Does any of you guys watch movies on HD DVD? I wonder why people have chosen Blue Ray over HD DVD.

Because blu-ray won. No one's manufacturing HDDVD any more, or HDDVD players.

It happened back in Feb 2008, I believe. At least one big studio announced that they were choosing BluRay over HD-DVD and at that point I guess HD-DVD's backers felt that they no longer had enough studio support to make the format viable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD

That said, I suspect a number of people here still have HD-DVD players and disks. There were some really nice HD-DVD players on the market, seemingly quite a bit more mature than the BluRay players of the time.

After the smoke cleared, some still bought HD DVD players at low prices because they liked the dvd upconversion.

I still have my player and a handful of HD DVDs, but I haven't had the player hooked up for quite a while. I'm out of HDMI ports and space on my shelving. I'll probably hook it up again when I get a new pre-pro, though, and my system is moved to the basement.

I was definitely rooting for HD DVD when the war was being waged, but neither format was as mature as I wanted them to be. There were still too many titles on HD DVD that required updates to play properly, and we never got to see Managed Copy do anything.

It would be nice if Blu-rays were trouble-free at this point, but there are still issues with certain titles. Since HD DVD never solved its own issues, though, I can't resent Blu-ray TOO much for winning the war. At least we got a format with more space per layer. That has to be worth something, right?

I can't wait to hook my betamax back up now.

It has a slot for HD-DVDs? That was forward thinking.

Yes.

But weirdly enough, you have to rewind the disc after watching.

I still have my HD-DVD hooked up, and we've even watched some HD-DVD flicks in the past couple of months. Mainly because my youngest has gotten huge into Harry Potter (she was too young when the rest of the youth out there got into it the first go around) and all but 1 of those movies (or is it 2) I have on HD-DVD.

It was a great format, and in many cased superior to Blu-Ray at the time, but if you throw enough money (and at times arguably false, or misleading advertising) into any tech battle, you will eventually win.

Two years later, I really don't care any more. The investment "lost" into a dead format was minimal, and I got to enjoy HD content much sooner than if I had waited for Blu-Ray to get its act together.

I still have an HD-DVD player hooked up as well, because I have some good movies in that format. The player was one that Wally World had for, I believe) $129 around Thanksgiving and you got 4 HD-DVD movies with the purchase...

I'll keep it around till it dies to occasionally play those HD-DVD movies, but I don't think I'd replace it with an eBay deal if that happens..

I only have a HDDVD concert that is Eagles' Farewell Tour 1 that never made it to Bluray.
I bought it off used and made a copy into m2ts file and playback using my media player...which looks and sounded really good in fullHD

Ummmmm what?

No offense but how was HD DVD better? It had less space, that alone is enough reason for its death. Have you seen the Avatar Blu Ray just the movie takes a whole 50 GBs. And with the advent of 3D your are most likely going to have to split that in 2 discs. BTW do you know who ended the Blu Vs HD war? Warner Bros, Did you know Warner basically owned HD DVD? They got money off every single player and disc sold period. And they choose Blu Ray in the end because they knew HD DVD was a failure because of its size limits. Blu Ray still might fail because of its size limit

Sorry if it sounds like I am trying to fight. But it just makes me crazy when people still complain about red Vs blu Blu won because it was better. Vhs won because it was cheaper, downloads will win because they are easier

I think there were some really good HD DVD transfers and some mediocre blu ray transfers. Many people were making judgement on the picture quality they were observing.

I remember the Thanksgiving before the format war was finished, there was a $100 HDDVD player at Walmart that I almost bought. When I heard in March the next year that Blu-ray won, I was glad that I didn't get that player. But, now I almost wish that I did. I don't know how many times I've seen sales for new HDDVD's, where you can pick them up for $2 or $3 per title. You can't even get the DVD for that price. Oh well.

Griffith, As I understood it HD-DVD died because Sony paid off the studios to go with their format, with Paramount being the last to jump onboard, plain and simple. HD-DVD was owned and developed by Toshiba, I was unaware of any royalties WB received from that format.

