Insider info that you won\'t read anywhere else

Blu-Ray may have uses for some people as a storage medium(even than an external hardrive is better). It\'s just not going to become the next major format for movies. It is not the leap that DVD was over VHS and that is going to keep Joe Q. Public from eventually hopping on board.

Sony is pushing a format shift not for the sake of technology but for the sake of security and that is why the format will ultimately fail. Think about it if you want to put a BluRay drive in your computer that actually played BluRay movies not only do you have to buy the expensive drive but you also have to get a new graphics card and (most likely)monitor. We are talking about spending almost $2000 to watch movies that don\'t look that much better than DVDs when you could just buy a DVD drive for $50.

The future of film and gaming is digital distribution. By the time the PS4/X360-2/Wii2 are preparing to drop we will have already been downloading movies and television shows on our hardrives for years. In fact on some cable providers you can already get HD content on demand. THAT is the next big thing.

[Paul2]

Blu-Ray may have uses for some people as a storage medium(even than an external hardrive is better). It\'s just not going to become the next major format for movies. It is not the leap that DVD was over VHS and that is going to keep Joe Q. Public from eventually hopping on board.

I remember reading somewhere that some people said the same about DVD when it was first introduced.  They asked, "Isn\'t VHS good enough already?  Why DVD?"

And look what happened, in just a few years, especially after the launch of playstation 2 had help escalated the sales of DVD videos.  Consumers who after watching some dvd videos and when they go back watching VHS tapes, they notice the difference in picture quality immediatedly.  That DVD is superior.  And the navigation is better too.

I can imagine PlayStation 3 will have similiar impact to Blu Ray as playstation 2 was to DVD.

Sony is pushing a format shift not for the sake of technology but for the sake of security and that is why the format will ultimately fail. Think about it if you want to put a BluRay drive in your computer that actually played BluRay movies not only do you have to buy the expensive drive but you also have to get a new graphics card and (most likely)monitor. We are talking about spending almost $2000 to watch movies that don\'t look that much better than DVDs when you could just buy a DVD drive for $50.

Agree to some extent.  That Blu Ray drive is expensive now, but who\'s buying first generation blu ray players or drives?  Not many.  They will wait till the price comes down to a reasonable level before doing so.  Many prefer watching High Definiton on big screen TV, so blu ray drives or wrtiers for pc is more mainly use for recording and data storage more than watching blu ray movies.  So, in the coming few years, say in 2008 or 2009, you will see the price of blu ray drives coming down drastically, and the read speed greatly increase too.  So are blu ray writers.

It\'s somewhat true that you may need a new graphic card to watch blu ray movies, but i believe many computer have adequate graphic cards to handle that.  You don\'t need to buy a new monitor in order to view blu ray movies.  You can still watch it on your existing pc monitor, its just that chances are the copy protection on the disc content will down sample the resolution to 960 x 540p instead of the full 1920 x 1080p.  So, it\'s somewhat true that you do need a new pc monitor that have a digital video connection like DVI or HDMI with HDCP in order to playback full resolution of 1920 x 1080p.  But seeing most computer monitor are under 21" big for viewable screen, I can see many consumers won\'t mind about it since most of them prefer watching the full 1080p detail on a much bigger screen, and not to mention widescreen tv too.

I don\'t think consumers have to spend nearly $2000 in order to watch blu ray movies when playstation 3 will charge between $500 and $600 respectively.  I have the feeling that once consumers hook up their playstation 3 or a blu ray player to an hdtv.  They will appreciate the fine detail of 1080p and they will have a hard time going back to dvd picture quality.  I am not saying now since the price of blu ray players, drive, writers are expensive.  i am saying in a couple or years and beyond from now.  HDTV prices are going down and just last year we start to see more of 1080p hdtv display with a more reasonable price tag.

The future of film and gaming is digital distribution. By the time the PS4/X360-2/Wii2 are preparing to drop we will have already been downloading movies and television shows on our hardrives for years. In fact on some cable providers you can already get HD content on demand. THAT is the next big thing.

Not sure about that since I have a feeling PS4 will still uses optical disc as a standard and they will support the next generation disc format after blu ray which is holographic versatile disc and like the usual, will be backward compatible to blu ray, dvd, and cd formats to playback ps3, ps2, and ps1 games and video.  I do agree that we will see more hd video  being download more to hdd and i like the idea of it, but optical disc format are here to stay for some more time long before another format completely takes over it.

Just my thought and opinion.

[Living-In-Clip]

In any event, because of industry support, I think the blu-ray is starting this war with the advantage, and it\'ll be their victory to lose.

Industry support? Most studio\'s are backtracking and now also giving HD-DVD support and reviews are favoring HD-DVD over Blu-Ray.

