What is the difference between the DVD Formats Blu-ray & HD-DVD? What is this conflict between the two about?

Answer 1

Current opinion seems to favor Blu-Ray for picture quality; see
http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_2.htm
HD-DVD is available now for about $500, and several movie titles are available. Blu-Ray seems to have some catching up to do. In my opinion it is too early to jump in unless you really crave HD movies. However, the results from HD-DVD are spectacular. It has been reported that some manufacturers are working on a player that will play both formats. This may be the best solution, since the studios backing Blu-Ray may release their films only in the Blu-Ray format, and those backing HD-DVD may do likewise. Therefore, to be able to play any movie that is released, you need a both players or one player that will do both. The HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray war may never have a clear winner if a universal player becomes available. This was not possible for VHS/Beta, but is for DVD.

Answer 2

Blu-ray and HD-DVD are rival incompatible formats, a situation that recalls the Beta vs. VHS battle that stifled the early growth of the VCR and home-video market in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Despite an attempt to unify the two standards in 2005, the corporate godfathers of the two formats--Sony for Blu-ray and Toshiba for HD-DVD--failed to come to an agreement.

What that means to you is that no Blu-ray player will be able to play HD-DVD discs, and no HD-DVD player can play Blu-ray discs. If a movie comes out in one format, there's no guarantee that it will be available in the other. Certain studios could release movies in both formats, but you'll still have to be careful not to buy the wrong version of the movie. Adding to the frustration is the fact that the capabilities and features of the two formats are far more similar than they are different

Answer 3

Everyones got it right, just make sure that whichever you go with that you reserch which one has the better quality of your favorite movies. It's hard to explain but esentially all HD movies are recorded by using "upconversion" basicly the're "converted" to HD and then put on a disk. XxX may be good on the HD dvd but it realy sucks on Blu-ray. There are sites dedicated to these ratings too.
The only thing I can add is; if your sticking to a good old 720p or 1080i rez. the Hd-dvd is affordable and great looking but if your going 1080p and realy want to do it big, you might want to lean towards Blu-ray, it's more expensive but doesn't seem to have any of the HDMI problems that some of the HD-dvd's have, and since it will come standard with the new PS3, (if your a video game guy) you'll already have one.

Answer 4

blu-ray has more storage (25 per layer) but HD-DVD is backward compatible. blu-ray uses a blue laser beam, instead of red, while HD-DVD is just more concentrated. There are already tests with octolayer blu-ray disc with 200 GB of storage.

I prefer blu-ray, but it will once again be like Betamax and VHS, I guess. More companies suppory blu-ray, but quite a lot support both. HD-DVD was first on the market, and their main purpose is storing HD movies, which have three times the bitrate of DVD quality.

Answer 5

2 different companies, 2 different formats. 1 will not play on the other.

The conflict is similar to the VHS versus Betamax that occured years ago.

Answer 6

different studios prefer blu-ray, sony i think and others want hd dvd. dont remember which ones. but they need different players. they both have more memory capacity and hd capabilities.

Answer 7

Two different formats from different manufactures, are neither one is compatible with one another.
Also one is backwards compatible , meaning it will also play the old reg. dvds. The other is not backwards compatible.