Exactly. It adds a huge layer of functionality to the disc, you can play it anywhere. I wish all HD DVDs were combos, and hopefully eventually they will be. Besides playing it anywhere in your own house, combo means you can take it over a family/friend's house too, without having to worry that they wont have the proper hardware.
Digital Trends: Optical HD Battle May Be Over: HD DVD Wins
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Exactly. It adds a huge layer of functionality to the disc, you can play it anywhere. I wish all HD DVDs were combos, and hopefully eventually they will be. Besides playing it anywhere in your own house, combo means you can take it over a family/friend's house too, without having to worry that they wont have the proper hardware.
I think its a bit daft that they didn't do this right from the start. Its certainly not something that well publicised either.
I assume they are wating to see if there is a greater uptake of the combo disks before studios pull the trigger on releasing more/all like that. However, they have a awareness barrier to break through - if I go to my local mall and look in the music / DVD stores I'll be buggered if I can find any HD disks there by myself; they need promotional efforts with stores to put those type of disks front and center and point out that they can be used on standard DVD players as well as HD DVD's.
I assume they are wating to see if there is a greater uptake of the combo disks before studios pull the trigger on releasing more/all like that. However, they have a awareness barrier to break through - if I go to my local mall and look in the music / DVD stores I'll be buggered if I can find any HD disks there by myself; they need promotional efforts with stores to put those type of disks front and center and point out that they can be used on standard DVD players as well as HD DVD's.
The combo disk thing is interesting. Superman returns has about a $4 premium for the combo vs DVD-only. That's not terrible, and presumably that would reduce if it became a standard.
We've got a 62" DLP. I'm dying to buy an HD format player. What keeps me from doing so is not the spectre of a $500 doorstop down the road. As a good 'merican technophile consumer, this does not faze me. However, the spectre of a $5k library of coasters *does* give me pause.
We've got a 62" DLP. I'm dying to buy an HD format player. What keeps me from doing so is not the spectre of a $500 doorstop down the road. As a good 'merican technophile consumer, this does not faze me. However, the spectre of a $5k library of coasters *does* give me pause.
You can get it for $23 shipped from BUY.COM using google checkout:
http://www.buy.com/prod/Superman_Returns_HD_DVD_Combo/q/loc/322/203143272.html
A little better than the $25 from amazon with HDDISC10 code.
Even if the format fails, the HD-A2 player and discs wont disappear and will still look stunning for years to come - not to mention that all of your combo discs will work fine as regular DVDs forever. Considering with some of the promos (i.e. buy.com google checkout) that you can get combos for only a couple of bucks more than the SD DVDs, its worth the money IMO.
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They did do it from the start. Rumor Has It was a combo and was released like a month after the first HD DVDs. Within the past couple of months, though, we have seen the release of several HD30 dual layer combos, which wasn't possible at first.
I believe they are still trying to get the costs down on combos while also trying to find the most a consumer would pay for one.
Looks like someone has does the reaseach on forum posts and reached that conclusion: http://www.homemediaretailing.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?article_id=10013
Take it for what you will!
As for Combo disks, I've just taken a look at Amazon and seen that there are a few, but right now the most notable appears to be Superman Returns. In the interim this could be quite an important feature - currently I have lots of DVD players around the house, and if I were to plump for an HD format anytime soon I'd probably only have one in the living room. If I were to buy an HD only disk then I can use that in only one place, but a combo disk allows me to use it all round the house. Even though I don't have an HD player yet, I'm more inclined to go out and buy the HD DVD / DVD combo version right now.
The HD-DVD DVD combo disk requires the disk to be flipped over and so there is no place for the label - which would I presume make it easy to mix up disks and difficult to identify which side is which (think of the rental market or large home movie library). Maybe this is the reason for the low takeup.
Bluray can put 25GB BD and HD-DVD 8.5GB on the same side with a label on the other. I wonder if this will prove more popular. http://www.physorg.com/news2510.html
Putting DVD compatibility on all HD media certainly would make distribution a lot simpler, and DVD customers might be reassured by the fact that they can play their media in HD format in future.
Well, I went out and experimented at the mall again today. Having frequently failed to find HD disks of any kind in a store such as HMV (note: its actually easier to find Blu Ray disks on the high street / in malls as Sony have them in their stores and also the likes of EB Games are selling them now they have PS3's titles - Sony are evidently distributing there) I went and asked, and sure enough they were in a fairly small section at the end of a rack, Blu Ray and HD DVD mixed in. I asked if they had the Superman Returns combo and he first pulled out a box of just the stright then found the combo (annoying that there is two, IMO). So I bought the combo box version.
Not unsurprisingly, the DVD side is the movie only, no extras (personally, thats not a biggie for me, but others may take issues - but those that really want that stuff will may well have an HD player as well). Apart from the small inner ring notification, what is very distinguishable between the sides is the DVD side is pure silver, while the HD DVD side has a blue sheen to it. The HD DVD portion is 1080p for the movie and a mix of 1080p and 480p for the extras - I guess the 3 hours of documentries are 480p.
Not unsurprisingly, the DVD side is the movie only, no extras (personally, thats not a biggie for me, but others may take issues - but those that really want that stuff will may well have an HD player as well). Apart from the small inner ring notification, what is very distinguishable between the sides is the DVD side is pure silver, while the HD DVD side has a blue sheen to it. The HD DVD portion is 1080p for the movie and a mix of 1080p and 480p for the extras - I guess the 3 hours of documentries are 480p.
