lets revisit the funny comments HD DVD fansboys posted when their format died.

[JimKiler]

Remember the HD DVD versus BluRay format war? When Warner Brothers decided to only ship Blurays it meant the death of HD DVD and going to the AVS Forum I remember reading a lot of negativity from HD DVD fanboys for BluRay and they had some incorrect beliefs. Mainly about how BluRay was going to keep prices over inflated and we are all over paying. Seeing how that was not the case lets read some of these ridiculous comments posted on this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=994517

post #56

Sony sank ton of money in engineering defections of studios and the studios obliged in hope of ripping the consumer with inflated prices. I am not sure in the end if the cost of this manufactured win is worth at all. Consumer the real looser in all of this not Toshiba. All the folks that are jumping up and down over this will realize when the prices of the media and the players refuse to com down. This format will pretty soon bite the dust and vanish into thin air giving way to the downloads/streaming, PPV, VOD etc.

post #139

Other - Shady backroom deals from the BDA, all of which eventually snowballed against HD DVD.... There's no way Sony et al was going to win this format war legitimately. They bet the farm and couldn't lose this one. Hopefully they won't get off scott-free in all of this and their shenanigans will be exposed over the coming months and years.

Funny since it came out that Toshiba owed money to Paramount & Universal to be exclusively HD DVD.

this one is funny:
post #205

HD-DVD players are cheap and work. Blu-Ray players are expensive and don't work. It would therefore be in the public's interest to support HD-DVD, not Blu-Ray.

Here is a doozy
post #707

On the contrary, those "idiots" were tricked into picking the winning format, while the "geniuses" are sitting at home with the losing format because they were tricked into picking the wrong format. Who is the real idiot?

 

[JimKiler]

Another good one:

post #605

I believe HDTV elitism killed HD-DVD. people with thousands of dollars who can afford to, or were seduced to pay, upgraded their A/V system to HD were then looking to make the best investment in a player, so they chose BluRay out of the belief or propaganda of it's technical superiority, capacity, and future use potential, not the cheaper more practical and adequate HD-DVD format. Because of their predecessors ability to spend whatever it took on a dream Digital A/V system, the upcoming wave of people saving up to upgrade their Analog A/V systems to HDTV, will now have to spend several hundred dollars more due to the technical elitists they must follow. what made matters worse, is the PC crowd were not a force in this market decision, since they were mostly content with the regular DVD storage capacity for backup and software distribution, so the only people who could sway opinion were those few able to afford $500 gaming systems, and $2,000 televisions - and thanks to them, we will all pay a lot more down the road on $400 players and $40 movies, which should be costing us less than half. no need to agree with the, I simply wanted to put the opinion out there for consideration.

 

[lamedude]

While prices didn't go up the sales ended. During the war you got 5 free movies for buying a player and there was rarely a moment Amazon didn't have a BOGO running.

 

[JimKiler]

While prices didn't go up the sales ended. During the war you got 5 free movies for buying a player and there was rarely a moment Amazon didn't have a BOGO running.

true but remember how expensive VHS players were and remember it took just 3 years for DVD players to get under $200. Then BD came out and within 3 years you could get a player for less than $200. Economies of scale and new technology allows prices to drop quicker with each successive format. That is not always true for it has been for the home movie market so far.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Who cares about any of this? (For what it's worth, I have the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, and am on my second blu ray player, an Oppo BDP-93.)

 

[JimKiler]

Who cares about any of this? (For what it's worth, I have the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, and am on my second blu ray player, an Oppo BDP-93.)

Apparantly I am bored. Or I am regretting the indirect advice like given in post #579 and bought a lot of Sony stock since it was obvious that Sony was going to have higher profit margins since 2008.

All the BR fans can come out now and cheer as the prices go back up, The quality slides further into an abyss, and the cost of the disks go up or remain high. Great news for all and reason to celebrate. With HD DVD players selling for less than 200 bucks who really cares. If as a consumer you are happy with this news you should reevaluate as you will ultimately pay more than the cost of a HD DVD player in the end.

 

[gevorg]

meh, years of physical media is numbered

 

[Lotheron]

meh, years of physical media is numbered

While true, I really hope not. This will just give content providers ultimate control over 100% of how they're content is consumed, not necessarily how the customers might want to do it.

