Studios Face Off in Next-Gen DVD Format War

WaZiX writes "After yesterday's HD-DVD strike, the Blu-Ray Disc format received support from Disney (and its Buena Vista Home Entertainment unit) as reported by ZDNET. As predicted, the format war has only just begun."

Comments

Is this really news?

[Tetsugaku-San]

As before, there will be a short 'format war', maybe even shorter this time, say 6 months - and low and behold every product will sudenly start supporting every format - just like they did when DVD burners became popular.

Time to comoditisation of products get's shorter every month :D

Re:Is this really news?

[OECD]

and low and behold every product will sudenly start supporting every format

No doubt. The real 'war' here is settling which format groups will be able to collect licensing fees from which manufacturers.

Re:Is this really news?

[Jucius Maximus]

"As before, there will be a short 'format war', maybe even shorter this time, say 6 months - and low and behold every product will sudenly start supporting every format - just like they did when DVD burners became popular."

Except that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are a lot more dissimilar than DVD+R and DVD-R. (Note: Some people think that + and - are identical after being recorded, but this is false. There are differences in the optics and signal processing techniques.)

My understanding is that the HD and Blu-Ray formats have notably different data storage sizes and manufacturing processes. The discs are tangibly and physically different in design.

Compare that to DVD+R and DVD-R. Their designs are almost identical. Even the ancient Panasonic DVD player from four years ago we have in the living room plays both formats even though it was invented before recordable DVD. That's how similar they are.

Will a first gen HD player read Blu Ray discs? Probably not. I'm not saying that dual format HD/Blu-Ray devices won't come out. I am saying that it will be a longer wait than with +R/-R readers.

Disney's Closed Universe of Advertising

[FunWithHeadlines]

"Yippee! Even more room to store lengthy commercials for other "limited edition gold/platinum" DVDs of re-released animated movies from 40+ years ago. "

Heh, you beat me to it. That was my first thought too. Disney is amazing in its ability to force-feed cross-marketing material at their consumers. I have a couple of young nieces who watch Disney full time, and when I'm over at their house (and thus seeing what's on the Disney channel), I'm always amazed that they exist in a closed universe of Disney material.

The Disney TV show is interrupted by a commercial advertising another upcoming Disney TV show, followed by a "behind the scenes" look at the filming of the latest Disney movie, interrupted with an "insider's access pass" to the music from the latest Disney DVD, along with ads for Disney theme parks, Radio Disney, and now back to our Disney TV show, but first let's meet the backup singers from the new Disney movie.

After that I just want to retch in technicolor...

Oh joy, another upgrade treadmill

[Aim Here]

Huh? What's wrong with the DVDs I have now? Will the picture be so sharp and crystal clear and picture-perfect that I simply must upgrade? Will the sound on these things really be so good that if I close my eyes I really will think that Will Smith or Keanu Reeves or Sigourney Weaver or whoever massacred an entire clan of godless communist bug eyed alien monsters on my living room carpet? Is it really possible for these things to be as much of an improvement over DVD as DVD was over VHS? Doesn't the law of diminishing returns have something to say about this?

Oh yeah, I forgot. Someone worked a way round the bogus encryption and region coding and DVD-player vendor lockout last time round, so we've all got to dump our perfectly good DVDs and our DVD players and throw more money at film studio execs and consumer hardware manufacturers. Silly me.

I'm with Blu-Ray, as well

[Corellon Larethian]

Simply for it's increased storage. 25 GB (Blu-Ray) vs. 15 GB (HD-DVD). The disparity is far too great, and people buy DVD's by the truck load simply for the larger storage space.

HD-DVD might win out for players. But I'm betting Blu-Ray dominates the personal computer market.

Which is larger?

Do consumers really want these?

[saddino]

As someone who watched the SACD v. DVD-Audio format war with a keen interest (I'm sold on high-def multichannel music) I eventually invested in a player that supported both formats, thinking I couldn't lose. But - to my amazement - I did end up losing, not because consumers perferred one format over the other, but becuase most consumers had no interest in the new formats. The result? A dearth of SACD and DVD-Audio reissues and releases. High def audio seems to be dead.

The problem was that remixing old music in multichannel is expensive, so many discs we're simply released in stereo. For most consumers, the audible difference (due to the higher sampling rate) didn't seem quite worth the price (for a new player, for a new disc).

And now here we see a new format war for a high def video. You might think video is different because high def allows for massive content (at DVD quality). But does anyone really believe the studios are going to do this? It's hard to get a consumer to pay a lot of money for just one disc.

If the studios instead focus on delivering HDTV quality movies, then the superiority of the format (over DVD) will only be apparent to those who own HDTVs...a scenario which mirrors the problems with high def audio.

I guess my point (and worry) is: just like high def audio, there will be players that support both formats. And just like high def audio, nobody will care except for videophiles and gadget freaks. So in the end, the "format war" doesn't matter.

IMHO, high def DVD will more likely make its mark as a huge storage medium for PCs and game consoles.

We, the consumers, can put a stop to this

[HarveyBirdman]

What if they held a format war, and no one bought anything?