Topic: Blu-Ray wins!

[jualdeaux]

http://www.reuters.com/article/companynewsandpr/idusl1627196120080216

Toshiba to exit HD DVD, end format war-NHK
Sat Feb 16, 2008 6:50am EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp is planning to stop production of equipment compatible with the HD DVD format for high-definition video, allowing the competing Blu-Ray camp a free run, public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday.

Toshiba is expected to suffer losses amounting to tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) to scrap production of HD DVD players and recorders and other steps to exit the business, Japan's NHK said on its website.

No one at Toshiba could be reached for comment.

The format war between the Toshiba-backed HD DVD and Sony Corp's Blu-Ray, often compared to the Betamax-VHS battle in the 1980s, has slowed the development of what is expected to be a multibillion dollar high-definition DVD industry.

Toshiba was dealt a blow on Friday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it would abandon the HD DVD format, becoming the latest in a series of top retailers and movie studios to rally behind Blu-ray technology for high definition DVDs.

Toshiba plans to continue selling HD DVD equipment at stores for the time being but will not put resources into developing new devices, NHK said.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, editing by Mike Peacock)

[jualdeaux]

I'm glad that I have been looking at buying Blu-Ray over HD DVD anyway.

I'm also glad that this format war is over so people can get developing for one technology instead of two. Hopefully, that will also let prices start to fall on Blu-Ray players and media.

[Dash Jones]

I hope no-one buys Blu-Ray anyways until Sony learns that putting destructive programming in their devices by hurting their customers is a bad thing...oh...and also because Blu-Ray doesn't really have any extras that DVD's don't have (better visual quality).

The other thing against Blu-Ray is Sony's hatred of computers.  DVD took off because orginally all the computer geeks could play them easily on their computers (and also rip them).  CD took off for a similar reason (though the CD video formats were much more popular overseas then they ever were in the US), as well as Computer geeks also able to burn CDs.

Sony doesn't offer that incentive and in fact is against that entire thing, which also puts a plug into the Blu-Ray idea...

What Toshiba could REALLY do to help the market, is simply make HD open source, for anyone and everyone who wants to use it...just to spite SONY.  Not that they'd do that, but I'd love it if they did...in which case that would probably lead to the first HD-DVD burners, which in turn would spell certain doom for the Blu-Ray format due to Sony's tight fisted control measures.

[jualdeaux]

Dash. They do make blu-Ray drives for computers.

[Sirgod]

Dash. They do make blu-Ray drives for computers.

LOL, Yep. I've been thinking of getting one myself.

Oh well.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=980

walmart going blu only as well. That pretty much seals the deal. Only thing holding back is Paramont IIRC.

Stephen

[Don Karnage]

what is the difference between HD dvd and blue ray?, well you will need a HD tv to view high definition image (according to the pub).

since i only have a regular tv (not sure if its hd compatible) and only have good old vhs tape , i was wondering what is what and is it a real difference from regular tv?

[jualdeaux]

http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_hddvd_comparison

This ought to tell you all you need to know.

Stephen, I've just started browsing those forums myself.

[Sirgod]

http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_hddvd_comparison

This ought to tell you all you need to know.

Stephen, I've just started browsing those forums myself.

heh, Great minds and all of that.

Stephen

[Panzergranate]

Hey, there's still a few here on H&S who are reluctnat to give up Wax Cylinder music formats in favour of Vinyl Discs.... mentioning no names....

[Beeblebrox]

Hey, there's still a few here on H&S who are reluctnat to give up Wax Cylinder music formats in favour of Vinyl Discs.... mentioning no names....

Hey, man, the 12 inch 78 format is still superior to that digital rubbish. 

I looked over that link to the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format comparison.  Why does this bit sound so very ominous?  I read this, then I thought about all my lovely (cough)pirated(cough) DVDs from those lovely torrents and I kept hearing the TOS "Danger is on its way" incidental music in the background.

