THE FUNNY thing about the Blu-ray vs HD DVD war is that, 1. most people would still rather buy a DVD because many of us are perfectly happy with its quality, and that’s probably gonna be true for a few more years, and 2. pretty soon, it will make more sense for a growing number of people to just download high-definition content to their hard drives or stream it rather than buy a disc.
OK, personally I was rooting for HD DVD but it looks like I might have picked the wrong format after Warner Bros. drove a stake into Toshiba’s heart and decided to go exclusively Blu-ray. Toshiba has responded (well, after first canceling their Consumer Electronics Show press conference) by slashing the prices of its HD DVD players. By the way, as my fellow tech journalists and I have discussed time and again, another major factor that would determine the outcome of this latest format war would be: which one will the porn industry support? And according to this article, the adult film industry is still backing HD DVD. (But shouldn’t a blue movie be on Blu-ray? Heh, just kidding.)
Anyway, now that Apple also wants to corner the movie rental business with iTunes, expect movie downloads to become even more mainstream. (Now, if only Apple could make the iTunes store available in the Philippines and the rest of Asia…)
Check out this Reuters video report on Apple’s movie rental service.
I’m a big believer in watching video online (obviously, since I handle our online video service) and an avid fan of services like Joost. Just imagine how far we’ve come — a few years ago, broadcast-quality online video was a pipe dream.
Oh, and speaking of Apple, for the record, I’m drooling over the MacBook Air, the world’s thinnest notebook. Yes, I love Mikaela my (well, until the office changes its mind, heh) MacBook Pro, but damn, just look at the MacBook Air!
January 20th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Before criticising the journalist people really should read what’s been written.
The iTunes HD download service is a RENTAL service, they’re not keepers, no ‘hard-copies’ are required. While bigger TVs (90% of sales are 720p capable only) will demand higher quality content the lack of exodus from DVD and acceptance of ’sub-standard’ HD from satellite & cable services show that public don’t need uncompressed video or even the level of quality offered by HD-DVD or Blu-ray. iTunes will be fine.
Most things we watch don’t need to be broadcast or streamed, downloading is fine and yes the current ISP services allow this - the flourishing torrent community proves this (hence we already know 720p quality is fine) no scratches, no broadcast-glitches (as with DVR). And my AppleTV was far easier to set up than my first VCR - Apple are masters of HOW to do technology right before criticising how a technology works you might want to actually use it.
As for waiting BD or HD-DVD on your Mac - it ain’t gonna happen. This years Macworld shows Apple’s true stance on optical disks - they’re dead.
McD
January 19th, 2008 at 8:25 am
who cares? pardon me but your ignorance is showing. please do some research before posing as a tech columnist. do you even know what the hi-def formats has to offer? download my ass. that’s only practical if and when a connection faster than current technology is in place. sure, the hi-def format doesn’t matter if you watch your videos on your tiny screen. oh, i forgot you might be watching pirated DVDs from china you might not be even aware homes now have HOME THEATERS!
January 19th, 2008 at 7:29 am
“As for those who doubt digital distribution…note its already happening in the country but illegally. Simply go to torrent sites and you can download HD TV shows in an instant. And people doubt digital distribution?”
LOL, since when has torrent been considered digital distribution for the masses? The geeks who download pirated movies and pr0n from those sites aren’t the average consumer that these HD downloads supposedly target.
Considering that TimeWarner Cable is testing usage-based pricing for their Internet service, it seems to me that current bandwidth availability is already taxed by a small percentage of users who do download a lot more content than the average consumer. Expecting that everything will be able to work just fine if all of a sudden everyone starts downloading HD content is ridiculous.
Massive changes in bandwidth size, availability, reliability, and cost will need to be made before HD downloads become mainstream. Not to mention the need for simpler technology that the average consumer can use (without needing to be an IT person to set up a home network), the need to significanly lower storage costs (where is everyone going to store these movies?), and other ancilliary technologies (are you going to back up those Terabytes of movies?).
No, HD Downloads is a pipe dream right now. And the argument that HD Downloads have made the Blu-Ray victory over HD-DVD meaningless is simply bitterness from HD-DVD fanboys.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:22 am
“I have a 32 Inch Samsung LCD TV and I can say that my DVD is still good enough. I have a simple DVD player that upscales the video and DVD quality is still stunning. Now I have seen Blu-Ry and HD-DVD playback on stores on similar HDTV resolutions and frankly I’m not impressed.”
Sorry, but you must have bad eyesight. My wife, who is no audio or videophile, can instantly tell the difference between the two. And when we play the same exact movie on our 47″ 1080p LCD on SD DVD and BD, there’s no contest what is better to watch.
January 19th, 2008 at 6:40 am
I cannot buy a mac until they start using blu-ray drives. I love macbook pro but until apple puts HD drive in their line i cannot purchase, i have to play the waiting game. With HD media or editing you cant always stream and you cannot always store because in my line of work i cannot afford any mistakes and a hard copy of my work is necessary. I think its a great concept that everyone wants to push a virtual storage/streaming etc etc but I always rather have a hard copy on a disk for protection and ownership purposes. Having HD media on a HD disk is a must from this point on and I’m stuck with sub par pc laptops now. The added space of 50gb on 1 disk is worth its weight. I currently have a pc lapop that i would gladly trade in for a macbook pro but what em i gonna do. As soon as apple puts blu disc drives in macbook line Im all over it. Until then I will be watching from the side line.
January 19th, 2008 at 2:49 am
man this is such a waste of time if you tools want to support a dieing format well it is your money you think toshiba is going to do any less then up and pretty much give the rest of there already manufactured players away say thank for your support but it looks like the studios and leave my advise if you can not decide on witch format to go with, or can not swollow your pride and chose the winning format, get an upscaling DVD player other wise wait till HD-DVD dies off this format war has got to end and you die hard fanboys and girls need to stop your selfish crap. movie downloads are almost guaranteed to not be the only distribution supported by movies studios because there no money in it for them.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
look at the bright side man. I thought, which ever of the format comes a winner, the Philippine movie industry should be happy. The in thing right now is digital movies. Cheap to produce than 35 blow-up film. With bigger storage capacity in optical disc and cheap media player, digitized movie can now be upscale with higher quality. some are complaining with digital (B) movies quality in the black resolutuon (?). I think with all of these high-def TV or projector, a little tweak in the final process in digital movie making, will come out neat. lets hope they will offer more on the functionality with these high tech. gadgetry.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
I have no idea which format is better. I do wish that there would be a consensus soon.
The best idea that I’ve read on this blog today was by michaelpaul. It would be really great if movies were on to a flash format. I don’t know how many movies I have that don’t play now because they have a small scratch on them.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
I keep all my HD on my pc where my kids cant scratch it, have an HDdvd drive in the pc and record any HD DVD either from disc to my pc or simply download it and if i want to share it i can put it on pocket size storage device and take it round my friends.So im sort of up to date with things but wont get sucked into buying hddvd`s.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
More HD-FUD nonsense.
What Steve Jobs failed to mention about Apple’s iTunes HD movies is that they’re only encoded in 720p, half the resolution of Blu-ray, which encodes all film content at 1080p (Full HD). The result is a picture which is only half as sharp, half as colorful, and half as beautiful as Blu-ray. Furthermore, only some of the iTunes HD movies have surround sound, and those that do only make use of the archaic Dolby Digital technology. Anyone who has listened to a PCM, Dolby TrueHD, or DTS-HD Master Audio track knows that there is simply nothing that can compare to a lossless/uncompressed audio track.
I hope someone sends him a copy of ‘Ratatouille’ on Blu-ray soon to show him what True HD really looks like and that not all HD is created equally.
Stop being a sole loser and accept that Blu-ray has won and it’s here to stay!
January 18th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
The time of porn deciding a format war is long gone (this is 2008 not 1978), porn is now purchaced mainly over the internet… Your argument is flawed…
And no upscaled DVDs do NOT compare with Hi Def… Sure people nmay be happy with DVDs, but thats because they don’t know any better…
Peace
January 18th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
And another thing, we are talking about audio quality, etc, etc. For the videophile/audiophile that might be important. But for the regular user, who will most likely use the speakers on his TV, why should it matter?
The jump from DVD to Blu-Ray/HDTV is not that great. It’s definitely not as amazing compared to VCD to DVD.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I have a 32 Inch Samsung LCD TV and I can say that my DVD is still good enough. I have a simple DVD player that upscales the video and DVD quality is still stunning. Now I have seen Blu-Ry and HD-DVD playback on stores on similar HDTV resolutions and frankly I’m not impressed.
In this country, the adoption of the next generation optical format will be slow and ‘painful’ for the manfacturers. Why in the world would the average Filipino (even those with HDTVs) support these formats when the prices are expensive and if DVD upscaling can still pass the quality test?
As for those who doubt digital distribution…note its already happening in the country but illegally. Simply go to torrent sites and you can download HD TV shows in an instant. And people doubt digital distribution?
January 18th, 2008 at 11:48 am
i would suggest to couple your bluray with a 1080p 45″+ flat screen would be perfect..then use the bose lifestyle v30..you can only say….WOW
January 18th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Apple will not offer 1080p on itunes. It will be 720p at 24fps if memory serves. The HDDVD units are still selling because many people haven’t gotten the news about warner or they know that those players will make their “old style” DVD look really good. So will a BR player but most don’t understand that. There will be internet interactivity coming up in Oct ( I think ) when BR version 2.0 comes out that will enable some new features on future BR disks.
50GB may not be enough believe it or not! There will be some really cool stuff coming out and why limit your space if there is better tech out there.
gotta go
January 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Once you go hi def you never go back. The deficiencies of standard become all more apparent on the bigger is better TVs that are becoming more and more the standard.
Hi Def TV signals will become the standard and consumers aren’t going to accept a big budget movie look worse than a 30 min network sitcom.
You got to love some of these HD-DVD fanboys now that they’ve lost - “it really didn’t matter in the first place, I’ll save my money for the next big thing” - blah, blah!
January 18th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Some folks might go for post-dated promises but I don’t.
HD DVD is selling very very well on Amazon after the price-drops (the HD A3 is in the top 10 best selling electrical items Amazon stock, period!).
Looks like the consumer is voting with their feet and thumbing their noses at the studios trying to rig this.
Good for them.
Right now with movie disc sales so tiny the ratio or percentage leads matter little.
HD DVD needs to do what Blu-ray did with the PS3; get millions of potential owners out there to attract later with BOGOs & deals.
My bet is that if HD DVD continue to sell hardware strongly Warner will quietly forget about changing a thing (the rumour is that no contracts were signed to try & avoid an anti-trust action - that could come back & bite Sony hard, $500 mil wasted.)
HD DVD is the full spec well priced deal.
Blu-ray is a mess of profiles and expense.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:47 am
ridiculous format war where the only winners are the manufacturers! do we really need 50gigs for movies? overkill! what do you need those extra space for? the original version, directors cut, commentaries of directors and actors, trailers etc.? totally ridiculous!
January 18th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I agree with you David 100%. That’s exactly my thinking. HD DVD is a lot cheaper, the HDi content is cool, the Dual Combo Format is very useful and makes my purchase a better deal, plus HD DVD currently has better movies in my opinion. And HD DVD with no region locking was a smart move.
I don’t want movie downloads to take over the media format. I prefer physical media much better. I mean, what if I want to bring my movie over to a friend’s place, haul my box over? And what about download times? I just think right now, it’s a cool new idea and can be convenient, but it’s not the right time.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I totally agree with VinceP. and add to that
lossless audio another big plus over standard
DVD.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:13 am
michaelpaul, a bit off topic but I beieve 3 dimensional media storage is an up and coming concept where rather than a RAM chip or flat CD to store information, you have a deep reading laser that could write to a cube of material (or any other, more ergonomic, pocket sized shape) with the capability to store data several magnitudes higher than any disc. Exciting stuff!
January 18th, 2008 at 8:57 am
I can’t wait for HD quality! Obviously youv’e never watched a DVD on a screen bigger that 16″. The only benefit DVD has is that the quality is poor enough so that you don’t see any corner cutting in films.
So question answered, I cares! Not only that but there is also the issue of data storage. With bluray having a theoretical maximum capacity of several hundred Gb and hddvd at only a pallid 35Gb. Also I don’t think it is wise to corner ourselves to only being able to take HD content from the internet where movie companies can restrict your viewing and impose advertising upon you. The glory of unprotected media on disc is, I believe, sacred.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:20 am
haha, me too, joey, me too. i just finished looking at the online demo before i read your post!
January 18th, 2008 at 8:03 am
1) I have not seen an HD feed yet.
2) see 1.
3) When there is a 7.1 Uncompressed 24mbit Audio 1920×1080p 60fps TRUE HD feed that makes my 12 foot by 5 foot screen and 700wRMS audio look and sound as good as blu-ray (HD-DVD)…
Where am I going to Store this? My 500GB sas drive? That will not even store Harry Potter, Blader Runner, and Lord of the Rings. Hmmm, I think I am still going to need a disk. Probably one which holds 50-100GB of data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS-HD_Master_Audio
January 18th, 2008 at 7:14 am
I would have to totally disagree with this. I would say 90% of the people I have talked to are not content with DVD’s quality and out of that 70% are going to or have bought a hd tv and are not about to adopt movie downloads as an alternative to buying a hard copy of the movie I think this is a total farce that all these “HD-DVD supporters are coming out now and saying movie downloads are the way to go. Then why were you supporting HD-dvd you freakin shortsighted tool. get off your Idea lost there is nothing more pathetic then a soar looser. and to all your F-n bought tech journalist your a bunch of tools do some real work and get out of the pockets of the industry. tech savy my arse you freakin tool.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:23 am
You’re such a fanboy toad!
January 18th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Movies are not going to move to being downloaded or streamed, and for one very solid reason: People need a hard copy. Sometimes, you want to take your movie with you, sure you can do that if you have a hard drive, but a portable one. Not everyone is going to have hard drives that they’ll want to carry movies around with. Personally, I believe movies will move to a flash based format much like a USB Stick, no moving parts, incredibly small, hard to damage (unlike discs which scratch).
January 18th, 2008 at 5:27 am
Yes because I want to wait an hour for a movie I do not own, watch it on a screen that is smaller than I have in my daughters room and listen to it in stereo sound.
Not that I am a techno Idiot (I record OTA HD brodcasts on my computer and stream them thru my PS3) But most consumers, we are talking adults here, think about downloading movies and say well I want to watch it on my TV! Do you really expect people who cant set the time on thier VCR’s to get the concept of video streaming? Most just want a box and some tangible medium to use.
With the way our current internet structure is there is now way that there would be enough people to negate a physical medium for movie viewing for quite sometime.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:48 am
HD Movie downloads in the vain Apple wants to deliver them will be vastly inferior to those stored on Optical media. I would love to hear how iTunes plans to deliver uncommpressed 1900×1080 video with full digital audio at a reasonable speed over a WAN connection.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:35 am
This is another case of “my format of choice lost so now I say it doesn’t matter who wins because downloads” or “Buh, buh, b- the downloads?! FTW?!”
Seriously get over it, Time Warner is talking about putting caps on the amount of content (in gigabytes) that we are allowed to download without paying them more money. HD Downloads are not coming right away, and if they are they are rentals and many, many people like to have physical copy of their movies. Blu-ray has won, deal with it.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Not to make a big deal about it, because I only really glanced through your article, but the part about the porn industry is pretty out of date….
Digital Playground is Blu Ray exclusive now….
January 18th, 2008 at 3:00 am
One thing I do agree with… the Macbook Air looks so COOL.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Good grief. Another technology columnist who thinks downloads render the war moot.
It’s simple: If that were the case why hasn’t indemand done away with DVD?
Almost all the reasons you’d come up with for that arguement, work for this too.
- Not everyone is set up for it
- Not everyone is willing to pay for something they can’t keep
- Not everyone thinks the quality is good enough
Maybe I wouldn’t be so cynical if bloggers weren’t so sensationalistic.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:51 am
Online streaming is nice, but I believe that the most people would rather have a set top box i.e. dvd player than a home media server. Mostly because I believe that if there is still a belief that anything more complicated than email or anything that include ’server’ in its name is tinged with the dark magic. Also I read recently that overseas the ‘Blu-Ray’ only agreement is a bit … fuzzy… as in you can get HD-DVD titles that are listed as blu-ray only in the states. I still expect HD-DVD to win out, but thanks all the same to WB for getting me my player for $130…
January 18th, 2008 at 1:06 am
If you have an HDTV larger than 30″, there is no way you can say that standard DVD quality is just fine compared to Blu-Ray. Now, since a lot of people don’t have 1080p-capable HDTVs, it may not matter to them.
But for people who have them, it matters. There just is no comparison in the picture and audio quality when you watch a standard DVD (even upscaled) compared to a Blu-Ray on an HDTV.