CEA says don't buy next-gen players

you don't have to tell me twice. I wasn't planning on getting a next-gen player till sony's Blu-ray was dead. =)

myself on the other hand, I like the BlueRay a little better, but am definitely waiting. It sure as heck doesn't take a genius to know that you should wait. Boy that rep that stated that from the CEA must have been hired for his/her intelligence.

Very true, plus in our society 75% of the people don't have a HDTV yet so whats the point in getting a next gen player without having the full quality experience.

I think like articles before this one . It has not changed my opinion on the whole thing. I'll stick with normal DVD at the moment and worry about the Next Generation when it actually becomes more widely spread and common practice in the video and retail stores.

I plan on passing until I read here in Afterdawn about how AnyDVD has been cracking all the HD DRMs and those HD blanks are something I can afford and actually burn fine in the new pc burners.

There is not a chance that HD-DVD will over take Blu-ray ..Look how many people now have a good old Blu-ray player in there ps3. sony knows how to cap a market

Sony shipped only 200,000 PS3's in North America.. and the 360 is coming out with an HD-DVD attachment of some sort.

Next-gen DVD players would seem to be more about new DRM scams er, um, I mean schemes than anything else. 720p to 1080p does not seem like that big a jump in quality to me. Don't know about HD-DVD but Blu-ray movie releases are still using MPEG2! If the studios would adopt MPEG4 there would not even be a need for "next-gen" disc formats. DVD9 has more than enough capacity. They have to put PC class CPUs into these players, not because of any actual playback requirements, but to run the outrageously over bloated decryption routines, and even then the first players on the market have been running about 60 seconds plus from disc insertion to seeing a menu. Ridiculous!

@greyArea the difference in 720p to 1080p is only really noticed on larger HDTV sets of around 60"+. But Bluray should definitely start using MPEG4 soon, i thought it was there "main" format but they keep releasing them in MPEG2 for some reason.

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There is not a chance that HD-DVD will over take Blu-ray ..Look how many people now have a good old Blu-ray player in there ps3. sony knows how to cap a market

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I'm not getting a player until we have broadcast quality AVC @ 1080p (that means no VISIBLE color-space compression) available for under $100 US. Early adopters who bought Blu-ray must be feeling miffed at the MPEG2 high res crap that most cable and free to air Digital providers already offer and all of which is recordable in their respective native digital formats FOR FREE. I record MPEG2 digital TV @ 1080i/720P and it comes in at around 11gb for two hours worth of content so it stands to reason that 1080p would need the space that Blu-Ray/HD-DVD offers, what with added extras such as "making ofs", previews and the rest. My DVICO TV tuner costs less than a third of current BR/HDDVD drives and seems much better value right now. Can't wait to watch it via my 24", 26" or 32" high res LCD. I'm tossing up between a BenQ 24", the Dell 24" or possibly the Dell 32". The 32" lacks decent inputs tho, but I'll find it hard to go smaller than my current 32" TV. Choices Mc Choices.

As stated in the article, I think that this is a repeat of the Beta/VHS war earlier...in which Sony lost terribly. Not to suggest an association or anything, but I think it will go the same way this time. HD-DVD is (in theory) a format with more potential than BluRay; as M$ stated before the Xbox 360 launch: the answer isn't bigger disks, it's better compression. I think this is totally true; A smaller dataspace requires greater compression, of course, but compression for things like HD video is falling waaaay behind. As discussed earlier in this topic, the disks are still being encoded in inefficient 2-layer MPEG formats, even though others (4-layer MPEG) have been developed and are largely supported by devices. DVD-9 has an immense dataspace, and if utilized to its full potential it could eliminate the need for a "next-gen" disk altogether. And, since BluRay does not support new compression formats, I think it will ultimately lose to the more efficient compression available on HDDVD.

Once the "winner" is decided (and it will; there have never been two strong competing formats in recorded media, one always comes out on top), I think prices will drop dramatically as manufacturers seize the oppertunity to sell this format (media and drives) and the other "loser" format will continue to be manufacturered, but by fewer companies; therefore, the price will be higher. The price differential will continue to drive the popularity of the #1 format up and the #2 format down, until one is obsolete (BetaMax, anyone?). I think the Blu-ray will go the way of the Super VHS; still used by some pros and affectionados, but not in mainstream, eventually dying out totally. Future drive manufacturers will probably support both formats anyway, just because they're trying to capture as much of the market share as they can.

I absolutely agree with DVD7227: Very few people have an HDTV at this point, and even fewer have one capable of displaying the resolutions promised by these new formats. Unfortunately, I think that a majority of the population also dosen't quite get it; they'll buy a new format anyway, thinking it will look "better" than DVD on their non-HD displays. Personally, as a hobbyist filmmaker, I will wait to buy a new HD-capable camcorder until people are using HD displays in the mainstream. What's the point of paying $17 per disk and $XXX for a drive when there's no advantage over existing 50c disks? On that note, what's the point of going to a next-gen format if it'll be exactly what you have, but more expensive?

