Round 1: HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray

[PC-GUY]

Earlier this week, Warner Home Video released Training Day, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Rumor Has It... on Blu-ray, making them the first movies available on both formats! This let the good people over at High-Def Digest | HD DVD & Blu-ray News and Reviews in High Definition do a head-to-head comparison of the two. So, who won you ask?

Quote:
Bracke used the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player and a Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player for the comparison, and said the Blu-ray version had more compression artifacts in the single-layer Training Day disc, was less bright, and was cropped on the sides, giving HD DVD the nod for superior picture quality. In the dual-layer Kiss Kiss Bang Bang disc, it was harder to tell the difference between the two formats, although the reviewer still gave a nod to HD DVD quality, as he did with the third title, Rumor Has It. So, round 1 goes to HD DVD.

HIGH-DEF DIGEST

So getty which one do you have?

[gettygas]

Hmm ill wait for Viper first... then ill get the better 1.. lol

[VIPER_1069]

Originally Posted by gettygas

Hmm ill wait for Viper first... then ill get the better 1.. lol

no hurrys yet mate media costs too much

[LTR12101B]

Definitely still in the "early adopter" realm, though maybe the better codec of HD-DVD will be the telling factor. Blu-Ray sticking with MPEG2 may have been a serious mistake.

[PC-GUY]

Originally Posted by LTR12101B

Definitely still in the "early adopter" realm, though maybe the better codec of HD-DVD will be the telling factor. Blu-Ray sticking with MPEG2 may have been a serious mistake.

I think just because Sony is involed that be the mistake.
One word Betamax!!!!!!

[PC-GUY]

Like I said Sony should just give it up!!!!!!

New Blu-ray Drive Can't Play Commercial Blu-ray Movies

Sony's Blu-ray format has had its fair share of problems recently, with news that the Samsung BD-P1000 player had a chip problem and the first head-to-head comparisons giving HD DVD a slight advantage.

But yesterday, Sony announced a desktop PC Blu-ray drive, the BWU-100A, that can't play commercial Blu-ray movies, according to CNet.

Sony officially announced its BWU-100A product at its "Experience More 2006" event in Sydney yesterday, all the while acknowledging that there's significant room for improvement before the product is viable for integration into media centre PCs.

Vincent Bautista, Sony's product manager for data storage, told CNET.com.au that due to copy protection issues and lagging software development, the drive will only play user-recorded high-definition content from a digital camcorder, and not commercial movies released under the BD format.

Bautista says that one of two reasons for this is the fact that commercial content is encrypted with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which can only be decrypted using a HDCP-compliant graphics card that offers DVI or HDMI connections. Since there are currently no PCs for sale offering graphics chips that support HDCP, this isn't yet possible.

The drive will be available this month, costing $1399 Australian dollars.

Speaking of the format war, a research group has spent time and money determining that consumers will be confused and turned off by multiple HD formats.

Market research analyst Screen Digest also forecast that only $11 billion of the total $39 billion expected to be spent on video discs by 2010 in the United States, Europe and Japan will be generated by the competing high-definition formats, Sony Corp.-backed (6758.T) Blu-ray and Toshiba-supported (6502.T) HD-DVD.

"The net result of the format war and the publicity it has generated will be to dampen consumer appetite for the whole high definition disc category," Screen Digest analyst Ben Keen said.

The research group expects that both formats will hang around until there is a cost-effective, unified solution. Ricoh, anyone?

For more Tech Today, including news on how DISH network is doing as a company and five of the techiest beds, check out
http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/14520.html