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Blu Ray Vs HD DVD

I researched IPTV and On Demand technologies and theories for my University thesis.

One of the main conclusions is that don't go burning your physical media players (DVD, HDDVD/BR, etc) or your terrestrial/cable/satellite receivers just yet. IPTV and On Demand technology is very exciting and, yes, there is the infrastructure in place for this to happen. However, the actual technology in producing and displaying what your connection chucks at you is still very much in its infancy.

There are many competing standards for IPTV set top boxes, on top of that they have to implement whatever extra variations which differ from nation to nation. For example, alot of digital television cards for computers are not equipped to take advantage of the MHEG standard which provides digital text services for British television. Thus, that big red button on your remote lies sadly unused.

Secondly, you have a problem, not from content providers (yet), but more from the companies run the telecoms infrastructure. In the UK, British Telecom run the telecoms network, it is up to them what direction the network runs in. Cable infrastructure is there but only runs along the main towns and cities connected by the big motorways and nowhere else.

The problem is that as long as you have one player with vested interest who owns the network, you will have no progress in regards to the development of a sustainable IPTV and On Demand network and if you do, it will always be in a way that will only benefit the incumbent telco.

Content providers also provide a block to development but only because they don't quite understand how it all works and their demands on royalty fees per program per play are unreasonable. This attitude is starting to change and they are signing deals with telcos and smaller ISPs like Tiscali who are dabbling in IPTV.

In the UK at least, you have this situation. Most of the On Demand or near-IPTV services are run by British Telecom, Tiscali and Homechoice. The latter two provide IPTV via an 8mb ADSL connection via MPEG-2 (although whether they're moving towards the more efficient MPEG-4 right now I do not know). British Telecom is more a standard DVB Terrestrial set top box with a hard drive and a connection to on demand programs and films, again via an 8mb ADSL connection.

Virgin Media, the Cable operator, are better placed with cable connections up to 20mb as of this year and they have a huge selection of on demand content as well as more or less de-facto IPTV via a cable connection.

Abroad, AT&T are working with Microsoft to deliver an IPTV service and are taking the extravagant step of running fibre directly to the home which is a hugely expensive more but it shows how scared traditional telcos like AT&T and BT are about IPTV, OD and the internet generally.

Paris runs an IPTV service because of restrictions on television aerials and satellite dishes.

In the end, the infrastructure, the bandwith is there and within a decade the technology to put all of this in a presentable form in the living room will be there. Until then, we'll just have to suffer physical formats just a while longer...
 
I'm an idiot when it comes to the technical specifics, I just go for whatever console plays the games I want to play. And I hardly play any games, excepf for Final Fantasy. So that settles it for me.

I always believed that porn was more and more distributed via internet nowadays?
At this opint I'm glad I don't have to wonder whether or not I buy the format that will not make it in the end, since I don't have the money/room/need for it.

One of the perks of living at your parents'.

If I was living on my own, I'd just sit it out, I never felt the 'Ooh, something new, MUST HAVE' sensation (still haven't gotten round to buying an mp3 playing device), so I have no problem waiting to see what format wins.

On something else:
I was in a store the other day, and there it was, a shelf full of VHS casettes. At first I thought, must be old films that still haven't sold. Turns out, one of the ***les was Clerks II. I could be mistaken, but that film isn't ten years old, is it?

Instead of wondering who will win, maybe we should stop and think who the hell is still releasing films on VHS.
[/b]
Yeah Final fantasy is why i got a PS3. I acan't wait till ff13 and ff13versus(surprisingly i think the latter looks better, although i know very little about either).
 
Just thought you guys needed to know, they smuggled a camera into the HD-DVD groups board meeting. There was some interesting reasction to recent events, lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydtoRNf8Jr8


Now I just have to sit back and wait for the inevitable comments about solid state and downloadable content, which are humourous due to this threads ***le.
 
I researched IPTV and On Demand technologies and theories for my University thesis.

One of the main conclusions is that don't go burning your physical media players (DVD, HDDVD/BR, etc) or your terrestrial/cable/satellite receivers just yet. IPTV and On Demand technology is very exciting and, yes, there is the infrastructure in place for this to happen. However, the actual technology in producing and displaying what your connection chucks at you is still very much in its infancy.

There are many competing standards for IPTV set top boxes, on top of that they have to implement whatever extra variations which differ from nation to nation. For example, alot of digital television cards for computers are not equipped to take advantage of the MHEG standard which provides digital text services for British television. Thus, that big red button on your remote lies sadly unused.

Secondly, you have a problem, not from content providers (yet), but more from the companies run the telecoms infrastructure. In the UK, British Telecom run the telecoms network, it is up to them what direction the network runs in. Cable infrastructure is there but only runs along the main towns and cities connected by the big motorways and nowhere else.

The problem is that as long as you have one player with vested interest who owns the network, you will have no progress in regards to the development of a sustainable IPTV and On Demand network and if you do, it will always be in a way that will only benefit the incumbent telco.

Content providers also provide a block to development but only because they don't quite understand how it all works and their demands on royalty fees per program per play are unreasonable. This attitude is starting to change and they are signing deals with telcos and smaller ISPs like Tiscali who are dabbling in IPTV.

