# Blue Ray HD DVD debate



## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

Well for what it's worth I made my decision today and althouh I've been an avid HD DVD fan over Blue ray I opted for a Blueray player :? 
The player I've bought is the New Pannasonic BD30, reviews seem very good and for Â£350 i don't think you could get a better BR player or HD DVD for that matter anywhere, and if HD DVD does win over BR haven't broken the bank 

Delivery should be in 7-14 days and obviosly I'll be viewing before walking out of the shop :wink:


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

I've finally decided to wait for the Samsung combo player due June/July this year. I just couldn't decide which format to buy :?


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2008)

Ive had my HD DVD player for 7 months, ordering my hd dvds from the US region free for less than the price of normal dvds here.
I still believe it to be the better format, but i guess sonys marketing machine has finally stuck the last nail in.

Still, my hd dvd player is an excellent upscaler and ill continue to by tthe format till the studios stop supporting it.


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## Guest (Feb 15, 2008)

Ive had my HD DVD player for 7 months, ordering my hd dvds from the US region free for less than the price of normal dvds here.
I still believe it to be the better format, but i guess sonys marketing machine has finally stuck the last nail in.

Still, my hd dvd player is an excellent upscaler and ill continue to buy the format til the studios stop supporting it.


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## Major Problem (Jan 9, 2007)

Playstation 3 all the way!


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

I did also buy a Full HD camcorder which was what i originally went in to buy, and this player will alow me to play recordings wether it be straight off the SD card or copied to disc in full HD.


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

http://www.reuters.com/article/technolo ... 4420080216

Finally they admit defeat - huge loss for Toshiba financially, but at least we can all get on with it now. Mark, I wouldn't hold your breath for that combi-player now 

I just hope we'll now see Sony or Denon bring out a decent Blu / DVD-Audio / SACD player!


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

clived said:


> http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL1643184420080216
> 
> Finally they admit defeat - huge loss for Toshiba financially, but at least we can all get on with it now. Mark, I wouldn't hold your breath for that combi-player now
> 
> I just hope we'll now see Sony or Denon bring out a decent Blu / DVD-Audio / SACD player!


Pity :? I was hoping to pick up loads of cheap HD DVD's as everyone dumped HD in favour of BR. The rumour I read on one of the AV sites recently is that Denon are close to releasing a BR player. Should go nicely with my 4308


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Wont buy the sony based product, i have a HDDVD player and will just wait for the HD download services to come out.
Refuse to pay the evil sony any more of my money. They have to do everything different, be it memory cards or DVDs.

Consumer loses again.


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## jbell (May 15, 2006)

HD is dead, Toshiba have pulled out


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## alexasTT (Jan 19, 2005)

very cheap now

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electro ... P36=7GV8GF


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Boycott all sony product - evil company.


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

It's a shame but atleast everyone knows where they stand now till the next gen format comes out :roll:


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## raven (May 7, 2002)

Isn't it all a bit irrelevant as we'll all be downloading movies from the internet? Must admit I'm tempted to get the HD player for the upscaling alone to play all my current DVDs on.


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## kmpowell (May 6, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> Consumer loses again.


I'm a consumer, I don't lose.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

You sure? BR prices will start to go up. Doesn't that mean you are now losing out as the evil sony are no longer competing to sell their product....why discount?

What about all the other people who have invested in HD?
What about all the people who are now tied back into a crappy region code system ? 
What about all the people who have profile 1.0 players?

The studios have won, they wanted consumers to be subject to tighter controls and now they have it.

I'll never buy a sony product.


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## John C (Jul 5, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> Boycott all sony product - evil company.


Is it only me that sees the irony of Toshiba boycotting Sony? :wink:


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> You sure? BR prices will start to go up.


History doesn't really support that does it. Mass consumer adoption, which we will start to see now the "war" is over, always drives prices south.