Blu-Ray may have uses for some people as a storage medium(even than an external hardrive is better). It\'s just not going to become the next major format for movies. It is not the leap that DVD was over VHS and that is going to keep Joe Q. Public from eventually hopping on board.

Sony is pushing a format shift not for the sake of technology but for the sake of security and that is why the format will ultimately fail. Think about it if you want to put a BluRay drive in your computer that actually played BluRay movies not only do you have to buy the expensive drive but you also have to get a new graphics card and (most likely)monitor. We are talking about spending almost $2000 to watch movies that don\'t look that much better than DVDs when you could just buy a DVD drive for $50.

The future of film and gaming is digital distribution. By the time the PS4/X360-2/Wii2 are preparing to drop we will have already been downloading movies and television shows on our hardrives for years. In fact on some cable providers you can already get HD content on demand. THAT is the next big thing.

That counts for HD-DVD as well but we know that a next gen format will prevail anyways.

Industry support? Most studio\'s are backtracking and now also giving HD-DVD support and reviews are favoring HD-DVD over Blu-Ray.

HD-DVD has only one exclusive major Hollywood studio backing it, and that’s Universal.
Blu-Ray has both Sony Pictures (Columbia Pictures, TriStar, MGM) and 20th Century Fox backing them exclusively. Also Warner is releasing exclusives movies for BD, eventhough they also support HD-DVD.

Also BR enjoys the support from 85% of the CE industry.

The current HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray debate has more to do with VC1 vs MPEG2, rather than the format (remember, both formats support the exact same codecs, MPEG2, MPEG4 AVC and VC1). Because BD IS superior on every level compared to HD-DVD, it has a faster transfer rate, supports higher bitrates etc.

The problem that we see with the early BD movies today has to do with a problem with the early authorizing software, which early on only supported MPEG2. However, rumours suggest Sony is moving on to MPEG4 AVC for BD25 dics and Warner is already coming out with their first VC1 encoded films for BD25.

Sometime in November-December the first BD50 (that’s dual layer movies, 50GB) movies are supposed to be released, and since people say HD-DVDs will remain at DL 30GB I don’t see them having the edge in any area any more.

While the early problems is embarrassing for the Blu-Ray Alliance the format is still in its infancy and I dont think it will have much impact later on. Remember the early poorly encoded DVD movies?

Also once the PS3 is released the format will probably get a major boost, going from less than 100 000 units to 2 million potential buyers within weeks.

Don\'t misunderstand as I am going to point out something here.

I don\'t think Minidisc was popular in America, it sure was popular in Asia, but not in America.  I don\'t like HDV format as they are heavily compressed format and they just coming out recently.  So, who knows if it\'s a success format yet.  Hope not since I don\'t like filming video with a compression ratio of about 30:1.  If anything, I prefer higher bitrate at least 100 mbps for HD filming.  HDV only uses 25 mbps, again very highly compress ratio there.

SACD is another format that I think shouldn\'t be invented as DVD-A is very good enough already.  DVD-A uses the traditional PCM recording at 24 bits/ 96 kHz sampling which is awesome enough already.  introducing SACD just splits up the market and confuse consumers more.  Whereas SACD uses 1 bit DSD, sampling at 2.82 mHz frequency that\'s new and it also have problems of it own too.  I can\'t understand why sony have to introduce SACD and 1 bit DSD as the traditional PCM that DVD-A uses is great already.  Its not like SACD\'s DSD is better than PCM.  In most cases, PCM is actually better than DSD.  Sorry about the mumbling but neither SACD or DVD-A was popular in any countries at all.

So, your list have some failed formats, unless that\'s what your list meant to have both success and failed formats, then disregard what i just said.  I thought you were listing formats that succeed.  Or were you?

Minidic - Gee, I was unaware that something had to be popular in America to be a success.  Minidisc made Sony lots and lots of money and had massive sales through Asia, Europe, and South America.

HDV - Lots of people don\'t like it for the same reason you do, but it\'s been very popular in it\'s targeted market.  The most inexpensive way to get a HD signal onto cheap/current technology there is.  If you have more money to spend, there are better options.  Little overhead required as it uses the same technology as DV/MiniDV.

SACD/DVD-A - Neither caught on as much as they could, however, looking at a list of dvd/media players online from futureshop/bestbuy and Philips (for Europe), I can see that most support SACD playback, whereas there\'s only one DVD-A capable player that I found at all, clearly SACD took that battle, and again, it was a cheap easy way to make money selling to the high-end of the audio market, no massive investment in R&D or infrastructure, so I bet Sony is already making money on that one.

