Warner Bros chooses Blu-ray over HD DVD

[AceHBK]

Well looks like the so-called "DVD format war" is soon coming to a close with Blu-ray winning out.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080105/ap_on_hi_te/dueling_dvd_formats

Your thoughts?
Do you actually care?

I sat down and realized that I don't care b/c with how technology is today, there is no need to even purchase DVD's anymore and technology is moving that way. Now you can store movies on a pc and hook up your pc to your HDTV and there u have it....Blu-ray and HD DVD movies minus the expensive hardware.

 

[Kacey]

Unlike the VHS/Beta wars, I don't see a significant problem here. Yes, VHS won the VCR wars - but you can still get videos on tape without a whole lot of problems, and VCRs are easy to find as well. Is it possible that BlueRay will eventually become more common than DVD? I can't say - but I can't see it being the lockout that occurred when VHS won the VCR wars.

 

[Tames D]

I'm happy about this news only because Blu-Ray is a major investment for the company I work for.

 

[BlackCatBonz]

I don't think it's anywhere near over.
HD-DVD stand alones are still outselling blu-ray and they are being marketed as an affordable hi-def solution.
To the average consumer "affordable" says a lot.
It doesn't matter whose side they take now.......they will eventually switch back to whatever becomes the more popular format.

 

[crushing]

I don't really care much.

I am curious if the porn industry will be as much of a deciding factor in this battle as it was with VHS v. Betamax. Seem like the porn industry would put it's money-shot on BLUE-Ray.

 

[Shicomm]

As long as the hardware and the media remain costly there is no clear winner...
As the prices will drop, the winner to the public will really show.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

As long as the hardware and the media remain costly there is no clear winner...
As the prices will drop, the winner to the public will really show.

Shicomm you are absolutely right!

 

[AceHBK]

Is there a real visual difference??

 

[Shicomm]

Well , there should be because of the difference in amount of data that both media can contain but for real ?
It's hard to tell...

Recently i had the joy to have a nice saturdaynight behind a massive 50" plasma and i've seen the difference between regular dvd and blu-ray but i doubt if there is a 'real' difference between the experience on blu-ray vs. hd-dvd.

In all cases it would involve some serious ( read: costly ) hardware to notice it...

 

[SensibleManiac]

1080P to 1080I
Yes there is a difference, and as price goes down over the next year it will matter. For now $400 for a Bluray player isn't worth it, when it comes down to $150-$200 it will.
Image wise right now you can't beat bluray but hddvd is very close.
You can tell a difference side by side but other than that there isn't a huge difference.
People will always want the best and that's why Bluray will win out.
It's true Beta was better than VHS quality wise but Sony lost out in not sharing it's technology, a mistake they aren't making this time.
Bluray players are made by Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, Lg to name a few.
Another cheap option is buy a Playstation 3. It's a bluray player as well

 

[Shicomm]

erm... in real life betamax lost because the didn't allow pr0n to be distributed on it , the vhs camp had no issues on that ...

You're right , the hardware ( the players that is ) will get cheaper soon ; but the media will remain costly...

Sony missed out on the UMD allready ( not so strange seeing the costs of a disc... sjeez... ) so don't call BRD for the win just yet...

 

[Andrew Green]

I'd just rip'em onto my harddrive regardless, or record them off a HD channel. No point in having all those disks when I can fire up my computer and have hundreds of movies and tv shows ready to go without dealing with disks.

Personally I think both formats missed the boat as far as the winning format goes, DRMless downloadable HD movies, that would win. Pay online, movie downloads and is ready for you in a couple hours, or even the next day for HD stuff. CD's are dieing with digital formats taking over, Video disks will follow as internet connection speeds get faster.

What it really comes down to is that they have to provide it in the best format available. If people can have a better product by converting it from what they gave me, or better formats are available through illegal means, then the legal formats will fail. Blue Ray and HD-DVD are a step forward, just not the right one.

 

[Shicomm]

and the hd-dvd camp just made another big bang.
Amazon had a nice deal on the xbox360 hd-dvd drive ; they shipped the drive with 6 films for just 80 bucks... the deal got sold out in a flash....

Toshiba planned on dropping the price for the stand alone player also..

 

[Shicomm]

It seems now that toshiba has thrown the towel into the ring...

article @ reuters

 

[jks9199]

I kind of suspect that the next real move for distributing movies, etc. will be on thumbdrives or something similar. Lots of storage space, easy format, and avoids bandwidth/distribution headaches for on-line downloads. You could take your "authorized movie thumbdrive" (or maybe just any thumbdrive) to a kiosk (think the Red Boxes in McDonald's, for example), and download the movie of your choice to it. It's yours; keep it or not. Or, even with a little work, set up an expiration date where it "dies" on the drive.

I know that my cablebox has a USB port that it currently doesn't use for anything; it's a DVR system, so it's got player capability in theory with little modification.