Good News on HD-DVDs  

Really a good article. Kind of gives us a sense of what the future may hold.

The only good news is we'll have some format by Christmas next year. But even this doesn't look like good news - it's sad to see they're going to release anything with the format war not settled. Releasing the competing formats will just confuse the public, slow acceptance, and drive up both media and player pricing.

Does anyone else see the uncanny resemblance to VHS and Beta-max??

Yes, I predict the format with the most pr0n will win. :)

Sony is lucky that they're going to use Bluray for their PS3 discs because HD-DVD is going to be the universal format.

With as many issues as there are currently with upconverting DVD players, I will believe it when I see it.

-Suntan

The real question is when HD DVD's will become more than a niche. The key to this, as was with DVD's, is the rental market. When will the rental chains start carrying 2 versions of the same DVD (ED and HD) for most releases. Even though I purchased many DVD's I still plan on renting most movies that I watch. This is when when I will get a HD DVD player (and I suspect most other will wait for this as well).

MOre than likely we'll get both formats and eventually we will have players that work for both disc types just like DVD-R vs DVD+R ect..

Or the war may end like DVD+ and DVD- with 99% of dvd-burners now able to burn both formats.

I believe early adopters of HD-DVD would most likely choose a media-pc solution because I predict it would be cheaper to buy a blue ray /hd-dvd reader/writer for your desktop than to buy a standalong hd-dvd player.

I bet the first HD-DVD players would cost around 999$ and the Blue Ray would cost around 1500$, but the computer readers/writers would cost below $500. Just my prediction.

absolutic. I believe, 3 months after introduction of HD DVD, there will be quality players at $500. Competition is fiece in the marketplace. I have a quality 480P player at $300. Can not see HD much more than $500-$600. I believe the prices will drop faster than we think.

It is a disaster than a format war is going to happen.

It will radically slow adoption and content offering.

And, worse still, the technologically inferior format is going to be first out of the gate.

One can only hope Fox and Disney go with BluRay and that Warner, Paramount, et al. actually do release on both formats. If there is a marketplace format war, HD-DVD will get slaughtered. If the content gets segregated, we'll see.

rogo.... I believe, to be successful for the general public (who will take several years to get use to HD DVDs) we must end up with one format for HD DVD. Of course, this shake out could could take years. Right now, many people where I live still rent VHS tapes.

see mangopony i am much more sceptical than you about prices on hd players. I don't think after 3 months the prices would drop to 500$ unless Chinese companies will enter the competition RIGHT AWAY, not sometime later like they did with dvd-player and plasmas (they came to the market much later but quickly help dropped prices). If Chinese are there immediately to flood the market with hd-dvd players, then you are probably right.

This maybe a stupid question, but with the HD-DVD format could one side of the disk be a HD version with the other side being a standard version?

Well, the Chinese are 'right there' in the middle of everything these days. And, in my opinion, giving people good quality for their money. May not be the very best but pretty darn good. And, I believe, they will get better. Remember, the Japanese back in 80's and into the 90's? The Orientals are great to copy and I mean this as a compliment and they can do it for less money. I am wondering how much first HD-DVDs will cost. Shall we say $19.95 ?

mangopony lol where is your political correctness, it is not "orientals" it is "asians" now .... just kidding of course. I'd say the first HD-DVDs would be 39.99$ each. We should save this discussion and come back to it in about a year to see who was right :)

as far as prices today, sony blu-ray model "SONY BDZ-S77" is right now on *bay for more than 2K$ with no bidders.



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I expect those big studios will force no-PC policy for software or hardware that plays HDDVDs, just like Sony does with SACD, and cut the HDDVD piracy from the root.
Of course, Microsoft will not like the idea, because of its HDWMV format efforts which has everything going around the PC. I think there is another battle there too.

Anyways, I think HDDVD might be a niche for a very long time (10 years is my guess) because current DVD is good enough for 98% of the population. DVD still looks very good even on a 720p HDTV. Maybe when 1080p TVs comes around $1K HDDVD becomes a compeling upgrade. But 10 years from now is long time. To me it is more likely I will have broadband service good enough that I can play any HD movie anytime. Why bother paying $30 for HDDVD to watch once when I can pay $5 for online rental?

