Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

[Skerik]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

Sorry

Congrats! You realize that any minute now one of the 2 is folding because you are now neutral...LOL j/k

The sole format availability of Heroes, combined with the Paramount announcement, pushed me over the edge because the format war is nowhere near an end and I was tired of not being able to watch stuff like the Bourne movies, the Matrix movies, and Batman. This way I don't care who wins and I can buy whatever I want. It's obviously not as cost-effective than if one format just won the damn format war, but I had the $ to spend and now I don't care anymore. Hooray.

I haven't explored the U-Control features yet, but otherwise the two formats are pretty much the same aside from the fact that the PS3 loads BDs faster than the Toshiba loads HD-DVDs.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

The sole format availability of Heroes, combined with the Paramount announcement, pushed me over the edge because the format war is nowhere near an end and I was tired of not being able to watch stuff like the Bourne movies, the Matrix movies, and Batman. This way I don't care who wins and I can buy whatever I want. It's obviously not as cost-effective than if one format just won the damn format war, but I had the $ to spend and now I don't care anymore. Hooray.

I haven't explored the U-Control features yet, but otherwise the two formats are pretty much the same aside from the fact that the PS3 loads BDs faster than the Toshiba loads HD-DVDs.

You sound pretty much how I am right now.

For what it's worth, my add on HD-DVD drive loads movies faster than the Toshiba's do, and my PS3 loads BD's faster than another friends stand alone BD player. No idea why. I keep looking at getting an A-20 though, and probably will before year's end.

[Skerik]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

You sound pretty much how I am right now.

For what it's worth, my add on HD-DVD drive loads movies faster than the Toshiba's do, and my PS3 loads BD's faster than another friends stand alone BD player. No idea why. I keep looking at getting an A-20 though, and probably will before year's end.

People harp on the load times, but I really don't care about them. Just put the disc in sooner and get situated on the coach as it loads, big deal. The A-20 is pretty hot otherwise though. But it now means I need to upgrade my projector to one that handles 1080p.

It never ends....

[jpup]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

The Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds Live Blu Ray is amazing. If you are a big Dave Matthews fan, check it out. I watched it the other night and will probably watch it several more times in the future. The audio and video are both very good.

[GAMEC0CK2002]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

I finally got to watch some of Heroes Season 1 on HD DVD. Ir was pretty darn sweet. Definitely was $60 well spent.

[SLAYER]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

Report: DVD Forum Approves 51GB HD DVD

The 51GB HD DVD disc is apparently one step closer to becoming a reality.

According a published report from UK research firm Screen Digest, the DVD Forum (the international organization responsible for DVD standards) has approved a 51 GB single-sided triple-layer HD DVD disc for production.

First announced by Toshiba last January at CES, a 51GB HD DVD disc would up the format's current dual-layer maximum storage capacity by a cool 21GB, but more importantly, it would close the gap between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Blu-ray currently supports 50GB discs, which has been one of the primary tech advantages it holds over its rival.

The extention to the existing HD DVD standard was submitted by Toshiba in April and was said to be approved on August 31st.

While DVD Forum approval is one obstacle cleared for Toshiba, it remains to be seen when (or even if) the new disc type will actually be put into use for movie releases. Insiders say it could take years for production yields to reach manageable levels, and there are conflicting reports as to whether or not the new triple layer discs would be supported by current players.

Good news, Bad news situation for HD DVD.

FYI, the original Toshiba "upgraded" HD DVDs were 45GBs, as I posted in the first page of this thread...last year.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

I find it funny that it's 51GB. Not 60, or even 55, but 51. It's like they are saying "Hey Blu-ray, we can hold one more gig than you can..nah nah nah nah"

[SLAYER]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

lol, I noticed that, too. It's a pretty oddball number. 60GB would've been perfect. Or even the original 45s, given how much has been done with just the 30GB discs.

'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' Gets Blu-ray, HD DVD Date; 'Years 1-5' Also Due

Rejoice, muggles! Warner Home Video has issued specs and a December date for 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' on Blu-ray and HD, as well as initial plans for a 'Years 1-5' limited edition box set.

One of the most eagerly-awaited franchises on high-def, Warner has finally ended over seventeen months of speculation by confirming a December 11 next-gen arrival date for the fifth and latest in the blockbuster series, 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,' day-and-date with the standard-def DVD release.

