitrate does MPEG2 reach it's max video quality?

Uncompressed 1080p 30fps video can be well over 1gbps (over 1000mbps), and for mpeg2 to yeild transparent (to the naked eye) results, it would have to compress the video at around 100mbps minimally... but at that point, you'd need allot more space than 50gigs for a movie... plus, you're really not getting noticably better picture quality. Even with Mpeg2, using around 40mbps is more than enough to make it look nearly transparent.

With VC-1, you get near transparent at about 20mbps. It basically looks good enough to fool anyone's naked eye into believing it's the natural, uncompressed original. Most HD-DVD's (including Toshiba's demo they put together to showcase HD-DVD's picture quality to potential buyers) is around 12mbps because unless you're doing frame by frame analysis, and at a range of less than 3 feet to a large 1080p display, you can't really tell the difference between that and 20mbps.

[Alis of Algol]

sony will figure it out :)

[consoleboi]

Don't forget, Blu-ray is not limited to 2 layers.

We may see more than 2 layers sometime in 2008 which means even more capacity.

That's why Blu-ray is the ideal choice.

[Stu Pid]

Here is another article claiming that HD-DVD has an advantage over Blu-Ray.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060801-7399.html

"Blu-Ray and HD DVD have been locked in battle for supremacy in the next-generation optical disc wars, but it has so far been difficult to compare the merits of both technologies in head-to-head tests. Both had rocky product launches, and when the first players were finally released, each had problems. Toshiba's HD DVD was crippled by long load times (now improved), while the Samsung Blu-Ray player was also no speed demon, and had some scaling issues to boot.

Until the same disc was released in both formats, though, accurate comparisons weren't possible. Now that Warner has released three titles on both formats, comparisons have begun in earnest. High-Def Digest was one of the first sites to take an in-depth look at Training Day, Rumor Has It..., and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Their conclusion? The nod goes to HD DVD.

An unusual issue appeared right away. Training Day had cropping problems, with the Blu-ray version of the movie showing an estimated three to four percent less detail at the edges of the picture. The problem also "cropped up" in the other two films. With only one Blu-ray player available, it is impossible to say whether the problem is caused by the transfer process or by the player itself.

But Blu-ray's problems didn't end there. Occasional compression artifacts and brightness issues also led the site to crown HD DVD the winner. "In our first head-to-head comparison, we found the HD DVD to be superior," wrote Peter Bracke. "The unfortunate cropping of the Blu-ray image, coupled with more noticeable compression artifacts and an overall darker cast, can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD."

Both formats are capable of exceptional picture quality; the differences mentioned appear to be minor and might not even be noticed by the average consumer. Still, early adopters who purchase expensive hardware are unlikely to be "average consumers" and may well care about such nuances."

I thinks this is the third or fourth article that I have seen like this.

[soremekun]

They should really get away from using BD25 and MPEG2. Just doesn't work...

[loki22]

Don't forget that the maximum bitrate for BD far surpasses that of HD DVD. The maximum video bit rate for BD is 40 Mbps while the bit rate of HD DVD is only at 28 for a maximum.

Actually, I don't think that's the max video bit rate for either format. BD has a data transfer rate of 36Mbps (1x), and HD-DVD's is 36.55(1x) (without qualification of HD-DVD's rate, if HD-DVDs have a constant angular velocity like DVDs, which leads to slower-than-advertised read speeds). All BD players are at least 1.5x, so all BD players have at least 54Mbps of bandwith to play with. I don't think that the video bit rate is maxed out at 40Mbps, regardless of the video and audio codecs used or regardless of the speed of the player. Imagine a BD encoded with H.264 and Dolby TrueHD on a 2x BD player (like the PS3). H.264 doesn't need very much bandwith to reach its max quality bit rate. Imagine how much of the available resources would be wasted. Or how about a BD encoded with MPEG2 on a 50GB BD-ROM. Why limit the video bit rate to 40Mbps if you don't need to or want to?

As I understand it, the bandwith is there, and studios can decide how much is used for video and how much is used for audio. The same goes for both BD and HD-DVD.

On another note, I'm still trying to determine what the max quality bit rate of MPEG2 is. A lot of info is still in terms of SD content and DVDs. But, I highly doubt it's 100Mbps, as has been suggested in this thread.

[Darkfalz]

...But, I highly doubt it's 100Mbps, as has been suggested in this thread.

Are you implying I suggested it MPEG2's max quality bitrate is 100mbps? If so, I clearly never suggested any such thing. I've simply stated that you'd need 100mbps+ with mpeg 2 in order to even approach transparency (meaning, get to a point where the compressed video looks indistinguishably as good as the uncompressed video).

[Lil G Blood]

i have a question about ps3, will you be able to buy the ps3 in silver or white, and if we can will the control be the same color?

[Lil G Blood]

Because they have this pic look

http://playstation.about.com/library/graphics/ps3colors.jpg

[gs-hick]

If MPEG2 is used at its max quality bit rate on BD50, it can provide better PQ than VC-1 and H.264...

That's innaccurate. The maximum bit rate supported by Blu-Ray is 40mbps. This is the maximum at a hardware level. VC-1 compressed at 28mbps is higher quality than mpeg2 compressed at 40mbps.

Therefore, it's impossible for mpeg2 to yeild better quality than VC-1 on a BD50, or anything else.

VC-1 is superior in terms of quality, and compression ratio. It's rated consistently as the #1 codec for all intents and purposes.

Technically, this is inaccurate. Max VIDEO bit rate for BD is 40. Total max rate for BD is 48. HD-DVD is ~30. You will never see an hd-dvd encoded at vc-1's max because HD-DVD does not have the bandwidth to handle it unless you plan to have no audio tracks or supplemental material on the disc. Every single audio track included on HD-DVD or BD counts against total bandwidth, whether it is playing or not.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=701698&page=1&pp=30

[Darkfalz]

If MPEG2 is used at its max quality bit rate on BD50, it can provide better PQ than VC-1 and H.264...

That's innaccurate. The maximum bit rate supported by Blu-Ray is 40mbps. This is the maximum at a hardware level. VC-1 compressed at 28mbps is higher quality than mpeg2 compressed at 40mbps.

Therefore, it's impossible for mpeg2 to yeild better quality than VC-1 on a BD50, or anything else.

VC-1 is superior in terms of quality, and compression ratio. It's rated consistently as the #1 codec for all intents and purposes.

Technically, this is inaccurate. Max VIDEO bit rate for BD is 40. Total max rate for BD is 48. HD-DVD is ~30. You will never see an hd-dvd encoded at vc-1's max because HD-DVD does not have the bandwidth to handle it unless you plan to have no audio tracks or supplemental material on the disc. Every single audio track included on HD-DVD or BD counts against total bandwidth, whether it is playing or not.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=701698&page=1&pp=30

The context of my post was relating to video. In that context, my post is accurate. Thank you for adding the clarification for those who otherwise wouldn't have known, though.

[razorblade416]

If MPEG2 is used at its max quality bit rate on BD50, it can provide better PQ than VC-1 and H.264...

That's innaccurate. The maximum bit rate supported by Blu-Ray is 40mbps. This is the maximum at a hardware level. VC-1 compressed at 28mbps is higher quality than mpeg2 compressed at 40mbps.

Therefore, it's impossible for mpeg2 to yeild better quality than VC-1 on a BD50, or anything else.

VC-1 is superior in terms of quality, and compression ratio. It's rated consistently as the #1 codec for all intents and purposes.

Technically, this is inaccurate. Max VIDEO bit rate for BD is 40. Total max rate for BD is 48. HD-DVD is ~30. You will never see an hd-dvd encoded at vc-1's max because HD-DVD does not have the bandwidth to handle it unless you plan to have no audio tracks or supplemental material on the disc. Every single audio track included on HD-DVD or BD counts against total bandwidth, whether it is playing or not.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=701698&page=1&pp=30

The context of my post was relating to video. In that context, my post is accurate. Thank you for adding the clarification for those who otherwise wouldn't have known, though.

So wait, you were hyping VC-1 because it could do better quality, but HD-DVD can't hande the max bitrate anyway unless it had no audio? So then, wouldn't you be admitting that Blu-Ray is better? :suspect:

[soremekun]

Blu Ray has that potential but so far it ain't doing it...
I have to admit it, Round 1 goes to HD DVD.

Darkfalz has been bringing some strong evidence...

I still say, in the long term, Blu Ray is better.

[loki22]

Blu Ray has that potential but so far it ain't doing it...
I have to admit it, Round 1 goes to HD DVD.

Darkfalz has been bringing some strong evidence...

I still say, in the long term, Blu Ray is better.

Round 1 hasn't even started yet. There was just a scuffle at the weigh-in/pre-fight press conference. Round 1 starts this Fall when more than 1 of the 7 BD players set to be released is actually released and movies are released on 50GB BDs. Also, there may be more content on both formats that people actually want.

All in all, the fight hasn't really started yet. The general public won't tune in until the actual fight starts. Only a few people witnessed and are making a big deal about the pre-fight scuffle.

[Arimax]

Wow I didn't even know a fight broke out. As the poster above me said until this fall we won't see no fighting no time soon. With that said I believe in Blu-ray to be the future for movies and, games I mean its almost like a given.

[sonyfan6]

To reiterate points made on other threads:

1) Multiple discs are not sufficient for non-linear games. In non-linear games much of the game must be repeated on each disc. If the game cannot be broken in a linear fashion then one will need to go back and forth between discs. Changing discs can replace loading times between areas. This will not be soon, but it is the problem with the concept of 'just include a second disc and everything will be fine.'

2) Every argument that I have ever seen against the need for more space always looks at the rate that games increased in size over the last couple years. This doesn't just mean now, it also means back when we first started using dvds instead of cds and cds instead of cartridges. People ignore the overall trend that size increases. These increases are not constant. They appear more like stairs. Every time a new media is introduced there is an enormous jump followed by a period of time while the media is used that size stays relatively constant. This has been true for the last 20 years and no one has pointed out a good fundamental reason why this trend should not continue. People say, 'we already have 3d graphics, what else can we do?' The same thing was said about 2d graphics. I think this is what the quote about ps3 doing 4d gaming was all about. It doesn't mean time (although it could manifest that way). It truly means the next generation of gaming.

Games are a very profitable and very competitive industry. I guarantee you that every major developer that intends to make games for the ps3 is trying to figure out how to best use the extra space to gain an edge over their competition. They have smart people working for them and someone is going to figure out how to make good use of the extra space. I can't tell you for sure how the extra space will be utilized but I can tell you for sure that it will be utilized. To assume anything else in this competitive business world is very shortsighted.


EDIT

For those that disagree with anything that I have written above. Yes it is speculation, however it is different than the speculation offered by the people that claim blu-ray will not be utilized. My speculation is that the trend that we have seen in the past will continue to repeat itself. History is my 'source.' For those that disagree the burden is on you to provide a compelling reason why the trend will deviate from what has so clearly been shown time and again in the evolution of game consoles. A fundamental theory that limits why games cannot increase beyond their current size is required to demonstrate why blu-ray is not necessary. Without this evidence the opposition's speculation is baseless. This is very different than the speculation offered in this post, which is based on a historical trend.

[razorblade416]

Great post Sonyfan6 :D Really sums up just why PS3 has a Blu-Ray drive and why it IS necessary

[Arimax]

Wow nice post sonyfan6 but, you know what I don't get is how come GTA SA takes up less space than a Game like GT4?

I know this isn't about games but, I had to ask the question.

[sonyfan6]

A large part is the quality of graphics. GTA has very poor graphics while GT goes for life-like graphics. I've previously used GTA-GT hybrid as the 'dvd nightmare' scenario. If one tried to make a massive, free roaming environment like GTA with the life-like graphic qualities of GT it could never fit on a single dvd. Furthermore, since the majority of the information would be the city that you roam through freely this means it would be impossible to create a good linear split for a multidisc solution. Instead one would be stuck with each disc containing one sector of the city and everytime you drove over a bridge, for example, you would need to change discs. I don't see the GTA franchise moving to this quality of graphics any time soon, however it's still a valid example. Large, non-linear worlds with life-like hd graphics will take up enormous amounts of room and do not lend themselves well to be divided between multiple dvds. The extra blu-ray space may not end up being used for something like this. As stated previously there are certainly numerous, highly skilled and very intelligent programmers working on how to utilize the space right now. Bigger more detailed environments will not be the only use. In fact, they may end up being a very minor one, only seen in AAA titles. I expect far more clever uses of the extra space to crop up as the developers continue working on ps3 exclusive titles.

[Darkfalz]

To reiterate points made on other threads:

1) Multiple discs are not sufficient for non-linear games. In non-linear games much of the game must be repeated on each disc. If the game cannot be broken in a linear fashion then one will need to go back and forth between discs. Changing discs can replace loading times between areas. This will not be soon, but it is the problem with the concept of 'just include a second disc and everything will be fine.'

As you mentioned, this comment is speculation that many industry analysts and insiders dissagree with, and frankly - there's no evidence to support the suggestion that games which would not fit on on DVD-9 would be built in a way that would require disk swapping in the manor in which you indicate. It's wild speculation at best.

Quotes from professionals/analysts/industry insiders:

"In short, Blu-ray is not necessary for gaming in HD, if by necessary you mean anything approaching the dictionary's definition of the word."

"blu-ray technology is expensive and Sony is forcing game developers to make games on blu-ray discs. We know that it’s not necessary, but Sony’s doing it anyway. "

"Looking over the data, it's fairly evident that in fact DVD9 is not too small for next generation games as much as it was too big for the last generation's."

"Do we need Blu-Ray? No!"


2) Every argument that I have ever seen against the need for more space always looks at the rate that games increased in size over the last couple years. This doesn't just mean now, it also means back when we first started using dvds instead of cds and cds instead of cartridges. People ignore the overall trend that size increases. These increases are not constant. They appear more like stairs. Every time a new media is introduced there is an enormous jump followed by a period of time while the media is used that size stays relatively constant. This has been true for the last 20 years and no one has pointed out a good fundamental reason why this trend should not continue. People say, 'we already have 3d graphics, what else can we do?' The same thing was said about 2d graphics. I think this is what the quote about ps3 doing 4d gaming was all about. It doesn't mean time (although it could manifest that way). It truly means the next generation of gaming.

There's strong evidence that suggests the 'staircase' increases in game size when new media/platforms are introduced is a result of careless file bloating, which can result in innefficient load times, hiccups in gameplay, and poor pop-in of textures, models, or anything else that's being streamed off the media. Thus, the introduction of a new, larger media format can actually help produce *worse* efficiency in games, resulting in *worse* looking/playing/sounding games.

The assumption that games, by their nature, grow in size as they evolve is not absolutely true. They do become more complex, but not necessarily at the expense of filesize. Large games may simply be the result of poorly optimized programming, not an indication that they couldn't be smaller if they had to be, and still deliver the same experience.


Games are a very profitable and very competitive industry. I guarantee you that every major developer that intends to make games for the ps3 is trying to figure out how to best use the extra space to gain an edge over their competition. They have smart people working for them and someone is going to figure out how to make good use of the extra space. I can't tell you for sure how the extra space will be utilized but I can tell you for sure that it will be utilized. To assume anything else in this competitive business world is very shortsighted.

Microsoft assumed developers and publishers would use the hard drive that came standard in every Xbox for more than just a data cache, and it didn't really happened. There were a couple games that did some minor, yet cool, tricks that couldn't have been done without the hard drive, but those kinds of features were novelty at best. This proves that just because it's there, and it's standard - doesn't mean it'll be used to it's potential.

Regardless, there are several major advancements in game development and game technology that mitigate the need for more space and/or growing file size(s) of games.

XNA: Not only does XNA make development much faster and less expensive for developers/publisher, it also is a key tool in reducing game size. For the details of how this works, go here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/2006/01/24/517071.aspx

Procedural Synthesis: Essentially, 'PS' uses algorithms to produce high quality graphics out of extremely small files. For the best example of what procedural synthesis can do, check out .kkrieger, which means Warrior in German. The game is 96 Kilobytes in size. Yes, it's that small, and to see how it looks, check out the bottom of this post...

Procedural Synthesis has already been used in games like "Oblivion" for creating massive forests. Combined with middleware solutions like 'Speed Tree' (which is a tool that generates incredibly complex, gorgeous trees randomly and dynamically) - forests can be created on the fly without the need of massive artist over head. Not only does this create better, more organic looking forests at a fraction of the file size traditional methods would incurr, it also exponentially cuts down the time artists need to spend on creating the content. It's a win, win, win... saves file size space, time, money, and delivers higher quality results.

Dynamic Animation Systems: The new Indianna Jones title coming from Lucas Arts is introducing this new technological breakthrough to the industry. Their use of "NaturalMotion" makes it obsolete to generate thousands, and thousands of animation permutations. Instead, developers author behaviors, and then the characters animations will be generated on the fly, responding appropriately to their environment. It cust down dramatically on the amount of data that's needed to be stored on the media.

Future Advancements? In case you haven't already caught on to the trend, this generation is less about traditionally developed content stored on a disk and much more about better, smarter methods of producing higher quality, more realistic environments, characters, and levels of immersion that are more taxing to the CPU/GPU than to the storage medium(s)... the result? Far less storage is needed to produce equally (or better) looking, playing, and sounding games.

XNA, Procedural Synthesis, NaturalMotion cover practical build process minimizing, dynamic environmental generation, and dynamicaly created animations... what's next? A method of auto-generating crowds of people, saving countless megabites of generic textures? Newer compression technologies that make significantly higher quality textures able to fit into the 512megs of ram - AND consume LESS space on a disk? Who knows... but the fact remains that the trend in game development is "let's make the CPU do the work for us". Just take a look at many of the PS3 demos. The exploding castle? That's cool because the rocks are dynamically 'shattering' the castle. It's not stored animation data taking up space on a disk. The cool gas-station explosion they showed at E32005? It was a dynamically generated explosion of particles based on variables and data created on the fly, not stored animations/textures, etc. Clearly - this is the direction the industry is going... it yeilds better results in game, takes less time to develop/create, and costs *less* storage.

Conclusion: Therefore, I side with the industry analysts, experts, and insiders. Blu-Ray's storage capacity isn't necessary, especially at the price consumers have to pay for the technology. To quote one of my sources:

"Looking over the data, it's fairly evident that in fact DVD9 is not too small for next generation games as much as it was too big for the last generation's. Very few games on the original Xbox came close to pushing the limits of the DVD9 format, leaving plenty of room for growth.

Undoubtedly, games will grow. However, technology designed to keep them small and compact will grow as well.

The PS3 will be able to store more data with their blu-ray discs, but that won't necessarily mean that they'll be any less limited in their creativity. It might simply give developers more room to be sloppy in their programing."

Procedurally generate game that's only 96 kilobytes in size:
http://gamesfirst.com/images/content/2006_01/1137623168_full5.jpg

Sources:
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/702/702389p1.html
http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/PS3-gamble.ars/2
http://www.techkills.com/303-ps3-games-to-cost-more-than-xbox-360-games.html
http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-24635960&user=E2ESQUARE
http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/2006/01/24/517071.aspx

[Stu Pid]

I'm a little confused about some things and hope that you all can help clarify them for me.

It appears that Blu-Rays "specs" are better than HD-DVD. Is it not true that just becasue a technology has the ability to perform at a certain rate, it does not necessarily will be utilized to the fullest extent? In fact, if the past has shown us anything, it takes a while to access for technology's full power. In many cases with consoles, the full potential, if reached, is not reached until the backside of the consoles life cycle.

Just because HD-DVD or Blu-Ray can hold more data than a regular DVD, will developers or movie studios use that space in a MEANINGFUL way? From the many developer interviews that I have read, that are not even using all of the space on the DVD format. As for movies, I am one of those idiots who never watches anything on a DVD aside from the movie. As long as they can fit the HD version on a disc, it does not really matter to a lot of consumers. Just ask around and see how many people watch anything except the movie. There are some, but they are definitely in the minority.

How do we know that Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is better? We don't, and probably won't for a couple of years. It will take that long for developers and studios to figure out ways to get the most of the respective formats.

The only thing that I am concerned about is that the PS3 is using not just one, but two brand new technologies. I am not saying that there will be a problem and I really hope that there is not. It is however, a reciepe for potential disaster.

Look at the problems that MS is having with the 360. Do you really think that they anticipated the failure rate as high as it is? I don't think so. It's costing them a fortune.

[sonyfan6]

To reiterate points made on other threads:

1) Multiple discs are not sufficient for non-linear games. In non-linear games much of the game must be repeated on each disc. If the game cannot be broken in a linear fashion then one will need to go back and forth between discs. Changing discs can replace loading times between areas. This will not be soon, but it is the problem with the concept of 'just include a second disc and everything will be fine.'

As you mentioned, this comment is speculation that many industry analysts and insiders dissagree with, and frankly - there's no evidence to support the suggestion that games which would not fit on on DVD-9 would be built in a way that would require disk swapping in the manor in which you indicate. It's wild speculation at best.

Quotes from professionals/analysts/industry insiders:

"In short, Blu-ray is not necessary for gaming in HD, if by necessary you mean anything approaching the dictionary's definition of the word."

"blu-ray technology is expensive and Sony is forcing game developers to make games on blu-ray discs. We know that it’s not necessary, but Sony’s doing it anyway. "

"Looking over the data, it's fairly evident that in fact DVD9 is not too small for next generation games as much as it was too big for the last generation's."

"Do we need Blu-Ray? No!"

Let me get this straight. Your carefully constructed argument to disprove the difference between linear and non-linear titles is "no" followed by a couple of blu-ray bashing quotes. This is one of the things that you do that makes people ignore what you say. You put up quotes that are clearly biased towards one side without providing the source other than saying 'experts.' Previously when you have shown sources, it's been seen that your quotes are taken wildly out of context. What I'd like to see from you is how these people reached their conclusions. That would be a much more convincing argument than "anonymous insider says blu-ray sucks."

Oh, and to reply to your 'wild speculation' comment. You are correct that it won't happen. I specifically stated that in the original posts that this past post summarized. Games are designed within the confines of the console. Only including dvd9 ensures that no more than dvd9 space will be used. In the rare cases that more space is required the game will either be partitioned in a linear fashion or trimmed to make it fit. No one would put up with changing discs between areas in a non-linear game, hence it will never occur. Oppositely, the only way to ensure blu-ray space will not be used is to not include it. MS has ensured that no 360 game will need blu-ray space. The developers must program within the limitations of the console. Ps3 will not have this same restriction.




2) Every argument that I have ever seen against the need for more space always looks at the rate that games increased in size over the last couple years. This doesn't just mean now, it also means back when we first started using dvds instead of cds and cds instead of cartridges. People ignore the overall trend that size increases. These increases are not constant. They appear more like stairs. Every time a new media is introduced there is an enormous jump followed by a period of time while the media is used that size stays relatively constant. This has been true for the last 20 years and no one has pointed out a good fundamental reason why this trend should not continue. People say, 'we already have 3d graphics, what else can we do?' The same thing was said about 2d graphics. I think this is what the quote about ps3 doing 4d gaming was all about. It doesn't mean time (although it could manifest that way). It truly means the next generation of gaming.

There's strong evidence that suggests the 'staircase' increases in game size when new media/platforms are introduced is a result of careless file bloating, which can result in innefficient load times, hiccups in gameplay, and poor pop-in of textures, models, or anything else that's being streamed off the media. Thus, the introduction of a new, larger media format can actually help produce *worse* efficiency in games, resulting in *worse* looking/playing/sounding games.

The assumption that games, by their nature, grow in size as they evolve is not absolutely true. They do become more complex, but not necessarily at the expense of filesize. Large games may simply be the result of poorly optimized programming, not an indication that they couldn't be smaller if they had to be, and still deliver the same experience.

Once again, why? Because you say so? All the links that you have provided previously draw their conclusions soley from the last few years. Oh, and packing more data into a smaller space is not intrinsically better. Once again you have failed to address the key issue. Why will the step not occur this generation? You admit that is has occurred previously. Why will it not occur this time? What limit are we reaching that prevents the use of more space? You have given no argument saying why games won't use more space you've only said that it is possible to make games smaller. These are not the same thing. Games can always be made smaller. That didn't stop the previous generation from using dvds. That didn't stop the cd generation from using cds, etc. Why is this generation different? You have not addressed this very important issue.




Games are a very profitable and very competitive industry. I guarantee you that every major developer that intends to make games for the ps3 is trying to figure out how to best use the extra space to gain an edge over their competition. They have smart people working for them and someone is going to figure out how to make good use of the extra space. I can't tell you for sure how the extra space will be utilized but I can tell you for sure that it will be utilized. To assume anything else in this competitive business world is very shortsighted.

Microsoft assumed developers and publishers would use the hard drive that came standard in every Xbox for more than just a data cache, and it didn't really happened. There were a couple games that did some minor, yet cool, tricks that couldn't have been done without the hard drive, but those kinds of features were novelty at best. This proves that just because it's there, and it's standard - doesn't mean it'll be used to it's potential.

Regardless, there are several major advancements in game development and game technology that mitigate the need for more space and/or growing file size(s) of games.

XNA: Not only does XNA make development much faster and less expensive for developers/publisher, it also is a key tool in reducing game size. For the details of how this works, go here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/2006/01/24/517071.aspx

Procedural Synthesis: Essentially, 'PS' uses algorithms to produce high quality graphics out of extremely small files. For the best example of what procedural synthesis can do, check out .kkrieger, which means Warrior in German. The game is 96 Kilobytes in size. Yes, it's that small, and to see how it looks, check out the bottom of this post...

Procedural Synthesis has already been used in games like "Oblivion" for creating massive forests. Combined with middleware solutions like 'Speed Tree' (which is a tool that generates incredibly complex, gorgeous trees randomly and dynamically) - forests can be created on the fly without the need of massive artist over head. Not only does this create better, more organic looking forests at a fraction of the file size traditional methods would incurr, it also exponentially cuts down the time artists need to spend on creating the content. It's a win, win, win... saves file size space, time, money, and delivers higher quality results.

Dynamic Animation Systems: The new Indianna Jones title coming from Lucas Arts is introducing this new technological breakthrough to the industry. Their use of "NaturalMotion" makes it obsolete to generate thousands, and thousands of animation permutations. Instead, developers author behaviors, and then the characters animations will be generated on the fly, responding appropriately to their environment. It cust down dramatically on the amount of data that's needed to be stored on the media.

Future Advancements? In case you haven't already caught on to the trend, this generation is less about traditionally developed content stored on a disk and much more about better, smarter methods of producing higher quality, more realistic environments, characters, and levels of immersion that are more taxing to the CPU/GPU than to the storage medium(s)... the result? Far less storage is needed to produce equally (or better) looking, playing, and sounding games.

XNA, Procedural Synthesis, NaturalMotion cover practical build process minimizing, dynamic environmental generation, and dynamicaly created animations... what's next? A method of auto-generating crowds of people, saving countless megabites of generic textures? Newer compression technologies that make significantly higher quality textures able to fit into the 512megs of ram - AND consume LESS space on a disk? Who knows... but the fact remains that the trend in game development is "let's make the CPU do the work for us". Just take a look at many of the PS3 demos. The exploding castle? That's cool because the rocks are dynamically 'shattering' the castle. It's not stored animation data taking up space on a disk. The cool gas-station explosion they showed at E32005? It was a dynamically generated explosion of particles based on variables and data created on the fly, not stored animations/textures, etc. Clearly - this is the direction the industry is going... it yeilds better results in game, takes less time to develop/create, and costs *less* storage.

Conclusion: Therefore, I side with the industry analysts, experts, and insiders. Blu-Ray's storage capacity isn't necessary, especially at the price consumers have to pay for the technology. To quote one of my sources:

"Looking over the data, it's fairly evident that in fact DVD9 is not too small for next generation games as much as it was too big for the last generation's. Very few games on the original Xbox came close to pushing the limits of the DVD9 format, leaving plenty of room for growth.

Undoubtedly, games will grow. However, technology designed to keep them small and compact will grow as well.

The PS3 will be able to store more data with their blu-ray discs, but that won't necessarily mean that they'll be any less limited in their creativity. It might simply give developers more room to be sloppy in their programing."

Procedurally generate game that's only 96 kilobytes in size:

[img]http://gamesfirst.com/images/content/2006_01/1137623168_full5.jpg[/img]

Sources:
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/702/702389p1.html
http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/PS3-gamble.ars/2
http://www.techkills.com/303-ps3-games-to-cost-more-than-xbox-360-games.html
http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-24635960&user=E2ESQUARE
http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/2006/01/24/517071.aspx

Once again, none of this is an argument for games not increasing in size. All that you've shown is that it is possible to make small games. This is a completely separate argument than "games will not increase in size." The debate term for this is a 'link.' In this instance you are providing factual correct statements about programming and then linking them to your conclusion. However your link is very weak. This invalidates your conclusion. You do this quite often on these forums. Your initial data has nothing to do with your conclusions. If you want to continue this debate please provide an actual reason why games can no longer increase in this generation unlike past generations.

Furthermore I'm going to engage in a topicality argument with you. You claim a very strict definition for necessary. Clearly game consoles are not necessary and therefore under your strict definition it is easy to argue that blu-ray is unnecessary. However the topical argument is whether blu-ray is necessary for the next generation of video games. Space invaders was fun and entertaining. It certainly did not require blu-ray. Therefore blu-ray is not necessary for the gaming hobby. However it may well be necessary for the next generation of gaming. There is a key difference between the argument blu-ray is unnecessary for entertaining video games and blu-ray is unnecessary for the next generation of video games.

[loki22]

sonyfan6 wrote

Once again, why? Because you say so? All the links that you have provided previously draw their conclusions soley from the last few years. Oh, and packing more data into a smaller space is not intrinsically better. Once again you have failed to address the key issue. Why will the step not occur this generation? You admit that is has occurred previously. Why will it not occur this time? What limit are we reaching that prevents the use of more space? You have given no argument saying why games won't use more space you've only said that it is possible to make games smaller. These are not the same thing. Games can always be made smaller. That didn't stop the previous generation from using dvds. That didn't stop the cd generation from using cds, etc. Why is this generation different? You have not addressed this very important issue.


Plus, he acts as if there were no AAA games when games moved to CD-ROMs, or when games moved to DVD-ROMs, or that they wouldn't have been "carelessly bloated" if they had remained on the prior format.

sonyfan6 wrote

Once again, none of this is an argument for games not increasing in size. All that you've shown is that it is possible to make small games. This is a completely separate argument than "games will not increase in size." The debate term for this is a 'link.' In this instance you are providing factual correct statements about programming and then linking them to your conclusion. However your link is very weak. This invalidates your conclusion. You do this quite often on these forums. Your initial data has nothing to do with your conclusions. If you want to continue this debate please provide an actual reason why games can no longer increase in this generation unlike past generations.

Furthermore I'm going to engage in a topicality argument with you. You claim a very strict definition for necessary. Clearly game consoles are not necessary and therefore under your strict definition it is easy to argue that blu-ray is unnecessary. However the topical argument is whether blu-ray is necessary for the next generation of video games. Space invaders was fun and entertaining. It certainly did not require blu-ray. Therefore blu-ray is not necessary for the gaming hobby. However it may well be necessary for the next generation of gaming. There is a key difference between the argument blu-ray is unnecessary for entertaining video games and blu-ray is unnecessary for the next generation of video games.


Another way to couch the issue is: are there things that are possible on BDs that aren't possible and/or are impractical on DVD9s? Of course, we know Darfalz' answer to that question, as well, as he hasn't addressed the issue you raised about non-linear games, on the merits. As with all issues, he only addresses those that he thinks he can characterize in a manner, favorable to his overall position that "Sony, the PS3, and Blu-ray suck and MS and the 360 are great (with HD-DVD only being great because MS vaguely supports it and because it will hurt Sony if HD-DVD wins the format war)."

But another great, insightful post on your part.

[Darkfalz]

Your speculatory comments were met with other speculatory comments. My speculatory comments were no more or less valid than yours, except that I linked to other industry professionals whom agree with me... so I won't bother trying to dig into any of those points further. They stand on their own.


Furthermore I'm going to engage in a topicality argument with you. You claim a very strict definition for necessary. Clearly game consoles are not necessary and therefore under your strict definition it is easy to argue that blu-ray is unnecessary. However the topical argument is whether blu-ray is necessary for the next generation of video games. Space invaders was fun and entertaining. It certainly did not require blu-ray. Therefore blu-ray is not necessary for the gaming hobby. However it may well be necessary for the next generation of gaming. There is a key difference between the argument blu-ray is unnecessary for entertaining video games and blu-ray is unnecessary for the next generation of video games.

It's ludicrous to take the meaning of the word 'necessary' to the extreme you're taking it... and as I've backed my opinion with facts, professional opinions and more, I can say without challenge Blu-Ray isn't necessary for this generation of games. It's a luxury item that will not provide any extra feature or effect that couldn't be done on DVD-9's.

It's interesting that you continually try to invalidate my arguments, rather than truly challenging them. Rather than bringing any proof to the table as to why using the past generation's growth in games is somehow unrepresentative of what we can expect this generation to yeild - you simply state that "you don't think it's representative"... hardly an argument worth taking seriously.

Keep trying, though... I just hope next time you bring some proof to back up your suggestions and arguments, as without it - they pale in comparison to my solid backed facts and industry wide opinions.

[wotter]

Quotes from professionals/analysts/industry insiders:



Are those really devs? I thought devs always loved more space? They contradict the devs mentioned on page 1.

[Darkfalz]

Quotes from professionals/analysts/industry insiders:



Are those really devs? I thought devs always loved more space? They contradict the devs mentioned on page 1.

Devs do love more space... but they love making money more. They've acknowledged that when including a Blu-Ray drive into a next gen system, it raises the cost of manufacturing to nearly double what it would have to be without it. That means the cost of entry for consumers is significantly higher than it should be, and higher than what consumers were hoping for/expecting. A higher price means less units getting to consumers, as I've pointed out before, the vast majority of PS2's sold when the system was at or below 200$... and it'll be years before the PS3 can get to that price.

That's why we're seeing dropped support for the PS3. It's a risk. Not only is it very pricey to develop for, it's also gauranteed to sell *less* units than the PS2 did. By how much is anyone's guess, but analysts predict it's best case scenario is 40% market share - a stark contrast to the 70% Sony enjoyed this last gen.

...so as mentioned before, many, many devs don't believe the trade off was worth it. I'm in that camp. I don't think it was worth it.

[chopchopyep]

If devs are "running away" like darkfalz is trying to say, then why are the most expensive and prestigous PS3 games, still PS3 exclusive?

Do 3rd party companies like Capcom, Konami and Square-Enix want to risk their biggest brands?

Why should they "risk" their biggest names?

Why would Sega for example take that much of a risk by making VF5 exclusive?

[Darkfalz]

If devs are "running away" like darkfalz is trying to say, then why are the most expensive and prestigous PS3 games, still PS3 exclusive?

Do 3rd party companies like Capcom, Konami and Square-Enix want to risk their biggest brands?

Why should they "risk" their biggest names?

Why would Sega for example take that much of a risk by making VF5 exclusive?

For two reasons:

1) The biggest developers and publishers in the industry can afford several catastrophic failures because they rely on catastrophic successes. They can afford to take big bets... because while big bets often lose big amounts of moeny, they sometimes win big - making much more than anyone could have anticipated. Smaller, less successful devs/publishers on the other hand can't afford many misses. They need to be more selecctive, and careful where they invest. So far, it's looking like PS3 is a higher risk than 360 or Wii. This isn't a biased, unfair statement - it's just the truth. No company has gone on record saying they won't support the 360. The same cannot be said of PS3.

2) They've already recieved a healthy pay check, and have been promised extra advertising, special benefits, etc... so for the devs - it's a win, win.

When you're a developer creating 'AAA' content for a console, the company behind that console will reward you very well. Gears of War (as a project) and Epic (as a company) is getting excellent treatment from Ms. The best, in fact. The marketing allocated for the title is insane, and Epic won't be hurting whether the game sells or not - MS has gauranteed that. So there's no risk. Epic makes money on the deal if the game sells 0 copies. MS & Epic win BIG TIME if the game sells upwards of 1 million copies.

Therefore, it's all about risk. Larger companies developing sure fire hits will always get money, and will always get special treatment. They've earned it. Smaller companies need to hedge their bets more... and the 360 is a more viable option for many of them, as is the Wii. It's cheaper to make games for them, the systems themselves are cheaper, and it's likely that Sony will lose the lionshare of their market lead they had this generation. This generation, it's unlikely Sony will be able to play the "I have more market share than anyone else" card. In fact, that may be a card MS enjoys for several years...

But this thread isn't about 'Devs running'... it's about Blu-Ray. Other than Sonyfan telling me my points aren't valid, yet giving no substance as to why they're not valid - my post goes unchallenged, and Blu-Ray is provably not necessary for games this generation, nor can any feature, effect, or content be bettered by having Blu-Ray. The exact same experience can always be done on DVD-9...

So again, is the gaurantee that you'll never need games on more than one disk really worth an increase of $300 in manufacturing costs of the console? The majority of the industry and myself are inclined to say 'no'. Is it an all around bad thing? Well - the cost increase will shrink the gaming market this generation, no doubt... so it's not healthy for the industry... but it's not an altogether bad thing. It's good that you'll never need to worry about a game taking more than one disk. It is good the devs won't have to think about space constraints (on one hand, even though on the other - they could bloat the titles as mentioned before, causing more bad than good)... but is it all worth it? We'll find out over the next few years...

[sonyfan6]

My speculatory comments were no more or less valid than yours, except that I linked to other industry professionals whom agree with me... so I won't bother trying to dig into any of those points further. They stand on their own.


Furthermore I'm going to engage in a topicality argument with you. You claim a very strict definition for necessary. Clearly game consoles are not necessary and therefore under your strict definition it is easy to argue that blu-ray is unnecessary. However the topical argument is whether blu-ray is necessary for the next generation of video games. Space invaders was fun and entertaining. It certainly did not require blu-ray. Therefore blu-ray is not necessary for the gaming hobby. However it may well be necessary for the next generation of gaming. There is a key difference between the argument blu-ray is unnecessary for entertaining video games and blu-ray is unnecessary for the next generation of video games.

It's ludicrous to take the meaning of the word 'necessary' to the extreme you're taking it... and as I've backed my opinion with facts, professional opinions and more, I can say without challenge Blu-Ray isn't necessary for this generation of games. It's a luxury item that will not provide any extra feature or effect that couldn't be done on DVD-9's.

It's interesting that you continually try to invalidate my arguments, rather than truly challenging them. Rather than bringing any proof to the table as to why using the past generation's growth in games is somehow unrepresentative of what we can expect this generation to yield - you simply state that "you don't think it's representative"... hardly an argument worth taking seriously.

Keep trying, though... I just hope next time you bring some proof to back up your suggestions and arguments, as without it - they pale in comparison to my solid backed facts and industry wide opinions.

Another waste of space on these forums. Once again you fail to engage the argument and fall back on the "my facts, my facts, my facts."

In keeping with the principles of good debate here is a flow of points debated thus far.

1) Historical trends. The affirmative has presented a historical trend and predicted the continuation of said trend. The negative gave four anti-blu-ray quotes to as evidence that the trend would not continue. The affirmative responded asking for context claiming quotes are insufficient. The reasoning behind the quotes is needed for their inclusion in this debate. The negative ignored, just repeating that it had quotes. The negative further claimed that the affirmative's comments are baseless but made no effort to back this claim. The affirmative has presented history, a powerful source. In order to rebut the authenticity of the affirmative's claim the negative must show evidence that disproves history or demonstrates why the trend will not continue. Anonymous quotes from 'industry experts' is insufficient to either disprove history or attack the continuation of the trend. The negative must provide the reasoning behind these quotes, as requested by the affirmative or the point is yielded. Since the negative has failed to present any such evidence it has yielded the point.
Resolution: historical trends do indicate that game space will continue to increase.

2) Non-linear. The negative has failed to respond to the issue brought forth by the affirmative that non-linear games cannot merely be split between multiple discs. Since the negative has failed to respond it have yielded the point.
Resolution: multiple discs are not a universal solution indicating a least one very important purpose for blu-ray.

3) Link Attack.

The negative presented the following argument:
Evidence. Small games can be made.
Link. Because small games can be made game size will not increase.
Conclusion. Blu-ray not needed.

The affirmative attacked the argument link by claiming that the negative's evidence only indicates that small games can be made. This has not, in the past, prevented games from using more disc space. Therefore, while the presented evidence might be valid it does not lead to the stated conclusion. The negative has failed to respond. Thus the link that the capability to make small games implies that games will not increase in size has been yielded. Since the conclusion requires the link, the negative's conclusion has also be invalidated. Resolution: the negative has yielded the argument that the capability to make small games invalidates the need for blu-ray.

4) Topicality. The negative has clearly never engaged in a topicality debate. The negative claims that the affirmative's definition of necessary is too extreme without offering another definition. The definition proposed by the affirmative is inclusive of 'next generation.' Thus creating a context for the debate. The term necessary, in regards to console technology, cannot be taken to mean necessary for life on this planet. The definition used must include relevance to the debated field, in this case game consoles. Therefore the phrase blu-ray is necessary must be taken to mean that blu-ray is necessary for this coming generation of game consoles. Without this definition the debate is meaningless. The negative has decided to present the argument that the affirmative's definition is too extreme. This is not a well thought out argument, however we will accept it as a counter-point with the above rebuttal that it is not extreme to place the word necessary in the context of the debated field. Therefore the negative has not yet yielded the definition of necessary but is perilously close to doing so. The negative may attempt to offer a counter-definition in rebuttal. Failure to submit a counter-definition will equate to yielding to the affirmative's definition.

It also bears mentioning that in attempting to argue topicality, the negative has weakened its overall position. Arguing against the affirmative's definition that blu-ray is necessary for a next-generation gaming console is equivalent to the negative admitting that it is incapable of arguing against the necessity of blu-ray for next-gen gaming consoles. Thus the negative must attempt to redefine the debate to a definition of the word necessary that the negative is capable of arguing against. If this were not the case, the negative would voluntarily drop the topicality argument and agree to the definition proposed by the affirmative.

5) 'Facts.' The most common 'rebuttal' used by the negative. The negative proposes that the presentation of facts validates the negative's conclusion. However, when asked to demonstrate the relevance between the 'facts' and the negative's conclusion the negative refuses to comment. The affirmative is capable of using 'facts.' George Washington was the first president of the United States. This is a true fact, yet hardly relevant to the debate. Upon cross examination the negative has refused to defend the relevance of 'facts' to the debate. Failure to demonstrate any link between the evidence supplied by the negative and the negative's conclusions, the negative has yielded the debate itself.

Given the previous points the affirmative makes the following recommendations:

1) The negative acknowledge the staircase argument and either:
a) Concede the point to the affirmative.
b) Provide a rebuttal of the staircase argument. e.g.
i) History does not support the affirmative's position.
ii) History will not repeat itself because <negative's rebuttal>

2) The negative acknowledge the non-linear argument and either:
a) Concede the point to the affirmative.
b) Provide a rebuttal demonstrating that non-linear games can be effectively split between multiple discs.

3) The negative acknowledge the link attack and either:
a) Concede the point to the affirmative.
b) Provide new evidence that supports the negative's conclusion.

4) Topicality of the word necessary must be agreed upon.
a) The negative can agree to the affirmative's definition.
b) The negative can provide a counter definition.

5) The negative must cease brining in facts without demonstrating their relevance to the debate. All facts must have a link to the negative's stated conclusion.


Failure to engage in the debate as described by the affirmative will result in the negative immediately yielding the above points of contention resulting in the negative forfeiting the debate.


