Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD

http://news.com.com/Blu-ray+besting+its+high-def+DVD+rival/2100-1025_3-6178403.html


According to our good friends at CNET, and using some relyable sources. It turns out that Blu-Ray discs are out selling HD DVD at around a 70/30 ratio. My question to the world is why are people choosing Blu-Ray over HD-DVD. HD-DVDs are cheaper to make and produce, they cost less to buy, the players are much cheaper then any blu-ray player, and according to HighDefDigest
They are of either the same quality to the untrained eye, and of slightly better quality to the trained eye.
Blu-Rays are more expensive to produce, more expensive to buy, the players are much more expensive, as well as the other reasons that HighDefDigest

Again, why would people choose HD DVDs over Blu-Rays?

At the core of the technology, blu-rays do have more storage space then HDs, (around 50 gb at max storage) and they have the backing of more major movie labels then that of HDs.

In my personal opinion though, I think the true reason why Blu is beating HD is because of the PS3. The PS3 offers an extremely cheap Blu-Ray player at only $600. With the PS3 selling a lot of units into homes across America, it gave a decisive advantage over HD DVD players which really doesn't have a flagship player like Blu-Rays do with PS3s. For this reason, everyone who owns a PS3 will also own a Blu-Ray player and thus will go out and buy Blu-Ray movies for it so that the player functionality doesn't go to waste.

I personally think that Blu-Rays are a little ahead of it's time. There is no need for a disc that can store data of that quantity at this time. Especially with the cost of just making the discs and players, I wonder why the format was pushed as much as it was. The only real way I can see using that amount of space is for putting full seasons or entire series of TV shows onto one disc. In the gaming sector, the only way a disc would be filled up is if the game was stored completly uncompressed.

HD DVDs seems just right for the time. Having more but not too much more storage space, cheaper and easier to produce, and given the name, seems like a natural successor to the DVD discs. I will say that Blu Rays will eventually hold up better in the long run against HD DVDs. Given their overall higher storage capacity.

Who will rise as the victor? Only consumers will tell. And by consumers I mean the CEOs of Sony and Microsoft.

Joost is kinda cool

About a month and a half ago my Professor/Advisor introduced the class to a program simply called Joost. It is a media program created by the same persons that created Skype and Kazaa. The core of the program is to watch Television programs on your computer via P2P (peer to peer) sharing. It is completly free as well.

I checked out more info on Joost and signed up for the beta. Today I was able to download and give it a shot. Upon openning the program, it takes you into a full screen UI. This actually suprised and impressed me. The fact that it went into full screen gives it more of a TV feel and the interface is really slick and well made. Upon opening the program you sign in using a user account that you set up once you download the program. Of course you can switch between full screen and windowed mode.

On the left side of the screen you see a button called My Channels. Upon clicking on it you see a list of channels that you can choose from to view programs. These include well known names like MTV and Warner Brothers, to lesser known names in the media like Bite TV and Gamestar.

One thing that struck me was how many programs were available to watch on the beta. over 12 channels each having a good amount of content. The navigation is easy with its simple point-click interface and the quality of the videos is really really nice. Much better then Youtube as a comparison. Another nice feature is that if you shut off the program in the middle of a show and open it up again, you'll start right back where you left off.

Since it's a beta it does have it's fair share of issues. The biggest issue is lag time in the UI. The program is also pretty processor intensive, and it drains your bandwith. You really can't be downloading anything with Joost running otherwise you'll experience lag. I'm hopeful these issues will be fixed in the final version.

Over all it's a promising program. It's got the brains of the Kazaa and Skype empire along with a concept that everyone can enjoy AND a really nice interface to top it all off. Can't wait to try a release.

For more information visit:
http://www.joost.com