I had a pretty funny thing happen to me the other day when an acquaintance of mine tried to explain to me he didn't need to buy a HD-DVD player to watch HD movies, because his DVD player had a HDMI port which made it high-definition.

I just smiled and nodded and backed away.

So, for laughs, I want someone who doesn't really know to try to explain the difference between standard definition and high definition, interlaced and progressive.

And no cheating.

OKAY I WILL EXPLAIN

You pay more money to get better looking stuff while I use that money to buy me some KFC Buffalo Snackers

HDDVD is like DVD only its D is H'er.

OKAY I WILL EXPLAIN

You pay more money to get better looking stuff while I use that money to buy me some KFC Buffalo Snackers

BBQ SNACKERS!!!

But seriously, I sold home theater for 4 years and I've lived, ate, slept, breathed home theater and now HD since. This thread will be fun.

Think I'll stay out of this one, since I already know too much due to the research put in while building my HTPC. Like Marvin, I think this thread will be filled of funny response apart from the usual trolling.

HDDVD is like DVD only its D is H'er.

are you calling tifa a whore?

HD DVD is a new disk format that apparently exists but I have never actually seen anywhere.

i've done zero research so this is just what i've gathered lol

you ever wonder how it is that they can show you HD commercials on your regular tv? lol

i don't own any fancy tv's, all regular. and yet, when i see commercials showing me "the diffrence" i can actually see the diffrence and it's amazing, but i wonder...doenst' that mean i DONT need a new tv? like i saw the diffrence right now wtf? keep it like that!

i think it's a conspiracy where the nice new hd channels are being hogged away and hidden only to be release to hd tv owners. which is gey!


anyway. high definition imo just means having much tinyer pixels. it's like having a super wide 50 inch pc monitor. cause tv's still use thise huge squares made up of red/blue/yellow or whatever colors if you put your face right in front of it.


sadly, from what i've heard/understand, having one of these is completely pointless unless you have HD content/media as well. which supposedly most if not all sat/cable companies already offer. (notice how you now have 2 of the same channels?)


i do plan to buy one though. not cause of the hd bullshit. but because i'd love a new huge ass flat tv in my living room. i think my family deserves a home theatre system and i want one. :p

i donno!

hdtvs are made out of liquid mirrors obviously.

HD is yet another reason to download even more porn

MOAR?!?

I`ve never been too fond of those because they cost too much in my country, but the only difference between normal DVDs and HDs I see is that DVDs capacity is smaller, and HDs is bigger... And the bigger capacity is the bigger resolution movies you can record. The bigger resolution the better view... I just think so o__O

Although I do know, I'll act like I don't:

HD-DVD is a DVD that is Highly Detailed, hence the HD.

It sort of what they did to the original Star Wars series.

I don't know anybody who confuses HD with highly detailed.

the words are diffrent but they mean the same shit to me.

HD DVD is a new disk format that apparently exists but I have never actually seen anywhere.


You don't get out much do you?

Because HD DVD is such a prevalent disk format that I wouldn't be able to leave the house without being slapped in the face with one?

I have never actually seen a HD DVD yet either.

It's actually a pain in the ass to find HD-DVDs at retail in Australia. The only store I see which stocks a decent amount of them is EzyDVD, and Target have a few.

Which annoys me, because you see Blu-ray everywhere - and then they say 'Blu-ray outsells HD 3 to 1'. Of course it bloody does when you can't buy them anywhere =/

It's annoying that I have to drive at least 20 minutes to buy a HD when there are DVD stores within 5 minutes of my house.

Better than over here in Malaysia. There's no HD-DVD in sight and only SonyStyle stores sells Blu-Ray titles, which costs a bomb (you expect me to pay ~RM150/~US$45 for a small blue disc?). And no good titles either.

Well I mean you go to a Best Buy or something and they are playing HD-DVDs non stop for display.

