melasnus

It was a simple choice during the HD disk Format Wars: more disk storage and more studios.
Amazingly, some folks didn't grasp the math immediately.

Adam Tyner

If it were that simple, there wouldn't have been a format war. FWIW, there was a window when HD DVD had slightly greater capacity than Blu-ray.

Also niggling, but it's "disc", not "disk".

Alan Smithee

DeanoBKN

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/150-b...nd-canada.html

Thanks for reminding me of that fiasco! Holy shit. The twists and turns in that thread were far more entertaining than the movie itself.

PhantomStranger

I do believe the extended HD format war hurt Blu-ray's ultimate market penetration. While it didn't kill the format, I think more would have become adopters in the long run and its peak sales would have been greater if the studios had presented a unified front from the beginning. Getting videogame consoles involved brought over a whole other level of animosity between the two rival formats that did no one any good.

Dan

You found the thread! Reading through it now, and my goodness, the skepticism....

morriscroy

Dunno about back in the day.

These days, more along the lines of an optimist.

Why So Blu?

Didn't it also take forever for the Sony PS3 to get their firmware update to produce lossless surround?

PhantomStranger

Honestly, I don't remember much except all the flame wars.

Adam Tyner

I believe that was only an issue for 3D titles. The PS3 was a shockingly great Blu-ray player. For a while, anyway, that was Criterion's reference player.

Why So Blu?

I still have mine even though I don't use it as much - it plays just about every audio/video you throw at it. The PS4 does not.

* Also, I started out with HD-DVD, so I did not get my PS3 until quite a bit down the road -- we were already knee-deep in the flame wars.

Adam Tyner

Yeah. I had an HD DVD player on day one. I wasn't interested in any of the initial 3 titles, but I bought The Phantom of the Opera just to have something to use as a demo. I never actually watched the movie; just popped it in, skimmed around, and never touched it again. Serenity the following week was the first movie I watched in full.

I bought a PS3 with its first price drop in mid-July 2007, along with a copy of Casino Royale. I only bought 10 HD DVDs after that. I wound up with somewhere around 180 titles on HD DVD, all told.

Why So Blu?

My first PS3 was a "fatty" then it got the green light of death, so I got a "slim."

Adam Tyner

I went through the same thing. Although my light of death was yellow.

Why So Blu?

Ah, it could have been yellow.

Alan Smithee

I've been called a curmudgeon by a few of my friends.

Being a fan of failed formats I knew that either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray was going to go under eventually, and I vowed to collect the one that did. I ended up with nearly every US HD-DVD title, but only afterwards did I find out the horrible rotting problem from Warner's manufacturer. At last count I had 33 discs go bad, either not reading at all or freezing up during the movie.

As for Blades of Glory, I can't help but think of this every time that's mentioned:

Josh Z

It wasn't anywhere near that simple. Let's take off those rose-colored nostalgia goggles for a second, huh?

At launch, HD DVD had players available at $500 that could handle all the interactive and networking bells and whistles that were so highly touted at the time, plus a strong selection of titles that all had very good HD video quality and carried over all the supplemental features from DVD.

Meanwhile, the only Blu-ray player available for that format's first six months was the p.o.s. Samsung BDP-1000 with non-defeatable DNR smearing, no interactive features (have you forgotten the "Profiles" fiasco?), and a galling $1,000 price tag. The initial launch titles were limited to single-layer 25gb capacity (less than HD DVD), had no bonus features, and worst of all had simply awful video quality. That first copy of The Fifth Element was a f'ing travesty.

Blu-ray was an utter disaster at launch. The format was nowhere near ready for release when it was pushed out the door. Competition from the Format War actually pushed Sony and the other studios to get their acts together, but it would take almost a full year before Blu-ray was even on par with HD DVD, much less demonstrated that it could possibly be superior.

Blu-ray became a stronger product because of the Format War, not despite it.

Gizmo

I came.

Jon2

I know Samsung manufactures TVs and monitors that are rebadged for other companies. It would be no surprise if they also did this with many other CE products, like... say DVD, blu-ray and 4K players. So I kinda doubt Samsung is truly totally out of that manufacturing line.

Gizmo

They could if they wanted to (initially). It appears they have not released a new BD model in about 2 years. I also don't get why they wouldn't just rebadge a generic one since it would help with add-on sales when people buy new Samsung TVs, but maybe they feel the people who still buy optical discs isn''t enough to warrant that? Remember - all those new Samsung TVs have Apps and other ways to purchase content which Samsung is likely getting a cut out of. I believe the newer Samsungs even have Apples eco-system in it (to buy/rent iTunes stuff and Airplay). They'll always be some CEs making players, but it's going to continue to drop YoY or just be existing inventory rotting on the shelves.

morriscroy

This didn't happen for Samsung's computer dvd-r drives.

Samsung/Toshiba's TSST operation filed for bankruptcy back in 2016. Since then, Samsung's dvd-r drives have disappeared from the market. No rebadged dvd-r/bluray-r drives appeared with a Samsung logo (yet).

Coral

I can't even remember the last time I saw a desktop or notebook for sale with an optical drive in it. Had to have been at least 6 or 7 years.

Adam Tyner

They're out there! My wife got an off-the-shelf new desktop somewhere around a year and a half ago with an optical drive. (Not sure what brand drive.) I don't even see an optical drive filter when I search for laptops on Best Buy's website. But that makes sense.

morriscroy

Since Samsung TSST bit the dust, most dvd-r drive models on new computers will probably be a liteon or lg rebadge. If you look up the device manager in windows, LiteOn oem drives will usually have "PLDS" in the name, while LG drives will frequently have "HLDS" in the name.