Holy Moly Blu-Ray Disc Players below $300

Yes its true. Its a market share fight for the future. HD-DVDs production/distribution costs are lower and they are pressing Blu Ray hard by forcing big losses on them just like Blu Ray came out swinging with their marketing and stuck it to HD-DVD big time, initially grabbing 70% of disc sales ( its since evened up quite a bit if you look at the past months Amazon sales rank data for top 100 Blu Ray vs HD-DVD)

From the future shop site...

Toshiba HD DVD Player (HD-D3)

Released 15 Dec/07. With the HD-D3, Toshiba delivers the excellent picture, sound, and... More Info

Price: $99.99
You save: $300.00 after instant savings.....

I have no dog in this fight, yet. Blue-ray currently has greater storage capacity than HD DVD, although that may be changing (see wikipedia posts below). Looks like audio formats for movies on disk are being held back by studio decisions rather than technology at this point. Perhaps when standard DVDs are in decline, studios will be motivated to increase audio specs for all movies on disk. From a video perspective - looks like full 1080p performance is more dependent on the choice of video processor and implementation of circuitry by the manufacturer than the format used (HD DVD vs Blue-ray).

Wikipedia discussion of HD DVD and Blue-ray:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD#Origins_and_competition_from_Blu-ray_Disc

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray

For what its worth, the $99 Toshiba described in this thread is not a full 1080p player. Newer HD DVD and Blue-ray players are 1080p native, including PS3.

From Amazon.com:

Toshiba HD-D3 HD DVD Player
Technical Details

* HD Output: 720p/1080i - SD Upconversion with HDMI: 480p/720p/1080i
* Playback Media: HD DVD Video, DVD Video, DVD VR, DVD-R (Video), DVD-R DL (Video), DVD-RW (Video/VR CPRM), CD, CD-R/-RW (CD-DA)
* OSD Language: English/French/Spanish/Others - Advanced Navigation

I'd be careful what you listen to in this thread. I own the PS3 and use it for Blu-Ray and it looks and works phenomenally. None of the stuttering or "strange" playback issues mentioned. I also have the XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on and have had no overwhelming issues with that either. Sure the HD-DVD add-on isn't as great overall compared to the PS3, but that is only because of the slight differences between 1080i and 1080p, i.e. there is a slight loss of overall smoothness.

I wouldn't listen to anyone saying that "all" players from one camp or the others aren't good, or are garbage, or "insert blatantly prejudiced statement here." Those people are just looking to get people to buy the format they chose to buy.

Underneath all the bologna there is one major technological difference in the long term between these two formats. One has more storage potential than the other one when all things are equal (since they both can add multiple layers...). That format is Blu-Ray.

I dunno J- I'd be carefully taking too much from your posts frankly.

Most of the Blu ray disks are 25 GB, not the 50 GB disks with greater storage. The yield rates from the two ( and there are only two) 50 GB disk plants are very low, making it very expensive to produce 50GB Blu ray disks effectively, with signifcant transport/distribution costs leading to Blu ray subsidiary studios in Europe to produce Blu Ray only titles on HD-DVD in Europe.

In addition, there is a current Blu ray thread over at avs, contributed to only by Blu Ray owners, on Blu Ray disk rot, with pictures. It shows some blu ray disks getting all of these spots on them and talks about certain disks not playing after this disk rot.

In the end, the difference between Blu Ray and Hd-DVD is the shell that holds the video and audio code, and not much else. The HD-DVD shell is simply more stable, and a lot less fragile. The data on HD-DVD disks is embedded at a deeper depth and is more protected from playback problems.

Also, the HD-DVD player specs for audio and video are in place, so you know you can play an HD-DVD disk and listen to present audio formats no matter what player you buy on the HD-DVD side of the fence. You have no idea what you are going to get on the Blu ray side.

Its my understanding that Blu Ray is introducing BD-J coding language on their disks next year, to better enable the presence of interactive features ( thusfar absent on Blu Ray disks but present on many HD-DVD offerings). Are you sure your PS3 will be able to utilize this language and actually play the disks? I am not sure at all.

I agree that both Blu Ray and HD-DVD disks can look great. But I do prefer the more mature lower cost format to win or at least have some decent dual format options and since HD-DVD only has to survive to win and not really win, I don't see this working out for Blu ray at all personally.

Thats an opinion of course. But a lot of what I am laying out in this post is fact.

I dont think the optimal Hi Def Player exists yet, and 10 lumen technology on the plasma side ( my display tech of choice) isn't out yet either. When these two things occur, then its really time to jump on the Hi Def bandwagon. In the end, its still a bit early by about 18 months, assuming someone alreddy has a decent set up for standard DVDs in place already.