well they've still to replace ALL the vhs with dvd at our local towns video hire franchise.

i suppose there's still a demand for old westerns, cult sifi, wwll and the like out here.

hell, drink enough beers (or smoke enough funny cigs) and vhs on a 68 in plasma looks f--king awesome man.

then again, people tell me they watch movies on ipods nowadays.

the times, they are a changin' - but everything remains the same

leslie

Looking at NAMES involved on each side, HD-DVD shouldn't really stand a chance, but who knows.
================
There you go.

Don't forget this discussion started with an interview on CNN discussing HD DVD vs Blu-Ray movie sales and all of a sudden someone shifts the discussion to recordable media to make a case for format superiority.

John

put it this way.. here in aus, BD is already avaiulable, as is teh samsung player. U can also buy single layer bd burners for the same price as the BD player..
Now with PS3, were looking at a sub$1000 BD playback unit, which is also a gaming machine. the target market is the 18-35yr olds with a disposable income and the fact that HD DVD is nowhere to be seen, let alone ever having ANYTHING marketing it here in aus, has alrady put BD in front of the queue.

i do not doubt, that with the Sony marketing machine, and the fact that the unit itself is an "out of the box" home entertainment unit that the PS3, much like the PS2 will pioneer how the general public view and manage their HD content.
Thre is no denying that the PS2's existance changed the face of gaming, and the PS3 will be no different.

consider the fact that as a standalone unit, it allows us, as producers, to deliver our HD content to our clients RIGHT NOW. One cannot say the same about the XBox 360 or any other playback device, be it BD or HD DVD

Oh one other thing i 4got to mention, is that if u want Dolby Digital TrueHD (bit for bit audio encoding), BD would be the optimal media choice considering capacity... where as HD DVD would itself be a major MAJOR compromise in quality... by using this audio format on HD DVD, youre looking at HALF the bandwidth of BD..

One cannot say the same about the XBox 360 or any other playback device, be it BD or HD DVD
=========
There has been an HD DVD add-on for the XBox 360 for six months or so (unfortunately at additional cost).
=========
if u want Dolby Digital TrueHD (bit for bit audio encoding), BD would be the optimal media choice considering capacity... where as HD DVD would itself be a major MAJOR compromise in quality..
=========
HD DVD first generation players only played 2-channel True HD until firmware 2.0 was released. Now it is full 5.1channel over both HDMI and analog 5.1 outputs giving movies that have an audio option for True HD incredible sound. Second generation players all come with that ability.

John

"We may be writing them at much faster speeds in a couple of years, and I already see a lot of uses for extra capacity. Not talking about long term storage either."

Well... I'm not sure what "WILL BE" or what "MAYBE" exactly qualifies as an advantage today. And I am also not sure how you see lots of uses for the extra capacity either... Overall sales have been a disaster for both BD and hd dvd in the player department, and there are even fewer people that have a BD burner. Of course, at something on the order of $20 per disk (here in Canada), I don't see BD data storage going too many places very fast!

I will say however that right now, today, you can write a hybrid hd dvd, and you can do it with no special equipment... not sure I have ever heard the term HYBRID BD

"HD DVD first generation players only played 2-channel True HD until firmware 2.0 was released. Now it is full 5.1channel over both HDMI and analog 5.1 outputs giving movies that have an audio option for True HD incredible sound. Second generation players all come with that ability. "

i dont think you understood the point of my post however.. im not saying HD DVD was/is incapable.. it is in fact capable..
What im saying is that to take advantage of it, the highest possible encoded bitrates can only take up to no more than 12gb for tvideo AND audio.. not including menu and file management capacity requirements..
Now, in the real work, what would most people prefer.. ?
25gb worth of encoded video and another 25gb worth of encoded audio, or do u think theyd prefer HD DVD's offering of 12gb of each?
THATS my point..

As for my comment re- Xbox.. im refering to straight out of teh box performance/features.. NOT addons..
Hell if we were talking about bolt on addons and the like, id say ditch the lot and build a HTPC with everything in it..

