Blu-ray Disc not Blu-ray DVD

MikeHoncho

Sigh. If there is ever an award for most pointless thread of the year this one will surely be a contender. Or if their is an award for poster who most likes to stroke his own ego around boards KTRIC will surely be a nominee.

Paulw

justbringit89 wrote:

oh yeah who sells the blu-ray dvds anyways

Play.com have Blu-Ray discs on sale. Xtravision rent Blu-Ray discs.

They're out there.

Ste05

KTRIC wrote:

It's going to be hard to get them to admit they wasted €630 on a console.

Would you not think that the inclusion of Blu-Ray makes the PS3 more than just a console, if I decide to buy one, I'll be buying it as an entertainment center and not just as a console.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I hear that the PS3 Blu-Ray player is one of the best available at the moment, how much would it cost to buy a stand alone Blu Ray player?

Also am I correct in thinking that to upgrade the 360 to play HD-DVD you need to spend an additional ~€200 for an external player. Does that not make the price of a PS3 and 360 almost comparable, if they are going to be used for more than just gaming??

Ciaran500

Ste05 wrote:

Would you not think that the inclusion of Blu-Ray makes the PS3 more than just a console, if I decide to buy one, I'll be buying it as an entertainment center and not just as a console.

Thats the problem, alot of us want a console and not have to pay a premium just to help Sony get their format off the ground.

Ste05 wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I hear that the PS3 Blu-Ray player is one of the best available at the moment, how much would it cost to buy a stand alone Blu Ray player?

They should be similar price to a PS3.

Ste05 wrote:

Also am I correct in thinking that to upgrade the 360 to play HD-DVD you need to spend an additional ~€200 for an external player. Does that not make the price of a PS3 and 360 almost comparable, if they are going to be used for more than just gaming??

With the deals going around you should b able to get a premium 360+2 controllers+3 games+HD-DVD drive for about the same as a PS3.

KTRIC

MikeHoncho wrote:

Sigh. If there is ever an award for most pointless thread of the year this one will surely be a contender. Or if their is an award for poster who most likes to stroke his own ego around boards KTRIC will surely be a nominee.

How very mature of you. Attack the post not the poster.

LookingFor

Ciaran500 wrote:

They should be similar price to a PS3.

You can get a Samsung for around the same price, but it's an inferior player, and of course, you don't get a next-gen games machine with it It seems to me that PS3 is excellent value if you intend to watch Blu-ray movies on it, that's one of the reasons I was happy to pay the price for it and not simply wait for a price cut. Players of a similar quality are indeed a lot more expensive.

Ciaran500 wrote:

With the deals going around you should b able to get a premium 360+2 controllers+3 games+HD-DVD drive for about the same as a PS3.

It's a shame they don't make a Blu-ray drive available as an add-on.

Going OT, who's running the deal for 360+controllers+3games? I assume that's about €400-€450, then, since the add-on is €200. I'm looking for a decent deal, but torn as to whether to wait for an Elite now.

Ciaran500

LookingFor wrote:

Going OT, who's running the deal for 360+controllers+3games? I assume that's about €400-€450, then, since the add-on is €200. I'm looking for a decent deal, but torn as to whether to wait for an Elite now.

TBH I don't keep up to date on the deals, but there were loads of deals like that going on after Christmas and I still see posters up about 360 deals so they should be around.

Ste05

LookingFor wrote:

You can get a Samsung for around the same price, but it's an inferior player, and of course, you don't get a next-gen games machine with it It seems to me that PS3 is excellent value if you intend to watch Blu-ray movies on it, that's one of the reasons I was happy to pay the price for it and not simply wait for a price cut. Players of a similar quality are indeed a lot more expensive.

That's basically my thinking as well, I also think I'd be a bit mad to buy a 360 now, seeing as they're bringing out the 360 Elite soon (April/May??), and when you add in the HD-DVD player too it'll probably come out as roughly the same price. And also going by the Insomniac post and his stats from amazon.com about Blu-Ray v HD-DVD sales, it looks like Blu-Ray is currently winning the Format war, and as the PS3 takes off it should really move farther ahead and the retailers should look to end the war sooner rather than later.

