Common Blu-Ray!

Blu-Ray:

Twice as expensive.
Fewer titles available.
Inferior picture quality.
Very pitiful sales.

The only thing the fanboys have left to hope for is the PS3 performing some miracle (the miracle of forcing a format onto consumers). Wishful thinking, by the time the overpriced PS3 ships, that is if they can ever get it working and actually get any in stores, HD-DVD's lead will be so far ahead that Blu-Ray will look like a joke. Only the stubbornist of Sony fanboys will be buying the PS3 and only for their little kiddie GTA games. Most people, even PS2 owners, decided Sony could die in a firey pit in hell when they announced the insane $600 price for the PS3 (or 500 for the retarded version which is still too much). It wouldn't effect the home video market anyway. HD-DVD has already won, get used to it.

This might be a valid topic if anyone here has actually bought an HD-DVD or a Blu-Ray burner.....

No?
Then it sounds like much ado about nothing...

75 minutes? So we'll be needing two of them for a standard movie.

Great.

I thought someone was crowing about how cheap HD-DVD was..

HD-DVD = $1.33/GB
Blu-Ray = $1/GB

HD-DVD is over 30% more expensive for media..

The hardware, people are talking about how much cheaper the hardware is. That is why HD-DVD sales are holding steady and Blu-Ray is doing much more poorly. Media doesn't mean a thing if the hardware fails to sell. Another little point from the article, Memorex has been selling Blu-Ray discs for months now. As they said the price comes down. This is the launch price for HD-DVD-R, which will also come down when the quantity goes up and more manufacturers are selling it.

HD-DVD players are cheaper because Toshiba is more willing to eat a bigger loss on sales. With competition like Blu-Ray, I can't say I blame them.

HD-DVD players are cheaper because they cost less to manufacture, being that they can use existing DVD fabs. As for competition, from the poor sales Blu-Ray is getting in comparison I don't think they have anything to worry about. http://www.dvd-intellige...03_free/77_br-sales.htm

HD-DVD is doomed to fail for the following reasons:

As it's standard fitment on PS3, and the console will be in millions of homes by March 2007, despite the price, how can HD-DVD stand any chance of winning the war?

It's not standard on XBox360, and only a very small minority of XBox360 owners are likely to buy one, partly due to it's lack of HDCP/HDMI and dark cloud of downscaled movies hanging over it's head.

The other factor for Blu-ray winning, is movie studio support. Look at the list of studios, there is only one major studio NOT supporting Blu-Ray, many supporting both formats, and about 10 not supporting HD-DVD.

A game console is not going to win a "movie" format war. People buy consoles to play games, and even if the PS3 does become something other than vaporware so what? UMD is in millions of homes too courtesty of the PSP, and that format is cold and dead now in the movie world.

No, not every 360 owner will buy one. Very nice of Microsoft to actually give them a choice, unlike our "friends" at Sony. However those that do want to watch movies (the very people you are counting on with the PS3) certainly WILL buy the HD-DVD addon. Regardless this is again a game console. Let's just ignore the tens of thousands of set top HDTV players that have already been sold to date, and that they are continuing to sell very well. Reality hurts doesn't it?

Finally, the movie studios will jump to HD-DVD faster than rats on a sinking ship if things continue looking bleak for Blu-Ray. Don't think for one second they won't. Funny how with all these studios supporting it Blu-Ray only has a fraction of titles out compared to HD-DVD, and those that are out are selling far worse. Not to mention the terrible reviews they've gotten for poor picture quality.

So basically your reasons are all nonsense. I love how you Sony people still shout about it being doomed to fail when it's selling out faster than the stores can stock it while Blu-Ray sits on the shelves. Enjoy your fantasy world though.

You contradict yourself in a bunch of sentences to praise Microsoft and attack Sony. You say that the PS3 won't make the Blu-Ray format a success but HD-DVD silly XBox360 external add-on would make HD-DVD better and XBox360 owners would buy it for watching movies... Yeah, right, and who buys a Sony PS3 won't be watching HDTV BluRay movies... yeah, right.

I really wonder if you are a Microsoft employee or are getting paid by Microsoft to support the XBox360 on the 'net and on the press and such.

The reason why Blu-Ray sales are slow, is because the only Blu-Ray players are still too expensive. Competitive priced Blu-Ray hardware is just around the corner (literally weeks away), and the PS3 will drop price of dedicate Blu-Ray player further still. Nobody wants to buy a Blu-Ray player now, when we all know that in 3 months time, you will pick them up for less than $400.

The reason UMD failed as a movie format is obvious, not because PSP is a gaming device, and people who play games didn't want to watch movies on the PSP, they did. The reason it failed, was because people did not want to throw away their investement of existing DVD titles, and buy UMD version. That problem does not exist in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format as you have the backwards compatability.