Hey Jake any thing you heard about Blu Ray paying anyone off is kinda true. But hugely exaggerated by Toshiba or someone else mad about Blu winning. First of all Microsoft paid Paramount 50 million to drop Blu Ray Toshiba matched that. And I don't mean eventually I had received stuff to review. Finished product and it never made on the shelves. Because Paramount had to pull all its releases to get the first half of its money. And do you know why Paramount got paid off? Because they was about to go Blu exclusive which would of ended the format war. But Microsoft wanted to keep it alive so rather than just buy support, they bought exclusivity. And do you know why Microsoft did all of that? So that Blu Ray and HD DVD would both die. There are interviews with the top executives were they admit it. You see Microsoft made hardly anything with HD DVD they knew keeping the war alive would make downloading movies a easier choice for people.

Now why did Fox and Warner go Blu simple the PS3, the PS3 was already in twice has many homes as HD DVD. Plus stand alone Blu Ray players were at a 2 to 1 ratio against HD DVD. Did Fox get some loving from Sony for going Blu only, sure but Fox called them. And Warner got nothing they lost billions in potential sales if HD DVD won

And the reason why some HD DVDs looked better than the Blu Ray is because Microsoft was paying for new hi def transfers on HD DVD. But studios had to use 5+ year old DVD transfers for the Blu Ray. Heck it makes sense, why spend your own money just double dip later. Screw the customer


Just wanted to add that Fox choose Really early on. My post made it seem like they came late, but they was on the wagon pretty early.

Isn't that what is all about for the studios anyways?

Yes it is but it's not working anymore, people will not be double dipped with Blu Ray. Its too expensive and offers nothing like what they did with DVDs. Most DVD double dips was for a better transfer and a shit load of extras. Today's double dips for Blu Ray is to give us Iphone apps and shitty live chat

I still have my Toshiba A1 that I purchased in August of 2006, and I have about 30 movies or so. I didn't really care who won to be honest, at the time I liked HD DVD because it was actually out and movies looked good. They were the first in the lossless audio and all that, and that was cool. I have it hooked up along with my BD player and other components and if it dies tomorrow I would try to find an Ebay deal to replace it.

The only complaint I had with HD DVD was the discs are very easy to scratch. I have a Planet Earth episode that 1/2 of it will not play and I have never had this problem with any DVD (or BD) before, in fact if I look at a lot of my HD DVD's they are really in iffy shape even though I am pretty easy on things generally. I can remember people always complaining of NetFlix HD DVD's that wouldn't play for this reason. A lot of the Combo discs that came out in the beginning were defective as well.

I still have my HD-A35 Toshiba player, it still plays great and i've got a stack of movies that i still watch. even when the player dies, i'll keep it as a reminder of the great format war. i also never saw any real logical reason to sell it. folks were carrying on like the players were gonna stop working once blu-ray won, of course that wasn't true. another truth, is i almost never had a problem with movies working, i'd probably tell you it was about 90%+ with that. i have had 4 blu-ray players including the two i have now, Oppo 83 & 80 and all together it's been about 80% and the biggest problem i have had has been with bd-live. i haven't really used bd-live for anything, but it keeps giving my hell. even with the oppo's with i believe are the best blu machines for the money, bd-live still gives them hell. bottom line for me 1080p is 1080p and lossless is lossless, didn't make a difference what format it's on as long as i have those two components. yes i'm aware that hd-dvd was a little slow in getting "heavy" with the lossless but DD+ wasn't too bad, but, nothing is better than lossless!

Holy crap Griffith. You'd think that the format war was still going on.

At the time of HD-DVD's "death", like I said, "It was a great format, and in many cased superior to Blu-Ray at the time..."

Note the "at the time" part.

Blu-Ray discs were all 25 GB, no dual layer-50 GB like today and most mainstream HD-DVDs were doing 30 GB oh and the HD-DVD specs already allowed for a triple layer that would bring it to 51 GB, meaning that it could actually do more storage than Blu-Ray.

PQ was decisively worse on Blu-Ray (month after month after month, HD movie reviews in home theater magazines were about how much better the PQ was on HD-DVD).

DVD upconversion was(is) better on HD-DVD players.

HD-DVD had internet connectivity and "live" content well before you could get anything on Blu-Ray.

