Sound Advice: HD DVD leaves Blu-ray in the dust

[wraggster]

Don Lindich posted this:

I enthusiastically recommend HD DVD because it's a better product and a better proposition for consumers. Signs are showing it is going to trounce Blu-ray, and soon. Surprised? Read on.

For those looking for a single sentence explaining why go with HD DVD: It's a better thought-out, more solid product than Blu-ray, it is half the price, and picture and sound quality are identical. At less than $200 including seven or more movies, HD DVD players are a stunning value. Why pay twice the money when Blu-ray has serious issues and the movies look and sound the same?

I smile when I see people buying HD DVD players based on bargain pricing, because they are unknowingly getting the Ferrari as well! Despite its purported superiority and much higher cost, Blu-ray is the emperor with no clothes. HD DVD has been superior since day one.

On the other hand, at launch Blu-ray's picture quality was horrible, generating barbs such as "needs to go to the scrap heap" and "who in their right mind would ever like this?" Though they have since closed the picture quality gap, almost all Blu-ray player models announced or existing are already obsolete. They conform to an early player profile that does not support upcoming disc features. Profiles should have been finalized before product launch! Blu-ray's record has been spotty at best, and if you say it sounds like they have been fixing it as they go along, I'd say you are right.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07314...d=business.xml

[freitax]

xD

[VexnadFett]

haha! what an idiot! why would you want to pay less for something that is going to be extinct soon and has horrible film support? it makes no sense!

[WhizzBang]

I wonder if either of these formats will make it as DVDs are still good enough for the majority of people. I am certainly not in a hurry to adopt either of them.

[Tree]

WhizzBang, you are right, the only people who want HD movies are rich, like there gadgets or have a PS3 but most just want to stay with DVD like you said, like im only thinking about buyin Harry potter, and POTC on blu-ray because i have PS3 and i might aswell use it to my advantage with great movies like these two. i think it will take a couple of years before HD movies get popular.

[ngin.small]

HD-DVD has fairly bad support, and its just now getting into sound when its on the brink of failure! I dont get it this will only cost them more money that there already not getting from sales it just dosent make any sense. Its still funny to see it try to make a comeback:rofl:

[nhlhockey]

who is that guy. how much did he get paid to say that? is he the ceo of hddvd?

[MicroNut]

BRD is the superior format simply because of its storage size.
BRD: 25GB / 50GB
HDDVD: 15GB / 30GB

If the image quality is bad its becuase the studio chose to encode the movie poorly.

Both support:
Video: MPEG-2, H.264 and VC-1
Audio: DD AC3, DTS, PCM and Dolby TrueHD

Image and sound quality are directly affected by the codec and bit rate used and ultimately the amount of storage space available.
MPEG-2 is superior.
A 2 hour film takes up about 25GB of space.
Include PCM Audio and this easily exceeds HD-DVD's dual layer storage limit.

BR discs can now be made in regular DVD factories without any retooling needed.

It all a matter of the cost for the player now.
Which is exactly why HD-DVD players have seen a major price reduction.

They know HD-DVD doesnt stand a chance once BRD players come down in price.

In the long run, the consumer has the most to win out of the BRD format.

[Triv1um]

Blu-ray moves cost less than HD-DVD here.

£20 - £25 for Blu-ray and £20 -£30 for HD-DVD.