http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=...Search+Froogle

499 is the going price.

D

Those prices are posted on Toshiba's website as well.

Wow. There are a few places that have it for almost $400.

Blu-Ray for sure. Mainly due to it being the ps3 format, and also once it becomes mainstreem, media prices for BR discs will get even cheaper. I want 50 gigs of storage for 1 dollar or less =)

Ten years after launch you still can't get a dual layer dvd anywhere near 1 dollar. Don't expect to ever see dual layer BR discs at 1 dollar.

Just because Blu Ray has all that extra space doesnt mean they will ever use it, or NEED to use it.
Are'nt there some touted features on DVD that are rarely, if ever used?
Angles is one of them. And then I thought there was the ability to "letterbox" a 4:3 film if you so chose-am I missing any others?

If they both look the same, Ill go for the least expensive...HD

Just because Blu Ray has all that extra space doesnt mean they will ever use it, or NEED to use it.
Are'nt there some touted features on DVD that are rarely, if ever used?
Angles is one of them. And then I thought there was the ability to "letterbox" a 4:3 film if you so chose-am I missing any others?

If they both look the same, Ill go for the least expensive...HD

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...Fencoding=UTF8

The sad fact is there will probably be no more 'region hacks' like DVD is capable of, althought I thought I read that Japan was going to be included in the new Region 1-they are ntsc

Well, the HD demo was pretty darn cool and they were able to get a Blu Ray player from Sony (Japanese model) so I was able to see a demo of each one. They displayed everthing on a 65" Toshiba DLP HDTV and at the end displayed both at the same time with the Blu Ray player hooked up to a 65" Sony HDTV. Everything was 1080i for both and both are very impressive on a big screen. The trailers for Spider Man on Blu Ray and King Kong on HD DVD are pretty jaw dropping. I could not see any artifacts or problems with either image during the trailers so I think that is a bunch of nonsense. The colors on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are also breathtaking in HD. I would be willing to say that as long as the HD mastering is done the same telling the difference between HD DVD and Blu Ray will be pretty much impossible. We will see if I'm proven wrong when final hardware and discs are on the market though.

I am calling shenanigans on both the HD DVD and Blu Ray SD to HD comparison split screens. It was obvious to my eyes that both made sure the SD looked as bad as possible and if anything it was like them comparing HD to VHS. There is no way my SD images are that blurry in 480P on my HDTV. Also the Blu Ray split screen of Lawrence of Arabia looked cool when I was sitting five rows back, but when I got close at the end to examine the demos the HD version of Lawrence of Arabia looked like it had edge enhancement. However, maybe its just a case of being too close to an HDTV. There was no doubt though that Lawrence of Arabia was closest to its 70mm glory in HD. There is just a ton of detail in a 70mm print that is lost in SD. One thing was clear talking with people afterwards though, screen size and viewing distance are key. People sitting further back were the ones completely unimpressed with the demo and the people 5 rows and closer were the ones blown away. There was definitely signs from talking with and listening to some of the 100+ people in attendance that many do not see this technology as a must at all. Also, considering this was a crown of rather high end people on average many did not have HDTVs and many of those that did were completely lost over discusions about things as simple as 480p and telling the difference between true HD and digital SD cable.

They discused all the problems with upgrading covering ICT and HDMI 1.3 and the fact this first generation hardware will have be missing features that will probably be standard from the second generation on. They also discussed what everyone with older HDTVs and AV Receivers even those with HDMI would be missing since the 1.3 standard still hasn't been finalized and that 1080p will not be fully supported by the hardware until the 1080p HDTV sets coming in the summer. Even if you get a Blu Ray player with 1080p the current 1080p sets are not fully compatible.

All in all a very informative demo and it has me leaning strongly towards an HD DVD in the near future. The price is right and they claim the build is very strong on the Toshiba units and they have to be selling them at a loss. (maybe Microsoft is footing the bill to get HD DVD to a strong start) They did show that Blu Ray clearly has the strongest support, but that HD DVDs lower price could potentially get it off to a stronger start that would get other studios behind it.

Blu-ray is the better choice, but both formats are better than what I have now...

I'm waiting until one wins over the other, I'm not going to waste so much money until one format is the 'next thing', and becomes a little more affordable.

I'm waiting until one wins also AND I can get a player for under $200 (tax included)

Dude, i have to disagree with this one... The more the disc can hold doesn't mean much when the minimum amount for HD quality is achieved. It's not like you can write to the discs. So, if both formats have enough disc space for HD quality and "super" sound tracks, the purpose is served.

Just consider this, what's the purpose of a big house if you can't really use the additional space after you moved in and while you already paid everything for it? True, BR can stuff with additional stuffs on the disc than HD DVD, but it's not like HD DVD doesn't have the capacity to include such additional stuffs.

I will go for HD DVD, the logo is easier to associate with and BR DVD is just plain weird (kinda remind me of men's underwear).

In 1997, 9GB was considered ample capacity for DVD. And look what happened. Yes, you can put bonus materials on another disc, but that defeats the purpose of the new format's enhanced interactivity.

30GB is not even enough to fit four dual-layer DVDs.

I think his point still holds true.

As successfully argued by joshd2012 in this thread, the extra capacity isn't necessarily needed for 95% of movies today:

If you read the thread, it becomes clear that a dual layer media of either format is more than sufficient to hold HD content for the next decade or more (never mind a triple and quad layer media that is under development).