Heck, the Blu-Ray standard wasn't even finalized until after the war was won where HD-DVD was set out there in advance.

HD-DVD was on Gen2 devices about the time that the first Gen1 Blu-Ray machines really hit the shelves. That meant significant improvements and bug fixes that were solved while Blu-Ray players still struggled.

As for paying companies off, what is $50M ($100M total) when Sony paid Warner $400M and Fox $120M.

The PS3 argument has already been killed off for the most part as a "winning element". Most people with PS3's during the "war" had them for gaming, and the only Blu-Ray movie they had was Spider Man or whatever was bundled. Sony was able to say that they had more Blu-Ray players sold than HD-DVD because they included the PS3, which first and foremost (at the time, again AT THE TIME) was a gaming machine. I know that since then, more people were willing to grab a PS3 as a Blu-Ray player because they knew that it was not a dead format, but I thought that we are talking about during the war.

Please *read* peoples' posts before arguing about it. I love Blu-Ray media, and its day too will pass, but this whole thing for me was about getting HD content as soon as possible. HD-DVD did a great job at it, and now that Blu-Ray has had time to catch up and surpass what HD-DVD did before it was killed off, it has been a great format that I have enjoyed for a few years now too.

I am really not bitter about the who, what, and why anymore of the war, but it seems like you are still stuck in it.

Friend (and I really mean that because we are all friends here, even when we debate things), I've been where you are on this war... Let it go. Blu-Ray won. Sit back, pop in a movie, crank up the Axioms and enjoy it. THAT is what is important. That YOU like what you've got.

Hey Nick I did not mean to sound like I was arguing with you. I thought I said that too sorry. But Warner never got 400 million that number was BS made up by Toshiba. And it is a fact that nearly 70 percent of PS3 owners were using the PS3 to play Blu Rays. At least thats what many polls showed at the time

Here is a quote from Wikipedia

By August 2007, HD DVD appeared to have a promising future, was seeing its highest sales (though still substantially lower than Blu-ray)

Blu Ray with its late start was already selling 2 to 1 against HD DVD

Fox would never ever release movies on HD DVD because of HD DVDs lack of security. Blu was not any better in real life, but it had better specs on paper

Those 3 layer discs you mention would not work on any HD DVD player. They simply were not compatible Blu Ray has 4 layer discs now. But no one uses them except for storage, why? Because they are not compatible with the current hardware

Those reviews you mention was comparing bad Blu with best HD DVD

The upconverting was better, Really? Come on man you are better than that

And I am not arguing with you, Just chatting. But you have to understand, I was making my living. Writing and reviewing Blu and HD back then. So I used to get very, very angry mail every time I said some thing positive about Blu Ray. I have no love for either format, but HD DVD was a giant failure waiting to happen and I am glad it happened sooner than later

Cite your source for this.

Sooner would have meant dying off as quickly as the Divx format died off when it was challenging DVD. HD DVD put up more of a fight. HD DVD had plenty to offer. The picture and audio quality was there. As far as the three-layer discs not being able to play, they were saying that all it would take was a firmware update. Maybe that was a lie, but it's something they were banking on.

HD DVD didn't have region coding, right? That's one thing that would put it over Blu-ray. Also, Managed Copy is dead on Blu-ray. On HD DVD it was a part of the spec at the beginning, and while it never got to be used, it was more likely to happen on that format. Perhaps it would never have turned into what I wanted it to turn into, which would be a legal way to rip my high-def movies into a jukebox-style program, but the potential was there.

I'm fine with Blu-ray, but I still wonder how different it would be if HD DVD had won.

come on....
HD DVD lost....let's continue life with Blu untill something else take over..(maybe till the time when we can d/l a 50GB movies in 10 mins?)

Discussion is fun, though.

I am a mere spectator to the show!

Cite your source, Paramount, Toshiba and Microsoft have openly talked about the deal they made. Warner and Sony have both publicly denied money was exchanged, source the digital bits. The only thing anyone could find is that Sony help Warner replicate discs and split costs on some transfers for from 400 million. And once again Warner had interest in HD DVD why would they give that up for any amount, they would not. They knew HD DVD was dead on arrival.