Why should HD-DVD be considered inferior? Just because it has a lower capacity per disk? Personally, I think the fact that BluRay is still planning on using MPEG2, an absolutely ancient (on the time scale of modern technology) codec that REQUIRES greater storage capicity, puts it at a slight disadvantage. Yes they will also support the newer MPEG4 & WMV codecs but I have a feeling that most BluRay content providers will stick with MPEG2 because it's what they know best (at least initially). HD-DVD does force content providers to "upgrade" to more modern codecs but I don't see how that is an inherently bad thing. The only real drawback is that we might have to change disks with a high quality HD-DVD offering. A lot of people are experiencing this right now with DVD (LOTR EE DVDs for example) and it's not raising a great deal of concern.

I guess I don't care which format wins as long as we can have HD content in an easy to use format.

Hey, maybe NEC (HD-DVD) will get mad enough at Sony (Blue-ray) so that they will no longer sell them plasma glass to badge as Sony plasmas.

Then maybe Sony will use Panasonic (Blu-ray) glass, although Samsung (Blue-ray) glass is more likely.

"Why should HD-DVD be considered inferior? Just because it has a lower capacity per disk?"

And no ability to be made many layered.... and no clear utility as a PC platform (not even dual-layer recordable)

" Personally, I think the fact that BluRay is still planning on using MPEG2"

You are way, way out of date as BluRay has adopted both VC9 / WM9 and H.264 AVC -- same codecs as HD-DVD.

I agreee that unless the general public can purchase a good quality and asthetically pleasing large screen TV (>42") for under $1k they will stay with the smaller screens and not be able to tell the difference between the current DVD's and the HD-DVD's. I am not convinced that we'll be downloading HD-DVD's in that time frame either, unless your talking about a compressed version in which case I will just stick with renting the current DVD's.

Seems to me the multi-layer feature will only be an advantage for recording media, not pre-recorded movies, since very few movies will not fit on the proposed HD-DVD disc.

BTW, why is this thread not in the DVD forum, or the HDTV forum?

Hoodlum has a very good point. I think the adoption rate for any HD content on disc will be very low at first for the first year. How many people have an HDTV at home that can really tell the difference between the ED DVD and HD DVD. The ratio is still very unfavorable to us unfortunately.

The reason why ED DVD adoption rate was so fast is because it shows a significant improvement on an existing TV no matter what kind of TV you are talking about. The PQ over VHS is just superb even to an average consumer. Also, all you need to purchase is a $300+ DVD player (I am talking about 5 years ago.) and not a multi-thousand dollar TV and a probably $K HD-DVD player.

I think we need to see the adoption of HDTV much much more and we will then enjoy a lower priced HD-DVD or Blu-ray player and disc. On the bright side, Sony's Playstation3 (if supporting Blu-ray HD-movie playback) may help the situation a lot because Sony are known for selling their Playstation at a loss. It may be the cheapest Blu-ray player in the market ($500).

500$ for playstation 3 is kind of steep though....playstation is for the kids, and how many parents can afford to buy their kids a $500 playstation? Will it also be the same blu-ray format that their movies would be released in?

absolutic...
You are behind in your times if you think only kids are playing video games.
The target market for video games is NOT kids, it's EVERYONE. Young and old. Just read this forum and the video game section. How many "kids" are posting threads on AVS Forum?

The highest percentage of video game players are 18 and over. No longer for the 10 year olds. Of that high percentage, many are in their 20's and 30's.

$500 seems right for when the PS3 is released. PS2 was at that price initially and they were SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE!!!! I remember I had to search one down. It took weeks to find one.

The PS3 and the New XBox will FLY off the shelf at $500. They should both include HD-DVD/Blue-Ray playability (is that a word?)

Look for these next Christmas.

FWIW, although not a kid, unless 42 is considered child age (which my wife thinks it is ;)) I do play xbox quite a lot..........so do the kids.

Still $500 for a console does seem rather steep, even though I can comfortably afford it, when compared to what that will get you in a desktop computer.

Now where did I put my lolly pop. :D

FYI, the PS2 was $299 when released, and if the PS3 comes out at more than $349 it'll flop.

However, if MS doesn't go HD-DVD for the Xbox 2 (or whatever it'll be called) and Sony goes with Blu Ray for the PS3, assuming they get the price point right, BluRay will almost certainly win the format war, if there is to be one. The PS2 was a major reason for the DVD's quick success. When it was released it didn't cost much more than a decent DVD player, so people could more easily rationalize buying one.