What if Blu-Ray wins?

Does anyone still buy stand alone players?

For this generation of Xbox it does not matter which format wins becaue there will unlikely be a HD storage device for games. Likely the next generation on Xbox will have a drive (HD or Blu-ray) and possibly be dual format to support all software manufacturers. There will be no winner for this format war anytime soon, espcially with the sub $200 players being flooded the HD-DVD way. Only reason why Blu-ray is still afloat is because of the PS3, subtract that from the equation and there are really only a small number of people that have bought stand alone blue ray players. HD format still pales in comparison to regular DVD. It is still just a niche market and likely will take many years to be the dominant format. In that time, if MS and Apple have their way, both Blu-ray and HD will become obsolete in favour of broadband.

honestly by the time one wins it wont matter as the live service will be up and running (hopefully with netflix subscriptions and purchasing of content along with the missing studios... i really think its a matter of time before the rest of the studios come on board) and it will make both bluray and hd-dvd useless.

the bigger question is for the ps3.... if bluray fails then its a substantial blow to sony because thats the reason the ps3 costs as much as it does.

Theres enough of these Blu Ray VS HD-DVD threads already. When I come to the Xbox section, I would hope to get away from the jungles that are in the HD-DVD and Blu Ray sections and just talk about gaming.

Neither BD nor HD DVD are going to win. WIth the way things look, they're both going to end up being niche products and are only stop gaps to the day when something better will come along. There just isn't enough demand for HDM by the general public. Of the two, BD has more notoriety and support it seems while HD DVD has more penetration in terms of standalone players and of course the big bonus of being first to offer < 200 for a standalone. Hopefully one or the either wins out and gains mass market success or we are all going to be watching dvds in the near future.

I don't see either format dying before the end of this generation of gaming.

Yes plenty of people do. Do you really think 5 major CE manufacturers would be producing them if no one bought them?

Sony
Sharp
Pioneer
Panasonic
Samsung

If Blu-Ray "wins" then.............

I will continue to enjoy great games on GAME consoles! Yay!

The loser will bow out a la Laserdisc. You can still keep it and enjoy the movies in that format but ultimately your whole setup will have a short life. I personally have both HD DVD and Bluray players but I try not to buy movies--it is better to rent until a clear winner emerges.

Who cares..



For the record.. MS has said they will release a BR addon drive if the technology ever "wins".. with the release of Transformers on HDDVD only and Toshiba HDDVD players under $200 this holiday though you are talking about a war that will end a long long time from now.. Not to mention the ability download movies in HD on the 360 makes BR and HDDVD less attractive to normal Joe..

Now can we get back to talking about gaming in the gaming forums?

HD-DVD are already under $200 this weak without "specials" or sales.

If Br "wins" my HD-DVD's will still be playable and if HD-DVD "wins" my BR disks will still be playable.

And Laserdisc lasted for what 20 years? Neither BR or HD-DVD will last half as long!

lol @ laserdisc, jstu took our old LD player off of our old RPTV

i prefer BD personally so i hope BD wins, but either way im prepared with a PS3 and X360 AO player

Microsoft already said they have no ties with either but went with HD-DVD because it was more economical but if Blu-Ray wins they wont be opposed to releasing on that format unlike Sony if HD-DVD won.


That said, I like a lot more of the Blu-Ray releases than I do the HD-DVD in terms of title but the quality stinks...I see way to many Blu-Ray discs using old ass mpeg-4 than VC-1.

I think you mean mpeg-2, and that was maybe a fact at the beginning of the year. Almost all new releases are avc or vc1 for BD

If Blu-ray wins Scientologist will stop making crop circles and we'll all fight monkeys for sport and profit. I will be installed as the new Czar of Prussia and I will force my subjects to open their milk cartons from the "illegal" end, screwing it up beyond repair.

Unfortunately, all of that will happen if Blu-ray doesn't win too, so it really doesn't matter.

Really thats a surprise to me? Seriously its not hating I support both equally but the fact still stands the BR releases are less than stunning...Im less impressed with them...I question why I support both really.

So if one emerges, with your logic, you will have to trash one or the other because you failed to purchase any content for it. I know people who still play laserdisc's on their laserdisc player because they purchased. Pretty tough to rent them now.

Stock pile yourself a good collection while you can so you dont force yourself to throw that obsolete player away when you can't rent media for it anymore.

Enjoy both formats, as I do.

This has already been addressed here and elsewhere ad nauseam.

For the record, MS is NOT listening. They are behind Toshiba and HD-DVD right now. Sure, that might change in the future but it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

If Blu-ray wins out in the end, you have your HD-DVD player for all of your current movies and you buy a BD player for all future movies. Simple solution.

Or, just rent movies like I do.

And only god knows why.

If LD lasted that long, then the winner of Blu-Ray/HD DVD should last that long too. LD probably never had a market share as large as Blu-Ray/HD DVD currently have.

I think people will still be attatched to having the disc of a movie. I think that
1) If your hard drive crashes you may lose the movie you bought, whereas a disc is your to put in a safe place.
2) People like collecting things, and they like to look at their discs all organized in rows.


Granted we will probably get to the point where people are cool with ALL digital. But I just don't think it's this gen for movies. Mayeb next gen.

