Blu Ray or HD?

Mike Kozak

I know this has probably been asked before, but what is the general opinion of the fine folks here?

Thanks

dephinistr8

I have both, love both, however it would seem as far as industry support is concerned, Blu-ray may have the upper hand.

Early on I preffered the HD-DVD's just for the fact that many of them are dual-format (dvd and hd-dvd on one disc), perhaps they did this to sway consumers, although it doesn't look like the consumers are the ones deciding this format war.

AndyGwis

I only have HD-DVD (actually have 2 players). Love it, but I'm starting to get scared. Less and less of the good titles are coming out on HD-DVD. Most of them that do also come out on BluRay. I'm seriously considering picking up a BR player here shortly.

Not to threadjack, but anyone have opinions on the Sharp BR player? I see it onsale and looks like a good buy for around $300.

dephinistr8

AndyGwis wrote: »

I only have HD-DVD (actually have 2 players). Love it, but I'm starting to get scared. Less and less of the good titles are coming out on HD-DVD. Most of them that do also come out on BluRay. I'm seriously considering picking up a BR player here shortly.

Not to threadjack, but anyone have opinions on the Sharp BR player? I see it onsale and looks like a good buy for around $300.

I gotta say the Sony PS3 is a damn fine BR player...although a lot of folks seem to have an anti-sony thing going...

Face

I wouldn't pick up a BR player yet. BR 2.0 is going to be released later this year.

dephinistr8

Face wrote: »

I wouldn't pick up a BR player yet. BR 2.0 is going to be released later this year.

Well the PS3 is 2.0 ready.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080118-new-nlu-ray-2-0-spec-makes-ps3-the-most-future-proof-player.html

jdhdiggs

AndyGwis wrote: »

I only have HD-DVD (actually have 2 players). Love it, but I'm starting to get scared. Less and less of the good titles are coming out on HD-DVD. Most of them that do also come out on BluRay. I'm seriously considering picking up a BR player here shortly.

Not to threadjack, but anyone have opinions on the Sharp BR player? I see it onsale and looks like a good buy for around $300.

I have the sharp and it SUCKS compared to the A35. I am still working thorugh bugs such as menus not showing up and skipping and pausing and other issues. Check the AVS forums for more info.

Personally, now that I've gone purple (bought the A35 after the sharp) is that I am really pissed that HD-DVD will probably lose. IMHO: The HD-DVD picture is better, they have more mature/less expensive players (in general). Hell, my wife has no problem using the A35, but has trouble with the sharp...

shawn474

With the deal that sony has going on the PS3, I don't think it can be beat. If you sign up for the sony card, they give you $100 statement credit on a purchase 299 and up. I got the 40 gb PS3 for 399 - 100 credit = $2992 with SPider Man 3 and 5 free movies. If you so choose, it also comes with 12 months no interest. From all that I have read, the PS3 rivals all of the stand alone players in terms of quality of components and build quality. I might be wrong, but that was my understanding.

AndyGwis

PS3 does sound nice. I think I'll eventually head down that path. For $299, you get BR, SACD (which would mean I can get a better CD only player and not lose my SACD playback), media server. . . and gaming console to boot.

I might just need to get one and store it away somewhere. Is Sony still offering a 5 BR rebate? I think the last one expired 1/31/2008.

Mike Kozak

I have an xbox 350 so no need for another game machine. I may wait for Blu Ray 2.0 to come out.

shawn474

I think the rebate for blu-rays expired, but am sure they will run a new promotion soon.

What is an XBOX 350?:D

dorokusai

Beta.

Mike Kozak

it is a typ0 Ha Ha

danger boy

I just got an HD DVD playa and two things bug me.. first, you can't resume your movie were you left off. with standard DVD's. you can just turn the player on and start watching the movie where you left off.. not so with HD DVD. It starts from the beginning every time. Did you hear that? Every time you have to start the movie from the beginning. sucks hard.

on my old tube TV which is 1080i, i set the output of the Toshiba player and it looks great and i set it to 16:9 format, even on my 36" tv, it still looks good.. then when I insert a standard DVD, the picture is all very narrow and I have to go into the menu and change it over to 4:3 letterbox to look normal. i am using component video cables.. I don't have HDMI anything.. just DVI.. which I'll try out in the coming weeks.

loads times are long.. maybe a minute or two... forwarding or rewinding to the next chapter is slow.. it freezes, then 5 or 6 seconds later is moves to the next or previous chapter.

I only got it to get me thru till my player is released later this year by Samsung. BD5500 hasn't hit the market yet. but will later this year. it's a combo player. and is about half the price of their current combo player the BD5000.. (which I hear is already discontinued, but there are plenty of them around for $800)

mantis

I said it before and I'll say it again...

The Ps3 is the only Blu Ray Player on the market worth buying. All the others fail compared. Upgradeability is key here not to mention a very nice media server WITH SACD playback (only with HDMI and a preamp/receiver that can take it like the Pioneer Elite vsx94txh..love it.)

I'm cool with HD DVD losing. Now we can all get on with our lives and enjoy the new Blu World. I'm sick of format wars.

Demiurge

danger boy wrote: »

I just got an HD DVD playa and two things bug me.. first, you can't resume your movie were you left off.