I'll take a wager with you regarding the lowest cost player and the cost of the top 10 Blu-ray discs today and in 12 months time. I'll bet Â£500.


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## Lock_Stock (May 22, 2007)

clived said:


> Toshiba said:
> 
> 
> > You sure? BR prices will start to go up.
> ...


OOOOOOooooooo,,, Them's fighting talk..

Showdown at the O.k Corall!!!!!

Toshiba Vs Clived

Doeoeoe do do doooooo, doeoeoeoe, do do doooo, doeoeoe, do do doooo


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

clived said:


> Toshiba said:
> 
> 
> > You sure? BR prices will start to go up.
> ...


Lets take a different view. Lets look 6 months and the price of players.
Mass adoption - I'm still not convinced the public wants it in any shape or form.

Â£500 - yeah! right, you should be an Audi dealer.


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## Lock_Stock (May 22, 2007)

Toshiba said:


> clived said:
> 
> 
> > Toshiba said:
> ...


Not being funny, what are you on about?

The two (main) things that affect product price in this istance are competition and demand. Normally having two competing companies forces prices down, in this case it does not. Having two competing 'technologies' inhibits demand, meaning prices remain high.

By removing HD from the equation many manufacturers will be able to invest in scaling production and making cheaper blue ray players. This will drive down the prices.... For the sub contractors who make the Blue Ray discs this is also true, they are able to scale up more confidently driving down prices.

If you can't see this because you have 'hate sony' glasses on then there is no point debating it. I'm guessing by your ID you are a little bias


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

For the record i have Panasonic stuff thanks and they support BR with both the DB10 and BD30. :wink:

To say demand has been 'inhibited' by the two factions is not true, or at least not quantifiable. All the surveys say the reason for slow adoption of the technology is consumers don't really see the need for it in EITHER guise. BR has only won due to the PS3.

Only once you achieve a critical mass do you see prices starting to come down. Critical mass for HD is somewhat hard to see from where we are now. 18 Month or maybe even more.

The reason for the sony comments are that they ARE an evil corp. Look up how Sony came to be and who they stiffed.


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

But your point was still that prices will now go up. I'm sure we'll revisit this thread in 12 months time to validate that


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

I'll save it as a Favorite.


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## jbell (May 15, 2006)

Blu Ray players are only Â£230 now
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_ce? ... ds=blu+ray


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Samsung had some for around Â£200 last time i looked. But these are the old profile 1.0s that they are trying to get rid of.


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> I'll save it as a Favorite.


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## Lock_Stock (May 22, 2007)

Toshiba said:


> To say demand has been 'inhibited' by the two factions is not true, or at least not quantifiable. All the surveys say the reason for slow adoption of the technology is consumers don't really see the need for it in EITHER guise. BR has only won due to the PS3.
> 
> Only once you achieve a critical mass do you see prices starting to come down. Critical mass for HD is somewhat hard to see from where we are now. 18 Month or maybe even more.


Right now you can buy DVD for between 2-20 quid. Generally aboutÂ£15 for new releases.

You can buy a very good upscaling DVD player for about 100-150.

IF the manufacturers are going to reduce the price of the players to something that (in the consumers eyes) competes with DVD the price will need to come down to those I have listed. To bring prices down to this level the manufacturers need to build scale. They are not going to do this when there is a risk that there tooled up factory may have been throw away investment, so they hedge their bets, produce on a smaller scale and prices remain high.

You are right about 'critical mass'. Once demand is high enough, all the smaller manufacturers jump on board and prices really begin to fall but the big players really have the power here.

With the price of HD TV's already competitive with conventional sets, and the risk for manufacturers greatly reduced (as BD is the way to go) you will see the prices fall dramatically and very quickly.

A wide selection BD players will be on sale for less than 200 before christmas and New release titles will be sold for Â£15. Non-new realease BD will be sold for Â£10 on offers. It will happen, and it will happen this year.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

We'll see.

