Recent Comments:
The Engadget Show: Hands-on with Times Square {Engadget}
Sep 24th 2009 1:58PM It would be really nice if The Engadget Show were on TiVo.
Toshiba projects $669 million loss on HD DVD (and $459 million more) {Engadget}
Mar 19th 2008 10:56AM In fact, if you check the record, Sony made a lot of money on Betamax, as it was a pretty successful format, it merely failed to become the winner of its format war. Unlike the case with HDM, the videocassette format broke into the mainstream while the format war was still on, so Sony did benefit from the early surge in interest in home video. And they never sold product at a loss the way that Toshiba did: although early units weren't profitable, then never kept lowering the price over and over again to gain market share, and eventually their Beta decks and tapes turned a profit.
Dreamworks Animation isn't ready to quit HD DVD yet {Engadget}
Feb 27th 2008 12:54PM Sure it does: rumor has it that Dreamworks Animation got half of the $50 Million paid to Dreamworks proper. So far, the only Dreamwors Animation movie out on HD-DVD is Shrek The Third, with only one more, Bee Movie, in the pipeline. Guaranteed $25 Million is much more than they'll make from those two movies on Blu-Ray, and that will tide them over until the agreement expires. Moreover, they have to pay creative people on disc sales, while the $25 Million goes directly into Katzenberg's pocket.
Ask Engadget HD: Does Blu-ray show enough love to 720p HDTV owners? {Engadget HD}
Feb 27th 2008 12:46PM Well this is very easy to see for yourself. Presumably if the questioner has a HD capable monitor, he/she also has some true HD source, be it cable, satellite or OTA. Assuming that they do have an HD source, they should find a movie being broadcast in HD (and be sure that it is really HD and not merely upscaled SD) that they already own on DVD. Then compare the image from the HD source to that on the upscaled DVD. If you prefer the HD source, then know that the Blu-Ray version will look even better. On my one 720p set, the comparison is not even close. I'd even go as far as saying that either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray looks as much better than DirectTV HD as DirectTV HD does over upscaled SD.
Dreamworks Animation isn't ready to quit HD DVD yet {Engadget}
Feb 27th 2008 8:38AM Since Toshiba won't be making players any more, I assume that Dreamworks Animation is going to make the players themselves. That would be cool: an entire format dedicated to a single studio's output. given that Dreamworks Animation has only ever released 16 movies, and of those, only one, Shrek The Third, has ever actually been released on HD-DVD (with Bee Movie announced but not yet released), it will be interesting to see whether an entire format can survive with only two movies that use it. Actually, I think that that would be pretty cool, and I'll go even further: they didn't take the format war far enough -- every studio should have their own unique high definition disk format. Nah, that's still not good enough -- I won't buy any high definition disks until there's a separate incompatible format for each movie. That's the ticket!
Two years of battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray: a retrospective {Engadget HD}
Feb 20th 2008 3:27PM There are three key points that need to be raised that haven't been fully explored in this article and the comments that go a long way to explaining why Blu-Ray won even though HD-DVD is arguably better:
1. The battle wasn't really HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray, but really HD-DVD disk format plus HDi versus Blu-Ray disk format plus something (which later turned out to be BD-J. There's no question that Blu-Ray disks, as physical objects are better than HD-DVD disks because they have higher capacity, are more durable, can be made out of more different materials (remember the paper BD?) and in the end proved not to be more expensive to manufacture. On the other hand, HDi was a fully developed platform while BD-J is still a work in progress. The unified format should have been Blu-Ray disks with HDi content. I am told that the reason unification broke down is that (a) Toshiba wanted the same share of BD licensing revenues that it would have received on HD-DVD disks, (b) MS insisted that HDi become the only development platform for authoring and interactivity, and (c) Sony insisting that uncompressed LPCM be mandatory. The reason that the war went on as long as it did was that both the companies and consumers looked for different things when choosing a format -- HD-DVD offered more interactivity and BD offered more HD content. In the end, as Harry Potter proved, the general public doesn't give a fig about interactivity.