Hmmm, wondering if this is just a problem with the player you have. I think I have read that. I only have the XBox 360 Add-On and I don't recall having an issue. I'll have to check it out tonight. I'll check my PS3 with a Blu-Ray disc tonight as well.

grif32

danger boy wrote: »

I just got an HD DVD playa and two things bug me.. first, you can't resume your movie were you left off. with standard DVD's. you can just turn the player on and start watching the movie where you left off.. not so with HD DVD. It starts from the beginning every time. Did you hear that? Every time you have to start the movie from the beginning. sucks hard.

on my old tube TV which is 1080i, i set the output of the Toshiba player and it looks great and i set it to 16:9 format, even on my 36" tv, it still looks good.. then when I insert a standard DVD, the picture is all very narrow and I have to go into the menu and change it over to 4:3 letterbox to look normal. i am using component video cables.. I don't have HDMI anything.. just DVI.. which I'll try out in the coming weeks.

loads times are long.. maybe a minute or two... forwarding or rewinding to the next chapter is slow.. it freezes, then 5 or 6 seconds later is moves to the next or previous chapter.

I only got it to get me thru till my player is released later this year by Samsung. BD5500 hasn't hit the market yet. but will later this year. it's a combo player. and is about half the price of their current combo player the BD5000.. (which I hear is already discontinued, but there are plenty of them around for $800)

All you have to do is set a "bookmark" and you can start it where you left off. Really simple thing to do.

What player do you have?

I have the 1st generation HD DVD player by Toshiba. Works like a champ and the load times are a little long but whats a 1 minute or so when I am going to watch a 2 - 3 hr movie. No different then any Standalone BR player.

PhantomOG

What are load times like with current gen blu ray players? better or worse than HD-DVD? Just curious, I have neither yet.

shawn474

The load times are definitely better with the blu-ray. I had the A-2 and now have the PS3 - I like the PS3 better for a few reasons but load time definitely bugged me with the A-2.

Demiurge

PhantomOG wrote: »

What are load times like with current gen blu ray players? better or worse than HD-DVD? Just curious, I have neither yet.

I don't have load time issues with either format, this is quite curious.

shawn474

My A-2 would literally take at least 90 seconds to 2 minutes to boot up and load a disc. I am pretty impatient as it is so it really bothered me.

ViperZ

This is not fair to compare loading times on game system vs. loading time on stand-alone player.

Generally, if you compare apples to apples, load times seem to be around the same mark, although load times of java-script based menus in blu-ray players suck big time.

Here is a good comparison head-to-head of blu-ray and HD-DVD technology:

http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Blu-ray_HD_DVD_Buyers_Guide_page1.html

shawn474 wrote: »

The load times are definitely better with the blu-ray. I had the A-2 and now have the PS3 - I like the PS3 better for a few reasons but load time definitely bugged me with the A-2.

mantis

Load times are a huge problem with the new formats. Both sides take way to long to get going but the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive and the Ps3 are the current fastest loaders. The Ps3 alone only takes 13 seconds until you can load a disc, the next quickest player is the Panasonic 30 at 43 seconds before you can load a disk. Now thats only to get the damn disk in, the xbox 360 you can hit eject and load the disk right away. It the fastest overall.

All other players come in at 1 minute or more. 1st gen players are 1:30 to well over 2 minutes. Who the hell wants to stand around and wait?? Sucks but part of the new formats.

wodom1

I've got a PS3 and about five blu-ray DVD's. I've never seen an HD-DVD outside of a store. The Blue-ray picture is awesome on my 40" 1080P LCD HDTV.

Demiurge

It's very amusing to me we used to be perfectly happy with VHS and now we're bitching about 1 minute effin' load times on a DVD!

shawn474

Demi,
I agree with you that in the grand scheme of things it is trivial to complain about load times. I got the PS3 for a few reasons, namely I wanted a new gaming system. I got pissed that HD-DVD seems to have lost the format war and started feigning for a Blu-Ray. So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. The Sony deal with the $100 credit swayed me.

That being said, the load time did irritate me.:D

Demiurge

shawn474 wrote: »

Demi,
I agree with you that in the grand scheme of things it is trivial to complain about load times. I got the PS3 for a few reasons, namely I wanted a new gaming system. I got pissed that HD-DVD seems to have lost the format war and started feigning for a Blu-Ray. So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. The Sony deal with the $100 credit swayed me.

That being said, the load time did irritate me.:D

Ah, cool, unfortunately I already had that card when that deal went down. I got in on the $100, but that was before the PS3 came out. Go figure.

ND13

I have both and prefer HD overall. They both have comparable PQ, but the HD has better sound, imo.

Ron-P

I can't agree that HD has better sound, they both, for the most part have lossless audio tracks so the sound is identical between the two, even more so now that Blu offers TrueHD audio tracks. Very few HD-DVDs contain lossless audio tracks were most Blu-ray's do. PQ is identical.

It's now come down to studio support, Blu owns them all but two, Universal and Paramount. At this point in the game I'd only go Blu, HD-DVD is dying a slow death and it's future looks grim, much more so then Blu anyway.

I haven't bought an HD-DVD in 3+ months, I'm only buying Blu from here on out.

ND13

Ron,

I watch all my movies in "state-of-the-art" 2.1, so all the fancy, pantsy audio formats are lost on me.:p I don't even own an AVR.

Mike Kozak

I really just wanted to know if I should buy HD or Blu ray, guess I will make my own decision