Serenity on HD DVD

The price is right in line with the Blu-ray prices for New releases. Old movies are cheaper on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, but $40 is about standard for a new release that was just out in theaters. Fox is the only one charging $40 for old discs.

This all pertains to MSRP, you can find HD DVD & Blu-ray discs much cheaper at retailers.

themanroom.com has cover art up, and it might be worthwhile to mention that the Blu-ray releases are in Dolby Digital, while the HD DVD releases are in Dolby Digital Plus

Did Ben tell him that although some HD DVD's are filling up close to the 30 GB, they contain Dolby Digital Plus and/or Dolby TrueHD, bonus features from 2-disc special edititions on DVD, and are the unrated/director's cut.

With better tools and better compression (using VC-1 instead of MPEG2 on bonus features), they are going to be able to add even more.

Is Andy Parsons aware that Blu-ray titles have generally been crippled, losing special features and/or next-gen audio?

It's interesting that picture quality or extra features doesn't seem to concern BDA at the moment. I guess as long as they have more movies, it doesn't matter if their releases are crippled. Parsons is right that the major advantage is studio support.

The Universal titles have been delayed until next week. The avsforum list hasn't been updated recently, but if you look at the amazon.com release dates, they'll say 8/15.

*woops, meant to say 25 gig single-layer for Blu-ray when referring to Warner's titles.

-The only reason it looks like there are more HD DVD fans out there right now is because of what they have seen from the format. Back from January through May (when the HD-A1 still had reports of bugs), all you heard was criticism about HD DVD.

Remember when the PS3 was going to launch in the Spring? Everybody figured greater disc capacity, more studio support, and a cheap Blu-ray player was the wy to go.

When the PS3 and greater disc capacity were delayed, and the HD DVD discs outperformed the Blu-ray movies, THAT's when people started changing their minds in large numbers.

Go to the AVSforums and look at old threads. A few months ago people were wondering if things were too even-handed there because nobody cared about HD DVD and were looking foward to Blu-ray. Now a lot of professed Blu-ray diehards are either switching sides or supporting both, considering the value you get with one of the Toshiba players.

some last comments:

-The Breakup is a Universal title, out mid-October, same day as the DVD release.

-By the way, the Warner Blu-ray movies include only Dolby Digital 5.1. That's the same audio format used in today's DVDs. So not only did they remove the Dolby TrueHD tracks, but also the Dolby Digital Plus.


Not saying that the Toshiba is a better buy long-term over the Sammy, since we don't know how the "war" will play out. But for the next few months and from what is already avaialable, HD DVD smokes Blu-ray in video, audio, and value.

-Warner titles are almost as good, but they give up high-definition and next-gen audio. You also have to remember, that when comparing Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and Rumor Has It, they are single-layer on HD DVD (15 gig discs), compared to 15 gig Blu-ray. So much for more space giving you better quality.

-Sony and Lion's Gate titles, for the most part, have better sound, but fall short in visual quality for the most part. Plus, some have completely removed bonus features or gotten rid of most of them.

With HD DVD, you can have the best audio, video, and feature-set. No compromises.

HD DVD

Good show, one of the best yet for sure. Thanks to all 4 of you being there, there was better information out there. Even the "war" got better coverage by having fair-minded hosts added (thanks Richard and Erik). Just wanted to point out a few things mentioned on the show:

-There's no region coding at the moment, so Japanese HD DVD's will work on US HD DVD players. It's unknown whether they will implement region coding in the future, although there is a committee studying it. Some reviews on dvdfile.com actually contain reviews of Japanese HD DVD releases with English options like Finding Neverland.

-Toshiba has been selling the HD-D1 at Wal-Mart since the April launch:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4790608

It's the same as the HD-A1, except built for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart also sells the RCA player. I believe this is what Amir and Major Nelson were talking about.

-Disney didn't help develop Blu-ray. They chose Blu-ray based on Sony's move to place it on the PS3 and because of the 50 GB dual-layer being more than the 30 GB for HD DVD. In fact, Disney and Microsoft developed iHD (for advanced HD DVD content) and hold patents in that.

-The reason Microsoft said Blu-ray complicated the software part is because they mandated Java (which requires a virtual machine) and BD+ (the extra layer of copy protection which BDA has been very secretive about). Their goal was to support high-def discs natively in Vista, and when Blu-ray added these requirements, they decided not to delay development of Vista to support both formats.

Here is Amir (who is bias of course) on the subject:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7973418&&#post7973418