Why Disney Chose Blu-ray Over HD DVD

But is Blu-ray winning the battle?

Gordon Ho Executive Vice President (worldwide marketing & product management) for Buena Vista Home Entertainment (Disney). Had this to say.

"We believe so and have put our support with Blu-ray at this time and that's because largely it has the better specifications. It can deliver a better picture because of the bit rate, beyond the fact that the disc has more capacity. So there's two different discs - Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Blu-ray, the dual layer, holds 50 gigabytes of data. The dual layer HD-DVD holds 30. So when you want the best picture, would you rather have 50 gigabytes of information or 30"?

"So we found this meant Blu-ray had the room for the best picture and sound. The other thing it has is what we call a peak bit rate. What this is is how much data can you send over a pipe in a given second. Blu-ray can send 40Gb of information per second. HD-DVD can only do 29. So when you have an action scene and you have all this information on the screen - you've got fire, you've got people running about - you need to use so much bit rate. You have all this stuff happening and you suddenly need all this information to be sent through. Blu-ray has less limitations, so that's another benefit. It has space and it has space in the pipes".

[drunkpandas]

Maybe the fact that the largest rental store in the US went Blu-Ray exclusive had something to do with this decision?

(I'm not sure which happened first. If I'm wrong, I apologize).

[Expy]

Disney was exclusive to Blu-Ray well before Blockbuster went.

[blackmagic]

Blockbuster is far from Blu-Ray exclusive. Approx. 1,700 locations only stock Blu-Ray for rental (they still sell HD-DVDs) but there are well over 5,000 locations which means well over 3,000 locations are still stocking both for rental (including my local blockbuster) plus anyone, anywhere can still rent HD-DVDs (or Blu-Rays) through their online service.

Edit: *GROAN* I just read the rest of the comments on here. It's devastatingly painful listening to people pledge allegance to a format based solely on their preference of console. Purposeful misinformation overload!

Note to all: When you buy your player that ONLY plays bluray or ONLY plays HD-DVD and cheap dual format players are flooding the market are you just going to pretend that all the movies you are missing out on are just crap?! Take notice that this is exactly what happens to console fanboys!

Does anybody here know someone that has a DVD player that reads DVD+R AND DVD-R even though they are competing formats? How about a dvd player that plays AAC and WMA music files even though they are competing audio formats? how about a player that plays DVD AND VCD? Yup, competing formats again. As a matter of fact, ALL of those competing formats play in most modern dvd players which also play publicly available formats such as divx and ogg vorbis to boot.
All this can be purchased for less than $100 and you all have no idea!

[Fighter]

Fox and Disney chose Blu-ray for the extra storage but primarily for the extra layer of security on a blu-ray disc called BD+ that HD-DVD will never offer. http://arstechnica.com/news...

Fox will only support Blu-ray because of the BD+ feature so don't expect them to make movies for HD-DVD. http://www.afterdawn.com/gl...

[TheMART]

Didn't Disney also choose MS marketplace exclusively for distribution digital?

So no need for HD-DVD or BetaBluRay :P

[DEADEND]

LOL your seriously a 360fanboy, plus its really doesn't make sense what you just said because not everyone will buy a 360 so by them choosing BLU-RAY they're really helping SONY out.

[D_U_I]

Sad git.

[Lord Anubis]

Yes, I also love who the movies offered in the market place have LPMC. :|

[schabeugen04]

they are not exclusive to 360 marketplace. they are just signed on for it.

[Real Gambler]

Microsoft has nothing to care about hddvd. They just want digital distribution because Bill Gates has millions of shares in cable company, internet provider and backbone. So basically, it's only up to Universal. What the heck to they see in hddvd?????

Come to the blu side Universal, come to the blu side, I'm your father : )

[heroman711]

umm .. ok you didnt have to bring microsoft in this since aint has nothing to do wit this

[eZJrg6ur]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

It's not 40 Gigabit/sec - thats freaking rediculous. That would be the entire blu-ray disc in what... 9-10 seconds?

It's 48 Megabit/sec, and HD-DVD does 35 Mb/s.

He's a fantastic idiot and clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. Just spouting off numbers one of his assistants gave him.

[Azures]

he's right regardless, blu-ray transfers at a higher rate

[Expy]

He didn't get the measurement correct but his point was that Blu-Ray delivers data faster than HD-DVD, and I think he got that point across.

[Galvatron]

His lack of intelligence is really evident when he talks about storage capacity. You'd have to put a movie onto an HD DVD about 3 times to use all of the disc space. Why do you need 50 gigs? Hell, any idiot can take an 85 minute movie (in 1080p) and put it on a dual-layer (regular) dvd.

[sa73917]

Well that depends on how much you want to compress it.. You can get a whole DVD into a 600mb DivX but you lose a fair bit in the process.. He's just saying they can put the whole movie on there, with high bit-rates and full 1080p and not be concerned about running out of space for multiple audio tracks etc..

[Galvatron]

The point is, it can be done.

[kr9091]

Find a better source than Wikipedia! Wikipedia is about as reliable as a forum post.

