MGM Purchase Gives Sony An Edge In Disc Format War

Grump writes "The New York Times reports: 'The purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by a group led by Sony will not only give the company an enormous film library but also considerable power in its fight to set the format for the next generation of digital video discs.' The article goes on to suggest that Sony is gearing up for another Betamax-style failure."

Comments

Bad news

[mirko]

I do not like the way all of these studios suddenly get aggregated by huge multinational companies...
If they decide to prevent a movie from reaching the theaters, it begins easier and easier...

Would "Clerks" still make a success in 2004 ?
In 10 years, will Fahrenheit 911 sequels ever reach the public ?

Re:Bad news

[Nos.]

Yes, it would. Independat film producers making it to the "big screen" is becoming more common, yes they are using the bigger companies like Tristar, Fox, etc for distribution, but these companies are trying to make money. If they see a movie with lots of potential from an independant (Farenheit 911, The Passion of The Christ) they are not going to turn it down. Controversy for something like a movie just makes it more popular.
Remeber that old movie, Exit to Eden? It was banned for a while here in Saskatchewan. It just made the movie more popular. It never hit the theatres, but when the ban was lifted and it came to video stores, it was impossible to keep it in stock, and it wasn't a great movie.

Re:Bad news

[Chess_the_cat]

I'd be very surprised to learn that movies are still distributed on a physical format in 10 years. Once all media is distributed over networks you won't have to worry about distributors and studios. If the movie is made it'll reach the public somehow.

Re:Bad news

[oneiron]

Certainly the infrastructure to do that will be in place, but getting the movie industry to make a complete shift is going to take a little bit longer than 10 years, I think....

Re:Bad news

[shotfeel]

I'd be very surprised to learn that movies are still distributed on a physical format in 10 years.

I wouldn't. Considering that broadband use just passed dialup use in the U.S., and IIRC the majority of homes don't have internet access at all (while virtually all have a TV/VCR), I'd be very surprised if physical media isn't still the dominant method of delivery. OTOH the people with the most disposable income to buy movies are most likely to have a broadband connection.

Re:Bad news

[afidel]

Ah Grashopper, but the house does not need "Broadband Internet" to get digital distribution. All they need is a cable or satelite connection, a digital cable box with HDD, and a little bit of glue to make video on demand the distribution channel of choice. If the cable/satelite companies get wise they will broker deals to allow you to download and keep a digital copy of a movie. The biggest problem is the studios are probably leary to try cutting out the current middle men without there being a proven market for the new technology as such a switch would probably really honk off companies like BlockBuster and Hollywood Video.

Re:Bad news

[atrizzah]

That's a laugh. Do you think the big time distributers are just going to step aside and let the piles and piles of money whither up after there business model is obsolete?

Apparantly you haven't been paying attention to the music industry lately.

more and more

[sosuke]

it seems like these format wars between companies will end up making the cu lose out, haveing to buy more players, does anyone else think that dvds are just fine? HD content would be nice, but i dont think that its fair to the cu for all of us to have to buy two players, mabye they will make dual format players, and then no one will win or finalize anything, grr

Re:more and more

[BlueTooth]

First you say that DVDs are fine. Then you say you want HD. Of course you do. We all know how this works, the tech keeps marching on.

Format wars are a result of incremental progress. DVDs were so long overdue (i.e. soo much better than VHS) that the battles all occured pre-consumer (and there were many battles, just not much in the way of products produced before these things were resolved). CD audio saw a similar success (DAT doesn't count, its a pro format, which, incidentaly, Betamax has become (or stayed, really))

Then there was DVD-A vs. SACD...why the format war? Because the industry wasn't dying for an upgrade. Sometimes it makes sense for everyone to just shut up and agree on something rather than trying to get the best possible result. In the case of the next digital video format, there isn't much of a percieved need to improvment. People are buying DVDs in droves. All a studio needs to do to generate some extra cash is release a 30 year old TV show on $50 / season box sets. Early adopters are used to format wars, it comes with the teritory.

You also mention that we could end up with two standards both of which are supported by all players (a.la DVD(+|-)R[W] ). If that is the final result, who cares? If one studio releases everything on a 16 layered red-laser disc and another releases their stuff on a 2 layered blue-laser disc, but the player you got in your box of Cherios can play both happily, who really gives a crap?

Says Who?

[justkarl]

"It further tips scales that were already tipped toward Blu-ray," said Ross Rubin, a consumer electronics analyst at the NPD Group.

I don't know about all of you, but I certainly don't favor expensive new technology to proven successes. DVD may skip a frame now and then, and yes, there's still the chance that the disc may scratch, but for the most part, it's more than value-priced technology. That is, the price is fair given the failure rate.

Re:Says Who?

[east coast]

DVD may skip a frame now and then, and yes, there's still the chance that the disc may scratch, but for the most part, it's more than value-priced technology. That is, the price is fair given the failure rate.

Sounds like someone talking about records when CDs were new... This is the march of progress and it's also the reason to never buy first generation anything. Let the rich techno-illiterates buy it up to pay for the R&D and once the bugs are worked out you get a better technology at a fair price.