HD IS JUST MORE PIXELS! IT MAKES STUFF LOOK BETTER BECAUSE YOU SEE LESS PIXELS BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE U KNOW LIKE IF YOU GO TO TV UP CLOSE YOU CAN SEE PIXEL BUT HD THEY ARE SMALLER BECAUSE MORE OR SOMETHING MAN IT IS LIKE HOW MANY 1080 AND 1920 MAN THAT IS LOTS! YOU EVENTUALLY GET SO HD THAT WE CAN'T EVEN TELL MAN THAT IT IS BETTER BECAUSE LIKE WOAH WOAH WOAH!

MAN AND THEN YOU HAVE I AND P LIKE ONE THEY SAY ONE SECOND YOU HAVE HALF OF THOSE LINES ANOTHER SECOND ANOTHER HALF THAT IS I THE OTHER ONE WE HAVE ALL ALL THE TIME YEAH!!

IT COSTS LOTS OF MONEY SO YOU SHOULD WAIT UNTIL CHEAPER THOUGH IT IS PRETTY GOOD COST NOW YOU CAN PROBABLY GET A DEAL ON A GOOD HDTV FOR AROUND $500

AT LEAST THAT IS WHAT I THINK I MAY BE WRONG

I got a nice 60'' LCD for a good deal.

Well I mean you go to a Best Buy or something and they are playing HD-DVDs non stop for display.
Well, Over here in Malaysia, we don't have Best Buy. We only get Courts, SenQ and Best Denki, and various smaller stores like OnKing and Seng Heng. And of course show rooms set up by electronics manufacturers to hawk their own products i.e. Sony Style.

So far, the only HD products widely hawked here are the TV. Which are pretty pointless as there's no terrestrial HD signal. Heck, ASTRO's still using DVB-S1, which isn't HD compatible (and the best video connection on the set top boxes offered is S-Video), and Digital Terrestrial isn't even widely available to the public yet (TV stations still only carrying out limited access testing).

As for HD players, well, you either hook up the TV to a MCPC and play downloaded HD content (torrented probably), use a PS3 or X-Box 360 with HD-DVD add-on (parallel import, since neither Sony nor Microsoft have officially released them here yet), or buy an uber-expensive dedicated Blu-Ray player from Sony (the only other official way of getting HD).

And the media? Either you buy Blu-Ray from Sony Style (which is apparently the only place you can get Blu-Ray media over here), or import them. The video stores here doesn't carry HD media yet. At least, those I frequent doesn't.

HD IS JUST MORE PIXELS! IT MAKES STUFF LOOK BETTER BECAUSE YOU SEE LESS PIXELS BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE U KNOW LIKE IF YOU GO TO TV UP CLOSE YOU CAN SEE PIXEL BUT HD THEY ARE SMALLER BECAUSE MORE OR SOMETHING MAN IT IS LIKE HOW MANY 1080 AND 1920 MAN THAT IS LOTS! YOU EVENTUALLY GET SO HD THAT WE CAN'T EVEN TELL MAN THAT IT IS BETTER BECAUSE LIKE WOAH WOAH WOAH!

MAN AND THEN YOU HAVE I AND P LIKE ONE THEY SAY ONE SECOND YOU HAVE HALF OF THOSE LINES ANOTHER SECOND ANOTHER HALF THAT IS I THE OTHER ONE WE HAVE ALL ALL THE TIME YEAH!!

IT COSTS LOTS OF MONEY SO YOU SHOULD WAIT UNTIL CHEAPER THOUGH IT IS PRETTY GOOD COST NOW YOU CAN PROBABLY GET A DEAL ON A GOOD HDTV FOR AROUND $500

AT LEAST THAT IS WHAT I THINK I MAY BE WRONG

I can see your pixels O_O

anywho, HD DVD and Blu Ray are the two high end digital video formats that are battling it out right now. Granted Blu Ray is better (although it costs more), HD DVD is prevalent in the market thus far due to its early start (Just like VHS beat out Sony Betas even though once again, sony was better but got in the game a little too late).

I dunno if we even have HD DVDs around here.

Elder Youth, where did you see the HD DVD format was prevalent?

i'm agreeing with anyone who hasn't even seen hd-dvd's for sale. maybe i haen't really looked. but why put blu-ray's up in the front display and not the other? all i know i have seen a few. they're in red cases instead of blue. lol

maybe poeple still have the commie scare so they won't buy them.

