So what's the real difference between Blu-Ray and HD DVD's?

Blue-Ray costs more.

Ummmm, that's all I can think of.

Yeah too the naked eye and to people who dont care about extras, they look identical but you get more for your money with HD-DVD and it's cheaper. But hey, they just lost. Wal mart is going blu exclusive, everything is. It's going to be over in the next month or two, which sucks for us HD-DVD owners. Kenshi_is_god

It's already over. Toshiba announced that they won't be producing anymore HD-DVD hardware.

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL1627196120080216

Wow, some ignorant post in this thread.

Main differences between Bluray and HD DVD:

Bluray 50gig HD DVD 30gig
Bluray plays higher bitrate
Bluray is region encoded, HD DVD isn't
HD DVD uses an overlay menu, Bluray's menu replaces the movie thats playing, uses a picture in picture.
Bluray players arent standardized, HD DVD players are
HD DVD supports Combo disc for legacy support, Bluray owners have to buy the movie twice if they want to play in S DVD player.
Both formats put out some crappy looking titles with their HD emblem on them to sell disc. Older movies are hit or miss, some look great some look pretty bad. Not to mention some early Bluray disc were using dated encoding methods.

I have both formats and the thing I LOVE about HD DVD is the region free, no advertisment, Combo disc. I go straight into the movie, it plays in all DVD players in my house, and to most of us looks the same as the Bluray counterpart playing at a higher bit rate, best bang for your buck.

I hope that the Bluray format will adopt some of the features that HD DVD had, especially the overlay menu. I hate having to forward through 50 ads, previews to watch a movie, thanks Sony for bringing that back with your format.

The best looking movie I own is Pirates 3, which is only on Bluray. But I own some great looking HD DVD titles like Serenity, Chronicles of Riddick and Bourne Ultimatum.

Its moot point now with Toshiba dropping support.

Wow, some ignorant post in this thread.

Main differences between Bluray and HD DVD:

Bluray 50gig HD DVD 30gig
Bluray plays higher bitrate
Bluray is region encoded, HD DVD isn't
HD DVD uses an overlay menu, Bluray's menu replaces the movie thats playing, uses a picture in picture.
Bluray players arent standardized, HD DVD players are
HD DVD supports Combo disc for legacy support, Bluray owners have to buy the movie twice if they want to play in S DVD player.
Both formats put out some crappy looking titles with their HD emblem on them to sell disc. Older movies are hit or miss, some look great some look pretty bad. Not to mention some early Bluray disc were using dated encoding methods.

I have both formats and the thing I LOVE about HD DVD is the region free, no advertisment, Combo disc. I go straight into the movie, it plays in all DVD players in my house, and to most of us looks the same as the Bluray counterpart playing at a higher bit rate, best bang for your buck.

I hope that the Bluray format will adopt some of the features that HD DVD had, especially the overlay menu. I hate having to forward through 50 ads, previews to watch a movie, thanks Sony for bringing that back with your format.

The best looking movie I own is Pirates 3, which is only on Bluray. But I own some great looking HD DVD titles like Serenity, Chronicles of Riddick and Bourne Ultimatum.

Its moot point now with Toshiba dropping support.

tkemory

We just bought a PS3 this weekend so we can continue to enjoy HD content. We watched Spiderman 3, and at the end my g/f looks over at me and asked what I think. I just said 'I miss HD-DVD' and she nodded with me and agreed. I really miss the overlay and interactivity of HD-DVD.

this is what they said

"The media [has] reported that Toshiba will discontinue its HD DVD business. Toshiba has not made any announcement concerning this. Although Toshiba is currently assessing its business strategies, no decision has been made at this moment."

Whats with the ignorance? If you press Square on your ps3 pad, the overlay menu pops up...F1Lengend

It continues... When I press the menu button the movie is replaced with a menu screen (page whatever you want to call it), the movie continues to play in the upper right hand corner. I am speaking about picking chapters etc. The overlay menu that shows me the controls is not what I am talking about since I have the bluray remote.