1.12     
Will Blu-ray down-convert analog outputs?


No, Blu-ray players will not down-convert the analog output signal unless the video contains something called an Image Constraint Token (ICT). This feature is not part of the Blu-ray Disc spec, but of the AACS copy-protection system also adopted by HD-DVD. In the end it will be up to each movie studio to decide if they want to use this "feature" on their releases or not. The good news is that Sony, Disney, Fox, Paramount, MGM and Universal have already stated that they have no intention of using this feature. The other studios, which have yet to announce their plans, will most likely follow suit to avoid getting bad publicity. If any of the studios still decide to use ICT they will have to state this on the cover of their movies, so you should have no problem avoiding these titles.

[jualdeaux]

I just got this from the blu ray forum. It is a link to the rival HD DVD forum. It now goes to Amazon's HD DVD store. LOL

http://forum.hd-dvd.com/

 

[Dash Jones]

Yeah, I have one of those Blu-Ray players via a PS3, and I'm NOT impressed about it...to say it lightly.  Perhaps it's because first

Sony is a tightfisted group about computer stuff that should keep most away from Blu-Ray if people realized the stuff Sony's doing.

And two

the Blu-Ray DVD's may have a higher quality, but the extra features are nothing to really dance about...in fact more like ripped off since one can get the normal DVD for less, and have almost the same stuff on it.

so ironically, I'm not using the Blu-Ray much at all, except for what I'd use a normal one Player for.

Aka...games on the PS3.

However, I was predicting this weeks ago on the Blu-Ray thing and Sony's secret little agenda already as per this thread

http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163378822.0.html

[Pestalence_XC]

Yeah, I have one of those Blu-Ray players via a PS3, and I'm NOT impressed about it...to say it lightly.  Perhaps it's because first

Sony is a tightfisted group about computer stuff that should keep most away from Blu-Ray if people realized the stuff Sony's doing.

And two

the Blu-Ray DVD's may have a higher quality, but the extra features are nothing to really dance about...in fact more like ripped off since one can get the normal DVD for less, and have almost the same stuff on it.

so ironically, I'm not using the Blu-Ray much at all, except for what I'd use a normal one Player for.

Aka...games on the PS3.

However, I was predicting this weeks ago on the Blu-Ray thing and Sony's secret little agenda already as per this thread

http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163378822.0.html

Dash,

have you actually looked for Blue Ray burners?

Check them out at Tiger Direct.. they are more common than you think.. and Sony is not all that tight fisted..

they have 5 different ones for sale there

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/search.asp?cat=2537&keywords=burner&mnf=

I would give them about 6 months and you can buy one for the same price as a good quality DL DVD burner.

I particularly like this one

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2297630&CatId=2537

Check out the specs on it.

[Lloyd007]

I dunno why you would want/need a BD burner for $300 when you can get a good 750GB portable HD w eSATA for under $200... BD are notoriously fragile...

I personally think Blu-Ray is a cruddy transitional format that is already being outpaced in the storage market by portable HD and flash memory and if someone advances HVD (holographic video disc) technology with storage of 1TB and greater on a single disc (imagine every adaptation of LOTR uncut with X hundred hours of extras on one disc... very tasty)... I just don't see widespread adoption with DVDs being cheaper and there simply isn't enough of an increase in quality... I've watched the DVD and Blu-Ray of Pirates OTC 3 on the same HD TV and while there is a noticeable increase the regular DVD is completely satisfactory and at two points there were artifact errors on the Blu-Ray that were really nasty while the DVD had none that were distracting like said BD. DVD just isn't left in the dust like VHS was vs DVD and with players still not pricing far enough and movies costing $5-10 extra for sloppy encoding...

Sony unfortunately has won with their crappy restrictive format... Hopefully their victory will be shortlived...

[jualdeaux]

It official.