Just my 2 cents.


So I think that HD discs will take hold eventually. Someday thats what everyone will own....Hd Tv's and cheap Hd players. Then theey will naturally want the movies to go with it.

I dont think HD discs will ever fully take off. Download is the way of the future. What exactly does "Next gen" mean anyways?

Ive always said as soon as download speeds are ready, one of these IT companies or even a cable company will come with an extremely slick user interface ala iPod that makes the storage/organizational aspects of movies just as good as having a collection of actual movie cases. A good place to look is with the music industry. People have been downloading and organizing their music for years now, and a lot of folks dont even bother with CD's any more. Radiohead is even trying to give their new album away online for free and asking for "donations". Movies in general, HD included, are headed down this path. I think like CD's, it will be a long while before discs are actually done away with, but the transition is coming very soon.

ms has already solved problem #1 by marking your account that you bought a tv show.... so in the event of a hard drive failure you can just redownload the episodes. that said i still want a monthly fee a la netflix and can just download any movie anytime i want and its actually better than netflix because its much faster to get the movie to start playing... imo its the best of both worlds where you have a massive collection at your fingertips which can load almost instantly for many people (ie those people with 6.5+ mbit internet connections) and didnt spend thousands of dollars for it.

"Ive always said as soon as download speeds are ready" really? Until everyone has FTTH it will never replace physical media.

Well you have to look at the market.. I like to choose the audio side first because thats where the digital future has already hit home.

How popular has buying CD's become since MP3's became a hit? How much do people care about MP3 compression schemes? Or 7.1 lossless sound? How many people just want to hear the song, right here, right now with very good very clear quality.



I have no doubt the future of HD video is downloads, but I do think its still a good 10 years away. Dont get me wrong, any cable, satellite or internet based TV service has downloadable movies available right here right now. But the bandwidth to deliver these types of media is still at a premium.

Honestly the 360 is the only one I'm familiar with that can give you instant satisfication of a large catalogue of HD movies. Satellite and Cable both off HD movies for PPV.. but I'm dont think they are true downloads. I think they both run during specific time frames.. and lets say if its 12:28pm right now when I'm writing this.. you'dhave to wait till 1pm for the next HD movie to start playing.

I think once the technology has matured, and there has been a standard made for downloading HD video that it will take off. And for 4 specific reasons:

1) Contrary to what you believe, I think alot of people dont want to buy a disc just to watch a movie. Especially a $20-30 movie that they will watch once, maybe twice. HDDVD or BR needs to be in the bargin bins at Walmart if it wants to become mainstream. I just dont see that happening. If Blockbuster is still making plenty of bucks charging $5 bucks for a rental.. you have to believe a $3 or $4 downloadable rental is even more appealing.

2) Contrary to what you also believe, I think alot of people dont want to own discs. I had a huge audio and videotape library.. where is that now? Or how about all the CD's I've bought over the years.. most are scratched, stolen or missing. My DVD collection is still about 300 discs.. but its simply a dust collecting eyesore in the modern living room where Flat Screen TV's and the "less is better" look is becoming more the norm. Also women and teenagers are becoming the fastest growing group in terms of money spent on electronics.. how interested do you think women and teenagers are in building up another disc collection?

3) Instant gratification. The is nothing more satisfying than getting something you really want, right away. The eaiser and cheaper content providers can deliver us digital movies.. the more popular they will become.

4) Unlimited rental subscriptions. This is where Blockbuster and Netflix are striking gold. For those that really love movies, I mean really love movies. They love watching as many movies as possible for a reasonable fee. If downloadable HD or SD movies could follow some sort of unlimited subscription policy it would really, really change the tide.



There will always be the audio and video enthusiast/phile who want the very best quality, the least compression, and something tangible they can hold onto for ever in theory.

But that person is a much smaller audience than the average Joe who wants to enjoy that media experience right now, as cheap and easy as possible.. and move on to another media experience another day.

Regardless of which "wins", both will co-exist. There will be way too many players out there for either side to ignore that market. My own personal belief is that both will be fairly close for a while, then Blu-Ray pulls ahead fairly substantially. That doesn't mean I am gonna stop being neutral, panic, and sell all my HD DVD's. Lets just enjoy ALL the HD we can and stop worrying about which wins.

Neither format will win, they will both always co-exist. When affordable dual-format players exist, then we'll have winners. And those winners will be the consumers.

And thats what I find so funny. These companies/studios are shooting themselves in the foot with this "format war." Due to this war both sides have had to drastically cut prices, offer buy one get one free deals, include all sorts of main ins and free discs just to try and kill each other. Its great for consumers, but sucks for them. With the way things look, it'll be like this for a long time and the only real winners are consumers. They're losing the opportunity to make one of these formats the next dvd with every day that passes. Sooner or later, optical formats will become another dinosaur of the past. It is too bad for these companies that they couldn't have stayed in the original framework of the DVD Forum and figured out a way to bring about a single format for all of them to get behind.

Mine was too. I moved a lot in college. Moving a few hundred cases sucks. After one move, I had enough and they all went into a big case logic disc case. The cases went in the garbage. When purchase a new movie -- case in the garbage, disc in the big "folder o' movies".