Why Microsoft Chose HD DVD over Blu-ray for Xbox 360

Razor05 · 03-02-2006, 06:12 PM

As per TeamXbox:

Why Microsoft Chose HD DVD over Blu-ray for Xbox 360
By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar"
Mar. 2nd, 2006 1:16 pm

César Menendez, a member of the Xbox Global Marketing team, was curious about Microsoft’s decision to develop an external drive that employs the HD DVD format instead of Blu-ray Disc. That’s why he took the time to contact the team at the Xbox Advanced Hardware Group to find out about Microsoft’s preference for HD DVD over Blu-ray Disc.

He posted his finding at the team’s Gamerscore blog:

Why HD DVD? Why not Blu-Ray? (for the purpose of this post, I’ll lovingly call it ‘Beta-ray’)

I found out a few interesting things on why we’re so confident of HD DVD:

Price: One company out there has a $1,800 Beta-ray player (no release date) – one that doesn’t even play CDs! For 1,800, you could get a $500 Toshiba player, and about 40 HD movies.

Industry support: Looks like the pendulum is swinging back in HD-DVD’s favor. As an analyst quoted in the article says: “It's only a matter of time before people start backing out of the Blu-ray camp." If that’s the case, it might be because of. . .

Beta-ray’s own difficulties: Microsoft had serious doubts around the technical feasibility and pricing of Beta-ray for some time and our fears now seem well founded. Sony is hinting PS3 will be delayed because of Beta-ray, and that’s with Sony driving the Beta-ray standards. If even Sony can’t get it to work right, it raises lots of questions. A little reported fact (and one that the New York Times was confused about) is that the first Beta-ray discs will actually hold less: only 25GB compared to HD DVD’s 30GB. That means less room for high definition extras and interactive features, which HD DVD says they fully intend to support.

If you are interesting in know more about HD DVD, check our recent editorial The Blue Laser Wars: Episode I HD DVD.

tanaka · 03-02-2006, 09:01 PM

Hmmm, very interesting. I would imagine it might have something to do with not supporting sony's format of choice as well. But, maybe not.

depauvillekid · 03-03-2006, 11:16 AM

I'm not fully sure why Microsoft is choosing HD, but to me, HD DVD seems to be winning. Look at the movie lineup for each player. HDDVD has a number of Movie production studios in their camp, universal, paramount, etc.. Blu ray's lineup consist soley of Sony produced movies.

Soo... if you own an HD DVD player there will be movies from most studios availble for your use.

If you own a blu ray player there will only be Sony movies to use.

Sounds like a no brainer to me, especially considering the production costs of both units. It's an accepted fact that blu ray will cost atleast 2x that of a HD DVD player. Plus most people are alread sold on the DVD technology, familiar symbols, and prob backawards compatible for current dvd's. Blu ray offers none of these things.

But this is ALL SPECULATION, we'll have to wait until they both launch to tell. If blu ray is better and offers more choice then I'll buy it, if not then I'm going for HD DVD. I'll tell you this, price makes a big difference, remember the NEO GEO?? No, if not it's because it was way to expensive only only a few die hards bought it, it was awesome and it was leaps and bounds above what was currently availible. It was just too exspensive and people weren't willing to pay a $1000 no matter how good it was. That was about 12-15 years ago. My guess is no one is gonna pay $1500 - 2000 for a blu ray no matter how much better it is that HD DVD.

Once again, just speculation, enjoy

tanaka · 03-05-2006, 06:01 PM

Maybe I'm missing something, but why do we need a new technology that is so powerful and holds so much more anyway? When it comes to movies I mean.
Okay, I can understand having a movie play in HD, but why all the extra space?
Do we really need 3 more commentaries, more art stills, and other practically useless junk on so called "special editions"?
Are movie makers planning on making 5 hour movies now?
Someone enlighten me. Why do we need something like blue ray for movies?

ChaosMan1014 · 03-06-2006, 12:06 PM

If M$ was so confident of HD-DVD they would have done one of two things. Either integrate HD-DVD into 360 (Bill Gates went on record at CES stating 360 will never have this technology integrated) or let developers use HD-DVD for games (again Bill Gates stated games will be DVD-9 ONLY at CES).

GLOW · 03-06-2006, 12:46 PM

I don't care who wins as long as there's a war. It will mean cheaper high-def discs and players for us.

