Better and winning the format war are not the same thing.  Pretty much everyone thought Beta was better from a technical standpoint than VHS, but so it goes.

But then Michael Bay's pretty much an idiot anyway.

Quoting pplchamp:

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Blu-ray’s better...

That's debatable.

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...and I told everyone...

He certainly did.

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I was very vocal about it.

He certainly was.

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I knew HD [DVD] was not going to make it.

Alright then.

So, I guess he got 3 out of 4. 

Sounds like he shouldn't do any morning or afternoon postings either.

Blu-ray and HD DVD are the same for a given encoding. However, Blu-ray always had the greater potential with its higher capacity and bandwidth. When used to its potential, whether for decreased video compression, increased audio track options or additional simultaneously streamed special features (without impacting audio or video), then Blu-ray is indeed better.

It's all in the math. Statistics may lie, but raw numbers do not.

Quoting tas314:

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HD-DVD is NOT better than DVD. DVD and HD DVD are the same (for a given transfer of the same movie).

What?  Or did you mean Blu-Ray because HD-DVD IS better than DVD.

I like how Kevin Federline pokes fun at himself too.

Quoting tas314:

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If you encode for the lowest common denominator both HD-DVD and Blu-ray will provide the same output.  But if you are space or bandwidth limited on HD-DVD a Blu-ray encode can look/sound better if you take advantage of the extra space/bandwidth available.

Then please explain why it is that no Fox, Sony or Disney titles look or sound significantly better on Blu-ray than the best HD DVD has to offer.  They are blu-only studios, so they shouldn't have been held back by HD DVD's "limitations".  According to your theory, there should be an obvious improvement in their titles.  Yet I've seen no evidence yet to back this up.  If there was, it would have been shouted from the rooftops.

Obviously this is an argument without a clear answer.  But it's my belief that HD DVD truly is "good enough" when it comes to audio/visual quality.  Blu has had a lot of time to prove that the extra disc space can truly make a difference.  And in my opinion they haven't.

All I know is I love my red and blu discs.

Quoting nolesrule:

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Mark, it's all theoretical, because in reality it is impossible to make a legitimate apples to apples comparison, Since it cannot be done without the same movie being put on both formats using each format to its maximum capabilities in A/V.

I see where you're going.  You can’t compare Transformers to Pirates of the Caribbean or Shrek the Third to Cars.  Obviously such direct comparisons are completely useless because you’re comparing two completely different things.

I'm talking about moving up a level.  Let me give you an example.  An extremely simplified example, but I think it makes my point.  Take someone who really knows audio/visual stuff, like a professional or a very sharp-eyed enthusiast who knows what to look/listen for.  Now, sit that person down and show them the best DVD has to offer.  Let’s just say the top 10 or 20 movies.  Now take that same person and show them the best HD has to offer.  Now they still couldn’t compare on a movie-by-movie basis (unless the same movie happened to fall into both categories).  But what they could do is give a fair comparison between the two formats.  They would be able to tell you which technology is better overall and give examples to support their opinion.  Don’t you agree?

Now, these same professionals and eagled-eyed people have been watching HD DVD and Blu-ray for the past year or more now.  And while I certainly don’t have the skills to notice slight differences, you can be sure that they can.  So I ask you, where are their opinions on matter?  If the extra space is noticeable to the human eyes/ears, we should have heard about it by now.  It should be common knowledge.  As I mentioned before, the Blu-ray fanatics would have been shouting it from the rooftops.  I’ve followed this format war very, very closely for about a year now and own both formats, and I’ve not heard a peep from any credible sources.  I’ve heard plenty of other good uses for that extra space, but not to improve the viewing experience.

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In all cases, no compression is always better than using compression. So it stands to reason that less compression will, in fact, look better than more compression. It's simple math.

From a mathematical point of view, I’ll agree with you.  Less compression is better than more.  But we’re not computers.  We’re limited by our eyes and ears and there is a point where adding more bits to the equation isn’t really noticeable.  We simply can’t discern the differences between good compression and the original source (under normal conditions).

My argument is that if those extra bits were noticeable, those with the knowledge and experience would have noticed them by now.  And they would have let the rest of us know.  Fox, Sony and Disney have had the extra space.  They’ve had the option of using less compression.  And yet no one is pointing to them as examples of why we need 50GB instead of 30GB.  No one is saying their movies look and sound better than anything available on HD DVD.

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"Good enough" is a subjective response. And what's good enough for some may not be for others.

I’d agree with that statement.  And I’ll also freely admit that I’m not the guy to nit-pick this stuff to death.  But like I said, I’ve followed this war extremely closely for a year or more now.  I’ve listened to professionals and those with the skills I don’t have.  And while some were die-hard HD DVD supports, some were die-hard Blu-ray supporters and some fell in the middle, none of them ever gave any evidence that HD DVD didn’t have the space to meet the same quality standards as Blu-ray.  They argued about plenty of other things, but no one ever stepped forward to say the extra space on Blu-ray provided obviously better picture and/or sound either in specific cases or in general.  I even saw professional Hollywood sound mixers say that a well compressed sound track (DD+) could be transparent to the master.

I would guess that if someone were to sit down to a top notch transfer of a new movie they had no prior knowledge of, they wouldn’t be able to accurately tell you if the movie was on a red disc or blue disc.  I’ve seen people who claimed they could tell if something was encoded with VC-1 or AVC or whatever.  But they never claimed they could tell a blue movie from a red movie.