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- Topics: Active | Unanswered
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?
Good to see BD winning the war, appart from the Region Locking its definately the better format I feel.
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?
Good to see BD winning the war, appart from the Region Locking its definately the better format I feel.
There are numerous cons to both formats.
HD DVD cons:
1. "only" 30 gigs of space. Longer films like Lord of the Rings extended editions would present problems.
2. no scratch protection; discs are very fragile compared to Blu-ray.
3. only one hardware maker; players aren't perfect and could be described as "glitchy."
4. lower maximum bit rate (goes back to the space issue).
Blu-ray cons:
1. The stupid "profile" crap where some players will not be able to play certain special features on newer discs.
2. High hardware prices.
3. No combo discs (these are great on HD DVD for ripping to your computer, or hell, even WATCHING it on your computer or any other DVD player for that matter).
4. Region locking and DRM. It has caused some issues with players being able to read the discs properly.
Overall, I would rate them pretty equally at the moment. Blu-ray has more potential because of its space. And it is catching up to HD DVD's special features by finally implementing profiles 1.1 and soon profile 2.0.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?
^ That seems like a very good summary of the situation.
I think a lot of what people will prefer depends on what they want from movies. Like i'm a bit of an audiophille and videophille and so what I really like to see is an absolutely top notch video and audio transfer at very high bit rates. So i want PCM 5.1 at a high rate or DTS-HDMA loseless for my sound!! And I don't want too much noise on the video transfer due to lack of space. These things are especially important to me as I use front projection on a big screen so they get quite obvious when theres an issue. But I'll grant not all users can tell the difference or care about the difference.
Then theres the features thing, I'm not so into features. I don't mind a good feature - but not if i have to sacrifice main-title quality to fit it on. And to me - most of the 1.1 and 2.0 profile features are gimicy. If I want to play a game i'll buy a game - i'm buying these movies for the movie. But again i realise thats just my 2 cents.
The region locking however is a major pain in the ass!
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?
^ That seems like a very good summary of the situation.
I think a lot of what people will prefer depends on what they want from movies. Like i'm a bit of an audiophille and videophille and so what I really like to see is an absolutely top notch video and audio transfer at very high bit rates. So i want PCM 5.1 at a high rate or DTS-HDMA loseless for my sound!! And I don't want too much noise on the video transfer due to lack of space. These things are especially important to me as I use front projection on a big screen so they get quite obvious when theres an issue. But I'll grant not all users can tell the difference or care about the difference.
Then theres the features thing, I'm not so into features. I don't mind a good feature - but not if i have to sacrifice main-title quality to fit it on. And to me - most of the 1.1 and 2.0 profile features are gimicy. If I want to play a game i'll buy a game - i'm buying these movies for the movie. But again i realise thats just my 2 cents.
The region locking however is a major pain in the ass!
I'm not into special features that much either, but the PIP on the 300 HD DVD is fucking awesome. That is the single coolest special feature I've ever seen. I couldn't care less about games or web-enabled crap. But good PIP commentaries are sooooooo much better than boring ass audio commentary tracks.
What I am hoping for is that if and when Toshiba gives up, they will work with the BDA to create the TL Twin discs on Blu-ray. This would be a 3-layer disc, all on one side of the disc. Dual layer Blu-ray, single layer DVD. It would be nice to have a standard def version since most of us don't have Blu-ray or HD DVD drives in our computers and certainly not in our car DVD players, etc. Triple Layer Twin is such an awesome idea in my opinion...and hell, you could stretch it out further more than likely to a quadruple layer Twin so that you can have a dual layer Blu-ray as well as dual layer DVD (particularly for longer films for DVD quality). It makes it much easier on the consumer to not have to worry about which side they are putting into their player. All on the same side of the disc and the player will recognize which layers are readable. It provides ultimate compatibility. And they could phase out DVD by doing this by simply producing the Twin discs. The problem for the BDA right now is they can't legally do this since Toshiba is the head of the DVD Forum. But if and when Toshiba throws in the towel to Blu-ray, I hope they get together and work on this.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
