which format is truley better?

"Better" is completely subjective. Pick the format that best meets your priorities (e.g. cost, movie selection, picture quality, audio quality, etc). If comparing stats on released US titles will help you decide then check out http://hddvdstats.com and http://blu-raystats.com.

Oh, FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

get whichever format has the movies you like, universal or disney/sony. I'd say get both, why limit your content?

Is this list way out of date?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truehd

"which format is truley better?"

You may as well ask "Does God exist or not?"

thats about right. Most bluray don't have truehd, they have uncompressed PCM.

Or, "What does God need with a starship?"

Seriously though, just get Blu-ray. You'll have an easier time coming across content (Blockbuster). Look at the titles available on each format and decide what you like better.

Just remember when choosing, Universal is HD-DVD's only exclusive studio. Disney/Pixar/BuenaVista, Sony,20th Century Fox, MGM studio and some more.

Blockbuster Video has in all their stores Blu-Ray which they have fully backed.

Target doesn't sell HD DVD stand-alone players anymore in-store or online as they havr pledged their support for Blu-Ray.



The advantage of Blu-ray is in the peaks during action scenes. Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest (Considered to have the best video quality of any Blu-ray title and HD DVD title available) has an average bitrate including audio of 29.7mbps, although a lot of the bitrate is taken up by a very high quality LPCM(sound) track. The average bitrate of just the video is 19mbps and the total movie size on the disc is 33GB. The advantage Disney has in the encode is with the peaks, which regularly peak near Blu-ray's maximum bitrate allowing more clarity during action scenes. Disney with Pirates DMC used up the majority of the 50GB available and left a second disc for the extras. The end result is a movie whose size and bitrate surpass what is possible on HD DVD every time. HD DVD fans will say, but you cannot see the difference. Well I can see the difference comparing screenshots of the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions of Flags of our Fathers and We Were Soldiers (http://www.mbmg.de/hd-discs/wewereso...detail_2x.html) The encoders at Disney can obviously notice the difference when they encoded Pirates, giving it more bits during action scenes. I want my movie to be in the highest quality possible and Blu-ray offers that. HD DVD is a compromise.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...006023,00.html

Gordon Ho is executive vice president (worldwide marketing & product management) for Buena Vista Home Entertainment (Disney).

"We believe so and have put our support with Blu-ray at this time and that's because largely it has the better specifications. It can deliver a better picture because of the bit rate, beyond the fact that the disc has more capacity. So there's two different discs - Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Blu-ray, the dual layer, holds 50 gigabytes of data. The dual layer HD-DVD holds 30. So when you want the best picture, would you rather have 50 gigabytes of information or 30?

"So we found this meant Blu-ray had the room for the best picture and sound. The other thing it has is what we call a peak bit rate. What this is is how much data can you send over a pipe in a given second. Blu-ray can send 40Gb of information per second. HD-DVD can only do 29. So when you have an action scene and you have all this information on the screen - you've got fire, you've got people running about - you need to use so much bit rate. You have all this stuff happening and you suddenly need all this information to be sent through. Blu-ray has less limitations, so that's another benefit. It has space and it has space in the pipes.

....So we think over time Blu-ray will emerge as the single format. And we think that's best for consumers. Consumers have said that, too.

which format is better? on paper is BD but based on the implementation (taking price, performance, reliability so far, consistency so far) it's HD DVD.

Say Supermans, why do you post in the HDDVD area?

No matter what they say, I still vote HD-DVD has the better PQ.

The format on a whole handles film grain and low light level scene solid backgrounds better and with less noise / artifacting.

there is no doubt at all after BD+ and Blu-ray players with profil 1.1 has been released, Blu-ray will be by far the technical and qualitiv superior format.

More discspace = better PQ, how can u not understand ? Also the fact, Blu-ray hav a much higer birate then HD DVD has.

Rest...history.