Ryu · 03-06-2006, 04:18 PM

I think you guys are missing the point here, the real battle for us will not be who has the best movies on which format, cause the current technology allows us to have extras, alternates, galerias and stuff in a single disc.

The real deal with this technology will be for software manufactureres and software developers, cause it is not the same to have 30+Gb of storage for a game than to have to relly on the current generation limitations for a DVD layer 9.

Tanaka I do agree with you, how much special content will a DVD movie have or how much will you be able to stand, it is more as how lenghty I want a game to be or how much dialoge and CG movies can a Blue-Ray or HD-DVD give us gamers.

Think about it, it will not only affect console users, but also PC users all over the world.

Imagine someone in X country wanting to play that new game everyone is talking about, and not been able because he chose a Blue-Ray drive over the HD-DVD drive or viceversa.

That sucks, I know that in the end the only ones that will get beneffit from the technology wars are the final users, but not in times where that technology will limit what you can chose from.

depauvillekid · 03-06-2006, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tanaka

Maybe I'm missing something, but why do we need a new technology that is so powerful and holds so much more anyway? When it comes to movies I mean.
Okay, I can understand having a movie play in HD, but why all the extra space?
Do we really need 3 more commentaries, more art stills, and other practically useless junk on so called "special editions"?
Are movie makers planning on making 5 hour movies now?
Someone enlighten me. Why do we need something like blue ray for movies?

The reason is that HD movies take up more space than traditional movies. A new format needed because a 2 hour HD movie will NOT fit on a standard DVD. As it is SuperBit DVDs dumped every bit of extra content and only contain the video and audio, nothing more, and even then they can only fit 540p (Standard DVD is 480p).

If they can only fit 540p on a DVD then how will they ever fit a 2 hour 720p or 1080i film. The problem gets even worse when 1080p movies come out, they will require more space yet.

Compression techniques can compensate for some of the size but compression also can degrade the quality.

So yes, new 25g+ Dvd's are and will be needed.

tanaka · 03-07-2006, 05:24 PM

good posts, tx for the clarifications guys.

03-02-2006, 06:12 PM	#1
Razor05 HD = 65 beautiful inches Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 3,274	Why Microsoft Chose HD DVD over Blu-ray for Xbox 360 As per TeamXbox: Why Microsoft Chose HD DVD over Blu-ray for Xbox 360 By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar" Mar. 2nd, 2006 1:16 pm César Menendez, a member of the Xbox Global Marketing team, was curious about Microsoft’s decision to develop an external drive that employs the HD DVD format instead of Blu-ray Disc. That’s why he took the time to contact the team at the Xbox Advanced Hardware Group to find out about Microsoft’s preference for HD DVD over Blu-ray Disc. He posted his finding at the team’s Gamerscore blog: Why HD DVD? Why not Blu-Ray? (for the purpose of this post, I’ll lovingly call it ‘Beta-ray’) I found out a few interesting things on why we’re so confident of HD DVD: Price: One company out there has a $1,800 Beta-ray player (no release date) – one that doesn’t even play CDs! For 1,800, you could get a $500 Toshiba player, and about 40 HD movies. Industry support: Looks like the pendulum is swinging back in HD-DVD’s favor. As an analyst quoted in the article says: “It's only a matter of time before people start backing out of the Blu-ray camp." If that’s the case, it might be because of. . . Beta-ray’s own difficulties: Microsoft had serious doubts around the technical feasibility and pricing of Beta-ray for some time and our fears now seem well founded. Sony is hinting PS3 will be delayed because of Beta-ray, and that’s with Sony driving the Beta-ray standards. If even Sony can’t get it to work right, it raises lots of questions. A little reported fact (and one that the New York Times was confused about) is that the first Beta-ray discs will actually hold less: only 25GB compared to HD DVD’s 30GB. That means less room for high definition extras and interactive features, which HD DVD says they fully intend to support. If you are interesting in know more about HD DVD, check our recent editorial The Blue Laser Wars: Episode I HD DVD. __________________ Panasonic TH-65PZ850U Sony KDL37XBR6 Panasonic TH-37PX50U Cambridge Audio Azur 640R & 740C Paradigm Studio 60's, 20's, CC-590 & Seismic 12 Panasonic DMP-BD35 Toshiba HD-XA2 & A35 Motorola VIP1200 Monster HTFS1000, PB2100 AA 1154a Xbox360 Prem(2) & Halo3 LE + HD-DVD GT: Razor59 Sony PS3 slim GT:Razor_59 Sony PSP