It's been a while since I've brushed off the old debate skills. This could be fun. I'll point out one final thing though before finishing the post:


It's interesting that you continually try to invalidate my arguments

You follow this with a statement that I can only assume that you mean to say that you don't like that I'm not debating your 'facts' and I'm instead debating the positions that you are taking as a result of your 'facts.' This is what debate is all about. Anyone can shout 'facts' until their face is blue. It does not make the points that they are using those 'facts' to support any more true. A good debater will always follow-up facts with sound reasoning to explain why those facts support either the affirmative or the negative. This is what you are failing to do. I am under no obligation to attack your 'facts' if I can just as easily attack the link between your 'facts' and your 'conclusion.' If you want to continue to debate include some reasoning with your facts to explain why they support your conclusion. This is just as important, if not more important, to a debate as the facts themselves.

[Darrius Cole]

First off, the question is not whether blu-ray is necessary, the question is whether you can make a better game on blu-ray, than you can on a DVD-9. By the way, the answer to the latter is "yes".

The problem is not that people don't show you why your points are invalid. You just don't acknowledge the facts that show your points invalid.

A simple fact is that blu-ray is not necessary to make any game that has already been released before blu-ray.

What is also a fact is that blu-ray allows developers to make bigger games than you can make on a DVD-9.

What is also a fact is that you can make a game of higher resolution on a blu-ray disc than you can on a DVD-9.

Another simple fact is that you can make a larger RPG on a blu-ray disc than you can on a DVD-9.

What is also a fact is that a 1st generation, 1st year Xbox 360 game, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, used about 90% of the available space on a DVD-9. If that game is made 12% larger it will not fit on a DVD-9.

What is also a fact is that putting an RPG on two discs limits it open-endedness because certain locations and/or certain quests will require a disc swap and swapping discs will become tedious when you are traveling back and forth across the map.

All simple, all factual, yet you, Darkfalz, will find some way to argue with it.

I suppose blu-ray is only necessary if you want to make games any better than they currently are.

[Boomer51]

Darkfalz

Actually, I saw Sonyfan bringing up good points that definately challenged many of your so called "facts". I mean really, didn't you already lock another thread like this with your constant bickering and "end of story"/"PERIOD" nonsense?

There is no proof that Blu-Ray is not necessary as you so call it, because the PS3 isn't even out yet. All you presented are testimonials and predictions from some people over the internet and call them professionals. With your naive and biased attitude, you use this information and call it fact. On the otherhand, there are analysts and people who say the space Blu-Ray provides is needed and is a breath of fresh air (but of course you overlook these)

I know this is a forum and that opinions are a healthy part of it. But there is such a thing as taking an argument too far. Good arguments will have solid facts presented and agreements from both sides but you attack anybody that disagrees or blatantly ignore them when their arguments are solid.

So please, I'm sick and tired of you raining on these forums. You could either stop posting or show some intelligence and leave your superiority complex out.

[sonyfan6]

Continued...

Darkfalz's 'facts'

For anyone wondering why I am putting the word facts in single quotes when discussing Darkfalz's 'facts' there are three reasons.

1) The affirmative in no way yields that these 'facts' are valid.

2) Darkfalz's 'facts' are not facts. They are actually conclusions derived by others. These conclusions are based on actual facts, also known as evidence. The original arguments went in this order: fact, reasoning, conclusion. Darkfalz is just taking the conclusion from someone else's argument and presenting them as absolute 'facts.' What Darkfalz should be doing is presenting the other person's actual evidence as the factual basis for a well reasoned argument that makes a conclusion that he agrees with. This would be a far more acceptable form of presenting an opinion. Furthermore it would make for a more engaging debate as one could argue the original evidence, the reasoning that uses the evidence and the conclusion reached by the reasoning from the evidence. Instead Darkfalz is merely quoting someone else's conclusion and claiming it to be 'fact'. When people bring up valid arguments about the initial evidence, reasoning or conclusion Darkfalz falls back on it being 'fact' when it is actually conclusion. This is a completely invalid form of debate which leads us to the third and final reason I put Darkfalz's 'facts' in single quotes...

3) It is a subtle form of mockery...shocking no?

[Darkfalz]

Continued...

Darkfalz's 'facts'

For anyone wondering why I am putting the word facts in single quotes when discussing Darkfalz's 'facts' there are three reasons.

1) The affirmative in no way yields that these 'facts' are valid.

2) Darkfalz's 'facts' are not facts. They are actually conclusions derived by others. These conclusions are based on actual facts, also known as evidence. The original arguments went in this order: fact, reasoning, conclusion. Darkfalz is just taking the conclusion from someone else's argument and presenting them as absolute 'facts.' What Darkfalz should be doing is presenting the other person's actual evidence as the factual basis for a well reasoned argument that makes a conclusion that he agrees with. This would be a far more acceptable form of presenting an opinion. Furthermore it would make for a more engaging debate as one could argue the original evidence, the reasoning that uses the evidence and the conclusion reached by the reasoning from the evidence. Instead Darkfalz is merely quoting someone else's conclusion and claiming it to be 'fact'. When people bring up valid arguments about the initial evidence, reasoning or conclusion Darkfalz falls back on it being 'fact' when it is actually conclusion. This is a completely invalid form of debate which leads us to the third and final reason I put Darkfalz's 'facts' in single quotes...

3) It is a subtle form of mockery...shocking no?

Rather than going through all your posts of late, I'll just post questions to you one by one, so we can keep these discussions focused. Our posts are getting to large and jumbled to be sorted through with time efficiency.

How about you answer this simple question:

What game mechanic, feature, or effect can a game achieve with Blu-Ray that it cannot with DVD-9's?

[sonyfan6]

Rather than going through all your posts of late, I'll just post questions to you one by one, so we can keep these discussions focused. Our posts are getting to large and jumbled to be sorted through with time efficiency.

I guess this means you didn't read through my earlier posts.


How about you answer this simple question:

What game mechanic, feature, or effect can a game achieve with Blu-Ray that it cannot with DVD-9's?

You do realize that this is exactly the point that I addressed earlier on this very page. I'll quote the original post so you don't need to search for it.


To reiterate points made on other threads:

1) Multiple discs are not sufficient for non-linear games. In non-linear games much of the game must be repeated on each disc. If the game cannot be broken in a linear fashion then one will need to go back and forth between discs. Changing discs can replace loading times between areas. This will not be soon, but it is the problem with the concept of 'just include a second disc and everything will be fine.'

2) Every argument that I have ever seen against the need for more space always looks at the rate that games increased in size over the last couple years. This doesn't just mean now, it also means back when we first started using dvds instead of cds and cds instead of cartridges. People ignore the overall trend that size increases. These increases are not constant. They appear more like stairs. Every time a new media is introduced there is an enormous jump followed by a period of time while the media is used that size stays relatively constant. This has been true for the last 20 years and no one has pointed out a good fundamental reason why this trend should not continue. People say, 'we already have 3d graphics, what else can we do?' The same thing was said about 2d graphics. I think this is what the quote about ps3 doing 4d gaming was all about. It doesn't mean time (although it could manifest that way). It truly means the next generation of gaming.

Games are a very profitable and very competitive industry. I guarantee you that every major developer that intends to make games for the ps3 is trying to figure out how to best use the extra space to gain an edge over their competition. They have smart people working for them and someone is going to figure out how to make good use of the extra space. I can't tell you for sure how the extra space will be utilized but I can tell you for sure that it will be utilized. To assume anything else in this competitive business world is very shortsighted.


EDIT

For those that disagree with anything that I have written above. Yes it is speculation, however it is different than the speculation offered by the people that claim blu-ray will not be utilized. My speculation is that the trend that we have seen in the past will continue to repeat itself. History is my 'source.' For those that disagree the burden is on you to provide a compelling reason why the trend will deviate from what has so clearly been shown time and again in the evolution of game consoles. A fundamental theory that limits why games cannot increase beyond their current size is required to demonstrate why blu-ray is not necessary. Without this evidence the opposition's speculation is baseless. This is very different than the speculation offered in this post, which is based on a historical trend.

[Grym]

hmm can't Blu-ray read from different parts of a disc simultaneously (DVD cannot)? I am almost sure I read about that somewhere.

That sounds like it will be an major advantage to me.

[sonyfan6]

I have not heard this anywhere. It doesn't seem likely as both formats use the same lasers. The only difference is the blu-ray has a smaller numerical aperture.

[Darrius Cole]

How about you answer this simple question:

What game mechanic, feature, or effect can a game achieve with Blu-Ray that it cannot with DVD-9's?

Off the top of my head

1.) 1080p resolution

2.) A world twice the size of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. For example one could make a game where you could go back and forth between Cyrodil (the region in Oblivion) and the region of Morrowind.

[Darkfalz]

Rather than going through all your posts of late, I'll just post questions to you one by one, so we can keep these discussions focused. Our posts are getting to large and jumbled to be sorted through with time efficiency.

I guess this means you didn't read through my earlier posts.


How about you answer this simple question:

What game mechanic, feature, or effect can a game achieve with Blu-Ray that it cannot with DVD-9's?

You do realize that this is exactly the point that I addressed earlier on this very page. I'll quote the original post so you don't need to search for it.


To reiterate points made on other threads:

1) Multiple discs are not sufficient for non-linear games. In non-linear games much of the game must be repeated on each disc. If the game cannot be broken in a linear fashion then one will need to go back and forth between discs. Changing discs can replace loading times between areas. This will not be soon, but it is the problem with the concept of 'just include a second disc and everything will be fine.'

2) Every argument that I have ever seen against the need for more space always looks at the rate that games increased in size over the last couple years. This doesn't just mean now, it also means back when we first started using dvds instead of cds and cds instead of cartridges. People ignore the overall trend that size increases. These increases are not constant. They appear more like stairs. Every time a new media is introduced there is an enormous jump followed by a period of time while the media is used that size stays relatively constant. This has been true for the last 20 years and no one has pointed out a good fundamental reason why this trend should not continue. People say, 'we already have 3d graphics, what else can we do?' The same thing was said about 2d graphics. I think this is what the quote about ps3 doing 4d gaming was all about. It doesn't mean time (although it could manifest that way). It truly means the next generation of gaming.

Games are a very profitable and very competitive industry. I guarantee you that every major developer that intends to make games for the ps3 is trying to figure out how to best use the extra space to gain an edge over their competition. They have smart people working for them and someone is going to figure out how to make good use of the extra space. I can't tell you for sure how the extra space will be utilized but I can tell you for sure that it will be utilized. To assume anything else in this competitive business world is very shortsighted.


EDIT

For those that disagree with anything that I have written above. Yes it is speculation, however it is different than the speculation offered by the people that claim blu-ray will not be utilized. My speculation is that the trend that we have seen in the past will continue to repeat itself. History is my 'source.' For those that disagree the burden is on you to provide a compelling reason why the trend will deviate from what has so clearly been shown time and again in the evolution of game consoles. A fundamental theory that limits why games cannot increase beyond their current size is required to demonstrate why blu-ray is not necessary. Without this evidence the opposition's speculation is baseless. This is very different than the speculation offered in this post, which is based on a historical trend.

...and as you mentioned, that's all speculation.

I could speculate that the world will end tomorrow. It's possible, and just as valid as your speculation... however, all indications we have point against that speculation being true.

What proof do you have that your speculative comments could indeed be true? What proof or data is there that indicates 'non-linear' games (as you put it) would incur the abbrasive need to swap disks in the manor in which you suggest?

[sonyfan6]

And once again Darkfalz selectively ignores parts he doesn't like.

You decided to completely ignore the part where I discuss the difference between speculation based on history and baseless speculation. History is an excellent source for someone arguing that a trend will continue. It is not the burden of the affirmative to prove that a trend will continue. It is the burden of the negative to demonstrate compelling reasons why it will not continue. There are two basic ways to do this. You can either argue that I've misrepresented history and that the trend is not in fact increasing as a staircase or you can do this by providing reasons why this step will be different from previous ones. Note that I already engaged you on this point several posts back and you didn't respond. So we are now regressing to an earlier point in the debate (something you do quite frequently when things don't go your way) instead of advancing the debate forward and examining new grounds.

You may also want to see my above post where I dissect the flow of the debate for some other points you may wish to address. Either address them or yield the points. This going back to the beginning is rather pointless.

[Darkfalz]

Off the top of my head

1.) 1080p resolution

Fact: 1080p in games is not a product of capacity on a disk. It's a result of the system providing a frame buffer large enough in size to fit more than 2 million pixels, and have the processing power to manipulate those pixels efficiently. This is why Xbox 1 games that are backwards compatible on Xbox 360 do not change in file size, yet they are rendered at 1080i.

1080p videos do indeed require space on a disk, but over 2 hours of 1080p video can fit on a DVD-9 via VC-1 compression. Therefore, this is not an exclusive feature to Blu-ray. This feature could have been implimented on PS3 games without Blu-Ray. This is a fact, not my opinion.

NOTE: The 1080i resolution restriction is not a result of the media, or even the CPU/GPU. It's a result of the video scaler in the 360.


2.) A world twice the size of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. For example one could make a game where you could go back and forth between Cyrodil (the region in Oblivion) and the region of Morrowind.

Morrowind and Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9. Oblivion is a perfect example of a giant game that was created intelligently. It uses procedural synthesis, a method of dynamically creating the environment prcedurally, thus eliminating the need for artists to create every tree, bit of shrubbery, textures, etc. resulting in a more organic looking forest that cost significantly less time to produce, and takes up significantly less space on a disk.

Furthermore, even if the game was so large (genuinely large, mind you) that it needed more space than is available on a DVD-9, they could put the necessary content on another disk, and users could have the option of caching that data to their hard drive (if they had one) so disk swapping at all wouldn't be necessary. Or, they could simply intelligently find a good breaking point where swapping of disks wouldn't interfere with the gameplay. This has been done many, many, many times before with very large games - and it's *never* been a ding on the quality of the game, the review for the game, or the sales of the game.

Both your points are therefore false. Neither feature is impossible using DVD-9.

Next?


You decided to completely ignore the part where I discuss the difference between speculation based on history and baseless speculation. History is an excellent source for someone arguing that a trend will continue. It is not the burden of the affirmative to prove that a trend will continue. It is the burden of the negative to demonstrate compelling reasons why it will not continue.

Please show the data that indicates the 'history' of which you speak. You have yet to provide the data about your baseless conslusion, and therefore your conclusion is completely invalid until you can provide some indication that it has credibility other than because "you said you think that's how it is".

My speculation was backed with the history of last gen. Your 'history' seems to be lacking any data other than your assumptions. Please, give me and the rest of this forum some real data - as I've yet to see any from you.

Thanks. :-)

[sonyfan6]

You're still ignoring all the points that I have made. You're even attempting to argue non-linear without acknowledging my previous points regarding non-linear games.

[Ricokillercon]

Dark...if 360 had standard HDD...then maybe multi-disk wouldnt be so bad....but MS fumble the ball on that one....

[Darkfalz]

You're still ignoring all the points that I have made. You're even attempting to argue non-linear without acknowledging my previous points regarding non-linear games.

I'm not ignoring anything. I'm not attempting to argue anyhing about non-linear games - you suggested that their nature would imply the use of more than one disk would result in abbrasive disk swapping, which I in turn illustrated was your own speculation, which hasn't been backed with any other opinions, facts, or data. You make such assertions without providing any sort of evidence to support your claim - so until you do, of course I won't waste my time (again) proving it wrong. I've already done that. You've failed to acknowledge it... but I have done it.

So please, why don't you please try to back up one of your many assumptions and speculative comments? Just one would work... then we can worry about the rest... but why don't you try to validate just one of your *many* speculative remarks... please? Otherwise, how can we continue a reasonable discussion?

Thanks. ;-)


Dark...if 360 had standard HDD...then maybe multi-disk wouldnt be so bad....but MS fumble the ball on that one....

The attach rate for HD's is upwards of 85% - that's the vast majority... and while a developer shouldn't (actually, isn't technically allowed to) *require* the use of the hard drive, if they ran into the corner case we're discussing, they could indeed make use of it, resulting in the game never needing to swap disks.

The point is, what can Blu-Ray provide that cannot be provided with a DVD-9? There have been two suggestions, neither of which are actually true (1080p & large game worlds)... so please, can anyone indicate what Blu-Ray can offer to games that couldn't be done on DVD-9's? Anyone?

[damus]

You're still ignoring all the points that I have made. You're even attempting to argue non-linear without acknowledging my previous points regarding non-linear games.

I'm not ignoring anything. I'm not attempting to argue anyhing about non-linear games - you suggested that their nature would imply the use of more than one disk would result in abbrasive disk swapping, which I in turn illustrated was your own speculation, which hasn't been backed with any other opinions, facts, or data. You make such assertions without providing any sort of evidence to support your claim - so until you do, of course I won't waste my time (again) proving it wrong. I've already done that. You've failed to acknowledge it... but I have done it.

So please, why don't you please try to back up one of your many assumptions and speculative comments? Just one would work... then we can worry about the rest... but why don't you try to validate just one of your *many* speculative remarks... please? Otherwise, how can we continue a reasonable discussion?

Thanks. ;-)


Dark...if 360 had standard HDD...then maybe multi-disk wouldnt be so bad....but MS fumble the ball on that one....

The attach rate for HD's is upwards of 85% - that's the vast majority... and while a developer shouldn't (actually, isn't technically allowed to) *require* the use of the hard drive, if they ran into the corner case we're discussing, they could indeed make use of it, resulting in the game never needing to swap disks.

The point is, what can Blu-Ray provide that cannot be provided with a DVD-9? There have been two suggestions, neither of which are actually true (1080p & large game worlds)... so please, can anyone indicate what Blu-Ray can offer to games that couldn't be done on DVD-9's? Anyone?

Dark, could you plz give a link showing that DVD9 can support 1080p, just so i can check it out. Because i dont think that it does support that high of quality, but i could be wrong, so plz provide the link for your source.

[Ricokillercon]

You're still ignoring all the points that I have made. You're even attempting to argue non-linear without acknowledging my previous points regarding non-linear games.

I'm not ignoring anything. I'm not attempting to argue anyhing about non-linear games - you suggested that their nature would imply the use of more than one disk would result in abbrasive disk swapping, which I in turn illustrated was your own speculation, which hasn't been backed with any other opinions, facts, or data. You make such assertions without providing any sort of evidence to support your claim - so until you do, of course I won't waste my time (again) proving it wrong. I've already done that. You've failed to acknowledge it... but I have done it.

So please, why don't you please try to back up one of your many assumptions and speculative comments? Just one would work... then we can worry about the rest... but why don't you try to validate just one of your *many* speculative remarks... please? Otherwise, how can we continue a reasonable discussion?

Thanks. ;-)


Dark...if 360 had standard HDD...then maybe multi-disk wouldnt be so bad....but MS fumble the ball on that one....

The attach rate for HD's is upwards of 85% - that's the vast majority... and while a developer shouldn't (actually, isn't technically allowed to) *require* the use of the hard drive, if they ran into the corner case we're discussing, they could indeed make use of it, resulting in the game never needing to swap disks.

The point is, what can Blu-Ray provide that cannot be provided with a DVD-9? There have been two suggestions, neither of which are actually true (1080p & large game worlds)... so please, can anyone indicate what Blu-Ray can offer to games that couldn't be done on DVD-9's? Anyone?

Another MS broke promise eh? Also would negate the 300 dollar pakage wouldnt it?

[sonyfan6]

So please, why don't you please try to back up one of your many assumptions and speculative comments? Just one would work... then we can worry about the rest... but why don't you try to validate just one of your *many* speculative remarks... please? Otherwise, how can we continue a reasonable discussion?


Evidence, reason, conclusion. Try it sometime. It's much more powerful and leads to a much better discussion that just repeatedly stating conclusions and shouting "FACT."

Let's get back to the conversation at hand.

1) You've already seen (and I know you've seen it because you've responded to it) the final fantasy disc space graph. If you must, use that as one, of many possible examples, of the step function trend that video games undergo. As I said, one example out of many. The average game size has increased every time a new media has been introduced. You've heard my reasoning and my conclusion. Let's hear the rebuttal already.

2) Non-linear. You claimed that games could be split up. This is in direct rebuttal of the non-linear argument that states not all games can be split up. In particular those with large, free roaming environments. These can only be split up along linear lines, which is not always possible. Final fantasy used to do this by splitting their movies among different discs so when you reached specific places in the story that were linear, they had a disc split and removed all the stuff that needed to be done in the previous disc from the new disc.

3) Link Attack. The only argument that you have put forth against (1) is examples of ways to save space. This does not equate to games not increasing in size. You have once again failed to defend your link and therefore your conclusion.

4) Topicality. You've ignored this. Am I to understand that you've agreed to my definition?

5) 'Facts.' You still keep bringing up these 'facts.' They aren't facts they are conclusions. Conclusions that other people have derived from evidence and reasoning. You would be much better served to look at an examine why these people came to these conclusions instead of just repeating them at face value and claiming them as fact. If you did this you could argue your side far more persuasively.

Start actually coming up with rebuttals and stop repeating that your 'facts' are the truth because you say so.

[loki22]

Dark, could you plz give a link showing that DVD9 can support 1080p, just so i can check it out. Because i dont think that it does support that high of quality, but i could be wrong, so plz provide the link for your source.


I do have to say that it's an undeniable fact that 2hrs. of 1080p video can fit on DVD9s, using VC-1. Why else do you think that 1080p movies are being put on 30GB HD-DVDs, using VC-1?... :lol:

A certain amount of 1080p content could fit on a CD-ROM, using VC-1, especially without any audio content. But what Darkfalz fails to mention is that the reason we don't just use DVD9s with VC-1, or even 15GB HD-DVDs with VC-1, for 1080p movies, is because the bit rate would be so low -- it would degrade the picture quality to the extent that it would defeat the purpose of having 1080p content on the disc.

Also, don't be fooled by his claim that Xbox games get rendered in 1080i, when played on the 360. If they're playable on the 360, the images can be upscaled to 720p or 1080i, but the games are still rendered in their original resolutions. There are differences between content with a native resolution of 1080p and content that is upscaled to 1080p. You can play a N64 game on an HDTV that can upscale the images to 1080p, but that isn't the same thing as playing a PS3 game that's originally rendered in 1080p on that same HDTV. The latter generally looks MUCH better than the former.

But hey, why pay attention to all of the relevant info, when focusing on isolated bits of info (out of context) can be used to fit one's position so much easier, right? :wink:

[Darkfalz]

Dark, could you plz give a link showing that DVD9 can support 1080p, just so i can check it out. Because i dont think that it does support that high of quality, but i could be wrong, so plz provide the link for your source.

You can be DVD's right now with 1080p content on them here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

I've found many forum folk who've confirmed it, but it's difficult to find a conclusive, non-biased source that would directly tell you it's a feature that's not limited to Blu-Ray.

Let me give you a bit of insight into how it all works.

In order to 'play' a 1080p video signal, you need several things to all happen:

1) hardware that can understand how to decode the video. Since HD content is never played in it's original, uncompressed state - it's always compressed. How much it's compressed, and with what method (codecs) introduces several variables.

2) Hardware that can OUTPUT 1080p. Even if your hardware can decode the 1080p signal, and could technically handle that kind of data - it'll never be seen on a screen unless the hardware can output it properly.

3) Media/storage that has 1080p content. This is important to understand - any device or media with the capability of being read at a rate of 12mbps or more is capable of housing 1080p HD video - you just need the other two factors mentioned above in order to display it.

That's a simplification - but you get the idea (hopefully).

Here's a perfect example.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

You can see that a 1080p trailer listed there is 105 megabites. That's less than 1.5% of a DVD-9's available capacity. Pop that into your PC, and if your PC can run 1080p video (meating the first two requirements I mentioned above) - then boom, you've got 1080p video off a normal, run of the mill DVD.

A Playstation 3, for example, would easily be able to play 1080p content directly off a DVD-9 without any problems. It would be a trivial task.

Does that answer your question/provide enough proof/insight for you?

[deecee]

damus-

"Dark, could you plz give a link showing that DVD9 can support 1080p, just so i can check it out. Because i dont think that it does support that high of quality, but i could be wrong, so plz provide the link for your source."

The format used to store the game has no bearing on a console's ability to support specific resolutions, scan rates, or interlacing schemes while the game is played. He's correctly explained that this is why XBOX games can be played at 1080i. The video hardware will draw individual frames and display them at the appropriate rate and format, be that 480p, 720p, or 1080p. So a console's support of a specific imaging resolution doesn't depend on the discs it uses to store games.

Darkfalz is right about a few other things too. Given that the media used to store the game is adequate for said game and better storage and procedural synthesis techniques are used (if they are indeed necessary at all), the format to be used for the next generation does not have to make such an incremental leap in storage space, and this case, price per unit.

So far I've been lurking and reading this, and as a fan of neither Microsoft nor Sony, I would say that based upon the hardware reviews and industry discussion surrounding Blu-Ray and HD-DVD that I've seen, some of which Darkfalz has correctly referenced, paraphrased and quoted here, that HD-DVD is likely to be adequate into the forseeable future for the purposes of gaming and movie viewing and presents a better solution unless studios will adopt the VC1 encoding scheme for movie content on Blu-Ray discs, and HD-DVD may still win out if Blu-Ray doesn't match it's price structure. If HD-DVD continues to offer a lower price point, it would then still be a slightly better solution. In addition, in the short term it will be in the best interests of a lot of studios, while they might endorse Blu-Ray, to also release on HD-DVD, because both formats will likely start with some degree of momentum.

In the short to mid-term, the compression schemes will be the determining factor. Considering the lifecycle of gaming consoles, Microsoft may one-up Sony in terms of the cost of their storage hardware, because they've gone with the most cost-effective and practical solution (which does not hinder the consumer's gaming experience in the least) for the current generation, and they'll have their pick of the most established format for the next generation.

Just my 2 cents.

[Grym]

HD-DVD is likely to be adequate into the forseeable future for the purposes of gaming

Why? 50 GB versus 30 GB and 45 GB versus 100 GB in the future. PS3 will cost $599 in the US and it is a fully capable Blu-ray player. (the $499 version is able to play Blu-ray too in 1080p)

HD-DVD may have won round 1 (for movies only) but with just the Samsung player out and no movies in h.264 or VC-1 codec on BD and no DL discs.

This "war" will not be won instantly in any case. In 2007 DL BD discs and h.264 will be used according to various announcements and by then PS3 is out.

[Darkfalz]

A certain amount of 1080p content could fit on a CD-ROM, using VC-1, especially without any audio content. But what Darkfalz fails to mention is that the reason we don't just use DVD9s with VC-1, or even 15GB HD-DVDs with VC-1, for 1080p movies, is because the bit rate would be so low -- it would degrade the picture quality to the extent that it would defeat the purpose of having 1080p content on the disc.

This is an untrue statement. At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself.


Also, don't be fooled by his claim that Xbox games get rendered in 1080i, when played on the 360. If they're playable on the 360, the images can be upscaled to 720p or 1080i, but the games are still rendered in their original resolutions. There are differences between content with a native resolution of 1080p and content that is upscaled to 1080p.

Ugh. The level of comprehension here astounds me. I never said that game content authored at 480p would look as good as content authored at 1080p. I said that acheiving 1080p resolutions in games isn't a limitation of the media the game is stored on, it's a limitation of the hardware that renders the game.

Case in point: Most PC games ship on CD, not even DVD. All of these modern PC games can be played at resolutions far exceeding 1080p. Pop Age of Empires III into a first class gaming PC, and you can get resolutions of *well above* 1920x1080.


You can play a N64 game on an HDTV that can upscale the images to 1080p, but that isn't the same thing as playing a PS3 game that's originally rendered in 1080p on that same HDTV. The latter generally looks MUCH better than the former.

Of course... yes, there's a difference between 'upscaling' a low res image and 'rendering' an image to a certain resolution.

Take GT4 HD, for example. It's using the same standard definition assets it used when running on the PS2, but they're rendering it at 1080p. That doesn't mean the file sizes magically increase, and it doesn't mean that suddenly every texture takes up twice the space, it means that more memory is required, and a faster GPU/CPU is necessary.

My example of Xbox 360 rendering Xbox 1 games at a higher resolution is a valid example, becuase the 360 isn't "upscaling". Microsoft works on a 'tag' for each backwards compatible game, so that the game itself renders at 720p natively. That doesn't mean the content magically gets better, but it does mean (like with GT4 HD) the same content is now being natively rendered at a higher resolution.

Hopefully, that clears up your missunderstanding of the facts.


In the short to mid-term, the compression schemes will be the determining factor. Considering the lifecycle of gaming consoles, Microsoft may one-up Sony in terms of the cost of their storage hardware, because they've gone with the most cost-effective and practical solution (which does not hinder the consumer's gaming experience in the least) for the current generation, and they'll have their pick of the most established format for the next generation.

Just my 2 cents.

I completely concur. I'm thrilled to see fairly non-partial posts like yours thrown into the mix, with vaild opinions. I hope you post here more often. :-)

[Darrius Cole]

Off the top of my head

1.) 1080p resolution

Fact: 1080p in games is not a product of capacity on a disk. It's a result of the system providing a frame buffer large enough in size to fit more than 2 million pixels, and have the processing power to manipulate those pixels efficiently. This is why Xbox 1 games that are backwards compatible on Xbox 360 do not change in file size, yet they are rendered at 1080i.

1080p videos do indeed require space on a disk, but over 2 hours of 1080p video can fit on a DVD-9 via VC-1 compression. Therefore, this is not an exclusive feature to Blu-ray. This feature could have been implimented on PS3 games without Blu-Ray. This is a fact, not my opinion.

NOTE: The 1080i resolution restriction is not a result of the media, or even the CPU/GPU. It's a result of the video scaler in the 360.


2.) A world twice the size of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. For example one could make a game where you could go back and forth between Cyrodil (the region in Oblivion) and the region of Morrowind.

Morrowind and Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9. Oblivion is a perfect example of a giant game that was created intelligently. It uses procedural synthesis, a method of dynamically creating the environment prcedurally, thus eliminating the need for artists to create every tree, bit of shrubbery, textures, etc. resulting in a more organic looking forest that cost significantly less time to produce, and takes up significantly less space on a disk.

Furthermore, even if the game was so large (genuinely large, mind you) that it needed more space than is available on a DVD-9, they could put the necessary content on another disk, and users could have the option of caching that data to their hard drive (if they had one) so disk swapping at all wouldn't be necessary. Or, they could simply intelligently find a good breaking point where swapping of disks wouldn't interfere with the gameplay. This has been done many, many, many times before with very large games - and it's *never* been a ding on the quality of the game, the review for the game, or the sales of the game.

Both your points are therefore false. Neither feature is impossible using DVD-9.

Next?


You decided to completely ignore the part where I discuss the difference between speculation based on history and baseless speculation. History is an excellent source for someone arguing that a trend will continue. It is not the burden of the affirmative to prove that a trend will continue. It is the burden of the negative to demonstrate compelling reasons why it will not continue.

Please show the data that indicates the 'history' of which you speak. You have yet to provide the data about your baseless conslusion, and therefore your conclusion is completely invalid until you can provide some indication that it has credibility other than because "you said you think that's how it is".

My speculation was backed with the history of last gen. Your 'history' seems to be lacking any data other than your assumptions. Please, give me and the rest of this forum some real data - as I've yet to see any from you.

Thanks. :-)

So let me get this right......

You're telling me that a game that is twice the size of Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9 and run at 1080p.

[Stu Pid]

Is upconverting and upscaling the same thing? How many HDTV's out there do their own upscaling? When I bought mine (last fall) I did a lot of research and nothing I saw did that. Granted, I was exploring sets below $5,000 so maybe the elite ones can do it. I had to get the upconvert DVD player to do that.

[Darkfalz]

So let me get this right......

You're telling me that a game that is twice the size of Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9 and run at 1080p.

Yes. Using mitigating factors like XNA, procedural synthesis, NaturalMotion, and other cost/space/time saving/quality increasing techniques - it's easily achieveable. Even without such mitigating factors, it would still be acheivable on multiple DVD-9's regardless.

Procedurally generated environments cost a fraction of the space on a disk that traditionally created environments consume. Therefore, if they procedurally generated more than just their forests, they could have a game significantly larger that Oblivion fit into even less space than Oblivion occupies now.

...but honestly... does anyone *want* a game bigger than Oblivion? I still haven't finished it... my buddies' invested over 80 hours - still going strong. He's about to complete it...

[Grym]

Off the top of my head

1.) 1080p resolution

Fact: 1080p in games is not a product of capacity on a disk. It's a result of the system providing a frame buffer large enough in size to fit more than 2 million pixels, and have the processing power to manipulate those pixels efficiently. This is why Xbox 1 games that are backwards compatible on Xbox 360 do not change in file size, yet they are rendered at 1080i.

1080p videos do indeed require space on a disk, but over 2 hours of 1080p video can fit on a DVD-9 via VC-1 compression. Therefore, this is not an exclusive feature to Blu-ray. This feature could have been implimented on PS3 games without Blu-Ray. This is a fact, not my opinion.

NOTE: The 1080i resolution restriction is not a result of the media, or even the CPU/GPU. It's a result of the video scaler in the 360.


2.) A world twice the size of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. For example one could make a game where you could go back and forth between Cyrodil (the region in Oblivion) and the region of Morrowind.

Morrowind and Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9. Oblivion is a perfect example of a giant game that was created intelligently. It uses procedural synthesis, a method of dynamically creating the environment prcedurally, thus eliminating the need for artists to create every tree, bit of shrubbery, textures, etc. resulting in a more organic looking forest that cost significantly less time to produce, and takes up significantly less space on a disk.

Furthermore, even if the game was so large (genuinely large, mind you) that it needed more space than is available on a DVD-9, they could put the necessary content on another disk, and users could have the option of caching that data to their hard drive (if they had one) so disk swapping at all wouldn't be necessary. Or, they could simply intelligently find a good breaking point where swapping of disks wouldn't interfere with the gameplay. This has been done many, many, many times before with very large games - and it's *never* been a ding on the quality of the game, the review for the game, or the sales of the game.

Both your points are therefore false. Neither feature is impossible using DVD-9.

Next?


You decided to completely ignore the part where I discuss the difference between speculation based on history and baseless speculation. History is an excellent source for someone arguing that a trend will continue. It is not the burden of the affirmative to prove that a trend will continue. It is the burden of the negative to demonstrate compelling reasons why it will not continue.

Please show the data that indicates the 'history' of which you speak. You have yet to provide the data about your baseless conslusion, and therefore your conclusion is completely invalid until you can provide some indication that it has credibility other than because "you said you think that's how it is".

My speculation was backed with the history of last gen. Your 'history' seems to be lacking any data other than your assumptions. Please, give me and the rest of this forum some real data - as I've yet to see any from you.

Thanks. :-)

So let me get this right......

You're telling me that a game that is twice the size of Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9 and run at 1080p.

You could use a (much) more efficient compression scheme. But that (most likely) increases the cpu usage for the decompression. But it is a matter of trade-offs. I would rather have it on 2 DVD-9 discs or the best would be 1 Blu-ray or 1 HD-DVD disc

[cobrasteve]

deecee, I can understand frustration with "Sony fanboyz", and you make some good points, but I think you're missing some very important considerations.

DVD9 could be used for 1080p, but that's just a good example to illustrate the benefit of an integrated HD disc (HD-DVD or Blu-ray). To take advantage of it, you'd need to have 1080p cut-scenes. You can have much much more of that material on an HD disc. DVD9s would severely limit HD games.

It's my understanding that 360 can only deliver 720p at a maximum. If 360 can deliver 1080i/p I would be impressed. However, that would make no sense with DVD9 because of its limited capacity for 1080i/p content. 720p content will fill up a DVD9 plenty fast.

HD-DVD has many advantages over Blu-ray, but they're all short-term. It's backwards-compatible. Excellent during a transition. Reportedly Blu-ray will also support this. It's cheaper to produce. Blu-ray will catch up in a couple of years. If HD-DVD players are cheaper to produce, Blu-ray will catch up on that as well. These HD-DVD advantages disappear in two or three years.

The other two important factors are compression and disc capacity. As I understand, part of the delay of Blu-ray is working out the compression. Of course this is vital to the success of either format. If Sony sticks with an inferior codec it will hurt their chances of success. I doubt they will sabotage themselves in that way. I don't know the details, but you can bet they'll be using something better than MPEG2. Beyond that, the greatest benefit of Blu-ray IMO is the capacity potential, which you seem to think is not worthy of mention.

I mean, your defense of HD-DVD is "it's adequate if it's cheaper". Yeah, DVD9 is "adequate" and "cheaper" too. I just hope that people won't be propagandized away from understanding the actual tradeoffs between the formats.

[The_One]

You're telling me that a game that is twice the size of Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9 and run at 1080p. With smudged up texture that are blown up to 1080p resolution--yes. Just look at GT4 at 1080i, the textures are HORRID. The same thing will happen if anyone is smart (or rather, dumb) enough to attempt a game twice that of Oblivion and trying to render it at 1080p. The memory on either consoles are definitely not enough for storying high resolution texture that will not become "smudgy" at 1080p (I'm not sure how large that'll have to be. Just for comparison, mind you, the ground texture in MGS3 are 5120x5120--or there abouts--and the "smudgy-ness" is already quite apparent). Lets not even go to the frame buffer and z-buffering issue. There's not doubt in my mind that even the PS3 won't be able to pull that one off.

Creating a game of that calibre isn't up to the disc space anymore, it's up to the memory and bandwidth of those memory (hardware limitations of the console; like Darkfalz said).

I have to mention one more thing that doesn't directly pertain to the topic, though:
Procedural generation is being blown up to obscure proportions, though. They are only that helpful when it comes to trees and bushes that can be procedurally generated over and over again with no loss in quality. Try procedurally generating an entire city, or a couple of dozens of civilian NPC's, and the difficulty mounds up exponentially (actually, lets just label it "impossible" for now). It's simply impossible at this point in time to use procedural generation of objects (that also have to be procedurally animated) that we all KNOW in real-life (That's why Spore can use procedural generation to such an extent; the creatures aren't real, and won't make the players go "Hey, that ain't right") at an extent that can be used to replace a major portion of a game's graphical asset. I'm not aiming this at anyone in specific, it's a trend I seem to be seeing lately: Procedural this procedural that; it's really getting annoying XD.

One last thing:
VC-1 is crap; too much artifacing if you want to fit 2 hour worth of media on a DVD-9 :?. MPEG-2 FTW!

[deecee]

I think the point people need to realize is that the "forseeable future", for the purposes of people buying either a PS3 or X360, is about 5 years. Many of the games that will come out in that space of time will not be likely to require more than the space on a DVD-9. Procedurally generated game-designs can help larger games fit.

Personally, I don't care who wins what, about fanboys or even so much about what console I'll eventually buy, or if there is a winner at all, because I don't have an X360 and I won't be buying a PS3 until probably 2 years into the release. I think Blu-Ray is a good option, but it can become a great option if the other factors fall into place (i.e. proper video fidelity through support of compression by movie studios themselves). As far as gaming goes, developers have managed well with the space constraints of the current generation of storage media, and efficiency of storage of environments and textures is to their advantage, so I think there may be some mileage left in our current format selections.

[Darkfalz]

Is upconverting and upscaling the same thing? How many HDTV's out there do their own upscaling? When I bought mine (last fall) I did a lot of research and nothing I saw did that. Granted, I was exploring sets below $5,000 so maybe the elite ones can do it. I had to get the upconvert DVD player to do that.

Any screen with a fixed resolution (like LCD's, DLP's, Plasma's, etc) always either upconverts (upscale) or downgrades (downscale) any resolution that's not equal to their native resolution.

I have an LCD projector with native 720x1280. Everything I ever display on that projectore will be at that resolution - it cannot change. therefore, if I have a 1080p signal or a 1080i signal, it will be downgraded to 720p, and filtered to look as best as possible. If it's a 480i, or 480p signal, it'll be upscaled to 720p.

Rendering an image at 720p and upscaling an image to 720p are very different things. One is taking a frame buffer with a lower resolution, and stretching it (while applying digital filters) to a larger resolution. This will never look as good as an image with a frame buffer of the higher resolution... but it often can look nicer than the original signal at the lower resolution, if the filtering is done well.

Does that answer your question?

[cobrasteve]

At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself.

Do you have some factual material to back this up? 8GB for 2 hours of 1080p? That would allow 12 hours of 1080p on a Blu-ray DL with the same codec. How many hours of DVD-res can fit in 8GB? The best I've seen at any acceptable level of quality is about 4 hours.

[Stu Pid]

My Best Buy has both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players playing side-by-side on the same model Samsung plasma. Now I am no videophile, but there is no visual difference.

Now the streaming issues for games might be an issue and for that I cannot speak.

And to tell you the truth, the picture quality vs. 1080i is not worth the extra money (to me anyway). You need a very expensive set to realize the picture quality difference and it's good to be able to eat and drink on occasion. Man cannot live on an HDTV alone :lol:

Go to Best Buy and take the HD challenge. I am interested to see the results posted here.

[Darrius Cole]

So let me get this right......

You're telling me that a game that is twice the size of Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9 and run at 1080p.

Yes. Using mitigating factors like XNA, procedural synthesis, NaturalMotion, and other cost/space/time saving/quality increasing techniques - it's easily achieveable. Even without such mitigating factors, it would still be acheivable on multiple DVD-9's regardless.

Procedurally generated environments cost a fraction of the space on a disk that traditionally created environments consume. Therefore, if they procedurally generated more than just their forests, they could have a game significantly larger that Oblivion fit into even less space than Oblivion occupies now.

...but honestly... does anyone *want* a game bigger than Oblivion? I still haven't finished it... my buddies' invested over 80 hours - still going strong. He's about to complete it...

So Oblivion, which is already 7+ GB's could be doubled in size to 14GB's, then the entire game could be set to run in 1080p (which would make it larger still), and still fit on 1 DVD-9.


This is an untrue statement. At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself. (emphasis mine)

If 1080p movies could fit on DVD-9 then we wouldn't HD-DVD or Blu-ray players to play them.

[deecee]

cobrasteve-

"DVD9s would severely limit HD games."

I guess I'm not really frustrated with anyone, just waiting and watching like everyone else here. DVD9's would severely limit HD games if the content of such games in the form of the geometry, texture sizes, and environment design become much greater than now. Considering the power of the G71 architecture powering the PS3 which has to draw the graphics, I'd say that such requirements wouldn't be too much higher than those of the most demanding PC games, which is for the most part what a lot of these next-gen console games are. Many of these games fit on mutiple CDs or on a single DVD.

[Darkfalz]

My Best Buy has both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players playing side-by-side on the same model Samsung plasma. Now I am no videophile, but there is no visual difference.

Now the streaming issues for games might be an issue and for that I cannot speak.

And to tell you the truth, the picture quality vs. 1080i is not worth the extra money (to me anyway). You need a very expensive set to realize the picture quality difference and it's good to be able to eat and drink on occasion. Man cannot live on an HDTV alone :lol:

Go to Best Buy and take the HD challenge. I am interested to see the results posted here.

Exactly, and you represent the vast majority of people... the people who care enough about technology that they want to get good value for their money, but who don't think there's any substantial difference between 1080i and 1080p, much less between Blu-Ray movies and HD-DVD movies.

At the end of the day, most PS3 games will be 720p right along side the Xbox 360 games - and anyone with an HDTV will be able to enjoy them. The moment a game flips into 1080p, they're no longer creating a game for the masses, they're creating a game that can only be enjoyed by less than 1% of their customers at it's fullest resolution.

Plus, to render natively at 1080p is to lose many other effects and overall graphics fidelity. You can't do 1080p without a hit to graphics fidelity... so (as a developer) you have to ask yourself, "Do I make my game look better for my 'entire' population of customers, or do I take away graphic fidelity from my game only to add higher resolution for 1% of my fans who can actually *see* the higher resolution?