As it stands, as standalone units, the Xbox360 can currently deliver HD video without the need of the addon.. it does this with WMV encoded files and a neat lil firmware hack and it works a treat (yup, even with 5.1 surround sound), anything higher than 720p however usually shits itself though.

The point however isnt to say which is better blah blah.. its to say look at what the PS3 can do out of the box vs everything else on the market.
Look at the robust nature of the medium in use, in addition to the options it opens doors for, such as TrueHD... look at the available capacity made to us to allow us minimal compression, allowing us to offer higher waulity images to our clients..
THIS is the point..
And in the real world.. when it comes down to the $, people are goign to look at this and decide that like the PS2, the PS3 will indeed do what they want it to do and serve as a means for US, as producers, to deliver our products to them.
Xbox and WMV are a compromise. Not only does your client need to have an xbox, but they also need to know how to hack it. and i for one wouldnt ask them to do that. HD DVD doesnt have the capacity to compete with DBD in regard to TrueHD content.The medium alone dictates its highest bitstream allocation for both audio and video to not exceed 12gb each.

In addition to all the above, the market itself here in aus, is UNAWARE of HD DVD.
Toshiba have failed dismally in regard to making the public aware of the format here in aus.. and those that DO know about it, are the likes of myself who find out about all this stuff through the net..

>>>>Well... I'm not sure what "WILL BE" or what "MAYBE" exactly qualifies as an advantage today. And I am also not sure how you see lots of uses for the extra capacity either... Overall sales have been a disaster for both BD and hd dvd in the player department,<<<

You have to think in those terms. Of course they are selling slowly now, they are too expansive.

I remember when a CD recorder used to cost $3000, I bought my first one when it was $700, now they sell DVD-drives for $30, so in a couple of years you will have blue ray drives in every pc and will cost next to nothing. That is the way it goes with any consumer technology. This year is probably irrelevant to either side, have to wait until prices come down.

the market itself here in aus, is UNAWARE of HD DVD.
Toshiba have failed dismally in regard to making the public aware of the format here in aus.. and those that DO know about it, are the likes of myself who find out about all this stuff through the net..

========
Toshiba marketed the players for use in Home Theater not as a game format. Is Home Theater as big in Australia as it is in the US?
======
What im saying is that to take advantage of it, the highest possible encoded bitrates can only take up to no more than 12gb for tvideo AND audio.. not including menu and file management capacity requirements..
Now, in the real work, what would most people prefer.. ?
25gb worth of encoded video and another 25gb worth of encoded audio, or do u think theyd prefer HD DVD's offering of 12gb of each?
THATS my point..
=======
A lot of misinformation floats around regarding all of this.

Blu-Ray audio is supposedly "winning" not because of the misinformation regarding their capabilities which are equal. They are winning because there are more titles containing those Hi Def audio formats on Blu-Ray titles than on HD DVD titles. It's as simple as that.

Few, if any, titles have been released on the HD DVD format in either DTS-HD and PCM, with only a handful even sporting Dolby TrueHD.

Universal is the primary supporter of HD DVD and they have yet to release a single title with Dolby True HD encoded in it. Paramount the same and warner has released a few with the audio set a full 10 db below standard. That is the problem. It's the compression the studios are using and their relative lack of support for the iinherantly "robust" HD DVD audio on their tracks that gives Blu-Ray the edge. Hi-Def Digest confirmed that last month.

John

"I remember when a CD recorder used to cost $3000, I bought my first one when it was $700, now they sell DVD-drives for $30,"



Which is exactly why I say WILL BE or MAYBE don't count for much of anything... people don't even buy cd recorders anymore... they go right to the dvd burners, which of course do cd's a s well.

No sense trying to second guess this industry... it changes too fast to predict that any "WILL BE" to be written in stone. By the time the Bd burner comes down to earth in terms of price, who knows what else will be sitting on the storeshelf beside it.

