this dude dissed hd-dvd big time. now he's changing his mind. http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6754683-1.html?tag=nl.e497 Why I was wrong about HD DVD By David Carnoy Executive editor, CNET Reviews (July 17, 2007) I read an article recently in Variety with the headline "Pressure mounts on U to turn Blu," which reported how Universal, the only major studio to offer HD DVD-exclusive titles, was being encouraged to put its films out on both HD DVD and Blu-ray. While Universal wouldn't be abandoning HD DVD, such a move would have a profound impact on the format war, and would probably spell doom for the HD DVD camp. Knowing the stakes, format-war watchers have been monitoring the Universal situation closely, with the more conspiracy minded speculating on who's getting paid what to keep Universal from flipping. I have no idea, but I did run into Ken Graffeo, Executive VP of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, at a Toshiba HD DVD event last month. I jokingly suggested that we weren't sure he was going to show up, what with all the rumors flying. He assured me that with the weather being so hot in New York, he wouldn't have been there if he didn't want to be--and that Universal's support for HD DVD remained unflagging. Graffeo also happens to be copresident of the HD DVD Promotional Group, so you can see how people might think that if Universal pulled out, the whole tent might come crashing down. As the format war enters its next phase--the lead-up to the holiday buying season--Toshiba and its partners (read: Microsoft) have gone with a two-pronged attack: they're touting new, long-promised special features along with lower prices on the players. (The new features work even on the oldest HD DVD players, so long as they have the latest firmware.) It's a good strategy--if not their only strategy--though I think the whole special-features angle will only give HD DVD a short-term boost, and a very small one at that. All marketing stories have a history, and this one is no exception. Before we got into this whole format war, the HD DVD camp went out and did some sort of study and came back with data that said that consumers were going to replace their existing DVDs with HD DVDs only if the new disc offered something beyond better video quality. And better sound quality--lossless DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD soundtracks that go beyond what you can hear on standard DVDs--wasn't going to cut it either. No, what people wanted was snazzy, new extras and more interactivity. Or so I've been told. It seems Blu-ray backers did a similar study, because they also like to talk up their format's special features. Sadly, however, a lot of them haven't come to fruition yet or simply don't work with existing players. While I've been accused of being a Blu-ray fanboy (one reader recently suggested I was enjoying time on the Sony yacht this summer), I'm unbiased enough to point out that the HD DVD specification is better in a lot of ways. For example, all HD DVD players are required to support Ethernet connections, dual video streams (picture-in-picture), Dolby Digital Plus and TrueHD soundtrack decoding, and "persistent storage" (onboard flash memory). That makes for a much more uniform experience on HD DVD players (of course, it helps when only one company is making them). By comparison, none of those features are required on Blu-ray players. And while Blu-ray uses Java for its discs' special features, HD DVD uses a Microsoft alternative called HDi. It's great that Java is a widely used standard, but when it doesn't work, who cares? For the moment anyway, the proprietary HDi is proving superior--one reason you'll find The Matrix Trilogy and Batman Begins, both with ample interactive features, on HD DVD, but not yet on Blu-ray. Don't think Sony will let the features gap remain wide for long: Blu-ray Profile 1.1 is already on deck, and it promises to bring more HD DVD-like certainty to future Blu-ray players (though Internet connectivity, apparently, remains optional). For now, however, HD DVD has the hardware advantage, and the HD DVD Promotional Group is right to play the "extras" card as it looks for any sort of edge or momentum in its underdog bid to outlast Blu-ray. If all of this seems a little mind boggling, I'll try to put it in real terms. You can get a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about by looking at the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD versions of Blood Diamond, a Warner Bothers release. The usual director's commentary is available on both discs, but the HD DVD version offers something called In-Movie Experience (IME) video commentary. The key thing here is that, instead of getting a voiceover from the director (or actors) as you watch the movie in commentary mode, you get a little picture-in-picture video of the director talking over the movie. Currently, not all Blu-ray players support this sort of feature. On top of that, the HD DVD version of Blood Diamond allows you to access an additional set of Web-enabled extras via your HD DVD player's built-in Ethernet connection. These include an interactive online poll and map with factoids pertaining to war-torn areas in Africa. Toshiba and Microsoft have also been showing off the special features of the upcoming HD DVD version of 300, another Warner title. As part of the IME mode, you'll be able to view in a small PIP-box how the scene was shot using a blue-screen background while the CGI-enhanced final screen version runs on your TV. There's also a minigame you can play. On the Web-enabled front, you can choose your favorite scenes from the film and share your bookmarks with other users. And with Universal pledging that all of its HD DVD releases in the fall