Whats the diff. between HD and Blu Ray players?

Question

Whats the diff. between HD and Blu Ray players?

Answer 1

well hd player can only play hd dvd's and same blu ray can only play blu ray.

that's the difference. they are different formats for hi res dvd's and each player can only play their respective dvd's.

Answer 2

Truthfully, there is little difference, picture and audio quality are identical.  The difference comes in the features and movies you want.  Currently, HD DVD has 3 studios supporting it (Paramount, Universal, and Studio Canal) bluray has some others (Fox, Sony of course, MGM and recently warner, which was given 500 million dollars to switch to blu).  Fortunately, most good warner titles have already been released on HD DVD.  

Tech wise, HD DVD is far ahead.  If you want PiP or really any good special features, HD DVD has had these from day one, blu ray will have them at years end (maybe) and you will have to buy a player after that point to play any of them, so in essence, buy another player.

Also, HD DVD doesn't have region coding, so no matter where you buy your movie (Europe, Asia, Americas) it will play no matter what.  Bluray does not, it will only play North american movies.

Recently, Fox was going to switch to HD DVD, as was Warner, until Sony and the BDA (bluray disk association) paid fox 120 million and warner 500 million.  This was in essence a bribe.  Fox was unhappy with blurays lack of ability to provide a quality product and Warner (which was neutral, but released many more titles to HD DVD because the tech specs were better, and were waiting for blu to catch up) was pretty much bought.

Bluray will cost you 2-3 times as much money for less capable technical abilities, so if you favor high costs, less features and corporate bribery go blu.  If you favor low cost and consumer quality care, go HD DVD.

Also, there are many factual inaccuracies in the above posts, so be aware.  Both sides are trying to sway people, however, there have been many outright lies from the bluray side, such as having only one studios support, better picture, and so on.  I find it all very frustrating that studio support and not consumer choice is deciding this war.  So much for the consumer.

Answer 3

If you are wanting to decide on which to buy, I recommend Blu-ray due to the backing it has from the motion picture studios.  HD DVD has only one major studio behind it now.

Answer 4

No difference really

Answer 5

I have a PS3 Blu Ray player and had an XBOX 360 HD DVD player. I am thinking of getting a stand-alone HD DVD player now that they are dirt *** cheap.

Here are the specs.



Blu Ray

Pros-

Great Sound

More Studio Support and that means more movies out there to buy and rent.

It will eventually win the format war unless something huge happens on the HD DVD front.

The PS3 runs 400 bucks on the cheap end, most stand alone Blu Ray players start out at 400 or so, so if you are thinking about a Blu Ray player, it is like getting a free PS3 if you go that route.

Their five free movie plan is pretty cool and gives you some good movies.

The Cons-

The picture is grainy and barely a step above upconverted DVD+R's. I have new movies like Pirates of the Carribean and older movies like Superman. All have a grain to their picture. The picture is nice but not as great as I expected.

The discs are SUPER expensive. X-Men 3 runs like 35 bucks. I went to Best Buy and the Die Hards ran 32-35 bucks a piece. That is very far out of my price range.

The players arent the best upconverters and arent region free.

The special features, at least yet, arent up to par.

HD DVD

Pros-

The pictures are incredible. King Kong blew me away and I have never seen a picture quality that amazing. The difference is definitely noticeable.

The discs, for the most part, are down to twenty bucks or slightly lower. For some of my all time favorites like Batman Begins, that is affordable.

The stand alone players are exceptionally cheap and run about half of what the same quality player would cost for Blu Ray ($130-$300).

The special features are amazing and the discs are much better than Blu Rays.

The players are region free.

The players are great upconverters.

The Cons:

It is losing the format war badly and could be dead technology in 11 months or so. See Laserdisks...

Their five free HD DVDs promotion has less quality discs than Blu Rays.

It already was behind on the quality of titles coming out on its format, now it will be blown out of the water with WB going to strictly Blu Ray...

Answer 6

BluRay is manufactured by Sony and can hold more information/video, as well as has more movie studios supporting it.

HD-DVD is manufactured by Toshiba, holds less data, and is only exclusively supported by two of the 6 major studios.

(HD is not HD-DVD, this is a misconception. Both of them use HD video)

Answer 7

Different disc technology (a double layer HD-DVD can hold about 30 Gb of data and double layer blu-ray can hold about 50 Gb of data) and different operating systems (HD-DVD uses Microsoft and blu-ray uses Java).  Both use a blue laser diode.  As far as video and audio are concerned there is no difference in quality between the two.

HD-DVD may be dieing a slow death as more studios have said that they will only release for blu-ray, leaving only two (Paramount & Universal) still solidly in the HD-DVD camp.  Paramound, however, has left the door open to switch at any moment.

Answer 8

Here are the things you need to know.

1-Blu-Ray (or BD) and HD DVD are capable of 1080p resolution, matching the highest resolution TVs available (for now. Some higher res TVs are coming.) Some people thought that HD DVD had a better quality but that is because early on BD hadn't gotten their stuff together. The new BD releases and HD DVD really look about the same. BDs extra capacity sometimes means better audio though. Only LG and Samsung make players that play both.

2-Both are capable of higher quality audio than standard DVDs, but your receiver requires at least an HDMI input to take advantage of it.

3-Along with enhanced audio capabilities, through HDMI you can get improved picture from your standard DVD on either player.

4-Both have a greater capacity and bitrate than standard DVDs. HD DVD has about 30 Gigs per side and Blu-Ray 50 Gigs. Both organizations have said that greater capacity versions are in the works, 51G for HD DVD and 100G for BD.

5-HD DVD is kind of an update of DVD and is promoted by the same group that first promoted DVD. BD is new and is structurally more different including a tougher scratch resistant layer making them more durable.

6-Blu-Ray enjoys support from Sony, Warner, Disney, Fox, Buena Vista, MGM. Warner was the only studio releasing in both HD DVD and BD but announced on Jan 4th it would drop HD DVD. Since then it has been downhill for HD DVD.

7-After May 2008 only Dreamworks, Paramount and Universal will still be making HD DVDs. All three were "exclusive" to HD DVD with no BD movies comming from these studios but announced after Warner chose Blu-Ray that ther were no longer "exclusive" to HD DVD anymore. They haven't announced any BD movies yet though.

8- Many websites are announcing the death of HD DVD.

http://www.avtruths.com/blurayvshddvd.ht...

and Toshiba has dropped their prices (and their shorts) to try to revive the format, but the week after Warner announce BD exclusivity HD DVD sales dropped to 15% of High Definition disc sales, leaving Blu-Ray with 85% of the studios and disc sales.

Edit: Zienzman should do his own research a bit more. Fox had ALREADY CHOSEN BLU-RAY but was going to switch because HD DVD was offering them Millions. Blu-Ray was given a chance to counter the offer and did so. It is funny that he didn't mention the $150Mill payoff to Universal and Paramount to go with HD DVD.

As for the RUMORS that Warner took anywhere frrom $250 - $500M to go Blu-Ray, Warner Home Entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara says the studio took no pay-offs to exclusively back Blu-ray. Their sole motivation was to ensure growth of the "category" and the long-term health of the (High Definition Disc) industry.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/W...

"The packaged media business is a $42 billion dollar business worldwide at the retail level, and we [Warner] have the largest market share of anybody," said Tsujihara. "From our perspective, the most important piece of this whole puzzle is, "How do we get growth back into this category?" That far outweighed anything else."

This [decision] was one hundred percent around what makes the most sense for the consumer, the retailer and the industry. This was not a bidding war. This was all about what was best, strategically, for us."

It sounds like Zienzman bought a case of sour grapes.