HD-DVD vs. Blue Ray

[Trippy]

360+HD-DVD = 399 + 199 = 598.

PS3 with Blu-Ray = 599.

You think a dollar is going to skew the outcome?

That's if you want to pony up for the HD-DVD drive.  Ie, it's a choice, unlike the PS3 where you're saddled with the Blu-Ray drive whether you like it or not.  Furthermore, if we're talking stand-alone players the HD-DVD retails for around $500 while the Blu-Ray retails for around $800.  Where I come from $300 is real money.

The price difference is only $100 (Samsung's is $595).

[Big Gulp]

The price difference is only $100 (Samsung's is $595).

Looking at Best Buy, their cheapest Blu-Ray (Samsung) is $799.99.  Cheapest HD-DVD (Toshiba) is $499.99.

[Roac]

The price difference is only $100 (Samsung's is $595).

Looking at Best Buy, their cheapest Blu-Ray (Samsung) is $799.99.  Cheapest HD-DVD (Toshiba) is $499.99.

Amazon has it for Trippy's price.  However, most of the big box stores are selling it for between $800-1000 with Target being the exception at $700.   Amazon also has an HD-DVD for $440 so you're still looking at $160 difference in the best case.  Most people, not buying from Amazon, are going to get sticker shock from the higher prices.

[Sairon]

360+HD-DVD = 399 + 199 = 598.

PS3 with Blu-Ray = 599.

You think a dollar is going to skew the outcome?

That's if you want to pony up for the HD-DVD drive.  Ie, it's a choice, unlike the PS3 where you're saddled with the Blu-Ray drive whether you like it or not.  Furthermore, if we're talking stand-alone players the HD-DVD retails for around $500 while the Blu-Ray retails for around $800.  Where I come from $300 is real money.

And the fact that PS3 games will take advantage of BR and 360 games won't take advantage of HD-DVD.

[Morfiend]

I dont understand how you cant be happy with the HD picture you already have. Mine looks so good with just a normal DVD, I dont know that I need HD-DVD or Blu-Ray yet. You might want to check your current setup if you are that unhappy with your picture.

[Arrrgh]

Just get an HTPC. You can then add the 200 buck 360 HD player to your PC if you want.

My DLP is 720p and if I download both the 480p and the 720p version of am HD trailer from apple I can't tell the difference, it's just bigger files.

[Big Gulp]

And the fact that PS3 games will take advantage of BR and 360 games won't take advantage of HD-DVD.

Huh?  What, you mean with the extra storage?  BFD.  I'd think that Sony should probably be focused on getting some games worth playing rather than the "my hardware is better than yours" game.  Shit, Nintendo just opted out of the race altogether and they're crushing Sony.

[Strazos]

I don't know if it's the BR, or just the "new style", but a lot of the games I am seeing on the PS3 are, how should I say it...overly-shiny? Overly-sharp?

The graphics just look terribly overwrought to me. Especially that damn dragon game (not Eragon) demo I keep having to see.

The funny thing is that they look good from about 30 feet away. Once you get within actual playing distance, they look like crap.

[Sairon]

And the fact that PS3 games will take advantage of BR and 360 games won't take advantage of HD-DVD.

Huh?  What, you mean with the extra storage?  BFD.  I'd think that Sony should probably be focused on getting some games worth playing rather than the "my hardware is better than yours" game.  Shit, Nintendo just opted out of the race altogether and they're crushing Sony.

Just sayin. It's relevant when you argue the fact that it's possible to opt out of having a HD-DVD for the 360. Sony did the decision that you can't have a PS3 without BR because that would mean that no sane game developer would utilize it. I guess you could argue that the extra storage isn't needed for games, just as the last generation could've done fine with CD, and the generation before that with cartridges.

[Strazos]

It's not nearly as big as a jump as CDs from carts, or even DVDs from CDs. It's not devs were running out of room on DVDs - how many games are more than 1 DVD?

[Trippy]

It's not nearly as big as a jump as CDs from carts, or even DVDs from CDs. It's not devs were running out of room on DVDs - how many games are more than 1 DVD?

The jump isn't quite as big in magnitude (5x vs 7xish compared to DVDs to CDs) but it's huge in absolute terms (25 GB vs 4.7GB). And the problem is is that HD video takes up a fricking lot of space -- that's why blue lasers were developed. Sure if you don't care if your games can't show their prerendered videos at full HD resolution then it doesn't matter so much that you are stuck with DVD as the storage media. If you do care you are boned unless you want to make your customers swap discs like the good old days.

[Big Gulp]

(25 GB vs 4.7GB)

Try 8.5 GB, which is the capacity for dual layer DVD's.  4.7 is the capacity of single layer DVD-R's you buy in 100 disc spindles.

Again, though, it's irrelevant because very, very few games are even coming close to filling 8.5 GB.  By the time they do we'll be at the end of this gen's lifespan anyway.

[Trippy]

(25 GB vs 4.7GB)

Try 8.5 GB, which is the capacity for dual layer DVD's.  4.7 is the capacity of single layer DVD-R's you buy in 100 disc spindles.

