HD-DVD clearances

My mom just let me order the BLADERUNNER ULTIMATE COLLECTORS EDITION factory sealed HD DVD set... Ahhh I am almost giddy right now. It comes with an origami unicorn!

EDIT: LOL I forgot to even mention the price: $35

EDIT IMHO HD DVD needs to make a comeback, it's still so much better than BLU RAY it's not even funny. That was cold, how the studios killed HD even though it had better sales. Straight up betrayal of consumers and the public trust

I don't see a comeback happening, for some reason.

OH YE OF LITTLE FAITH!

Not that I care... but how is HD-DVD so much better?

(I first bought an HD-DVD player during the HD Wars... and now it just gathers dust)

I still use my HD-DVD player to watch dvds some times, and to see my HD-DVD of The Thing. Amazon still sells brand new copies of HD-DVDS for about 4 or 5 bucks. I can get behind that. Plus m'lady got me mine when Wal-Mart had that $99 player sale around November of 2007. I've also got The Game, which has yet to have an anamorphic dvd or Blu-ray release.

Without even getting into the technical stuff (HD DVD films were often said to look better than BLU), I will say HD deserved the win because of fairness. Everyone agreed on the HD standard as the next gen standard, and then SONY went out and tried to steal the market by inventing different tech for no purpose other than greed. Consumers suffered at great cost

If for no other reason than the continuity of the name and the elegant, iconic logo, HD DVD deserved to be the format of tomorrow. BLU RAY's logo is ungainly, and the name is the QWIKSTER of media formats

My A3 HD DVD player has been serving me ably for these past years, all the while beautifully upscaling my DVDs. When I want to bust out PLANET EARTH in HD, it provides me with the most jaw dropping images I can imagine. Now it's going to let me watch BLADERUNNER in HD on the cheap. It's a great piece of tech, and it's ready for a comeback

EDIT I should say I don't think it will get a comeback without a massive push, but if people really took the time to think about it, I'm sure many would switch 

Oh, last but not least, HD DVD had the best slogan: The Look and Sound of Perfect

Everytime I see a BLU commercial, despite their market domination, it's stitched together with  clips from ADAM SANDLER films and DREAM WORKS ANIMATION and stuff, with a two second shot of GODFATHER or something classy thrown in 

HD-DVD looking better than blu-ray is just confirmation bias.  It's not technical at all.  That kind of comparison is so littered with experimental flaws that it's kinda pointless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

HD-DVD looking better than blu-ray is just confirmation bias.  It's not technical at all.  That kind of comparison is so littered with experimental flaws that it's kinda pointless.

I will concede that point, but then it logically follows that no one has been able to prove BLU RAY looked better than HD DVD, and if it didn't look better, then it didn't have any reason for being
 

Blu-ray's badge of honor comes from its higher storage capacity.  While the image quality may be the same between the two formats, the storage space meant that blu-ray had the advantage when it came to maintaining high bit-rates the longer the movie was (before you'd have to split a movie between two discs/sides).  Then there's the fact that the additional space leaves more room for the lossless audio tracks.  Then the extra features.

So, it had a reason to exist due to its objectively superior storage space.  I believe blu-ray was also capable of pumping out more data per second than HDDVD.

Now, I'm not saying that's why blu-ray ended up winning the HD format wars. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

Blu-ray's badge of honor comes from its higher storage capacity.  While the image quality may be the same between the two formats, the storage space meant that blu-ray had the advantage when it came to maintaining high bit-rates the longer the movie was (before you'd have to split a movie between two discs/sides).  Then there's the fact that the additional space leaves more room for the lossless audio tracks.  Then the extra features.

 

So, it had a reason to exist due to its objectively superior storage space.  I believe blu-ray was also capable of pumping out more data per second than HDDVD.

 

Now, I'm not saying that's why blu-ray ended up winning the HD format wars. 

No expert here, but my understanding is that HD had better bit rates (or some such techno jargon)

Anyway, you make some valid points, but here are my counter arguments:

My understanding is that even today, extremely few films actually use a double layer BLU disc, meaning they all clock in around 25 GB. HD DVD was 30 to 35

I actually happen to enjoy a reasonable level of disc switching (though no double sided discs, they're an abomination). It serves the purpose of an intermission in a film. There is something just a little bit magical about the INTERMISSIONS on the LAWRENCE special edition DVD, or the LOTR EXTENDED EDITIONS (with their seperate motion menus for the second disc), or ALEXANDER or APOCALYPSE

Finally: TOSHIBA was close to completion on a tripple layer HD disc that would have only needed a firmware update to run on existing HD players, which would have wiped out any storage differences between the two

With the facts at hand, coupled with the existing intangibles I already mentioned (continuity of name, iconic well designed logo, memorable slogan), I feel HD must be objectively declared the better tech, especially since it was an agreed upon standard by the DVD governing body people, and SONY started an insurgancy that created market confusion

I suffered as a result of the format war, and now despite being a big movie fan, I cannot watch most movies in HD. It pains me to see my loyalty to Hollywood betrayed in such a visceral fashion, and so my loyalty to HD DVD is I hope given the circumstances understandable, as is my desire to see it's triumphant comeback

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

 

I will concede that point, but then it logically follows that no one has been able to prove BLU RAY looked better than HD DVD, and if it didn't look better, then it didn't have any reason for being
 

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

 Everyone agreed on the HD standard as the next gen standard, and then SONY went out and tried to steal the market by inventing different tech for no purpose other than greed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

 

 

I feel HD must be objectively declared the better tech, especially since it was an agreed upon standard by the DVD governing body people, and SONY started an insurgancy that created market confusion

No.  Sony, along with Philips, started 2 new media projects.  One of those projects was kept ( the other being UDO - or UDD's? -  that never went anywhere )  and announced as Blu-Ray discs with early prototypes displayed in late 2000.

