I don't think that's an accurate way to portray me at all. If you go back and look at my first reply in this thread, you'll see that it was only to express my disagreement with Paul_SD when he said it's a bad thing that Blu-ray's infrastructure had to be built from the ground up.

I have never said I have a problem with people's choice to support HD DVD, only that I disagree with much of their reasoning, such as downplaying Blu-ray's advantages.

I think many mainstream consumers are staying away because of the war, however, those that are jumping in are choosing Blu-ray, while the HD DVD enthusiasts stick with their original choice. When you look at forums which have different sections for Blu-ray and HD DVD, such as AVS and High-Def Digest, you can see that the HD DVD sections still have much more traffic. This indicates that HD DVD still has a much larger contingent of devotees. Despite that, Blu-ray is still winning in sales (no matter how much you want to downplay it). Those extra sales are coming from mainstream consumers, not die-hards.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. I think a single, clear choice would go a long way to speed up high-def disc adoption. There will always be ignorant people who are confused about high-def, and having two different formats on the shelves only makes the situation worse.

Anyway, this'll be my last post for the night. See you guys tomorrow (maybe).

I would love to see something to back this statement up. Thanks.

if universal could just support blu ray that would pretty much end it all

FandangoWell until the tv series comes on HD-DVD, I don't care much for the film.

What made me go HD DVD?
Toshiba's HD-A2 HD-DVD Player


http://www.aintitcool.com/node/32838

I very much agree with Harry, the upscaling of your existing dvds to 720p or 1080p, some of which may never get to HD, or years off it, is a great BLUE RAY CANNOT DO.

Great post. I agree completely with all the points you have made here and have been making right along.

As soon as the prices and titles are right for me, I will get a BD player (Pirates is a astep in the right direction). Then I'll be able to enjoy whatever comes along. I just don't understand people that rail against a format they have no financial stake in. It boggles the mind.

The PS3 upscales DVDs...

Sorry, but this is just not so! I bought my HD DVD player a few weeks ago, when the D2 model finally went into the price zone I was looking for. Its noted elsewhere that HD DVD players' sales have shot up since the price rebate.

To classify HD DVD as the old guard and blu-ray as the new wave - I respectfully disagree!

When the average Joe Blow sees a $249 HD-DVD player on the shelf at Costco next to a regular one, you can bet a lot of people picked it up when they have just gotten a new HDTV there. Not the case with a $500+ Blu Ray.

I really want to see some sales numbers from this recent sale.

And does a very good job of it as well using the cell engine.

That's true but the fact that you're on this message board puts you outside of the "mainstream consumer" group.

Obviously I have no data to back it up but I can see where he's coming from. Someone who knows nothing about the technology I think would be more likely to go Blu-ray. It was mentioned that HD-DVD is cheaper to get into but that could be a bad thing too. There are A LOT of people out there who still go by the saying "more expensive = better". Also, I could see BD being more impressive to people just because it's totally new and has a new name. Again, I'm only speaking for people who know nothing of the two formats (which are most people).

You're defending specs on paper, not real world performance. Speaking as someone who's watched and reviewed hundreds of discs from both formats, both are more than sufficient to deliver stunning 1080p video quality. There have been exactly zero examples where Blu-ray's higher storage capacity has resulted in a demonstrably superior picture over a comparable HD DVD edition. Nor can it be argued that any of the stunning reference Blu-ray titles are better than the stunning reference HD DVD titles. Both are equally great.

Remember, no matter how much extra disc space you have, both formats are limited to 1080p resolution. Using a 50gb disc doesn't suddenly give Blu-ray the ability to store movies in 2000p resolution. Using advanced compression codecs, 30gb discs have already proven extremely capable of delivering outstanding picture quality to even very long movies like King Kong and Grand Prix. So what's the problem?

You don't want any more 2-disc sets where the extras are shifted off to a second disc? Well, sorry, but that's not working out for Blu-ray either. Even with 50gb discs, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies had to put their Standard Definition extras on Disc 2. So much for that advantage.

You're just being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. That's your prerogative, but it doesn't give your argument any more validity than anyone else's.

Actually I'd think both facts would hurt Blu Ray. Having a new name suggests it's totally different than DVD and ignorant people may not realize it is backwards compatible. And who wants to abandon their DVD collection for a new format (because a lot of people now own at least a few movies)?

Also, while people may thinkg expensive=better, most people I know will buy the cheaper thing anyway.

I really, REALLY hope this post was a joke.