With some basic knowledge of multimedia and a little intuition it is quite easy to see where the industry is going. Just imagine that your computer has almost unlimited storage and that data transmission rates are ample for anything we need to do and that servers have enough ports to handle huge traffic, then it's clear (at least to me) that programs and media will all be on central servers which we access on demand. It should be so efficient and economical that there should be no need to make local copies and payment could be by subscription for unlimited use of a particula class. There would be no economic advantage to pirateing. You make an Indie, you join a group that distributed your genre and get a cut of the subdcriptions. All we need do now is wait for the technical boys to get up to speed.

Michael,
Google is already going exactly to the place you've just described. Their new online Office system is expected to practically kill M$oft Office, and they have a model for small businesses to sell content, using an interface not unlike that of YouTube.

>>>All we need do now is wait for the technical boys to get up to speed.<<<

That's been the blocker for digital cinema, and there the work-around is distribution on hard disk. Twenty years ago film-in-cinemas was said to be in rapid terminal decline (dead in 5 years), but the ambitions were way ahead of the economics and film is still the medium of economic choice for cinemas. Certainly the future of home entertainment is headed to your model and is already available if not particularly practical. Obviously the cost and capacity of broad band varies greatly around the world, but here fast-enough domestic broadband is expensive enough to make buying DVDs (let alone hiring) the cheaper option with better quality and greater convenience. For $120 a year I can borrow 250 quality movies on DVD. Of course here it is already common for people to download a movie at YouTube image quality (too often pirated) so they get to see it before it's in cinemas, but that's not the quality of viewing experience that's of interest to me. There is serious concern reported that downloading of movies has potential to outstrip internet expansion capabilities and grind it to a stagger. I expect, as in the case of film-based cinema, that disks will be with us for some time.

As for Best Buy hiding the HD DVD players, are you sure they weren't putting them all around the store in hopes that people who didn't come into the DVD player section would see them? Are you sure there was evil intent? Where's your evidence? For what it's worth though, I had no trouble finding HD DVD discs or players at Best Buy. And the prices were virtually identical for the discs.

=============
As I said, they aren't doing it any more. On the AVS forums there were far too many stories about Best Buy and those practices for it to be accidental. One person (last summer) went looking for the titles at a Best Buy in California and was told they didn't carry them. He said he found the display turned around facing the wall behind a bunch of television boxes. In my case (you know the ones spread out all over the store in odd locations) I FOUND THEM after two sales reps told me they didn't know where they were and they didn't think the store carried them. The Blu-Ray display was right where everyone could find it and the HD DVD titles weren't anywhere near them. Many have reported on those forums being told (when asking about the Toshiba player) that they shouldn't buy one because of the nonsense about 1080p vs 1080i. Why would the same misinformation come from CSRs from Best Buy stores in places all over the country when the average CSR in those stores doesn't seem to really know much about anything? If the exact same misinformation was coming from so many of those kids in so many different Best Buy stores it seems reasonable that someone taught it to them.
===========
Just found a good follow-up regarding "evil intent" on the part of Best Buy.

There is an article today in the Hartford Courant by consumer watchdog George Gombossy about Best Buy and some of it's practices:

"Under pressure from state investigators, Best Buy is now confirming my reporting that its stores have a secret intranet site that has been used to block some consumers from getting cheaper prices advertised on BestBuy.com.
Company spokesman Justin Barber, who in early February denied the existence of the internal website that could be accessed only by employees, says his company is "cooperating fully" with the state attorney general's investigation.
Barber insists that the company never intended to mislead customers.
[Connecticut] State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after my column disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com.

Blumenthal said Wednesday that Best Buy has also confirmed to his office the existence of the intranet site, but has so far failed to give clear answers about its purpose and use.................

What is more troubling to me, and to some Best Buy customers, is that even when one informs a salesperson of the Internet price, customers have been shown the intranet site, which looks identical to the Internet site, but does not always show the lowest price...........
This is not the first time the giant electronic retailer has gotten into trouble misleading customers. The firm, based in Minneapolis, operates more than 1,100 electronic retail stores in the U.S., Canada and China. It has more than 125,000 full-time employees.