It wasn't until early 2002 when the DVD Forum, headed by Toshiba, made to push for HD-DVD.  And just a few months later announced that they, too, were going to jump on the Blue-Laser HD media bandwagon. I don't think they ever seriously did, but if you're gonna call some one greedy . . .

Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyRockyHorror 

 

 

 

No.  Sony, along with Philips, started 2 new media projects.  One of those projects was kept the other being UDO - or UDD's? -  that never went anywhere)  and announced as Blu-Ray discs with early prototypes displayed in late 2000.

 

It wasn't until early 2002 when the DVD Forum, headed by Toshiba, made to push for HD-DVD.  And just a few months later announced that they, too, were going to jump on the Blue-Laser HD media bandwagon.  So who's the greedy one? 

All I can say is I side with HD DVD. It sounds to me like whatever a body called the DVD FORUm decides should be law within the digital media world. I'd need to do further research before I could speak with a more nuanced opinion on this matter, but my basic feeling is that HD DVD is the best

Here's what I found on wai-key-pedaaaiyah:

Blu-ray:

maximum data transfer rate - 54 Mbit/s

maximum video/audio bitrate - 48 Mbit/s

maximum video bit rate - 40 Mbit/s

HD-DVD:

maximum data transfer rate - 36 Mbit/s

maximum video/audio bitrate - 30.24 Mbit/s

maximum video bit rate - 29.4 Mbit/s

A single-layer blu-ray disc is indeed 25 gigs, but most blu-ray movies use dual-layered discs that hold 50 gigs.  So like dual-layer DVDs, you don't have to flip or switch to another disc.  Of course, sometimes it's the studios that cheap out and put a movie like Speed Racer on a single-layer blu-ray and not add a lossless audio track.  But that's not really the fault of the format.

Since I clearly don't get as passionate about things as you do, I took my failure to pick the winning side of the format wars without much fuss.  I chalked up my Toshiba HDDVD player as a loss and got a PS3 later.  It's great.  It looks and sounds... PERFECT.

HDDVD isn't going to come back.  Not even as a niche market.  People just don't care enough.  It couldn't win even with the earlier (and less buggy) launch and the support of the porn industry.  Anyway, blu-ray is already seen by some as the last physical format for movies.  Nobody is going to try to bring back a failed format in that kind of situation.  And blu-rays are already taking good care of most people who want HD content on a physical format. 

In terms of my own personal preferences, blue is probably my favorite color, so I immediately preferred the aesthetics of blu-ray cases to that of the maroon HD-DVD ones.  I disagree about the quality of the HD-DVD logo as well.  To me, it just looked like what it obviously is: the standard DVD logo with an HD tacked on to the side, which is basically what HD-DVD was.  Based on that, I definitely prefer the blu-ray logo.

So why did I pick HD-DVD at first?  I just thought that was the one that would win.  It wasn't better, but it was cheaper.

If only a god like Steve Jobs put his divine might behind HD-DVD, eh Kate?

Ohohohohohohoh

In all seriousness, if you are going to blame someone or something for the death of HD-DVD, Steve Jobs and the iTunes Store deserve just as much credit as Sony and blu-ray.  HD-DVD and blu-ray may have been able to reach some sort of uneasy split of the market, but Apple's push for heavily DRMed digitally delivered movies and TV shows made for a third format that was able to out compete HD-DVD by virtue of the studios liking that much control over the content.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

It sounds to me like whatever a body called the DVD FORUm decides should be law within the digital media world.

So Sony and Philips spend their time and money on trying to develop a new brand of an innovative new product should give up and because a group of other companies think it's a bad idea and that they think they're ideas are better?

Isn't that what happened to Apple?  Their "innovative" ideas shut down by another party - doubters, as you called them?  Losing "precious time".  And don't you revile those other competitors?  Just sounds a little hypocritical.

I just find your almost blind loyalty to certain things very strange and confusing. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

All I can say is I side with HD DVD. It sounds to me like whatever a body called the DVD FORUm decides should be law within the digital media world. I'd need to do further research before I could speak with a more nuanced opinion on this matter, but my basic feeling is that HD DVD is the best

 

 

It's like:

"I think X is the best."

"Why"

"[misinterpreted/wrong data] therefore my basic feeling is that it's the best"

"Based on what?"

"I'll have to do further research."

It's like you think these things are the best because you want to think their the best because you own them.  Then you hate every other competitor just because it's your "best thing's" competition.   I just don't understand it.  Not trying to be a dick, by the way.