 

[mmntech]

While true, I really hope not. This will just give content providers ultimate control over 100% of how they're content is consumed, not necessarily how the customers might want to do it.

I think it will exist as a niche product. I actually do like streaming, if it's an unlimited service like Netflix that can be viewed on any screen anywhere. Once they start tying stuff to individual devices through DRM, that's where I tune out.

 

[JackBurton]

So you are happy that the crappier format won? Is that the point you are trying to make? Since the end of the HD format war, BD isn't even at the point where HD-DVD left off. HD-DVD's compatibility was fantastic and the network feature was great. In comparison, BD Live! is worthless and we still have compatibility issues with new titles due to studios' insistence on using pointless DRM which only causes aggravation for the consumer.


So YEAH BD won! Aren't we lucky. 🙄


And as an FYI, I have an XBox 360 HD-DVD player, HD-A3 and an HD-A35 HD-DVD player. I also have 2 PS3's, one Pioneer Elite 23FD BD player and a Pioneer Elite 09FD BD player (main BD player).

 

[Drako]

So YEAH BD won! Aren't we lucky. 🙄

This.

OP must have Sony stock or something :biggrin:

edit: Oh, he did have Sony stock 🙂

 

[SithSolo1]

I still have a toshiba HD-DVD player with about 10 discs. Still plenty good for Planet Earth viewing(though I have it on Blu-ray now too).

 

[iRONic]

Apparantly I am bored.

Apparently indeed...

 

[JimKiler]

This.

OP must have Sony stock or something :biggrin:

edit: Oh, he did have Sony stock 🙂

I was be facetious in that per that post Sony was going to gouge people therefore buying the stock back in 2008 would have been a smart move. Except prices went down since the format war was over.

So you are happy that the crappier format won? Is that the point you are trying to make? Since the end of the HD format war, BD isn't even at the point where HD-DVD left off. HD-DVD's compatibility was fantastic and the network feature was great. In comparison, BD Live! is worthless and we still have compatibility issues with new titles due to studios' insistence on using pointless DRM which only causes aggravation for the consumer.


So YEAH BD won! Aren't we lucky. 🙄


And as an FYI, I have an XBox 360 HD-DVD player, HD-A3 and an HD-A35 HD-DVD player. I also have 2 PS3's, one Pioneer Elite 23FD BD player and a Pioneer Elite 09FD BD player (main BD player).

The differences were trivial except that BD had more capacity (yes I know HD-DVD was talking about adding another layer. I am not aware of any outstanding features that BD is missing, please explain what networking is for HD DVD.

You are wrong the crappier format did not win, I want movies and could care less about other features. High bit rates for audio and video is what I want and BD beat HD DVD in that department.

I think it will exist as a niche product. I actually do like streaming, if it's an unlimited service like Netflix that can be viewed on any screen anywhere. Once they start tying stuff to individual devices through DRM, that's where I tune out.

Although if it continues like it is Amazon and the other streaming services are letting you bring content to any device you own and I don't think the cork can be put back on that bottle if content creators want to get money from the newest generations which are mobile and want it their way or they will spend money on something else.

 

[JackBurton]

The differences were trivial except that BD had more capacity (yes I know HD-DVD was talking about adding another layer. I am not aware of any outstanding features that BD is missing, please explain what networking is for HD DVD.

With HD-DVD the network function allowed you to update your firmware from day 1. BD players were late to the game, and that function was only available on profile 2.0 and later players. Early adopters got the shaft (excluding PS3 owners). HD-DVD's network function also provided seamless web enabled content for movies. Notice the key word, "seamless." A good example is "Blood Diamond." BD Live! in comparison is awful. I don't even use it because studios thought it was a GREAT idea for movie watchers to create separate ID's pretty much for every studio in order to access BD Live! content. And if you did go through the trouble of creating an ID, you quickly found out that you wasted your time because there was nothing there worth watching anyway. Just plain stupid. I just disable the network port on my BD players now, because the ONLY thing BD Live! is good for is extending the time it take for my movies to start playing.

You are wrong the crappier format did not win, I want movies and could care less about other features. High bit rates for audio and video is what I want and BD beat HD DVD in that department.

