it's really over! HD-DVD sayonara!

[Philip Skaist]

Originally Posted by Ray Bell

Just like HDDVD that you can put on standard DVD disks, Blu-ray can also
be put on the standard DVD disk.... and they play fine, in a Blu-ray player.

So its realy down to the cost of the player....

many folks are just using the Sony Playstation...

What about final cut/mac options, I've been burning hd-dvd compatible's on regular dvd-r's can you do this for blu ray too?

[Heath McKnight]

My friend's article asks the big question to us fence sitters: will we buy a Blu-ray player now?

http://screenrant.com/archives/so-ar...blur-1385.html

Also, Harry from Ain't It Cool News makes a good point: we need more content, esp. classic movies:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35643

heath

[Mike Teutsch]

Hey Heath,

Will I get a Blue-Ray player? Well, my answer is no and I think it will be the same for many others. I'll use my Toshiba HD-DVD player for what I need and just sit and wait. All I want to do is burn some short content to DVD+-R for personal and business use. I have zero desire for the Blue-Ray player. I have no regrets for buying my HD-DVD player as it was dirt cheap, just over $200 with 10 movies.

The sad part is that they, Sony and Toshiba, could have compromised and hit the market hard. Now I think the format will be very short lived, VERY short lived. The war itself and the debate over the future of the both of them will hurt.

And somehow, I think Sony will try to put restrictions on DVD's etc. that will drive folks away. Their full control will cause them to try and do things to the market that will cause problems. They do have a certain reputation for that kind of action. Anyone want to write some fake movie reviews!? :)

See ya----Mike

P.S.: Heath, I need to email you so look for it.

Mike

[Heath McKnight]

I feel bad for HD DVD owners, Mike, so I know how you feel. But I don't think Sony will put restrictions on BD (Blu-ray Disc). I have a VUDU (www.vudu.com, a movies-over-IP device) which is great, but eventually I'll get a Playstation 3, which runs BDs and DVDs better than the Playstation 2 and XBOX ever did.

I think Blu-ray will be around for a while, then much of the tech will go towards perfecting movies-over-IP.

I'll look for your email, my friend.

heath

[Christopher Ruffell]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

My friend's article asks the big question to us fence sitters: will we buy a Blu-ray player now?

Now, or ever? I'll start with now - no, not yet: price point has to be lower while being a full-featured spec'd profile. Will I ever get one? Just answered that.. it'll probably be some sale I didn't see coming that hits the right buttons and price.

Also, Apple's descision to support Blu-Ray with software (the missing DVD Studio Pro 5) will certaintly heavily influence my descision to buy.

I've not bought a SD DVD in 3 years, wishing to wait for a higher resolution format. I've not stopped renting, so I've been fine.

[Heath McKnight]

Not to mention the lack of a BD burner built into the Mac Pro by Apple.

heath

[Christopher Ruffell]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

Not to mention the lack of a BD burner built into the Mac Pro by Apple.

heath

Absolutely right. Well, now that BD looks to be the standard, Apple can announce at NAB.. oh, whoops.. never mind ;)

But seriously, yes. I think existing Mac Pro owners like myself would be fine with purchasing a BD burner to extend their investment, but, due to no software.. ugh. This is one of those times Apple could do the 'right' thing and at least announce it's plans in regards to creative content professional Blu-Ray support (at this point I could care less about watching hollywood BD movies on my Mac Pro).

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Kevin Martorana

I think the real loser is corporate video.

We've been producing HD content for many clients. It's been easy to encode the HD video...into HDDVD spec...and burn it on a DVD. As you know regular DVD media (be it -R or +R) is cheap. As long as your video was under the 18 minute range...this process was easy and you could play the HDDVD you created on any of the HDDVD boxes.

For tradeshows for clients...this was a no-brainer. Cheap Toshiba $200 HDDVD player...and make a loopable HDDVD out of DVD Studio...and voila...playable HDDVD for clients at a very affordable price.

We also have a client who we produce HD content for...and then provide 135 HDDVD discs for them to play in retail outlets. So what if blu ray won...right now...this is a cost-effective way to distribute HD content. Oh..did I mention that once we create the master...we use our STANDARD DVD duplicator to make the copies...at less than .40 per copy ?

