HD-DVD Vs. Blu-ray, Once Again
December 31st, 2006 by Darren Stevens in Articles, Business
While Sony and Toshiba are fighting over the next HD format, the consumers are losing, as always. Tek Jansen from GamesCentral compared several movies using the PS3 and Xbox 360 HD-DVD, and he concludes that HD-DVD is better. He writes,
When it comes to the format war, I would prefer the winner to be HD DVD, as I feel that they have more of an understanding of what consumers (and movie geeks) are looking for in a “next gen” format. I respect that Blu Ray looks and sounds great, but to me HD DVD feels more next gen with not only the great picture and sound, but also things like IME and U Control. Sony’s half assed attempt to match this with the shoddy Blu Wizard almost feels like a joke, and I am almost insulted as a hardcore movie fan.
In related news, TheInquirer’s Charlie Demerjian gives his ruthlessly honest and quite accurate opinion about the war, basically saying there’s always a winner in a format war, The Pirates.
Tags: Articles, Business
January 1st, 2007 at 9:33 pm
i smell betamax and vhs all over again and i think blu ray’’sony” will lose again.
January 2nd, 2007 at 3:16 am
As it is now, Blu-ray is losing, no doubt. Sony was hoping to gai ground with the PS3, but the PS3 is failing, so I think WIckerman is right, another Betamax, as it looks now.
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:20 am
Well it’s not like Sony’s other proprietary formats usually succeed
UMD…
MiniDisc…
Betamax…
January 2nd, 2007 at 7:00 pm
they will never learn…
January 3rd, 2007 at 2:43 am
I’ve watched movies on both blu-ray and hd-dvd, and I honestly couldn’t see the difference, maybe because it was only 720p and the difference perhaps only shows at 1080p.
January 3rd, 2007 at 8:16 am
Alex
The HD-DVD standard also takes advantage of 1080p so really it will look about the same. The difference is the Xbox HD-DVD add-on flew off shelves when it was released here in the states (luckily I bought one before it went on eBay) and the enhanced in movie menu is just TOPS. Sony’s one advantage is if they can leverage blu-ray for gaming technology as they indicated earlier. HD-DVD will never be used for gaming.
As it is now there are more movies available on HD-DVD than on Blu-ray … a slim margin but still more are coming faster to HD-DVD than blu-ray so Sony needs to do something to make blu-ray more attractive … though I can’t think of what it could be at this point.
January 3rd, 2007 at 8:19 am
If you compare costs of a fully loaded HD-DVD included 360 against a PS3 their is NO difference … but Sony can point to a larger HD and HDMI (the Linux OS just isn’t a big deal) but that still doesn’t sway people to pay $600 off the top. I still say Sony needs to price the system anywhere from $525-$550 to make it an attractive alternative to the 360/HD-DVD combo (which currently lacks HDMI so you can’t the best sound available).