HD-DVD or Blu-Ray...Which (Player) would you buy?
 

I plan on buying one of the following players sometime in 2008:

http://tinyurl.com/3d5glr

Or...

http://tinyurl.com/2rljc4

Either one of these players seems to solve the issue of being "forced" to purchase two separate players in order to watch high-def movies that have increasingly become exclusive titles to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I know that both the XBOX 360 (through its HD-DVD attachment) and the PS3 were (suppossedly) meant to be your "all-in-one" entertainment center/sorce but personally, I prefer to use the Game consoles for games and DVD players for DVDs.

My questions are:

Which would you buy and why?

What are you (currently) supporting, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?

Do you have one or both an HD-DVD player AND Blu-Ray player?

Which Players (for either/both are at the TOP?

Blu-Ray fan here. The PS3 is a great all-in-one system, it's definitely the cheapest one out there too. I find it pointless to buy both players (or any for that matter) because there shouldn't be a format war. At some point Blu-Ray had all the companies (except one) backing them until HD-DVD paid the parent company of Dreamworks (I forget right now) 150 Million to become exclusive. So far your best bet is Blu-Ray with most of the companies backing them up (Disney and Sony). While HD-DVD company claims to win by selling more "stand alone players (which includes X360)" they don't include PS3 into the formula. Blu-Ray will likely be the winner with a ratio of 3:1 in amount of discs selling (though numbers don't mean much because they're like 100-300k max?).

There was a website I was on...I can't remember but if I do, they had excellent reviews on every high-def players.

Well, hope I helped something. =)

-AOA.

Neither. The Toshiba (that name alone should inspire confidence) A3 model HD-DVD player is really inexpensive and high quality as both a DVD player and HD player. Might want to check on the model specific info, just to be sure, but one of those Toshiba's is the one to beat.

Playstation 3 figures being reported by Sony are not for units sold, but units produced, many of which are still collecting dust in stores. Blu-Ray is already into a desperate marketing phase as of a couple weeks ago, as HD-DVD sales of hardware and discs are started to bite into their narrow lead and change the tide.

As far as the "winner" goes, you're looking at a shallow victory. This is basically a next-generation Laserdisc, and will be destined for the same obscurity. The replacement for DVD is not here, this isn't it.

The studios are not exclusive for any longer than money is in their favor. If the Walmart effect continues to attack Blu-Ray as it is now, then expect to see it in shambles by next Christmas. I don't think the HD disc market is even to a 10% saturation of a 100% DVD market, inclusive of both formats.

A good number of the HD movies being put out are quite badly done, only partially better than the DVD version, due to the relatively primitive methodology involved in production, encoding and content authoring. The usefulness of the extra resolution is affected much in the way a camera flash is. Every foot away from the television, and the smaller the television, the more worthless the resolution. At 9 feet away from a 55" screen, with near-20/15 vision, distinguishing a DVD and HD stream apart can be difficult, especially on the better DVDs (of which there are many) and the worse HD discs (again, there are many). Good DVD player and tv is assumed.

I'm a standards person, so I go for HD-DVD. Sony has long done their own thing, at the expense of the consumer. So forget Sony. HD-DVD is a consortium of multiple companies, while Sony is mostly just Sony. Sure, there's a consortium there too, but as it was with DVD+R and Betamax, it's mostly Sony with a few followers in tow.

Sony makes great televisions and blank DVDs, but that's about it.

HD-DVD is my choice. I find it curious though that Blockbuster is choosing Blu-Ray

i like both. i prefer blu-ray has more room on the disc for plenty of extras. but you cant find all movies on 1 or the other. but if its the same movie on both ill go with blu-ray

anyone have any blu-ray or HD dvds they dont want anymore??

If they would both use the AVC MPEG-4 format, instead of the legacy MPEG-2, you'd be able to fit a lot of content on one disc. In fact, a movie with a lot of bonuses would end up with blank space leftover, maybe even just have one layer instead of two (or three). HD-DVD seems to already be adopting AVC.

Blockbuster is second-banana to Netflix. I don't think Netflix has "chosen" anything, they have both. Not sure, not been a Netflix user since 2006. Not a big BB user either, I like my local mom-n-pop.

The model on that good Toshiba is HD-A30, not the older A3. Only $300-400 range (well, "only" as opposed to a grand or so for others). It's a 1080p HD with upscaling DVD. The HD-A35 has more audio options for $500-ish. Reviews of these at ZDNet.

It's really expensive. You'd do better to put this money towards a better tv, or a Wii, or more DVDs ... pretty much anything on a big list.

i got the HD-XA2 i like it a lot myself

Apparently the porn industry has decided to go with HD. That's what pretty much sealed the beta's fate when the porn industry decided to go with VHS back in the day.

I'm probably going to buy an HD player since they $159.00 at Costco. [:x)]

The whole "porn" thing is a myth, actually. The major reasons VHS "won" over Betamax was limitation in recording times of blanks, marketing blunders, prices, and easy availability of tapes to buy (blank or otherwise). VHS rentals really killed what was left of Betamax, by the mid 1980s.

