HD-DVD / Blu-Ray war over

[slycat]

Looks like Toshiba have finally bit the bullet and announced they are planning to withdraw from HD-DVD production (confirmed by Reuters) meaning effectively Blu-Ray has won. Now I had been holding out for a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo player, however now all I need to bother with is a Blu-Ray. The problem is for a standard format, there's three different versions or profiles, 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 (BD-Live). The latter isn't in use yet but come Summer it will be so there's no point in getting a player that isn't future-proof.

No current Blu-Ray players support BD-Live but one of the requirements of it is that the player has an ethernet port for internet access. At present there is only one Blu-Ray player which has an ethernet port and is firmware upgradable to have BD-Live when it's available in the summer... the PS3. So, I'm presented with the choice of either getting a PS3 now, selling my soul to Sony but being able to enjoy HD film loveliness (Ratatouille!), or I wait until the summer when the BD-Live compatible players will be available.

Hmm...

Comments

[kyyanno.livejournal.com]

Might it not be worth waiting to see what prices the new generation players come in at later in the year, or even if Sony drop prices of the PS3 to compete with them? You'll only kick yourself if you do something now, only to find you could have saved a fair amount of money by waiting a few months, purely just in the name of being able to watch HD movies?

Buy something now if you want, but you then forfeit any and all rights to complain later if you find a cheaper, better option further down the line :P

[slycat.livejournal.com]

I can afford to wait considering I don't technically have the cash right now anyway. It's just annoying having a lovely 1080p HDTV and not having any movies which take advantage of it! However, the best option is probably to wait and see what happens.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Well, I understand the net is, amongst other things, a source of HD movies..

*polishes halo*

[slycat.livejournal.com]

The net's not a very good source of HD video. It's difficult to find any movies in either WMV9 or DIVX in 720p or higher that are either not in French or have Dutch subtitles. The files I download need to be in that format as that's what the 360 plays and I download files from newsgroups because bittorrent is inefficient and not secure. I've not got a decent device which can play x264 MKVs into my telly yet. Can't get video out from my laptop to my telly either for some reason...

Plus the files are frigging huge. True I can still download an 8gb movie in a day, I'd rather rent the film from Lovefilm or buy the HD disc.

[tktiger.livejournal.com]

Aren't there talks of Microsoft bringing out a Blu-Ray drive for the 360? Why not wait until you can get one of them? Oh, but you might need the Eilte as that has an HDMI port and I've a feeling that Blu-Ray only works with HD outputs. Which is why Blu-Ray films will only work on the PS3 when using the HD output.

Then again, I might be wrong. :)

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Well there were suggestions made by Microsoft that should HD-DVD lose, they wouldn't rule out a Blu-Ray addon, though nothing's been confirmed yet. Secondly, yes, if the 360 did use a Blu-Ray addon, it would have to be transmitted to the TV over a secure digital cable which is only possible through HDMI. As HD-DVD chose not to require this (and was region free), this wasn't a problem. Fortunately, I do have an Elite anyway so wouldn't be an issue for me, and all new 360s come with HDMI anyway.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're out there, but not always in plain sight. It's not an area I've gone into much as yet, given I'm already pushing things a bit with 720 - I'd need a C2D to make anything 1080 a reality.

If I needed to, I'd probably just give Hyzenthlay a DVI cable and let it play away, within its capabilities, but that has that side effect of tying up a lot of its processing time. ^_^ Otherwise, some kind of purpose built box, like an AppleTV (appropriately tweaked to add the Perian plugin, VLC, and MplayerOSX), or even a dedicated TV system - more expensive, but without any concerns about 1080 playback, let alone what codecs and containers. Or a PS3 in Linux, unless it's appropriately aware of MPEG twiddles like DivX out of the box. A PS3 would have the advantage of Blu-Ray, of course, and would be a pile of fun to code for at the low level.. oh, just feel that parallel goodness, multiple vector units linked with three communication rings.. but not much memory each, forcing a need to keep those memory pipelines flowing.

Mm, some of the 1080 rips have been fairly huge. Unsurprisingly, the 720 counterparts have tended to be greatly smaller, but at that resolution hit.

