ps3 vs. toshiba hd-dvd players out already

winpitt

Good dialogue, but my points below:

If it was simply a "price war", Toshiba would have priced at $750 or $800 to undercut but still maintain heavy profits. I think it's more a function of pure margins and subsidies.

I think the only reason Sony will subsidize studios to produce, is because if they don't - studios will not publish in BluRay OR HD-DVD. Again, there just isn't a big enough market for it to stand on its own. The fact that there are two "sort of" standards simply makes a bad business case even worse for the studios.

I agree that there is a FORMAT war. NOT a PRICE war. The battle now is to see who can derive adoption quickly, because as I've mentioned before, there are very few compelling reasons (really none) for adoption in this space.

Cornbread

Good try Strawberry Shortcake but not quite factual, HD-DVD is not my favorite brand, it is not a brand that I care about, it is a technology, if Sony made a better technology then that is what I would choose. Let's not forget so far Sony hasn't been able to produce anything, we are comparing something that Sony is attempting to someday produce to something that is here right now in living rooms all acrross the country giving people the enjoyment of excellent HD sight and sound:

1. Blue Ray will not have built in decoders, they will output the new lossless formats but you will need a new receiver to decode it.

2. Of course that's what I implied, Xbox will have HD-DVD capability, which is what really matters.

3. With the new Windows operating system (Vista) there will be HD-DVD support. Blue Ray will require a 3rd party software patch. Eventually this will steer more hardware vendors to include HD-DVD drives because being Windows compatible it will be cheaper and less buggy. Windows Media center PCs, while I agree haven't been a major player to date to DVDs, are starting to become more and more a viable option to connect to the TV. Yes hardware support is lacking right now, but that is likely to change do to HD-DVDs superior software support and more advanced compression. Remember these new HD players are more like computers than DVD players so start thinking outside the box.

4. Correct, it has been overblown, I haven't heard or experienced any bugs so far. The only "bug" being mentioned is the HDMI error, which as we all know isn't a bug, it just means the TVs HDMI port hasn't been enabled and the HD-DVD player and the TV can't do a handshake.

siccivic420

can you please tell me how hd-dvd has better software support and more advanced compression then blu-ray has or were you just kidding.
cornbread you said:
Remember these new HD players are more like computers than DVD players so start thinking outside the box.
this is exactly why i brought this up in this thread cause toshiba's hd-dvd players are computers and the ps3 is a more powerful one with hdmi 1.3.so what if the hd-dvd player's decode the next gen surround sound formats themselves cause they still can't do dolby digital true hd(8 channel)until their 2nd gen players come out.

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Cornbread

You can read about the new video compression here:

http://www.videsignline.com/showArti...leId=184417216

But in short, Blue Ray has decided to use MPG2 and HD-DVD has decided to use MPG4/H.264/AVC. MPG4 delivers a significant break-through in compression efficiency generally achieving around 2x compression versus MPEG-2. In formal tests conducted by the JVT[9], H.264 delivered a coding efficiency improvement of 1.5x or greater in 78% of the 85 test-cases, with 77% of those showing improvements 2x or greater and as high as 4x for some cases. The improvement offered by H.264 creates new market opportunity such as the following possibilities:

VHS-quality video at about 600 Kbps. This can enable video delivery on demand over ADSL lines.
An HD movie can fit on one ordinary DVD instead of requiring new laser optics.

This is how an HD-DVD double layer disc can store 8 hours of HD content. This negates the only advantage that Blue Ray had over HD-DVD, the size of the disc is greater with BR, but do to improved compression they can roughly hold an equal amount of content.

The better software support is debatable, but having HD-DVD technology embedded in the code of the new upcoming Windows (Vista), it will be very easy for computer manufacturers to throw in an HD-DVD drive.

Revolv

I think the real point is that the PS3 is six months away still.

HD DVD is here now, and it's already cheaper - I am enjoying these movies today.

So many promises of BR have evaporated on the 1st gen equipment that I would not be surprised at all if the PS3 specs changed significantly over the next six months.

So, in sum, there's just no point in us trying to make a comparison yet. Hell, we can't even get reliable specs on the BD players that are due to launch in the next 2 months, let alone six months.