By the time HD is replaced by something better, even the capacity of BR will be laughably inferior to whatever exists by then. BR boasts storage capacity on the same order of magnitude as HD-DVD (gigabytes). By the time HD is replaced the storage media will likely be measured in terabytes so there will be a replacement coming regardless.

Of course it would be better (all other things being equal) to have the extra capacity of BR over HD-DVD. But not all other factors are equal (like price) and both will offer the same PQ. So, the point still stands: if you buy a movie on HD media, who really cares if the HD-DVD version is 50% full, but the BR version is only 20% full?

Hopefully there is a clear winner in this and it comes about quickly (be it BR or HD-DVD).

I would also say that the biggest purpose of the new format is PQ (not enhanced interactivity).

For movies, a DVD is sufficient. That was the argument I made and I'm sticking with it.

Its the applications beyond movies where Blu-Ray comes out on top. Like I said in that thread, HD-DVD really fills no need. I would compare it to UMD in that sense.

Come on, josh, have you been brainwashed since last February?

Nope. I still don't think that MPEG-4 can do it yet sucessfully, but VC-1 should be fully capable to fit an entire movie onto a single DVD. Seeing is believing, of course, but if what Amir is saying come to fruit, then we're talking about super compression with almost no artifacts. What people have said about VC-1 is that it looks good.

Ah! Now, that makes good sense... Of course, one would perfer one disc than two to hold the same amount of data that need to be "carried" or "stored." For example, i rather carry one cd than 400 something floppy disks (i guess people don't even know what that is now a day).

For dvd data backups, i perfer one disc than two, since it takes up space in the binder

Of course, the down size is, if you lost a disk with large amount of data, you're in trouble! Kind like a warehouse, if you space things out, if anything happens, you still got some usable items around. If all packed tight in one big warehouse and that thing caughts fire, you're screwed

The again, you'll backup the backup

Anyway, commercial-wise, the more "stuffs" the company put on the disc usually means the higher the price the final product is going to be. If the company is going to keep the price down, then the additional spaces on the BR discs are not going to be used.

I guess it boils down to which technology is more stable and reliable. BR technology packs more data on the disc than HD DVD. So that's why there's a player for each media, i.e. to read the different disc formats. Well, we all know that BR players are more expensive than HD DVD players (twice the cost as of now). Now, the question is, how well the hardware stood up for heavy abuse? By that i mean how many hours can it play w/o failing? i.e. sign of overheating. I don't believe both hardware have the same life span. To me, BR players worn out faster (logically, but can be flawed), since it has to read tightly packed data. If not, then the replacement lazer is more expensive to replace (it has to be, because it's finer than the HD DVD hardware's lazer).

Except that it offers High Definition movies on a disc with players being half the price of BR players.

How does HD-DVD not fill a need?

What he means is that with the proper compression (MPEG-4 or VC-1), you can fit a full movie in HD on a single DVD. Microsoft did it (still?) with their WMV-HD discs (mostly either IMAX DVDs or HD-pr0n).

His point is that for movies, DVD is enough.* We don't NEED Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to get full-resolution HD, DVD could do it.

* = Assuming players were developed to read HD resolutions/codecs off the DVDs, which is theoretically possible (and probably easy).

And thus, you are left with storage applications to differentiate the two formats. On that front, Blu-Ray has a clear advantage (size).

Of course he's saying VC-1 is the best thing since sliced bread! If VC-1 falls on its face, Majidimehr loses his job.

Indeed, seeing is believing. We still don't know what average and peak bitrate will be used on VC-1 titles, and whether if they will look as good as the people with a vested interest would have us believe.

But to say that HD-DVD "fills no need" is false. It has more space than a DVD-9 and so the movie has room to breath... both in video and in audio.
It will fill that need at half the player price that BR can do it.

A HD movie on a DVD-9 doesn't cut it for most people who want HD quality, but the size of an HD-DVD disc offers the space to make that quality possible. BR has more space, but it's overkill for most people who want a quality presentation without paying a lot of money. DVD-5's, DVD-9's and huge inexpensive external HD's fits the bill beautifully for most computer users.

But you are wrong here. The WMV-HD movies look great. 1080p with no problem. And they look gorgeous. They fit on a DVD-9. I believe Microsoft uses the VC-1 codec, but I could be wrong. You CAN get full HD from a DVD-9 (you do need to encode in something other than MPEG-2, however).

Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support advanced codecs on DVD-9. They are called HD-DVD-9 and BD-9. They are approved and they will be used. What will you say when your favorite movie is released only on HD-DVD-9? Probably something like, "It costs less, so its better."

You are going to have to make up your mind. If you are purchasing HD-DVD because of the cost, then you would be a hypocrite to support HD-DVD-15 over the cheaper HD-DVD-9 when they both can offer the same experience.

You can deny that DVD is large enough all you want, but the fact still remains that even the HD-DVD group has said 8GB for the movie which fits easily on a standard DVD-9. Microsoft is doing it sucessfully with WMV-HD. So sucessful, in fact, that studios demanded the HD-DVD-9 and BD-9 standards.

Supporters of HD-DVD shouting the greatness of a $500 player from the rooftops without even realizing that they could have the exact same experience via a $200 DVD player with VC-1 decoding.