03-06-2006, 12:06 PM	#5
ChaosMan1014 Scrumdidlyumptious Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 925	If M$ was so confident of HD-DVD they would have done one of two things. Either integrate HD-DVD into 360 (Bill Gates went on record at CES stating 360 will never have this technology integrated) or let developers use HD-DVD for games (again Bill Gates stated games will be DVD-9 ONLY at CES). __________________ PSN ID: LordVierge If only we could develop a real Katamari... It would be the ultimate globe conquering tool!

03-06-2006, 04:18 PM	#7
Ryu Kuddos from Mexico city!! Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Mexico city Posts: 101	Point taken!! I think you guys are missing the point here, the real battle for us will not be who has the best movies on which format, cause the current technology allows us to have extras, alternates, galerias and stuff in a single disc. The real deal with this technology will be for software manufactureres and software developers, cause it is not the same to have 30+Gb of storage for a game than to have to relly on the current generation limitations for a DVD layer 9. Tanaka I do agree with you, how much special content will a DVD movie have or how much will you be able to stand, it is more as how lenghty I want a game to be or how much dialoge and CG movies can a Blue-Ray or HD-DVD give us gamers. Think about it, it will not only affect console users, but also PC users all over the world. Imagine someone in X country wanting to play that new game everyone is talking about, and not been able because he chose a Blue-Ray drive over the HD-DVD drive or viceversa. That sucks, I know that in the end the only ones that will get beneffit from the technology wars are the final users, but not in times where that technology will limit what you can chose from. Last edited by Ryu; 03-06-2006 at 04:20 PM.

03-02-2006, 09:01 PM	#2
tanaka Paradigm Studios' Babey! Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 210	Hmmm, very interesting. I would imagine it might have something to do with not supporting sony's format of choice as well. But, maybe not.

03-03-2006, 11:16 AM	#3
depauvillekid xbox 360, Vizio L32, Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Age: 27 Posts: 223	I'm not fully sure why Microsoft is choosing HD, but to me, HD DVD seems to be winning. Look at the movie lineup for each player. HDDVD has a number of Movie production studios in their camp, universal, paramount, etc.. Blu ray's lineup consist soley of Sony produced movies. Soo... if you own an HD DVD player there will be movies from most studios availble for your use. If you own a blu ray player there will only be Sony movies to use. Sounds like a no brainer to me, especially considering the production costs of both units. It's an accepted fact that blu ray will cost atleast 2x that of a HD DVD player. Plus most people are alread sold on the DVD technology, familiar symbols, and prob backawards compatible for current dvd's. Blu ray offers none of these things. But this is ALL SPECULATION, we'll have to wait until they both launch to tell. If blu ray is better and offers more choice then I'll buy it, if not then I'm going for HD DVD. I'll tell you this, price makes a big difference, remember the NEO GEO?? No, if not it's because it was way to expensive only only a few die hards bought it, it was awesome and it was leaps and bounds above what was currently availible. It was just too exspensive and people weren't willing to pay a $1000 no matter how good it was. That was about 12-15 years ago. My guess is no one is gonna pay $1500 - 2000 for a blu ray no matter how much better it is that HD DVD. Once again, just speculation, enjoy

03-05-2006, 06:01 PM	#4
tanaka Paradigm Studios' Babey! Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 210	Maybe I'm missing something, but why do we need a new technology that is so powerful and holds so much more anyway? When it comes to movies I mean. Okay, I can understand having a movie play in HD, but why all the extra space? Do we really need 3 more commentaries, more art stills, and other practically useless junk on so called "special editions"? Are movie makers planning on making 5 hour movies now? Someone enlighten me. Why do we need something like blue ray for movies?

03-06-2006, 12:46 PM	#6
GLOW IN-THE-DARK Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 7,600	I don't care who wins as long as there's a war. It will mean cheaper high-def discs and players for us.

03-07-2006, 05:24 PM	#9
tanaka Paradigm Studios' Babey! Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 210	good posts, tx for the clarifications guys.