Posted by ~P~ on 04/12/06 02:49

iHD is known to be less interactive - personally I don't care about any of
those features, but if it's cool enough, it could have a certain amount of
appeal, especially when hitting the video game crowd. Decent implementation
could generate some serious buzz. How it compares to iHD? I have no
answer, I'm not a developer for either.

Layer for layer, Blu-ray goes much further. They are a couple of months
behind on the time line than HD-DVD... but, in the slowest buying season of
the year, it is the right time to be a couple of months behind.

MPEG2 vs. VC1? Have you done a head-to-head shootout at HD disc bitrates or
are you just guessing? Professional broadcasters went with the older MPEG2
audio over MPEG3 despite MP3 being a better/newer technology. Why? Because
at higher bitrates, MPEG2 performed better with audio. Don't discount it
until head to head comparisons are made with the same movie. I'm not
knocking VC1, just waiting to see.

A DVD can store HD video and audio... it doesn't mean that it can do it to
the best possible capability of the format. DTS HD and Dolby HD both have
bitrates that are enormous on the high end and when combined with the
highest quality HD materal, HD-DVD can't keep up. I'm not talking about
compressing stuff to a point where it fits - or is just 'really, really
good' - I'm talking about bit-for-bit copies of studio masters. The math
doesn't add up for HD-DVD without compression.

Blu-ray has overwhelming support from the movie and A/V, and PC industry -
get it right. Only Universal is NOT going with Blu-ray. Every other major
studio is. Throw in top PC manufacturers and hardware manufacturers. It
should make anyone with half a brain at least a bit nervous if they are
thinking of buying a HD-DVD player from Toshiba and it's very limited
industry support. While the industry may not be happy with Sony and UMD -
Blu-ray is NOT Sony. (for the 10 billionth time)

Sony, regardless of your opinion, is trusted by consumers (fact). This is
all that survey shows. Bose, despite being crap in the industry, is loved
by the general public. But, if you aren't happy with Sony - pick one of the
other half dozen players available.

What do you do if you don't like Toshiba?

Panasonic consistently gets incredible reviews. Pioneer Elite is considered
top of class for products. Sony is hit or miss, with a lot of everything.
Samsung is definitely mid-low grade. LG? Good stuff generally! Sharp?
More?
Toshiba? Talk about hit or miss! or... or... ummm.... well, keep your
fingers crossed and keep taking pot shots with inaccurate info.

It simply amazes me that people buy into the inaccurate info about HD-DVD.
There are only two things HD-DVD has going for it:
It is going to be out first by a couple of months
It will cost significantly less

Both those are valid points, but don't match up to the Blu-ray list...

Oh - and PS3 wasn't even mentioned - which I consider the biggest market
advantage point for Blu-ray.





"Joshua Zyber" <jzyber@mind-NOSPAM-spring.com> wrote in message
news:cUX_f.5832$i41.3794@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
"asj" <kalim1998@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1144769238.494409.19890@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> 2. Show me where I've been saying "false" information.

For example:

- Only Blu-Ray offers interactive features. - False. HD-DVD uses iHD for
interactive features.

- Consumers are clamoring for the exciting Java features on Blu-Ray. -
Wishful thinking from a Java developer. Consumers have actively avoided
using the interactive features available on current DVD, and have
expressed little to no interest in more complicated features on other
video formats. The fact is that the movie-buying market and the computer
game market are not the same market.

- Blu-Ray has significantly more storage capacity than HD-DVD. -
Misleading. Dual-layer Blu-Ray is not ready for primetime yet, and
single layer Blu-Ray has less capacity than dual-layer HD-DVD (which
will be used on first-generation releases). Further, initial Blu-Ray
releases will use the less efficient and more space-hogging MPEG2
compression format, negating any storage advantage over the VC1
compressed HD-DVD.

- Only Blu-Ray has enough storage for both high resolution video and
audio. - Completely false. Both formats have more than enough storage
for this application. Further, first-generation Blu-Ray players will
offer no support for the Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD lossless audio formats.

- Only Blu-Ray stores movie content in 1080p format. - False. Both
formats store feature film content in 1080p/24 format.

- Blu-Ray has overwhelming support from the entire movie industry. -
False. Universal is an exclusive HD-DVD supporter; Warner Bros. and
Paramount support both formats and are ambivalent towards Blu-Ray at
best; Disney has indicated that they will likely release on both
formats; and the majority of independent and "mini-major" studios are
still undecided. Of those studios that are still only committed to
Blu-Ray, many of them are currently feeling stung by Sony over the UMD
fiasco.

- "The funny thing about Sony is that they always seem to target the
quality market - which is why Sony products have a reputation for good
quality but are generally more expensive than similar products." - Hype.
Sony had a good reputation about 15-20 years ago and has been coasting
on marketing hype in the years since. Their modern products have a
terrible reputation for costing twice as much as the competition and
breaking down the day the warranty expires.

- "They must be doing some things right, however, since they're still
one of the top, if not the top, consumer brands out there." - Fantasy.
Sony's fortunes have faded in recent years and they are not the economic
powerhouse they once used to be. It's also worth noting that except for
the video game console market, Sony has lost every format war they've
ever engaged in.

- "In Forrester's analysis, Sony's brand garnered the highest marks of
the three companies (Sony also ranked 3rd out of 22 companies), earning
an average grade of A plus. Of the companies surveyed, only Bose and
Dell ranked higher than Sony overall." - If true, this makes Forrester
Research look like a bunch of morons. Bose scoring highly in any type of
survey? Please... Who were they asking?

> I talk about how Blu-ray has Java integration and Toshib'as HDDVD does
> not. True or False? You wanna argue that?

Red herring. HD-DVD uses iHD instead of Java. And no one cares anyway.

> I talk about ways Java integration can help Blu-ray give many extra
> features to consumers. You wanna argue that?

The usefulness of those features is dubious at best.

> I talk about how the Blu-ray supporters like Sony, Samsung, and
> Panasonic have better brand power and brand awareness than Toshiba.
> True or false? You wanna argue that?

Sony - The king of overpriced and underperforming products. Hasn't made
a truly great product that didn't break down within the first year of
ownership for more than a decade.

Samsung - Known for cheap crap.

Panasonic - Hit or miss track record at best.

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