Muzman on 12/2/2008 at 21:45
...now the codec wars can begin in earnest.
Everyone in the industry just decided to drop HD-DVD prettymuch all at once this last week (probably an avalanche set off by some particular yodeling I don't know about).
The last one was so much longer. If there's one upside to the absurd gadget hothouse of a world we live in, being indecisive can save you plenty in the long run.
I'm curious if anyone had invested in the losers already and in what way?
These things have been around for a little while but I wasn't even close to considering one and it'd probably be a disk drive first. What about you?
Microwave Oven on 12/2/2008 at 22:04
When DVD was starting to hit, I went ga-ga. I rushed out and bought a DVD kit for my PC and bought tons of movies. It was such a marked improvement over tape. Clear picture, no rewinding, compact and easy to store. It was a winner, and was clear to me from the start.
Now with HDDVD and Blu-Ray, I don't see what big improvement it has over DVDs. Sure, it's higher def, but that means fuck-all to me as my big TVs are all SD, and my PC monitor, while HD, is too small for HD to be really necessary. Sitting 3 feet from a 19" monitor, I can't really see a difference between 480p and 720p/1080p. If I press my nose to the screen, yes, it's higher res, but I normally watch movies reclined back with my feet on the desk. Then there's the whole copy-protection/DRM crap.
Personally, I'm gonna sit back and enjoy regular DVDs for awhile yet, and let the dust settle before I try to wade into the new format.
Lhet on 12/2/2008 at 22:12
torrented .avi files are the format of the future.
As long as DRM sucks and gives the paying customer a worse product than somebody who torrents, torrenting will just become more popular.
But that's not really the discussion at hand.
I suppose it's ok since blu-ray is the superior technology, but I'm still a bit surprised that it is over already, since the 360 is a better selling system, thus many more people will already have console HDDVD players.
Ulukai on 12/2/2008 at 22:46
Not necessarily. The HD-DVD drive isn't build into the 360, and of the 5 or so people I know personally who have one, not one bought the HD-DVD drive with it.
And neither did I, for that matter.
I do, however, like being able to rent HD movies by downloading them over XBox Live. And for that reason, I'm not even considering getting any kind of HD disc player at the moment.
Biohazard on 12/2/2008 at 22:48
That would be true had Microsoft decided to bundle HD players with the 360's. But they didn't, and therefore nobody spent the extra $100 to get HDDVD capability.
Scots Taffer on 12/2/2008 at 23:19
So, an interesting question, are there ANY reasonably priced standalone Blu-Ray players? The PS3 has one but isn't exactly reasonably priced.
TTK12G3 on 12/2/2008 at 23:41
Somehow, innovation has lost its luster. I'll wait this one out.
Lhet on 12/2/2008 at 23:46
Quote Posted by TTK12G3
Somehow, innovation has lost its luster. I'll wait this one out.
I personally really don't see a reason to ever switch at all. I really don't see the point of discs when you can just put the file on a hard drive.
SubJeff on 12/2/2008 at 23:50
Blu-Ray is the superior format this time though is it not? If so at least that's a good thing.
This could arguably make the PS3 even more desirable. The PS2 backwards compatibility is already a bonus and Blu-Ray even more so.
But although I'm all for innovation and tech advancement DVDs look just fine to me. I've not seen and HD afaik (unless it's on my PC but I wouldn't know) and since the DVD format is already so good, especially if you have a quality screen, I'm not so sure people should really be bothered.
And as Lhet says - high quality avi files are just fine.
Shoshin on 13/2/2008 at 00:00
Hmm, well, the difference between a regular DVD and a high definition DVD is pretty apparent to me on a 50" plasma screen TV. 1080p looks very very very good.
As for the format wars, I do wish that HD-DVD would have won (as a proud member of the "Fuck Sony" camp), but ultimately I'm just glad that the war itself seems to be over.
