Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Is HD-DVD dead? Read the link!!!

Thoughts?.....................yes, I've seen all this before........(VHS v/s Beta).

I'm not buying.

Remember that old adage: "Fool me once, shame on you...........fool me twice, shame on me".

Also, "Fool me three times, shame on the old adage for being insufficient."

I've already bought into both formats because standard definition just isn't cutting it for me anymore, but taking my obsessiveness out of the equation, I don't think either format deserves to "win."

I think HD DVD is the lesser of two evils, but really, both launches were pathetic, and they haven't done a whole lot to try to really secure a position in the marketplace. Blu-ray is an attempt to strongarm, and HD DVD has had too many playback issues for my liking. You shouldn't have to keep looking forward to the next firmware update in order to play your new purchases.

Blu-ray is an insult to consumers with its two forms of DRM, but Hollywood is buying into that. That's the reason it's getting the big studio support, not because the higher storage capacity means they can offer consumers more value. I admire the people who can wait, but on the other hand, if format war doesn't have a real winner for too long, the crowned "winner" won't really have much time in the throne, and its success will be nothing like DVD's.

The fact that they had to let the marketplace decide between two really very similar technologies is disgraceful. Enjoying movies shouldn't be such a chore.

Neither format is appealing. I want my movies the same way I get my music-over the internet through a subscription service. All HDDVD and blu ray do is bridge the gap between DVD and high speed fibre internet.

Since Broadband is my land, here are some quick calculations. I'm basing it on the unreasonable assumption that somebody would ever try to download 50GB of data. Yes, thats more than just the movie only content of a HD DVD or Blue Ray but just over emphasizing my point. heh heh

Slow but common HSI = 1.54 Mbps tranlating to 193 KB/sec
A 50 GB file would take......
3 Days 5 Hours 16 Minutes, assuming the internet was perfect.

Faster HSI services max at 10 MBbps or 1250 KB/sec
A 50 GB file would take
11 Hours 55 Minutes, assuming the internet was perfect.

If you have faster than 10 Mbps for your Internet, then you must have fiber to the home. SWEEETTTT!

If you want to do the math on a more reasonable size file based on an actual HD movie file size, here is a link to an easy to use calculator I often go to because I am lazy.
Download Speed Calculator

Remember, the results are based on a 'perfect' internet where there are no bottlenecks and every server can provide you its full bandwidth, for your whole download. This of course, never happens.

Murph,

The 50GB file (or any file) also has protocol overhead associated with it for error checking, acks/nacks, etc, right? What's this overhead? About 20%? If so, the times need to be boosted by the overhead amount.

By the way, that link points me to a search site.

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I've never heard of this outfit. They must be in eastern Canada only
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Sorry, I should have said Ontario, not Canada. They have 25 stores in Ontario, mostly around the GTA.

Played with the link. Looks like a copy error, it had "http" twice. Try this one.
Download Calc Attempt #2

Here is one that lets you plug in overhead.
Download Calc with overhead