vim16v

I've been sitting on the side line for some time now with the HD DVD vs Blue Ray war.
I like my home theatre experience and feel its time to shift to higher resolutions.

I'm leaning towards HD-DVD at this point. (cheaper players (import) no region coding blah blah)

Just wondering if anyone has adopted to either and want to share experiences?

ps- I'm not after the endless debate on both technologies, I'm up to date, just personal experiences if any.

Cheers

Frisky

There is more of a swing towards HD-DVD as a standard, Blu-ray is losing ground in the battle. I would wait just a little longer to confirm who the winner is because the loser will be on the same path as betamax!

joefish1298

I have seen both in stores and feel neither format is worth buying yet. Animations like "Chicken Little" and "Happy Feet" look awesome, but movies transferred from film look pretty crap IMO.

I think both formats were rushed to market because they each wanted to be first to market and as such there's a lot of improvement still to be made for both formats.

Blackie

Can't really tell the difference in detail anyway (except for colour and richness) unless you have a display with a resolution of 1920x1080 and larger than 50". Blu-Ray apparently is still holding market share though. I wouldn't bite at this time, but get a PS3 or an xbox 360 (with HD-DVD drive for $250) and you could use both!

On a related AV note, I nearly bit the Bose bullet on the weekend. The V20/V30 series looks hella nice. Missus reminded me about the wedding coming up and slapped me back into reality.

mrPEPE

I went for Blu-ray simply cos its built into my PS3. Blu ray has apparently outsold HD-DVD in all countries ever since they've been released. Picture quality between Blu-ray and HD-dvd is very similar. Sound wise, Hd-dvd offers Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Digital True HD Sound but these are still compressed Audio. Blu-ray offers better sound with Multi channel UNCOMPRESSED pcm Audio via a HDMI cable and a compatible reciever. HD-dvd is cheaper to make but Blu-ray has more titles and industry support. hope Blu ray wins cos I already bought 10 titles

Alister

I recently bought a 50" 1080p screen and am not sure which way to jump either..

My initial instinct was to go Blu Ray, but I don't want to spend $1k+ on a Blu Ray player and then be abandoned in 6-12 months in the event that HD-DVD wins the war..

Despite the fact I'm not really into games I might go the PS3 anyway - cheapest Blu Ray player available at $699 and I'll always be able to offload the thing should HD-DVD be the eventual 'winner'..

vim16v

Cheers for the replies lads

I was going to approach on the cheap and go a player from the states with the AUD being good.
You can get the Toshiba HD A2 approx $200 inc 5 movies ($550 here after cashback)

Downside - 1080i (dont sit close enough to tv to tell), 110v step down transformer required and SD region 1 locked

FYI HD DVD are not region coded like Blue Ray and buying from Amazon is under $30

cashout

The war will go on for a few years. it won't be over in 6-12 months. It will be over when one of the formats is deserted by the movie studios. Just like the VHS-Beta war.

cashout

A good step down transformer will run you $150. You can get cheaper but you shouldn't bother, specially with the ones that are the size of an oversize wall adaptors, those are only meant to be in use for less than two hours at a time and start misbehaving after that.

joefish1298

Personally I think HDDVD will win the war. The only reason BluRay is still barely in front is because of PS3 and Sony are unsustainably bleeding money on the console. Developers will abandon the system soon if it doesn't make big sales this holiday season with the new cheap (still expensive) price. Once the PS3 crashes and burns, no more BluRay in every home like Sony envisaged.

If you take away the people who only bought the console to play games from the figures then HDDVD would appear to be winning.