So..with all the blu ray hub-bub....I started looking into getting into blu-ray production.

An EXTERNAL blu ray drive from Lacie runs around 700.00 . Duplication ? Well not so easy. A 2 disc blu ray duplicator runs around 4k. So...if I want to get into any kind of blu ray production...I would have to make copies by the "onsies - twosies" method. Oh...and blu ray disc prices....$36 a PIECE. And a blu ray player right now is $400-500.

So for now...HD DVD is NOT dead in my world. We'll buy a bunch of HDDVD's to keep on hand for shows and over the next 2 years or so...this will still be a viable delivery method until blu ray prices come down...as they eventually will.

Absolutely correct.

The Nero/AVCHD solution for Blu-ray is not as good as what we had with HD DVD for several reasons:

1.) AVCHD on DVD5/9 red laser media will not play on the PS3 if authored with menus.

2.) Re-encoding mpeg2 to AVCHD is slow and adversely affects picture quality.

3.) There is a trick for putting mpeg2 inside an AVCHD container to avoid the loss of quality from re-encoding. It plays as AVCHD on the Sony PS3 and BDP-S300 but not the newer BDP-S500, and not the Panasonic BD-30.

4.) You can author a DVD5/9 red laser disk with Blu-ray legacy BDAV format, but no menus, no chapter stops, and only 2 channel, not 5.1 audio.

5.) Even the 25gb BD-R/RE does not play on every Blu-ray player.

Conclusion: Blu-ray authoring is still beta. The main issue is undependable compatibility among players, media and authoring formats.

[Kevin Martorana]

Tom,

Thank you for the technical "enlightenment' ! I was beginning to feel like a "schmuck"...thinking I was missing the capability of BluRay authoring.

HDDVD has been working FLAWLESSLY for us for delivering HD content in a cost effective and good quality means.

Like I said...for us...it's not going anywhere for a few years...until Blu Ray becomes easier to author and prices of media and the players will come down.

[Pedanes Bol]

Investors cheer as Toshiba nears HD DVD surrender

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080218/bs_nm/dvd_dc_1

In DVD wars, winner on Main St is Blu-ray

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080217/...vd_bluray_dc_1

P

[Peter Ferling]

Originally Posted by Robert M Wright

The fat lady is singing.

Yeah, and her concert will be published on Blue-ray :)

[Kaku Ito]

Originally Posted by Christopher Ruffell

Absolutely right. Well, now that BD looks to be the standard, Apple can announce at NAB.. oh, whoops.. never mind ;)

But seriously, yes. I think existing Mac Pro owners like myself would be fine with purchasing a BD burner to extend their investment, but, due to no software.. ugh. This is one of those times Apple could do the 'right' thing and at least announce it's plans in regards to creative content professional Blu-Ray support (at this point I could care less about watching hollywood BD movies on my Mac Pro).

I've been burning BD with Adobe Encore with my Panasonic BD writer with Mac Pro 8 Core.

[Paul Renting]

Slightly off-topic, but curious; Now that Microsoft is probably also switching to Blu-ray:

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Gaming/Console/J7L7H2R4

And Toshiba indicating it will drop HD-DVD (which pushed it's stock btw):

http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...080217?sp=true

What will happen with the HD-DVD pledged studio's?

[David Stoneburner]

I'm disappointed because I got an HD-DVD player for Christmas. Had I not already shipped the UPC code in for the free movies, I would have taken it back when Warner Brothers announced their defection. I'm happy with the player and for $150, I'm not complaining, I'm just sad that I won't have any content soon enough. I'm going to hold off buying until the prices are down below $200 for a full spec player.

[Craig Seeman]

Generally such studios have contracts that have termination dates. Actually some of the studios that announced switches did so at points nearing the termination time. Of course they may be released from their contracts earlier.

Originally Posted by Paul Renting

Slightly off-topic, but curious; Now that Microsoft is probably also switching to Blu-ray:

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Gaming/Console/J7L7H2R4

And Toshiba indicating it will drop HD-DVD (which pushed it's stock btw):

http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...080217?sp=true

What will happen with the HD-DVD pledged studio's?