In passing - I suspect that firmware updates to the A1 and XA1, etc, will give 5.1 Tru HD and probably DTS-HD decoding. Stay tuned

strawberry

First of all- everything I said was factual.

Second- HD-DVD is, indeed a brand.

Third- You HD-DVD cheerleaders need to stop acting like BR is vaporware. A month and a half ago, neither camp had produced anything. There were people on these very boards trying to call HD-DVD vaporware because of all the delays- and I happily defended HD-DVD. Don't think I'm not going to do the same thing for the other side now. Movie studios and electronics manufacturers don't throw their weight behind technologies that they don't believe in.

This is slanted. BR will use MPG2 in the short term because they don't have to deal with the space crunch that HD-DVD does. H.264 is part of the BR spec, and it will be utilized when necessary down the road. It's not tricky business- it's just a codec.

Foolishness. Are you aware of anyone having issues playing standard DVD's on a PC due to a lack of native Windows support in the last 5 years?

Just as it has been with standard DVD's- install a player. That's it. You're done. The only "advantage" that you'll have with HD-DVD is that you can watch your movies using WMP11, if you hate yourself and want to die, I suppose. Or, you can do what people have been doing for years, and watch your movies using a piece of actual DVD playback software like PowerDVD or WinDVD- both of which will offer BR as well as HD-DVD playback.

Wow. You just typed up and entire paragraph's worth of sentences without actually saying anything at all.

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Revolv

Sorry to jump in here fellas... just a quick adjustment here or there..

He didn't actually say is wasn't, there was another half of the sentence after it

Yes, it's always tough in the run-up to a big launch that everyone is looking forward to. I wouldn't say the BD is Vaporware, exectlay, but all the "promise" of it's superiority is vaporware. They can't get the disks manuactured for Dual layer properly (up to 75% rejects) and they have none of the advanced codecs in the only operational authoring tool avaliable, so they are forced to use MPG2.

This bit is not actually correct. The reason they are only using MPG 2 is because they do not have AVC and VC1 woriking in their only operational authoring tool at the moment. While other tools are starting to make it to market, Sony will only use theirs, and it'll be 3 months before AVC is working.

They probably didn't worry about it, because they thought they'd have Dual-Layer discs in production by then, but they've screwed themselves, because the techinical issues with DL BD-ROM have so far proven to be insurmountable. They are now saying they'll have these issues resolved by October, but no one has seen any evidence that they yet even know how to solve it - don't hold your breath.

Also, since Sony is doing the authoring and production for all the studios at present, until they get the other tools, all BD releases will suffer from SL/MPG 2.

strawberry

We're caught up in a chicken/egg argument here. Sony claims they'll update their authoring package for AVC and VC1 when they're ready to start using them. Your implication is that they "can't" do it right now. What they're saying is that they simply haven't bothered to implement it yet, because it's not necessary, and they have bigger fish to fry at this very moment. As I've said- AVC and VC1 are part of the BR spec, and the use of MPG-2 is temporary. If it's late 2006 before they get around to updating their authoring package and start using the newer codecs- big deal. How is that going to hurt them in the long run? I don't see it being any bigger of an issue than Toshiba players lacking 1080p output for the time being. Launches are sloppy business- all this stuff will be ironed out before either of these products start to matter.

I love this. Exactly how does a realease "suffer" from being encoded in MPG2? The studios aren't likely to be doing anything useful with the iHD or BD-J layers this year, apparently- and none of the HD-DVD titles realeased have much to offer in the way of special features, and I'd expect it to be the same with the BR titles. So, what we've got on tap for 2006 from both camps is very basic, bare-bones releases. So, assuming a movie fits onto its disc- what difference does it really make if it's encoded in MPG2 or MPG4?

This next statement is more general, not just for you, Revolv. It's 2006. This is a rollout year for both camps. HD-DVD players rolled out in April, about 6 months after initially promised, without some of the video and audio features that we had been told to expect, and with a tiny lineup of launch titles.

BR will launch this summer/fall, likely about 6 months later than originally promised, without some of the features that we had been told to expect, with a tiny lineup of titles.