Meanwhile, ISPs continue to bicker over whether there's a need for more backbone bandwidth and FTTC/FTTH. Wow.. I wonder. Things like the iTunes Store's video offerings are still relatively new, but they're not exactly going to depress the demand for bandwidth, at a time when many of them are trying to clamp home users to a few tens of GB per month, despite a complete season of a show weighing in at 10-20GB.

£15b for complete UK fiber goodness, yet it's apparently a higher priority for HMG to continue to pour money into Iraq, and defeat investigations that might threaten the dignity of some powerful Saudi figures. Such odd priorities.

[slycat.livejournal.com]

I've a beautiful copy of Over The Hedge in 1080p WMV9 which is simply awesome on my telly. The problem is, it's pretty much the only 1080p film I've got in WMV9. The buggers on the HDTV newsgroup insist on applying NL subtitles to all HD WMV films and for some reason, all the HD DIVX files have French audio. Most annoying.

As far as hardware goes, I'd need to get something like this: http://www.popcornhour.com/

[kytheraen.livejournal.com]

i feel sorry for all the people who have bought their entire back-catalogue in hd-dvd (cos some people are weird like that)... and now they'll have to do it again in blu-ray.

i still haven't got around to buying all my videos on normal dvd yet.

[tktiger.livejournal.com]

Some of my old videos I ended up downloading as the DVD went out of print before I even realised it had come out on DVD at all.

I'm glad I backed Blu-Ray from the start, though I'm kinda annoyed I'm going to have to buy The Lion King again, too. Esp as I'm sure it's going to be the IMAX version again and not the true original. Unless the Blu-Ray has both versions on it (there's enough space), but I doubt it.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

The version with that extra musical number, as on the DVD release? What actually were the changes? I don't think I've actually watched the reworked version yet. (The original, quite a few times.. it didn't hurt that a good friend was heavily into TLK when it came out, so I wound up seeing it about nine times on the big screen. Picked up the LD box as soon as it came out, and soon after that, a player =:)

[tktiger.livejournal.com]

A few things have changed. Mostly animation cleanups (like Simba's paw on the homecoming scene after the slo-mo running across the plains), but a few things have been needlessly changed:

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/thelionking2.html <- all the changes that irked me are listed here, a couple of them with screenshots comparing the old and the new.

As for The Morning Report. I liked it, thousands didn't. :) Thankfully, it was optional and you could watch the film without its inclusion if you wanted to.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

How weird! What's the point in reanimating the waterfalls? Too flamboyant? ^_^;

I certainly can't go along with the alligators, either - the original intent was to derive inspiration from African artwork, and they accomplished that melding of traditional themes with some degree of tooniness admirably to begin with.

Still, I suppose the livelihood of many editorial committees relied upon such needless tinkering..

I see I should investigate what original HD options exist. Such broadcasts are often captured, but actually locating them is a different matter; I've not really been active in that, as I can only play plain MPEG-4 at 720p, let alone anything at 1080, but a successor to my current system will arrive eventually. ^_^

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

A bit of a pity, in a way, especially given it's Sony that'll gain from it, but with so little to differentiate the formats, it made no sense for there to be two formats addressing the same purpose.

I still won't be selling my laserdisc box set of The Lion King, though. =:D

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Well I didn't want Sony to win for reasons I've previously stated, but now a winner has been declared, there's no way around it so I shall have to accept it. With Disney (specifically Pixar) being Blu-Ray only, it was only a matter of time before I picked up a Blu-Ray player anyway, I had just planned to get a combo player until now. May be a blessing in disguise that they kept on delaying the UK release of those.

I wish they had another standard!

[yotie.livejournal.com]

Something besides HD-DVD or Blue Ray. Just because this whole thing isn't f***ing confusing enough and I *only* got burned $199.99 on the HD-DVD player I bought. I know the industry can fleece me for more!

[bungle-bear.livejournal.com]

I'd wait until the prices come down. Once the new version is released the technology will hopefull become cheaper and the requirement of an ethernet port will become more commonplace in domestic appliances :)

Plus it gives you time to save - instead of using the handy ol' credit card :)