[Whoooop]

Both Mickey and Donald own a PS3.. sry

[MK_Red]

One of the biggest reasons that I've heard was behind Disney's decision is the fact that Sony didn't allow porn on Blu-ray (At least initially).

[progx]

they'd have to feel pretty stupid.

[heroman711]

i dont know y u need to see boobs in high def lol

[ChefDejon]

Disney has a movie with fire and people running all over the place go blu-ray

[s8anicslayer]

because it will still be around next year?

[Shaka2K6]

Becuase simple...

Blu-ray > dvd > hd-dvd.

[xg-ei8ht]

Is that 48megabit peak or sustained.

[power of Green]

HD-DVD's discs are going to phased out; the 30 gigers will be replaced with 51 gig disc before the end of this year. So if the Porn thing's is true and Disc size i feel sorry for those studio's. The war could have been already over they choose the wrong side. Blu-ray does not look better we test the differences all the time.

Toshiba's found a way to make tripple layer disc at little added cost from the other 30 giger version adding no cost to the consumer and it will be 51 gigs and will be releasing in a few months with HD-DVD price drops.

HD-DVD is a better format.

[THC CELL]

News Flash
Blu ray will have 200 gig if not 250 to a massive 500

Ok 500 is over the top Or is it

POG. dont lower ya self to theMarts Level man,

[heroman711]

for the record they making bigger blu ray discs that can possibly hold 200 gigs.

darn u beat me to it

[MikeGdaGod]

u sound really silly

[Galvatron]

Everything power of GREEN says is true. Look it up. You people go with what you're told without reading anything for yourselves.

[Rageanitus]

to read a 51 gb hd-dvd you need a totally new player. And Im pretty sure it will be just as expensive as current blu ray players.

Currently you can get a blu-ray player for cheapest about 500~-600 in my area. And a 1080 p hd-dvd player for 450 ish.. The cheaper version can only do 1080i for some odd reason.

Last I heard most blu-ray players are compatible with the future 200 gb BD just by updating the firmware.

In the end hd-dvd will be screwing around with their customers had they created a 51 gb movies. In a marketing sense It will be extremly difficult to push a new version hd-dvd on customers and REBUILDIG a user base just to match with current gen blu-ray players.

The only way to win at this point is to "simply" gain studio support.

Hd-dvd seems to have some of the weapons to combat blu-ray, but a war cannot be one without the ammo.

[Fighter]

Power of green always brings that fact up and I always provide proof to shut him up but it seems that he doesn't want to believe fact. For those 51 GB discs you will need a new model HD-DVD player that can read the discs. read the last paragraph of the provided link http://www.reghardware.co.u...

As for the 200 GB, sadly I must disagree with you about firmwares that allow for the disc to be read. It's the exact same deal as the 51 GB HD-DVDs, (I think) you must own a BD player that is capable of reading the extra layers. http://www.pcworld.com/arti...

By the way, Ritek has developed a 250GB Blu-ray disc http://www.dailytech.com/ar...

I'm still not sure if the firmware updates can help read the extra layers so I could be wrong.

[thewhoopimen]

6.3 - Where he really shows his stuff
His lack of intelligence is really evident when he talks about storage capacity. You'd have to put a movie onto an HD DVD about 3 times to use all of the disc space. Why do you need 50 gigs? Hell, any idiot can take an 85 minute movie (in 1080p) and put it on a dual-layer (regular) dvd.

-> Actually it's your lack of intelligence that is especially evident. Why would you assume that they are going to use he same information that they put into a DVD on to a HD disc (Bluray or HD DVD regardless).
Here, let me put it into a simple logic for you. If they were simply going to do that, there would be a Lord of the Rings HD-DVD or Bluray version out by now. Maybe they could just hire you to do the disc copying for them lol (i'm sure they'll offer you $10/hr!)

No, what is happening is that if this movie was originally shot on film, they are now rescanning and remastering it to a 1920 x 1080 resolution for your screen vs. taking the 480p out right now and stretching it to 1080p.

You ever work with photoshop or any digital image program? You should know exactly what happens when you enlarge the image size of a 320 x 240 to 1600 x 1200. It looks like crap b/c of all the filled pixels (TV we're talking 512 x 384 or 480p -> 1920 x 1080 so it's the same idea). Now imagine they are scanning the film stock with some high level professional scanners at 7200 dpi or higher and resizing them down to a 1080p resolution (I'm no scanner buff, so I don't know what commercial grade stuff can do, but lets assume 7200 x 7200 -> 1920 x 1080). There is no way the new footage is fitting in a 9.4gb (unaable to verify this, but the scanner per frame for 35mm film is 23.5mb!!!)
This is also why upscaling DVDs is just a big bung hole of phooey. It doesn't even come close to HD, but especially not to Bluray.

[Galvatron]

They don't need all that space because they're not gonna use it for a movie. I don't care what you say about movies, high-capacity discs are for STORAGE. They're made so you can put 10 years worth of downloaded porn on one disc.

