Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

In business, you look at the long term, not the short term. Viacom Inc. makes over a billion in revenue annually, and to think they'd make a major decision based purely on a one-time check makes no sense whatsoever. It was an incentive to be sure, but they had to have been given figures that would have assured them that the transition would be good business for them for years to come.

Put yourself in their shoes. Would you make the transition based solely on a one-time check?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

As I've said in other threads, if you think BD's winning edge is storage capacity, just wait for Bandai to release anime episode collections on DVD. Yeah, maybe a whopping 3-5 episodes per disc, that won't even fill out the discs.

Motorstorm, as a game, didn't even come close to filling out a BD disc. Many games last gen didn't fill out a full DVD.

[Malacite]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

It's not just picture length though. BD allows for better quality audio and visual as well through uncompressed files. Though you're right in that they both use the same codecs right now, which is something of a mystery given BD's potential.


That said, take a look at Pirates of the Caribbean on BD. It's a 2-disc set because of the additional features. Assuming both discs are used to capacity, that's 100 GB of movie + extras.


As for games (and movies too), how much of the disc space that gets used is entirely up to developers.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Both formats utilize the same audio and video codecs.

Both formats support the same codecs. That doesn't mean both of them use the same codecs in every case. With the extra space available in BD, a number of studios have opted to include additional lossless audio tracks in the BD versions of their films while forgoing the inclusion of lossless audio in their HD-DVD versions. 300 is one of them, sporting Dolby TrueHD in both versions, but PCM 5.1 in addition on the BD disc. The remainder of Warner's releases will follow this model, and Paramount previously had plans to do the same.

But I do agree with you, there must be much more to this than has been said officially and unofficially, as I just can't grasp the decision Paramount made to stop delivering its films in the higher-selling format.

And Pirates is 2 discs, but only one of those discs is dual-layer 50GB. Still a spectacle to behold, it's one of the best looking transfers I've laid eyes on.

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

It's not just picture length though. BD allows for better quality audio and visual as well through uncompressed files. Though you're right in that they both use the same codecs right now, which is something of a mystery given BD's potential.
That said, take a look at Pirates of the Caribbean on BD. It's a 2-disc set because of the additional features. Assuming both discs are used to capacity, that's 100 GB of movie + extras.

Dude, you seriously need to stop with the misinformation. Uncompressed video on Blu-Ray? Yeah right. Uncompressed video running at 24 FPS with 1920x1080 resolution requires approximately 445 GB of disc space per hour.

For the purpose of movie playback, both formats offer the same level of possible quality. Pirates of the Caribbean being on two discs says nothing for the format... again, HD-DVD provides enough space to fit a 5 hour movie.

Both formats support the same codecs. That doesn't mean both of them use the same codecs in every case. With the extra space available in BD, a number of studios have opted to include additional lossless audio tracks in the BD versions of their films while forgoing the inclusion of lossless audio in their HD-DVD versions. 300 is one of them, sporting Dolby TrueHD in both versions, but PCM 5.1 in addition on the BD disc.

You realize that Dolby TrueHD is a lossless codec just like PCM 5.1? Having two lossless audio tracks is redundant. The issue is that the Blu-Ray spec only makes PCM 5.1 support mandatory on Blu-Ray players... for HD-DVD, all players must support PCM 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD. If you don't have a Dolby TrueHD receiver, an HD-DVD player can unpack the audio on the fly into PCM format. Not every Blu-Ray player is capable of doing the same, hence the redundancy. Blu-Ray has no advantage in the audio/visual department.

[tdh]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Btw, you're aware that Sony owns MGM right PaiPai?

I was going to say the same thing. Sony snatched them up stating that they wanted to make most of the MGM movies, mainly Bond movies, available on UMD for the PSP. I figured at the same time, this would also help them boost sales for BD in the future. I know they still make their own "independant" decisions, but considering who their parent company is, I would like to think they would go with BD.

For the purpose of movie playback, both formats offer the same level of possible quality. Pirates of the Caribbean being on two discs says nothing for the format... again, HD-DVD provides enough space to fit a 5 hour movie.

But movies are not the only application. Yes, even the uncut Dances With Wolves marathon edition would fit nicely on BD with out it flinching, but how about an hour long TV show with 22~24 episodes a season? Currently that's a 6 disc set and often minimal extras.

I don't know/care about the HD video, or care about surround sound or THX, Dolby Blah~blah. But there are other uses for all of that available space well past just movie releases.

Keep in mind that storage media options are being added into the war here. There will be HD-DVD and BD drives for computers, and along come the burners. This isn't a big issue right now, but it will become a very big one, and best believe it's being considered.

[Malacite]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

BD Drives/Burners are already out, I saw some in a flyer. The funny thing is I've yet to see any blank discs for sale > . >

[Icemage]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

BD Drives/Burners are already out, I saw some in a flyer. The funny thing is I've yet to see any blank discs for sale > . >

Blu-ray burners are one or more generation ahead of HD DVD burners.

The HD DVD burner drives are just now getting ready to hit the market in Japan, and are 1x single layer 15GB.

The Blu-ray burners are up to 6x with support for dual layer 50GB.

You'll only find blank media online, and it's all extremely pricey still. 15GB HD DVD-R (no rewrite) is like $11US. 50GB blank Blu-rays are like $25US.


Icemage

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

1x HD-DVD burner is major lol. That's gotta take forever to burn anything. Haha.

[tazirai]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

and yet, out of that entire press release, I don't see ANYTHING I want.
Anyway, the only benefit HD drives have to me is their potential for storage. Could you imagine a 10 DVD Box Set or TV Season boxes, on a single disk?
Then again, I'm planning on hooking my old PC up to my TV for video playback, so storage doesn't matter too much I guess.

Basically. I use my PC obn my HD already. watch HD programs on the PC.

I dont care who wins.. HOWEVER. Blue-Ray needs to start improving the quality of features on their discs. Beore I even consider buying one. The Standard blu-ray movie lacks many of the features of an HD Dvd disc.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

That is a matter of the current Blu-ray spec lacking the more advanced features such as Java and web-browser support, things which will be coming in the update this fall. These missing features sparked the temporary departure of 20th Century Fox support, and as you can see from the press release, they will be using these functions for more diverse special features in their fall releases. The lack of those features for this long is a glaring weakness that the BD format showed in the face of HD-DVD, which has had those features standard since launch.

[Icemage]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

1x HD-DVD burner is major lol. That's gotta take forever to burn anything. Haha.

Yeah, it's pretty sad. The Blu-ray burners cost less than the HD DVD ones, too. Insult to injury.


Icemage

[Feba]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Yeah, maybe a whopping 3-5 episodes per disc, that won't even fill out the discs.

Sadly, this is probably right. Which again brings me back to just ripping DVDs onto a REAL hard drive.

[Shadowneko]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

BD Drives/Burners are already out, I saw some in a flyer. The funny thing is I've yet to see any blank discs for sale > . >

Funny because I was in Best Buy the other day and saw disks but missed the drives...

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Am I the only one here who doesn't understand the point of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD burners right now? Call me crazy, but if I wanted to make backups of my files, external hard drives are pretty cheap these days. Just my take on it anyways. And I doubt anyone's making 1080p home videos, heh...