Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

[Feba]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

*stabs paipai*


Anyway, I don't really see the point of HDTVs so much... I'd rather have a good computer monitor and use that for HD, only benefit I can think of for HDTVs is if you want to make a home theatre.

[tdh]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

I think I'm one of the very few who said anything substantial about HD-DVD's advantage, and it was only regarding how it should cheaper to manufacture since its material and form is nearly identical to DVD.

Not a fanboy, sorry. Just an amused spectator who's wondering why the cheaper-to-make format is losing. (I ain't buying either until the dust settles. lol.)
There's nothing to be confuse about; the principle is "chase the money" and see where the story leads.

* * *

BTW, when I mentioned "costs", I don't mean the retail prices. I mean the manufacturing cost. I mean the cost in time to produce a batch of the little discs. That means the cost of buying a "press" machine, how many discs it can churn out a day, the failure rate, the QA time/cost to sort out the failed discs, and the material costs (esp. creating that special coating to protect the data layer which is 0.1 mm from the surface). One thing I'd love to get my hands on would be the licensing prices.

Those kinds of costs interest me. The price labels Target sticks on its stock of BD titles vs. its stock of HD DVD titles actually aren't all that important to me. The store sooner or later will just charge whatever price they think will make them the most money, taking into account of incentives (if they exist) either camp gives to the store.

I didn't realize that it was you who made the comments, but it sounds like my initial question came up due to your comment. But nobody's still been able to respond to my question.

From the posts I've seen from you here, I don't think I would label you as a fanboy, but the posts I read didn't provide any evidence why HD-DVD would be better than BD or how this would be a potential mistake for Target. Now I've never been one of those people who insists that he can tell the difference between this TV and that, or the audio from this to that, so I was curious what the pros and cons were.

The only thing I know about the two formats is that BD can store more data. My crappy TV that's like 10 years old is good enough for me currently, as are my current DVD collection. But if a format can hold 4 of my current DVD on one disc, that appeals to me. (I'm an Extras junky.) I kind of just assumed everybody was for BD except the HD-DVD backers.

At the current price point of CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs and BDs, cost just isn't a factor to most people. The people who are buying movies and music in droves aren't worried about how much they cost, so that argument - though valid - doesn't really hold a lot of weight. Especially when you think back not to long ago when DVD players were expensive, now you can buy a DVD player for $15 at the grocery store. In less than a year I think all BD and HD-DVD players will be very close in price and then competition goes back to my original question. "Which is better and why?"

Which has a higher quality image? Which can pump out the best sounds? Which one will hold the most features? I've yet to read an argument about how "x does a better than y, but y does b better than x." Instead I'm hearing "Cost this, Sony that, Microsoft this" and whomever's more in favor at the time gets the concession. Sony's had a rash of "bad press" lately, if there is such a thing, so anything associated with them sucks. Apparently there's a war going on between Sony and Microsoft and the rest of us are just waiting for the fall out. I guess those other companies putting in all that backing and doing all the R&D don't really matter.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

I've never seen movies on HD DVD or BD, to be honest, but I'd assume both look pretty good.

My reasoning was this: "cost to make" matters because less cost means easier adaptation for the content providers. Consumers will follow the content as long as the shelf price aren't too different, especially when there's no clear quality differences to the untrained eyes/ears.

Anyway, now I had seen info supporting the idea that HD DVD and BD manufacturing costs aren't too different, I guess the winner will be determined by maneuvering for content and maybe marketing.

I doubt "better technology" would mean much of differences to the average consumer as long as each disc contains one movie with great pictures and sound--even if the movie is something like Barney: The Purple Revenge Against ABC's, Part IV. Having 50GB on the disc is nice and all, but if a movie in HD fits easily in 30GB, how many people would care about the extra 20GB?

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

It all depends on the studio that's transferring the film to the HD format.

As some people may know, BD and HD-DVD both have a different list of supporting film studios. BD has the support of seven of the eight major film studios (Warner, Paramount, Fox, Disney, Sony, MGM and Lionsgate), whereas HD-DVD has the support of Warner, Paramount and Universal. Both of the neutral studios have tended to use the same video codec and capacity for both HD-DVD and BD transfers. Warner Bros. has continued to do their films primarily on HD-DVD, as they like to take advantage of the platforms unique Picture-in-Picture functionalities (which won't be available on the current BD spec until a firmware update hits in October). Because of this, they tend to use dual-layer HD-DVD releases and single-layer BD releases. Paramount once did the same thing, but are switching to focusing more on BD, using the same video codec, but supporting BD's capacity for lossless 7.1 high quality audio codecs where their HD-DVD films will lack that.

When you purchase a film on BD that's available on both formats, chances are you're going to see a film that looks spectacular (I've yet to see a film on HD-DVD that proves to me that BD completely blows it out of the water), but you're going to find that BD-exclusive films tend to have the most content and the highest quality audio and video possible. This is where you'll see studios like Disney and 20th Century Fox using the full 50GB of a dual-layer BD (in fact, Disney had to use 2 discs for the Pirates of the Carribbean releases to fit the HD special features in there). So you don't have to worry about film studios not making use of BD's size advantage, because they have been for some time. Most studios moved on to dual-layer discs some time ago and since then the general picture and audio quality of BD films has increased dramatically.