2. Toshiba and the HD-DVD fans wrongly assumed that the general public would be seduced by low prices. If this were so, then the best selling car in the US would be the Yugo. The exact opposite is true -- most people perceive that something priced low must be "cheap." What they want is a bargain -- good value for money. And, true or not, the PS3 delivered on that perception. Not only did it look so much more well-built than any stand-alone player, but depending on your priority, it was like buying a game machine and getting a BD player free, or buying a BD player and getting a game machine for free. The fact that every review said that the PS3 was the best and least expensive BD player only enhanced this image. Even though it was the most expensive console, it seemed to deliver the most bang for the buck. FWIW, I know at least 10 people who own PS3s, and not one of them owns a single game. Their consoles are used exclusively as BD players.
3. The war was really over with the decision to cancel the CES press conference. That sent a signal that the HD-DVD side had lost faith in the product. After doing that, it was only a matter of how long HD-DVD would take to die. If Toshiba had stood strong instead of running away with its tail between its legs, the format might still be alive today.
Toshiba: "no plans" to adopt Blu-ray {Engadget HD}
Feb 19th 2008 8:26AM Don't fool yourself "no plans to adopt Blu-Ray" doesn't mean "we'll go Blu-Ray if we have to," it means "we'll continue to do whatever we can to torpedo Blu-Ray just prove that we weren't the rea; losers, only the first loser."
Announcement of HD DVD's death expected in short order (duh) {Engadget}
Feb 18th 2008 9:15AM @newly convert
You're an audiophile and you can't afford a $2,000 receiver? A true audiophile would spend $2,000 just on cables! :-)
Wal-Mart to officially discontinue HD DVD sales by June {Engadget HD}
Feb 15th 2008 2:57PM No one is focusing on the real take-home message here: Wal-Mart said that after June, they won't sell any HD-DVD, INCLUDING MOVIES. And it is my understanding (and correct me if I am wrong) that Wal-Mart represents 25% of the home video software market. So whether or not they continue to sell HD-DVD players in the form of upconverting DVD players hardly makes any difference. Whether or not Paramount and Universal are committed to only support their preferred format, that is predicated on the assumption that they can actually sell product in their preferred format. If, starting in June, if Wal-Mart will no longer sell their HDM product, how long do you think they'll be willing to write those sales off? The same goes for Warner: Let's suppose they DO decide to release The Dark Knight in HD-DVD. Wal-Mart still won't sell it. That's why this announcement and the Netflix announcement are so significant: if Wal-Mart and Netflix, two giant buyers of product, won't order HD-DVD product, then that puts tremendous pressure on Paramount and Universal to go purple at a minimum.
By the way, there is a way out for HD-DVD, though they'd never do it: they should immediately increase the price of the players so that the least expensive model costs $600 and increase the cost of the disks so that they cost 20% than Blu-Ray product and then start advertising HD-DVD as a high-margin premium videophile alternative to Blu-Ray. They might then continue to sell in much smaller numbers than Blu-Ray, but the higher margins would make it more profitable and the product might regain much of its cachet if it is seen as a premium product instead of a mass-market item.
What's dynamic contrast anyways? {Engadget HD}
Feb 14th 2008 9:29AM The problem here is that Ben wrote "So instead of measuring the difference between the whitest white and the blackest black displayed on the screen at the same time, they display white and black on the screen at once and then measure the difference." That's tantamount to saying "so instead of doing X, they do X." What he meant to say was "So instead of measuring the difference between the whitest white and the blackest black displayed on the screen at the same time, they display a white screen and then a separate black screen and then measure the difference." Jon Davis is correct that the only way to properly measure contrast is for a monitor to display black, white and neutral on the screen at the same time. Of course, that the set also needs to be properly calibrated first goes without saying.