Attorneys general in New Jersey and Ohio have accused Best Buy of deceptive sales practices, repackaging used merchandise and selling it as new, and failing to pay rebates and refunds. It paid $135,000 in New Jersey three years ago to settle that state's suit, which was based on hundreds of consumer complaints. The Ohio case is ongoing. "

John

Well, I can certainly believe your article...

but I'm sorry... I don't believe there was intent to hide HD DVD from the public in any way shape or form. This simply does not make sense. No one forces BB on what they stock their shelves with... it's their choice completely. If they had any kind of slant towards Blu ray, then they simply would not carry HD DVD.

Furthermore, it makes no business sense what so ever to invest in a stock and then put it high on the shelf out of sight, away from the consumer.... or even play it down in favor of another product. If they do, then I assure you, it's for very different reasons than what you may think. Sometimes they have too much stock in one item and not enough in another, so they will issue a sale price, and spend a little time Emphasizing the overstocked item. Best buy is in the business to make money.... not choose sides

My Best buy has NEVER indicated any kind of slant towards any kind of product in the store, much less blu ray or HD DVD. You may run into the odd salesperson that offers their own opinion. But as far as BB is concerned...If you are interested in a product what ever it may be then "It's a truly great prodcut and you need to take it home with you!!"

There was a time where they were quite disorganized in the way that they displayed the movies, but this is because the products were new and had not settled into a routine area of the store.

This idea that BB is some sort of slant towards Blu ray, and then opts to carry HD DVD anyway... well... sorry but in my mind, it's just plain silly.

If you read my posts I said "used to" in terms of facing the display against a wall and placing large television boxes in front of it (I saw that) and then a sales person telling me they didn't carry them. Plus the countless posts on AVS forums about BB in the beginning regarding HD DVD. Again (fourth time) . They aren't doing that anymore. But, if you think (according to that article) the Attorney General of New Jersey and now the Attorney General of Connecticut have it in for poor Best Buy and would seek reparations on behalf of consumers for no good reason so be it. And if you do believe the article why would you put anything past them in terms of their business practices past, present, or future.

According to my brother who lives in San Fransisco the largest current display of both Blu-Ray and HD DVD titles is in Fry's. We don't have them here in New York. Wish we did. They have a lot of really good in store prices. Btter (I understand) than their website.

John

John

Yeah... I know what you said and again it doesn't make sense.... whether you are talking now or in the past tense is kind of a moot issue.

And the people on the AVS forums... well... if you ever needed to know how one of the HD machines worked, then that would be the place to go. But EVERYTHING else needs to be taken with a HUGE grain of salt. These people are so tied up in this that they can't even see straight anymore.

And the people on the AVS forums... well... if you ever needed to know how one of the HD machines worked, then that would be the place to go. But EVERYTHING else needs to be taken with a HUGE grain of salt. These people are so tied up in this that they can't even see straight anymore.
=========================
An uninformed assumption coming from reading the titles of the posts rather than the substance obviously. I suppose if one of them were that narrow minded they could come to this forum and make the same assumption.

John

Speaking of the AVS forum lately I have been getting "dangerous spyware " warnings from my Trend Micro every time I access the site. Anybody getting this?
JJK

Well, I'm not going to debate this with you... there is little here to debate since niether one of us are privy to the inner workings of Bestbuy (as well as those on the AVS forum making the accusations).

I will again say however that it make absolutely no sense what so ever for Bestbuy to get into HD DVD stock if they're just going to do the best job they can at intentionally hiding the stock behind boxes and other silly things. As I said before, no one puts a gun to Bestbuy's head and tells them what stock to put on their shelves. If they did not believe in the product then they could very easily save themselves a lot of time and money by simply NOT carrying it. Would you buy a box of cookies from the store that you don't like and have no intention of eating??? Unless you can make some sort of logic out of this, I for one will not believe for a second that it is AT ALL true.

My Best buy has since day one, has had the HD DVD display at the front and the blu ray display towards the back... so I guess this means that my Bestbuy is slanted toward HD DVD... right??? A little silly but my guess is that a lot of blu ray lovers would want to see it that way. Well, it's at the front of the store MERELY because Hd DVD was the first out on display... blu ray did not come until MONTHS later.

