*sniffle* can we stop the pain?

I think people with HDTVs delete recorded SD content. As for the people who don't have HDTVs, they want to keep their standard def content.

Those are some good points. I hadn't thought of HD DVD taking over the PC market...

In most Thomas books I have read, that little train often has a sneaky way to win in the end. Is there an HD-DVD tunnel hidden away that the big Blu-ray train will not see? Probably not, but if life were as nice as a jesusdiaz image, there would be.

It's not that consumers "don't care about what format is most popular". They're just concerned where their next favorite movie will end up: HD-DVD or BluRay?

I don't think there's much of a market outside the US for HD PCs. I don't think people will want to have Blu-ray in their living room and then buy HD DVD for their PCS. It's just a stupid idea when you can just as easily get a Blu-ray drive. And plus, they'll have a hard time finding their favourite movies.

i agree on the pc thing, while i would love to store files on a blu-ray disk. its cost is impractical.

Then again, i still store most of my data on standard CDs and the occasional DVD. Rarely have i found myself in need of more "cheap" storage space. Not with externals becoming so cheap nowadays

@Monty: i think you are right, or is it left? anyway it is, i thought that was funny.

Hm, I don't know. I sense another war, but a small war. A war of which format will take the PC market..

I would only think blu-ray would be better for PC users as well because of its capacity, and especially since HD-DVDs can be burned as a blu-ray, from what I read somewhere.

@zombieistired: I dont think they can be burned as a Blu-ray, they use different methods.

@zombieistired: i dont see how much of a war this could be if Microsofty is everywhere...

i think blu-ray is that shot in sony's foot. maybe not now, but only the future will tell. didnt sony make the walkman? oh yeah & they want you to buy it in their phones too...

I wouldn't be to sure about the PC market. The two biggest PC sellers, Dell and HP have gone predominantly in the Blu ray route. Granted HP offers HD DVD but they also offer combo (cheap, mind you) drives and also stand along Blu ray drives. Also the cheapest nex gen DVD laptop is (shocker) the Sony Vaio.

Why would HD-DVD dominate the PC market? As long as Blu-ray plays the cards right, they've got the better capacity, which is the only real factor. Prices for drives will drop accordingly, but why choose DVD 2.0 instead of Blu-ray?

@JustEaton: Price is a factor. If BR-D media costs 5x as much as HD-DVD, that's going to be a problem.

Since the leader in home content authoring tools is actually Apple, not Microsoft - I don't think the above article makes much sense. IMHO soon as iMovie HD supports writing HD content to blue ray, I think its pretty much over.

I hope that damn blu-ray train gets derailed... then the little train wins, and I don't have to replace my damn laptop hddvd drive or my 360 add-on drive... I can't stand owning something obsolete because it lost a war against a competitor... It's like owning a car that runs on steam after gas cars come to the market... What the hell am I going to do now?? is what I think if HD loses... Or if I had a steam powered car...

@zombieistired:

Maybe you meant you can burn HD-DVD content in a DVD disk... which is possible.

HD DVD is better for one thing Blu ray for another... i think HD-DVD might beat out blu-ray because DVD is already industry standard by the IEEE and blu-ray is not IEEE recognized...

HD-DVD FTW

the thing is... if anything... i'd much rather have HD-DVD for movies and Blu-Ray for data storage.

Could it be now that their competition is going to be DivX (the one that comes from DivX networks)?

HDDVD has a way to win a niche now, it can be pushed to be used as means to backing up all your files on a single disk.

@ripfire4:

That's the point. If the consumer could buy a movie he wants, take it back home, pop it in his player, and it plays without a hitch, the consumer doesn't give a crap if that disc was Blu-ray or HD-DVD.

So, if Combo/hybrid players become the norm, this "war" becomes moot, just as the recent "war" between DVD-R/+R/-RAM became moot when your average $29 burner from Newegg became able to handle all of them.

Personally, I'm happy that Samsung will continue to pump out hybrid players, and although my ass is covered for a while (have an HD-DVD player, buying a PS3 any day now), I won't be losing any sleep over this "loss" of the HD-DVD so long as I know I could buy a hybrid player 3 years from now for $150 that will play my 10+ HD-DVD discs.

Why would I but a HD-DVD burner for my computer when my video player (in the living room) reads BluRay?

When it comes to home videos, I think the smarter money would be on 3xDVD (which both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray hardware are capable of supporting), basically high-def .mp4 files stored as data on a recordable DVD. Like the others, I just don't see people picking one high-def disc format for their home videos and another for their filmed entertainment. And aren't Blu-Ray camcorders already practically on the market?

I call complete BS. Not only is HD-DVD not dead for movies yet (and I'm frankly quite surprised that their marketing goons are unable to pick the proper spin on the Warner deal), there will NEVER be a "divide" as described.

There is zero market for larger optical storage on the PC. Hard drives have fallen so quickly that the price/GB already outpaces existing optical media, so nobody in their right mind is going to spend even more to potentially coaster the burn of a larger capacity blue anything disc. I don't see any reason DVDs won't last for a good long time for the distribution of most software, and then eventually either flash will further drop in price to match optical, or holographic storage is going to wipe both blue disc formats off the face of the earth.