No, it's just not a good trade off.

[deecee]

Darrius Cole-

"If 1080p movies could fit on DVD-9 then we wouldn't HD-DVD or Blu-ray players to play them."

Yes you would, because current dvd video players aren't equipped with the hardware decoding supporting the appropriate bitrates and codecs you will need to play them, and in the case of Blu-Ray, a standard has not yet been nailed down.

[The_One]

This is an untrue statement. At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself. (emphasis mine) The problem with fitting 2 hours of VC-1 encoded video on a DVD is going to look like utter crap (which is what I assume you're refering to? Since HD-DVD currently uses this codec)--way too much artifacing. It can be done, no doubt, but at what quality? Not that great of a quality, that's for sure. High Definition without the quality that follows is not high definition at all.

[Darkfalz]

So let me get this right......

You're telling me that a game that is twice the size of Oblivion could fit on one DVD-9 and run at 1080p.

Yes. Using mitigating factors like XNA, procedural synthesis, NaturalMotion, and other cost/space/time saving/quality increasing techniques - it's easily achieveable. Even without such mitigating factors, it would still be acheivable on multiple DVD-9's regardless.

Procedurally generated environments cost a fraction of the space on a disk that traditionally created environments consume. Therefore, if they procedurally generated more than just their forests, they could have a game significantly larger that Oblivion fit into even less space than Oblivion occupies now.

...but honestly... does anyone *want* a game bigger than Oblivion? I still haven't finished it... my buddies' invested over 80 hours - still going strong. He's about to complete it...

So Oblivion, which is already 7+ GB's could be doubled in size to 14GB's, then the entire game could be set to run in 1080p (which would make it larger still), and still fit on 1 DVD-9.

Doubling game size doesn't equate to doubling file size. Mech Assault 2, for example, was a far larger game than the original, and it was actually 1.3 gigs LESS than Mech Assault 1.

Furthermore, rendering a game in 1080p vs. 720p or even 480p doesn't increase the size of the files that are being rendered. It increases the amount of video memory needed, primarily.



]This is an untrue statement. At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself. (emphasis mine)

If 1080p movies could fit on DVD-9 then we wouldn't HD-DVD or Blu-ray players to play them.

Because not much more than 2 hours could fit on a DVD-9, and new players would be required anyway, since current consumer stand alone DVD players aren't equipped to decode HD content.

Let's not confuse one important issue:

Larger sized disks and new players are necessary for movies in HD resolutions, because movies at that resolution consume far more space, and even though 2 hours would fit onto a DVD-9, that would no longer be enough space, since consumers are expecting so much extra content these days... plus (as previously mentioned) current DVD players couldn't play the HD content anyway.

The same is NOT true for games. Games can be rendered at any resolution the system running those games is capable of displaying without effecting the file size.



This is an untrue statement. At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself. (emphasis mine) The problem with fitting 2 hours of VC-1 encoded video on a DVD is going to look like utter crap (which is what I assume you're refering to? Since HD-DVD currently uses this codec)--way too much artifacing. It can be done, no doubt, but at what quality? Not that great of a quality, that's for sure. High Definition without the quality that follows is not high definition at all.

This is a false statement.

4 hours of 1080p content compressed at roughly 12mbps can fit on a single layer of an HD-DVD (15 gigs). 12mbps with VC-1 is *higher* quality than any Blu-Ray movie out there has offered yet.

Therefore, more than 2 hours of video that's BETTER quality than any Blu-Ray movie out right now can fit on a standard DVD-9.

Let's not confuse this quality issue again, please. It's been refuted several times now in this same thread.

[loki22]

damus-

"Dark, could you plz give a link showing that DVD9 can support 1080p, just so i can check it out. Because i dont think that it does support that high of quality, but i could be wrong, so plz provide the link for your source."

The format used to store the game has no bearing on a console's ability to support specific resolutions, scan rates, or interlacing schemes while the game is played. He's correctly explained that this is why XBOX games can be played at 1080i. The video hardware will draw individual frames and display them at the appropriate rate and format, be that 480p, 720p, or 1080p. So a console's support of a specific imaging resolution doesn't depend on the discs it uses to store games.


That's incorrect. Again, you're talking about upscaling SD content to HD. If that was so great, we wouldn't have any need or desire for HD movies or HD broadcasts. All we would need is DVD players and/or displays with upscaling capabilities. The fact is that you almost always get better PQ if the original content is rendered in HD and displayed in HD. If what you say were true, then all PS3 games would be "rendered in 1080p" because the PS3 can upscale all games to 1080p." Also, "every game would be rendered in 1080p," for everyone who has a display which can upscale to 1080p. So, being rendered in 1080p and being upscaled to 1080p are two different things.


Darkfalz is right about a few other things too. Given that the media used to store the game is adequate for said game and better storage and procedural synthesis techniques are used (if they are indeed necessary at all), the format to be used for the next generation does not have to make such an incremental leap in storage space, and this case, price per unit.

That makes no sense. If it is given that the medium used to store the game is adequate for said game, then the format used doesn't have to make any leap in storage space or in price per unit. You basically stated that "if X is greater than or equal to 8, then there is no need to add to X for X to be greater than or equal to 6." You assumed the conclusion, before even addressing and providing support for the conclusion.

Xbox 360 games are made to fit on DVD9s, because developers know that's the medium that 360 games will be shipped on. Moroever, 360 games are made to fit on one disc, for practical reasons. The fact that all 360 games released so far have been released on one DVD9 has very little to do with whether all, most, or any PS3 games would fit on one DVD9. What you are arguing is that you can continue to have experiences, similar to the experiences that have been had on DVD9s, on DVD9s. I wouldn't disagree with that, but that has little to do with whether one could have experiences, similar to the experiences on BDs and the PS3, on DVD9s.

That question can't even be answered conclusively, since the PS3 and PS3 games have not been released yet. PS3 launch games may not even answer it. It may not be answered until the end of this gen. Even in the event that some, most, or all PS3 games are bigger than the storage capacity of DVD9, some will claim that the code could've been optimized and/or game content (which they don't care for) could've been dropped so the game would fit on a DVD9. In the alternative, some will claim that games could've been put on multiple DVD9s or they might dismiss the games entirely, claiming that they don't want to play them, anyway.


So far I've been lurking and reading this, and as a fan of neither Microsoft nor Sony, I would say that based upon the hardware reviews and industry discussion surrounding Blu-Ray and HD-DVD that I've seen, some of which Darkfalz has correctly referenced, paraphrased and quoted here, that HD-DVD is likely to be adequate into the forseeable future for the purposes of gaming and movie viewing and presents a better solution unless studios will adopt the VC1 encoding scheme for movie content on Blu-Ray discs. If HD-DVD continues to offer a lower price point, it would then still be a slightly better solution. In addition, in the short term it will be in the best interests of a lot of studios, while they might endorse Blu-Ray, to also release on HD-DVD, because both formats will likely start with some degree of momentum.

Darkfalz' quotes are very selective and often even mischaracterized by Darkfalz. They don't take into account longer movies, Deep Color, 120Hz, or next-gen interactive special features. Darkfalz also uses the Samsung BD player as the format standard, while ignoring the Pioneer BD player and the other 5 BD players to be released. Darkfalz also ignores the ability of studios to use MPEG2 and VC-1 at higher bit rates on 50GB BDs than are possible on 30GB HD-DVDs. Darkfalz also ignores the complaints about the Toshiba HD-DVD players (e.g., subpar for 720p displays, lack standard DVD functionality and convenience, etc.) Darkfalz also ignored writeable media for the longest time. When cornered, he jumped out of the discussion of HD content and HD discs to claim that DVDs are a better value (while not using the same approach for movie playback).

Also, VC-1 is not the best codec in terms of PQ. MPEG2 provides better PQ at its max quality bit rate, because less of the original content is lost during compression. The benefit of VC-1 (and H.264) is that it provides much more compression, but the picture quality is still great at VC-1's max quality bit rate (but not better than MPEG2 at MPEG2's max quality bit rate). All three of the codecs look great, when used correctly, that's why they're used. The PQ of 50GB BDs will not destroy HD-DVD as a format, as most consumers are not that concerned with relatively subtle differences in PQ. But Darkfalz wants to focus on the PQ differences between 25GB BDs with MPEG2 and 30GB HD-DVDs with VC-1 because he want's to manipulate the uninformed and/or get attention by getting people riled up on a PS3 forum with anti-Sony, anti-PS3, anti-BD rhetoric.

As far as prices and production, nothing suggests that the Toshiba and the HD-DVD camp will be able to match the production or sales of the BD camp in HD components. As such, there's nothing to suggest that HD-DVD components will remain cheaper than BD components, or that more studios or CE manufacturers will have incentive to support HD-DVD


In the short to mid-term, the compression schemes will be the determining factor. Considering the lifecycle of gaming consoles, Microsoft may one-up Sony in terms of the cost of their storage hardware, because they've gone with the most cost-effective and practical solution (which does not hinderer the consumer's gaming experience in the least) for the current generation, and they'll have their pick of the most established format for the next generation.

Just my 2 cents

As discussed above, codecs will have little to do with the format war, in terms of PQ. Both formats support the same codecs. There's no legal hurdle to studios using VC-1 on BDs. VC-1 doesn't even provide the best PQ if storage space and bandwith are not issues. VC-1 can be used at a higher bit rate on 50GB BDs than on 30GB HD-DVDs. MPEG2 provides better PQ than VC-1 at their respective max quality bit rates.

HD-DVD has issues in terms of storage space, no matter what codec is used (e.g., longer movies, Deep Color, 120Hz, next-gen interactive extras, etc.).

As for cost-effectivness in console gaming, we don't know the relative prices of PS3 games and 360 games. Nor do we know the relative experiences that they provide. If you think that the 360 and 360 games completely define next-gen experiences, then you have a very skewed conception of next-gen experiences.

[Darkfalz]

As discussed above, codecs will have little to do with the format war, in terms of PQ. Both formats support the same codecs. There's no legal hurdle to studios using VC-1 on BDs. VC-1 doesn't even provide the best PQ if storage space and bandwith are not issues. VC-1 can be used at a higher bit rate on 50GB BDs than on 30GB HD-DVDs. MPEG2 provides better PQ than VC-1 at their respective max quality bit rates.

Loki true or false:

The maximum bitrate Blu-Ray is capable of decoding for video is 40mbps (regardless of what codec is used).


HD-DVD has issues in terms of storage space, no matter what codec is used (e.g., longer movies, Deep Color, 120Hz, next-gen interactive extras, etc.).

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kisskissbangbang.html

This HD-DVD is dual format. That means only 15 gigs is available for HD content, as the other layer is usable by SD-DVD players. The movie at only 15 gigs - looks virtually indistinguishable from the Blu-Ray version which is on a disk that's 25 gigs. Even though they look nearly identical, the HD-DVD one actually has a superior aspect ratio (not clipping any content, unlike the Blu-Ray), has better sound than the Blu-Ray, and has better contrasts than the Blu-Ray movie.

At 15 gigs, there was enough room for all the features of the Blu-Ray release and more... as the movie can also play on old SD-DVD players... something the Blu-Ray disk doesn't offer.

Size limitations depend *greatly* on codecs.

Loki, the facts speak for themselves. Listen to them...

[Darrius Cole]

So Oblivion, which is already 7+ GB's could be doubled in size to 14GB's, then the entire game could be set to run in 1080p (which would make it larger still), and still fit on 1 DVD-9.

Doubling game size doesn't equate to doubling file size. Mech Assault 2, for example, was a far larger game than the original, and it was actually 1.3 gigs LESS than Mech Assault 1.

Furthermore, rendering a game in 1080p vs. 720p or even 480p doesn't increase the size of the files that are being rendered. It increases the amount of video memory needed, primarily.

It does when that's what I mean when I said "twice the size of Oblivion" in the first place.





This is an untrue statement. At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself. (emphasis mine) The problem with fitting 2 hours of VC-1 encoded video on a DVD is going to look like utter crap (which is what I assume you're refering to? Since HD-DVD currently uses this codec)--way too much artifacing. It can be done, no doubt, but at what quality? Not that great of a quality, that's for sure. High Definition without the quality that follows is not high definition at all.

This is a false statement.

4 hours of 1080p content compressed at roughly 12mbps can fit on a single layer of an HD-DVD (15 gigs). 12mbps with VC-1 is *higher* quality than any Blu-Ray movie out there has offered yet.

Therefore, more than 2 hours of video that's BETTER quality than any Blu-Ray movie out right now can fit on a standard DVD-9.

Let's not confuse this quality issue again, please. It's been refuted several times now in this same thread.

There is no way a 2-hour 1080p movie is going to fit on a DVD-9. It will barely fit on an dual-layer HD-DVD, even with VC-1.


From article on PC World.com

Now that I've taken a closer look at the first eight HD DVD movies I received from Warner Brothers and Universal, I can understand why. None of the eight titles could fit on a 15GB single-layer HD DVD, and half came within a mere 5GB of maxing out a 30GB dual-layer disc--even though all relied on the latest, more efficient video codecs (VC-1 and MPEG-4 AVC). The movies were The Last Samurai (which topped out at 27.3GB), Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (25.4GB), The Phantom of the Opera (24.8GB), Jarhead (24.7GB), The Bourne Identity (22.7GB), Serenity (19.6GB), The Fugitive (18.2GB), and Doom (16.5GB).

[deecee]

loki-

"So, being rendered in 1080p and being upscaled to 1080p are two different things."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You're correct there, I was speaking of upscaling, but I was attempting to answer someone's question about resolution output support, not of resolution rendering support. That said, how many HD sets support 1080p? And given the limitations of the graphics architectures the next-gen machines are built on, can we really expect games to be rendered with full anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, HDR, and pixel shading at 1920x1080? Or would it be more likely that most games will be rendered at 720p to maintain a much wider customer base?

I think for most of the customer base that will buy new consoles, 1080p support will be a moot point.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Also, VC-1 is not the best codec in terms of PQ. MPEG2 provides better PQ at its max quality bit rate, because less of the original content is lost during compression. The benefit of VC-1 (and H.264) is that it provides much more compression, but the picture quality is still great at VC-1's max quality bit rate (but not better than MPEG2 at MPEG2's max quality bit rate)."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And what are the max quality bitrates of each codec?


Also, what about the impact of the cost of storage media on game prices?

[Darkfalz]

There is no way a 2-hour 1080p movie is going to fit on a DVD-9. It will barely fit on an dual-layer HD-DVD, even with VC-1.


From article on PC World.com

Now that I've taken a closer look at the first eight HD DVD movies I received from Warner Brothers and Universal, I can understand why. None of the eight titles could fit on a 15GB single-layer HD DVD, and half came within a mere 5GB of maxing out a 30GB dual-layer disc--even though all relied on the latest, more efficient video codecs (VC-1 and MPEG-4 AVC). The movies were The Last Samurai (which topped out at 27.3GB), Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (25.4GB), The Phantom of the Opera (24.8GB), Jarhead (24.7GB), The Bourne Identity (22.7GB), Serenity (19.6GB), The Fugitive (18.2GB), and Doom (16.5GB).

The sizes you quote are from studios that ported the mpeg-2 compressed extra features over to the HD-DVD's. That's a huge inefficiency, as if they used VC-1 it would take less than 1/3 the space for equal to or better picture quality (since VC-1 performs even better with lower resolutions).

Furthermore, studios intentionally and inefficiently use the space of dual layer disks when it's available to them. The same will be said of PS3 games when we start seeing games that are bloated to fill 15, 20, or more gigs of space.

It's far less productive to look at the size of current movies to say, "look - we're reaching the maximum of these disks!" then to say, "look at the quality of the movies, the features that are offered, and the quality of the sound. HD-DVD's beat out Blu-Ray in every single case... if the space does afford Blu-Ray an advantage later on, then we can talk about that advantage as it comes... but so far, HD-DVD's win in the movie space... and DVD-9's win for performance/cost ratio in the gaming space."

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2006/02/hd_dvd_primer.php

Over 4 hours on single layer 15gig
Over 8 hours on dual layer 30gig

DVD-9 = 8gigs, more than half the space of a single layer HD-DVD. Thus, 2+ hours of 1080p video with VC-1.

[loki22]

This is an untrue statement. At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself. (emphasis mine) The problem with fitting 2 hours of VC-1 encoded video on a DVD is going to look like utter crap (which is what I assume you're refering to? Since HD-DVD currently uses this codec)--way too much artifacing. It can be done, no doubt, but at what quality? Not that great of a quality, that's for sure. High Definition without the quality that follows is not high definition at all.

That was exactly my point. If we were to turn our brains off and accept Darkfalz' conclusions, based on isolated, often unrelated, facts -- then it would be abusurd to use 30GB HD-DVDs (which are actually used) instead of 15GB HD-DVDs (which are not used). It doesn't follow that it's a matter of players not being able to decode the codec, as is the case with DVD players. All HD-DVD players can decode VC-1.

But of course, Darkfalz would not address my point. He prefers to address his own bastardizations of other people's points, or to ignore them altogether, when he doesn't feel like he's on comfortable terrain. He prefers to retreat to terrain where he feels comfortable, and then challenge opposing forces to engage him there. All the while, he claims that he is winning or has won, despite giving up more and more territory with every retreat. :wink:

[Darrius Cole]

There is no way a 2-hour 1080p movie is going to fit on a DVD-9. It will barely fit on an dual-layer HD-DVD, even with VC-1.


From article on PC World.com

Now that I've taken a closer look at the first eight HD DVD movies I received from Warner Brothers and Universal, I can understand why. None of the eight titles could fit on a 15GB single-layer HD DVD, and half came within a mere 5GB of maxing out a 30GB dual-layer disc--even though all relied on the latest, more efficient video codecs (VC-1 and MPEG-4 AVC). The movies were The Last Samurai (which topped out at 27.3GB), Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (25.4GB), The Phantom of the Opera (24.8GB), Jarhead (24.7GB), The Bourne Identity (22.7GB), Serenity (19.6GB), The Fugitive (18.2GB), and Doom (16.5GB).

The sizes you quote are from studios that ported the mpeg-2 compressed extra features over to the HD-DVD's. That's a huge inefficiency, as if they used VC-1 it would take less than 1/3 the space for equal to or better picture quality (since VC-1 performs even better with lower resolutions).

It doesn't say anything like that. In fact what is says is that they used the more efficient MPEG-4 and VC-1 codec.

Moreover, it says that these movies only have the most simple menus.


From article on PC World.com

Granted, this is a small, random sampling, but the results nonetheless surprised me, considering that I had for so long heard HD DVD supporters say that even 15GB would be roomy for high-def content. Instead, it seems that HD DVD content is, in many cases, barely squeezing onto 30GB discs today--and the tight space leaves little breathing room for the interactive-video future that Hollywood's creative minds will dream up down the road. All of the titles I saw are first-generation; not surprisingly, their menus and level of interactivity are basic and do not reflect the complexity I expect to see from both formats in the near future. Plus, the existing extras don't take full advantage of the formats, nor were they created natively in high-definition, with high-def, wide-screen presentation in mind. And the soundtracks are more limited, typically only today's 5.1-channel sound, with just one audio commentary instead of multiple commentaries and elaborate features. (emphasis mine)

My apologies to everyone I should have provided the link earlier

http://www.pcworld.com/article/126112-1/article.html

[cobrasteve]

At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself.

Do you have some factual material to back this up? 8GB for 2 hours of 1080p? That would allow 12 hours of 1080p on a Blu-ray DL with the same codec. How many hours of DVD-res can fit in 8GB? The best I've seen at any acceptable level of quality is about 4 hours.

Waiting for proof...

Please abide by the 5 word minimum rule. - The_One

[Darkfalz]

There is no way a 2-hour 1080p movie is going to fit on a DVD-9. It will barely fit on an dual-layer HD-DVD, even with VC-1.


From article on PC World.com

Now that I've taken a closer look at the first eight HD DVD movies I received from Warner Brothers and Universal, I can understand why. None of the eight titles could fit on a 15GB single-layer HD DVD, and half came within a mere 5GB of maxing out a 30GB dual-layer disc--even though all relied on the latest, more efficient video codecs (VC-1 and MPEG-4 AVC). The movies were The Last Samurai (which topped out at 27.3GB), Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (25.4GB), The Phantom of the Opera (24.8GB), Jarhead (24.7GB), The Bourne Identity (22.7GB), Serenity (19.6GB), The Fugitive (18.2GB), and Doom (16.5GB).

The sizes you quote are from studios that ported the mpeg-2 compressed extra features over to the HD-DVD's. That's a huge inefficiency, as if they used VC-1 it would take less than 1/3 the space for equal to or better picture quality (since VC-1 performs even better with lower resolutions).

It doesn't say anything like that. In fact what is says is that they used the more efficient MPEG-4 and VC-1 codec.

Moreover, it says that these movies only have the most simple menus.


From article on PC World.com

Granted, this is a small, random sampling, but the results nonetheless surprised me, considering that I had for so long heard HD DVD supporters say that even 15GB would be roomy for high-def content. Instead, it seems that HD DVD content is, in many cases, barely squeezing onto 30GB discs today--and the tight space leaves little breathing room for the interactive-video future that Hollywood's creative minds will dream up down the road. All of the titles I saw are first-generation; not surprisingly, their menus and level of interactivity are basic and do not reflect the complexity I expect to see from both formats in the near future. Plus, the existing extras don't take full advantage of the formats, nor were they created natively in high-definition, with high-def, wide-screen presentation in mind. And the soundtracks are more limited, typically only today's 5.1-channel sound, with just one audio commentary instead of multiple commentaries and elaborate features. (emphasis mine)

My apologies to everyone I should have provided the link earlier

http://www.pcworld.com/article/126112-1/article.html

The movies themselves were indeed encoded in VC-1, but not the extra features. There was enough space on the HD-DVD's to be lazy.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kisskissbangbang.html

There's an example of an HD-DVD that's only 15 gigs... and when they compare it to the Blu-Ray movie (using a 25gig disk), the Blu-Ray movie loses again in quality... both in sound quality, and video quality... plus, the HD-DVD can be played in a traditional DVD players, since the disk is a hybrid.

The higher sizes for the movies doesn't indicate a looming ceiling that HD-DVD's will have to overcome, it indicates inefficient use of the space.




At 12mbps (which is what HD-DVD's use, and they far and away exceed the average picture quality of Blu-Ray movies) - *more than* 2 hours of 1080p video could fit on a DVD-9. This is a fact, please don't try to argue against it. It's getting really old having to continually repeat myself.

Do you have some factual material to back this up? 8GB for 2 hours of 1080p? That would allow 12 hours of 1080p on a Blu-ray DL with the same codec. How many hours of DVD-res can fit in 8GB? The best I've seen at any acceptable level of quality is about 4 hours.

Waiting for proof...

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2006/02/hd_dvd_primer.php

Over 4 hours on single layer 15gig
Over 8 hours on dual layer 30gig

DVD-9 = 8gigs, more than half the space of a single layer HD-DVD. Thus, 2+ hours of 1080p video with VC-1.

[Darrius Cole]

There is no way a 2-hour 1080p movie is going to fit on a DVD-9. It will barely fit on an dual-layer HD-DVD, even with VC-1.


From article on PC World.com

Now that I've taken a closer look at the first eight HD DVD movies I received from Warner Brothers and Universal, I can understand why. None of the eight titles could fit on a 15GB single-layer HD DVD, and half came within a mere 5GB of maxing out a 30GB dual-layer disc--even though all relied on the latest, more efficient video codecs (VC-1 and MPEG-4 AVC). The movies were The Last Samurai (which topped out at 27.3GB), Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (25.4GB), The Phantom of the Opera (24.8GB), Jarhead (24.7GB), The Bourne Identity (22.7GB), Serenity (19.6GB), The Fugitive (18.2GB), and Doom (16.5GB).

The sizes you quote are from studios that ported the mpeg-2 compressed extra features over to the HD-DVD's. That's a huge inefficiency, as if they used VC-1 it would take less than 1/3 the space for equal to or better picture quality (since VC-1 performs even better with lower resolutions).

Furthermore, studios intentionally and inefficiently use the space of dual layer disks when it's available to them. The same will be said of PS3 games when we start seeing games that are bloated to fill 15, 20, or more gigs of space.

It's far less productive to look at the size of current movies to say, "look - we're reaching the maximum of these disks!" then to say, "look at the quality of the movies, the features that are offered, and the quality of the sound. HD-DVD's beat out Blu-Ray in every single case... if the space does afford Blu-Ray an advantage later on, then we can talk about that advantage as it comes... but so far, HD-DVD's win in the movie space... and DVD-9's win for performance/cost ratio in the gaming space."

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2006/02/hd_dvd_primer.php

Over 4 hours on single layer 15gig
Over 8 hours on dual layer 30gig

DVD-9 = 8gigs, more than half the space of a single layer HD-DVD. Thus, 2+ hours of 1080p video with VC-1.

You're getting confused. We are talking about 1080p movies. Your source just says HD, which is probably 720p.

The Last Samuari on HD-DVDis 130 minutes or approximately 2 hours long. Source Link (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E5KJDO/ref=ase_hdtvmagazine-20/002-8788618-4314443?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130&tagActionCode=hdtvmagazine-20)

Yet, the file is 27.3 GB large.

Source article (http://www.pcworld.com/article/126112-1/article.html)

130 minutes of 1080p movie = 27.3GB = 1 dual layed HD-DVD = 4 DVD-9

[Darkfalz]

You're getting confused. We are talking about 1080p movies. Your source just says HD, which is probably 720p.

The Last Samuari on HD-DVDis 130 minutes or approximately 2 hours long. Source Link (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E5KJDO/ref=ase_hdtvmagazine-20/002-8788618-4314443?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130&tagActionCode=hdtvmagazine-20)

Yet, the file is 27.3 GB large.

Source article (http://www.pcworld.com/article/126112-1/article.html)

130 minutes of 1080p movie = 27.3GB = 1 dual layed HD-DVD = 4 DVD-9

You're confused, and your math is severely flawed.

27.3Gb =

154 minutes of 1080p video
308 minutes of Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 (English and French)
154 minutes of Latin Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 audio

Subtitles in 5 diffierent languages, etc.

Furthermore, the standard definition content for extra features was ported from SD DVD, using mpeg-2 compression it's 480i. Want to see the list of special features?

- Audio Commentary with Director Edward Zwick
- History Channel Documentary: "History vs. Hollywood: The Last Samurai"
- Featurette: "Tom Cruise: A Warrior's Journey"
- Featurette: "Edward Zwick: A Director's Video Journal": Behind-the-scenes production journal narrated by Ed Zwick and Tom Cruise
- Featurette: "Making an Epic: A Conversation with Edward Zwick"
- Featurette: "A World of Detail: Production Design with Lilly Kilvert"
- Featurette: "Silk and Armor: Costume Design with Ngila Dickson"
- Featurette: "Imperial Army Basic Training: From Soldier to Samurai: The Weapons"
- Deleted Scenes with Optional Director Commentary
- Japan Premieres (Tokyo and Kyoto)
- Theatrical Trailers

That's significantly more than 154 minutes of 1080p audio sync'd video.

I'm not confusing anything. You had insufficient data in your argument.

1 minute 40 second of high quality 1080p VC-1 compressed video with audio = on average 100MB

1 hour of video at the same quality is 3.6 gigs (roughly). 2 hours of video at that quality is then roughly 7.2 gigs.

Source:
http://www.dvdtown.com/discdetails/lastsamuraithehd-dvd/18591/
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

[deecee]

Darrius, I hope this clears things up, I wanted to know what default resolution support there was as I plan to get a hi-def player of some sort when they become available, whether that's in the PS3 or a standalone:

http://www.dvdforum.org/images/Forum_HD_DVD_Universal_24.pdf

Looks like there's 1080i support at the very least, but I don't know what the default is for the movies we're speaking of as compared to Darkfalz's article. I'm just hoping that whichever format prevails, or if both do, we'll see them squeeze the highest noticeable quality video into media, while being able to keep the price reasonable.

Does anyone know about the prospective relative costs of writable HD media?

[Darrius Cole]

You're getting confused. We are talking about 1080p movies. Your source just says HD, which is probably 720p.

The Last Samuari on HD-DVDis 130 minutes or approximately 2 hours long. Source Link (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E5KJDO/ref=ase_hdtvmagazine-20/002-8788618-4314443?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130&tagActionCode=hdtvmagazine-20)

Yet, the file is 27.3 GB large.

Source article (http://www.pcworld.com/article/126112-1/article.html)

130 minutes of 1080p movie = 27.3GB = 1 dual layed HD-DVD = 4 DVD-9

You're confused, and your math is severely flawed.

27.3Gb =

154 minutes of 1080p video
308 minutes of Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 (English and French)
154 minutes of Latin Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 audio

Subtitles in 5 diffierent languages, etc.

Furthermore, the standard definition content for extra features was ported from SD DVD, using mpeg-2 compression it's 480i. Want to see the list of special features?

- Audio Commentary with Director Edward Zwick
- History Channel Documentary: "History vs. Hollywood: The Last Samurai"
- Featurette: "Tom Cruise: A Warrior's Journey"
- Featurette: "Edward Zwick: A Director's Video Journal": Behind-the-scenes production journal narrated by Ed Zwick and Tom Cruise
- Featurette: "Making an Epic: A Conversation with Edward Zwick"
- Featurette: "A World of Detail: Production Design with Lilly Kilvert"
- Featurette: "Silk and Armor: Costume Design with Ngila Dickson"
- Featurette: "Imperial Army Basic Training: From Soldier to Samurai: The Weapons"
- Deleted Scenes with Optional Director Commentary
- Japan Premieres (Tokyo and Kyoto)
- Theatrical Trailers

That's significantly more than 154 minutes of 1080p audio sync'd video.

I'm not confusing anything. You had insufficient data in your argument.

Source:
http://www.dvdtown.com/discdetails/lastsamuraithehd-dvd/18591/

All of that 480i data together is not going to be half the size of that file. I doubt that it would be 1 quarter of the size of that file. Even if you say that the special features make up half the size of the file, the movie file is still 13.7GB or 2 DVD-9.

[Ricokillercon]

SO with HD-DVD we get a bare bone version of the movie...wooooopie....

With BD we get that and all the extras goodies... : :D

[Darkfalz]

You're getting confused. We are talking about 1080p movies. Your source just says HD, which is probably 720p.

The Last Samuari on HD-DVDis 130 minutes or approximately 2 hours long. Source Link (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E5KJDO/ref=ase_hdtvmagazine-20/002-8788618-4314443?s=dvd&v=glance&n=130&tagActionCode=hdtvmagazine-20)

Yet, the file is 27.3 GB large.

Source article (http://www.pcworld.com/article/126112-1/article.html)

130 minutes of 1080p movie = 27.3GB = 1 dual layed HD-DVD = 4 DVD-9

You're confused, and your math is severely flawed.

27.3Gb =

154 minutes of 1080p video
308 minutes of Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 (English and French)
154 minutes of Latin Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 audio

Subtitles in 5 diffierent languages, etc.

Furthermore, the standard definition content for extra features was ported from SD DVD, using mpeg-2 compression it's 480i. Want to see the list of special features?

- Audio Commentary with Director Edward Zwick
- History Channel Documentary: "History vs. Hollywood: The Last Samurai"
- Featurette: "Tom Cruise: A Warrior's Journey"
- Featurette: "Edward Zwick: A Director's Video Journal": Behind-the-scenes production journal narrated by Ed Zwick and Tom Cruise
- Featurette: "Making an Epic: A Conversation with Edward Zwick"
- Featurette: "A World of Detail: Production Design with Lilly Kilvert"
- Featurette: "Silk and Armor: Costume Design with Ngila Dickson"
- Featurette: "Imperial Army Basic Training: From Soldier to Samurai: The Weapons"
- Deleted Scenes with Optional Director Commentary
- Japan Premieres (Tokyo and Kyoto)
- Theatrical Trailers

That's significantly more than 154 minutes of 1080p audio sync'd video.

I'm not confusing anything. You had insufficient data in your argument.

Source:
http://www.dvdtown.com/discdetails/lastsamuraithehd-dvd/18591/

All of that 480i data together is not going to be half the size of that file. I doubt that it would be 1 quarter of the size of that file. Even if you say that the special features make up half the size of the file, the movie file is still 13.7GB or 2 DVD-9.

Your assumption is mostly correct.

However, if you go to this site I mentioned above, you can see that one hour of high quality 1080p video only takes about 3.6 gigs of space (including high quality audio). It's been proven too many times for me to justify spending more of my time proving it again.


SO with HD-DVD we get a bare bone version of the movie...wooooopie....

With BD we get that and all the extras goodies... : :D

This is also an untrue assumption, and an illogical conclusion.

So far, HD-DVD's have offered the same, or better feature selections than Blu-Ray movies - all while providing superior picture quality.

Besides, if ther is ever a rare case where a Blu-Ray movie actually uses VC-1 compression, and it actually fits all the special features on one disk - it's unlikely the HD-DVD version would not have the same features. It would just mean the HD-DVD version might come with a second disk which would have the special features.

If Blu-ray continues to use mpeg2, it'll need every bit of that 50gigs just to get the PQ of the movie up to the standards HD-DVD's are already offering.

Edit: I misread Darrius' initial conclusion. Fixed my response.

[sonyfan6]

I like that Darkfalz has completely ignored all of my (and other's) comments regarding blu-ray and games and decided to debate hd-dvd and blu-ray (again). :roll:

There's a nice sticky in the technology section for hd-dvd versus blu-ray. Of course that would defeat the purpose of Darkfalz ripping on ps3 since it wouldn't be in the ps3 section.

http://www.ps3forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=667

[Darrius Cole]

I like that Darkfalz has completely ignored all of my (and other's) comments regarding blu-ray and games and decided to debate hd-dvd and blu-ray (again). :roll:

There's a nice sticky in the technology section for hd-dvd versus blu-ray. Of course that would defeat the purpose of Darkfalz ripping on ps3 since it wouldn't be in the ps3 section.

http://www.ps3forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=667

Yeah, I was trying to make the point that with a Blu-ray drive you could make a game that was twice the size (file size) of Oblivion which for all intents and purposes, fills up a DVD-9.

He counters that making a game twice the size (in-game world) does not make for twice the file size. I guess that make my point for me. I suppose I should have said something to the effect of "you can make a world 10 times the size of Cyrodil (Oblivion) with 1 blu-ray disc."

[Darkfalz]

1) You've already seen (and I know you've seen it because you've responded to it) the final fantasy disc space graph. If you must, use that as one, of many possible examples, of the step function trend that video games undergo. As I said, one example out of many. The average game size has increased every time a new media has been introduced. You've heard my reasoning and my conclusion. Let's hear the rebuttal already.

I've never debated that the file size didn't increase with each advancement in available capacity. My argument is that the trend of the last generation (which was a step up in media capacity from the previous generation) saw only moderate size increase in games over the lifespan of the systems. The trend can be verified in this article:

http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132

This trend is console wide, which covers *far* more data than the one sample data you've shown illustrating one franchise, from one developer. That's not enough data to form any real conclusions. The data from an entire platform however, is far more significant.

If you can't provide more data indicating that the increase in game size is trending higher than DVD-9's capacity, then we can't argue this point anymore. I've proven that it's unlikely within the lifespan of the next generation consoles, it's unlike DVD-9's will become insufficient for the vast majority of games.


2) Non-linear. You claimed that games could be split up. This is in direct rebuttal of the non-linear argument that states not all games can be split up. In particular those with large, free roaming environments. These can only be split up along linear lines, which is not always possible. Final fantasy used to do this by splitting their movies among different discs so when you reached specific places in the story that were linear, they had a disc split and removed all the stuff that needed to be done in the previous disc from the new disc.

For me to take this point seriously, you'd need to first provide me with a game that has a world that's so large, it wouldn't fit on one DVD... The world in Oblivion is about as large as anyone could want for games this generation, but even that world size was not stiffled by the media, it was stiffled by development costs and time restraints... even still, I haven't heard any complaints about the world size in Oblivion. In fact, I have heard just the opposite. Many consider it too large.

Again, this proves the point that the vast majority of games will not be hindered by the rare theoretical scenario you've come up with... and it's still a hypothetical case concieved under the assumption that developers create their worlds they way they did last generation. As Oblivion proved once again - this isn't the case. Worlds are being generate in better, smarter ways.

Finally, even if we take your point at face value, and assume the absolute worst possible case scenario... so what? A person has to swap out a disk when going tto different parts of a unified, non-linear world. Is it really worth 300$ to you just to not have to deal with a simple disk swapping for 1 or 2 games you might want?


3) Link Attack. The only argument that you have put forth against (1) is examples of ways to save space. This does not equate to games not increasing in size. You have once again failed to defend your link and therefore your conclusion.

That's false. I have shown that trends in file size and game size have moved up. I've also indicated that the efficiency in which we use the space has increased. These trends both suggest that game sizes aren't increasing at a rate that would warrant a new media with more capacity than the DVD-9's offer, at least not this generation.

http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132


4) Topicality. You've ignored this. Am I to understand that you've agreed to my definition?

Prove it.


5) 'Facts.' You still keep bringing up these 'facts.' They aren't facts they are conclusions. Conclusions that other people have derived from evidence and reasoning. You would be much better served to look at an examine why these people came to these conclusions instead of just repeating them at face value and claiming them as fact. If you did this you could argue your side far more persuasively.

Start actually coming up with rebuttals and stop repeating that your 'facts' are the truth because you say so.

I've brought up many facts. Facts that you and others have ignored... but that's alright, because you and the ones who or blinded to the truth are not the ones I'm reaching. The ones I'm reaching are the ones who still (on a daily basis) pm me letting me know that I've suppleid them with enough information that they now know Blu-Ray wasn't necessary. They still (in some case) say they want a PS3 regardless - and that's awesome - but at least (thanks to these discussions) they know a bit more about the system they're spending 600$ on... and even if no more people respond to me in this way, I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish... and I've taught those who were willing to learn. :-)

Furthermore... You have yet to answer my simple question...

What can a game on a Blu-Ray disk give to or provide the user with, that a game on a DVD-9 (or 2) could not?


Yeah, I was trying to make the point that with a Blu-ray drive you could make a game that was twice the size (file size) of Oblivion which for all intents and purposes, fills up a DVD-9.

He counters that making a game twice the size (in-game world) does not make for twice the file size. I guess that make my point for me. I suppose I should have said something to the effect of "you can make a world 10 times the size of Cyrodil (Oblivion) with 1 blu-ray disc."

Could a game 100 times the size of Oblivion (file size) fit on a Blu-Ray disk?

No. Does it matter? No.

I honestly didn't think your point would be that point-less... but I overestimated you, aparently... (or underestimate, as it were) ;-) It would have been much easier to simply ask, "Can a DVD-9 hold more than 8 gigs of data? The answer is obviously no... and that's also beside the point.

The question isn't whether or not one format can hold more data. That is already proven...

The question is, does the extra space buy gamers anything?

The simple answer is yes, it does. It buys them the luxury of never swapping disks for the 10% of games that might require it this generation. Does it buy them better games? Bigger games (longer, more complex, bigger worlds) - emphatically - no, it does not. All of those items can be provided with DVD-9(s). Therefore, the next question should be...

Is that mild luxury worth 300$ more to produce?

Answer as you see fit... I think you all know my answer to that one... ;-)

[tome]

dumb question.
the amount of info on a disk ie:30g or whatever from hdd or BD
could it be slower to grab all the infortmation from the disk, or search for the information than something fitting on a dvd9?

[Darkfalz]

dumb question.
the amount of info on a disk ie:30g or whatever from hdd or BD
could it be slower to grab all the infortmation from the disk, or search for the information than something fitting on a dvd9?

No question is truly dumb, if the intent is pure. :-)

Are you asking if it would be slower to read data off a larger disk (like HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) than it would to read data off of a DVD-9?

If that's your question, the answer isn't exactly simple.

The short answer is it's variable. Depending on the drive speeds, reading data can be faster or slower.

The read speed, however, isn't a major factor of influence in any way. They are both comparable, and don't negatively or positively effect the abilities of either format.

[Ricokillercon]

Yes dark becuase HD-DVD is better now...when fewer than 10k people even have HD-DVD players...HD-DVD already won right?

It wont matter that this fall all BD movies comming out will be dual layer...and that by march there be 60-600times for BD players in peoples homes compare to HD-DVD...



And you also ignored that the ps3 1080p player 600 dollars versus tohsibas 800 HD-DVD player 1080p...so BD player cheaper than HD-DVD player...huh?

[tome]

so..is it safe to say..in past history of cd-rom and DVD disk drives they tend to be slow during the first gen.
would the first gen bd drives Sony will be installing also be slow?
IMO could potentially be a double edge sword..
offer lots of disk space, but slow disk read spead to read a large disk of info.

Also good topic guys...lots of info flying here..

[deecee]

Nothing's perfect. I don't like the idea of an HD-DVD add-on that is likely to have little resale value when sold separately from the console it links with. In the end, it will be interesting to see if these two game systems provide the type of market penetration that's desired.

[Darkfalz]

Yes dark becuase HD-DVD is better now...when fewer than 10k people even have HD-DVD players...HD-DVD already won right?

I've never claimed HD-DVD won.


It wont matter that this fall all BD movies comming out will be dual layer...and that by march there be 60-600times for BD players in peoples homes compare to HD-DVD...

It will matter, if they continue to use mpeg2 for Blu-Ray movies. Even 50 gigs of mpeg 2 won't hold up against 30 gigs of VC-1.


And you also ignored that the ps3 1080p player 600 dollars versus tohsibas 800 HD-DVD player 1080p...so BD player cheaper than HD-DVD player...huh?

Toshiba's 1080i player at 500$ combined with the HD-DVD movie content yeilds a provably better picture quality than 1080p Blu-Ray players, including the PS3, due to the compression method. 1080p for movies is wasted because at 30frames per second, a TV that supports 1080p will upconvert the 1080i signal to 1080p, making a native 1080p 30fps signal litterally indistinguishable from a native 1080i 30fps signal upconverted.

This is a moot point.

[Ricokillercon]

1080p is not a mute point....

people will look at the numbers and see that 1080p for ps3 is cheaper...

Also since when has quality won out? Wasnt that HD-DVD's side of the story before both came out...that just cause BD would have better qualilty doesnt mean it would win?

[Darkfalz]

1080p is not a mute point....

people will look at the numbers and see that 1080p for ps3 is cheaper...

Also since when has quality won out? Wasnt that HD-DVD's side of the story before both came out...that just cause BD would have better qualilty doesnt mean it would win?

1) 1080p is a moot point. For those who know what it is, or want it - they will also know that HD-DVD's are better quality than Blu-Ray, and already own both a Blu-Ray player and an HD-DVD player, or have intentions of getting them. This is not the average user, and certainly not the consumer who ultimately determines the fate of the format.

2) Quality by itself doesn't win out by default. Quality mixed with competitive pricing and marketing can, however. Will HD-DVD win out? I don't know... I've never claimed to... but is it the better value? As of right now, hands down for movies.

[Ricokillercon]

Ist BD a better value now? cheaper movie prices...

[deecee]

tome-

Word has it a 2x blu-ray drive is used, which has an max of 72megabit/sec transfer rate. Divide that by 8 and you get 9MB/s transfer (megabytes per second). Of course, that's at maximum spin rate, but that's still faster than a 52x cd-rom drive, which caps out at 7.8MB/s., and the original xbox uses a 6x dvd rom drive(correct me if I'm wrong?) which hits 7.93 MB/s. So the drive should be fairly quick, and if they go with a 4x drive, they'll double the number above.

You need to have a fairly fast drive to keep the experience as seamless as it has been for previous generations.

[Darkfalz]

Ist BD a better value now? cheaper movie prices...

