Booth

Chief Bar Steward
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Okay so now Warner Bros have announced that they are ditching HD-DVD and going to be solely Blu Ray. This comes not long after Paramount going HD-DVD exclusive, and only a day after HBO went Blu Ray exclusive.

Personally I have a PS3 and the Blu Ray movies that I have look fantastic. I have Close Encounters on Blu Ray which I watched over Christmas which was amazing. All three versions (theatrical, special edition & directors cut) on one disc. My biggest problem is that I can't go back to buying DVD's any more!

My plan was to get a cheap HD-DVD player as they are steadily coming down in price, and have the best of both HD formats. But now I'm not too sure. I think I may just stick with BD.

As it stands this is how the two formats are supported.

Blu Ray

--------

Warner Bros.

Disney (Buena Vista)

Fox

Lionsgate

MGM

Sony Pictures

HD-DVD

---------

Paramount

Universal Studios

Obviously that's just the majors, it doesn't take into account that Canal+ support HD-DVD, Metro Tartan and Anchor Bay are BD exclusive, and the BBC bring out product on both formats.

Does it mean that HD-DVD is dying now? I think it only takes Universal to jump ship and that's a strong possibility now.
 
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Gorf

Senior Member
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99
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I can't understand why the PS3 has had the (supposed) positive effect on Blu Ray takeup. I'm an old git, so I don't know all that many people with consoles, but they all use their consoles for games, and their DVD players for films.

I'd have thought that (until this news came out) most PS3 owners would put off the expansion or replacement of their film collection until they know the outcome of the format war, lest they end up having to swap formats again if HD had "won".
 

Booth

Chief Bar Steward
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There's a big difference between the last gen gaming consoles and this generation. The Playstation 2 was a poor DVD player compared to standalone players. However the Playstation 3 is a really top piece of AV kit. You can even rip videos from a memory card/drive to the hard disk. And now it does DIVX it's my media centre hub. I got two Blu Ray's with the PS3 (Xmen 3 & Casino Royale) and they sold HD to me, it didn't really bother me which format won to be honest. The clarity of images, compared to DVD is just extraordinary. There are some duff discs about, but if you read online reviews you can steer clear.

Whilst editing Bar Stewards, I'm exporting full sequences out in HD from Final Cut Pro converting them to HD MP4 files with Quicktime Pro (which is very quick), and watching them in 1080p on a plasma via the PS3. It's a great way of seeing ungraded edits and rushes on a decent sized screen.

I think possibly the first rough cut of Bar Stewards may be streamed from a Playstation 3!
 

Cop

Making Dreams
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Michael said:
I think possibly the first rough cut of Bar Stewards may be streamed from a Playstation 3!
No it wont, I think it will be a PlayStation 6 the at the moment! :rolleyes:

In our household we are on Blue Ray becuase of the PS3,

It will be interesting to see what Universal and Paramount do, but it certainly looks like Blue Ray has won the "VHS v Betamax" battle at the moment.
 

Booth

Chief Bar Steward
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There's a rumor that Universal will support both formats as their exclusivity deal with Toshiba (HD-DVD) is supposed to have ended just recently. Paramounts exclusivity deal with HD-DVD is supposed to end Summer 2008.

Cop said:
No it wont, I think it will be a PlayStation 6 the at the moment!
Uh oh, how the tied turns...

I didn't hear you crowing about that during your little girly jaunts to London and your 'grooming' mission to Romania. One day all those photos will get found you know.
 
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Cop

Making Dreams
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I think, if they go with both formats, they will eventually phase out HD-DVD and go exclusively with Blue Ray. As it seems that they would shift more Blue Ray titles as thats what the public will be buying more of and more Studio are settling with.

But you never know

Michael said:
Uh oh, how the tied turns...
I didn't hear you crowing about that during your little girly jaunts to London and your 'grooming' mission to Romania. One day all those photos will get found you know.
That was Bar Stewards research thankyou very much! I wanted to get a flavour of how many 6 year old boys living on the streets of Bucharest would embrace a bad taste comedy set in Blackburn.
 
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Chris Finch

Fragmental
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In terms of quality between the two formats i dont think there is much of a difference. There are players out there (still quite pricey) that will play both formats so could there be a future where both formats co-exist?