Most TVs are not full HD. Again, consumer has been shafted. The manufactures are trying to create the demand at a level the general public are not wanting to move at.

Go back to the up scalers, the (good) up-scalers are able to produce a picture at near on HD quality, this is the problem. Why does Mr 'normal' Joe consumer 'need' or feel the need to upgrade to BR when he gets very little benefit in terms of picture or sound? (To get the sound benefit you need a new theater kit with 7.1, most are 6.1 or 5.1). ie you need a new one box kit. I believe Panasoncics one is due August time, no idea about the rest.

Whats the benefit of BR vs DVD right now. Very little is the honest answer. Its not the same jump as it was from VHS to DVD.

Im with Steve Jobs on this one. BR has won, so what? its not the future.


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## Lock_Stock (May 22, 2007)

Toshiba said:


> We'll see.
> 
> Most TVs are not full HD. Again, consumer has been shafted. The manufactures are trying to create the demand at a level the general public are not wanting to move at.
> 
> ...


I agree with you on HD TV and BR vs DVD. I personally use an upscale DVD player because the 576P picture is almost indestinguishable from a 1080 picture scaled to a 720 set... I still think BR will take off toward the end of this year and into next.

The online video market has a very big challenge, most of the carriers don't have enough bandwidth to support this much internet traffic. It will be at least 5 years before they upgrade. Download speeds are likely to FALL in the next few years giving HD discs (Blue Ray) an opportunity to take off, even if Online TV is the way forward.


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

So should i buy VHS or Betamax? Not wanting to support the evil Sony, I will go with VHS. :wink:

Sony has lost out on many format wars: Betamax, DAT, Minidisc, Memory Sticks, they scrapped through with CD-RW. So give them a break with Blu Ray and all credit to their marketing dept for including it in PS3 which has helped adoption of the format no end. Of course Sony also owning two major Hollywood studios helps some...

Toshiba never stood a chance.

For our own resident Tosh: so that's Apple and Sony on your boycott list with their crap brands and rubbish products. Any others we should all avoid? :wink:


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## Guest (Feb 20, 2008)

Lock_Stock said:


> Toshiba said:
> 
> 
> > We'll see.
> ...


I started off with upscaled dvd, having a very large dvd collection it seemed the way forward. And having a first gen hi def tv it fitted in well.
As for upscaling vs blu-ray/hd dvd some of us have 1080p tv's and i can honestly say, 720 and 1080p are miles apart in depth, black and colour vibrancy.

BR is more likely to take off if region coding is eliminated and the rest of the world can get new movies at the same time a the US.
Which is one of the reasons i went with HD dvd over Blu-ray.

However, that said, the studios never helped in this format war whatsoever.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

garyc said:


> For our own resident Tosh: so that's Apple and Sony on your boycott list with their crap brands and rubbish products. Any others we should all avoid? :wink:


I'd say Audi as well


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

DUO3 NAN said:


> As for upscaling vs blu-ray/hd dvd some of us have 1080p tv's and i can honestly say, 720 and 1080p are miles apart in depth, black and colour vibrancy.


Agree, but depending on your up-scaler, you can still get a picture thats very close. I've got a HD and a Full HD Panasonic 42" TV and when i use a normal DVD on the HDDVD player with full 1080P output, the picture is just as good. You can tell the difference in colours like you say between I and P sets, but that could be the image engine built into the TV.

I'd guess most TVs in peoples homes are 1080i rather than P.


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> garyc said:
> 
> 
> > For our own resident Tosh: so that's Apple and Sony on your boycott list with their crap brands and rubbish products. Any others we should all avoid? :wink:
> ...


 :lol: :lol: :lol: :


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## HighTT (Feb 14, 2004)

garyc said:


> Toshiba said:
> 
> 
> > garyc said:
> ...