Come on, any question in the form "which ...... better?" will create what you don't want to start, don't tell me you don't know that.

Better is only a general term, people tend to have different views on a product because there are many specific issues around each one (hardware price, movie selection, rentals in your area, retail selection, retail title prices, internet order pricing and many more), if you want to know something specific about each format you can find it easily on the net.

It should be very frustrating as Supermans point out to have such advantage on bitrate and companies decide to do only 1 encode for both formats. I think all people in favor of blu-ray have to stop buying movies with the same bitrate as HD DVD and write letters to the studios saying that you will only buy the movie if the bitrate is better than the one used in HD DVD, or wait, I'm sure in a couple of years there will be Superbit versions so we can buy those then.

Which is truly better? Depends on the player, depends on the movie.

Batman Begins does 1080p & TrueHD lossless audio. It also features picture in picture commentary. HD DVDs are also starting to incorporate more web-based features, like live online maps (Blood Diamond) & the ability to share scenes (300). The movie 300 also includes an interactive game that uses HD DVD's HDi. I've got a SD DVD player in my treadmill and in my bedroom, so I like the combo discs as well. I'm not saying Blu-ray can't do the features described above, but they seem to be a step or two behind in implementing mandatory picture-in-picture and web support.

The one perceived advantage of Blu-ray is the larger disc capacity. However, since the majority of Blu-ray movies have shipped on 25 GB discs and the majority of HD DVDs have shipped on 30 GB discs, the reality of it is the 30 GB HD DVD should be more than sufficient. Blu-ray backers also talk about a higher bit rate, I'm not sure how it translates into better movies, 1080p / lossless audio is what it is.

Finally, there is a huge difference between the absolute best technology and the best mass market technology. The fact is that over 80% of HDTVs purchased today are 720p and would gain absolutely no benefit from the extra expensive components that they put in Blu-ray players.

Or... the simple answer to your question: HD DVD :-)

wow, how so? if warner use the exact same videotransfers for BOTH formats? Please explain it to me , ty.

Thats starting to change Universal and Paramount are starting to use TrueHD on just about everything, leaving Warner as they only one saving it for New or big releases. Also keep in mind that Sony, and LG are the only real ones to continuously use PCM, and half thos movies are junk, and the first 40 or so looked horrible. Keep in Mind Universal has always used 1.5mbs DD+ encodes where the difference between that and lossless is much smaller.

When it comes to audio I would Say that BD is better off now but the point is becoming almost moot. I would also say that HD-DVD has typically had better looking releases. Paramount encodes their movies separately for both groups yet using BD's bandwidth capabilities Trading Places actually looked better on HD by a considerable margin. Along the same line Letters, can look a smidge sharper on BD but the color is off by just a bit. In the end this is becoming a moot point. Which really leaves just extras, which HD-DVD wins by a crazy margin.

Very true, everybody says the PQ is the same. All I can say in my defense is I have two virtually reference 1080p systems a stand alone of each format player and the two gaming consoles, one of each format, so 4 HD disc players total, two of each format, and my official personal opinion stands. HD-DVD has the better PQ in the two areas I posted about above.

Do you want a finished format with lower priced players or do you want a format that is still a work in progress at 2X the cost?

QFT.

HD-DVD is also has finalized specs while blu-ray is waiting for the finalized spec profile. But buy what suits you best, but if you are going blu, i would wait until the new final profile is out. HD-DVD, you can buy right now, with no worries since its specs were finalized before players were sold.

Both side (Ie supermans post) are going to try and sway you because it is a format war. While POTC may have a high bit rate, its a moot point. And nothing but a numbers game. It really makes no difference when comparing to a good VC-1 encode.

In the end, buy what suits you best, and is in your price range. Since Blu-ray has stopped using Mpeg2 encodes, the quality of each format is basically identical.

And for the record, all my combos play perfectly.

REF: which format is truley better?



