Weekly55.3%44.7%Monthly44.4%55.6%Yearly48.7%51.3%   Releases;/td>511438* Based on AxelMusic sales

 

Upscaled DVDs are fine, but 'real' HD discs are substantially better. Real pixels are always going to be better than pixels the upscaler has guessed at, no matter how good the upscaling is!

As regards misinformation - your sales figures are "based on AxelMusic sales". In other words, this is not overall sales but sales from one particular (and relatively minor) online retailer. Single-retailer figures from Amazon might be meaningful, but really only the overall sales are the true picture. To reach conclusions based on just one minor retailers figures is crazy, I think.

But I really don't want an argument!! I'm not pro- or anti- either format, just enjoy whatever road you choose to go down. Just FWIW my opinion (and it's only my opinion) is that blu-ray will win this one. And also that in the fullness of time it won't matter either way because your high-def content will come straight from the internet download and to your screen via your computer. So it really doesn't matter! 

soundproof:

@Greg

I don't care either way, Greg. I'm very happy with the quality of my upscaled DVDs - though I do enjoy the higher quality sound of the HD disc formats.
But there's a lot of misinformation from either side in the so called "war."

The threadstarter linked to a statistic that's worth taking a look at. BLU-RAY in the first column, HD-DVD in the second:

Weekly	55.3%	44.7%
Monthly	44.4%	55.6%
Yearly	48.7%	51.3%
Releases;/td>	511	438
* Based on AxelMusic sales

 

Upscaled DVDs are fine, but 'real' HD discs are substantially better. Real pixels are always going to be better than pixels the upscaler has guessed at, no matter how good the upscaling is!

As regards misinformation - your sales figures are "based on AxelMusic sales". In other words, this is not overall sales but sales from one particular (and relatively minor) online retailer. Single-retailer figures from Amazon might be meaningful, but really only the overall sales are the true picture. To reach conclusions based on just one minor retailers figures is crazy, I think.

But I really don't want an argument!! I'm not pro- or anti- either format, just enjoy whatever road you choose to go down. Just FWIW my opinion (and it's only my opinion) is that blu-ray will win this one. And also that in the fullness of time it won't matter either way because your high-def content will come straight from the internet download and to your screen via your computer. So it really doesn't matter! 

I would like to be enlightened! please tell me what 'real HD discs' i can buy that will offer this 'performance' to which one refers?? Many of my associates who have chosen to go the BR route always state they expected far more- and i have to agree. On a 50 hidef BV4 i can tell very little difference. maybe on LCD one would as it displays pictures alarmingly badly anway- so anything helps/

Well obviously on a 720 set like the BV4 (or indeed 428XD) you'll not notice the difference as much as you do on a 1080 set, for sure. But, and again maybe I'm 'special' but, the difference was very obvious to me. If you can't see it, of course don't bother with BR. But I'm amazed you can't! 

I should add the caveat that when I first watched a BR disc I wasn't exactly blown away, but watching the same movie on the same set from a standard DVD straight afterwards suddenly looked very bad! And putting the BR disc back on was like wiping the vaseline from the lens!

Must confess I'm much in agreement with 355f here.

===

I'll be "brief":

HDMI, BluRay and HD-DVD are Digital Rights Management COPY PROTECTION SCHEMES, disguised as offering improved image and sound quality to consumers.

In order to get consumers to go along with this scheme, the carrots of improved image and sound are held out before prospective buyers. But a lot of people are buying into this copy protection hardware and software while unaware that they can actually be locked out of accessing the same if illegit use is detected. (With lots of people reporting such lock-outs while making perfectly legitimate use of same.) Vista, HDMI 1.3 and both high resolution playback formats have intricate, two-way and internet connected copy protection built in, with certificates signing off on everything you want to do with the equipment. This is the movie and music industry's attempt to "do something about illegal downloads and copying."

Yes, the Full-HD image of a properly sourced and scanned production is superior to upscaled DVD, no doubt about that. And multi-channel, full resolution sound is a blast. Nice carrots - I'm equipping my Home Theatre to be able to enjoy that fully.

