Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: The Format Wars

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DVDs are the current standard for data storage, and perhaps more importantly the publishing format standard as well. The question is however, how much longer will they be sufficient? A much anticipated battle, or ‘format war’ if you will, is in progress similar to that seen in the 1980’s between VHS and Betamax. This time around the same companies have fallen into the same camps and war is ensuing between Blu-ray and HD DVD technology.

Knowing very little about either, I decided to investigate these formats and what follows is hopefully an unbiased presentation of facts. At this time it is hard to say if there is a leader in this format race, or if there will ever be one, with products still not available in the retail market, and from what was shown at recent CES 2006 expo, manufacturers are still working hard on first generation players, which will inevitably be replaced just a few months later with more refined products once they reach the masses. Hopefully after reading this article you will be better informed about the two technologies, and why not, pick your own favorite, or call the industry for a much needed convergence (think of dual-format DVD±RW drives nowadays).

View: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: The Format Wars @ TechSpot

#1 Bizkit on 23 Jan 2006 - 10:10

Thanks. I was a nice read. I will keep an eye on these and see what happens.

#2 Timmah on 23 Jan 2006 - 10:28

Makes you wonder where it'll end. Will we one day purchase films on small hard drives?

And in 5 years will we be eagerly awaiting HD-Blu-Ray?

Not that I'm complaining or anything.

(5 replies) #3 InsaneNutter on 23 Jan 2006 - 10:58

Well from reading that i got the impression Blue-ray kicks HD-DVD's Ass in everything apart from manifacturing costs.

I would like Blue-ray if one of the two had to win as 50+GB disc's sound a lot better than 30GB+ but HD DVD sounds like its gonna be a lot cheaper and as ive got an Xbox 360 and a HDTV if the HD drive for the 360 is cheap im all set

I wornt get either one any time soon tho, i will just have to see how it goes

#3.1 Peter McGrath on 23 Jan 2006 - 11:41

Don't forget Sony are behind BluRay, and they are putting "nasties" like java boot straps on the BluRay disk that your "player" has to execute before it decides if its going to play the movie (etc)...

They will never live down their "rootkit" debacle!

(and all their other copy protection schemes)

this coming from a company trying to sell walkmans etc, ha! - the irony of it all.....

No one is going to buy the next "betamax" from Sony....

#3.2 m-head on 23 Jan 2006 - 15:34

I haven't read the article yet, but didn't the Blu-Ray side find ways of reducing costs?

#3.3 Dodgy on 23 Jan 2006 - 16:46

i think i heard that HDDVD reads faster than Blue-Ray too, but that was a while ago.

Personally i dont care who wins, i just want it to be cheap & usable. and in a couple of years they will be, i'd never pay £200-300 for a DVD player, so why would i do so for a HD player.

#3.4 ambiance on 23 Jan 2006 - 17:30

Peter McGrath is right. They invented the Walkman as well as the Mini Disc. We both know which one took off. It's just funny that they encourage recording one day, sales hurt the next and then its Stalin time. DVDs do the job for me. It is not necessary to have HD and an array of other useless features. IMO there is few movies out there worth buying HD so if they want to sell 10 dvds per household, the format war works for me. Don't let it work for them...syke, everyones a tool and that will not happen.

#3.5 sphbecker on 23 Jan 2006 - 18:34

HD-DVD's copy protection (DRM if you will) allows users to rib videos to their computers and video iPods and what not. Blu-Ray does not. I think this is a really big deal.

Also, I expect HD-DVD will cost much less. Yes the Blu-Ray guys talked about lowering costs, but we are starting to see some of the player costs come out and HD-DVD is less then half the cost for the players and a small fraction of the cost for the media.

I also like how HD-DVD allows you to use a normal dual-layer DVD to store up to two hours of HD content.

The HD-DVD people are also working on a hybrid disc where it will play as a DVD in a DVD player or an HD-DVD in an HD-DVD player. They already have this by using a two sided disc, but are working or a way to make it one sided.

From what I can see HD-DVD is the better format, Blu-Ray just happens to have a higher capacity.

(1 reply) #4 TheReaperMan on 23 Jan 2006 - 11:30

yeah same here i will wait for cost to come down and see who may win etc.

#4.1 sphbecker on 23 Jan 2006 - 18:59

I really don't think either side will win or loose; they are both very well supported. My guess is that dual-format players will become the standard and the format of the video will become little more then a small note on the back.

(3 replies) #5 miniM3 on 23 Jan 2006 - 11:44

The cheapest solution that offers r/rw will win. Easy as that. If buying 2 30gb discs cost less than 1 50gb then the winner is clear to me.

#5.1 dextro on 23 Jan 2006 - 11:48

That said it: the cheapest and easier to use solution will win just like VHS overtook Betamax. Beta was better but VHS was simpler (and the players were more reliable... even if later people started realising that wasn't quite true).

#5.2 mufdvr3669 on 23 Jan 2006 - 15:56

I thought the big reason vhs won was because of their 2 hour record time vs. 1 hr for betamax, so people could record their favorite movies.

#5.3 Skyfrog on 23 Jan 2006 - 16:58

That was part of the reason, but mainly it was because Sony didn't want just anyone selling their proprietary format. They were just as restrictive and big-headed back then as they are now. JVC on the other hand openly shared the VHS format with anyone and everyone. Pretty soon it was everywhere and much cheaper than Beta.