Why anyone would want to crucify one camp for some of the same things the other is also guilty of is beyond me. These are launches involving new technologies- both camps will be up and steamrolling in another year. People need to stop acting like not having 1080p players or not using MPG4 until late in 2006, a year in which neither camp stands to sell more than 200,000 players or so, is going to be the kiss of death. It's not. 2006 won't have long-term implications in this battle. This is the year of mistakes for both camps.

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Revolv

Correct - I am saying they *couldn't* get them working in time. Yes, they are putting a little spin on it lately, saying that they don't think the advanced codecs are "good enough for them yet", but this is generally bollocks, as anyone who has seen VC1 on HD DVD knows it is far better than MPG 2.

But to be clear, Sony is politically opposed to using VC1, anyway, and we may never see any Sony Pictures/MGM releases in VC1, since Sony considers Micrsoft a competitor - I know it's rather silly, since VC1 is the best, but that's business I guess. Sony instead appears to have pinned their future on AVC (aka mpeg4 H.264), which does not appear to be nearly as good as VC1 yet, judging from the Japanese releases of the first HD DVDs. Not looking good, really.

MOST importantly, the codecs are a MINOR issue in comparison to BD disc production. While the codecs might be running OK in their tools in 3 months, in time for movies to be out by the end of the year in AVC - but BD ROM production is proving to be VERY dificult. I've seen reports that SL BD-ROM production runs are 30% bad disks (at best!) and for DL BD-ROM, the bad disk percentage is MORE than double that. Because of the smaller beam size for the laser, it has to focus much more narrowly than the HD DVD blue laser, so if the data pits are not PRECISELY the distance from the laser that it's supposed to be, it craps out. Distortions caused by the application of the protective film on the discs is also screwing up a lot of discs.

Sony DADC, which produces BD-ROMs in the US, apparently is getting 1/3 of the efficiency of the HD DVD production lines. It could take another year for them to solve these problems (assuming they can), and that's not counting the problems that the average Joe might experience with the discs in their own home. Short o trying to make a brave public statement of a couple of token releases in DL BD-ROM before the end of the year (at great expense) you will not see these exactly flooding the streets this year - IMHO.


This is a very obvious one, but I'll answer it anyway. QUALITY. VC1 releases on 30 Gig HD DVD disks are using a videostream of about 16 or 18 Mbps. Single Layer BD ROMs at 25 gigs are going to restrict Sony to using roughly the same datarate, or perhaps as much as 22 mbps. But to just MATCH the picture quality of VC1 at 16 or 18 mbps, Sony will have to run MPG 2 at over 30 Mbps - which they CANNOT do, because they will run out of disk space.

Their other big problem is that have promised to include uncompressed L-PCM audio on all their disks, because the BD players cannot decode the advanced audio codecs, which compounds their space problems - even if they HAD DL BD-ROM working.

Running MPG 2 at 20 or so Mbps will likely show lots of artifacts in action scenes, weaker colors, edge-enhancement, etc. That's how it will possibly "suffer".

Actually the HD DVD players shipping are FULLY compliant with iHD and can run any iHD releases that are shipped later on. The initial releases don't use a lot of iHD yet (apart from the advanced menus, etc), as there is a learning curve. But iHD is said to be much easier to develop for than BD-J. Furthermore, the first generation BD players are NOT fully BD-J compliant, as they haven't quite gotten all the details worked out yet - as a result, these players are only "Level-1" compliant with BD-J.

Not at all.

The HD DVD players can decode advanced audio in the player (and soon will likely even be able to do multichannel TruHD with a firmware update). The BD Players in 1 G cannot play these codecs, but worse yet, cannot output the streams for the advanced codecs out to an external receiver/amp because they don't have HDMI 1.3 (yes, the Toshibas don't have HDMI 1.3 either, but they don't need it because they have on-board decoders).

The HD DVD players can play CDs, and will also "upsample" the CD and DVD audio to 96/24 sound. Some of the BD Players cannot even play CDs, including SOny's. And of those that can play CDs, it is not yet known whether they will be capable of upsampling the audio for maximum quality.