[QUOTE="tkemory"]

Wow, some ignorant post in this thread.

Main differences between Bluray and HD DVD:

Bluray 50gig HD DVD 30gig
Bluray plays higher bitrate
Bluray is region encoded, HD DVD isn't
HD DVD uses an overlay menu, Bluray's menu replaces the movie thats playing, uses a picture in picture.
Bluray players arent standardized, HD DVD players are
HD DVD supports Combo disc for legacy support, Bluray owners have to buy the movie twice if they want to play in S DVD player.
Both formats put out some crappy looking titles with their HD emblem on them to sell disc. Older movies are hit or miss, some look great some look pretty bad. Not to mention some early Bluray disc were using dated encoding methods.

I have both formats and the thing I LOVE about HD DVD is the region free, no advertisment, Combo disc. I go straight into the movie, it plays in all DVD players in my house, and to most of us looks the same as the Bluray counterpart playing at a higher bit rate, best bang for your buck.

I hope that the Bluray format will adopt some of the features that HD DVD had, especially the overlay menu. I hate having to forward through 50 ads, previews to watch a movie, thanks Sony for bringing that back with your format.

The best looking movie I own is Pirates 3, which is only on Bluray. But I own some great looking HD DVD titles like Serenity, Chronicles of Riddick and Bourne Ultimatum.

Its moot point now with Toshiba dropping support.

boostud

We just bought a PS3 this weekend so we can continue to enjoy HD content. We watched Spiderman 3, and at the end my g/f looks over at me and asked what I think. I just said 'I miss HD-DVD' and she nodded with me and agreed. I really miss the overlay and interactivity of HD-DVD.

I may catch some heat over this, but personally I dont think Spiderman 3 looks that great, I THINK, its because I watched the upscaled DVD9 first, and it looked so good I wasn't as impressed by the Bluray version. Go buy Pirates 3, its by far the best looking HD picture I have seen so far, and the menu is pretty neat as well :)

so what if HD-DVD has a change in mind and comes with region encoding to make hollywood happy????

will it survive then?:idea:

so what if HD-DVD has a change in mind and comes with region encoding to make hollywood happy????

will it survive then?:idea:

Great_Ragnarok

Nope. It currently has no backers and its track record as a viable media storage device is gone.

Oh, and as a difference:

Blu-Ray movies are larger because they use a less compressed format than the HD-DVD (one the good things about having MS in your corner is that you have software development second to none :P).

Oh, and Blu-Ray movies are larger because they contain lots of redundant data to make movie playing faster (they duplicate bits of the disc multiple times so it is located in many places which leads to the disc being able to be read faster. This is to compensate for the fact that HD-DVDs can be read quicker).

Seeing this format war from a purely video standpoint is too shortsighted (please don't flame before reading my explanation objectively (though this may sound very obvious)).

As with what happened with CDs and then with DVDs, Blu-Rays will be adopted for data storage such as puttin games on for your PC or to simply store information. From that perspective, having the massive extra space that a Blu-Ray disc has over a HD-DVD is extremely beneficial. Also, now that the format war is over, with the economies of scale that having total market domination over the next gen format affords, one can confidently hope that prices of Blu-Rays will go down faster over time.

Oh, and Blu-Ray movies are larger because they contain lots of redundant data to make movie playing faster (they duplicate bits of the disc multiple times so it is located in many places which leads to the disc being able to be read faster. This is to compensate for the fact that HD-DVDs can be read quicker).

donwoogie

This is absolutely untrue. HD DVD players only require a 1x read speed (roughly 36.55 mb/s) while Blu-Ray players require a 1.5x speed drive (roughly 54 mb/s). Neither format uses redundant data for movies. Blu-Ray movies are larger because they utilize an older codec, are encoded at a higher bitrate, contain a less compressed audio format or additional audio tracks.