I agree HDDVD is better, no doubt. but the fact is the safer bet is blu ray. Sony has played its hand nicely. No one wants to jump into a stand alone player for fear of it being obsolete. But i can play my ps3 which is my console and my media extender (WITH DIVX). The xbox360 its a 180 dollar add on which again is just for standalone player. HD DVD is better but they screwed up.

There are some rumors that a bluray drive (since it can read DVDs) with a firmware change can read HD-DVDs but as soon as that happens sony wins the console war but loses the format war.

How is HD DVD better? Blu-ray is the better technology in every way.

HD DVD just has a way better name.

The problem with BR is Sony. Sony will fuck it up, just like SACD. And while Toshiba et all and Sony are cluster fucking each other, other technologies are being developed, that are FAR superior. Google HVD (3.9TB optical disc)

I love the PS controller layout and size. The problem with the new controller is the new L2 and R2 buttons. They should have a lip on the bottom so my finger stops slipping off. Replace the rumble and make a lip on those buttons and I will be happy again.

I most likely won't ever buy blu-ray movies. I don't really watch movies, and I don't own an high def tv. I'm saving up for a tv, but it will be a while.

What is a good router to use for it thats around $60? I have a lynksis wireless one right now and it SUCKS. I did the linux change over and it still keeps dropping the connection and then reconnects every 30 seconds. It's not just the PS3 as my laptop does it too. I'm thinking Netgear or D-link. I've hears of gaming routers, but I've never looked in to them.

The gameplay on wii is nothing spectacular. It was a neat concept at first, and I did enjoy it, but its old now and thats why I sold my wii. Game creators pick a gimmick and build a game around it. "Sword slashing" in zelda is just waving the wand in a spam motion. Wii sports, you swing in the air, and cannot even control your chars. Oh its fun, for a bit. The Nintendo game support will kill the system just like gamecube. I think the damn DS has less kiddie games then the wii.

How is Blu-Ray tech. so much superior? I'll admit to no following the two incredibly closely, but they both support 1080P, can use similar/the same codecs for audio and video.

We're just reaching the point that a couple video games are not easily fitting onto the ~8.4GB of a dual-layer DVD, so the 15GB that even the single-layer HD-DVD provides is more than enough for quite a few years.

Yeah all that good stuff has been around for a while the problem is producing in mass and deciding on a universal format.

To be honest I used to think HD DVD was better back in the day when the two formats were just in development. I havent paid attention since. And since then it looks as if the Blu Ray is better. Im not seeing the advantages for HD DVD orther than cheaper (player wise)

HD: 15 GB single 30 Double = 5.1 hrs or 3.3 hrs depending on encoding
BR: 25 GB single 50 Double = 8.5 or 5.6 same as above.
The BR format allows more layers to be used due to disc production specs, so it theoretically can support 200GB.

Software: HD uses iHD vs. BR using Java

In short.. BR really has more future proofing..

How many movies are more than 3.3 hrs long? I'm telling you, by the time we start filling up ~15GB-30GB of disk space, a new format will be ready to come out; it's happening with DVDs as we speak.

How is Java more future-proof than HDi? Microsoft has just as much staying power as Sun...they've released the SDK for free download. I don't know how difficult HDi is to program, but Java's coding will certainly be more familiar to more people.

Again, it sounds to me like there are some minor differences, none of which are enough to make or break either format. WTF did Sony foist this madness upon us? Or was it Toshiba, for being slow to commit to using blue wavelength lasers?

Doesn't Blu-Ray also have more supporters besides Sony? Like Disney, Panasonic, blahblahblah... and HD-DVD has what.... Toshiba?

I guess there's some dual format players coming out. Talk about cost prohibitive, they're talking like $1200 a pop! No really, why the fuck would ANYONE do that when they can buy a base model PS3 AND a standalone HD-DVD player for almost half of that price?

http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/R...rticleID=12365

It's an LG player for anyone who didn't care to click the link. While searching I saw Samsung in there somewhere too.

I do agree with you there, it is bullshit that consumers have to roll the dice on a format because corporations can't get together and agree on one.

uncompressed soundtracks
alternate language sountracks (french, spanish, director)
special features


shit adds up...

I agree, TrueHD audio gets big and when you put all those things in 1080P format you start really tacking on the GBs. I don't see movies being the real opportunity to use the space, but bigger/longer games with lots of content. It used to be that movies drove the size of discs, but now its games driving disc size it seems. Systems are quickly outgrowing DVDs.

PS3 is gonna Play Divx! Fuck video games, no more transcoding on the fly. Rewind and fastforward will work!! Awesome.

The only thing blu ray is worse on is read rate of the disk, but its higher then we will ever run into an issue of. If its between two formats I would rather have the headroom. Look how fast we out grew DVDs

See, the media-streaming ability of any next-gen system has no value for me, as I'm running XBMC on my original Xbox. XBMC is ridiculously mature and full-featured at this stage, has an aesthetically-pleasing GUI, has a media player that will stream any audio or video file format I've ever thrown at it, allowed me to install an 80GB drive in my Xbox (which, in turn, allows me to run all my SNES, NES, Genesis, Master System, N64, Neo Geo and CPS1/2 emulators and games from XBMC interface as well) and also allows you to install all sorts of nifty open-source widgets/programs.

However, I'd buy a PS3 if it came with these: http://benheck.com/04-14-2007/ps360-controller/

Thats awesome, for media streaming, I already had a media server. I wasnt going to invest in another one, plus blu-ray and being able to play PS3.

does he say how much he charges for the controller?

I don't know that he's officially producing them yet for mass consumption.

The bigger/longer games that wear that estimated $90-$100 price tag that they predicted for PS3 games? If it was (using GT for an example again...) GT putting all the content from the past GT games and all the tracks together along with the current and expected tech then I'm all about big priced games. I was pretty disappointed when I heard that XBox had no expected games for use on the HD player, but then I just looked at it as a $200 HD DVD player in a market where there was none cheaper than $400. Of course, I haven't even bought one yet. :gay:

The XBOX360 player is a joke. You get your damn HD video, but useless audio. The brilliant minds at microsoft didnt think "Hey, can USB support the bandwidth needed for HD video and audio?" Hell no. Its like watching a movie with the translation to "Speak and spell". They could have put the elite in with an HD... and ... no

if the xbox had a built in hddvd drive that would have made me rethink everything