Do you think Blu-ray should have won the battle against HD-DVD?

Question

Give me your honest opinion about this

Answer 1

yeah - doesn't the blu-ray disc hold lots more than the hd-dd?

Answer 2

yes

Answer 3

Kinda? Blu-ray has better quality and all but HD held more. So prices are high. Hopefully they will drop down soon.

Answer 4

"no read the 1948 paramount decree

SONY PAID OFF EVERYONE"

Duh, you don't think MS paid off people too?  A little birdy mentioned something about $150 mil to be HD DVD exclusive.  Also, it's not just Sony, it's the entire Bluray Association.  How do you think Amazon and Bestbuy could afford BOGO sales of Bluray movies that normally retail for $25-30?

"This is payola."

No this is how business works.

"This is un american"

No, this is capitalism at it's finest.  Get the most money you can out of something.  Paramount saw that $150 mil would be more than what they would get from Bluray sales in the same time period, so they went HD DVD exclusive.  Now that HD DVD is dead, they can re-release all of their movies on Bluray, thus getting all the revenue from the movies that they would have gotten, plus $150mil.

"BLu_RAY IS NOT EVEN FINISHED"

True

"its in BETA!!!!!!!"

False.  It's version 1.1

Typically beta is denoted by versions <1.0, and alpha from numbers <0.10

The war did help drive down the prices faster, but now it's time for HD DVD to go crawl away now.  I mean it's dead.  I would have said the same thing if Bluray died before HD DVD.  It's done, it's over with, just move on now.

Bluray should have won, since it always had majority backing by studios.  No underdog stories here.

Answer 5

I believe Warner Bros. Studios said it best:  

“A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry."

They went on to say:

“Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience."

Answer 6

No. While it is a technically superior format actual results are no different (or so insignificant as to be irrelevant for 99.9% of consumers), BUT:

- hardware is more expensive at introductory level and overall inferior (the ONLY recommendable player is a game machine!!!)

- Specification not fully implemented yet (profile 2.0 stand alone players still months away and most existing SA players are essentially obsolete)

- enforces region coding (consumer unfriendly)

- disks are heavily DRM encoded (BD+, infringe on fair use laws and interfere with performance ... consumer unfriendly)

- more expensive to produce (therefore post subsidization (current practice) prices will be higher than DVD ... consumer unfriendly)

- unlike HD DVD, not amenable to combo disk (Blu-ray/DVD) which many consumers want to allow a single disk to be played in all players (e.g car, kitchen, portable player kid's room and HT)

- more expensive hardware less oriented toward mid range consumer equipment (720p HDTVs).

- still inadequate format ... 8 bit colour prone to banding (but then so was HD DVD).

As John Archer (Digital Home, see link) said, Blu-ray "pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of winning without actually ever having caught up!

Once again, it's not what's best for consumers, it's what does business want.

Unfortunately, while neither HD format had much hope of unseating DVD as the main video disk format, HD DVD had a better shot at it. By Blu-ray winning the HD format war it has pretty much guaranteed that DVD will win the disk format war.

In my view the CE industry has just shot themselves in the foot.

As for studios deciding .. that's true, but right down to the last minute Warner -- who wanted ONE format -- wanted to go HD DVD exclusive, but to ensure this wanted another major studio -- Fox --  to go along. But Fox (who wanted DRM and region coding) wouldn't agree ... so rather than let the war continue Warner chose Blu-ray. So, yes we have Blu-ray and yes, studios decided, but it was no big win for Blu-ray. It was a close thing and clearly decided on the basis of commercial, not consumer, benefit.

Answer 7

Yea cuz PS3 is utilizing it so it was obvious it would win

Answer 8

In my honest opinion Blue-Ray has a HUGE advantage over HD-DVD.  It's capacity!  25 GB vs 15 GB per disc.  That is almost 70% more capacity than HD-DVD, and the Quality remains the same.  This is important to people that are looking to archive lots of digital home video or digital photos.   I am not sure if you are familiar with the Betamax (Sony) vs VHS (JVC) war many years ago.  The best technology actually lost as a result of the politics of the situation.  Sony had the better product, but failed to get support from all the major motion picture developers.  This mistake was not repeated in this case.  Sony learned from this mistake.  Also, Toshiba, HD-DVD's long standing supporter has just conceded victory to Blue-Ray (without actually saying it.)

Answer 9

It doesnt matter who we think should have won. Its all about who did win. Sony just had the superior marketing stragety by putting a blu-ray drive in the PS3. If Toshiba ever could have gotten microsoft to put a HD-dvd drive in the 360 like they were going to, this could very easliy be going the other way right now. Sony took a huge risk by intergrating blu-ray into the PS3 and they lost around $280 per unit sold. But after 10 million PS3s were sold (and thats not including stand alone blu-ray units) to about 1.1 million hd-dvd players, it was all but over. Sony got the all the major studio support because of simple numbers, the studios all saw that hd wasnt going to be in nearly as many households. $$$$$$ runs the movie world and they quickly realized that they would not sell as many exclusive hd-dvd titles as blu-ray discs. And thats Ive got to say about that! Run Forrest run!!!!!

Answer 10

Nah I think that there should have remained a choice.. I think Blu is awesome but can't compete on the features of hd dvd right now when 2.0 hits it will be killer. i can't wait to see the future of our movies!!!! this is a great time for entertainment. Go HD all the way who cares what format High definition is amazing(including blu too)

Answer 11

no read the 1948 paramount decree

SONY PAID OFF EVERYONE

This is payola.

This is un american

BLu_RAY IS NOT EVEN FINISHED

its in BETA!!!!!!!

Answer 12

Not my opinion but that of a friend of mine who publishes a computer magazine. He says the backing of the studios has tipped the scales.

Answer 13

Definitely. Sony may have had some bad marketing strategies in the beginning, but they deserved to win this battle. Blu-Ray is definitely the future of high-definition entertainment.

Kinda like almost four decades ago when they lost to VHS using Betamax.

Answer 14

The blu-ray has great potential but the main problem is the price tag that manufacturers are selling at.  However, as technology evolves, the Blu-Ray may get cheaper. But for now, it best to wait out for it in a few years and stick with the HD so that you won't have to pay a arm or a leg. That is my opinion on it. It was just to expensive for the average consumer. I would probably use it for a back-up medium because it can store over 25 gigabytes of data that can be used to restore a complete sever, but for now it best to wait!

Answer 15

Yes, HD DVD IS A PRICE RIPE OFF.

Answer 16

Blu-ray is new and it is still immature were as HD is mature and has had more developmental time than Blu-ray. However Blu-ray is still awesome and once it reaches it's true potential it's going to be a tough one to beat. But as of right now HD is still the better one right now. But keep your eyes out For Blu-ray in the future it's going to be hot.