Neutral Owners - Which Do You Choose?
 

Recently, I went format neutral and I'm stuck with a decision between buying Bluray or HD-DVD. Often there are important factors like exclusive features, lower prices, combo format, etc. But a number of discs have the same price and features.

So for the format neutral owners, imagine you have a Bluray in one hand and an HD-DVD in the other. Both are identical in price and features. Do you pick blue or red, and why?

Blu-ray if HD DVD is a combo. If not, then HD DVD all the way!

Blu-ray. My PS3 has never given me a problem and plays discs virtually instantly, and I'm finding myself having to fight more and more with my first-gen Toshiba HD-A1 to make my way all the way through an HD DVD.

Whichever is cheaper.

Hd-dvd

HD DVD. Seems to be cheaper. But it really depends on how you shop. I don't like Sony, despise them with a passion regarding their market practices, so I'm biased in that respect.

It depends on the cover art. If it matches better with red, then it's HD-DVD. If blue, then obviously Blu-Ray.:)

There is a couple of things that bother me about this neutral comment.

Neutral

1. not taking part or giving assistance in a dispute or war between others: a neutral nation during World War II.
2. not aligned with or supporting any side or position in a controversy: The arbitrator was absolutely neutral.

This really shouldnt even be an issue if you are not taking sides.

YOU JUST SELL BOTH AND CONTINUE TO PURCHASE SD rotfl

But anyways...

I generally purchase HD-DVD if avaliable in the format, I would agree that I've had more problems with my HD player. ( I have 56 HD, 14 BD ) But it is a X360 add-on, not the format itself.

The catalog on Blu-Ray (of my interest) is slight compared to whats avalible on HD (namely Universal).

I am one of the few that really doesnt mind the 'combo' disc's. Ive never had a problem with them loading or being faulty. On the occasion I'll let one of my assitant's borrow a disc for their SD players. So it is dual purposed.

If its not avaliable on one - get it on the other.

But I guess what you really could do if your 'neutral' - Just switch off the purchases so that every other ones you buy is from a different format. ;)

Adam, why don't you upgrade to an A2? While my preference is Blu-ray as well, the HD-A2 is hands down a better upscaler than the PS3.

The thing is, I can't think of too many where this is actually the case....

Paramount only released I believe 32 titles total on BD before pulling the plug, and all of them were a different encode than the HD versions (mostly MPEG-2 & a few AVC for BD vs. VC-1 for HD)....

That leaves just the Warner titles...and many times, even taking a combo release out of the equation, there are major differences between the two releases with either more features (300 for example) and/or better/lossless audio on the HD version (both Superman Returns and Happy Feet come to mind)....

So I guess that leaves me wondering, just which titles have been exactly identical?

A lot of Warner catalogue titles are identical on both formats: A Scanner Darkly, Beerfest, Dog Day Afternoon etc. come to mind immediately.

Warner is the only studio that is neutral so this choice doesn't come up too often. I would most likely favor HD-DVD.

If I am going to keep the movie or show, HD-DVD. But if I am going to watch, then sell or trade, I seem to get more value out of Blu-Ray.

I like the HD-A2, but the PS3 is a great upscaler. I'd be impressed to see proof that the HD-A2 is hands down a better upscaler. Not trying to start an argument, since I support both, but I must give credit to the PS3 for its capabilities.

I've ended up just getting the one that is the better deal. Most of the time I have bought the HD DVD version because it had features missing from the Blu-ray.

Hddvd

If there aren't any sound/feature/price differences, then whichever one I see first.

All things being equal, I get the HD-DVD since I favor that format. There are exceptions though.

I'm getting Smallville Season 6 on Blu-ray since it's got 200GB to work with vs. 150GB on the HD-DVD set.

I'm getting the Kubrick movies on Blu-ray since A Clockwork Orange will only need 1 disc on Blu-ray and Eyes Wide Shut has seamless branching which rumor has it doesn't work as well on HD-DVD.

I'm getting Blade Runner on Blu-ray since again 3 cuts of the movie will be on a single disc which will utilize seamless branching.

When I had the Samsung BDP-1000 and the Toshiba A1 as my main players, I would buy HD DVD first. But after I replaced the Samsung with the PS3, it didn't take too long to change to Blu-Ray first. I don't have playback problems with the A1, but the PS3 just blows it away IMO.

HD DVD, without a question. I've got two HDTVs but only one HD DVD player and I see myself buying a second HD DVD player before I buy a second Blu-Ray player. That, and I know more people with HD DVD players.

Blu-Ray whenever possible, mostly due to combos and the added scratch resistance of the discs.

To date I have had several defective HD DVD's but no defective Blu-Ray's, so it's kind of an easy choice for me.

That's a definite plus.

Blu-ray

I'm more likely to buy used blu-rays over used hd-dvds because of the scratch protection as well.

Even though I prefer my PS3 over my HD-A1, I lean towards HD-DVD maybe partly because of the underdog status, but also my brother picked up an A2 for $199, and I think I'll probably get an A3 for my parents this year as a gift (much more affordable than any blu-ray player on the market). I then can loan (and borrow) HD-DVD movies between us.