Warner and Paramount Jump Ship, HD-DVD Is Dead

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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 10:13 am

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/08/paramou ... 1820080108
TOKYO, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Paramount studios is poised to drop its support of the high-definition DVD (HD DVD) format after Warner Bros studio said it would back the competing Blu-ray format, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Sad day for technology buffs and the general consumer. Blu-Ray is a proprietary format that will be controlled by Sony and its affiliates. HD-DVD is not and more importantly uses current technology greatly reducing the price of discs, factories for example would not have to do major retooling to produce them. Quality wise they are practically the same, the standard Blu-ray discs has more space but its actually more than is needed and HD-DVD did release a comparable disc.

Once HD-DVD is out of the picture this is going to leave sony in the position to charge whatever they want, it's my understanding they are actually losing money on the current crop of discs because they are subsidizing the price so they could compete with HD-DVD prices.

For those of you with HD-DVD player you now own what amounts to a Betamax player.

 
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Post by av8r » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 10:36 am

Richard S. wrote:http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsA ... 1820080108
TOKYO, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Paramount studios is poised to drop its support of the high-definition DVD (HD DVD) format after Warner Bros studio said it would back the competing Blu-ray format, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Sad day for technology buffs and the general consumer. Blu-Ray is a proprietary format that will be controlled by Sony and its affiliates. HD-DVD is not and more importantly uses current technology greatly reducing the price of discs, factories for example would not have to do major retooling to produce them. Quality wise they are practically the same, the standard Blu-ray discs has more space but its actually more than is needed and HD-DVD did release a comparable disc.

Once HD-DVD is out of the picture this is going to leave sony in the position to charge whatever they want, it's my understanding they are actually losing money on the current crop of discs because they are subsidizing the price so they could compete with HD-DVD prices.

For those of you with HD-DVD player you now own what amounts to a Betamax player.
Sony used brilliant marketing with this. Putting the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 and selling it for less than 1/2 of what a stand alone HD DVD or Blu-Ray reader costs was simply brilliant and now will pay back in spades. Good for them!

There were many, many wasted opportunities for this to end better, but Toshiba was too stubborn. So, when you play for all the chips, you gamble to walk away with nothing.

Ah well...I''m holding out for laser tv.....

 
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Post by billw » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 11:11 am

I guess my VHS is toast

 
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 11:59 am

av8r wrote: Sony used brilliant marketing with this. Putting the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 and selling it for less than 1/2 of what a stand alone HD DVD or Blu-Ray reader costs was simply brilliant and now will pay back in spades. Good for them!
Cratainly had some affect but I'm not so sure that had a lot to do with it, PS3 sales haven't been stellar and I would think someone that could care less bout gaming wouldn't buy a P23 anyway. I don't remember what the comparable cost were then but I believe they were about equal to a standalone player. More likely better marketing, cooler name and its a Sony.. :roll: The consumer massses of course have decided this but the trouble is the masses only know what they are fed, if you polled a lot of technology buffs I would venture to guess very few would pick the Blu-Ray format.


 
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Post by Devil505 » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 12:04 pm

Richard S. wrote:http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsA ... 1820080108
TOKYO, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Paramount studios is poised to drop its support of the high-definition DVD (HD DVD) format after Warner Bros studio said it would back the competing Blu-ray format, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Sad day for technology buffs and the general consumer. Blu-Ray is a proprietary format that will be controlled by Sony and its affiliates. HD-DVD is not and more importantly uses current technology greatly reducing the price of discs, factories for example would not have to do major retooling to produce them. Quality wise they are practically the same, the standard Blu-ray discs has more space but its actually more than is needed and HD-DVD did release a comparable disc.

Once HD-DVD is out of the picture this is going to leave sony in the position to charge whatever they want, it's my understanding they are actually losing money on the current crop of discs because they are subsidizing the price so they could compete with HD-DVD prices.

For those of you with HD-DVD player you now own what amounts to a Betamax player.
I personaly don't think too many people are going to be willing to pay 2x OR 3x the price of a DVD movie (if you can even find what you want in Blu-ray) for such little picture improvement that you need a split screen (1/2 normal & the other half Blu-ray) to see the difference.

 
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 12:06 pm

billw wrote:I guess my VHS is toast
off-topic but most stores are starting to drop VCR players, won't be long now before they aren't available. Fortunately I have two brand new ones. One is actually highly sought after model, JVC 9911U which I use for VHS transfers. About $350 used :shock:

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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 12:22 pm

Devil5052 wrote: for such little picture improvement that you need a split screen (1/2 normal & the other half Blu-ray) to see the difference.
With the right player and TV the difference is astronomical. Standard DVD is only 720x480, full HD is 1920x1080. To put that into perspective here's an image, the red part is SD TV (note that its not actual pixel size, its just to give perspective):

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hd.gif
.GIF | 3.6KB | hd.gif

 
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Post by traderfjp » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 12:51 pm

I belong to Netflix and I never have a problem getting what I want in Blu-ray. I also bought a PS3 to get the player. Overall I'm very satified with my PS3 and the quality of the Format.


 
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 1:30 pm

Quality isn't the issue, they could both perform eqaully well visually. The big difference really was the physical discs.

Just to add to my post above about the differences between SD and HD, A standard DVD looks remarkably well on a HD TV with the right player, no doubt about that but it's really no caparison to true HD. If you don't see a vast difference either a) you're hardware doesn't support full HD b)the source isn't full HD C) you have something misconfigured. d) you need glasses . :P

There's a link here for full HD samples: High Definition Previews.. Whats to Come.

note that the selctions for full HD are marked 1080, you'll need a monitor capable of displaying 1920x1080 to get the full experience. You will also need cable connection and have to save the file to disc, it won't stream on my connection and I can downlaod at 10000kbps.

 
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Post by Devil505 » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 2:24 pm

Richard S. wrote:Quality isn't the issue, they could both perform eqaully well visually. The big difference really was the physical discs.

Just to add to my post above about the differences between SD and HD, A standard DVD looks remarkably well on a HD TV with the right player, no doubt about that but it's really no caparison to true HD. If you don't see a vast difference either a) you're hardware doesn't support full HD b)the source isn't full HD C) you have something misconfigured. d) you need glasses . :P

There's a link here for full HD samples: High Definition Previews.. Whats to Come.

note that the selctions for full HD are marked 1080, you'll need a monitor capable of displaying 1920x1080 to get the full experience. You will also need cable connection and have to save the file to disc, it won't stream on my connection and I can downlaod at 10000kbps.
I have a Sony 46" HiDef rear projection TV upstairs, but it's not 1080, & an Infocus 4805 (enhanced Def. so not 1080 either) projector downstairs. Would I see any difference over my normal (widescreen) DVD's from the prog. scan DVD players I am now using?

 
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 3:42 pm

You can't create what's not here, having said that it depends on the hardware, specifically if they scale the video up. A close up of your video will look like this:
upscaled_zoomed.jpg
.JPG | 22.1KB | upscaled_zoomed.jpg
The hardware will interpolate the image when it scales it, no detail is added but it looks much better than blocks.
upscaled_bicubic.jpg
.JPG | 20.7KB | upscaled_bicubic.jpg
How well this works varies by hardware.

 
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Post by traderfjp » Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 3:54 pm

PS3 was instrumental in getting Warner Bro. to jump ship.
Last edited by traderfjp on Tue. Jan. 08, 2008 11:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 
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Post by Richard S. » Sun. Jan. 13, 2008 9:00 am

I should clarify that it's not official that Paramount is leaving HD-DVD, on the other hand there is rumors surfacing that Universal will be leaving too. In any event I think its dead.

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