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why would anyone root for HD-DVD at the expense of Blu-Ray....

Posted by oscar (A) on June 7, 2007 at 07:14:34

....other than the early adopters who invested in HD-DVD ? Blu-Ray has higher storage capacity and higher video/audio bandwidth/bitrate capability which translates into higher picture and sound quality, everything else being equal.

One example: "KIng Kong" became a reference disc for PQ but they didn't have the room to put a 24 bit lossless audio track and still put in the frills at the same time. The same video encoding on a 50G Blu-Ray would also have allowed the lossless audio track, and probably in multiple languages and/or with added frills. I'm also hearing complains about "Blood Diamond", with less than stellar PQ based on low-bit rate VC-1 encode and perhaps indifferent TLC by the video encoders/compressionists. The reason for the low bit rate encode ? Probably the 30G HD-DVD limitations.

The arguments for HD-DVD ? Okay they have IME and interactive internet capability I wouldn't couldn't care less about in the HT room. Okay, In a year's time, I expect Blu-Ray to have a similar feature set when they get BD-J etc... worked out.

HD-DVD mandated TrueHD in all their players. 5.1 TrueHD IS a capability I'd like to have, but I expect future Blu-Ray players are going to support 5.1 TrueHD simply to keep up with the competition. I'd expect in a years time, the only Blu-Ray players without TrueHD will be the bottom-of-the-line Wal-mart specials for the customers who wouldn't appreciate TrueHD anyway. You'd better believe my next player(s)/prepro will have TrueHD decoding ability. In the meantime, I'll "make-do" with the uncompressed LPCM tracks I get with the Sony/Buena Vista releases; even the Fox DTS HD MA (with core 1.5M DTS) discs are very good.

HD-DVD players are cheaper. I fully expect Blu-Ray to be just as cheap when Economies of Scale start to kick in. Keep in mind we are still in low-sales volume mode.

Not enough 50G Blu-ray discs to go around to take advantage of that storage capacity ? I doubt this is an issue at current sales volumes, even if it is, it's only temporary as Sony is gradually cranking up the manufacturing capabilities.

The real advantage Blu-Ray has is exclusive studio support from Sony, Fox, and Disney. HD-DVD has exclusive support only from Universal (if Universal goes format neutral, the format war is decided). Combine this with a technically superior format and you have to wonder why anyone thinks HD-DVD has a shot at pre-empting Blu-Ray ? Or why anyone would even want both formats to survive if the format war is keep shoppers away ?

HD-DVD got the early start and still has an advantage in available frills (e.g. IME), but this is only a temporary advantage. The early sales advantage HD-DVD had initially has disappeared and Blu-Ray now has the edge in software sales.

• An interesting read on why Blu-ray ?   (Open in New Window)

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The Cable Cooker

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