If there would be any of those in my country I would get am TV and some other stuff to watch them... But, I HATE THE FUCKING COUNTRY I LIVE IN.... Only high quality things they sell here are DVDs and Blu-Rays... Of course they`re selling Blu-Ray only because those are the PS3 games...

Heh, FainaruFantaji, I feel for you. That's very close to the scenario here, except that the only reason they're selling blu-rays over here is to hawk Sony's uber-expensive BR-player, as the PS3 even until now is not yet officially launched, but quite a number of gaming shops already have it as they usually parallel import their stuff(hence you have the occasional European PAL and NTSC/UC PS2s among the NTSC/J PS2s that official Sony channels sell).

If there would be any of those in my country I would get am TV and some other stuff to watch them... But, I HATE THE FUCKING COUNTRY I LIVE IN....


it must suck to live in Balamb/Midgar/Kalm/DevilMayCry

it must suck to live in Balamb/Midgar/Kalm/DevilMayCry

i live in pallet town it is so much better

it must suck to live in Balamb/Midgar/Kalm/DevilMayCry

If you ever heard of it, I live in such a FUCKING COUNTRY, it is called "lithuania"... No I won`t start to write it`s name with the capital letter, why? Because it doesn`t deserve it!

And Balamb/Midgar/Kalm/DevilMayCry, do not suck.. If I could only live there....

viridian > pallet

Petalburg > Floaroma > Pallet.

Elder Youth, where did you see the HD DVD format was prevalent?

In a Blue Ray vs. HD DVD article my video production teacher gave to us. I'm not sure what the date was on it, all that I know was that at the time of the article's release Blu Ray only had 48 movies. And I was only saying that HD DVD was prevalent in the market, not in quality. Of course this was all read in an article and I have never really seen either myself except in Bestbuy/CircuitCity.

So here are a few updates many of you may not care about. I've been following all the hoopla for the last week and I'm having fun.

Warner Bros. announced it is droping its support of HD-DVD in favor of Blu-ray and will stop HD-DVD production as of May 31st '08. This is due to high Blu-ray sales over HD-DVD which has been a consistant average of 70% Blu-ray/30% HD-DVD through out '07 including the holidays. Even with Paramound, Dreamworks and Universal backing HD-DVD, through the 2nd half of '07 and Warner Bros. being nutral, Blu-ray still outsold HD-DVD with it's backed studios Sony's Colombia Pictures, Fox, Disney, MGM and Lionsgate.
Toshiba's HD-DVD camp cancelled there CES keynote this past sunday in light of Warner Bros. announcment.

Many articals are now reporting that Paramount and Universal might drop out of the HD-DVD contract due to a clause that states if Warner Bros. signs on to Blu-ray, they can drop out since Blu-ray will now have 70% of the major motion picture company's exclusive support.

Incidentally, I finally saw a HD-DVD yesterday. Apparently they are stocking them in JB Hi-Fi now, which is interesting because at one point they said they were only going to stock Blue-Ray.

Oh, and also New Line Cinema signed on as Blu-ray exclusive.

More news. (http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=849)

"HBO to Back Blu-ray Exclusively
Posted January 9, 2008 by Iceman

When Warner announced that they would back Blu-ray exclusively, there was no confirmation that New Line Cinema and HBO would follow, only speculation that it was highly likely. The very next day New Line confirmed that they would follow Warner and back Blu-ray exclusively and now, a few days after the Warner announcement, HBO has also confirmed that they are "following the same policy as Warner Home Video." according to HBO Video president Henry McGee.

With the recent flood of Blu-ray exclusive announcements and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas being heavily dominated by Blu-ray, it looks like we will finally have one high definition media format sooner rather than later."

HD DVD got served.

Typical. The good format always loses (HD DVD doesn't even have region locking until some asses in the MPAA insists on it, and even then it's not in the current generation specification. Blu-Ray had region locking since day 1).