Oh yeah a firmware update like how Hdmi 1.1 players got 1.3 audio capabilities Toshiba promised that too. Toshiba also promised a regular dvd player that would render Blu and HD DVD worthless. How did that work out? How about the fact Toshiba was in a sinking ship. And would say anything to keep there product alive.

How about the fact that after Warner with Blu only Toshiba said it would have no impact. And slashed all there players by half or more. The reason? No not because they lost, but because that's the magic price point for mass acceptance. Sure not because your format died and stores need to clear space, right.

If it was so good and had so much potential why did it lose? Because the mighty juggernaut Sony paid everyone, Sony is unbeatable they have magic pockets. Oh wait BetaMax bombed so Sony isn't unbeatable. I guess HD DVD just sucked nuts.

Blu WINS Blu WINS lol Sorry just joking but had to say it

Betamax bombed and Sony still feels that sting and was willing to do anything to make sure Blu won and they achieved that goal.

It is easy to publicly deny anything and still have transactions take place.

You really do hate HD DVD, I'll give you that.

No I don't hate it I just can't stand inferior products standing in the way of superior products.

Yeah, it's annoying having to reach in the back to get the freshest milk.

I feel we are bonded now, Lets keep going till I hit 100 posts.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia........

lol @ this argument still going on two plus years after the fact

I still have around 200 HD/DVD's and my A35. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them. I have been swapping them out for BR as BR disks go on sale, but I suspect that process will take a while. I took advantage of an offer one of the studios offered a while back. Send in the cover and five bucks and they send you a BR copy. Hopefully, more studios will do the same.

I think HD DVD sounded cooler...

No way, Blu Ray is wayyyy cooler sounding.....

HD DVD sound like Half Dead DVD....b4 it gets going, already half dead...

I think Blu-Ray won because you can't abreviate HD DVD, its already abreviated. So when going on and on about 1 format or the other it was just easier to say, 'I watched a fabulous BD today on my new BD player. The BD quality was excellent, I love BD's"!!! Than to say, "I watched a fabulous HD DVD today on my new HD DVD player. The HD DVD quality was excellent, I love HD DVD's"!!! See what I mean?

So forget about Sony's deep pockets, double & triple layer discs, security issues and all that nonsense. HD DVD just had too long of a name!

I heard someone call them HDs. That just hurt my head.

Sometime you just need to add someone to the ignore filter....

I refuse to debate with someone who uses today's technology to compare to the opposing technology from 2 years ago. That is like when I sit at home on my new PC vs sitting at the PC that it replaced that is in my oldest daughter's room.

Night and day difference, but that "old" PC was kick ass 2 years ago.

The argument sounds like when I talk to the guys at work with their iPhones and iPads... They have fully drank into the Apple KoolAid....



Not saying that they are bad products, but some peoples' justification for them, and their own superiority complex about them gets old, especially when it isn't true...

Technology changes and evolves on a regular basis. For about 6 weeks, I had what many called "the worlds best cell phone"... It is the Droid Incredible. Then the iPhone 4 comes out... My phone still trumps it in several areas, but not in others... There will be a new Android phone coming soon that will beat the iPhone as well. Things change, but for periods of time, there are winners, and in its day the HD-DVD product was a winner, but lost to another product that (after a little more development and time) was a winner too.

There is nothing to argue here. No more to see. Move along people....

I refuse to give you the last word!!!


[Shakes fist in the air]

I'm glad it was just your fist this time.

I never said what was in it.

Oh, and no offense to you happy Apple lovers. I grabbed that photo from elsewhere and found it humorous...

Yes your right for the 3 months HD DVD was the sole format it was the bomb. I also agree with you on tech though you make a very good point. I bought my Samsung I8910 over a year ago and the specs on it still kills that of the Iphone 4. And most entry level Android phones kill it as well, let alone the higher end Android products like your Droid.

But I never compared today's Blu to HD DVD it was facts about then not now

Your love HD DVD I never tried to stop that. But for you to say Blu Ray was a later gen product is crazy. They were months apart

And you sir are more than welcome to ignore I find your announcing of it childish. I have not posted as much as half the people here have. But your the only one who seems to need to ignore me.