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_02/pr1903.htm

Lloyd, some of the problems with blu ray discs is that some studios, those who produced for both formats, used the same encoding for both HD and Blu. That meant that the BD was using less then optimal bit rates for playback compared to what was possible. another thing to consider is the price factor. Now that there is only one format to produce, economies of scale will start to come into play. Sales will increase due to people like me who has waited until this day happened to purchase. There was no way i was going to buy a new player until I knew for sure I wasn't going to throw money down the tubes by buying the loser format. the same goes for the media. also, the lower priced HD DVD players were purposefully handicapped to 720p just to make them cheaper. The 1080p players were comparable in price to the BD players. So, Toshiba really wasn't making the same thing cheaper. They were making inferior players cheaper. I believe that by the coming holiday season, BD players and media will start to drop dramatically.

another thing to consider is how people are going to have to start switching over to HD TVs next year or get a set top down converter. I'd imagine a lot of people will start getting BD players so they can fully use that new TV. I know that is how it is for me.

As for a storage technology, I agree with you. The only thing they'd be good for is a "permanent" storage/backup function.

[Dash Jones]

Some will buy into it, but as Lloyd said, there isn't that big waloo between BD and DVD as there was between DVD and VHS.  CD and DVD also was ultimately driven by sales in the computer realm, which Sony has currently artificially driven up in Blu-Ray with it's PS3.  Now it COULD go either way, but personally I'm hoping it backfires in Sony's face.

Until the general computer market takes up on the format, BD isn't going anywhere that fast in my opinion.  The burners aren't that stable, and still break rather easily.  Better investment would be another HD OR even a flash as Lloyd suggests.  IMO.

[Pestalence_XC]

It official.

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_02/pr1903.htm

Lloyd, some of the problems with blu ray discs is that some studios, those who produced for both formats, used the same encoding for both HD and Blu. That meant that the BD was using less then optimal bit rates for playback compared to what was possible. another thing to consider is the price factor. Now that there is only one format to produce, economies of scale will start to come into play. Sales will increase due to people like me who has waited until this day happened to purchase. There was no way i was going to buy a new player until I knew for sure I wasn't going to throw money down the tubes by buying the loser format. the same goes for the media. also, the lower priced HD DVD players were purposefully handicapped to 720p just to make them cheaper. The 1080p players were comparable in price to the BD players. So, Toshiba really wasn't making the same thing cheaper. They were making inferior players cheaper. I believe that by the coming holiday season, BD players and media will start to drop dramatically.

another thing to consider is how people are going to have to start switching over to HD TVs next year or get a set top down converter. I'd imagine a lot of people will start getting BD players so they can fully use that new TV. I know that is how it is for me.

As for a storage technology, I agree with you. The only thing they'd be good for is a "permanent" storage/backup function.

OK.. I don't know where the "You have to get HD" is coming from or even that your stuff must be HD compliant..

The law that passed is that all signals must be transmitted in DIGITAL, not HD.... The are eliminating the use of tv's that require rabbit ears and so forth.. TV's that are 25 years old or older that do not have Digital tuners in them are being phased out by the new laws.. your stuff does not need to be HD, just digital compliant...

TV's that are analog will need a Digital to analog converter provided by your cable company or you can buy one at radio shack...

Thinking everything is going to be HD is a misconception by most people as they don't know the difference between HD and digital..

[The_Joker]

Digital cable boxes that are hooked up using R6 coax to the TV are already converting.  The general public doesn't know that, and the TV companies sure aren't going to tell you, but most people that are on cable won't need to do anything at all because its a closed system and the cable companies will convert before sending it to your house.

[marstone]

http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_hddvd_comparison

This ought to tell you all you need to know.

Stephen, I've just started browsing those forums myself.

Might me a good comparison, but I never trust a comparison of two things put out by one of them.  Hard to believe blu-ray.com would be unbiased in a comparison. 

[knightstorm]

I knew this was going to happen.  Unfortunately, the only high def player I presently own is the hd player built into my toshiba laptop.  I didn't buy it for the hi def player, although it would have been nice if it was a continuing format.