No. It isn't like the Go-Bots versus Transformers robot war.
Not that you care, but I'm extremely happy that Blu-Ray has pretty much trounced HD-DVD so we can get on with our high-def future.
As a consumer, I was extremely reluctant to dive into high def (HD) since at the time I saw absolutely no reason to upgrade.
Retailers such as Best Buy, HHGregg, Microcenter and others failed to show me any reason to upgrade with their various HD sets all looking like bad web video half of the time. Their staff members are also pretty much full of shit when it comes to straight talk about HD, especially ones that live off of commission.
I've actually had Microcenter staff tell me how great a given image's picture quality was when anybody viewing it would say that it was total shit! Of course, they live off of slapping their little name stickers on products so they can make a commission and I've found over the years they'll say anything (or often do anything) to get that sticker on a box!
Anyway, I was very happy that recently I found a very cheap DVD player that upsamples to 1080i on my new Samsung. It really made a difference in the DVD playback.
Now as a consumer, I wasn't going to touch the whole HD next generation Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players until one of the formats was dead. I don't care what anybody says, it was the whole Betamax versus VHS war from the early 80s all over again. I'm just old enough to remember the whole thing quite clearly as it played out with various family member's purchases.
As with HD televisions, I've sat on the side lines watching how the players would end up until I felt the time was right.
Thankfully, based on several recent major supports dropping HD-DVD support, the world can now be a better place because Blu-Ray will become the standard. (And don't let Paramount's HD DVD only policy fool you. They'll go wherever the dollars are to be made.)
Let's face it, technically, they are pretty much identical, with Blu Ray having shitloads more of capacity and HD DVD really only have Region Free players (which I wish Blue Ray had since that is my major DVD headache).
What's amazing is that HD DVD could have had a real competitive chance if the oh-so-great Microsoft, supporter and a major creator of HD DVD, would have thrown HD DVD players as standard in their XBox system like Sony threw Blu Ray in the Play Station.
That Sony move definitely gave Blu Ray the momentum and saturation needed to drive disc sales.
What's also nice is that Blu Ray also is driven internally by substantial amounts of a Java Virtual Machine, which of course has to piss Microsoft off.
It'll be awhile before I drop money down on a Blu Ray player. But it is nice to know that essentially all the pieces are in place for us to benefit from it, at least in the living room.
Now that Blu Ray has more or less been christened the winner of the format war, I can sit back and watch the flood of eventual cheaper and more affordable players hit the market and let vendor competition on price help me to find the player I'll own.
Who knows, by that time, I may even upgrade to an HDTV upstairs too. Though of course, there's not much point in doing that unless we have cable TV run upstairs as well. Though honestly we could live off a digital antenna if the quality was worth it.
Now that's something I need to explore further.
- Categories: miscellaneous
Yeah; from this point in, it looks like HD-DVD is going to be positioning itself for a buy-out. A shame too; I doubt the ever-benevolent Sony (and partners) will be in a rush to region-unlock their victorious format.
The real winner in the HD DVD vs Blue Ray war will be down loadable content. Look at the precident set by Music.
Cassettes, CDs, MP3s.
Please note the lack of "CDs 2.0".
No body cares about HD discs, there isn't a competting reason to upgrade entire collections of DVDs when upconvert players do the same thing for cheaper. Do you really think that an HD DVD of "Sixteen Candles" or "The Terminator" is being made any differently? The movie wasn't shot in HD, it's never going to be true HD.
On the other hand, having an on demand movie library like people get with music will almost definitely win out. Hard drive space and bandwidth are both becoming cheaper and larger.
Just look at this...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/28/technology/cisco.php
The entire netflix library in 40 seconds. SECONDS!
I can't find an article but there are tests being done at the BBC for a system that will record every channel in it's entirety for up to 6 months. You can rewind/ fast forward and play all of them at once. They are working on a 2 week version for consumers.
I'm getting a little long now but I still have one more thing to comment on. In a recent TWIT podcast it was suggested that Microsoft's "support" of HD DVDs wasn't meant to put HD DVD into a winning position but was instead meant to stall BluRay from catching on. This is why 360s don't have native HD support. Microsoft is now pushing it's downloadable 360 content more than it's HD content. It's all a theory of course but it makes sense.
Yeah. There's little reason to upgrade from a DVD player. I so love my new one that upscales to 1080i.
I'll wait to see the downloadable front unfold.
Time Warner Cable can barely get my damn On Demand right half of the time.
I don't have much faith in anything over broadband until I see it fully tested.
And I'm unlikely to pay more in bandwidth either.
I used Amazon's Unbox to buy and download Good Luck Chuck (yeah, I know, shut up). It was fifteen bucks, but I also got a free version for portable players, and I can burn the file to DVD and play it on multiple computers. I had to download their proprietary player to do the download, but the file itself works in any player (I used RealPlayer and WMP). It took 45 minutes to download using Road Runner, but I was surfing and doing other internet things at the same time. You're supposed to be able to start watching a few minutes into the download, but that really didn't work. The quality was decent. It was just really nice to get to watch while doing the laundry, without having to leave the house; it was like "I WANNA WATCH A MOVIE RIGHT THIS INSTANT" and I willed Blockbuster into existence with the power of my mind.