As the studio has done with several recent high-profile titles, however, the Blu-ray and the HD DVD editions will not be created equal.

Not unlike the recently-released '300' and 'Blood Diamond,' the HD DVD edition of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' will contain a trio of exclusive bonus features, including a "In-Movie Experience" video commentary featuring "the cast from Dumbledore's Army coming together to share memorable moments," the ability to "Pick Your Favorite Scenes" and assemble your favorite clips from the movie into a montage, and additional web-enabled content including downloads and other goodies to be announced.

Extras shared between the HD DVD, Blu-ray and two-disc standard-def DVD version include an A&E documentary, "Trailing Tonks" and "Fun and Games" featurettes, additional "Focus Points" making-of vignettes, and ten minutes of never-before-seen deleted scenes.

Warner has not yet released tech specs for the high-def releases, so it's unknown whether or not high-resolution audio will be supported. We'll keep you posted.

List price will be $39.98 for the HD DVD version, and $34.98 for the Blu-ray.

The studio has also announced that they will bring a 'Harry Potter Years 1-5: Limited Edition Giftset' to both high-def formats concurrent with 'Order of the Phoenix' on December 11 for a list price of $149.98. However, full details on what will be included in the set -- as well as whether the first four installments in the series will be made available as separate stand-alone releases -- is set to be revealed shortly in a separate announcement.

[Bacardi151]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

anyone see this? and does this add more crap this format 'war'?

http://www.n4g.com/industrynews/News-66305.aspx

http://www.betanews.com/article/New_Chinese_Involvement_Could_Trigger_HD_DVD_Price_Plunge/1189196071

Breaking news: a new unexpected development coming out of China is shedding light on the reason that might have prompted Paramount and Dreamworks to jump ship and abort its support for Blu-ray. On September 7th, 2007, China officially dropped the bomb on the HD format war:

A consortium of Chinese university engineers and globally recognized manufacturers, in cooperation with the China High Definition DVD Industry Association (CHDA) and backed by the Chinese government, have reached an agreement on a standard specification for a blue-laser, hi-def disc, (note: not Blu-ray,) which is based on and fundamentally compatible with HD DVD with only minor adjustments, which will utilize the Advanced Audio Video Encoding Standard in Information Technology (AVS) codec developed by the Chinese government.

The newly standardized Chinese HD format is called "CH DVD", and is compatible with HD DVD. As China begins to roll out and adopt its own new "CH-DVD" players for the home market, China can also produce HD-DVD players for the rest of the world, at prices that can best be described as, "Chinese." For the embattled HD DVD, this dramatic turn of event has cemented its place and secured its future in China. Updates:
The new "CH DVD" format was developed by the Optical Memory National Engineering Research Centre, an optical disc lab at Tsinghua University, in collaboration with the DVD Forum, developers of the HD-DVD format.

This new HD DVD-based format was co-developed and is officially endorsed and supported by the Chinese government.

The physical format of CH DVD is based on HD DVD and will have similar storage specifications, but the new format includes Chinese-owned intellectual property such as advanced copy protection technology as the Chinese government attempts to curb rampant piracy and control information in the country.

This means that a Chinese-produced CH DVD disc will not play in an HD DVD player in the US. However, a Chinese CH DVD player will play their CH DVD format as well as regular US and EU HD DVD releases.

Please see Alternate Sources for details.
Read Full Story >>

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

anyone see this? and does this add more crap this format 'war'?

http://www.n4g.com/industrynews/News-66305.aspx

http://www.betanews.com/article/New_Chinese_Involvement_Could_Trigger_HD_DVD_Price_Plunge/1189196071

Breaking news: a new unexpected development coming out of China is shedding light on the reason that might have prompted Paramount and Dreamworks to jump ship and abort its support for Blu-ray. On September 7th, 2007, China officially dropped the bomb on the HD format war:

A consortium of Chinese university engineers and globally recognized manufacturers, in cooperation with the China High Definition DVD Industry Association (CHDA) and backed by the Chinese government, have reached an agreement on a standard specification for a blue-laser, hi-def disc, (note: not Blu-ray,) which is based on and fundamentally compatible with HD DVD with only minor adjustments, which will utilize the Advanced Audio Video Encoding Standard in Information Technology (AVS) codec developed by the Chinese government.

