HD Disc Format War Not Over By a Long Shot

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

Disney did not sign a contract for Blu-ray exclusivity: The agreement with Sony was not one to prevent them from releasing on another format, only one to incentivise BD production. That's very different than Paramount's exclusivity deal with Toshiba which, by contract, instructed them to hault Blu-ray production.

Agreed that the financial incentives were similar in both cases.

David,

Are you sure you know what you're talking about here? Because you say one thing and Bob Iger says another.

[gstarr]

"Now look at hddvd. An excellent format that was fully equiped out the gate and affordable. Most discs that are provide better picture, sound and extras than the dvd counterpart. This format is easily more successful than either dvd audio and sacd but has a real lack of players. For all intent and purposes Toshiba is the only manufacturer. I hope their labtops continue to have hddvd playback and newer 4th gen players come out. As of now this remains to be seen. Say 10 years from now my XA2 craps out. Without the hardware to play the discs I am out of luck. I fully see these 2 HD formats as the last forms of physical media we see in films.

I have no intent on trading my Warner hddvd's for the bluray version as I am gaining nothing in PQ, could be going from True HD to DD and am missing IME extras and the like. The same goes formy Paramount hddvd's. I would far rather have the film with 1.5 mbps DD+ than 640 kbps DD. I would far rather have a VC1 or AVC encode than MPEG-2 and yes I have compared them back to back."

1.8 What video codecs will Blu-ray support?


MPEG-2 - enhanced for HD, also used for playback of DVDs and HDTV recordings.
MPEG-4 AVC - part of the MPEG-4 standard also known as H.264 (High Profile and Main Profile).
SMPTE VC-1 - standard based on Microsoft's Windows Media Video (WMV) technology.

Please note that this simply means that all Blu-ray players and recorders will have to support playback of these video codecs, it will still be up to the movie studios to decide which video codec(s) they use for their releases.


1.9 What audio codecs will Blu-ray support?


Linear PCM (LPCM) - up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio. (mandatory)
Dolby Digital (DD) - format used for DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory)
Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) - extension of Dolby Digital, 7.1-channel surround sound. (optional)
Dolby TrueHD - lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. (optional)
DTS Digital Surround - format used for DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory)
DTS-HD High Resolution Audio - extension of DTS, 7.1-channel surround sound. (optional)
DTS-HD Master Audio - lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. (optional)

Please note that this simply means that Blu-ray players and recorders will have to support playback of these audio codecs, it will still be up to the movie studios to decide which audio codec(s) they use for their releases.

Both formats can be recorded in the same formats and can have the same audio codecs. There is no difference, except for the early Blu Ray machines which were missing some abilities. In a few months when Blu Ray 2.0 comes out it will have everything that HD has--if not more. The person doing the recording and mastering decides on the codecs--not the format. Both formats have the same capabilities.

If you are worried about your HD collections, buy one or two of the Toshiba's that are now on very steep clearance sales.

I kept my Pioneer Elite 59avi universal player for SACD's and DVD-A's, not tomention all other discs besides Hi-Def discs.

Eventually you will be able to download your HD collection on multi-terabyte hard drives and even make a hard drive back-up.

If you buy that many Hi Def discs, the cost of a new Blu Ray shortly gets amortized in the cost of all the discs one buys.

I just don't think it is anything to get very upset over. I've lost far morein the stock market in the last month:-)

Greg

[PRO-630HD]

http://www.dvdtown.com/news/hd-dvd-g...huge-drop/5172

Back to reality.

[PRO-630HD]

Originally Posted by Lotus

David,

Are you sure you know what you're talking about here? Because you say one thing and Bob Iger says another.

Lotus, what was the agreement with the BDA and Disney?

[PRO-630HD]

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=901

Had to post this. I don't see it happening in the US though.

[Vinyl Rules!]

Originally Posted by PRO-630HD

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=901

Had to post this. I don't see it happening in the US though.

This reminds me of an old joke:

Question: What is the fastest way to empty a crowded Men's room?

Answer: Walk up to a urinal and comment to the gentleman standing next to you, in a loud voice: "Gosh, I've never seen one that big before!"

This is just an exercise in trying to prove who has the "biggest one," IMHO.

Ibiquity, the company that's trying to make a go of HD Radio tried a similar program about a year ago that was a huge flop: They offered to buy back any analog FM tuner from you and give you the money to buy a new HD Radio. Problem was, they were offering less than 50% of the average eBay sale price for the identical item, and they only included a small number of stereo and A/V receivers in their aborted plan. And when I accessed their on-line program, it was not accepting ANY FM-only tuners - It was only accepting stereo and A/V receivers, and only ones that were just one or two years old.

Sony may get some bites on this program in Germany, but if Blue-Ray is ultimately going to be a commercial success, people have to buy it because they really want it, not because they are offered a temporary price reduction to give it a try.

No company has ever "bought" a market and made their product a success.

Companies do not determine if a new technology is successful: The consumers who choose to use and adapt a new technology are the final arbiters of that technology's success or failure.

I still think Steven Jobs is going to win this marketplace battle. As always, YMMV, of course.