The DVD upscaling in the HD DVD players is very, VERY good. Most owners have reported that they have retired their old upscaling players from Denon, Oppo, Pioneer and Sony, as the Toshibas are better. Nothing is yet known about the upscaling capabilities of the BD players.

That's a silly question - obviously there can be a BIG difference, as discussed above.

This is also a bit silly, considering Bluray has had the same, if not more delays. The difference is that HD DVD seems to have solved most of these problems already - while Bluray is embroiled in difficulties that may still take another year to overcome.

Furthermore, HD DVD did not underdeliver. The only feature which was expected on the player which was not 100% delivered is 5.1 TruHD - they only decode 2.0 Tru HD. But this is possibly the subject of a firmware update in the coming weeks. And they OVER-delivered in terms of the disks, which everyone thought would be Single Layer at launch - they actually launched the format with Double Layer disks AND VC1 movies, the absolute best-case scenario. Contrast that with Bluray's launch at S-L and MPG 2 - which was the absolute worst-case scenario.

Yes, no VC1, no AVC, no DL BD-ROMs, no advanced audio, no HDMI 1.3, no CD playing, no PS3 (which was supposed to be May) - and some might say, No Chance.

Funnily enough, I started posting on these boards because I decided to buy the A1, and when I read the boards, I was so shocked by the one-sided nature of all the "thrashing HD DVD" sessions on the boards, that I decided to get involved and make sure that the CORRECT info was always available to those who needed it. If my highlighting the correct strengths and weaknesses of the two formats annoys some people, then I cannot be responsible for that - as it is TRULY nothing personal, strictly informational.

Lately, as all of Sony's bad news has started coming out, and it has become apparent that the format is not ready to launch yet, I've been hearing a lot of "let's put this fight off till next year, when we're ready", but that's not how the market works. The market and the public are going to expect the best out of these formats now, and will test them severely. If one format is found lacking for as long as a year, it may be the death blow that just takes another two years to kill.

Well you're correct here in that there shouldn't be so many bitter battles over the formats. But a lot of people want to start enjoying Hi Definition Discs now, not a year or two down the road. And right now, "future promise" aside, in generation one, the HD DVD product is much better than the Bluray product.

BD players cost TWO and THREE times more than the HD DVD players
HD DVD players have movies in VC1 that will most likely look better than the first year MPG 2 Bluray versions
HD DVD players have the best upscaling in anything under four times their price
HD DVD players play CDs, and upsample the audio too.
HD DVD has their manufacturing and production issues sorted out.
HD DVD players can decode and play the advanced audio codecs so I can enjoy them now, NOT in Gen Two, as with BD

Etc etc etc - My hands are getting tired

strawberry

Revolv, you've typed a huge response, and I'm not even going to bother going through all of it due to time constraint. I appreciate you keeping things civil- so I will do the same. In general, though, here are my beefs:

#1.) The idea that VC1 or AVC or MPG2 are somehow "superior" to one another. They're codecs- that's it. Yes, MPG2 is less efficient than the other two- but, as a professional video producer I encode in all 3 formats on a near daily basis, and I can assure you that there is no inherent quality difference beyond efficiency. You're probably right about VC1 with regard to Sony- it's doubtful they'll end up using it themselves. You couldn't be more incorrect in asserting that VC1 is considered the superior codec, to H.264, though. It's not viewed that way by the professionals in my world.

#2.) With regard to dual layer BD-rom production- there are conflicting reports regarding the issue. It's obvious which side of the fence you're on whenever there are conflicting reports because of your A1 purchase- but let's assume that the BR camp has "insurmountable" problems with dual layer production and has to release single layer, MPG2 discs. You say that 20mbps will be too low in heavy motion scenes- which would be right in the case of a CBR author- but these aren't transport stream OTA broadcasts we're talking about. Encode the same film with a VBR at an average of 20mbps and it will be pristine.

#3.) I said that the movie releases for both HD-DVD and BR this year are going to be bare bones, minimalist releases. Extra compression techniques aren't going to be required for the level of production we're going to be seeing from them. You went on to talk about the hardware capabilities of the players- which is fine- but it's not what I was talking about. I say again- movie releases for both HD-DVD and BR this year are going to be bare bones, minimalist releases.