I was obviously comparing single layer to single layer.  If you want to compare dual layers then it's 50 GB for Blu-Ray so it's the same magnitude difference but even larger absolute difference.

[Big Gulp]

I was obviously comparing single layer to single layer.  If you want to compare dual layers then it's 50 GB for Blu-Ray so it's the same magnitude difference but even larger absolute difference.

Irrelevant.  We're comparing what actually is rather than what's technically feasible.  The simple fact is that Blu-Ray isn't a necessity in gaming right now, and likely won't be for a long, long, long time to come.  It's an unnecessary feature, and it was incredibly stupid to bundle it to the PS3 without a choice.  You can trace Sony's piss poor positioning to their decision to bundle it with the PS3 in the name of "synergy".

[Trippy]

I was obviously comparing single layer to single layer.  If you want to compare dual layers then it's 50 GB for Blu-Ray so it's the same magnitude difference but even larger absolute difference.

Irrelevant.

Then why try to correct me in the first place? I was responding to Strazos -- I wasn't even talking to you.

[Trippy]

Let me try and state my position clearly since I've only been injecting comments so far in this thread.

On the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD movie side of things I believe HD-DVD's current price advantage is a short term thing and once the kinks are worked out of the Blu-Ray laser production process the prices will equalize. Both formats have pluses and minuses even just on the technical side of things (i.e. ignoring pricing) so even if you felt that the best technology should win it's not clear which side that would be though obviously Blu-Ray has an edge right now on the capacity side, though like everything else technology related that may change in the future. Like most competitions of this nature the market will decide who will be the winner which may or may not have anything to do with which technology is "better" or "worse".

For consoles I believe that choice is bad, which may seem paradoxically but giving customers configuration choices leads down the nightmare path that is the PC and so is a development headache and is a distribution headache and a retailing headache -- i.e. it's a headache for everybody including the consumer as I'll get to later on. Sure going from one to two configurations may not seem so bad but now you've literally doubled the amount of work in certain area like parts of the QA process.

Microsoft was actually smart to say clearly upfront that their HD-DVD player would never be for games even though that let's Sony keep the storage edge for games (though of course they may change their minds later on if Sony starts spanking on this issue). That way developers only have to worry about sizing their content for one media format and retailers don't have to stock extra SKUs for all those games that could've shipped on both like what's happening now on the PC (some games, especially from EA, have CD and DVD versions) which must drive retailers crazy.

In the same way I believe Sony made the right choice in making the PS3 Blu-Ray only. They may have jumped the gun and adopted a new technology too quickly but as above they aren't making their developers worry about two different formats. And they did Microsoft one better by including a hard drive on both configurations so you don't have the stupid Xbox 360 split (hard drive or no hard drive).

As for the size issue, everytime I hear somebody say that 650 MB or 4.7 GB or 8.5 GB or whatever the current storage standard is is plenty of space I think back to the comment attributed to Bill Gates about 640K of memory being enough for everybody. Yes it may be true that virtually all games don't exceed 8.5 GBs now. But that's because that's the current limit (ignoring the PS3). I'm sure there are developers out there (I'm looking at your SquareEnix) that feel constrained by that limit and are going to go crazy on the PS3 with its Blu-Ray storage capacity.

But let's ignore gameplay and use a more trivial example. Let's say somebody wanted to put 30 minutes of a game "making of" video on the Xbox 360 in HD format. Well that's not going to fit on a single DVD, even a dual layer one, with the rest of the game content so they'll do what they do now -- put it in another DVD. Which is all well and good but wouldn't it be better to have it all on one disc so you can access everything without fricking swapping discs all the time? I hate having to constantly swap movie DVDs just so I can watch the movie and the special features and I have two DVD drives in my PC so my swapping is cut down by a lot compared to some other people. Is it worth $200 extra bucks not to have to swap discs? Well that's a good question. Probably not by itself but if I was also getting some gameplay benefits like more or longer prerendered game cutscenes or more high resolution textures it might be worth it.

And even if I think I might like to be able to make that choice for myself I really don't. Because the game developer is either going to have to spend the extra bucks to support multiple configurations which means other game-related things don't get that money (i.e. things get cut or scaled backed) or they just cater to the lowest common denominator always in which case I'm not getting any benefit from one of the choices.

[schild]

Again, though, it's irrelevant because very, very few games are even coming close to filling 8.5 GB.  By the time they do we'll be at the end of this gen's lifespan anyway.

Subsistance - 10GB
Grandia 3 - 8GB
Rule of Rose - 8GB
Xenosaga 2 - 7GB
Onimusha Dawn of Dreams - 7GB
.Hack - 7GB - 2 single layer DVDs
Tiger Woods 07 - 7GB


Countless other games broke the 4.3 GB barrier. Any single one of these games with the graphic assets for 1080i/720p output would have blown past the dual layer mark.  Granted, some companies optimize better than others - hell - Gears of War and Dead Rising clock in at right about 7GB. But we're talking about Capcom and Epic here. Resistance was nearly 2 dual layer discs iirc. Genji clocked in just over 10GB as well. Blue Dragon is roughly 2.5 dual layer discs. Point being, the need for more storage and better compression is real and now. It's not some nebulous end of lifecycle thing.