BUT - the difference between Full-HD and excellently upscaled DVD is not sufficient to get me to abandon my many hundreds of DVDs. (I did that once, with VHS, but I won't do it again. Particularly not for older, classic source material that was not produced either visually or aurally to exploit what the new formats can do.

On a well calibrated screen, with the playback unit properly configured, you'll get amazed by what you can get out of your DVDs. As 355f states above, several of the major players are abandoning the high-rez formats due to lackluster sales (to say the least) - people aren't letting themselves be tricked into making the major upgrade involved, and overall sales are seriously lagging relative to the projections underlying the initial investments in the technologies.

As to whether Full-HD is better than HD-Ready - well, the resolution's technically better, and at close range you can also perceive it. But I have to confess at finding a lot of the Full-HD material I have seen "plasticky" compared to both cinema and HD-Ready resolutions. (All modern movie screens are perforated, in order to let the sound from the center speakers and L/R speakers through - and I think we like what that perforation does to the image. The Full-HD image gets clinical in comparison.)

Whatever. The BluRay camp is getting desperate according to what I'm being told, and the staggering price-cuts on HD-DVD is building an unexpected relative groundswell for that format. All projections BEFORE the "war" had BluRay beating its rival in short order - that didn't pan out.

As to people stating a huge difference between Full-HD and HD-Ready, at normal viewing distances ... I'd want to ask whether the playback chains were similar.

 

Hi,

in german computer magazine "c't" was a very detailed article about both formats and bluray is technically advanced in some cases. HD-DVD has compressed audio on some tracks which means less quality ...

I hope bluray wins this format war ...

Well, admitted I work at axelmusic.dk. But remember that the statistics are based on sales out of store - I could imagine a number of reasons why any of the camps would sell any retailer and/or webshop a large number of their discs, just to get the sales registered – especially with a large international one - those figures could still turn pages this early in the battle. When that is said, I still don’t think we will necessarily ever see a winner, and if ever: it still might not be the best…

At the moment any new (only to) blu-ray released simultaneously with the DVD will push the statistics in blu-ray as winner direction (we have had 4 large of those this year) – there has not yet been a single (only to) HD-DVD simultaneously with any DVD in Denmark yet. And here the (high-def) backcatalogue has the same insane price as the new (high-def) releases… I think that’s why we don’t share the same statistics as axelmusic.com.

Greg:

Well obviously on a 720 set like the BV4 (or indeed 428XD) you'll not notice the difference as much as you do on a 1080 set, for sure. But, and again maybe I'm 'special' but, the difference was very obvious to me. If you can't see it, of course don't bother with BR. But I'm amazed you can't! 

I should add the caveat that when I first watched a BR disc I wasn't exactly blown away, but watching the same movie on the same set from a standard DVD straight afterwards suddenly looked very bad! And putting the BR disc back on was like wiping the vaseline from the lens!

well firstly dont get carried away with specifications! processing power is all -1080 is not the holy grail as many have found out- it almost comes bottom of the list in terms of what makes a good picture! interestingly many on the trade are amazed the difference is so small.

I also Have a Pioneer 1080 and cant tell the differmnce with that- and when swopping back to upscaled dvd it is not a significant difference!

Please tell methe discs I should buy to demeonstate the superb 'advances that BR offers??? then many meneber can experience this!

Alright, let's not fall out over this!!!  I'm saying that, disregarding specifications completely (perhaps I didn't make it clear enough that I wasn't talking about paper specifications, but my own experience), and relying on my eyes, I have seen a very clear difference. I find it hard to believe that you can't see it, you find it hard to believe that I can. We're evidently different people. As I said before, if you don't need or want blu-ray or hddvd, don't get it! And then this whole thread is also irrelevant to you!!!

---

btw I have viewed only 2 discs - one was Casino Royale, and one was a movie I haven't seen before and I'm afraid I don't know it's name!