LiC - faston listed most of the BR support, and there\'s one more KEY one that tends to decide video format wars... the adult movie industry which is squarely behind BR.  It\'s an old discussion, but the BR technology is better in almost every regard to the HD-DVD technology.

I\'d wish sillicon would become alot cheaper ; then cartridge based consoles could rule the planet again. Seriously !

Quicker than quick accestimes. No physical moving components. Better than being stuck with an annual DL subscription. etc :thumb:

Btw, here are the specs, head to head.

BD/HD-DVD

Storage (single layer): 25GB / 15GB
Data rate for Video/Audio: 54Mbps / 36.55Mbps
Max res: 1080p for both
Max video bitrate: 40Mbps / 28Mbps
Video Codecs: Same Support
Audio Codecs: Same Support

Lets hope they get those BD50 out there fast enough so the video can do the format justice. Going with MPEG2 for BD25 discs was a horrible mistake which has dented the first impressions, however I believe these will quickly be forgotten once BDA gets out of first gear.

I\'d wish sillicon would become alot cheaper ; then cartridge based consoles could rule the planet again. Seriously !

Quicker than quick accestimes. No physical moving components. Better than being stuck with an annual DL subscription. etc :thumb:

Hear hear!

I hate everything that has moving parts! So yes.. cartridges with sufficient space would be more than welcome.

Minidic - Gee, I was unaware that something had to be popular in America to be a success.  Minidisc made Sony lots and lots of money and had massive sales through Asia, Europe, and South America.

HDV - Lots of people don\'t like it for the same reason you do, but it\'s been very popular in it\'s targeted market.  The most inexpensive way to get a HD signal onto cheap/current technology there is.  If you have more money to spend, there are better options.  Little overhead required as it uses the same technology as DV/MiniDV.

SACD/DVD-A - Neither caught on as much as they could, however, looking at a list of dvd/media players online from futureshop/bestbuy and Philips (for Europe), I can see that most support SACD playback, whereas there\'s only one DVD-A capable player that I found at all, clearly SACD took that battle, and again, it was a cheap easy way to make money selling to the high-end of the audio market, no massive investment in R&D or infrastructure, so I bet Sony is already making money on that one.

I think Paul\'s point is that unlike BR these formats succeeded at selling at a limited target market. They failed at becoming the next gen format which would replace CD\'s and VHS in everybody\'s home. DVD succeeded in that. BR is targeting a broader market just like DVD, the everyday consumer. BR has to succeed at that. . If BR sells like these formats it will fail, since its targeting to replace DVD\'s, not any of these formats

I dont think its wise to compare BR with these

[Paul2]

I thought fatalxception were listing formats that succeed worldwide and popular throughout and I have to disagree with him on MiniDisc, HDV, and SACD.  I didn\'t know MiniDisc were popular around other parts of the countries except America, so if that\'s the case, MiniDisc is quite popular.  I guess Apple Ipod was the next success over MiniDisc and CD-A...

HDV just came out since like last year, and I don\'t think it was popular worldwide yet since its new.  Not to mention its limited bandwidth specs and expensive price tags steers them away from video enthusiasts like me.  Hopefully, this format will fail until there is a format that can record and playback the neccessary video bandwidth and i expect at least 100 mbps or higher.

SACD and DVD-A didn\'t get popular and both probably going to die out soon from the format wars and most consumers doesn\'t care about it since they prefer Apple Ipods more.  the introduction of SACD format causes some problem with mastering it in pure DSD since this format is new and it have to be converted back to PCM for editing mastering, and playback too depending on the sacd players, and what\'s the point of using 1 bit DSD format if it converted back to PCM for these stuffs?  That\'s why I think SACD shouldn\'t be introduce as DVD-A uses the traditional PCM format.  Also the 1 bit DSD recording and playback method is said to have some sort of noises around 40 dB or something where PCM doesn\'t have that problem.  Which means, DSD is somewhat inferior to PCM in many ways according to what I read from other forums and websites.  Why introduce another format that\'s not better but possibly inferior than DVD-A to the consumers where they can get confuse easily?  Again, another reason why I don\'t think SACD should be introduce.

So, hopefully Blu Ray will replace DVD as the next generation format and are being accepted worldwide like how DVD replace VHS tape.  And hopefully Blu Ray be successful in replacing CD-A and DVD-A for lossless to uncompressed high def surround sound quality.  With the storage capacity blu ray offer, I hope it can replace both DVD-Video, and CD-A and DVD-Audio too.

I remember reading somewhere that some people said the same about DVD when it was first introduced.  They asked, "Isn\'t VHS good enough already?  Why DVD?"

