Blu-ray is victorious.  Toshiba calls it quits.

To those with HD-DVD players, keep on the look out for clearance sales!

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyN … 6120080216

Guess Wal-Mart decided it for them:

"Toshiba was dealt a blow on Friday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it would abandon the HD DVD format..."

Guess my cousin was wrong about his theory about HD-DVD, not that I really wanted Blu-ray (Sony) to win either. This is just a lot more "sudden" than I think anyone expected. Well, at least we'll know what we'll be buying in the next few years though.

Hmm... if there are drastic clearance sales on HD DVDs, it might be a quick and easy way to build a collection.

How the hell'd Blu-Ray win?! People WANT to pay back up to $30 for DVDs, now?! Besides, those Blu-Ray DVD cases are SO tacky...

The relevance of this news is Blu-ray versus HD-DVD, not Blu-ray versus DVD.  DVDs will surely continue to make up a fair share of the video market for a little while yet.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that this format war is finally over.  Now we just need to wait for the inevitable shift from studios like Paramount and Universal.

Yeah, I caught that part.

But my point is...

Here's hoping, anyway; you know how Sony likes to make stuff obsolete just to garner more profit.

All our nice li'l DVD players are eventually going to stop working at some point, and the DVD format will eventually be discontinued; hopefully Blu-Ray players and discs aren't still going for asinine prices by that time.

I really don't see why people are so desperate to get everything in Blu-ray format? Yeah, a lot of new movies look sharper than in 480p or whatever it is, but I personally don't think it's such a big deal (it's my own personal opinion and others can certainly disagree). The difference between VHS and DVD is obviously like night and day. But Blu-ray just seems like DVD+ to me. Don't get me wrong, it's cool and all, but I'm not willing to pay 5x what I am for a DVD, or even twice that, just for a sharper image. Again, that's me... plus a lot of the DVDs I enjoy are classics. I don't think those will ever be true Blu-ray since they were never shot in high-definition (but maybe Hollywood has some new tricks for Blu-ray and thus try and get more money from you for the same thing)...

cheers,

-avatar!

Actually, things filmed on actual film are inherently "high def," as I understand.  It's why you can blow up images to absolutely enormous screen sizes in some of those old cinemas and have it look perfectly fine.  Blow up a DVD image that large and you're just going to see pixels.  All the HD stuff is doing is letting us see things more sharply through digital means, getting closer and closer to actually watching a reel in a theater.

That said, I also am quite happy with regular DVDs for the time being.  I'm more concerned about what my pre-Gamecube/PS2 games are going to look like on an HDTV when I inevitably get one.

I found your wording bolded above interesting.  I suppose you need to be a technophile or A/V enthusiast (yes, the advantages do extend to the audio front too) at this point of the stage to appreciate Blu-ray -- at least, someone that can clearly understand and banter about such terminology with ease.  And the reality of it is, there are many people who understandably don't.

In any case, I don't think it's so much a matter of people desperately WANTING everything in Blu-ray; it's the thought that Blu-ray could very well be the next standard.  The news of its direct competitor dropping out is pretty important, and is undoubtedly going to be the beginning of a crucial long-term marketing shift.  We're hurtling toward the high-def era at an unprecedented rate, and it is heartening to see that a format has finally been decided that's potentially going to lead the way.  If Blu-ray continues to sustain and build momentum, DVDs will be an eventual thing of the past.

And again, when that happens, it'll become the new standard.  Pricing will also be adjusted accordingly -- just look at some of the older Blu-ray titles released in the past year or two.  Many of them have already dropped down to the $15-20 range, about the same as most DVDs nowadays.

What's really interesting about all of this (at least to me) is that after years of trying and trying and trying, Sony has finally won a format war.  Will this be enough to erase its bad memories of Beta, Mini Disc, Super Audio CD, and UMD?

Sony DID win Super Audio CD. Unfortunetly there wasn't too much to win. But it IS still kicking at least, with a steady stream of releases all the time. For a classical listener, it's like things are better, not worse as far as SACD goes...

...but alas for any other genre it's pretty dead. Part of the issue is that it's irrelevent for a large majority of music out there.

-Joshua

DVD isn't going to dissappear in a big hurry though. Buying things like season box sets (with later seasons usually being around $20) still has a lot of pull on consumers.

That's a good news (for me).Hopefully,it happened now,before the market has expanded too much.People who had bought hd-dvd players must be very disappointed.Will the X360 have to change its player from hd-dvd to blu ray?(I know it won't happen,but...I also thought they would never put Yoda/Dark Vador in Soul Calibur...)
Apart from that,I definitely agree with Avatar,as for me, all these things are just some new versions of dvd,only improved slightly.Maybe it's because I can't buy a full-hd TV yet (and I don't want a hd-ready one).But honestly,I wasn't impressed much with the blu-ray/hd-dvd movies seen at friends' house,on hd TVs.

And ATRAC...
That format seems still alive among PSP games and some of PS2 game (later FFXIs), IIRC.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that's because it was recorded as an analog signal instead of digital.  This is also why experts say vinyl is a higher quality format than a digital format, because sound (analog in nature) is recorded much truer to the original source.

SACD was supposed to be a replacement for the regular CD, so in that regard, Sony did not win.  MP3s and/or AACs will win eventually, but CDs are still the top format for distribution of paid audio content.

Universal released their official statement for going Blu today:

http://www.reuters.com/article/industry … 8820080220

Now get those Bourne flicks over.  Pronto!