The newly standardized Chinese HD format is called "CH DVD", and is compatible with HD DVD. As China begins to roll out and adopt its own new "CH-DVD" players for the home market, China can also produce HD-DVD players for the rest of the world, at prices that can best be described as, "Chinese." For the embattled HD DVD, this dramatic turn of event has cemented its place and secured its future in China. Updates:
The new "CH DVD" format was developed by the Optical Memory National Engineering Research Centre, an optical disc lab at Tsinghua University, in collaboration with the DVD Forum, developers of the HD-DVD format.

This new HD DVD-based format was co-developed and is officially endorsed and supported by the Chinese government.

The physical format of CH DVD is based on HD DVD and will have similar storage specifications, but the new format includes Chinese-owned intellectual property such as advanced copy protection technology as the Chinese government attempts to curb rampant piracy and control information in the country.

This means that a Chinese-produced CH DVD disc will not play in an HD DVD player in the US. However, a Chinese CH DVD player will play their CH DVD format as well as regular US and EU HD DVD releases.

Please see Alternate Sources for details.
Read Full Story >>

That was the most confusing article I've ever read.

[Bacardi151]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

That was the most confusing article I've ever read.

the second article has this

New Chinese Involvement Could Trigger HD DVD Price Plunge


The upshot here is this: The same country that has literally upset the LCD TV industry on its ear in just the last year alone, now has the specifications it needs to do the same with high-def video discs. While it makes so-called CH-DVD players for the home market (the name is subject to change, the new consortium says), China can also produce HD DVD players for the rest of the world, at prices that can best be described as Chinese.


All of a sudden, the incentive for studios such as Warner Bros. to call a halt to exploiting new disc technologies its own engineers had patented, and for Paramount to jump ship and abort its Blu-ray support, may be becoming clear.

and heres some more:

Here is a portion of that statement as it appeared, translated (as best the group evidently could) into English, although the tone of the statement is not lost at all: "The outmoded technology and extortionate price of MPEG-2 will result in it withdraws from the historical arena. MPEG-4 appears the new patent permitting policy of MPEG-4 appears too harshly which makes it unable to be accepted, thereby besieged by the multitudinous business operators. As a result MPEG-4 falls into a deadlock and future is difficult to predict. AVS is China independent standard which based on homeland innovative technology and partial public technology. AVS coding efficiency is more than 2-3 time of MPEG-2, and similar with AVC. Moreover the AVS technical plan is succinct; chip is less complex."

As we now know all too well, the American, European, and Japanese implementations of DVD and high-def DVD are chock full of intellectual property. Video encoding technology, audio technology, security, the interactive layer, the silkscreened label - all of these things are compensated for with royalty payments. And for each technology, there are dozens if not hundreds of businesses and organizations - some of them who have studios, others who have garages - that have specifically measured stakes in its distribution and dissemination.
But the AVS Workgroup offers an intriguing alternative: a single patent license that covers the entire gamut of encoding, decoding, security, and format mechanisms necessary to produce a high-definition video disc. Royalties for that license are payable not to a collection of rights agencies, but to a single authorized licensor and technology source: China.


So why is the DVD Forum involved with this? The DVD Forum represents HD DVD as a standard (while the HD DVD Promotions Group represents its public face). It has an interest in seeing more HD DVD players manufactured at lower prices to the consumer.

so does this mean hd-dvd will be so cheap that it will flood the market and basically kill blue ray cause of it?

[CaptainZombie]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

Bacardi........it must have some connection maybe to this being posted at TeamXbox.

Just when you realized the war between Sony and Toshiba is plain stupid, comes a new, third player with an innovative solution that because of its simplicity and low price could make this -gen optical disc war much longer.

New Medium Enterprises (NME) has announced that is ready to ship its HD VMD (Versatile Multilayer Disc) player and disc into the U.S. market. Although the MSRP of the player is $199, it is expected that large stores such as Amazon and Costco could offer the new HD player as low as $150.

So, what exactly is the Versatile Multilayer Disc? Instead of using a new, shorter wavelength laser like HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc, the VMD uses the same red laser of the DVD format but puts more layers in the same size and thickness of a DVD disc.

The Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD) is an optical storage device in the traditional DVD format, except that it can hold about 10 times the quantity of a standard DVD, or roughly 5 times the quantity of a DVD9. This is achieved quite simply through a multilayer technology that exploits the unused or wasted space, as we like to call it, within the disc itself.