For the last 4 years its been my job to review things, so believe me when I say I drink no Kool Aid. If I did I would be fired or working at aicn.

I also want to add I never wanted to argue over Blu Vs HD DVD. I just saw somethings that were wrong and wanted to correct. I was not looking to argue, or start a flame war.
I completely understand the love for dead or losing formats. I still play NFL 2K on my Dream Cast. But if I was to hear some say the Dream Cast was superior to the PS2. I would have to correct, while the Dream Cast was my fave system. The PS2 was better in every way.

Personally I only ignor trolls... Someone looking to start an unwinnable arguement by presenting skewed facts or having a general lack of open mindedness that shows no ability to acknowledge someone else's point of view period.

I see none of that here. Just spirited conversation. Which is what each of us is here for, no?

Carry on.

iphones,Droids, for crying out loud, I already have a camera, a tv, several gaming platforms, don't they making anything anymore that just makes a fricking call and doesn't require you have a specific charger so you can charge it anywhere! That I will buy.

Griffith, I meant that you could ignore me, not that I was ignoring you. Since you have only been around here a couple of months, I wanted to make sure that you were aware of that option.

So, this dead horse has been beaten to death enough, I'd say. But I just ask for you to consider how you have posted here and what type of tone that sets for this site, that frankly is one of the most friendly home theater sites around.

Your very first post is about your "mistake" with buying M60 speakers. Sirquack called you out on that one. Your second thread is actually very good in your asking for advice. Same with your 3rd posting about what you called biwiring. Then comes the "I'm stuck with my M60s" post, again Sirquack jumped in to comment about being "stuck" with them. As for your comments on Alice in Wonderland, I've never seen a post use the word "poop" so much... But I agree with you assessment.
You next post about fantasy football, honestly I never read. Then comes your foray into this thread. First words "Ummmmm what?" and then starts the combative comments in response to someone stating that at the time it had some things that were better about it. So on and so forth.

So that was 3 negative toned and 3 non-negative toned set of posts. At a 50% ratio for someone who hasn't been around very long, it is hard to figure out your personality type and how you fit into this whole group here. Most people are cautious at first, and then let gripes and such fly in the water cooler after they have been around for a while. It just reminds me of another large home theater forum that many people here stopped being really active in years ago because people got hostile if you called their product bad, or if you told them that they wasted their money on $50 a foot speaker cables...

If you look back, I ranted years ago about the whole format war, but like I said in the post that you quoted, I don't care who won or not any more. This whole debate was about facts and what each of us thinks was right. As I already stated, why so argumentative? "Your" format won, and I have the privilege of watching movies on both formats and was able to get a number of HD-DVDs for nothing (thanks CV) or next to nothing vs. having to buy them on Blu for $20-$30 a pop. Sounds like a win-win for everyone. Can we move on? I leave the ball in your court sir.

Even though HD DVD lost the battle long ago I am still getting myself a player soon. As you said there are a lot of HD DVD's discs in sale out there and I just managed to get them for a dollar. Since I will need a DVD player too because I have been using the one from my computer I guess that the player will do the trick.

The Oppo BD83 plays them, doesn't it?

The Oppo plays Blu-rays, and DVDs, but not HD DVDs. If that's what you were asking.

It would be nice if someone did throw in HD DVD playback just because. You'd think OPPO could fit it into one of their models.

I don't think companies can acquire the needed licenses for HD DVD playback anymore.

Agreed, and even if Toshiba was still willing then the cost would need to be fairly small from Oppo's point of view.

If the format is dead, why not give the licenses away for free?

Dunno, maybe they feel they had too much invested in it and if they can squeeze every last penny out of it then they will. Most companies aren't altruistic enough to offer licenses for free that would in the end really only benefit the licensee.

Hey nick I don't think any of my posts were negative. My first post was about me wanting the M80s since I bought my M60s. The stuck whit them had to do with the fact I have my M80s now and have no use for the M60s. I never argued with anyone's opinion just wanted to state facts. My fantasy football thread was just that, no one wanted to play so I found a 25 dollar league on Graig's list. I also don't think Sir Quack called me out on anything, he as been very friendly. And I would have said shit but I was trying to keep it clean. I apologize if my opinions offended you.