$25+ for a blue ray/hddvd movie? $19.99 for one recordable Blu-ray disc? (at a measley 2x!!) Meh, i'll wait 5 years and then see what happens.

9GB isn't what I'd term as an "immense dataspace", especially as I already stated that 1080i content around 2hrs = 11gb approx.

Mmmm would be nice to have them say stay away from the PS3 and the 360 at launch....the WII not so much its price is nice and its not had alot of trouble.

Considering that almost everyone that I know does not have a HDTV. So I see no reason to buy till prices come down. Let someone decide the war with there cash. Ill jump on it when I can afford it. Just my 2 cents.

BR is still luke warm and has not met its potential its easy to see it fail at the rate its going limelight and that 2X is almost as fast DVD writers its not 2X DVD its 2X BR ........... 2X CD is slower than 2X DVD is slower than 2X BR /HD DVD

Grayarea's right in that these new players seem to be as much about beefing up the DRM a.k.a. taking away consumer rights as anything else. I was looking at 720p and 1080i sets in Best Buy today and I wasn't that impressed. And some of them were 60"+ sets.

Well that is Best Buy, go to a Sony Store or some non branded Visual/Audiophile specialist place. See a decent 720p set hooked properly, playing some real 720p content like The Fifth Element WMV HD and you'll see the difference immediately. Do not go aee something like 1080i which isn't as high detailed as 720p, nor Progressive so not as smooth in motion. 1080i is a disappointment overall IMHO.

DR34MER I have not seen alot of difrence in them ,at least not to the point to drop 5G to overhaul,it will take maybe 5 more years for high def to mature enough to be worth the while

I think we know what formats going too win Blu-ray is the ovious choice. HDdvd stupid

I somehow doubt that. HD-DVD has support for better codecs, x264 has much better profiling than BR's MPEG2. That and really, HD-DVD is only 1080i for now. In future I'm sure manufacturers will release HD-DVD boxes with 1080p output. In reality the output format has little to do with the storage system. These current Format Wars are rubbish and just a way to rake more dollars in.

Why would anyone want to pull for Sony in any contest. They want a monpoly on all their electronics. Remember their digital cameras, invented memory stick for their storage!

garmoon *punt* Sony dose not own BR like that they are just part of it,since they are PART OF IT they can't claim royalties off it... I lean to BR because of its potential,however even I can see BR is falling behind and its potential in hideing........

Im pretty sure Sony is going to win, what many people have yet to notice is that the X360 cannot use the HD-DVD Drive for gaming, meaning while sony is squeezing out massive HD games, The Xbox crowd is going to be switching disks before they can go in for the kill. Remember People, It is more than just movies we want from a GAME System. Note im not trying to offend no body.

h8xor
thats what I was thinking untill I looked deeper,HD cacheing is getting better thus helping load times,true changing discs is a pain but at worst is 2 or 3nothing diffrent than the CD days,theres also some power left hiding in the 360 unlike the Xbox days the 360 is not the most powerful but it has more games that has got me likening it more than the Xbox a year after launch.

the 360 never had the chance to "beat" the PS3 I mean it will have the games and it has the power if it were not for the price and for Sony it would be almost the prefect system 0_o

Dont get me wrong the 360 in all is overpriced and still not quite worth spending 300 on.

I do like the WII the most it has innovation and price the PS3 has power I and the 360 has its US/EU fan base *L* its reverse japanase only console only its not japanase only 0-o



PS3
(since sony has the games or should have the games they dont need the fan base as bad as MS)

1. power equal to games
2.Free Online(quality yet unknown)

360
1.fan base
2.Games
3.updated online system

Nintendo
1.Innovation
2.Price
3.Games

hd-dvd will win hands down, and not because of fetures, its all in the name. "hd-dvd" sounds way more official at this point. "blue-ray" definatly doesnt sound as official. the xbox360 not being able to play HD-DVD out of the box is yet another huge money-grubbing slap in the face from microsoft. luckily for us sony might drop the price of the ps3 to like $200 in the next couple months because the 360 can already be had for that price from certain online outlets.