 Don't forget Bose :roll:


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## kmpowell (May 6, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> I've got a HD and a Full HD Panasonic 42" TV


With your claimed knowledge Tosh I would have thought you would have done your homework before your purchase. Panasonics are incapable of playing at 24fps, resulting in judder and a poor Full HD experience. Perhaps that explains why you can tell little difference between an upscaled DVD and a HD disc... :roll:



Toshiba said:


> I'd guess most TVs in peoples homes are 1080i rather than P.


You what?!? HDTV's are sold as 768p(HD Ready) or 1080p(Full HD). The splattering of 1080 interlaced sets from Hitachi and a couple of other brands were phased out a long time ago. Granted, Sky HD and Virgin HD boxes are (and in Virgins case capable of upscaling normal TV) 1080i, but to say that most TV's are 1080i is just complete nonsense.


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

kmpowell said:


> With your claimed knowledge Tosh I would have thought you would have done your homework before your purchase. Panasonics are incapable of playing at 24fps, resulting in judder and a poor Full HD experience. Perhaps that explains why you can tell little difference between an upscaled DVD and a HD disc... :roll:


IYO :wink:

I've hooked up two BD players to my PZ and saw no judder as have many others.

and a quote from your self :wink:



> after viewing the new PZ70 it knocks all LCDs into oblivion! It's capability to display SD in a way that no LCD can even dream of, and it's native 24p support for 1080p was the sealer. I had a demo by my local HI-FI place and it blew me away!


 So I presume you didn't see any judder :wink:


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## kmpowell (May 6, 2002)

jonah said:


> and a quote from your self :wink:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ooooo, well done Jonah, trail back and get a very old post of mine then take it out of date context. As I stated at the time, that was 'demonstrated' to me in my local indy, before I knew that there was some contention with 24fps playback. Basically I took their word that the settings were optimsed for 24fps. When I found out about the 24fps issues I did some reading up and went back to the shop with my own BR demo/calibration disc and played with the settings, then the judder appeared - it transpired that it wasn't set for 24fps and the assistant had lied to me. It was the reason why I dumped the Panasonic idea and waited for the new Sony's instead. That was all months ago!


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## Love_iTT (Aug 18, 2002)

I'm sure you're right Kev when you say that it doesn't support 24p but my TH-42PZ700PED is superb, I've never found it to judder on long slow pans nor any problems with games using the PS3. If there is any fault with it then there is some minor colour banding (noticable on the opening sequence of the GT5 demo) but 99% of the time when viewing other BR discs when the image is moving then this completely dissapears.

I'm getting off the point of the post now so I'll shut up. :wink:

Graham


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## neil27 (Feb 17, 2008)

Toshiba said:


> Whats the benefit of BR vs DVD right now. Very little is the honest answer. Its not the same jump as it was from VHS to DVD.


Tosh if you can't tell the difference between BR/HD or standard defination DVD you need to change your tv mate....... I just bought Blade Runner for the upmteenth time, and the BR version makes the DVD version look shite. On my system it is as big a jump from VHS to DVD.

Get down to the local Sony dealer and demo it and see it for yourself.

And yes I have a full fat 1080p bravia engine with PS3, QED connections et all. Very nice system.

Especially now Universal are coming onto the blu ray wagon..... 

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1007

Cheers, Neil.


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## John C (Jul 5, 2002)

Evening Tosh, just a few observations and opinions. <geek mode on>



Toshiba said:


> Most TVs are not full HD. Again, consumer has been shafted. The manufactures are trying to create the demand at a level the general public are not wanting to move at.


At the start they were not, you are right however the price of a 1080 panel compared with 720 panels meant they would not sell to start with. The 720 (or 768 resolutions screens in most cases) gave an increase in quality and got the market started, not ideal but there we go.



Toshiba said:


> Go back to the up scalers, the (good) up-scalers are able to produce a picture at near on HD quality, this is the problem. Why does Mr 'normal' Joe consumer 'need' or feel the need to upgrade to BR when he gets very little benefit in terms of picture or sound?


