HD DVD vs. Blu-ray

I'd like to thank both Sony and Toshiba for putting the consumer between a rock and a hard place. Once again...

Apparently Sony has completely forgotten what kind of back lash they received during the VHS/Beta format wars. Why they chose not to work with others in their industry to sort it out before hand is beyond me. Yah I know its about money and gobbling up market share with proprietary technology but what happened to companies thinking about the consumer first and innovating around that?

Ok, I know that's a philosophical question, in my head I know why, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

I've had a chance to use both the new players and thought I'd share a few thoughts, I'll try not to seem biased but I'll confess Sony=evil empire in my opinion.

Samsung is the first (at this time) manufacturer to release a Blu-ray player. Toshiba is the HD DVD offering. While the Blu-ray device certainly looks slick, the controller is a farce. Oh, by the way it costs $1000.00. Toshiba's HD DVD player is a beast, I mean its huge when compared to the Blu ray device looks ugly, again the controller is terrible but costs $500.00. Yup, HD DVD is half the price of Blu-ray.

I won't go into a lot of detail to why that is, suffice it to say, the blu-ray technology required new tooling so the consumer flips the bill. HD DVD uses the same coating technology as DVD so their production costs are much less.

Looks: Advantage Blu-ray
Price: Advantage HD DVD

What any consumer is going to ask themselves is... Why do I need these new players? What will it do better than my $150.00 DVD player? Both camps will say... Hi-Def picture quality. That statement is both true and false, I'll explain.

Blu-ray (currently) is using the older MPEG 2 formatting, while HD DVD, thanks to Microsoft is using the more advanced VC 1 formatting. Basically this translates into much better picture quality with HD DVD vs. Blu-ray. Which is THE reason any sane person would spend 500+ dollars (not to mention re-buy the movies which are about $10 more than DVD).

Sony and company have said the issue will eventually be corrected, um ok, so how does that help consumers now? I'll say this, when I watched a few movies on the Blu-ray, there were certain instances where the picture quality was worse than DVD. That's a tough pill to swallow if I just dumped 1k on a hi-def player.

Performance: Advantage HD DVD

At the moment Blu-ray seems to have more backers in Hollywood, but with launch delays, high cost players, production issues with the new layer/coating technology I suspect that will change. Oddly enough, the difference in content offerings could still push someone into the more expensive, under-performing Blu-ray player.

Content: Advantage Blu-ray (This is a very subjective rating as certain movies announced for HD DVD might swing "on the fence" consumers. LOTR trilogy, Matrix and such have announced for HD DVD, etc. This is a moving target though.)

Storage capacity is really THE ONLY selling point for Blu-ray as their discs can hold about 20gigs more data. When I see that I'm like, so what, 30gigs is more than enough right now. I know I'm letting my bias show here but an extra $500.00 for 20gigs more disc storage? No thanks.

Disc Storage capacity: Advantage Blu-ray

Blu-ray may have more advantages on paper, but HD DVD has the advantages that actually count. Price/Performance. If I sound bitter, I am. I really hate the thought of having to make this choice and I know it's not going to stop at movie/player choices. Soon we will have to make hand held camcorder choices too. It's a path we've been down before and no matter what happens the end result is going to be a certain customer base left twisting in the wind.

iPod meet xPod

Microsoft is mulling over an "xPod"?! Why don't these two companies just get it over with and merge already? I know what you're thinking; such an event would tear open a 4th dimension ushering in an era of winged pigs and wood nymphs. Maybe, but is that a bad thing? Me; I've always had a soft spot for wood nymphs.

BusinessWeek discusses Microsoft’s intention to chip away at Apples whopping 70% market share in portal digital media devices. The "xPod" would not only play music & video but games that incidentally would be available on the Xbox 360. Insider information also indicates a program that would allow iPod users to convert all iTunes mp3 files they have purchased over to the "xPod" format (WMA) for free, with purchase of a new “xPod” of course. That’s a pretty good incentive but at the moment is just speculation as MS has yet to officially announce the product.

In my experience this kind of stuff is leaked for a reason...free press and a bit of internet hype. Only time will tell, my guess is an official announcement is soon to follow, just in time for the holiday season.

What's your take on a possible "xPod"? Feel free to add your comments.

Studios Give Nod to Early Adopters on High-Definition Discs

Joining MGM, Fox, Buena Vista, and Paramount, Universal has announced that they will not engage the "Image Constraint Token" (ICT) on their titles for the next-generation high-definition disc format in their initial release.
The function of the ICT is to force non-encrypted video connections (e.g. component video) to be down-converted to 960 x 540 pixels instead of the full resolution of the disc (e.g. 1080p). Under this scenario, only HDCP-Equipped HDMI (or DVI) Connections would transfer the film at full resolution.

This move was obviously done to not completely enrage the owners of the millions of HDTV sets which lack HDCP HDMI/DVI inputs (currently estimated to be between seven million and eight million in the US). Since almost all HDTV's sold pre-2005 fall into this category, this is a large group of early adopters, who are traditionally the torch-bearers of any new technology, to aggravate.

However, this policy is not guaranteed in perpetuity. It is Universal's (or any other studio for that matter) prerogative to re-enable ICT at any time. Enabling this feature has always seemed like a silly policy (much like the broadcast flag in digital tv signals), but the feature is out there to be enabled by the content provider at any time.

To further complicate things, there are two sides at play here too, each jockeying for position. On one side, you have the backer's of the Blu-Ray format, developed by Sony, which include MGM (Sony), Fox, Buena Vista, Disney, and Paramount. On the other side, you have the Toshiba developed format, HD-DVD. Backers of HD-DVD include Warner Bros. (technically backing both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray), New Line Cinema, and Universal Pictures.....

For the full version go to Cobalt Cable.