(4 replies) #6 reidtheweed01 on 23 Jan 2006 - 11:45

Call me crazy, but the only reason most of you like blue-ray is becuase

1. Its opposite of microsoft
2. The amount of space
3. When you first heard the name you thought it was true

but the main thing is space, and if that is so why dont you like holographic disc

#6.1 aleks on 23 Jan 2006 - 12:04

How about the requirements of Windows Media Centre to take advantage of the special features of HD-DVD discs!!

Do you think us Mac users will just lie down and ignore this?

#6.2 weemies on 23 Jan 2006 - 13:47

@reidtheweed01:
I'm rooting for blu-ray, but of course I "like holographic disc". They just happen to be years away from hitting the market. Blu-ray is only months away, and it's a superior technology compared to HD-DVD. That's reason enough to prefer blu-ray. I know I can use the extra space.

#6.3 Jugalator on 23 Jan 2006 - 14:49

"but the main thing is space, and if that is so why dont you like holographic disc"

Whaa... How many Blu-ray fans have you heard say they really dislike holographic discs?
Just because you don't endorse something (maybe because it's still not a finalized format!

doesn't mean you don't like something.
*thwaps reid with his common sense stick*

#6.4 sphbecker on 23 Jan 2006 - 19:03

"How about the requirements of Windows Media Centre to take advantage of the special features of HD-DVD discs!! "

That is no more true then claiming that today's DVDs require Windows 95 for special features. It is up to author of the disc if he wants the special features to work on a normal player or if he wants to use something that requires a computer.

(1 reply) #7 Croquant on 23 Jan 2006 - 11:46

Coming soon:
Format Wars II: The Blue-Ray Strikes Back.
Format Wars III: The Return Of The HD-DVD.

#7.1 weemies on 23 Jan 2006 - 13:44

NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!1
[/vader]

(2 replies) #8 Ifoow on 23 Jan 2006 - 14:55

Hmm so Blu-ray is a little better, and HD-DVD is a little cheaper. Both are more expensive then DVD so my guess is most people will stick to DVD for a long time because quality of movies is just fine on that, there is no real need yet for the Blue-Ray and HD-DVD. CONCLUSION: THEY WILL BOTH FAIL HAHAHAHAHA

#8.1 yukycg on 23 Jan 2006 - 15:23

wondering if the market is large enough to have both format, maybe they will both win. To me, neither sound promising

#8.2 sphbecker on 23 Jan 2006 - 19:07

I was about to buy an HD-TV a year ago until I saw what DVDs look like on one. They look pretty bad (only slightly better then they do on a normal TV). I mainly watch DVDs, so I'm not going to buy a nice TV until I can actually use its higher quality.

(1 reply) #9 nekrosoft13 on 23 Jan 2006 - 14:59

sony betamax, i mean blu-ray will fail again

#9.1 Firen™ on 23 Jan 2006 - 19:20

things have changed since the betamax days you see...Blu-ray has a porn company behind it! As well as a good deal of supporters including Dell.

(2 replies) #10 Buttus on 23 Jan 2006 - 15:23

i'm sure they'll have dual format burners/readers after a while, just like the +/- wars...

previous post brings up a interesting thought tho, they took DVD and made it high density, and i don't think they can get more out of it...

what about a high density blu-ray disk later? hmmmmm

#10.1 Skyfrog on 23 Jan 2006 - 17:02

Unlike the current multi-recorders where the formats aren't that different from each other, wouldn't a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drive have to have two seperate lasers? Maybe not but it still sounds expensive and needlessly complicated. What we need is for one of these formats to just die and go away, and I think one of them probably will.

#10.2 sphbecker on 23 Jan 2006 - 19:08

The early DVD/CD players had to have two lasers.

(1 reply) #11 Legendary SSJ5 on 23 Jan 2006 - 18:22

Ironically, I think the format whose copy protection will first be cracked will have a huge advantage. Being able to backup your movies suddenly makes the format much more attractive and will help boost the sales of recordables, players and recorders a lot, which in it's turn reduces production costs and thus the price consumers have to pay. At the connection speeds currently offered by ISP's, downloading of complete copy's wouldn't be that much of a threat as I don't think many people would like to regularly download 15-25 gigs of data for just one movie.

#11.1 sphbecker on 23 Jan 2006 - 19:11

You don't need to "crack" anything. HD-DVD allows you to copy your videos to your comptuer right out of the box. It is protected by DRM on the computer and I think you are only allow to have 5 computers active, but it can still be done.

Blu-Ray does not allow this, which I think will be a big blow to the format in the easy of computer power users.

#12 hardgiant on 23 Jan 2006 - 23:35

BluRay will probably win:

1. 7 out of 8 movie studios support them

2. More manufacters support them by far

3. High cost at first like DVD+R which eventually caught up to DVD-R

HD-DVD only advantage was it was going to launch early which it didn't and cheaper to produce media.

#13 Tjalian on 24 Jan 2006 - 01:08

I'll choose HD-DVD as my next-gen Movie Player; and Blu-Ray as my next-gen Portable Medium Holder.

However, the idea of having an 8" 15GB disc is very appealing, the PSP 2 could easily deal with an 8" disc. 15GB of space for games is more then what the 360 is using right now; definately handy.

But, whatever happens, I'd definately love a Hybrid Drive. Just connect it up to my IDE to USB converter and BAM, silly amounts of storage space all in a Disc Wallet on the go

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