Depends on how you define 'value'.

Best Video Qualtiy: HD-DVD
Best Audio Quality: HD-DVD
Working Hybrids: HD-DVD (Blu-ray can supposedly support this, but it hasn't been done yet... big surprise :roll: )
Best Selection: HD-DVD
Most Titles on the way: HD-DVD
Cheapest Player: HD-DVD, by 100% (500$ for Toshiba HD-DVD player, 1000$ for Samsung Blu-Ray player)
User Friendly Name: HD-DVD

Those items to me mean value... solid, rock solid value.

Blu-Ray currently doesn't offer the value HD-DVD's offer... and while PS3 and the introduction of 50gig disks may change some of this... we don't know that it will. All we know is that HD-DVD is kicking the crap out of Blu-Ray in terms of product quality and value.

[sonyfan6]

Oh, for the love of...



1) You've already seen (and I know you've seen it because you've responded to it) the final fantasy disc space graph. If you must, use that as one, of many possible examples, of the step function trend that video games undergo. As I said, one example out of many. The average game size has increased every time a new media has been introduced. You've heard my reasoning and my conclusion. Let's hear the rebuttal already.

I've never debated that the file size didn't increase with each advancement in available capacity. My argument is that the trend of the last generation (which was a step up in media capacity from the previous generation) saw only moderate size increase in games over the lifespan of the systems. The trend can be verified in this article:

http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132

This trend is console wide, which covers *far* more data than the one sample data you've shown illustrating one franchise, from one developer. That's not enough data to form any real conclusions. The data from an entire platform however, is far more significant.

If you can't provide more data indicating that the increase in game size is trending higher than DVD-9's capacity, then we can't argue this point anymore. I've proven that it's unlikely within the lifespan of the next generation consoles, it's unlike DVD-9's will become insufficient for the vast majority of games.

I have specifically mentioned the flaws in this article multiple times. Furthermore you are still ignoring the points that I am making and only responding to the select few that you choose to. This specific article comes to the conclusion that blu-ray is unnecessary by examining the lifespan of the dvd. It looks at only the increase in space during the lifespan of the dvd and does not, anywhere in the entire article, account for the step function that appears at the introduction of every previous new media.



2) Non-linear. You claimed that games could be split up. This is in direct rebuttal of the non-linear argument that states not all games can be split up. In particular those with large, free roaming environments. These can only be split up along linear lines, which is not always possible. Final fantasy used to do this by splitting their movies among different discs so when you reached specific places in the story that were linear, they had a disc split and removed all the stuff that needed to be done in the previous disc from the new disc.

For me to take this point seriously, you'd need to first provide me with a game that has a world that's so large, it wouldn't fit on one DVD... The world in Oblivion is about as large as anyone could want for games this generation, but even that world size was not stiffled by the media, it was stiffled by development costs and time restraints... even still, I haven't heard any complaints about the world size in Oblivion. In fact, I have heard just the opposite. Many consider it too large.

Again, this proves the point that the vast majority of games will not be hindered by the rare theoretical scenario you've come up with... and it's still a hypothetical case conceived under the assumption that developers create their worlds they way they did last generation. As Oblivion proved once again - this isn't the case. Worlds are being generate in better, smarter ways.

Finally, even if we take your point at face value, and assume the absolute worst possible case scenario... so what? A person has to swap out a disk when going tto different parts of a unified, non-linear world. Is it really worth 300$ to you just to not have to deal with a simple disk swapping for 1 or 2 games you might want?

Once again, very selective response. You are choosing to ignore all the points that I have made regarding saying that there is only one way to ensure blu-ray will not be used and that's to not include it. There are no games where moving between areas requires a disc change because people don't want it. They complain about loading times between areas, they're sure going to complain even harder about changing discs between areas. Such a game, like grand theft auto, cannot be done with (significantly) better graphics that caused it to require two discs because it is a free roaming environment and would not allow for linear splits between discs. Instead there would need to be an artificial line, possibly on a river, so that every time you crossed a bridge you changed discs. People would never accept this and therefore it will not happen.

Finally we come back to Mr. 300 dollars. I'm paying 500 or 600 dollars for my ps3. 300 of that is not going to blu-ray.




3) Link Attack. The only argument that you have put forth against (1) is examples of ways to save space. This does not equate to games not increasing in size. You have once again failed to defend your link and therefore your conclusion.

That's false. I have shown that trends in file size and game size have moved up. I've also indicated that the efficiency in which we use the space has increased. These trends both suggest that game sizes aren't increasing at a rate that would warrant a new media with more capacity than the DVD-9's offer, at least not this generation.

http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132


And he uses the same reference that I've debunked several times already again. The guy's conclusion is based only on an evaluation of space increase in dvds. He does not even bother to explain why he doesn't look further back. He simply doesn't include any reasoning for why the step function breaks down. This is a completely invalid source.



4) Topicality. You've ignored this. Am I to understand that you've agreed to my definition?

Prove it.

What? You either accept the definition presented by the affirmative or you have a counter definition to present. Prove it is meaningless. Are you even reading these or do you just keep a clipboard of responses and choose them at random?



5) 'Facts.' You still keep bringing up these 'facts.' They aren't facts they are conclusions. Conclusions that other people have derived from evidence and reasoning. You would be much better served to look at an examine why these people came to these conclusions instead of just repeating them at face value and claiming them as fact. If you did this you could argue your side far more persuasively.

Start actually coming up with rebuttals and stop repeating that your 'facts' are the truth because you say so.

I've brought up many facts. Facts that you and others have ignored... but that's alright, because you and the ones who or blinded to the truth are not the ones I'm reaching. The ones I'm reaching are the ones who still (on a daily basis) pm me letting me know that I've suppleid them with enough information that they now know Blu-Ray wasn't necessary. They still (in some case) say they want a PS3 regardless - and that's awesome - but at least (thanks to these discussions) they know a bit more about the system they're spending 600$ on... and even if no more people respond to me in this way, I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish... and I've taught those who were willing to learn. :-)

And again with the 'facts.' You don't bring up facts you bring up conclusions. Conclusions that other people, like your precious gamesfirst link have come to based on evidence and reasoning. You don't include any of that you just take their conclusion that you agree with and present it at face value as a 'fact.'




Furthermore... You have yet to answer my simple question...

What can a game on a Blu-Ray disk give to or provide the user with, that a game on a DVD-9 (or 2) could not?

I specifically answered this. I gave you nearly four paragraphs of an answer. I'm not your slave. You can go look it up yourself this time. You're like a child that keeps throwing food on the floor and laughing as the adult goes to pick it up. I'm not going to play fetch with you anymore. Stop repeating yourself.




So once again, we are exactly where we started.

1) You have once again failed to either argue that the trend has not occurred in the past or provide any reasoning for why it will not continue in the future. You have instead quoted people saying blu-ray is not needed. You have successfully yielded the point by choosing to not engage.

2) The burden of proof is not on me to put forth a non-linear game that requires more than one dvd. I have repeatedly said that it cannot happen. That's the whole point of blu-ray. It opens up new opportunities that did not exist with just dvd. There are no non-linear games that require multiple dvds. Developers don't make them because they don't work. You may now offer your rebuttal.

3) Once again, other than saying that's false and then talking about completely different stuff you have failed to address my attack on your link. The capability to make small games does not mean that games will not increase in size. You are claiming that since games can be made small, therefore size will not increase beyond the capacity that can fit on a single dvd. You need another argument here because this one is busted. I'm accepting that you have yielded this point by failing to respond.

4) You have failed to respond so I am accepting your yielding of this point.

5) What a self serving tirade. If anyone other than a few of the other people that bash the ps3 on this board are pming you then all you've accomplished was to lower the quality of these boards by using them to spread misinformation. If I never hear the word 'fact' out of you again it will be too soon. As an engineer we are taught in ethics to never profess beyond our expertise. To do otherwise is unethical. Congrats. You have decided to champion something you clearly know nothing about and trick people into thinking you are an expert. That makes you a con artist, not an educator. Whether or not you have people thanking you has nothing to do with whether your points are valid or accurate.


This has gone on beyond the point of a rational argument. All you've accomplished so far is to talk louder. I decided to give you another chance after your initial spamming but you have clearly not changed one bit.

[Crazy Phat]

Why would you even reply to his posts anymore? :|

You know that he will completely ignore your good points and continue on his naive, one minded nature. :wink:

[sonyfan6]

Why would you even reply to his posts anymore? :|

You know that he will completely ignore your good points and continue on his naive, one minded nature. :wink:

As I said, I decided to give him another chance. He's lost that chance. Now he no longer gets good points in response to his bad ones. From now on he only gets mocked again.

[Darkfalz]

Why would you even reply to his posts anymore? :|

You know that he will completely ignore your good points and continue on his naive, one minded nature. :wink:

As I said, I decided to give him another chance. He's lost that chance. Now he no longer gets good points in response to his bad ones. From now on he only gets mocked again.

I've given you ample opportunity to in any way illustrate what Blu-Ray can do that cannot be done on DVD-9's, and you've failed to prove anything but what I've already stated - the sole benefit is that games are gauranteed to fit on one disk. That's the sole benefit games can get from Blu-Ray.

What's more interesting is that I doubt anyone who's read this thread has turned from believing that Blu-Ray isn't actually neccessary to believing it is... yet, I can say that at least several people on these forums have indeed concluded that Blu-Ray is indeed not necessary who once believed that it was.

Mission accomplished. I've helped to educate... and had a ton of fun in the mean time.

So try as you may to say that my sources are invalid, my points innacurate, or that I 'ignore' some snooze fest you claim to be an argument... I've already succeeded. ;-)

You're a sad, sad poster Sonyfan. This thread really does boil down to several key truthes:

1) Blu-Ray is provably not needed for games this generation. The only provable benefit it can give is a 'promise' of no disk swapping. That's it.

2) Blu-Ray movies are currently noticably, measurably, and in all other ways inferior to HD-DVD movies, and the HD-DVD player cost half the price.

That's really it. It's that simple. For games, DVD-9 are still the best value/choice. For movies, HD-DVD's are the better value.

This may change, but to argue anything against those truths is to speculate what *may* occur... and at that point - we could easily speculate any contrasting arguments.

You lose, little one. You've done a great job trying to deflect the real issues, though. It's great to see someone so eager to bring down an individual... because we know something just isn't right with you... and for all of us who don't suffer from such childish obsessions to attack individuals should be thankful for it.

I know I am... :lol:

[loki22]

You're correct there, I was speaking of upscaling, but I was attempting to answer someone's question about resolution output support, not of resolution rendering support. That said, how many HD sets support 1080p? And given the limitations of the graphics architectures the next-gen machines are built on, can we really expect games to be rendered with full anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, HDR, and pixel shading at 1920x1080? Or would it be more likely that most games will be rendered at 720p to maintain a much wider customer base?

I think for most of the customer base that will buy new consoles, 1080p support will be a moot point.


You're bringing up completely different points. I'm not going to argue about how many people will own 1080p displays within the PS3's life span. I'm also not going to argue whether "the next-gen machines" are capable of playing 1080p native games or how well they're able to do so. I lack sufficient data to argue either point.

My points were in response to Darkfalz claiming that 2 hrs of 1080p content could fit on one DVD9 with VC-1 and that the 360 renders Xbox games in 1080i. I was correcting his half-truths. You echoed his misrepresentation, even if by genuine mistake, so I addressed your post, as well.



And what are the max quality bitrates of each codec?


I don't know. I've done some cursory research, but most of the info that I've encountered is in terms of SD content and the limitations of DVDs. There's only so much time I'm willing to devote to the issue, because I don't think that it's a big issue -- both formats support the same codecs, all three codecs look great at their respective max quality bit rates, the average consumer will not be conducting side-by-side comparisons of the codecs, other factors will play a much larger role in the format war, etc.

But from what I understand, MPEG2 provides the least amount of compression, but the best PQ (because less of the original content is lost from compression). VC-1 provides much more compression then MPEG2, while sacrificing relatively little in terms of PQ (but more than MPEG2). H.264 provides superior compression to both MPEG2 and VC-1, but consequently sacrifices more in terms of PQ than VC-1. Each codec has its usefulness in given sets of circumstances. That's why they are used.

Ultimately, I think that the onus is on those, who make a big deal out of the subtle differences in the PQ of the three codecs to demonstrate that a codec which loses more of the original content through compression still provides better PQ and why. Being "newer" and/or being developed by MS does not answer those issues, as Darkfalz seems to think and/or wants other people to think.



Also, what about the impact of the cost of storage media on game prices?


What about it? The overall issue is whether BD is "necessary" and/or "useful" for next-gen gaming. In addition, BD-ROMs aren't significantly more expensive to produce than DVD-ROMs. So, until we see some significant disparity in the price of PS3 games and games on DVD-ROMs, I don't see how this is relevant.


EDIT:

To be clear, my initial response to the rendering vs. upscaling issue was based on this:


Fact: 1080p in games is not a product of capacity on a disk. It's a result of the system providing a frame buffer large enough in size to fit more than 2 million pixels, and have the processing power to manipulate those pixels efficiently. This is why Xbox 1 games that are backwards compatible on Xbox 360 do not change in file size, yet they are rendered at 1080i. (emphasis added)

It could've been an honest mistake, but it was repeated and even expounded upon later, as Darkfalz claimed that the 360 does in fact render Xbox games in 720p (I don't understand the switch from 1080i to 720p, since I know that at least PGR2 was rendered in 720p, natively) as opposed to upscaling them. The suggestion is that this rendering (not upscaling) occurs, despite the original game content not be coded to support 720p or 1080i. :?

EDIT #2:

It is Soul Calibur II that is rendered in 720p, natively, not PGR2. Sorry, I haven't played either of those games in a while. (But I still like them). :wink:

[sonyfan6]

At least Darkfalz is admitting now that he isn't even bothering to read the opposition. That makes things much clearer.

[loki22]

Yeah, I was trying to make the point that with a Blu-ray drive you could make a game that was twice the size (file size) of Oblivion which for all intents and purposes, fills up a DVD-9.

He counters that making a game twice the size (in-game world) does not make for twice the file size. I guess that make my point for me. I suppose I should have said something to the effect of "you can make a world 10 times the size of Cyrodil (Oblivion) with 1 blu-ray disc."


Plus, he uses one example and ignores other relevant variables in that isolated example (i.e., what space saving techniques were used on the sequel that were not available and/or not used on the predecessor). All to suggest that two Oblivions would fit on a DVD9 with the space saving techniques that are available now, despite the likelihood of many of those techniques already being used on Oblivion. :?

[sonyfan6]

The Darkfalz FACTS Game:

Step 1: Scan forum for any thread.
Step 2: Bash blu-ray.
Step 3: Ignore replies.
Step 4: Roll a six sided die and respond as follows:

1: Quote anonymous expert saying "Do we need Blu-Ray? No!" and proclaim victory because this invalidates everything the opposition has said.
2: Proclaim victory and without further conversation say "end of story" on tuesdays replace with "PERIOD."
3: Copy random link from opposition. Scan for any reference to blu-ray. Remove context and proclaim victory. Cross fingers and hope original poster didn't bother to read his own article.
4: Refute all statements of the opposition as speculation. Shout FACTS loudly and proclaim victory.
5: Switch topic from blu-ray sucks for ps3 games to hd-dvd is better than blu-ray. Reverse if already discussing hd-dvd is better than blu-ray. Either way proclaim victory discussion and ignore further responses. You've moved on, why have't they?
6: Proclaim victory and stop posting on thread. Find another thread and start all over again. Why should your spam be limited to just one thread when you can over run so many more threads with the exact same posts.


Coming soon: the Darkfalz drinking game.

[janenba352]

Why would you even reply to his posts anymore? :|

You know that he will completely ignore your good points and continue on his naive, one minded nature. :wink:

As I said, I decided to give him another chance. He's lost that chance. Now he no longer gets good points in response to his bad ones. From now on he only gets mocked again.

I've given you ample opportunity to in any way illustrate what Blu-Ray can do that cannot be done on DVD-9's, and you've failed to prove anything but what I've already stated - the sole benefit is that games are gauranteed to fit on one disk. That's the sole benefit games can get from Blu-Ray.

What's more interesting is that I doubt anyone who's read this thread has turned from believing that Blu-Ray isn't actually neccessary to believing it is... yet, I can say that at least several people on these forums have indeed concluded that Blu-Ray is indeed not necessary who once believed that it was.

Mission accomplished. I've helped to educate... and had a ton of fun in the mean time.

So try as you may to say that my sources are invalid, my points innacurate, or that I 'ignore' some snooze fest you claim to be an argument... I've already succeeded. ;-)

You're a sad, sad poster Sonyfan. This thread really does boil down to several key truthes:

1) Blu-Ray is provably not needed for games this generation. The only provable benefit it can give is a 'promise' of no disk swapping. That's it.

2) Blu-Ray movies are currently noticably, measurably, and in all other ways inferior to HD-DVD movies, and the HD-DVD player cost half the price.

That's really it. It's that simple. For games, DVD-9 are still the best value/choice. For movies, HD-DVD's are the better value.

This may change, but to argue anything against those truths is to speculate what *may* occur... and at that point - we could easily speculate any contrasting arguments.

You lose, little one. You've done a great job trying to deflect the real issues, though. It's great to see someone so eager to bring down an individual... because we know something just isn't right with you... and for all of us who don't suffer from such childish obsessions to attack individuals should be thankful for it.

I know I am... :lol:

Ive read all your posts and ill i see is a rivaling console fan behind the curtain... seriously... its not just movie quality that wins this its storage. 50GB is larger then 30GB if you can figure out a way to argue that 30GB is larger then 50GB Ill bake you some cookies and mail them to you... but considering thats down right impossable lets move on.

Why are you compairing a format that has just been released pretty much to a format thats atleast in its second gen... wait till the rest of the first gen of BluRay players comes out then compair atleast. Compairing 5 HD-DVD players to 1 BluRay player isnt fair.

Seriously once the launch of the PS3 happens bluray will be hugely on the market. DVDs will slowly fade a bit faster HD-DVD will fade away too.

No one will buy an external HD-DVD drive for the 360 not going to happen. Its stupid to do so.

IF you wanna say this is better then that. Let movie studios decide whats better to produce media on and what consumers buy. Since you have no power over hollywood and no real voice to the consumer you have no way to stop it.

[The_One]

4 hours of 1080p content compressed at roughly 12mbps can fit on a single layer of an HD-DVD (15 gigs). 12mbps with VC-1 is *higher* quality than any Blu-Ray movie out there has offered yet. Okay, let me see how I should respond.
1) Are you saying that HD-DVD is spinning at roughly 1/3 of 1X speed?
2) I've seen VC-1 encoded "HD" videos (720p) that can fit onto a DVD, and their quality is undoubtedly not very high. This is a personal observation, and thus is also an opinion. The term "high" is then a relative term being used by me in comparison to other HD videos I've seen.
3) I would post a picture comparison (Btween HD-DVD VC-1 footage and a "made to fit on a DVD" footage), but I'm too lazy and I don't know if I can find a VC-1 encoded 720p HD-DVD footage off the bat. If you would please, why not post a picture comparison to further your point?

And what are the max quality bitrates of each codec? There are not SOLID max bitrate. It's all up to the media format (or HDD, if you're streaming). The faster the media, the higher the bit rate you can use. However, once you reach a certain bitrate, going higher will not increase your picture quality. That's where MPEG-2 shines as compared to VC-1 at both of their respective "peak" bitrate. MPEG-2 can reach about 96-98% of the original RAW quality. VC-1, however, is stuck around 88-90%. Not that big of a deal, and it takes quite a bit more space for MPEG-2 before it reaches that quality.

It will matter, if they continue to use mpeg2 for Blu-Ray movies. Even 50 gigs of mpeg 2 won't hold up against 30 gigs of VC-1. BD supports all the encodings that HD-DVD support, it's simply up to the studios to release them at their respective encodings. VC-1 codec is also overrated, but whatever, newer is better, right :??

Don't even get me started on MPEG-4 (which is what H.264 and VC-1 are based on), that thing is utter craptastic in the quality department; comparable to the lossy DivX and Xvid, yuck :no.

Ooops, the last part about MPEG-4 was a little rant on my part.

[deecee]

"There are not SOLID max bitrate. It's all up to the media format (or HDD, if you're streaming). The faster the media, the higher the bit rate you can use. However, once you reach a certain bitrate, going higher will not increase your picture quality. That's where MPEG-2 shines as compared to VC-1 at both of their respective "peak" bitrate. MPEG-2 can reach about 96-98% of the original RAW quality. VC-1, however, is stuck around 88-90%. Not that big of a deal, and it takes quite a bit more space for MPEG-2 before it reaches that quality."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I realize there are no max bitrates given that different storage devices are used, my question was meant to ask what the max bitrates were on each type of media between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I found that information on the blu-ray site, and mpeg-2 hardly seems a viable option given the fact that the bitrate at which it reaches the same level of quality that VC-1 delivers is higher than that of VC-1. Of course, none of this will matter when VC-1 encoded BD's (or any coding scheme more efficient and with more image fidelity than mpeg-2) are released. I was asking the question to quantify how much of an actual limit each media might place on storing a movie.

What I don't quite understand is why the continued reliance upon mpeg-2 to encode the first BD media? Clearly it's not making waves with A/V reviewers who have tested Blu-Ray players. I find it hard to believe that no studio has encoded in the more advanced codecs. I think this may be part of the answer:

"However, Eklund says the company has discovered other advantages to using MPEG-2. "Since then, we've also done some testing with VC-1 and MPEG-4 AVC. We're finding they have some advantages when encoding at very low bit rates, but those low bit rates, as compared with MPEG-2, do not yield transparent picture quality to the original master. When you're encoding, you need to encode the noise that is part of the film grain of that master as well.""

From here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/126163-1/article.html?RSS=RSS

Keep in mind that the quote from the article is from a sony VP.

What I wondered, is why reviewers of the first BD players were not impressed with the image quality when they compared it to that of HD-DVD players, though this quote claims Mpeg-2 is truer to the original? Subtle nuances between VC-1 and Mpeg2? Maybe a high enough average bitrate was not used? It just seems that though reviews claim HD-DVD (using VC-1) image quality to be better when compared to mpeg-2, yet Sony seemed to be content with mpeg-2 because they believe it performed better at their specified average bitrate.

I find it interesting, as well, that reviewers also rated the audio as much better on HD-DVD. Now, this might be slightly more subjective than image viewing, but they seemed to think it was better. Why, when an audio track can be encoded in the same formats on both discs, did one stand out? Surely if the audio decoding hardware was capable of the same things on the two players, you wouldn't have heard much of a difference- I chalk it up to subjectiveness, but it's still an interesting point of contrast.

[The_One]

It just seems that though reviews claim HD-DVD (using VC-1) image quality to be better when compared to mpeg-2, yet Sony seemed to be content with mpeg-2 because they believe it performed better at their specified average bitrate. That's because Sony is dumb. Right now, BD is not large enough to provide MPEG-2 compression at a high enough bitrate to compete with neither VC-1 nor the plain old MPEG-4. Until 3 layered or higher BD ROMs comes out (Not enough space on a single layered BD for a 2 hour film encoded with high bitrate MPEG-2), MPEG-2 will still lack in the quality department. Until MPEG-2 reaches around 40-42Mbp/s or so, the quality will still be lower than VC-1. At 46Mbp/s or higher, the quality of MPEG-2 will be higher than that of VC-1 even at VC-1's "peak" bitrate (which I cannot remember off the top of my head).

EDIT: I meant double layered, not single. Sorry for the confusion.

[Crazy Phat]

Sony should have used VC1 or H.264 for there 25GB discs, and MPEG-2 for there dual layered 50GB discs. Guess they thought that since they have the PS3, the higher quality picture of HD-DVD discs(for now) compared to Blu-Ray discs wouldn't matter as there would be millions of Blu-Ray players and better marketing compared to the few hundred thousand HD-DVD players in peoples' homes. But they could have atleast used VC1 or H.264 for there one layered 25GB discs which could have prevented this negative press and propaganda. :|

[deecee]

The_One:

Gotcha. I need to look up how long it will take for the multi-layered discs to get to market.

From here: http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_hddvd

Apparently blu-ray supports a max bitrate of 40Mbps, while HD-DVD supports up to 28Mbps. I suppose this is a function of access times per bit, so wouldn't that then mean that mpeg-2 will be constrained to 40Mbps maximum on blu-ray discs? To rival to quality of VC-1 encoded HD-DVDs, they might have to start using VC-1, Mpeg 4, or something more efficient and with more fidelity. They'd have to ditch mpeg-2 altogether until multi-layer BDs emerge, since there's a ceiling on the bitrate when playing directly from disc.

Someone before told me that the codecs used aren't as important as the space available, but when it comes to image quality, as you've mentioned, and taking into account the bitrate maximums, the codecs are important.

I wonder what the difference in quality is between 40Mbps mpeg-2 and 28Mbps VC-1?

[Crazy Phat]

Did you not just read most of The-One's post? MPEG-2 provides better picture quality than VC1 and H.264 at its maximum bit rate which will be possible on 50GB discs. They should ditch MPEG-2 for 25GB discs though(in which VC1 and H.264 are better).

[sonyfan6]

As long as we're still comparing hd-dvd and blu-ray, the most critical difference is the amount of space available. Blu-ray is 25 GB per layer and can have a theoretical maximum of 8 layers. I believe someone posted the other day that a prototype 8 layer had been successfully created. Up until then 4 layers was the biggest prototype created. HD-DVD on the other hand is 15 GB per layer and has a theoretical maximum of 4 layers. Basically, right now any advantage of hd-dvd can be attributed to the comparison of single layer blu-ray discs to multilayer hd-dvd discs. The current comparisons are all 25 GB single layer blu-ray versus 30 GB dual layer HD-DVD. The interesting bit is that once dual layer blu-ray discs come out blu-ray will be at 50 GB. HD-DVD will only be able to keep up with a four layer disc (60 GB) the theoretical maximum. As soon as blu-ray hits three layers it's at 75 GB and has surpassed the maximum possible by HD-DVD and it still have another 5 layers to go until it maxes out.

The current observations regarding HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray all attribute better quality to HD-DVD. This is only because 30 GB>25 GB and also the samsung player had a malfunctioning chip. The other advantage often cited for HD-DVD is cost and an early lead. However this is not very important at this stage as the ps3 will be out in november bringing the cost of a blu-ray player to 500 dollars, putting it on equal footing with the cost of the hd-dvd players. The launch ps3 sales alone will allow blu-ray to greatly surpass the number of hd-dvd players on the market completely eradicating hd-dvd's early lead.


Until 3 layered or higher BD ROMs comes out (Not enough space on a single layered BD for a 2 hour film encoded with high bitrate MPEG-2), MPEG-2 will still lack in the quality department.

I'm curious, is this a typo? You say until 3 layered BD comes out and then say single layer isn't enough? Was it supposed to read 2 layer BD or did you mean that dual layer was not enough?

[loki22]

The Darkfalz FACTS Game:

Step 1: Scan forum for any thread.
Step 2: Bash blu-ray.
Step 3: Ignore replies.
Step 4: Roll a six sided die and respond as follows:

1: Quote anonymous expert saying "Do we need Blu-Ray? No!" and proclaim victory because this invalidates everything the opposition has said.
2: Proclaim victory and without further conversation say "end of story" on tuesdays replace with "PERIOD."
3: Copy random link from opposition. Scan for any reference to blu-ray. Remove context and proclaim victory. Cross fingers and hope original poster didn't bother to read his own article.
4: Refute all statements of the opposition as speculation. Shout FACTS loudly and proclaim victory.
5: Switch topic from blu-ray sucks for ps3 games to hd-dvd is better than blu-ray. Reverse if already discussing hd-dvd is better than blu-ray. Either way proclaim victory discussion and ignore further responses. You've moved on, why have't they?
6: Proclaim victory and stop posting on thread. Find another thread and start all over again. Why should your spam be limited to just one thread when you can over run so many more threads with the exact same posts.


Coming soon: the Darkfalz drinking game.

You forgot --
7: In responding to a post, only quote part of the text from a point, ignoring the rest of the text asserting and supporting the point, making it easier to try to act as if you've refuted the point in your response. Of course, this tactic is only effective on those readers who don't bother to read the original post or who don't remember the actual text and/or point in the original post.

On another note, I apologize for a mistake I made earlier in discussion of the difference between games being rendered in HD and games being upscaled to HD. It was Soul Calibur II (on the Xbox) that supports 720p, not PGR2.

But adding to that discussion, if SCII supports 720p, then shouldn't the Xbox have the ability to render (not upscale) it in 720p? Under Darkfalz' "facts," if the Xbox can use the original game assets to render (not upscale) SCII in 720p, then shouldn't the Xbox be able to the same for all Xbox games, even if the game assets do not contain code for rendering in 720p? Or is it, as I understand it, that the game has to be coded to be rendered in 720p to actually be rendered in 720p, and that any other manifestation of 720p is upscaling? If I'm wrong, why can't the Xbox render all Xbox games in 720p? :wink:

[cobrasteve]

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2006/02/hd_dvd_primer.php

Over 4 hours on single layer 15gig
Over 8 hours on dual layer 30gig

DVD-9 = 8gigs, more than half the space of a single layer HD-DVD. Thus, 2+ hours of 1080p video with VC-1.

According to that article, the difference is in the compression technology. So, I guess DVD9 is not capable of the higher bitrate to take the same advantage of higher compression that HD-DVD can. One question I have, though, is what does it mean by "HD resolution"? Is it 720p? 1080i? It's not 1080p, I'm pretty sure.

According to this discussion,

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/index.php/t-638296.html

the video bitrate of HD-DVD is 30Mbps while Blu-ray is 40Mbps, and the audio bitrate for Blu-ray is also around 25% higher. I would presume those numbers are generally accurate.

You keep harping on Sony's use of MPEG-2 and using it as the reason why HD-DVD is "superior". From the article you quote, MPEG-2 can handle less than 25% of the bitrate potential of Blu-ray. Now why on earth would Sony insist on sticking with that? It's obviously a short-term limitation until an HD-compatible codec is implemented. The only legitimate argument is if Sony is taking too long to do so.

[Darrius Cole]

.........

Furthermore... You have yet to answer my simple question...




Yeah, I was trying to make the point that with a Blu-ray drive you could make a game that was twice the size (file size) of Oblivion which for all intents and purposes, fills up a DVD-9.

He counters that making a game twice the size (in-game world) does not make for twice the file size. I guess that make my point for me. I suppose I should have said something to the effect of "you can make a world 10 times the size of Cyrodil (Oblivion) with 1 blu-ray disc."

Could a game 100 times the size of Oblivion (file size) fit on a Blu-Ray disk?

No. Does it matter? No.

I honestly didn't think your point would be that point-less... but I overestimated you, aparently... (or underestimate, as it were) ;-) It would have been much easier to simply ask, "Can a DVD-9 hold more than 8 gigs of data? The answer is obviously no... and that's also beside the point.

The question isn't whether or not one format can hold more data. That is already proven...

The question is, does the extra space buy gamers anything?

The simple answer is yes, it does. It buys them the luxury of never swapping disks for the 10% of games that might require it this generation. Does it buy them better games? Bigger games (longer, more complex, bigger worlds) - emphatically - no, it does not. All of those items can be provided with DVD-9(s). Therefore, the next question should be...

Is that mild luxury worth 300$ more to produce?

Answer as you see fit... I think you all know my answer to that one... ;-)

Pointless? That is a direct answer to the question you asked. You said....


What can a game on a Blu-Ray disk give to or provide the user with, that a game on a DVD-9 (or 2) could not?

I said.....


I suppose I should have said something to the effect of "you can make a world 10 times the size of Cyrodil (Oblivion) with 1 blu-ray disc."

And you think that is pointless. Let's examine a hypothetical....Say for instance Bioware (makers of the first Star Wars: KOTOR) made a new Star Wars RPG that had 10 planets on it and the player could travel to any planet he wished whenever he chose, and each planet had as much content as all of Cyrodil (Oblivion). You would think that is pointless. A game with 10 times the content of Oblivon and could only be played on a PS3 is pointless. I think you under-estimate the power of one game.

I must add; for an Xbox fan to under-estimate the difference one game can make to a console and to a console war is hilarious on its face.

You seem to be hiding behind this "only 3% of games will ever need that much space" excuse. Well in case you haven't noticed, all games are not created equal. Some games are just plain better than others. If the 3% of the games that need to use the extra storage all flagships then blu-ray games will have made their mark...actually that is an understatement....If the 3% of games that need the extra space are all flagship titles, then blu-ray will have dominated the console war. If the games that use just 10GB per game all turn out to be better and thus become flagship titles, DVD-9 as a game format is screwed and therefore Xbox 360 is screwed. Flagship titles will have found themselves in need of 10GB and the X360 won't be able to give it.

I hope no AAA FPS finds itself in need of 10GB then Halo wouldn't be able to match it. (Although, I think the bigger problem for Xbox 360 is that Halo 3 will definitely require a hard drive.)

Bottom line, here is what is going on...

We are all trying to see the future. In order to do that we look at past and current trends and make our best guess. Blu-ray offers a lot more space. While I am not a tech-head I find that in life in general, more space gets used one way or another. Coincidently that happens to be the trend in every aspect of computers as well.

Your point is that DVD-9 has been enough all throughout the past and therefore it will be enough in the future. Maybe it will be, no man can see the future with 100% certainty. But since both opinions are gambles, I like being on the side with more options.

I am not a tech-head but I am not a computer illiterate either. In general, most people would be well served to follow the old adage, MORE IS BETTER especially in regards to computers. But that is not a technical argument. However, we all know that you aren't making technical arguments either. When the more technically inclined members of the forums show up, you, Darkfalz, disappear.

If you really want to convince us that blu-ray won't be necessary in the PS3/X360 generation because of the way the computer industry is currently going, then don't waste time arguing the point with me, get the other techies to concur with you.

[Hydra_Hobo]

I just wanted to say that I saw bluray running on a 1080p for the first time at best buy yesterday...and all I can say is "wow." It has convinced me to spend the extra few hundred and go 1080p...I mean dear god it is beautiful.

Anyone who says there is something crappy about bluray is just being bitchy. I am sure HD-DVD is grea too, but bluray is...amazing...I cant imagine better.

[soremekun]

Since Microsoft has these tools available to developers that will allow them to shrink games...
How about they apply these tools to their own programs.
Microsoft Office 2007 will prob be larger than Microsoft Office 2003 which is larger than Microsoft Office XP which is larger than Microsoft Office 2000 which is larger than Microsoft Office 97...

[deecee]

As long as we're still comparing hd-dvd and blu-ray, the most critical difference is the amount of space available. Blu-ray is 25 GB per layer and can have a theoretical maximum of 8 layers. I believe someone posted the other day that a prototype 8 layer had been successfully created. Up until then 4 layers was the biggest prototype created. HD-DVD on the other hand is 15 GB per layer and has a theoretical maximum of 4 layers. Basically, right now any advantage of hd-dvd can be attributed to the comparison of single layer blu-ray discs to multilayer hd-dvd discs. The current comparisons are all 25 GB single layer blu-ray versus 30 GB dual layer HD-DVD. The interesting bit is that once dual layer blu-ray discs come out blu-ray will be at 50 GB. HD-DVD will only be able to keep up with a four layer disc (60 GB) the theoretical maximum. As soon as blu-ray hits three layers it's at 75 GB and has surpassed the maximum possible by HD-DVD and it still have another 5 layers to go until it maxes out.

The current observations regarding HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray all attribute better quality to HD-DVD. This is only because 30 GB>25 GB and also the samsung player had a malfunctioning chip. The other advantage often cited for HD-DVD is cost and an early lead. However this is not very important at this stage as the ps3 will be out in november bringing the cost of a blu-ray player to 500 dollars, putting it on equal footing with the cost of the hd-dvd players. The launch ps3 sales alone will allow blu-ray to greatly surpass the number of hd-dvd players on the market completely eradicating hd-dvd's early lead.


Until 3 layered or higher BD ROMs comes out (Not enough space on a single layered BD for a 2 hour film encoded with high bitrate MPEG-2), MPEG-2 will still lack in the quality department.


I'm curious, is this a typo? You say until 3 layered BD comes out and then say single layer isn't enough? Was it supposed to read 2 layer BD or did you mean that dual layer was not enough?

Sonyfan6, those weren't my words, that was from The_One (scroll up to where he quoted a question of mine about using MPEG-2 for first-generation BD movies). I suspect that he meant 2-layer BD, but he can clear this up if he wants.

[sonyfan6]

I apologize. I messed up my quote syntax. It has been corrected in the original post.

Oh, and you just made the same mistake I did. You have yourself as making the original comment above and the_one as the responder instead of the_one as making the original comment and me as the responder. It's unfortunately real easy to accidentally include an extra quote syntax when using the quote reply function.

[cobrasteve]

1) Blu-Ray is provably not needed for games this generation. The only provable benefit it can give is a 'promise' of no disk swapping. That's it.

2) Blu-Ray movies are currently noticably, measurably, and in all other ways inferior to HD-DVD movies, and the HD-DVD player cost half the price.

1) You've already proven that DVD9 can't deliver an HD bitrate. 360 can render in up to 720p which is nothing to sneeze at, but DVD9 keeps it from even delivering 720p video, not to mention 1080p which PS3 will be able to do. I personally think that's pretty important.

The real issue is how much the gaming public can get out of HD. If you've got an HDTV, it's a no-brainer. You will get more than your money's worth from PS3. If you don't have an HDTV (which is the vast majority of people), PS3 only provides a slight benefit over 360, and that puts non-HD gamers who want to play PS3-exclusive games in a bind.

PS3 is an HD machine. If you're not hooking it to an HDTV, you're not using $100 of the hardware, compared to 360. Don't forget that the HDD-equipped 360 is also expensive.

2) This only matters if everyone abandons Blu-ray, which ain't gonna happen. It would be nice if you'd mention that HD-DVD is designed to get off to a faster start than Blu-ray, but that would interfere with your propagandizing, now wouldn't it.

[deecee]

sonyfan6:

Gahh, fixed it the best I can...

I think folks here get the point

[berklon]

Anyone who says there is something crappy about bluray is just being bitchy. I am sure HD-DVD is grea too, but bluray is...amazing...I cant imagine better.

Sure you can... just watch a HD-DVD movie and see how much better it looks.

It's not about being "bitchy", it's about getting the best quality - and right now HD-DVD offers that.

Here's another bad review for another BD movie:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=23110

[loki22]

Anyone who says there is something crappy about bluray is just being bitchy. I am sure HD-DVD is grea too, but bluray is...amazing...I cant imagine better.

Sure you can... just watch a HD-DVD movie and see how much better it looks.

It's not about being "bitchy", it's about getting the best quality - and right now HD-DVD offers that.

Here's another bad review for another BD movie:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=23110

For pete's sake, what's wrong with you people? How many reviews have been done of movies on 50GB BD-ROMs? Encoded with H.264 or VC-1? On the Pioneer BD player? On the Sony BD player? On any of the other 4 BD players, besides Samsung's (which has a noise reduction bug)?

Do you really care that much about right this second, when a lot of things are likely to change in the very near future? Do you have to buy an HD player today? This week? This month? Before Christmas? Are you even planning to?

If not, why in the world are so many of you going on about the format war, as if the fate of the world depends on it? What purpose does it serve? Should I make 100 posts with the criticisms of the Toshiba HD-DVD players and some of the lesser HD-DVD titles, even though such criticisms say little about HD-DVD, as a format, and a lot about those particular players and titles? Would that be productive? :roll:

[berklon]

Anyone who says there is something crappy about bluray is just being bitchy. I am sure HD-DVD is grea too, but bluray is...amazing...I cant imagine better.

Sure you can... just watch a HD-DVD movie and see how much better it looks.

It's not about being "bitchy", it's about getting the best quality - and right now HD-DVD offers that.

Here's another bad review for another BD movie:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=23110

For pete's sake, what's wrong with you people? How many reviews have been done of movies on 50GB BD-ROMs? Encoded with H.264 or VC-1? On the Pioneer BD player? On the Sony BD player? On any of the other 4 BD players, besides Samsung's (which has a noise reduction bug)?

Do you really care that much about right this second, when a lot of things are likely to change in the very near future? Do you have to buy an HD player today? This week? This month? Before Christmas? Are you even planning to?

If not, why in the world are so many of you going on about the format war, as if the fate of the world depends on it? What purpose does it serve? Should I make 100 posts with the criticisms of the Toshiba HD-DVD players and some of the lesser HD-DVD titles, even though such criticisms say little about HD-DVD, as a format, and a lot about those particular players and titles? Would that be productive? :roll:

You can make all the criticism's of the quality of HD-DVD you want. You just won't find enough to pick on compared to Blu-Ray.

This is a Blu-Ray thread, and people are discussing it. That means talking about it's strengths and weaknesses. Someone mentioned that it doesn't get any better than Blu-Ray, so he should know that it actually does right now. That may change in the future, it may not. We don't know yet.

[loki22]

You can make all the criticism's of the quality of HD-DVD you want. You just won't find enough to pick on compared to Blu-Ray.

This is a Blu-Ray thread, and people are discussing it. That means talking about it's strengths and weaknesses. Someone mentioned that it doesn't get any better than Blu-Ray, so he should know that it actually does right now. That may change in the future, it may not. We don't know yet.


I see why you responded to the original poster. However, I still take issue with the way that you responded. As my previous post suggested, the current state of affairs has much more to do with the particular HD players and HD titles released so far, than with the validity of the two formats, themselves. Of course, you can respond however you want to, within the forum rules. But I'm suggesting that we all step back from the "format war" mentality and take a more reasonable approach. Drawing conclusions about the validity of the formats, as a whole, based on the strengths and weaknesses of the relatively few players and titles out now, is not reasonable.

For example, if reviews of the Pioneer BD player and 50GB BDs claim that they surpass the PQ of the Toshiba players and the HD-DVD titles released so far, I'm not going to post links to the reviews all over the forum and claim that "BD pwns HD-DVD!!!" It would be more reasonable to say that the Pioneer player and those particular 50GB BDs pwn the Toshiba players and HD-DVD releases to date. However, I'd still come off looking foolish in my own eyes. I know that the Toshiba players are first gen players, hardly anyone is going to be buying first gen stand alone players for either format, by the time the general public jumps into the arena there will be better players and better transfers for both formats, etc.

Focusing so much on "right now," when "right now" doesn't really matter isn't very productive. Drawing unfounded conclusions is even worse. But I apologize, as the tone of my previous post was due to a long line of "Blu-ray's getting slammed by the media and early adopters" posts and not you, specifically. :wink:

[deecee]

Question.

What is the meaning of "winning" the format war?

The benefits of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats are increased image fidelity, but the benefits aren't realized fully for people without HD sets, many of which are multiple thousand dollar investments. Given the relative price of one, and the cost of an HD-capable standalone player or PS3, will we really see high market penetration soon at all until much later?

Reason I ask is that HD media represent a significantly increased investment when compared to the advent of the original DVD, i.e. you didn't really need a new TV to take advantage of the leap in image quality. The way I see it, the average consumer does not see the need to invest in an HD or even an ED capable set, and many cannot afford them, and until this changes, there may be a serious waiting period until the potential of the new formats are even given any thought- maybe much longer than it took for DVD to really become mainstream.

Your thoughts?

[NuSoardGraphite]

You can get a "decent" HDTV around 32" in size for less than $1500, when just last year the same size TV cost around twice that much. The prices are coming down on a monthly basis.

In addition, all of the airwaves will be broadcasting in digital in just a few years. By this time, the average consumer needs to have upgraded to a TV with a digital reciever, which these days pretty much means buying an HDTV.