[Galvatron]

I never said they'd put the same thing on an HD disc as a regular dvd. I said that there was enough space for about 85 min in 1080p on a dual layer dvd. The only reason to point that out is to show that 30-50 gb is not needed. YOU started your rant based off improperly understanding what I said. Tell you what... find me a movie on blu-ray that wouldn't fit on an hd dvd. Go ahead. What? Didn't have enough time? Well, a time limit wouldn't matter, 'cause you couldn't find one.

[PStriple703]

Go Blue ray!

[COCK]

BECUZ DER SMART ON THE LIGTER NOTE I HAD SEX WITH MY DOG N LIKE IT

[PimpNick_1980]

Come on I can't believe for one that Blu-Ray is saw as so awesome. I know that every Blu-Ray player SUCKS. Yes you too PS3, how about them load times, or how about the fact that Blu-Ray players are buggy. I went to my buddies house when he got his Blu-Ray player, first it took two and a half minutes to load to movie and then it didn't have any real-time special features (like Hd-DVD) and the movie would stop from time to time. The picture was washed out, it just plain sucks compaired to HD-DVD. The only reason Blu-Ray is ahead in sales is because there are more physical disks out there in the real would. Beside I thought that this site was about video games.

[nasim]

which dies in a couple of days.

does HD camp even have a good movie?

Pirates 1,2,3 Spidey 1,2,3 ....all spielberg and Disney's movies are exclusive to Blue Ray

HD DVD and MS are dead

:)

[thewhoopimen]

Sound and Vision mag did a review on the PS3 as a bluray player. The results? Excellent. Load time is 10 sec from insert to start. Scenes were sharp, colours were excellent. The reviewer who was a non-gamer enjoyed the system so much, he became a Resistance fan on top of it.

[s8anicslayer]

this is like saying that halo movie will only be on blue ray

[PiTCHBLaCK]

That would be funny if The Movie Halo was only on Blu-ray, I Think the 50 gig Blu-ray is 50 gig because more room to add special features, or may if It's even doable, Multiple movies., But don't quote me, This is Just a Theory.

I Wont bash hddvd either though, 30 Gig is more then enough for a Movie with Lots of special features.
PS3 however benifits from It's built in Blu-ray, Blu-ray Discs also benifit from PS3, so it's Like being married, without the need of going to a wedding, Also this Marriage Lacks arguments to :)

[THC PRITCHARD]

Blu ray sounds so cool

i mean i use both hd and blu ray.

Power of Green says there is a 51 gig disk coming out. That should help a lot of there future games. Wait till gears if war 2 etc.

Blu ray has a bit of a upper hand i mean 200 gig in the future what a size that is well huge

[AntiJohnny]

"That should help a lot of there future games. Wait till gears if war 2 etc."

The 360 does not support HD-DVD games. It has an add-on HD-DVD player, but you cannot play games from it now and supposedly ever. The 360 is stuck with DVD.

[THC CELL]

wow to stick with dvd must be a kick in the nuts then

[Jen5en]

Boxing match from Rocky IV: "And a left hook sends HD-DVD 15 feet across the ring!"

Nope, HD-DVD simply is the losing format in this discussion. Though the features are excellent, it doesn't really help when Sony & Friends have the Blu Ray PR Train going at 1029 mph and counting. The average Joe will just see the bigger Blu Ray signs and go with it, disregarding the fact that HD DVD may be slightly cheaper, and even use VC-1 (not a tech-freak, correct me if I'm wrong) for better features. The world is driven by spin, and Sony played their cards right this time.

[mirroredderorrim]

Blu-Ray also uses VC-1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[Jen5en]

Really? I thought they applied BD-Java later... hmm... thanks for the info.

[tk]

HD-DVD gives better quality?
No. Blu Ray and HD-DVD gives exactly... EXACTLY.. the same quality. A digital file on one is the same as the other one. Exactly. Down to the last binary bit. The codec translates the file. The file resides on the disk. The only difference is the max size of the files (50GB vs 30GB), and the transfer speed (Blu Ray > HD-DVD). The rest is a function of the playback equipment - that can be exactly... EXACTLY the same.

The only.. ONLY difference, is size and speed. And therefore, technically Blu Ray is better than HD-DVD.

And if you dig into technical details, the transfer speed can affect th quality - because the video and audio can require more than what HD-DVD can provide. And then, and only then, will Blu-Ray give better quality than HD-DVD. But only in the extreme cases. For 99% of the cases, they will be EXACTLY the same quality.

And because the size and speed, but mostly the size matters, the studios prefer Blu-Ray.

As an owner of a PS3, and of a number of Blu-Ray disks, (games and movies), I can tell you of personal experience. The coating on the Blu-Ray disks is amazing. Not a scratch. Compared to the old DVD's, Blu-Ray is a leap forward. After playing the disks for a number of times - not even remotely the wear that you find on DVD disks. But then - also, the PS3 seems to not scratch existing DVD's as any of the other players I own. The PS3 is a great DVD / Blu-Ray player. It is simply in a league of its own. The difference is in quality. "It's a Sony"

[sumfood4u]

Mickey Mouse Ain't no Punk! He's a Business Mouse lol!

[IRONMAN457]

is next gen, end of story

[heroman711]

i dont care i wanna sleep

[bootsielon]

Business. Everything else is icing on the cake.