Sony to deliver Blu-ray titles June 20

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment said Tuesday that it will deliver its first seven titles in the high-definition Blu-ray format to retail stores on June 20. Sony Pictures, a unit of Sony, said the title rollout will coincide with the first commercially available Blu-ray DVD player from Samsung Electronics and a Blu-ray-compatible PC from Sony. The stakes are huge for Sony, developer of the standard known as Blu-ray, which is to compete against a rival high-definition standard known as HD-DVD that was developed by a group led by Toshiba.

Many liken the war to the 1980s battle over video cassette recording standards, which ultimately saw the VHS standard emerge as the victor over Sony's Betamax. Among the titles Sony plans to roll out on June 20 are "50 First Dates," "The Fifth Element," "Hitch" and the "House of Flying Daggers." Further Blu-ray titles will be released by Sony in coming weeks.

[lingsun]

High Def DVD is like Laser Disc is to VHS

High Def is like how Laser Disk compares to VHS. Only slightly better and much more expensive. I expect the High Def DVD industry to expect very slow sales of equipment and movies.

[BDEEKMAN]

Not really

VHS to Laser Disc was no resolution increase. Only contrast and
sharpness were improved in that analog to analog conversion.

DVD to Blu-Ray is like the difference between VHS and DVD.
With a 1080p (or even 1080i) Television and a Blu-Ray player,
the difference is incredible. Contrast is improved, sharpness is
improved, the resolution is nearly doubled.

The technology is expensive, yes. But after only 3 years since I
bought my first (non progressive scan) DVD player for $300, I
can go buy a progressive scan unit for $30. The cost will come
down, the average consumer will buy once they see the
improvement.

[godlessnovel]

I agree

Only the high-end videophile will be really interested at all, which gives Sony a big headache. True, people who are going to buy the PS3 are going to buy it no matter what. However, how much of that is for the interest in a Blu Ray? Very little. How many people actually (and let's be truthful now) have the kind of money it's going to take to get the full audio/video setup for this right now? Bad timing for this kind of high end product.

[dream_fly]

Desire is strong if you have seen HD

When you have watched HD for a while and watch DVD again, the first reaction will be DVD is fuzzy. Today you can buy a good HD TV with built-in HD tuner (or better yet, get a front projector for 90+ inch screen) for less than $2000. So the desire is there and the equipment requirement is not that steep, only the player cost is the main issue.

[dotmike]

Stupid that content companies are the format companies

Just going by the launch titles, as a sci-fi geek I want both
Serenity and The Fifth Element in high definition format, so I can
get all the detail, see the pores on River and multipass girl's
faces, etc.

But Serenity belongs to HD-DVD (Universal), and The Fifth
Element belongs to Blu-ray (Sony Pictures).

So, to get my sci-fi fix in high def, I'm meant to buy into two
formats?

What a stupid situation these greedy companies have put us in.

How is it the content companies are allowed to own both the
content and the distribution format? Weren't there laws about
movie companies not being allowed to own more than a small
part of the cinemas where they were projected?

How about I buy neither and hope they both fail.

(Although, hypocritically, I am looking forward to BD-R's 25GB
per disc for data storage.)

[Jackson Cracker]

discs but no players?

Haven't Sony and Samsung both announced delays in the launch
of their Blu-ray players?
Maybe they will at least include some nice artwork on the
case or put a little booklet inside to give buyers something
to look at while they're waiting.
I hear the discs themselves are also kind of cool-looking.

[MrMailing]

It's about time they caught up.

How many people in the last several years have left the electronics store with a HD widescreen TV and a nice new DVD player to go along with it?
DVD doesn't hold enough data to give HD video, so those people got duped. Of course DVD was the best thing available at the time, so they were only duped in the way that they thought the DVD player was anywhere near as good as what they were getting from the TV. Now The video player has caught up. AND it is backwards compatible!!
Most of the new players will play all BluRay, HD DVD and old DVD formats so you're not "buying into" anything but improved versatility and greater choice for your money. My interest in the BluRay technology is for greater file storage capacity for my PC but the home entertainment perks are a bonus. It is a shame that there are so many different forms a movie will now be sold in but at least the players will be made to handle them all. That may actually make for a more knowledgeable consumer in years to come. Everybody will have their own experiences with all three formats so when the next thing comes along, hopefully we as consumers will have more input into the development of it. Three cheers for progress! If anybody should be complaining, it's me. I just bought my very first DVD Burner not more than 2 months ago. Glad to hear I'll still be able to use it in conjunction with my new BluRay player I'll no doubt buy within the next 3 years.

[MrMailing]

Wishful thinking on my part

Perhaps I should have read on. It seems our options will be DVD or HD DVD; DVD or BluRay, not all three.
One will have to lose. I don't know anyone who chooses their movies by which studio made them.
Somebody should tell them all to get on the same page and quit playing russian roulette with a loaded market. BluRay is better, clearly. What more do they need to know?