and beyond be Web-enabled, you can bet that 300 isn't the last time you'll see this feature. Just how neat-o this stuff seems depends partly on how much of a film nerd you are. Some of it is genuinely cool, but some of the extras fall into the overkill department, and I'm not sure the whole idea of going beyond what's already on the disc makes a whole lot of sense. Yes, some film buffs--buff and nerds aren't quite the same, but the differences probably aren't worth getting into--will relish all the extras, but the vast majority of consumers don't necessarily get all that jazzed about another layer of bonus features, especially if you have to pay a $5 to $10 premium for them. Personally, I barely have time to watch the movies themselves, and I just don't see the point in taking the time to highlight my favorite scenes. You want to get into special features--real special features--give me an hour or two of extra raw footage to work with, and I'll do some editing and pay extra to do it. I'd like to chop a good 45 minutes or more out of Peter Jackson's King Kong, for instance. Marketing hijinks aside, with DVD being as good as it is, it's hard to get users to kick the habit. Ultimately, what 90 percent of people are looking for is a DVD replacement that costs basically the same as what they have now. They want a sub-$100 HD DVD or Blu-ray player and movies that are priced the same as DVDs--or less. Yeah, some folks might go out and replace a few of their favorite DVDs with the new improved HD DVD versions, but the reality is someday--and sooner than Toshiba or Sony might like--an HD DVD or Blu-Ray player isn't going to be a premium purchase; it's going to cost $99, and all this extra money studios are talking about spending on snazzy extra features isn't going to make economic sense for the majority of titles produced. In other words, Toshiba, the HD DVD Promotion Group, and Microsoft can talk all they want about interactivity and in-movie experiences, but the only way HD DVD is winning this war is on price. As it stands, this is a race to the bottom, and the more I look at it, the more I realize that I was wrong to think that a format war was bad. We need these guys to beat each other up. We need Toshiba and Microsoft to push Sony and its allies to make better and cheaper Blu-ray players. We need Universal to stay red. We need this war, folks. Give it a chance.
I don't know, I think the article is weird that it spends 70% of the time saying what HD DVD is doing better, 25% to say why it's doesn't matter, than 5% of time saying that Blu-ray is gonna kick HD DVD's a$$ and all HD DVD is good for is getting us lower priced Blu-ray faster. Atleast that's what I got from the article
i LOVE the interactivity features on HD dvds, the blu-ray just isnt there yet. I just finished watching the bourne identity and it was cool everytime a person from treadstone came up their record came up and they had on the fly video commentary on the major scenes. what was also cool was during the fight scene (like the one in bourne's apt) they show impact hits that bourne lands on this muscle body diagram in the top right corner. all of this is really cool and does add to the movie watching experience. i have both formats but i like hd for that reason alone and the better load times, even with my bdp-1200 the loads arent as fast (but the bdp does upconvert 10x better than my 360 elite) the worst case of loading was the POTC movies.
i just have the 360 add-on it does quite a bit i dont have a dolby digital plus/true hd receiver just yet so i havent really thought about getting a different player. i did get the elite 360 so i can get the full 1080p hdmi output
I can tell the difference. I would never pay extra for that difference... If HD-DVDs dropped their price by 50% they would destroy Bluboy. I guess the movie studios wont make it happen...
people love to talk specs and memory, etc etc. I think people just over complicate the matter. It's all about PRICE!
yeah the difference is there but it would really depend on the type of movie you are watching. i had seen bits of the bourne supremacy on tnthd last month and because it was on i watched the hd-dvd and it was better. basically you get a whole lot more detail when going to 720p and then you get more detail on the detail going to 1080p. i just dont know of a place that has screencaps of a 720-1080 comparison there are just a lot of standard/hd comparisons with frys having some nice sales of late outside of the two box sets (matrix and planet earth) i never paid more than 20 dollars for any of my blu-ray/hd dvds...usually around 10-14 bucks which is extremely reasonable considering that the going price for many new release dvds. hd prices are dropping quite a bit though i think i saw a toshiba player for 299 and their nice model for 399. the 299 model i think does up to 720p only though
I've felt, for a long time, that Sony could easily win this war if they wanted to. All they have to do is this: Partner up with Panasonic, and have them build and sell a Blu-Ray recorder for $150. The bad news: Sony would lose money short-term because they currently need to sell blu-ray players at ~$500 to profit. The good news: It would be a death blow to Hd DVD. It breaks HD DVD down into being unable to compete, price-wise, with with Blu-ray. HD-DVD would lose the war. Sony should know that, with the above scenario, they would lose money short term. But they could eliminate their competition immediately. In the future, hardware costs will drop and, accordingly, their losses will decrease. At the same time sales would increase because their competition would be eliminated and as more and more people migrate to newer technology, Sony would own ALL of that market, not just SOME of that market.