Any XBox360 owner dumb enough to buy a HD-DVD add-on, with the black cloud of ICT hanging over it's head, with only the movie studio's word they will not switch it on, and downgrade all their movies to DVD quality, is dumber than I ever gave them credit for...

Methinks you are the one living in the fantasy world, if you think HD-DVD, even with it's headstart can win the format war, with barely a handful of supporting movie studios, lower quality (maximum bitrate of 29Mb/Sec, compared to Blu-Ray's 45Mb/Sec), lower storage sizes (15/30GB compared to Blu-Rays 25/50GB).

It's not a contradiction. I said that neither game console would win the war. However with the 360 only the people that actually want to watch movies will buy the addon, as opposed to the way Sony is forcing people whether they want it or not.

No, I'm not a Microsoft employee nor am I getting paid to support the 360; if I was they would fire me pretty quickly because I think the 360 is an ugly piece of crap. I simply think they handled it far better than the Sony greed machine.

Exactly, so while people are NOT buying the overpriced Blu-Ray players they are buying HD-DVD players in droves. By the time your cheaper (yeah right) Blu-Ray players come out it will be too late. HD-DVD already had a good head start, and now the way Sony is handling things it's lead is growing more every day. People are not going to throw out all the HD-DVD movies they bought because Sony finally decided to lower the price on it's players. Too little, too late.

Your ICT argument is BS FUD, show me where anyone said will not play movies if the movie studios turn on that restriction. Show me where they said they were going to turn it on. I'm no fan of Microsoft but they aren't stupid. Nice try though.

No I'm not the one living in a fantasy world, I'm looking at cold hard facts from today. The sales for Blu-Ray are terrible and the reviews for their picture quality is terrible. At the same time HD-DVD players are selling very well and the reviews are very positive. All you are doing is spouting fanboy speculations about what you think might happen. Good luck with that.

Got any real sales figures (I doubt it). Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are still very niche products. They havn't even been launched globally yet.

I would be very suprised if they have shipped more than 10k HD-DVD players. PS3 launch will desimate that figured on day one.

I never said enabling ICT would not play movies. It will play them at DVD quality, to prevent pirates making HD copies of moves. If you think that movie studios are not worried about this, and will keep ICT disabled, then you are a bigger fool than I originally thought.

http://www.thedvdwars.com/index.cfm

There's you some figures from Amazon. If you want you can find info from Best Buy and other stores.

I see you edited your post and added "downgrade them to DVD quality". As if no one would notice. Oh and until the studios say they will enable it, it's just your opinion. There are a LOT of movies out already and none of them use it. Even if they do, show me where Micrsoft said that the 360 will never be able to play them.

Oh, and your going to call me names now. LOL, go right ahead. I guess since you can't come up with any actual facts name calling and FUD is about all you have left.

OH MY GOD! A WHOLE 15 GIGS! OH MY GOD!

(EDIT for math wh0res) a whole 76% more capacity than DL DVD. WOOHOO!

to be worth it, it needs to be at least 30GB and $5 per disk

Isn't DL DVD is 8.5GB?
15gb/8.5gb = 1.76
So like 76% bigger than DL DVD...

I think you need to go back and work on your math. Oh and you are comparing dual layer media to single layer media. The dual layer HD-DVD-R WILL be 30GB.

And you know that they are able to make DL HDDVDs for under $5?

Ok math tool, heres some math for ya...

15GB is 76% more room than 8.5Gb ok great, woohoo.
BUT...
19.95 is 500% more cost than a 3.99 Dual Layer DVD, and 7900% more than a 0.25 cent regular DVD.

5 TIMES THE COST FOR NOT EVEN TWICE THE STORAGE.

LOL@mathDanny7numbnuts

It doesn't make sense comparing the price of a format that has been out for years to the price of a newly launched format. Let's just compare the price of DVDs to VHS tapes while we are at it. Also look at the price of hard drives, you can buy a 500GB drive for a fraction of what it would cost in the same number of DVDs. It's an apples and oranges situation, different formats. Yes Blu-Ray and HD-DVD cost more than regular DVD's but there's a convenience factor you have to take into consideration. Being able to store the same amount of information on fewer discs is worth a higher price. All that said, again these are launch prices. How much did DVD-R cost when it was introduced? Now how much do they cost today?

Wow comparing an 8 year tech to just released NEW tech...
Don't you think that the prices lowered a little in 8 years?
Also DL DVDs are already 2 years with us so it's obvious the prices are lower than when they got released 2 years ago.

No, they won't be less than $5 per disc. That is ridiculous anyway. Where are you getting your $5 figure from? Can you name any other optical format that stores 30GB for less than $5 per disc? If you are using dual layer DVD as your basis your logic is flawed. Not only is that an OLD format, but people will pay more for the convenience of being able to store more on a single disc. If you want to be a bit more fair compare the original launch price of Dual Layer DVD-R to these.

so is like a $ the GB for the new s***