Also the PS3 will absolutely cause a large number of consumers to purchase HDTV's to take advantage of both HD gaming and the Blu-Ray player built in. Not to the level that DVD benefitted from the release of the PS2, but if you think that the PS3 won't have much of an impact on the sale of HDTV's I think you are mistaken.

Heck, if you aren't worried about a flat-screen HDTV, you can get a CRT-based HDTV for about $600 to $900! At that price, any consumer who can't afford that has other things to worry about than HDTV's and Next-Gen gaming platforms!

[The_One]

Apparently blu-ray supports a max bitrate of 40Mbps, while HD-DVD supports up to 28Mbps. I suppose this is a function of access times per bit, so wouldn't that then mean that mpeg-2 will be constrained to 40Mbps maximum on blu-ray discs? To rival to quality of VC-1 encoded HD-DVDs, they might have to start using VC-1, Mpeg 4, or something more efficient and with more fidelity. They'd have to ditch mpeg-2 altogether until multi-layer BDs emerge, since there's a ceiling on the bitrate when playing directly from disc. Hmm, I believe those "caps" are simply the limit of the 50GB and the 30GB Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs, respectively (for a feature length film + menu and extras). More layers and higher read speed would undoubtedly allow higher bitrates, so I don't think there's that big of a problem in terms of bitrate caps.

As long as we're still comparing hd-dvd and blu-ray, the most critical difference is the amount of space available. I don't agree, as long as we're comparing only BD and HD-DVD, the most important factors are:
1) Price to the consumer (player costs)
2) Picture Quality
3) Studio support

Disc space is secondary, as it's only useful for data storage when it comes to the gaming industry (or simply personal data backup).

I'm curious, is this a typo? You say until 3 layered BD comes out and then say single layer isn't enough? Was it supposed to read 2 layer BD or did you mean that dual layer was not enough? Sorry, that was a typo. I meant double layered, not single layered.

The benefits of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats are increased image fidelity, but the benefits aren't realized fully for people without HD sets, many of which are multiple thousand dollar investments. Given the relative price of one, and the cost of an HD-capable standalone player or PS3, will we really see high market penetration soon at all until much later? I don't think we're going to see a large market penetration for either until quite a few years down the road. There simply aren't enough HDTV's out there for either of the camps to pursue an aggressive marketing stance for either of the formats--for now.

You can bet that'll change once HDTV's become a common place in your average joe's living room, but as it stand now, I have no doubt that either format is quite--how shall I put it--useless in terms of market penetration and wide-scale usage. I only see a slight advantage in using BD for games due to the possibility of having more storage for games.

You can get a "decent" HDTV around 32" in size for less than $1500, when just last year the same size TV cost around twice that much. The prices are coming down on a monthly basis. Problem is, not much people is willing to spend upwards of 1 gran on TV's alone. I think people are still waiting until the prices of HDTV's that are of an acceptable "household size" comes down in price below the 1K threshold.

Heck, the other day I was thinking of getting a HDTV, walked into a Sony Store (while I was down in the States). Looked at the price and went: :shock:! Mind you, a 19'' HDTV was 459.99 USD--refurbished. The same TV for new went for 799.99USD. That's small and expensive. I said "No thanks" and pretty much left. The TV was HDCP compliant with DVI input, so the price might have been a bit higher than your average 19'' LCD HDTV; nonetheless, even small HDTV's are pricey.

[Darkfalz]

The Facts About Quality:
MPEG-2 vs. VC-1

1) VC-1 is 2-3 times as efficient as MPEG-2. This means:

A) MPEG-2 video compressed at the same bit rate as VC-1 (regardless of how high or low that bit rate is) encoded video will always look noticably worse, while taking up the same amount of space.

*Assuming 40mbps is the max bitrate usable, since that's the maximum Blu-Ray supports.

B) MPEG-2 video compressed at Double the bit rate as VC-1 will look equal to or worse than VC-1 video compressed at *half* the bit rate, taking up HALF the space on a disk.

*Example, video compressed at 40mbps with MPEG-2 (Blu-ray's max) will look the same or worse than video compressed at 20mbps with VC-1.

2) VC-1 has a maximum bit rate of 135 Mbps

*At just around 12mbps, most the HD-DVD's don't use a tenth of that maximum, and still outperform all Blu-Ray movies using mpeg2.

3) Blu-Ray supports a maximum bitrate of 40mbps for video

4) HD-DVD supports a maximum bit-rate of 28mbps for video

Conclusion: At maximum bit rates supported by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, it's a mathmetic impossibility for MPEG-2 compressed movies on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to look as good as VC-1 compressed movies on HD-DVD.

Sources:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/vc1techoverview.aspx
http://www.emedialive.com/articles/readarticle.aspx?articleid=11397

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Facts About HD content on DVD-9:

1) DVD-9's hold roughly 8.5 gigs of data

2) HD 1080p video compressed with VC-1 at 12mbps (same as HD-DVD movies, wich undeniably beat out blu-ray in terms of picture quality), takes up roughly 60MB per minute of video.

*NOTE: This is *better* quality than any Blu-Ray movie on the market today.

8.5 gigs divided by 60 MB = 141.6

Conclusion:
More than TWO HOURS of 1080p video (higher quality than any Blu-Ray movie out there, and equal to HD-DVD movie quality) can fit onto one DVD-9.

NOTE: While standard DVD players cannot play/decode HD content, that's NOT a limitation of the media. You could have HD content on a DVD-9 that could be read by a PC, PS3, Xbox 360, etc.

Sources:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx
http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/506hook/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

These are facts. They cannot be refuted.

[Aleman]

Here, I'll make it easier for you Darkfalz.

Blu-ray can do everything HD-DVD can do, plus more.

[The_One]

DVD playing HD quality videos isn't a surprise; kind of like how the CD can play DVD quality videos (and not VCD quality) with newer codecs. Technology improves really fast, and it's only a matter of time before the next-next generation HD media (2160p) can be played on our "current" next-gen formats (with the newer codecs, of course).

Here, I'll make it easier for you Darkfalz.

Blu-ray can do everything HD-DVD can do, plus more. Or, you can say that :lol:.

[Darkfalz]

Here, I'll make it easier for you Darkfalz.

Blu-ray can do everything HD-DVD can do, plus more.

Here, I'll make it even easier for you Aleman.

HD-DVD is delivering everything Blu-ray said it can do, plus more - right now, and Blu-Ray's underdelivering in every way, with no gaurantee it'll start delivering the goods any time soon. :lol:

[deecee]

You can get a "decent" HDTV around 32" in size for less than $1500, when just last year the same size TV cost around twice that much. The prices are coming down on a monthly basis.

In addition, all of the airwaves will be broadcasting in digital in just a few years. By this time, the average consumer needs to have upgraded to a TV with a digital reciever, which these days pretty much means buying an HDTV.

Also the PS3 will absolutely cause a large number of consumers to purchase HDTV's to take advantage of both HD gaming and the Blu-Ray player built in. Not to the level that DVD benefitted from the release of the PS2, but if you think that the PS3 won't have much of an impact on the sale of HDTV's I think you are mistaken.

Heck, if you aren't worried about a flat-screen HDTV, you can get a CRT-based HDTV for about $600 to $900! At that price, any consumer who can't afford that has other things to worry about than HDTV's and Next-Gen gaming platforms!

I'd say the cost is a bit more prohibitive than you mention. First of all, there are already digital over-the-air broadcasts, but they're somewhat limited as only prime-time events are covered in HD, and many aren't since the bandwidth to transmit true HD broadcast doesn't come cheap. Second, in order to get even a taste of the non-primetime HD content that's out there, you have to buy an expensive ($100+ per month) digital cable or satellite package, and that will only get you about 15-20 channels of actual HD broadcast at best. So to the average consumer, it may not be such an attractive prospect.

I don't think the PS3 alone stands to add all that much to the rate of new HDTV sales because it's an expensive box that plays games and movies, and does little more for the average user. $600, or even $500 for that matter, is not a trivial amount of money to most people, and neither is an additional $1300 to plunk down on a new tv, especially when the $600 game box you bought will be rendered obsolete for anything other than movie viewing in a matter of about 5 years. The blu-ray capability is nice, and while we on this forum and A/V buffs may be salivating, most consumers don't even get in on the first generation of a major new media format, especially one which requires them to make major upgrades to other of their existing appliances to take advantage of the advertised improvements, and especially when a breadth of content which utilizes said improvements isn't there.

In short, I don't think that the motivation for widespread buy-in on HD viewing in the form of widely and cheaply available content is there, nor do I think that the PS3 will really change that as much as we'd like to think- compared to the leap from VHS to DVD, accessing this new revolution is even more involved and expensive.

[Ricokillercon]

0r 150 a month in nyc u can get cable tv in HD....telephone servive and 5mb connection....

HD-programing is rather cheap these days,...

[Grym]

Here, I'll make it easier for you Darkfalz.

Blu-ray can do everything HD-DVD can do, plus more.

Here, I'll make it even easier for you Aleman.

HD-DVD is delivering everything Blu-ray said it can do, plus more - right now, and Blu-Ray's underdelivering in every way, with no gaurantee it'll start delivering the goods any time soon. :lol:

What do you mean with "plus more"?

No BD-J for example and no 50 GB discs to my understanding..

BD-J is coming in full force soon together with more powerful Blu-ray editing tools.

From 2nd of August:



Sony’s Media Software division has announced the availability of Blu-print, a complete system for use in authoring DVDs in the new Blu-ray format.

The Blu-print authoring application, developed by Sony Pictures Entertainment, runs on most high-end Windows-powered workstations and enables post-production facilities and movie production studios to utilise the advanced features of the BD-ROM format.

As well as proper encoding, users can use Blu-print to create menu navigation for their Blu-ray discs and utilise the advanced features of the format such as BDMV (Blu-ray Disc Movie) 'popup' menus and BD-J (Blu-ray Disc Java) interactivity.

"The Blu-print application effectively unlocks many of the most advanced Blu-ray functions and capabilities, providing producers of the new disc format with a comprehensive resource for developing higher quality projects than ever before," said Dave Chaimson, vice president of marketing, Sony Media Software.

"This software-based solution helps to streamline the authoring process and allows Blu-print integration within a production facility's existing workflow process."

Blu-print is now available for $50,000 per licence.


http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2161536/sony-unveils-blu-ray-authoring

[VoiceofReason]

Just some light reading or you peeps

"HD-DVD has proven itself to be an outstanding value for the money. Blu-ray has not. If Blu-ray is to survive it needs to drop the price of its entry level players to $500 and increase the quality of its discs. In essence, it needs to match the price/performance benchmark established by HD-DVD. Surely better Blu-ray discs will be forthcoming at some point. But from the looks of things it may already be too late. HD-DVD is solid, it delivers superb quality for a nominal price, and there are twice the number of HD-DVD titles on the market as BDs. The outlook for the holiday season is that there will be over 400 HD-DVD titles released, while Blu-ray will be lucky to have 200"

Independant review of both formats http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_2.htm

"If you want to jump into to the Blu-Ray water, you may want to wait a little bit until Samsung corrects their problems and Blu-Ray can offer at least what DVD can. Presently, it cannot."

Review of the first BR and HD-DVD units. HD-DVD has some problems but not as many as BR http://www.dvdtown.com/article/toshibavs.samsung-hd-dvdvs.blu/3595/

"In our first head-to-head comparison, we found the HD DVD to be superior. The unfortunate cropping of the Blu-ray image, coupled with more noticeable compression artifacts and an overall darker cast, can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD."
Review of training day, released on both formats. http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html

[sonyfan6]

The Facts About Quality:
MPEG-2 vs. VC-1

1) VC-1 is 2-3 times as efficient as MPEG-2. This means:

A) MPEG-2 video compressed at the same bit rate as VC-1 (regardless of how high or low that bit rate is) encoded video will always look noticably worse, while taking up the same amount of space.

*Assuming 40mbps is the max bitrate usable, since that's the maximum Blu-Ray supports.

B) MPEG-2 video compressed at Double the bit rate as VC-1 will look equal to or worse than VC-1 video compressed at *half* the bit rate, taking up HALF the space on a disk.

*Example, video compressed at 40mbps with MPEG-2 (Blu-ray's max) will look the same or worse than video compressed at 20mbps with VC-1.

2) VC-1 has a maximum bit rate of 135 Mbps

*At just around 12mbps, most the HD-DVD's don't use a tenth of that maximum, and still outperform all Blu-Ray movies using mpeg2.

3) Blu-Ray supports a maximum bitrate of 40mbps for video

4) HD-DVD supports a maximum bit-rate of 28mbps for video

Conclusion: At maximum bit rates supported by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, it's a mathmetic impossibility for MPEG-2 compressed movies on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to look as good as VC-1 compressed movies on HD-DVD.

Sources:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/vc1techoverview.aspx
http://www.emedialive.com/articles/readarticle.aspx?articleid=11397

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Facts About HD content on DVD-9:

1) DVD-9's hold roughly 8.5 gigs of data

2) HD 1080p video compressed with VC-1 at 12mbps (same as HD-DVD movies, wich undeniably beat out blu-ray in terms of picture quality), takes up roughly 60MB per minute of video.

*NOTE: This is *better* quality than any Blu-Ray movie on the market today.

8.5 gigs divided by 60 MB = 141.6

Conclusion:
More than TWO HOURS of 1080p video (higher quality than any Blu-Ray movie out there, and equal to HD-DVD movie quality) can fit onto one DVD-9.

NOTE: While standard DVD players cannot play/decode HD content, that's NOT a limitation of the media. You could have HD content on a DVD-9 that could be read by a PC, PS3, Xbox 360, etc.

Sources:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx
http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/506hook/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

These are facts. They cannot be refuted.


Ohhh, looks like somebody rolled a 4.




Just some light reading or you peeps

"HD-DVD has proven itself to be an outstanding value for the money. Blu-ray has not. If Blu-ray is to survive it needs to drop the price of its entry level players to $500 and increase the quality of its discs. In essence, it needs to match the price/performance benchmark established by HD-DVD. Surely better Blu-ray discs will be forthcoming at some point. But from the looks of things it may already be too late. HD-DVD is solid, it delivers superb quality for a nominal price, and there are twice the number of HD-DVD titles on the market as BDs. The outlook for the holiday season is that there will be over 400 HD-DVD titles released, while Blu-ray will be lucky to have 200"

Independant review of both formats http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_2.htm

Heh, this is the "Blu-ray: Can it Survive Article." Very objective. All that this article has said is that hd-dvd came out first. It really fails to make any other point. The question is, can blu-ray catch up? The answer is yes, it can and will in november with the release of the ps3. This will immediatley give a blu-ray player that is 500 dollars (not to mention the ability to play games) and immediately put more blu-ray players in homes than hd-dvd players. Furthermore, with all the movie studio support, once november hits and there are actually blu-ray players in people's homes we should quickly see many more blu-ray titles.


"If you want to jump into to the Blu-Ray water, you may want to wait a little bit until Samsung corrects their problems and Blu-Ray can offer at least what DVD can. Presently, it cannot."

Review of the first BR and HD-DVD units. HD-DVD has some problems but not as many as BR http://www.dvdtown.com/article/toshibavs.samsung-hd-dvdvs.blu/3595/

You've missummarized this article. It compares the two specific players not the formats. It says that the toshiba player had comparible problems when it first came out to the just launched samsung product. It says that the particular chip defect may be more difficult to correct because it's a hardware problem. However the reviewer says many positive and negative things about both players.


"In our first head-to-head comparison, we found the HD DVD to be superior. The unfortunate cropping of the Blu-ray image, coupled with more noticeable compression artifacts and an overall darker cast, can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD."
Review of training day, released on both formats. http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html

You left the line off before and after the lines you included that specifically makes the point that it is their first hd-dvd versus blu-ray review. The article is not so bold as to predict a winner. It is merely discussing one movie.

All this said, there's no doubt that a 25 GB single layer blu-ray disc will not play as high quality a picture as a 30 GB dual layer hd-dvd disc. So this observation is fairly predictable. However the misrepresentation of the original reviewers articles in the above quotes shows very poor form.

[soremekun]

My conclusion:
DL BD with VC-1 (or maybe even MPEG-2 in some cases) and a $500 player (PS3) results in:

WHO NEEDS HD-DVD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coming soon:
DL BD
movies encoded in different codecs
$500 BD player

Does anyone deny this?

[VoiceofReason]

Just some light reading or you peeps

"HD-DVD has proven itself to be an outstanding value for the money. Blu-ray has not. If Blu-ray is to survive it needs to drop the price of its entry level players to $500 and increase the quality of its discs. In essence, it needs to match the price/performance benchmark established by HD-DVD. Surely better Blu-ray discs will be forthcoming at some point. But from the looks of things it may already be too late. HD-DVD is solid, it delivers superb quality for a nominal price, and there are twice the number of HD-DVD titles on the market as BDs. The outlook for the holiday season is that there will be over 400 HD-DVD titles released, while Blu-ray will be lucky to have 200"

Independant review of both formats http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_2.htm

Heh, this is the "Blu-ray: Can it Survive Article." Very objective. All that this article has said is that hd-dvd came out first. It really fails to make any other point. The question is, can blu-ray catch up? The answer is yes, it can and will in november with the release of the ps3. This will immediatley give a blu-ray player that is 500 dollars (not to mention the ability to play games) and immediately put more blu-ray players in homes than hd-dvd players. Furthermore, with all the movie studio support, once november hits and there are actually blu-ray players in people's homes we should quickly see many more blu-ray titles.


"If you want to jump into to the Blu-Ray water, you may want to wait a little bit until Samsung corrects their problems and Blu-Ray can offer at least what DVD can. Presently, it cannot."

Review of the first BR and HD-DVD units. HD-DVD has some problems but not as many as BR http://www.dvdtown.com/article/toshibavs.samsung-hd-dvdvs.blu/3595/

You've missummarized this article. It compares the two specific players not the formats. It says that the toshiba player had comparible problems when it first came out to the just launched samsung product. It says that the particular chip defect may be more difficult to correct because it's a hardware problem. However the reviewer says many positive and negative things about both players.


"In our first head-to-head comparison, we found the HD DVD to be superior. The unfortunate cropping of the Blu-ray image, coupled with more noticeable compression artifacts and an overall darker cast, can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD."
Review of training day, released on both formats. http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html

You left the line off before and after the lines you included that specifically makes the point that it is their first hd-dvd versus blu-ray review. The article is not so bold as to predict a winner. It is merely discussing one movie.

All this said, there's no doubt that a 25 GB single layer blu-ray disc will not play as high quality a picture as a 30 GB dual layer hd-dvd disc. So this observation is fairly predictable. However the misrepresentation of the original reviewers articles in the above quotes shows very poor form.In bold, what did i say it was? "Review of the first units...HD-DVD has some probs but not as many as blu-ray" So i summarised the article very well thank you very much! I never said that the third article was to predict a winner, i summarised that it was a "Review of training day, released on both formats". As the for the first article why is it not objective? anyone know of a problem with the linked site, but i guess we should believe SONYFAN6, he sounds very unbiased. LMAO!
Facts are, at the moment, HD-DVD is cheaper and better quality. As for the movie studio support they will dump which every format looks to be failing. As they did recently with UMDs. They are not contracted to stay with BR, or HD-DVD.
Im not bold enough to say which will win the fromat wars...i personally dont care, i'll wait and get a standalone player in a year and half of which ever format looks dominant. The sites and article linked are reputable and show BR has some catching up to do, doesnt mean it wont catch up, just that at the moment HD-DVD is ahead.

[cobrasteve]

Question.

What is the meaning of "winning" the format war?

The benefits of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats are increased image fidelity, but the benefits aren't realized fully for people without HD sets, many of which are multiple thousand dollar investments. Given the relative price of one, and the cost of an HD-capable standalone player or PS3, will we really see high market penetration soon at all until much later?

Reason I ask is that HD media represent a significantly increased investment when compared to the advent of the original DVD, i.e. you didn't really need a new TV to take advantage of the leap in image quality. The way I see it, the average consumer does not see the need to invest in an HD or even an ED capable set, and many cannot afford them, and until this changes, there may be a serious waiting period until the potential of the new formats are even given any thought- maybe much longer than it took for DVD to really become mainstream.

Your thoughts?

Answer: one of the two becomes the obviously better choice for consumers. We won't know for years, and it's just as likely the two will be combined.

You make a good point about the general public adopting HD. I think in the case of the PS3 this will hurt Sony by not only making a slow growth in sales (after the initial release), but the Blu-ray itself will remain a fixed cost that won't allow them to drop the price of the console in the next couple of years.

In the case of HD disc players, I think this will help Sony. The slow uptake of HD will give them time to get Blu-ray up to speed, limiting the gains that HD-DVD could make in the short term.

I've also had another thought. I have a 19" Zenith LCD HDTV in the bedroom that I bought on ebay for $200. It's small, but it displays a beautiful 1080i picture. Maybe a lot more of this size of HDTV will sell when the PS3 comes out. Maybe there will be a significant PS3 niche that does not include 4-figure televisions.

All this said, there's no doubt that a 25 GB single layer blu-ray disc will not play as high quality a picture as a 30 GB dual layer hd-dvd disc. So this observation is fairly predictable. However the misrepresentation of the original reviewers articles in the above quotes shows very poor form.

That won't be the case for long. Because Blu-ray is a much more revolutionary technology than HD-DVD, it will take longer for the whole process to come up to speed. Making the discs, making the players, what codec is used. Once they get up to speed, the only advantage a DL HD-DVD will have over a SL Blu-ray is 5GB. But then it's two layers versus one.

Please do not double post. Use the EDIT button instead. - The_One

[sonyfan6]

In bold, what did i say it was? "Review of the first units...HD-DVD has some probs but not as many as blu-ray" So i summarised the article very well thank you very much! I never said that the third article was to predict a winner, i summarised that it was a "Review of training day, released on both formats". As the for the first article why is it not objective? anyone know of a problem with the linked site, but i guess we should believe SONYFAN6, he sounds very unbiased. LMAO!
Facts are, at the moment, HD-DVD is cheaper and better quality. As for the movie studio support they will dump which every format looks to be failing. As they did recently with UMDs. They are not contracted to stay with BR, or HD-DVD.

You said blu-ray has more problems than hd-dvd. This is an inaccurate summary. The article never said this. It even said that the problems between the initial samsung and toshiba players had comparible initial problems. Toshiba's player, having been on the market longer, has fixed many of those problems. The article never said that the samsung player had a greater quantity of problems than the toshiba. It said that the hardware problem may be a more difficult fix. It certainly never said that blu-ray had more problems than hd-dvd.

I am biased. I like what Sony is doing this generation and I choose a username that makes this very apparent. Oppositely you called yourself voiceofreason and then pulled up the greatly debunked 'blu-ray: can it survive article' claiming that it was objective. You then examined another article between two players, failed to mention any negatives of the toshiba player and then projected all the negatives of the samsung player to the entire format (intentionally or unintentionally that is what you wrote). You furthermore added information that was not in the original article. Finally, you showed a third article but accidentally or intentionally left out the sentences before and after the line that put the quote in context.

While I am biased, I would not, for example, take your second article, quote the part that says:


I typically turn on the Toshiba when I get an inkling to watch a movie. Then, by the time it turns on, I have made my decision of what to watch. If I buy a new movie, I come home, turn on the Toshiba and then I remove the shrink-wrapping and security stickers. I have found ways to reorganize my viewing habits to fit the Toshiba’s start up schedule. I just have nightmares about double-pressing the Open/Close button and having a three minute wait to press it again. The Samsung starts up much faster.

I find that many of the 'anti-blu-ray' crowd use this very tactic. They either take an article that does a very good job of being objective and extract only the parts that suit their purpose (i.e. bash on blu-ray) as you did or they find an article that is horribly bias and claim it is objective, such as the 'blu-ray: can it survive?' as you did above. This is unfortunately typical as it is possible to look at the two formats fairly.

Similarly it is easy to use the same article to say:
At the current time, HD-DVD offers a superior picture to Blu-Ray.

...while ignoring the following sentence that says...


Once dual-layer Blu-Ray discs become available, that will change.

I very much dislike this careful selection of quotes. It is disrespectful to the original writer who took great pains to be objective. Furthermore all it really seems to accomplish, is people like Darkfalz, who try to trick people that are too busy to read the article for themselves. For example one would miss the paragraph that followed giving the audio advantage to blu-ray.



Im not bold enough to say which will win the fromat wars...i personally dont care, i'll wait and get a standalone player in a year and half of which ever format looks dominant. The sites and article linked are reputable and show BR has some catching up to do, doesnt mean it wont catch up, just that at the moment HD-DVD is ahead.

I have no objection to anything you say here, including your statement that blu-ray has some catching up to do. This is a perfectly reasonable statement. If this was your intention with your initial post that is fine. However read over your initial post. This was definitely not the point that you made. Whether intentional or accidental, your initial post implied something very different and showed a lot of bias. You used bias articles and claiming them to be objective and used objective articles and selectively quoted from them and made generalizations about blu-ray as a whole. Certainly not the objectiveness one would expect from the "voice of reason."

(As a complete side note: I have no objection to you calling yourself voiceofreason. I'm just poking some fun back at you, since you used my username to claim that I am so bias that I shouldn't be listened to. I try very hard to make objective posts but put my preference for sony out there for everyone to see. I consider this to be much better than the opposite, which is to use a neutral username and to conceal bias.)

[VoiceofReason]

In bold, what did i say it was? "Review of the first units...HD-DVD has some probs but not as many as blu-ray" So i summarised the article very well thank you very much! I never said that the third article was to predict a winner, i summarised that it was a "Review of training day, released on both formats". As the for the first article why is it not objective? anyone know of a problem with the linked site, but i guess we should believe SONYFAN6, he sounds very unbiased. LMAO!
Facts are, at the moment, HD-DVD is cheaper and better quality. As for the movie studio support they will dump which every format looks to be failing. As they did recently with UMDs. They are not contracted to stay with BR, or HD-DVD.

You said blu-ray has more problems than hd-dvd. This is an inaccurate summary. The article never said this. It even said that the problems between the initial samsung and toshiba players had comparible initial problems. Toshiba's player, having been on the market longer, has fixed many of those problems. The article never said that the samsung player had a greater quantity of problems than the toshiba. It said that the hardware problem may be a more difficult fix. It certainly never said that blu-ray had more problems than hd-dvd.

I am biased. I like what Sony is doing this generation and I choose a username that makes this very apparent. Oppositely you called yourself voiceofreason and then pulled up the greatly debunked 'blu-ray: can it survive article' claiming that it was objective. You then examined another article between two players, failed to mention any negatives of the toshiba player and then projected all the negatives of the samsung player to the entire format (intentionally or unintentionally that is what you wrote). You furthermore added information that was not in the original article. Finally, you showed a third article but accidentally or intentionally left out the sentences before and after the line that put the quote in context.

While I am biased, I would not, for example, take your second article, quote the part that says:


I typically turn on the Toshiba when I get an inkling to watch a movie. Then, by the time it turns on, I have made my decision of what to watch. If I buy a new movie, I come home, turn on the Toshiba and then I remove the shrink-wrapping and security stickers. I have found ways to reorganize my viewing habits to fit the Toshiba’s start up schedule. I just have nightmares about double-pressing the Open/Close button and having a three minute wait to press it again. The Samsung starts up much faster.

I find that many of the 'anti-blu-ray' crowd use this very tactic. They either take an article that does a very good job of being objective and extract only the parts that suit their purpose (i.e. bash on blu-ray) as you did or they find an article that is horribly bias and claim it is objective, such as the 'blu-ray: can it survive?' as you did above. This is unfortunately typical as it is possible to look at the two formats fairly.

Similarly it is easy to use the same article to say:
At the current time, HD-DVD offers a superior picture to Blu-Ray.

...while ignoring the following sentence that says...


Once dual-layer Blu-Ray discs become available, that will change.

I very much dislike this careful selection of quotes. It is disrespectful to the original writer who took great pains to be objective. Furthermore all it really seems to accomplish, is people like Darkfalz, who try to trick people that are too busy to read the article for themselves. For example one would miss the paragraph that followed giving the audio advantage to blu-ray.



Im not bold enough to say which will win the fromat wars...i personally dont care, i'll wait and get a standalone player in a year and half of which ever format looks dominant. The sites and article linked are reputable and show BR has some catching up to do, doesnt mean it wont catch up, just that at the moment HD-DVD is ahead.

I have no objection to anything you say here, including your statement that blu-ray has some catching up to do. This is a perfectly reasonable statement. If this was your intention with your initial post that is fine. However read over your initial post. This was definitely not the point that you made. Whether intentional or accidental, your initial post implied something very different and showed a lot of bias. You used bias articles and claiming them to be objective and used objective articles and selectively quoted from them and made generalizations about blu-ray as a whole. Certainly not the objectiveness one would expect from the "voice of reason."

(As a complete side note: I have no objection to you calling yourself voiceofreason. I'm just poking some fun back at you, since you used my username to claim that I am so bias that I shouldn't be listened to. I try very hard to make objective posts but put my preference for sony out there for everyone to see. I consider this to be much better than the opposite, which is to use a neutral username and to conceal bias.)The bits in bold are a little contradictory, dont you think. but the comparison between the first players from each format has HD-DVD ahead, thats all i stated.
Toshiba HD-A1 (HD-DVD) - SRP $499
Pros:
* Great high definition picture
* Incredible HD Upconverting for SD-DVD
* Attractive pricing point
* Upgradeable Firmware via Ethernet
* First out of the gate

Cons:
* Very slow load times
* Horrendous remote
* DTS conversion of Dolby Digital
* Somewhat lacking hardware design
* Poor HDMI handshaking

Samsung BD-P1000 (Blu-Ray) - SRP $999
Pros:
* Great looking player
*Incredible PCM sound
* Value added memory card slots
* Good HDMI handshaking
*Pretty blue lights

Cons:
* Frequent playback hiccups
* Inconsistent visual presentation
* Slow processing time & the hourglass
* Poor HD Upconverting for SD-DVD
* Expensive pricing point
Ive highlighted the + and - points for both players, the important ones anyway, which would you buy? Thats all i said about the second article. HD-DVD player had probs, but BR more so.
Maybe my initial post did show bias but its hard not to post like that after reading though the thread, the fanboy thraits tend to polarise the opinion of people like myself, who would only have leaned slightly toward HD-DVD (and then purely based on the superior quality so far, not on who manufactures the product/format) You read the post from the stand point that i was a HD-DVD fanboy...im not, if you re-read my first post it merely says "some interesting reading for you peeps" (or words to that effect) I quoted the parts of the conclusion and gave a very brief summary. I never passed an opinion either way. And of course i quoted selectively, i also linked the article. I never said "HD pwnds BR!!!11!!oneone", just that as things stand, if forced to pick BR or HD-DVD today, HD-DVD would be the clear winner, the articles back that up. In the future new versions of HD-DVD discs may be made, or new compression techniques invented. Both will improve, but all the articles say is BR is behind right now, there is no denying that.

[loki22]

VoiceofReason, the point that you're missing is that reviews of the HD players and the HD titles released so far, are reviews of those particular players and/or titles. They are not reviews of either format, even if they claim or suggest that they are. It's way too early and there aren't enough data to evaluate either format, as a whole.

You made a list of the pros & cons of the Samsung player and one of the Toshiba players (leaving out the Samsung's problem with its noice reduction chip and the Toshiba's problem with downscaling 1080p content to 540p for 720p displays and the Toshiba's lack of standard DVD player functionality and convenience) and then asked which player would one buy. Why? Who's buying a first gen HD player today? Tomorrow? This week? This month? This year? For those who may make a purchase this year, don't you think it might make sense to wait to see what the other 6 BD players are like? Barring that, don't you think it would make sense to wait and see if Samsung and Toshiba can fix some of the problems with their players?

Why are you so concerned about tallying the scores, between BD and HD-DVD? Why did you join PS3 Forums and drop the same anti-BD post in multiple threads? Why use the Projector Central "review" as a reference? Anyone with decent critical thinking skills would not rely on such garbage. Why the selective quoting? Why draw conclusions about the validity of the formats, as a whole, based on the relatively few players and titles released so far? What about other players from other companies? What about 50GB BD-ROMs? What about other components and their markets (e.g., PCs, camcorders, data storage, etc.)?

Why admit that your initial post showed bias, then immediately try to justify the bias, then go on to basically retract your admission that your initial post was biased? :?

If forced to buy a next-gen console today, the 360 would be the clear winner. But what purpose would that hypothetical serve, in the scheme of things? No one is being forced to buy anything. Reasonable people and/or frugal people will wait until more HD components and HD content are released, more features are available, bugs are corrected, overall quality is improved, and prices become cheaper, etc. So, I don't see the purpose or the value of your approach. :?

[The_One]

You said:

A) MPEG-2 video compressed at the same bit rate as VC-1 (regardless of how high or low that bit rate is) encoded video will always look noticably worse, while taking up the same amount of space.
And then at the end:

These are facts. They cannot be refuted. I don't usually say this: But that's utter and complete BS. If both codecs were encoded according to your "VC-1" max bitrate rate (135Mbp/s), MPEG-2 will look noticeably better. As I have already stated (and so have others), MPEG-2 has a higher max picture quality than VC-1, it simply takes more bitrate, however, when you're already really high, encoding with even higher bitrates won't make any noticeable differences. MPEG-2 can achieve about 96% identical picture quality at it's "peak" bitrate (note: Peak is not Highest, simply the highest you would want to go before no more noticeable gains are made) while VC-1 is at around 90%.

Whatever you claim to be facts are not really facts at all, simply a misinterpretation of the fact that VC-1 is more efficient. However, it cannot achieve as high of a picture quality at higher bitrates than MPEG-2 can.

[Aleman]

Here, I'll make it easier for you Darkfalz.

Blu-ray can do everything HD-DVD can do, plus more.

Here, I'll make it even easier for you Aleman.

HD-DVD is delivering everything Blu-ray said it can do, plus more - right now, and Blu-Ray's underdelivering in every way, with no gaurantee it'll start delivering the goods any time soon. :lol:

That only matters to early adopters.

[sonyfan6]

I was going to type up a long post about how hd-dvd was an 'intern' technology with a very small window of opportunity. However I think this sums it up rather well. It's a bit old and has probably been posted elsewhere, but oh well. Warning, from the official blu-ray site (aka not remotely objective).

http://www.blu-ray.com/ces2006/



Toshiba


Toshiba as expected brought their HD-DVD player (HD-XA1) which is scheduled for US release in March 2006 and will retail for about $800, but surprised us with a new stripped down version of the HD-DVD player (HD-A1) that will be introduced at about $500. The decision to create the stripped down HD-DVD player must have come fairly recently as they only showed a non-working mockup version of the player which didn't have any connections or outputs on the back. The relatively low price shows that Toshiba is willing to offer their player as a loss-leader or at least without making a profit to gain market share. This move seems kind of desperate to us, but we guess that they didn't really have much of a choice. They have less studio support, less hardware support, no significant time-to-market advantage, which leaves them with just one factor to compete with, price. While we're unsure how well this approach will work with early adopters which generally favor more features instead of less, another potential problem is that other consumer electronics companies might decide to hold off on introducing their own HD-DVD players as they can't compete with Toshiba's pricing. When we asked a Sanyo representative at the show about their plans he told us that they've decided to take a wait-and-see approach before releasing their HD-DVD player. LG basically said the same thing about their plans.



Oh, and to be fair, here's what the official hd-dvd site had regarding blu-ray's performance at CES.

http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/


"Blu-ray came into the CES as the clear winner, and came out as one of the most dismal losers. They've priced themselves out of the market,"

Basically, I'm in full agreement with the blu-ray quote. HD-DVD is just a less powerful technology that, like any older technology, has the advantage of being both first and cheaper. I know a lot of people that are hesitant to invest in something that may be obsolete in a couple years and I agree with them. Whether HD-DVD can transform hitting the market first and cheapest into a victory before the ps3 launch remains the real question. I think the answer is no, but clearly there are people that disagree.

[sam_v1022945@yahoo.com]

hi

[cobrasteve]

Here's an interesting BDA interview:
http://www.hdbeat.com/2006/08/08/hdbeat-interview-andy-parsons-of-the-bda-and-pioneers-senior-vp/

[VoiceofReason]

VoiceofReason, the point that you're missing is that reviews of the HD players and the HD titles released so far, are reviews of those particular players and/or titles. They are not reviews of either format, even if they claim or suggest that they are. It's way too early and there aren't enough data to evaluate either format, as a whole. I said that, i clearly stated two of the linked articles were not about the format, just about the two available players and one of the only cross format movies, so you are mistaken there. In fact i havnt said which format i back in the long run, only that this minute, if forced to back one, it would have to be HD-DVD. That may change, but i was clearly talking about now.


You made a list of the pros & cons of the Samsung player and one of the Toshiba players (leaving out the Samsung's problem with its noice reduction chip and the Toshiba's problem with downscaling 1080p content to 540p for 720p displays and the Toshiba's lack of standard DVD player functionality and convenience) and then asked which player would one buy. Why? Who's buying a first gen HD player today? Tomorrow? This week? This month? This year? For those who may make a purchase this year, don't you think it might make sense to wait to see what the other 6 BD players are like? Barring that, don't you think it would make sense to wait and see if Samsung and Toshiba can fix some of the problems with their players? I didnt make the list, its the link, i cut and paste it, all i did was highlight the valid points, leaving out ones like "it looks good" The question was hypothetical, i said, if forced to buy one of the two players, i would pick the HD-DVD one, would you? Better, more consistant image quality is the most important thing while watching a movie in my opinion. I clearly stated in two of my post this could change, that blu-ray could catch up. If i have to write hypothetical in brackets from now on then i will when i pose such a question. Hopefully this will help avoid this kind of confusion.


Why are you so concerned about tallying the scores, between BD and HD-DVD? Why did you join PS3 Forums and drop the same anti-BD post in multiple threads? Why use the Projector Central "review" as a reference? Anyone with decent critical thinking skills would not rely on such garbage. Why the selective quoting? Why draw conclusions about the validity of the formats, as a whole, based on the relatively few players and titles released so far? What about other players from other companies? What about 50GB BD-ROMs? What about other components and their markets (e.g., PCs, camcorders, data storage, etc.)? Ask everone in this thread why they are talking about formats most of them dont own or wont till november at the earliest. It was two thread, i posted in a 360 HD-DVD add on before i spotted this sticky, innocent mistake. I havnt spammed the boards, my being new here is nothing to do with movie play back formats. The selective quoting was to keep the post short, display the tone of the article. They we taken from the conclusion, usually a fair place to take a quote from. Again, i'll reitterate what i said before, i have not said blu-ray will fail or prevail, just that its behind, that in my second and third post, please read them again.


Why admit that your initial post showed bias, then immediately try to justify the bias, then go on to basically retract your admission that your initial post was biased? :? I said i was leaning toward HD-DVD at the moment, and that, after reading some of speal on this thread i felt my opinion had be polorised alittle. I dont think the post was biased, it was very little text from me, mostly from other sites. The comparison of Training Day was the most important i feel in show the current gap in value for money and quality. I'll state again though, just for your benefit, i have not said any about the future other than both formats wil improve.


If forced to buy a next-gen console today, the 360 would be the clear winner. But what purpose would that hypothetical serve, in the scheme of things? No one is being forced to buy anything. Reasonable people and/or frugal people will wait until more HD components and HD content are released, more features are available, bugs are corrected, overall quality is improved, and prices become cheaper, etc. So, I don't see the purpose or the value of your approach. :?Thats hardly a fair comparison, the 360 is the only "next gen" console, while you can buy a HD-DVD or BR player right now. If we are not allowed to talk about a technology until "more features are available, bugs are corrected, overall quality is improved, and prices become cheaper, etc" (your words) then i hope your next stop is the numerous "360 sux" threads to inform the masses on here that the 360 needs more time and they cant judge it now, or maybe ever!

But, back to the topic in hand, it is apparent blu-ray is behind, i hope it can close the gap as one format dying early will mean higher prices for the surviving format. The longer the "war" goes on, the better for everyone but the early adopters.

[Stu Pid]

Has anyone read or see side-by-side comparions of the 2 formats. I am waery of hearing specs on both. One thing matters and that's how it looks. If anyone has info to share on side-by-sides, let's have it. If not, we should wait a year so that both formats have been out there and some of the early bugs worked out.

I think we all know that specs mean nothing if the format does not deliver as promised. Look at the Dreamcast :(

[VoiceofReason]

Has anyone read or see side-by-side comparions of the 2 formats. I am waery of hearing specs on both. One thing matters and that's how it looks. If anyone has info to share on side-by-sides, let's have it. If not, we should wait a year so that both formats have been out there and some of the early bugs worked out.

I think we all know that specs mean nothing if the format does not deliver as promised. Look at the Dreamcast :(One here mate of training day, its released on both formats http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html

[Darkfalz]

Anyone here has blu-ray drive,can somebody tell me which is better HD-DVD or bluray.i just wanna know..

Farily unbiased comparisons between Blu-Ray movies and HD-DVD movies (same movies used in each comparison):

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kisskissbangbang.html
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/rumorhasit.html

-Darkfalz

[Aleman]

None of Blu-ray's current faults are due to the disc technology. They're due to stupid decisions made by the studios.

From a technical standpoint, I can't think of one reason that anyone would rather have HD-DVD over Blu-ray (as a format). The price of the players is a concern, but after a few years I'm sure the differences will be negligible, and early adopters generally don't care about high prices anyways.

[sonyfan6]

Better is fairly subjective.

At the current time HD-DVD has better quality (based on available movies and players) however it runs the risk of becoming obsolete once blu-ray really gets going this fall.

[Darkfalz]

Here, I'll make it easier for you Darkfalz.

Blu-ray can do everything HD-DVD can do, plus more.

Here, I'll make it even easier for you Aleman.

HD-DVD is delivering everything Blu-ray said it can do, plus more - right now, and Blu-Ray's underdelivering in every way, with no gaurantee it'll start delivering the goods any time soon. :lol:

That only matters to early adopters.

:lol: EXACTLY!!! :lol: You just supported/proved my case. Thankk you. It does matter - but only to the early adopters (AKA the people willing to spend a grand on a movie playing device)

...and these high def formats in general only matter to early adopters... casual gamers and movie watchers don't give a lick about either format... and the casual's sure as heck won't latch onto a 499$ price tag, regardless of the 'value' it gives them.

[Stu Pid]

Looks like HD-DVD has the better picture at this point. At least in the above comparisons.

[Aleman]

Do you own an HD-DVD player Darkfalz? If you're not an early adopter, then you must be one of those people who doesn't care about either format (you categorized it that way yourself).

If that's the case and you don't care, then why do you go on and on defending HD-DVD?

[loki22]

VoiceofReason, you're still not getting it. Please, read this response once, without formulating any counterarguments. Then do as you please.

You continue to make comments about the formats, as a whole, instead of the particular players and titles released so far. You say that BD is behind, that BD has some catching up to do, that you would pick HD-DVD if you had to pick today (which is irrelevant because you don't have to make any such choice and apparently you're not going to), etc. You don't say the Samsung player is behind the Toshiba players, the Samsung player has some catching up to do, that you would pick up one of the Toshiba players over the Samsung player if you had to pick today, etc.

Do you see what I mean? I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else shouldn't talk about the the components and titles released so far, or even the formats, as a whole. My point is that it's unreasonable to take problems with particular players or titles and project those problems to the formats, as a whole. And what purpose does it serve?

I've criticized all three of the HD players released so far, for various reasons, as well as the decisions to put some titles on 25GB BD-ROMs with MPEG2. But the difference is that I don't make the jump to "this format is beating this format right now." It's "this player is better than this player, this title is a better transfer than this title, etc." I've also made comments about the formats, as a whole. However, I don't focus on one aspect (e.g., PQ) of one market (e.g., movie playback) because I know that there are a lot of other variables involved and all of the variables will affect the ultimate outcome in some way.