But with Sony's track record on new tech it does seem like a dismal prospect. Who knows...

Sony PlayStation Portable

[tepples]

I guess this merger also means we'll see more films than just Columbia Tristar Home Video's limited selection on the UMD format used in Sony's PlayStation Portable handheld system.

Well...

[iamdrscience]

I don't see any reason why this format would be a betamax failure. It seems pretty solid. But yeah, given Sony's record of unsuccessful and barely successful formats, this is probably right.

Betamax, minidisk, memory stick, atrac3. Arguably SACD as well.

Nothing Compelling

[Mr. Arbusto]

Seriously, people just bought DVD's. Heck, most of my collection is in DVD format. Which is as good as I need and probably as good as it gets for the next 20 years. From DVD there is no real compelling reason for the consumer to upgrade. It is already high digtial, the market already enjoys the Value Added features. Making a release in another format would be like Sony Max all over again.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:should that be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering how DVDs can be used for more then just video it seems silly to have DVD stead for "digital video disc". "digital versatile disc" does seem more reasonable and of course was what DVD did and still does stand for.

Re:should that be...

[strictfoo]

DVD officially stands for nothing.
It officially stands for DVD. It really does stand for digital versatile disc. I'm sure the members of the DVD Forum that wanted Video were those only concerned with Video. Therefore, their opinions do not matter.

From wikipedia
Wikipedia is not authoritative.
"WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY."
"Therefore, please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by professionals who are knowledgeable in the particular areas of expertise necessary to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information about any subject in Wikipedia"

So now we (don't) know...

End of line.

The succeeding standard will be...

[Anonymous Writer]

... the first one used to distribute porn! The adult industry has a much greater influence on technology than the industry cares to admit.

If only Sony didn't have such a bad track record

[BlueTooth]

Betamax
Mini Disc
Memory Stick
Blu-ray?

Who cares

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

Both formats will probably have a ton of DRM in it anyways. It's all just a money making ploy to get us to buy new "special edition" disc sets... "Now with 15 seconds of additional footage and some interview with one of the extras!" That and new players of course.

And isn't DVD already in 480p?

It's Sony, DUH.

[brxndxn]

I don't know of any other company that has tried and failed more times to set its own monopoly in some form of media. Any discerning nerd avoids Sony products like the plague because they undoubtedly go against any set standard.

The ones I know about:
- betamax
- mini-disc (though it eventually opened up to other manufacturers after it was old technology)
- Playstation/Playstation 2 (ya, most video game systems aren't compatible with other manufacturers.. but this is still an example)
- Memory-stick (wtf.. we have compact flash, smart media, secure digital.. but Sony somehow thinks they'll be the standard)

I'm sure there's a few I'm forgetting. Sony is a damn frustrating company. If they just adopted and backed a new standard instead of always trying to monopolize, we would have standards adopted significantly faster. Sony is a huge company.

Re:far from a failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Betamax was far from a failure. ...
They failed because of...

Next Generation of DRM

[nurb432]

This is what its really about, the control ..

Remember this is sony we are talking about..

Re:If only Sony didn't have such a bad track recor

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that memory sticks are here to stay. And so too will Blu-ray. Sony's finally figured out that they can produce their own market for their own media, and if you buy a Sony device, it uses memory sticks. If you buy a playstation 3, it will use blu-ray.

Personally I think the "war" is a stupid one. The ideal solution would be for the camps to quit balkanizing, and compromise: say, the higher capacity of the blu-ray media with the data format planned for HD-DVD.

The Format of the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there really should only be one 'format':
The file. We should be moving to a future where all our music and films live on media with a filesystem.

So many DVD players today read CD/DVD-ROMs with MP3 files and there are even some now that can read DivX files.

Of course it won't happen because the big companies want us to keep buying our films and music again and again in new formats. But a file created today can be with us forever. I actually think that's the main reason behind DRM. Not to prevent illegal copying but to wring revenue far into the future by licencing the decoder to hardware manufacturers.

Sony will win the format war

[bludstone]

Because the ps3 will have blue-ray.

Assuming the ps3 follows the popularity of the ps1 and the ps2, a high percentage of households will already have a blue-ray player. (over 50 million ps2s have been sold)

Frankly, I dont see much advantage of these disks over DVDs, and Ive _got_ an hdtv.

Sony and MGM films.

[jskline]

Hmmmm...

The major issue I had with a lot of this is "marketing". They are generally the problem. Marketing is entirely the reason behind the VHS vs Beta war, and to this day, are behind much of the current day issues of products. Quality of an item or service anymore means absolutely nothing. It's all in how you market, and how hard you do it. You can be selling crap-on-a-stick, and people will buy the heck out of it all day long if you market it in the right way.

The current bit with Sony buying all this is much ado about nothing. Fact is that when DVD's started becoming favor over VHS for rentals and purchase, many companies licensed the material and migrated a good percentage of it to the "current" format(s), such as DVD. We even saw this with Laserdisc's.

This stuff will more or less be around for quite some time. Maybe not in a format you'd particularly want, but it'll be here.

Cheers