So from my perspective it looks like the PS3 is the way to go at the minute,

McDermotX

On the whole Elite thing........I was definitely interested until I found out the exact same components were being integrated into it as before (with possibly the newer DVD drive)..
I was hoping for a marked effort from MS to reduce the noise level (the newer DVD drive just isn't enough)........maybe on release, the US can "guinea pig" it to see if there is a marked improvement before warranting upgrade..

About the whole Blu-ray/HD-DVD thing Ste05 mentioned, there is too much to go into here...........spend some time on AV Forums and AVS Forum to see the state of things..
But, I will say that the format war is far from won. I wouldn't be quite as confident as some people in declaring BD the winner (doesn't really bother me as I love and support both formats). At this stage the penetration/awareness is so small that even one film release can twist sales figures (ala Casino Royale), however, there is a 3 (maybe 4) to 1 sales ratio in favour of BD in both online and bricks and mortar sales. This is despite relatively miniscule sales of dedicated BD players compared to dedicated HD-DVD players.
This is all due to the PS3 influence on the market, which is why Sony place so much faith in their decision to include it in the PS3..
However, there is an established HD-DVD presence out there in the US, and, after a dull period, some nice flicks coming out such as the Matrix Trilogy (delayed on BD due to IME issues). There is also the possibility that HD-DVD may reach the sub $300 entrance price for players sooner than BD due to the actions of certain Chinese manufacturers. That could be a massive decider in this "war"..

Studio support is hit and miss across both formats with the majority supporting Blu-ray, but the market is so small at the minute that loyalties could change on both sides over the next year.
Assuming both don't become niche products, Blu-ray probably has the better chance of success.................quality-wise they are both identical more or less these days, but that may not be enough for both to survive..

From the console standpoint, I will say the PS3 is a far better BD player than the 360 (with add-on) is a HD-DVD player. The PS3 is comparable with nearly all the dedicated players out there both in picture, sound and functionality, whereas the 360 HD-DVD suffers badly in the sound department (not just talking about the the 360 noise), due to the hardware limitations on the current setup (no HDMI). That may change with the Elite's HDMI, but there is no clarification of that yet..
Either way, you'll get a great games machine for roughly the same price..

LookingFor

McDermotX wrote:

At this stage the penetration/awareness is so small that even one film release can twist sales figures (ala Casino Royale), however, there is a 3 (maybe 4) to 1 sales ratio in favour of BD in both online and bricks and mortar sales.

It's not a single blockbuster release that's skewing sales in favour of Blu-ray. If you compare the same title on both formats, the blu-ray version is outselling the HD-DVD.

I had to laugh at Universal's 'explanation' for the great Blu-ray sales - that it was simply because Blu-ray was getting more new releases. Hmm..awesome advertisement for HD-DVD! That might have made sense in some statistician's head, but from a PR perspective, that's the opposite of the message you want to be sending out.

McDermotX wrote:

However, there is an established HD-DVD presence out there in the US

It's such a small presence in absolute terms, and in relative terms it's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as Blu-ray adoption ramps up. It'll be a tiny slice of the HD movie market at this rate.

McDermotX wrote:

Studio support is hit and miss across both formats with the majority supporting Blu-ray, but the market is so small at the minute that loyalties could change on both sides over the next year.

It's definitely more hit on the Blu-ray side. The only major studio not supporting Blu-ray is Universal. Even if the several studios supporting Blu-ray exclusively decided to also support HD-DVD, and if Universal decided to also support Blu-ray, Sony itself will never support HD-DVD - so Blu-ray would always have more major studios backing it. The content case is one it cannot lose.

The likes of Fox and Disney, lately, have been sounding more like Sony in their affirmation of Blu-ray and their declarations of victory. If anything I would say it is now less likely than ever that they'll take up HD-DVD support.

Ciaran500

McDermotX wrote:

On the whole Elite thing........I was definitely interested until I found out the exact same components were being integrated into it as before (with possibly the newer DVD drive)..
I was hoping for a marked effort from MS to reduce the noise level (the newer DVD drive just isn't enough)........maybe on release, the US can "guinea pig" it to see if there is a marked improvement before warranting upgrade..

Its the DVD that make nearly all of the noise, when just sitting in the dash/playing demo's its just a low hum. At least thats how mine is.

