HD vs. Blu-Ray DVD - out of the ashes of defeat...

If you read my previous two posts (here and here) about the HD vs. Blu-Ray DVD battle, then you know that I had an HD DVD player and a fledgling collection of HD DVDs before HD lost the format war to Blu-Ray.

It turns out, I didn't have to leave the HD versus Blu-Ray field of battle feeling totally defeated. For those of us who put our money on the HD format earlier in the battle, there are a couple of DVD players on the market right now that will play both formats.

Since I just reached another anniversary of my naval career, I also just got a nice bonus check in my bank account. Aside for any of you midshipmen reading this: Don't join the submarine force because someone's luring you in with dollar signs. Join the submarine force because you want to do some really cool tactical stuff on the pointy end of the spear that's important for our national security. Then, enjoy and make good use of the extra money along the way. LW and I don't plan on the bonus in our regular budget. In fact, LW was surprised by the deposit in our bank account this week. When it comes, we'll usually splurge on a couple of things for us and for our church, but we'll put the majority of it in some form of investment. With our pending move back to the mainland in September, we're setting most of this year's bonus aside to help with a downpayment on a house. We decided to go ahead and get a Blu-Ray DVD player though, and I was pleased to find two models that will also play HD DVD as well.

Best Buy had both the Samsung BDUP5000 and the LG BH200 in stock and for the same price even, and I had a 10% off coupon from Best Buy. For the most part, the two seemed to be the same. As I stood there looking at them in Best Buy, LW got on the internet and read the user reviews. Both models had very positive reviews. However, one user pointed out that the Samsung did NOT have Dolby TrueHD. I looked at the specs on the LG model, and it DID have the Dolby TrueHD, so I took it.

So far, we really like it a lot. Friday night for family movie night, we watched National Treasure 2 in Blu-Ray, and it was really good. Then today we watched Night at the Museum in Blu-Ray. NatM in 1080p high-def is AWESOME!

Out of the ashes of defeat... It didn't turn out to be such a big loss after all. I'm putting the HD DVD player up in our bedroom, because it still plays standard DVDs and the HD DVDs we've bought so far. Also, now I won't hesitate to scoop up a bunch of the HD DVDs that Amazon has on sale for like half price.

HD vs. Blu-Ray DVD - Follow Up

Follow-up to my previous post on HD DVD versus Blu-Ray.

First, on Tuesday, Netflix and Best Buy announced they are letting HD DVD go by the wayside and are sticking with Blu-Ray. It sounds to me like it's "game over" for HD DVD. (See "Netflix and Best Buy Feeling Blu").

Then, yesterday, in spite of this article back in April 2007 in which Wal-Mart had declared HD-DVD the "winner" in the HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray format contest.

There is one retailer that has the power to call the winner of the protracted Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD fight and that vendor is Wal-Mart. Over the weekend they apparently leaked plans to bring in a massive number of low cost (possibly sub $200) HD DVD players for Christmas...

What does this Mean?

It means that any studio wanting Wal-Mart’s support after year end had better be selling HD DVD movies. Wal-Mart won’t be promoting Blu-Ray and, after year end, will increasingly focus their marketing on getting people to buy into HD DVD players and the related HD DVD movie from them. (Rob Enderle, Digital Trends, 23 Apr 2007)

The latest news says that Wal-Mart is switching sides and will only sell Blu-Ray

Wal-Mart Stores said on Friday that it plans to exclusively back the Blu-ray high-definition movie format, in the latest blow to the rival HD DVD camp backed by Toshiba.

In a statement on its Web site, Wal-Mart said that over the next few months it would phase out sales of HD DVD systems and discs, and by June will sell only Blu-ray products.