I watched my first film on HD last night - Unforgiven on a sony bravia. The image was absolutley stunning and flawless and so 'alive' with clarity. The many landscape shots were mind blowing! I do have to say though that in low lit scenes its harder to spot the difference between HD and standard-def. I did a geeky comparison between Unforgiven HD and standard-def upscaled onto the bravia. i was expecting the difference to be negligable but MY GOD it made the standard dvd look like VHS - there was such a difference! As Mike said, the only downside is that I don't want to buy anymore dvds until I make the step to a hi-def format!

Also watched the opening scene of 2001 om HD and again - mind blowing!!!!
 

wiggy

The Mastodon
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don't forget to give me my crappy sd western dvd's back before you use them as coasters finchy!

is the original king kong on blue ray yet? i want to watch it the way it was meant to be shown
 

Gorf

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Cop said:
...It will be interesting to see what Universal and Paramount do, but it certainly looks like Blue Ray has won the "VHS v Betamax" battle at the moment.
Well, Universal have issued a statement about HD so it looks like it's not as "over" as we first thought.
 

Booth

Chief Bar Steward
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Yes but what that statement doesn't say is that it will be supporting HD-DVD exclusively. Previous press releases have. As yet Universal does not support Blu Ray, and that statement suggests that it may well do soon. It would make sense as their HD-DVD exclusivity deal is apparently now over.

If Universal started distributing on Blu Ray, I think the HD-DVD group would be throwing the towel in very quickly. And come summertime Paramount would go back to distributing on Blu Ray.

I'm sure Toshiba and the HD-DVD group will be trying their best to try and snare Universal again though.

It's a shame because I think HD-DVD would have been the more desirable option with lack of region coding and cheaper players. Though a lot of Blu Ray don't have region coding anyway, majority of mine are from the US. And Blu Ray players are coming down in price.
 
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Cop

Making Dreams
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It seems that one famous politician is not happy the downfall of HD-DVD o_O

[YT=The Downfall of HD-DVD]ywWfmRdOmJ0[/YT]
 
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Booth

Chief Bar Steward
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That's brilliant! :D

Blades of Glory, fantastic stuff.

"Those who don't own a dedicated HD-DVD player leave the room."

And most of them leave :D

He felt like I did when I heard of Louise's 'problem'.
 

Booth

Chief Bar Steward
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Those players have been cut in price in the States by a lot. Anyone thinking of buying should wait to see what price cuts come along here, and also wait to see what happens with Universal. If they move over to Blu Ray it may not be worth buying into HD-DVD.

Those players on that site are not showing as available any more too.
 

Joanna

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From the latest issue (259) of Computeractive....

DVD war draws to a close

 

THE NEXT generation DVD format war may finally be drawing to a close, with Sony hailed as the most likely victor according to industry experts.

 

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, there was growing consensus that Toshiba's HD DVD techonology may finally lose the battle, after Warner Bros, a key neutral in the battle, defected to Sony's Blu-Ray technology.

 

The war to be the de facto standard has been long, dividing manufacturers and content providers into two camps. Backers of Blu-Ray include Dell, games developer Electronic arts and 20th Century Fox. Toshiba's HD DVD format boasts Microsoft, Sanyo and Paramount.

 

Industry experts believed that ultimately it would be the movie studios that would tilt the balance. So when Warner Bros announced it will produce its newest line of HD DVDs exclusively in the Blu-Ray format or standard DVD, it was a blow to Toshiba. Previously the studio had straddled the fence, releasing movies in both formats. The company said it would abandon HD DVD in May. Barry Meyer, Warner Bros chairman and chief executive, said that the decision was driven by what the company sees as a greater consumer demand.

 

Despite this defection, Toshiba remains bullish. It asserts that the HD format war is far from over. The HD DVD Consortium still has the backing of Paramount and Universal Pictures.

 

However, even though they have publicly backed Toshiba, the rumour mill is in overdrive. Universal has ended its HD DVD exclusivity arrangement and Paramount's HD DVD contract has an escape clause, so it is hard to know what its future intentions may be.

xx Joanna xx
 

Cop

Making Dreams
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The next-generation DVD format war is over, and the future is Blu-ray.

Ever since the two rival high definition DVD systems were launched in 2006 - Sony's Blu-ray and Toshiba's HD DVD - there could only be one winner.

In a re-run of the VHS and Betamax video cassette battle of the early 1980s, each raced to win over both the home consumer and the big Hollywood film studios.

Toshiba's announcement that it is to stop production of HD DVD players leaves the way clear for Blu-ray to become the industry standard.

Yet how did Toshiba fail while Sony succeeded?

It is a story of computer game consoles, marketing savvy and schmoozing in Los Angeles, as well as Sony's determination not to let history repeat itself.

