Blu-Ray officially wins the next-gen format war

[ravenguy2000]

Originally Posted by Bobbin TB

big surprise. anyone dumb enough to invest into hddvd deserves to be knocked upside the head with what is now their really expensive paperweight.

Except now I have an HD-DVD player that

a.) wasn't expensive, nevermind "really" expensive
b.) isn't a paperweight.
c.) makes my regular DVDs look great which is especially nice considering I needed a regular DVD player anyway and
d.) is about to see a shitload of HD-DVD fire sales in the next few coming months.

Yeah, I am really really kicking myself.

[T&T]

regardless of HD DVD vs BlueRay "battle"
isn't flash gonna win the war?

i thought you people were young and hip with the times...

[tcm]

i am feeling the passion and conviction in this thread and really getting energized about buying stuff and stuff.

[noyen]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

A bit off-topic, but I'd just like to add that it's going to be quite awhile before digital downloading takes the place of hard copies of things like movies and music as the dominant distribution format, unless the U.S. massively upgrades its broadband internet services and makes it cheap and widely available. Think about it. A standard DVD is 4.7 gb. How long does that take to download on a decent broadband connection? A couple hours at least. Now how long is it going to take to download a Blu-Ray movie, which comes in at around 30 gb? A lot longer than most people want to wait, that for sure, considering they could just drive to Best Buy and purchase the movie, take it home and start watching it immediately.

It ain't happening anytime soon.

it is happening soon. and now, even. fiber optic networks are rolling out all over in test markets. they are cheap to implement (i was just reading about the uk doing something with deploying it in sewer lines, covering some large area in just a few hours). its not happening overnight, and of course the big baby hueys will want rampant DRM of any content distributed this way, but it is a lot closer than you imply.

[Fattening Ass]

i didn't know people who play games on their Wii aren't gamers

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

That's short term thinking though. Yes, XBox has market share now, but can they sustain it without Blu-Ray or games that can take up 35 GB of data?

Well, for one, the PS3 games take up so much data because they aren't forced to use all the compression techniques that fit games onto DVD9. They aren't using their extra space to make games longer or better looking, they are using it as a tool to work around load times and other issues with the PS3. Also Blu-ray is much slower when it comes to reading data, hence the horrible load times on the Ps3. Actually, on many games, the Ps3 copies the same data multiple times throughout the blu-ray disc to help with the load times. Also, some games such as Devil May Cry 4 requires installs onto your harddrive simply to play the game. I believe that DMC4 took about 5 gigs of space and about 25 minutes to install. There are downsides to moving to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray in the case of using them for videogames. They haven't maxed out the possibilities of DVD9 yet and it seems that developers are overcoming any issues they run into with fitting games onto the 360's Dvd disks just fine, especially when you're seeing games such as Mass Effect, Bioshock and the tons of other impressive titles out on one disc still. I don't think that disc space will be of much a concern with this generation of consoles, especially considering how Microsoft has said they will put out a Blu-ray addon if the market demands it. I'm sure that if somewhere long down the line the market demanded the need for more disc space to keep up, they'll either implement a new compression technique, use the downloadable content option or just move on to a format via- the addon. They still have plenty of options if the PS3 ever does start to utilize the blu-ray to its advantage in gaming.

Regardless I think I'll end up with a PS3 whenever it comes time to buy a blu-ray player. There are a handful of games that I'm sure I'd really enjoy.

[Ol' Couch Ass]

hmm assuming CS's boyfriend posted that or else she is more tech savvy than I thought.

[Ugly]

Originally Posted by noyen

it is happening soon. and now, even. fiber optic networks are rolling out all over in test markets. they are cheap to implement (i was just reading about the uk doing something with deploying it in sewer lines, covering some large area in just a few hours). its not happening overnight, and of course the big baby hueys will want rampant DRM of any content distributed this way, but it is a lot closer than you imply.

Digital distribution will be a huge factor, but don't underestimate the packrat/collectors mentality. I like the physical copies and size of my DVD stack. As much as physical media is being replaced, there will always be a demand to actually have something tangible. Not much, but it'll be there.

[noyen]

Originally Posted by Ugly

Digital distribution will be a huge factor, but don't underestimate the packrat/collectors mentality. I like the physical copies and size of my DVD stack. As much as physical media is being replaced, there will always be a demand to actually have something tangible. Not much, but it'll be there.

i agree. thats why lp's have still survived, even outside the dj culture. there's nothing like a beautiful lp cover.

[noyen]

maybe they'll be able to tattoo facsimiles of cover art onto our skin, so we can wear our collections on our sleeves.

[Ugly]

Originally Posted by noyen

maybe they'll be able to tattoo facsimiles of cover art onto our skin, so we can wear our collections on our sleeves.

I'm not sure I'd be very proud to have my "Stan Lee, Mutants, Monsters and Marvels", "Ransom", and "Metal = Life" DVD purchases tatooed on my ass somewhere.