This way, the VMD technology allows discs that have the same dimensions of a standard CD or DVD but with up to a maximum of 20 layers, resulting in a new format that can hold as much as 40GB per disc.

To help spread the new format, the company is launching several HD VMD players that can read the Multiple layers of Versatile Multilayer Discs as well as DVDs and VCDs. These players cost only a third of a HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc player.

These players can play true HD format with 1920 x 1080i/p resolution, up to 40 Mbps bit rate playback, DVD up-scaling (up to 1080i) support existing optical disc formats: CD, DVD (DVD 5 & DVD 9). The ML622S features an HDMI 1.3 port as well as the Ethernet port. The ML775S adds a media card reader and USB ports to connect flash drives and external hard drives.



Both players use the Sigma Designs EM8622L chip set these two players will output the native 1080p resolution from the disc rather than adding a second conversion process by breaking it down to 1080i and de-interlacing back to 1080p.

It remains to be seen if this new format will come and go before anyone notices or its low price will force Sony and Toshiba to lower the price of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, in particular overseas.

HD VMD is currently being adopted by content providers and distributors in more than a dozen regions worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Central Europe, China, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Japan, Scandinavia, Middle East, Russia and the United States.

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

Like EG says, this is all a headache.

[SLAYER]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

so does this mean hd-dvd will be so cheap that it will flood the market and basically kill blue ray cause of it?

Seems like the plan.


'Nature's Journey' Blu-ray Release Delayed

'Ocean's Flicks Get Boxed In with Blu-ray, HD DVD Giftsets

'Aviator' Soars to HD DVD, Blu-ray

Warner Site Reveals Dozens of Unconfirmed Blu-ray, HD DVD Titles

Paramount Bumps 'Saturday Night Fever' HD DVD

[SLAYER]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

New Line Cinema is finally releasing stuff in HD!

Is it A Nightmare On Elm Street? Lord of the Rings: FotR? Blade? Rush Hour 1-3? Nope, it's..

Hairspray.

New Line Jumps Into High-Def with 'Hairspray' on Blu-ray; HD DVD to Follow in 2008

Ending over a year of speculation, New Line has announced it is finally throwing its hat into the next-gen ring with 'Hairspray' this November.

The studio confirmed to the industry trades Video Business and Home Media Magazine on Tuesday that it will bow the $110 million-plus domestic grosser on November 20, day-and-date on Blu-ray and standard-def DVD. An HD DVD edition will follow sometime "in early 2008," though no exact street date has been set.

New Line says it will follow the strategy of its parent company Warner, and maintain a format-neutral approach by releasing titles on Blu-ray and HD DVD. Following the recent defection of Paramount to the HD DVD-only camp, New Line and Warner are now the only two studios currently supporting both formats.

"Clearly, there isn't a format winner at this point, so we’re going to adopt the strategy from Warner, our sister company, and mirror what they are doing," Matt Lasorsa, New Line EVP of marketing, told Home Media Magazine. "And by supporting both formats, we are giving consumers the ultimate choice."

Although New Line's dual-format support had long been expected, its staggered release of 'Hairspray' on HD DVD came as a surprise. Lasorsa attributed the delay to HD DVD's current lack of region coding.

"Since we sell to independent international distributors, we have to be more sensitive to their release dates than a major studio," Lasorsa added. "But for second-party acquisitions to which we don't have international rights, we will be day-and-date on all three formats."

New Line is expected to issue a full press release for the Blu-ray release of 'Hairspray' shortly, but early specs revealed to Video Business hint at a fully-loaded special edition. Among the extras shared with the standard-def DVD are the "You Can't Stop the Beat" documentary, multiple audio commentaries, deleted scenes, and a bonus dance number.

Exclusive to the Blu-ray release will be a "Behind the Beat" picture-in-picture video commentary similar to the popular In-Movie Experience feature on rival HD DVD. (When 'Hairspray' does finally hit HD DVD next year, it is also expected to include the same bonus features, plus additional web-enabled features.)

[CaptainZombie]

Re: Official Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Thread

New Line Cinema is finally releasing stuff in HD!

Is it A Nightmare On Elm Street? Lord of the Rings: FotR? Blade? Rush Hour 1-3? Nope, it's..

Hairspray.

New Line Jumps Into High-Def with 'Hairspray' on Blu-ray; HD DVD to Follow in 2008

I wonder why they wouldn't release both day and date.