Oh you think so? Then explain why the version of "Pan's Labyrinth" on HD-DVD has a much high video and audio quality than the BD version? The HD-DVD version has a higher bit rate for video and a TrueHD lossless audio track. You want another example? Try "The Big Lebowski" on BD. Absolute botched job compared to the HD-DVD version. And I don't know how they even screwed that up. The studios already had the transfer. They just needed to put it on a BD disc.

Maybe you get higher quality video from BD since is has a 50GB capacity compared to HD-DVD's 30GB capacity (dual layer). Nope, you get "Triple Packs!" Yes, 3 movie crammed into one disc. Fantastic!!! Just what I wanted. 🙄

 

[scootermaster]

I'm pretty sure time will show that the best format is DIVX DVDs.

 

[JackBurton]

I'm pretty sure time will show that the best format is DIVX DVDs.

Well that is obvious. 🙂

 

[JimKiler]

With HD-DVD the network function allowed you to update your firmware from day 1. BD players were late to the game, and that function was only available on profile 2.0 and later players. Early adopters got the shaft (excluding PS3 owners). HD-DVD's network function also provided seamless web enabled content for movies. Notice the key word, "seamless." A good example is "Blood Diamond." BD Live! in comparison is awful. I don't even use it because studios thought it was a GREAT idea for movie watchers to create separate ID's pretty much for every studio in order to access BD Live! content. And if you did go through the trouble of creating an ID, you quickly found out that you wasted your time because there was nothing there worth watching anyway. Just plain stupid. I just disable the network port on my BD players now, because the ONLY thing BD Live! is good for is extending the time it take for my movies to start playing.

Very true, when I wasted a lot of money buying LaserDiscs the extras were worth watching, but since DVD extras is a marketing must have no matter how boring and dull they are.

I also totally agree with you that BD live is good at slowing down the load time for discs.

In fact I hate the whole menu system of movies on BD and DVD. Go back to CD and Laserdisc were it starts without a menu and allow us to go into the menu if we want.

Oh you think so? Then explain why the version of "Pan's Labyrinth" on HD-DVD has a much high video and audio quality than the BD version? The HD-DVD version has a higher bit rate for video and a TrueHD lossless audio track. You want another example? Try "The Big Lebowski" on BD. Absolute botched job compared to the HD-DVD version. And I don't know how they even screwed that up. The studios already had the transfer. They just needed to put it on a BD disc.

Maybe you get higher quality video from BD since is has a 50GB capacity compared to HD-DVD's 30GB capacity (dual layer). Nope, you get "Triple Packs!" Yes, 3 movie crammed into one disc. Fantastic!!! Just what I wanted. 🙄

I thought we were discussing the format not bad examples. I can give you two examples. James Cameron upped the bit rate on Avatar's BD to fill the whole BD50 disc and if I remember correctly without any extras to keep the fidelity high. Also Transformers could only fit Dobly Digital + on the HD DVD version but had Dobly True HD for the BD. Unfortunately for us nothing is stopping studios from releasing crappy versions of movies and calling it High Def.

 

[Railgun]

Until light weight, inexpensive, standardized media reaches 500GB at a minimum, all movies from a video quality perspective will suffer. While it may be HD, it's still compressed to hell. Either way, withouy becoming a fanboy of one format over the other, they both still don't cut the mustard.

And I would have to guess that no one, or the vast majority here cannot hear the difference between DD+ and DT HD.

 

[JimKiler]

Until light weight, inexpensive, standardized media reaches 500GB at a minimum, all movies from a video quality perspective will suffer. While it may be HD, it's still compressed to hell. Either way, withouy becoming a fanboy of one format over the other, they both still don't cut the mustard.

And I would have to guess that no one, or the vast majority here cannot hear the difference between DD+ and DT HD.

Are you saying even with good authoring Blu-Rays are terrible quality?

Also you should expand your statement because most people cannot hear a difference between Dobly 384kps from a DVD and the Dobly True HD or DTS Master Audio. I question if I could notice a difference other than at normal volumes (not loud volumes) it is harder to hear dialoge on the HD audi formats.

 

[Railgun]

Are you saying even with good authoring Blu-Rays are terrible quality?

