CrunchGear

Neither. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, physical media is all but dead; someone please tell the public. These stupid ‘wars’ only perpetuate fail for all companies involved.

I’ve been resisting the battle for a while, because, who wants to be stuck with a betamax player? Anyways, I finally got an HDTV for Christmas and an upconverting-DVD player, and it really looks great. I’ve rented a new movie each day this week, and couldn’t be happier. So Bluray/HDVD is a non-issue at the moment.

Neither, I am not paying more than the price of a dvd player when I can still view dvds at efficient costs…If you ask me, discs wont last, scratches cause much trouble, look for a hybrid to come in 5 years that has durability.

My wife suprised me with a 1080p 42″ HDTV for Christmas (what a Woman!). We then looked into getting a BluRay or HDDVD player, but decided just to get an upscaling DVD player. Looks decent and I don’t want to buy into this stuff until something is decided.

I own both. I just purchased a PS3 and I’ve had the XBOX 360 add on since it’s launch. With the downloadable HD movies on XBOX Live and most cable companies selling HD on demand, I think most will look towards downloads in the future, but to say that both formats are going to lose is insane. The market is owned by these companies and their backers and they will make sure that their product is the future. I agree that physical media may not be the long run winner, but it will be the next. DVD has only been around 10 years now, this war has been going on over 2 years for the HD throne. If you’re a electronic nut like me, buy both and don’t worry about it, but if you’re stuck inbetween, a $99 Toshiba HD-DVD player is well worth the year or two you’ll get out of it if HD-DVD loses the battle. Like Betamax, Blu-Ray’s quality is a little better, but not good enough to punch the price difference…….yet!

I own both - a Toshiba HD-A35 and a Panasonic BD30 (1.1 profile). Why? Because it pissed me off that some movies were available in one or the other format, but not both. Buying the two separate players was still cheaper than buying one combo player, and with better functionality than a combo too.

On my Pioneer Elite Kuro 60″ plasma, upconverting a plain old DVD at 525 lines of detail is ok enough quality but the difference between that and 1080p is big enough that you can easily tell the difference. Plus the uncompressed audio in TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio bitstreamed to my receiver. Oh yeah baby!

HD DVD - Because the price and the fact that there is zero region coding.

You can buy an hd dvd from japan, or europe and watch it anywhere :)

And a lot of fox movies are released on hd dvd in europe.

Blu-ray. I own a ps3 and and hdtv and love the picture. Its great

Toshiba HD-A2 + PS3 = Best of both HD worlds. Support both formats! If you have an HDTV larger than 40″ and a receiver that can decode linear PCM-bitstream, then you must invest in these formats to unlock the power and the majesty of the latest high definition video and audio formats.

I actually own both formats. Instead of waiting for the fight to die down I bought both formats on black friday. I got my HD-DVD player for $98 and I got a Blu-ray player for $139 and Netflix has both formats and so I have access to a ton of HD movies I couldn’t be happier.

Iroll20s

Where did you find a Blu-Ray player for $139?

Yeah.. I would go Blue Ray as well for 139.. Where or Where did you get that one?

Well I am a proud owner of a Toshiba HD-A3 model that I received from Best Buy instead of the A2 model that I originally ordered. So, I admit that I am biased towards HD-DVD. I have along with this an Oppo DVD Player that upscales the older DVD’s. Do I notice a difference between an HD-DVD version of a movie and the upscaled version.. Yes, is it enough to really worry about.. Probably not unless you really want the best that you can display.. and will accept only the best.. If you are like me, and just want your movies to look good.. Get a Great Upscale DVD player. Otherwise, if you can find a deal for the HD-DVD players at 99 again.. well.. take the plunge, you will enjoy the difference, and it is a faily decent dvd upscaler as well.

I opted for the PS3 over the XBOX360, so I’m going Blu-Ray for now. Seriously considering buying an HD-DVD player though, simply because some movies aren’t available in Blu-Ray.

Did the PS3

At a music/DVD store today the ratio of BR to HD-DVD titles was about 3:2.
At an electronics store today a sales person told me that they sold a lot of BR and virtually no HD-DVD over the holidays despite the higher price of the BR players.
BR holds more data and has the most room for growth. It, to me, is the standard.
So, today I bought a 42″ plasma 1080p and a BR player. (Based on reviews I didn’t go for the LG BR/HD-DVD player).
I’m sure in the by and by there will be an ace of a machine that plays both.
And if not, I’ll add an HD player to feed the 2nd HDMI input on the TV.

people give it rest already..

buy both! Too many exclusives on both formats that are must haves.

