OK, so you might have read our articles and news about Blu-ray and HD-DVD, maybe you've also read it on other sources on the web, but have you already made up your mind? Which format is better in your eys, Blu-ray or HD-DVD, and why?

Great question DoMiN8ToR, right now Blu-Ray is the most accessible but when HD-Drives become available I will be able to make more of an informed decision. I personally like HD better at the moment, just because I have seen more of it than Blu-Ray. HDTV and movies on the 1080i platform. Sony has not been very successful in the past trying to shove their platforms down peoples throats. They lost the VHS-Beta Max fiasco, even though at the time Beta Max was the better of the two. The platform that is most widely available and priced to the average consumer will win. For now thats all I can say. In the USA HD media is available but no burners to work with. These are all factors for me.

I dont like any of them much. However both have been cracked (so far, as sony has an extra protection up the sleeve). If that extra protection gets defeated soon, then IMHO Blu is the winner. Why? Besides the capacity, how do you really expect Toshiba alone to take over the world markets? I dont know of any Successful formats that are restricted to one manufacturer.

blu-ray seems pretty strong with so many studios supporting them, and they've got more available storage on their discs. BUT hddvd doesnt seem to lack any quality even though they've got less space. Hddvd's standalone players are alot cheaper and i think thats gonna be a big factor....BUT i think its gonna be several years till we know who's gonna win...regular dvds still have about 99% (well most of) the market...or there just might be 2 formats and most players will be dual formats

Blu-ray for one reason only.

It has the cooler name of the two.

If life were like that nobody would drive hyuyoundai

me personally i aint sure who's going to win ... cause right now most people dont even have a hdtv so that makes blu-ray/hd-dvd rather pointless overall... plus i think the huge boosts in overall quality are over, cause when you went from VHS to DVD it was a pretty big boost not just in quality of video but mainly the ease of use since u did not have to rewind/fast forward through the tape etc, it's just instant access and when your done you just stick it back into it's case. plus there's no quality drop on dvd's after playing many times unlike VHS etc... so my point is, i dont think dvd's are gonna go out to blu-ray or hd-dvd anytime in the next 3-5+ years atleast, cause theres no "big boost" like you had when u went from VHS to DVD... so when u go from DVD to blu-ray/hd-dvd you really dont get much besides better image quality and thats "IF" you got a HDTV (which most people dont have, YET ).

cause i remember seeing dvd player commercials on tv in 1997 or so and they where like 700 dollars for one etc... but anyways, ... just say 1997 dvd came out (i know technically it was 1996) and it never seemed to get mainstream til atleast 4+ years later (2001-2002 ish) right? , so i figure it's going to take ATLEAST that long before hd-dvd or blu-ray can even have a chance to over take DVD as the new standard.

me personally, im happy with current DVD overall... hell, i still use XviD format over DVD myself since i can fit like 3-6movies per dvd+r disc that way and the quality is still close to dvd overall when played on a standard tv.

but as for who i want to win, i would say hd-dvd. cause blu-ray (sony) dont deserve to be a standard cause they shafted people with rootkits on there pc's etc a while back (plus there formats never seem to win in the past either )... i think only reason i would like blu-ray over hd-dvd is storage space but besides that i want hd-dvd to win.

Both formats are backed strongly, Blu-ray is mainly backed by Sony, Philips, Pioneer, TDK, Apple and Sun. HD DVD is backed by Toshiba, Sanyo, Microsoft and Intel.

I think none format will loose, just like the DVD+R vs DVD-R, both still exists. But time will tell.

As for myself, currently I like Blu-ray since more space and the burners exists, from Panasonic (Matshita), Liteon, Philips, Sony and LG. Existing BD burners from LG can write up to 4x or about 22 minutes recording on a full 25GB BD-R disc (LG will release 6x BD-R burner) meanwhile Toshiba has HD DVD-R burner @1x or about an hour for a 15GB disc.

What I don't like from studio companies who produce both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats that in some titles (for example "Happy Feet") they produce the same video "quality" for both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, about same size 14-15GB. In the case of HD DVD, the HD DVD-ROM disc is full but for the Blu-ray version there's still a lot more space available in the BD-ROM disc for better resolution.

For video qualites on both formats, I can't tell the difference between Blu-ray and HD DVD but comparing those to DVD format of the same movie title, watching on my 42" Plasma, there is significant difference in the video details. The pop-up menu is also quite cool.

From what i see in the shops regarding movie titles. Blu-ray has many titles out, HD-DVD none that i've seen.
The whole thing hasn't taken off yet in the UK, the prices of players is way to expensive at the moment.

Blame the 'lowest common denominator' effect or HD DVD to be more precise , most studios don't wish to spend more on 2 seperate encodes when the quality of the smaller sized one is already satisfactory.

Microsoft and Intel are on the HD DVD band wagon. Also they are cheaper than Blu Ray.

Burners are much more available for blu ray and always will be. THat is due to a design decision to allow current dvd pressing lines be able to press dvd-hd. Blu ray requires new equipment. This saved money in the short run, but limited capacity on the disk and makes burners harder to build. Also 50 gigs is a lot better than 25. Storage needs NEVER shrink. Besides complaining about Sony is fun but who wants to root for microsoft?
wildfrog

Blu-Ray probably won. The porn industry accepts Blu-Ray.

I will have to agree with alan1476 here as toshiba has made one bad mistake. To truly compete they need to allow users to buy the player/burner not buy the whole laptop to get to use the burner. When this is done the war will truly start and end soon. It really looks strongly in blurays favor but the same happened in the vhs / beta max war too and it turned into vhs for whatever reasons be it the porn industry ect... I will not go into great detail either as for BD movies I wish not to be honest as said they are crooked. Space is awesome but is all 50 gigs + really needed to put out a movie? No it isn't. What the common average joe can afford in 2 years will also play the big factor too as if there isn't allot of sales this will say we need to stop trying or try a different angle. Sony has even recently in the past made offers to PS3 buyers (new) that is they bought the PS3 they would give them 5 titles of their choice, why to try to take the lead and also add these I gave 5 bluray title into the marketing stating that they are on the rise. I still want to see the figures on what's in the lead but don't include the XBOX 360 and the PS3, now those figures would say a different story and would be more true well I think.

Actually BD is more present in every aspect and even Nec/Optiarc is producing BD drives now.
At this stage AOD/HD-DVD is doomed.

I still hope we will see and get REAL Combodrives and burners.

You are correct _chef_, but this is only the beginning. I think that Blu-Ray has the edge now, but down the line I believe it may be a very different picture.

HD-DVD still has some features implemented from the start and they do advertise with that of course, but I think the BDA is already too mighty.......

The weird thing is that you see plenty ( well I do ) of HD commercials on those players and what they can do but have yet to see a BD commercial other than the video releases.

yeah i see commercials on HD-DVD players to but nothing on blu-ray players besides the commercials for movies which usually has blu-ray and hd-dvd.

i live in USA like you do.

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so it appears that blu-ray is winning so far from what all the comments are saying above.

either way as of now stuff is still to expensive for the average joe to buy so i think it's still to early to see who's going to win... as i think price/availability (like selection of movies) will have alot to do with who wins.

Yes so it makes you wonder why or how is so called bluray so popular without really any advertisements to their player?