Going to wait it out until some companies start selling region-free blu-ray players, and cracked BD-ROM firmware for BD-ROM drives with region locking removed starts showing up. And oh, until the drives cost less than a 300 bucks in local currency. I'm not paying RM2500 for a drive that won't play discs that I want to watch.

More news: Digital Playground drops HD-DVD

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35630/98/

There goes one Porn studio.

Also, New Line Cinema signed on to Blu-ray exclusive.

And... Last weeks numbers showed Blu-ray outsold HD-DVD. Blu took 85%, HD took 15%.

Anyone who thinks the format war is over is kidding themselves. And if, by some fluke, it does end now, neither format will ever achieve widespread mass market penetration and both will fall into permanent niche status.

Prak, you are fooling yourself if you really believe that. These are obviously absumptions on your part. If you really believe no format will ever achieve mass market penetration, then you should come back in time and look at how the VHS-DVD transition went. It took years, but DVD finally got its due place.

At first, DVDs and their players were expensive, but it got cheaper as time went. The same is happening with HD-TVs and HD players (be it of any kind). So there's no sane reason to believe none of them will penetrate (how I like this word) the mass market.

I've already given a lecture on the matter in another thread. Go dig that up if you want to debate the subject. Of course, considering that I freely admit that my claim is nothing but a theory (albeit a well-educated and insightful one), it'll be hard to shoot down.

Actually, I read your theory and didn't think it made much sense. It was actually entirely based on speculations on your part with literally nothing to back it up. But as always, only time will tell.

The only thing I claim to have on my side is reason. I know there's no evidence. There's never been a situation like this one before, so it's impossible to do more than speculate. However, I feel that my reasoning is strong enough to propagate the idea.

Yes, I know how you feel about yourself. But There's nothing pointing towards your theory being even slightly insightful.

So far, for all we know, Blu-Ray is gaining grounds. And history indicates that the strong will prevail. So like VHS vs Betamax, Vhs vs DVDs, the outcome for the HD era will most likely be that it will win over DVDs. Maybe not in the coming year (just like with the VHS-DVD time) but HD will come out strong in the end, and so far, Blu-Ray is making huge leaps in the race.

So, as I said, only time will tell, but there are already many indications to predict what the outcome will be.

Hynad, you know I like you, but I just have to say this for your own good.

You're acting like some kind of retarded fanboy.

You keep saying that I'm wrong or that I'm not making sense, yet you've offered nothing more than that simple assertion to support your view. If you think I'm wrong, and if you think that you know better, then saying so is all well and good as long as you have something with substance to support it.

I realize that I don't have evidence to support my position, but I shore it up with deductive reasoning. If you can't at least match that, you have no business challenging me.

As for the history you mentioned, it is completely irrelevant to current circumstances because the situation is wildly different this time in terms of what implications it holds for consumers. If you think you can make it count, please feel free to try.

I'm biased because my speculations are pretty close to Prak's, but I really don't get why it's such an out-there thing to think?

I don't think dvd or even vhs vs. betamax is really at all comparable to this. Before VHS caught on people didn't own anything comparable to it, and when dvd became popular, it had big things to offer people like no more rewinding, scene selections, language selections, and all sorts of special features.

The main thing that Blu-Ray and HD have to offer people right now is that things will look prettier and sound prettier. They have an advantage in that, to the best of my knowledge, most of their players still play regular dvds, but what's going to convince the average consumer to upgrade to a very expensive new player when they're already happy with their dvds?

There's absolutely a market for Blu-Ray or HD, I'm not trying to deny that. But I don't get what's going to get the average person to upgrade buy a new player and start buying things in a new format, on either side. If someone wants to explain that to me, I may very well change my mind, but as is, I have a hard time really seeing either becoming the standard format in the near future.

Ndi, I'm happy to see I'm not the only person thinking that way. I just don't see why people keep drawing parallels that don't exist in this case.

Anyway, I don't think that's even the most interesting part of my theory. The part I think is more controversial is my claim that the format war itself is the only thing giving Blu-ray a chance to ever break into the mainstream, and that if it establishes dominance now, it dooms itself to eternal mediocrity because it loses its only outlet into the public consciousness.