So does every standalone BD player to my knowledge. Now the Pioneer can't play CDs, but it can play DVDs. I don't know what Harry's on about, nor do I understand what he means when he says he can pick winning formats. How many format wars have occurred since AICN went online? DVD+R vs. DVD-R?

I guess you could look at it either way. People may be put off by the new name or they could be one of those people who have to have everything that's "new and exciting". Even the name Blu-ray almost sounds futuristic. I do see your point though.

I think everyone and I mean everyone would much rather have an uncompressed soundtrack than none at all. For people like us, the true fans of movies, we want the best possible sound and picture. When other studios are providing lossless tracks, why not provide it? Unless, you don't have the space to do it which is most likely the reason for the lack of it. Granted, there are some movies that don't need it, but King Kong would have likely benefited with a lossless track.

For someone who hasn't really reviewed many lossless tracks to begin with, I think you're rushing to judgment.

As a request, when you do future reviews of discs with lossless, can you focus on the differences between the DD+ track and the lossless track? Your reviews really don't delve much into the audio portion aside from one small paragraph.

And I think it's a blanket statement about only golden eared audiophiles noticing a difference. It really has nothing to do with it. If the technology is available, use it. Why let it go to waste? Most of the reviews I seen so far, have consistently shown that the lossless track was much better than the DD+ track. We can all argue that oh "It was a difference in the volume level, or the setup" but for the most part everyone seems to be in agreement.

Really, though, you'll find that most reviewers write what they think they're supposed to write rather than what they actually think.

Universal isn't using lossless audio on any great scale because they don't believe it's worth it. Regardless of what some of us may think, that's their stance, and it has nothing to do with space.

I think everyone seems to forget that early on in DVDs infancy, the use of a DVD9 was few and far between. As the studios realized what they could do with the extra space and the technology got better, they started making the audio a little better, the picture a little sharper, and adding more and more extra features.

Wouldn't it be safe to say that the same would happen with the new formats? BD affords some more space on the disc, but the studios don't want to spend the money to mint a new master so that the discs are filled up. You can't really fault BD for that. So your assessment of zero examples is somewhat fallacious in the sense that there hasn't been a dual format release that maximizes the space that BD has. We have yet to see a true apples to oranges comparison.

Most of the dual format studios are using pretty much the same master for both and that's probably not likely to change.

I think POTC was probably the first that devoted most of the disc for audio and picture quality and filled the second disc with extras. Look how great that disc turned out. For me, I'm more concerned with the movie and how great the picture and audio quality are rather than what extras are on the disc as I think I've spent a total of 20 hours or so watching them on the hundreds of discs that I have.

You're right that both formats can deliver the goods, but it will always depend on how much effort the studios put into their releases.

Universal has been doing a fairly decent job, but I think they are just rushing out discs and not focusing on the quality as much as they should.

I mention space only for Kong. Some of their titles would definitely benefit from a lossless track. If Jurassic Park comes out with only a DD+ track, I think I'll cry.

No soundtrack? Yeah, that would indeed suck.

Actually, I've made a conscious decision to not dwell on comparing audio options on these discs. In the vast majority of cases, I've found that difference between a high bit-rate compressed track and an uncompressed/lossless track is either a volume change or straight-up placebo effect. I had this amply demonstrated for me when I was sat down for a double-blind test on a disc I'd previously reviewed, in which I said the uncompressed track (yes it was a BD with PCM, for those about to argue that PCM is better than TrueHD) was audibly better than the compressed track, and much to my consternation I absolutely could not tell them apart reliably. At all. It was humbling. I recommend everyone try the same.

Since that time, I just pick the best available option and review that. I mean, even if there were a difference, it's not like there will ever be a case where the compressed track would be better than the uncompressed/lossless track, so why bother?

No, what I actually said was that even golden-eared audiophiles would probably not be able to tell the difference if you forced them to do a double-blind test. I'm sorry, but I honestly believe that. In my experience, self-proclaimed audiophiles have a much higher opinion of their listening skills than they really deserve.

That goes back to my point about placebo effect. I was a victim of it myself, very certain that I was hearing a difference, because I expected that there should be a difference. I thought I heard one, and that's what I wrote in the review.

Except Paramount, who use completely different encodes on each format, which I would have thought you of all people would know.

HAHA. I was going to put in a sentence in about that and forgot about it, but they don't always use BD-50s and tend to not fill up the disc.

Can i get a link from Universal Studios stating that? Ive given up believing hearsay anymore. Would really help your argument. To everyone else on the outside looking in, universal isnt using it because of lack of space and bitrate. Thanks.