I also don't understand his "people delete SD" line. I have an HDTV DVR and the high-def stuff is what sucks up the most space, 4-8 GB/hour, and so is most likely to get watched and quickly deleted. I can Handbrake a whole slew of DVDs, on the other hand, and not really worry all that much about the space they take up. I mean, when the entire Firefly series (with extras!) takes up less space than a single broadcast episode in HD, you can bet it stays on my hard drive and its DVDs become the safely stored backup. How that's supposed to apply to Blu-ray I can't say, so I have no idea where this Jun guy is coming from.

Well chef, it sounds like you're pretty upset about all this. Casualty of the Format War of '07?

I think you're dead wrong about there being zero market for larger optical disks. That's like somebody saying nobody will ever need more than 640k of RAM. When the DVD came out there wasn't a single person who thought "great, now I'll be able to record cable TV to my computer and archive it" - it wasn't the intent of the medium, and it wasn't technically possible at the time. But once the capacity was there, people figured out something to use it for. The same will happen for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or whatever else they come up with. Capacity limits the imagination, not the other way around.

@weatherman:
Do you use DVD's as backup strategy?
I abandonded that path long time ago... Directories access times are atroucious, and disks are very sensitive to read error due to scratches: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray even more so.
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are not the next DVD disk format, just a patch to the old one.
Few years from now any 50Gb alternative storage is going to cost a fraction of today... I just can't see how HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can beat that.

HD-DVD is mostly dead right now for hollywood, and barring an awful zombie like revival in a year or 2 if blu-ray doesn't pan out, I don't see why consumers would use a format like hd-dvd for "home" content. I could see independent studios perhaps, or some overseas studios but unless DF drives become more popular, they'd either have to go bluray or remain DVD to get the content watched.

As a PC backup medium, HD-DVD would have to be cheaper and more reliable if it cant be bigger... faster would help too. I've seen nothing to indicate that it will be more reliable.

Chef is right about optical storage though. Consumers want/need larger portable media devices and solid state (thumbdrives or memory cards) as well as external hard discs are filling the roles much better than super-DVD under any name could. Plug it in and it works. Drag the files over. No burning software, no expensive extra media, no coasters, no "oh crap, I forgot to add this file/directory to the burn".

Also, long term reliability of (burned) DVDs is very poor. Any evidence that HD-DVD or Bluray is any better?

@weatherman: If by "upset" you mean "really couldn't care less, but writes in a way that compels the reader into transference" then sure. As to the capacity issue, please actually read what I wrote before responding. I never said larger optical capacities are more than people need. On the contrary, I said that people wanting larger capacities are simply better off not wasting their money on optical discs when hard drives are under $.20/GB (and falling fast). The only possible way to refute that argument is to show how any burnable optical media has a roadmap that'll make it significantly cheaper than hard drives. I'll be particularly interested to hear how it's in my best interest to spend $15 for a single Blu-ray disc ($.60/GB for the media alone, and potentially a coaster) plus an extra $200 (give or take) for the Blu-ray burner, when I could just as easily spend the same money on a reliable hard drive that holds 40 times as much. Even the economies of scale that burnable DVDs enjoy hasn't kept up. Face it: optical discs on the desktop are dead.

I remember that about a year ago or so ago they a few people said the exact same thing about blu ray being used for storage not movies. Well I guess the jokes on them.

Samsung is hedging in every sense - Reduce or eliminate risk - Swap knowns for unknowns.
They would be smart to continue development & production of dual format PC drives - let the consumer decide on next generation optical media for data archiving.

The most important question is can it play my SACD or DVD-Audio?

Why should anyone even want, to get a HD DVD burner when you can get a BR burner instead. In the long run you will save money that way, even if the BR burner is more expensive than a single format player will be cheaper that the dual...

I say give HD DVD the death blow on go all BR...

And who cares about optical media anyway, just download them movies on Xbox live, or something like that.

CDs were a great medium for backing up my projects, but my projects got too big. Then DVDs were plenty roomy, but now my project are too big for DVDs. And so a higher capacity writable disc makes plenty of sense to me. I don't understand what other mainstream media is going to save us sooner (though I was holding my breath for the holographic cards to come out, but I can only hold my breath for a few years). Yes, standard hard drives are cheaper, but not as easy to manage and access jobs a CD case full of labeled DVDs. I've been saving projects to CDs and DVDs for 10 years now, and I haven't had any problems accessing my data. I've seen plenty of media formats come and go, but CDs and DVDs have stayed relevant, I'm assuming because they are mainstream. I can only assume that if Blu-ray becomes the mainstream disc format, hardware and media prices will drop quite a bit, and the format won't go the way of the Zip or Jazz drive. I'm not saying Blu-ray is the best technology as a backup media, but it seems to be the best viable mainstream option I'm aware of. Oh, and I fail to see the logic of HD-DVD surviving for PC use when Blu-ray appears to be on the road to becoming the format that everyone will start using in one way or another -- Mr. Jun is grabbing at straws.

