DVD Truce Between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD?

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)"

Comments

Does format matter?

[pholower]

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.

smart move

[blackomegax]

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.

Are we learning yet?

[kc01]

Good deal- Perhaps Sony's learned lessons from "Beta" and "Memory Stick".

Without standards, there's no volume.

It's about time

[ghingy]

Finally these guys have decided to put their egos aside and work on a compromise. If they had thought about this in the first place, imagine how much money these corporation would save on wasted R&D.

Too late?

[mrRay720]

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!

FrankenDVD...

[ackthpt]

FrankenDVD... it was born on a cold slab of stone, when Drs. Sony and Toshiba concurred. Hundreds knew better, thousands said it was unnatural and against nature, millions didn't care as long as they could watch Star Wars: Episode VII, Revenge of the Return of the Imperial Jedi Sith...

See villagers...

See Torches...

See lightning flash and hear thunder roll...

See the monster fill a small screen near you

Scream in terror as you re-purchase all your DVD collection, while in a dark sinister lab, the next format is considered...

RATED: R

Wasted R&D?

[PornMaster]

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?

This is not collusion

[ekuns]

Collusion is illegal when companies are working together to keep another company's product off the market by predatory pricing, for example. But when two companies (or consortiums) work together to choose a common standard, that is just plain good sense. The companies are wisely (I hope) seeing that the market will not welcome competing standards, and that the market (and thus their pocketbooks) are bettered by there being exactly one new DVD standard. There is no illegal activity here because no-one is being prevented from doing anything and they are not controlling prices by choosing to implement a common standard. There is no anti-competitive behavior.

Now, if the companies fixed the pricing of this standard and refused to allow anyone to undercut the pricing and used their size in the marketplace to control the availability and cost of the new DVD players, that could be collusion. If they were somehow working together (like a cartel) to prevent another company from competing in the marketspace, that might be collusion. (Depending on the tactics, etc.) However, just agreeing on a common standard does not collusion make.

This can only mean one thing..

[McNally]

This can only mean one thing.. They've decided to join forces against their common enemy -- the consumer..

Re:They're wasting their time

[JadeNB]

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.

Not in this lifetime

[mrRay720]

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?"

Re:Blu-Ray all the way!

[tsalem]

Wrong. It uses a blue laser, and is 15 GB for a single-sided disc and 30 for dual-sided. I agree that Blu-Ray is better, but try and get the facts straight.

Blu-Ray wins!

[Qzukk]

While I could care less what "data format" is used, the Blu-Ray disc itself is far superior in capacity and data rate, and I'm glad it won.

With a paltry 15mbit per second, HD-DVD's disc would not have a high enough data rate to encode 1080p video in MPEG4 (or any other codec) at any reasonable quality, essentially crippling HD until the next generation. (For comparison, the highest bitrate allowed in DVD video is 10mbit. D-VHS allows 30 mbit, Blu-Ray allows over 50mbit (section 3, bottom of page 5))

Of course, more space per disc is always nice. Whether you're just trying to cram the Janitor's Commentary track into the extras, or providing Star Trek with a Klingon subtitle track, every little bit helps. More space also allows for movies to use that 50mbps data rate for longer periods of time. Fans of superbit DVDs would drool all over the promise of superbit Blu-Ray discs.