Also you should expand your statement because most people cannot hear a difference between Dobly 384kps from a DVD and the Dobly True HD or DTS Master Audio. I question if I could notice a difference other than at normal volumes (not loud volumes) it is harder to hear dialoge on the HD audi formats.

Terrible? No. Acceptable as there isn't anything better. I'm not a fan of gradient color banding. True, displays play a part, but compression as well. I don't like any lossy compression of any sort. Yes, to most there's a point of diminishing returns, but we're not even close to there yet. 4K will make that very apparent.

As for audio, very true. Though for some material, I like to think my hearing is still sensitive enough to hear differences between 384kbps and 1.5Mbps. At least with audio tracks. I'll concede to a certain extent movies.

 

[lamedude]

Then explain why the version of "Pan's Labyrinth" on HD-DVD has a much high video and audio quality than the BD version? The HD-DVD version has a higher bit rate for video and a TrueHD lossless audio track. You want another example?

The UK HDDVD had better video quality but the US BD/HD DVD had better audio quality (7.1 DTS MA) unless you hate remixes.
NewLine DNR'd it like all their catalog HD releases before Warner took over so the better video is because HD DVD had less I hate grain people working on them not because of bitrate.
US BD is 47GBs,UK BDs are 40GBs and 36GBs. I couldn't find a scan of the HD DVD but I know the audio for the US release is the same and assume the extra's are too so that would mean the video bitrate would have to be lower (but given the damage already done it probably didn't look much worse).

Try "The Big Lebowski" on BD. Absolute botched job compared to the HD-DVD version. And I don't know how they even screwed that up. The studios already had the transfer. They just needed to put it on a BD disc.

Universal botches most of their BD catalog releases. I guess they hired a grain is bad and bright colors are good guy when they switched over to BD because they were fine on HD-DVD. Makes me wish I had jumped on the HD DVD bandwagon because it could a long time if ever before these movies get done right on BD.

 

[Anarchist420]

meh, years of physical media is numbered

This.

It's not like BD movies look all that great, as the video is lossy. I can't wait until the day when I can just digitally download the stuff in the quality I want. Mastering quality is important as is display quality, but the artifacts from lossy compression bug me. I'd be willing to sacrifice quite a bit of resolution to not have compression artifacts.

 

[sdifox]

This.

It's not like BD movies look all that great, as the video is lossy. I can't wait until the day when I can just digitally download the stuff in the quality I want. Mastering quality is important as is display quality, but the artifacts from lossy compression bug me. I'd be willing to sacrifice quite a bit of resolution to not have compression artifacts.

ah yes... the isps will surely love that.

 

[JackBurton]

I thought we were discussing the format not bad examples. I can give you two examples. James Cameron upped the bit rate on Avatar's BD to fill the whole BD50 disc and if I remember correctly without any extras to keep the fidelity high. Also Transformers could only fit Dobly Digital + on the HD DVD version but had Dobly True HD for the BD. Unfortunately for us nothing is stopping studios from releasing crappy versions of movies and calling it High Def.

I thought we were talking about the actual end product, not a theoretical end product. In theory BD sounds great, however in reality it is a HUGE mess. Yes, BD has a larger capacity than HD-DVD (50GB vs 30GB), however HD-DVD was on the verge of releasing a triple layer disc (45GB) which would have pretty much put it on par with BD. Avatar, Transforms, and Lord of the Rings are a few examples of studios using BD to its full potential, but more often than not BD movies are ~25GB in size. In the end though, that advantage would have been nullified with Toshiba's 45GB HD-DVD disc.

And since you brought up Avatar, that is another great example of BD not having its act together. On its release date just about every BD player had to be updated for the movie to even play. Why the hell this late in the game are we doing firmware updates for movie compatibility? I can understand if they are adding features like 3D BD. But to play a movie? Seriously? It's just another example of BD not having a solid standard. Toshiba on the other hand had their act together from the get go. Yes BD had a larger disc capacity in the beginning, but they were also using MPEG2 vs VC-1 which took up more space with less quality. Toshiba did more with less with their VC-1 codec. And most importantly, the movies just played.

In the end, HD-DVD had a much more solid HD format. BD won just because of its stronger copy protection schemes, that's it. And that is not a win for the consumer, it is a win for the studios.