So, all I'm saying is that you might want to try a more tempered, more comprehensive approach. :wink:

[Darkfalz]

You said:

A) MPEG-2 video compressed at the same bit rate as VC-1 (regardless of how high or low that bit rate is) encoded video will always look noticably worse, while taking up the same amount of space.
And then at the end:

These are facts. They cannot be refuted. I don't usually say this: But that's utter and complete BS. If both codecs were encoded according to your "VC-1" max bitrate rate (135Mbp/s), MPEG-2 will look noticeably better. As I have already stated (and so have others), MPEG-2 has a higher max picture quality than VC-1, it simply takes more bitrate, however, when you're already really high, encoding with even higher bitrates won't make any noticeable differences. MPEG-2 can achieve about 96% identical picture quality at it's "peak" bitrate (note: Peak is not Highest, simply the highest you would want to go before no more noticeable gains are made) while VC-1 is at around 90%.

Whatever you claim to be facts are not really facts at all, simply a misinterpretation of the fact that VC-1 is more efficient. However, it cannot achieve as high of a picture quality at higher bitrates than MPEG-2 can.

Honestly... I'd expect more from a moderator... Here's the exact quote:

A) MPEG-2 video compressed at the same bit rate as VC-1 (regardless of how high or low that bit rate is) encoded video will always look noticably worse, while taking up the same amount of space.

*Assuming 40mbps is the max bitrate usable, since that's the maximum Blu-Ray supports.

If you want to talk about maximum bitrates, etc. - it won't effect Blu-Ray or HD-DVD - because neither supports it. The only valid conversation we can have about either is in regards to how much they can support (as I noted above). You can't have a bitrate of 100mbps with a player that can't read that much data off a disk that quickly.

It's very simple, and comes down to one truth:

at the same bit rate, VC-1 will *always* look better. End of story. If you want to talk about maximum bit rates, neither Blu-Ray or HD-DVD support VC-1's maximum bitrate, much less MPEG-2's. Therefore, hno movie on Blu-Ray using MPEG2 will ever look as good (much less better) than a VC-1 compressed movie.

[NUMA NUMA]

None of Blu-ray's current faults are due to the disc technology. They're due to stupid decisions made by the studios.

From a technical standpoint, I can't think of one reason that anyone would rather have HD-DVD over Blu-ray (as a format). The price of the players is a concern, but after a few years I'm sure the differences will be negligible, and early adopters generally don't care about high prices anyways.

Thank you. I didn't realize there were sane people on this thread. So here's what we do, ignore anything Darkfalz says, don't waste your time.

[soremekun]

I'm sorry numa numa...

Darkfalz,
We have not seen any MPEG Blu Ray movies at 40mbps. They don't have the capacity to reach that yet. If Crash and Lord of War received good reviews and weren't at 40mbps, then we have better PQ that awaits us with BD.

I doubt I'll get a response to this post.

[deecee]

"*Assuming 40mbps is the max bitrate usable, since that's the maximum Blu-Ray supports. "

I've wondered about this. Is this maximum usable bitrate a function of the disc access time per bit, the processing power required to perform the video decoding and demultiplexing required to display 30 frames per second, or just a standard that's been set to keep the format consistent across the media released on blu-ray?

From what I've read, a 1x BD player only supports 36mbps transfer, so initially, 2x players will have to be used at a maximum rate of 54mbps, which leaves 40mbps for video and 14mpbs for an audio stream. If the limiting factor is disc access time or speed of decoding hardware, then higher bitrates would be possible down the road. But if not, you would have a hard limit that would encourage the use of effcient codecs, or use up more space to take advantage of the perceived "transparency to the original film master" that mpeg-2 *supposedly* delivers at 40mbps

So what is the limiting factor on the maximum bitrate? Is this just a limit imposed to standardize the encoding of all media on blu-ray discs?

[Darkfalz]

"*Assuming 40mbps is the max bitrate usable, since that's the maximum Blu-Ray supports. "

I've wondered about this. Is this maximum usable bitrate a function of the disc access time per bit, the processing power required to perform the video decoding and demultiplexing required to display 30 frames per second, or just a standard that's been set to keep the format consistent across the media released on blu-ray?

From what I've read, a 1x BD player only supports 36mbps transfer, so initially, 2x players will have to be used at a maximum rate of 54mbps, which leaves 40mbps for video and 14mpbs for an audio stream. If the limiting factor is disc access time or speed of decoding hardware, then higher bitrates would be possible down the road. But if not, you would have a hard limit that would encourage the use of effcient codecs, or use up more space to take advantage of the perceived "transparency to the original film master" that mpeg-2 *supposedly* delivers at 40mbps

So what is the limiting factor on the maximum bitrate? Is this just a limit imposed to standardize the encoding of all media on blu-ray discs?

The standard was determined after researching what would be the right balance of allowing good enough bitrate for just about any scenario, without requiring all players to adapt an unreasonably high requirement for playing back/decoding content.

The limit is a hardware constraint. Not in terms of how fast the disk can be spun (as that will go up), but in terms of what the hardware can decompress.

This is my understanding of it, after researching it.

The HD-DVD camp decided to go even lower, because VC-1 is the standard on that platform, and it's already proven to be unnecessary* to encode at a bit rate of above 15mbps or so. I beleive all the current HD-DVD's are encoded at 12mbps, and still look better than anything on Blu-Ray.

*"Unecessary" meaning once you start compressing at a bitrate of above 12, you start losing the balance of quality/space efficiency... and after you hit around 20mbps, you've hit transparency, in terms of what most human eyes can discern using top of the line equipment to view the material on.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Interesting food for thought about HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Content:

Not only are there double the movies on HD-DVD as there are on Blu-Ray, but the average rating for the movies is also higher, indicating that (on the whole) the movies released on HD-DVD so far are considered better quality movies.

*Ratings came from the internet movie database, debatably the most unbiased source for movie ratings out there.

So now we can assuredly add another "+" to the ever growing pluses HD-DVD's have over Blu-Ray right now:

1) Cheaper Players by 100% [500$ for cheapest HD-DVD, 1000$ for cheapest Blu-Ray]

2) Better, more consistent quality video in all movies

3) Better quality audio

4) Bigger selection of movies

5) More movies on the way

6) Working Hybrids (Blu-Ray claims to be capable of this, but hasn't offered it yet)

7) More recognizable/user friendly name

7) Higher rated/better movies available

...while it makes very little difference to me which format wins, and while I also wouldn't try to predict who will win (if either), it is becoming more, and more apparent that HD-DVD's are the better product. Even if Blu-Ray has more potential, unused potential is worth nothing to the consumer.

Interesting indeed...

[Leviticus]

"*Assuming 40mbps is the max bitrate usable, since that's the maximum Blu-Ray supports. "

I've wondered about this. Is this maximum usable bitrate a function of the disc access time per bit, the processing power required to perform the video decoding and demultiplexing required to display 30 frames per second, or just a standard that's been set to keep the format consistent across the media released on blu-ray?

From what I've read, a 1x BD player only supports 36mbps transfer, so initially, 2x players will have to be used at a maximum rate of 54mbps, which leaves 40mbps for video and 14mpbs for an audio stream. If the limiting factor is disc access time or speed of decoding hardware, then higher bitrates would be possible down the road. But if not, you would have a hard limit that would encourage the use of effcient codecs, or use up more space to take advantage of the perceived "transparency to the original film master" that mpeg-2 *supposedly* delivers at 40mbps

So what is the limiting factor on the maximum bitrate? Is this just a limit imposed to standardize the encoding of all media on blu-ray discs?

The standard was determined after researching what would be the right balance of allowing good enough bitrate for just about any scenario, without requiring all players to adapt an unreasonably high requirement for playing back/decoding content.

The limit is a hardware constraint. Not in terms of how fast the disk can be spun (as that will go up), but in terms of what the hardware can decompress.

This is my understanding of it, after researching it.

The HD-DVD camp decided to go even lower, because VC-1 is the standard on that platform, and it's already proven to be unnecessary* to encode at a bit rate of above 15mbps or so. I beleive all the current HD-DVD's are encoded at 12mbps, and still look better than anything on Blu-Ray.

*"Unecessary" meaning once you start compressing at a bitrate of above 12, you start losing the balance of quality/space efficiency... and after you hit around 20mbps, you've hit transparency, in terms of what most human eyes can discern using top of the line equipment to view the material on.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Interesting food for thought about HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Content:

Not only are there double the movies on HD-DVD as there are on Blu-Ray, but the average rating for the movies is also higher, indicating that (on the whole) the movies released on HD-DVD so far are considered better quality movies.

This must be, just your opinion here as I haven't seen any yet(movies). needs more time to show let said in a year for now.


*Ratings came from the internet movie database, debatably the most unbiased source for movie ratings out there.

So now we can assuredly add another "+" to the ever growing pluses HD-DVD's have over Blu-Ray right now:

1) Cheaper Players by 100% [500$ for cheapest HD-DVD, 1000$ for cheapest Blu-Ray]

A.)no the cheapest blu-ray is $500 and the high end hd-dvd is $800. lets get this right.


2) Better, more consistent quality video in all movies

b.)I haven't seen any of the hd-dvd or blu-ray so this not true too
[
quote]3) Better quality audio

3.) same as #2


4) Bigger selection of movies

4.) stop making thing up right here


5) More movies on the way

5.) same goes for blu-ray and dvd


6) Working Hybrids (Blu-Ray claims to be capable of this, but hasn't offered it yet)

I sorry I don't know what you talk about here -but I not saying you don't, I just don't understand thats all.


7) More recognizable/user friendly name

7) Higher rated/better movies available

6.) again you are making this up.


...while it makes very little difference to me which format wins, and while I also wouldn't try to predict who will win (if either), it is becoming more, and more apparent that HD-DVD's are the better product. Even if Blu-Ray has more potential, unused potential is worth nothing to the consumer.

7.) O.K let me get this straight you don't care who wins the format and your not buying a hd-dvd player.( we no your no getting blu-ray if your life depend on it)
You don't know who will win, but think its hd-dvd.
With less support from the movie studio and MS isn't really support them like that,( here a add-on for hd-dvd but you don't have to buy it now but it here if you wanted to )
To me they don't seem to care about hd-dvd format.
As you put it their going to win. Right? :roll: (you do know hd-dvd isn't Rocky right.)




Interesting indeed...[/quote]

[MiThRaZoR]

Interesting food for thought about HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Content:

Not only are there double the movies on HD-DVD as there are on Blu-Ray, but the average rating for the movies is also higher, indicating that (on the whole) the movies released on HD-DVD so far are considered better quality movies.

*Ratings came from the internet movie database, debatably the most unbiased source for movie ratings out there.

So now we can assuredly add another "+" to the ever growing pluses HD-DVD's have over Blu-Ray right now:

1) Cheaper Players by 100% [500$ for cheapest HD-DVD, 1000$ for cheapest Blu-Ray]
Blu-Ray only has one player, which is 1000 dollars. HD-DVD has two, a 500 dollar one and a 800 dollar one.


2) Better, more consistent quality video in all movies
That's not the Blu-Ray's problem. That's Samsung's player. There was an article not too long ago where a guy went to some place to get his Blu-Ray's checked. They had Panasonic's Blu-Ray player, and the quality was much better than Samsung's player. So currently, what you stated is true. But not for long, and it's not the discs.


3) Better quality audio
As far as I know, the quality is the same.


4) Bigger selection of movies
You're making things up. Blu-Ray has a larger selection. Go to a Best Buy and check it out. HD-DVD bearly has any movies.


5) More movies on the way
Same can be said for Blu-Rays. Blu-Ray's probably has twice as more coming for it.


6) Working Hybrids (Blu-Ray claims to be capable of this, but hasn't offered it yet)
Haven't seen this working for the HD-DVD.


7) More recognizable/user friendly name
Blu-Ray is getting more exposure though. More advitisers are there for it. I've seen Blu-Ray up on posters and those little news papers thing I get from Best Buy and Fry's I get in the mail.


7) Higher rated/better movies available
Higher rated/better movies according to the critics maybe. But I'm not sure about this. So make it up while you still can.


...while it makes very little difference to me which format wins, and while I also wouldn't try to predict who will win (if either), it is becoming more, and more apparent that HD-DVD's are the better product. Even if Blu-Ray has more potential, unused potential is worth nothing to the consumer.

Interesting indeed...

How many assumptions have failed?

[Leviticus]

Lets not forget that blu-ray and a stand lone player at $1000
and the ps3 will have two one at $500 and the other at $600

[berklon]

That's not the Blu-Ray's problem. That's Samsung's player. There was an article not too long ago where a guy went to some place to get his Blu-Ray's checked. They had Panasonic's Blu-Ray player, and the quality was much better than Samsung's player. So currently, what you stated is true. But not for long, and it's not the discs.

While the Samsung has a problem with the chip that is used when HDMI is utilized, a fixed version of the chip made little difference. The problem ARE the discs. 25GB using MPEG2 encoding is not good. Had they used VC-1 encoding the quality would have been better.


You're making things up. Blu-Ray has a larger selection. Go to a Best Buy and check it out. HD-DVD bearly has any movies.

Wrong!

There are currently 22 Blu-Ray movies and 34 HD-DVD movies sitting on store shelves right now.


Same can be said for Blu-Rays. Blu-Ray's probably has twice as more coming for it.

Blu-Ray has 31 movies with release dates coming out and HD-DVD has 24 (with a few more release dates about to be released like Harry Potter)


Haven't seen this working for the HD-DVD.

I swear you're making this stuff up. HD-DVD has a handful of hybrid releases out on the shelves. Titles like 16 Blocks, Rumor Has It, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Firewall, etc. Blu-Ray (so far) cannot offer Hybrid discs.



Blu-Ray is getting more exposure though. More advitisers are there for it. I've seen Blu-Ray up on posters and those little news papers thing I get from Best Buy and Fry's I get in the mail.[quote]

HD-DVD needs less advertising to teach users about their product. "DVD" is in the name and "HD" preceeds it. It's very simple to figure out. That's a big advantage.

[quote]How many assumptions have failed?

Looks like you're the one who's made assumptions without doing research on the facts.

[Darkfalz]

Looks like you're the one who's made assumptions without doing research on the facts.

Exactly. Thank you for this post. It's nice to see a post that's not just bashing others senslessly, or trying to hide/ignore the facts.

[cobrasteve]

Looks like you're the one who's made assumptions without doing research on the facts.

Exactly. Thank you for this post. It's nice to see a post that's not just bashing others senslessly, or trying to hide/ignore the facts.

Shall we review the facts you're trying to hide/ignore?

1 ) Cheaper players

PS3, anyone?

2 ) Quality of released movies

For now. Blu-ray is perfectly capable of employing a different codec from MPEG-2. It's premature to make a comparison between "effectively beta" SL BR and "effectively final" DL HD-DVD.

3 ) Better quality audio

Same answer as 2)

4 ) Bigger selection of movies

For now.

5 ) More movies on the way

As far as I know, Blu-ray has more new movies coming than HD-DVD, so this is not a positive for HD-DVD. You should know better than to be forward-looking in your comparison!

6 ) Working hybrids

For now.

7 ) More customer-friendly name

Possibly. I like HD-DVD better as a name. There have also been reports of people not realizing HD-DVD doesn't work with a DVD player. That's not good for PR.

8 ) Higher rated movies available

For now. This is somewhat subjective, but given that Blu-ray will be catching up in quantity, they should also catch up in quality. Not to mention that most studios that support HD-DVD will also release in Blu-ray.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY

9 ) The world is not ending tomorrow

If it were, we should all go out and max out our credit cards on HD-DVDs and the best HDTV hardware available.

But it's not.

[mrut]

Saw this on CNET, interesting strategy from Sony

http://www.cnet.com.au/desktops/dvdburners/0,39029405,40091720,00.htm

The gist.

Vincent Bautista, Sony's product manager for data storage, told CNET.com.au that due to copy protection issues and lagging software development, the drive will only play user-recorded high-definition content from a digital camcorder, and not commercial movies released under the BD format.

To borry from the great Guiness commercials, Brilliant.

Sorry I should have noted that this is for there BR drive for PC's

[sonyfan6]

That burner isn't intended for consumers. It's intended for a professional photographer, like someone that films weddings, so they can create HD wedding videos. Well worth the 750 dollars for them.

[berklon]

1 ) Cheaper players

PS3, anyone?

HD-DVD players can be purchased for around $400+ US. The PS3 is $399 and $499... so they're around the same price-range.

However, many people with home theatre's (the videophiles who HD movies are aimed at) scoff at the idea of purchasing a game console to play movies in their home theatres. So for them an HD-DVD player is half the price of a Blu-Ray player.


2 ) Quality of released movies

For now. Blu-ray is perfectly capable of employing a different codec from MPEG-2. It's premature to make a comparison between "effectively beta" SL BR and "effectively final" DL HD-DVD.

I wouldn't consider SL BR a "beta"... it's a released product on store shelves that people are paying money for trying to justify their Blu-Ray player purchase.


3 ) Better quality audio

Same answer as 2)

The first generation of Blu-Ray players don't support as many audio formats as HD-DVD players. That will no doubt change in the future though.


4 ) Bigger selection of movies

For now.

What makes you so sure about that?
Remember, even though right now Blu-Ray has more studio support - that doesn't mean the studio's won't adopt HD-DVD as well. And also you have to look at the number of titles that the studios own. The amount of titles that studios own who support HD-DVD and those that support Blu-Ray are very close.


5 ) More movies on the way

As far as I know, Blu-ray has more new movies coming than HD-DVD, so this is not a positive for HD-DVD. You should know better than to be forward-looking in your comparison!

Well if Sony/Blu-Ray don't get their act together you'll be seeing a lot more delays on titles. Disney just stated yesterday that they aren't releasing anything on Blu-Ray in 2006. The low yields on DL BR discs are a problem and will continue to be a problem. HD-DVD are consistently getting new title announcements. Just yesterday they've got some announcements on TV series (ie. Sopranos, Smallville, etc). Expect Harry Potter and Batman Begins announcement shortly.

In any case, the quantity isn't as important as quality. Both formats seem to be lacking those big format-sellers right now. We'll have to wait and see.


6 ) Working hybrids

For now.

I don't think hybrids are in the Blu-Ray spec... which means that if they do manage to produce hybrid discs down the road, they won't work on current BR players (including the PS3).


9 ) The world is not ending tomorrow

If it were, we should all go out and max out our credit cards on HD-DVDs and the best HDTV hardware available.

But it's not.

The winner won't be decided so soon (if there even is a winner)... there's lots of time left and anything can happen.

[mrut]

That burner isn't intended for consumers. It's intended for a professional photographer, like someone that films weddings, so they can create HD wedding videos. Well worth the 750 dollars for them.

Let's see if I have this straight, PS3 has a Blu-Ray drive included that can be used to view movies and that's a great strategy from Sony. Their Blu-Ray burner can't play movies back on the PC and that's an intentional strategy because this isn't intended for consumers. It couldn't be because there selling it before it's ready now could it?

[Deldwen]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
about the 200gb blue-ray disc will it cost more?

also new movie for blu-ray
http://www.ps3portal.com/general/article/428.html


Again i ask!!! :evil:

[loki22]

HD-DVD players can be purchased for around $400+ US. The PS3 is $399 and $499... so they're around the same price-range.

However, many people with home theatre's (the videophiles who HD movies are aimed at) scoff at the idea of purchasing a game console to play movies in their home theatres. So for them an HD-DVD player is half the price of a Blu-Ray player.


Umm, the 1080i Toshiba HD-DVD player is $500, the 1080p Toshiba HD-DVD player is $800, the 20GB PS3 is $500, and the 60GB PS3 is $600. Now, if I was an early adopter with a 720p display, I wouldn't buy either Toshiba HD-DVD player, since they dowscale 1080p movies to 540p and then upscale them to 720p, for 720p displays. I also wouldn't buy the Samsung player, because at least one better BD player is on the way (Pioneer).

If I had a 1080i display, I did not plan to upgrade it, I wasn't worried about HD-DVD not winning the format war, and I couldn't wait to see what the other 6 BD players are like, I'd buy either the 1080i or 1080p Toshiba player (over the Samsung player), depending on how good my display and/or the 1080p player are at converting 1080p to 1080i.

But that's a lot of huge ifs. In reality, I'd probably be intending to upgrade to 1080p and waiting on the other BD players. There's the thrill of being an early adopter and then there's being just plain stupid. I wouldn't buy the first new model year car, just because it's new and first, when I know that there are many other models on the way. But I agree that the PS3 will not be an attractive option for most videophiles. I disagree that the $200 price difference, between the 1080p players for each format, will be a big factor for most early adopters and videophiles.



I wouldn't consider SL BR a "beta"... it's a released product on store shelves that people are paying money for trying to justify their Blu-Ray player purchase.


I agree that was a poor comparison. But still, the relative few titles on 25GB BDs with MPEG2 don't really matter in the scheme of things, just like the 720p problems with the Toshiba players don't really matter in the scheme of things. Hardly anyone will be buying the early titles or the first gen stand alone players, anyway. By the time the general public starts to jump into the market to a significant extent, there will be better movies, better transfers, and better players for both formats.



The first generation of Blu-Ray players don't support as many audio formats as HD-DVD players. That will no doubt change in the future though.


Can you post a link for this? Or are you only talking about the Samsung BD-P1000? If that's the case, then that's exactly why I keep harping on talking about the specifics of the actual titles and players, rather than making generalizations about the formats based on info that is actually specific to certain titles and players.



What makes you so sure about that?
Remember, even though right now Blu-Ray has more studio support - that doesn't mean the studio's won't adopt HD-DVD as well. And also you have to look at the number of titles that the studios own. The amount of titles that studios own who support HD-DVD and those that support Blu-Ray are very close.


It would have to be economically viable for studios to start supporting HD-DVD when they aren't already doing so. There are only two models of HD-DVD players (as far as I know there's still another on the way, but it's just a Toshiba player with RCA's name on it), and they aren't being produced or sold in significant numbers. OTOH, the PS3 will likely sell millions in the first six months. Also, there are 6 models of stand alone BD players on the way.

Also, the studios supporting BD have a much greater marketshare than the studios supporting HD-DVD. So, I don't know where you're coming from with the number of titles being very close.



Well if Sony/Blu-Ray don't get their act together you'll be seeing a lot more delays on titles. Disney just stated yesterday that they aren't releasing anything on Blu-Ray in 2006. The low yields on DL BR discs are a problem and will continue to be a problem. HD-DVD are consistently getting new title announcements. Just yesterday they've got some announcements on TV series (ie. Sopranos, Smallville, etc). Expect Harry Potter and Batman Begins announcement shortly.

In any case, the quantity isn't as important as quality. Both formats seem to be lacking those big format-sellers right now. We'll have to wait and see.


I think you're confusing low yields of DL discs because there is only one DL production line, right now, with low yields because there are problems with produicing viable discs. If you have info to the contrary, please post a link. Also, a link to the Disney info would be nice. But anyway, DL disc production will only be a problem as long as there is only one DL production line. In the meantime, studios can encode with VC-1 or H.264 on SL discs, if they just can't wait for DL discs. But I don't see the rush, as long as there aren't that many HD players in people's homes.

I agree that quality of the movies (not the quality of the transfer) matters much more than quantity. That's why I find it silly that some people make a big deal about the differences in PQ of a relatively few titles that hardly anyone wants to buy, anyway, let alone pay more money to watch them in HD.



I don't think hybrids are in the Blu-Ray spec... which means that if they do manage to produce hybrid discs down the road, they won't work on current BR players (including the PS3).


I thought that BD/DVD hybrids weren't possible, but I was corrected by others on these forums. Apparently, they've already been made, but not marketed. Whether they're in the spec or not, firmware updates could possibly be used to give early players the ability to read them. Personally, I think that hybrid discs are a dumb idea. They inherently cost more. You can only play the HD content if you have an HD player. If you have an HD player, why do you need an SD version? If BD and/or HD-DVD don't get adopted, the HD discs that you've purchased will still play in your HD player.



The winner won't be decided so soon (if there even is a winner)... there's lots of time left and anything can happen.


I generally agree.

[cobrasteve]

HD-DVD players can be purchased for around $400+ US. The PS3 is $399 and $499... so they're around the same price-range.

However, many people with home theatre's (the videophiles who HD movies are aimed at) scoff at the idea of purchasing a game console to play movies in their home theatres. So for them an HD-DVD player is half the price of a Blu-Ray player.

Yeah, but videophile personal preference will pale in comparison to the number of PS3s in peoples' homes.


I wouldn't consider SL BR a "beta"... it's a released product on store shelves that people are paying money for trying to justify their Blu-Ray player purchase.

Fair enough. By next year there should be DL BRs released that are at least as good as any HD-DVDs. 50GB versus 30GB is a HUGE difference.


Remember, even though right now Blu-Ray has more studio support - that doesn't mean the studio's won't adopt HD-DVD as well. And also you have to look at the number of titles that the studios own. The amount of titles that studios own who support HD-DVD and those that support Blu-Ray are very close.

Which means it's not an advantage for HD-DVD, as Darkfalz has claimed.


Well if Sony/Blu-Ray don't get their act together you'll be seeing a lot more delays on titles. Disney just stated yesterday that they aren't releasing anything on Blu-Ray in 2006. The low yields on DL BR discs are a problem and will continue to be a problem. HD-DVD are consistently getting new title announcements. Just yesterday they've got some announcements on TV series (ie. Sopranos, Smallville, etc). Expect Harry Potter and Batman Begins announcement shortly.

Which isn't surprising. HD-DVDs strategy is to get a leg up early, which is enabled by the technology choices. Obviously Blu-ray can't take too long getting up to speed, especially with upcoming PS3 owners who will want movies.


I don't think hybrids are in the Blu-Ray spec... which means that if they do manage to produce hybrid discs down the road, they won't work on current BR players (including the PS3).

Yes, I doubt PS3 could play a hybrid disc. So, this is a small advantage for HD-DVD. I don't have any interest in hybrids personally.


The winner won't be decided so soon (if there even is a winner)... there's lots of time left and anything can happen.

Definitely. But on paper Blu-ray will only get stronger, leaving HD-DVD to depend on politics rather than features. I personally prefer features.

[Darkfalz]

Definitely. But on paper Blu-ray will only get stronger, leaving HD-DVD to depend on politics rather than features. I personally prefer features.

On paper, Blu-Ray was supposed to have 50gig disks now, and was supposed to be unmatched in terms of video and audio quality. HD-DVD whooped' Blu-Ray all over in both categories.

The vast, vast majority of consumers who would even consider getting Blu-Ray or HD-DVD movies want the best qulaity. They don't care how much it costs, they just want the best quality.

HD-DVD's have consistently better sound and video than Blu-Ray - and there's no indication Blu-Ray movies will get better than HD-DVD's any time soon, if ever (in the quality department). Until some studios go on record indicating they will use VC-1, HD-DVD's will continue to have the quality edge - even when 50gig disks are released.

[Leviticus]

Definitely. But on paper Blu-ray will only get stronger, leaving HD-DVD to depend on politics rather than features. I personally prefer features.

On paper, Blu-Ray was supposed to have 50gig disks now, and was supposed to be unmatched in terms of video and audio quality. HD-DVD whooped' Blu-Ray all over in both categories.

The vast, vast majority of consumers who would even consider getting Blu-Ray or HD-DVD movies want the best qulaity. They don't care how much it costs, they just want the best quality.

HD-DVD's have consistently better sound and video than Blu-Ray - and there's no indication Blu-Ray movies will get better than HD-DVD's any time soon, if ever (in the quality department). Until some studios go on record indicating they will use VC-1, HD-DVD's will continue to have the quality edge - even when 50gig disks are released.



Can I get a link were I can read what others consumers had to said about hd-dvd and blu-ray.

[loki22]

Can I get a link were I can read what others consumers had to said about hd-dvd and blu-ray.


It's common knowledge that the vast majority of consumers don't care about price. That's why we all drive Mercedes', Bentleys, and Ferraris... :lol:

I think Darkfalz is confusing himself with his own BS. He should've said that HD-DVD provides better quality at a lower price and that there's nothing, right now, to suggest that will change, like he's said in about 240 other posts... :roll:

[Leviticus]

Can I get a link were I can read what others consumers had to said about hd-dvd and blu-ray.


It's common knowledge that the vast majority of consumers don't care about price. That's why we all drive Mercedes', Bentleys, and Farraris... :lol:

I think Darkfalz is confusing himself with his own BS. He should've said that HD-DVD provides better quality at a lower price and that there's nothing, right now, to suggest that will change, like he's said in about 240 other posts... :roll:

No, i'm not asking about price here.
I haven't yet seen hd-dvd or blu-ray play movies yet.
I also don't know anyone thats has seen blu-ray movies(heard of it) or seen or heard about hd-dvd at all.
I was just ask for a link to what other consumer have to say about these two format.
Darkfalz keep saying in his post that the vast majority say hd-dvd is better just want to read this, thats all.

[The_One]

On paper, Blu-Ray was supposed to have 50gig disks now, and was supposed to be unmatched in terms of video and audio quality. Not true. Both BD and HD-DVD support the same Audio and Video codecs, so on paper, both would be equal in this field. The advantage was, from the very beginning, the increased storage and much better anti-piracy features as compared to HD-DVD. Besting HD-DVD in the video and audio quality was never a priority #1 (That doesn't mean it's not on their minds), otherwise the Blu-Ray camp would have been much quicker on adopting newer and "better" codecs.

HD-DVD's have consistently better sound and video than Blu-Ray - and there's no indication Blu-Ray movies will get better than HD-DVD's any time soon, if ever (in the quality department). I don't understand why you constantly think that studios won't release BD movies in VC-1 :?.

I was just ask for a link to what other consumer have to say about these two format.
Darkfalz keep saying in his post that the vast majority say hd-dvd is better just want to read this, thats all. You have two options:
1) Read back a page or two, Darkfalz have provided a few review links.
2) Google up a review or two.

[NuSoardGraphite]

You're making things up. Blu-Ray has a larger selection. Go to a Best Buy and check it out. HD-DVD bearly has any movies.


Wrong!

There are currently 22 Blu-Ray movies and 34 HD-DVD movies sitting on store shelves right now.

Good point, but completely irrelevant when many large commercial chains have decided to stop selling HD-DVD's in favor of selling Blu-Rays. I recently went to Circuit City and noticed they have reduced the number of HD-DVD movies they are selling and they got rid of their HD-DVD players altogether. Meanwhile, they got an impressive Blu-Ray display running Ultraviolet in 1080i, a large stack of Blu-Ray movies and big signs praising Blu-Ray as if it is the second coming. This is pretty much all consumers are going to see when they come into the store. HD-DVD isn't getting much love from the retailers...

[Venger]

Just a note about hybrid discs...why is it people think BD can't do this? In fact BD is better at it because they can put both versions on the same side of the disc and don't need to do dual sided discs like HD does. There's not one physical aspect of discs that BD can't match or beat HD on, even that price issue, for HD to do three layers it's max limit is more expensive than any BD format discs. And a three layer HD is still smaller than a 2 layer BD.

As for reviews, the majority of poor BD reviews seem to have nothing to do with the codecs on the discs, they have to do with samsung hardware issues, one of the internal settings is wrong and needs a firmware fix to correct.

[Darkfalz]

Just a note about hybrid discs...why is it people think BD can't do this? In fact BD is better at it because they can put both versions on the same side of the disc and don't need to do dual sided discs like HD does. There's not one physical aspect of discs that BD can't match or beat HD on, even that price issue, for HD to do three layers it's max limit is more expensive than any BD format discs. And a three layer HD is still smaller than a 2 layer BD.

As for reviews, the majority of poor BD reviews seem to have nothing to do with the codecs on the discs, they have to do with samsung hardware issues, one of the internal settings is wrong and needs a firmware fix to correct.

You're uninfromed, and have distorted the facts.

1) Hybrids, while possible on Blu-Ray, do not exist on Blu-Ray yet. So while the are possible, they don't exist yet, and there's no release date scheduled for a disk that's a hybrid (AFAIK)

2) The terribly poor quality of Blu-Ray movies compared to HD-DVD's is due mostly to the codecs, not the hardware. While Samsung did try to insinuate the poor quality was due to faulty decompression hardware, the hardware that corrects the problem still doesn't yeild much better results at all.

3) Hybrid HD-DVD disks are out today, and work perfectly. They also are SINGLE-sided (but dual layer), so the claim that Blu-Ray hybrids "are actually better" is false.

Facts:
-Cost of Entry for Blu-Ray is twice that of HD-DVD
-Hybrids are out, and work on HD-DVD
-Hybrids are not out or working on Blu-Ray
-HD-DVD movies have noticably better video quality than Blu-Ray movies
-HD-DVD movies have noticably better audio quality than Blu-Ray movies
-There are more HD-DVD movies than Blu-Ray movies (nearly double)
-HD-DVD movies are (on average) rated much higher than Blu-Ray movies (meaning there are better movies on HD-DVD's)
-HD-DVD is a more user friendly name than Blu-Ray
-There are more movies scheduled to come out on HD-DVD than Blu-Ray
-Every single direct comparison review between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD has resulted in HD-DVD coming out on top

All of this may change, as Blu-Ray technically has the ability to match HD-DVD in all areas, but it hasn't delivered what HD-DVD has, and there's no absolute indication that it will match HD-DVD any time soon.

[cobrasteve]

All of this may change, as Blu-Ray technically has the ability to match HD-DVD in all areas, but it hasn't delivered what HD-DVD has, and there's no absolute indication that it will match HD-DVD any time soon.

(Emphasis is mine)

No absolute indication? What meaning does that have? If you mean "I don't trust Blu-ray to reach its potential", why don't you just say it and be done with it?

You claim to be representing "facts" for the benefit of the "fanboyz" who might otherwise be led astray. But what you are doing is repeatedly pounding the message "HD-DVD is better than Blu-ray". Of course you fail to put this in the context that HD-DVD is designed to be fully up to speed in the short term, while Blu-ray has novel technology that will blow HD-DVD away, but will take some time to develop. Thereby, HD-DVD product is better than Blu-ray today.

Since you omit this context it makes all of your "facts" propaganda. So, please drop the facade. Why not support superior technology? Do you have some investment in HD-DVD?

[Darkfalz]

(Emphasis is mine)

No absolute indication? What meaning does that have? If you mean "I don't trust Blu-ray to reach its potential", why don't you just say it and be done with it?

You claim to be representing "facts" for the benefit of the "fanboyz" who might otherwise be led astray. But what you are doing is repeatedly pounding the message "HD-DVD is better than Blu-ray". Of course you fail to put this in the context that HD-DVD is designed to be fully up to speed in the short term, while Blu-ray has novel technology that will blow HD-DVD away, but will take some time to develop. Thereby, HD-DVD product is better than Blu-ray today.

Since you omit this context it makes all of your "facts" propaganda. So, please drop the facade. Why not support superior technology? Do you have some investment in HD-DVD?

Because 'superior technology' and a 'superior product' aren't always the same thing.

Carefully read what I'm about to type - because it's an important item to note...

While Blu-Ray is superior in terms of what it's capable of, the practical, noticable difference is non-existant - even if it *does* live up to its potential.

Besides, while blu-ray movies might not *always* be inferior - they are right now, and there's no proof that they will in fact get better.

Every single Blu-Ray movie on the market right now is worthless. Every release on a 25gig disk using the archaic mpeg2 is a release that is far from what I'd expect to get for my investment of $1000, and it's a far cry from what Sony promised, as well as a far cray from what is possible on the format.

It's a complete, and utter joke that Sony or anyone else would release such a shotty product that underdelivers on so many levels.

The facts that I've quoted are indeed facts. They are indisputible, and based on research, analysis, and reviews from professionals in the industry.

So why wouldn't I support superior technology? Because so far - the superior technology is yeilding an inferior product, plain and simple.

If they can make their prodcut equal to their competitor, I might start to take a little more interest in their product... but even then, it's doubtful the product will *ever* be at all noticably or practically *better*... so then one has to ask, why the premium cost? Especially if the selection isn't as good?

[soremekun]

I am a PS3 + Blu Ray fan but WILL NOT buy a crappy movie. Give me DL BD movies with MPEG2 or VC1 or SL BD movies with VC-1 (no MPEG2) or I ain't buyin'!!!

[cobrasteve]

Because 'superior technology' and a 'superior product' aren't always the same thing.

While Blu-Ray is superior in terms of what it's capable of, the practical, noticable difference is non-existant - even if it *does* live up to its potential.

Besides, while blu-ray movies might not *always* be inferior - they are right now, and there's no proof that they will in fact get better.

So why wouldn't I support superior technology? Because so far - the superior technology is yeilding an inferior product, plain and simple.

If they can make their prodcut equal to their competitor, I might start to take a little more interest in their product... but even then, it's doubtful the product will *ever* be at all noticably or practically *better*... so then one has to ask, why the premium cost? Especially if the selection isn't as good?

First, on the "so far" comments: do you not accept that based on the HD-DVD and Blu-ray technology, that RIGHT NOW HD-DVD should have an advantage over Blu-ray? If it didn't it wouldn't stand a chance. We are in the early part of the development curve.

Second, on the "no noticeable difference at full potential": ridiculous! You've made arguments that the higher maximum bitrate of Blu-ray might be overkill. Today, yes. Why it is you ignore the future is beyond me. This is a perfect example of why Blu-ray is a superior format. The disc is capable of more than the other components in an HD video system can currently deliver. As the hardware and software evolve, Blu-ray will be able to take advantage of that beyond what HD-DVD can do.

More importantly, what I think is the biggest advantage of Blu-ray is disc capacity. Apparently your "in the moment" tunnel-vision processes "capacity" as 25GB for Blu-ray, 30GB for HD-DVD. Nu-uh. HD-DVD's maximum possible capacity is 45GB AFAIK, which requires a dramatic increase in production cost. Blu-ray can exceed that with two layers, and is capable of 8 layers at 200GB. With gaming disc capacity is not as important as the graphics engine, but in movies capacity is everything. If you can get the HD Star Wars trilogy in Blu-ray on one disc versus HD-DVD on six discs, which one would you choose?

Third, on the "premium cost": will you shut up about this come November? I'm interested in Blu-ray, but I can wait until the PS3 comes out. For some crazy reason I'm capable of interest in Blu-ray and at the same time waiting for 3 months. Good things come to those who wait! :P

[Darkfalz]

I am a PS3 + Blu Ray fan but WILL NOT buy a crappy movie. Give me DL BD movies with MPEG2 or VC1 or SL BD movies with VC-1 (no MPEG2) or I ain't buyin'!!!

While I'm not a fan of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD really, I completely agree with your sentiment about not wanting to buy a crappy movie... and that's my biggest beef with Blu-Ray right now. Every movie that comes out on 25gig disks that's compressed with mpeg2 is worthless, and is nothing more than an expensive coaster.

If I spend hundreds of dollars on a new peice of home-theatre equipment, I expect it to really deliver... and for 1000$, you darn well better believe I expect the best quality out there... unfortunately, that can't be found on blu-ray yet (if ever).

We will see, though...

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

If I spend hundreds of dollars on a new peice of home-theatre equipment, I expect it to really deliver... and for 1000$, you darn well better believe I expect the best quality out there... unfortunately, that can't be found on blu-ray yet (if ever).You know, that post would have been really well done if you haven't exposed your obvious fanboyism with (if ever).

Technology evolve, ask first gen and last gen PS2 games.

True, HD DVD has a slightly better quality than Blu ray, the difference is no where as big as you make it out to be and if you want to watch high quality movies that no one knows about, go ahead. In the mean time, I'll watch my Spiderman 2 on Blu ray thank you.

P.S. I can't believe you hid yourself here to CONTINUE arguing a point that has been proven by almost everyone to be invalid... you don't know when to quit do you, do you want to lock this thread too?

-Shenyu

[Darkfalz]

True, HD DVD has a slightly better quality than Blu ray, the difference is no where as big as you make it out to be and if you want to watch high quality movies that no one knows about, go ahead. In the mean time, I'll watch my Spiderman 2 on Blu ray thank you.

:roll:

Blu-Ray Movies:

Hitch, (2005), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
The Fifth Element, (1996), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
House of Flying Daggers, (2004), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
Underworld: Evolution, (2006), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
50 First Dates, (2004), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
XXX, (2002), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
The Terminator , (1984), MGM (Release date June 20, 2006)
Lord of War (2005), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day , (1991), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
Crash, (2005), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
Ultraviolet, (2006), Sony (Release date June 27, 2006)
Saw, (2003), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
The Punisher, (2005), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
Basic Instinct 2, (2006), Sony (Release date July 11, 2006)
The Benchwarmers, (2006), Sony (Release date July 25, 2006)
The Last Waltz, (2006), MGM (Release date July 25, 2006)
Species, (2006), MGM (Release date July 25, 2006)
Stealth, (2006), Sony (Release date July 25, 2006)
Good Night, and Good Luck., (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date August 1, 2006)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date August 1, 2006)
Rumor Has It..., (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date August 1, 2006)
Training Day , (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date August 1, 2006)

Average IMDB rating: 6.2
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

HD-DVD Movies:

The Last Samurai (2004), Warner Bros. (Release date April 18, 2006)
Million Dollar Baby (2004), Warner Bros. (Release date April 18, 2006)
The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Warner Bros. (Release date April 18, 2006)
Serenity (2005), Universal Studios (Release date April 18, 2006)
Apollo 13 (1995), Universal Studios (Release date April 25, 2006)
Doom: Unrated Extended Edition (2005), Universal Studios (Release date April 25, 2006)
GoodFellas (1990), Warner Bros. (Release date May 2, 2006)
Swordfish (2001), Warner Bros. (Release date May 2, 2006)
Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), Universal Studios (Release date May 9, 2006)
[b]Cinderella Man (2005), Universal Studios (Release date May 9, 2006)
Jarhead (2005), Universal Studios (Release date May 9, 2006)
Rumor Has It (2005), Warner Bros. (Release date May 9, 2006) (Hybrid HD DVD and DVD version on dual sided disc)
Training Day (2001), Warner Bros. (Release date May 9, 2006)
Full Metal Jacket (1987), Warner Bros. (Release date May 16, 2006)
Unforgiven (1992), Warner Bros. (Release date May 16, 2006)
Blazing Saddles (1974), Warner Bros. (Release date May 23, 2006)
The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Universal Studios (Release date May 23, 2006)
The Chronicles of Rid****: Unrated Director's Cut (2004), Universal Studios (Release date May 23, 2006)
The Fugitive (1993), Warner Bros. (Release date May 23, 2006)
U-571 (2000), Universal Studios (Release date May 23, 2006)
Van Helsing (2004), Universal Studios (Release date May 23, 2006)
Constantine (2005), Warner Bros. (Release date June 6, 2006)
Firewall (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date June 6, 2006) (Hybrid HD DVD and DVD version on dual sided disc)
The Perfect Storm (2000), Warner Bros. (Release date June 6, 2006)
A View From Space with Heavenly Music (2006), Concert Hot Spot (Release date June 6, 2006)
16 Blocks (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date June 13, 2006) (Hybrid HD DVD and DVD version on dual sided disc)
Happy Gilmore (1996), Universal Studios (Release date June 13, 2006)
The Rundown (2003), Universal Studios (Release date June 13, 2006)
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005), Warner Bros. (Release date June 20, 2006)
Syriana (2005), Warner Bros. (Release date June 20, 2006)
Lethal Weapon (1987), Warner Bros. (Release date June 27, 2006)
The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) (Release date July 11, 2006)
Enter The Dragon (1973) (Release date July 11, 2006)
Friday Night Lights (2004) (Release date July 11, 2006)
Pitch Black: Unrated Director's Cut (2000) (Release date July 11, 2006)
ATL (2004) (Release date July 18, 2006)
Sahara (2005) (Release date July 25, 2006)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) (Release date July 25, 2006)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) (Release date July 25, 2006)
Sleepy Hollow (1999) (Release date July 25, 2006)
Four Brothers (2005) (Release date August 1, 2006)
We Were Soldiers (2002) (Release date August 1, 2006)
The Manchurian Candidate (2004) (Release date August 1, 2006)
U2 - Rattle & Hum (1988) (Release date August 8, 2006)
Æon Flux (2005) (Release date August 8, 2006)
The Italian Job (2003) (Release date August 8, 2006)
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), Universal Studios (Release date August 15, 2006)
Ray (2004), Universal Studios (Release date August 15, 2006)
Unleashed (2005), Universal Studios (Release date August 15, 2006)

Average IMDB rating: 6.8
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That's right. There are significantly more movies on HD-DVD, more on the way, and more of the movies people know about. HD-DVD has *by far* more high profile movies available than Blu-Ray... it's not even funny.

