which format is winning? hd or blu-ray

dholmes

What is the word on HD-Blu-ray? Which one is winning the format war?? I was at Bestbuy & watched a few mins of Ultraviolet on Blu-ray,which has A+ pq on standard dvd.I noticed alot of blocking,they had it hooked up to a Sony lcd tv. Also I watched HD on a Sony lcd with several mins of different movies.I thought the HD player did a better job! Still going to wait, but I noticed that Toshbia is coming out with there 2 HD player. Wish I didnt have to wait!!

danger boy

no format is winning yet. it's to new.. give it 6 months, then i think one will reign supreme.

mantis

HD DVD is getting better write ups. But Pioneer and Sony have not released there players yet, once that happens, I believe the table will turn.

Dan

danger boy

maybe when the PS3 is released it will have an impact on their format war.

polkatese

anyone knows when the Tosh HD-XA2/A2 will be released?

EDIT: Never mind, found the answer, although may or may not happen: A2 this month, XA2 in December 06.

fireshoes

HD DVD is crushing BD at the moment. The picture is generally considered better and in August HD DVD movies outsold Blu-Ray 11 to 1. September estimates are showing a wider gap. And October is stacked with great HD DVD releases, including Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the Mission Impossible trilogy.

cheddar

Unless you're itching for bragging rights to be first on your block, I'd sit back and wait for the dust to settle. All players out so far are far from perfect. They are buggy and depend on a lot of firmware upgrades to knock the bugs out. It's like MS Windows where they wait for the users to find out all the faults in their product and then patch it up afterwards.

1st gen of both products will look like very expensive paper weights in a year when the really good players come out with a FULL set of features like decoding for all the audio formats and support for HDMI 1.3.

Although, HD-DVD players came out first and they remain cheaper by far than the blu-ray stand alones. However, the PS3 is scheduled to dump its first 2 million even cheaper blu-ray players on the market before Christmas with 4 million more by March. Nobody really knows yet what that's going to do or the PQ of the PS3. My guess is even with all the Toshiba HD-DVD players and the Samsung blu-ray players sold so far, all HD formats don't have much penetration yet into the general consumer market. So you'll have to wait a year or so to even start to declare a winner.

Remember the 42" plasmas when they first came out at like 10 grand with nowhere near the features or quality of a 50" for a few thousand today?

polkatese

Sony is about to fight back!:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/releasedates.html

With this kind of software line-up, I have to force myself to get the lawnchair out, sit on the sideline, and watch the fight, before I spend any benjis.

sickicw

hd-dvd is still winning, but blu-ray might start catching up soon. they just anounced they are releasing at least 3 duel layer 50gig movies this year. With 50 gigs to play with, these moves have the potental to be the best home video and audio we have seen yet.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Sony/Disc_Announcements/Sony_Officially_Announces_First_BD-50_Blu-ray_Discs/285

Ron-P

Too bad the Blu-ray players keep getting more expensive. The Panny that just streeted is $1,200, $200 more then the Sammy. Sony's greed is going to kill Blu-ray if they keep this up, regardless of software releases.

Check out Amasons software sales between the two, Blu-rays **** is getting kicked down the block and around the corner and it's going to keep happening until the prices on the Blu players drop, a lot, enough to compete with HD-DVD anyway.

1st gen of both products will look like very expensive paper weights in a year when the really good players come out with a FULL set of features like decoding for all the audio formats and support for HDMI 1.3.

Paper weight or not, the build quality of the A1 will not be matched by any other future players as they are now being built in china, like the A2. I will upgrade my player when I go full HDMI audio and to a 1080p FP but that's years away. So for now, this really good A1 is giving me the best A/V out there, and for a very inexpensive price.

give it 6 months, then i think one will reign supreme.

In just a few short days I will have had my A1 in my rack for 6 months already. It's going to take a lot longer then another 6 that's for certain.

I honestly don't care which format wins and I'd have a Blu player in my rack right now if it wasn't for these seriously over-priced players.

