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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."
Blu-ray Discs can store up to 50GB of data on a dual-sided disc. That's significantly higher than the 4.7GB capacity of the DVD format Blu-ray is looking to succeed.
Yippee! Even more room to store lengthy commercials for other "limited edition gold/platinum" DVDs of re-released animated movies from 40+ years ago. There's nothing I enjoy more than paying money to rent a movie and sitting through 15 minutes of advertisements because the DVD won't allow the player to skip forward through that crap.
Disney said its plans to release movies on the Blu-ray format are nonexclusive, meaning it could publish movies on other formats as well.
If other formats can hold more and can lock out the DVD player even better than they wouldn't want to eliminate the possibilities of moving to that format now would they?
"The studios will come around to the superior format," Peterson said. "Capacity and picture quality are directly related."
The studios will come around to whatever is cheaper for them to produce/distribute their materials while still being competitive/profitable and staying within their business model (whether that is adding 15+ minutes of commercials to all their DVDs and not allowing DVD players to fast-forward through them or not).
Also, the larger the capacity the greater the troubles in ripping/modifying/burning the discs. If the discs hold 50GB you need a 100+GB HD to do any modifications to the movie before reburning it. By changing the formats you are less likely to have the hardware to burn that format and thereby lose the ability to do what you did with regular DVDs once the burner prices dropped well under $100.
I'm sure they figure it will be several more years before blu-ray DVD writers and extremely large HDs will become common enough for everyone to make their DVD viewing experiences on DVDs they purchased acceptable.
The DVD technology has become the most successful consumer technology ever because of the re-release of older movies on the new format for what consumers have deemed reasonable prices. Are all these movies going to be again released on Blu-ray/DVD-HD for the same prices?
I see a good possibility that most people won't give a shit one way or the other and will likely keep buying the media that is even more inexpensive. It all depends on your willingness to accept/adapt new technologies and your need for a better movie watching experience. Obviously DVD is far superior to VHS. Will Blu-ray and DVD-HD have a similar quality increase?
I'm laughing at you, Gizmodo, because just a couple of months ago you told us that Blu-ray has already won. Disney must agree with you, but four other big studios don't. Care to hedge your bet?
"Will the picture be so sharp and crystal clear and picture-perfect that I simply must upgrade?"
Have you seen HD? On a screen bigger than 35", the answer is yes. Smaller than that, only if you're picky.
Quadrupling the resolution kind of has that effect.
When you have three times as much shelf space in video rental stores as the competition, you have succeeded. Rental discs are prone to scratching, and HD DVD's thicker layer between the surface and the data may be able to resist scratches better than Blu-ray's.
I usually play DVDs by "mplayer dvd://1" and never see that junk.
What do house guests think of the big ugly computer case sitting next to the TV? And what about people who don't have more than $100 to spend on a set-top DVD player?
You see, Disney has this habit of withholding their products from the public. They're a little like an old rattlesnake, which will conserve it's precious venom for when it will be most useful: it will withhold it's venom until it wants to kill something.
Before Blockbuster Video squashed all the independent video rental shops, I was a clerk in one of those petite shops. Lots of VHS Disney titles were missing from the store, listed on the computer (a brand-new 486) as rented, and never returned. This was because Disney would only offer its titles (like "The Little Mermaid") for short periods of time, and after that time the only way a person could get that title would be to steal it in one way or another.
I won't pretend to have comprehensive knowledge of Disney's marketing voodoo, but it seems to me that Disney would like nothing better than a new video format, even though there may not be a good technical reason for it. They just want you to buy yet another copy of "The Little Mermaid" on yet another format. Blech.
There are couple of problems with your argument.
Firstly, High-Def DVDs are not as expensive to make, because they do not have to be "remixed". Video Cassettes and existing DVDs are just down-sampled versions of higher resolution film. Movie studios just need to record the original onto the new format, make some minor tweaks, and they're done.
Secondly, HDTV is easier to notice then high def audio. CD-quality audio is good enough for most people, and there are very few people who can appreciate improvements beyond this range. HDTV, on the other hand, is quite striking when compared next to analog signals. Most people can see the improvement, and the wide-screens are a nice plus.
So the format is easy to produce, and the difference is easy to show to the consumer, your last point is probably the only thing that could hold back High Definition DVDs. Are people going to want to invest in HDTVs, new DVD players, and a whole new collection of movies?
I would argue that HDTV is now playing out simmilar to colour televisions. Most networks now broadcast in HDTV, and new shows and sports are broadcast in HDTV as well. The sets are coming down in price so that they will be easily available in a year or two.
The greatest resistance I've seen is in buying the same movies all over again. I believe that people sick of always upgrading to CDs, DVDs, etc will be hard to convince to buy their movies again in the new format.
What made Betamax superior ?
When VHS was introduced, it had 2x the recording capacity. I just read a link (posted in this article's comments) talking about the beta vs vhs debacle. Apparently the quantititative difference between vhs and beta equipment from a pq and audio standpoint was not detectable on normal equipment, and generally, the variance from one machine to another of a given type was more than the difference between the two types of machines.
I don't see at all what makes Blu-Ray superior. Sony and Disney, two of the most wretchedly evil litigious tail-wagging-the-dog IP companies ever are soundly behind one format. That should be a warning sign to you.
If you read the links, HD-DVD can re-use much of the existing productino equipment, whereas blu-ray needs new everything. The capacity argument is the only one in blu-ray's favor, and its not even clear that that is the case since HD-DVD can have multi-layer, multi-side discs, which ought to mean 60GB for a DL/DS disc. (Not sure if Blu-Ray can go dual layer)
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Agreed, which is why they would be a natural fit for the Disney channel which does for the mind what Trix does for the body. When I said "kid-friendly," I meant it is something kids would find appealing to see on TV, not good for them.
This is what I found funny, in a sad sort of way:
"The studios will come around to the superior format," Peterson said. "Capacity and picture quality are directly related."
It's been a long time since I was naive enough to imagine the studios care about picture quality. If they care at all, it's because they see high quality as a minor disadvantage: something that encourages piracy.
And to be fair. . . They have to look at consumer response. Consumers mostly rejected S-VHS because most of them "couldn't see any difference" from regular VHS. Consumers mostly rejected Laserdisc because they couldn't record on it, despite the superior picture quality. History shows the majority of people don't give a flying flip about picture quality -- which is a source of endless frustration for the minority who do.
Also funny. . . People complaining because people aren't ready to replace their DVDs, since it's still a new format. And worse, asking whether BlueRay will offer any significant improvement over DVD.
DVD is a new-ish format, but it basically offers the same audio and video performance as Laserdisc, which was introduced in . . . 1978, if I recall right. Both of them will output basically what NTSC can display.
As for some form of high-def videodisc, I don't think it's too soon -- I think it's way overdue! Seriously, I believe this is the main thing holding back adoption of HDTV. You can buy HD sets, you can buy HD satellite receivers, and even Tivo-like recorders that will handle HD. The element that's missing is any HD videodisc. HDTV fans have been waiting and waiting and *waiting* for this, and the companies just keep dragging it out.
Oh, and I'm not buying one until I have a television system supporting hi-def also.
Am I the only one who feels this way?
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