Porn is the bottom-feeder latecomer to anything it does. Liquid latex, the Internet, VHS, and a number of other things are attributed to porn when in fact those items were already made, already in use, and already popular for other reasons.

I personally would prefer HD, just because I'll still be able to rip the movies and shows I like with my current software and hardware. I'm not sure how that will be affected when they go Blue-Ray. Also, from what I understand you can still watch HD-DVDs on your current DVD players, you just won't get the full effect.

most hd discs actually 1 side is HD and other side is Standard

Heh heh.. like I would really want to see some hairy moles in HD. [88][88][88][88]

That's one of those "combo discs" that has it double sided for you to use on both if memory serves right.

I believe there's a little more than a million PS3s sold right now in the US, and if that is to count for Blu-Ray then there's a million blu-ray players. Still, this battle doesn't seem like it'll go anywhere. Everyone is going for that whole "upscale" dvd player.

May be some companies will start making DVD players that will play both!

I'm pretty sure that the HD Disc I had was one sided since it had a label on it! It still played in my old SONY DVD player.

I bought a DVD player off of Ebay for $40.00 that will play just about anything. It will even play unfinalized discs. I couldn't believe it! I couldn't get the disc to finalize, so I put it in this DVD player and rerecorded it on to a good RW disc.

This brings me a to a question for everyone. How many times can you use a Verbatim R+ RW disc? I really seem to have problems with them, but the -R RW seem to last forever!

Wal-Mart was supposed to have the Toshiba HD-A30 this morning for $289 with 12 free HD-DVDs.

It's the Toshiba HD-A3 that's onsale as a "secret in store special" for $298.00.

Can anyone confirm whether or not HD-DVD or Blu-Ray DVD players are region free?

I just bought the Toshiba HD player today on sale at Costco for $169.00

There already is. I saw them at Frys the other day.

Nope.

Blu-Ray has 3 regions. Sans this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-Ray#Region_codes

:D

HD-DVD is currently region-free, I think, but the spec can change.

Neither HD-DVD nor the Blu-Ray specs are finalized. This is like 1996 for DVDs all over again. Who else here remembers all the trouble of new DVDs not playing on players from 1996-2000?

1 good thing is the firmware upgrades

After having read everyones opinion on this topic I went ahead and bought the Toshiba HD A-30 from amazon.com. As a matter of fact, amazon.com is having a promotional sale where you get 10 free HD-DVDs with the purchase of select Toshiba HD-DVD players, as you can imagine I took advantage of the promotional sale. Here's the link if anyone else is interested in the sale:

http://tinyurl.com/2t3vby

As far as Blu-Ray goes, I'll just use my PS3 to watch Blu-Ray movies. I also went ahead and purchased the HDMI cables @ monoprice.com that were recommended to me by konfusion. It was also nice to see that monoprice had a 5 x 1 HDMI switch that I also picked up.

It already has. My Toshiba says "region 1 only" right on the box.

That's too bad, well, I guess we've got to keep our region free dvd players around.

Yes, it is. :(

I've comfirmed it for myself, the HD-DVD player is in fact region coded for standard dvds. Moreover, I'm still unclear as to whether or not HD-DVDs/blu-ray DVDs from other contries will play on US HD-DVD and blu-ray players?

Just buy it already dan.[88] Sheeeeeeeeeeeese..[:p]



It will become obsolete by the time you make up your mind ;)[88]

Buy it. Try it for a day. You dont like it. Return it to which it came[:p][88][88]


You know the LS testing methods ;)[(#)][88][88]

If you read further up the thread, you'll read that I have indeed already bought the DVD player. I was simply saying that I tried a R4 standard disc, all I got was a "region error" message.

As to whether or not the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray formats will fade away like laser disc did, I really don't think it will, lots of companies are investing lots and lots of money promoting both these formats, (certainly more than was spent on the promotion of either laser disc or beta-max). What I think will eventually hapen after the "format war", (resulting in a virtual draw), is that most companies will quickly develope "combo-format" players to compete with the LG BH-200 or the Samsung BD-UP5000. Both formats will stick around for a longtime until a "newer & better" technology is developed and marketed as the "latest & greatest".

I read. Must torment anyways lol

I do believe that a good majority of the DVD players manufacturers will just start producing hybrid DVD players and avoid the whole mess. I believe they have them now, but they cost around $1,000.00.

That's about right on the price. I saw them the other day. [:u][:u][88][88]

Well, Warner Bros. has sided exclusively with Blu-Ray now. Seems like everyone believes the format war has ended with this final move from WB. I think this is great, especially in the fact that it'll be able to end this format war that should have never been. Blu-Ray had been winning all along (at least from what I've seen) and this is very good for Blu-Ray. So I hope for the format war to end now. =)

im waiting for universal and paramount to switch back so i dont have to spend an arm and a leg to get the rare blu-ray versions of certain movies