With the HDMI port and the new HANA scaler that needs to be integrated onto the motherboard there will have to be a new revision of the 360 boards, if they have any sense at all they will fix the troubles with the original design.

LookingFor wrote:

It's such a small presence in absolute terms, and in relative terms it's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as Blu-ray adoption ramps up. It'll be a tiny slice of the HD movie market at this rate.

http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/history.aspx - set it to 45days

That small presence is buying quiet a titles.

McDermotX

You see the problem is the PS3 (in a funny way!!)
Not all people who buy a PS3 are going to buy Blu-ray films, but it accounts for over 95% of the players on the market.........its a strange situation..
By this reckoning the sales should be much more than 3 or 4 to 1..........that is Toshiba's argument anyway..
I don't think the staunchest HD-DVD supporter expected the PS3 to have this effect on sales (especially as it didn't become noticable until after Christmas in the US). Some put it down to lack of games on the PS3, so off the people went to buy one or 2 movies........some put it down to buy one get one free offers in Best Buy, thus inflating the figures..

The problem with this argument is that games playing and movie fans are not mutually exclusive to each other, people who play games by movies. The PS3 with its Blu-ray offers an exceptional value-for-money way into the market.......despite reports of loads of PS3s on shelves in the US, the 20gb models are harder to find than Wiis.......all the Blu-ray fans buy them up.
Sony are phasing it out eventually with some shops already stating they don't sell them.
It paves the way for Sony's mid-range player in the summer or just after, which will compete for the masses alongwith Tosh's lower end systems..

Whoever can get the cheapest, affordable to the masses player in the market at the right time stands a good chance of survival...

The studio support is key, but the market is still to small for studios to make their do or die decisions, hence the early rumours of Universal's change of heart. Any Blu-ray/HD-DVD sales still account for a small fraction of their turnover, so people who tell you the likes of Fox/MGM (Blu-ray) etc are ignoring a market to their own detriment don't realise they are looking at the big picture. A film release such as Casino Royale with its 100,000 shipment is more than capable of turning over figures to beat the band, but as LookingFor says, other titles such as The Departed show a balance towards BD at the moment.
In theory, if Universal brought out Jurassic Park, Jaws etc tomorrow, the figures may swing the other way (especially on Amazon)..

Its an interesting situation, as studios are reluctant to bring their big guns to the market right now due to the small user base..............yet the line-up (especially for Blu-ray) is much stronger than DVD was at this stage of its life..

The war is a funny one.............first Blu-ray couldn't lose, then after HD-DVD launched cheaper and BD quality sucked it looked as if HD-DVD had a big chance...............then the PS3 came to the rescue so to speak and content arrived (in number and quality) and it looks more and more likely BD will win..
The only way to cover yourself is to go for both if you want to be an early adoptor and love your home cinema....they both offer extremely good quality............but if you had to choose one, with a gun to my head, perhaps Blu-ray..

McDermotX

Ciaran500 wrote:

Its the DVD that make nearly all of the noise, when just sitting in the dash/playing demo's its just a low hum. At least thats how mine is.

With the HDMI port and the new HANA scaler that needs to be integrated onto the motherboard there will have to be a new revision of the 360 boards, if they have any sense at all they will fix the troubles with the original design.


http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/history.aspx - set it to 45days

That small presence is buying quiet a titles.

I do understand that Ciaran, that some people consider their 360 noise acceptable and that some machines after launch maybe quieter than others, but its a very subjective thing.
I love my 360, but the noise from the machine (even without the DVD, or quieter HD-DVD drive) can be extremely distracting when playing games at low volume or sticking on a HD-DVD..

The bigger concern for me about the 360 playing HD-DVDs is the sound problem. Anyone who uses the 360 as a main HD-DVD player is missing out on so much.............the AQ is rubbish compared to a standalone, and I mean that..
PQ is pretty good over component or VGA on the right display (comparable to first-gen Tosh players), but you are listening to a dismally muted downmix of the original soundtrack..
Optical just cannot cut it with HD sound, even if MS get around to enabling DTS downmix as opposed to DD 640 it would be an improvement, but still not enough that some of these soundtracks deserve (TrueHD etc)..

The optical from the PS3 is pretty decent in comparison, but even then you need a HDMI amp to fully appreciate the lossless PCM tracks a lot of BD films provide..