at that price for a recorder they would probably go belly up. they are already suffering enough of a hit from the PS3 sales which i believe makes up the majority of their blu-ray players in homes. I think RC Cola posted somewhere that they had to go and use a lot of the money that sony pictures made to help out with the loss. a recorder, let alone player would probably be like 1,000 dollars loss per unit. selling 500,000 units would results in a half a billion in loss. plus with a blu-ray recorder figure in they would have to drastically drop the prices of the blank media where they probably make their most profit. no rational person would spend 150 on a recorder and then spend 20 dollars or more for each blank disc. and then on top of all that with all the recorders out there blu-ray piracy would shoot through the roof the way burned dvds are right now. it would probably be the end of sony if they did that right now with the costs of technology. they're struggling from blu-ray player sales when the cheapest one out there is 499 and they're still losing a good amount of money per sale. honestly if sony did have a lot of studio exclusivity hd would probably win the war pretty easily
Yeah, that's basically what I took from it too. I don't really understand why he wrote the article. He didn't even do a good job of convincing me that HD DVD is even good for lowering Blu-ray prices faster since he's ignoring a few things. For some reason, I think the 360 and the PS3 are really fast at load times, while a lot of the standalone players are pretty slow. I think the 360 HD DVD player is/was supposed to cut load times in more than half compared to most of the Toshiba HD DVD players. IOW, I don't think bad load times are specific to one of the formats. That's not really a good example since the HD broadcast version of the movie isn't (or shouldn't be) the same quality as the transfer on the HD DVD. IOW, you probably would have seen an improvement in picture quality even if you watched the HD DVD @ 720p. No offense, but that doesn't really make much sense at all. Why does it have to be a recorder? I doubt the majority of consumers would ever use that feature, so you might as well just make it a read-only player. It makes a little more sense then, but I don't think it would be worth it (although I don't know if they have to sell players at $500 to profit). They already get 60+% of weekly sales IIRC, even when they release practically nothing and there are 10+ notable HD DVD releases (imagine what it is like when it is the other way around). As long as Universal is still pumping out movies for HD DVD and a few other things are in their favor, they'll probably still be in "competition" (if you want to call it that). Spend that money bribing Universal to support both or something like that (maybe get Blockbuster to carry only...oh wait, never mind).
I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to. Maybe that during some quarter (or fiscal year), Sony posted a profit despite PS3 losses due to their profits from various divisions, such as Sony Pictures. Speaking of which, I need to check out Sony's Q1 earnings that they just released.
sony still turned a profit. side note. hd-dvd add on for 360 is dropping its price slightly http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135100-c,dvdplayers/article.html
None taken. You bring up good points. A $150 Blu-ray player would certainly deal a blow to the HD DVD competition. But a recorder would do even worse. Imagine your options as a consumer: spend $400 on a HD DVD player, or $150 on a Blu-ray recorder. The choice is clear, even if HD DVD provides a few extra features. If Sony and Panasonic can sell a blu-ray recorder today at $150 and make a profit, they should, if only to eliminate the HD DVD competition. In fact, like my opinion above, they should sell it for $150 even if they don't profit right now. AND that would put a whole lot of pressure on Universal to switch, as they would continue to release movies in a format that consumers wouldn't purchase and as they watch their sales dwindle as consumers buy more and more blu-ray. Consumers may like Unversal's movies, but they won't spend $250 more on a HD DVD player just for the Universal movies when the Blu-Ray recorder is $150.
I believe I read before that Universal is under contract to produce HD-DVD movies until the middle of 2008, so they can't switch anytime soon even if they wanted to. BTW, Target announced that they're going Blu-Ray only at retail (but will still sell HD-DVD online). Another blow to HD-DVD.
I love the HD-DVD format and always buy that version of a title if it's a dual format release, but I'm under no illusions that Blu-ray is in the driver's seat in the format war. Landing Anchor Bay recently was the latest blow to HD-DVD. The key to victory for Blu-ray is to get Fox/MGM and Disney to get off their asses and start releasing some major titles. Or in the case of Fox/MGM, ANY titles. Universal's quality may be spotty lately, but at least they're doing their part for HD-DVD by offering a ton of catalog titles. And one assumes they'll be releasing The Bourne Ultimatum, Evan Almighty, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, and Knocked Up before the end of the year.
the cheap hd-dvd models do 1080i. I think when u saw something on TNT-HD its worse than anything on disc cause of the bit rate and compression through cable. I think its still MPEG. HD-DVDs used VC1 compression which is more advanced. I rented Children of Men, that had some awesome picture and sound.
Disney would be a huge help. But Disney is notorious for keeping movies in "moratorium" (not for sale) for years. They've still not released Pinocchio on DVD and other movies were only release on DVD temporarily (Snow White, Fantasia..).