Sorry, you lost all credibility with your hillariously innaccurate assumption that HD-DVD didn't have as many 'well known' movies as Blu-Ray.

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

:roll:
I don't know where you get your info, either do I want to know, but you should know that all of the movies that you highlighted are coming to Blu Ray too...

In the mean time, here are a list of Blu ray movies coming in the near future, not the long run.

I didn't bother to highlight anything, but I'm sure there should be a few hits in there...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

50 First Dates Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
A Knight's Tale Sony Release date: September 19, 2006
Aeon Flux Paramount
American Psycho Lionsgate Release date: October 17, 2006
Amityville Horror MGM Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Angel Seekers Air TBS Japan only
Armageddon Disney
Basic Instinct Lionsgate Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Basic Instinct 2 MGM Release date: July 11, 2006
Batman Begins Warner
Behind Enemy Lines Fox
Benchwarmers Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Big Hit Sony Release date: September 19, 2006
Black Hawk Down Sony
Blazing Saddles Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Bram Stoker's Dracula Sony
Bridge on the River Kwai Sony
Brothers Grimm Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Warner
Chicken Little Disney Not a launch title, to be released later in 2006
Chronos Goldhil Documentary, Release date: May 23, 2006
Constantine Warner
Crash Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Crimson Tide Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Dark Water Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Desperado Sony
Devil's Rejects Lionsgate Release date: August 22, 2006
Dinosaur Disney Release date: September 19, 2006
Dukes of Hazzard Warner
Dune Lionsgate TV miniseries
aka Frank Herbert's Dune, Release date: June/July
Eight Below Disney Release date: September 19, 2006
Everest Disney Documentary
Fantastic Four Fox
Fifth Element Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
Flightplan Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
For a Few Dollars More MGM
Four Brothers Paramount
Full Metal Jacket Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Gattaca Sony Release date: October 17, 2006
Glory Road Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Gone in Sixty Seconds Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Good Night, and Good Luck Warner Release date: August 1, 2006
Goodfellas Warner Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Great Raid Disney Release date: September 19, 2006
Green Mile Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Guns of Navarone Sony
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Haunted Mansion Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Hero Disney
Hitch Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
House of Flying Daggers Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
Ice Age Fox
Incredibles Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Into The Blue Sony Release date: August 15, 2006
Italian Job Paramount
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Disney Release date: September 19, 2006
Kill Bill Vol. 1 Disney
King Arthur Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Warner Release date: August 1, 2006
Kiss of the Dragon Fox
Kung Fu Hustle Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Ladder 49 Disney
Lake House Warner Release date: September 26, 2006
Last Samurai Warner
Last Waltz MGM Documentary, Release date: June 27, 2006
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Fox
Legends of the Fall Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Lethal Weapon Warner
Lord of War Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Manchurian Candidate Paramount
Matrix Warner
Matrix Reloaded Warner Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Memento Sony Release date: August 15, 2006
Million Dollar Baby Warner
Mission Impossible Paramount Not a launch title, to be released later in 2006
Mission Impossible II Paramount Not a launch title, to be released later in 2006
Mission Impossible III Paramount Release date: October 30, 2006
New Cinema Paradise Asmik Ace Japan only
Ocean's Twelve Warner
Phantom of the Opera Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Pirates of the Caribbean Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Professionals Sony Release date: October 17, 2006
Punisher Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Rambo: First Blood Lionsgate Release date: October 17, 2006
Reservoir Dogs Lionsgate Release date: October 24, 2006
Resident Evil Sony Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Resident Evil: Apocalypse Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Robocop MGM
Rumor Has It Warner Release date: August 1, 2006
RV Sony Release date: August 15, 2006
S.W.A.T. Sony Release date: September 19, 2006
Sahara Paramount
Saw Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Saw II Lionsgate Release date: October 17, 2006
See No Evil Lionsgate
Sense and Sensibility Sony
Silent Hill Sony Release date: August 22, 2006
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Paramount
Sleepy Hollow Paramount
Species MGM Release date: July 25, 2006
Spider-Man Sony Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Stargate Lionsgate Release date: August 22, 2006
Stargate Atlantis MGM TV series, Release date: June/July
Stealth Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Steamboy Bandai Visual Japan only
Step Into Liquid Lionsgate
Stir of Echoes Lionsgate Release date: August 22, 2006
Swordfish Warner
Syriana Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Tears of the Sun Sony Release date: September 19, 2006
Terminator MGM Release date: June 20, 2006
Terminator 2: Judgment Day Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Warner
Tomb Raider Paramount
Total Recall Lionsgate Release date: August 22, 2006
Training Day Warner Release date: August 1, 2006
Troy Warner
Twister Warner
U2: Rattle and Hum Paramount Documentary
Ultraviolet Sony Release date: June 27, 2006
Underworld: Evolution Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
Unforgiven Warner
We Were Soldiers Paramount
xXx Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
xXx: State of the Union Sony Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Young Guns Lionsgate Release date: October 17, 2006

Link (http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That's right. There are significantly more movies on Blu Ray, more on the way, and more of the movies people know about. Blu Ray has *by far* more high profile movies available than HD DVD... it's not even funny.

Sorry, you lost all credibility with your hillariously innaccurate assumption that Blu Ray didn't have as many 'well known' movies as HD DVD.

-Shenyu

[Darkfalz]

:roll:
I don't know where you get your info, either do I want to know, but you should know that all of the movies that you highlighted are coming to Blu Ray too...

In the mean time, here are a list of Blu ray movies coming in the near future, not the long run.

I didn't bother to highlight anything, but I'm sure there should be a few hits in there...

----------------------------

50 First Dates Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
A Knight's Tale Sony Release date: September 19, 2006
Aeon Flux Paramount
American Psycho Lionsgate Release date: October 17, 2006
Amityville Horror MGM Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Angel Seekers Air TBS Japan only
Armageddon Disney
Basic Instinct Lionsgate Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Basic Instinct 2 MGM Release date: July 11, 2006
Batman Begins Warner
Behind Enemy Lines Fox
Benchwarmers Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Big Hit Sony Release date: September 19, 2006
Black Hawk Down Sony
Blazing Saddles Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Bram Stoker's Dracula Sony
Bridge on the River Kwai Sony
Brothers Grimm Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Warner
Chicken Little Disney Not a launch title, to be released later in 2006
Chronos Goldhil Documentary, Release date: May 23, 2006
Constantine Warner
Crash Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Crimson Tide Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Dark Water Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Desperado Sony
Devil's Rejects Lionsgate Release date: August 22, 2006
Dinosaur Disney Release date: September 19, 2006
Dukes of Hazzard Warner
Dune Lionsgate TV miniseries
aka Frank Herbert's Dune, Release date: June/July
Eight Below Disney Release date: September 19, 2006
Everest Disney Documentary
Fantastic Four Fox
Fifth Element Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
Flightplan Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
For a Few Dollars More MGM
Four Brothers Paramount
Full Metal Jacket Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Gattaca Sony Release date: October 17, 2006
Glory Road Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Gone in Sixty Seconds Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Good Night, and Good Luck Warner Release date: August 1, 2006
Goodfellas Warner Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Great Raid Disney Release date: September 19, 2006
Green Mile Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Guns of Navarone Sony
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Haunted Mansion Disney Release date: October 17, 2006
Hero Disney
Hitch Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
House of Flying Daggers Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
Ice Age Fox
Incredibles Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Into The Blue Sony Release date: August 15, 2006
Italian Job Paramount
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Disney Release date: September 19, 2006
Kill Bill Vol. 1 Disney
King Arthur Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Warner Release date: August 1, 2006
Kiss of the Dragon Fox
Kung Fu Hustle Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Ladder 49 Disney
Lake House Warner Release date: September 26, 2006
Last Samurai Warner
Last Waltz MGM Documentary, Release date: June 27, 2006
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Fox
Legends of the Fall Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Lethal Weapon Warner
Lord of War Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Manchurian Candidate Paramount
Matrix Warner
Matrix Reloaded Warner Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Memento Sony Release date: August 15, 2006
Million Dollar Baby Warner
Mission Impossible Paramount Not a launch title, to be released later in 2006
Mission Impossible II Paramount Not a launch title, to be released later in 2006
Mission Impossible III Paramount Release date: October 30, 2006
New Cinema Paradise Asmik Ace Japan only
Ocean's Twelve Warner
Phantom of the Opera Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Pirates of the Caribbean Disney Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Professionals Sony Release date: October 17, 2006
Punisher Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Rambo: First Blood Lionsgate Release date: October 17, 2006
Reservoir Dogs Lionsgate Release date: October 24, 2006
Resident Evil Sony Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Resident Evil: Apocalypse Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Robocop MGM
Rumor Has It Warner Release date: August 1, 2006
RV Sony Release date: August 15, 2006
S.W.A.T. Sony Release date: September 19, 2006
Sahara Paramount
Saw Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Saw II Lionsgate Release date: October 17, 2006
See No Evil Lionsgate
Sense and Sensibility Sony
Silent Hill Sony Release date: August 22, 2006
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Paramount
Sleepy Hollow Paramount
Species MGM Release date: July 25, 2006
Spider-Man Sony Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Stargate Lionsgate Release date: August 22, 2006
Stargate Atlantis MGM TV series, Release date: June/July
Stealth Sony Release date: July 25, 2006
Steamboy Bandai Visual Japan only
Step Into Liquid Lionsgate
Stir of Echoes Lionsgate Release date: August 22, 2006
Swordfish Warner
Syriana Warner Not yet announced, but Warner has stated that they will release all their titles in both formats
Tears of the Sun Sony Release date: September 19, 2006
Terminator MGM Release date: June 20, 2006
Terminator 2: Judgment Day Lionsgate Release date: June 27, 2006
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Warner
Tomb Raider Paramount
Total Recall Lionsgate Release date: August 22, 2006
Training Day Warner Release date: August 1, 2006
Troy Warner
Twister Warner
U2: Rattle and Hum Paramount Documentary
Ultraviolet Sony Release date: June 27, 2006
Underworld: Evolution Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
Unforgiven Warner
We Were Soldiers Paramount
xXx Sony Release date: June 20, 2006
xXx: State of the Union Sony Not yet announced, but packaging shown at CES
Young Guns Lionsgate Release date: October 17, 2006

Link (http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/)

---------------------------------



LOL What a joke. How can you be so ignorant? There aren't more Blu-Ray movies coming... Check out the HD-DVD's coming:


August 22, 2006
• The Bone Collector (Universal)
• Caddyshack (Warner)
• Good Night, and Good Luck (Warner)
• The Interpreter (Universal)
• The Searchers (Warner)
• Spy Game (Universal)

August 29, 2006
• That's the Way of the World (BCI)

September 12, 2006
• Red Dragon (Universal)
• Seabiscuit (Universal)
• Traffic (Universal)

September 19, 2006
• Backdraft (Universal)
• Dazed & Confused (Universal)
• End of Days (Universal)
• Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (Universal)
• Galaxina (BCI)
• Golgo 13 (BCI)
• Land of the Dead (Universal)

September 26, 2006
• The Fast and the Furious (Universal)
• 2 Fast 2 Furious (Universal)
• The Fast and the Furious: Toyko Drift (Universal)


October 10, 2006
• Army of Darkness (Universal)
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Universal)
• Waist Deep (Universal)

October 24, 2006
• Slither (Universal)

October 30, 2006
• Mission: Impossible III (Paramount)

November 7, 2006
• The Sopranos: Season Six, Part One (HBO)

December 5, 2006
• Poseidon (Warner)

Street Date To Be Announced
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner)

Release Dates Pending

The following titles are planned for release in the HD DVD format (as indicated by press release or previous public statements made by the distributor), but release dates have not been announced:
• 12 Monkeys (Universal)
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Universal)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (Warner)
• Above the Law (Warner)
• Accepted (Universal)
• Alexander (Warner)
• American Pie (Unrated) (Universal)
• American Pie Presents: A Naked Mile (Universal)
• An American Werewolf in London (Universal)
• Angels in America (HBO)
• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (New Line)
• The Aviator (Universal)
• Awake (Weinstein Co.)
• Band of Brothers (HBO)
• Batman Begins (Warner)
• Bikini Destinations (Magnolia)
• The Black Dahlia (Universal)
Black Rain (Paramount)
• Blade (New Line)
• Blade Runner (Warner)
• The Blues Brothers(Universal)
• Braveheart (Paramount)
• The Breakfast Club (Universal)
• Breaking and Entering (Weinstein Co.)
• The Break-Up (Universal)
• Bubble (Magnolia)
• Casino (Universal)
• Catwoman (Warner)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Warner)
• A Clockwork Orange (Warner)
• Coach Carter (Paramount)
• Conan the Barbarian (Universal)
• Contact (Warner)
• The Corpse Bride (Warner)
• Dante's Peak (Universal)
• Dark City (New Line)
• Deadwood: Season One (HBO)
• Decameron (Weinstein Co.)
• The Deer Hunter (Universal)
• Derailed (Weinstein Co.)
• The Dirty Dozen (Warner)
• The Dirty Harry Collection (Warner)
• Dune (1985) (Universal)
• Elizabethtown (Paramount)
• Eraser (Warner)
• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Magnolia)
• Executive Decision (Warner)
• Eyes Wide Shut (Warner)
• Jet Li's Fearless (Universal)
• Field of Dreams (Universal)
• Final Destination (New Line)
• Forbidden Planet (Warner)
• Forrest Gump (Paramount)
• Friday (New Line)
• Friends: Season One (Warner)
• From the Earth to the Moon (HBO)
• Ghost (Paramount)
• Gothika (Warner)
• Grand Prix (Warner)
• Grease (Paramount)
• The Green Mile (Warner)
• Grind House (Weinstein Co.)
• Hard to Kill (Warner)
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Warner)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Warner)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas(Universal)
• Hulk(Universal)
• Idlewind (Universal)
• Killshot (Weinstein Co.)
• King Kong (2005) (Universal)
• Last Legion (Weinstein Co.)
• The Lemon Drop Kid (Universal)
• The Libertine (Weinstein Co.)
• Lucky Number Slevin (Weinstein Co.)
• The Maltese Falcon (Warner)
• The Manchurian Candidate (2004) (Paramount)
• The Mask (New Line)
• The Matador (Weinstein Co.)
• The Matrix (Warner)
• The Matrix Reloaded (Warner)
• The Matrix Revolutions (Warner)
• Maverick (Warner)
• Meet the Parents (Universal)
• Miami Vice (2006) (Universal)
• Mission: Impossible (Paramount)
• Mission: Impossible 2 (Paramount)
• Mrs. Henderson Presents (Weinstein Co.)
• The Mummy (Universal)
• The Music Man (Warner)
• Mutiny on the Bounty (Warner)
• Mystic River (Warner)
• Next of Kin (Warner)
• North by Northwest (Warner)
• Ocean's Eleven (Warner)
• Ocean's Twelve (Warner)
• Out of Sight(Universal)
• Passenger 57 (Warner)
• Passion of the Clerks (Weinstein Co.)
• The Player (New Line)
• The Polar Express (Warner)
• Pulse (Weinstein Co.)
• Red Planet (Warner)
• The Return (Universal)
• Rush Hour (New Line)
• Save the Last Dance (Paramount)
• Scary Movie 4 (Weinstein Co.)
• School of Rock (Paramount)
• School for Scoundrels (Weinstein Co.)
• Scoop (Universal)
• The Scorpion King (Universal)
• Se7en (New Line)
• The Shining (1980) (Warner)
• Shuttle Discovery's Historic Mission (Magnolia)
• Sin City 2 (Weinstein Co.)
• Slither (Universal)
• Soldier (Warner)
• Son of Paleface (Paramount)
• Spartacus(Universal)
• Spawn (New Line)
• Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie (Paramount)
• Star Trek: First Contact (Paramount)
• Superman Returns (Warner)
• Superman: Ultimate Collector's Edition (Warner)
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Warner)
• The Thing (1982) (Universal)
• TransAmerica (Weinstein Co.)
• Troy (Warner)
• Twister (Warner)
• The Ultimate Star Trek Collection (Paramount)
• Under Siege (Warner)
• Unleashed (Universal)
U.S. Marshals (Warner)
• Vanilla Sky (Paramount)
• Vengeance of the Zombies (BCI)
• The War Within (Magnolia)
• Waterworld (Universal)
• Wild Wild West (Warner)
• Wolf Creek (Weinstein Co.)
• You, Me & Dupree (Universal)
• Young Hannibal (Weinstein Co.)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You blind, ignorant, sorry, sorry fool. If you could count, you'd see that there's 162 HD-DVD's on the way, and a mere 126 Blu-Ray... plus - the high profile movies from Blu-Ray are still making it to HD-DVD... so again, HD-DVD wins. :roll:, man you're getting desperate.


HD-DVD's win in terms of content, quality, price, and features. while this *may* change, it's not looking like it'll change in the near future.

Also, what's with all the blu-ray cancellations/push backs?? Awe, how sad... :cry:

Black Hawk Down and Sense & Sensibility bumped from Sony Blu-Ray:
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Sony/Disc_Announcements/Black_Hawk_Down,_Sense_&_Sensibility_Bumped_From_Sony_Blu-ray_Lineup/176

Sony to Robocop: Your terminated
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/MGM/Sony/Disc_Announcements/Sony_to_RoboCop:_Youre_Terminated/171

More lies to consumers:

Packaging Error Greets Warner's First Blu-ray Titles
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/list/2

Hahaha... Blu-Ray... waste of consumers time and money. Will that change? Sure, it's likely... but right now, it's a waste.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Quotes from the industry:

Direct Comparisons:
'Training Day'
"In our first head-to-head comparison, we found the HD DVD to be superior. The unfortunate cropping of the Blu-ray image, coupled with more noticeable compression artifacts and an overall darker cast, can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD.."

'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'
"With our second Blu-ray versus HD DVD battle on 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,' we again declare victory (although by a smaller margin) to the HD DVD verison. Most of the same problems we found with 'Training Day' on Blu-ray -- namely the picture cropping (though it is likely a player issue) and darker cast -- reappear again here.."

'Rumor Has It...'
"I wasn't expecting to see much difference in video quality between the two formats with 'Rumor Has It...', yet the two discs did bear noticeable differences, with the HD DVD boasting better detail and a more film-like look. And Warner has again dropped the Dolby Digital-Plus option from the Blu-ray version.."
"the HD DVD release delivers overall better bang for the buck."

HD-DVD Releases:
'RAY'
"There is no doubt that with HD DVD releases like this, Blu-ray really has to start delivering the goods if it hopes to win the high-def format war."

Blu-Ray Releases:
'Momento'
"Alas, upon closer examination the transfer suffers from an unacceptable level of compression artifacts. I also wish Sony didn't need to sacrifice extras for bit space, because I don't think Blu-ray is going to succeed unless it offers at least as comprehensive a supplemental package as standard DVD. All in all, 'Memento' is tough to recommend given these negatives. "

'S.W.A.T.'
"extras are slim and the disc is quite pricey considering what you get. Chalk this up as another early Blu-ray title that is not yet indicative of what the format is truly capable of."

(more to come...)

Sources:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/ray.html
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/memento.html

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

You blind, ignorant, sorry, sorry fool. If you could count, you'd see that there's 162 HD-DVD's on the way, and a mere 126 Blu-Ray... plus - the high profile movies from Blu-Ray are still making it to HD-DVD... so again, HD-DVD wins. :roll:, man you're getting desperate.


HD-DVD's win in terms of content, quality, price, and features. while this *may* change, it's not looking like it'll change in the near future. Also, what's with all the blu-ray cancellations/push backs?? Awe, how sad... :cry:... I hope you realize that all movies from Warner are coming to Blu ray also...

And I thought this was a discussion, what's up with your personal attacks? I'm sorry, but I just don't have time to count all the Blu ray movies that are coming...I'm sorry... I'm... I'm so sorry...will you please forgive me?

Aw... wait, you said ALL the Blu ray cancellations... I see two... and... source please (for all the movie listings).

-Shenyu

[loki22]

:roll:

Blu-Ray Movies:

Hitch, (2005), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
The Fifth Element, (1996), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
House of Flying Daggers, (2004), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
Underworld: Evolution, (2006), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
50 First Dates, (2004), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
XXX, (2002), Sony (Release date June 20, 2006)
The Terminator , (1984), MGM (Release date June 20, 2006)
Lord of War (2005), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day , (1991), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
Crash, (2005), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
Ultraviolet, (2006), Sony (Release date June 27, 2006)
Saw, (2003), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
The Punisher, (2005), Lionsgate (Release date June 27, 2006)
Basic Instinct 2, (2006), Sony (Release date July 11, 2006)
The Benchwarmers, (2006), Sony (Release date July 25, 2006)
The Last Waltz, (2006), MGM (Release date July 25, 2006)
Species, (2006), MGM (Release date July 25, 2006)
Stealth, (2006), Sony (Release date July 25, 2006)
Good Night, and Good Luck., (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date August 1, 2006)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date August 1, 2006)
Rumor Has It..., (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date August 1, 2006)
Training Day , (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date August 1, 2006)

Average IMDB rating: 6.2
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

HD-DVD Movies:

The Last Samurai (2004), Warner Bros. (Release date April 18, 2006)
Million Dollar Baby (2004), Warner Bros. (Release date April 18, 2006)
The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Warner Bros. (Release date April 18, 2006)
Serenity (2005), Universal Studios (Release date April 18, 2006)
Apollo 13 (1995), Universal Studios (Release date April 25, 2006)
Doom: Unrated Extended Edition (2005), Universal Studios (Release date April 25, 2006)
GoodFellas (1990), Warner Bros. (Release date May 2, 2006)
Swordfish (2001), Warner Bros. (Release date May 2, 2006)
Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), Universal Studios (Release date May 9, 2006)
[b]Cinderella Man (2005), Universal Studios (Release date May 9, 2006)
Jarhead (2005), Universal Studios (Release date May 9, 2006)
Rumor Has It (2005), Warner Bros. (Release date May 9, 2006) (Hybrid HD DVD and DVD version on dual sided disc)
Training Day (2001), Warner Bros. (Release date May 9, 2006)
Full Metal Jacket (1987), Warner Bros. (Release date May 16, 2006)
Unforgiven (1992), Warner Bros. (Release date May 16, 2006)
Blazing Saddles (1974), Warner Bros. (Release date May 23, 2006)
The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Universal Studios (Release date May 23, 2006)
The Chronicles of Rid****: Unrated Director's Cut (2004), Universal Studios (Release date May 23, 2006)
The Fugitive (1993), Warner Bros. (Release date May 23, 2006)
U-571 (2000), Universal Studios (Release date May 23, 2006)
Van Helsing (2004), Universal Studios (Release date May 23, 2006)
Constantine (2005), Warner Bros. (Release date June 6, 2006)
Firewall (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date June 6, 2006) (Hybrid HD DVD and DVD version on dual sided disc)
The Perfect Storm (2000), Warner Bros. (Release date June 6, 2006)
A View From Space with Heavenly Music (2006), Concert Hot Spot (Release date June 6, 2006)
16 Blocks (2006), Warner Bros. (Release date June 13, 2006) (Hybrid HD DVD and DVD version on dual sided disc)
Happy Gilmore (1996), Universal Studios (Release date June 13, 2006)
The Rundown (2003), Universal Studios (Release date June 13, 2006)
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005), Warner Bros. (Release date June 20, 2006)
Syriana (2005), Warner Bros. (Release date June 20, 2006)
Lethal Weapon (1987), Warner Bros. (Release date June 27, 2006)
The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) (Release date July 11, 2006)
Enter The Dragon (1973) (Release date July 11, 2006)
Friday Night Lights (2004) (Release date July 11, 2006)
Pitch Black: Unrated Director's Cut (2000) (Release date July 11, 2006)
ATL (2004) (Release date July 18, 2006)
Sahara (2005) (Release date July 25, 2006)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) (Release date July 25, 2006)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) (Release date July 25, 2006)
Sleepy Hollow (1999) (Release date July 25, 2006)
Four Brothers (2005) (Release date August 1, 2006)
We Were Soldiers (2002) (Release date August 1, 2006)
The Manchurian Candidate (2004) (Release date August 1, 2006)
U2 - Rattle & Hum (1988) (Release date August 8, 2006)
Æon Flux (2005) (Release date August 8, 2006)
The Italian Job (2003) (Release date August 8, 2006)
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), Universal Studios (Release date August 15, 2006)
Ray (2004), Universal Studios (Release date August 15, 2006)
Unleashed (2005), Universal Studios (Release date August 15, 2006)

Average IMDB rating: 6.8
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That's right. There are significantly more movies on HD-DVD, more on the way, and more of the movies people know about. HD-DVD has *by far* more high profile movies available than Blu-Ray... it's not even funny.

Sorry, you lost all credibility with your hillariously innaccurate assumption that HD-DVD didn't have as many 'well known' movies as Blu-Ray.

With your highlighted movies, are you trying to suggest that Crash, winner the Oscar for Best Picture, is not a well-known movie, but We Were Soldiers is?

Also, no matter how you try to spin it, the studios supporting BD have a much larger marketshare than the studios supporting HD-DVD. As such, we can expect more movies from the BD camp than from the HD-DVD camp. The current numbers of titles released and the number of releases planned in the very near future is based on HD-DVD launching much earlier than BD (BD hasn't even really launched yet) and the fact that the HD-DVD camp needs to make the most of their early launch before BD launches.

In any case, the number of titles now and in the near future might actually matter if there was actually a significant number of HD players in people's homes. Since there is not, your propaganda is all for naught. You do realize that by the time most of the people, who read your posts, make a purchase of a stand alone HD player, the dye will already be cast, don't you? I mean really, how many people do you think are going to go out and spend $500 or $800 on an HD-DVD player this year because some anonymous poster repeatedly says that BD stinks?

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

Don't forget, in November, BD players cost 500-600 dollars, PLUS they play kickass games.

There goes his "BD is more expensive than HD DVD" argument. But wait, knowing Darkfalz, he's definitly manage to pull something out of somewhere to counter our points. :roll:

Loki has a good point though. HD DVD cannot afford to sit back nearly as much as BLu ray does and it really is questionable just how long it can last before all of their hits have been depleted.

-Shenyu

[Aleman]

\There goes his "BD is more expensive than HD DVD" argument. But wait, knowing Darkfalz, he's definitly manage to pull something out of somewhere to counter our points. :roll:


Well, technically Blu-ray players will still be more expensive. You can buy Toshiba's low end HD-DVD player for ~$415 online right now (1). I'd imagine the price will continuing dropping by November.

1. http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Toshiba_HDA1_HD_DVD_Player,__17247256/search=toshiba+hd-dvd

[Darkfalz]

Don't forget, in November, BD players cost 500-600 dollars, PLUS they play kickass games.

There goes his "BD is more expensive than HD DVD" argument. But wait, knowing Darkfalz, he's definitly manage to pull something out of somewhere to counter our points. :roll:

Loki has a good point though. HD DVD cannot afford to sit back nearly as much as BLu ray does and it really is questionable just how long it can last before all of their hits have been depleted.

-Shenyu

In November, 10 million people around the world will be able to buy an HD-DVD player for 200$ (possibly less).

In November, anyone in the world can get a stand alone HD-DVD player for a little over 400$ (or less) that plays the highest quality consumer released movies in the world, and the best selection of said movies.

In November, anyone in the world can spend 500$ to get an Xbox core system & an HD-DVD drive that plays the highest quality consumer released movies in the world, and the best selection of said movies.

In November, there will only be one high definition format that uses next gen compression techniques, yeilding better quality in less storage - HD-DVD.

In November, there will be a very limited supply of those 500-600 dollar Blu-Ray players...

In November, HD-DVD's will still have far more movies out, far more on the way, and all those released or in the pipeline will yeild better quality than Blu-Ray movies.

In November, things might change... but they might not.

[G_H_G]

In November, 10 million people around the world will be able to buy an HD-DVD player for 200$.

.

Key words being will be able to. Nothing is garunteed. I'm willing to bet that the add-on wont sell well at all. On the other hand you have a garunteed 2m Blu-Ray players out there with that number garunteed to rise significantly over the next 6 months after launch.

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

In November, 10 million people around the world will be able to buy an HD-DVD player for 200$ (possibly less).

In November, anyone in the world can get a stand alone HD-DVD player for a little over 400$ (or less) that plays the highest quality consumer released movies in the world, and the best selection of said movies.

In November, anyone in the world can spend 500$ to get an Xbox core system & an HD-DVD drive that plays the highest quality consumer released movies in the world, and the best selection of said movies.

In November, there will only be one high definition format that uses next gen compression techniques, yeilding better quality in less storage - HD-DVD.

In November, there will be a very limited supply of those 500-600 dollar Blu-Ray players...

In November, HD-DVD's will still have far more movies out, far more on the way, and all those released or in the pipeline will yeild better quality than Blu-Ray movies.

In November, things might change... but they might not.1.People will have to pay 500 bucks up front to get a 200 HD DVD player... which is 700 bucks if you count. if you want to connect said player to a PC... good luck watching HD movies through a USB 2.0.

2.Since the signal is digital, any player can play the highest quality of movies. A standalone player that JUST plays HD DVD movies still doesn't justify the 400 price tag, and what resolutions are HD DVD movies?

3.Refer to number 1

4.You don't need to compress anything with Blu ray

5.There will be 2-3 million Blu ray players and they will sell like hotcakes

6.Source please, I've asked you for sources in various discussions but you have not given me even one yet.

7.In November, you might be banished from these forums because HD DVD gets owned... or you might not.

In November, I get a 600 Blu ray player that has free online and plays Final Fantasy nuff said. Oh wait... it plays HD Spiderman 2 too?! How delightful!

-Shenyu

[loki22]

Don't forget, in November, BD players cost 500-600 dollars, PLUS they play kickass games.

There goes his "BD is more expensive than HD DVD" argument. But wait, knowing Darkfalz, he's definitly manage to pull something out of somewhere to counter our points. :roll:

Loki has a good point though. HD DVD cannot afford to sit back nearly as much as BLu ray does and it really is questionable just how long it can last before all of their hits have been depleted.

-Shenyu


I should clarify my last post. Even though I think that the HD-DVD camp has the incentive to do more than the BD camp, early on, I still don't think that the HD-DVD camp is "all-in." Toshiba still isn't producing HD-DVD players or other HD-DVD components in significant numbers. Nor is it aggressively marketing them. I did see a TV commercial that mentioned that Toshiba is the company that developed the HD-DVD technology, yesterday, but it was for a product that did not have HD-DVD.

I think that the reality is that Toshiba spent a significant amount of money in developing HD-DVD, and it wants a return on its investment. However, there is only so much money that it can risk and there even less that it's willing to risk. So, that's why I think we've seen a more timid launch and why Toshiba is still negotiating for a unified format. Toshiba just wants to make some money. If HD-DVD wins the format war, I think it would exceed Toshiba's expectations. In the alternative, I think Toshiba just wants what it can get, from an early launch and/or from getting a piece of the BD pie, in the form of a unified format.

Software providers, like Universal and MS, can't lose either way. They aren't risking much by providing software support for HD-DVD, and they can switch camps or support both, much more easily than CE manufacturers.

Actually, I think that the HD-DVD camp is essentially doing what they should be doing at this point -- targeting early adopters. Toshiba stripped down the functionality and convenience of their players, so they could deliver great PQ (other than for 720p displays) at a lower cost (early adopters tend to care more about PQ than funtionality and convenience). The studios used VC-1 on DL discs, even though doing so increases the production costs, because VC-1 can provide better PQ than MPEG2 on a 30GB disc and early adopters care a lot more about PQ, relative to price, than the average consumer. They aren't spending a lot of money marketing HD-DVD, because not a lot is needed to market to early adopters and the average consumer would not be as happy with the HD-DVD products realeased so far, anyway.

The only flaws I see in their approach is Toshiba not making players that perform better for 720p displays, I wouldn't have sold any players at a loss because that loss can't be easliy recovered (unlike gaming consoles), and I would've capitalized on the internet buzz slamming BD by producing more players to get to more early adopters before BD really launches.

[Darkfalz]

1.People will have to pay 500 bucks up front to get a 200 HD DVD player... which is 700 bucks if you count. if you want to connect said player to a PC... good luck watch HD movies through a USB 2.0.

Xbox 360 Core = $299.99
DVD Add-on = $199.99 (or less)
Total = $499.98

That will play HD-DVD movies, and Xbox 360 games. I refer back to my original post, learn to count.

Additionally, anyone who already has an Xbox 360 isn't paying the full 500$ to play HD-DVD's. They are paying 200$. End of story.


2.Since the signal is digital, any player can play the highest quality of movies. A standalone player that JUST plays HD DVD movies still doesn't justify the 400 price tag, and what resolutions are HD DVD movies?

I'm not sure what you're implying here, but no - not all players can play the highest quality movies. No Blu-Ray player can play the HD-DVD's, and HD-DVD's are the highest quality movies in the world. They beat Blu-Ray in video, qudio, and features... and HD-DVD movies are all 1080p.


3.Refer to number 1

Refer to my post about your innability to count.


4.You don't need to compress anything with Blu ray

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Every single Blu-Ray movie in existance uses mpeg2 compression. It's a more than ten year old compression technology that yeilds provably worse results than the brand new VC-1 compression, which is what all HD-DVD's use. The codec (compression method) determines 2 major factors for all HD or Blu-Ray movies - overall size of the movie file, and the overall quality.

With VC-1 compression, you will *always* have noticably and significantly better quality than mpeg2 at the same bitrate (meaning, if they use the same space on the disk). If you use HALF the space on the disk with VC-1 than mpeg2, your quality will still be equal to or in some cases BETTER than mpeg2 compressed at twice the bit rate (meaning, the mpeg2 movie would take twice the space).

Please get some education on this topic before you try to debate it... it makes you look very uninformed, and weakens your case.


5.There will be 2-3 million Blu ray players and they will sell like hotcakes

Likely... but time will tell.


6.Source please, I've asked you for sources in various discussions but you have not given me even one yet.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/


7.In November, you might be banished from these forums because HD DVD gets owned... or you might not.

You might be finally getting some education in terms of how to count, and what format is *still* supplying the better product... but you might not... awe, sad. :cry:


In November, I get a 600 Blu ray player that has free online and plays Final Fantasy nuff said. Oh wait... it plays HD Spiderman 2 too?! How delightful!

For 600$ in November, I'll get a Nintendo Wii, HD-DVD player, several of the best/highest quality movies in the world, Gears of War, Forza 2, Oblivion, 2 years of Xbox Live (a proven experience that offers the fastest, best quality online experience in the world), and much, much more.

...but really, does that matter? My post responding to your initial post was in regards to the movie selection the two offer... and it looks like you're trying to change the subject now... hmm... wonder why? ;-)

True or False:

1. HD-DVD's have a bigger selection of movies than Blu-Ray, more movies on the way than Blu-Ray, and more of the highest rated movies than Blu-Ray.

2. HD-DVD's offer better sound quality and video quality than any Blu-Ray movie on the market.

3. HD-DVD's cost of entry is less than Blu-Ray's cost of entry.

Let's see your answers...

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

Okay, Darkfalz, you know what you are doing, now I'd like to see a few pieces of your information (with sources) from your seemingly limitless well of knowledge.

First, I'd like to see the number of HD DVD players that have been shipped and sold up till now.

Second, I'd like to see how many HD DVD movies have been sold.

Also, I'd like to know how my ability to count has... anything to do with this discussion...


You blind, ignorant, sorry, sorry fool. If you could count, you'd see that there's 162 HD-DVD's on the way, and a mere 126 Blu-Ray... plus - the high profile movies from Blu-Ray are still making it to HD-DVD... so again, HD-DVD wins. :roll:, man you're getting desperate.As you can see, I never proclaimed that I know how to count, it is you who have assumed that I don't know how to count and:


I refer back to my original post, learn to count.

Refer to my post about your innability to count.

You might be finally getting some education in terms of how to count,... ...

In other news:

My knowledge in Blu ray and HD DVD movies is limited as I am not in with this field so I cannot effectively identify right from wrong while arguing with you in this thread.

Fact:I am still going to stick with DVD until I get my PS3, I am never going to buy any standalone disc player that is 300+ dollars. Close to two people will buy the HD DVD add on for the 360, and 400 dollars for an inferior format is still impractical for the average consumer.

So even though HD DVD has slightly better video quality at this point, that is really beside the point when most of the movie industry does not back HD DVD, but Blu ray. I'd like to see how many movies in the HD DVD line up get cancelled as PS3 flys off the shelves and into consumers' homes.

Your entire argument is based on what is apprent at this point in time (video quality, price and line up), you yourself partially agree that the future holds many possibilities. If what I predict is true, which concerns an abysmal amount of HD DVD players sold and lack of consumer recognition, then your argument is really moot because when consumers don't buy it, nothing can save it. Where the price is concerned, stand alone Blu ray players are not the future of this format, the PS3 is and in my eyes, the PS3 will crush the competition. (This comment will result in a reply that concerns my intelligence I bet :wink:)

The same goes for the PS3, but the PS3, in the minds of a couple hundred million people, is a sure fire hit.

However, Blu ray as a storage medium is definitely needed especially with a machine like the PS3 where next-gen gaming is concerned.

-Shenyu

[Darkfalz]

My knowledge in Blu ray and HD DVD movies is limited as I am not in with this field so I cannot effectively identify right from wrong while arguing with you in this thread.

...and that ends the debate.

[G_H_G]

...and that ends the debate.

And your an expert? Judging by the way that you've been owned by someone with limited knowledge on the subject I'd say otherwise.

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

...and that ends the debate.The debate is only over when you provide me with satisfactory sources (2 for each if you are courteous) to these two questions.


First, I'd like to see the number of HD DVD players that have been shipped and sold up till now.

Second, I'd like to see how many HD DVD movies have been sold.
I only said that your knowledge in this field is more extensive, not saying that I surrender. (I refuse to comment on your comprehension of English as that would stoop me to the level of your "learn to count" comments :wink:)

-Shenyu

[Darkfalz]

And your an expert? Judging by the way that you've been owned by someone with limited knowledge on the subject I'd say otherwise.

Prove this "ownage" you speak of. lol...

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

Prove this "ownage" you speak of. lol...Please reply... to my post... with sources.

-Shenyu

[G_H_G]

Prove this "ownage" you speak of. lol...

Its there for all to see. And why did you not respond to my previous post?

[Darkfalz]

Its there for all to see. And why did you not respond to my previous post?

If it's there, then prove it.

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

Darkfalz, focus, reply to my post!


First, I'd like to see the number of HD DVD players that have been shipped and sold up till now.

Second, I'd like to see how many HD DVD movies have been sold.

[Darkfalz]

Darkfalz, focus, reply to my post!

My debate with you is over. I'm now waiting for a response to this supposed "ownage" G_H_G speaks of... because so far, all I see is that you implied Blu-Ray had better movies/better movie selection, and I proved you wrong... that was my debate with you.

So I'm waiting on G_H_G.

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

My debate with you is over. I'm now waiting for a response to this supposed "ownage" G_H_G speaks of... because so far, all I see is that you implied Blu-Ray had better movies/better movie selection, and I proved you wrong... that was my debate with you.

So I'm waiting on G_H_G.In other words... you surrender?

-a very amused Shenyu

[G_H_G]

My debate with you is over. I'm now waiting for a response to this supposed "ownage" G_H_G speaks of... because so far, all I see is that you implied Blu-Ray had better movies/better movie selection, and I proved you wrong... that was my debate with you.

So I'm waiting on G_H_G.

I don't even need to show you anything other than this post of yours that I'm quoting now. You are the one that is backing down. I wonder why...

[Darkfalz]

In other words... you surrender?

-a very amused Shenyu

You lost.

I proved you wrong.

If you'd like to debate another related topic, let me know... but when it comes to the selection of movies on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, HD-DVD wins - and I proved that.

I've also acknowledged that this may change, but not in the forseable future.

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

There's more to just video quality and selection of movies in the case of HD DVD vs. Blu Ray. You may have won the battle in this argument concerning the


forseable future [however, as I have said, it would be interesting to see how the HD DVD movie line up fluctuates when the PS3 rides in on its chariot] The war of words concerning which format is better has just began. So


First, I'd like to see the number of HD DVD players that have been shipped and sold up till now.

Second, I'd like to see how many HD DVD movies have been sold.

P.S. what's with you and your obssession with winning internet arguments?

-Shenyu

[loki22]

In November, 10 million people around the world will be able to buy an HD-DVD player for 200$ (possibly less).

In November, anyone in the world can get a stand alone HD-DVD player for a little over 400$ (or less) that plays the highest quality consumer released movies in the world, and the best selection of said movies.

In November, anyone in the world can spend 500$ to get an Xbox core system & an HD-DVD drive that plays the highest quality consumer released movies in the world, and the best selection of said movies.

In November, there will only be one high definition format that uses next gen compression techniques, yeilding better quality in less storage - HD-DVD.

In November, there will be a very limited supply of those 500-600 dollar Blu-Ray players...

In November, HD-DVD's will still have far more movies out, far more on the way, and all those released or in the pipeline will yeild better quality than Blu-Ray movies.

In November, things might change... but they might not.

If you think that 10 million 360s will be sold by Nov, you're nuts. If you think that a significant number of 360 owners will buy the HD-DVD add-on, you're nuts.

The Toshiba 1080i HD-DVD player is not likely to be very attractive to the average consumer, even if it is $400 or less. It doesn't play HD-DVDs in their native resolution, it doesn't perform well for 720p displays, and it lacks standard DVD player functionality and convenience. In addition, neither Toshiba player is being produced in significant numbers. Also, there's the issue of HD-DVD having less support from content providers and much less support from CE manufacturers. I'm going to go ahead and bet that the general public will not be jumping into the format war with the Toshiba 1080i player.

As for the highest quality and best selection of movies, the general public isn't as willing as early adopters to invest in the highest quality, where price is an issue, and the best selction of movies is on DVD. I stand by my position that the general public will not be buying first gen stand alone players for either format, in significant numbers. However, PS3 purchases will counter any HD-DVD player purchases, by far. So, there will be a lot more people with BD players than HD-DVD players by the end of the year and on into the foreseeable future. That's a lot more people with the incentive to buy BD movies than HD-DVD movies and millions of people with the incentive to buy BD games, compared to zero with the incentive to buy HD-DVD games.

As for the core 360 and the HD-DVD add-on, I know you don't really think many people, who want to watch HD movies, will go that route. The 1080i Toshiba player will be cheaper than that. You don't know that the add-on will even work with the core system (you don't know if it needs a hard drive or not); you don't know what the PQ, audio quality, functionality, or convenience will be like; and it will not be HDCP compliant (unlike the Toshiba 1080i player and the 60GB PS3).