Between your posts and your sig:

"Charging forward with Blu Ray
Limping along with HDDVD"

....I'd say *you've* already made up your mind...are you REALLY interested in insight? This thread smells like bunk, total lameness, sorry.

the answer I like

It depends

as the market sits today, August 17, 2007.

what movies do you like? (very important since there are two seperate groups with only smart 1 hitting both sides and making money). This will be your primary means of choosing right now as there is two seperate parties involved and most only care to their party of association. The ONLY exception to this is Warner Brothers which they are releasing for HD/Bluray.

After that it is a toss up.

also on the compression front.

If it is a lossless compression it don't matter. Not that both camps use lossless but compression can happen without affecting the signal AT ALL.

I guess the discs are the same but the hardware in the players are different, so I guess is possible that when the player read the information and decode that to output the digital image on the TV some differences can occur.

There are a lot of people that can see a difference between a cheap DVD player and a more expensive one, with the same DVD, same TV and same cables, the only difference are the players.

So in your opinion it looks better, in someone else opinion could be they look the same and others can say it look worse.

If I use the MS AO on my PC with a low end card and a better card I think I'll see difference in PQ, so this is the same case. Some hardware get better PQ over time with firmware updates, so why people can't believe that one player can have better PQ than the other on the same transfer for a movie on one format or the other?

At this point with my opinion, I am game to get one title in all possible formats.

I'd like to compare the same title on SD-DVD, HD-DVD, BD, Cable/Sat HD, and HD download.

Any suggestions on what title that should be? Is Fear and Lothing available in BD? That woudl be a good choice becuase I have it in a few different formats already. The 1st Matrix would be another good one as I also have it in multiple formats already as well.

Right now I have close to 90 HD-DVD's and around 65 BD's. So my opinion is formed as an overall impression of each format, with no real direct comparison on a single given title.

I just know everytime I screen an HD-DVD it is like their slogan says "The Look and Sound of Perfect" and most of the time I view a BD I detect artifacting, and if the director used a filter or left a heavy film grain in, this is an area where I always think BD is poor. Heck for all I know, maybe it (blu-ray) reveals to much.

The audio? I have to admit, I have slacked off on it for the most part. These days I tend to put in the title and just take whatever it gives me by default. Only if I felt I was not getting a truely theater like audio experience would I go beyond that and I have really not had that happen.

being a lossy compression algorithm does not in anyway make it sound worse as long as the algorithm can reencode without chopping away at the important stuff.

There are way to many variables to say that lossless sound better than DD+ or vice versa. Especially if mixing is brought into the picture and one is mixed hotter than the other (DD v. DTS anyone?).

Only ONE way to settle that and that is to seperate fact from opinion.

DBT with random subjects from ALL walks of life to include golden ears.

Voltage matched settings on both along with spectrum analyzation of the information coming out too.

With all that said? If I had no HDMI on my AVR and/or pre/pro and I only had one set of analog multi-channel inputs, I'd surely put my BD player on them. (well unless you have a PS# but of course) because early on it was evident that most Blu-ray titles have lossless audio and a less percentage of HD-DVD's have it.

Which is better?

Players:

HD DVD standalone player have completed specs with superb up-converting too. The most HD codec support from day one. Also authoring HD content on regular SL/DL DVD-/+R for home movies.

BD Players Profile 1.0 specs don't have the advanced features of HD DVD. Word that Profile 1.1 will be introduced this Fall, rendering BD Profile 1.0 useless when more features are on the BD disks. BD also has another Profile 2.0 or BDLive, another hardware upgrade?

In Player specs and constancies from all current player generations HD DVD leads.

Studio Support:

HD DVD does have Universal. But many BD exclusive movies in N. America are in HD DVD region free in Europe.

BD on paper has more studio but the current releases of movie content so far doesn't show any advantage, plus BD has region encoding.

It's close but the advantage is HD DVD.

In the World stage HD DVD is clearly leading the market.

...Angelo