The decision marks the third retailer this week to turn its back on HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray... (Reuters, 15 Feb 2008)

HD-DVD is like a sinking ship. I wonder how long it will be before Toshiba, Microsoft, and anybody else clinging to a hope of HD DVD staying afloat will give up and get on board the Blu-Ray boat? I suppose they have to continue to publicly support it until they get their inventory of HD-DVD players and DVDs sold off to minimize their losses. In fact, I think that must be why my mom found such a great deal on the HD-DVD player - the retailers see the righting on the wall and they're trying to clear out their HD-DVD inventory (note: HD DVD movies are like 50% off on Amazon.com right now).

Follow-Up 2/25/2008: Toshiba has raised the white flag and announced they will no longer manufacture the HD DVD players. Game over, man.

HD vs. Blu-Ray DVD

I went by the NEX on Monday and picked up a high-speed HDMI cable to connect our HD DVD player to the new TV. To test it out, I put in The Italian Job. ...WOW... The Italian Job in 1080p High Def is... wait for it... LEGENDARY. I went right to the chase scene at the end with the three Mini-Coopers, the armored cars, the motor cycles, and the helicopter. It was just simply amazing. I mean, you could see the slightest glimmer or reflection in the windows of the Mini-Coopers. It was stunning.

I can hear a couple of you asking yourselves, "Self, why did he choose an HD DVD player over a Blu-Ray?" Well, that's an excellent question. I actually knew very little about the formats before my mom found a Toshiba HD DVD player for sale and asked if I wanted it. I did some quick checking around, and found that (a) the user reviews for the Toshiba HD DVD player were excellent, and (b) the price my mom found it for was fantastic. So I told my mom we'd take it. (She actually gave us the HD DVD player for Christmas - thanks, Mom!).

VS

Since then, I've been reading up a little more on the differences between the formats. The two formats are actually very similar. I expect that like the battle of VHS versus Beta, one of the two formats will eventually "win," and the winner may defy the conventional wisdom on which format should win.

Quality-wise, the two formats are the same. Watching The Italian Job on a Blu-Ray disk would have been just as fantastic as watching it on an HD DVD - they're both 1080p. The key difference between the two formats (besides which big-name corporate label is supporting it) is how much data one disk can hold - 30 GB for the HD DVD versus 50 GB for the Blu-Ray (there are other minor differences here and there, but they seemed pretty inconsequential to me). According to this CNET article comparing the formats, the Blu-Ray players are more expensive than the HD DVD players. I don't know if the price difference is driven by an actual functional capability difference or if it's just because the name brand "SONY." Given that the quality is the same and one is more expensive than the other, my logical self tells me, "$elf, economics dictate that the HD DVD format will prevail over the Blu-Ray format." I mean, who cares about the extra space on the disk? They both hold an entire movie, and I rarely watch all those "bonus features" they put on DVDs anyway, so why pay more money for more storage space that you don't need?

However (comma), if I had to wager a cash-bet on which format would win the Blu-Ray versus HD DVD battle today, then I would put my money on Blu-Ray. Why am I defying my own logic, you ask? I would put my money on the Blu-Ray just based on the number of Blu-Ray disks I see for sale at Best Buy... at the NEX... on Amazon.com... and the obviously huge amount of money Sony is investing in pushing the Blu-Ray format. In fact, this afternoon we went to Blockbuster to rent a movie for family movie night, and they had an entire row of Blu-Ray DVDs for rent, but not a SINGLE HD DVD. Curious, I just googled it and found out that Blockbuster made the decision in favor of Blu-Ray way back in June 2007 - long before I ever developed any awareness or interest in the battle between the two formats. And for the coup de grace: I wanted to get one of my favorite movies, The Fifth Element, in HD... but it's a Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) movie, so it's only available in Blu-Ray. Thbbbbbt! :-P

I won't get upset either way. I'd just like SOMEONE to declare a "winner" so we can get on with it. Even if we eventually have to buy a Blu-Ray DVD player, I've got a big enough collection of regular DVDs that I can continue to use the HD DVD player we have to play the HD DVDs we've bought so far along with our old standard format DVDs.


P.S. I can't WAIT for The Brazilian Job to come out!

Update 2/15/08: See follow-up post for more news on this topic.