As for Cheap HD DVDs I bought Star Dust last year for 50 cents. I enjoyed the heck out of it till my player broke. Wound up costing less than a hundred to replace the few HD DVDs I had. If the player did not break I would still be using it for Star Dust. luckily amazon uk had it on blu 15 shipped not bad I thought.

I gave my girl my old Toshiba HD DVD player, told her to buy some of them on Amazon if she wants $3 brand new high def movies, cant beat it really if you like the limited catalogue. There's nothing more I hate than format wars, I got burned originally going for the HD DVD player!

Yes format wars do indeed suck big weenies. A product of huge corporations with even bigger ego's throwing their weight around regardless of which one is better. The biggest problem is that consumers are the one's who ultimately get caught in the crossfire. Usually the lines are drawn up pretty evenly. I mean if HD DVD had only had a 5% market share, then it wouldn't even be considered a war. But when it's closer to 30 - 40%, then that leaves a lot of people who have invested their hard earned money on the format, out in the cold.

If there was a format war going on when the industry changed over from VHS to DVD then I don't remember it. All I remember was all of a sudden DVD's popped up & they were a quadrillion times easier to use than VHS tapes. So the choice was clear, you either kept buying VHS tapes and hoped DVD's would go away, or you started buying DVD's.

I was actually a bit stubborn (didn't know they were a quadrillion times better) when DVD's came out. It was due to the fact that I had built my car stereo system around cassette's (reversable, pro-logic Kenwood tape deck, and about 400 cassette tapes in my collection), and when CD's came out I was refusing to have to go replace all of my cassette tapes, so I didn't buy into CD technology for years. All my friends would tell me how much better CD's were, but I refused to listen. I would give reasons like, "well tapes don't skip when you're driving down the road (the first generation auto CD players were notoriously bad about skipping when going over even the slightest bumps), plus you can record your own tapes (CD's took a while to come out with burning capabilities), plus they're too small... you can fit hundreds of those things in a tiny little case, which makes it too easy for a thief to make off with your ENTIRE music library"!!!

They were all lame excuses. Truth be told I was very interested in CD's, but felt like I had invested way too heavily in cassette's to change over to the different format. Then I heard about the new digital tape format (D.A.T.) that was supposedly going to come out and blow away CD's, and the D.A.T. players would play regular cassettes, so I wouldn't have 400 worthless tapes layng around, I could just add on to my library with the new digital tapes. So that news really solidified my resolve to stay away from CD's. I figured I'd let all my buddies waste their time and money on CD players, and I would wait for D.A.T. to take over the market and be the last one laughing when I became the 1st person with a D.A.T. player in my car.

Well, I doubt many of you even heard of D.A.T. let alone saw any products on the shelves anywhere. That pretty much sums up what happened with D.A.T.... NOTHING!!! I really don't know if the audio signal was better on the D.A.T. tapes than CD's or not, but once consumers got ahold of CD's, and the ease of use that came along with them, they weren't about to go back to screwing around with rewinding, fast forwarding, tape players eating your tapes or anything else that had to do with cassettes. CD's were the future and nothing was going to stop them. When I got together with my first wife in 1993, she had a huge CD collection and a CD player. That was the 1st time I ever messed around with a CD personally... I instantly fell in love with being able to skip to whatever song I wanted to listen to without having to hit the search button on my tape player. It was like all of a sudden I 'GOT IT'..... "Ahhhhh, so THIS is why every single person I know switched over to CD's and tried to convince me to as well"!!! I felt like a fool really. Hell who am I kidding, I WAS a fool! Such a fool that I let my stubborness about switching over from tapes to CD's carry over into my refusal from switching over from VHS to DVD's. I despised everything that had to do with those little disks... UNTIL I tried them out for myself. Once I tried both CD's & DVD's it was like hitting a crack pipe, I was instantly hooked and wanted MORE!!!

