Blu-ray, in General

[PhilipS]

Interesting point. But remember that HD only has three studios backing them. So, this is just plain stupid. HD should just throw in the towel.

Those three studios being Warners, Universal, Weinstein, Paramount, Dreamworks, HBO, New Line, Studio Canal, etc etc, not to mention the porn studios. According to that unimpeachable source Wikipedia HD DVD has more studio support than BD worldwide. Not that this means much given the generally low sales figures for both formats.

[marty]

Those three studios being Warners, Universal, Weinstein, Paramount, Dreamworks, HBO, New Line, Studio Canal, etc etc, not to mention the porn studios. According to that unimpeachable source Wikipedia HD DVD has more studio support than BD worldwide. Not that this means much given the generally low sales figures for both formats.

That's it! HD it is. I was waiting to see which format the new media pioneers (ie porn industry) would latch onto. Blu-ray is history. Nothing beats watching porn on HD on a huge plasma screen!

[pointless]

DVDEmpire's web site lists 24 studios supporting HD DVD and 21 supporting Blu-Ray.

They also show a strong resurgence of the HD DVD to Blu-Ray sales ratio for this month - approximately 45% HD DVD to 55% Blu-Ray.

[The Invunche]

Isn't that because HD DVD fanboys coordinated their online shopping to influence the stats?

Format War Soldiers: Sync'd HD-DVD Purchase by Fanboys Spike Amazon Rank, Blu-Rayers Set To Retaliate

This morning, we wrote about a stat that Europe's HD-DVD title sales had spiked and surpassed Blu-ray sales. That's wrong. That writer actually used US data, so we updated our post. But what about that US spike? It didn't have anything to do, actually, with the fact that HD-DVD has over 100k non-Xbox players in the field. That would have revealed itself with a more gradual climb in the charts.

Apparently, the spike occurs the same day that HD-DVD fanboys at AVSForum, the AV enthusiast site, had organized an mass buy of HD-DVD titles. For an immature format, even a few individuals can make a difference, if only on a day.

This post lays down their gameplan for the buy on April 15th, the one year anniversary of HD-DVD's launch:

The idea is to show support for HD DVD by buying movies on a specific day. There is no better way to show support for HD DVD than by backing it financially. If there is a strong demand for HD DVD software, then hopefully Blu-ray only studios will at least go neutral.
A month later, over 350 members were signed up on AVSForums, but not alone. Countless other HD DVD fanboys on other sites joined in. And on that day, many people grabbed anywhere from 2 to a dozen discs, sometimes more -- Likely not more than 10,000 copies, by my guess. But that's a significant amount on a single day for a format that has less that a million titles sold in total. They'd even managed to get the random, but beautiful BBC documentary Planet Earth box set up into the top 5 sales for movies on Amazon, which members talked about as a first for any HD disc. (Casino Royale on Blu-ray only reached #6).

And as you can see, HD-DVD's sales rank broke out of its second tier title sales rank on Amazon, if only for a day.

Funny enough, on the other side of the fence, on AVSforum's Blu-ray Fanboys, as well as those on PS3 forums are planning a retaliatory synchronized buy soon.

One thing's for sure in the format war. HD-DVD's fanboys are far more original and spirited.–Brian Lam

[pointless]

I do believe that the intensity of the spike was mostly due to the coordinated buy. The HD DVD curve started rising sharply several days before April 15th, however. I personally contributed by buying some on that day, but I also bought many other in the weeks before and from many brick and mortar and other on-line stores.

What I find most interesting is that the total number of HD DVD and Blu-Ray sales combined ever are so low that such a spike could even occur at all. This would not have budged the graphs had we been buying DVD's.

Hi-def media sales probably are only 0.01% of DVD sales at this point.

[PhilipS]

What I find most interesting is that the total number of HD DVD and Blu-Ray sales combined ever are so low that such a spike could even occur at all. This would not have budged the graphs had we been buying DVD's.

The spike was caused by AVS Forum members buying just over 1,500 HD DVDs, at the latest tally. As you say, that would barely have registered if it had been DVDs.

However the group buy was not the reason behind the high sales rating of Planet Earth, which was up there before April 15th.

[The Invunche]

Oh so now the Chinese are gonna save your precious format for you.

[PhilipS]

Dont you see striking similarities?

I see one major difference, which is that most people don't have projectors, and it is on projectors that the biggest difference in quality can be seen. The difference between high definition video and DVD on a television is visible but not as big a leap as from VHS to DVD. It also does not have the added convenience that DVD had over VHS. So while it looks like the high definition formats are following a similar path to DVD, it will take a lot longer for them to reach anything like the market penetration of DVD.

I think in another year the format war will be largely over - Im predicting HD, simply because the Chinese are going to make the cheap players which only require a single small licencing fee for the onbaord chip, unlike Sony with BD. And you'll start to see the software increase from the end of the year as the studios realzie the production costs are less than half that for BD. Meanwhile it's clearly a niche market, just as LD was, and barely a couple of hundred thousand people worldwide are feeding into it.

I think in another year we'll have much the same situation as now. It will remain a niche market and while the penetration of players and software will have increased, both sides will still be surviving and claiming victory in the format war. I think it will be at least three years before one side or the other blinks. While these Chinese players might help HD DVD, there are a lot of PS3 owners out there who will buy the odd BD.

