ZIppyDSM - The last I heard, diffraction plate was still in development for that HD-DVD Blu-ray combi drive. If I'm honest though, I don't think any such device will be the make or break of either format ;)

Lethal_B

Mmmmm only if hollywood jumps on one fromat asap,altho if it takes 3 years for the drive to come out it might be to late then but meh,its nice to see they are working on it NOW and not later ^^

Sorry `bout that one...By the way i`ve read in several magazines and sites that HD-DVD has a better picture than Blu-ray....sound & vision comes to my mind.

neo1000
Mmmmm unless MS has made some uber codec in the hardware to turn smaller amounts of data into better picture quality ..I just dun see it 0-o

The reason Bluray looks so crap (compared to HD-DVD) is because its still, correct me if this has changed, its still not using high def codecs. From what i heard it was using standard MPEG-2 which is whats in current DVDs.
But when the PS3 comes out a LOT of people are going to have bluray forced upon them, and i highly doubt any of them are going to go out and buy a HD-DVD player when they've already got a nextgen format player.
The dualplayer will only really be good for early adopters of the new tech and will only stay around while the formats are waring, as soon as a winner shows it wont stay around long. The losing format will just fade into nothingness over time.

What if Sony bundled a Blu-ray movie with the PS3

Looks like Toshiba´s head-start will be a bit more than two days...


The european launch of Playstation 3 has been pushed back to march.

where did you read that about the release date. I thought it was the same day worldwide. Ive already seen advertisements here in NZ with the release date at 16th Nov

http://www.scee.presscentre.com/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=4268&NewsAreaID=2

I might be wrong, but last time I checked New Zealand wasn´t a part of Europe.

i vote blue ray too on paper, but in the real world price and availabilty will win the day.
nz is a PAL area and english so usualy gets screwed like the uk, and its true the first generation of "br" players aparently have weak video playback but, have better sound. the thing to remmeber is these are the first gen and they will improve, my first dvd player would only play silvers and bog standard cds now they play DivX, wma, wmv, mp3s and jpegs

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PAL territories of Europe, Russia, Middle East, Africa and Australasia

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NZ is Australasia so its part of this, which really sucks. Generally there are 3 areas of release, first Japan, then USA, then Europe which is basically everywhere else.

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The only real difrance between HD DVD and Blue ray is space the more space the higher the resolution.
Thats basically it right?

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The resolution of HD-DVD and BluRay is the same: 1920 x 1080.

Current HD-DVD discs are dual layer 30 Gigs. Current BluRay titles are only single layer 25 Gigs.

HD-DVD uses a more efficient and advanved codec (VC-1) which gives it the advantage in picture quality.

Ah so HD DVD dose have the codec advantage interesting so in some ways its more advanced than BR but BR has more space..mix the 2 and you'd have godly results...mmmmmm

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Except they didn´t manage to mix those two. The talks broke down.

My opinion: they should have just delayed both formats and worked on for a unified format. One format; everybody wins. Consumers don´t need to worry about one standard loosing the fight and becoming obsolete and companies would eliminate the bad kind of competetion, instead focusing on perfecting their products.

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Generally there are 3 areas of release, first Japan, then USA, then Europe which is basically everywhere else.

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Sorry, didn´t catch that. I guess most of us here are in this together then.

However, Blu-ray information too close to surface(0.1mm), while HD-DVD 0.4-0.6mm),so, Blu-ray will be scratchable and loosing data on it

Blu-ray does not have a higher resolution than HD-DVD.

The facts are that both methods of High Def DVD are fully capable of the highest standard(s) currently required by any HD TV's produced today (720p, 1080i and 1080p).

To date HD-DVD movies have looked the better with Blu-ray only recently matching them in image quality.
So, similar quality at a much higher price, that doesn't sound particularly attractive to me - and claims that even more tedious 'extras' can be fitted onto a Blu-ray disck isn't my idea of a great 'feature'.

HD-DVD disks have been demonstrated to 60gb (DL 15gb double sided) and although Blu-ray has been demonstrated to 200gb in the lab they have had terrible problems mass-producing the 'old' 50gb disc that was demonstrated in the lab a while back.
I don't think these problems have been resolved even now.

There are also question marks over the catastrophic effects of a Blu-ray disc warping (as discs can do)due to heat and rpm's with the laser lens so close to such a hard surface.

IMO the idea that PS3 is the answer to the BR problems is rubbish from the blinkered fan-club (weird, blind brand loyalty for a foreign multi-national); similarly the HD-DVD XBox add-on will not do much more than cancel out the 'boost' the other lot get from their game box.

Either 'version' of High Def DVD will be a slow burning technology (with annoyed and disappointed investors as profits are similarly slowed), simply because each 'camp' has been too stupid and greedy to sort out a consumer-friendly compromise.

