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Now that the Format War is over (for now at least), I realize I will have to buy myself a Blu-Ray drive one of these days. When I do buy one, it will be an external USB drive, so I can take it with me from one machine to another in my house. I’m not in a rush, however. One of our Community members sent in the following top five list, of reasons to not rush out to buy a Blu-Ray drive.

• The best Blu-Ray player currently on the market is a game console. I am not criticizing the PS3s video capabilities. It has been said by many that it’s one of the best Blu-Ray players out there. I just feel like there is something wrong with this picture. I mean, you are going to create a new video format and the best player for that format is a device that was not even designed with video playback as its primary function? Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea that consoles are more than just gaming machines. Something just feels wrong about it being the BEST Blu-Ray player. I don’t know why I feel that way, I just do. Plus… I would rather have a dedicated player.
• Video availability. This will probably become less of an issue in the coming months now that HD-DVD is dead. I understand that there are great movies out there for the Blu-Ray… however they are not numerous enough yet to warrant the investment.
• Evolving standard. This is where I will contradict myself a little. If you must purchase a Blu-Ray player today, PLEASE get the PS3. I say this because almost all the current Blu-R,ay players are somewhat obsolete. The great majority of players out there are v.1.0, while the newer players are v. 1.1. Later this year Sony will introduce v. 2.0 for their Blu-Ray players. I may be wrong about this, but while most players will allow you to upgrade the firmware… none are wi-fi capable. The ps3 is already wi-fi capable (so there is no need to route a broadband wire) and Sony has been excellent when it comes to expanding the capabilities of the PS3.
• Price. I am not willing to pay the current prices for a Blu-Ray player. When it comes down to about $200 or so, I will entertain the thought. For now, I will assume a wait and see position.
• DVD. I just can’t find a compelling reason to let go of my dvd player. Yes, I know Blu-Ray looks better, but is it honestly that much better? DVD had a clear advantage over VHS, but can the same be said for Blu-Ray over DVD? I also don’t feel like it has a “killer app” or a must-have feature. Some people used the lack of WOW feature as their main reason not to move to Vista… and I honestly believe the same could be said about the Blu-Ray format.

After this was posted, I received the following email and wanted to share it in this post.

You said to chime in as to why we chose one format over the other, and here is my 2 cents. I myself chose Blu-Ray because I am a big fan of Sonys game consoles (yes, a playstation man thru and thru). From a gamers stand point, being able to put much more information per disc, was going to allow Sony (at least in my mind) to smoke the competition with the potential of their gaming consoles graphics and gameplay. I don’t have an HDTV (trust me, i’m workin on it) so HD movies didn’t tickle my fancy. I stayed away from the movie player scene. This is probably the most basic answer you’d hear for people who are pro Blu-Ray, but I figured I might as well tune in. Oh, and as a side note, the potential for Blu-Ray far exceeds the gaming and movie scene. The potential for just storage or large amounts of information as a hard copy backup for corporations or just the general users… Blu-Ray can be written in quad layers for 100gigs of information.

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Are You Ready for Blu-Ray DVD?

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Up until recently, there was a huge high-definition format war in relation to DVDs. We had HD DVD vs. Blu-ray. Now… HD DVD has gone the way of the Dodo Bird. Nick is a community member who wrote in:

Yeah I know… the stupid debate about HD (physical formats)… but since it’s in the news, I’d like to get your comments about Blu-ray declared winner of this stupid battle against HD DVD (Samsung will focus on Blu-ray hardware, Panasonic will release Blu-ray reader/writer in Japan in February, Blockbuster and Wal-mart will go exclusive BD, etc). Who’s the real winner? How will Microsoft react?

I know online HD content is an option for those who want to avoid that conflict of physical formats (BD/HD DVD), but I still believe that the majority of average users will go for the physical format (discs). Companies like Seagate must be really happy to see the increase of downloadable HD content everywhere because users have to store content somewhere (HDD). But I still think that people will prefer having a physical disc instead of having something stored on their HDD (not to mention going online, downloading the contents, and waiting hours to get it). I think the real winner is probably the consumer with less confusion and more products (players / writers) available. But still, I guess we’ll have to wait 4-5 years before we see HD players/writers in most average users’ homes. Why? HD is really expensive and DVD is still doing pretty well (you can buy a DVD player for $99 and the quality of image and sound is still pretty good).

Well, it’s not a format war anymore. HD DVD is dead, and Blu-ray is the winner. I thought HD DVD was going to have it with the Xbox 360 external drive. I thought Sony was shooting itself in the foot by incorporating the Blu-ray player inside the PS3. I was wrong! Thank goodness I only have a couple of HD DVDs. Now we have to wait for Blu-rays to be everywhere on the market now.