What I've always wondered was do you need an LCD monitor to view HD movies if your Graphics card supports HD video?

Relying on petty insults to try to upset me again. Your narcissism is annoying there, but I'll let it go for now,

You say I haven't pointed out any evidence to back anything. You basically did the same. I just do it with fewer words.

You may not see those parallels because you think the formats aren't as unique as the DVD was back then when compared to VHS. Yet at the same time, you can easily see how HD TVs are gaining grouds.

If you want an other similar example to show the natural progression of things, I'll point at the CD-Rom and DVD-Rom. Both of them can shares the same particularities. Heck, there even are Video CDs that basically do the same as a DVD(menus and all), only with less storage. There are still CD Roms made even to this day, but they are rarer than they were 10 years ago. The reason is obvious. The DVD Rom specs are more fitted to exploit the many upgrades that were made in gaming and computer technologies.

As far as the HD format goes, I see the same will happen. HD TVs have made it to the mainstream quite fast, once they got lower prices. People do prefer to have a nicer picture. Or else we would all still be in the analog era. When you know as well as I do that Digital has taken over now.

I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU GUYS ARE SAYING BUT I SIDE WITH BLU-RAY BECAUSE PERSONALLY I HAVE A BLU-RAY PLAYER

FYI GARAMOND IS BLU-RAY EXCLUSIVE

video cd's were complete crap though.

at the moment i dont know anyone with the money to buy a new player so they can get more expensive discs with a less expanisve range of movies which are barely noticably better quality and with little else to recommend them

i suppose one of the new formats may replace dvd's but i think it is going to take a lot longer if it does.

I agree with Prak and Ndi on this one. I just can't see it taking over since DVDs and their players are cheaper. DVDs are not like VHS where they can break easily, degrade the more you watch them, and get eaten, so it's not like the HD formats have so many more benefits in comparison to the format they are replacing to make them worth it. And quite frankly I think standard definition picture on my DVDs and on my TV shows is just fine, I really don't need to see every pore on the persons face and all their blemishes and crap.

Also does anyone else not like the cases the HD formats come in? They just seem crummy and cheap to me.

Also does anyone else not like the cases the HD formats come in? They just seem crummy and cheap to me.

They look awful to me too.

I'm happy with the picture I have on stuff I own as is, and I can honestly say that even if I got a free blu-ray player + hdtv, I wouldn't replace any of my dvds or buy any new movies in blu-ray format unless they were a crazyton cheaper or something. Honestly, the only way I'd have any interest in it is if old movies I liked that had really terrible sound quality were re-released on blu-ray with good sound quality.

As I said before, there's absolutely a market for hd and blu-ray- I'd say that since a lot of people here are geeky types we'd probably be more likely to have members that fall into that market. The real question to me is whether or not the average consumer cares enough to pay all that extra money when you can go buy a dvd player for $20.

Some people earlier in the thread mentioned that they have or have worked with selling this stuff in the past- would any of them be willing to weigh in? They'd definitely have more authority on this than me and I'm curious to see what the reality of it is vs. how I perceive it, and what the differences seem to be in different countries/areas.

guys i just bought an hd monitor to go with my computer please support blu-ray it is the thing i have

7 more posts until i reach my yearly quota

Has anyone brought VOD into the discussion yet? It may seem absurd right now, but it's unlikely the majority of people will want to keep a physical copy of everything they watch in a collection cabinet in the future.

There's already evidence that people are starting to ignore... umm.. original/legal... copies of movies/games/etc, so I don't think it's unreasonable to say that HD players are already doomed for failure.

Aside from increasing storage space on a medium (this certainly is a big factor in play, and the one that people should consider if they want to draw a parallel between this and the last catch-on). And considering we have external hard-drives. I don't think there's much of a market for HD. And considering the price for a movie in HD/blu is now several times the cost of a movie admission ticket, people are going to start bringing their families in to theatres more often rather than buying a new player if the new discs are forced onto the shelves.

The records of purchasing online downloads is increasing, so my bet's on the the internet.