So anyways, my point (before I took off on that ridiculously long tangent) was that I don't recall anything except standard DVD's being available when the industry switched over from VHS. But that could be due to the fact that I wasn't in the game (so to speak) at that time. I was too busy buying or renting VHS tapes. So if there was a format war back then, I missed it. But I do remember the 'Beta vs VHS' war a little bt. We lived in Littleton, Colorado at the time (1980), and I remember my friend down the street having one of those enormously huge Beta tape players and showing us movies on it. Of course I was only 9 years old so it wasn't like I was doing any critical comparison's against our other neighbor who had a VHS player. And yet another neighbor had one of those players that played movies off of discs the size of vinyl records... What were those things even called???

So anyway I don't remember seeing very many of those Beta players. Besides that one perhaps one or two others was all I ever saw. But then again back then not everyone had a movie player. I know we didn't have anything until we'd lived here in Indiana for a while, I'm guessing around 1985 or so was around the time when we got our first VHS VCR player. I'm assuming the war was pretty much over by then.

Today I honestly don't know anyone who doesn't have some sort of movie player in their house. Even most grandparents at least have an old VCR kickin around somewhere. So it's not so much a question of 'do you have a movie player in your home', as much as it is a question of 'which movie player do you have in your home'? So now these format wars induce quite a lot more casualties as far as people going out and wasting their money on a player that will be doomed to becoming obsolete. And there's no real way to be able to tell which will be the victor of the format war until the dust has settled and there's only 1 left standing. So it's a 50/50 crap shoot. Roll the dice and hope for the best.

That's about all we can do.

New longest post evar award

I was confident I could out do him!

DAT cassettes aren't interchangeable with audio cassettes. DAT tape shells are smaller, and the helical (not linear) recording was digital. The cassettes were drawn into the deck, horizontally, on a tray.

DAT never had much impact in the consumer market, but was "the standard" for small recording medium in the pro audio world, the way BetaCam SP was in the video world.

I still have an awesome Tascam deck in my rack that I used when I needed to make live, longer-than-74-minute recordings than my Tascam CD Recorder could make, or when a voiceover actor was in the soundbooth...as it allowed me to place "markers" along the recording to mark good/bad takes.

Well you would know better than I. The information I got on DAT came from the television program 'Beyond 2000', which was a show that touted future technologies and fads. In the program I watched they said that you would be able to play your standard cassettes in the new DAT players (much like you can play regular DVD's on BD players). So perhaps they had orignally planned on developing DAT players that would be able to still play regular cassette tapes? I really don't know where they would have gotten that information if that's not the case?

Some other things they said about it was that the players would have LCD screens that would display the lyrics to whatever song you were listening to. And that the audio would be superior to DVD's... were they right about either of those?

I watched that show long before the internet (& even more importantly b4 'Google') was at my disposal, so I wasn't really able to do my own research on it. So I was going on their word alone. So far they are 0 for 2 (being able to play regular cassettes, & replacing DVD's), did they get anythng at all right about it? Lol

An archaeological dig in my grandmothers backyard recently revealed a Beta player. Don't think its in working shape.

I don't know if DATs could have side-band lyrics, but regular CDs had that in the spec. Regular CDs also had previsions for quadraphonic sound with half the running time in the Red Book, but no one ever made a player which would read it.

DATs ran at a sampling rate of 48 kHz, rather than 44.1. DVDs support stereo LPCM @ 48 kHz, but with 24-bit samples. So DATs don't quite reach the max of DVD quality, but come close.

There was a Digital Compact Cassette (DCC), which used 1/4" tape just like the analog compact cassette tape, but was single sided (think like a VHS tape which doesn't have the holes all the way through). DCC players were backward compatible with the double sided analog cassettes. They used a lossy compression scheme (predating MP3). The biggest competitor was Sony's Mini-Disc (also lossy, using ATRAC encoding).

Wow Micah excellent post I feel there is a short film in there waiting to be made. DVD had to compete with divx It looked just like a dvd. But it would start to corrode after being played. It was only good for 24 to 48 hours, depending on which one you bought. They were the same price as a rental you could also order movies on demand with it. It was only sold at Circuit City, some say it was the reason CC went bye bye.


I am going by memory so I could be wrong on some things about divx it was 13 years ago.