#4.) HD-DVD underdelivered on more than just 5.1 TrueHD. I already mentioned the fact that there's no 1080p output as of yet. There were far fewer titles at launch than Toshiba said there would be last fall, and, speaking of last fall, that's when HD-DVD was supposed to launch- six full months ago. BR was supposed to launch this spring, and they'll be anywhere from 3-6 months late, depending on whether or not they hit closer to July or September/October.

#5) This is your direct quote: "The market and the public are going to expect the best out of these formats now, and will test them severely." I really disagree with this point. The public couldn't care less about these products right now. Sales numbers over the course of the next year are going to be embarrassingly low for both camps.

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siccivic420

can one of you guys explain to me how having on-board decoders for audio help without having hdmi 1.3 to pass it helps.educate me please.I was just wondering if i could listen to next gen audio with my current reciever denon 3803,cause i was going to get a new denon 3807 or yamaha 2700 with hdmi 1.3 to go with my ps3 and maybe lg universal HD player.than x

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mfabien

I have 2 Universal HD DVD movies and both have DD Plus. Over digital connection (S/PDIF) my receiver decodes that as DTS in 1.5 Kbps bitrate. With the 5.1 analogs, it comes out via Digital PCM. For those with a receiver with a HDMI version 1.1, they get DD Plus as well.

Warner has some HD DVDs out with DD TrueHD which one can hear as Stereo over analog cables and the DTS-HD Core codec in 5.1 with analogs.

That is the present situation with the HD-A1 or XA1 players.

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PFC5

Which Warner titles are coming out with DDTHD & DTS-HD?

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mfabien

Phantom of The Opera:

Dolby True-HD English 5.1, Dolby Digital-Plus English 5.1, Dolby Digital-Plus Francais (Quebec) 5.1 (spec. from Amazon.com)

Don't know about others.

My understanding is that DD True-HD is presently in Stereo format. Perhaps a player update will make it available in 5.1 for analogs. We know that when the player, coupled with an appropriate a/v receiver, can connect via HDMI version 1.3, the DD True-HD will be in 5.1.

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Cornbread

strawberry said: Third- You HD-DVD cheerleaders need to stop acting like BR is vaporware.

Answer: I never said it was vapor ware, it is just a technology that hasn't been released to the public, many of the early claims of Blue Ray are now proving false, so instead of comparing what is right now to what might be, we need to wait to see the finished product before we make outlandish claims. For example at launch BR will only be able to produce single layer 25 GB discs compared to HD-DVDs dual layer 30GB discs.

This is slanted. BR will use MPG2 in the short term because they don't have to deal with the space crunch that HD-DVD does. H.264 is part of the BR spec, and it will be utilized when necessary down the road. It's not tricky business- it's just a codec.

Answer: Again, BR Will use inferior MPEG 2 at launch, who knows what the future holds, so stop pretending to know.


Foolishness. Are you aware of anyone having issues playing standard DVD's on a PC due to a lack of native Windows support in the last 5 years?

Answer: Start thinking outside the box, HD-DVDs and BR are not like DVDs it is a very different technology. The past is not always an indication of the future. Plus Microsoft supported the DVD enabling compatibility, all inbedded in their operating system. Microsoft will not be supporting Blue Ray.

Strawberry said: Just as it has been with standard DVD's- install a player. That's it. You're done. The only "advantage" that you'll have with HD-DVD is that you can watch your movies using WMP11, if you hate yourself and want to die, I suppose. Or, you can do what people have been doing for years, and watch your movies using a piece of actual DVD playback software like PowerDVD or WinDVD- both of which will offer BR as well as HD-DVD playback.[quote]

Answer: There is no guarantee at this point that PowerDVD or WinDVD will be licensed to make an HD-DVD player. Since Microsoft and Toshiba are in bed together we might never see third party players. Vista will include an HD-DVD player and with BR, hardware manufacturers and therefore consumers will have to pay extra to have a 3rd party player. That is the reason HP has now decided to use HD-DVD drives.