But, tomorrow I'm picking up Batman Begins and Corpse Bride on HD-DVD and with the 2.0 firmware update, Dolby TrueHD on Batman. The reviews on this, off the chart. If HD-DVD dies, so what, I'll have a stack of HD-DVD movies and one hell of an upscaling players.

fireshoes

Got my Batman Begins at Target tonight, Ron! I'm just using it for demos at work until I get a player. I'm off today and tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll watch it all on Wednesday.

Sherardp

Ron-P I couldnt agree with you more. I have been using the A1 and have nothing but good things to say about the unit. Im able to enjoy TrueHD Audio now and the audio is awesome, along with the PQ on my Panny display. I say screw sitting on the sidelines, why not enjoy HD DVD at the low cost it takes to get into. I had the intent to buy a Blu Ray player this weekend but after the Demo I saw in Best Buy, I just couldnt see the just of it. The PQ of Blu-Ray is not on par of HD DVD IMO. For the moment I'm happy, and if it does become a paper weight, who cares, most of us have cables that cost the same amount of a HD DVD player.

Ron-P

A paper weight is something the A1 will never be. Look at the A2, it's the same price as the A1, but built in china, does not have 5.1 analog outs, only passes 1080i and can only do HDMI 1.2a. The A1 is superior compared to the A2 which is a second gen player.

I can see where those like cheddar are going. In several years, if the war is over, they'll only be one format and players dirt cheap that do HDMI 1.3, 1080p and so on. They'll lack the build quality but they'll be cheap and full of features.

It's already been said, but the entry price is just too darn inexpensive to pass up and wait along the sidelines for a winner. I fire up my A1 and am just blown away by the amount of detail, the 3D lifelike images, the sharpness, color saturation, the deep blacks and awesome DD+ and TrueHD soundtracks.

Way to go fireshoes, I cannot wait to get this and Corpse Bride. I read that on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory there's an isolated soundtrack in TrueHD, how cool is that!

wingnut4772

I enjoy my HD A1 also. The audio alone was well worth it and I am so glad I did not wait. As a bonus, it is ecxellent for standard DVDs as well..just as good as my $1000.00 Pioneer 79avi. I can't really hear a difference with True HD though but I have only 'listened' to Constantine. It must be subtle.

Holydoc

wingnut4772 wrote:

I enjoy my HD A1 also. The audio alone was well worth it and I am so glad I did not wait. As a bonus, it is ecxellent for standard DVDs as well..just as good as my $1000.00 Pioneer 79avi. I can't really hear a difference with True HD though but I have only 'listened' to Constantine. It must be subtle.

Darla,

Is the audio better or not? You said the audio was better making HD DVDs worth it. You then said that you could not hear a difference in audio.

The reason I ask is that your system should easily amplify any differences in sound quality. I was wondering if the TRUE HD sound has made any significant difference or if it is just another gimick to make me upgrade sooner.

wingnut4772

Holydoc wrote:

Darla,

Is the audio better or not? You said the audio was better making HD DVDs worth it. You then said that you could not hear a difference in audio.

The reason I ask is that your system should easily amplify any differences in sound quality. I was wondering if the TRUE HD sound has made any significant difference or if it is just another gimick to make me upgrade sooner.

Yes the audio is better. The general audio id Dolby Digital Plus which is much better than SD DVDs. Supposedly True Hd is a step above that even but so far I have not really done enough listening to tell the difference. I could see that statement might be confusing if you are not familiar with the formats.

Holydoc

Thanks for clarifying that for me, Darla, and being patient with my ignorance on the subject.

Yes the audio part is one of the portions I do not know much about when it comes to these new formats. Not many people can test the new audio because they just do not have the equipment to do so. I knew that your D2 could handle it and wanted to know your impressions.

So that I do not completely hijack this thread with silly questions, if you get a chance could you PM me with how the audio is different than SD DVDs? I would love to know what you are hearing differently. I know this high definition stuff is going to be the end of me and my wallet.

PoLk FaN

Im going to buy the PS3 to watch HD movies, and play games, for $499.not to bad if you think about it.