Why this consumer picked HD DVD

[JoeConsumer]

The old TV was going out, so I had to get a decent HDTV, and I got a 32 inch 720P Panasonic LCD. Beautiful. Also got an HD TiVo to get all the good broadcast HD we have time to watch. Now the old DVD player looked like pretty bad in comparison, so I had to remedy that. If I had money to burn, I'd get both formats, but I don't. I had thought I'd get a Blu-ray, until I found out it was twice as expensive with bad reviews, while the HD-A1 ($360 online) had glowing reviews (except for the remote), and sure enough, it's fantastic. I get my HD-DVDs from Netflix, and it appears there will be an almost endess supply of good HD-DVDs from them, especially as I don't have time to see more than 1 movie a week anyhow. But I'm not anti-Blu-ray - If HD-DVD loses the format war, or if I really want to see some Sony owned movies, and Blu-ray players are high quality and cheap a few years from now, I'll get one of those as well. But for now, the decision was pretty easy - all the good HD movies I have time to watch, from the lowest price, best quality HD player available, the HD-A1. (I'll soon program the TiVo remote to take over most of the HD-A1 remotes functions )

[RandCanuck]

Pretty much ditto for me. I'll buy Blu-ray later if I need to, once prices are lower for the players. In the meantime, there's lots to enjoy on HD-DVD.

[TaiwaneSTUD]

Originally Posted by RandCanuck

Pretty much ditto for me. I'll buy Blu-ray later if I need to, once prices are lower for the players. In the meantime, there's lots to enjoy on HD-DVD.

can't 'agree more.

i beleive both formats will survive and eventually each will has it's own share of market. So it will really depend on whether you want to eat the large pie or the largest pie.

[vooswing]

I too am a HD DVD owner due to price and great amazon.com reviews. As an owner of over 300 DVD's I am very happy with the upconversion and as a result if a title isn't available for HD DVD I just buy it in SD and let my HD DVD upconvert it. It's not true HD but it is good enough. Hopefully the studios only releasing on Blu-ray will realize they are missing out on $$$ and start supporting both formats because once I own a SD DVD I won't be rebuying it in HD unless it is one of my absolute favorite movies.

I think that both formats will survive and when the Blu-Ray comes down to a reasonable price I will probably get one.

[Aodh]

Not to mention since the HD-DVD format is the official format recognized by the group who designed the DVD, they can share licensing rights. You will never ever see a BD/DVD combo like you will with HD/DVD. And to me that means I can put a HD in my home theatre and leave DVDs on the rest of my TVs, buy one copy of the movie and watch anywhere.

[HarakoMeshi]

Sure like everyone I agree HD-DVD is putting out better discs right now but my question is why? Why would a media with lower capacity be better than one with higher capacity?

I'm guessing it is early authoring issues and considering HD movies are only at the start of their 10 year+ lifetime I'm still putting my money that the higher capacity media has more potential in the long term.

[irascian]

I've put my vote firmly behind HD-DVD (XBox 360 and Toshiba XE1 both on order) simply because the discs are so much better and when a title's been released on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray the HD-DVD always comes out better.

Plus I've had so many bad experiences with Sony I've REALLY grown to hate them.

Personally I'm hoping Blu-Ray will do a DivX or a Betamax and crash and burn.

But if it doesn't and a year from now there are players from the likes of Pioneer doing a good job I'll undoubtedly sign up to that format too. It's the movies not the format that matters.

[Tejstar]

Originally Posted by HarakoMeshi

Sure like everyone I agree HD-DVD is putting out better discs right now but my question is why? Why would a media with lower capacity be better than one with higher capacity?

I'm guessing it is early authoring issues and considering HD movies are only at the start of their 10 year+ lifetime I'm still putting my money that the higher capacity media has more potential in the long term.

Well judging by the recent BD-50 releases we have seen, I have not seen anything that can't be done on a HD-DVD 30GB disc. For me, my only interest lies in the pq and aq of the movie itself - I don't see any difference arising in this part moving forward.