[Strazos]

I'm more concerned about How developers fill the space up.

There is such a thing as too many, or too long, cutscenes.

[Furiously]

I dont understand how you cant be happy with the HD picture you already have. Mine looks so good with just a normal DVD, I dont know that I need HD-DVD or Blu-Ray yet. You might want to check your current setup if you are that unhappy with your picture.

I'm very happy with my HD picture - What I get from a DVD is not HD.

 Download some of the windows high definition media player files. I'd suggest this one: http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/1/b/41b10a4f-f4f4-4692-aa44-a458d0047e91/Robotica_1080.exe

[Sky]

I don't get the whole "DVD is fine, I don't need HD". Why game in 1024x768 when you can game in 640x480, right?

[Arrrgh]

Because in a game I can see the difference. When watching 480p and 720p film clips full screen I haven't seen any difference between the two.

And that link above is to a 1080p. Most PCs will bog down on those. My new HTPC plays 1080p fine, but again since I can't tell the difference why download the much larger files?

[Arrrgh]

And I hope the OP's new HDTV does 1080 or none of this matters anyway.

[Furiously]

Yes - I have a 1080p set. Some of this also might be due to size. If you are running a 720 36" set there might not be a bit noticable difference. On a 60" set, I definately see the difference. If you cannot see the difference, I'd suggest getting a bigger set.

My original point was that I am having a hard time justifying buying any new DVD's knowing that I can buy a "cheap" $200 x-box addon, and have a working HD-DVD HTPC. I was looking for a good reason not to do so and instead buy a blu-ray drive for 3 times as much.

[Miasma]

I've stopped buying movies until the whole HD-DVD versus Bluray thing gets sorted out.  The movie and electronics industries are doing this to try and boost lagging sales of their movies/hardware and ironically it is only going to make things worse as everyone sits on the sidelines waiting for them to stop screwing around.

[Arrrgh]

720p 61 inch Samsung DLP and they look the same to me. Maybe the difference is noticable on yours. I think some people expect a difference so they think they see a difference.

It's the HDTV version of this...

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/21pogues-posts-2/

[Yegolev]

It's not nearly as big as a jump as CDs from carts, or even DVDs from CDs. It's not devs were running out of room on DVDs - how many games are more than 1 DVD?

I can think of two, and there are probably more that I don't have.  Grandia III and Shadowhearts Covenant, both PS2 games.

By the way, I have watched a BluRay movie, that dumb Talladega Nights.  It looks freakin' awesome, even that stupid movie.  I want some real BluRay movies now.  Some Alien and LotR on BRD would cause me to change my pants, and I have watched the DVD versions a few times.  I don't know about versus HDDVD, but it kicks the shit out of a 480p DVD.

[Sky]

720p 61 inch Samsung DLP and they look the same to me. Maybe the difference is noticable on yours. I think some people expect a difference so they think they see a difference.

Yep, that must be it! 

[Arrrgh]

Ok, you think there's a big visual difference.

Do you think expensive audio cables sound better than cheap audio cables?

[stray]

Expensive audio cables are a ripoff. I say that as both a sound designer and a person who blasts guitar amps all day.

Hell, the human ear can't even hear all the things that cheap audio cables are delivering to them. 

[Sky]

Do you think expensive audio cables sound better than cheap audio cables?

No.

But I can see when there was a shitty transfer on a film on an HD channel, let alone the difference between HD content and upscaled DVDs (using a variety of scalers, I have three). Even my non-tech girlfriend can see the difference, because she loves nature and travel shows in HD.

[Furiously]

What Sky said. Try looking at Return of the King on DVD and it on HBO:HD. I notice a difference.

[HaemishM]

360+HD-DVD = 399 + 199 = 598.

PS3 with Blu-Ray = 599.

You think a dollar is going to skew the outcome?

Sure, it's the same price. But the perception is that the 360 is cheaper. Perception drives more purchases than reality.

[Arrrgh]

What Sky said. Try looking at Return of the King on DVD and it on HBO:HD. I notice a difference.

It's still apples and orange. At least you're comparing the same film, but it's from different sources. You don't know that the HBO:HD version looks the same as the HD DVD or Blu Ray versions of the film.

If someone says the HD DVD of Film X looks better on my HDTV than the DVD version then great, I'm happy for them. But don't compare nature and travel shows in HD to some random DVD.

[Sky]

You're building quite the argument there. Have a cookie.

[Furiously]

But don't compare nature and travel shows in HD to some random DVD.

Uhmmm I think that was my whole premise.. They look better because they are in 1080i vs 480p? Which is why HD-DVD or Blu-ray would be better then a DVD.

Perhaps you might want to visit an optometrist, I'm thinking your position might be revised with the correct perscription.