I have a reasonable scaler, Lumagen HDQ, about Â£1700 worth, not the best but good enough. A scaled DVD outputting from a Pio 868 scaled to 1080p is good but nowhere near a BD or other 1080p source in terms of picture quality. There is a huge benefit going from 500 odd lines (less for NTSC more for PAL) to more than double this in full HD. I guess some are just not seeing this enhancement due to 'average' screens. That said the increase is there we just need good display devices to see it.



Toshiba said:


> To get the sound benefit you need a new theater kit with 7.1, most are 6.1 or 5.1). ie you need a new one box kit. I believe Panasoncics one is due August time, no idea about the rest.


Wrong. HD has a much higher sample rate. 448kbs for normal DVDs with even the most simple of BD having 640kbs and higher. Some True Dolby or DTS-HD tracks sampled at 1.5mps. This 'extra' information in the sound track makes a big difference to sound quality, dynamic range and general 'punch'

The 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 debate will improve steering and general ability of the sound to surround you, however, this is not required to release the quality of a BD disc. Given that up to 70% of a film's sound comes from the centre speaker and higher from the 'front 3' then 2, 3, or 4 speakers at the back will only help fill holes in the rear sound-stage. A really good pair of rears, especially di or tri-pole with a better quality signal fed from a higher bit rate will let Blu Disks sing well. Obviously 7.1 with all of the above will release the maximum potential however 5.1 with 1.5mps can sound much better than 448kbs DVDs.



Toshiba said:


> Whats the benefit of BR vs DVD right now. Very little is the honest answer. Its not the same jump as it was from VHS to DVD.


VHS 220 lines - DVD 480 = 2.18 times increase in lines
DVD 480 - HD 1080 = 2.25 times increase in lines



Toshiba said:


> BR has won, so what? its not the future.


Nothing ever is, but it's fun for now!


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## John C (Jul 5, 2002)

neil27 said:


> Especially now Universal are coming onto the blu ray wagon.....


Apollo 13 on Blu-ray, there is a God!


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## sonicmonkey (Mar 20, 2004)

HighTT said:


> garyc said:
> 
> 
> > Toshiba said:
> ...


Bose? I'd rather cover my privates in fish paste and go swimming with starved sharks...


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

John C said:


> neil27 said:
> 
> 
> > Especially now Universal are coming onto the blu ray wagon.....
> ...


I already have it :wink:


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

John C said:


> Evening Tosh, ,,,,,,,,!


I really can't be bothered, its like talking about my car is 0.1 faster than yours. MOST people wont have a good enough setup to see any major difference. Sound for example. OK, I agree with everything you say, but if its still coming out of your std TV speaker it will make next to no difference, regardless what the sampling rate is.

I've done the CES type shows when i was last in toyko where you see all the brands side by side, and the difference is simply not the great. The best film was widley acknowledged as Transformers and i'm 90% sure thats was on HDDVD.

However if you enjoy it, feel free. I'm not going BR.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

kmpowell said:


> jonah said:
> 
> 
> > and a quote from your self :wink:
> ...


100% true the PZ700 I have, has the G10 engine, G10 cant display at 24FPS, you need the 800 or 850 with the G11 engine to display at native 24P. That said, until you knew the PZ70 (i think this has a G10 too) couldnt display @24FPS you was happy with the image from your commments above. Is it an average TV, no, I'd personally say the PZ700 is one of the better ones on the market, but not the best.


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## HighTT (Feb 14, 2004)

Toshiba said:


> > there is a God!
> 
> 
> I already have it :wink:


  :lol:  :wink:


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> kmpowell said:
> 
> 
> > jonah said:
> ...


Which one is best for porn?


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

A silver one.


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## John C (Jul 5, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> I already have it :wink:


Me too, just want the real disc. Guess yours looks like this too? :wink:

Apollo.13.HD-DVD.1080p.VC-1.DDPlus.5.1.nzb


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