Once youve viewed a beautifully mastered title of something you love however in 1080 rez it is really a wrench to go back to standard def.

I have, though scaled to 720p only. I was watching Ride the High Country tonight thinking how poor some aspects of the DVD looked and how much better it would have been in high definition.

One day - I predict - we'll see Gueule d'Amour in HD!!

I hope so. Every time it has been screened locally I have either been out of town, or too sick to attend.

[The Invunche]

David, do you have a source for the Chinese HD DVD players. A quick google turned up nothing except articles from 2005.

[Cosmic Bus]

David, do you have a source for the Chinese HD DVD players. A quick google turned up nothing except articles from 2005.

I'm aware of this Engadget article from yesterday...

[The Invunche]

Interesting. Did you see the update?

[quote]Update: Pull back the reigns HD DVD fanboys, Akihabara now says that they've made a "huge mistake" with their translation: the original source called it "è—

[The Invunche]

There's no way in hell I'm gonna read even a single page from that board.

[The Invunche]

If by cleansing you mean polution.

[denti alligator]

What's the difference between the Toshiba HD-A20 and the HD-XA2? They both output 1080p, but the latter has HDMI v3. Will that make that much of a difference (assuming one's TV accepts v3)?

[The Invunche]

HDMI 1.3 can handle much larger bitrates. Also, it can transfer Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio undecoded if you want your receiver to handle the decoding.

[denti alligator]

My receiver only handles HDMI v 1.1, but don't I need to send the signal through the receiver anyway (to get audio)? Does that mean that the v3 (for video) is moot?

[jedgeco]

Is anyone aware of an FAQ that addresses the different HD-DVD/Blu-Ray sound fomats, outputs, and hardware requirements? I used to consider myself pretty well versed in this stuff, but who can keep up with all this now?

PS: Open letter to both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD camps: In August, I'm buying into which ever format is winning this beauty contest (based on a completely subjective metric TBD by me at a later date), so you have 4 months to vie for my affections!

[PhilipS]

My receiver only handles HDMI v 1.1, but don't I need to send the signal through the receiver anyway (to get audio)? Does that mean that the v3 (for video) is moot?

It depends on what player you are using. Most released so far have analogue audio outputs as well as HDMI and optical digital.

With analogue connections you can configure the player to decode the high resolution formats and output them as LPCM via the analogue outputs. This means that you can take advantage of the higher resolution audio without having to upgrade your receiver. So you connect your player to the display using HDMI and to the receiver using analogue connections.

HDMI v1.3 will be needed for some of the higher resolution audio formats (e.g. DTS HD Master Audio) but only if you want your receiver to decode the audio, rather than having the player do it.

[PhilipS]

The problem with LPCM through HDMI 1.1 is that the receiver may not be able to decode multichannel LPCM. It's true that some of the HD DVD players do not have multichannel analogue outputs. If you are buying such a player and plan to use HDMI 1.1 for audio as well as video then you need to check whether your receiver can handle LPCM surround, otherwise you'll be missing out on the improved audio.

On the BD side things are much the same as HD DVD for decoding the high resolution audio. Most players released so far have multichannel analogue outputs, with the notable exception of the PS3. On the other hand, a lot of BD titles seem to have Dolby Digital soundtracks only, albeit encoded at 640Kbps instead of the 448Kbps of DVD. Another trap for the unwary.

[denti alligator]

Like I said, I have the Denon 2807. The problem is that if I send the audio to the receiver through HDMI I'm losing the vs 1.3 improvements of the video signal. If there are two HDMI outs on the Tosh HD-X2 perhaps I can send one directly to the display (1.3) and one for the audio to the receiver...

[The Invunche]

Isn't there an HDMI output on the receiver?

[denti alligator]

Isn't there an HDMI output on the receiver?

yes. I can send both audio and video signals through the receiver with one HDMI and then send the video out from the receiver to the display with another. Doing this however limits me to v1.1 since the receiver can't handle 1.3. To get the benefits of 1.3 for the video I'd have to send it directly to the display. hence the problem.

[The Invunche]

Gotcha.

[PhilipS]

According to the Wikipedia entry on HDMI, the video improvements in v1.3 are

Optionally supports 30-bit, 36-bit, and 48-bit xvYCC with Deep Color or over one billion colors, up from 24-bit sRGB or YCbCr in previous versions.

I don't know how visible these improvements would be.

David, I have an A1, not an E1. It has been upgraded to version 2.0. By the time I found out about 2.1 it had been pulled by Toshiba due to problems with DVI connections.

Re Denti's situation, the Denon 2807 has one 7.1 channel analogue input. If that isn't being used, the solution is to get the XA2, which has multichannel analogue outputs. Connect these to the receiver and the HDMI to the TV, set the player's output to video only over HDMI and to convert the audio to LPCM, and you're away. Down the track when you can afford a new receiver with HDMI 1.3 you can pass everything through the receiver and get rid of the extra cables. The same would apply for BD: get a player with multichannel analogue outputs.

[devlinnn]

Note to self on future business ideas - beautifully young, hot girls and boys that set up hi-fi gear for the rest of us who have completely lost where to stick what where. $250-$300 an hour, happy ending guarenteed.