[hmurchison]

HarakoMeshi

Blu-ray was designed for MPEG2. The AVC and VC-1 codecs weren't added until the end of choosing the specification. While people tend to think of more space as more "future proof" that really isn't what happens. More space will get you more extras if the studio wants to but qualitatively speaking the new codecs like AVC and VC-1 deliver excellent quality at bitrates that make it easy to put a 2hr movie and copious extras on a 30GB disc. It negates any qualitative advantage Blu-ray has with 50GB discs other than how many extras can be squeezed on the disc.

What HD DVD will end up doing is offering premium 2-disc selections like Mission Impossible III. Even though everything can be put on one disc consumers have been conditioned to view multiple disc sets as collectible.

[vooswing]

I think that too much is made of the 30gb vs 50gb issue. I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe we will ever need more than 30gb to store a movie on a single disk. I think that Sony has done a great job of making their "Blu-ray is superior" argument based on storage size but I really don't ever see it being a factor for movies.

A lot of people have made a big deal out of it for computer storage also but I think that has been blown out of proportion also. With all of the games, music, movies, applications, etc on my PC I have about 40gb of space used on my entire system, I just don't think there are that many people that require 50gb on a single disk, to make an argument that it is superior to HD DVD because of storage size just doesn't make sense to me.

I think HD DVD is currently ahead on picture quality and sound quality and that is what matters to me. Once Sony and Panasonic release their players I think they will be so evenly matched with HD DVD that neither will be superior to the other. We will have two equally good formats, one with 30gb disks and one with 50gb disks, with the same quality of movie and same quality of sound.

[Tejstar]

Originally Posted by vooswing

I think that too much is made of the 30gb vs 50gb issue. I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe we will ever need more than 30gb to store a movie on a single disk. I think that Sony has done a great job of making their "Blu-ray is superior" argument based on storage size but I really don't ever see it being a factor for movies.

Sony also made the most of the 1080p issue, and its superiority over the first-gen Tosh players. The thing is that these things do stick with consumers, even though they may not be entirely true or relevant.

[shadowkt]

I Have the 360 HD-DVD add on and it works great. This doesn't mean I won't buy Blu-Ray later after the inflatted prices go away. But as long as Sony keeps gouging people who want a stand alone BR player and not a PS3, I'll stick with HD-DVD.

[BIGSAPOTEER]

I agree with you Shadow. I don't really care which format wins as long as they deliver at the right price. I'll let my eyes and pocket make my decision.

[DanMacMan]

My reasoning for choosing HD DVD was sort of a no brainer, given I already had the 360. But what drove me to actually buy the add on, aside from $100 worth of Best Buy Reward Zone certificates, was the increasing number of positive reviews of HD DVD over BluRay.

To me it is clear Sony has lost its way in regard to gaming. Again they are more focussed on pushing their own new format, consumers be damned. A number of developers are already jumping ship to the 360 because the PS3 is so hard to develop for, and also because Sony can't even deliver the boxes.

And now there is a story surfacing that the whole 'BluRay-is-better-because-it-stores-more-data' argument is not true.

I think given its first to market, cost/quality, and overall sales advantages - HD DVD is here for the long haul. I hope, like many game developers have begun to do, that movie studios migrate to a dual release strategy. Its not only a smart business move, its good for consumers.

[Tejstar]

Originally Posted by DanMacMan

And now there is a story surfacing that the whole 'BluRay-is-better-because-it-stores-more-data' argument is not true.

Well to be fair that article was debunked:

"There are still padding files, but they are a relatively meager 420MB per region."

Originally Posted by DanMacMan

I think given its first to market, cost/quality, and overall sales advantages - HD DVD is here for the long haul. I hope, like many game developers have begun to do, that movie studios migrate to a dual release strategy. Its not only a smart business move, its good for consumers.

I completely agree, they should think of the consumer, however it's unlikely they'll do so when there's a war at hand. I imagine if HD-DVD gets into a leading position then Sony will have to re-think if and when it serves the HD-DVD userbase.