Which, at the end of the day, all boils down to much higher sales figures for Sony.

Playstation advantage

The first factor that needs to be put completely to one side is picture quality. Unless you are a technology geek with a television the size of multiplex cinema screen, there is no difference between the output of HD DVD and Blu-ray machines.

Where Sony had the killer edge is that its Playstation 3 (PS3) computer games console comes pre-fitted with a Blu-ray player.

So as Sony has sold 10.5 million PS3 consoles since it was launched in late 2006, that is 10.5 million Blu-ray machines already in homes around the world, before you add sales of stand-alone Blu-ray players.

By contrast, Toshiba has sold only one million HD DVD machines.

Toshiba does have a tie-up with Microsoft's Xbox games console, but Xbox users are required to buy an external HD DVD drive.

And as Toshiba's one million sales figure for HD DVD machines also includes shipments of these drives, it appears that not many Xbox owners have been bothered to go to the additional expense.

Hollywood moves

Sony also had a head start over Toshiba in persuading the big US film studios to back Blu-ray - its own Sony Pictures is one of the main players in Hollywood.

Walt Disney and 20th Century Fox joined Sony Pictures in supporting Blu-ray.

And although Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros initially decided to back HD DVD, Warner Bros switched sides last month.

For many analysts, this was the final nail in the coffin for HD DVD.

"When Warner made its decision, it was basically over," says Kazuharu Miura, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo. Key US DVD retailers Target and Blockbuster have also decided to go with Blu-ray.

Betamax lessons

Other analysts also point to Sony's better marketing campaign for Blu-ray, fuelled by its determination not to lose a format war that brought back painful memories of the defeat of its Betamax video format by the JVC-developed VHS.

Is HD DVD going to go the same way as Betamax?

Although Betamax offered better picture quality, VHS machines were cheaper and quickly gained the majority of market share, eventually killing off Betamax.

It appears that Sony spent many years analysing that defeat and this time around, it was much better prepared.

Putting a Blu-ray player in each PS3 was the secret weapon to ensure the format's presence in customers' front rooms around the world, effectively making their choice of high definition DVD player for them.

Toshiba's gain

While Toshiba's decision to end the production of HD DVD players is undoubtedly a humiliation for the company, analysts say it will be good for the firm's profits. Goldman Sachs estimates that the move will boost Toshiba's profitability by up to 40bn yen ($370m; £190m) a year.

"The potential losses are small compared to the savings," said Goldman Sachs analyst Ikuo Matsuhashi.

Commentators also point to the fact that as consumer electronics is such a small part of Toshiba's business, it could afford to lose the format battle.

For while finished electrical goods such as laptops, DVD players and televisions make up just 6% of Toshiba's profits, it makes 40% of them from the sale of computer chips and a similar proportion from its nuclear power operations.

By contrast, consumer electrical goods have always been core to Sony's profits.

But what does it all mean for consumers?

"It's good for consumers, some of whom must have been resisting buying next-generation DVD recorders because of the two incompatible formats," says Hiroyuki Shimizu, an analyst at IT research company Gartner.

"If there's only one format, consumers don't have to worry about Incompatibility."

Yet while Mr Shimizu predicts sales of Blu-ray player and discs will now take off, other analysts say the format battle is meaningless.

They say this is because a growing number of consumers are already turning their backs on DVD players to download their movies via the internet instead, or from their satellite or cable television provider.

Adding that electronics companies are wrong to assume that viewers want ever better picture quality, they point to the failure of high fidelity music formats Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio in the face of the explosion in the popularity of music downloads.

While typical digital music formats such as MP3 have reduced sound quality compared with even standard CDs, their convenience has more than won over consumers.

The future of high definition DVD players may very well be Blu-ray, but whether they can make a dent in the face of the growing march of computer downloads is quite another story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7252506.stm
 
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Booth

Chief Bar Steward
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Just thought I'd update this.

Microsoft have now dropped their HD-DVD add-on player for the Xbox 360.

Universal are now going to be releasing movies on Blu Ray.

Paramount are now back to releasing movies on Blu Ray.

That means that Blu Ray now has all of Hollywood's support.

Blu-ray studio support

Disney (Buena Vista)

Fox

HBO

Lionsgate

MGM

New Line Cinema

Paramount

Sony Pictures

Universal Studios

Warner Bros

I think it's safe to say that if anyone wanted to buy a HD disc player, it would be good to go with Blu Ray rather than HD-DVD. Buying into HD-DVD would be buying into a very much dead format now.

http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/
 
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