HD-DVD Trumps Blu-ray in Head-to-Head

[Russ Pitts]

HD-DVD Trumps Blu-ray in Head-to-Head

Thanks to Ars Technica for pointing us in the direction of the first ever head-to-head comparison of HD-DVD and Blu-ray. High Def Digest took a look at Training Day, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Rumor Has It ... side-by-side on HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and the results are a bit surprising. Although in hindsight, I suppose they shouldn't be.

(click the link above for the whole story.)

 

[Goofonian]

Wow, thats amazing.
I mean, theoretically, the only difference between the two formats is the storage capacity right? Which would mean that, given blu-ray has more, it should have more space for a less compressed and thus better looking video. I'm not gonna claim that I know much about the video compression process but this just doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

 

[Echolocating]

It's Sony. It doesn't have to make sense... it only has to cost more. ;-)

 

[Virgil]

Very interesting. It also seems to match up with what the Microsoft AV guys were saying in Major Nelson's podcast [http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2006/07/16/Show-183-The-one-about-HD-DVD.aspx] a few weeks ago. Their explanation was that Blu-Ray content is currently still being encoded in MPEG2 format, which is inferior to their VC-1 codec that is the primary standard of HD-DVD. Also, current Blu-Ray discs are only single layer, giving them 25gb of storage, while current HD-DVD discs are dual layer, giving them 30gb.

Of course, at least some of the opinions presented can be chalked up to professional pride - I mean, they are one of the primary supporters - but none of it contradicted anything I had heard about the formats elsewhere [http://www.hometheaterblog.com/hometheater/2006/06/bluray_vs_hddvd.html].

25gb versus 50gb is probably a meaningless distinction for game development - either one is immense at this point in time - but it certainly sounds like Sony had better get those dual-layered discs out the door for video soon. If HD-DVD gets a reputation of higher quality, and the players are cheaper, Blu-Ray may become less of a selling point and more of a burden for the PS3.