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[elmono311]

I put this in TV & Movies because it'll mostly apply to movies.

http://gear.ign.com/articles/572/572951p1.html

I used to be with HD-DVD only because Blu-Ray required the carriage. I had liked all the features of Blu-Ray but the carriage system soured it so much I was an HD-DVD supporter. Not anymore, since they chucked the carriage and it's now a simple disc.

[Supermercado]

I don't follow this stuff like you do, so I'll just agree with you for sake of ease. I didn't really expect them to go with the carriage idea if they didn't have to, anyway. Why make a product so different from your competitor's product? And why go back to clunky cartridge-type systems. Part of the appeal of disc media was to get away from big unwieldy cases.

[elmono311]

Yeah, Nintendo learned their mistake when they stuck with cartridges for the N64

[Supermercado]

Yeesh. Yeah they did. I still don't see how they could have done that. I guess it did prevent their games from being pirated like crazy like the Dreamcast and PSX games. But even now, they're on emulators. Kinda makes me wonder why the console makers are so gung-ho about copy protection on their games but many of those same companies make PC games and there doesn't seem to be anywhere near as much effort going into that. Maybe it's just because there's standard media in the PC world.

[elmono311]

Propriety media is okay for video game consoles as long as it's cheap for the developers

[Catfish]

I'm still a fan of good old fashioned discs (i.e. copy-ability [wtf is that?] of PS1 discs), though I can stand proprietary.  I'm already a blu-ray fan provided all the new generation drives support old discs (DVD-5 and DVD-9, both commercial and public), otherwise I'm gonna be violently opposed.

I like to be able to back up my media, any and all of it.  That includes me looking into ways to do Gamecube games (though from what I've heard, they're just mini-dvds written in a weird fashion, and there are all kinda neet toys out there and things to do like this:

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/61273

[LostArtofRolando]

heh, thats cool.  and Phantasy Star Online may be one of the funnest games ever.  i cant tell you how many hours me and my roomie have blown playing that co-op on his parents 50 inch tv.  funfun stuff, even back when it was on the Dreamcast.  ah well, those were the days.

[elmono311]

I also heard that Blu-Ray will be writeable right off the bat. There's going to be no separate media like DVDs and CDs had. It's just going to be one happy Blu-Ray family.

[Catfish]

Wow... something intelligently designed...

There's no way this idea can ever become a reality now.

[elmono311]

It's already a reality so you can stop dreaming :-)

[elmono311]

In a surprising and amazingly non-greedy move, Sony (developer of Blu-Ray) and Toshiba (developer of HD-DVD) have both agreed that a format war would be unfair to consumers. Sony and Toshiba are now teaming up to make one single format, using elements from both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

It's not often you hear of companies looking out for the consumer with something like this. We've had battles between VHS and Betamax and DivX and DVD recently. I would have thought they would have continued the trend with Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD.

[Supermercado]

Wow, that's sweet. I was hoping that they'd have some sort of merger. And a format war really would be unfair to consumers. I'd want movies on Blu-Ray and I'd want movies on HD-DVD and unless there's a player that can play both... meh. You mention VHS/Betamax and DivX/DVD as recent format wars. Both of those had clear-cut winners and I imagine that a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war would have had a similar result and from everything you've told me, Blu-Ray would win. All it would take it consumers to realize that Blu-Ray was far superior to HD-DVD (like what happened in the previous two generations with VHS and DVD) and refuse to buy things on HD-DVD. HD-DVD would eventually die off when all the movie studios that were making movies on HD-DVD realized that they weren't selling due to the inferior format and they'd start making them on Blu-Ray. Theoretically, anyway.

Any word on what features are going to be incorporated from Blu-Ray and what features are going to be incorporated from HD-DVD?

[elmono311]

They don't know yet. Sony wants Blu-Ray's disc structure on Toshiba's HD-DVD software technology while Toshiba wants the HD-DVD structure with Blu-Ray's multi-layer recording technology. (HD-DVD would use the same presses as DVD while Blu-Ray would require new assembly procedures to be made and built)

[jitspoe]

Both of those had clear-cut winners

Ehh... beta was the better format, but apparently that didn't make it a winner.

[LostArtofRolando]

Nope, willingness to license makes the winner. 

[elmono311]

Looks like Blu-Ray has already won the format war before either format has been officially released in the US. Warner Bros is officially backing Blu-Ray which leaves Universal as the only major movie studio to choose sides. Most likely, it will support Blu-Ray because everybody else is.

[Supermercado]

Ya, I'd say they'd have to get on board with Blu-Ray if everyone else is. They'd be stupid not to.

[elmono311]

More than two years later and HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are still slugging it out. However, HD-DVD is nosediving, according to the IMDb:

Almost Nobody's Buying HD DVD, Says Report
In yet another sign that the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray is nearly over, with Blu-ray emerging as the de facto hi-def standard, sales data, published by The Digital Bits website, indicated Wednesday that Blu-ray players accounted for 93 percent of the high-definition players sold for the week ending January 12. The week was the first following Warner Bros. announcement that it would no longer release films in the HD DVD format after April 30. High-Def Disc News also reported that during the same week movies released in the Blu-ray format accounted for 85 percent of high-definition sales.


I say thank goodness. Which is funny considering Sony, the makers of Blu-Ray, originally lost out in the VHS/Betamax war.

[elmono311]

IT'S OVER!!! IT'S ALL OVER!!! THE FORMAT WAR IS OVER!!!

LINK

Toshiba has announced it is stopping all production of HD DVD!!!

Viva la Blu-Ray!

Man, this has been a great couple of weeks in the entertainment industry. The writer's strike is over and HD DVD finally died.

[LostArtofRolando]

Makes me happy I bought a PS3 then...

[elmono311]

Toshiba did a good thing to not drag the war out any more than they could have.

[Supermercado]

Yeah, it's good to see a winner finally come out on top.