As for next-gen compression techniques, Panasonic started encoding movies on BDs with H.264, last month. Also, movies encoded with MPEG2 on 50GB BDs may be able to exceed the PQ of movies encoded with VC-1 or H.264 on 30GB HD-DVDs.

As for the "very limited" supply of $500 and $600 BD players, there will be a lot more PS3s at launch than there will be HD-DVD players, from HD-DVD's whole history up to that point.

HD-DVD does not have more movies on the way than BD. It has more movie releases announced in the near future. A lot of catalogue titles and new releases will never be released on HD-DVD, as the HD-DVD component manufacturer(s) fail(s) to match BD component production and sales.

As for all HD-DVD movies to be released yielding better quality than BD movies, that seems odd, since one BD title released already on SL BD with MPEG2 (50 First Dates) looks better than all but the best HD-DVD titles. And that's with being reviewed on the Samsung BD-P1000, with its noise reduction chip problem. You don't know what BDs will look like on other BD players, on 50GB BDs, encoded with H.264, encoded by different studios, encoded from different masters, etc.

Lastly, in November HD-DVD will still only have 30GB for writeable media and one company making HD-DVD components.

[Darkfalz]

If you think that 10 million 360s will be sold by Nov, you're nuts. If you think that a significant number of 360 owners will buy the HD-DVD add-on, you're nuts.

The Toshiba 1080i HD-DVD player is not likely to be very attractive to the average consumer, even if it is $400 or less. It doesn't play HD-DVDs in their native resolution, it doesn't perform well for 720p displays, and it lacks standard DVD player functionality and convenience. In addition, neither Toshiba player is being produced in significant numbers. Also, there's the issue of HD-DVD having less support from content providers and much less support from CE manufacturers. I'm going to go ahead and bet that the general public will not be jumping into the format war with the Toshiba 1080i player.

As for the highest quality and best selection of movies, the general public isn't as willing as early adopters to invest in the highest quality, where price is an issue, and the best selction of movies is on DVD. I stand by my position that the general public will not be buying first gen stand alone players for either format, in significant numbers. However, PS3 purchases will counter any HD-DVD player purchases, by far. So, there will be a lot more people with BD players than HD-DVD players by the end of the year and on into the foreseeable future. That's a lot more people with the incentive to buy BD movies than HD-DVD movies and millions of people with the incentive to buy BD games, compared to zero with the incentive to buy HD-DVD games.

As for the core 360 and the HD-DVD add-on, I know you don't really think many people, who want to watch HD movies, will go that route. The 1080i Toshiba player will be cheaper than that. You don't know that the add-on will even work with the core system (you don't know if it needs a hard drive or not); you don't know what the PQ, audio quality, functionality, or convenience will be like; and it will not be HDCP compliant (unlike the Toshiba 1080i player and the 60GB PS3).

As for next-gen compression techniques, Panasonic started encoding movies on BDs with H.264, last month. Also, movies encoded with MPEG2 on 50GB BDs may be able to exceed the PQ of movies encoded with VC-1 or H.264 on 30GB HD-DVDs.

As for the "very limited" supply of $500 and $600 BD players, there will be a lot more PS3s at launch than there will be HD-DVD players, from HD-DVD's whole history up to that point.

HD-DVD does not have more movies on the way than BD. It has more movie releases announced in the near future. A lot of catalogue titles and new releases will never be released on HD-DVD, as the HD-DVD component manufacturer(s) fail(s) to match BD component production and sales.

As for all HD-DVD movies to be released yielding better quality than BD movies, that seems odd, since one BD title released already on SL BD with MPEG2 (50 First Dates) looks better than all but the best HD-DVD titles. And that's with being reviewed on the Samsung BD-P1000, with its noise reduction chip problem. You don't know what BDs will look like on other BD players, on 50GB BDs, encoded with H.264, encoded by different studios, encoded from different masters, etc.

Lastly, in November HD-DVD will still only have 30GB for writeable media and one company making HD-DVD components.

*Yawn*

You're making tons of speculative comments, assumptions, and arguments that have been repeated 100 times in these forums.

We can inconclusively debate opinions about what *will* possibly, maybe, or likely happen all day... or we can objectively look at the facts, and make solid, clear conslusions based on actual facts...

I prefer the latter... and here are some of those conclusions:

1. Blu-Ray beats HD-DVD in terms of what's 'possible' on it
2. HD-DVD beats Blu-Ray in video quality and audio quality (subject to change)
3. HD-DVD beats Blu-Ray in movie selection
4. HD-DVD beats Blu-Ray in movies coming out
5. HD-DVD has a more user friendly name
6. HD-DVD cost of entry is half what the cost of entry is for Blu-Ray
7. Several Blu-Ray movies that were supposed to be dual layer have been pushed back *again*, potentially confirming the difficulties speculated in manufacturing DL movies.

and finally...

8. Neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray offer a compelling upgrade in quality or features to the masses when compared to good ol' standard grade DVD's. It's unlikely either will ever catch on like DVD's did, and many industry analysts predict that both high definition movie formats have already lost

Until we get more facts, HD-DVD's are the better product (compared to Blu-Ray) for high definition movies, but standard DVD's still (and will for years to come) are the most attractive movie solution to the masses.

[cobrasteve]

True or False:

1. HD-DVD's have a bigger selection of movies than Blu-Ray, more movies on the way than Blu-Ray, and more of the highest rated movies than Blu-Ray.

2. HD-DVD's offer better sound quality and video quality than any Blu-Ray movie on the market.

3. HD-DVD's cost of entry is less than Blu-Ray's cost of entry.

Let's see your answers...

Here, I'll take a shot.

1. First tell me if you're counting all the HD-DVD releases that will later be released on Blu-ray. Only one studio is exclusively publishing in HD-DVD AFAIK.

2. Ask me again when LotR comes out on Blu-ray. If the quality of that is bad, I won't be a happy camper. If such a thing happened, I would dog Warner until they got me an acceptable copy. I have 0% expectation of this happening.

3. You could probably argue this overall, considering the standalone unit price. For consumers who are into gaming, the price is the same, with PS3 the more efficient choice with other benefits.
Xbox base=$300 + HD-DVD add-on=$200 =$500 total
PS3 base=$500 (with HDD)

[Kingofallpie]

Here, I'll take a shot.

1. First tell me if you're counting all the HD-DVD releases that will later be released on Blu-ray. Only one studio is exclusively publishing in HD-DVD AFAIK.

2. Ask me again when LotR comes out on Blu-ray. If the quality of that is bad, I won't be a happy camper. If such a thing happened, I would dog Warner until they got me an acceptable copy. I have 0% expectation of this happening.

3. You could probably argue this overall, considering the standalone unit price. For consumers who are into gaming, the price is the same, with PS3 the more efficient choice with other benefits.
Xbox base=$300 + HD-DVD add-on=$200 =$500 total
PS3 base=$500 (with HDD)

I would be prepared to bet that the Toshiba player will be about $425 by Christmas, just so they can still say "The Cheapest".

[loki22]

*Yawn*

You're making tons of speculative comments, assumptions, and arguments that have been repeated 100 times in these forums.

We can inconclusively debate opinions about what *will* possibly, maybe, or likely happen all day... or we can objectively look at the facts, and make solid, clear conslusions based on actual facts...

I prefer the latter... and here are some of those conclusions:

1. Blu-Ray beats HD-DVD in terms of what's 'possible' on it
2. HD-DVD beats Blu-Ray in video quality and audio quality (subject to change)
3. HD-DVD beats Blu-Ray in movie selection
4. HD-DVD beats Blu-Ray in movies coming out
5. HD-DVD has a more user friendly name
6. HD-DVD cost of entry is half what the cost of entry is for Blu-Ray
7. Several Blu-Ray movies that were supposed to be dual layer have been pushed back *again*, potentially confirming the difficulties speculated in manufacturing DL movies.

and finally...

8. Neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray offer a compelling upgrade in quality or features to the masses when compared to good ol' standard grade DVD's. It's unlikely either will ever catch on like DVD's did, and many industry analysts predict that both high definition movie formats have already lost

Until we get more facts, HD-DVD's are the better product (compared to Blu-Ray) for high definition movies, but standard DVD's still (and will for years to come) are the most attractive movie solution to the masses.


In other words, only your speculative arguments are valid. Or, once refuted, you dismiss the refutation as being "speculative." Then, of course, your biased conception of the present is the only conception that's valid. Why don't you answer the question about how many HD-DVD players and HD-DVD titles have been sold, to date? I mean, since the present is so important and any comment about the future, that doesn't fit your conceptio of the future, is invalid.

I hope that any bystanders can see that once again you don't address issues when your challenged. Instead, you just post another list of "facts."

[cobrasteve]

8. Neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray offer a compelling upgrade in quality or features to the masses when compared to good ol' standard grade DVD's. It's unlikely either will ever catch on like DVD's did, and many industry analysts predict that both high definition movie formats have already lost

Until we get more facts, HD-DVD's are the better product (compared to Blu-Ray) for high definition movies, but standard DVD's still (and will for years to come) are the most attractive movie solution to the masses.

Whoa, hold on there partner. Do you own an HDTV? I can assure you there is a world of difference. And are you not aware that television broadcasts are all moving to HD? There will always be a strata of who is interested in what technology, but HD will eventually become the standard. Discs will follow television. The general public is reluctant to adopt it, but it is coming.

[Darkfalz]

In other words, only your speculative arguments are valid.

No. In other words, my arguments are mostly simply stating the facts at hand, and steering clear of speculation. I haven't speculated *ever* that I think Blu-Ray will fail. I've merely suggested that HD-DVD is the clear winner right now - and that's provable/backed up with other industry opinions/facts/and data.

I haven't tried to debate my speculative opinions with others, only my opinions based on the present.


Or, once refuted, you dismiss the refutation as being "speculative."

You didn't refute my argument. You suggested that things will change this November, and I agree. To speculate as to *how* they will change isn't something I want to get into... as it's fairly pointless.


Then, of course, your biased conception of the present is the only conception that's valid.

Not true. But if that's what you want to believe, go for it pal.


Why don't you answer the question about how many HD-DVD players and HD-DVD titles have been sold, to date?

Why doesn't he look it up? Shouldn't be too hard to find...


I mean, since the present is so important and any comment about the future, that doesn't fit your conceptio of the future, is invalid.

Again, if he wants to debate another topic (installed base, who will have more units in consumers house holds by EOCY, etc) - that's fine - but it was irrelivant to the topic we were debating (movie selection).

He made a false statement. I proved that false statement wrong. If you, he, or anyone else would like to debate some other Blu-Ray related topic, I'm game... but to try and shift the focus of a conversation because one's original statement was proven wrong makes this thread unnecessarily jumbled, and eceedingly inconclusive.

I prefer to stick to a topic, an debate it until an answer is relatively clear...

But who knows... maybe that's not how Sony fans work, I don't know... ;-)


I hope that any bystanders can see that once again you don't address issues when your challenged. Instead, you just post another list of "facts."

I hope that bystanders can see the truth... which is most certainly not what you're posting.

[cobrasteve]

I prefer to stick to a topic, an debate it until an answer is relatively clear...

You mean you stick to a topic you prefer, and you strip it of context so that it's nothing more than propaganda.

[Darkfalz]

Whoa, hold on there partner. Do you own an HDTV? I can assure you there is a world of difference. And are you not aware that television broadcasts are all moving to HD? There will always be a strata of who is interested in what technology, but HD will eventually become the standard. Discs will follow television. The general public is reluctant to adopt it, but it is coming.

I have TWO HDTV's. I'm fully aware of the picture quality increase, and the difference HD makes.

I'm fully aware of the transitions television broadcasts are making, the timeline in which they are doing so.

I am not implying or debating that high definition televisions aren't on the rise, or that they will eventually eclipse standard definition televions. Furthermore, I'm not arguing that high definition movies won't start gaining some ground... but I am arguing this:

The jump from VHS to DVD was far more dramatic than the jump from DVD to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, and the enhancements could be enjoyed on any TV, with any sound system. Blu-Ray/HD-DVD is a different story... and one that takes allot more time and energy to explain to the masses, especially being that there are competing formats. This equates to a sticky mess of early adopters fighting for one side or the other, and the masses being *very* confused... therefore reluctant to make the upgrade.

With the switch from DVD to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, no one with a standard definition TV can see much of a difference, if any. No one with a 1080i or 720p TV will get the fullness out of the new technology. Those of us who have HDTV's that don't support HDMI lost big time for being early adopters - as I'll have to purchase yet ANOTHER HDTV when the security is enforced.

Finally, even those who have a 1080p HDTV with HDMI might not want the new format, or even be able to tell much of a difference. Even if my HDTV's supported 1080p - I know that I wouldn't want either format. I don't want to invest in *another* new format. I'm already streaming HD content off my PC in my office into my living room and bedroom today. If Blu-Ray or HD-DVD actually come out with some movie (or trilogy) that I can't be without - I can consider buying it then... when the prices have dropped... but I'll still just copy the movie to my PC, so I can stream it anytime, anywhere without having to worry about damaging the disk... but seriously, do I want to be able to see the texture of the make-up the actors are wearing? With standard DVD's I can already see more than enough detail... and I'm getting that today.

I can already see the strings that hold up Superman in the original 'Superman' motion picture. I can already see the adundance of lipstick and eyeliner on Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible... I already have gorgeous, clear audio... and many would consider me to be quite the anal early adopter... so if there are people like me out there who don't care much... what does that say about the millions of others who are far *less* interested in things like 1080p, storage capacity, movie reviews, etc?

At the end of the day, casual consumers really don't care about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD as much as people here would like to think. In research that we've done, it's painfully obvious that most people can't tell the difference between a DVD movie upscaled to 1080i/p from a movie that's native resolution is 1080p, even though to many of us - the difference is extremely obvious.

Ayway, I stand by what I said... there isn't enough incentive to move away from DVD right now... but any incentive that is there is coming from what HD-DVD's are delivering now - not what Blu-Ray promises in the future.

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

For anyone who is tired of arguing with Darkfalz, please refer to here (http://ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=20018&page=7)

If you don't feel like looking through 5-6 pages, I'll sum it up.

Darkfalz says that Blu Ray isn't needed for games and that DVD9 is enough. Various members come in and immediately destroys his argument. Darkfalz refuses to reply to the posts that factually dismiss his points and leaves.

After a couple of pages and the original posts (that destroyed his argument) were lost, he came back again... with the SAME argument. Eventually, people got tired of him arguing the same point over and over and the thread was locked.

I for one, will dismiss his points as invalid until he provides sources for these questions:


First, I'd like to see the number of HD DVD players that have been shipped and sold up till now.

Second, I'd like to see how many HD DVD movies have been sold.

To serve as a warning, if everyone continues to argue with him, this thread will be locked. He is ALREADY ignoring my posts again because he has no sources that back his argument that HD DVD is better. So I suggest that everyone ignore him until a better and more rational argument is provided.

As for me, I'm going to go read Ebony Seraphim's amazing PS3 hardware: Explained posts and come back with teh more knowledge! :twisted:

-Shenyu

[Darkfalz]

For anyone who is tired of arguing with Darkfalz, please refer to here (http://ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=20018&page=7)

If you don't feel like looking through 5-6 pages, I'll sum it up.

Darkfalz says that Blu Ray isn't needed for games and that DVD9 is enough. Various members come in and immediately destroys his argument. Darkfalz refuses to reply to the posts that factually dismiss his points and leaves.

After a couple of pages and the original posts (that destroyed his argument) were lost, he came back again... with the SAME argument. Eventually, people got tired of him arguing the same point over and over and the thread was locked.

I for one, will dismiss his points as invalid until he provides sources for these questions:


To serve as a warning, if everyone continues to argue with him, this thread will be locked. He is ALREADY ignoring my posts again because he has no sources that back his argument that HD DVD is better. So I suggest that everyone ignore him until a better and more rational argument is provided.

-Shenyu

For anyone who wants to have a reasonable debate, post your thoughts, and we'll discuss them... and yes, I encourage everyone to read what was spoken in that thread little Panda linked to. Allot could be learned by reading up. ;-)

It's as simple as that.

You posted a false statement about Blu-Ray having a better selection, and Blu-Ray having better movies on the horizon. While "better" is always subjective, HD-DVD was proven to have more titles available now that are consistently rated higher than those on Blu-Ray, and HD-DVD has more movies coming out than Blu-Ray has.

Therefore, that debate is over. My statements were correct, and backed with facts/sources. Yours was not.

If you, or anyone else would like to debate another related topic, I'm game... ;-)

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

For anyone who wants to have a reasonable debate, post your thoughts, and we'll discuss themOkay fine, let's start by discussing this:

First, I'd like to see the number of HD DVD players that have been shipped and sold up till now.

Second, I'd like to see how many HD DVD movies have been sold.Also, if you could dig up a few sources for the amount of BD players and movies sold, that would help to.


My statements were correct, and backed with facts/sources. Yours was not....

[not even going to dignify that with an answer (Oxymoron)]

-Shenyu

[Darkfalz]

Okay fine, let's start by discussing this:
Also, if you could dig up a few sources for the amount of BD players and movies sold, that would help to.

This is not a debate. It's you asking a question, and being too lazy to look up the information yourself. If you have an actual topic/theory like "Blu-Ray has a better chance of succeeding because early numbers indicate slow adoption of next-gen players" - that's fine... and we'll debate it... but if you have questions you want answered, that's what google is for, not a forum.

...


[not even going to dignify that with an answer (Oxymoron)]

-Shenyu

If you won't, I'll prove it yet again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
========Panda Bear Shenyu Gets OWNED==========

...if you want to watch high quality movies that no one knows about, go ahead. In the mean time, I'll watch my Spiderman 2 on Blu ray thank you.

Implication: The movies on HD-DVD aren't as 'well known'.


That's right. There are significantly more movies on Blu Ray, more on the way, and more of the movies people know about. Blu Ray has *by far* more high profile movies available than HD DVD... it's not even funny.

Items stated as fact:
1) There are more movies on Blu-Ray than HD-DVD
2) There are more movies on the way for Blu-Ray than HD-DVD
3) The movies that exist now, and that are coming are 'higher profile'/'more well known'

REAL facts that prove your statements FALSE:
1) There are nearly double the amount of HD-DVD's out as Blu-Ray (40+ compared to 20+)
2) There are more than 20% more HD-DVD movies coming to market than there are Blu-Ray announced titles coming to market
3) The average IMDB rating for HD-DVD movies is 6.8 compared to Blu-Ray's 6.2
4) There are more Oscar winning movies on HD-DVD than Blu-Ray

Conclusion:
You were owned. Majorly, and completely owned. You were wrong, and stated non-factual information, and I proved that.

Sources:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Blu-ray_releases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HD_DVD_releases
http://imdb.com/

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

You were owned. Majorly, and completely owned. You were wrong, and stated non-factual information, and I proved that.uhh... better go check your superiority complex and your manners young man. What Shenyu said before was debating the validty of Blu ray as a next-gen format. If you've read the posts, you would have known.

Blu Ray as a next-gen format is more potentious than HD DVD. All the info that you have thrown out count for almost nothing in this case as both formats are in the early stages of their release.

No competition

Right now, even without doing research, I can gamble by saying that neither HD DVD or Blu ray have penetrated to a userbase of larger than 1 million combined. This leads me to conclude that either format is the clear winner at this point as you are trying to convince people.

Further down the road, we see PS3. It will be the work horse of Blu ray, helping to deliver the player into over 10 million homes by the end of 2007 and thus delivering a significant install base into consumer homes.

With more players in homes, it is only natural that more and more movies are released for Blu Ray.

You play on the fact that HD DVD has 40 more titles in its future and present lineup than Blu ray, marking it as having 140+ titles right now.

But if you look at the big picture, 200 titles for a format is very little compared to the total of 42,500 RELEASED titles available for DVD, that is about 300 times the amount of HD DVD or Blu ray titles at this point. So really, saying that HD DVD is going to win because it has 140 titles (announced) in it's lineup is like saying you are going to live forever without food after stuffing yourself on Thanksgiving.

Where both titles must shine is in the near future.

Near Future

In the near future, I see PS3, the most powerful brand name (Playstation) in home electronics being available to consumers worldwide during Holiday shopping season.

I also see the HD DVD add on for the 360.

Now, if we look at these two different approaches, it is clear that the HD DVD add on will not sell well to the population that owns an Xbox360. For one thing, it is an add on to a game machine that does not play games. It also connects via USB, which is speculated to offset the potential of HD content.

The PS3 however, is highly anticipated and will fly off the shelves in all three continents. There could even be 3 million Blu Ray players in homes around the world before 2007.

Consumer Friendly?

You point out that Blu Ray players are much more expensive than HD DVD players. But HD DVD stand alone players cost 1000 dollars upon release, I can only speculate that it costs around 400-600 dollars at this point. Consumers will not shell out 500 dollars for a format that have not been proven. They will not buy HD DVD in drones and that is where the PS3, with it's Blu ray capabilities will familiarize consumers with this next-gen format.

You also play on the fact that Blu Ray has less titles at this point, but that is due to the manufacturing process for the format in its early stages. Once the manufacturing cost is brought close to HD DVD, more and more movies will undoubtedly be released.

Also, if you look at this tidbit:


A $150 million dollar ad campaign is being planned for the HD DVD. The ad campaign is being handled by the same company who did the "Got milk? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Got_milk%3F)" ad. So far Hd dvd has sold 33% more players then blu ray but blu ray's revenue is 42% higher.Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD)

It shows that even though you try and say that HD DVD is winning, they are not, in fact, the two formats are shoulder to shoulder in competition even though HD DVD has a superior lineup of titles at this point.

Support

Corporate support is a key player in this format war. And the direct way for Sony to reach consumers is through commercials. I have just seen an ad for the movie RV on television moments ago, and afterwards, is said: "get it on DVD and Blu ray disc." I have also seen ads for Blu ray in Future Shop. If I weren't paying attention, I wouldn't even have known that HD DVD existed.

Conclusion

I conclude that either Blu ray or HD DVD is the clear winner, and all of the hardwork that went into your posts (Darkfalz) prove one thing: you need to look further than 2 weeks down the road in the case of a multi billion dollar format war. Especially when a Juggernaut like the PS3 is involved.


Source:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060609.gtdvdjun9/BNStory/Technology/TechReviews

~Panda Bear

[MiThRaZoR]

REAL facts that prove your statements FALSE:
1) There are nearly double the amount of HD-DVD's out as Blu-Ray (40+ compared to 20+)
2) There are more than 20% more HD-DVD movies coming to market than there are Blu-Ray announced titles coming to market
3) The average IMDB rating for HD-DVD movies is 6.8 compared to Blu-Ray's 6.2
4) There are more Oscar winning movies on HD-DVD than Blu-Ray

Conclusion:
You were owned. Majorly, and completely owned. You were wrong, and stated non-factual information, and I proved that.

Sources:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Blu-ray_releases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HD_DVD_releases
http://imdb.com/

Just to let you know, most of the movies announced for HD-DVD by Warner, Paramount, etc. are also announced for Blu-Ray. And one reason I don't trust that list for HD-DVD is because it says ATL (2004).

So that throws your "real" facts out the window. And the list on Hi-Def Digest, both formats are coming out with 34 movies that are confirmed.

You may be backing it with sources, but what you've been saying is wrong. Both are coming out with the same amount of movies. They're the same amount of everything. It's just up to the consumer.

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

Just to let you know, most of the movies announced for HD-DVD by Warner, Paramount, etc. are also announced for Blu-Ray. And one reason I don't trust that list for HD-DVD is because it says ATL (2004).

So that throws your "real" facts out the window. And the list on Hi-Def Digest, both formats are coming out with 34 movies that are confirmed.

You may be backing it with sources, but what you've been saying is wrong. Both are coming out with the same amount of movies. They're the same amount of everything. It's just up to the consumer.That's not the point, those information are partially/mostly correct. We are past the point where arguing over the validty of a source is... valid.

~ Panda Bear

[Darkfalz]

uhh... better go check your superiority complex and your manners young man. What Shenyu said before was debating the validty of Blu ray as a next-gen format. If you've read the posts, you would have known.

Blu Ray as a next-gen format is more potentious than HD DVD. All the info that you have thrown out count for almost nothing in this case as both formats are in the early stages of their release.

No competition

Right now, even without doing research, I can gamble by saying that neither HD DVD or Blu ray have penetrated to a userbase of larger than 1 million combined. This leads me to comclude that either format is the clear winner at this point as you are trying to convince people.

Further down the road, we see PS3. It will be the work horse of Blu ray, helping to deliver the player into over 10 million homes by the end of 2007 and thus delivering a significant install base into consumer homes.

With more players in homes, it is only natural that more and more movies are released for Blu Ray.

You play on the fact that HD DVD has 40 more titles in its future and present lineup than Blu ray, marking it as having 140+ titles right now.

But if you look at the big picture, 200 titles for a format is very little compared to the total of 42,500 titles available for DVD, that is about 300 times the amount of HD DVD or Blu ray titles at this point. So really, saying that HD DVD is going to win because it has 140 titles in it's lineup is like saying you are going to live forever without food after stuffing yourself on Thanksgiving.

Where both titles must shine is in the near future.

Near Future

In the near future, I see PS3, the most powerful brand name in home electronics being available to consumers worldwide during Holiday shopping season.

I also see the HD DVD add on for the 360.

Now, if we look at these two different approaches, it is clear that the HD DVD addon will not sell well to the population that owns an Xbox360. For one thing, it is an add on to a game machine that does not play games. It also connects via USB, which is speculated to offset the potential of HD content.

The PS3 however, is highly anticipated and will fly off the shelves in all three continents. There could even be 3 million Blu Ray players in homes around the world before 2007.

Consumer Friendly?

You point out that Blu Ray players are much expensive than HD DVD players. But HD DVD stand alone players cost 1000 dollars upon release, I can only speculate that it costs around 400-600 dollars at this point. Consumers will not shell out 500 dollars for a format that have not been proven. They will not buy HD DVD in drones and that is where the PS3, with it's Blu ray capabilities will familiarize consumers with this next-gen format.



You also play on the fact that Blu Ray has less titles at this point, but that is due to the manufacturing process for the format in its early stages. Once the cost is brought close to HD DVD, more and more movies will undoubtedly be released.

Also, if you look at this tidbit:

Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD)

It shows that even though you try and say that HD DVD is winning, they are not, in fact, the two formats are shoulder to shoulder in competition even though HD DVD has a superior lineup of titles at this point.

Support

Corporate support is a key player in this format war. And the direct way for Sony to reach consumers is through commercials. I have just seen an ad for the movie RV on television moments ago, and afterwards, is said: "get it on DVD and Blu ray disc." I have also seen ads for Blu ray in Future Shop. If I weren't paying attention, I wouldn't even have known that HD DVD existed.

Conclusion

I conclude that either Blu ray or HD DVD is the clear winner, and all of the hardwork that went into your posts (Darkfalz) prove one thing: you need to look further than 2 weeks down the road in the case of a multi billion dollar format war. Especially when a Juggernaut like the PS3 is involved.


Source:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060609.gtdvdjun9/BNStory/Technology/TechReviews

~Panda Bear

That was a very well thought out, excellent post with plenty of great facts that supported your opinions. Nicely done. :-)

I agree with the vast majority of your post. All I've ever argued is that the best product on the shelves now is HD-DVD. As you've seen, I've backed that up thoroughly. As your conclusion implies, the war between blu-Ray and HD-DVD is far from over and to declare victor (or assume) one will win out over the other at this early stage is premature...

Bottom Line:
1) Blu-Ray has potential to become a better format than HD-DVD, and the PS3 is a key driving element to the potential success of Blu-Ray.
2) HD-DVD is the better product today, and will continue to yeild better quality video/audio for the rest of this calendar year, and possibly more.

One thing I'd like to add, though: I don't believe either will ever will see the adoption or mass saturation DVD enjoys now... so really, neither will ever "win"... but I guess it depends on what your definition of "win" is...

[Panda Bear Shenyu]

That was a very well thought out, excellent post with plenty of great facts that supported your opinions. Nicely done. :-)

I agree with the vast majority of your post. All I've ever argued is that the best product on the shelves now is HD-DVD. As you've seen, I've backed that up thoroughly. As your conclusion implies, the war between blu-Ray and HD-DVD is far from over and to declare victor (or assume) one will win out over the other at this early stage is premature...

Bottom Line:
1) Blu-Ray has potential to become a better format than HD-DVD, and the PS3 is a key driving element to the potential success of Blu-Ray.
2) HD-DVD is the better product today, and will continue to yeild better quality video/audio for the rest of this calendar year, and possibly more.

One thing I'd like to add, though: I don't believe either will ever will see the adoption or mass saturation DVD enjoys now... so really, neither will ever "win"... but I guess it depends on what your definition of "win" is...It is good to see that we can put an end to this epic discussion on good terms. You also provide some great facts, and I'm glad that we can finally agree on the state of the format war as of now.

~ Panda Bear

[Tetsu]

Well, now that some of us have settled down, I think I'll actually offer some answers to the people asking questions about the two formats. <br />
...

[REFLEX]

I honestly think Blu ray will come out on top, that doesnt mean it will "win" against DVD though! I think the mass consumer is not ready for the next step....

This problem (if you can call it that) goes all the way back past any of our lives (ask your parents!) when Mono sound got replaced with STEREO!, it was a huge deal..... eventually cassettes took over , lots of people were outraged and refused to buy into it. Then things like CDs, VHS, DVD.... surround sound, HDTV... eventually it all catches on as generations go on with or without it.. .eventually it adds up.

It will defenitly take a while for these formats to catch hold onto the market... who knows how long... a while for sure.

[loki22]

No. In other words, my arguments are mostly simply stating the facts at hand, and steering clear of speculation. I haven't speculated *ever* that I think Blu-Ray will fail. I've merely suggested that HD-DVD is the clear winner right now - and that's provable/backed up with other industry opinions/facts/and data.

I haven't tried to debate my speculative opinions with others, only my opinions based on the present.



You didn't refute my argument. You suggested that things will change this November, and I agree. To speculate as to *how* they will change isn't something I want to get into... as it's fairly pointless.



Not true. But if that's what you want to believe, go for it pal.



Why doesn't he look it up? Shouldn't be too hard to find...



Again, if he wants to debate another topic (installed base, who will have more units in consumers house holds by EOCY, etc) - that's fine - but it was irrelivant to the topic we were debating (movie selection).

He made a false statement. I proved that false statement wrong. If you, he, or anyone else would like to debate some other Blu-Ray related topic, I'm game... but to try and shift the focus of a conversation because one's original statement was proven wrong makes this thread unnecessarily jumbled, and eceedingly inconclusive.

I prefer to stick to a topic, an debate it until an answer is relatively clear...

But who knows... maybe that's not how Sony fans work, I don't know... ;-)



I hope that bystanders can see the truth... which is most certainly not what you're posting.

It's been demonstrated time and time again that you only present certain "facts" and certain "expert opinions" of certain "industry insiders" to try to paint a certain picture of the staus quo. You continually overlook the flaws in the two Toshiba players and the flaws in some of the HD-DVD titles released so far. You also dismissed the fact that HD-DVD only offers 30GB for writeable media, while BD offers 50GB, right now, with up to 200GB in the future. You also won't address the lack of inclination or the inability of Toshiba to produce a significant number of HD-DVD players. You also won't address the number of HD-DVD players and titles sold so far.

Why? Because you won't address any issue or "fact" which doesn't fit your conception of the immediate present or your conception of the future. Don't act like your whole propaganda campaign doesn't imply anything about the future. You've made several claims of "facts" about the future. Just yesterday, you had a list of "facts" that will be in effect in November. I thought it was August, right now. You've made claims about BD only being able to match HD-DVD in quality and that BD will never be able to exceed the quality of HD-DVD (even with different players, 50GB discs, different codecs, different studios encoding, etc.) You've claimed that the 360 HD-DVD add-on will have better PQ than the two Toshiba stand alone players, that it will play 1080p movies in 1080p, and that it will support firmware updates.

In addition, you project the flaws of the Samsung BD-P1000 and the BD titles released so far (which were all reviewed on the BD-P1000 and you dismissed the positive review of 50 First Dates) to the format, BD, as a whole. It's been explained to you several times that the flaws with that player and those titles are flaws with that particular player and those particular titles. The flaws are not functions of the format. The same goes with the flaws of the two Toshiba players and some of the HD-DVD titles released so far. But still, you make broad generalizations about the formats, instead applying conclusions, drawn for the players and titles released so far, where they belong -- to the particular players and titles released so far.

And to what end? Hardly anyone on this forum is planning on buying a first-gen stand alone player this year. You aren't informing or protecting anyone. Then you go on to suggest that both fomats could fail and back it up with anonymous "analysts." I've stated before that you don't really care about HD-DVD. You've demonstrated a clear bias in favor of MS and the 360 and against Sony and the PS3, in some of your previous posts. When it comes down to it, you're only slamming BD to try to discourage people on the fence from buying a PS3.

As for my points about the future, they won't truly refute your positions until they actually occur. However, because my positions are better supported by fact and reason, you know that your positions are untenable. As such, you dismissed them as being "speculative," even though they were in response to your speculations about the state of affairs in November.

As for not addressing the number of HD-DVD players and titles shipped and sold so far, you've just demonstrated that you aren't really interested in presenting an objective characterization of the present. You know that the number of HD-DVD titles available now is meaningless if relatively few HD-DVD players are being produced and hardly anyone has bought one. But you aren't interested in presenting "facts" in any meaningful context. Acting like the discussion is solely focused on the number of HD-DVD titles available is completely disingenuous, as your own posts discuss the quality of players, titles, and the formats, as a whole, as well as the viablity of the formats, as a whole.

So again, you've shown your hand. You completely ignore or selectively quote posts which challenge you, point for point, probably in the hope that some people will not read the original post. Most of the people who've bee on this forum regularly for the past month ignore you (even 360 owners), because your posts aren't worthy of respect. I've ignored you for a while, but I will continue to put your posts in their proper context every so often, so you cannot mislead new users without being challenged.

[midgarmako]

The Blu-Ray is going to awsome IMO, it serves the highest quality in general DVD, gaming and TV, I personally think its worth the money. The official site is a good place to go if you want to learn more.

[cobrasteve]

The jump from VHS to DVD was far more dramatic than the jump from DVD to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, and the enhancements could be enjoyed on any TV, with any sound system. Blu-Ray/HD-DVD is a different story... and one that takes allot more time and energy to explain to the masses, especially being that there are competing formats. This equates to a sticky mess of early adopters fighting for one side or the other, and the masses being *very* confused... therefore reluctant to make the upgrade.

Yes, I agree the adoption of HD will be slow. I don't think this is due so much to "understanding" it, but affording it. Anybody can look at an HD versus an SD image and see the difference. There are good small HDTVs that are affordable for most people, but that's still an extra expense, I would expect most people would still prefer to stick to their CRT that's twice the size, and the smaller a screen is the less advantage there is in HD.

But HD will continue to become more common and the price will come down to the point where the average consumer will get an HD signal into their house for no extra cost. And then when it comes time to buy a new TV, an HDTV won't be prohibitively expensive. At that time, an HD disc player won't be prohibitively expensive either, and the format battle will be over. All the while, those who are interested in "home theater" (which are quite a few) will be buying up HD products.


No one with a 1080i or 720p TV will get the fullness out of the new technology.

Now that's just silly. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1080p is a 10, 1080i is a 9, and SD is a 1. 9/10 is not a waste.


Finally, even those who have a 1080p HDTV with HDMI might not want the new format, or even be able to tell much of a difference. Even if my HDTV's supported 1080p - I know that I wouldn't want either format. I don't want to invest in *another* new format.

You've contradicted the previous statement. If 1080p isn't much different from 1080i, then 1080i is the more sensible choice. 1080p isn't a "new" format. It's higher resolution. Just because this year's model of a car has a new feature doesn't mean you can't drive last year's model or that the experience is lessened. I don't see anything wrong with a strata of resolutions. You can tap in somewhere on the scale. There's always going to be something better next year.


but seriously, do I want to be able to see the texture of the make-up the actors are wearing? With standard DVD's I can already see more than enough detail... and I'm getting that today.

This is the argument that HD-DVD and 360 fans keep making that just pisses me off. If "standard x" is "good enough", then go back and play kick-the-can and forget about all the trouble with technology. Go ahead and tap into the scale where you want, but quit bitching about the higher rungs.

My primary movie interest is The Lord of the Rings. I don't have many DVDs, and I don't plan to have many Blu-rays or HD-DVDs, but this will be one of them. One of the amazing aspects of these movies is the detail of the costumes and the props. When I saw these broadcast in HD, it opened up a whole new level of detail. That's what HD is all about. There's a reason why movie theaters are big business. People like to have a vivid experience. The more vivid you can get in general, the better, I say.


At the end of the day, casual consumers really don't care about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD as much as people here would like to think. In research that we've done, it's painfully obvious that most people can't tell the difference between a DVD movie upscaled to 1080i/p from a movie that's native resolution is 1080p, even though to many of us - the difference is extremely obvious.

Maybe the first step in your test cases should be an eye test. I seriously doubt most people aren't interested in HD because they can't see the difference.


Ayway, I stand by what I said... there isn't enough incentive to move away from DVD right now... but any incentive that is there is coming from what HD-DVD's are delivering now - not what Blu-Ray promises in the future.

Right now, no. If I had to make a decision based on today only, I would buy a 360 and get the HD-DVD accessory. PS3 doesn't exist, and it never will because I'm not considering the future. The point you make here, which is the same point you've always been making, is basically pointless. HD-DVD is better right now. You can't compare it to Blu-ray without considering the future, because Blu-ray is by definition a developing technology, and one that will be slower to get up to speed than HD-DVD.

I personally feel it would not be a gamble to pre-order a PS3 as both a gaming platform and for HD movies. This is simply based on the specs of Blu-ray, understanding it is in the very beginning of a long product cycle, and having no reason to doubt that Sony will make the PS3 a quality player, the 50GB+ discs will be available by then or shortly after, the studios will take full advantage of the disc capabilities, and they won't bail on the format because they also understand it is a developing technology.

[cobrasteve]

Darkfalz says that Blu Ray isn't needed for games and that DVD9 is enough. Various members come in and immediately destroys his argument. Darkfalz refuses to reply to the posts that factually dismiss his points and leaves.

What the question should be is "is Blu-ray worth the extra cost". That's not a terribly easy question to answer.

Blu-ray can certainly be used for full-HD cutscenes. Darkfalz has claimed that DVD9 can do this, and can hold a whole 1080p HD movie, but I think he's misapplying information to come to that conclusion. The capacity of Blu-ray is useful if developers want to add anything to a game that takes up disc space. All games take up disc space, so this is certainly a useable feature.

The balance is between "it has extra capability" and "how much will the extra capability be used". There's no doubt that Blu-ray provides extra capability to developers. How much developers take advantage of that remains to be seen. Darkfalz and others claim that Sony is overshooting and that the extra cost of Blu-ray won't be capitalized on in terms of gaming.

I personally don't mind the extra cost because I want Blu-ray for HD movies. Therefore, I prefer that the extra capability be there for games as well. The average gamer is looking at the PS3 primarily as a gaming machine. For them, $500 to $600 is a lot of money, and the advantage of Blu-ray is questionable. If you're not going to use the Blu-ray for movies, I personally think it's too expensive.

That's not to say that $400 for an HDD 360 is cheap. It's also expensive, and an extra $100 for Blu-ray is actually not bad in my opinion. The problem is that 360 already pushes the gaming console budget beyond the $300 target, and then PS3 pushes it another $100 to $200 higher. Another problem is that Sony is already taking a $200 loss per console just to get the price within range. If PS3 was quoted as $700 and $800, then you'd really hear some bitching and you'd likely be bitching too.

I'm not sure how far Sony can afford to go, taking a $200 loss for every console sold. Will they drop the price down the road and keep taking a loss, or will they keep the price the same and pocket any drops in the cost to manufacture? Probably the former because I believe they will lose market share until the price drops.

The bottom line is the PS3 is an HD machine. DVD9 could possibly be useable, but it would become a serious limitation. There's a reason why DVD9 is not one of the competitors in HD disc formats. Since PS3 is an HD machine, it will have an HD drive. The decision by Sony to go full-HD has resulted in a more capable console, but also a much more expensive one. The added capability is more on the side of movies than gaming. I think the PS3 will be a boon for Blu-ray and HD, but not so much for gaming. Not that it won't be an awesome gaming machine, but it won't dominate the market because of the price.

[cobrasteve]

This is not a debate. It's you asking a question, and being too lazy to look up the information yourself.

Actually, there is a debate. You've claimed that HD-DVD will have more future releases than Blu-ray, but you're counting selective data. For one, you're not counting the HD-DVD releases that will also be released on Blu-ray. You also need the data that Panda is requesting you deliver in order to prove such a statement.

Your false data is not made a fact because you insist someone else has to do the legwork you missed. But what is even the point? Is there not only one studio that exclusively supports HD-DVD? That would suggest as a general rule there will eventually be more Blu-ray releases.

[loki22]

That was a very well thought out, excellent post with plenty of great facts that supported your opinions. Nicely done. :-)

I agree with the vast majority of your post. All I've ever argued is that the best product on the shelves now is HD-DVD. As you've seen, I've backed that up thoroughly. As your conclusion implies, the war between blu-Ray and HD-DVD is far from over and to declare victor (or assume) one will win out over the other at this early stage is premature...

Bottom Line:
1) Blu-Ray has potential to become a better format than HD-DVD, and the PS3 is a key driving element to the potential success of Blu-Ray.
2) HD-DVD is the better product today, and will continue to yeild better quality video/audio for the rest of this calendar year, and possibly more.

One thing I'd like to add, though: I don't believe either will ever will see the adoption or mass saturation DVD enjoys now... so really, neither will ever "win"... but I guess it depends on what your definition of "win" is...


More BS. There isn't a good HD product on the shelves right now. One of the Toshiba players is only 1080i, both Toshiba offer subpar PQ for 720p displays, both Toshiba players lack standard DVD player functionality and convenience, the Samsung BD-P1000 has a problem with its noise reduction chip and the Pioneer BD player set to be released next month provides better PQ, the quality of the titles vary and their quality is dependent upon the players available to play them on, and you continually ignore or dismiss BD's advantages over HD-DVD for writeable media (but faster BD drives are needed for larger discs, so it's still the consumer's best bet to wait).

Moreover, no one is being forced to make a purchase, right now, and very few are planning to make a purchase, right now, so what's available right now isn't very relevant, especially when better products from both camps are likely to be available later.

Also, you've overstated your position many, many times. You've expressly or by implication suggested that your conception of the immediate present (wherein HD-DVD is clearly superior, clearly the winner, etc.) will continue into the foreseeable future. Here, you claim that HD-DVD will deliver better quality video/audio for the rest of this year and possibly longer. You ignore BD players from Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony, and Philips; the PS3; movies on 50GB BDs; BDs encoded with H.264; movies encoded on BDs by different studios; movies encoded on BDs from different masters.

Panda Bear Shenyu, USB 2.0 has a bandwith of 480Mbps, so that's more than enough bandwith to handle the bit rates of HD-DVD and BD players. The issues that I still have with the 360 add-on are:

1. Can the 360 decode and output a 1080p signal, natively
2. Can the 360 decode and output all of the next-gen video and audio codecs
3. Does the add-on require a HDD
4. Will the setup support firmware updates
5. Will the setup have the same problem as the Toshiba stand alone players for 720p displays (i.e., downscaling 1080p movies to 540p and then upscaling to 720p for 720p displays, losing original HD content in the process)
6. Even if the setup can decode and output a 1080p signal, natively -- very few, if any, displays accept and display a 1080p signal, natively, over component cables
7. Unlike digital cables, the PQ will be affected by the quality of the component cables
8. The setup will not be HDCP compliant