HD DVD Takes the Early Lead over Blue Ray

[Hoopnoop]

Well, I have been parousing the various early reviews of the new Samsung Blue Ray Player and there seems to be an early (with an emphasis on the word early) consensus that that the HD DVD picture quality is clearly better than Blue Ray. Apparently, the first blue ray titles aren't living up to the "wow" standard set by many of the hd dvds. This is causing some to question whether the early presumption was wrong that Blue Ray was likely to be the better technical standard. Here is a pretty typical review:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. Unfortunately, the format war may end up being won by the company that more effectively markets its product as opposed to the one providing a superior format.

 

[teamerickson]

Unfortunately, the format war may end up being won by the company that more effectively markets its product as opposed to the one providing a superior format.

How about forcing the studios and CE companies to produce the one with the best picture quality. Let's take a stand. Go buy HD DVD. If you bought blue ray, return it. If we only buy the better one then we will force it to win. But, I'm sure there are still Blue ray folks (with crow on their faces) that are saying it's going to get better, they still have hope. Unfortunaly the bigger supported and inferior format may win. Unless we take a stand and force their hand. Go HD DVD.

 

[T2k]

This is causing some to question whether the early presumption was wrong that Blue Ray was likely to be the better technical standard.

Whoever said such stupid thing that person should be either a Blu-Ray marketing mouthpiece or a clueless smartie - no sane people with technical knowledge would say anything like that solely based on paperware stuff, before actual products...

 

[vurbano]

I really think we are making a comparison based on a preliminary 25 Gb disk. We were all expecting BR to be on 50 GB disks, and when it is I think it will be a different story. Of course VC-1 will win vs Mpeg2 on 25 GB media but the story changes at 50 GB. So the potential of the BR machine hasnt beeen seen yet.

 

[VIPERS-PIT]

I really think we are making a comparison based on a preliminary 25 Gb disk. We were all expecting BR to be on 50 GB disks, and when it is I think it will be a different story. Of course VC-1 will win vs Mpeg2 on 25 GB media but the story changes at 50 GB. So the potential of the BR machine hasnt beeen seen yet.

That may be true. But why then would they even put this out to show the customer when it is a clear inferior product. You can only make a 1st impression once.

 

[bytre]

We've all seen good DVDs and bad DVDs, there can be a lot of difference in the process regardless of the technical abilities of the machine.

Still, it seems like a dumb move to put out the initial movies which aren't up to the top of what your hardware could produce in a case like this.

 

[mike123abc]

It is interesting that Sony has now delayed their first player to the end of October... One wonders if BR would have even come out this year if HD-DVD had not come out already.

 

[vurbano]

That may be true. But why then would they even put this out to show the customer when it is a clear inferior product. You can only make a 1st impression once.

Beats me, but I dont think the studios should have made these inferior transfers onto 25 Gb media. ANother thing I dont understand is that a 25 GB movie on D*? I would Kill for that at this point!!! Its mpeg2 and typically a movie is 9-14 Gb on their stuff. SO why does it still look bad at 25 GB on Blu ray?

 

[vurbano]

On a funnier note. My son and I went window shopping at CC and BB.

First BB:

After I heard him say how rotten some of the pictures looked, after they had hearded him cleverly to the sets they want to sell I explained what was going on. All of the HD sets that didnt look good were hooked up with RG6!!! Thereby shuffling the masses to the sets they do want to sell.

The projector display actually was casting a picture accross an aisle to the wall

The only "right" thing they did do was to hook up an HD-A1 to a 40 inch 1080p Sammy LCD showing HD DVD demo material. UNfkingbelievable picture!

HDDVD's were prominately displayed there as well

Blu ray and its movie selection was there but BB was smart enough not to have to playing anything, not even hooked up to a set.

So then we went to CC. where almost all sets were hooked up correctly except for the Sony SXRD 1080p set? makes no since at all since that set is supposed to be virtually tied with the best sammy DLP's. And then theres the blu ray display, hooked up in the seating area to a 50 inch 1080p hls5087w, great set. But wait? showing the Incredibles DVD????
WTF????? I think it was an insult to the fine samsung HDTV. Maybe they didnt want to show the Blu ray artifacting. SO then I had to explain how this set should look just as good as the most stunning set in the entire store which was the 56 inch version, and that it really wasnt a worse set than an 800 dollar RPTV with 7 inch guns showing HD material. LMAO.

But theres more...

after 30 minutes I found the 6 inch stack of HD DVD's hidden on the bottm shelf of one rack in the DVD section with a crate sitting on the floor partialy blocking it and no display info. It was just there in the "B" section or something.

 

[T2k]

I really think we are making a comparison based on a preliminary 25 Gb disk. We were all expecting BR to be on 50 GB disks, and when it is I think it will be a different story. Of course VC-1 will win vs Mpeg2 on 25 GB media but the story changes at 50 GB. So the potential of the BR machine hasnt beeen seen yet.

Since when 25GB MPEG2 isn't enough for a top quality movie?

This has nothing to do with size, obviously.

Besides VC-1 vs MPEG2: a movie encoded to 20-25GB MPEG2 file should show technically zero difference to a say 12GB WMVHD file.

 

[Sean Mota]

Beats me, but I dont think the studios should have made these inferior transfers onto 25 Gb media. ANother thing I dont understand is that a 25 GB movie on D*? I would Kill for that at this point!!! Its mpeg2 and typically a movie is 9-14 Gb on their stuff. SO why does it still look bad at 25 GB on Blu ray?

As others pointed out, the Blu Ray is probably not ready and Sony felt the pressure of Toshiba releasing theirs. 25GB is enough space but there is also other issues that could affect PQ. Hopefully for Sony it is software related and they can fix it but it could also be hardware related which can cause more delays and further falling behind Toshiba.

 

[jgantert]

after 30 minutes I found the 6 inch stack of HD DVD's hidden on the bottm shelf of one rack in the DVD section with a crate sitting on the floor partialy blocking it and no display info.

Well, just visited our Circuit City yesterday, and they had a large display of HD-DVDs. Proabably 20 titles or so, all at the regular prices (ie: same as Best Buy).

-John

 

[vurbano]

Since when 25GB MPEG2 isn't enough for a top quality movie?

Since Sony started putting movies on Blu ray disks.

 

[vurbano]

Well, just visited our Circuit City yesterday, and they had a large display of HD-DVDs. Proabably 20 titles or so, all at the regular prices (ie: same as Best Buy).

-John

Seems to be a different story depending on the your location.

 

[Hoopnoop]

Seems to be a different story depending on the your location.

In my area of norther Virginia I haven't found HD DVDs anywhere but BB. Also, both BB and CC are strongly pushing Blue Ray in my area.