There are a lot of paranoid people out there who will only see what THEY want to see.

there is little here to debate since niether one of us are privy to the inner workings of Bestbuy (as well as those on the AVS forum making the accusations).
There are a lot of paranoid people out there who will only see what THEY want to see.
==============
Ok,
Let's say that AVS forum members are stupid and paranoid and Sony Forum members are smart (I belong to both so I am not sure where I fall) , here is an assessment by the number one projector review site on the net - Projector Central

This is what staff writer Evan Powell and his team said back on September 1 (when Best Buy was pulling this crap):

"We have visited over a dozen retail stores in the past month, including big chain stores like Best Buy, Fry's Electronics, Ultimate Electronics, Sears, and Tweeter. And with rare exceptions, the story is similar from store to store. Blu-ray is being featured as the premium solution, and HD-DVD is being downplayed as the cheaper and lower performance alternative.

In addition to the favorable Blu-ray staging being done on retail floors, most of the sales reps we encountered were armed with a set of talking points. When we asked about the differences between Blu-ray and HD-DVD we got four stock answers:

1. Blu-ray is higher resolution 1080p, whereas HD-DVD is only 1080i.

2. Blu-ray has more storage capacity, so they can put more video on the disc.

3. Blu-ray is faster, so it can deliver a better picture.

4. Blu-ray has more Hollywood studio support, so you'll see more HD movies in Blu-ray than with HD-DVD.

That's a pretty compelling list of reasons to buy Blu-ray. It is hard to believe anyone would end up buying HD-DVD after a pitch like that. But let's take a look at each of these issues more closely. ........

...............Overall, we would like to see both HD-DVD and Blu-ray survive and thrive. There is plenty of room for both of them in the marketplace, and there is no reason for either one to monopolize it. .........Once HD-DVD and Blu-ray players are widely available for $200, it won't matter which technologies the studios decide to support. The consumer will have won the war. "


John

Craftech... I have NOT seen ANY of this. And if it is actually happening... it's because of their own selfish reasons... like for example, they are overstocked on Blu ray players... there is BIG logic in this idea... HD DVD players are cheaper and therefore would sell better. It stands to reason that they would end up with a stockroom full of Blu ray players that aren't moving.

They have not gone out of their way to choose sides... if they really WERE interested in slitting their throats by choosing a side then BY FAR the best way to do it would be to OPT not to carry the product.

You keep avoiding my question... Where is the logic in carrying a product that they actively do not believe in and want to hide???

BELIEVE ME.... I am not saying that I think Bestbuy is an "honest abe" kind of outfit. (my opinion only)... I think bestbuy will do what ever it needs to do to make money... if they have a full stockroom of BD players, then they will do and say what is needed to make it empty... This has NOTHING to do with choosing sides or thinking better of another product.... it's PURE business. It's also PURE business to AVOID choosing sides if you are in the retail indutry.... you choose the wrong side and you hurt yourself.

I remember a short time ago when the bottom of the AGP video card industry fell out, and PCIe became the "in thing". For a while there, Bestbuy had absolutely NOTHING but AGP cards on the shelves and they were telling people that they were the ones to go with. Meanwhile, the smaller computer stores... with smaller stock rooms had almost nothing but PCIe on the shelves. It was clear that bestbuy had a HUGE stock of AGP that they were desperately trying to unload.

This is how these big outfits make a large part of their money.... they buy HUGE volumes of stock at relitively cheap prices... the problem with this method however is that when sales expectations are not met or there is a change in the consumer buying trend, then they are stuck trying to unload all this stock.... they will resort to all sorts of lows in doing so.

I ASSURE you Craftech... the CEO and CFO of Bestbuy are not a bunch of Blu ray loving activists... They are cold, hard, shrewd business men making cold, hard, shrewd business decisions... nothing more.

Also manufacturers give "cash back" incentives to establish a market position and maybe the Blu-ray lobby sees this as the time to make that final spurt to the finish line. Sir Howard's pitch could be a part of this overall scheme.