I don't know that much about photography, but I would love to learn the physics behind it! I think you're right though, old films are inherently in "high def", but then again old movies also need restoration because the films deteriorate. Anyway, good point. Also, I really don't know how quickly Blu-ray will catch on. I could be mistaken, but I just feel like most people don't really care.

1)you need to purchase a high-def TV
2)then purchase a Blu-ray player
3)then you can finally repurchase the same movie you have on DVD

and what do you get out of it? Is it really such a HUGE improvement over regular DVDs? I know some people will say yes, and while it's impressive, using 400 nm light instead of 700 nm, it's not  the same as the technological jump from VHS to a whole new format (ie DVD). So, my prediction: it will catch on, but only very slowly, and only once our economy improves! For those of you who have Blu-ray DVDs, enjoy For those of you who have HD DVD, I'm sure it'll be a collectible one day... and for the rest of us that have DVD players, I'm content.

cheers,

-avatar!

Avatar, do you live in the US?  You know that the federal government pretty much helped the HDTV market by forcing HD broadcasts in only 12 months?

I do live in the US, but I didn't know anything about forcing HD broadcasts... what's the story behind that?
To be perfectly honest, I don't have cable, and don't watch TV. I do have to ask though, even if broadcasts are in HD, doesn't that mean that a non-HD TV will work fine, but simply won't be in HD?

cheers,

-avatar!

Non-HDTV's will be unaffected by the change, *unless* you live out in the boondocks somewhere and only receive TV by a rabbit-ear antenna or something.  All this "Everyone needs to upgrade to an HD-capable TV!" stuff I keep hearing is grossly inaccurate.  Some broadcasts are already in HD, and normal TVs can display them just fine.

I think it is just a mandate to broadcast everything digitally (as opposed to having everything broadcast in high-definition).  Because digital broadcasts are compressed, this frees up broadcast spectrum.  The government decided long ago that it controls the spectrum, and will most likely be re-auctioning the reclaimed spectrum in order to raise money for itself.

Edit:  I've also watched a few movies in Blu-Ray, in full 1080p on a 1080p screen.  Honestly, I couldn't tell much, if any, of a difference from a standard DVD.  Since DVDs are going to be cheaper than Blu-Rays for quite some time, I'm content with simply sticking with DVDs.

.

I think Crash is right here... as far as I know, it's just switching to a digital signal and not all HD.

I believe that is correct as well, isn't the whole idea behind switching to digital signal so that all the analog singals will be clear in case of an emergency? I remember hearing there was some problems with people getting through certain channels on 9/11 because of the amount of traffic.

As for the singal, people with bunny ears will need a special coverter box that is going to be sold a large number of places.

For now, you only need a digital converter box if you receive signals over the air.  The operative phrase, of course, is "for now" since analog TV uses more bandwidth over cable and satelite as well, and at some point they'll probably stop converting the digital signals over to analog for you.

I've seen Blu-Ray movies in action, and they look pretty good, but not so much better than upscaled regular DVDs as to justify the cost of a Blu-Ray player and $30 discs.  HDTV, however, looks way better than regular TV, and it's free.  I can't go back.

Avatar, I agree with you.  I really don't appreciate these new formats either, they are clearer, but it doesn't seem to be a big difference to me.

I haven't been in a hurry to get any HD-capable equipment, but I've seen some anime movies (like Paprika) in HD and it was nicer to look at and backgrounds had much more detail than a regular dvd. How good HD-material looks depends a lot on the source material though and the size of the tv or video projector it is watched with. On smaller <32 inch screens it obviously doesn't look that impressive, especially if watched from a distance because the details can't be seen that well.

There was a test in a theater nearby here that compared the blu-ray of Casino Royale on a 1080p projector to the actual 35 mm film of the same movie and from what I heard, the difference was not very easy to see (apart from the dust and such that appears on film). Too bad I didn't see it myself.

While they'd like to if they could, I don't see any way they can. They can simply stop licensing new Playstation 2 games and selling consoles when they want people to move to Playstation 3, but they don't control the DVD format. As long as there's profit to be made by selling DVDs and players, other companies are going to do it, and there's nothing Sony can do to stop them. And there's going to be profit to be made on DVDs until Blu-Ray prices fall to a level where even non-videophiles are willing to switch.

In fact, there's a very good reason to keep DVDs around for a long time: price discrimination. When I went to Taiwan last year, I was surprised to find out that the VCD format is still alive and well there. But after I thought about it for a while, I realized that it actually makes a lot of sense. Even though DVD players are dirt cheap, content providers can still profit from selling both formats. Videophiles and the relatively well-off are willing to pay a premium for the higher quality of DVD, while those who aren't may still be willing to buy VCDs at a lower price.

I'm not sure why this didn't happen with VHS here. Maybe the combination of lower manufacturings costs for discs versus casette tapes and the dramatically higher value proposition of DVDs (higher resolution, random access, no deterioration, smaller storage space, etc.) made it unprofitable to sell VHS tapes at all.

Anyway, the idea that a company can obsolete products for no good reason just to make more money is largely a myth. Unless you have a monpoly due to patent or copyright protection, the only way to make a product obsolete is to offer a new one with a strong enough value proposition that people are no longer interested in the old one. Note in particular that CD is still the dominant audio format, as someone mentioned above.

Really?  Even against digital formats?

Yes.  CDs have something like 85% of the paid (key word) music market.

Ah, ok.  It is hard to compete against free though, which is probably why no newer format has arisen.  Especially since digital players are so prevalent---even my car stereo plays mp3s on a cd.