And look what happened, in just a few years, especially after the launch of playstation 2 had help escalated the sales of DVD videos.  Consumers who after watching some dvd videos and when they go back watching VHS tapes, they notice the difference in picture quality immediatedly.  That DVD is superior.  And the navigation is better too.

I can imagine PlayStation 3 will have similiar impact to Blu Ray as playstation 2 was to DVD.

DVD was leaps and bounds above VHS. There really was no comparison. I worked at an electronics store in Atlanta in 99-00 and we sold DVD players by playing the Matrix side by side on VHS and DVD. When people saw the difference in quality and how they could skip to different parts of the movie like a CD they were hooked. There is no leap or bound from DVD to Blu-Ray. If you did the same thing with DVD and BR people would yawn. Blu-Ray brings nothing to the table that would cause a major shift in the market.

DVDs were ALREADY starting to sell really well before the PS2 launched. The PS2 just managed to put them over the top. No one is buying Blu-Ray players/movies now and no one will be buying them when the PS3 launches so it will not be a matter of pushing them over the top as it is a matter of making something from nothing.

List the benefits of DVD vs VHS and then compare that to benefits of BR vs DVD. It is a MUCH shorter list.

Agree to some extent.  That Blu Ray drive is expensive now, but who\'s buying first generation blu ray players or drives?  Not many.  They will wait till the price comes down to a reasonable level before doing so.  Many prefer watching High Definiton on big screen TV, so blu ray drives or wrtiers for pc is more mainly use for recording and data storage more than watching blu ray movies.  So, in the coming few years, say in 2008 or 2009, you will see the price of blu ray drives coming down drastically, and the read speed greatly increase too.  So are blu ray writers.

It\'s somewhat true that you may need a new graphic card to watch blu ray movies, but i believe many computer have adequate graphic cards to handle that.  You don\'t need to buy a new monitor in order to view blu ray movies.  You can still watch it on your existing pc monitor, its just that chances are the copy protection on the disc content will down sample the resolution to 960 x 540p instead of the full 1920 x 1080p.  So, it\'s somewhat true that you do need a new pc monitor that have a digital video connection like DVI or HDMI with HDCP in order to playback full resolution of 1920 x 1080p.  But seeing most computer monitor are under 21" big for viewable screen, I can see many consumers won\'t mind about it since most of them prefer watching the full 1080p detail on a much bigger screen, and not to mention widescreen tv too.

I don\'t think consumers have to spend nearly $2000 in order to watch blu ray movies when playstation 3 will charge between $500 and $600 respectively.  I have the feeling that once consumers hook up their playstation 3 or a blu ray player to an hdtv.  They will appreciate the fine detail of 1080p and they will have a hard time going back to dvd picture quality.  I am not saying now since the price of blu ray players, drive, writers are expensive.  i am saying in a couple or years and beyond from now.  HDTV prices are going down and just last year we start to see more of 1080p hdtv display with a more reasonable price tag.

It is not about having an adequate video card to play Blu-Ray movies. Quote from Sony:

"commercial content is encrypted with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which can only be decrypted using a HDCP-compliant graphics card that offers DVI or HDMI connections. Since there are currently no PCs for sale offering graphics chips that support HDCP, this isn\'t yet possible."

Basically if you want to watch Blu-Ray movies on your computer you would need a new video card or a software decryption solution that would slow access time to probably PSP levels.

Not sure about that since I have a feeling PS4 will still uses optical disc as a standard and they will support the next generation disc format after blu ray which is holographic versatile disc and like the usual, will be backward compatible to blu ray, dvd, and cd formats to playback ps3, ps2, and ps1 games and video.  I do agree that we will see more hd video  being download more to hdd and i like the idea of it, but optical disc format are here to stay for some more time long before another format completely takes over it.

If Blu-Ray is supposed to be the new standard why would Sony be putting out a NEW standard in 5-6 years. VHS was the main standard format for almost 30 years and DVD will be the main standard for almost 10 before we move on.

i skimmed untill i saw this nonsense

Basically if you want to watch Blu-Ray movies on your computer you would need a new video card or a software decryption solution

Blu-ray != HDCP
the studio controls that and who knows if it will ever come into effect

i skimmed untill i saw this nonsense



Blu-ray != HDCP
the studio controls that and who knows if it will ever come into effect

Yeah because the words of a message board troll hold much more weight than Sony employees talking about needing a HDCP compliant graphics card to watch commercial releases. :rolleyes:

a commercial release with HDCP flagged content, which neither of you morons fail to mention.

HDCP does not physically encrypt a Blu-ray disc to make it unreadable in any kind of player
:rolleyes:
HDCP is a glorified version of macrovision

you really need to stop blindly posting links to obscure tech news sites and claim they\'re gospel cause some jackass wrote it.

[Jumpman]

:rolleyes: