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 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!