In the UK at least, you have this situation. Most of the On Demand or near-IPTV services are run by British Telecom, Tiscali and Homechoice. The latter two provide IPTV via an 8mb ADSL connection via MPEG-2 (although whether they're moving towards the more efficient MPEG-4 right now I do not know). British Telecom is more a standard DVB Terrestrial set top box with a hard drive and a connection to on demand programs and films, again via an 8mb ADSL connection.

Virgin Media, the Cable operator, are better placed with cable connections up to 20mb as of this year and they have a huge selection of on demand content as well as more or less de-facto IPTV via a cable connection.

Abroad, AT&T are working with Microsoft to deliver an IPTV service and are taking the extravagant step of running fibre directly to the home which is a hugely expensive more but it shows how scared traditional telcos like AT&T and BT are about IPTV, OD and the internet generally.

Paris runs an IPTV service because of restrictions on television aerials and satellite dishes.

In the end, the infrastructure, the bandwith is there and within a decade the technology to put all of this in a presentable form in the living room will be there. Until then, we'll just have to suffer physical formats just a while longer... [/b]



I've got this IPTV thing running for me. Got BBC Knowledge channel running. Very good service only, it has some teething problems. Like massive lags and psychedelic check boxes appearing once in awhile.
 
Didn't the six major Hollywood studios decide they'd only be releasing films on BluRay from now on too? Read something like that in the paper this morning.
 
Out of the two High Def formats, that's true. They'll still release Standard Definition dvd's though.
 
Well I am glad the war is over. Imagine if this had gone on for another 18 months or so!



I suppose Sony learnt from the Betamax war which they lost on how to win this one.
 
Not saying they'll stop the regular DVD distribution, just that they chose out of the two formats.

I was wondering earlier if this is also a good thing for the PS3, people who weren't sure about whether or not to buy it might be tempted to now, knowing that there will always be BluRay discs, whereas it might have been less interesting for them had HD won this battle. Or will this have no effect whatsoever on PS3 sales?
 
Not saying they'll stop the regular DVD distribution, just that they chose out of the two formats.

I was wondering earlier if this is also a good thing for the PS3, people who weren't sure about whether or not to buy it might be tempted to now, knowing that there will always be BluRay discs, whereas it might have been less interesting for them had HD won this battle. Or will this have no effect whatsoever on PS3 sales? [/b]



I would boldly say PS3 sales will begin to dominate Xbox 360. Microsoft as a result are probably now finalising their plans for their next Xbox to HAVE Blu-Ray. Until then Sony will take that gap in the market and probably even work with Movie Studios to push out faster the Blu Ray market in order for it to grow quickly and over take standard DVDs so they can capitalise more on their console edge.
 
Not saying they'll stop the regular DVD distribution, just that they chose out of the two formats.

I was wondering earlier if this is also a good thing for the PS3, people who weren't sure about whether or not to buy it might be tempted to now, knowing that there will always be BluRay discs, whereas it might have been less interesting for them had HD won this battle. Or will this have no effect whatsoever on PS3 sales? [/b]

This weeks PS3 sales have increased over last weeks already increased sales by 75%. Market analyists are saying that this year will be the year that non-hardcore gamers will buy into the next-gen consoles and one of their deciding factors will be the value-added prospect of the PS3 including the confirmed new next-gen HD format.

Where the PS2 included dvd and it was the cheapest way for many to own a dvd player for a while, so it also goes with the new blu ray format. One of the problems though is that it felt like a console with a dvd player interface which was more of a secondary feature. For any who wonder, the PS3 is set up in a way that in can be simply used as a home multimedia centre and it looks and works in a way befitting that purpose. Some buyers are using it for those uses only.

Later this year it will also become a home digital video recorder for those who want to record television shows onto it and watch them later.

I'm already upgrading my HDD for that purpose.
 
<div class='quotemain'> Not saying they'll stop the regular DVD distribution, just that they chose out of the two formats.

I was wondering earlier if this is also a good thing for the PS3, people who weren't sure about whether or not to buy it might be tempted to now, knowing that there will always be BluRay discs, whereas it might have been less interesting for them had HD won this battle. Or will this have no effect whatsoever on PS3 sales? [/b]

This weeks PS3 sales have increased over last weeks already increased sales by 75%. Market analyists are saying that this year will be the year that non-hardcore gamers will buy into the next-gen consoles and one of their deciding factors will be the value-added prospect of the PS3 including the confirmed new next-gen HD format.

Where the PS2 included dvd and it was the cheapest way for many to own a dvd player for a while, so it also goes with the new blu ray format. One of the problems though is that it felt like a console with a dvd player interface which was more of a secondary feature. For any who wonder, the PS3 is set up in a way that in can be simply used as a home multimedia centre and it looks and works in a way befitting that purpose. Some buyers are using it for those uses only.

Later this year it will also become a home digital video recorder for those who want to record television shows onto it and watch them later.

I'm already upgrading my HDD for that purpose.
[/b][/quote]

We have that feature in the 'digibox' that enables us to get cable television. I never had complaints about the DVDplayer that was in the Playstation, even though I heard the Xbox had better DVD graphics.
Checked prices, PS3 is still far out of my reach, not having a job, but it seems worth it, especially when the new FF comes out (still considering doing the most geeky thing ever and buy the guide, it's so pretty and useful xD).

How much would prices fall? I'm not sure what they did with the PS2, right now it's being sold for about 130-150â'¬ here (the PS2, often with extra controller and memorycard), I'm not sure what they cost when they were brand new. Does anyone remember?
 

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