I was reading the postings on the two formats. I have a HD TV but finding disks and players is a pain. I have settlied for the fact that regualar DVD play fine. This debate of one being better will in the end have no impact. As much as some may like to change to new ways its the choice of the best bang for the buck. What ever way the industry goes will be driven by those who buy the product. As for me I changed to DVD format when they first came out. To save space and they lasted longer than VHS. Would I do it again? Only if it was a benefit to me. (cost and benefit of a change over) And that I am not sure of.
Thanks for the good reading but I bet my view will really drive who the winner will be.

quote: "its true the first generation of "br" players aparently have weak video playback but, have better sound".

Just recently Toshiba issued the latest firmware for HDDVD and it now supports TrueHD 5.1 sound. Which is just awesome to hear.

hughjars
true but HD DVD us's a better "codec" MS did go thru all that trouble of making a high def codec and all *L*

HD DVD dose seem to have the edge as far as sharpness/clearness of picture but BR will catch up no doubt its just unlike DVD +/- this whole mess is founded on groups companies wanting to become "format king" and not really about who's better.
Its a bad time to update to one format or another as far as the PS3 goes it wont matter because its game machine and BR makes for a nice Game format..altho get your D-skins handy I wouldnt want a scratch on them 0-o

Ghostdog
witch is a shame they should have done whats best for all and not try and pummel each other with buggy media...witch is basically what they are doing.
BR has the space but might have issues with scratching ,HD DVD seems to have less issues,oh well they might give up and join together in acouple years better to join than to lose.

It´s interesting that you brought up the thin protective layer-issue with Blu-ray. That´s something that I haven´t really seen discussed elsewhere. And if you buy a movie you probably want it to last for a long time. Wasn´t that one of the main reasons everyone switched from VHS to DVD?

As far as storage space goes, BD-R seems superior. I don´t know about movie-releases, but the added space (compared to HD-DVD) might well come to use for things like PC-games. And at that point it doesn´t hurt if you´ve adapted to just one standard (consider the many uses of a DVD-R-drive).

Ghostdog
Well the BR is made just alittle differently than HD DVD HD DVD doesn't use up every bit of space the plater has to offer I worry about data longevity,to me it seems HD DVD was built for movies BR seems to have been made out of thin air and they are working on getting it unbugy 0-o

Sure they can make scratch resistant stuff but thats adds to the price but...meh I prefer the cartridge design...of coarse they don't want to make cartridges it takes up space and triples the longevity and they lose money 2 fold I mean this is a game of rocket'em socket'em robots with the robots being made of of different parts the head are sony and MS body is samsung and Toshiba legs of paramount and fox ect,ect,ect its only a matter of time before the pp and someone will be holding the bag....any way you look at it its not a pretty sight...

It's not the disc surface of Blu-ray that's likely to suffer, it's much worse than that, it may be that the laser gets killed early in the life of the machine. Design flaw?

Check this out -

Jim Armour, from Toshiba’s Storage Device Division is interviewed.

Now there'll be plenty lot of scope for 'well he would say that wouldn't he' comments but have a look and see what you think.......

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Blu-ray uses a 0.85 Numerical Aperture and, with their recording layer just 0.1mm below the disc surface, they’ve got to get the lens very close to the disc surface to be able to focus it tightly enough to give them a 25GB storage capacity.

So now you’ve got a Blu-ray lens sitting somewhere between 0.1 and 0.3 millimetres from a disc coated with a substance almost as tough as diamond which, when it warps, can only warp downwards, towards the lens.

Guess what happens when you run Zircon over glass at 2000rpm? Sure, your data will be safe but you’re going to need a new Blu-ray lens.

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http://lifestyle.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6639&page=2

hughjars
*L*
lovely ain't it,BR needs more deving and HD is almost ready for prime time.

What issues do you see HD having unlike the 360 it seems ready LOL

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What issues do you see HD having

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- The biggest one is the penetration of HD TV, obviously.
It's clearly come on a lot but has it been enough and will enough of the gen public be prepared to make the switch?

IMO SD DVD has only fairly recently become genuinely 'mass market and mainstream' and I think there is still a fair amount of residual resentment out there about the 'need' to replace movie collections etc when VHS turned it's toes up.
A new DVD format so soon may not be what people want to know about - backwards compatable or not.

(The true general public being about as far removed from the fan-boy phenomenon - or for that matter the 'geek' - as possible.)

I also think price is going to work against the new machines until they drop into the £100 - £200 price point, which is clearly going to be a while yet.

High Def for those reasons will be very slow to take off IMO and the format war just makes life even more difficult for all concerned (shame the flag-wavers and fan-boys seem utterly blind to this......cos I can't help thinking that their idiotic attitudes can only cloud reality and help twist the perceptions of the manufacturers).

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unlike the 360 it seems ready

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- TBH games machines (from any of them) long ago ceased to have any attraction for me.
Although I do find the claims of some that the PS3 is also to be some sort of 'super-computer' (in a 'challenging PC' type sense) laughable.

Huhm... Toshiba is backing HD-DVD, right? I guess one could expect the different sides of the game to downplay each other. I´m not saying that Mr. Armour doesn´t have a point, but let´s not dive head on in to technical comments from the opposing force.