HD vs Blu-Ray

[Tossica]

But... you hate, like every movie that isn't made by the Cohens....

I watch around 200 movies a year, give or take a few. There are thousands of excellent films available. I like the good ones and dislike the bad ones.

[Tossica]

PS

I still have a Betamax player and a decent collection of movies.

[Lyion]

That was meant to be funny, but apparently did not succeed, Toss

We had a betamax, too. I think I'm mostly done with players.

I'm at the point where I prefer downloadable movies. I have a Terrabye Fileserver I plan on expanding that currently has a ton of movies I can play anywhere in my house anytime. I prefer keeping my movies on a fileserver, and I'd rather download them.
I like the option of buying HD content online, or recording it via DirecTV and keeping it.

[Tikker]

That was meant to be funny, but apparently did not succeed, Toss

We had a betamax, too. I think I'm mostly done with players.

I'm at the point where I prefer downloadable movies. I have a Terrabye Fileserver I plan on expanding that currently has a ton of movies I can play anywhere in my house anytime. I prefer keeping my movies on a fileserver, and I'd rather download them.
I like the option of buying HD content online, or recording it via DirecTV and keeping it.

and that's why I think portable media war won't really happen

more and more people are doing that

it's still mostly hobbyists at this point, but every time someone is over at my place and see my setup, I end up helping them build one for themselves

I personally know 40+ people who've completely abandoned DVD's Cd's etc and moved to all filerserver based system

(this also leads to the people who are using 360's as extenders, and not for gaming)

[Ouchyfish]

I'm at the point where I prefer downloadable movies. I have a Terrabye Fileserver I plan on expanding that currently has a ton of movies I can play anywhere in my house anytime. I prefer keeping my movies on a fileserver, and I'd rather download them.
I like the option of buying HD content online, or recording it via DirecTV and keeping it.

What happens if the thing crashes and burns though? Can you redownload the whole shibang for free etc? And how long would downloading that much take? Or is it a DL as you need etc?

[Naethyn]

I'm at the point where I prefer downloadable movies. I have a Terrabye Fileserver I plan on expanding that currently has a ton of movies I can play anywhere in my house anytime. I prefer keeping my movies on a fileserver, and I'd rather download them.
I like the option of buying HD content online, or recording it via DirecTV and keeping it.

What happens if the thing crashes and burns though? Can you redownload the whole shibang for free etc? And how long would downloading that much take? Or is it a DL as you need etc?

I've lost far more movies and music to scratched or broken removable media than hard drive failures or OS crashes. In fact, I've never lost anything due to a hard drive failure.

[Lyion]

I'm at the point where I prefer downloadable movies. I have a Terrabye Fileserver I plan on expanding that currently has a ton of movies I can play anywhere in my house anytime. I prefer keeping my movies on a fileserver, and I'd rather download them.
I like the option of buying HD content online, or recording it via DirecTV and keeping it.

What happens if the thing crashes and burns though? Can you redownload the whole shibang for free etc? And how long would downloading that much take? Or is it a DL as you need etc?

It's mirrored. There's the remote possibility of losing both disks, but really that's somewhat rare. I may actually change it to a Raid 5 configuration later. We'll see. Plus, a lot of what is on there are DVDs I've purchased in the past.

Most of what I have on my fileserver is TIVO'ed TV shows via media center. I generally download movies onto my Media Center PC which also has nearly a TB of storage. If it's something my kids want to keep watching or I think is worthwhile to keep, I'll move it to my NSLU2 LAN server which is where I have all my storage.

Most movies that aren't HD take about 5 Gig of space. Most TV shows take around the same. 5 Gig with a 1000 Gig solution gives me plenty of room.

Disk is cheap. Disk is easy to LAN and use anywhere in ones house. Heck, I can take my 360 into my garage with my old TV there and watch anything on my fileserver while I'm in there. It's a brilliant solution and I personally think will eventually be everywhere.

[Tikker]

man, convert that DRMS stuff down to divx or xvid


there's a nice tool DRMS-toolbox (something like that) that'll take the files MCE generates and convert them to the format of your choice

if you have showanalyzer it'll strip all the commercials out for you as well

[Lyion]

man, convert that DRMS stuff down to divx or xvid


there's a nice tool DRMS-toolbox (something like that) that'll take the files MCE generates and convert them to the format of your choice

if you have showanalyzer it'll strip all the commercials out for you as well

Generally it's not worth my time to convert the TV shows as I watch em and then delete them in most cases.