^ If you think a price drop for a PS3 is coming anytime soon, you're sorely mistaken. They cost Sony $820 each for just the console (n.i. cables, controllers, packaging, shipping etc.). I have a Wii. I love it. Nintendo actually MAKES a small amount of money per console. Forget how much. That being said, I'd never buy a Blu-ray DVD player - if only to boycott Sony's horrendous practices (PS3 price, huge laptop battery recall, big digital camera recall, DRM encryption that was a security breach... etc. etc.). I have a nice HD capable TV but I'm in no hurry to throw money at a potentially worthless technology.

georgeluv PS3 might have a 100 price drop by the END of 08..... Thonor or the killng of link sang :P Sony is evil *L* they've made MS look "better" 0_o

besides when do you make a profit off the console? Sony is doing what MS did with the Xbox over power it and hope it will sale. Its going to take 2 or 3 years for a 20-40% drop in price for the PS3.

garmoon "Why would anyone want to pull for Sony in any contest.Why would anyone want to pull for Sony in any contest. They want a monopoly on all their electronics." Why would anyone want to pull for Microsoft in any contest. They want a monopoly on all their software. HD-DVD is not exactly MS but they have their claws in it pretty deep. I don't like either one much at all, but in this case I guess I'll go with $ony. DR34MER "I record MPEG2 digital TV @ 1080i/720P and it comes in at around 11gb for two hours worth of content so it stands to reason that 1080p would need the space that Blu-Ray/HD-DVD offers, what with added extras such as "making ofs", previews and the rest." My point was that the industry as a whole should adopt MPEG4 or some other reasonably efficient codec so 2 hours of content wouldn't be 11GB. MPEG2 is so eightys. ;-)

@DR34 ^^ This is what I meant earlier. Sure, 1080i recording can take up more than 9gb, but not because it has to. 1080i recorded at a codec that is thoretically 300% more efficient than your L2-Mpg (L4-MPG, which is supported by HD-DVD, but not Blu-Ray) could easily fit on existing media. Not to mention that HD-DVD supports other new compression formats also, which may prove to be even better than L4-MPG. I record 1080i DirectTv using my capture card, but since I compress it using L4-MPG, I can fit a 30-min TV show on my 1gb flash drive, with room to spare. Compare that to L2-Mpg, which clocks at about 3gb/30 min.

CiDaemon are you kidding its not their hand made codec and they cant DRM it well so they can overprotect thier media and break fair use *L*

@CiDaemon Bluray does support MPEG4( has support for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC and SMPTE VC-1) and always has, newer BD movies are being released using MPEG4 and so will all movies in future(of BD).

Andrew691 thus why I say BR is not dead yet now if they can just get on the ball with other things *L*

The only problem with the earlier poster's view that HD Video Compression has fallen way behind is that it HASN'T! The facts are that they are compressing these things to the best of their ability, while still giving no noticable lag in the viewing of the picture. That is a problem that can only be solved by more powerful video/CPU chips in hardware, and by more memory in the hardware as well.

"Video will be stored using MPEG-2 technology, just like in DVD-Video discs, but in much higher bitrate. Currently DVD-Video discs can have a bitrates upto 9.8Mbps, but Blu-ray discs support bitrates as high as 36MBps." This is what I got my info on that BluRay only supported L2 MPG. This is from the afterdawn encyclopedia...is it wrong? If so, don't blame me! ;)

AD may need some updating... got that from Blu-ray.com/faq" class="korostus" target="_blank">http://www.Blu-ray.com/faq (hopefully link appears properly AD had problems with it before) both HD-DVD and BD support all the same video codecs.

Well first ill say, im in the HD-DVD boat. It just seems like the logical consumer choice. Everyone knows DVD, so the name HD-DVD will sound familiar. Also many HD-DVD movies are released on Combo format, so you can buy it now, play the DVD side, then when you upgrade, you dont have to buy new media, just flip it over to the HD side. And someone posted here that HD-DVD is only 1080i, which is not true. Every HD-DVD movie i have seen lists native resolution playback as 1080p. I have also heard that bluray movies are less resisitive to damage/fiunger prints etc.

Bigperm88 ture,BR has a uphil fight they only way they could get anywhere is to play on their strengths and get that 100GB disc out asap also they have to make it cheap if they can stabilize the techonolgy and make it cheap they could win but as they are now tis like the PS3 and PSP they are not mostly living off their rep and not doing anything with it....if this keeps up for a year or 2...BR is dead(for movies and personal storage) and so much for the long 5 year format war. BR needs to get on the ball as the months pass they lose more and more to HD DVD which has their at together.

ZIppyDSM It always seems like Sony has the better product but are ahead of what consumers can and are willing to adopt. Pushing out a 100GB disk will help sell blueray to technophiles like ourselves, but this means little to the average consumer.

Bigperm88 Ya SOny needs to get a handle on things thinking ahead is great but if its costly or buggy people will not adopt it. HDVD has the balance DVD+ HDVD the size is ok a DL one sided is 30 thats more than enough for the next 5 years. Like with the PSP they are screwing things up as they go..they need a corperate innovator one that understand the consumers and knows that lower the "profit" on items will help sale more and gain them more in general...MS kinda gets it but realy dosent Sony has not seen the light in years... they dont really need the 100GB if they could get the 50s going well and make them cheaper it all adds to their favor but they would rather sell it and make a 30-60% profit than sell it and make a 10-20% profit.... I love corporate logic Sell less = more money............