gizmodo.com — The Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD battle seems as old as time itself. Being tech savvy consumers, we've heard the two formats are, to the end user, pretty identical. But are tech specs the only way to judge DVDs? Of course not. We compare the average ratings of BD and HD discs, and you know what? Not all was equal.
Feb 21, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountFeb 22, 2007
Yea, because Microsoft has a history of putting out failed proprietary media formats and their entire financial future depends on HD DVD winning right?
eatingpieFeb 22, 2007
"I know that all 3 Lord of the Rings movies will be released on both formats and I'm 99.99% sure all the Matrix movies will be too since they are Warner Brothers movies."Ah, yeah, the Matrix Trilogy. Announced as HD-DVD only LAUNCH TITLES, along with such movies as Star Trek First Contact. They missed the launch! :) Now Warner and Paramount are releasing all content on both formats.Universal is still the only company supporting HD-DVD exlusively, and after their "100 disks in 2007" announce, we've only seen 2 total (at least Sony is making good on their 100 disk promise).Something that Gizmodo also missed was that Blu-Ray quality has improved massively (Open Season!), even though early titles were somewhat lacking (Ice Age 2? stay away!). I do agree that now quality is highly comprable, and in terms of Warner, *exactly equal* since they use the same encode for both formats.I have both an HD-DVD and Blu-Ray player. But I want to see an end to the format war, and Universal isn't helping any at all -- they're holding out from Blu-Ray, making promises for HD-DVD that they're not (at this point) living up to, and as such keeping the war going and going and going. :(-Pie
bbroxterFeb 22, 2007
"CSS is not the same as DRM"Do you even know what DRM is? CSS did not allow you to copy content - DRM CSS limited players - Would not play under Linux - DRMThe reason CSS was cracked in the first place was it would not play on Linux Computers
fuzzynyankoFeb 22, 2007
There's burnable DVD9 discs out there, but I usually buy the DVD5 discs since they are so much cheaper.
compwizzFeb 22, 2007
Ditto, I actually found that article to be quite irrelevant. None of the categories they measured had anything to do with the disk format itself. It all comes down to the content providers, each format is perfectly capable of supporting all the features mentioned, its just that the content providers aren't supplying equal features to the two different formats. They shouldn't have looked at the disk as being the problem, but the content providers that use the disks.
superkendallFeb 22, 2007
Microsoft has a history of not doing at all well with versions one relases of anything - but with a new disc format, you only get one shot. You can't wait until version thre to deliver something people want.Microsoft probably thought the war would hang around long enough they could release the next version of the XBOx with an HD-DVD drive. That is far too long a time as it turned out - Sony's plan of people using the PS3 for movies and games seems to be working pretty well.
goosnarghFeb 23, 2007
I think the only thing holding Blu-ray back is the name. HD-DVD is a better and more logical name, especially when it comes to the average consumer. VHS, CD, DVD ...BD? Blu-ray? Is that a type of sting ray?
apoc06Feb 23, 2007
i am slightly disappointed in the choice of movies that studios are releasing on blu-ray. why are they spacing out their most popular titles? i would think that they would want to flood the market with quality releases proven to be high-sellers so that sales can begin to accrue early, and continue to sell well over the next few years.
radiofrequencyMar 3, 2007
Blu-ray wins for the same reason VHS won: greater storage capacity. Articles about audio and video quality/codecs have nothing to with the actual technology behind Blu-ray and HD. You can burn the exact same data file on each one... the difference is that after you do so, the Blu-ray disk still has gigabytes of space left over for more content.