Blu Ray - PS3…Does piss me off when exclusives like Transformers are HD DVD only.

We already know $100 HD DVD sells very well.

HD DVD China launches in March.

A tidal wave of $100 HD DVD players is coming.

Game over.

Everyone in the industry now knows it, which is why CES 2008 is going to be so good for HD DVD.

i brought the toshiba hd e1 for £130 last month.
i could not bring myself to shell out £300 or more on a blu ray
ive also heard of the issues with blu ray older specs not being able to play newer movies!
im happy with the toshiba.at first it stutterd on the opening credits for about 5 seconds but after linking it up to ethernet it downloaded the newer firmware and have had no problems at all.
there is also talk about the usb ports on the front maybe used for streaming hd contents from a hard drive or memory card!

Demise of physical media for ideo will not occur until ‘everyone’ has high speed internet. Before that happens we will have a massive slow-down in communication speeds as the universal high speed overloads the backbone of the internet. Think of traffic in large cities. People only go into traffic jams because they have no alternative.

As long as I can get reasonable value for time and money out of solid media, I will continue to support this. If you only want to watch something once streaming makes as much sense as having cable tv. If you want to have and rewatch films DVDs make the most sense.

I won’t address the High-Def war because it’s silly. I have a decent 60″ 1080i tv which does it’s own upscaling for regular DVDs. I don’t see see any improvement with an upscaling DVD player and darned little difference from BluRay video from my new PS3.

My library has nearly 2000 movies. It takes a lot of physical space, but less than VHS used to. I guess it might be possible to convert that library to digital, but I’d need 2 terrabyes and that’s only if I continue to ignore high-def. Then throw in portability questions and the need to carry movies with me, and conversion time, transfer time, etc.

DVD, in whatever encarnation, is still the most practical.

In 1995, with a dial-up modem, transfering midi files was a chore. As modems sped up it was mp3s that took time to transfer. With high speed internet it’s movies that are the bottleneck. Those who live in the largest cities will remain on the leading edge of innovation. Most of America does not live there and it will be years before streaming is practical for the masses, at least at DVD screen size and quality. As I type, my wife is watching a video from Hulu.com

You make a valid argument; however, don’t be so short sighted to think that the internet is the only means of delivery for non physical media. PPV over my Directv has nothing to do with an internet connection, nor does OnDemand with my buddy’s cableco. While these methods may use similar ideas and/or infrastructure, they are dedicated to the task at hand regardless of traffic. Adding said “purchased items” to a virtual library for free future access is not only plausible, it’s happening. I’m looking forward to “movie night” when new releases are accessible from my box the day they are released.

I own a PS3. I would not buy a stand alone HD DVD nor Blu-Ray player as I’m not sure which way consumers will go. I think Sony was smart to include a Blu-Ray drive in their next-gen game console. I do enjoy renting movies in High Definition, makes me feel all elitist and ahead of my time. Yes, pretty lame.

Blu-ray!

Got em both - xbox 360 w HD DVD add-on running on a 720p plasma and just got the PS3 for my new 1080p LCD for the bedroom. Like many other dual format owners, I have to say that they’re both great. Blu -Ray might have a slight edge on the 1080p tv but alot of HD DVD movies are actually in 1080p too. Both also do a great job of upscaling regular DVD’s so this helps offset the risk of buying one or the other and having it become functionless. If you get either of the game systems, they really have a lot of other functionalities as well as a media hub - you can stream your pix/movies/music from PC to your tv throught them. In the long run they’re probably both losers anyway since I can already store HD Movies on my Zune as a non-physical file. Just like CD’s are going the way of the dinosaur. All of your media will stored in the ether…

People are still viewing and storing VHS and DVD media. They simply don’t have the space to store more discs. Digital downloads of some type (AppleTV, TIVO, DVR or something yet to be announced) will eventually be the new format.

I took the plunge with the $98 HD DVD player and love it! Blu Ray seems to get more press but I really think price will help HD DVD the way it did for VHS in the 1980’s. Also, HD DVD does not have the “profile 1.–” BS to worry about - discs just play plain and simple.

I acquired both a Blu-ray player and an HD-DVD player for my family. We own 25 Blu-ray format disks and 3 HD-DVD format disks. Any difference in quality is not noticeable on our 1366 x 768 LCD TV. (We selected an 32″ LCD that would fit in an existing cabinet.) The critical thing is to be certain to have enough HDMI ports on the TV - at least 3 for best flexibility. Five years from now I hope both of these are in the basement collecting dust and we are using playing movies from files on a hard drive based player.