Divx didn't corrode (there was another spec which did that). Divx was actually for most intents a DVD, not a competing technology. Though it did require a special player which had a modem inside it. When you first played a disc you had 48 hours to finish watching it. That was included in the initial price. You could play it again after paying again. If you had a disc which you wanted to play often, you could "Silver" it for a fixed price and use it in one of your players any time you wanted. There was also a higher "Gold" rate which would allow that disc to be played in any player.

The biggest problem with it (and any phone-home DRM scheme), is when the servers were finally taken off line, those Silver and Gold disc could no longer be played. CC did issue some refunds for a limited time.

The big discs like the vinyl ones are the LD ( Laser Discs ), I didn't even buy one of those because I thought DVD's were less of a trouble to keep since they were smaller. The first time I watched a LD was back in 1998, the movies was Waterworld. At the time I was pretty much blown out by the quality of video and sound, but still I refused to buy them since there were the DVD's already. Why would I buy something that bigger if I could get them as a small DVD, that's just what I thought at the time. I won't call it a war but LD tried to be a DVD competitor, at least here in Japan, but it just flunked!

What was the other large movie format that wasn't LaserDisc? Oh, I just looked it up. CED. I just remember my dad got one of those players for just about nothing since the format was dead, and we watched one of the Star Wars movies on it at my grandparents' place.

LD was around loooong before DVD. As I recall, they were actually invented before CDs, although I don't know that they were commercialized.

We had them here in Japan competing with DVD's at the time. Dvd's suddenly became a success here in Japan getting the big market share in 1996 already if I am not mistaken.

I can remember my buddies dad having a laser-disc player back when we were in about grade 6 or 7... Which would have been about 1992 or so.

The large, vinyl record disc player I'm talking about would have been out in 1980, because that was when we lived in Colorado, and that was the 1st and last time I ever saw one. It was really, REALLY bad about skipping if we got up and were bouncing around the room. I don't think it had any laser technology incorporated into it, I think its the player CV mentioned.

All I really remember about it was the really cool art on the record discs themselves. I don't remember what all movies they had, but I know one of them was a Disney movie because I remember seeing the picture on the record disc and being blown away by how cool that was. And I remember (keep in mind I was only 9 at the time) wondering how the heck they were able to extract a moving picture from that still picture on the disc itself onto the TV using a record needle (which was what I imagined was inside the player) of all things.

I was clueless... but in absolute awe of the magic!

They were CEDs (Capacitance Electronic Disc), I almost bought a player and some videos when I was at living in Florida for school.

Wikipedia has way more info about them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CED_player

Yup, that be it alright. Wow, it was read by a phonograph needle.... how did I get that right?

Lol! Never heard of that before! I am gonna check that out on Wikipedia!

I'm only speculating here since I only watched a handfull of movies on the one my friend had, and don't remember squat about its features... but I wonder if, much like a record player, you simply put the videodisc in the player, & it played from beginning to end? No fast forward, no rewind, no pause or skip or search... just play & stop?

I'm assuming this because I never saw a record player with those capabilities. And if they'd found a way to do it with the videodisc player, you would have thought that technology would have trickled down to record players as well.

Although I suppose I never saw every record player ever made either.

Some of the CED player had a skip feature which let you jump forward in time by a little bit.

In the late 80s there were some turntables designed with optical pickups which tried to "see" the track separators between songs on an LP. They had track-foward/back buttons. The feature didn't last long; I'm guessing because it didn't work well.

Around the same time there were turntables with laser "needles", which tried to read the information from the disc that way. One important feature was missing, not only do physical needs read the disc, they also provide a cleaning effect. You had to clean each record well before each play in order to keep the laser pickup system working right.

I can remember when cassette tape players developed logc technology and you could finally hit 'search' and it would fast forward to the next song for you. The only problem was that a lot of live tapes ran from one song right into the next without any of the breaks necessary for the tape deck to see it needed to stop... so the dang thing would just keep fast forwarding or rewinding to the end/beginning of the tape! Arrrrrrggg!!!!

That was just one of the many advantages CD's had over cassette's (although it took me years to finally find this out for my stubborn self!). Then CD's came out with those ultra cool 'hidden' tracks that weren't possible on tapes. Ah the joys of technology!