That's not to say there aren't some BD releases that look like crap and some HD-DVD releases that don't look amazing in comparison. At this point it's still rare to find a film on BD that stands above and beyond the rest to prove that the format's size can be used to its advantage (Pirates certainly does so, as do Casino Royale and Kingdom of Heaven), but it's still very early in the format generation. Currently, I'd say the only appealing feature about BD to most people is simply the studio support. If you ask most BD supporters, they feel it's only a matter of time before Universal goes neutral, putting the final nail in the coffin of HD-DVD, but they've done no signs of doing so any time in the near future.

[Feba]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

So uh, am I the only one that thinks $10 for a 50GB storage medium is insane?

[Shadowneko]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

so far I think the whole HD thing is insane. STVs will work with digital signals but everyon will just have to have a box to recive the signal. It's just the differnce between those old Rabbit ears and a cable-ready TV...

Nither format intrests me too much because DVD is to me "good enough"....I mean the whole thing seems like Laserdisks...cool but it probabaly won't catch on....

I still can't see blowing thousnads on an HDTV...heck I'm not sure it's worth $400-$600 for the HDTV tube-types...my SDTV is fine and so are my plain old DVDs...with some aging VHS tapes thrown into the mix(I mean to slowly replace the more worn out tapes with DVDs)

[Malacite]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

so far I think the whole HD thing is insane. STVs will work with digital signals but everyon will just have to have a box to recive the signal. It's just the differnce between those old Rabbit ears and a cable-ready TV...

Nither format intrests me too much because DVD is to me "good enough"....I mean the whole thing seems like Laserdisks...cool but it probabaly won't catch on....

I still can't see blowing thousnads on an HDTV...heck I'm not sure it's worth $400-$600 for the HDTV tube-types...my SDTV is fine and so are my plain old DVDs...with some aging VHS tapes thrown into the mix(I mean to slowly replace the more worn out tapes with DVDs)

Did you skip over PaiPai's earlier post? Standard Defination (480i) is going to be obsolete and will no longer be broadcasted by 2009. But by then since HDTV will be the standard you can expect the prices to have come way down.



And WOW 2 discs each for the pirates movies? Damn...

[Shadowneko]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

Did you skip over PaiPai's earlier post? Standard Defination (480i) is going to be obsolete and will no longer be broadcasted by 2009. But by then since HDTV will be the standard you can expect the prices to have come way down.



And WOW 2 discs each for the pirates movies? Damn...

Excuse me but I've read the news about the FCCs plans many many times and PaiPai is mistaken. They want to use the analog frequences for police radios and such so they are phasing out the Analog signal broadcasts. To use a standrad TV you will just need a digital reciever/converter box as you can no longer recieve any analog signals. Heck even some HDTVs have analog recievers....

It does not mean the SDTV broacasts are going...it means that eveyone will have to have a digital tuner/converter box in order to watch TV.

[Malacite]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

They will be phased out eventually though.

[Feba]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

I look at HDTV like I look at 64-bit CPUs. Yeah, they're nice, and they're going to take over eventually, but right now most people really don't see a need for them.

To be quite honest with you, if the FCC tries to shove HDTV down our throats with the speed you're suggesting, I'll probably just start torrenting TV shows again and screw TV.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

Yes, I was mistaken. I did forget that analog TVs will still be able to work fine with a digital receiver.

[Malacite]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

Actually, you really do want to be using a 64 OS rather than a 32.


Mostly because you can't exceed 2 (might be 3) GB of RAM unless you're running a 64. Thankfully Vista can be either (not sure how you change it from 1 to the other)

[Feba]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

4GB. And you can run any program you could want nowadays just fine with 1GB, let alone 2GB. 4GB is practically overkill, but how many systems do you see that actually use those rare 16GB modules? They're insanely expensive.

Again, for 95% of the population, there's no reason to upgrade yet, and there won't really be for a long time.

[Malacite]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

Windows XP won't read past 3. I've looked this up, 32 Bit OS can only run at a max of 2 (3 if you tweak the settings a little).


If you mess around with the Bios, it will say you have 4, but windows won't read more than 3. You have to have a 64 bit OS. It has to do some restriction with the I/O or something like that.

[Feba]

Re: Target Goes the Blu-Ray Route

Windows XP != 32 bit OS. Kthxbai.

For clarity (and this is taken from Wikipedia because it's so simple I don't even need a more reliable source) "Some operating systems reserve portions of process address space for OS use, effectively reducing the total address space available for mapping memory for user programs. For instance, Windows XP DLLs and userland OS components are mapped into each process's address space, leaving only 2 to 3.8 GB (depending on the settings) address space available, even if the computer has 4 GiB of RAM."