The bottom line is that I was rooting for HD DVD. However, I’m glad the format war is over. Now there’s no confusion, and consumers won’t be hurt any further in trying to choose… and possibly choosing a loser. It’s now Blu-ray all the way… at least until the next format war arrives.

I do believe, however, that physical media isn’t going to be around for too much longer. I’ve already taken to storing my music in the Cloud… online. I’ve got a subscription to Rhapsody to download my music from online. I don’t have any mp3s stored on my hard drive. I have so many computers these days, I can’t keep up with all the content I have as it is. My music is there online if I need it. Why would I download all of that and put it onto a computer, only to move it to another when needed? It’s much easier for me to just have access to it online, no matter where I am or what machine I use.

Streaming media is coming. Downloadable media is coming. I guess I’m now going to be looking for an external USB or FireWire drive that is Blu-ray and DVD-X compatible. What’s the point in waiting? Format wars are over, in case you didn’t know. If you do happen to have HD DVD stuff, keep it. The drives will still work… there just won’t be anything new manufactured with that format.

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Blu-ray Wins: HD DVD is Dead

Warner Bros. Entertainment has just announced that it will be going Blu-ray exclusive for all of its movies starting in May. Currently Warner releases on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD and it should be interesting to see how the market adapts. Now most people (by people, I mean geeks) don’t care too much and will continue on torrenting each movie, but there are some who find this news upsetting. One group who has already shown this may effect them is HD-DVD themselves.

You’d figure HD-DVD would just shrug it off and move on, but because of this news HD-DVD has cancelled its appearance at CES this year. Now if this isn’t a move to show they’re scared, I don’t know what is. Of course, HD-DVD is still sponsoring the CES bags!

According to the new couple, there was no money exchanged and no payoff – but I say it’s safe to assume that some money did switch hands, at some point (or will at some point in the future). Why would a studio limit itself on the number of movies it can sell?

At the end of the day I still see HD-DVD as the winner, I mean… they do have the pr0n industry on their side after all.</sarcasm>

Warner Chooses Blu-ray Over HD-DVD

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HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray vs. Downloading

Okay, I’m not crazy. Really.

I was installing my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive this evening, testing the new setup with my Corpse Bride DVD. The image quality, for whatever it’s worth, is absolutely stellar – even though I’m only connected through a classic component video connection (as opposed to the new Xbox 360 HDMI cable on a Panasonic TV that’s only good through 720p. No matter, that’s not the point of why I’m writing this post.

I quickly realized why the Corpse Bride character, Barkis Bittern, looked so familiar. Maybe I’m caught under the spell of high definition DVDs, but… I think he might be Leo Laporte’s cartoon twin:

Am I crazy?

Barkis Bittern and Leo Laporte

What happens if you take ZERO – divide it by NINE – multiply that product by the variable F – take that result and subtract NINE from it – add that ONE number to the square root of another ONE – take ZERO accountability – mix in TWO more random numbers – multiply those factors by NINE again – insert constant D – bring SEVEN digits into the equation – add FOUR thousand – screen it through E – subtract THREE – multiply by FIVE – make drones with the queen B – watch a movie in three D – dip EIGHT of those results in chocolate – think it over FOUR times – carry the ONE – remember that FIVE is still alive – one number after SIX – C is for cookie – take back FIVE – add SEX – subtract THREE – dream of FIVE more numbers – take that result and multiply it by SIX – divide that by EIGHT – divide that again by second EIGHT – then add it to twice the Speed of Light – and repeat it ZERO times?

Answer: Revolution.

[NOTE: Both sides of this Digg Epic are equally correct and incorrect, in theory - but the real losers in this battle are those who continue to support and defend restrictive DRM]

Math Test

I’m trying to stay out of this argument. I’ve only seen a few HD-DVDs in person, and… the differences between a high definition DVD and a “regular” DVD are largely imperceptible. At least, according to my eyes. Well, until a single playback option is ubiquitous, it simply doesn’t matter. Consider these two recent news articles from PC World. One is a hardware-centric solution:

LG stated it was considering a dual-format player at the CeBIT show last March, but the company has been quiet about its progress until now. The company is the first to formally announce a dual-format player; prior to this, Ricoh and NEC had both announced they had developed components that could read both Blu-ray and HD DVD media, but neither had announced actual products. Samsung had also made rumblings about coming out with a dual-format player, but the company backtracked on those reports early last year.

The second is a media-centric solution called Total HD:

The disc includes the same specs offered by each format separately–for example, either a 25GB or 50GB Blu-ray movie on one side, and a 15GB or 30GB HD DVD movie on the other. The intention, according to Warner, is to keep the feature sets of both versions intact so that the viewer will get the same experience whether they watch the Blu-ray version or the HD DVD version. But this means that content creators must design content that doesn’t exceed the capabilities of either format.

Both of these options sound great to me – and I applaud both LG and Warner for respectively stepping up to the plate.

High Definition DVD Wars