Most of my movies are in DIVX format though.

I'm not familiar with showanalyzer. I'll google and check it out.

http://www.dragonglobal.org/showanalyzer.html

--This guy? Will it work in .dvr formats a la mediacenter?

[Tikker]

yup

the evaluation copy works for 2 weeks or something i think, otherwise it's like $10 to buy which is thoroughly worth it to auto rid yourself of commercials

and for being worth the time to convert, if you have DVRMStoolbox, it does it all for you

just a matter of getting it setup initially (which can be a giant pain in the ass, but worthwhile once it's done)

http://babgvant.com/files/folders/dvrms ... fault.aspx

[Lyion]

My only gripe with Media Center is the HBO/Showtime movies can only be watched on the media center PC.

Any workaround you know of for this?

[Tikker]

to get around the CGMS-A flag? there is a way around it, but you basically have to buy $150ish dollar line filter to strip it out before it hits your capture card

[Ouchyfish]

That is some seriously sweet sounding shit you two are talking....

[Tikker]

build your own tivo and it'll make sense

[Tossica]

Media isn't going anywhere.

[Tikker]

not as long as change resistant fags keep vinyl alive!

[Lyion]

to get around the CGMS-A flag? there is a way around it, but you basically have to buy $150ish dollar line filter to strip it out before it hits your capture card

I'd spend the bucks on this. I've not found anything on Green Button or AVS in regards to this in the past.

Ouchy it's really easy to set this up. It's the way to go, unless like Toss you're a collector. The ease of use and utility is great.

[Tossica]

Is there a way to pull HD recordings off of my Motorola HD-DVR?

[dammuzis]

honestly you all are discussing who is going to win an already lost war
less then 1% of the population even gives a shit about high definition or the hd/blu-ray war

several years ago there was a new cd format that was supposed to take the music industry by storm (enhanced) but it flopped, why? because MP3 is more convenient and cheaper and that is ALL that consumers care about

cheaper and convenient is the mantra

hd and blu ray do not currently fall into that mantra, but instant viewing via your computer does.

tossica before you say "downloadable movies are shit" take your head out of your ass and take a look at the average consumer and what they want. they dont care about quality as long as its "good enough" and cheap.

[Arlos]

Then again, CDs, when they first came out, were not exactly cheaper nor more convenient than audio tape. Certainly much more inconvenient to carry around a single CD than a single cassette tape. CDs were, however, a revolution in quality and durability.

So, it's not just cheaper and convenience that drives consumer buy-in to new products.

One big factor in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war that isn't discussed, so I don't know the answer, is whether or not either format will allow for using old-school DVDs. If one does and not the other, that will have a huge impact in people's decisions on which to go with.

-Arlos

[Tikker]

Is there a way to pull HD recordings off of my Motorola HD-DVR?

yup

[Tossica]

Holy Fucking SHIT.

Game over Blu-Ray...

Toshiba HD-DVD player $98 at Wal-Mart this Friday. This is their "Black Friday" price but they are doing a few "secret" sales before then.

http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?section= ... 144-lLink1

Select movies are $15 as well. Talk about hitting the mass market running. No excuse to "wait out the format war" now.

With Paramount, Dreamworks and Universal all exclusive and Warner on the verge of going HD-DVD exclusive, this is the knock out punch HD-DVD needed to lay Sony out flat.

Wow.

[Ouchyfish]

I can come out with a 50 dollar gaming console but if I dont have as many games for it, its worthless.

HD will end up the V-tech of formats.

[Tossica]

I can come out with a 50 dollar gaming console but if I dont have as many games for it, its worthless.

HD will end up the V-tech of formats.

There are more titles available and many more titles announced for HD-DVD than Blu-Ray.

[Tossica]

Then again, CDs, when they first came out, were not exactly cheaper nor more convenient than audio tape. Certainly much more inconvenient to carry around a single CD than a single cassette tape. CDs were, however, a revolution in quality and durability.

So, it's not just cheaper and convenience that drives consumer buy-in to new products.

One big factor in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war that isn't discussed, so I don't know the answer, is whether or not either format will allow for using old-school DVDs. If one does and not the other, that will have a huge impact in people's decisions on which to go with.

-Arlos

I'm not sure what you mean by "using old-school DVD's". Both players allow you to play DVD's on them. HD-DVD allows you to burn HD content to a standard DVD-R and play it back, while Blu-Ray does not. Only about 40 minutes of HD content fits on a standard DVD but for home movies. independent films and HD porn from the web, it's pretty cool.