Since Blu Ray is not part of the DVD forum, they cannot use the name (calling it Blue Ray DVD as Best Buy did was wrong thus they changed their lables to Blu Ray Disc) or allow "DVD" playback on their media. Infact, I'm pretty sure that a BR player is not required to have DVD playback. Ofcourse, it's a bad idea to release such a player
Just a bit of extra info: according to the folks at avsforum, the HD DVD version has a TrueHD audio track that the BD version doesn't, extras are in 480p as you said, it's the deleted scenes which are 1080p.
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Mintmaster
Veteran
This is incorrect. BD cannot put a DVD on the same side. The BD camp and JVC gave up on doing so about a year prior to launch due to the yields being abysmal, the proposed linked technology just didn't work on Blu-Ray. Note your article is from 2004, and that is the reason you haven't heard a peep about it since.
So, if you want DVD and HD on the same disc, HD DVD is your only choice.
Are you sure? I can't find anything about poor yields or that the combo disk has been abandoned. The only thing I can find that JVC dropped is their Bluray HD-DVD combo player.
JVC is working on a 50GB Bluray + 8.5GB DVD combo disk ( http://ezinearticles.com/?JVCs-First-Three-Layer-Combo-Disc-Blu-Ray-/-DVD&id=16518 ), and given that MPEG2 is being pushed for Bluray movies generally, JVC may have dropped the 25GB + 8.5GB in favour of the 50GB + 8.5GB disk. Also since production of 50GB Bluray disks started only recently, the focus for media manufacturers like JVC must be to get 50GB disk production ramped up to meet demand.
Of course Bluray could possibly do a double sided combo disk like HD-DVD, but single sided is better if you can do it. Bluray can do a single sided combo because the Bluray layers are much shallower than the DVD layer, whereas HD-DVD can't do this because they are at the same depth.
I am a bit sceptical about some of the stuff being put out by the HD-DVD supporters - I remember the same thing was being posted here about 50GB Bluray disks not being feasible. It is clear there is an element of fanaticism among HD-DVD supporters.
Only one or two weeks before the 50GB Bluray disks were mass released, they were ranting on about how the 50GB Bluray disks had technical problems and that the yield was too low for production to ever be feasible. That was completely debunked.
Before that, we had those who latched onto poorly 25GB MPEG2 encoded Bluray mastered disks and the first release of the Samsung Bluray player with faulty firmware, and ranted on about how Bluray was a disaster and would always be inferior to HD-DVD. That idea has been thoroughly debunked by properly mastered Bluray media and updated firmware and independent reviews subsequently. However you still have the same rant by posters on this very thread.
Why the fanaticism? Why the need to declare that HD-DVD has won, when the battle hasn't even started yet? The only reason I can think of is that if you have got a short head start, but are likely to lose the format war, you need to push any early advantage and declare victory before your opponent has a chance to get started.
Again this is an old article. They gave up on the combo disc on Blu-Ray, which is why there are none available. Could they try to perfect it again in the future? Maybe, but that likely won't be for a long time and if its a new method current players would be unable to play them since a new technique would be out-of-spec. Bottom line, if you want combo discs, you want HD DVD.
Blu-Ray is having tough enough times just getting BD50 to work in large quantities, I am very skeptical about more exotic technologies and Sony has not stated anything like this will ever be available on Blu-Ray. Meanwhile, HD DVD is doing combos in mass right now.
BTW, Dave, did you pick up the Miami Vice HD DVD/DVD Combo?
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No, I've not seen the film so I don't know if it any good or not. However, through lack of anything else to suggest to my wife what to get me for XMas, wondering through the electronics section of our local supermarket I noticed they had a few 360 HD DVD drives, so I pointed her to that...
Hybrid discs are always out of spec, old players play them because physics allows them to play them ... not because they are in spec.
Ah
In that case, make sure you check out Corpse Bride, The Ant Bully, Training Day, The Hulk, Mission Impossible 3, Batman Begins, Seabiscuit, and of course King Kong to get an example of what HD DVD can deliver
Also, if you can stand the movie, Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (combo) not only offers excellent video but also amazing interactivity in the form of U-Control. See how much damage in realtime is being done on cars during chases in neat popup windows, a GPS to see what streets of Tokyo the chases are taking place on, video commentary in PIP, storyboards, etc. Amazing stuff.
They simply updated the spec as they went ... it's out of spec for 1.0, it still works for drives manufactured before the specs were changed because it was designed to do so, not because they designed it that way from the outset.
JVC abandoned the Bluray hybrid disc because they couldn't get acceptable compatiblity with existing DVD players. From what I remember reading at AVSForum only 50% of the DVD players could read the DVD layer of the hybrid Bluray discs so they stopped dumping money in the trying to get it to work. JVC is manufacturing hybrid HD DVDs now.
As for double sided Bluray, there is no such thing. If it can be done it would've been done already. BR is completly different manufacturing from DVD and HD DVD. BR is like CD manufacturing. There is twin format DVD/CD www.dualdisc.com that BR can mimic using BR on one and DVD on other but it will likely be single layer DVD only not like doublesided HD DVD which use dual layer DVD and dual layer HD DVD.
As for double sided Bluray, there is no such thing. If it can be done it would've been done already. BR is completly different manufacturing from DVD and HD DVD. BR is like CD manufacturing. There is twin format DVD/CD www.dualdisc.com that BR can mimic using BR on one and DVD on other but it will likely be single layer DVD only not like doublesided HD DVD which use dual layer DVD and dual layer HD DVD.
