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DVD Truce Between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the put-down-your-guns dept.

An anonymous reader writes " Reuters is reporting that Toshiba and Sony are in talks about reconciling the two next-generation DVD formats. Ideas floated in the article include a unified DVD arch which could use "Blu-ray's disc structure and HD DVD software technology" (Sony's idea) or "HD DVD disc structure and employing Sony's multi-layer data-recording technology" (Toshiba's idea)"

14 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Does format matter? by pholower · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This article although informative, didn't do the best job in technical explanations, that is when I spotted the following line... A PC maker, for example, would not have to equip its computers with hard drives compatible with both formats.

    I didn't realize the hard drive had to be made to be compatible. I guess speed could somehow come into play, but no, never mind, they don't know what they are talking about.

    "It could take both camps some time to develop products based on a new standard, which leaves the risk of development delays for Sony's next-generation game console," Goldman Sachs analyst Yuji Fujimori wrote in a note to clients.

    Does this really matter? Couldn't Sony still release their next PlayStation with BlueRay discs as their format? I mean, they did use UMD for the PSP, and they isn't a common format. If you know more about this let me know, but this to me would mean it could prevent more illegal copying of game discs.

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    -- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
    1. Re:Does format matter? by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Insightful
      "...A PC maker, for example, would not have to equip its computers with hard drives compatible with both formats."

      I didn't realize the hard drive had to be made to be compatible. I guess speed could somehow come into play, but no, never mind, they don't know what they are talking about.

      Since when does that stop anyone from doing a thorough analysis? Unless they're implying, to allow PC's to have a DVD drive would require the installation, on the HD, of some DRM thingy, which would sit not at all well with myself or pretty much anyone else who understands the implication.

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      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:Does format matter? by Have+Blue · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is pure paranoia. The author obviously meant to write "optical drives compatible with both formats".

  2. smart move by blackomegax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    well, it looks like they got smart all of a sudden, because, unlike dvd+ and dvd- R and RW...bluray and HDdvd are so far apart you practically need 2 drives for total support..

    not to mention the COST of bluray media...yeouch.

    1. Re:smart move by swb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Is it fair to judge Blu-Ray media prices now? I know there are some limited numbers of commercial products available (primarily in Japan), but it's hardly been exposed to mass production.

  3. Are we learning yet? by kc01 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Good deal- Perhaps Sony's learned lessons from "Beta" and "Memory Stick".

    Without standards, there's no volume.

    1. Re:Are we learning yet? by Acoustic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't forget about MinDisc...

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      Yorkspace
  4. Too late? by mrRay720 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So they've got to:

    Sort out the details
    Get out a new spec
    Prototypes
    Verification
    etc. etc.
    All before the impending releases of if nothing else the PS3 and XBox2, never mind the PC & TV players?

    Why do I get the feeling that this is a token gesture never intended to resolve the disputes, but instead to allow them to look back later and say "well we TRIED to get a common format but everyone else was in too much of a hurry!" If they were really serious about a common format, they would have done it long before now.

    Deceipt at it's best!

  5. Isn't this collusion? by DoorFrame · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I clearly do not fully understand how anti-monopoly laws work, but aren't competing companies prohibited from doing exactly this? Instead of each company selling it's product and letting the market decide which is better, they're working together to restrain the industry and keeping products that might benefit the consumer off the market. Isn't that collusion? Isn't it illegal?

    Someone please explain why it's not, I really would appreciate it (not kidding here, genuinely cuious).

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    RumorsDaily
  6. Wasted R&D? by PornMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if they end up using a hybrid of the two, the R&D isn't wasted. Along the way, both companies have learned a lot, including finding out a lot of things that *didn't* work.

    A lot of R&D is failing and figuring out why.

    It's not like we're talking about Xerox PARC, where Corporate wasted the opporunity to commercialize the wonderful things which were developed. A compromise on the new DVD format will still bring both companies/consortia licensing revenue.

    Which, of course, begs the obvious question -- if they're both contributing IP, will they both be charging royalties and price the technology too high?

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    500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
  7. Not in "a few years". by James+A.+Y.+Joyce · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In order to download a movie "instantly", you need a lot of bandwidth. To download a 1Gb movie in 1 second requires an 8Gbps connection. This is not going to be available affordably to the average person within the next 10 years, at least. As is, it costs maybe $20 a month to get an 8 megabit per second connection, and everyone knows it takes a very very long time to overhaul data transmission infrastructure.

  8. Re:They're wasting their time by JadeNB · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Perhaps not immediately, but within a few years a system will exist which will allow the streaming of any movie ever made via broadband instantly. Why would you want to bother keeping an anachronistic collection of shiny discs, when you could have anything you want, instantly.
    Because, as we've seen, the trend in streaming media is towards temporary ownership. Sure, with DVDs, my ownership options are (supposed to be) limited -- I can't copy it, &c. -- but at least I have it forever (or at least as long as the media lasts). I'm sure still more restrictions will be in place with these new discs, but, judging from the previous market failure of `temporary discs', at least I will still have them forever.

    With streaming media, it seems likely that we'd see a `pay-per-view' set-up. Besides that, what about out-of-print movies? If I buy a DVD and the manufacturer stops printing those DVDs, I can still watch it -- but what if I want to stream a DVD no one wants to host? We could lose a lot of important movies this way.

  9. Not in this lifetime by mrRay720 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Prices are not even remotely linked to media costs/capacity! DVDs cost LESS to make yet sell for MORE than VHS. CDs cost LESS to make yet sold for MORE than audio tape.

    If they want to charge you a lot for it, they still will. You erally think the scum will say "oh, since it all fits on one disc now instead of 4 saving us $0.40, we'll only charge you $20 instead of $100?"

    HAHAHAHAHA! Not likely. Saddam becoming the next Pope was a much safer bet than that. Reality is that what you'll hear from their mouths is "BluHDRayDVD is 100x better, so we'll charge you 2x as much. You win by a factor of 50, aren't we kind?"

  10. online content by Tumbleweed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When you get your content, or your applications, online, you are then at the mercy of:

    1) He who controls where the content or apps are stored, controls YOU.
    2) Your connetion (being up or down, or slow, or high latency)
    3) Security issues

    But, if you like all that, feel free to check out the Phantom gaming system; you'd probably like it. :)