I figured instead of spinning off into the comments field for all of the existing Blu-Ray only movie houses, I figured I would make one article about why I don't like the current Blu-Ray model. As I said, it would be a lot easier if this hatred of Blu-Ray was solely based on the fact that I don't care for Sony as a company and want the Xbox 360 to win. But it's a little bit more than that.
Sony is, in my eyes, the maker of the most successful gaming systems ever. The regular Playstation followed up by the Playstation 2 was one of the greatest game system dynasties we've ever seen. And to be completely honest, the first foray of Microsoft into the gaming arena was a pathetic attempt. The only positives to come out of that first leap was the creation of Xbox live and the Halo dynasty. But I digress.
As great as the PS2 was, it's what created a dangerous model for Sony fanboys. Since it was so long ago, most people won't remember this, but the initial release of the PS2 ran into some of the same issues as the PS3...it's just that more games were released with the system and it was actually backwards compatible. For me, the key issue: The architecture for the PS2 was far different from anything else, so game designers struggled to build games to take full advantage of the power of the PS2. Does this sound familiar to anyone at all?
And sure enough, just as game makers start to take full advantage of it, what do they do? That's right, the PS3. So just as soon as the value of the powerful system is used, they make a new system and it starts all over again.
Why is this an issue to me? As a consumer, I want a finished product that can be taken advantage of. Does Blu-Ray offer that? Yes. But immediately? No. Who remembers the long run of the VHS tape? Was that a good 10 years? And the DVD? Can we say another 10 years? Who here truthfully believes that Blu-Ray will be the standard for that long? Who wants to wait for a fully functional Blu-Ray player when they can already get all the functionality Blu-Ray is trying to add in in an HD-DVD?
I understand that in the long term, users have a chance at a better product by going to Blu-Ray. But that's not now. Again, the feature set is terrible. And most of the early adopters will have to buy a new player to play the future releases once the format is finally fully defined. I can't emphasize that enough: The Blu-Ray format is not fully defined. But while it's frame throughput is faster and supposedly the colors are more vibrant (I myself notice no difference at all between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD), is it truthfully worth the extra money? And who here thinks Sony, which charges more for its products simply because it is Sony, will start to cut prices? Wouldn't competition make it cut prices? So what will the lack of do?
Lastly, as much as it does suck to own a HD-DVD player and see these movie studios going solely Blu-Ray, there are things to remember:
1. My player cost less than a Blu-Ray player that I could have. And I'd still have to buy a new player in a year regardless due to the format.
2. China has gone to CH-DVD, an offshoot of HD. To me this means that the battle is still not over. It used to be whatever porn used won. Now I think with China and it's billions of population can be the wild card.
3. It's only money.
4. I have a feeling that neither of these formats wins in 3-4 years anyway. We'll be talking about the next competition of the next nextgen format.
3 comments:
Are the features not yet available on the Blu Ray format that big a deal? Will the average consumer care about camera angles and being brought back to the menu instead of where they left off in the movie? I doubt it.
Faster and more data available sounds like a better solution to me. Less "2-disc sets" is a winner in my book. And prices will fall. They always do.
Blu ray seems to be the better long-term solution, and perhaps the film production companies agree.
Show me where the prices fell in the PS2 and PS3 history. And how long in it was until they did. And I don't know about you, but exiting a dvd movie to watch an extra scene, then try to fast forward back to the spot I was at is a pain in the ass.
My point is why go with a standard that isn't fully defined yet? At least with HD-DVD the standard is defined and the movie providers would adhere to it. Right now they're basically throwing up a middle finger to any consumer who's already purchased one of their players because most don't do firmware updates, meaning that when the format is fully defined, people who purchased their players will have to purchase another down the line. This isn't just for the extra features, but for the movie itself! How's that for a kick in the pants.
I said I don't care who they go with long term, but to make the jump now to a half finished format doesn't make sense. It's great that the film companies agree...so now for raping us for 9+ bucks a movie, they can also force people into buying multiple blu-ray players to keep their high def needs met.
The only thing that Blu-Ray has over HD DVD is storage capacity. And HD DVD was able to get there disc up to 50GB of storage. HD DVD did have much better features that were not just simple camera angles and menu jumps. It truly had more features.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/the-state-of-hd-dvd/the-state-of-hd-dvd-330684.php
Hopefully the comment area will allow you to copy and paste the link.
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