@gizGianca:
Actually not. BRD's have a scratch resistant coating and it works. I've dropped a BRD on concrete(optical side down) and it didn't scratch at all even thou it slid as I tried to pick it up. That would have killed a DVD or HD-DVD.

Back on topic. Why would I want to back up media on HD-DVD when
A. Its a dead format now
B. BDRs have more capacity
C. BRD have twice the write speed and
D. You can actually find a PC BRD burner.

PC BRD burners here [www.newegg.com]

Post me a link where I could buy a PC HD-DVD burner.
I can't find one.

Think of it...$1.50 blank HD-DVD Disk to "back-up" that BD movie ya rented...PC HD-DVD on the Toshiba laptop.

@eFish:
laptop = not a PC
It's not very fun to have the battery die in the middle of a burning a movie. Then then there is the whole stability issue. Its kinda a pain in the ass to have your disc ruined just just because you repositioned your leg.

Sir Topham Hat is going to be pissed!

I think the only way HD-DVD could win the PC market is if it's really begins to be used for games. And even though, microsoft supports HD-DVD, if blu-ray becomes popular enough microsoft hopefully won't force consumers to use the nearly dead HD-DVD format. Blu-ray is already being used for games and it has more space so I think blu-ray would be an easier choice to make when deciding whether to use HD-DVD or blu-ray for PC games...

With some PC Games (cough MSFSX) reaching beyond 10GB I'd love to see HD DVD replace DVDs in computers. You can't put a DVD game disk into a DVD player, so I don't see why HD DVD and Blu-Ray Can't co-exist on that front. an issue though, is the name. HD DVD implies video content, so for data uses, it'd be a bit confusing.

If Microsoft is so confident with Toshiba in their partnership, why didn't they put a HD-DVD in the XBox 360 Elite??

So... You'll buy your movies on BluRay and pc/xbox games/applications on hd dvd? That could work...

In that case I know I'd want a dual format disc station on the pc (stating the obvious here =P ).

@valis:
Microsoft wanted HD-DVD to die off to make digital downloads look more appealing to Xbox360 owners. They dont stand to lose any money in its HD-DVDs failure; They just gain more potential customers on XBL video marketplace.
That is why they seemed so confident on the subject.
They played toshiba(and all the people who bought into HD-DVD) for suckers. IMOO of course.

Sad. Sony really doesn't deserve any wins with all of the missteps they've made over the years. Burning batteries, rootkits, Playstation flubs, totally missing the mp3 boat, bad support policies, hosing the VHS/Beta battle, and on top of all of that - premium pricing - have made me avoid their products for years.

@VishusBurn: VishusBurn, I'm not calling you a lier or anything, but I take your scratch-resistant ability of BD with a healthy amount of skepticism. I remember that same claims with CD's (unbreakable and unscratchable), and those turned out to be complete fabrications.

Dual Format Players FTW!

Why would I use either disc as storage, when 1TB hard drives are approaching $.25 a GB. By the time Blue laser discs get there, we'll have something much better.
This entire generation of content just plain sucks, and I think it'll get replaced quickly. Poor investment...

Betamax may have gone to the grave, but Sony definitely made its fair share of cash off of Beta in the professional market.

i have both but prefer hd-dvd because it has better video quality plain and simple. This does suck because if hd-dvd does indeed fail...I now have to keep a player around for 30 movies or buy them all over again in worse quality on blu-ray.

Ha! Digital Distribution will kill SD but not HD....yeah, right! Surely it is not possible Samsung is biased...

/sarcasm

Just like with music it is only a matter of time before more hi def content will be sold digitally than on physical media (I give it 5 years). How great will it be when you do not need a DVD-like disc drive on your computer or a bunch of shelves for all your movies.

To all the Studios and disc player/media manufactures who dream of another, fairy tale evolution where technology does not take over (to the benefit of the consumer): suck it!

@VishusBurn: They do stand to lose some money as HD-DVD licenses VC-1 from Microsoft as its video codec. Its better then AVC which is what blu-ray uses and while MS may not make huge amounts of money from said license it does make some.

I hope MS licenses blu-ray VC-1 because its just better then anything Sony has. h.264...yuck.

I remember back when a DVD cost $10 each and a DVD burner was upward of $800. What's the difference here. As time progresses and the technology is adapted into more and more consumers hands, the price will drop. We will see the day that HD-DVD disks and/or Blu-Ray disks are less than a buck a piece. Burners will drop in price accordingly as well. The only difference between what is happening now and what happened 10 years ago with standard DVD is that there is a bigger competition going on than "is it +R or -R?"

And for the question of "what if I forget to add a file into a burn? Coaster!". No... how long was it until good ol' RW format came out. It's just a matter of time until DVDs become what CDs are now and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD become what DVDs are now.

Personally, I could care less which way it goes. I own a PS3, but not for the Blu-Ray player aspect. If I'm going to spend a good amount on a burnable disk (till prices drop), I'll take the higher capacity disk at the same (ending) price. When was the last time YOU bought a 650mb CD at the same price of a 700mb disk?

h264 is the best video codec out there.